tie him to the violence on january 6th at trial. also hundreds of military nominees who have been held up over abortion for months, have finally been confirmed. after one senator ended his nearly 10 month blockade mostly with no apologies or no progress. i m kaitlin collins and this is the source. tonight behind closed doors, president biden offering a candid assessment about why he is seeking a second term. something he says he may not be doing if donald trump wasn t running again but of course trump is and as of this moment he s the front runner for his party s nomination. one of his most outspoken critics is saying out loud what some republicans will only say about trump in private. he s gone to war with the rule of law and a president who won t enforce the law creates a situation where things just unravel. liz cheney is the former vice chair of the january 6th committee, also addressing the rumors that she herself a step into the 2024 republican race to challenge tr
you are in the cnn newsroom. i m alex marquardt in washington alongside kaitlan collins in tel aviv. jim acosta is off tonight. thank you very much for joining us. israel moves towards a fourth and possibly final day of its temporary truce with hamas. so much will demand on how many more hostages get released after three successful days of hostage releases. hamas says it wants to extend the pause in the fighting. a source telling cnn that israel s war cabinet is also discussing that possibility. but today it was yet another emotional day for so many families in israel. a third group of 17 hostages held inside the gaza strip since early october, they were finally freed. here are some of the early images, or images we ve just again some of those families, finally imbembracing after weekf uncertainty. a total of 17 hostages today, including three thai nationals, and these pictures that you re looking at there, those are 14 of the israeli hostages who were released from captivi
u.s. secretary of state antony blinken speaking moments ago during an unannounced trip to iraq as he continues his high-stakes trip through the middle east as the israel-hamas war intensifies. here is what he had to say. we just finished meetings here in bagdad. we started with a briefing for our entire team at the embassy about the security situation. as you know, there have been a series of attacks directed at our personnel, both in iraq as well as in syria. job number one for me is to ensure the security of our people. so i got an update on everything we re doing to make sure our personnel are safe and secure. in addition, i had a good, productive, candid meeting with the prime minister. there were two areas of focus. the first was to reaffirm our commitment to our partnership with iraq. we ve made tremendous progress with iraq in recent years, particularly working with the iraqi government on everything from economic reform, to energy independence, helping to strengthen
confirmed in that time are actually hostages? less than 10. that s not a number. i want a number from you. less than 10. why can t you give a number? i ve given you an answer. what is your next question? you ve given an answer. you ve not been responsive. let the record show. the other question has to do with israeli warnings. the israelis have said their objective and they ve been very explicit about it is to destroy hamas. from you and other administration officials, we hear the objective is to ensure that hamas can never terrorize israel again. those are two different objectives are. you having a problem with the israelis in terms of a clear communication here of their objectives or have their objectives appeared to change over time? no and no. how does does the united states support the goal of destroying hamas? we support what israel is trying to do to protect citizens from the threat of hamas. james, you know this. we re not on the ground fighting in
this time last year, we were seeing clear signs that ukraine s much heralded summer offensive wasn t doing very well. russia had had plenty of time to prepare its defences and ukraine simply couldn t break through them. the next phase, inevitably, would be a russian spring offensive, after the snow and mud of the winter gave way to firmer ground under the tracks and wheels of the tanks and armoured personnel carriers. ukraine s supporters around the world were nervous. might this be the moment when russia came crashing back, recapturing the ground it had lost and even maybe threatening kyiv, the ukrainian capital? the delays in getting the big us support package through seemed to make things much worse. and yet it hasn t happened. russia has made some gains, admittedly, but there s been no actual breakthrough. the bbc ukraine correspondent, james waterhouse, is back in london briefly, and i asked him for his view of what was happening. after ukraine weathered that initialstor