the famous blue lagoon is closed. small sign, officials say of what is to come. thanks for joining us. thanks for joining us. "ac 360" starts now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com tonight on "360," our closest look from inside gaza, with israeli troops uncovering hamas' underground infrastructure. and a u.s. official saying one command post is under gaza's main hospital. day one of the former president's defense in new york's civil fraud case, with donald trump jr. taking the stand. we begin keeping him honest. what the former president is now saying about his opponents and how his allies are reportedly planning to target them. thanks for joining us. it is no secret that the former president lies nearly all the time. what's also becoming clearer, though, is that when he talks about what he would like to do to people he perceives as his enemies, he's often not lying. there's new reporting to that effect tonight. and coupled with several other recent reports, it suggests he meant what he said over the weekend when he said this. >> we pledge to you that we will rout out the communist, marxist, fascist, and radical left thugs that live like fermen within the confine of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections. >> fermen. the former president on veterans day, no less. he went on to say, quote, the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. our threat is from within. after that, he praised foreign dictators, calling the leaders of russia, china, and north korea, quote, capable, confident, smart, and tough. the "washington post" story read, echoing hitler and mussolini. the language is the language dictators use to instill fear. that's what dictators do. other historians and scholars of fascism echo that assessment to which the former president campaign spokesman responded in words that also sounded a lot like things dictators might say. those that make the ridiculous assertion are clearly snow flakes grasping for anything because they're suffering from trump derangement system. and their sad miserable existence will be crushed when trump returns to the white house. it's probably the starkest, clearest version of other sentiments he's expressed in the past year. >> in 2016 i declared, i am your voice. today, i add, i am your warrior. i am your justice. and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, i am your retribution. >> he's a warrior. he's never served, but he's a warrior. the former president back in march. it is tempting to write off what he just said as some kind of shtick like lock her up, or build a wall, or citing lines from the poem "the snake." the retribution is connected to a dehumanized target, people he calls fermen. he's the leading republican candidate for president. there's new reporting under the headline "trump allies prescreen loyalists for unprecedented power grab." quoting from it now, if trump were to win, thousands of trump first loyalists would be ready for legal, judicial, defense, regulatory, and domestic policy jobs. his inner circle plans to purge anyone viewed as hostile to the authoritarian-sounding plans he calls agenda 47. separately "the washington post" reports the former president and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for punishing critics and opponents with him, quote, naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute. something he talks about out loud and doesn't even bother denying. >> they call it weaponization. and the people aren't going to stand for it. but, yeah, they have done something that allows the next party -- if somebody -- if i happen to be president and i see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, i say, go down and indict them. >> that sounds reasonable. back during the nixon administration, the attorney general john mitchell, who later went to prison for his role in the watergate affairs told voters to watch what we do, not what we say. the question tonight, how comforting would those same words be now? joining us now is axios ceo and cofounder jim -- tell us more about what the former president's allies are actually planning. >> yeah, if you go back last time when he won, there was a lot of the same language, a lot of this bombast, a lot of the tough guy routine. but when he got into office, he was surrounded by people who would put restraints on him. and he didn't really understand how many levels of the bureaucracy could gum up, kind of, some of his instincts and often his worst instincts. they learned from that. and what we have found is when you talk to people at the heritage foundation, when you talk to people around donald trump who used to work for donald trump, who understand machinery of government, they've now put together a very well-oiled machine one year in advance of potentially winning the election that's allowing them to vet and screen people for their loyalty to trump and their belief in stretching the rule of law in ways that donald trump would like them to stretch it if he were in office. and the reason that i think the story is very important is it's one thing when he uses this language and then doesn't put it into action. but when you listen to him and he tells you what he's going to do, punish political enemies, round up illegal immigrants, potentially get rid of a million or so people who live in the united states, try to maybe even go after flag officers in general so he doesn't consider to pass the loyalty litmus test. if you know how government works and you can figure out how to purge 10, 20, 30,000 people from all those positions that make activities like that possible, that turn those policies or those ideas into action, you could have a much different administration. and really you would see restraints lifted that we've had on the previous 46 presidents. now, anybody who's a trump supporter who's listening to this, they're like, hell, yes, we love this. that's what we want. we want the administrative state purged and we want a new order. we want, sort of, the tough guy, sort of, the strong man routine because they feel like crime is high and immigration is surging. but i think if you're not a donald trump supporter, you're concerned, because this would be uncharted territory. we're talking about doing things. we're not saying this is anonymous sources. he's saying. these are the things he's saying he's going to do, and they're going to have the machinery to do it. i think that's just shows the stakes of the election. i wouldn't fall for this stuff where people think, he's just surrounded by clowns. there's some clowns around him, no doubt about it. but there's going to be really serious people who are involved in this process who are going to have a government in waiting ready to roll. >> the trump campaign put out a statement saying, policy recommendations from external allies are just that, recommendations. who are the groups who are pushing this overhaul? and how close are they to the former president? heritage foundation? >> heritage foundation is definitely doing a lot of the work, a lot of the vetting. they've already talked about 4,000 different potential applicants asking them their favorite political figure, their favorite political book, what is their ideology. but then you look at the people who are advising both the heritage foundation and some of these other outside groups that are involved, and they're all the trump people. johnny mcintee, who is head of presidential personnel, who's really one of the architects of trying to figure out the purge in the latter days of the first term of the trump presidency, is an adviser to these efforts. stephen miller talks to these people all the time. the heritage foundation, what they would say is this would be available to everyone. but everyone knows donald trump is likely to win the nomination. and they know they can't make the mistake they made before, which is just roll into town and not have a team ready to rock and roll. they're going to have it this time. i think we would be pushed almost instantly into uncharted territory. i think the second term, if he were to win, would be much more like the final days of the trump presidency than the first two years, really trying to push the boundaries, really trying to see if you can stretch the rule of law to do things, whether it's punishing political enemies or getting rid of people who you don't feel share your political beliefs, punishing media entities, report things you don't like. >> how would that work at the department of justice? you have career law enforcement people. how would something like that work for the doj? >> in any of the agencies -- basically, not to get too into the weeds, but one of the ideas at the end of the presidency was this idea of recategorizing people in the government as schedule f, which would allow them to get around union laws, get around things that make it harder to fire people who are, kind of, permanent civil servants in government. that's what much of government is. you hear about cabinet secretaries. you know the president, you know the vice president. a lot of the work, whether it's at doj or whether it's at the department of homeland security, it's done below. it's done by people who will often serve both parties. if you could suddenly in mass get rid of them, which they would try to do -- maybe the courts step in and say you can't do it, maybe they say you can. there's a big debate about what you could and couldn't do under schedule f. you could reassign anyone you want to reassign. you could put people in the gigs that you know have power that support your agenda. and i think that's what would be radically different this time from last time. because for everyone who didn't like donald trump or if you liked donald trump and you wanted more of it, the truth is, he wasn't very good at governing, particularly in the early years because he didn't have people who shared his p philosophy around him. and he didn't understand how to pull the different levers of ogovernment. his brain doesn't work that way. he's not thinking about who am i going to put where. he's very thematic. he loves the rhetorical part of the job. but beneath him, there's going to be a much bigger, well-oiled, sort of, prescreened, pretrained group of people ready to come in. >> fascinating. thanks so much. >> thank you. still to come tonight, the eldest son of the former president took the witness stand today as the defense begins in its case in the civil fraud trial in new york. he called his father a visionary in the world of real estate. the judge has said his dad committed fraud. we'll have more details ahead. and what it's like on the ground in gaza. what nic robobertson sawaw ther today. the former president's eldest son took the stand for the defense today in the civil trial against himself and his dad and brother and called his dad a visionary in real estate. the trial is in the seventh week -- to secure better financing and insurance terms. the judge already has ruled that the former president and his codefendants, including trump jr., committed, quote, persistent and repeated fraud. ca kara scannell joins us now. what stood out to you today? >> donald trump jr. was on the stand for about three hours today. and much of his testimony was like a promotional video for the trump organization. he described how he said his father was a visionary. he saw things people couldn't see, and he was an artist. they went through more than a dozen of the properties and showing glossy photos of them on the screen in the courtroom. donald trump jr. would describe how his dad would take a dilapidated building and turn it into a spectacular residence. how he would take a swampland in florida and turn it into a golf course. and took the old postoffice building in washington, d.c., which trump described as a war zone, and turned it into a hotel. he did say that one thing he took umbrage with was the value of mar-a-lago, which the tax assessment is about $18 million. this is something donald trump, his father, has been voicing a lot of criticism about any time he's walking in and around the courtroom. don jr. was saying that the atrium in mar-a-lago alone would cost $18 million today to build. so, trying to make the point these values, the trump touch, was something that would have just justified some of the valuations they put on this. they didn't get into the specifics company by company of the valuations. this was an exercise of allowing him to describe the trump brand, and to put the gloss on it with the transformations they made. the judge had given them leeway in this. the attorney general's office objected to this presentation. the judge told the attorney general, you've had six weeks to put on your case. he's getting time to put on his. >> whols who else is the defense expected to call? >> we're expected to hear from expert witnesses who will testify about real estate. they also said they will recall the trump organization executives in the finance department. also saying eric trump will be back on the stand, and it's very likely the former president will also make a return to the witness stand. >> kara scannell, thanks so much. jessica roth is here, professor at cordova school of law. do you think his testimony helped? >> i think it was largely irrelevant. i think the judge let him talk because he's giving the defense the opportunity to make their case, and he's clearly very sensitive to being viewed by an appellate court as being arguably biased in favor of the government. but nothing that don jr. said today goes to the heart of the case in terms of the specifics about whether those statements of financial condition were fraudulent or not. and the judge has already ruled in that partial summary judgment motion that objectively those valuations in the statements were fraudulent. so, there was nothing specific about don trump jr. it was long on superlatives and sweeping statements, nothing very specific. it may have hurt him because, as i understand it, he may have repeated some specifics that were actually wrong, like the number of floors on one of the properties. so, it may actually have been counterproductive. >> and both donald trump jr. and eric trump have distanced themselves from these financial statements to the extent they've tried to at least. eric trump's going to take the stand as well. what do you expect -- do you expect the same sort of thing from his testimony? >> it's hard to know what to expect. it may be the same kind of grandiose statements. but the value of the company, the value of the assets. if there's any legal relevance to these kinds of sort of statements to superlatives and their belief in the value of it, maybe it goes to the question of intent because the judge still does have to make a finding about whether these individuals acted with intent to defraud others. perhaps by putting on this presentation, they're demonstrating their good faith belief in how wonderful the assets were. that could be a reason for them to rely on this testimony and the presentation, this glossy presentation. >> didn't the -- when the former president testified earlier, he alluded to bankers testifying in his defense. are there going to be bankers? have they called bankers? >> so, not yet. the defense just started the presentation today. i'm really looking to see if they do call those bankers, what the former president essentially promised is that those people would take the stand, the witnesses from the banks, and say, we didn't rely on the statements. >> the financial statements didn't really matter in our evaluations. >> exactly. what would go to the materiality question, which is one of the elements the judge has to rule on for the remaining causes of action. so, i'm keenly interested to see whether in fact the defense will be able to put forward witnesses who would make those statements on behalf of the banks. >> it's fascinating. jessica, thanks so much. new reporting from gaza and fresh evidence that hamas is using hospitals for cover. that's ahead. you want to be able to provide your child with the tools or resources they need. with reliable internet at home, through the internet essentials program, the world opened up. fellas, fellas. that's how my son was able to find the hidden genius project. we wanted to give y'all the necessary skills to compete with the future. kevin's now part of this next generation of young people who feel they can thrive. ♪ ♪ we have new reporting tonight on the fighting in gaza, that challenges any easy assumptions about it. this includes what cnn's nic robertson saw today, imbedded with the idf within the territory. as well as evidence that hamas is using hospitals to shelter command bunkers, weapons, and possibly hostages. earlier today president biden said hospitals, quote, must be protected. but then later an administration spokesman acknowledged what hamas is doing complicates that effort. >> it makes it much harder for any military force to go after those targets because the hospital itself ought to be, as the president said, ought to be protected. so, he's really talking about this incredibly difficult conundrum that israeli military forces are facing right now. >> reporter: that reaction was prompted by what cnn's nic robertson saw today in gaza. joining us now is "washington post" reporter -- exclusive on what hamas in mind beyond the october 7th massacre. he's also the author of the remarkable book, "black flags: the rise of i.s.i.s." this is a fascinating article you've written. because of the images of the suffering that is clearly taking place, especially around hospitals and in hospitals, the international pressure around israel is mounting. from your reporting, this is exactly what hamas wanted and planned for. >> yeah. and i think that picture is becoming very clear for us now. i mean, hamas wanted to see some hostages. they see value in attaining hostages for swapping with prisoners the israelis are holding. but that wasn't the main point. i think hamas, as we're seeing it now, really wanted to shake up the region, wanted to put the palestinian resistance movement through something, in their terms, back on the agenda, to get people talking about this and thinking about this. and as our reporting shows, they really expected the israelis to hit back hard, maybe not quite as hard as they did, but hard enough to bring world opinion down on israel, which is a second phase we're seeing unplaying now. nobody talks about october 7th anymore. it focuses on what israel is doing in response. and that works very well from a hamas point of view with change of subject. they're very happy with that. >> let's just pause on that for a moment, meaning they planned this massacre, they committed the slaughter of men, women, and children, 1,200 or so, in israel. they did not build any bomb shelters for their own people, knowing that israel would respond. they did not attempt to do anything to protect their own citizens, palestinians in gaza. they wanted this response by israel. they have publicly said on arabic channels about embracing martyrs, wanting martyrs, and being -- they did nothing to protect their people. >> yeah. they're very proud, and they say this, as you said, publicly. we're all about martyrs. we want to create martyrs. it helps our cause. and you're absolutely right about this. hamas knew this counterstrike was going to be coming, so obviously they stock piled, you know, food and water and fuel for themselves. but nobody else in gaza got this warning. nobody else was told, well, you ought to pick up some medicine because we're going to be under a siege for a while, or you ought to make sure you've got fuel for your generator. people of gaza, the 2 million folks who live there and have to live under these conditions, were not warned