cheering on the red sox soon. "the lead with jake tapper" starts right now. never do you see a federal court hearing involving donald trump, but today we heard every single word. "the lead" starts right now. challenging the order. the former president pushing back on federal judge who put limits on what trump can say and where he can say it. ahead, take you inside the courtroom and why today's hearing mattered so much. plus, anger in israel. the heated exchanges with families of hostages kidnapped by hamas. and protesting boss moves. hundreds of employees at tech giant openai threatening to quick over firing of their founder and face of the company. welcome to "the lead" everyone. i'm in for jake tapper. we start with a remarkable day in one of donald trump's four criminal cases. federal courts do not allow live cameras, but today we got to hear live audio in the federal election subversion case. the former president facing charges that include conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and trying to obstruct an official proceedings. today's hearing was all an challenging a gag order in the case putting limits on what trump could say about the judge or witnesses or the prosecution led by special counsel jack smith. trump argued that gag order violated his free speech and today before a three-person appeals panel we could hear in that courtroom audio. trump's legal team and prosecutors. going back and forth about whether trump's rhetoric might redray derail the trial. lawyers for donald trump and the justice department facing off before a federal appeals court in washington. in a firing hearing lasting well over two hours the former president's lawyer arguing that a gag order imposed in the election interference case violates trump's first amendment rights. >> the order is unprecedented and it sets a terrible precedent for future restrictions on core political speech. >> reporter: the appeals court temporarily frozen the gag order a move jack smith says allows the former president to continue his attacks on the special counsel and his family. a lawyer for the former president argued that trump should be allowed to respond to allegations on the campaign trail, and has a constitutional right to talk about the election interference case. an argument the judges seemed skeptical of. >> labeling core political speech begs the question of whether it is, in fact, political speech or whether it is political speech aimed at derailing or corrupting the criminal justice process. >> reporter: trump's attorney said witnesses in the case haven't been attacked because they were singled out by the former president. >> based on evidence three years old and against the fact no evidence of any threats or harassment that's happened in this particular case. >> reporter: to which prosecutors pointed to threats against special counsel jack smith, his team and judge tonya chutkan, overseeing the case. >> special counsel subject to multiple threats and the special prosecutor targeted through recent inflam foreposts. >> reporter: the jj-appointed jumps appointedmond had sharp questions be a the scope of the gag order and whether it was needed to protect the special counsel and his family. one of the judges said smith likely would not be intimidated by the posts. >> surely has a thick enough skin. >> reporter: another judge said trump could not operate on a gag order on a debate stage. >> has to be "miss manners" while everyone else is throwing targets at him. >> reporter: the judge raised possibility of trump trying to influence former vice president mike pence's testimony. >> assume former vice president mike pence is going to testify and it's the night before his testimony. could the defendant tweet out, mike pence can still fix this. mike pence can still do the right thing. >> reporter: drawing parallels to when the former president said this on january 6th. >> i hope mike is going to do the right thing. i hope so. i hope so. because if mike pence does the right thing, we win the election. bringing in cnn's evan perez an cristing holmes along with nor guest. the speech argued in court along with hypothetical situations. what out of all of this stood out to you? >> just the fact we were able to listen to these judges as they were grappling with what really is an unprecedented question. right? by the way a hearing supposed to go less than an hour and went over two and a half hours today. you could see that they were trying to, with some hypotheticals they raised. for instance one about mike pence. you can see they're trying to figure out a way that they can preserve some kind of gag order. something that is pretty standard in courts. right? before you go to trial, it's very common for defendants to have some restrictions of some kind, but obviously this is not just anybody. any other defendant. this is donald trump, and he's running for president. you can tell they were using these hypotheticals to try to at least pierce through what the trump team is arguing. which is that his first amendment rights should trump everything. as result of his first amendment rightsed fact he's running for president should have no restrictions. clearly that's not where these three judges are sitting. >> say the appeals court upholds the gag order with minor changes. how might they strike a balance between trump's free speech and protecting people from his aggressive rhetoric? >> there's really more art than science to this. the judges have to do that. strike a balance. any criminal defendant has a right to speak publicly about his case, aggressively or in ways deemed confrontational or offensive. on the other hand a trial judge has right and duty to protect proceedings, specifically witnesses, victims and jurors. the only real sort of principle here is that it has to be as narrow as possible. any restriction has to be as narrow as possible. on that note i do think the trial judge has done a very good job crafting a very narrow gag order. it's important to keep in mind, doj originally brought the trial judge an ex-extraordinarily, over broad gag order wanting him to prevent spr 1350eki from spe publicly in anyway regarding the trial. the judge rejected that. protecting witnesses, staff, for the most part. that's what the court of appeals is looking at here today and may tweak it in some respects but i suspect ultimately going to uphold the core of this gag order. >> okay. now comes the tricky question, because say they do upholder it. if the gag order becomes more limited, let's say, the question then turns to whether trump would even abide by it? >> right, always the question. bianna, i was told by one senior advisor donald trump would go up to the line toes right there but hopefully not cross it. because he has been advised by lawyers where exactly the line is in the existing gag odors. after fined in new york in the civil case for violating the gag order there, he has had extensive conversations with his legal team over what exactly he was allows to say and not to say. eve's told some of his social media posts went through lawyers where both gag odor were in effect to make sure he wasn't crossing the line, but it is donald trump. donald trump tends to say exactly what is only his mind. while he don't think, they hope that he will not cross that line, just it's very difficult with a client like donald trump who tends to not pay attention to the rules and do what he wants. >> one way of putting it. so as we know, trump has already been given a ton of leeway with regards to this gag order. >> right. >> how could it be enforced if judges loosen restrictions on top of that? >> the biggest problem. i think the judges raised that a little today, because at one point the -- the prosecutors wanted, for instance, this to be attached to his release conditions. and judge chutkan did not do that. but the question is always, how do you enforce this? in the end, i don't think a judge is going to throw donald trump in jail, right, while running for office, before his trial in march. that's just not going to happen. so the problem is, if you create all of these conditions, all of these restrictions, knowing that he's going to go right up to the line and be bringing him to court, right, to try to wrestle whether or not he's violated or not it's going to waste a lot of time. i think that's the biggest issue. donald trump in the end knows that there's a lot of reluctance by the judges to actually enforce whatever they do here. >> look, to evan's point. took more time than estimated for this hearing. over two hours. this is a various matter. it appears that the former president has leverage, at least in his mind that he likely won't be put in jail. would it still be an effective gag order even with these possible revisions? >> i think it will be effective in so for as it goes, bianna. we emerge with a gag order specifically aimed protecting victims witnesses and court staff then donald trump will be bound by that. it's important to keep in mind. even if we emerge with the same gag order currently in place, that doesn't mean donald trump's going to suddenly become polite and enevolent in the way he talk answer the case. he has plenty of leeway to attack the case, say it's bogus, the charges against me are nonsense, to attack the entire prosecution against him. he can do that, do that aggressively, even under the gag order as it now stands. what he can't do say things targeted at witnesses, at victims and staff. doesn't mean he suddenly is going to become easygoing about it it or sundaylsuddenly silentf the gag order stands. >> how do you envision this going into the primaries? >> a big part of trump's campaign is that he's being personally persecuted, he says. made a narrative around various legal battle part of his political campaign. he's the underdog. the government is picking on him. as was said, yes, he can still attack the case. the one problem when it comes to the former president is that he holds grudges. holds grudges towards people specifically. he wants to talk about mike pence. he wants to talk about what happened. he believes that people have turned against him. this is that victim mentality that we always talk about with the former president. interesting to see how he can actually marry those two. again, abide by those limitations. >> we'll be watching. thank you all. appreciate it. >> thanks. then there's president biden. hear how he took on one of biggest concerns of his 2024 election campaign as he celebrates his birthday. also coming up, big news from the white house today about the fate of the hostages kidnapped by hamas and the negotiations to get them released. the 76th anniversary of this event and i want you to know i wasn't there at the first one. >> on my birthday today they can actually say, birthday, it's difficult turning 60. difficult. [ laughter ] >> two celebrations at the white house today as president biden pardoned this year's thanksgiving turkeys liberty and bell. he also joked about his birthday as he turns 81 years old. the oldest-serving president in u.s. history. so let's discuss. michael, start with you. seems like president biden is trying to find the humor in getting older. so on that note i want to start with "saturday night live" spoking fun at his age. >> insiders are concerned president biden's chances for re-election can be damning because of his support for israel. i think the bigger problem is that he is six years older than israel! >> okay. funny. but -- donald trump is also older than israel, and a new article in the "atlantic" today titled "has anyone noticed that trump is really old." younger than biden but not by much. michael, why does it seem democratic voters are so much more worried about age than republican voters are? >> well, i'm not sure. i mean, the polls are what they are. right? you can't dispute what the data says. it doesn't mean it's going to be the same data next week or a year from now. i do think a lot of democratic voters are using age, though, as sort of a parking spot for their general, i don't know, dissatisfaction with the lack of choice. and i think that a lot of young voters might want somebody else, but i do think this was the case last time as well. president biden, god love him, is not a movement president or a, or a movement candidate, but he is the best candidate and he is the right candidate. he does meet the moment and has delivered. so it's going to be up to young voters to make a choice. do you want to go with the guy who wants to take away your rights or the guy who wants to keep them? >> michael to that point, you say polls are what they are. you're mnot changing people's minds. this is where things were before. pretty consistent polls. to that point i'd like to play what jean-pierre said pressed about the issue. clearly it's getting under their skin. i'd like you to respond to what she said about it. >> we're not going to change the minds of americans. i get that. americans are going to feel how they feel and we're going to respect that. what i can tell su what our perspective is. what i can tell you is how we see things and we believe experience, this president having experience to get things done is important. >> what does she mean you're not going to try to change the mind of americans? isn't that what campaigning is all about? putting up his record and convincing americans why she should be happier and more satisfied with him than his opponent? >> sure. he'll make the affirmative case but we can't change his age. she's right. reminded me of 1992. the president is leaning on on this and glad he is. it worked for reagan. bobby kennedy, hang a lantern on your problems is what he's doing. turning a weakness into a strength. the clintons were very good at that and what they did in '92 took on a weakness, which was their personal life, and went before "60 minutes." highest rated tv show, got 34 million views. sorry. 34 million viewers, top five interviews of all-time, and it turned the campaign around, because they confronted the interview head-on. what did hillary say? -of-? if you don't like it, heck, don't vote for him but you have a choice between biden and trump. >> yeah. in this case, it's not just his age. right? that seems to be the headline but also indications voters are not happy with state of the economy and just don't feel optimistic under his leadership. regardless what the real data shows. let's move on. when nancy pelosi and other democratic leaders stepped down last year, they were all in their 80s, and nancy pelosi said at the time that the hour has come for a new generation to lead the democratic caucus. what did they see that president biden either doesn't see now or thinks he can avoid? >> one of the things kind of implicit in president biden's pitch first time around, kind of a bridge president. right? going to save us in the dire moment for democracy and then was going to pass the torch on to a younger generation. i think there's a hunger for that in the democratic party and in the country in general. i do think some of the dissatisfaction you're seeing from voters was, they didn't really think biden was going to run for a second term and, in fact, i do a lot of focus groups with voters across the political spectrum and one of the things most interesting, the way so many in washington, d.c. have come to terms it's likely to be a race between trump and biden again, but voters still have not arrived at that conclusion. they still think there might be some different, for both, on both sides, might be ultimate candidates that still might emerge even though that's extremely unlikely to happen. >> but to be fair, i mean, president biden did say that he was just the bridge candidate, but also said that he ran in 2020 to defeat donald trump. i would imagine, then, the campaign didn't expect to have donald trump as he appears to be now as the front-runner for the republican nomination? >> well i don't know about that. former president, made it pretty clear he planned to run, would run again. i think always at least from what i experienced, always anticipated he would run again. but we're back to that dire situation. we're there. and i feel comfortable going with the democrat who did beat donald trump once by 7 million votes. he might be 81. yes. the first lady when she was campaigning for him in 2019 in new hampshire, she got in a little hot water with her campaign, because she did what people do when they tell a gaffe, because they're telling something obvious and they're actually telling the truth. you might not agree with him on everything or like him but you have to squawallow it because t moment is stakes are too high. >> yeah. sarah, we're starting to hear more from republican candidates being more honest how they feel not about president biden's age but donald trump's age. heard it with ron desantis over the weekend. with jake tapper in an interview. what is your take on this? are we finally seeing traction from republican candidates on this issue? >> measure traction? because i don't see voters having a lot of concerns about trump's age the way that i hear voters talking about concerns about biden's age. the fact is trump has kind of a big lunatic energy. there is somethingish -- voters talk about the fact he is a bully and so aggressive that gives him a sheen of seeming to be somewhat younger. the other thing about donald trump, he has never had particularly good verbal skills. never been the kind of guy you think, boy, he's really sharp. often when he talks he is rambling and vaguely incoherent. i think it's harder to spot his decline as he ages, but i also think that part of the issue for trump is that his unfitness does not lie in his age. problem for president trump, he is completely unfit because he is a real threat to democracy, and i think has been unfit now for many, many years. so i think it's good for some of these candidates to start talking about his age. i think it's good to draw a contrast, or maybe a lack of contrast between joe biden's age and donald trump's age, but people who reject donald trump are not going to do it because he's old. they're going to do it because he is dangerous and unfit to be president of the united states. >> you know what? bianna -- sarah, something really important. >> quickly. >> i think he can win back, can get these people back who are concerned about his age. assuage their concerns by taking on the bully. that's what democrats want. i think that issue will go away. those concerns will go away once the president starts having fun on the campaign trail like we saw him today and starts punching back. >> big energy. can't get that phrase out of my mind. thank you. appreciate it. up next, a tense confrontation today involving families of hostages calling on israel's government to do more to bring their loved ones home. dozens of civilians held hostage by hamas since october 7th could be released within days. sources tell cnn. today the white house said negotiations are "getting close to a deal." this is not the first time, though, we've heard a deal has been close, but now negotiators from various countries are expressing more optimism. straight to mj lee at the white house. why are some more upbeat about this deal this time? >> reporter: we have covered these negotiations for weeks now and we were told in the past at different points that a deal had been close, but we are sensing a different level of optimism now that an agreement may be within reach and possibly coming within days. sources tell me and my colleagues that according to a recent draft language of a potential deal, it would have hamas releasing some 50 hostages in exchange for a four to five-day pause in fighting. the gaps between the parties have begun to close, we are told, though there be furious deliberations about how actua