suing after a report highlighting anti-semitic content on the site sparked a devastating advertiser exodus. now, unfortunately, a severe storm system could come at the worst possible time. what you need to know. coming up, i'm kate baldwin with omar jimenez. this is "cnn news central." it is very close. that's the word from a u.s. official to cnn, and the word also now from two israeli sources, a hostage deal could be announced as soon as today. there seems to be a lot of moving parts and a lot of things happening at one. listen to the latest and urgent painstaking work to get the hostages released. innocent victims were kidnapped on october 7th. here's what john kirby said. obviously we are laser focused on the american citizens we know are being held hostage. everybody should be out now, but here we are in negotiation, and we're getting closer to the end, we believe, of that negotiation, so again, i'm going to be careful. >> the israeli prime minister's office just announced the war cabinet will meet this morning in about two hours about the negotiations. overnight, the political chief for hamas are, in their words, close to reaching a truce agreement with israel. however much weight you want to put on what a hamas leader says. mj lee is standing by. >> we are told that an announcement is on the cusp of being made where hamas would release 50 hostages, women and children that they are holding in gaza, and that three palestinian prisoners would be exchanged for every hostage that is released. we are also told during the pause, hamas would stop flying surveillance drones over northern gaza for at least six hours a day. the hostages we are told of various nationalities. usual officials are hope one of the 50 hostages will be 3-year-old abigail adan, the youngest-known hostages whose parents were killed by hamas. officials are hopeful she will be among the hostages released. and if they are successfully able to do so, that pause could be extended for a period of time. now, as we have been reporting, hamas has insisted that hundreds of aid -- trucks of aid will be able to go into gaza. this, of course, has been very contentious, because a big part of what they are looking for is fuel, fuel which is used for its military operations like ventilating underground tunnels, so we will have to see, when and if the deal is announced, where things stand. usual officials and others have been pushing for as much humanitarian aid to go into gaza as possible, but again, we've been reporting on the negotiations for a number of weeks. this morning were sensing a different level of optimism, with sources saying this is a deal that could be announced as early as day. >> and the overarching question, they want it to go to the civilians in gaza, not to get into the hands of hamas, of course that remains part of all of this. thank you very much, mj. and the news comes as netanyahu faces growing pressure from the hostages' families. there was a clash in the parliament last night, as they deup and downed the government do more. oren liebermann is in tel aviv, and becky is in doha. what the more are you learning? what are we expecting from these meetings? >> reporter: there's a process in place until israeli law for what it takes to approve a deal like this and approve the release of palestinians from israeli jails. from what we're seeing from the prime minister's office, that process is said to begin in a couple hours. it's 4:00 p.m. local time. the war cabinet, a small circle around the prime minister, will meet at 6:00 p.m. then shortly after that, the security cabinet will meet an hour later. the full government at 8:00 this evening. we would expect prime minister benjamin netanyahu would make a statement making clear what this is all about, but given the topic, the issue, what we're seeing in the schedule and what we're hearing from multiple officials on the u.s. side and israeli side, this could be the beginning of the process to release prison irs in exchange for israeli hospital. as mj said, the first tranche would be 50 hostages of women and children being held, in exchange for three times as many, so 150 blinnian women and children held in israeli jails. if that works, there might be an extension of the pause in the fighting, a greater release of hostages held in gaza, but hamas would have to round up other hostages, who are not necessarily held only by hamas, to see where they are, to find out where they have been, to bring them out of gaza. meanwhile, we had a chance to speak with the families of hostages who were frustrated that they had theirs first meeting, and that the one man said there was quite a bit of anger when the government wouldn't acknowledge that the war cabinet wouldn't say it was issue number one. they said it was on equal footing with the defeat of hamas. that's absolutely not what the families want to here, even if an announcement is imminent. >> even with this announcement, there's obviously delicate procedures to work out, not just israel, not just on the hamas side, but in qatar as well, everyone is trying to make sure that it basically moves through to fruition. that's why we have becky anderson with us. can you explain what qatar's involvement is here, and what more are you learning on that? >> reporter: well, qatar has been involved mediating they talks for weeks. of course, israel and hamas not in direct communication, hamas has its political office set up here in consultation with the u.s. that office was set up in 2012, and has been in constant touch with hamas over those years, therefore is in a position to mediate these talks. they have been working at this day and night. it has been really complicated and really difficult, and at times when you've spoken to mediators here and to the spokesmen of the adminiministra of foreign affairs, with the uptick of fighting on the ground, when israel announced its second phase, the ground invasion of gaza, that made things more difficult. they appealed at times, and spoke to me about the fact the mediators needed a period of calm. well, they didn't get it, so these negotiations went on, in what was a very different atmosphere. a diplomatic source tells me now that qatar hopes to announce tonight in the next couple hours -- some hours from now, let me put it that way -- that a deal has been announced. it's 5:00 in the evening here. you heard from oren the information he has on the scheduling off that war cabinet, and this aligns, and this would be to support what oren was just saying. the release of what is seen to be or hoped to be the first tranche of civilian hostages. let's be quite clear about this, in defense of what the hostage families have been saying and are very angry about, this is not all the hostages being held. there are soldiers being held. there are civilians of serving age being held. we are very specifically, as we understand it, looking at women, children and possibly the elderly included in what is this first tranche of 50 that is hoped will be a number of foreigners. of course, the americans will be hoping that includes americans. as we know, there are other foreigners as well, missing, presumed to being held. this is the problem, missing, presumed to being held hostage. not exactly clear how many people are being held hostage and by whom. it does appear that hamas has around 100, include thais, dutch, possibly from the uk included in the foreign numbers, but also some american hostages. so the deal, as we understand it, hopefully to be announced from thinks could far mediators is 50, and the first tranche over a four-day pause period, a pause in both ground and air operations by the israelis, allowing for the first tranche, 50 hostages, those will come in groups, as we understand it, until possibly as early as tomorrow morning. that's as things stand at present. the meetators spoke today, saying this has been extremely complicated. this is not a done deal, but the hopes are very high we can get an announcement at some point today. >> and if it becomes a done deal, it would be the most significant breakthrough we have seen. thank you both very much. joining us is the reporter with axios. what's the very latest on this potential deal? >> good morning. i think at 1:00 p.m. eastern, 8:00 p.m. israel time, the israeli cabinets will approval this deal. then we will have a period of between 24 to 48 hours where the lists of the palestinian prisoners will be released from israeli prisons will be published to the public, so the people could appeal to court against their release. after this period, i think we will see sometime during the weekend this deal starting to be implemented. >> so, that -- your sources are -- you've got some of the best sources around. this seems that it's hard to say a deal is done until it's announced, especially dealing with something horrifically sensitive as this. it seems like it's headed that way. >> the deal is not done until the hostages are out. >> yeah. >> and this would happen sometime next week. at least at the point we are in, i find it hard to believe that the deal will not be approved by the israelis cabinet at 1:00 p.m. eastern and 8:00 p.m. local time. i think this is where this thing is going. >> i want to talk about some of the contours of what cnn has reporting, you have reporting on this as well. what could be includes in this deal. in terms of the multi-day pause, and also as -- one thing that stuck out to me is that during that pause israel would stop flying drones over northern gaza for six hours each day. why does hamas want this? is it as obvious as it seems in. >> first, hamas wanted israel to stop flying drones and stop the aerial surveillance for the entire time of the pause. they got six hours a day. we'll have to see if it's implemented in reality, but i think what has mass said is that they said, you know, you want us to use the pause to go and look for other hostages. again, israeli officials think that it's where those are, but we adopt want to hamas to spy on us, and seen where the hostages are, and then just go and get them yourselves, and not part of this deal. again, we'll have to see how this thing is implemented. >> how much of a role are you hearing the pressure and frustration that hostage families in israel has played in this, moving forward? >> look, it's really, you know , it's quite tragic. within group of families, you have different types of hostages. you have women and children, you have elderly, soldiers, and men who are not soldiers, but were taken hostage, for example, from the music festival. so each group is a bit different. it's not like there's some parents who say our son was in the military, we don't want you to go in and release only the women and children. we want you to bring our son back. families of the women and children say, no, no, bring the women and children back first. i think it's tragic, and, you know, i don't envy any of those families. this is a horrific tragedy. >> if hamas agrees to this deal, is that a statement of how much pressure they're under from the operation, or does it say something about how much they could be benefiting from the contours of this deal? >> i think it's the former. at the end of the day, what hamas gets out of this deal is a breather. that's it. they get four days, maybe six days, maybe if they manage to bring a lot of other hostages and release them, they get eight days, but they're not going to stop the war. what i hear from service israeli official i have spoke to in recent days, this would be a pause, not a cease-fire. i think that this is exactly where this thing will go right after this deal is implemented. >> rea quick on that, i heard that you are already hearing about a phase two? >> yeah. well, this deal is about a four-day pause, but it's a four days plus two pause, meaning if after those four days, on day four, hamas says, you know what? we have most hostages we are willing to release, they can get another two days of pause, but they will have to release at least 20 hostages in those two days. if after those two days, they say i have another 20, they'll get another two days, but i don't think it's going to be much more than that. honestly, i find it hard to believe -- i hope i'm wrong, but i find it hard to believe we'll see in the immediate term a phase two, but i think believe for now this will only by 50. >> barak, thank you for jumping on. your reporting has been stellar. >> thank you. we're continuing to follow some other headlines as well across the country here in the united states. the thanksgiving travel rush has begun. a record number of americans could be on the move this week, but severe storms could create a holiday headache for travelers. we're tracking that. also, former president trump hosted mike johnson at mar-a-lago last night. why mike johnson was there and what they discussed. and elon musk is suing. stay with us. today kicks off one of the busiest weeks of travel of the year. from alabama to new jersey, a huge line of storms is threatening to disrupt holiday travel. aaa predicts this would be the busiest in over two decades. whitney wild is standing by at o'hare, a hub and stopover for so many people this thanksgiving. what are you seeing? >> reporter: kate, it's very smooth here. the lines seems to be moving quickly. luckily when you compared across the country, o'hare only 16 delays, one cancellation so far. so certainly it could be worse even though the weather system is here, even though it's been raining all morning. we have spoken with several people with the same plain, hurry up and late, leaving lots of time, at least two hours from the time they got to the airport to when the flight leaves, because they were so concerned about crowds. people know this is some of the busiest travel you'll see all year. typically, kate, tuesday, wednesday, sunday around thanksgiving are the busiest days surrounding the holiday. here's one mom headed to orlando. >> so we left with a about an hour, but i didn't know what to expect. travel here is always so crazy. >> reporter: you left plenty of time? >> yeah, we left with plenty of time. we have clear, but we thought we would be okay. >> this is the first time we've ever traveled for thanksgiving. we had some family move to orlando, so i'm excited. >> reporter: she was traveling with two little boys, luckily they had clear so they sailed right through, but even if you didn't have it, the security lines are pretty thin, so travel is looking very, very good. we're in a bit of a lull right now. again, this is a major travel weekend. aaa expecting 55 million travelers throughout the weekend, and further, just here at o'hare, midway, the other airport on the other side of the city, expecting a bit of an uptick from the 202 numbers, kate. >> when we can report good travel news, just stay there, stop there and hope for the best. good to see you, whitney. thank you so much. coming up. house speaker mike johnson went to speak to topoat mar-a-lago last night. and what a three-judge appeals panel is indicating it will dough with the gad order. in order for small businesses to thrive, they need to be smart, efficient, savvy. making the most of every opportunity. that's why comcast business is introducing the small business bonus. for a limited time you can get up to a $1000 prepaid card with qualifying internet. yep, $1000. so switch to business internet from the company with the largest fastest reliable network and that powers more businesses than anyone else. learn how you can get $1000 back for your business today. comcast business. powering possibilities. house speaker mike johns is not took the trip to florida and met with donald trump at mar-a-lago yesterday, according to a source familiar with the meeting. it's not clear exactly what the pair talked about, but it's just a week after johnson publicly endorsed donald trump. elaina is following this for us. should people read mike johnson politically acknowledging that their political fortunes are entwined. >> reporter: absolutely. i'm told that they met briefly, but as you said, it's still unclear exactly what was discussed. look, mike johnson has very quickly learned that he needs donald trump's backing if house republican have any hope of retaining their slim majority in the house. that's also true with his maneuvering within the conference itself. we know that many wield so much power because of that slim majority. they wielded that power by helping oust kevin mccarthy earlier this year. johnson knows that trump's support says very necessary here. i think that's why you saw him come out very early and endorse donald trump. he said on cnbc last week, quote, i'm all in for president trump, and he said he expects him to be the nominee. having discussed johnson with many of donald trump's advisers, these told me they're very happy he endorsed them, but the two were never particularly close. so i think this is a lot of relationship building on the part of the speaker. kate? >> pretty interest. good to see you alaina, thank you. during what was sometimes a tense hearing, the three judges signaled they may be inclined to keep the order in place, but narrow it. listen to this exchange. >> the order is unprecedented, and sets a terrible precedent for future restrictions on core political speech. >> it's only affecting speech temporarily during a criminal trial process by someone who has been indicted. no one is threatening the amendment broadly. >> so, a lot to talk about here. caroline polisi, good to see you. i want to start here, where is the line between intimidation and first amendment rights? >> that's the question. that really -- you know, we heard they went way over the time allotted. it's what we call a hot bench. they were peppering both sides, testing the line. what you see are two fundamental rights first the justice system having a fair trial, not tainting the jury pool. you heard john sauer, the lawyer for trump, emphasizing that any speech he says, because he's a candidate for presidency is known as core political speech, which receives historically the highest level. the judges pushed back, say there has to be some limit here. i think you're right, i think the panel will uphold the gag order, potentially in a more limited fashion. >> one of his co-defendants in the georgia election subversion saying, there prosecutors are seeking to revoke the bond. actually they say he violated his pond by posting on social media in a way that shows, to use prosecutors' words, he's a significant threat to intimidating witnesses. if he is not narrowed in scope or limited to the gag order, he would be intimidating witnesses business his posting? >> absolutely. in and of itself, it's not protected, but what does that cover? oftentimes trump will use sort of ambiguous language that has plausible deniability, but however we saw after the truth social post, if you come after me, i'll kim after you, the judge received a death threat. words have power, so i think these two issues are coming up against each other. jack smith's office, you know, won't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest, and the judge said the intended consequence of your words, what could naturally flow from them is the intended consequence. so, trump knows he's goading on his supporters, and that could be inferred on him that that could be in fact witness intimidation. >> when you look at this case, we're talking about -- the implications of it could be much wider depending on what this appeals panel says. we have to leave it there. thank you. >> of course. good to see you. elon musk is suing. why he's mad at a media watch dog over the advertising exodus that twitter has not suffered. does musk think his own comments have anything to do with it. and we're continuing to follow news out of the israel. a deal to release a significant amount of hostages could be announced soon. the war cabinet just announced a meeting. we'll have more, next. we want to bring you back to our top story. sources tell cnn that a deal for hostages in an exchange for a pause in fighting could be coming in hours. three palestinian prisoners in israel would be freed for every civilian hostage released. joining me is jeremy diamond in sderot, israel. we expect the cabinet to meet in a few hours. is there a sense this is a done deal or something that could fall apart? >> reporter: well, look, you've been warned by u.s. and israeli officials multiple times this deal will not be done under it's fully done. that being said, the cabinet would not be convening if it weren't in the final stages of negotiation. in about an hour and 20 minutes, the wartime cabinet is set to convene at the prime minister's request to review this potentially deal. an hour from that, the security cabinet will meet, then an hour after that, the full cabinet, known as the government here, will convene to potential approve this deal. i'm told in following that, this could be as little as 24 hours before the deal goes through. there's time for the israeli supreme court to approve any potential deal. nobody will call this until it's fully done. in the meantime, the families are very anxious about these negotiations. they have been watching anxiously for week now, as there's been reports about the potential release as part of this deal. now they're waiting to see which ones, which names of the hundreds of hostages were being held by hamas and mill tap groups will actually be released. what we're continuing to see is continued fighting in the gaza strip. we just saw several explosions, bombings happening in northern gaza, the thick close you can see in the distance is a smokescreen deployed about 15, 20 minutes ago, indicating the movement of troops and materiel, potential for fighting. what you typically before before a pause in the fighting, you usually see escalation on both sides, potentially. we're going to stay here and continue to monitor that. and it just gives us a sense, as much work is being done on the diplomatic things, there is still an on the ground reality that you, jeremy, are witnessing firsthand. state safe. jeremy, thank you, as always. musk is suing media matters, after a damning report on x, and also an exodus by major advertisers on the platform that followed, including disney, ibm, nbc universal and warner bros. discovery. joining us right now for more on that is lance. ulenof, editor. what do you see? >> major advertisers were appearing next to posts that is pro-nazi, anti-semitic. they're saying x is not doing enough to protect advertisers and protect consumers from this kind of content on twitter. now, x, understand musk has been in control over a year. what we have seen during that year is hate speech, trolling, people have seen more of it, the whole complexion has changed. musk has presented himself as a free speech absolutist, and tried to unso-called shadow band. the problem is he's cut out a lot of safeguards that protected advertisers' contend from appearing next to this content. they're going back to them and saying this is fraudulent, you are misrepresenting and hurting our business, but most people who are on x today will tell you, yes, they occasionally run into this kind of content. sure, it can sometimes be followed by an ad by a regular advertiser. >> but if x is upset that advertisers don't want to be next to nazi or anti-semitic content, if you will, is there any commentary from x or response from x or musk on any responsibility that he might feel? forget what might hop up in your algorithm, for his own posts. >> the thing is musk refuses to apologize, his ceo linda yaccarino says, that is not us, this is being misrepresented. but musk put yaccarino in played, but has not ceded control. he's, like, sometimes he just tweets out an instant response. i know for a fact he tweets in the middle of the sunlight. he doesn't think this stuff through. >> but i don't tweet -- just because it's the middle of the night, i'm not tweeting on anti-semitic content. >> all i can tell sudden he's reading these things, having an instant reaction, throwing his support in, not thinking about the business. for whatever reason, linda yaccarino is not stopping him, and asking him to take a pause, a week, a month, i don't know. >> take a breath. >> this is a business, and from what i understand, the value of this company has plummeted since he took control. this is not going to help. >> the same day he filed the lawsuit, the white house launched a threads account. how much of a threat do you see threats to a dominate that twitter/x has had in this space? >> it's been a refuge, right, for the people -- the exodus from x has been on threads, but threads doesn't have the tools yet, not quite the news destination, though recently it looks like it's finding its way. it doesn't have hashtags so you can find stuff, but it was exciting to see all of them hop on to threads at the same time. it's a big show of support, and a reminder maybe there is some place other than x to gather without worry without hate speech, trolls, anti-semitic behavior. >> let's see what happens with this lawsuit with musk and with his tweets in the middle of the night. good to see you. nice to meet you. coming up, another civil rights case could be headed to the supreme court. how this could affect millions of voters, next. ( ♪ ♪ ) welcome to big tobacco's fantasyland. a new, healthier world without cigarettes. as long as you don't count the 6 trillion sold worldwide every year. and vaping won't lead to smoking, if you ignore the research that says otherwise. in big tobacco's fantasyland, the deadliest industry is your friend. a federal appeals court has moved to drastically weaken the voting rights act by voting against a key tool to enforce it. a ruling by the 8th court of appeals would bar private citizens from barring the civil rights suit saying that the federal government is the only one who can file suit. this is sure to go to the supreme court to set up a showdown over the landmark civil rights act. joan biskupic is joining us now, and if it goes to the supreme court, which is what appears likely s there a sense of what the justices will do here? >> good morning, omar. this morning the supreme court took the lead from two justices neil gorsuch and elaine kagan saying they are the only ones who can take the suits. and before rulings from naacp and others could take the suits under the voting rights act, but this particular rule prohibits the suit by race, and this is what the majority said is that congress did not exclusively give a right to private parties. for much of the last century, the courts have assumed that section 2 is privately enforceable, but the judge said, that a deeper look has revealed this assumption is resting on flimsy footing by justice david strauss who wrote for the majority and happens to be a law clerk to clarence thomas and one of donald trump's first appointees to the appellant bench, and on the other side, chief la ben ski said that rights so fundamental to citizenship should not rest solely on the discretion and the availability of the agents for protection. his point was that, you know, that it is such a fundamental landmark case from 1965, that it should not be just in the hands of the federal government to try to enforce it when again for decades lower courts and the supreme court have allowed private parties to come through. he also included a figure that said of the 182 successful lawsuits dunner this section 2 of the last 40 years, only 15 had been initiated by the department of justice. so you can see, omar, the impact of having these private lawsuits going forward and that could eventually be stop by the supreme court when it gets up there. >> yeah, so many people could be impacted here, but we will continue to monitor it as the case potentially moves forward. joan biskupic, thank you very much. we will also stay on top of the breaking news here this hour, a deal to release a significant number of hamas terrorists could come as early as today. we have the latest developments ahead. in order for small businesses to thrive, they need to be smart, efficient, savvy. making the most of every opportunity. that's why comcast business is introducing the small business bonus. for a limited time you can get up to a $1000 prepaid card with qualifying internet. yep, $1000. so switch to business internet from the company with the largest fastest reliable network and that powers more businesses than anyone else. learn how you can get $1000 back for your business today. comcast business. powering possibilities. the breaking news of a deal to release dozens of hostages held by hamas, and that deal could happen today. new details as the israeli war cabinet is about to meet. and will an appeals court side with donald trump on the gag order or narrow the restrictions that he has to follow. the decision is expected soon. and thanksgiving travel and the severe storms this week that could cause major problems for tense of millions of people. i'