in the middle east. >> john: it comes as we are getting brand-new information about the u.s.s. mason shooting down another drone in the red sea today, the drone fired from the same houthi-controlled area as the ones over the weekend. we will take you to the briefing as soon as it happens. >> sandra: israel moving into the third phase of ground operations, 138 hostages are still in captivity and hamas has vowed to not release anymore until there is a ceasefire. hello, john, welcome back. >> john: good to be with you. john roberts in washington, "america reports". israel continuing its campaign against hamas hitting the terror group's strongholds in southern gaza overnight. idf engaging in house to house gun battles after entering the second largest city in the strip. >> sandra: israel's military says it has killed about half of hamas mid level batallion commanders by now and prime minister benjamin netanyahu said moments ago idf forces are encircling the house of a senior hamas leader. >> john: trey yingst is on the ground, who is this senior official that israeli forces say they have surrounded? >> good afternoon. i want to start with the breaking news, tonight israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu says his forces have surrounded the house of sinwar, the leader of hamas in gaza, the man who is believed to be the mastermind behind the october 7th massacre. significant development and indication israeli forces are pushing deep into the heart of khan younis, and ramping up the strikes across the entirety of the gaza strip. idf telling fox news they hit 250 different targets over the past 24 hours. also comes as infantry troops continue to locate weapons, explosives and tunnel entrances. israelis also targeting the rocket launching sites for the barrage that hit tel aviv just yesterday. inside gaza, the death toll continues to rise, and israeli strike against a neighborhood in central gaza killed multiple palestinians yesterday, aftermath from khan younis and destruction, entire neighborhoods wiped off the map. israel is still gathering intelligence on the hostages inside gaza. we spoke with one man whose two sisters were held by hamas, along with three nieces. discussed the psychological terror they faced. >> they heard the bombings that was part of the -- of their concerns about the fact that they were forgotten, because hamas told them is that israel gave up on you, they are saying that they are going to flatten gaza, they don't care about anyone, they don't care about you, they'll probably kill you in one of their bombings. >> his brother-in-law is still being held by hamas inside gaza. his family will not be whole until that man comes home. john. >> john: so, two questions, trey, about this latest operation. do they believe that sinwar is in that facility and if they were to get or capture him, the leader of another brigade is at large. do they have any idea where he is? >> it's a great question. israelis do not believe he's inside the house. he's likely in the tunnel network beneath khan younis or rafah, gaza's second and third largest cities. this is significant, though, because it shows the israelis have been able to penetrate deep into the strip despite a fierce resistance by hamas' military wing. the two targets here for the israelis, we are talking about sinwar, leader of hamas inside gaza and daif, behind the planning of the hamas military leadership over the past decade. look at the situation on the ground, israelis are looking to target the leaders, and even if they capture the top hamas leadership they will go after the infantry hamas brigades, they want to kill every single commander and capture as many leaders as possible and understanding on the ground in israel, despite the western pressure, including from the biden administration, the israelis will continue this operation even if it takes months. john. >> john: they had sinwar in custody once, they let him out, and look what happened. so, i don't know if they try to capture him again or just eliminate him. trey, thank you. >> i'm going to give you one more opportunity for the world to see your answer. does calling for the genocide of jews violate penn's code of conduct when it comes to bullying and harassment, yes or no. >> it can be harassment. >> the answer is yes. and dr. gay, at harvard, does calling for the genocide of jews violate harvard's rules of bullying and harassment, yes or no. >> it can be, depending on the context. >> sandra: wow, lawmakers on capitol hill calling out the presidents of three elite universities during the heated congressional hearing, it happened yesterday. accused them of not doing enough to address the spike of antisemitism and threats to students on their campuses. florida democratic congressman, thank you for joining us. incredibly revealing. your reaction first to those university leaders not being able to easily label this for what it is and a very clear example of harassment that elise stefanik was presenting to them. what was your reaction to what you heard? >> yeah, so, my first reaction is congresswoman stefanik did a great job asking someone a softball question and confusing the hell out of them. i mean, this was the easiest question. is calling for the genocide of jews harassment, and someone actually answered back and said well, it depends what the context is. what do you mean, context, how we kill them, how we commit the genocide, that's the context? another question said i believe to the president of harvard, would you want a neo-nazi to attend harvard, and said well, it's not with our values but we have a wide range of thought. really? we want to include nazis in the wide range of thought? so, they all three of them, if there was a course taught at ivy league schools if you want to be a president of a university, all three of them would have failed that course. they are a terrible example for their students and the boards of these schools should watch that hearing and decide if they should stay in their jobs because the idea -- idea they came to congress and made it worse, they made it worse. i expected them to come and be like listen, we were a little slow reacting, we are working on it now, here are the steps, but they made it worse and made jews even more uncomfortable when they can't say advocating for the killing of jews is harassment. >> sandra: well, that's a problem. hearing you say it like that, that's very easy to see and hear there is a major problem on these college campuses and clearly on display in the hearing room yesterday, some are now demanding that there be consequences for these universities and their leaders' actions. this was more from elise stefanik, she came on this network earlier and she's actually calling for those university presidents to be fired. listen. >> what was probably the most tragic aspect of the hearing to me was there were a number of jewish students from those schools in the audience sitting behind them and to watch just the fear as they're listening to the presidents of these universities fail to answer a basic question of moral clarity, it was abysmal. they don't deserve the dignity of resigning. they need to be fired. >> sandra: congressman, do you agree with that, are you calling for the same? >> yeah, they either need to be fired or resign, either way. what's the difference of how they go, so long as they go. i mean, literally, that was presidential -- that was university presidential malpractice yesterday what you saw them do in that hearing. what did they do, no prep for the hearing? this was not a tough question. this was an easy question. i think congresswoman stefanik had a list of questions, she probably thought she would get easy yes and move on. they could not answer yes. context of the killing of jews matters, by the ovens or mass firing squad, is that the context that the university presidents were talking about? it was a despicable display of behavior and if i were a federal taxpayer watching that hearing i would want none of my taxpayer dollars going to these universities so long as those people are in charge. >> sandra: i want to make sure i get this in here, incredibly important how some of the students are feeling on the campuses right here in american. u-penn student on how scary his campus has become for jewish students. >> if you look at all of what has happened at penn during the past three months, including swastika, a jewish student accosted, a riot two days ago, and professors giving jewish students lower grades, it is very scary to think what the next step in terms of context she is referring to. >> sandra: as a member of congress, sir, what is the next step to making sure that students don't feel like this on campuses right here in the united states of america. >> well, look, congress needs to do what we can. i think the executive branch through the secretary of education needs to look at their remedies. i mean, they were specifically asked a question, you know, can you ensure -- if you are trying to recruit a jewish student to your school, can you ensure their safety and they could not give a yes answer. it was university speak and so no, jewish students don't feel safe in these areas at these universities at the moment. and so this is a major problem we are seeing with jews around the country. how have we gone from a foreign policy dispute of what's happening in the middle east immediately to the killing of jews again, right back to the conversation of the 1940s. that's the foreign policy that people are advocating for. the jewish community is unsettled. have not been this unsettled really since the aftermath of the holocaust. >> sandra: it's a tough place we are in in this country now. thank you for joining us. >> john: u.s.s. mason shooting down yet another drone in the red sea. officials say it was fired from an area controlled by houthi militants in yemen. jennifer griffin is live at the pentagon with details. jennifer, it happened again. >> oh, yes, john, a senior defense official told me the u.s.s. mason, a destroyer, shot down a drone fired from the same houthi-controlled area. it's not clear whether the mason was the target, according to the u.s. official, but it was close enough and viewed as a threat so they shot it down. "close enough they made that judgment call" according to the senior defense official. u.s.s. mason was in international waters. it was in the southern part of the red sea. on sunday there was a virtual firefight on the high seas in the same area. the southern red sea near the babal mendeb strait. three shipping vessels were struck by houthi missiles, and carney shot down three drones made by the houthis. called the attacks on sunday unprecedented, suggesting an international maritime task force is needed. >> this is a first for attacks on international shipping and that's a big deal. >> now, there already is a task force, a maritime task force in that area to deal with piracy, so now they are going to try and use it against the houthis. but it's important to note, john, that these u.s. navy warships are firing expensive sm2 missiles to take down the iran-made drones, much less expensive to make. every time the u.s. has to engage the drones in defense it costs the u.s. taxpayer millions of dollars. so far no decision to strike the houthis at the missile and drone launch sites inside yemen. john. >> john: better a couple million dollar missile instead of it hitting the ship. >> that would be terrible, of course, and alert through the a.p. sirens have been sounded at the american embassy in baghdad. so the american embassy in baghdad is sensing some sort of threat at this time. >> john: well, let us know what happens this. thank you, hear back from you. >> sandra: we will stay on that as well. president biden meanwhile facing questions, it happened a few moments ago at the white house about his connection to his son and his brother's foreign business dealings as house republicans are ready to close in on hunter. we have the reporter here on set who broke that story. she will join us next. >> john: plus president biden speaks candidly about his re-election bid for 2024, telling campaign donors if it wasn't for former president trump he might not even be in the race. if he's running just to keep trump out, what does that say to voters? we are breaking it down with fox news contributor katie pavlich coming up next. >> what's interesting about this biden admission is that he's saying something that i think a lot of people have concluded for a while, which is that if not for the former president running, he would feel like he had an avenue to step away. there's an old saying in the navy that the toughest job in the navy is a navy wife. and if you've made the deployments and you've been the wife at home, or you've been the spouse at home, you understand what i'm talking about. your spouse has earned the right to apply for a va home loan. the newday 100 loan allows you to borrow up to 100% of your home's value. so if you're in a situation where you need some help financially, give us a call. 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[ting] ♪ live in the moment. ask your doctor about otezla. i'm patriotic kenny. and, hi, i'm amanda on tiktok. my scooter broke down. i went into a depression. how do you feel about that? pretty sad. and i posted it to show that kenny's not always happy. within 24 hours people had donated over $5,000. no, you're kidding. we set up the patriotic kenny foundation to give mobility scooters to veterans. it has changed my life tremendously. none of this would've happened without tiktok. the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. >> john: fox news alert, any moment now, the state department, expecting an update on the war in the middle east comes as jennifer griffin just told us moments ago sirens are sounding at the u.s. embassy in baghdad. we don't know why, but something is clearly going on. >> americans, to americans this impeachment inquiry why you interated with so many of your son and brother's foreign business associates. >> i'm not going to comment, i did not, and it's just a bunch of lies. they are lies. >> you didn't interact with business associates? >> i did not, they are lies. >> sandra: ok, so that happened just a short time ago. president biden once again dismissing talk of his connections to his son and brother's foreign business dealings as house republicans threaten to take action against hunter biden if he does not show up for a closed door deposition this month. brooke singman. >> this just breaking, house oversight committee and judiciary chairman jim jordan have told abbe lowell they are threatening to hold hunter biden in contempt of congress if he does not appear for that, appeared for december 13th. his lawyer said the house oversight committee has consistently twisted and turned witness's testimony and hunter biden will only testify before this committee if it is at a public hearing. obviously comer and jordan have said they will release the transcript of hunter biden's deposition and will schedule a public hearing for the president's son but he is not getting any special treatment as part of their investigation just because he's the president's son. every other witness they have subpoenaed has appeared for their depositions, requested interviewed, people have come in and sat for those transcribed interviews. the committees have released those transcripts. so a back and forth, and breaking a few minutes ago, comer and jordan are threatening to hold the president's son in contempt of congress. >> sandra: and you were reporting the records were released, joe biden as vice president exchanged hundreds of emails with his son and business associate. what are we learning from the newly released records. >> jordan, comer and jason smith are all co-leading this impeachment investigation or inquiry against president biden. so yesterday the house ways and means committee had gary shapley and joseph ziegler appear for a closed door session with the committee. they brought records of meta data showing email traffic between joe biden as vice president and his son and his son's business associate. he was using the email alias, robinware 456, and eric did run the bookkeeping at the time, but he was also the president of hunter biden's rosemount seneca. what the whistleblowers were able to give to the committee were just meta data, but hundreds of emails were exchanged begs question did you talk with your son about the foreign business dealings. he said no. >> sandra: and adamant no from the president himself. you have had a huge week. israel now, you sat down on monday with sheryl sandberg at the united nations. what did she have to say? she is one of the strong females that is standing up and saying women need to be speaking up and out about these atrocities that are happening to women in israel. >> sheryl sandberg was at the united nations with an event she co-hosted with the israel ambassador to shine a light on the atrocities and sexual violence on october 7th. hamas raped these women and heard from idf soldiers and from israeli police officers explaining what they found when they recovered bodies of these israeli women that were tortured and killed in their last moments of life but whether i spoke with sheryl sandberg, she really was outraged about the fact that women's organizations have not been standing up to support these jewish women. i mean, she said rape needs to be called out no matter what and told me she thinks politics are blinding us in terms of this issue and said women need to be supported no matter who they are and she will stand up for the issue. >> sandra: very strong voice in all of this. a big microphone. brooke, appreciate it. >> would you be running for president if trump wasn't running? >> i expect so, but look, he is running, and i have to run. >> would you drop out -- >> no, not now. >> john: president biden saying he has to run in 2024 to keep former president trump out of office for a second time, and took things a step further at a fundraiser in boston. biden told supporters he's not sure he would even be seeking a second term if it was not for his predecessor in the race. katie pavlich, so biden is saying two things. i might not be in the race unless it was trump that was in there on the republican side. and leading by a large margin and secondly, saying i'm the only democrat who can beat trump despite this fox news poll, call for number one, shows biden losing to trump 50-46. oops. >> it's an interesting statement for him to be making at this moment in the campaign because two-thirds of democrats don't want president biden to be their nominee and look at the general election polling and joe biden continues to look like he could lose to donald trump, which is some