Ceasefire proposed by qatar and egypt. As it is really forces prepare to move into rafa for a limited scope information on the heels of the long promised Ground Defense in gaza. We begin this monday afternoon, im john roberts. Good morning to you. Sandra good morning to you. Im Gillian Turner and for sandra smith today. This is america report. They are Ordering Hundreds of thousands of palestinians in rafah to evacuate now. A senior officials calling them move a dangerous escalation that will have consequences paired john jeff paul is live on the ground for us in tel aviv with the latest for all this. Hamas agreeing to a ceasefire does not mean its a done deal. No. It certainly does not and hamas released a statement saying its political leader had a phone call with the qataris and the egyptians who have been involved in this intense mediation process saying they agreed to the deal that is on the table. Thats been discussed over the past week or so. The new question remains what wl israel do, how will they respond, and does this include the release of hostages . We will have to stand by and wait and see. At the same time we have a Massive Development today as the Israeli Military started warning residents and people who live in Eastern Rafah, roughly 100,000 palestinians to start evacuating. They dropped flyers off in that area in Eastern Rafah as well as they made phone calls and Text Messages telling the people who live there they need to move on to them a lossy humanitarian zone. That is an area north of rafa along the coast of gaza. The Israeli Military says the order is temporary and not a largescale evacuation however civilians have been told to pack up their things and lead it, theres not only a sense of frustration but a real concern about their safety. Israeli occupation told people to go to rafah and its a safe area. Today they are telling us to get out of rafah. Where will the people go . Where will the crowds go . 1. 2 million civilians heard where will they go question rick should they go into the sea . Both of the major developments happening as hamas just left egypt yesterday after intense negotiations but on the very same day, there was a deadly attack at the crossing that the idf says was fired from the humanitarian zone. Hamas has claimed responsibility and during a call with lloyd austin, israels Defense Minister said that they dont have a choice good they have to get into rafah and they said at the time it did not appear that hamas was very serious about coming up with some sort of ceasefire agreement. I wanted you to Pay Attention to the language here. They use the word ceasefire agreement. No mention of hostages. You will want to watch and see how israel responds because that will be a big part of this like we saw in november. An exchange of hostages for palestinian prisoners as well as a cop pause in the fighting. Gillian how much can an agreement to a ceasefire by hamas really mean if we dont know that they have agreed to the Core Foundation tenant on their side which is the release of the remaining hostages. It and thats the tough thing this whole week. You have these little chuckles of information. Some reports saying as many as 30 hostages could be released, some say 40. Until you get that agreement that both parties have agreed to, its hard to determine what will happen but it is interesting that the wording said a ceasefire agreement. Surely israel would not agree to that if it would include hostages. You have 132 that they believe are still in there. John jeff is in tel aviv at the latest. We have seen in the past that hamas is that as a ceasefire we would except when its been disadvantageous to israel. Gillian and i want to make sure i get these numbers precise. On friday our teams on the ground there said that hamas is Still Holding 132 hostages believed to be in gaza. 37 of those are confirmed dead but we are Curing Reporting from our teams that it is possible that many more, maybe even thousands of those people could be dead as a friday. John with maybe one of the reasons hamas has not agree to any seas for up to this point is because of the idea of having hostages as Bargaining Chips may not exist. Well be talking with senator tom cotton coming up. But first, this. This has never happened to this country before. Its a ridiculous thing. Its a ridiculous case. I did nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing wrong. They have no case. And it has been absolutely proven now. They have no case whatsoever. This is alvin bragg doing this for political reasons for biden. This is a biden trial. Gillian that his former President Trump weighing in on his criminal trial today before court. Also speaking out against the existing gag orders against appeared on the stand today is former Trump Organization controller jeff mcconaughey. We have Team Coverage for you with the former Trump Impeachment william jay brennan. First we go to Senior Correspondent eric shawn. Hes alive at the courthouse. Eric, what is the witness telling to those jurors today in the courtroom . Hello jillian. Theyve broken for lunch but throughout this morning we have heard a lot about payments and invoices and reimbursement to Michael Cohen but so far, no evidence or testimony directly tying the former president into that alleged scheme to pay off Stormy Daniels. On the Witness Stand is the former Trump Organization controller jeff mcconney. Hes been explain how mike cohen was reimbursed eventually for using his own money to pay stormy but mcconney said he knew nothing about any agreement ordeal for her alleged hush money payments. He sent allen weisselberg, the trump cfo at the time, said they were approved by eric trump. The former president s on who happened to be in court today with them. The balance came from trumps own personal checking account. In those checks to Michael Cohen were marked for Legal Expenses. The defense says the former president did think just that. That he was paying Michael Cohen for being his lawyer but prosecutors have of course said that is not true. The day started with the former President Learning he has to write another check, this time for violating the gag order again. The judge find a trump 1,000 for an attack he made on the jury. He told him if he does not stop, he could go behind bars. The last thing i want to consider is jail said the judge. You are a former president and possibly the next president. The magnitude of that decision is not lost on me. Your continued willful violation of the courts order constitutes a direct attack on the rule of law and you will not be allowed to continue. They have no case. They have no case. Its a political hoax, its election interference. Anything they can do and even the witnesses they want to bring up. They have nothing to do with the case. This is a ridiculous situation. Not fair. Not fair but we will fight it. Just before the lunch break, it was the defenses turn to question mcconney. Defense attorney bove showing that mcconney and the Trump Organization thought they were on the up and up but as the defense has said they were paying for Legal Expenses to Michael Cohen. Back to you. Gillian eric shawn outside of the Manhattan Court for us. Thank you. John lets bring in William Brennan appeared hes a former Trump Payroll Corporation attorney and represented President Trump during his second impeachment trial. Its good to have you here. Thank you for having me. John any time theres a controller on the stand you put on your green visor and you start to get down in the weeds in terms of these numbers. We are talking about like payments to were grossed up to cover the taxes he wouldve had to pay. Whether or not they were reported to the irs, whether trump approved them, if there was a link to trunk. You know about the stuff. Dig into and tell us what the prosecution has unveiled and have the med any salient points . Its not as nefarious as it may sound or seem. You have to remember that Trump Organization and its subsidiaries are a privately owned company. Its a family business. Its not anything out of the ordinary that when the president was the president that he would have to sign checks from his personal account. Mr. Mcconney as i recall having dealt with him in the case that i handled before judge zelenskyy 19 work for the organization for 30 some years thats was amazing. These employees stay forever. He was there 38 years. But i have not heard anything yet that jumps off the page. There is no smoking gun. The most important thing to remember aside from the president s presumed innocent is the prosecution has cobbled this case together with duct tape and zip ties to get to this second crime. All of this could have occurred as they say it did but if it wasnt motivated to commit a second crime either Election Fraud or some type of election finance fraud, the case goes out the window. Gillian the judge also said today that the penalties, the financial penalties are clearly not having the intended effect on trump for the gag order. They said he might just have to throw him in jail for it how much time is this judge lightly considering . Judge merchan is in a tough spot. Having spent the better part of two months with him, he suffers no fools per hes the real deal. I think he would if he felt it was necessary to impose a jail sentence. Having said that, this is the first time we have had a former president of the United States as a criminal defendant. Im hoping he can make his point with the measures he has taken but he could put this defendant and for a day and have the same chilling impact that 30 days would have. And frankly it gets a little unruly after a day because you have Secret Service and Security Issues but when you are talking about this particular defendant, a day, a month, it really sends us a message. John if trump goes to jail, the Secret Service goes to jail with him. But there is a sense that if merchan were to throw him in jail he would probably have points added to his popularity ratings. The way its been going. But i think that the president has been compliant with the gag order since the first set of sanctions. 9 out of 10. You must remember that these allegations, these most recent e were pending. Its not like that ruling came down and then he flaunted it. John where was going with the question was in a different direction. You said youve argued before merchan. You said he was the real deal. Trump says he has a conflicted judge who is leading in all sorts of evidence that shouldnt see the light of day of day. Gillian running a kangaroo court. Im not the president s lawyer in this case. Ive had the opportunity to represent the president in his second impeachment and payroll tax case before this judge. But my personal opinion of judge merchan, he treated me very well. He was a gentleman, he is smart, he works hard, and i really its above my pay grade to get into political issues. I have no political agenda. As a lawyer whos been knocking around this country for three and a half decades trying criminal cases, a pleasure to work in front of him and frankly that Prosecution Team, a number of those people. Hes a pro. Its just so much easier when the judge is a pro and the Prosecution Team are professionals. We do our job. Gillian that is refreshing to hear. Thank you for bringing us that background. John we dont hear from the former president about that. I might hear from the former president about that. Thank you. Gillian we are now getting word of an israeli response after hamas reported it had accepted an egyptian cotter ceasefire. White israel says it is not acceptable. We will talk to senator tom cotton about it coming up next. Molly line is covering it. Shes at harvard today. Molly . The and getman at harvard yard roommates. They want to begin negotiations at 5 00 p. M. But the harvard Interim President says i those participating in the encampment to end the occupation of harvaro yard. O more on that cominprg up. Ensure, with 27 vitamins and minerals, nutrients for immune health. And ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. 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Israel responding after hamas that it will accept the terms of his ceasefire deal that was crafted by qatar and egypt. Jacqui heinrich live at the white house. I didnt think that there was much possibility that israel would sign on to something that hamas had accepted. Im trying to parse some of what weve been told off the record and what we can say publicly. I guess i would tell you right now use extreme caution in taking this hamas statement at face value. You will recall that the president had a phone call with israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu this morning and it lasted 30 minutes and sends the statement came out we have not gotten any response from the white house, from the state department, from the National Security council. Even on background. Generally, there was a feeling that this might not be happening imminently. That they would be willing to share immediately after hamas came out with this statement. The statement that hamas also put out does not make any mention of a Hostage Release which has been and continues to be a core tenet of any deal that would be accepted by israel. It would have to include for the u. S. As well the Hostage Release, a pause in fighting, and more aid. The statement that hamas put out does not make reference to any of the individual perimeters of the deal. I would not be surprised if the briefing got pushed back. Ive spoken to several officials across the administration who were in real time trying to verify with their israeli counterparts the legitimacy of this claim, what exactly it all entails. I would agree with you that generally this seems to be a surprise and the slow reaction to comment on it from the white house, from the state department, from the National Security council, we can read into that and clean from that that perhaps from the phone call this morning, there was not an expectation that this would be happening soon. Ongoing effort right now to parse this and figure out what all it means. John i think hamas probably saw an opportunity with the increased pressure that biden has been putting on netanyahu including the report said that u. S. Was withholding Weapons Deliveries to israel. Jacqui heinrich fours at the white house. Thank you. Gillian lets go ahead and bring it senator tom cotton. He serves on the Senate Armed Service committee. Hearing this news that hamas says they have agreed to the terms of the ceasefire without specifying what those terms are. Its mighty hard for the israelis to agree to a ceasefire when hamas has not been truthful or forthcoming about how many hostages remained in c