israel across the border. i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. israeli defense forces expanding their ground operation in gaza overnight. an idf spokesman says the forces are in the field and continue the fighting with infinity and armored vehicles backed by massive strikes from the air and the sea, including the bombing of hamas tunnels. the bombardment also knocking out communications in gaza, creating a near information blackout. and largely cutting off the territory's more than 2 million people from the outside world. until now, israel's military had been conducting targeted raids with forces withdrawing after a few hours. it comes as an israeli ground offensive aimed at seizing and holding significant amounts of territory has been widely expected but does not appear that such a significant operation is under way yet. joining me from israel is cnn correspondent jeremy diamond. jeremy, still not the ground incursion that we had anticipated. >> reporter: well, at least not officially, michael. the idf is continuing to characterize this as expanded ground operations inside of gaza. and it appears -- are we getting a siren? yep. i think we're getting a siren, michael. we have to move. just going to get low. just get down. get down, guys. get down. sorry. we're just going to move down, michael, as we're getting sirens. we are near the border right now with gaza. but, as i was saying, the idf saying that overnight they struck over 150 targets inside of gaza. and i can tell you from being near the border over the last nearly three weeks of this military campaign, what we heard last night certainly was the most intense, the most sustained bombardment of the gaza strip since this war began. really earth shaking kinds of bombardments. part of that is because they're striking not only buildings but they are trying to strike deep under ground that hamas' underground tunnel infrastructure, according to the idf, they struck over 150 underground targets last night and allegedly killed the commander of hamas' naval forces. today we drove along the border with the gaza strip. what we were able to witness is essentially the aftermath of that ground operation last night. areas that were previously teaming with tanks and armored vehicles north of the gaza border, today, michael, we found them mostly empty. they appear to have moved towards the gaza border and into gaza. we saw logistic support vehicles heading toward the gaza border. that's of course, notable. unlike the raids we have seen, they carried out over the previous two nights, what happened last night is different in that the tanks and the armored personnel carriers that went into gaza remain there today. the idf this morning saying that fighting is still on going inside the gaza strip at this hour. michael? >> jeremy, stay safe. and thank you for that report. here now with some perspective is bruce hoffmann. he's the counsel on foreign relations senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security and professor of security studies at georgetown university. he recently wrote this piece for the atlantic, understanding hamas' genocidal ideology. whose side is time on? >> time is on the side of the israel defense forces. but at the same time, i would caution that time is very perishable commodity. for instance, in the immediate aftermath of the october 7th attacks, israel had the unqualified support of the united states and other countries to defend itself however it saw fit. we have seen over the past three weeks that that has been qualified quite a bit to talk about surgical operations, humanitarian assistance and son. so, the pressure i think is on the idf to act now. >> is it necessary for israel to maintain a sustained ground incursion? >> yes. i think if you look at history, air power alone has never defeated terrorists anywhere. if you look at even the united states' own experience in the war on terror. united states air assets were deployed to try to obliterate al qaeda and kill osama bin laden in december 2001 and january of 2002. without the ground forces present to finish the job, we saw what happened. they escaped. clearly israel does have to put forces on the ground in gaza to achieve what its stated aims are, which is to destroy hamas's military capability. >> right. when folks around the globe look at the images that we're now showing on the screen of that which has transpired just in the overnight, israel must worry, don't you think, that the perception will be that this is collective punishment and not something specifically targeted at hamas. so, how do they meet that burden of proof in the court of olympic opinion? >> exactly right. that's why i said that time is a perishable commodity because we have seen that reducing the entirety of gaza to rubble, killing thousands of civilians is now how you win any kind of a war but certainly a struggle against terrorism. of course as we have also seen the past three weeks the narrative and the perception is all important. so this is why israel needs to move on the ground to the more surgical precision operations to begin to actually counter the hamas fighters and weaken them directly as opposed to reducing the entirety of the gaza strip to a rubbish heap. >> dr. hoffmann, i want to read something to you aloud. i'll put it on the screens for my viewers. it caught my eye, john sawer, former chief of mi 6, former uk ambassador to the u.n. he said this, israel has ever right to respond. now the immediate rage has passed, prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his war cabinet are thinking through their options more carefully. we should expect search and destroy missions inside gaza city to take down as much of hamas' military as they can and to try to rescue hostages. here is now the part that i highlight to my myself. but israel's security chiefs know the goal of destroying hamas is probably beyond their reach. hamas has a political base and extensive external support from iran. do you believe that, that israel's security chief would know that the goal of destroying hamas is probably beyond their reach? >> well, i think -- yes. that's a very astute observation i think or analysis by sir john sawers. but israel's, i think, highest priority is destroying hamas' military capability. we have heard the past few weeks about the difficulties of urban warfare and predicting that the idf is going to be stymied. let's face it, hamas never fought an urban war such as that which -- that prime minister netanyahu has promised. israel has vast experience in urban operations in the west bank, going back to the second anti-fa da in the early 2000s very intense fighting. and recent urban operations in janine. also hamas has no armor or aviation assets for quick reaction. the idf does. and then, look, 360,000 idf reservists have been mobilized. hamas has about a tenth of that number of fighters. so clearly defense is easier than offense. and hamas is i think obviously confident that it can stymy the idf. but i think the idf has a lot of advantages in achieving the preeminent first goal of destroying hamas' military capability. and what i think is hoped is from that flows a weakening of hamas' political influence and clout if it's deprived of any kind of assets. >> dr. hoffmann, thank you for your expertise. >> you're welcome. so what about the hostages? joining me now is christopher o'leary, who was until recently the u.s. director of hostage rescue and recovery. he has extensive experience with the fbi and counterterrorism and hostage matters throughout the middle east. mr. o'leary, thank you for being here. it seemed like there was hope yesterday of a major hostage release. and then all of a sudden came this uptick in israel's ground activity. do you relate the two? >> i do, but i also would caution that it was not going to ever be a major hostage release. it would have been a very deliberate, calculated and manipulative release of some additional hostages by hamas, but they're not going to open the flood gates and release any leverage that they have on israel and the international community. >> there have been no public signs of life. what, if anything, do you make of that? >> well, i make of it that they are likely being held in the gaza metro, probably see creted in the most secure areas and most difficult to get to by idf if and when they start going in more deliberately. so, listen, hamas is looking to safeguard these hostages for as long as they can, treat them like cattle. they're cattle ranchers. this is a commodity and they're looking to get the best price for them at a certain point. >> right. how can israel ensure the safety, the on going safety, of the hostages given what we've just reported in the last ten minutes in terms of the uptick in ground activity accompanied by the aerial bombardment? >> they can't completely. but i will say this, shin bet, idf intelligence capabilities were certainly embarrassed by the catastrophic failure that they had to prevent october 7th. so they are now being very deliberate in their targeting, making sure that the targets they strike are not based on single-source intelligence but multiple sources, that corroborated, that has an established chain of acquisition. that they have the highest confidence that they're not going to create collateral damage with the hostages. having said that, it's no guarantee. they could harm some hostages, but the other part of that is hamas could also claim that israel is killing the hostages and amplifying their psychological warfare and putting the blame on israel for their death. that will also create greater division between the hostage families and israel. and the israeli government but also the international community. it will widen the fish sure between the support that as dr. hoffmann mentioned was absolute in the beginning and started to depart a little bit as time went on. >> christopher o'leary, thank you so much for your expertise. >> good to be here. up ahead, the suspect in the maine mass shootings this week found dead last night from a self-inflicted gunshot. what do we know about such shooters? we'll get to that. and congressman dean phillips is here. we just announced he's challenging president biden for the democratic nomination. which by the way leads me to today's survey question. in 1980, ronald reagan defeated incumbent jimmy carter in part by asking americans to reflect on whether they are better off than they had been four years earlier. i'm curious about all of you. what would you say if asked the same about today's incumbent. are you better off than you were four years ago? congressman dean phillips announce on friday that he's challenging president biden for the democratic nomination. he'll join me in just a moment. would he be doing so if americans felt that they were better off now than they were four years ago? i ask that because in the final week of the 1980 presidential campaign, ronald reagan asked jimmy carter that crystallized and maybe sway the election. >> next tuesday all of you will go to the polls. you'll stand there in the polling place and make a decision. i think when you make that decision it might be well if you ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago? >> carter was then beleaguered by the misery index, acued economic measure invented by economist arthur oaken in the 1970s. combination of unemployment and inflation rates. the number was more than 20% during the 1980 campaign when ronald reagan won re-election it was 11.4%. when george w. bush won a second term, the misery index was 9. for barack obama's second election day it was 9.5. today, as joe biden runs for re-election it's only 7.5 and the economic numbers only seem to be improving despite on going inflation pressures this week new gdp numbers released this week the u.s. economy grew faster in the third quarter. the gross domestic product, gdp, measures all goods and services rose at annual pace of 4.9% up from 2.1% in the second quarter. and yet, compared with other presidents dating back to eisenhower in this period of their terms, epresident biden has the lowest popularity of any president except jimmy carter. this week gallop revealed that the president's approval rating is now at 37%. that matches his personal low. driving those numbers, biden's job approval among democrats tumbled by 11 points in the last month. brand new survey data of 5,000 americans spread across 15 communities casts doubt on whether biden's numbers bear any relationship to the economy and whether people feel that they're better off. consider this, when asked a very reagan-esque question, do you think your life is generally headed in the right direction or is it off on the wrong track, 87% said, yes, it's on the right track. similarly, when asked about their communities, 63% say they're going in the right direction. it's only when asked about the country at large that 79% of americans say, america as a whole is on the wrong track. only 18% say america is going in the right direction. the perception is individuals are doing well, their communities are doing fine but the country is going to hell in a hand basket. why the disconnect? maybe because perception of the nation at large is being by a 24/7 news cycle of snatch and grafs, violent protests, worries about migrants surge at the border, defense spending spiraling while people's pocketbooks are hurting. when congressman dean phillips threw his hat in the ring this week, he mentioned not only chaos at the borders and in our cities but the torch needs to be passed to a new generation of leaders. the biggest factor in biden's polling is something he can't do anything about between now and the election and that's his age. jos congressman dean phillips of minnesota. it seems that the president that has data but he can't sell it. why? >> well, michael, good to be with you. you just made the case why i entered the democratic primary. the country is feeling really fearful, uneasy, divided. i call it anger tanment. we are more divided than we really are. and i believe it's time for an american president to focus on literal repair. look at the word. repairing the country. we need it now more than ever. to the economic numbers the macro economic numbers are good. i admire joe biden. i voted as his policies as a member of the house democratic leadership team. i helped market those policy. but i've been talking to people here in new hampshire over the last 24 hours since i declared my candidacy. people cannot afford health care. families are struggling, 60% of america still lives paycheck to paycheck. 40% can't afford a $400 car repair. the president has done a fine job of being the very bridge that he promised he would be, the transitional president that our country needed a the time. i admire joe biden. but 80% of the country wants change. it's time for it. it's time to walk to the future. and i tell you, as i listen to people, i hear it everywhere i am right now, michael, it's time for a new generation to take the rain. we have a lot of challenging. the ones we're facing will be ones that only newer generations can tackle. as long as we fight each other, we're not going to fight for america and that's my message, to do this differently, thoughtfully and bipartisan fashion that this country deserves and frankly has earned. >> okay. so, give us the elevator pitch on how you can actually win the nomination. w. the good news is thank goodness we live in a country voters make the decision. if they want, this is a choice. i have the democratic national committee competing against me, an extraordinarily large machine. of course it's rigged against any challenger candidate under any circumstance. but what a beautiful example of american democracy, where anybody 35 years old, u.s. citizen, born here, can enter this ring in new hampshire just like i did yesterday. first in the nation primary since 103 years ago. talking with people, making your case. we're going to win new hampshire. that will put us on the radar screen and i'm going to introduce myself to the country and only give people a choice. i'm not running against president biden. i admire him. i'm running for the future. i'm running to provide people a choice because if democrats with a big d defeat democracy with a small d by pushing people aside, telling them to stand down and get out, that is antithetical to meeting the moment and it's our generation's turn to take those reins. >> congressman, when you say you admire him and admire his record and be supportive in the congress, you have to complete the sentence which says, but i don't think he can beat donald trump. are you ready to make that case in order to win the nomination? >> absolutely. that is my case. i don't need to make it. look at the polls. last week's abc news poll has president biden down 9 points nationally. the bloomberg poll has him losing in five of the six key battleground states. you just referenced some of the lowest presidential approval rating. over 50% of democratic voters simply want an alternative. i'm raising my hand. i'm entering this ring because i think americans deserve that very alternative. i'm going to run a spirited, joyful, optimistic campaign based on strength and fortitude and give people a choigs. if i don't succeed, i will do everything i can, i will work just as hard for president biden or whoever the nominee might be to ensure that donald trump does not return to the white house. and if that wasn't enough, michael, matt gaetz of all people, matt gaetz yesterday tweeted that it would be harder for donald trump to beat dean phillips than to beat joe biden. that is the very case i'm going to be making -- >> congressman, i have no doubt that there's a craving, there's a hunger. i'm very familiar with all the data. i track this of americans who want a choice. and don't like the status quo. the fundamental question is whether your route is the best way to get it done, meaning within a democratic nomination fight where you're a unique guy willing to talk about border security and crime as opposed to running as an independent, maybe a no labels candidate. surely you evaluated that path and ruled it out. what's the short answer as to why. >> i say shame on anybody who might run as an independent candidate as this most important eflexion our country's history, whether it's cornell west, robert kennedy, any other initiative that would have an alternative candidate that would peel votes from whomever would be taking on donald trump. shame on you. i would never do that. i'm doing this in the way that we have constructed our democracy and we as democrats do it, through a thoughtful, spirited primary. and i do not intend to undercut the president. i do not intend to demean him, diminish him. i'll make my case for the future. it's more bold for the future. i think that's exactly what americans need. i'm troubled by those who somehow are fearful of choice, fearful of freedom and fearful of doing exactly what our founders intended when they created our country almost 250 years ago. i think once people see how i'm doing this, it might surprise, it might delight and might actually inspire our country to make the choice to move to the future. it's not that difficult if you're really paying attention to what people are listening to. that's what i've been doing. >> congressman, thank you for being here. we appreciate it. >> any time, michael. social media reaction, katherine, what do we have in from the world of youtube, i think. i give phillips a shoutout for having the ka hoeny. i think we need more competition. competition is good. you know, i've said this before about president biden, it's like holding back that starting quarterback and giving him no touches until the first season of the nfl. you got to put him in, at least in the third or fourth game for a co