good morning, to our viewers in the usa and around the world. i m john avlon. it is monday, december 18th. it s 5:00 a.m. here in new york, noon in tel aviv, where the u.s. defense secretary is scheduled to meet now with his israeli counterpart. secretary lloyd austin s mission is to press israeli officials on specific milestones for progress in israel s war against hamas, as civilian casualties climb. here s democratic senator chris van hollen talking to abc this sunday. we do have unacceptable levels of casualties. we see loose rules of engagement, way looser than anything that the united states would exercise. we would not drop a 2,000-pound bomb on a refugee camp to target a hamas commander. a senior defense official tells cnn that austin will, quote, want to hear very clear articulation of the israeli self-assessment today. that same official has confidence in the israeli military and so he s there to ask questions and learn more about their plan. elliott gotkine
[crash] [engine revving] carley: straight to a fox news alert. a car slams into the presidential motorcade just feet away from president biden. brian: meanwhile, peter doocy has been tracking the story overnight and joining us with details. peter? president biden is walking out of his harpts wilmington 8:00 last night. somebody shouted a question to him why is he losing to trump and in polls. he shouted back the person is reading the wrong polls and he froze along with most of secret service detail with the sound of a car crashing. we have video of it. and you will see the sound of the crash and then they very urgently but delicate get the president into his armored car. [crash] [engine revving] whoa! peter: you never see anything like that. a secret service vehicle in en route another in delaware. no security with this event. the president departed without incident. the secret service was on hand as the president was dining with campaign staff. they quickly swarmed
washington where things stand with our chad pergram. hi, chad. neil, good afternoon. the house freedom caucus just took a formal position in the debt ceiling debate. it endorses the bill passed by the house in april. the caucus says there should be no further discussion until the senate passes the legislation. the house bill, we passed it. that is the mechanism right now sitting there that there s 11 democrats in the senate and the democratic president of the united states that stand between that bill and it becoming law. it was thought that house speaker kevin mccarthy would lose a good chunk of republicans who could not accept anything less than the house passed bill. the question is can mccarthy get just enough gop members on board and can democrats provide the rest. speaker mccarthy has limited capacity to really negotiate. he s handcuffed and in leg irons from that 15 votes that it took to get them elected. if he is able to negotiate something, once he tries to
deadly shooting at a authorities are still searching for a motive in the attack that left six people dead before the gunman apparently took his own life. james: republicans barnstorming iowa as the fight for the party s future heats up. we ve got a country to save. we will never ever surrender. and a man in north carolina is facing multiple charges after he allegedly drove a car into a wilmington international airport. it s time for the oscars. this is your captain speaking. james: good evening, and thank you for joining us. i m james brown in four norah. tonight, we take a look at an innovative program taking flight at one major u.s. airline. hoping to tackle the industries pilot shortage. plus, it s friday, so we go on the road with an army widow who is keeping a long-held promise to her late husband. but first, president biden has approved a disaster declaration in california as a series of severe storms pounded the state. 17 million res
released without proper es to democrats during the 2022 midterms. one republican was one of 11 affected, saying what happened goes way beyond dirty politics. doing identity theft with our social security numbers to get this. they paid for this. did they get the information, know it was done illegally? we want to know this. chief washington correspondent mike emanuel on this one. hi, mike. two powerful house chairmans set a deadline for today to be notified for how widespread the problem has been. mike rogers is the chairman of the house armed services committee, james coleman of house oversight. they wrote to secretary austin, quote, the recent broad release of records, highlights the inadequacy to secure military personnel files but raising concerning questions of possible illicit motive or political partisanship. they were released to a private research firm with ties to the democrat congressional campaign committee. one of the republican congressman told his understa