secretary of state antony blinken arriving israel a short while ago. this is his second trip to the middle east in less than a month. blinken is expected to discuss ways to free the remaining hostages, minimize harm to palestinian civilians, and get all who want to leave gaza out. we ve seen americans and their families begin to come out of gaza, and we expect that to continue over the coming days. this has been a very deliberate effort on our part working with other countries to make sure we can get passage out for our citizens and citizens from other countries. blinken s trip comes as israeli ground forces now gaza city, surrounded. and air strikes continue to pound hamas targets inside the strip. the conflict has, according hamas officials, killed more than 9000 people in gaza. more than 1400 israelis have also lost their lives. secretary blinken also says while they re dealing with getting the hostages released and minimizing civilian deaths, now is also the time to come
business with b.e.t. founder bob johnson and former hewlett-packard ceo carly fiorina. i m candy crowley, and this is state of the union. first today, mitt romney. cnn s gloria borger caught up with the republican presidential nominee yesterday in indiana, and he hit back on president obama s proposal to raise tax rates for people making over $250,000 a year. i think it would be an enormous mistake for us to raise taxes on anyone right now with the economy and the trouble it s in. i also hope people understand that when they talk about raising taxes on the wealthy as the president does, he s also talking about the same tax rate that applies to small business. more of that romney interview in just a few minutes, but i want to bring in republican senator lindsey graham of south carolina, thanks for joining us. glad to be with you. let me ask you first about the president s plan or his wish to raise taxes essentially on those making $250,000 and above. we now have so