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Fareed Zakaria GPS
Interview With David Petraeus About Israel And Ukraine. Aired 10-10:25a ET
Aired May 19, 2024 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:01:05]
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the Global Public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria coming to you from New York.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA (voice-over): Today on the program, Israeli tanks push deeper into Rafah while ceasefire talks stall, and Russian troops advance towards Kharkiv in a new offensive.
I will talk about the state of both wars with General David Petraeus who has been described as the most effective American military commander since Eisenhower.
Then, the six-week long election in the world's largest democracy will soon draw to a close and India's Prime Minister Modi is perhaps on the brink of winning a third term. But what is his record on the economy? And what about fears of democratic decay?
I'll ask the former head of India's Central Bank.
And at a time when journalists across the globe are under siege, I'm joined by Pulitzer Prize winner Nick Kristoff. In decades of reporting, he's witnessed the best and worst humanity has to offer. I'll ask him why he remains stubbornly hopeful.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAKARIA: But first here's my take.
Something very unusual is happening in Israel. Senior military officials have begun voicing criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conduct of the war in Gaza. Israeli media has been reporting on a weekend security meeting at which the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, General Herzi Halevi, criticized Netanyahu's lack of a clear strategy, pointing out that the Israeli military had re-entered Northern Gaza, an area it claimed to have cleared in January.
He warned that unless there was a plan to set up some kind of non- Hamas government in these areas, the IDF would have to keep repeating these kinds of operations endlessly. Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has gone further publicly criticizing the prime minister, pointing out that the day after Hamas will only be achieved by actors who replaced Hamas, and declaring that he would not permit Israel to try to govern Gaza directly.
"The New York Times" reported on others within the Israeli Military making similar criticisms. As Anshel Pfeffer writes in "Haaretz," these briefings to the press have been synchronized as part as what can only be a coordinated briefing against the prime minister.
The reason for these extraordinary dissents at a time of war is that Israeli officials have begun to realize what American officials have been warning them about for months, that without a strategy to create stable governance in Gaza, they will face a continuing insurgency just as the U.S. stayed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
There is evidence it is already happening. Israeli forces have been forced back into Jabalya twice, and they have returned three times to Zeitoun. Their recent and controversial raid on the Al-Shifa Hospital was the second effort showing that their initial success was not lasting. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted last Sunday --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We've seen in areas that Israel has cleared in the north, even in Khan Younis, Hamas coming back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAKARIA: Much has been written about whether the Israeli Military has been careful or callous in its concern for civilian casualties when conducting its attacks in Gaza. But the larger point has to do with its counterinsurgency strategy itself. In America's only successful counterinsurgency campaign in recent memory, the surge in Iraq.
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Its strategy was designed to protect the civilian population, isolate the insurgents, and then crush them. To that end, General David Petraeus worked tirelessly with Iraq's Sunnis, the community spawning the insurgency, to win them over, give them a stake in Iraq's government, and thus isolate the insurgents and the militias. He then used lethal force against those militias.
This is almost the inverse of Israel's strategy, which has been first and foremost, to go after Hamas guns blazing with very little regard for winning the hearts and minds of Gaza's civilian population. Prime Minister Netanyahu's argument against post-war plans and operations is that the war isn't over, and in his words, there is no alternative to military victory. The attempt to bypass it with this or that claim is simply detached from reality.
Bibi has repeatedly said that he would continue the war until he achieves total victory, by which he presumably means either a surrender by Hamas or its total eradication. The Biden administration has from early on in the war believed that Bibi's strategy was flawed because there was no way to defeat Hamas militarily without a political strategy to isolate it and offer an alternative that had some credibility and legitimacy.
That was why the Biden administration wanted to begin discussions with the Palestinian Authority and a group of Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to make plans for reconstruction and governance in a non- Hamas Gaza. Netanyahu has refused to consider any such plans.
Bibi Netanyahu refuses to talk about the post-war because he knows that his own post-war future is bleak. Many Israelis continue to hold him responsible for the policies that led to the October 7th attack. When new elections to be called, he would likely lose office and then face an ongoing prosecution, as well as potential inquiries about the failures that led to October 7th. All of this can be pushed off as long as he insists on a Hamas surrender, which he will not get, but which will keep the war going on indefinitely. It is a strategy not designed to secure Israel's future, but rather his own.
Go to CNN.com/Fareed for link to my "Washington Post" column this week. And let's get started.
So you heard what I had to say. What does a better war strategy for Israel look like? Joining me now is former CIA director and retired U.S. Army General David Petraeus, whom I mentioned in my take. He commanded American and coalition troops both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
David, welcome. First, let me ask you to explain, you know, what was the heart of your strategy in Iraq, which worked? You were battling an insurgency, a bunch of terrorists, you know, militias, call them what you will, and the U.S. had not been able to really eradicate those terrorists. What did you do?
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER, COALITION FORCES IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN: Well, first and foremost, we committed to making life better for innocent Iraqi civilians and we pledged that we would get al Qaeda, an extremist group, irreconcilable similar to Hamas, out of their midst. We would clear their neighborhoods, their cities of al Qaeda. And then we would keep them out of those cities and neighborhoods, would create gated communities. Twelve of them alone in Fallujah, which has already completely encircled by cement to keep them out.
And then you have biometric I.D. cards. We would flood the area immediately with humanitarian assistance, then restore basic services, and then go about the comprehensive reconstruction, rebuilding all of the damaged infrastructure, restoring schools, markets, clinics, bridges, roads that had been blown up by al Qaeda and by the other of the most dangerous Sunni insurgent groups. And then keep the pressure on those groups, constantly going after them, after having cleared comprehensively from the populated areas.
But the key was the hold and the build. We're seeing in Gaza the clearing. The problem is if you don't hold, again, keep the people separate from, in this case Hamas, which is again an extremist group akin to the Islamic State. It's irreconcilable. But if you don't separate them from the population and keep them separate you really have to go back and re-clear because extremist groups, if they're not kept out, will reconstitute. We saw it ultimately at the end of the three-and-a-half year period
after the surge which drove violence down by nearly 90 percent.
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And it continued to go down even as we drew down in the subsequent three-and-a-half years until the withdrawal of our final combat forces and Prime Minister Maliki taking highly sectarian actions that took his security forces' eyes off the Islamic State. They were able to reconstitute and of course within two years you had the first ever Islamist extremist caliphate in northern Iraq, in northeastern Syria.
Look, I want to see Israel succeed. I believe Hamas does need to be destroyed. What they did on October 7th was absolutely barbaric and horrific and unspeakable. And it's an example that you've got to get them out of control of the people and out of the governance of Gaza. And obviously there has to be then some kind of vision for what the future will be.
And of course, it's interesting to see the Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and then also the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces calling for the establishment of a vision for a midterm and then a longer-term because if you don't know where you're going as they say, any road will take you there.
ZAKARIA: When you were doing the surge, it seemed to me the most important piece or a very important piece was the outreach you made to that broader population, to the Sunni leaders, you know, the insurgency was a Sunni insurgency and you basically -- you know, you've had more troops, you had -- you know, you had a military strategy, but you also had a political strategy of reconciliation, right?
PETRAEUS: Very much so. So, again, reach it out to the Sunnis and saying, look, your lives have not been particularly good with al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents in your midst and in your neighborhoods. We're going to help you get them out at the very least don't oppose us, at the very best, let's reconcile. We ultimately reconciled with as many as 80,000 former Sunni insurgents and others. Many of them just in the wrong place at the wrong time and trying to survive.
And then we did the same actually with the Shia militia supported by Iran, about 23,000 of them. We did it initially directly with them. Eventually we were able to hand it off and get the Iraqi government to embrace that as well. I do think it is an example for this situation, noting, by the way, that Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul, Baqubah and Baghdad altogether are not anywhere near as difficult as the context in Gaza, where you have 350 miles of subterranean infrastructure.
Very well-organized enemy, knows the neighborhoods really well, uses civilians as human shields. And of course as still 100 plus hostages in addition to a variety of other factors. This is the most fiendishly difficult context imaginable, but it is doable.
ZAKARIA: Dave, I think I visited you first when you were a two-star in Mosul and you were beginning to implement some of your counterinsurgency ideas, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall seeing a sign in your office which said, have our actions -- did they created more terrorists than we have killed, or something like that. Isn't that --
(CROSSTALK)
PETRAEUS: Yes, they're really two signs.
ZAKARIA: First of all, is my memory right?
PETRAEUS: Yes. Yes.
ZAKARIA: And isn't that applicable today?
PETRAEUS: Absolutely. There were two signs actually. One was, what have we done for the Iraqi people today, and then the second was, will this operation take more bad guys off the street than it creates by its conduct. If the answer to that is no, in other words, you're not going to take more often than you create, you're supposed to retool the operation and figure out how to get to yes without which you go sit under a tree until the thought passes.
So how you carry this out matters enormously. You've got to demonstrate your concern for the people. And this is why I mentioned up front that it would be very helpful if the Israeli leadership at the very top would say we want to make their life better knowing that because of the trauma that's been inflicted on the Israeli people, keep in mind, we lost not quite 3,000 in the 9/11 attacks.
This would be the equivalent for us having lost 42,000 plus 7,000 taken hostage, and I'm not sure -- I've been in Israel just recently. And that sense of trauma is much, much more palpable than it is from a far. So, you've got to keep that in mind. Nonetheless, if there's not the kind of commitment to the innocent civilians in Gaza, then this just is not going to work.
ZAKARIA: Stay with us. Next on GPS, General Petraeus and I will talk about the new Russian offensive in Ukraine and whether Ukrainian forces can hold their frontlines.
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ZAKARIA: I'm joined again by General David Petraeus, who recently returned from a visit to Ukraine.
Russian forces are advancing in Ukraine, including a major offensive near Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv. Ukrainian troops are stretched thin. They have only received a fraction of the weapons promised under the $61 billion aid package passed by Congress last month. So what will it take for Ukraine to successfully fight back?
Dave, welcome again. First tell us how bad does it look on the Ukrainian frontlines? PETRAEUS: Well, the situation is quite fraught. It's really quite
perilous because, as you noted, the U.S. pipeline hasn't refilled yet. It's in the process of being refilled, but we're a long way from the artillery rounds actually being at the individual Howitzers. The additional air defense interceptors and weapons systems in place where they are needed.
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And all of those have been running quite low in recent months. They've had to ration the use of these different munitions and weapons systems. That said, it appears that the Ukrainians are stabilizing their defenses outside Kharkiv. And it appears that they are stopping the Russians short of being within artillery range of the city itself, which is hugely important.
Certainly, the Russians can use glide bombs and a variety of other techniques to hammer that city and they're doing that especially with the air defenses reduced somewhat. But keeping them out of artillery range is critically important.
Now, the Ukrainians have their own challenges because, as you know, Fareed, they've only recently agreed on changes to their conscription law. So it's not only getting the U.S. munitions out to where they're actually needed and getting all of that going again, it's also about them cranking up their own force generation process after a months- long emotional debate about the age of conscription and some other issues.
They finally resolved that, the other major component in addition to U.S. support that will help them in the months that lie ahead. But this summer with as stretched as they are and before probably the force generation processes really crank into high gear is going to be a difficult time for the Ukrainians. But what we've seen in the past now is the defense really having an advantage on this battlefield, in part because of the ubiquitous presence of drones.
As you know, the Ukrainians are cranking out tens of thousands of drones every month. And if you can keep drones over top of the, in this case, Russian attempts to breach defensive lines, and hammer those lines with artillery, with other longer-range munitions, it's very, very tough to advance on the ground in this particular battlefield.
ZAKARIA: If we want Ukraine to win, if we are in this fight to win, and I mean the United States, the West, shouldn't the U.S. give Ukraine both more advanced weaponry, relax the rules about how far into Russia it can strike? It seems to me that we are, you know, trying to fight this war with half a handle, one full hand tied behind our backs.
PETRAEUS: I couldn't agree more, Fareed. And really from the beginning, on the one hand, the U.S. has really led a very robust response to this unprovoked and brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine. But on the other hand, individual decisions have often taken far too long. The decision on M1 tanks, which held up the German decision on the German made Leopard tanks really was one of the factors that undermined the possibilities of success.
Last summer, the decision on F-16s took too long. The decision on the army tactical missile system. Now all of these have been made, but there are still some additional decisions that should be made such as allowing the full use of American air defense systems over Russian airspace because it's from Russian airspace that these glide bombs can be launched. They don't actually have to go into Ukrainian airspace when Kharkiv is so close to the border.
So there's still decisions that should be accelerated, that should be made. And again, I couldn't agree with you more on that.
ZAKARIA: Just a final thought. Do you feel like that there is a real danger that Russia will be able to advance and perhaps take one of these major cities?
PETRAEUS: I think there is a real danger but I think that the Ukrainians, again, especially if they can get their force generation process accelerated and with the additional U.S. weapons systems, $61 billion is a huge amount of security assistance. It's 20 -- nearly $20 billion more than we provided in the first two years. If all this gets into place, European support has been very, very solid, each individual country has been doing bilateral security agreements.
The E.U. itself pledged $50 billion and so forth. I think the factors are there that the Ukrainians should be able to keep that from happening. In other words, losing a major city, but it is a real danger. And I agree with you on that.
ZAKARIA: Always a pleasure to hear your insights and wisdom, David. Thank you.
PETRAEUS: Good to be with you, Fareed. Thanks.
ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, will India overtake China as a global economic powerhouse? I'll ask that question to the former chief of India's Central Bank, Raghuram Rajan, when we come back.
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ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: -- is coming here to celebrate these young graduates. But the visit has also been dotted with some controversy as well as there have been some students and faculty who have expressed frustration with the fact that the president was invited here as they have criticized his approach to the handling of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
People will be watching very closely to see whether there is any type of protests during the president's remarks. Of course, the president of the university said ahead of time that he does not want to see any major disruptive protests that if that occurs, he would stop the commencement ceremony on the spot. But we will see whether there is any engagement of some type of peaceful protests from the students who are here. I will note that just before President Biden was set to speak, the
valedictorian of the class. DeAngelo Fletcher, addressed the conflict in Gaza and in his remarks, he talked about the need for hostages to be released, but also said that there needs to be an immediate and a permanent ceasefire. So you can see how that issue is in the minds of many students here at Morehouse today. And I think in a short bit we will be hearing for President Biden himself.
MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- courting black voters at this key moment in the campaign season.
SAENZ: I think so and --
RAJU: Arlette, you're still with me. Does the campaign feel like that's made much of a difference here?
SAENZ: Well, one key thing is that the Biden campaign is fully aware that they still have more work to do with black voters. Black voters made up a core part of Biden's coalition back in 2020. But there have been some signs of narrowing of support within that group. If you take a look at a recent "New York Times" poll in a hypothetical head-to- head matchup between Biden and Trump, it had Biden at about 63 percent support from black voters, while Trump had garnered about 23 percent.
So that is a tightening from what we saw back in 2020, but it's clear that the Biden campaign is taking this issue relating to some struggles they're having with the black voters very seriously. Biden has been engaged over the course of this weekend in multiple appeals to try to reach black voters. Just yesterday, he met with people in here, Atlanta, Georgia. A bit later today, he is traveling on to Detroit where he will speak at an NAACP dinner.
But the group of people that he will speak here today is also very important as they are specifically young black men. That is a group that has shown some disaffection when it comes to politics, when it comes to President Biden. And so these are all groups that the president will need to continue to make inroads with as he looks to secure a second term and really the black vote is critical to try to stitch together that diverse coalition that he had back in 2020 including in a battleground state like Georgia.
RAJU: And Arlette, I was speaking to a Georgia Democrat, Hank Johnson, who said that he hoped that Joe Biden would actually announce a policy shift on the Gaza war. Perhaps take a more forceful stand against the Netanyahu government.
Do you believe that -- are you hearing whether there'll be any shift in the White House over this -- from the president over this issue at all?
SAENZ: Well, I think that's something that we'll be watching incredibly closely. I think that, you know, you have heard from the White House saying that they want to have a temporary ceasefire. They want to try to get these hostages out, but they haven't called for a full-on ceasefire with no conditions attached to it. But there has been, the White House has been conducting outreach ahead of this meeting, trying to hear one-on-one concerns from students and faculty here at Morehouse College about their views related to Gaza. And --
(CROSSTALK)
RAJU: Arlette, we're going to interrupt you. Arlette, we're going to interrupt you right now. We're going to go to the president here live.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. President Thomas, faculty, staff, alumni, and a special thanks, I'll ask all the folks who helped you get here, your mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, all those who got you here, all the way in the back, please, parents, grandparents, all who helped, stand up, because we owe you a debt of gratitude, to all the families.
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(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: And that is not hyperbole.
A lot of you, like my family, had to make significant sacrifices to get your kids to school. It mattered. It's mattered a lot.
And the friends of Morehouse and the Morehouse men of the class of 2024, I have more Morehouse men in the White House telling me what to do than I know what to do.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: You all think I'm kidding, don't you?
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: You know I'm not. And it's the best thing that's happened to me.
Scripture says, the prayers of the righteous man availeth much. In Augusta, Georgia, a righteous man once enslaved set foot for freedom. The story goes, he feared no evil. He walked through the valley of the shadow of death on his way north to free soil in Philadelphia.
A Baptist minister, he walked with faith in his soul, power in the steps of his feet to glory. But after the Union won the war, he knew his prayers availed him freedom that was not his alone. And so this righteous man, Richard Coulter, returned home, his feet weary, his spirit in no ways tired 157 years ago.
You all know the story, but the rest of the world doesn't and should. In the basement of a Baptist church in Augusta, he and two other ministers, William Jefferson White and Edmund Turney, planted the seeds of something revolutionary. And it was at the time, a school, a school that helped formerly enslaved men enter the ministry, where education would be the great equalizer, from slavery to freedom, an institution of higher learning that would become Morehouse College.
I don't know any other college in America that has that tradition and that consequence.
To the class of 2024, you join, as you know, a sacred tradition. Education makes you free. And Morehouse education makes you fearless.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: I mean it, visionary, exceptional.
Congratulations. You are Morehouse men. God love you.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: And, again, I thank your families and your friends who helped you get here, because they made sacrifices for you as well.
This graduation day is a day for generations, a day of joy, a day earned, not given. We gather on this Sunday morning because, if we were in church, perhaps it would be this reflection. It would be a reflection about resurrection and redemption.
Remember, Jesus was buried on Friday. And it was Sunday, on Sunday, he rose again. But, but we don't talk enough about Saturday, when his disciples felt all hope was lost.
In our lives, in the lives of the nation, we have those Saturdays, to bear witness the day before glory, seeing people's pain and not looking away. But what work is done on Saturday to move pain to purpose? How can faith get a man, get a nation through what was to come?
Here's what my faith has taught me. I was the first Biden ever to graduate from college, taking out loans, my dad and my -- all through school to get me there. My junior year, spring break, I fell in love at first sight, literally, with a woman I adored.
I graduated from law school in her hometown. I got married and took a job at a law firm in my hometown, Wilmington, Delaware. But then everything changed. One of my heroes -- and he was my hero -- a Baptist minister, a Morehouse man, Dr. Martin Luther King, in April of my law school graduation year, he was murdered.
My city of Wilmington, we were, to our great shame, a slave state and we were segregated. Delaware erupted into flames when he was assassinated, literally. We were the only city in America where the National Guard patrolled every street corner for nine full months, with drawn bayonets, the longest stretch of any American city since the Civil War.
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Dr. King's legacy had a profound impact on me and my generation, whether you were black or white. I left the fancy law firm I had just joined and decided to become a public defender and then a county councilman working to change our state's politics to embrace the cause of civil rights. The Democratic Party in Delaware was a Southern Democratic Party at
the time. We wanted to change it, to become a Northeastern Democratic Party. Then we were trying to get someone to run for the United States Senate in the year Nixon ran. I was 29 years of age.
I had no notion of running. I love reading about everybody knew I was going to run. I didn't know I was going to run. When a group of senior members of the Democratic Party came to me, they couldn't find anybody to run and said, "You should run."
Nixon won my state by 60 percent of the vote. We won by 3,100 votes. We won by the thinnest of margins. But with a broad coalition, including students from the best HBCU in America, Delaware State University -- you guys are good.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: They got me elected.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: Oh, you all think I'm kidding. I'm not kidding.
But, by Christmas, I was a newly elected senator hiring staff in Washington, D.C., when I got a call from the first responders, my fire department in my hometown, that forever altered my life. They put a young woman, first responder on the line to say, there was an automobile accident. A tractor trailer hit your wife's car while she was Christmas shopping with three children.
And she -- poor woman just blurted out, said, "Your wife and daughter were killed," my 13-month-old daughter dead. "And your almost 3-year- old and 4-year-old sons are badly injured. We're not sure they're going to make it either."
I rushed from Washington to their bedside. I wanted to pray, but I was so angry. I was angry at God. I was angry at the world. I had the same pain 43 years later when that 4-year-old boy who survived was a grown man and a father himself lying in another hospital bed at Walter Reed Hospital having contracted stage four glioblastoma because he was a year in Iraq as a major, won the Bronze Star, living next to a burn pit. Cancer took his last breath.
In this walk of life, you can understand -- you come to understand that we don't know where or what fate will bring you or when. We also know we don't walk alone. When you have been a beneficiary of the compassion of your family, your friends, even strangers, you know how much the compassion matters.
I have learned there was no easy optimism, but, by faith, by faith, we can find redemption. I was a single father for five years. No man deserves one great love, let alone two. My youngest brother was a hell of an athlete. He did a great thing. He introduced me to a classmate of his, said: "You will love her. She doesn't like politics."
(LAUGHTER) BIDEN: But, all kidding aside, until I met Jill, who healed -- who healed the family in all the broken places.
Our family became my redemption. Many of you have gone through similar or worse and even worse things, but you lean on others. They lean on you. And, together, you keep the faith in a better day tomorrow. But it's not easy.
I know, four years ago, some of your speakers have already mentioned it felt like one of those Saturdays. The pandemic robbed you of so much. Some of you lost loved ones, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, who aren't able to be here to celebrate with you today. You missed your high school graduation. You started college just as George Floyd was murdered and there was a reckoning on race.
And it's natural to wonder if the democracy you hear about actually works for you.
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What is democracy if black men are being killed in the street? What is democracy if the trail of broken promises still leave black communities behind? What is democracy if you have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot? Most of all, what does it mean, as you have heard before, to be a black man who loves his country, even if it doesn't love him back in equal measure?
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: When I sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, in front of the fireplace across from my desk, I have two busts, one of Dr. King, one of Bobby Kennedy.
I often find myself looking at those busts, making decisions, ask myself, are we living up to what we say we are as a nation, to end racism and poverty, to deliver jobs and justice, to restore our leadership in the world?
I look down and see the rosary on my wrist that was out of my late son he had on him when he died at Walter Reed, and I was with him, and I ask myself, what would he say? I know the answer, because he told me in his last days. My son knew the days were numbered.
The last conversation was: "Dad, I'm not afraid, but I'm worried. I'm worried you're going to give up when I go. You're going to give up."
We have an expression in the Biden family when you want someone to know -- give your word. You say, look at me. He was lying -- to me and he said: "Look at me, dad. Look at me." He said: "Give me your word. Give me your word as my father that you will not quit, that you will stay engaged. Promise me, dad. Stay engaged. Promise me. Promise me."
I wrote a book called "Promise Me, Dad," not for the public at large, although a lot of people ended up buying it. It's for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to know who Beau Biden was. The rosary around my wrist, the bust in my office remind me that faith
asks you to hold on to hope, to move heaven and earth to make better days. Well, that's my commitment to you, to show you democracy, democracy, democracy is still the way.
If black men are being killed in the street, we bear witness. For me, that means to call out the poison of white supremacy, to root out systemic racism. I stood up for George Floyd's family to help create a country where you don't need to have that talk with your son or grandson as they get pulled over.
Instead of a trail of broken promises, we're investing more money than ever in black families and black communities. We're connecting black neighborhoods cut off by old highways and decades of disinvestment, when no one cared about the community. We have delivered checks in pockets to reduce child -- black child poverty, the lowest rate in history, removing every lead pipe in America, so every child can drink clean water without fear of brain damage and they can't afford to remove the lead pipes themselves.
We're delivering an affordable high-speed Internet, so no child has to sit in a parent's car and do their homework in a parking lot outside of McDonald's. Instead of forcing you to prove you're 10 times better, we're breaking down doors so you have 100 times more opportunities, good-paying jobs you can raise a family on in your neighborhood...
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: ... capital to start small business and loans to buy homes, health insurance, prescription drugs, housing that's more affordable and accessible.
I have walked the picket line and defended the rights of workers. I'm relieving the burden of student debt. Many of you have already had the benefit of it, so I -- can chase your dream and grow the economy.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: When the Supreme Court told me I couldn't, I found two other ways to do it. And we're able to do it because it grows the economy.
And I -- in addition to the original $7 billion investment in HBCUs, I'm investing 16 billion more dollars...
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: ... more in our history, because you're vital to our nation.
[10:45:02]
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Most HBCUs don't have the endowments. The jobs of the future require sophisticated laboratories, sophisticated opportunity on campus. We're opening doors so you can walk into a life of generational wealth
to be providers and leaders of your families and communities. Today, record numbers of black Americans have jobs, health insurance, and more than ever.
Democracy is also about hearing and heeding your generation's call to a community free of gun violence and a planet free of climate crisis and showing your power to change the world. But also know, some of you ask, what is democracy?
We can't stop wars that break out and break our hearts. In a democracy, we debate and dissent about America's role in the world. I want to say this very clearly. I support peaceful nonviolent protest. Your voices should be heard. And I promise you, I hear them.
I determined to make my administration look like America. I have more African-Americans in high places, including on the court, than any president in American history, because I need the input.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: What's happening in Gaza and Israel is heartbreaking. Hamas is -- this is an attack on Israel, killing innocent lives and holding people hostage.
I was there nine days after, said -- pictures of tying a mother and a daughter with a rope and pouring kerosene on them, burning them and watching as they die.
Innocent Palestinians caught in the middle of all this, men, women, and children killed or displaced and despite -- in desperate need of water, food, and medicine. It's a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. That's why I have called for an immediate cease-fire, an immediate cease-fire to stop the fighting, bring the hostages home.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: And I have been working on a deal as we speak, working around the clock to lead an international effort to get more aid into Gaza, rebuild Gaza.
I'm also working around the clock for more than just one cease-fire. I'm working to bring the region together. I'm working to build a lasting, durable peace, because the question is -- and you see what's going on in Israel today -- what after? What after Hamas? What happens then? What happens in Gaza? What rights do the Palestinian people have?
I'm working to make sure we finally get a two-state solution, the only solution...
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: ... for two people to live in peace, security and dignity.
(APPLAUSE) BIDEN: This is one of the hardest, most complicated problems in the world, and there's nothing easy about it. I know it angers and frustrates many of you, including my family, but, most of all, I know it breaks your heart. It breaks mine as well.
Leadership is about fighting through the most intractable problems. It's about challenging anger, frustration and heartbreak to find a solution. It's about doing what you believe is right, even when it's hard and lonely.
You're all future leaders, every one of you graduating today, and that's not hyperbole. You're future leaders, all of you. You will face complicated, tough moments. In these moments, you will listen to others, but you will have to decide, guided by knowledge, conviction, principle, and your own moral compass.
The desire to know what freedom is, what it can be, is the heart and soul of why this college was founded in the first place, proving that a free nation is born in the hearts of men, spellbound by freedom. That's the magic of Morehouse. That's the magic of America.
But let's be clear. What happens to you and your family when old ghosts in new garments seize power and extremists come for the freedoms you thought belong to you and everyone? Today, in Georgia, they won't allow water to be available to you while you wait in line to vote in an election.
What in the hell is that all about?
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: I'm serious. Think about it.
And then the constant attacks on black election workers who count your vote. Insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol with Confederate Flags are called patriots by some. Not in my house.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
[10:50:00]
BIDEN: Black police officers, black veterans protecting the Capitol were called another word, as you will recall.
They also say out loud, these other groups, immigrants poison the blood of our country, like the grand wizard and fascists said in the past.
But you know and I know we all bleed the same color.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: In America, we're all created equal.
Extremists close the doors of opportunity, strike down affirmative action, attack the values of diversity, equality, and inclusion. I never thought, when I was graduating in 1968, as your honoree just was, who talked about, I never thought I'd be a president in a time when there's a national effort to ban books, not to write history, but to erase history.
They don't see you in the future of America. But they're wrong. To me, we make history, not erase it. We know black history is American history.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Many of you graduates don't know me, but check my record. You know what I'm saying I mean from my gut.
We know black men are going to help us lead us in the future, black men from this class, in this university.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: But, graduates, this is what we're up against, extremist forces aligned against the meaning and message of Morehouse.
And they peddle a fiction, a caricature what being a man is about, tough talk, abusing power, bigotry. Their idea of being a man is toxic. I ran into them all the time when I was younger. I don't want to get started.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: But that's not you. It's not us.
You all know and demonstrate what it really means to be a man. Being a man is about strength, of respect and dignity. It's about showing up, because it's too late if you have to ask. It's about giving hate no safe harbor and leaving no one behind and defending freedoms. It's about standing up to the abuse of power, whether physical, economic, or psychological.
It's about knowing faith without works is dead.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Look, you're doing the work.
Today, I look out at all you graduates, and I see the next generation of Morehouse men, who are doctors and researchers curing cancer, artists shaping our culture, fearless journalists and intellectuals challenging convention.
I see preachers and advocates who might even join another Morehouse man in the United States Senate. You can clap for him. He's a good man.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: As I said, I'm proud to have the most diverse administration in history to tap into the full talents of our nation. I'm also proud of putting the first black woman on the United States
Supreme Court.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: And I have no doubt one day a Morehouse man will be on that court as well.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: You know it.
I have been vice president to the first black president and become my close friend. I'm president to the first woman vice president.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: That's why I have no idea, no doubt that a Morehouse man will be president one day, just after an AKA from Howard.
(LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: She's tough, guys.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Look, let me close with this.
I know I don't look like I have been around very long.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: But, in my career, for the first 30 years, I was told, "You're too young, kid."
They used to stop me from getting on the Senate elevator when I first got there, for real. Now I'm too old.
Whether you're younger or old, I know what endures. The strength and wisdom of faith endures. And I hope -- my hope for you is, my challenge to you is that you still keep the faith so long as you can.
[10:55:03]
That cap on your head proves you have earned your crown. The question is now, 25 years from now, 50 years from now, when you're asked to stand and address the next generation of Morehouse men, what will you say you did with that power you have earned? What will you say you have done for your family, for your community, your country when it mattered most?
I know what we can do. Together, we're capable of building a democracy worthy of our dreams, a future where every, even more of your brothers and sisters can follow their dreams, a boundless future, where your legacies lift us up to sow those who follow, a bigger, brighter future that proves the American dream is big enough for everyone to succeed.
Class of 2024, four years ago, it felt probably like Saturday. Four years later, you made it to Sunday, to commencement, to the beginning. And with faith and determination, you can push the sun above the horizon once more.
You can reveal the light of hope, and that's not -- I'm not kidding -- for yourself and for your nation. The prayers of a righteous man availeth much, a righteous man, a good man, a Morehouse man.
(CHEERING)
BIDEN: God bless you all. We're expecting a lot from you.
Thank you.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
RAJU: All right. That was President Biden speaking at Morehouse College, speaking to graduates there. Of course, a key moment for his campaign as he tries to renew his support with Black voters. The president speaking about his record on race, talking about the challenges confronting Black men in this country, even his own personal journey, how by MLK Jr. influenced him through the course of his life. MLK Jr., of course, a graduate of Morehouse College.
And he also addressed the issue that has been roiling in college campuses across the country. The Israel-Hamas war and talking about how he said that innocent Palestinians have been caught in the middle of it. He's working around the clock for an immediate ceasefire, he said. Then he's trying to push for a two-state solution railed against how innocent Palestinians have been caught in the middle of this conflict.
There were some -- there was no protests that we saw. Maybe some folks turned their backs to the president. We're going to get a report from inside the room in just a matter of moments here. But were going to break this down here first with two Morehouse graduates on the panel, Bakari Sellers, the former Democratic state representative from South Carolina, conservative political strategies CNN's Shermichael Singleton, were both CNN commentators. And of course, CNN's political director, David Chalian.
So, what did you guys think? I mean, this is obviously -- you know, we're coming into middle of a key moment of that campaign. He's trying to court Black voters, young voters. And he tried to confront the issue that's been an elephant in the room, the Israel-Hamas war. Did he strike the right tone?
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, first of all, we're going to give David an honorary degree.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Thank you.
RAJU: What about me? SELLERS: So, you don't -- you don't feel -- slow down, Manu. No, I actually thought the president did extremely well today. And I'm not sure where the bar was set for him in terms of level of expectation. But I believe on all accounts he exceeded it.
Something that stuck out to me today was not just him going through his personal history. He does that a lot, but it's the fact that he went into the history of Morehouse College and tie that into protest and said, look, young man, I understand you have every right to protest.
People have to remember Samuel L. Jackson actually held the board of trustees hostage, so we could change -- have policy changes on campus. Julian Bond went to Morehouse College. I mean, we had a history of protests on this campus in Atlanta, Georgia.
And so, he was speaking to that history of protests and said, look, I understand what you're protesting. You have every right to do. I understand that history.
And then he pivoted and went directly into it. Now, I don't think anybody thought he was going to bring up Gaza, Palestine, Israel today, but he went in and he talked about it from a nuanced fashion which I thought was very appropriate.
I think we were having a question about how it how it was received in the audience. I'm not sure, we're not there. But I do believe this speech will be well-received around the country to one group and one group only, that's Black men. He has to talk directly to Black men because that is where he's lagging.
If he's going to get to 90 percent of the African American vote, he's at whatever it is, 70 percent, 75 percent now, he's going to have to tighten up Black men and this speech was a step in the right direction.
RAJU: And just before you weigh in, Shermichael, just about Biden's margins with Black votes back in 2020, he did win by 75 points according to exit polls at the time. Now, according to at least one recent poll, which is consistent with other national polls, 49 points is as margin there. He's tied with Trump among young voters when he was up by 24, won by 24, according to the exit polls in 2020.
[10:25:00]
