'This Week' Transcript 11-26-23: White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Rep. Ro Khanna and Former Governor Chris Christie

'This Week' Transcript 11-26-23: White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Rep. Ro Khanna and Former Governor Chris Christie

This is a rush transcript of “This Week” airing Sunday, November 26.

ByABC News

November 26, 2023, 9:02 AM

A rush transcript of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” airing on Sunday, November 26, 2023 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the “This Week” transcript archive.

JONATHAN KARL, ABC “THIS WEEK” CO-ANCHOR: We are joined now by White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

Jake, thank you for joining us.

We are awaiting the release of more hostages today. Will there be American among those released?

JAKE SULLIVAN, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, John, as you know, this first set of hostages, 50 hostages over four days, is women and children. And there are three Americans in that category, two women and one child. We have reason to believe one of those Americans will be released today. But until we actually see her safe and sound, out of Gaza, we cannot have 100 percent certainty that it will happen.

So, we are going to watch this, hour by hour, and hopefully have a moment, a moment of joy, where one of the Americans is safely out and ultimately reunited with her family. That’s what we are waiting for as we speak.

KARL: The child that has been taken hostages all these weeks by Hamas is Abigail Edan. Of course, she was just three years old when she was taken hostage, turned four just two days ago. What do we know about her condition and her fate?

SULLIVAN: We don’t know about her condition. What we know or have reason to believe is that she is still alive, and we are hopeful that she will be reunited with her family soon. But I don’t want to say more than that right now because, a, I don’t want to give any false hope, and, b, perhaps more importantly, I want to make sure that Hamas actually follows through with what it has committed to today and that we see the release of the 13, including one American. And I will leave it at that for right now because I'm going to save further commentary on this for the moment when we see that incredible moment when an American is free, when Abigail is free. And we hope it happens as soon as possible.

KARL: And I've seen conflicting numbers. What are the total number – what’s the total number of Americans held hostage, the two women, one child, how many total?

SULLIVAN: There are nine U.S. citizens and one U.S. LPR, Green Card holder, for a total of 10 Americans. Three of them with – are women and children, seven of them are men.

KARL: And what – what do we know of the conditions of those that have been released already. Now, obviously, there have been no Americans released yet, but the Israelis that have been released.

SULLIVAN: Obviously, this is an incredibly painful, harrowing, difficult circumstance to be held hostage by a terrorist group, to be grabbed from your home. Oftentimes some of these hostages have – had family members killed. So, the trauma of that is just intense.

Physically, many of them are doing OK. Emotionally and psychologically, this is going to take a long time to recover form. And Israel and other countries have mobilized substantial resources to be able to deal with that trauma as we go forward.

KARL: In fact, Abigail, now four-year-old Abigail, here parents were killed.

SULLIVAN: Yes, her parents were – were slaughtered right in front of her. And what that little girl has had to go through all of this time, it’s just unspeakable. It’s unthinkable. It’s something that neither you or I could even begin to imagine or contemplate.

KARL: Impossible to –

SULLIVAN: And our hope is that she gets out, gets into the hands of her family – or into the loving arms of her family and that they can help the long, slow process of allowing her to heal and to find the love that she so badly deserves.

KARL: Now, this deal includes the release of three Palestinian prisoners for every hostage released. And if you loo at the celebrations, we’ll show it now, in the West Bank as the Palestinian prisoners were released, some of the people celebrating were waving Hamas flags and chanting, the people want Hamas.

Are you concerned that this deal has given a huge propaganda victory, a reward for Hamas for what they’ve done?

SULLIVAN: Well, I can’t deny that – that Hamas gained some benefits from this deal. One of them is the ability to refit and retool inside Gaza. Another is to try to use social media and other formats to generate some propaganda out of it. And these are difficult decisions that any Israeli prime minister has to make. But this Israeli prime minister made this decision because of the benefit that came with it, which is 50 innocent people coming out of Gaza to be reunited with their families.

And there have been past instances where Hamas has gained some benefit for some time for prisoner exchanges, and then gone right back to the same kind of brutality and lack of care for Palestinian civilians that has exemplified its rule for the last 15 or more years. And so that often fades fairly quickly.

KARL: And the Israeli defense minister has said that at – when this four-day pause ends, that they’ll go back to the fighting with all intensity. Is that your expectation or do you believe that this pause may be extended for the release of more hostages? There’s still going to be some 150 more hostages held by Hamas.

SULLIVAN: Well, first, Jon, it could be that the pause is extended for another day or two days or three days or even more. The ball is in Hamas’ court on that because what Israel has said is that it is prepared to pause another day of fighting for ever 10 hostages that Hamas releases. So, Hamas could choose on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, to continue to release hostages and then the pause would continue. If the pause stops, the responsibility for that rests on the shoulders of Hamas, not on the shoulders of Israel.

And then, ultimately, Israel is going to want to continue to conduct military operations against Hamas, particularly the leadership of Hamas, that were the architects of this brutal, bloody massacre, the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. And Hamas represents a continuing threat to Isarel. In fact, Hamas leaders have said on television that they would like to repeat October 7th again and again and again.

So, Israel does have the right to defend itself. It will take action to suppress and ultimately eliminate the threat that Hamas poses to the state of Israel. And that is what any county would do to defend its territory and its people.

KARL: All right, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, thank you for joining us.

SULLIVAN: Thanks for having me.