you will, any post-santos lessons for the rest of congress. >> i mean, look, this, this santos expulsion showed that bipartisanship is possible. there were both republicans and democrats who came together. but it also shows that there won't be this, you know, toleration of behavior like santos. this was something that was a long time coming. santos had come under controversy since even before he was sworn into congress. i think a lot of people expected it may end this way. santos told me last week that he didn't. nonetheless, this shows that partisanship is still high in the house, but bipartisanship is also possible. >> another lesson, don't lie about your college volleyball career and thousands of other things. congressional reporter for "the hill," mychael schnell, thank you so much. thanks so all of you for getting up "way too early" on this monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. this week, we said good-bye to a former first lady, former secretary of state, and the

supreme court's first female justice. also, a guy who claims to be all three of those things. >> elon musk met with benjamin netanyahu this week and agreed that israel must destroy hamas. i think musk could destroy hamas almost instantly by becoming their ceo. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, december 4th. we've got a lot to get to this morning. israel expanding its offensive in gaza with ground forces moving into the southern part of the territory. it comes as israeli officials have withdrawn from negotiations for another humanitarian pause. we'll get the very latest on these major developments in just a moment. plus, an update for you on the string of attacks on an american warship and multiple commercial vessels in the middle east. also ahead, the dangers of a possible second term for donald trump. we're going to go through a special feature from "the

atlantic." a major effort to detail all the threats our democracy could face. >> here's what the headlines look like. i'm looking forward to seeing "the atlantic" talking about the special issue. >> yeah. >> it's so important. but here's the front of the "wall street journal," "fighting in gaza intensifies as talks on cease-fire stalls." and "the new york times" lead, "israel is urging gazans in south to decamp again." so a lot to talk about this morning, obviously, what's happening in israel, what's happening in the united states, and, again, talking about the growing concern about what a second trump presidency would mean. a concern that doesn't come from the fevered dreams of "new york times" editorial page writers or msnbc hosts, but, in fact, words that come from donald trump

himself. >> right, who we've learned to believe. with us, we have the editor in chief of "the atlantic," jeffrey goldberg, here to talk about that very consequential issue of "the atlantic." former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments, elise jordan. and the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. let's get right to our top story. israel is now expanding its war operation into southern gaza. the military campaign had been focused on the northern part of the strip, but now israeli defense forces are pounding targets in the south and ordering more neighborhoods to evacuate. over the weekend, officials announced they have hit more than 400 hamas targets while the health ministry in gaza claims hundreds of people were killed in these new israeli strikes. the u.s. is urging israel to protect civilians in the territory. israel's expanded military operation comes just days after a temporary truce with hamas

collapsed. international leaders, however, were still meeting in the hopes a breakthrough could be reached. that was until saturday, when israeli prime minister netanyahu pulled his negotiators out of qatar and called off the talks, saying they reached a, quote, impasse with hamas. a statement, netanyahu explained the terrorist group did not fulfill its part of the truce agreement, to release all of the women and children it is holding hostage. >> again, the media is not focusing on this right now so much, but, again, we have to go back to the beginning. jeffrey goldberg, we're actually dealing with a group -- inegoti a group that sees 3-month-old babies, while raping their mothers, grandmothers, shooting their siblings, kidnapped

3-month-old babies, this terrorist group, and took them back to the tunnels that they burrowed underneath gaza, where they lived in terrible conditions for 50, 55 days or so. it -- i think the most surreal part of all of this is that we ever figured out a way -- by "we," i'm saying this civilized world -- ever figured out a way to sit down and have negotiations between qatar, with a lot of pressure from the biden administration, israel, and then this terror group who glorified the shooting of babies in cribs, the burning of babies in cribs, the continual raping of women, israeli women, to death. for some reason, in the international community -- forgive me, i saw a clip this

weekend we'll play later -- for some reason, in the international community, jewish women are somehow less protected than all other women in warfare. and the condemnation for the continued raping and killing of jewish women in terrorist attacks, for some reason, is on a lower wrung than it is for the rest of the world's women. but that's just a side note. a horrid side note about how the media covers this. let's talk, instead, though, about these negotiations. they've been cut off for now, but netanyahu, who i hardly ever agree with publicly, i must say, in this case, he's right. hamas made a promise, which is worthless, and they broke their worthless promise. >> well, you know, first, go to the concept of cease-fire, right? everybody is demanding a

cease-fire. there was a cease-fire until october 7th, obviously. hamas broke the cease-fire originally. from the israeli perspective, and from america's perspective, as well, and western europe, et cetera, people understand that, you know, you're looking at root causes of this current conflict, it goes back to the breaking of a cease-fire with hamas' invasion. but, you know, the odd phenomenon here, and it hasn't been discussed enough, i don't think, in the media, is that all along the way, since october 7th, hamas' leaders and spokespeople have been saying that, in various language you hear, october 7th was just a dress rehearsal. we're going to keep doing this again and again and again. people who understand hamas understand that its goal is the destruction of the state of israel. obviously, if you're an israeli leader, you're a supporter of israel like joe biden is, you look at hamas and say, you know,

there's day-to-day issues you could possibly negotiate, but this group is very, very plain in its language. its goal is to do this again if it's given the chance. therefore, you find, you know -- >> jeffrey, jeffrey, the leader said, "we're going to do this again. every day is going to be october the 7th." >> right. and so the goal of hamas is to keep drawing israel into gaza. i mean, it's a kind of -- it's very hard sometimes for the american mind to get around hamas' tactics, but, you know, as one former israeli prime minister once said, you know, the israeli goal should be to limit the number of palestinian casualties because hamas' goal is to maximize the number of palestinian casualties. now, that's a reversal of the usual way things work in warfare. you as the leader of a group are supposed to try to limit the number of people of your group who get killed or injured, but

it's in hamas' -- hamas believes it is in its best interest to maximize that. of course, the challenge to netanyahu, and i think this is where that dialogue between biden and netanyahu is never ending, is don't give hamas what it wants. at the same time, you know, you have to recognize that hamas is not -- you're not going to sit down at a negotiating table and come to a peace deal with a group that says over and over again, "oh, as soon as we can, we're going to kill you." that's the difficulty of this situation. >> yeah. and their founding documents say their goal is to kill jews and to wipe israel from the face of the earth. as we've been saying here from the beginning, elise jordan, from the day, the monday after this attack, we said, the world needs to understand, for hamas, a dead jew is a victory. a dead palestinian is a victory.

actually, what we found since then is, actually, for hamas, a dead palestinian, they figure that's ten times the value of a dead jew for their own purposes. so when you see the systematic raping of women, and we, most of us, i think, figured this out from the very beginning, you see the torture, the systematic raping of women, it's all broadcast live, it's meant to shock israel into going into gaza. and, please, i don't want any lectures from anybody who is too stupid to not understand this that may be watching going, "oh, this is the palestinian civilians' fault?" i didn't say that. this is hamas' fault because they use palestinian civilians as human shields. they knew exactly what they were doing. talk to that. also, i bring that up this morning, again, because, elise,

i can't believe i'm stunned by the international response or the lack of outrage to jewish women being systematically raped and tortured and killed and paraded around palestinian towns like they're just meat, or like their carcasses to be pulled apart and savagely attacked in life and in death. but that's where they are. we have international women groups that aren't, for some reason, they're not coming out and condemning this the same way. we have members of congress not doing this. i don't understand why jewish women don't deserve the same dignity as every other group of women across the face of the earth in the eyes of international communities and some people on the far left in america. >> no, joe.

it's absolutely god awful. you look at this conflict and how rape and sexual violence are being used as yet another tool of war against women. and this is true, unfortunately, in so many conflicts throughout the history of the world and ongoing now in regions like west arfur, where horrible, mass rapes have been reported. this isn't a complex issue to talk about and to, you know, decry and to say, "not okay." the fact there is any equivocating on this whatsoever is stunning. it shows that the politicization of so much of the lens in which we look through far war, which there are things in war which are black and white, the killing of innocent civilians, the use of rape as a tool of war, the sexual violence that has been inflicted upon israeli women

deliberately, it's -- it really is shameful that it's come to this, where even sexual violence in war is being equivocated. >> and it is. >> vice president kamala harris discussed the israel-hamas war with middle east leaders, including egypt's president and the king of jordan at a global climate summit over the weekend. here's what she said about what the future will look like in gaza following the war. >> i've had a number of in-depth conversations with arab leaders here in dubai. specifically, i proposed three areas of focus. one, reconstruction. the international community must dedicate significant resources to support short and long-term recovery in gaza. second, security. the palestinian authority security forces must be strengthened to eventually assume security responsibilities in gaza. until then, there must be security arrangements that are

acceptable to israel, the people of gaza, the palestinian authority, and the international partners. the palestinian authority must be revitalized, driven by the will of the palestinian people, which will allow them to benefit from the rule of law and a transparent responsive government. >> jonathan lemire, i think it's been fascinating over the past several days, the past week perhaps, watching the biden administration, seeing how kamala harris is being sent out, the messages that she's sending. obviously, that shows, again, the complexity of this issue, but also the two sides of the biden administration, what it's dealing with. one saying, we are going to support israel. we'll support israel in this heinous terror attack, and we are going to be with them as they try to root out and destroy hamas. and, at the same time, we are going to put pressure, as you've

reported time and again, and as kamala harris has talked about, and as we saw the vice president this weekend hudding with arab leaders saying, "we're going to do everything we can to put pressure on the israeli government to understand we support them in this endeavor. we will not back down. but we expect them to, one, limit civilian deaths as much as humanly possible while on their mission to destroy this terror group that terrorized the israeli people on october 7th. and, two, look over the horizon to a two-state solution." and netanyahu, who spent the past decade undermining a, let's just say it right here, a corrupt palestinian authority, but netanyahu who has worked overtime undermining any palestinian leadership in the west bank, he and the israeli government need to look to the

future of a two-state solution. and this corrupt palestinian authority needs to be replaced by a younger, more representative palestinian authority. that's not going to be an easy task, but it is interesting. it's what has to be done, and it is interesting that kamala harris is going out there and playing such an active role here in a two-part process, in this delicate diplomatic dance that the biden administration is performing, in my opinion, quite extraordinarily. >> yeah, and it's a very difficult and challenging moment for the administration, trying to manage all of these different aspects of this crisis and war. you're right, the president had been to this cop environmental conference the last two years. this year, sending the vice president instead. her message was to do two things. first, as you noted, to say, look, we are with israel. what happened on october 7th deserves and demands retaliation. but she was pretty firm with a

brush back pitch to netanyahu, both in the public remarks, some of which we just played, but also in these private meetings. i've talked to u.s. officials who were in the meetings, who received readouts of the meetings. they said can dad conversations from the vice president, showing the u.s. breaks with netanyahu's administration on two separate fronts. one, what they see as a post-gaza. netanyahu saying, we may occupy gaza. >> you're wrong. >> and president biden said, no, and arab leaders reiterated that, we need to figure a different solution. you all need to be involved. also made clear that the two-state solution is the future, a revitalized palestinian authority would play a role on that. netanyahu needs to get on board. lastly, and most importantly, probably the strongest language yet we've heard, joe and mika, from this administration, delivered by the vice president, about saying israel needs to limit the civilian casualties. there's too many. the toll has been too high with palestinians who have died so

far. now that israel has moved into the southern part of gaza, which is where so many people fled from the north, and it's so densely populated and the bombardment has begun and begun in earnest, there is real concern in the number of civilians who could be killed in the days ahead. >> jeffrey, talk about this extraordinarily difficult balancing act that the biden administration, as, let's just say it, the guarantor of israel's security right now, and the one country that is standing shoulder to shoulder with it, talk about the extraordinarily difficult diplomatic situation the biden administration is facing and the best way forward. when, again, you're balancing the ability of israel to destroy hamas, but also to limit civilian lives and look toward a two-state solution. >> if i can add to the question, the fact that the big news that came out late last week, about

the 40-page document, the warning israel had about this that they ignored. >> here are three things that the biden administration, vice president harris, can't say or won't say publicly. one, putting reconstruction money on the table right now is sort of cart before the horse. it's like, if you don't get rid of hamas, there will be another war and the buildings you're rebuilding will be knocked down again. the second is, they know that there's no palestinian authority worth its name. right now, it's a corrupt organization in the west bank that, you know, the president of the palestinian authority is 87 years old and completely ineffective. there is no credible palestinian leadership that's an alternative to hamas right now. that's a problem. then the third part is they're dealing with a government, netanyahu's government, they don't like, actually. right? they don't trust and they don't

believe is competent. that's the issue. >> jeffrey, can you explain that final thing? >> yeah. >> help us understand, following up on mika's insight on the reporting from this past week. what we have heard, and "the new york times" followed up with the reporting, that the israeli people saw this, yes, they're bothered with it, but, again, nothing is going to happen to netanyahu in the near term. talk about -- because, yes, the biden administration doesn't like netanyahu, but the israeli people, if you judge them by the polls, don't like netanyahu either. how long does he hold on? >> you know, there's a cynical argument that says that the longer this war goes on -- he holds on as long as the active phase of the war continues, right? you know, the whole "don't switch horses midstream" sort of argument, that the government is simply too busy, the war cabinet is too busy to go to any new elections and so on.

so he's holding on right now. his polling is terrible, obviously, among israelis, and israelis blame him -- remember, mr. security. they blame him for the worst security mishap, failure, in israeli history. so, you know, he has that. he also has been playing a game periodically of blaming the intelligence and security services for this. now, of course, they are -- they suffer from many things here, including a failure of imagination. it is very much similar, in some ways, to the 9/11 failure. here in israel, with the israeli case, it's actually, there's more definitive proof, it turns out, according to the reporting, that this attack was coming. >> yeah. >> you know, they have a terriblepeople are dealing with a leadership they don't want to have. >> jeffrey, we'll get back to this. we move forward to this addy

mention of it all. the pentagon says an american warship was threatened and multiple commercial vessels were attacked yesterday in the red sea by iranian-backed houthi rebels. the "uss carney," a navy destroyer. the missile didn't make contact, but as the warship approached the commercial vessel, it was forced to shoot down an incoming drone. separately, two other commercial ships were hit by missiles as the "carney" responded to the distress calls. it shot down two more incoming drones. national security and military correspondent courtney kube. what more do we know about this? >> yeah, i mean, the houthis seem to wage this war against commercial shipping on sunday. i have to say, mika, this is something they have been warning about for the last several weeks. this isn't the first time we've

seen them try to fire projectiles at ships in the red sea and up in towards the depth. yesterday morning, sunday local time, houthi rebels began firing missiles at three separate commercial ships. the "uss carney," a u.s. navy warship, was in the region at the time. each time one of these ships was fired on, and as you mention in several cases, even struck by these missiles, the "carney" responded. as they were responding, houthi rebels also fired off what the u.s. military calls one-way attack drones. these are drones generally laden with explosives. the idea is they come in and just strike into any kind of a target. in this case, the "carney" was in the path of these drones in all three cases, and the u.s. military making the decision with their right of self-defense to take those drones down. but it was a pretty remarkable afternoon, mika, because we saw the succession of missiles and

drones over the course of hours. now, as i said, the houthis have been warning that they would do this. they specifically have said they would target israeli ships. now, another thing, you know, you've been talking for the last 15 or 20 minutes now all about israel here. one thing that our viewers should know is that during this pause or cease-fire that occurred last week in israel and in gaza, despite the fact that these other iranian-backed groups stopped attacking bases in iraq and syria, the houthis, also backed by iran, have continued their targeting of ships. they've tried in several cases to launch missiles towards southern israel. despite the fact the other groups stopped throughout the truce, the houthis continued. now, one thing i was really struck by in the course of reporting on this yesterday is the pentagon saying that they believe that iran has supplied houthis with this. we know, of course, iran in the

past has funded, trained, supplied the houthis, but they specifically said in their statement last night that the houthi rebels have been funded by iran. literally moments ago, the iranian foreign ministry spokesman completely denied that, mika. >> nbc's courtney kube, thank you very much for that update. we appreciate it. coming up in just one minute, we're going to talk to jeffrey goldberg about the special, new issue of "the atlantic," outlining the dangers of a potential second term for donald trump. "morning joe" is back in 60 seconds. customize and save with liberty bibberty. he doesn't even have a mustache. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

from that day on, our opponents, and we have a lot of opponents, but we've been waging an all out war in american democracy. >> yes, you have. >> well, that was clear. >> so he's said he's terminated

roe v. wade, true. >> did that, check. >> check. >> check, check, check. >> he said that he wanted to destroy obamacare. check, he did say that. >> he said it, yeah. >> now, he's saying they're waging an all-out war. he's been waging an all-out war on american democracy. true, as well. >> he seems -- yeah, all right, check. >> not all there, huh? you don't think? >> i'm been honest. >> i am, too. >> when there's all this talk about biden bumbling. >> he just doesn't -- >> that was very -- >> i don't know. it's like, you know, again -- >> hadn't seen him in a while. >> the weird thing is, when he's saying, "oh, i meant to say i was running against barack obama," you look at the clips, and he's just so -- he's just so out of it. >> he also just got some bad legal news. >> he can't find the words to say. >> yeah. >> he thinks we're about to start world war ii. he doesn't know who is running what countries. they're not, like, small

countries. two countries, two nato countries, and he doesn't even know the leaders. he just gets very confused. >> some could argue his following is more fervent than ever. >> maybe they want people who are sort of confused. >> biden/harris campaign highlighted the slip of the tongue by donald trump there, perhaps more of a confession over the weekend in iowa, is where that happened. jeffrey, today, you are unveiling a new special issue of "the atlantic" that features essays from 24 writers, each outlining the threats they say is a second trump term would pose to the united states. tell us about it. >> yeah, the thought was simple. we have a lot of writers at "the atlantic" who spent many years covering different aspects of trump and trumpism. i wanted just to pull them all together in one, easy to read package. one copy of the print magazine,

obviously it's online right now at the atlantic.com, and i wanted our writers to describe, as best as they could, what would happen in their areas of expertise should trump become president again. the theory, of course, is the next trump presidency will be worse. the restraints will be off. there won't be quote, unquote, adults in the room. mckay coppins has ideas on who would get jobs in the administration, for example. david fromm who has been writing about the threat of autocracy, what this would look like. tom nichols. many of the "atlantic" stars of the "morning joe" cinematic universe are in this issue. tom has written about what would happen to the military, should trump become president again. caitlin dickerson on immigration. on and on and on. what i wanted was a package, you

know, an easy to understand package. like, look, this is what is going to happen. it's not just pure speculation. it's, as you point out, all you have to do is listen to donald trump and the loyalists around donald trump. he is telling you what's going to happen. he is going to use the power of the justice department to persecute, not prosecute, but persecute his enemies. we know what's going to happen to the civil service. we know what's going to happen on immigration. we know that the generals that we count on to be apolitical when they run the military, we know they're in danger and that they're going to be replaced by, you think, the technical term would be nutjobs. this is all apparent, and so i wanted to put it one place, early. with any luck, you know, at christmas, maybe people can read it and bring it to their relatives who are on the fence and say, "look, here's what's going to happen.

do you want this or not want this?" it is very simple. again, let me just say, because this is important, this is not partisan, right? this is not about republican ideas, conservative ideas versus liberal or democratic ideas. this is about standing up for democracy. this is not about republican ideology. this is trump's predisposition toward autocracy. >> you look at anne applebaum, a conservative. tom nichols, a conservative. go down the list. mckay coppins, a conservative. so many of these people who probably voted republican in the majority of the elections throughout their lives. elise jordan, i would just guess you would be one of those, as well, like me. but when you look at a republican nominee, a potential republican nominee that's talked about terminating the constitution, he said, terminate the constitution, arrest political opponents using the

justice department, assassinate generals that weren't sufficiently politically loyal to him, saying that he was going to take the fcc and bring it into the white house and he would decide what networks were on and what networks were not on. continuing talking about the leaders of comcast and treason. doesn't like joy reid? i'm not sure. maybe it's lawrence o'donnell that irks him. yeah, his answer is that as the next president of the united states, i'm going to try them for treason. this is, again, for me, it's just staggering that people that i know, people that i grew up with could still even consider voting for this autocrat. >> joe, i'm glad you went through the litany of authoritarian intentions that

donald trump has for a second term. any one of those items just as a standalone is jaw dropping and unacceptable and illiberal. put together as a whole, it's so disturbing. it is why this "atlantic" essay collection is so important. what you see of trump big picture, though, all of these ideas that he's pushing, it's the reasonable outcome of the move into political extremism and how donald trump is trying to radicalize his followers to the extent that he can do pretty much whatever he wants to. so far, he's been pretty successful, in that, you know, there's some polling that suggests that one in five americans, that they are radicalized to the state of, i think, extremist, by the same indicators we would have used when we polled post 9/11. extremism and terrorism in the middle east. it's incredibly scary that so

much of the country is being divided in this way for political expediency and for power, that's why it's important for those who do care about democratic institutions to keep speaking out. >> we have learned over the years to take trump at his word and that some of his followers will do what he say. over the weekend in iowa, he asked for his followers to go into deep blue, big cities, philadelphia and the like, and watch the polls, to protect the vote, which sure sounds like voter intimidation to me, jeffrey. talk to us, if you will, though, there's so many of the guardrails, not just within an administration, but within our democracy, within our society, that have fallen away since 2016. trump has plowed through a number of them. yes, the courts in 2020 held, barely, but talk to us about the real threats. if he wins again and assumes power again, what is left to really stop him from being what could be a borderline dictatorship? >> right. you know, in the first term,

there are a lot of people in government who held on, right? held on in their jobs. the justice department, the state department, defense department, and so on, right? in a plausible second term, i think that what you'll see is, a, a direct attack very early on, on the idea of apolitical government service, right? and, b, a lot of people who would gum up efforts by trump and trump's people to subvert democracy, will just simply quit in distrust, horror or whatever you want to call it, from places like the justice department and so on. and once -- look, as president of the united states, you are the de facto chief law enforcement officer of the united states, right? you appoint the attorney general. and the idea of donald trump under 91 felony counts right now at this moment, returning to a role as chief law enforcement

officer is absurd, obviously. but here we are. so the number one goal, the first goal, before immigration, before everything else, right, the first goal is to make sure the mechanisms of government can't be used to prosecute trump or his allies, right? it is going to be a direct frontal assault on the independence of the justice department and, by extension, the independence of the entire judicial process. you know, there's not a lot to do when you have somebody who is autocratically minded. again, remember, this is the key difference, this is not going to be a situation where, as in the first round, he brought in people like jim mattis, rex tillerson, jim kelly,adults. no more adults, right? steven miller could be the chief of staff of the white house. we don't know. so the point is, they have been

working for years to plot their revenge. david's piece is about the revenge presidency. >> your retribution. >> republican or democrat, david frum, george w. bush speechwriter, hated by the american left in a past life, i mean, it's just -- >> but a lovely guy. lovely guy. >> we love him. i'm just saying, all of these people writing in the piece, proving it's not a republican or democratic piece, are people that the american left used to, we'll say, did not tolerate very well. also, it is interesting, i got a call on friday from somebody who said, i feel i'm your spudsman. anytime people are angry at "morning joe," they call me.

i said, we are beloved by everybody. this person said, "well, this was somebody on the left very angry that you had santorum on to talk about pepfar." i said, he was on because he supports pepfar. preaching to the audience you want to reach. i said, who ever would ever call you saying they don't like "morning joe"? he said, most of the complaints are from people who think you are too anti-trump. jeffrey, i ask this question, and i'm deadly serious here. when you have somebody who says, he says, he writes it down on truth social, that he wants to terminate the constitution, jail political opponents, let me say this again, this is not -- this is not trump hatred. this is using trump's words, just like saying he was the one who terminated roe v. wade. when you have somebody running for office that said they want

to terminate the constitution, they want to jail political opponents, they want to execute generals who were insufficiently loyal, they want to create mass internment camps to send immigrants there, they want to take networks off the air that are insufficiently loyal, and try their executives for treason, that's what he says. how am i being too difficult? how are you being too difficult? how is anybody who loves american democracy being difficult by pointing out the danger that is in front of all of us if this guy gets back into the white house? >> you know, i'm about to engage in a bit of constructive media criticism here, which is the following.

you know, we're so numb to his statements, we tend to ignore him. we'll use the mark milley issue, "he should be tried for treason." that should be banner headlines the next day. "the former president says the chairman of the joint chiefs should be tried for treason." when he talks about dismantling the constitution, that should lead the news and be everywhere. >> jeffrey, why isn't it? >> sleepwalker, as liz cheney says. >> anti-trump. >> why is it that when hillary clinton says the word "deplorable" in a speech, it is banner headlines for a month, it seems. when donald trump uses nazi terminology to degrade human beings, uses "vermin," you hardly hear about it. why is that, jeffrey? >> i think it is normalization. i think it's this process where, one of the great attributes of human beings is we can get used to anything, right? so we got used to this, and we just accepted it as background noise. i mean, he does have these --

this particular superpower, in that he goes further than anybody in rhetoric, and we kind of go, yeah, it's just donald trump. we have to reverse that and just say, "no, no, no, no, no. this is a former president of the united states." if barack obama, if george w. bush said the things, as a former president, not running again, that donald trump said, we'd have huge stories about, "former president loses mind," right? >> right. >> meanwhile, donald trump is the punitive nominee for the presidency, and here we are. we act like it's normal. >> that's why this issue is so important. what jeffrey just said, it is normalization and we need to reverse that, because normalization is exactly how it starts, and it is dangerous. >> yeah. i mean, if barack obama had said a general should have been executed -- >> come on, yeah. >> -- how long would that -- how

long? how long would that be banner headlines on the front pages? >> everyone would have thought there was something wrong with him. >> there is something wrong with donald trump. i'm serious, he doesn't look right up on stage, he doesn't. you look at him. we've known him. >> if you know democracy, there's something very wrong with him. >> yeah. >> the first eight essays are available at theatlantic.com. editor in chief of "the atlantic," jeffrey goldberg. thank you for coming on this morning, and thank you for this issue. >> thank you. coming up, something, perhaps, just as controversial, the college football playoffs are set. >> not really. >> with one undefeated team left on the sideline. >> i am angry. >> you are? >> liberty went 13-0. liberty went 13-0. why aren't they in the playoffs? >> all right. >> we'll talk about that when we get back.

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the final rankings from the selection committee, the number one team in the country is -- we're seeing these when you do -- and it is michigan. who is two? we assume the washington huskies. and it is indeed. what a job. who is number three? the texas long horns. steve sarkisian's team. alabama turns to the playoff. we have another unprecedented situation, as florida state winds up at number five. florida state is the first undefeated chaion from a power five conference to fail to make the field. >> so it begins. the division ncaa college

football champion playoff is set. alabama crimson tide take on the michigan wolverines in the rose bowl, and the texas longhorns will be playing the huskies in the sugar bowl. let's bring in right now, "new york times" best-selling author and espn commentator, paul finebaum. and host of "pablo torre finds out," pablo torre. and best-selling author mike lupica. paul, you and i were both at the game. i've got to say, i've been going to alabama games since 1981. it may have been the most intense, extraordinary alabama game i've been to. i couldn't figure out why my elder son called me saying it was an era-defining game. every two years, people are saying, oh, clemson is about to overtake nick saban. then somebody else is about to overtake nick saban. then kirby smart is about to

overtake nick saban. nick saban shut the door quickly. he is now -- kirby smart is 1-5 against nick saban. alabama won eight out of the last nine versus georgia. talk about this game. then the playoffs. >> joe, nick saban will never admit this, but saturday's game may have been personally one of his most satisfying for a lot of reasons. you laid them out. here is the greatest coach in college football history at a school that used to have the greatest coach in college football history, suddenly chasing his protege. kirby smart was part of countless national championships, and kirby smart is on the verge with a win against saban and two more, of doing something that hasn't been done since the '30s, win three straight. it wouldn't have ended the reign of nick saban as a great coach, but it certainly would have shattered the dynasty.

i spoke to someone about this in great detail last night, and he told me that saban cared deeply. it opens up a whole other story we'll get to in a minute. that win against a team that looked invincible at times, it was truly a remarkable and perhaps era ending. kirby smart will win more championships, but the odds of winning three in a row now are impossible. >> i have to say, i have there, and, again, i've been going to alabama games since 1981. not a newbie here. when alabama walked onto the field, i actually turned to jack, and i said, "they're going to win today. they look bigger, meaner. they look more focused." i've never once said that. they controlled the line. pablo there shaking his head. i'm expecting bitter tears,

melting snowflakes. >> it's the underdog. mika, we celebrate alabama as david as well as goliath simultaneously. i feel i'm taking crazy pills. joe, i understand you are -- >> this -- this is exactly, this is the secret sauce. thank you, pablo, for leading into my question to mike, and i'll get back to you. >> please. >> mike, this is what is so crazy. every two years, we hear that dabo sweeney is the new nick saban. we hear kirby smart is the new nick saban, every two years. i want to give you these stats again quickly. saban is 10-0 against higher ranked teams in conference championships and bcs national championship games. 5-0 against number one teams in the cfp era, soon to be 6-0. he is 11-1 in s.e.c. championship games. he's won 17 straight games in

the mercedes-benz stadium. fewer than three losses. alabama won eight out of -- these are numbers, and i've never said this in my life, and we'll get to fsu in a second and also liberty. i'm outraged liberty went 13-0, and they're not going to be playing. i can't believe i'm going to say this, lupica, and you shoot me down if i'm wrong, i can now say for the first time, nick saban is entering john wooden territory. i never thought i'd say that about another coach. >>. >> i think he's not just the greatest college football coach of all time, he is the greatest football coach of all time, because of the turnover of players. used to be every three, four years, and now it is every year in college football. joe, i know we're going to get to the elephant in the room, florida state, and i'm not going to say anything except complimentary things about florida state today. >> right. >> it wasn't fair what happened to their quarterback. it wasn't fair to them that an

unbeaten team didn't get into the playoffs. but whoever said that sports is fair, ask jets fans and aaron rodgers if they think football is fair. the committee got this right. i told you saturday night there was no possible yardstick that this alabama team could be kept out of the playoffs. it got proven out yesterday at noon. the committee, they were charged with picking the best four teams. by the end of the yes, florida state was not one of the pest -- best four teams. >> they weren't one of the best four teams at any point in the year, just to make me walking down streets in florida even more difficult. pablo, that said, it is really hard when you're a coach and you take a team, undefeated team, what an extraordinary job he did. what an extraordinary job the

fsu team did. you know, there's alabama haters. just like duke in basketball. >> that's right. >> there are s.e.c. haters, i understand that. in my understand, and vegas would agree, there are two levels of football being played now in america. one in the s.e.c., one outside the s.e.c. is that unfair? is that just because i went to alabama and grew up in mississippi, georgia, and florida? >> because you are personally responsible for the hiring of niek saban. i appreciate you introspectively wondering these things, joe. >> it haunts me. it haunts me! >> they should put you on the parade float, honestly. i did research into the story, and it is disturbingly close to the truth. the playoff committee is a 13-member body that acts like strict constructionalistconstru.

joe scarborough, i know it when i see it. see the kids coming off the bus, you're like, that's what a champion looks like. they're considering a rule, if there is a loss of a player that materially changes how good this team is going to be, we have to consider it. that's the vegas standard you eluded to. jordan travis, the quarterback of fsu, got hurt. he wasn't going to be playing in the semifinal, so they're a worse team. now, to mike's point, it's infuriating, the reason why florida legislatures -- or legislators, excuse me, are threatening to take this to the legislature is because it feels unjust. they won every single game. the human body is an imperfect meat sack. you can't do anything about it. what to you do? at this point, what they have left is to declare themselves national champions, which, in a way, is a politically resonant concept these days. just stay in your corner and say you won. no matter what the body that decides these things might say. >> by the way, just so younger

fsu fans understand this -- by the way, this is the magic of college football, weirdly enough, that goes away next year when we have sitting there. >> that's right. >> paul, i was explaining to a big fsu fan who called me yesterday, talking about how unfair it was to the team. i said, i totally agree. i said, "let me tell you something. it will be the fire for fsu to be even better next year." i said to him, "i was a very young kid. i still remember in 1977, when alabama beat number two ohio state, 38-6. number five notre dame beat number one texas. and they jumped texas over alabama." we were shocked. we were outraged. we never got over it. we were so angry, alabama went out and won the national championship the next two years. paul, talk about it.

>> joe, that notre dame team lost to a mediocre ole miss team in the middle of the year, and everybody disregarded it. let me get to the fsu situation. how many times do i hear on this program from your guests about elections have consequenceconse? so do decisions in the ivory tower. the acc made a decision through its commissioner, where you'll remember, the 12-team playoff was supposed to start this year, joe. but the commissioners of the acc, big ten and pac-12, got all upset when oklahoma and texas announced they were going to the s.e.c. they threw a hissy fit and said, we're going to roadblock it, and now it's cost them. this is not the show for con conspiracy theories, but the board at florida state took on this high horse and said, we're too good for the acc. we're better than that and will pull out of here. i'm not saying one equals two, but it doesn't have to.

they downgraded their own league, and they needed a great acc for them to get into the playoffs. they didn't have it. their best win over an ac kprrks acc team was louisville in the conference championship game. heaven help you if you got through the end of that game. four-loss clemson team. >> well, you know, the thing is, they had the 55th -- and, by the way, scheduling has consequences, too. they had the 55th strongest schedule in america. alabama had the 5th. that has consequences when you're looking at non-conference wins. you've got north alabama as one of their non-conference wins when they were down in the first quarter. i'm dead serious. i'm saying the truth. i'll say this, too, mike lupica. as paranoid of an alabama fan i am, in thinking everybody is out to get us, because they are, at the end of the first half, and i want -- pablo, you're

laughing -- >> always. >> if anybody disagrees, i'm going with you first, lupica, if anyone disagrees, tell me, but the end of the first half of the louisville and fsu game, i turned to jack, it was 3-0, and i said, "this is the worst college football game of any consequence." y'all are laughing because you know it's true. like crusty the clown, it's funny because it's true. i said, this is the worst college football game i've ever seen. i knew that people on the committee were watching this game, and i knew that after the first half, they said, there's no way we can put this team in the playoff. >> joe, joe, the committee was watching until even they turned that game off. they found it unwatchable. >> wow. >> pablo, go ahead. jump in. pablo, first of all, let me ask you, if you had the four choices to pick the four best teams, i'm

dead serious, who are the four teams? >> joe, i think they got it right. as much as i am laughing at your unrepentant homerism, the committee got it right. i interviewed a former member of the selection committee on my show, john irshal, now an m.i.t. professor, a mathematician. he walked me through it. it's boring. there are textexialists, sort o fealties they have to be constitution that they're governed by, and i think they got this right. texas beat alabama to start their season. incredible victory. of course, they got to be in. they destroyed oklahoma state in the big 12 game. alabama, the only question is, was it fsu or alabama? in this case, yes, i say this reluctantly, your eye test was also the right answer. conversations on calling this and feeling it in your bones more than anything else.

>> guys, we have video evidence the committee made the right pick. yesterday, during the selection show, the camera was running at the university of michigan. their football team was watching this selection show. >> funny. >> as it was happening. they built the suspense. the final choice was number four, alabama. when they flashed on the screen, number four was alabama, and michigan was going to play alabama, you could hear the groans and the whimper and the fear. >> yes. >> the fear from the michigan wolverines. they desperately wanted to play florida state. instead, they got alabama. that ties us up. we have the right four teams. >> listen -- >> what a game that'll be. >> i will say, pablo, paul will tell you, we in alabama, alabama fans are toughest on alabama. this is really the first year, and i said it after the lsu game, i said, this is the pest team in the nation. i still believe it. jalen was really off, could not pass the ball on saturday night. >> yeah. >> one of his worst games, and we still won. i want to switch gears really

quickly. we've blown past the top of the however, but everybody will understand why we have blown past the top of the hour. i want to get everybody really quickly to talk about the nfl game last night that changed the complexion of the season. talk about thinking that a team was losing a step. we heard people disrespect brock purdy. colin cowherd said he is no winner because he puts the hat on backward. i say that because i love colin. he also got jalen terribly wrong. maybe with the eagles and niners, colin should talk about how great alabama is. but that game last night was a revelation. i mean, probably going to be the nfc championship game if we're lucky. man, what a performance by the 49ers against an eagles team that is just, i think, just a great team. >> oh, man. if i can just jump in by pointing out, we have been watching immediate i don't care

immediate i don't care -- mediocrity the whole year. here, they beat the jaguars by a whole lot. if brock purdy is the quarterback, even if he was the last pick in the draft a year or so ago, we have the ability to scheme open any defense. that's what you're watching right now. it was incredible. the eagles were supposed to be the super bowl favorite. now, everything changed in a matter of two hours. >> it really was incredible, the performance. paul, it seems that these two quarterbacks, more than any other two quarterbacks, just get absolutely no respect, and they prove their doubters wrong every time. >> joe, i can't tell ya how many times, i know mike and pablo, as well, when we sat at the nfl draft and listening to the experts, the obsessive conversation, and we know how disrespected jalen hurts was and brock purdy, i don't even need to go on.

i was most glad to see taylor swift back on the kansas city, american soil. glad she was able to get out of south america in one piece. >> yeah. >> mike lupica, finish it off. talk football. >> i heard my old friend, pablo, talking about m.i.t. and mathematics. brock purdy, 262nd pick in the draft, and we got a guy in new york, zach wilson, who was the second pick. that math is confusing for us. >> yeah. it's rough. >> pablo torre, paul finebaum, mike lupica, thank you very much. "robert b. parker's broken trust" is out now, mike lupica's new book. this conversation took us four minutes past the top of the hour. >> paul, i could have spoken all day about this, and i almost did. thank you, guys. >> thank you so much. we're going to turn to the news a few minutes past the hour. israel expanding the war

operation into southern gaza. the military campaign had been focused on the northern part of the strip, but now israeli defense forces are pounding targets in the south and ordering more neighborhoods to evacuate. over the weekend, officials announced they've hate more than 400 hamas targets, while the health ministry in gaza claims hundreds of people were killed in the new israeli strikes. the u.s. is urging israel to protect civilians in the territory. now, israel's expanded military operation comes just days after a temporary truce with hamas collapsed. on saturday, israeli pri minister benjamin netanyahu pulled his ntors out of qatar and called off the talks, saying they'd reached, quote, an impass with hamas. in a statement, netanyahu explained the terrorist group did not fulfill its part of the truce agreement to release all the women and children it is holding hostage. >> jonathan lemire, give us reporting, where is the white house right now on, well,

support for israel, on concern about gazan civilian casualties, and now the humanitarian crisis that's really going to escalate in the southern part of gaza? and they're dealing with netanyahu not only about how this war is handled, but what they can say to their arab allies and even nato alies about what happens after the war. >> as much as this white house still backs israel, to be clear, they do, the divides between washington and tel-aviv are definitely growing as to the israeli's conduct during this war and what they think will happen after it. we heard from the vice president this weekend who was in the middle east for a major climate conference, huddling with arab leaders, making sure the u.s. does not believe israel should occupy gaza when the war ends. they, in fact, should play a role in that future with a revitalized palestinian authority. also, the u.s. thinks israel

needs to do more to limit civilian casualties. we are now in a moment in the war where israel shifted its focus to the south, where almost inherently, those casualty numbers are going to start soaring them. it is densely populated. many of the palestinians had fled from the north to the south and are now in harm's these horrible images are coming out. the u.s. also, joe and mika, still has hopes of brokering some sort of deal, whether small or big, to get some more hostages out after the truce broke down in recent days. u.s. officials still in the region, still having these high-level conversations, but the israelis pulled out, at least for now. a source of some frustration for this white house, as they feel like that should be the priority. the second guessing about netanyahu, especially in the wake of the reporting about the intelligence failures israel had before october 7th, their faith in netanyahu continues to wane. meanwhile, americans have wide-ranging opinions on the israel-hamas war as the fighting stretches into its eighth week. "new york times" senior writer

david leonhardt lies out, "what the polls say about gaza." he makes four findings. americans are supporting israelis more than lestinians. americans are worried about the civilian death toll. public opinion isn't always consistent. and liberal americans are viewing the war differently than most other americans. joining us now, senior writer at "the new york times," pulitzer prize winner, david leonhardt. also with us, former communications director to president obama, jennifer palmieri, the co-host of the podcast, "how to win 2024" with claire mccaskill. good to have you both. >> david, because i am old, i read your piece in the sunday "new york times" paper edition. >> he loves his paper edition. >> still have the ink coming up

on the hands. >> holding onto that. >> you know, there are two things i found actually shocking in those poll numbers that you highlighted. i say shocking. i'll just say, very surprised. very surprised. one was the fact that the majority of americans not only identify with israel more than the palestinians, but the majority of americans, while being concerned about gazan casualties, actually support israel's use of force as just about right or not enough. that was surprising to me. the second thing was just how disconnected, should i call them the far left? it's not the left. i know a lot of people on the left who don't hold the views of what were identified as progressives, but there is a farer left element of american politics, the democratic party, that is on its own when it comes

to the israel-palestinian conflict. by the way, that's who we're seeing on college campuses really. i mean, college campuses are kids who are more progressive. that's why we see that on college campuses. there's no great conspiracy theory here. it's sort of just natural. but talk about that divide and also about how americans -- you said two things can be true at once, and i'm sorry for going on so long, but americans can, at the same time, while being concerned about gazan civilian casualties, they also support what israel is doing right now. >> yeah. let's start with the partisan divide, then we can come back to some of the larger trends if you want to. i mean, democrats like to point out that some of the ways that republicans, and particularly the republican party, are out of step with american public republican. that's actually fair and accurate. i mean, what the republican party wants to do on abortion, for example, is out of step with opinion. denying the results of the

election. republican party saying human beings aren't affecting climate change. then you have a group of democrats who are highly educated and disproportionately white and higher income that have views on a set of issues that are out of step with americans in this country. several examples. mika and joe, we talked a lot about covid restrictions. liberal americans were out of step with what most americans wanted to do on covid restrictions. liberals are out of step on immigration, uncomfortable talking about border security. they're out of step with the public on policing and other issues. israel an example. so if you ask very liberal americans how they view this war, the answers are very different, much less pro-israel, much more critical of israel. joe, as you pointed out, the americans who identify as very liberal are less than 10% of the population, but they tend to

have a louder megaphone, whether it's college campuses, whether it is hollywood, or whether you have more people like this in the media who are writing opinion pieces saying it. that's why i think this part of the debate ends up soaking up so much attention. it is important but maybe not as important as the amount of attention it receives. >> jen, i am struck by how many analysts have come out quickly to say, oh, biden is going to lose the muslim-american vote in michigan. >> right. >> in different pockets where that vote really does matter. >> right. >> first of all, it's extremely premature. >> right. >> second of all, when muslim-american voters look at donald trump's policies, that's a pretty good contrast, you know, in what's going to be a competition over a year from now. >> i mean, this is how i -- right. this is my big question about how this issue is going to ultimately affect 2024. there are important

demographics, voters the democrats need to win to be part of the 2024 coalition, that are expressing a lot of anxiety and concern about the issue. young voters, muslim-americans, in michigan, there are 300,000 muslim-americans. you know, i think that state gets won by thousands of votes, not hundreds of thousands of votes. that is a concern. will they stay home? will they actually turn out to vote for donald trump? i don't think that would happen, but, you know, the concern would be, would they stay home? the same thing with young voters. are they going to vote for trump? probably not. but will they stay home i think is the concern. what i feel in my gut, though, is our own election is an existential election, right? so when you're looking at issues that can upset your coalition, you're thinking something like this, a curveball like this, an unexpected war where there are divisions within your coalition, is that an existential threat to you winning?

when donald trump poses such a threat to democracy itself, i'm just not sure that this issue can really upset the coalition that biden has had and the people that are going to, you know, be motivated to turn out to vote against trump. yeah, it's a concern, but are they really going to not turn out when this threat is in their country? >> yeah, you know, the thing is, jonathan, though, i do want to follow up on what jen just said. when there are so many of us who believe that american democracy is on the line, because you have a republican candidate talking about terminating the constitution, executing insufficiently loyal generals, talking about jailing opponents, talking about all the things he's talking about doing, that's why the white house, i'll just

say it, has to say, "we're worried, israel, about your existence. we're worried about the immediate threats to your people. we are also worried about the future of american democracy. if we are your guarantor right now, which we are because you all did a horrible job, the netanyahu government, of protecting yourself, if we're your guarantor right now, you're going to have to work with us. you can't just tell us, yeah, we're going to take your money, take your support, and go to hell, we're going to do what we want to do." i thought exactly what jen was talking about, we're talking about israel and the safety of the israeli people, and we're balancing that, also, right now with the future of american democracy. we're going to have to work together with our friends and allies to make sure nothing gets in the way of that. >> yeah, this is the dilemma the biden administration faces. to jen's point about voters, you

know, turned off by how the administration is handling this, they wouldn't go for trump. donald trump over the weekend made clear, he wants to reinstitute the muslim ban. it is not like the voters are going to go to trump. the issue is whether or not they will stay home. but this is a tricky scenario because we do see polls right now that suggest that a lot of americans, at least a lot of democrats, are unhappy with how biden is handling this war. david, i want to circle back to you, though. it is pretty rare that foreign policy plays an outsized role in a presidential election. there are exceptions, of course. usually, that's not the case. but this one feels like it might. the ukraine war, at least in the public consciousness, has slipped to the back burner, but it still rages. who knows where it'll be a year's time from now. we don't know where this conflict will stand a year's time from now, as well. what do you think, is this going to be an election where, if these things are still front page news, foreign policy may be the difference? >> your ukraine analogy is important because, boy, november

2024 is a long time away from now. i think it's absolutely possible that this becomes a secondary issue and slips into the background by then. on the other hand, there are real reasons for concern in the polling numbers for both biden and for supporters of israel. which is, although it is true that most americans support israel and think this military action is justified, those numbers have slipped as we have continued to get images of these terrible civilian tolls in gaza. and so, joe, what you were saying, that the biden administration has an interest in pushing israel for its own political reasons, the biden administration probably also has an interest in pushing israel on the civilian death toll, both for humanitarian reasons and for israel's own interests. because it doesn't seem to me that months more of a war with this kind of toll is sustainable in all kinds of ways. >> and, david, that just underlines the point, that even if this is in biden's best

political interest, to keep the civilian death toll down, that sounds cold and callous, it's also in israel's best interest for the future of israel. as you said, they can't sustain the political pressure if the next month looks like the last month, right? >> yeah, that's right. look, what's hard here is there are no easy solutions, right? there's no solution in which israel can topple hamas and prevent hamas from doing this again, and also have no civilian death toll. and so there really are trade-offs between the military success of israel's operation and these horrible civilian death tolls. i'm not saying it's a complete tradeoff, but there's not like there is a simple solution here that no one is trying. it's yet another reminder of just how horrible the tradeoffs are in the middle east. >> "new york times" senior writer david leonhardt, thank you very much.

his new piece is online for "the new york times" right now. his latest book entitled "ours was the shining future," the story of the american dream, is available now. thank you, david. >> thank you, mika. now to this. democratic congresswoman pramila jayapal, a critic of israel's policies, was asked why there wasn't more outrage from progressives over the rape and sexual abuse of israeli women by hamas during the october 7th attack. she responded by calling for balance. here is that exchange from yesterday. >> frankly, morally, i think we cannot say that one war crime deserves another. that is not what international humanitarian law says. >> okay. with respect, i was just asking about the women, and you turned it back to israel. i'm asking you about hamas, in fact -- >> i already answered your question, dana. i said it is horrific.

>> okay. >> i think rape is horrific, sexual assault is horrific. i think it happens in war situations. terrorist organizations like hamas obviously are using these as tools. however, i think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against palestinians. 15,000 palestinians have been killed in israeli air strikes. three-quarters of whom are women and children. >> and it's horrible. you don't see israeli soldiers raping palestinian women. >> dana, we're not -- >> i didn't hear. >> sorry, we couldn't hear the end of that. >> i would have loved to have heard her answer at the end, but, my lord, was she equivocating on -- >> yeah, i need to hear the end of that, if that's okay. i think what's remarking is that you have many people, international organizations on the left, that just can't

condemn hamas raping and abusing and raping to the point of death. >> she kind of sort of did. >> but it was never, like, we can condemn hamas. it always has to be, there's always moral equivocation. this is what you were talking about before, elise. there's always moral equivocation. you can never say that what hamas did to jewish women was absolutely savage and beyond the pale. it always has to be, yeah, but -- israel. >> there's no "yeah, but" here. >> also, quote, it happens. >> it happens? >> no, actually, i don't see -- >> can we play it again? >> -- israeli soldiers going into gaza doing that. respond, then we'll hear that one more time. go ahead, elise. >> no, i mean, you would think there is a huge outcry anytime

rape is being used as a weapon of war. period, that's wrong. it's a crime against humanity. it is a war crime. end of discussion. you don't have to do the other side here. >> thank you. >> by the way, we are talking about the other side, and everybody is talking about the other side. it's been on the front page of "the new york times" about every day. everybody is talking about the other side. but when you're asked about the rape, the savage rape of jews. >> young girls. >> there's not a, "yes, but." you can just condemn the massive, like, the savage raping of jewish women. let's play the clip again. >> take a look. >> i've seen a lot of progressive women, generally speaking, they're quick to defend women's rights and speak out against using rape as a weapon of war.

but downright silent on what we saw on october 7th and what might be happening inside gaza right now to these hostages. why is that? >> i mean, i don't know that that's true. i think we always talk about the impact of war on women, in particular. i've condemned what hamas has done. i've condemned -- >> specifically against women? >> -- all of the actions. absolutely, the rape, of course. but i think we have to remember that israel is a democracy. that is why they are a strong ally of ours. and if they do not comply with international humanitarian law, they are bringing themselves to a place that makes it much more difficult strategically for them to be able to build the allies, to keep public opinion with them. frankly, morally, i think we cannot say that one war crime deserves another. that is not what international humanitarian law says. >> okay. with respect, i was just asking about the women, and you turned it back to israel.

i'm asking you about hamas, in fact -- >> i already answered your question, dana. i said it's horrific. >> okay. >> i think that rape is horrific. sexual assault is horrific. i think it happens in war situations. terrorist organizations like hamas obviously are using these as tools. however, i think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against palestinians. 15,000 palestinians have been killed in israeli air strikes. three-quarters of whom are women and children. >> and it is horrible. but you don't see israeli soldiers raping palestinian women. >> dana, we're not -- i don't want this to be the hierarchy of oppressions. >> i just can't. >> but, but we have to remember. she's asked about rape and goes, "but we have to remember." she's asked about jewish women being savage and she goes, "it

happens. it happens in wartime." she's asked again about it, and goes, "yes, it's terrible, it's bad, i'm against it. however." acting as if nobody has talked about the civilian death toll in gaza. she can't just condemn jewish women being brutalized and it being videotaped and people seeing it. she just can't. it's always a "but, we have to remember, it happens in war." "however, we have to remember." >> yeah. today, the united nations is going to hold a hearing on the sexual and gender-based violence reported during the attack and the silence from the international community that followed. joining us now, former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst joyce vance. district attorney for new york's westchester county, mimi rocah. they are co-authors of an

opinion piece in "slate," calling out the lack of international outrage over the reports of sexual violence committed in the october 7th hamas terror attacks. a lot of it is seen on video and documented in video, of women who were raped, killed while they were raped, young girls who were raped. i mean, the evidence is clear. yet, mimi, i'll start with you, there has not been a focus on this as a war crime or on this enough, according to many who believe women's rights are not even being considered here. >> yeah, thank you so much, joe and mika, for talking about this important topic. i guess the thing i would say, given the clip you played, is why we don't have to be balanced in our outrage, which i think is the phrase that was used.

we should not be balanced in our outrage, not against the palestinians, by the way, she said palestinians, it's against hamas. hamas did this on october 7th. we have to be outraged because, first of all, the girls who had their pelvic bones broken because they were raped so much, whose legs were broken, who were shot while people were still raping them, they deserve us to be outraged, as any woman of any background would. >> yes. >> second, because there are still young women hostages, and we have every reason to believe something horrible may be happening to them. we have to be outraged. the whole world has to be outraged and demand their release now, just as we've done for other girls who were taken captive in other parts of the world. finally, mika, and this is the most nuanced point, but i hope women everywhere understand it, it's because this hurts women everywhere when we say, "don't

believe what your eyes are seeing." when we let people with an agenda, like hamas men, dictate when we believe rape happened. no, we have evidence here. i'm a prosecutor. joyce is a prosecutor. we look at the video. we listened to the witness testimony. we hear the accounts of people who saw it. we can't let other people tell us when to believe rape happened. it happened. we have to support all women everywhere. >> joyce vance, your take, and what do you think needs to be done? >> so i think, mika, that mimi makes the most important point here, and it gives us the starting point going forward. this is, as y'all have been discussing this morning, a hopelessly complicated crisis. the question is, what's the path forward? perhaps a small piece of that starts with an acknowledgment of our common humanity.

it's not complicated to condemn rape. it shouldn't be difficult. often in the heat of the moment, it's difficult for people to reconcile their emotions. now, the united nations hearings give us an opportunity to evaluate the evidence. that's what mimi and i do as prosecutors. we're used to discussing the evidence, even in these horrific sexual crimes, in a very straightforward manner. this will be painful and difficult for many people to listen to, but the evidence, the eyewitness accounts, the accounts of medics and first responders absolutely confirms that these rapes took place, that they were torture rapes. now, it is incumbent upon women in the international community and here domestically to take a moment to reflect and to evaluate on what the evidence says. then we can speak with one voice and say, "this is wrong." it doesn't matter if it happens in war.

it certainly shouldn't make a difference that the victims are jews and israelis. we can condemn this and acknowledge our shared humanity and begin to move forward to deal with the other implications of this crisis. >> mimi, during world war ii, military code law was that american soldiers who raped a woman could be executed. that actually relaxed a bit just because men of color were convicted unfairly, and eisenhower intervened in a case. by the time we got to germany, it wasn't necessarily that an american soldier would get convicted, and george patten was infuriated. that was the ethos of the u.s. military during that war. if any american soldier raped a woman, they should be executed. how did we get from that to today, where you have american leaders trying to equivocate

here? >> i don't totally know the answer to that, but my educated guess or opinion is that it's about victim blaming. that's why i say this is so dangerous to all women. because for many complicated reasons, as joyce says, and i'm not here as an expert on foreign relations or the war itself or anything, i'm here on this one issue about women and sexual assault and believing victims and believing the evidence that we see in front of our eyes. but i also am very familiar with victim blaming. i mean, we know it in this country from "her skirt was too short," "she drank too much." we all fought quite hard for decades to get away from that. this feels very reminiscent of that. the girls at the music festival had nothing -- have nothing to do with the bombing that's happening now. yet, when you pivot from, "yes,

rape is bad, but don't bomb gaza," you're inherently blaming these victims for that. i think that is what's going on here, with some people. i mean, this is a generalization. it's just wrong, and it's dangerous for all of us, for all women everywhere. >> joyce, what you and mimi are concerned about, in part, is the international community's failure to condemn the rapes. what more do we need to know about that? we were talking about, what have they failed to do? >> right. so there was silence for a lengthy period of time. there were even some folks who suggested, as mimi has been discussing, that the accounts of these rapes weren't credible. i think, today, there's a little bit of a restart. the united nations was extremely slow to acknowledge and condemn these rapes. now, we appear to be on that path. these are war crimes, and they can be prosecuted as such.

it's also a possibility, quite frankly, that the justice department could engage on the topic of american women who were kidnapped and raped, and there could be prosecutions. israeli law on conspiracy is different than our law in the united states. it's more demanding and restrictive in terms of the need to specifically show an agreement that encompassed, an agreement that israeli women would be raped as part of this operation. there is evidence that indicates that there was preparation and advanced planning, including linguistic help. people being told how to speak israeli to tell women to pull down their pants. there has been some testimony from people who were involved on the hamas side that there was, perhaps, a religious waiver that permitted them to violate traditional muslim dictates against rape. all of this deserves examination

and scrutiny. really, it demands it. as mimi said, if women aren't safe in israel, women aren't safe anywhere. if we can use justifications to blame individual victims, young women who were asleep in a kibbutz, and here we're talking about, in some cases, teenage girls and younger. if we can blame women who were attending a concert for the poliies of a nation that they may or may not have supported, and use it to justify rape, women are not safe anywhere. we need to begin to speak out more strongly than we have up until this point. >> former u.s. attorney joyce vance and district attorney for new york's westchester county, mimi rocah, thank you, both, very, very much for coming on this morning. still ahead, how did evangelicals become some of the most fervent supporters of donald trump? it's something even donald trump himself couldn't seem to understand.

>> at this moment, i would like to thank the evangelical and religious community. because, i'll tell you what, the support that they've given me, and i'm not sure i totally deserve it, has been so amazing. >> up next, "the atlantic's" tim alberta explains how a threatening note someone passed him at his own father's funeral inspired him to dig into the strange relationship between trump and evangelicals. tim joins us next on "morning joe." and here. not so much here. farxiga reduces the risk of kidney failure which can lead to dialysis. ♪far-xi-ga♪

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i hear this is a major theme right here, but 2 corinthians, right? 2 corinthians 3:17, that's the whole ball game. where the spirit of the lord, right? where the spirit of the lord is, there is liberty. here, there is liberty college, but liberty university, but it is so true. you know, when you think, that's really -- is that one? is that the one you like? i think that's the one you like. >> it was the mistake heard around the evangelical world. in 2016, donald trump attempted to cite a bible verse following the advice of tony perkins during an appearance at liberty university. the gaffe led the future president to harbor resentment toward the evangelical community for years, despite being the key voting block that propelled him to power. joining us now to explain is staff writer for "the atlantic," tim alberta. he is the author of the new book entitled "the kingdom, the

power, and the glory: american evangelicals in an age of extremism." i'm fascinated and frightened by this issue, tim. i'm really glad you wrote this book. first of all, tell us about the inspiration for the book. >> thanks, mika. thanks, joe, for having me. yes, the inspiration for the book, look, i grew up evangelical. my dad was a pastor in the evangelical presbyterian church. that's my background, my faith community. i grew up physically inside the church. my mother was on the staff, as well. that was my home. it was my family. as i grew older, even though my relationship with jesus never changed, i really started to feel my relationship with the church changing. really became disillusioned with institutional christianity, so much of which in the american context was wrapped up in sort of nationalist ideals, political

zealotry and hypocrisy. i sort of kept those concerns at bay for as long as i could. i really did turn a blind eye to it, which in retrospect, i feel sort of guilty about. ultimately, when my dad died, it really forced me to re-examine some of this, in part because, as you teased earlier, i had some people basically confronting me at his funeral when i went home to michigan. basically, wanting to use his funeral to confront me and argue with me about trump and about politics and all of that. that was kind of the moment for me when i just realized that something had really, really gone wrong here, and maybe i should do something about it. >> what happened at the funeral? you say someone passed you a note, or what was the confrontation? >> well, so as it happens, i had actually just written my first book that was about trump's takeover of the republican party, just before my dad died. that was the last time i saw my dad, was when the book came out. >> oh. >> so i was sort of in the

crosshairs of right-wing media at the time, including rush limbaugh. at the visitation for my dad, when i went home, there were people coming up to me and saying, "hey, rush is ripping you on his show. what's going on with you? are you still a christian?" that sort of thing. it was escalating from there, to the point where the next day, in my eulogy, i kind of let people have it a little bit and said, what are we doing here? rush limbaugh, like, in the church? is this who we are? i thought it was finished at that point. then i was handed a note after the eulogy, after we'd buried my dad, actually, and basically the note from an elder in the church, someone who is a close friend of my dad's, who i'd known since i was a boy, basically said i was a part of the deep state and that i was betraying the church, betraying the country, and that i should beg for forgiveness. i have not begged for forgiveness, obviously. i've chosen to go a different route here. really, if anything, i'm just trying to help reclaim the

church's true identity from, you know, this sort of hijacked nationalized version that we're witnessing now. >> tim, such an extraordinary and terrible moment. i was lucky enough to receive an early copy of this. it is great. people should pick it up. congrats to you. >> thanks, jonathan. >> talk to us a little, though. it seems trump is an unlikely fit to this community. he eluded it in the clip a moment ago. it was a means to an end. they got what they wanted. also, explain that and his hold on it, his persistent as being their choice, despite all we know he has done since taking office. >> john, look, it is easy to forget now, but in 2015, early 2016, trump was the last choice of all of these white evangelical voters in the republican primary. even after trump clinched the nomination, there was a tremendous amount of resistance, to the point where trump had to go to new york and meet with about 500 major evangelical ministers. he had to have the endorsement

of jerry falwell jr. and mike huckabee, franklin graham, and some of the other leading evangelical figures to vouch for him. then he chose mike pence. this was to assuage the concerns of the evangelicals. many entered into a transactional relationship with trump. they said, we don't trust this guy. he's not one of us and don't share our values. if we give him these votes, he'll deliver us these victories. the transactional relationship has morphed now into something different. the best explanation for this unflinching support we see, that you described, is for a lot of these voters, these folks, they truly believe at this point the end is near. that america as they've known it is under attack. that the country is on its last legs. the secular leftist government, deep state, whatever you want to call it, is coming for them, coming for their churches, coming for christianity.

that sort of creates a permission structure for them to almost rent out trump as a mercenary to protect christianity, to fight for them in ways that no good christian ever would. it is almost a little like when george w. bush said to protect the free market, he had to first jettison free market principles with the bank bailout. this is a similar thing. a lot of christians say, look, in order to preserve christian virtues in this country, maybe we first have to do away with christian virtues. >> there is something else in the corinthians, the former president tried to jumble that. that is, evil communications corrupts good manners, which is, you know, what we see from the former president. i think, you know, what you're sort of getting at here is christian nationalism, right? i read the -- i haven't read the book yet, but i read the piece you put out in "the atlantic" about it, that ended with the pastor who took over for your father, who was trying to fight the takeover of trump in the church. you asked him, what's happened to the evangelicals in america?

he said, "they love america too much." is that what we're dealing with here? is that what the evangelicals, or some of them supporting trump, mophed into? >> christian nationalism is a loaded term and means different things to different people. i think clarified in this context what the definition is is helpful. at the end of the day, if you are a follower of jesus christ, you are called to a citizenship in heaven. you are called to be a part of a kingdom of god. we are warned as christians throughout scripture, old testament and new testament, all the way through, it's not ambiguous, that your identity is rooted in heaven. your identity is rooted in following jesus. unfortunately, i think this love of country, which can be healthy to a point, overrealized among some of these evangelical christians, has sort of merged two kingdoms into one.

it's created this belief that, somehow, if america falls, then god himself is defeated. when, again, as christians, we believe that jesus triumphed over the grave, so there is no such thing as defeat. but when you begin to think of america as almost this covenant nation, that god has ordained it, god blessed us and you are fighting for god by fighting for america, that is christian nationalism. that is what has infected much of the church today. >> tim, growing up in the southern baptist church, the golden rule was one of the earliest things they teach you. do unto others as they would have you do upon them. what would jesus do was just the catch phrase for the '90s. kindness. that's why i'm still just reeling a bit by your experience at euroyour own father's funera being confronted by a close family friend, someone you knew all your life. that wasn't the golden rule in

practice. that wasn't what would jesus do? i don't think jesus would, you know, harass a grieving son. it's almost just so -- it's smaller than the big picture of what happened to evangelicals when it comes to, you know, broader virtues and moral society. how has trump changed just our basic kindness? >> you know, i think what we have to understand in the context of trump and his relationship with evangelical voters is that, in many ways, one of trump's enduring legacies politically and otherwise is going to be how he has sort of reconditioned the evangelical expectation of what a political leader should be. so, for example, when you look at mike pence's presidential campaign floundering the way it has, i have this memory from a couple of summers ago when donald trump went to the faith and freedom coalition gathering in nashville.

ralph reid's annual shindig. trump lit into pence and let him have it, in front of a couple hundred evangelicals who were mike pence's people. the crowd went crazy, booing pence, jeering him, clapping for trump. i was at a rally once where he described himself as a rush limbaugh on decaf, talking about his days in radio. one of the activists said, decaf? we don't need decaf. this country is about to collapse. they are coming for the church. we don't need decaf. we need the real thing. we need all the caffeine we can get. i think, in some sense, as i said, legacy with the church and with the evangelical vote is that he has conditioned them to expect a pugilism, an antagonism, a hostility, and of course it's completely abiblical and antithetical to the teachings of

christ, yet you have this new standard set, mike pence, ron desantis simply can't pass muster. >> tim, i'm curious because with this issue that your editor is putting together, it's really talking about what trump's second term would look like and the dangers of it. one of the things we were talking about earlier in the show is normalization and how some of the worst things trump says and does are becoming so normalized in american society and in the electorate. but with evangelicals, isn't the evangelical community supposed to be the strongest when it comes to their core values as followers of jesus christ? like, how exactly did this happen? how can they answer to supporting a man that is antithetical to the following -- to what it means to follow jesus

christ? >> well, mika, i hesitate to try to sound smart or original in a 30-second sound bite when i've spent 500 pages unpacking this. but the best answer i can try to give you is that, at the end of the day, there is a certain ends justify the means mentality that i think informs a lot of voters in this country, a lot of conservative voters in the age of trumpism, but specific to the evangelical world, when you believe that the country is at the abyss and you believe that your way of life, your very identity, that this is in the crosshairs and that you may not have another election in front of you, that this is it, this is the end, it's now or never, again, i think you feel excused in a way. i write at one point in the book about how the political system for many evangelicals has come to almost feel like las vegas -- a weekend in las vegas for a suburban tad, which is to say that none of the rules of your

ordinary life apply, that it's this self-contained escape where you can go and act differently there than you would in any other walk of life. the problem, of course, is that what happens in vegas in this analogy doesn't stay in vegas. the rest of the world is watching these evangelical voters, watching their behaviors, watching the ways in which they have glommed onto this individual and created almost a cult-like following, and they are concluding that they want nothing to do with this christianity that they practice. they want nothing to do with this christ that they purport to follow. and that is the great tragedy in this, mika, i would say, is that c.s. lewis told us in his writings that we know what a crooked line looks like only because we have seen a straight line first. those offous who follow jesus know what a straight line looks like, and this is not a straight line. if we can try to get this right and course correct and hopefully allow the outside world to see

who jesus really is and what christianity really looks like, i think they'll recognize that it bears no resemblance whatsoever to what we've seen in recent years. >> the new book is "the kingdom, the power, and the glory: american evangelicals in an age of extremism." it officially goes on sale tomorrow. "new york times" best-selling author and staff writr at "the atlantic," tim alberta, thanks for coming on. thanks for writing this book. thanks, tim. >> thanks for having me. appreciate it. >> take care. coming up on "morning joe" -- actually, tomorrow, by the way, republican congresswoman, former republican congresswoman liz cheney will be our guest to discuss her new book "oath and honor." and still ahead this morning, why some air-traffic controller s are now turning to alcohol and drugs to cope with the workload. what a new report is revealing about the problems workers face behind the scenes that could jeopardize air safety. as we go to break, "time"

magazine has just released its short list for 2023's person of the year. time recognizes a person or a group of people on its cover each year that it says, quote, for better or for worse, has done the most to influence the events of the year. on the short list, we have hollywood studios, taylor swift, barbie, king charles iii, chinese president xi jinping, russian president vladimir putin, openai ceo sam altman, and federal reserve chair jerome powell, and the multiple prosecutors leading investigations into former president donald trump. wow. that is quite a vast and diverse short list. we'll find out the magazine's pick on wednesday morning. we'll be right back.

first time i connected with kim, she told me that her husband had passed. and that he took care of all of the internet connected devices in the home.

i told her, “i'm here to take care of you.” connecting with kim... made me reconnect with my mom. it's very important to keep loved ones close. we know that creating memories with loved ones brings so much joy to your life. a family trip to the team usa training facility. i don't know how to thank you. i'm here to thank you.

>> jonathan, premier league football is about to hit the holiday period. it comes fast and furps you like vin diesel, but the craziness began this weekend. the defending champions facing tottenham hot spur, who's buccaneering up to miss the start to the season. a three-game losing tailspin of agony. this match honestly is crazy as the college football committee's decisionmaking.

tottenham's first attack, they run up the field with audacity, land a sucker punch. a beautiful human being scoring a shocker there, son, but just 2:15 later, the empire strikes back. light comes at you fast. the very same gent, agonizingly, look, crashing the ball into his own net. don't try that at home. late on, score tied 2-2, manchester city believe they have the winner, jack grealish, 81st minute, then slides towards the camera. this i believe is the last thing you see before you die. but tottenham, they are a tenacious mob. 90th minute, last seconds of the game, a header home. cue lebron's celebration. 3-3 draw.

tot. tottenham approve. in other games, red sox and liverpool hosted jacksonville jaguar or fulham. an unforgettable game with more lead changes than openai at the ceo level. liverpool went ahead. alexis mcallister, that's how you say word to your bomb and dropgenargentina. took a 3-2 lead. liverpool summon two late goals, this one from local hero trent alexander-arnold. as joe would say, roll tide. liverpool, watching them, they make you feel alive. finally your league leaders, arsenal who downed wolves with a set of goals. this one scored with fleet afoot telepathy. i'm pretty sure they found a hole in time and space.

saka announcing himself as a star atop of football's christmas tree. john, football at its best is joy in an otherwise too dark world. it's beautiful. >> arsenal plays georgia in the orange bowl in an unexpected crossover. >> that's how it works. >> that's how it works. no one like him. roger bennett, thank you for joining us this morning. we deeply appreciate it. and the third hour of "morning joe" continues right now. >> we say good-bye to a former first lady, a former secretary of state, and a supreme court's first female justice. and also a guy who claims to be all three of those things. >> elon musk met with benjamin netanyahu this week and agreed that israel must destroy hamas. and i think musk could destroy hamas almost instantly by becoming their ceo. good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, december 4th. we've got a lot to get to this morning.

israel expanding its offensive in gaza with ground forces moving into the southern part of the territory. it comes as israeli officials have withdrawn from negotiations for another humanitarian pause. we'll get the very latest on these major developments in just a moment. plus, an update for you on the string of attacks on an american warship and multiple commercial vessels in the middle east. also ahead, the dangers of a possible second term for donald trump. we're going to go through a special feature from "the atlantic," a major effort to detail all the threats our democracy could face. here's what the headlines look like. i'm looking forward to seeing "the atlantic" with their special issue. so important. but here's the front of the "wall street journal," fighting in gaza intensifying as talks on cease-fire stall. and "the new york times" lead,

"israel is urging gazaens in south to decamp." a lot to talk about this morning, but what's happening in israel, what's happening in the united states, and, again, talking about the growing concern about what a second trump presidency would mean. a concern that doesn't come from the fevered dreams of "new york times" editorial page writers or msnbc hosts, but, in fact, words that come from donald trump himself. >> right. who we've learned to believe. with us, we have the editor in chief of "the atlantic," jeffrey goldberg to talk about that consequential issue of "the atlantic." former aid to the george w. bush white house and state department's elise jordan. and the host of "way too early," bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. let's get to our top story. israel is now expanding its war operation into southern

gaza. the military campaign had been focused on the northern part of the strip, but now israeli defense forces are pounding targets in the south and ordering more neighborhoods to evacuate. over the weekend, officials noun they have hit more than 400 hamas targets while the health ministry in gaza complaints hundreds of people were killed in these new israeli strikes. the u.s. is urging israel to protect civilians in the territory. israel's expanded military operation comes just days after a temporary truce with hamas collapsed. international leaders, however, were still meeting in the hopes a breakthrough could be reached. that was until saturday. benjamin netanyahu pulled his negotiators out of qatar and called off the talks they've reached a, quote, impasse with hamas. in a statement, netanyahu explained the terrorist group

did not fulfill its part of the truce agreement to release all of the women and children it is holding hostage. >> and, again, the media is not focusing on this right now so much, but, again, we have to go back to the beginning. jeffrey goldberg, we're actually dealing with a group -- i mean, we have israel negotiating with a group that seized 3-month-old babies while raping their mothers or shooting their mothers or burning their grandmothers or shooting their siblings, kidnapped 3-month-old babies, this terrorist group, and took them back to the tunnels that they burrowed underneath gaza, where they lived in terrible conditions for 50, 55 days or so. i think the most surreal part of this is that we ever figured out a way -- by "we," i'm saying the

civilized world, ever figured out a way to sit down and have negotiations between qatar, with a lot of pressure from the biden administration, israel, and then this terror group, who glorified the shooting of babies in cribs, the burning of babies in cribs, the continual raping of women, israeli women, to death. and for some reason, the international community, forgive me, i saw a clip this weekend we'll play later, but for some reason, the international community, jewish women are somehow less protected than all other women in warfare. the condemnation for the continued raping and killing of jewish women in terrorist attacks for some reason is on a lower rung than it is for the rest of the world's women.

but that's just a side note. a horrid side note. how the media covers this. let's talk instead, though, about these negotiations. they've been cut off for now. but netanyahu, who i hardly ever agree with publicly, i must say, in this case, he's right. hamas made a promise, which is worthless, and they broke their worthless promise. >> well, you know, first, go to the concept of cease-fire, right. everybody's demanding a cease-fire. there was a cease-fire until october 7th, obviously. hamas broke the cease-fire originally, so from the israeli perspective and from america's perspective, as well, and western europe, et cetera, people understand that you're looking at root causes of this current conflict. it goes back to the breaking of a cease-fire with hamas' invasion. but the odd phenomenon here, and it hasn't been discussed enough,

i don't think, in the media is that all along the way, since october 7th, hamas' leaders and spokespeople have been saying that -- various language you hear, october 7th was just a dress rehearsal. we're going to keep doing this again and again and again. people who understand hamas understand that its goal is the destruction of the state of israel. so, obviously, if you're an israeli leader, a supporter of israel like joe biden is, you look at hamas and say there's day-to-day issues you could possibly negotiate with, but this group is very, very plain in its language. it goal is to do this again if it's given the chance, so therefore, you find -- you know -- >> jeffrey, the leaders said we're going to do this again, where every day is going to be october the 7th. >> yeah. right. so, the goal of hamas is to keep

drawing israel into gaza. i mean, it's a kind of -- it's very hard sometimes for the american mind to get around hamas' tactics, but as one former israeli prime minister once said, you know, the israeli goal should be to limit the number of palestinian casualties because hamas' goal is to maximize the number of palestinian casualties. that's a reversal of the usual way things work in warfare. you, as the leader of a group, are supposed to try to limit the number of people of your group who get killed or injured. but hamas believe it's in its best interest to maximize that. the challenge to netanyahu is don't give hamas what it wants but at the same time, you have to recognize that hamas is not -- you're not going to sit down at a negotiating table and come to a peace deal with a group that says over and over again, oh, as soon as we can, we're going to kill you. that's the difficulty of this

situation. >> yeah. and their founding documents. their goal is to kill jews and to wipe israel from the face of the earth. as we've been saying from the beginning, elise jordan, from the day -- the monday after this attack, we said the world needs to understand, for hamas, a dead jew is a victory, a dead palestinian is a victory. actually, what we've found since then is that actually for hamas, a dead palestinian, they figure that's ten times the value of a dead jew. for their own purposes. so, when you see the systematic raping of women -- and we -- most of us, i think, figured this out from the very beginning -- you see the torture, the systematic raping of women, it's all broadcast

live, it's meant to shock israel into going into gaza. and, please, i don't want any lectures from anybody who's too stupid to not understand this, that may be watching going, oh, this is the palestinian civilian's fault, i didn't say that. this is hamas' fault, because they use palestinian civilians as human shields, and they knew exactly what they were doing. talk to that. but also, i bring that up this morning again because, elise, i can't believe i'm stunned by the international response or the lack of outrage to jewish women being systematically raped and tortured and killed and paraded around palestinian towns like they're just meat or like they're carcasses, to be pulled

apart and savagely attacked in life and in death. but that's where they are. we have international women's groups that aren't -- for some reason, they're not coming out and condemning this. we have members of congress not doing this. i don't understand why jewish women don't deserve the same dignity as every other group of women across the face of the earth in the eyes of international communities and some people on the far left in america. >> joe, it's absolutely god-awful, and you look at this conflict and how rape and sexual violence are being used as yet another tool of war against women. and this is true, unfortunately, in so many conflicts throughout the history of the world and ongoing now in regions like west darfur, where there are horrible mass rapes that have been reported.

and this isn't -- you know, this isn't a complex issue to talk about and to decry and to say not okay. the fact that there's equivocating on this whatsoever is stunning. it shows the politicization of so much of the lens at which we look at war, which there are things in war that are black and white. the killing of innocent civilians. the use of rape as a tool of war. the sexual violence that has been put on israeli women deliberately. it really is shameful that it's come to this, where even sexual violence in war is being equivocated. >> and it is. >> so, vice president kamala harris discussed the israel-hamas war with middle east leaders, including egypt's president and the king of jordan, at a global climate summit in dubai over the weekend. here's what she said about what

the future will look like in gaza following the war. >> i've had a number of in-depth conversations with arab leaders here in dubai. specifically, i've proposed three areas of focus. one, reconstruction. the international community must dedicate significant resources to support short- and long-term recovery in gaza. second, security. the palestinian authority security forces must be strengthened to eventually assume security responsibilities in gaza. until then, there must be security arrangements that are acceptable to israel, the people of gaza, the palestinian authority, and the international partners. the palestinian authority must be revitalized, driven by the will of the palestinian people, which will allow them to benefit from the rule of law and a transparent, responsive government. >> you know, jonathan lemire, i think it's been fascinating over the past several days, the past

week, perhaps, watching the biden administration, seeing how kamala harris is being sent out, the messages that she's sening obviously that shows, again, the complexity of this issue but also the two sides of the biden administration's dealing with one, saying we will support israel. we are going to support israel in this heinous terror attack, and we are going to be with them as they try to root out and destroy hamas. and at the same time, we are going to put pressure, as you've reported time and again, and as kamala harris has talked about, and as we saw the vice president this weekend huddling with arab leaders saying, we're going to do everything we can to put pressure on the israeli government to understand we support them in this endeavor. we will not back down. but we expect them to, one, limit civilian deaths as much as

humanly possible while on their mission to destroy this terror group that terrorized the israeli people on october 7th. and, two, look over the horizon to a two-state solution. and netanyahu, who has spent the past decade undermining, let's just say anyway, a corrupt palestinian authority, but netanyahu, who's worked over time undermining any palestinian leadership in the west bank, he and the israeli government need to look to the future of a two-state solution. and this corrupt palestinian authority needs to be replaced by a younger, more representative palestinian authority. and that's not going to be an easy task, but it's what has to be done. and it is interesting that kamala harris is going out there and playing such an active role here in a two-part process in

this delicate diplomatic dance that the biden administration is performing, in my opinion, quite extraordinarily. >> yeah. it's a very difficult and challenging moment for the administration, trying to manage all of these different aspects of this crisis and war. you're right. the president had been to the cop the last two years, this year sending the vice president instead. her message was to do two things, first, to say we are with israel, what happened on october 7th deserves, demands retaliation. but she was pretty firm with a brushback pitch to netanyahu both in the public remarks which we just played but also in these private meetings. i've talked to u.s. officials who were in these meetings, who had received readouts of these meetings. they said very candid conversations from the vice president, showing the u.s. breaks with netanyahu's administration on two separate fronts. one, what they see as a post gaza, where netanyahu has said we might occupy gaza after

this war. the president said that's a bad idea. the vice president this weekend reiterated that and said no, we need to figure a different solution and you all need to be involved. also made clear the two-state solution is the future, a revitalized palestinian authority would play a role on that. netanyahu needs to get on board. and lastly and most importantly, probably the strongest language yet we've heard, joe and mika, from this administration delivered by the vice president saying israel needs to limit the civilian casualties. the toll has been too high with palestinians who have died so far. now that israel has moved into the southern part of gaza, which is where some people have fled from the north and it's so densely populated, and that bombardment as begun in earnest, there's new fear from the u.s. about the number of civilians that could be killed. >> jeffrey, talk about this extraordinarily difficult balancing act that the biden administration, as, let's say

it, the guarantor of israel's security right now, and the one country that is standing shoulder to shoulder with it, talk about the extraordinarily difficult diplomatic situation. snee and the fact the big news that came out late last week about the 40-page document, the warning that israel had about this, that they ignored. >> yeah. >> here are three things that the biden administration and the vice president can't say or won't say publicly. one, putting reconstruction money on the table right now is sort of cart before the horse. it's like, if you don't get rid of hamas, there will be another war, and the buildings that you're rebuilding will get knocked down again. the second is they know that there's no palestinian authority

worth its name. right now it's a sclerotic and corrupt organization in the west bank that the president of the palestinian authority is 87 years old and completely ineffective. so, there is no credible palestinian leadership that's an alternative to hamas right now. so, that's a problem. and then the third part is they're dealing with a government, netanyahu's government, they don't like, actually, right? they don't trust. they don't believe they're competent. coming up on "morning joe" -- >> you look at what's happening to our country, we cannot let it happen any longer. and one of the other things i'll do, because you know, you're supposed to not be involved in that, you have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in. the next time, i'm not waiting. >> donald trump is threatening

to unilaterally send troops into democratic-run cities to enforce public order. >> wow. to enforce his order. >> his order. that's one of the ways he intends to use the military here at home. we'll run through some of the others when "morning joe" comes right back. off your first purchase. bombas. give the good.

the pentagon says an american warship was threatened and multiple commercial vessels were attacked yesterday in the red sea by iranian-backed houthi rebels. the "uss "carney," a navy destroyer, detected a ballistic missile launched from houthi-controlled territory targeting a commercial ship shortly after 9:00 a.m. local time. the missile did not make contact, but as the warship approached the commercial vessel, it was forced to shoot down an incoming drone. separately, two other commercial ships were hit by missiles as the "carney" responded to their

distress calls and was forced to shoot down two more incoming drones. joining us now, nbc news national correspondent courtney kube. what more do we know about this? >> reporter: yeah. the houthis seem to wage this war against commercial shipping on sunday. this is something they have been warning about for the last several weeks. this isn't the first time we've seen them try to fire project times at ships in the red sea and up in towards that area. as you said, yesterday morning, sunday local time, houthi rebels began firing missiles at three separate commercial ships. the "uss carney" was in the region at the time, and each time one of these ships was fired on -- as you mentioned in several cases even struck by these missiles -- the "carney" responded. as they responded, houthi rebels also fired off one-way attack drones, drones that are generally laden with explosives.

the idea is they come in and they just strike into any kind of a target. in this case, the "carney" was in the path of these drones in all three cases, the u.s. military making their decision with their right of self-defense, to take those drones down. it was a pretty remarkable afternoon because we saw the succession of missiles and drones over the course of hour rs. as i said, the houthis have been warning that they would do this, and they specifically have said they would target israeli ships. now, another thing, you know, you've been talking the last 15 or 20 minutes now all about israel here. one thing our viewers should know is that during this pause or cease-fire that occurred last week in israel and in gaza, despite the fact that these other iranian-backed groups stopped attacking bases in iraq and syria, the houthis, also backed by iran, have continued

their targeting of ships. they've tried in several cases to launch missiles towards southern israel. so, despite the fact that the other group stopped throughout the truce, the houthis continued. now, one thing that i was really struck by in the course of reporting on this yesterday is the pentagon saying that they believe that iran has supplied the houthis with this. we know of course that iran in the past has funded, trained, supplied the houthis, but they specifically said in their statement last night that the houthi rebels have been funded by iran. literally, just moments ago, the iranian foreign ministry spokesman completely denied that. coming up, drunk and asleep on the job. "the new york times" has a startling look at air-traffic controllers pushed to the brink. we'll talk to one of the authors of that piece straight ahead.

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from that day on, our

opponents, and we have a lot of opponents, but we've been waging an all-out war on american democracy. >> yes, you have. >> well, that was clear. >> so, he said he's terminated roe v. wade. that's true. >> check. check, check, check. >> he said that he wanted to destroy obamacare. check. he did say that. >> he said it. yeah. >> and now he's saying they're waging an all-out war, he's been waging an all-out war on american democracy. true as well. >> yeah. all right. check. >> not all there, huh? >> no. i'm being honest. >> i am too. >> all this talk about biden bumbling. that's -- >> yeah. i don't know. >> haven't seen him in a while. >> the weird thing is, like, when he's saying, oh, i meant to say i was running against barack

obama, you look at the clips, and he's just so -- he's just so out of it. >> he also just got some bad legal news. >> he can't find the words to say. >> yeah. >> he thinks we're about to start world war ii. he doesn't know who's running what countries. they're not, like, small countries. two nato countries. he doesn't even know the leaders. he just gets very confused up there. >> and his following is more fervent than ever. >> maybe they want people who are sort of -- >> the biden/harris campaign highlighted that slip of the tongue by donald trump there, perhaps more of a confession. over the weekend in iowa is where that happened. jeffrey, today you are unveiling a new special issue of "the atlantic" that features essays from 24 writers, each outlining the threats they say a second trump term would pose to the united states. tell us about it.

>> yeah. the thought was simple. we have a lot of writers at "the atlantic" who have spent many years covering different aspects of trump and trumpism, and i wanted just to pull them all together in one easy-to-read package, one copy of the print magazine -- obviously, it's online right now at theatlantic.com -- and i wanted our writers to describe, as best as they could, what would happen in their areas of expertise should trump become president again. and the theory, of course, is that the next trump presidency will be worse, the restraints will be off, there won't be any, quote, unquote, adults in the room anymore. there's a piece about who would take jobs and who would get jobs in the next trump administration as an example. there's a multiple of pieces. david fromme has been writing about the threat of autocracy, what this would look like.

tom nichols. many of "the atlantic" stars of the "morning joe" cinematic universe are in this issue. tom has written about what would happen to the military should trump become president again. caitlin dickerson on immigration. on and on and on. what i wanted was a package, you know, an easy-to-understand package, look, this is what is going to happen. it's not just pure speculation. as you point out, all you have to do is listen to donald trump and the loyalists around donald trump. he's telling you what's going to happen. he's going to use the power of the justice department to persecute, not prosecute but persecute his enemies. we know what's going to happen to the civil service. we know what's going to happen on immigration. we know that the generals that we count on to be apolitical when they run the military, we know that they're in danger and that they're going to be replaced by i think the

technical term would be "nutjobs." this is all apparent. so, i wanted to put it one place early, and with any luck, you know, at christmas, maybe people could read it and bring it to their relatives who are on the fence and say, look, here's what's going to happen, do you want this or not, it's simple. this is not partisan. this is not about republican ideas versus democratic ideas. this is about standing up for democracy. this is not about republican ideology. this is about trump's predisposition toward autocracy. >> and the thing is, you look at ann applebaum, conservative, down the list, so many of these people who have probably voted republican in the majority of their elections throughout their lives. elise jordan, i would just guess that you would be one of those,

as well, like me. but when you look at a republican nominee, a potential republican nominee that's talking about terminating the constitution -- he said terminate the constitution, arrest political opponents using the justice department, assassinate generals that weren't sufficiently politically loyal to him, saying that he was going to take the fcc and bring it in to the white house, and he would decide what networks were on and what networks were not on. talking continually about trying the leaders of comcast for treason and shutting down this network because, i don't know, doesn't like joy reid, i'm not sure. maybe it's lawrence o'donnell who irks him. but his answer is as next president of the united states, i'm going to try them for treason. this is, again, for me, it's

just staggering that people that i know, people that i grew up with could still even consider voting for this autocrat. >> joe, i'm glad you went through the litany of authoritarian intentions that donald trump has for a second term because any one of those items, just as a stand-alone, is jaw dropping and unacceptable and illiberal. and put together as a whole, it's so disturbing and is why this atlantic essay collection is so important. what you see of trump big picture, though, all these ideas that he's pushing, it's the reasonable outcome of the move into political extremism and how donald trump is trying to radicalize his followers to the extent that he can do pretty much whatever he wants to. and so far, he's been pretty successful in that there's some polling that suggests that 1 in 5 americans, that they are

radicalized to the state of an extremist by the same indicators that we would have used when we polled post-9/11 extremism and terrorism in the middle east. and it's incredibly scary that so much of the country is being divided in this way for political expediency and for power, and that's why it's important for those who do care about democratic institutions to keep speaking out. >> we have learned over the years to take trump at his word, and some of his followers will do what he says. over the weekend in iowa, he asked for his followers to go into deep big blue cities, philadelphia and the like, and watch the polls to protect the vote, which sure sounds like voter intimidation to me, jeffrey. so, talk to us, if you will, so many guardrails not just within an administration but within a democracy, our society, have fallen away since 2016. trump has plowed through a number of them. yes, the courts in 2020 held

barely, but talk to us about the real threats, and if he wins again and assumes power again, what is left to really stop him from being what could be a borderline dictatorship? >> right. you know, in the first term, there are a lot of people in government who held on, right, held on in their jobs -- the justice department, state department, defense department and so on, right. but in a plausible second term, i think that what you'll see is, a, a direct attack very early on on the civil service, and, b, a lot of people who would gum up the efforts by trump and sident of the united states, you are the de facto chief lafrts officer of the united states, right. you appoint the attorney general. and the idea of donald trump under 91 felony counts, facing 91 felony counts at this moment,

returning to a role as chief law enforcement officer is absurd, obviously. but here we are. and so, the number-one goal, the first goal, before immigration, before everything else, right, the first goal is to make sure that the mechanisms of government can't be used to prosecute trump or his allies, right. so, it's going to be a direct frontal assault on the independence of the justice department and, by extension, the independence of the entire judicial process. you know, there's not a lot to do when you have somebody who's autocratically minded. this won't be the situation like in first round he brought in jon kelly and the adults. no more adults, right. they're starting with steven miller could wind up being the chief of staff of the white house.

we don't know. and so, the point is they have been working for years to plot their revenge. that's what david fromme's piece in this issue, it's about the revenge presidency. that's what this is. >> yeah. and, again, you say this is not republican or democratic. david fromme, a george w. bush speechwriter, a guy officially hated by the american left in a past life. i mean, it's -- >> a lovely guy. lovely guy. >> lovely guy. we love him. i'm just saying, all of these people -- >> i know. >> so many of these people that are writing in this piece, proving it's not a republican or democratic piece, are people that the american left used to -- we'll say did not tolerate very well. >> right. >> i get it. got a call on friday from somebody who said i feel like i'm our ombudsman because

anytime people are angry at "morning joe," they call me. i said who would ever be angry at "morning joe"? we're beloved by everybody. this person said this was somebody on the left that was angry you had santorum on. i said we had him on because he supports pepfar. preaching to the audience he wants to reach. i said whoever else would call you and say they don't like "morning joe"? he said most complaints are from people who think you are too anti-trump. jeffrey, i ask this question, and i'm deadly serious here. when you have somebody who says, he says, he writes it down on truth social, that he wants to terminate the constitution, that he wants to jail political opponents, let me say this again, this is not -- this is not trump hatred. this is using trump's words, just like saying he wants to -- he was willing to terminate roe v. wade.

when you have somebody running for office that says they want to terminate the constitution, they want to jail political opponents, they want to execute generals who are insufficiently loyal, they want to create mass internment camps to send immigrants there, they want to take networks off the air that are insufficiently loyal, and try their executives for treason, that's what he says. how am i being too difficult? how are you being too difficult? how is anybody who loves american democracy being difficult by pointing out the danger that is in front of all of us if this guy gets back into the white house? >> you know, i'm about to engage in a built of constructive media criticism here, and which is the following. you know, we're so inured to his

statements that we tend to ignore them. but i think that every time he says -- we'll use the general mark milley issue, he should be tried for treason, that should be banner headlines the next day. the former president says chairman of the joint chiefs should be tried for treason, right. when he talks about dismantling the constitution, that should be banner headlines. that should lead the news. that should be everywhere. it's sleepwalking, as liz cheney says. >> why is it not, jeffrey? around why is it that when hillary clinton says the word "deplorable" in a speech, it's in the headlines. when he uses nazi terminology to degrade, uses the word "vermin," you hardly hear anything about it. why is that, jeffrey? >> i think it's normalization. i think it's this process where one of the great attributes of human beings is we can get used to anything, right. so we got used to this, and we

just accepted it as background noise. he does have this particular superpower in that he goes further than anybody in rhetoric, and we kind of go, yeah, it's just donald trump. and i think we have to reverse that and just say, no, no, no, no, this is a former president of the united states. look, if barack obama, if george w. bush said the things as a former president not running for president again, said the things that donald trump said, we would have huge stories every day about former president loses mind. >> right. >> right? you know, and says -- and meanwhile, donald trump is the nominee for the presidency and here we are. we act like it's normal. coming up, the last words. lawrence o'donnell joins our political round table. we'll talk about this week in presidential politics and his own work, giving back to a very good cause. that discussion toppings our fourth hour when "morning joe" comes right back.

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three minutes before the top of the hour. there is a growing problem in the polar bear capital of the world. a polar bear invasion is overrunning a small townery far north in canada, because there isn't enough ice in their natural habitat. nbc news chief environmental affairs correspondent anne thompson went there and she joining us now. what did you find out? >> it was absolutely fascinating. we went to the town of churchill in manitoba to see what had changed in a decade for the people and the polar bears who

both live there. climate change is the root cause why bears and people come into contact. polar bears draw tourists to tiny churchill canada. here where the forest stops and the tundra starts, they come to see the bears make they way bck to the sea ice to feed on seals. from a protected buggy, it's dangerous. hungry bears come to town. when they are spotted, conservation sergeant ian van ness gets the call. his polar bear alert team on this day tracking bears at 5:00 a.m. in the town of 900 people. >> judging by the size of the

tracks, it's a sub adult. >> one of the bears was spotted near our hotel. it was a juvenile. the warning shots woke us up. when they find one of the bears, they fire shotgun blanks in the air to scare it away. >> it's all about trying to steer that bear in the right direction. >> by afternoon, it's a day to remember. >> there's been six that have tried to walk in the town today. yes. >> is that an unusually high number? >> today set the record for this season. >> government officials say this year they're seeing more than twice as many bears in down compared to 2022. on the tundra, where the bears belong, polar bear international's jeff york says the lack of sea ice due to climate change is the problem. >> the longer these bears are on shore, the more likely they're

going to look for alternative sources of nutrition. it could be human food, it could also be other bears. >> how hungry are these bears? >> these bears have been generally fasting for five months. >> as a result, polar bears now must spend an extra month on land. ten years later, the risk is even greater. researchers say the polar bear population here has declined 27% in the last five years. the bears are smaller, and this year the sea ice is taking even longer to form. inside the tundra buggy, york shows us what's happening. >> you can see hudson bay, there's really no ice. >> if this was normal, how much of the bay should be frozen? >> we'd see ice in the basin and forming around the shelf, especially down here in the corner around churchill. >> increasingly putting

churchill in danger. next year, york hopes to add something called beardar to detect threatening bears. what is this? >> this is the tower, this is the beardar. >> but churchill's mayor mike spence is just as worried about the other threat, the changing climate. >> how much do you worry one day churchill will no longer be the polar bear capital of the world? >> you think of it at times, naturally. we're pretty proud of the fact that this community is pretty special and there's no other place like it, so we do our part to make sure we can continue to coexist. >> the town doing its part, hoping the rest of the world does the same. >> now, the polar bear alert team in churchill is doing a truly amazing job. it has been ten years since a bear mauled a human being and 40 years since a killing.

the longer the ice takes to form, the higher the risk. this year, the bears were off the ice 164 days. that's more than five months. it's the fifth longest time since 1979. >> absolutely incredible. nbc's anne thompson, thank you so much for that report. we are now into our fourth hour of "morning joe," just past 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. jonathan lemire and elise jordan are back with us. we begin with israel, now expanding its ground assault in gaza, following the collapse of the truce deal that saw more than 100 hostages and 240 minute prisoners freed. richard engel has the very latest. >> reporter: israel is now focusing its military campaign in southern gaza. where many hamas leaders and

fighters are believed to have fled. israel has dropped leaflets with maps dividing the gaza strip into a grid and has been telling palestinians to move from one quadrant to another for their safety. so far gazans don't seem to understand the maps, don't have internet connections to read the qr code or simply aren't listening. gazans complain they've been corralled into the south and are now under attack. the biden administration has urged israel to be more precise. a senior u.s. military official tells nbc news he was taken aback by the ferocity of israel's renewed campaign that has seen israel attack apartment buildings. the united states urged publicly and repeatedly israel to do more to avoid civilian casualties. are you listening to that? >> absolutely. we're very attentive to the administration and we are

constantly engaging with our american counterparts. >> reporter: in rafah, our crew followed volunteers digging through the night at a home they say was hit by an israeli strike. they find a few survivors and at least 14 bodies. rafah is on the egyptian border. gazans can't go any further south. when this woman was pregnant with triplettriplets, israel al her to leave gaza to give birth in jerusalem. we found her babies at a hospital in east jerusalem. doctors tell us they're developing well. we managed to connect her and her husband on a video call for a precious peek.

the war separated us. as mother, i wish i could hug my girls, she says. now to what legal analysts say was a significant development in the case against former president trump. trump is not immune from civil lawsuits looking to blame him for the january 6th insurrection. this is a big step against him. in a unanimous ruling on friday, a three-judge appellate court found the former president is not entitled to immunity as an elected official, because he was speaking as a candidate on january 6th, not in his official capacity as then-president. multiple police officers and members of congress sued trump nearly two years ago, saying he incited the riot at the capitol. the ruling does not say trump is

liable in those suits. it only says the cases may now move forward to find out if he is liable. judge tanya chutkan ruled the former president also does not ve protection from criminal prosecut in her decision, judge chutkan wrote, quote, whatever immunities a sitting president mayenjoy, the united states has only one chief executive at a time and that position does not confer a lifelong get out of jail free pass. and yet, trump is trying to claim it is joe biden who is the threat to democracy. >> joe biden is not the defender of american democracy. joe biden the destroyer of american democracy. it's him and his people. they can do whatever they want, break any law, tell any lie,

ruin any life, trash any norm and get away with anything they want. t projection, what confession on his . >> the "new york times" writes, quote, mr. trump has a history of acc hisents of guilty of.hat he himself is polls have shown signt percentages of voters in both parties are concerned about threats to democracy. during mterm elections, trump's lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him were defeated, even in races in which voters did not rank democracy as a top concern. mr. trump and his campaign have sought to dismiss such concerns as a concoction to scare voters. but on saturday they tried to turn the biden campaign's arguments back against the president. >> let's bring in lawrence

o'donnell and katie benner. thank you for being with us. lawrence, it's a little harder for donald trump to say, no, you are, when it's donald trump who said he would terminate the constitution if he needed to do that to become president again, who is talking about executing members of the military, chairman of the joint chiefs, because he's not sufficiently loyal, taking networks off the air and trying their leaders for treason because they are insufficiently loyal to him. and yes, the guy that incited the riots on january 6th. talk about donald trump and the rising threat he poses to democracy regardless of what he tries to project onto joe biden. >> well, this is what he believes works for him, is to

actually just tell these lies so directly. it almost seems that the more his lies about joe biden mirror what donald trump has actually done, the happier he is when he's actually just delivering it right back with absolutely no substance to it whatsoever. i did a long piece the other night, joe, about how the leading republican presidential candidate said he wants to close down a news network, and there was nothing. the three national news broadcasts, nbc, abc, cbs did not mention it, didn't mention it. now, here's the thought excerpt. imagine joe biden came out -- and the language he used was, you should use the power of government to come down hard on msnbc. let's say president biden comes out today and says, i am

announcing i am using the power of government to come down hard on fox. how long would it be that that was the leading story in the country before any other story ever got to air? that's the world we're living in. >> yep. >> it's the world we're living where hillary clinton can talk about deplorables and it's on the front page of the newspapers for days. it's discussed for the rest of the campaign. donald trump uses nazi terminology to dehumanize his opponents, vermin, and it's barely a blip. katie, talk about the threats to the future of the justice department with a look back at what donald trump said at the end of his campaign. he said two weeks before the campaign ended in 2020 that the

justice department, his attorney general should arrest joe biden and his family and send them to jail. >> certainly. i think it's not just what donald trump said at the end of his presidency, but what he continues to say on the campaign trail. he's made it very clear that his top priority if he becomes president again is vengeance and he would love to use the justice department and the fbi to exact that vengeance. it's not just that he wants his attorney general to investigate a political opponent, he has a list that we know there are people who worked in his own administration who have since criticized him, people like former attorney general bill barr, people like ty cobb from the mueller investigation. he has said he would like to use the justice department, basically explicitly saying the

rule of law is no longer something that under the 14th amendment is equal protection under the rule of law, but the rule of law will be wielded specifically politically. >> lawrence, you're talking about how trump can say the most outrageous things such as banning a major network and it will barely be the blip on the radar. >> zero. it didn't get mentioned in the national news media. >> some of the things he said in 2016 that were so outrageous, beating up people at his rallies and he supported political violence. now he's just on a different level. how does the media have to adjust and recalibrate to not cover this as a campaign, but as a man who is under indictment with 91 counts? >> this has been the question since 2011, when donald trump first started lying about

president obama's birth certificate. i called that a lee immediately, called him a liar immediately. he was shocked. he didn't know he could be called a liar for that. it took the "new york times" five years after that to first call donald trump a liar, use the word lie about a birth certificate. that shows you the built-in lag time of reaction in most of the media for this kind of new phenomenon. the thing about the trump administration and how they would use the justice department to go after the enemies, this is why i think the prosecution in georgia by fani willis might be the most important of all, because there you see trump lawyers facing the possibility now of going to prison. you see trump lawyers indicted. you see giuliani has been temporarily disbarred. he's going to be disbarred. all of these lawyers, most of them are going to end up

disbarred, some of them in prison. that's the lesson. jeffrey clark, the former justice department official who tried to do the most to help donald trump, the most illegally, is now facing prison, and he will be disbarred. the jeffrey clark picture should be on the wall in any justice department controlled by donald trump to remind them all that donald trump's not going to live forever and at some point there's going to be other people in charge of this justice department, and every one of you will be prosecuted like jeffrey clark is being prosecuted in georgia if you do the things donald trump is saying he wants you to do. >> katie, i want to segue. we had a lot of fun last week with the idea that liz cheney said kevarthwent to mar-a-lago to che on trump because he was not eating enough. trum responded on truth social. he said, it's not true.

i was n depressed. i was angry. and i was not eating too little. i was eating too much. he says donald trump tried t rally the party around him. tell us your reporting of what that would mean for the federal workforce, not just the justice department, but anyone working in washington and they're going to be asked to pledge loyalty not to the constitution, but to donald trump. >> what you said about mccarthy is so important. when you think about trump's rhetoric, so much of it is about credibility. he's trying to discredit the rule of law. it raises the question about whether or not the executive branch can do that job. can the justice department get that job done? can the civil service get that job done, the civil service he said if he were to become

president again, he would want to get rid of anybody who was not loyal to him. that really leaves two parties able to hold him accountable, the voters and the republican party. to your point, the republican party under mccarthy buckled. it's to be seen whether or not they would want to do that. for the voters, he's trying to poison the well with as many lies as possible so they too will be neutered when it comes time to figure out whether or not he's going to become president. >> katie benner, thank you for being on. lawrence, we want to take a moment to highlht the work you continue to doit your kids in ne of desks fund every holiday season, raising vital awareness and money to get desks in classrooms and educational scholarships for girls across

malawi. you traveled across malawi and talked to students who benefitted from this help. >> what did it feel like the first time you sat at the desk? [ speaking in a global language ] >> how wonderful, lawrence. that must be so absolutely fulfilling to go on the trip. tell us more about the need. >> it's the high point of my year always, mika. these kids are so great. deprivation is a relative concept. so they don't see any more wealth around them. they don't see kids who have toys, phones or things that they don't have. so they don't feel that deprivation the way you would

here, because you constantly compare yourself to others. this is one of those situations where every penny helps. the girls we sent to high school where public high school is not free in malawi, we provide them with uniforms, everything including their shoes. the shoes we give them cost $8.25. almost no family in malawi sending their daughters to school can afford those shoes. anyone who can send in $8.25 can get shoes for a girl who needs to go to high school. "morning joe" has been so supportive of this from the start. i have to tell you, some of the biggest contributions we've gotten over the years have come from viewers of this program. mika and joe, i really thank you for giving it a voice here. it's really important.

>> absolutely. >> we're so grateful for what you're doing. >> if you woul like to dough de to kind, visit lastworddesks.msnbc.com. lawrence, stay with us. we have a lot more to talk with you about. we definitely want people to reach into their wallets and help kind. coming up, a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers has resulted in an exhausted and demoralized workforce that is increasingly prone to making dangerous mistakes. we'll be joined with one of the reporters behind an alarming new piece in the "new york times." plus, how do you pull communities torn apart by political division back together? one colorado town just might have found a way. we'll explain that next. way we'll explain that next.

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a new feature in the "new york times" offers a blueprint on how to bring communities back together who have been torn apart by the raging political wildfire that has engulfed the nation since the rise of trump. two years ago, tensions in the town of silverton, colorado, erupted after the mayor suspended the pledge of allegit cy council meetings. battle lines were drawn between so-called old-timers the links to the mining town's past and millennial professionals, who have recently moved in from big cities. "new york times" political correspondent jonathan wiseman details how residents in silverton managed to come together to find common ground in what some are calling a miracle. i would call it a miracle. jonathan joins us now.

jonathan, first of all, just tell us more about what was dividing the town and how it's coming back together. >> silverton is not exactly anytown, usa. this is a town at 9,600 feet above sea level. it's only got about 900 full-time residents. but there are elements of it that are very reminiscent of what's happening in this country. you have an older generation that used to be the majority and that are losing their grip on power. you have younger, more liberal people coming up. that created the atmosphere for tension when the mayor decided to suspend the saying of the pledge of allegiance because another, more liberal member of the town trustees council had been harassed in the street.

this led to an absolute eruption. fox news got involved. death threats poured in. they had to shut the city council and the visitors center. that was terrible mess. the town was at each other's throats. at one point the mayor left town because the sheriff's department told them the threats on his life were credible and they didn't have the manpower to protect him. >> jonathan, as i was reading this story, it reminded me so much of a movie i saw on netflix called "the best of enemies." it was based in durham, north carolina, 1971. you had a civil rights leader, an older woman. and you had a guy who was secretly the head of the kkk.

somebody came in from outside and believed if they could just get them talking and get groups talking, it would make a difference. and it did. it was a shock. anybody that doesn't believe something like that could happen after watching that movie should read your piece. dialogue, it's an incredible thing. >> it is. in silverton, collapse happened fast, but rebuilding is a slow, methodical process. in silverton, they took small groups, two, three people away from the cameras, away from the spotlight to just begin the conversation about what you want from this town to find out what people had in common and slowly, methodically, it began knitting

the town back together. it did work. >> talk us through the architecture of repair. you're at a point where the mayor has to leave town because of death threats. then who does what? who says what to whom that starts this off, and how does this become a larger dialogue? >> this outside group from glenwood springs, colorado, called community builders had just come up with a ten-year plan for developing silverton, kind of a blueprint. community builders had experience dealing with division, not so much political division, but social division in town. so they had two guys in there, and they began talking to the most influential members, not necessarily the mayor, not necessarily the political people, but people who had real

sway in the town. they began saying, okay, meet with this person and this person, meet in private, have them talk. at first, it was tough. i heard the story about this woman who walked into one of these meetings. there were only going to be three people in these meeting. she took one look at one of the people in the meeting and left. they kept at it. they realized one of the real power centers of the town was the volunteer fire department where the long-term fire chief was taking pot shots at other members of the community. they started working with him to try to get him on board. as he started coming around and saying, hey, these guys have a point. if we could just sit down and talk, maybe we could find a common vision for the town. once they start wearing down the

centers of discord, they can start smoothing things out. and they did. what's remarkable in silverton is some of the people who fomented the worst of things -- one guy i talked to admitted that he was the guy who sent the video of the refusal to say the pledge to sean hannity on fox and really brought in the outside world. he was apologetic. he said, you know, if i had known it would have the impact that it did, i would have never done it. another guy, one of the weed dealers in town, he also said that he really feels like he made a huge mistake by fomenting this division. i had to meet him in durango, an hour away, because he still felt so ostracized for what he had done. at least the sense in town was now that what you need to do is come together. you can't be the guy who is

taking shots from the outside. >> the new piece is online for the "new york times." political correspondent for the time jonathan wiseman, thank you so much for doing this story and thanks for coming on. >> thanks for having me. >> is it possible in a grander scheme to try and bring america back together? that shows not just what can be done, but how deep the divisions can be. >> it can be done across the nation, but it has to start in really small groups. it can start at dinner tables and in communities. lawrence, i talked to a republican legislator in connecticut after sandy hook. i said, you're a hard core conservative, you voted for probably the most dramatic sweeping gun safety law in america and you got reelected.

how? he said at first i had town hall meetings with a hundred people there. they screamed. then he broke it down to ten people. it was ugly. then he broke it down to five people. they still couldn't talk. then he said i broke it down to three people, me and two other people, and we just started talking. when we started talking, they let down their talk and we talked person to person. he said by the end of it, my district understood why i did what i did, and a lot of them supported it. that's the key. it starts at grassroots level. >> i used to see this in upstate new york with senator moynahan when he'd do town halls in purely republican locations. i'd be standing in the back of the room. when it was over, i would hear people as they were leaving saying, well, i disagree with him about everything, but he's really smart. so what you saw was those people

connecting with who the person was who was speaking to them. he was making a liberal's case to them, a thinking liberal's case for what he was doing. some of those people ended up voting for the person who they heard up there, because connecting to human beings is actually what we are good at. >> lawrence o'donnell, thank you so much. it's great to have you on. we'll be watching "the last word" weeknights at 10:00 p.m. right here on msnbc. coming up, a conversation about why the government is being more forthcoming than ever about some evidence, while still withholding other crucial information. nbc's sam brock joining us next on "morning joe."

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mika, we're looking at a shot of lax right there. earlier this year we were showing a lot of reports on "morning joe" about airplanes that almost ran into each other on the runways. >> near misses, yeah. >> we've heard about near misses in the sky, on the ground, with planes about to land, having to pull up quickly because they were about to run into another plane on the runway. >> runway incursion, yeah. >> now we're understanding why this is happening. >> well, could be part of it. a troubling investigation published by the "new york times" spotlighting the nation's overworked air traffic controllers, including some who claim their colleagues use drugs and alcohol while on the job. in a moment, we're going to speak with one of the reporters on the story. first, let's get the details

from nbc news correspondent tom costello. >> reporter: it's a high stakes, high pressure job. 2023 has been a year of close calls involving both pilots and controller error, including this one in austin when a controller cleared a fedex plane to land just as a southwest plane was departing. one big problem, controller fatigue. 77% of air traffic control facilities are understaffed, leading to mandatory overtime. medical issues forced neil burke to retire this year. >> we're tired of working six days a week, ten-hour days. >> reporter: faa documents detail controllers' own anonymous reporting of mistakes and exhaustion. among the entries, many employees can be observed sleeping on the job. if i had not been fatigued, i

may have been able to recognize the aircraft lined up for the incorrect runway sooner. also included, isolated cases of controllers using alcohol and drugs while on position. one claimed a colleague regularly smoked marijuana on break. another bragged about making big money buzzed. with more than 10,000 certified controllers on the job, the new faa chief says substance abuse is very rare. >> we monitor it closely. >> reporter: both the faa and controllers union says overtime fatigue is real. >> you're missing your home life, kids' ball games and events. >> reporter: controller michelle hager left last june. >> that is not a sustainable lifestyle to be working that hard at a job that requires so

much mental focus at all times. >> we're working every day to make sure the system stays as safe as it has been for decades. >> joining us now sydney ember, one of the reporters behind that "new york times" piece titled "drunk and asleep on the job, air traffic controllers pushed to the brink." that's a terrifying headline. tell us a little bit more about what you found. >> this investigation actually started almost a year ago. you might remember there was the southwest meltdown, a lot of things were happening, it was becoming very annoying to fly, thousands of passengers were stranded all the time. we started looking into this, and then all these close calls started happening. through reporting and documents, talking to more than 70 people including current air traffic

controllers. what we found is these close calls are happening multiple times a week. a big part of it is air traffic controllers are fatigued and demoralized. >> what is the government doing to try to remedy that? >> our reporting found that 99% of air traffic facilities in the united states are understaffed. you know, i think one of the biggest issues is we haven't had a crash. fortunately, there hasn't been a collision in a long, long time. so the faa has a budget, just like all federal agencies. understaffing is pervasive. this understaffing dates back to the 1980s. the government hasn't really kept pace with the wave of

retirements happening. so they're just in this big hole right now. >> in the short-term, as your story indicates, some of these air traffic controllers are turning to stress or to alcohol. what is being done in the short term to try to crack down on choices that endanger passengers? >> they're working six days a week, ten-hour days. they say there's not enough support, that the faa isn't doing enough and that things are reaching crisis leve a lot of people tell us they're afraid a crash is inevitable at this point because everyone is so, so overworked. >> thank you very much for that reporting. staying in the air now -- >> i have to say this. >> no, i can't. >> no i have to say it.

jonathan lemire, i've been reading the times since i was like 8 or 9. i'm going to be honest. there were years where i would look at the sunday times going what are they doing? what are they doing here? i don't understand. what's their audience? yesterday's sunday times, incredible, one great story after another. the placement was perfect. this was the lead. it should have been the lead. again, it's such an important story, this story out of colorado was there. again, it was a perfect mix. i know i'm sounding too nerdy right here, but there are years that have gone by in the past where i look at the sunday times

and say what did i get out of this. most of the time it's great. yesterday i got finished with my sunday times and said, my god, they're hitting on all cylinders. >> joe scarborough, unlikely ombudsman. i've worked at newspapers for decades. my parents always had papers around. we all consume most media on our phones, but there's something delicious about grabbing the printed edition and going through it. not only do you see the stories you want to find, you discover others you never would encounter online and you read so much more and you're better for it.

we're turning now to the growing push to get the government to share more information about ufos, also called unidentified aerial phenomena. it prompted lawmakers to hold a hearing over the matter in the summer. >> i have experience advanced uap firsthand. i'm here to voice 30 air crew and military veterans who have confided their similar encounters with me. uap are in our air space but grossly underreported. these sightings are not rare, but are routine. we are frequently witnessing these phenomenon. >> that was part of former navy fighter pilot ryan graves' testimony about the phenomenon. graves was also one of the subjects of a new episode for "meet the press reports"

entitled "ufos, is the truth out there"? joining us now the reporter of that piece. nbc news correspondent sam brock, what more do we know or what more do we not know? >> there's been this mythology around ufos for generations. what's different now? some of the videos seem to show aircraft doing things that defy what we understand about the capabiliies of aircraft. in 2017 there was leaking of several videos from pilots and reporting of a shadowy pentagon program studying these objects.

since then, we've seen congress take a keen interest in what's going on. obviously the congressional hearings this summer on the topic of ufos. what did they find? you mention that pilot ryan graves. he discussed before congress this notion that his squadron for years had seen uaps and doing things, standing basically stationary in hurricane-force winds, traveling at mach speeds. he talked about how several of his pilots nearly crashed their jet because of close contact with uaps. that gimble video is a famous video, tilting in very strong winds. robert powell is an expert,

cofounder of the scientific coalition on uap studies. in texas you had 300 people reporting things in the skies. they requested radar data and put the pieces together on whether or not there was actually something in the sky and reports from people on the ground that they saw f-16 fighter jets. he looked at the radar and did some calculations. here's a glimpse. >> initially the government said there were no f-16s in the air. however, i knew there were because i got the radar data from the faa and i could track the f-16s. the acceleration to going from standing still to 1900 miles an hour in ten seconds or less, depending on how you calculate it is anywhere from 10 to 20

g-forces. >> there is no human aircraft that can accelerate at 10 g? >> no, not with a human being in it. >> straight-line acceleration for a fighter jet would be more like 1 to 1.5 g. he's talking about 10 to 20 g. what will they find and release to the public that's the question. >> watch will they find and re to the public? that's the question right now, joe and mika. >> you can watch "meet the press" reports ufos, is the truth out there ond peacock and youtube. nbc's sam brock, thank you very much for the preview. we appreciate it. take care. coming up, oscar nominated director todd haines is live in studio on his new netflix film "may/december," a story of two

women and their world of lies. we're back in two minutes. lies. we're back in two minutes. with. which means mr. harvey... could picture the perfect night. we're delivering more happy for the holidays. whenever you're hungry, there's a deal on the subway app. buy one footlong, get one 50% off in the subway app today. now that's a deal worth celebrating. man, what are you doing?! get it before it's gone on the subway app. ♪♪

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do you remember when you first met. >> he came looking for a job. >> the summer after sixth grade? >> seventh. >> when do you want to play me? >> when they sent me a script, i thought here is a woman with a lot more to her than what i remember from the take lloyds. >> what would make a 36-year-old woman have an affair with the seventh grader? >> people do see me as a victim. i wanted it. >> i already have an idea what it must have felt like. >> what? >> sneaking around with you. probably shouldn't have said that. >> why would you want to play

someone who you think is the bad person. >> it's the gray areas that are interesting. >> she's getting on my last nerve. she's just everywhere i look. >> why can't we talk about it? if we're really as in love as we say we are? >> insecure people are very dangerous, aren't they? >> oh, my god. >> wow. >> that was a trailer for the film "may december" streaming now on netflix and has been receiving some oscar buzz. the movie stars academy award winners natalie portman and julie ann moore as well as chris melton which some are calling the film's breakout star. joining us now, the film's director, todd haynes. i have so many questions, i don't know where to begin. >> i think an artist would love -- reminds me of bill murray during "tootsie," saying

i want people to leave the theater saying what just happened? deeply troubling, a booby trap of emotion. what artist would november not love those reviews. . >> what were you setting out to do. >> thanks for having me on. look, i've been making movies my whole career. many movies with julie ann moore, my fifth film with julianne moore. this is something natalie portman brought me at the height of kobe. this script by sammy birch distinguished himself as so original, so bold and puts you in a place of discomfort as you were reading it and really trusted the reader, and i just thought this is going to be the project i finally get to do with natalie. >> todd, spectacular cast as noted. give us a little more about the

premise. it's a movie within a movie. >> it is. it's a story of an actress who comes to the town to begin to do research during the subject in her next film. natalie portman plays that actress. the woman she's playing is played by julianne moore. it's all about a scandal that occurs 20 years in the past where gracie begins a relationship with a 13-year-old boy. they've since married, been incarcerated, they've built a family. it summons stories we know from tabloid culture that are reminiscent of this. >> so the character gracie that julianne moore plays, her incentive is for the natalie portman actress character to

come in and see her perfect life now. >> yes. >> how does that unravel? >> you think initially, okay, natalie is going to be our reliable narrator. she's going to get to the truth of what really happened and sort of knock down the barriers that have been built up around this family, and you realize this family has had to survive. the film is really about i think the stories we all have to survive our lives. this is a particularly extreme case, but this process of investigation begins to shed these barriers that have been up for so long. >> so we -- you see natalie portman and julianne moore, you see them on the screen and the trailer and you're riveted. oh, my god, what great talent. yet, there's a third actor who is getting buzz and that's chris

melton -- >> charles melton. >> i'm sorry. charles. hold on one second. he's such a breakout star, we got it wrong. i'm so sorry, charles. this proves you're a breakout star. charles melton. talk about how he came into this project and really, really carved out a place for himself? >> it's one of those examples of a character in a film upon which the film working relies so intensely. it was really a discovery process to try to find the perfect actor to play this character joe. i worked with lauren rosenthal, a casting director i've worked with since 1998 we put out a breakdown and had actors read, audition, do self-tapes. charles is known very well by some folks from the show

"riverdale." i didn't know his work when i saw his audition. he did something no other actor who was reading did, which is play this role like someone who is just learning how to see himself for the very first time, and with such restraint and such tenderness. so the third act of the film really belongs to those little steps joe takes towards skoving who he is. the performance has been gaining a lot of amazing attention. he won the gotham award for best supporting actor. he just won the new york critic's prize for best supporting actor. sammy birch won the critic's prize for best screenplay as well. >> you know what? i'm going to get a lot of trouble, todd. at least three of my four kids watch "riverdale."

they're going to go, dad, dad, it's charles. what is wrong with you, old man? nothing wrong with this movie. we're so excited about it. thank you so much for being here. >> may december is available to stream now on netflix. todd haynes, thank you very much. >> congratulations. the idf warning palestinians to flee southern gaza, warning of a large-scale attack. the new fears for civilians this morning left with nowhere to run. plus the pentagon confirming a u.s. warship schott down three drones during attacks on commercial vessels in the red sea. the group now taking responsibility for those attacks. also ahead, george santos issuing new threats against former capitol hill colleagues.