hey, everybody. good to see you. i'm yasmin vossoughian in for my friend chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. right now defense secretary lloyd austin doubling down on u.s. support for israel, insisting the united states will not dictate a timeline or terms for how it goes after hamas. this message, despite the growing fears at the white house and austin's own concerns that israel's bombing campaign will ultimately backfire, creating more terrorists than it kills. what happens now? what are the chances senate negotiators can break a decades-old impasse on immigration in just a couple weeks? the unbelievable amount of political pressure on lawmakers as they try to navigate what one senator calls, quote, the most complicated area of the law in

the entire country. some horrific holiday weather making things miserable for millions of americans right now. the storm that soaked the carolinas now slamming new york, boston, even bangor, maine. torrential rain and winds as high as 60 miles an hour. when saturday going to clear out? defense secretary meeting with israeli leaders, reaffirming american support while urging a transition to better protect innocent civilians. >> democracy are stronger and more secure when we uphold the law of war. as i said, protecting palestinian civilians in gaza is both a moral duty and a strategic imperative. >> so those remarks from the pentagon chief underscoring the growing pressure israel is under to scale back its operation

against hamas. the how the rage perhaps most keenly felt by the families of the hostages that are still held in gaza. you're seeing the massive pr in tel aviv yesterday after the idf realed its soldiers mistakenly killed three hostages who were carrying a white flag on friday. those three joining more than 19,000 people who have been killed inside gaza since october 7th. 70% of whom are women and children according to the hamas-run health agency. the cia director is in warsaw meeting the qatari prime minister looking to restart humanitarian talks that have largely ground to a halt. i want to bring in nbc's hala gorani on the ground in tel aviv. thanks for starting things off for us. secretary austin mentioning earlier sharing information on urban warfare and strategic strikes as well. he, of course, led the campaign against isis in iraq. what more do we know about the discussions he's having with the

israeli government? take us behind the curtain. >> reporter: as you mentioned, he met israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his counterpart gallant. he called israel a democracy, that it will keep pushing and help push for the release of hostages. there you have them on your screen, shaking hands with benjamin netanyahu. this is a second visit, yasmin. it's important to note only the latest very high-level american official to tour the region and israel. this really underscores how much the biden administration is taking this seriously and trying to send this message over and over again that israel needs to move from its high-intensity conflict phase to something a little bit more surgical because of this incredibly high death toll inside of the gaza strip. wrapped in all these layers of diplomatic speak, of reassurances that america stands shoulder to shoulder with

israel, the secretary of defense in response to a reporter question said that, though there is no effort to dictate a timeline, that the u.s. is having some very important and significant discussions about how to move to another phase of this battle. here is a portion of what lloyd austin said in tel aviv just minutes ago. >> any large-scale military operation will have phases to its campaign. as you transition from one phase to another, it doesn't mean that -- that doesn't signal an end to the operation. it sometimes means that you're being more precise, more focused on a specific target set. you're doing different things during that campaign. >> reporter: well, in plain english that means basically

making sure that less civilians are killed. this is happening against the backdrop of that meeting in warsaw, yasmin, as you know and as you mentioned to your viewers that include the qatari prime minister. qatar has a political relationship with hamas as well as the heads of mossad and the cia. >> hala gorani, thank you. appreciate it. for more on the defense secretary's trip to the u.s., i want to bring in ambassador dennis ross, former special assistant to president obama and nsc senior director for the region and he's also met with some of the families of the hostages. ambassador, great to talk to you once again. talk me through what you heard from the families of the hostages still being held in gaza. what did they tell you? >> i won't surprise you that they're focused very heavily on 73 days. they're deeply concerned about

the conditions of the hostages, worried about those who have been injured and whether or not they have gotten any care, almost a sense of understandable desperation about how much longer this goes on in terms of people there being able to survive. they know that they've heard from hostages who have been released about the conditions, the treatment. so there's a deep passion and concern. and obviously the fact that three hostages somehow escaped but then were tragically killed by israeli forces. all this weighs on them. they want to know that the world isn't forgetting, that these were people who were kidnapped, these are all innocents. it's very important to them that the story isn't one that doesn't get submerged and there's a high level of attention, not only

from their own government which they want to do everything possible to recover the hostages and save them, but also from the world, that the world shouldn't somehow dismiss this and somehow accept it. >> do they feel as if their government, ambassador, is doing enough to try to rescue the hostages still being held in gaza? >> you know, i think there's a feeling that the government is briefing them, telling them what it's doing. the fact that when there was one -- we had one pause and one set of releases, but we still have 130 hostages being held. so almost by definition, they would like a kind of constant reassurance that the government is doing everything it possibly can. when you're sitting there, and this is something that weighs on them every second of every day. when you look in the faces of the families, you can tell, it's all over those faces, the gnaw

tour of this ordeal. so there's a need to know that whatever is being done is literally everything that can be done. would they like to know that the maximum is being done? absolutely. are they confident that that's being done? they would like to think that that's the case. >> in light of the killing of these three israeli hostages by idf soldiers admittedly, we know this meeting happening in warsaw between the qatari pm, the head of mossad israeli intelligence agency along with cia director bill burns, do you sense there could be an opening for another hostage exchange, a cease-fire, a temporary cease-fire? >> i think temporary cease-fire is the right way to modify the term cease-fire. i think there's a real possibility of it, mostly because i think sinwar of hamas

notes a respite. i think this takes the pressure off for a while. therefore, i think there's an incentive. he's certainly used the hostages as ang asset to be traded, but also for a respite from the pressure that hamas is facing right now militarily, especially in khan yunis n. the northern part of gaza, the israelis have mostly broken hamas' control. there may be pockets, but for the most part in the northern part of gaza, hamas has lost control. in the southern part of gaza, that's not the case. yet there's intense operations by the israelis there now which, by the way, could be a kind of preamble to the stages or the phases that secretary austin was talking about. so i do think there's a decent possibility that we could see another temporary cease-fire,

temporary pause as part of a hostage exchange, a hostage release deal that i think could well be in the offing. >> let's quickly touch on secretary austin's visit while i have you and the civilian death toll in gaza right now. secretary austin reiterating his support for israel, but also underscoring the need to protect civilians inside gaza. the president himself just a couple weeks ago saying israel is losing global support because how he put it, quote, unquote, indiscriminate bombing happening in gaza. how can israel show the world that they are working to account for civilian lives on the ground in gaza? >> i think this is a really crucial question because the more that israel does in that regard, the more time and space we'll have to after strategic objective. most of the countries in the

region, if they're not prepared to say it openly, share in that. to have the time and space to be able to do that, israel has to show it's doing everything it can, not only to provide humanitarian assistance, and there there is much more now going in because israel has opened their own crossing point, carol shalom. there's a need to demonstrate that israel is generally concerned about trying to limit the civilian casualties. that will likely affect the kind of operations they carry out. there is a kind of built-in tension. on the one hand, we would all like to see this over and hamas defeated as soon as possible. but to do that, you actually end up using much more force and you use it in a less discriminatory way. the more you are trying to take

care of the civilians, especially in the south where there is a very large number, and for the most part they're not leaving the way they did in the north, then it puts more of a burden on israel to conduct an operation that will probably take more time. the fact it's taking more time is a function of actually trying to do more to protect the palestinian civilians who are there. >> ambassador dennis ross, as always, thank you. appreciate it, sir. a delaware man has been charged with drunk driving after crashing his car into president biden's motorcade last night. you could hear the moment it happened. watch this. >> mr. president, why are you losing to trump in the polls? >> they're the wrong polls. [ collision ]. >> certainly quite a moment for the president and his secret service detail.

you could see the president being moved quickly into the vehicle after the accident happened. the scare came just hours before the president marked 51 years since he lost his first wife and 1-year-old daughter in a car crash. we are back in just 60 seconds. senators scrambling to get an immigration deal done with critical aid for ukraine and israel in the line. can they break a decades-long impasse in such a short timeline? ( ♪♪ ) the serrano name has always been something we're proud of. it's why we show it off on our low riders and why we wear our name on our chains.

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new ukrainian and israeli military aid. lead senate negotiators, b chris murphy, kyrsten sinema, james lankford say they've made some progress but don't yet have a deal. the crisis at the southern border is worsening the day. >> something has to be done. there's this perspective of let's just pretend it's not happening. we can't pretend it's not happening. >> and in the room everybody feels that way. >> everybody understands in the room something has to be done. this is chaos. >> something has to be done but can they get it done. julia tsirkin is on capitol hill and jake sherman, an msnbc political contributor, and matthew dowd, senior msnbc political analyst. welcome to you. julia, are they still talking? where are we? >> reporter: they are still

talking. but a limited hope that a deal could come together this week has all but been depleted. yasmin, we talked about this all through out the weekend. they were making progress and continued to say so yesterday. there are still major gaps. that includes on parole authority. the white house pushing back on republican demands to let migrants into the country on a humanitarian basis be over, be ended. the white house is pushing back on that but is still considering it. there's also other issues like expanded forced detention of migrants. i was just on a call with immigration advocates who had significant concerns about this piece of this, whether that would include children. all these questions still unanswered. there's also the question of expanded, expedited deportation of migrants. you'll remember that republican governors had bused migrants into democratic-run cities like new york city and chicago. one of the things republicans are pushing for is to expand

that to the interior, to the cities like new york city and chicago, to remove migrants from there. all this being said, they are still way too far off from a framework to even have legislative tts which is something senator sinema said yesterday would incredibly compd to craft. watch. >> ishe most complicated area law in the uted states. it is very, very complex. you have to get it right. if you make a mistake, you fundamentally change law in ways you don't intend and you have years and years of litigation. so it's very important to be careful and to do it correctly, and that's what we're doing. >> reporter: all that being said, yasmin, negotiators are still planning to meet at some point today, though that timing has not yet been set. the senate is set to return later today. the hope was they'll have a framework to show their colleagues. we already heard from senate republican leader mitch mcconnell yesterday who in a note to colleagues said, listen, there's nothing to vote on and

they don't want to be jammed to get something done. they want to get it done. >> hope of a framework, jake sherman. how do you characterize these thoughts? is the truth closer to what lindsey graham said a couple days ago, i.e., it's not going to happen and even if it does, i'm not going to vote for it. >> it's tough to say. a couple of questions worth considering here. number one, it's fair to say house republicans that are not represented in these negotiations, and that's very important, their price is quite high. even if they get 60% of what they want, they're going to reject that because they want hr-2, this very restrictive border bill which they have fought for for months and passed in may of this year. many of them have said that. there's a question that if they get a deal, let's assume they get a deal out of the senate, can they get a bill in the house? there's a lot of dynamics to

consider here, and i agree with what julie said. this is incredibly complex. there's a reason it fell apart in 2013 when it happened. there's a reason there hasn't been any major immigration legislation since the 1980s. it's because it's difficult and there's a lot of constituencies that need to be managed. >> yesterday trying to get it done in the last week of the year. matthew dowd, the president has a lot on his plate when it comes to this. he's not only dealing obviously with the republicans, but a lot of infighting happening within his own party. you've got the progressive democrats saying we don't want these changes that are being proposed to immigration policies. you've got folks and leaders from places like new york and chicago as well that want them to do more when it comes to immigration. how does he thread that needle? >> well, i think this is the mistake democrats have made for quite a while. i sit here in texas and i think democrats here have made the mistake because they've allowed governor abbott to put them on

the defensive. i think democrats need to be proactive on this and take on the border as an issue they can attack republicans on. the problem fundamentally is that whatever strong hand people want to impose in legislation is not going to solve the problem that we have on immigration that needs fundamental reform. no one is stopping the fundamental reform on education right now are the republicans. so instead of trying to excuse themselves, democrats, or figure out a way to get republicans on board, i actually think they need to go proactive on this and say we want to solve it and this is the way to solve it and why are republicans standing in the way of this solution? >> it's interesting you bring up governor abbott. i want to play some sound of new york city mayor eric adams, matthew, talking about the migrant crisis here in new york city after so many migrants were bused from texas and places like florida as well. then we'll talk on the other side. >> i need to get clear to new yorkers, we have a $12 billion

hole, a $12 billion hole. this is not sustainable. let's say you raise taxes and we keep continuing to get almost 3,000 migrants a week, we're going to keep raising taxes more and more and more? >> that's not sustainable either. >> that's what i'm trying to share with you. that's what the federal government has placed us into. >> to your point, matthew, this is exactly what texas governor abbott, florida governor ron desantis wanted when they started busing migrants to cities like new york and chicago. >> yeah. this is what amazes me about this issue. governor abbott is the governor of the second largest state in the union with the third largest economy in the union, with the second largest budget. it's over $260 billion budget. he's the governor of the state with the border problems. he's not proposing any solutions. he has two united states senators, ted cruz and --

slipped my mind -- john cornyn in the course of this. neither one of them are supporting solutions on immigration reform. but the democrats hide in the fox hole and basically say, oh, my god, what are we going to do about this? in my view, they can go on the offensive on this and say basically, why haven't any three of you done anything on this issue? >> jake, if this gets pushed to january -- i think you're looking at january 8th, that's the number i've been hearing has been tossed around a bit, we're also looking at a possible government shutdown. two deadlines, late january, early february as well. could this get worse if it gets pushed to january considering what else they have to deal with? >> yeah, i think this is getting underplayed how big of a legislative crunch we have in january. you have the expiration of four government funding bills for four large swaths of the government. you will have effectively a week and change for both chambers to be in session to get that done.

so you're talking about coming back january 8th. the government runs out of money at the end of the next week. it's very difficult for me to see, having covered a number of these fights in the past, them being able to negotiate these four bills, negotiate a border, ukraine, immigration, israel, taiwan deal in the course of two weeks. i don't see it happening. i don't know how they're going to get that done. that's the situation they're putting themselves in because they're not, they're not going to get a deal this month. the house isn't even going to come back into session on the off chance they do get a deal. >> have you posed, jake, this question to either speaker johnson or leader schumer at all considering what's ahead in january? how are they responding to that? >> speaker johnson is at home. >> he's got a phone. >> i don't know that he's at home specifically, but he's not in washington. listen, i think they understand the legislative crunch. johnson's point is we've spent the last eight months, seven months talking about immigration

and the senate has not done anything. that is effectively true. they did pass a bill, even though it has no chance of becoming law. we'll get to talk to chuck schumer, julie and i, in the next couple hours. >> let us know what he said. thank you guys all. appreciate it. good luck to you, by the way. all right. coming up, everybody, extreme weather bringing howling wind, heavy rain, flood watches to the east coast. we'll get the latest forecast. netflix takes a closer look at the seven counties that could ultimately decide the 2024 election and why. stay right here. 2024 election and why stay right here. my frequent heartburn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. (man) mm, hey, honey.

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welcome back. right now much of the northeast is facing torrential rain, high winds as a massive storm is barreling up the coast leaving millions under flood and wind alerts. there are over 750,000 homes without power from new jersey to maine. in boston a ground stop has just been lifted at logan airport after reported wind gusts reaching 70 miles an hour. in new jersey cars became struck while trying to drive through flooded streets on the morning commute. all this after the same storm deluged the south turning streets into rivers in charleston, south carolina, with more than 4 inches of rain there. take a look at this in florida where a bolt -- wow, look at that. a bolt of electricity surged along a power line in st. petersburg.

that would be terrifying to see. nbc's george solis is at philadelphia international airport, also with me nbc meteorologist bill karins as well. george, i was watching the weather this morning. it looked like philly was getting hit pretty hard. walk us through it. >> reporter: the image is certainly harrowing when you put them altogether like that. luckily we're seeing some of it move out, the cold air moving in. it was a messy commute for so many, millions in fact, especially those trying to get a head start on the holiday travel. flight aware reporting somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500 delays and more than 500 cancellations. that's a lot when you're talking about people trying to get a head start on holiday travel. a lot of people expecting the delays and cancellations because they saw the storm system moving up the coast. 50 million under the threat of flood warnings. this morning we had a chance to talk to people here at the airport who said they had to navigate the treacherous terrain to get here, but nothing was

going to stop them from getting to their destination. take a listen. >> woke up. it was raining crazy. we're still going. for her birthday. we're excited. the floods was crazy. we had to take different routes through the city to get here. nevertheless, we're here. >> reporter: of course, you can imagine a lot of the airlines thankful this was a rain event and not a snow event. a lot of eyes on southwest airlines which the department of transportation just strapped with a $140 million penalty for the meltdown last year. the airline saying they're prepared and trying to avoid a remeet of that. people are heeding the warnings, making sure they're checking with the airports for delays and cancellations. that's going to be the big player here when we talk about the holiday travel. 2.8 million expected to travel until the holiday. >> a lot of people waiting it out at the airports. with that, bill karins, where is this thing right now and where is it headed next? >> the worst is over in new york

city and southward. the storm is over long island. it's long island northward that we're still seeing heavy rain and strong winds. there's water everywhere. a lot of the rivers are cresting in the mid-atlantic and areas of new jersey. the number one concern right now for life and property, snow melting rapidly with temperatures in the 50s and 60s which is ridiculous for this time of year, and along with it the heavy rain. already considerable wind damage along the coastal areas. most of the power play outages are in maine and massachusetts. in maine, one in every five households doesn't have power right now. the cold air is coming in on the back side. on-and-off snow showers, michigan, ohio, indiana. these are flash flood warnings. every dot on this map is a river that's in flood stage. so the wrors it gets, orange is minor, red is moderate.

we've been watching a couple rivers in major flood stage near the pennsylvania/new jersey border. also the sacco river north of north conway, that is high enough where it says water should be entering homes and businesses. that's in great concern in northern new hampshire. the winds knocking over trees overnight. people have been calling this a december-cane. winds are gusting to 60 miles per hour in portland. still additional people losing power. boston had a gust of 68 miles per hour. winds are dying down on long island. nantucket still at 55. at the airport, they've had a ground stop the last couple hours, no planes allowed to take off headed to logan. currently 134-minute delays. i'm sure there's a lot of cancellations as well. as far alzheimer's snow goes, typical lake-effect snow. it will return to winter a little bit. dreaming of a white christmas,

cleveland, buffalo, erie. >> i am -- >> disappointment all around. >> thanks for disappointing my child, bill karins. >> coming with a snow machine. battleground break douven. who will decide the election? nbc is tracking swing states, issues and voters that could decide what happens on election day. we'll be right back. s on electi day. we'll be right back. gift the iphone 15 pro with titanium. boost infinite. the subway series is taking your favorite to the next level! like the #20. the elite chicken and bacon ranch. built with rotisserie-style chicken and double cheese. i love what i'm seeing here. that's some well-coached chicken. you done, peyton? the subway series just keeps gettin' better.

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if you can believe it, we're now just four weeks away from finding out if donald trump's dominance in the polls translates to primary election victories. trump is leading a pair of new cbs polls where the first two contests will be held. in iowa trump leads with 58% with ron desantis in second with 22, nikki haley in third with 13. then in new hampshire, take a look at this. trump leads with 44%. nikki haley gained some ground with 29%, just behind him. as we inch even closer to 2024, nbc the looking at seven key counties across the country to help explain the presidential election with in depth on the ground reporting from a team of nearly 20 journalists, the initiative is called the deciders. here to break it down is nbc national political correspondent steve kornacki at the big board. also back with us is matthew dowd as well. karnak i can, if you will, walk us why we chose these counties

specifically and what they could tell us about the 2024 election. >> more than 3,100 counties in the country. we'll look deeply at seven between now and election day 2024. you showed it a minute ago. here is the seven. these are counties that will be very important in many cases in swing states that could decide the election. these are also counties that demographically could be relevant in terms of the broader national picture. some key demographic groups you can isolate in some of these counties and maybe get a sense of where not just in that county, but across the country they might be going. let's take a 30,000-foot tour of the seven and why they were chosen. dane county, wisconsin, a big county. university of wisconsin at madison is there. this is a hugely democratic county. what we're looking at dane for is democratic energy, democratic turnout, democratic mobilization. in the 2020 presidential election, they had nearly 90%

turnout in dane county. democrats have been punching above their weight in what is a blue county. this is a test. democratic enthusiasm, measuring that in dane county. kent county, western michigan, grand rapids, traditionally republican. it's not taking kindly to donald trump. democratic have made inroads in the trump era. if trump is the nominee, is he winning them back? is it getting worse? erie county, far northwest pennsylvania, one of only two counties in pennsylvania to flip from trump to joe biden in 2016. it is blue collar. went for obama twice. basically typifies, obama, obama, trump counties we saw around the county. if trump is the nominee winning it back, that could be a bellwether for him. if noshths it could bode well for the democrats. maricopa county, as goes maricopa, probably goes the state of arizona.

washoe county, nevada, this is where reno is. not as big a footprint is in nevada. the way things basically work in nevada, clark county where las vegas is, it's the biggest democrats rack up big votes there. all these big geographic counties are rural and heavily republican. then you get to washoe, the second biggest in the state, kind of a swing county, very important. grin net county, georgia, typifies the whole atlanta metro area which over the last generation, huge explosion in population. it's diversified dramatically and trended towards the democrats, enough that joe biden was barely able to carry the state in 2020. he owes it to the atlanta metro area. we'll be keeping close tabs there because that's why the state is so competitive. in south florida, miami-dade county, 2.7 million people. this will be on election night 2024 one of the first counties

we get results from. remember, republicans from trump did make inroads in 2020 with hispanic voters. we'll see early on election night if that's continuing in 2024. >> get you excited and nervous, depending on who you are. steve kornacki, thank you. appreciate it. matthew dowd, let's talk through some of the poll numbers that steve was walking us through. specifically i want to focus on the poll i talked about as we came to you. 44/29 split in new hampshire. that's a big jump for nikki haley. if we dive deeper into this polling, when it comes to being prepared, 54% saying trump is prepared. 53%, a percentage point behind, within the margin of error, nikki haley is prepared. likable, 55% saying nikki haley is likable. the former president, 36%. is she's merging as the number two? >> i think she's been emerging as the number two in the last

four weeks. i would also counsel the viewers, that's one poll in new hampshire. a poll two days before showed her 27 points behind. she's risen above desantis in many places, new hampshire. she's almost tied in iowa and in south carolina she's ahead where she was governor there. the problem for all these non-trump candidates is they don't seem to be breaking through to trump voters, to people that are locked in for donald trump. donald trump is going to be -- the iowa caucuses, he's 30, 35 points ahead. we wins there, eight days later is new hampshire. if he stays at 44%, the problem is you have multiple candidates dividing up the rest, donald trump wins there. in the end until nikki haley or anyone else starts breaking into the trump vote, this is trump's nomination to lose. >> so here is the thing, though. naoki haley is figuring out how

she can break through when it comes to going after ron desantis. she hasn't necessarily done it a lot on the campaign trail. let me play that for folks and then we'll talk. >> ron desantis has not put one truthful ad up there about me. while ron is lying about me, i'm going to tell you the truth about him. this is something you haven't heard me in any town halls, the press can tell you. i have not talked negatively about anybody. but if you've got to lie to win, you don't deserve to win. >> nbc is doing this analysis on what success looks like, especially when it comes to iowa. as i see you smiling there, responding to what we just heard from nikki haley. for donald trump, success looks like cracking 50% according to our analysis. for desantis, it's needing a strong top two showing, for haley a top two or top three showing. do you agree with that

assessment? >> i think the margin to me, i'm looking more at the margin of what the margin in iowa is. if he's north of 18 or 20 points in iowa, i think it's very difficult -- once that vote happens, it's very difficult to try to get momentum if you're a non-trump candidate, again, in the aftermath of that. i agree with the desantis thing. if he can't finish second in iowa, it's done and it's over. he had all this momentum, he's fallen in the last couple months. i think vivek and others right now are sort of out of this race. right now the problem for ron desantis and nikki haley, they seem to be competing against each other and talking about each other while donald trump runs away with the race. >> here is another thing i want to talk about ought of this cbs poll talking about immigration. wanting the gop nominee to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. in iowa, 85% say deport them.

in new hampshire, 80% say deport them. this is on the heels, as we talked about over the weekend, the former president of the united states standing up on stage on saturday evening, invoking the words of adolf hitler from mine come of and saying, and i quote, immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. while we know the trump base will vote for the former president no matter what, could this alienate the swing voter? >> i absolutely think it could alienate the swing voter. donald trump proved when he came down that escalator and started describing mexicans as rapists, that there's an appetite for that in the republican vote. yasmin, i don't know your immigration background, your family's immigration back ground. my great, great grandfather came here as a 17-year-old through new york and ended up in michigan with $2 in his pocket. i would guess every single one of those republicans who are

saying deport undocumented immigrants are all the sons, daughters, grandsons, great grandsons, great granddaughters of immigrants in all this. i think most of the swing voters understand that and how important immigration is for us as a country, especially economically and who we are as a culture in this. donald trump has tapped into something that exists within the republican party which is this very, very, very strong anti-immigrant, anti anything that they don't define as the american culture. he's tapped into that and he tapped into it eight years ago. >> if you think i'm a great contribution to this country, my parents came here in 1969 from iran. i'm a first generation iranian american. matthew dowd, thank you. a shocking rise in homelessness in america, reaching the highest level ever. what's behind this fight coming up next. ehind this fight coming up next.

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welcome back. the number of people without a place to live in the u.s. has surged to its highest level yet. now citizens are scrambling to figure out how to shelter a growing number of homeless. nbc's dana griffin has more. >> reporter: take a drive down los angeles's skid row filled with tents, people and growing frustration. >> if i can get back in to another residence then i won't make the same mistakes i made before. >> reporter: according to new federal data, a record number of people are now unhoused.

more than 653,000, a 12% population increase since last year. mel runs a nonprofit that provides free showers to people living on the street. >> the system is completely overwhelmed. >> reporter: pointing to a rise in housing costs, the opioid epidemic, mental health issues, and the migrant crisis as factors exacerbating the problem in l.a. >> we have families, asylum seekers to families in l.a. who become homeless. prior where we would be able to send them to a motel or shelter in a couple of days, there's no resources. >> reporter: these issues are creating friction in major cities. in september, new york city mayor, eric adams said new fears as migrants flooded the city. >> this issue will destroy new york city. >> reporter: in phoenix, the city recently cleared a large encampment located downtown. >> it seems that the quote

unquote clean up that the city did just spread the mess out a lot further. people going through everyone's dumpsters, dragging stuff out into the streets. >> reporter: across l.a., officials have tried to clear out encampments. this year, los angeles county declared a state of emergency. since then, officials say they have provided health services, counseling, substance abuse treatment and found temporary housing for more than 15,000 people and permanent housing for more than 8,000. but even though resources are not enough for frustrated business owners like this woman who doesn't want to be identified. >> we offer food, but if they don't want it, what can we do? it's very frustrating. they'll throw things at you and grab you. >> a growing national problem that could take decades to fix. dana griffin, nbc news los angeles. still to come in the next hour of "chris jansing reports," a report breakthrough for

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