i keep threatening to broadcast the breaks. it's too bad today wasn't one of those days. my thanks to most of all you for watching. that does it for me. mpp daily with chuck todd starts now. if it's wednesday are the u.s. and iran on a deadly collision course? the white house calls the attack on saudi arabia a quote act of war and the president says the ultimate option is on the table. and now the near constant question of whether we can trust anything from the president and his inner circle is becoming a bit more urgent. how team biden and team warren are taking shape. welcome to wednesday.

it's meet the press daily. tensions with iran lead to the ultimate question, are we gearing up for conflict, are we gearing up for war? secretary of state pompeo accused iran of carrying out an act of war against our ally, saudi arabia. and seemed to threaten more to come. he does not want any new war on his watch in the middle east because he's told us as much. but of course the president has misled the public and the press more than 12,000 times according to a count by "the washington post." knowingly misleading the press is tantamount to lying and as a reminder here's the president publicly justifying how he knowingly misled reporters at "the new york times." >> did you dictate the statement about donald trump, jr.? >> let's not talk about it. you know what that is -- >> but can you tell us? >> it's a statement to "the new york times" the phony failing

"the new york times." that's not a statement to a high tribunal of judges. that's a statement to the phony "the new yo "the new york times." >> folks obviously especially in times of credibility matters and matters most right now. the administration has blamed iran for a number of recent aggressions. we're told the intelligence conclusively links iran to the attack on saudi installations and that might be true, but this president in the past has gone to great lengths to sow doubt about the u.s. intelligence including while he's been president. and top officials in his administration including his former white house press secretary and his former communications director have gnaw admitted under oath to lying either to the press or behalf of the president. yesterday under oath the president's former campaign manager justified lying to the press. >> you hear that, sir? that was you saying on msnbc you don't ever remember the president ever asking you to get involved with jeff sessions or

the department of justice in any way, shape or form. that wasn't true, was it, sir? >> i've heard that. >> and that wasn't true, was it? >> i have no obligation to be honest to the media because they're just as dishonest as anybody else. >> so the president justifies lying to the press if his associates justify lying to the president, what do you do with the administration's comments and claims about anything? and most importantly i bring this up because of the situation we're in with iran. do we believe the president, the administration, the intelligence? does the public, do our allies, do our adversaries? and what about exchanges like this one today when reporters asked the president about senator linda graham's question that iran views they can attack this week. >> how did they go into the middle east, how did that work out, and how did going into iraq work out, so we have a

disagreement on that, and, you know, there's plenty of time to do some dastardly things. it's very easy to start, and we'll see what happens. there are many options, and there's the ultimate option, and there are options that are lot less than that. and we'll see. we're in a very powerful position. right now we're in a very, very powerful position. no, i say the ultimate option meaning going war -- no, i'm not talking about that ultimate option, no. >> joining me now the national reporter of bloomberg news, an msnbc contributor, and editor-in-chief of of the washington beat. that's where you live most of your reporting beat on capitol hill. yesterday i talked to one senator on the record who is waiting for more information but feels as if the defense department is doing its due diligence and that this appears to be an iranian attack.

but are they getting properly, do they have the info yet? >> the word on the hill is secretary of state pompeo is going to be going to saudi arabia, getting more information and giving senators of congress a background today. there is question whether the president has the authority to launch any strike without approval from congress. there's of course a bigger debate having within the republican party between figures of liz cheney who want to be more aggressive more hawkish and figures like lindsey graham. he's been trying to pull back and tone down the rhetoric. along with that clip you played it's very easy to attack how going into war with iraq would work out. >> i brought up the credibility thing because this is the moment when credibility counts, right? and i don't think any of us know where the president is. >> this is what's most interesting. when you look at the possibility

of having escalations with north korea even with escalations on the tradew war with china, he stepped back. but he's aware of that. he knows most americans don't want to get into war. what is interesting, though, is that today when bolton met with some conservatives, he dug into the president's position on sanctions and said, look, north korea and iran all they want is free economies. we're pushing them into this corner. >> by the way, this story is mass politically, and that everybody is not quite sure. john bolton and lindsey graham have both connected the decision not to respond to the iranians shooting down an iranian drone. and they both connected it to the saudi incident. the president doesn't seem to like that. >> right, and he wants senator graham and ambassador bolton speaking for the consensus among most middle east experts in

washington, d.c. well, guess what? donald trump ran against the consensus in 2016. he has governed against the consensus. i would say look at his actions and his words and he wants america out of the middle east. >> matthew, even better as we always say there's always a tweet.com. in october of 2012 we should remind people that citizen trump said don't let obama play the iran card in order to start a war to get re-elected, be careful republicans. let me go one more to move this point because i think this is who really trump is. this is citizen trump in 2014. saudi arabia should fight their own wars which they won't or pay us an absolute fortune to protect them and their great wealth. >> i think there's a separation in trump's mind between the nuclear deal and then iran's maligned behavior in the region

which i think trump is willing to accept more of buzz fundamentally he doesn't think that's our problem. so he can bash the nuclear issue all the time, he doesn't want iran to be a nuclear power, but when it comes to this gray zone conflict between iran, the kingdom of saudi arabia and the united states, and yellin, uae, trump is not interested. >> here's the political consideration that i think really worries the president probably more than anything else and it's gas prices. this attack is projected to raise gas prices by as much as 20 cents a gallon. think about who the president's core base is. when they fill up their tank they will notice that difference, and he wants to be able to convey to them that he's trying to do something -- >> you know what will raise the price of oil more, a strike on iran. >> exactly right. >> among other -- we are big believers in ironny here. i do want to play secretary pompeo today lecturing reporters about who to believe when it

comes to intelligence on what happened in saudi arabia. take a listen. it's audio only. >> these people lie and so whenever you report about them you say the houthis said. you should say the well-known frequently lying houthis have said the following. this is important because you ought not report them as if these are truth tellers. so there you go. whenever you say houthis you should begin with the well-known frequently known to lie houthis and then you can write whatever they say and you would have good reporting. >> look, i'm not trying to equate the two but it seemed like with a president who just within the last 24 hours -- it reminded us look i can tell the media whatever i want, it makes it harder to figure out what to believe. >> he's basically saying our intelligence community is not giving us the information so this is where it's difficult. and then you pivot and say what are the yourpens saying and even

the yourpens are saying wait a second, let's wait and see. and the saudi arabians have not come out and said yes this is them. and that is the challenge. >> the technology certainly indicates it's hard to imagine this came from yemen, right? >> but the saudis are hesitant of saying yes sure. i would encourage to listen to what are the yourpens saying and what do the saudis say. >> even if if it came from yemen who funds the parties in yemen who would have engaged in this attack? the reason we're having all these big discussions about lack of credibility and can we trust the intelligence is that americans are tired of middle east wars. and this goes back to the obama administration. it's reflected on capitol hill and in the white house now, so i don't see the prospects of any military retaliation anytime soon. >> this is why trump won the

presidency, he found the way to use the iraq war against hillary clinton. so don't take the president at his word. look at the pattern of his rhetoric and the pattern of his actions and at the end of the day that was pulling back from the strike on iran, it was firing john bolton. it's his unorthodox approach to diplomacy with the taliban. >> do you buy the weakness argument, that the iranians saw when we didn't retaliate on the drone, do you think it's that connected? >> the way we've been retaliating mainly through non-military means. there's been some cyber attacks as well, clearly those policies have not deterred the iranians from responding in this asymmetric way so we're fighting a conflict with iran but it's not an overt military conflict. it's done through proxies, cyber, through financial sanctions.

and the president i think has always weighted economic power over military power. the problem right now is it has yet to produce the results that he would like to see in several of these theaters. >> why -- it is interesting, do we have an obligation to protect saudi arabia from iran? does that feel like policy in this administration? >> well, the u.s. has no defense treaty with saudi arabia, right? and i think that's one of the reasons that members of congress are skeptical of the president acting without some kind of authorization. honestly i think the answer to that question is it's up to him. >> because of the murder of khashoggi, saudi lost a lot of good will on capitol hill. >> a ton. >> if that had not happened i think you'd be seeing more voices saying we do need to protect the global oil supply. it is has been an american commitment to protect the flow of oil. we're abandoning that commitment and the reason we're doing it is

because of fracking. >> we have the luxury of not having to worry about it. >> right. and the president always understands one of the reasons where he was ret spt to come against "the washington post" journalist is he very clearly at the time said we have a big arms deal right now we want to sell to saudi arabia. that is what he sees. >> he compartmentalizes on those things and totally separates it. i get the sense that everybody around the president wants him to retaliate. mike pompeo feels like he's trying to put the pieces together to give him the ability to do that. >> pompeo calling it an act of war, lindsey graham calling it an act of war. >> but the president has not done that. >> the president being the cautious one in the room which is quite a change. >> and the defense department is trying to reinhim in two on this. >> if we do this, we will further isolate ourselves from our european allies in a very big way, because they don't want us to engage in this type of

war. >> france is trying to get iran reluctance to strike militarily is iran doesn't have the ability to say look at those nasty americans beating up on poor us, right? >> but they actually haven't. >> instead they're engaging in this pattern of behavior that even i don't think it troubles france enough to say maybe we shouldn't be paying you off to continue this deal. >> do you get the sense that iran is actually testing to she how much resolve trump has with the saudis and that this is a bit of that? >> potentially. i think they really want to see how europe is going to respond to this. and i think president trump probably burned a lot of capital with european allies. >> so did the saudis. they've been losing face in europe, too. >> what kind of alliances can president trump build in europe with regard to this situation, with regard to going after iran? i think that's going to be difficult for him after what he

did with iran deal. stick around. up ahead we're going to do more on this. what is president trump's end game with iran? i'm going to talk with someone with rare inside knowledge how iran operates and how this president operates. that's next. be working harder. that's why your cash automatically goes into a money market fund when you open a new account. and fidelity's rate is higher than e*trade's, td ameritrade's, even 9 times more than schwab's. plus only fidelity has zero account fees and zero minimums for retail brokerage and retirement accounts. just another reminder of the value you'll only find at fidelity. open an account today.

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and we haven't learned much that we didn't know, but there is -- there is a certain, a guarantee factor. we're really at a point now where we know very much what happened. >> welcome back. president trump this afternoon seemingly with little doubt that iran orchestrated the weekend attack on oil refineries in saudi arabia. the president says all options are on the table which includes military intervention and what he called dastardly options and with the potential american elives are on the line, we have to ask what are dastardly options. what would a war with iran look like? is there such a thing as a

surgical strike and what are the trump administration's end game here. joining me now is someone with some first-hand experience with iran and the former deputy assistant secretary of state for iran and he's worked essentially for three of the last three presidents in some form or another or at least in their administrations. good to see you, sir. >> thank you, chuck. >> let me start with what you in your expertise, is it -- well, it's always possible it wasn't the iranians. what's your sense of how likely it was iran that was behind the attack on saudi arabia? >> look, i think we can all stipulate 100% this was iran. there's nobody else with the capability or the motivation. so if that question is really answered, the question is where the attack came from, what the motivation was, but 17 cruise missile, drones. this was clearly an iranian

backed attack at least. >> if they use cruise missiles are you surprised we don't know where it came from yet, or do you think we already know, we just haven't said publicly? >> well, i think the sophistication of this attack is surprising. we recently moved additional u.s. assets into the region in order to restore deterrence, we've put additional patriot balance into saudi arabia and spaernl we don't have much intelligence this attack was coming. so a lot of homework i'm sure is being done behind the scenes by the type of stuff i would have been involved in my previous capacities about what exactly was going on here, something clearly wept wrong, why was it not detected. and i'm hopeful the administration will be able to release as much as they possibly can publicly so the world can see what happened. so all that work is going on. >> saudi arabia and iran are in a proxy war, a hot war in yemen. should they be surprised that this happened on their soil? is this a surprise that iran is escalating it proxy war this way

or is this a natural -- sadly natural thing that was going to happen considering how long this yemeni civil war really proxy war between the yemen and the saudis have taken. >> i think the scale and sophistication of this attack is a surprise. it's not a surprise the iranians are trying to frustrate the flow of oil out of the gulf because they said they were going to do this. they said if the u.s. policy is to take their oil exports down to zero which is the declared state of u.s. policy trying to do that, they will make it difficult for anyone to export oil. so we've had attacks on tankers docked outside the uae about two months ago and interestingly the uae still to this day have not fingered iran for that attack. and obviously we had our drone shot down in this attack here. this is reaction to the u.s. economic strangulation policy. it's just my analysis that's what's happening. iran has made the decision and i

think matthew had it pretty well analyzed, trump is a prisoner of his own policy. we're going to put sanctions on iran, get out of that bad deal, and iran has made the decision we'll meat your maximum pressure with pressure of our own and we'll not come back to the table. we seem to be in a slow roll now how to respond. i think everybody is taking a deep breath, i think that's probably good. but two months from now we'll have another crisis because iran has made the strategic decision to meet pressure with pressure of their own. >> what would realistic military action look like? >> i've heard a lot of talk in washington on commentators we can do proportionate limited strike and control the escalation. that's always the hope and i think you try to prepare it that way. but i think we would have to plan for an escalation from iran in which we would then have to respond. i think it is actually a slippery slope and i think we

have to be pretty careful. look, the saudis do have some capabilities. >> it's funny you bring that up. let me stop you there. there are a lot of comments around my own editorial table going all these arms the u.s. sells to saudi arabia, why is it that they still want the americans to use their weapons first? >> well, he said in his meetings with his theys it was his analysis the saudis want to fight down to the last american. the saudis do have capability and i worked with them earlier in the counter isis campaign, flew in our formations. they actually did fairly well. what they don't do well in a conflict like yemen called a dynamic target, trying to hit moving targets on the ground. that's been a disaster. we could work with the saudis do a proportionate limited strike after this, and the question is what happens after that. again, my analysis of iranian decision making here given just

the brazen nature of this attack i think they have probably priced in a response and they have already kind of locked and loaded their counter. and then the onus would be back on president trump. again, trump is kind of in the corner here and he's a prisoner of the policy. this is going to keep happening. we're going to have crisis after crisis so long as the policy is just a strangle on iran's economy. >> there's a report this afternoon from about a conversation, sort of a lunchtime conversation the now former national security advisor john bolton had with some donor. it was sort of a closed lunch. they actually echo what lippedy graham implied -- not implied said in his tweet which is the decision not to respond on the drone, on what the iranians did with the american drone, this -- the saudi attack may have been -- wouldn't have happened had the americans responded then militarily. do you buy that? >> that is total speculation.

and i suspect had we responded to that drone we would have seen this attack probably sooner. again, i think the iranians have already thought through the esclatory ladder. that's what you call it in these kind of debates. therefore, if we get into this, we need to be prepared and the president would need to be prepared for a multi-month campaign. i mean this is serious business here and, you know, our allies in the middle east, they're very exposed. and i think an important indicator again is the uae. we had tankers attacked off the coast of uae, clearly iran and they still have not said iran is responsible because they are on the front lines of this policy. and so the iranians will come after them. and so everybody is pretty nervous. that's why i think everybody is trying to take a deep breath here. >> who's the deescalator? the king hussein of jordan at

times can play that role in the middle east. there was a time when -- may have played that role. perhaps cici will. who will be the person that will try to play that role at least in the middle east right now? >> what's so ironic here is first the deescalator is president trump. look, in the region right now the kuwaitys, they do not want to see a conflict. the umanis would be working beiepd tb behind the scenes. you'll have a lot of talk behind the scenes but right now everybody is on a slow roll. i think the best thing to do is show the evidence to the world here's what happened, try to build some allies and support and then work up some potential options. but again the point is the policy is leading to these

crises. two months ago it was the drone, we're locked and loaded and now it's this attack, we're locked and loaded. >> it sounds like you don't think this policy is working. >> i think it is putting the president deep in a corner and so i think he has to ask some questions, is this really where i want to go? >> like i said who's been on the front lines of this whether it was at the state department, in his special envoy in dealing with isis, dealing with iraq. i feel like the middle east and you have spent a lot of time together. thanks for coming on. thanks for coming on and sharing your expertise. >> up ahead joe biden and elizabeth warren. they're both at the front of the presidential pack, but they're actually both leading very different packs. we're going to explain next. leay different packs. we're going to explain next. you know, baker, i can help you with -- with that.

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particularly the african-american vote. warren's coalition is made up of groups that have a lot of enthusiasm heading into 2020. she's up double digits among democrats who identify as liberal, women with college degrees or more, white women and voters who say they want large scale change. and while both warren and biden with bidding formidable democratic coalitions, it's by no means a two way race exclusively, not yet. while 56% back biden or warren, 41% say they prefer somebody else right now including 14% who are backing bernie sanders who has his own coalition of much younger voters. but as we said yesterday we're starting to see the sorting process begin a bit, and ultimately democrats will need their eventual nominee to get both those coalitions onboard. we're going to talk more about that on the other side of this. but i'm going to give you a cliché, the beer track and the wine track. we'll talk about that right after the break. track we'll talk about that right after the break. every day, visionaries are creating the future.

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welcome back. we talked about joe biden and elizabeth warren consolidating their coalitions in the democratic primary. but feeding your political base doesn't stop while you're president. while fund-raising in california president trump is stopping to tour the barrier between mexico and the united states. that's happening now. if there's something interesting happening there we'll bring it to you. before we had barack obama, our democratic presidential primaries usually did finish in the final two candidates in the coalitions looked a like what we're seeing with biden and warren. and it would get shorthanded i don't know who get the credit for this the quote-unquote the beer drinkers and the wine drinkers, the college grads and the non-college grads. that was the basic split of a party. what was interesting to see with

no leading light like barack obama who merged those two coalitions uniquely, the old divides are back. >> i think they're back, but i also think that we're within the democratic circles, it's very clear that they will coalesce with everyone but trump. they see him as imindependemine to the democracy. the folks that will be able to win the election will ensure they have white suburban moms because they're the ones that help bring back the democrats in the mid-terms and can they vote and bring in young people, can they bring in young of concern americans, latinos? and not any of them right now have demonstrated to be able to do that on scale. >> both biden and obviously warren are missing one thing to put them over the top. i would say the one big thing warren is missing african-american support. how does she do it? i don't know yet. if she does it, she's the

nominee. what could that look like? >> that is the single biggest missing piece of the elizabeth warren puzzle. she's lapping the entire field including bernie sanders in that category which is pretty remarkable, but biden is still dominating among african americans. i think the first thing she's got to do is make them believe she can win. they want to pick someone who's proven and they don't know that yet about warren. >> who can prove it, though? obama had to prove it -- >> very simple. >> i think it'll happen late. >> you mean winning, of course. i don't think it's that simple the way it was for obama. i think with obama it was that simple, prove you can win white voters. but he was an of concern american candidate being tested on that score. >> her economic justice message with a racial justice message as

well. >> it doesn't appeal to older african-americans. >> a lot of the polling being done is on older african-americans, but when you go into these rooms, they had several presidential candidates, she came up and she had a roaring ovation even before she started speaking. in texas they did she the people, that same conference, she came into a standing ovation. so she's resonating with a lot of young african-american voters. it's how does she actually bring in the individual voters that have a history of voting that feel confident. it's fascinating when you're in the field to see who the one exception is. >> you get to play observer here. i guess so. we have martini track. >> it does sound more fun. >> the story of the summer is warren's growth. we have to remember, too, that nine months ago we thought her campaign was dead. >> yes, we did. >> so now we look at this field and see the top three or two top

two in your poll and this is it, this is the contest. as a contrarian i'm not so sure that's actually the case. and there's plenty of time for these candidates to continue to either rise or fall. >> but i fully agree except here's my surprise from our poll is that the sorting began now. i guess i thought even though 9%, by the way, only #% of democrats said their mind was made up. i want to be with you on this because i've been through this too many times but i was surprised by -- and i don't know if this is the trump effect meaning people already know where they are going so it's like i don't want to waste my time with 22 choices. all right, fine, it's one of those two, okay. let's go. >> i think there's an urgency of consolidation within hard liberals. like, they want to be able to say this is the person -- >> they want to hurry-up and go -- >> exactly. but they also know that it's diluting fund-raising about.

they see there's a huge war chest on trump's side and by having ten candidates, 13 candidates it's diluting the war chest they're going to need to basically expand that base. >> the voters looked at it and said we'll do it ourselves. >> but the dnc did have one on the field. it turned out their debate -- their debate criteria has served as the iowa straw hold of the democratic party. >> but that's still more than ten candidates who are going to be on the -- >> but they at least narrowed it down. >> it was a marginal win. we've been talking about this as a potential turning it into a three-way primary. it could be turning into a two-way primary between biden and warren. >> what do you make of the trump campaign's -- it does feel like at times do they want to go

against warren, do they prefer biden? look at the dump they did on biden. what's your sense of -- because you hear mixed messages of trump himself is a little nervous about the populous success of warren. >> i think the profile on biden is he'll be a reassuring candidate especially to those suburban women you discussed earlier. oerp on the other hand, he won't be an enthusiastic candidate for some of the core parts of the democratic coalition. for warren you have some enthused key groups, liberals, but might not have that reassuring factor. maybe we have a better bet with warren. >> i'd tell you one person who had like to see the consolidation happen yesterday, it's taylor swift. somehow in rolling stone today we need to stop dissecting why someone's on our side or they're on our side in the right way. we need to not have the right kind of democrat and the wrong

kind of democrat. we need to just be like you're a democrat, sick, get in the car, we're going to the mall. >> we laugh but -- >> i was just going to say is she the sentiment of that younger going, yeah, do i wish it was somebody other than biden or -- just tell me who it is, i want to get rid of that guy. >> she's signaling to young people that what we want is a change. and where before there was literally a divide in the democratic party between the bernie sanders and hillary clintons and some people saying i'm going to settle with that if it's not bernie, she's saying at this point the house is on fire, it doesn't matter. >> do you think there's enough celebrities out there that could unify -- hillary clinton tried this. they were trying to get the bernie crowd come in using the younger surrogates. >> i think she's thinking they really want to defeat trump, but this is the primary process. no one can really speed it up. >> you can have bernie stay in

for months and still rack up candidates from his key groups and complicate the picker. >> the most interesting aspect of bernie's support, it's almost exclusively 18 to 34. 50 plus, he gets 3% or less. it's a remarkable divide. nobody else has this lopsided like that. it's fascinating. >> his campaign is arguing very aggressively that that 18 to 34 demographic, that's an enormous group. they say bernie can turn those voters out in an election, huge if. >> guess what, prove it. go to iowa and then we'll all take a second look. stick around. up next interested in being a united states senator, well now you can with just a click of a button. ♪

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>> welcome back. we don't have the final election results from israel's snap election yet but it appears that benjamin netanyahu's days as prime minister may be numbered. neither he nor benny gantz has enough votes. and if these numbers hold, it will be gantz that will get the first chance to form a new

coalition government and another sign netanyahu might be in trouble, he canceled a trip to the u.n. general assembly to new york next week. chief global correspondent bill neely is live, thankful forly for me in tel aviv at this very who early hour there. let me start with you. bibi netanyahu, will he be the leader of the likhud party a month from now? >> that's a good question. and i asked that to the former mayor of jerusalem. are you prepared to knife your party leader in the back, needless to say he said no. but there are muttering within likhud that that could be one possible way forward. as you said, 94% of the votes already cast. it is actually in terms of the blocks they can command a tie at 56 each. in fact, they both fall short of that magic 64 number needed to

form a majority. for the first time in ten years, chuck, we can see a way in which the era of netanyahu is over. he's certainly closer to losing power than ever before. don't write his political obituary just yet. one canny voter said to me benjamin netanyahu is the cat with nine lives and has used 17. >> one of the things that hovers over his head is this investigation. is that part of the -- could that become part of the negotiation? could, in unity, in exchange for leaving likhud -- i know that everything is on the table when you're forming governments. is that where this could end up heading? now maybe he thinks he can still win, but could that be where this goes next? >> i think the problem for him, chuck -- and remember, it's a problem that's coming up fast. october 2nd, he is due in court for that pretrial hearing on

three counts of corruption, fraud and bribery. i think the problem is, he is in such a weakened position now. i mean, where are his bargaining chips to give him the kind of immunity from prosecution that he needs to stay out of jail? of course, this is the issue. it's not just his job that's at stake. it's his personal freedom. >> yeah. >> so, you know, the world may now just be closing in on bibi netanyahu. >> let me do a quit political fallout domestically. the president, matthew, has made his personal bond with netanyahu a political asset in many ways but he clearly weighed in on one side of this. ideologically, there's little difference between bibi and gantz but who quickly can he repair that relationship? >> the relationship is with israel, as president trump said today, not any particular leader. >> i'm surprised he said that. >> for several reasons, mainly domestic ones, that relationship

is very important to president trump. >> and that's exactly what i was going to say. he, before, was super close to netanyahu. today he said that the relation is with israel. he realizes for his re-election, he needs the folks here to make sure he is with that country. >> here is the thing. it's in gantz's best interest to make nice with president trump. look what he set high goals. >> any israeli prime minister will want to have a close relationship with the united states for obvious reasons, aid to israel regardless. five elections israel has had in the last decade, including two in the last six months. a lot of americans look at that parliamentary system and say maybe it would be nice to have that because things get done, there's less gridlock, but this is remarkable. >> bill i knew that benjamin netanyahu thought he was losing when he announced last night that he would be the only one that could form a zionistic

government, implying if you form a majority government with arab parties, you're essentially doing a disservice to the country. is there an appetite for that kind of politics still? >> reporter: i think, frankly, racist politics that he has been chasing during this election has not gone down well. i mean, that may well have cost him many votes. the arab parties are delighted at his discomfort. in fact, there could be a scenario, chuck, which is extraordinary. if there were a national unity government, the arab parties could be israel's main opposition and their leader could get security briefings. that's something that's never happened in israel's 70-year history. i think although gantz is ahead at the minute, slightly, you have to say, chuck, anything could happen here. >> i was just going to stay, the power -- is lieberman the power

broker here? not our lieberman but the person who has saved bibi in the past? >> reporter: yeah. he has nine seats. he is the king maker. his voice, when israel's president talks to the various party leaders about who would you like to see, who would you support, i think his voice will probably count more than everybody else's. >> bill neely, thank you for giving me a few extra minutes before -- you've had a very, very long day and a half covering a one-day story. as always, sir, thank you very much. very quickly here, what do you expect out of the israeli government if gantz is the guy? that much different or do you think there will be a repair relationship with democrats? do you think all of a sudden there will be this goodwill? >> americans have to understand this is driven by israeli domestic politics, specifically the religious secular divide. in terms of foreign policy,

there will be no change, if anything. gantz may be more hawkish than netanyahu. >> it will provide an opportunity for a reset with congressional democrats, possibly. we packed the show. we'll be back with "meet the press" daily tomorrow. ari melber is next. ari? >> thank you, chuck. what the judicial committee is planning after corey lewandowski zblrchl later tonight a special report on that and the implications going forward. lawmaker to keep donald trump from profiting on the presidency with your money. that senator is on the beat later in tonight's show. we begin with house democrats led by jl