america's close allyship with israel. it will not get into any of the sort of rough spots more recently, and it will be all about the horrific attacks and our obligation to defend israel at this time. i think the difficult things come later as this conflict drags on and the domestic politics will become a lot trickier for him. >> no doubt. political challenges ahead. we will bring that speech live when it happens this afternoon. chief washington correspondent for "politico," ryan lizza, pleasure, as always, to have you. come back soon. thank you, ryan. thank you for getting up "way too early" on this tuesday morning. a busy day. "morning joe" starts right now. i could hear people speaking in arabic outside the door. they broke in. the last thing i heard was the youngest, who is 12, saying to them, "i'm too young. don't take me." that was it. that was the last time i heard

from them. the army is now getting in touch with families, i know, and, you know, i'm keeping my hopes up that they're alive and well. i know their father and his spouse were taken, also, because we've seen one of the -- >> videos. >> -- videos that hamas put on, so we know they're alive. i'm hoping that they're with them. >> an israeli mother sharing the story of her sons who were taken hostage by hamas. the terrorist group is now threatening to execute dozens of people they have captured, quote, without warning. meaning israeli -- israel is promising a complete siege of gaza, launching more air strikes overnight while cutting off the area from basic necessities. we're going to get a live report for the latest on all of that straight ahead, right here on "morning joe." good morning and welcome to

"morning joe." it is tuesday, october 11th. according to israeli authorities, more than 900 israelis have been killed since the fighting began on saturday. the health ministry in gaza says 700 palestinians are dead. 11 americans are also among those killed. this brings the total number of deaths to at least 1,600. hamas says it has kidnapped more than 100 people from israel. it is believed some americans are among those being held captive. the terrorist group is threatening to execute a civilian hostage every time israel targets civilians in gaza would warning. >> meanwhile, prime minister netanyahu is vowing to destroy hamas. in a televised address yesterday, netanyahu says the military operations against the terrorist organizations are, quote, just beginning. he called on israelis to unite, saying the country has difficult days coming, but that israel

will be victorious. yesterday, israel announced a siege of gaza, cutting off food, water, electricity, and fuel, to roughly 2 million residents there. since then, air strikes have bombarded the border. israel says it has restored full control over the communities hamas militants had stormed in the surprise attack over the weekend. the country also activated 300,000 military reservists, a potential sign israel could be preparing for a major ground invasion of gaza. the last time ground forces entered there was in 2014. joining us now from near the gaza border with israel is nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel. richard, what are you seeing there? >> reporter: well, good morning. we are now on day four of this war, and you mentioned that death toll among israelis that is being reported in the israeli media, 900. it has been going up every day because, frankly, the israelis don't know exactly how many people were killed.

we are now in the kibbutz, on the border with gaza. this was one of the first places they entered. they broke out of the gaza strip and came into the community. some troops just secured this area, but they don't know exactly what is in store for them as they are going through homes. they've brought in the ambulances here, recovery teams. we've seen teams coming out with body bags. they are looking for israeli bodies, and they believe there could be dozens in this village. this is still an active fire zone, so it is possible that there will be incoming fire in this area. there are a lot of troops around the perimeter. this is the first mission that israelis must do, is to try to reclaim and secure their own communities, before they can potentially go into the gaza strip. here are some of the soldiers. they're taking a break right now, and they've been going

through houses like this to check for booby traps, but mostly to look for israeli victims. we've also seen ourselves many hamas fighters, their bodies are on the ground, some under trees. they've been wearing, the ones we saw, camouflage fatigues, and now, because it is very hot, the bodies are starting to decompose. so it is a -- there are scenes like this all throughout the border communities because this attack didn't just take place at the concert venue, didn't just take place in sderot, where we were yesterday. there are many kibbutzes and towns all in the envelope surrounding the gaza strip, and those were the places that took the brunt of the hamas assault. we're talking about a very large assault. hamas was able to create about 30 different holes in the border fences, breach communities, breach the border, come into communities like this and go on

their killing and kidnapping rampage. >> richard, as someone who has covered the region so closely for so many years, spent so much time there, what is your sense of the challenge israel now faces, if it sends troops into gaza? they're attacking from the air now in response to the attack over the weekend. it's a small space with 2 million people as they look for the israeli hostages being held there. how difficult a challenge will that be? >> reporter: i think it is an enormously difficult challenge, and more so now because israelis have realized how much time hamas has spent in preparation. hamas just put out new videos this morning showing them, showing their fighters erecting mock israeli border fences, blowing them up, crossing these mock fences with breaching tools in order to train for this assault. the palestinians are calling this the flood, and that's the

symbolism they're using. the fighters from gaza were flooding into israel. so if the israelis do go in and engage in street-to-street fighting in the gaza strip, which they've done in the past and has been difficult in the past, it is very likely to be even more difficult this time because hamas has the initiative. they chose the timing of this assault, and they clearly areba seen over the last four days. >> richard, joe here. you mentioned the training. "the washington post" talking about the massive security failures and military failures on the netanyahu government's part. they're talking about, as you were saying, how hamas and islamic jihad terrorists had been trained for weeks, drilling in rocket launchers, practicing kidnapping soldiers, destroying settlements.

talk about the israeli people and how shaken they are by their government's failure to protect them from the initial attack and also not rescuing them from their until hours after the terrorists stormed over the gates. >> reporter: there's a lot of uncertainty here. i can say israelis are shaken by this. they are much more nervous than i've seen in previous conflicts. they were taken by surprise. they were also -- israelis were also angry that it took a long time, from their perspective, for the army to react. the concert that has received so much attention, for good reason. it was the overnight rave that hundreds of israeli youngsters were attending that was attacked. when i first heard about this assault, i thought it was a relatively quick thing, that the hamas went in, they opened fire on people, they grabbed as many as they could, and they went back over the border. that's not what happened. we've spoken to people who were there, to people who were on the

phone with relatives who were there during the assault. it lasted about four hours. the israelis have told me time and time again, where was the rescue operation? why weren't forces coming more quickly? there was a long gap in the initial phases of this assault when the israelis seemed to be caught flat footed. there is anger about that. but now, i think this country is pulling together. i've spoken to people who previously didn't like benjamin netanyahu, previously were opponents, and they say, "yes, we're going to address these issues. we're going to look into it. we'll have an after-action analysis of what went wrong. but right now, with hamas militants still on the loose, it's not the time to focus on that." that the truth will come out over the course of the investigations in the coming days, weeks, months potentially, but, right now, they say, we need to pull together to secure this country and try to get the hundreds -- 100, maybe 150

hostages out of gaza. they don't know how many hostages there are. they don't know exactly how many bodies there are. in places like this, they're still doing clearing operations, recovering people. if that death toll is 900 now, after they go through, this kibbutz right now, it could up by a few dozen. this isn't the only clearing operation. >> chief foreign correspondent richard engel, thank you very much. we'll talk to you again soon. let's bring in the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, jeremy bash. he is an nbc news national security analyst. thank you, all, for being with us. >> david ignatius, we've all been wondering how this happened. we have all been wondering how the israeli government was caught asleep so badly.

especially as your newspaper is reporting, that they've been practicing for weeks in plain sight of israeli soldiers, of basically committing these heinous acts. now, as richard engel reports, the concert, the massacre at the concert, over four hours long. we've heard from israelis locked in their homes for hour after hour, wondering where the army was. in all your reporting, david, have you been able to unpack over the past couple days how this could have been such a massive security failure and military failure by an israeli government that has long been considered one of the best, one of the strongest, one of the swiftest? >> most secure. >> one of the most secure. >> joe, the only thing i've really been able to focus on clearly is our own experience after 9/11, when we realized

that every indicator that an attack was coming was in the system, but our intelligence analysts didn't see it. in the famous phrase, they couldn't connect the dots. they didn't see what was in front of their eyes. there must be some of that going on in this case. i think the biggest surprise for the israelis and for analysts looking from outside, is not the intense hatred that hamas has, the terrorist tactics, we knew their level on feelings about israel, it's their competence in executing this operation. their ability to keep secrets. the operational secrecy that preceded this is extraordinary. there are reports that even the head of hamas may not have known the details of this operation in the weeks before. it was done with that degree of caution. i'm also struck, joe, by the question, if the israelis didn't know this with their incredible focus on gaza and hamas, what

else didn't they know? i think intelligence services all over the world are going to be asking themselves in the wake of this, if our israeli brothers and sisters, who were supposed to be the best of the best, missed this, what are we missing now? what is america missing about china and china's intentions? what are we missing about russia? talking to intelligence professionals over the last couple days, that's what i'm hearing, what else don't we know? >> david, as we talk about the miscalculations and the failure to connect the dots, also reporting that netanyahu and his government had come to the conclusion that they could somehow manage hamas, that they could work with hamas, that they could pay off hamas, and their focus was primarily on the west bank and the settlements. how could they have made that grave of a miscalculation? this terrorist group that the world has known to be a terrorist group for so long. >> so, joe, i think the biggest

nightmare for the israelis today is the recognition that deterrence hasn't worked with hamas. the israelis have gone in repeatedly, again and again to gaza, the level of violence back and forth has been extraordinary. we've had several decades of it. there was a belief that hamas was deterred from this kind of major action. that turned out not to be true. so if you're bibi netanyahu, the prime minister, you have to decide how you restore what's deterrence? it's a level of fear and determination. how do you restore that? what action will be strong enough, in his words, will reverberate through generations and prevent future attacks like this. the problem for israeli attackers today is they have to plan this overwhelming, intimidating operation, perhaps invasion of gaza, with more than 100 israeli hostages in tunnels,

buried in places the israelis probably don't know where they are. tunnels are probably booby trapped. for an israeli operations planner today, right now, this is a nightmare, trying to think through exactly what to do in coming weeks. >> mika, this is -- "the washington post" interviewed the former head of israel's national security council. he said, the modus operendi was that there was a price every so often, and that was the best that israel hoped for. now, the strategy is violated, that they could manage a terrorist group like hamas. like iran, hamas can't be managed. >> no. jeremy bash, one of the questions the united states administration is dealing with this morning, you have prime minister benjamin netanyahu vowing to destroy hamas.

as david ignatius pointed out, there are some 100 hostages whose lives hang in the balance. their location is not completely known. >> yeah, mika. first of all, first and foremost, we may have american hostages in harm's way. i think the u.s. government is going to be intensely focused on that. second, of course, is to prevent a wider war, to prevent any mobilization by islamic jihad or hamas elements inside the west bank, to go after the palestinian authority leadership or try to infiltrate israel. israel's main population center is right there next to main population centers in the west bank. third, of course, is to keep israel's northern border quiet, where hezbollah has 250,000 rocket artillery and mortar pieces. we talked about 9/11. i think this is worse than 9/11 for israel in some important respects. first, in sheer proportionality. it's about like 25,000 americans being killed, if you take the proportions of our populations respectively.

second is, you know, we didn't have hostages being held after 9/11. third, we didn't have rockets raining down on our entire country. our entire country wasn't in bomb shelters. fourth, we didn't have a mass mobilization of every military aged male over the age of 18, which is what israel is undergoing right now. in so many respects, this is so much more devastating for israel than even we experienced after 9/11. >> john, president biden is going to make a speech at 1:00 this afternoon. he is going to talk about israel, about the terrorist attack on the country there. he's been in close contact with prime minister netanyahu, offering unequivocal support for the israelis in this fight as they seek now to respond and destroy hamas. in the words of netanyahu. what do you expect to hear today from the president? what more should we expect from the united states in terms of support for israel? >> we're seeing the white house here lit up in the colors of the israeli flag. the blue and white still on this morning before the sun jnsunrise

in washington. yes, the president, we didn't see him in public the last two days but we will be today. he's been busy behind the scenes, working the phones, spoke to netanyahu at least price. he rallied a statement of support from european partners, putting out a joint communique yes, saying they stand completely behind israel in condemning this hamas terror attack. i suspect today, aids have previewed that it will be more full-throated support, suggesting that the u.s. stands with israel and has been an ally for decades. and they will do everything they can to help. now, there are complications here, of course, the biggest being there's no speaker of the house. therefore, it will be challenging to put together the funding that israel will need. the military and security assistance. there's some the u.s. can do immediately. we saw weapons transfers. there are short-term solutions they can do in the interim

moment with the house in chaos. if there is a longer, prolonged conflict, as netanyahu suggested, at a certain point, the u.s. won't be able to help as it wants if they can't get a speaker of the house elected. there's some sense that may not come quickly this week. >> we are going to be back in 60 seconds, when i ask david ignatius whether we can expect israel, along with the united states, to possibly strike back at iran, for their role in these terrorist attacks. that's when we return in 60 seconds. [man struggles] i need some sleep. ♪ [man relieved] if you struggle with cpap, you should check out inspire. inspire. sleep apnea innovation. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com

i want this administration to tell the iranians, any attack or killing of hostages, we will hold you accountable. i can only stress this so much. the iranians depend on oil revenue for their livelihood. the money to sponsor terrorism comes from the oil industry,

owned by the ayatollah. destroy it. there are four refineries. destroy it. tell the iranians, you escalate any further, we're going to destroy your oil industry. eventually, we're going to have to deal with this regime by taking it down. >> david ignatius, let me bring you in on that point. obviously, it is oil that helps the iranians remain the epicenter of terror in the world, as they have been since 1979. whether they're funding hamas, whether they're funding hezbollah, whether they're funding the houthis, whether they're funding islamic jihad. the question is, can israel afford in the long-term to stand back and allow iran to sponsor an attack against their country this way without striking back at military targets, or as senator graham said, their oil infrastructure, which, the end of the day, funds their

terrorism across the globe? >> joe, i want to be careful here. israel and the united states are both stressing they do not see evidence of direct iranian involvement in these attacks. >> david, do you believe that? or do you believe israel and the united states doesn't want the truth to be that explicit because they may be forced to respond in a way? from what i hear, you know, there's a lot of skepticism in the intel community that those denials coming from israel and the united states. >> so i share the skepticism. i'm just noting that there isn't an effort to put that case out, for obvious reason. they don't want to be pushed into a situation where they have to expand the war or are then pushed by public opinion into attacking iran. that would be a much bigger and more complicated war. but when you think about the dilemmas the israelis have in

the siege, in the war in gaza, you can imagine israelis might think much more discreet military targets are available in iran, using the phrase that's very common in israel, to cut off the head of the snake, to go directly at the funders and encouragers of this kind of terrorism. you'd be going after military targets. hostages wouldn't be involved. it'd be a more simple operation for an idf planner to think about. so there are reasons to think, down the road, if this isn't resolved, that might be a tactic that israel would choose. again, everything that we're hearing, both from israel and the united states, is cautioning us, that they don't see the evidence. they don't see the smoking gun. that kind of expansion of the war is unlikely. the problem with attacking iran is that hezbollah in lebanon would immediately retaliate with its thousands of rockets.

these are precise missiles. these are not like the missiles hamas fires from gaza. these could do real damage to the cities of israel. so, obviously, israelis will think twice before anything that radically expands the war. >> willie, that has been the main concern among the israelis and one of the reasons why they don't want this "wall street journal" report that broke sunday night, one of the reasons why they don't want it to get legs. they don't want to confirm that iran was involved because any action against iran ultimately rains down hell from the north from hezbollah. so then they're facing a two-front war, which, right now, they're still trying to actually figure out the scope of hamas' abilities. >> yeah, and as david said, weapons permanently trained on d targets deep inside israel. that would open an entirely new set of problems. jeremy bash, you know, the united states and israel may not

say explicitly that iran was behind this, but we know as a matter of fact, iran funds, supplies, trains weapons for hamas. leadership of hamas said over the weekend, yes, iran gave us the green light. if you're in the pentagon, your former job at the cia, how are you managing this crisis now from the american side? be. >> yeah, i have no access to current information, willie, but i will say, common sense dictates that of course iran supported hamas. of course iran has been a patron of hamas. they bear extensively, in my view, a lot of the responsibility for fomenting an attack like this. how israel chooses to respond, look, we didn't go into afghanistan for a full month after 9/11. it's not like we rushed into combat operations the moment the towers fell down, no. i think the dynamic that israel needs to think about is. >> we will respond at a time of our choosing. i may be covert, overt,

contentional, through other means. the israeli government needs to talk to counterparts in the pentagon, in the white house, about exactly what response against iran is merited. >> jonathan a joint statement from the united kingdom, united states, european union making a joint statement in support of the israeli people. for those five countries, it was a pretty remarkable statement of support and a strong condemnation against the terrorist attacks. i think we're seeing some unity from europe that we don't always see. of course, in the face of these heinous terror attacks, you would certainly hope to see that. i'm curious, though, how much

forward do we expect president biden to lean today? how aggressively today do we expect to hear president biden speak out against the terror attacks and his support for israel? >> he will be a full-throated defense for israel and its right to defend itself. president biden and prime minister netanyahu, a complicated relationship. the two men have known each other a long time. there's been ups and downs. the president condemned netanyahu's push to reshape the judiciary there in israel. all of that will be set aside right now. in the short term, u.s. officials tell me, the united states understands, israel is going to respond and respond with overwhelming force. what comes next is an open matter. depending how long this conflict lasts, depending what israel's further steps would be, that might be when we have some more nuance, when they have some more

complications emerge, when the u.s. try to get them to tap the brakes. that's for down the road. that's not going to be the message from today. in the president's phone call with prime minister netanyahu over the weekend, when netanyahu did suggest they're going into gaza with ground support, the president didn't push back on that. jeremy, if i can bring you in on that idea real quick. if that is going to happen, and certainly signs suggest that israel is going to go in, what would that look like? tell us what that would be, the block-to-block fighting, how long it'd last and what the consequences and ramifications would be. >> well, i think, to david's point earlier, israel needs to reestablish deterrence. if the theory is deterrence had slipped, deterrence has weakened, in essence, what that analysis kind of yields is a sense from the israeli military establishment that gaza and the leadership of hamas there haven't felt enough pain. they haven't felt directly threatened. that air strikes can target buildings and structures, but they have enough warning.

they can get to bomb shelters and move out of harm's way. a ground operation would have to be heavily armored. israel doesn't want to take additional casualties. some of it is going to be geared toward trying to figure out where hamas command and control exists. where islamic jihad command and control exists, and where the hostages may be held. there is no sense that i'm hearing that israel wants to reoccupy gaza for all time. gaza was a nightmare, a headache. israel has not been on the ground since 2005 in gaza. i don't think any israeli politician really envisions a permanent israeli military presence in gaza. it is about reestablishing deterrence, protecting israel's south, and sending an unmistakable message to iran that israel is taking this extraordinarily seriously. >> nbc news national correspondent analyst, jeremy bash, thank you very much for your analysis this morning. coming up, a member of the foreign relations committee, senator chris murphy will join us to talk about what congress is doing to support israel. also ahead, robert kennedy

jr. no longer challenging president biden for the democratic nomination, launching an independent campaign for president instead. plus, republican presidential candidate, florida governor ron desantis will be our guest on "morning joe" this morning. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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quick look at the other stories making headlines this morning. it's 34 past the hour. republican congressman kevin mccarthy now says he is open to becoming speaker of the house again. less than a week after he was ousted from the position. mccarthy initially said he would not run for the role after last tuesday's vote removed him from the speakership. but the california republican told conservative radio talk show host hue hugh hewitt,

quote, whatever the conference wants, i will do. we know that. jim jordan and steve scalise are the only ones announcing they'll run for speaker. robert f. kennedy jr. abandoned his bid for the democratic nomination this week and, instead, announced he will run as an independent. >> i'm here to declare myself an independent candidate. the democrats are frightened that i'm going tpo election for president biden. and the republicans are frightened that i'm going to spoil it for president trump. the truth is, they're both right. [ applause ] my intention is to spoil it for both of them.

>> all right. so his sister, kerry kennedy, tweeted out, bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment. today's announcement is deeply saddening for us. we denounce his candidacy and believe it be perilous for our country. >> jonathan lemire, fascinating that when -- >> wow. >> -- bobby kennedy jr. announced that he was running as a democrat, donald trump put out a statement basically saying, "fine young man." now he's running as an independent. of course, democrats have been the one that have been wetting their beds. there's obviously some polling on the trump side that shows that anti-vaxers, conspiracy theorists actually may cut from donald trump, who responded to this announcement yesterday by

calling him crazy. >> yeah, the polls tell a remarkable story on how fast it occurred. a few months ago, when rfk jr. jumped in the race, he drew some democrats. there was worries he could -- it was not that he was going to prevent joe biden from clinching the nomination, but he could be a thorn in his side, at least a little bit. but every time robert f. kennedy speaks, he's less popular with democrats and more popular with republicans. polls suggest he does much, much better among potential gop voters. that's clearly behind this aboutface from the trump campaign, who now sees rfk jr. as an independent as someone who might steal a little support from the republican ticket. now, there are third-party concerns for president biden. maybe that's cornell west, who is also now an independent, not green party. maybe the green party fields another candidate. maybe no labels goes through with it. rfk jr., he's someone now the trump team is worried about. we should also note, it was a sort of debacle of a speech

yesterday. rfk jr. forgot his speech, first of all, his mic didn't work, and the advance work was such where people would hold up the signs and block the camera so you couldn't see him speak. amateur hour to start for this campaign. all right. back to our top story, the hamas surprise attack on israel. in an editorial entitled "netanyahu bears responsibility for this israel-gaza war," the editorial board of the israeli wsper "haaretz," writes, in part, above all, the danger looming over israel in recent years has been fully realized. a prime minister indicted in three corruption cases cannot look after state affairs, as national interests will necessarily be subordinate to extricating him from a possible conviction and jail time. this was the reason for establish l this horrific coalition and the judicial coup advanced by tanyahu, and for the enfeeblement of top army and

intelligent officers who were perceived as political opponents. the price was paid by the victims of the invasion. >> david ignatius, extraordinarily harsh editorial. >> whoa. >> from an israeli newspaper, literally hours after these attacks. you usually don't see that, but it seems to underline something that you've picked up in your reporting, i've picked up in my reporting from talking to israelis and people connected with israeli intel services, military services. that is a deep and lingering distrust of the people that netanyahu was surrounded by. i had one person telling me for a year -- i shared this with you last night -- i won't give his name. everybody knows him. but said that what he hears every time he goes to israel or

talks to israelis, talking about the security situation there, he says, you have pilots who are secular, and you have their mechanics who are orthodox. he said, there is a divide -- been saying this for a year -- there is a split. there is a divide that runs straight through the military and that runs straight through the intel services, and this past week, sadly, i'm afraid, we saw the results of that. >> joe, obviously, it's too early for us to know exactly what led to this intelligence failure and this tragedy, but in the months before these hamas attacks, israel was as divided politically as i've ever seen it. i've been covering israel for more than 40 years. the security elite, the officers of military intelligence, of the mosad, the internal security are

as you were suggesting. for the most part, secular israelis, they live in tel-aviv and haifa. they see israel as a modern dynamic, secular state, and they grow increasingly suspicious of bibi, prime minister netanyahu and his alliance with the ultra orthodox, largely based in jerusalem, who have a very different vision of what israel should be. that split, i think, any historian who writes this story in future decades will look at the degree of division in israel that preceded this horrible attack and will, i think, certainly from hamas as they watch the daily news from israel, they saw signs of a country coming apart politically. thousands of israelis demonstrating in the streets. army reservists saying they wouldn't show up for duty because they felt so angry as what they saw as prime minister netanyahu's attack on the state.

so i share your concern that those divisions ended up being a prelude to this awful tragedy. thank goodness israelis are now all pulling together. every sign is that those divisions are now over. the country is united and pursuing this enemy. >> david, one other thing i wanted to ask you about. just so we can underline this, how closely many people in the united states government, the united states military feel towards not only israel as a nation but to the israeli people. i'm saying this merely just to explain to our viewers that this is deeply, deeply personal for a lot of people in the united states military who have worked alongside their israeli brothers and sisters. same with the intel community. yesterday, we actually saw admiral john kirby break down in tears on television, something

highly unusual in this setting. but it was deeply personal for him and for many people in this government. >> joe, i thought it was a rare moment for admiral kirby. he's usually such a controlled military spokesman for the administration. to show such intense emotion when he was asked of the videos we've seen, just horrible degradation of people. general kirby said, these are human beings, and he was trembling when he said it. i think in president biden's speech today, we'll see biden in a role that's familiar for him. the consoler, the griever in chief. we've seen biden at his best reaching out to people who are hurt, as he has been hurt personally. the personal connection, of americans feeling some of the pain that is in every israeli's

face as you watch the reporting from israel, i think that's going to be a theme that we ought to hold on to tight. it'll be central to how president biden speaks to the country. >> admiral kirby will be joining us in our next hour. hours from now, president biden is set to deliver remarks on hamas surprise attack on israel. we'll go live to the white house and speak with john kirby. plus, senator chris murphy will join the conversation, as democrats push to confirm an ambassador to israel. also ahead, republican presidential candidate florida governor ron desantis is a guest here on "morning joe." we'll ask him where he sees -- >> we'll be asking a lot about his campaign. also going to be asking him what he would do if he were commander in chief in this situation. that's straight ahead on "morning joe."

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joining us now, chris murphy of connecticut. senator, thank you for being with us this morning. you were unequivocal in your condemnation of the attack over the weekend and your support for israel. what can you tell us about the work the united states is doing behind the scenes to support israel here? >> well, first of all, this is true evil. it is really hard to get your head wrapped around these images. as you've talked about this morning, the operation to come in gaza is going to be absolutely extraordinary. there is no doubt israel has to bring to justice these perpetrators. inside gaza, that is going to be very, very difficult, especially while a hostage situation is pending.

listen, there are a number of really important lines of effort right now. the biden administration is already forwarding material to israel. ammunition and intercepters are on their way. second, we're beginning to build a supplemental appropriation for israel to get them additional support and additional supplies, especially for the iron dome. i would argue that that package should also have some support to protect domestic jewish communities. we'll see a rise in threats against synagogues and centers, so we'll protect them. we're also engaged diplomatically. the best solution to this hostage crisis is for some of our allies in the region who have relationships with hamas to be able to negotiate their release. so that work is ongoing, as well. we have a lot of work to do in the senate.

we're working to put together the supplemental package. we're trying to get nominees and military promotions unlocked, and then we'll go straight to that work when we reconvene next monday. >> senator, how do you handle the iran question we were discussing earlier in the hour? that is, iran explicitly supports hamas. hamas leadership said it got the green light for the terrorist attack from iran. the biden administration hasn't said publicly there is a link, but most people say they don't believe that behind the scenes. they know they did do something here, at least supported them with material support. so what should be the consequences if there is a direct link proven that iran funded, supported, and gave the green light for a terrorist attack on israel? >> so it's important to state that i have not seen intelligence that suggests that iran was involved in the intimate planning details, but

that question is immaterial. hamas does not exist without the ongoing annual support of iran. all of the weapons and the training, the rockets, in some way, shape or form, are derived from their relationship with iran. that's why, right now, the united states has a massive set of crippling sanctions on iran, its economy, and its oil industry, because of their support for terrorism. i think this is going to be a moment where the congress will sit down and try to understand whether there are other tools like that that we can use to make clear that their continued support for hamas or hezbollah is absolutely unacceptable. i do think it is important to get this question answered, as to whether they were involved in the intimate planning details, but regardless, hamas does not exist. hamas cannot launch this attack without iran as its patron. >> senator murphy, this is david

ignatius in washington. you mentioned earlier about the importance of reaching out to countries that may have contact with hamas, egypt obviously comes to mind. i'm curious whether you see any diplomatic path forward that might lead to freeing the hostages. it's received very little discussion. to you think that's an avenue that needs to be pursued? >> so i do. this is obviously a very sensitive moment, and so not a lot to say about this. but let's also talk about qatar. the united states has a deep, important relationship with qatar. it is often fraught because we have major disagreements with them, as well. qatar and egypt are countries that have continued some basic relationships and contacts with hamas. qatar, in fact, has often been the conduit to which

humanitarian money flows with israel's consent into gaza. so these are important countries because, obviously, the priority is to unwind this hostage crisis in a way that doesn't lead to the additional loss of life. so those are two very important lines of effort that i think will be under way this week. >> senator, returning to the idea of u.s. support for israel, you mentioned a supplemental could be coming. but at a certain point, and i was hoping you could walk us through this, please, at a certain point, doesn't the job get complicated if there isn't a speaker of the house? i though there's elections supposed to happen this week, but there's some sense republicans won't be able to coalesce around a leader anytime soon. walk us through, at what point does it get difficult for the senate, for the congress, to be able to get money to israel and, frankly, for that matter, ukraine, if there isn't a speaker?

>> yeah. complicated understates the problem. it is impossible if there is no speaker of the house. there is no house of representatives. this week, we will work on constructing a supplemental in the senate. we know it can't become law. the president can't sign it. the president has drawdown authority, allowing him to take u.s. equipment currently in our stocks and send it to israel, but the intercepters, many of the components of iron dome are made in israel or around israel, so we need to get them funding in order to continue that work. as you also mentioned, we cannot lose sight of the fact that ukraine is on the verge of running out of money. while this week we are going to be obsessed, rightly, with getting israel what they need, if we don't get ukraine additional funding and supplies by the middle of november, russia is going to start its march on kyiv. a failure to hold hamas accountable is devastating for

u.s. national security interests, but kyiv becoming a russian city is also devastating. the house of representatives has a huge majority vote just sitting there, waiting to support both israel aid and ukraine aid. hopefully the speaker conflict gets resolved this week. maybe this crisis in israel is what pushes them to pick a speaker. they have to let the will of the house run its course. if they allow for that, there will be 75% or 80% of the house that will vote for both ukraine and israel aid. >> democratic member of the foreign relations committee, senator chris murphy of connecticut. thank you, as always, for coming on the show this morning. coming up on "morning joe," we're going to be joined by a former cia officer for more insight on the israeli intelligence failure tied to the hamas terrorist attack. plus, some news from the campaign trail. republican presidential candidate nikki haley just picked up an endorsement from someone who is dropping out of the race. we'll tell you who that is ahead on "morning joe." rk —center stage—and is

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it's the top of the hour. this morning, israel continues its counterattack against hamas following its deadly surprise assault along the gaza border. more than 900 israelis have been killed since the fighting began, and israeli forces say they have killed about 1,500 hamas terrorists since the attacks on saturday. israel has also regained control of its communities along the border. now, the country is prepaing for a potential ground operation, mobilizing over 300,000 reservists. hamas says it has kidnapped more than 100 people from israel, and the terrorist group is now threatening to execute a civilian hostage every time israel targets civilians in gaza without warning. welcome back to "morning joe." it is tuesday, october 10th.

along with joe, willie and me, we have former spokesperson to the u.s. mission to the united nations, hagar shamali. former cia officer, marc polymeropoulos, national security and intelligence analyst. and staff writer at "the atlantic," anne applebaum is here with us. jonathan lemire is still with us, as well. >> marc polymeropoulos, let me start with you. you obviously worked in this region with the cia. you worked, actually, with both israelis and palestinians. you know the area. you know the towns. you know the entire region so well. i know we've talked about it since minutes after reports of the attack came out. do you have any answers yet? how did this happen? how did hamas and islamic jihad, how did they practice this attack for weeks?

in clear sight of israeli military and intel officers, how did this happen? >> well, this is shocking for a lot of us who worked in the region. i spent a lot of time on the ground with the palestinians and also with the egyptians and jordanians. the net that israel, particularly the internal service, the military service has over the gaza strip, it is small, 25 square miles by 4 square miles. human intelligence, intercepts, drones and senators. the fact they m this is pretty staggering. you know, it is a colossal intelligence failure for the ages. i think a lot of us are surprised. in looking at this, you have to move past only israel's culpability, too. this is a regional intelligence failure. what about the egyptians who have strong inroads and a strong

intelligence service. the jordanians with a huge palestinian population, their sources in the region. when i look at what occurred, it was shocking. it was an operation with a thousand militants, air, sea and land attack, that took a lot of practice, certainly with external help from iran. how this was missed, you know, it is almost like a plane crash. a lot of factors. the israelis will do a commission, just like they did after 1973. there is no doubt thereby going to be forensics on this. they have to learn from this, and as they're doing now, pick themselves up by the bootstraps and get on after it. there's a lot to do. i sympathize with the security establishment, but there's going to be establishment when the dust settles here. >> one paper titled, "netanyahu bears responsibilor this th israeli newspaper, haaretz, writes, above all, the danger looming isrl in recent years has been fully alized.

a prime minister indicted in three corruption cases cannot ok after state affairs, as natial interests will necessarily be subordinate to extricating him from possible coiction and jail ti. this was the reason for establishing this hrific coalition, and the judicial gr advanced by netanyahu and for the enfeeblement of top army and intelligence officers who were perceived as political opponents. the price was paid by the victims of the invasion. >> anne, i can't help but wonder if this is a stark warning for the united states. here, you had israel divided. you had a prime minister indicted three times, who was declaring political war on the supreme court. you had people in the streets protecting. look at the united states, we have an empty speakership for the first time in u.s. history, have a president going around

talking about the execution of the chairman of the joint chiefs, saying that american democracy is rigged. and you have a fox news host last week openly saying on one of its most popular programs that elections don't matter anymore. there is no reliance on democrats, and there has to be civil war. what messages were sent from hamas to israel in their internal divisions, and are we doing the same thing in the united states? >> there isn't an exact analogy, and i don't want to be oversimplified, but, yes, it's true that prime minister netanyahu was more focused over the last several months in fighting his political opposition and in protecting elements of his -- the extremist elements, i should say, of the government coalition he created, which was more interested in

west bank settlements than it was in policing the country. it's true that he's had a running argument, a running fight, really, with army reservists who have been leading the democracy demonstrations, democracy protests against netanyahu's damaging judicial reforms over the last several months. you know, he made clear at certain points, moments, that the army and the intelligence services were enemies, they were challenging him, and he didn't take seriously their arguments that the division of the country was a security risk. you know, the division of any country is a security risk, creating really profound and deep polarization makes it hard for people to unite in common goals and resolving common problems. in that sense, yes, it's a harbinger of what could come in some future. >> narrator: united states, as well.

>> donald trump and other republicans are pushing a claim this a recent prisoner swap between the biden administration and iran helped to facilitate the hamas attack on israel. several of them suggesting, without evidence, that $6 billion in oil revenue the biden administration unfroze as part of the exchange was used to fund hamas. here's a fact check on fox news by one of its reporters, jennifer griffin. >> the $6 billion is still currently held in a qatari bank account with u.s. treasury oversight, i'm told. the money came from iranian oil sales to south korea and did not include u.s. taxpayer dollars. nsc spokesperson adrienne watson said, quote, not a single cent from the funds has been spent. when it is spent, it can only be spent on things like food and medicine for the iranian people. these funds have absolutely nothing to do with the horrific attacks today, and this is not time to spread this information.

the u.s. has prepositioned billions of dollars of weapons stored in israel. i'm told the u.s. will likely release some of these prepositioned weapons to assist israel in the coming days and weeks. >> that is fox news reporter jennifer griffin. there is not proofhe money has been made, and it was the trump administration that made the $6 billion possible in e first place. last month's deal called for the funds to be transferred from south korea to qatar. south korea held the money under a waiver from the trump administration in 2018 that allowed it and several other countries tonue to buy oil from iran. 2018, then president trump said his administration issued the waivers to prevent a spike in oil prices, telling reporters, quote, i don't want to drive the oil prices in the world up, so i'm not looking to be a great hero and bring it down to zero immediately. that was president trump five years ago. so you worked at treasury. you understand this intimatly.

can you explain for our viewers how the $6 billion fund works and whether it'd be possible for iran to use it to fund these attacks by hamas? >> well, the simple answer to your question is no, they couldn't have. there are three reasons for that. by the way, i want to add that those who are propagating this are ignorant or knowingly lying to the american people to advance political objectives, which is horrifying in a situation like this. we have -- so as you covered already, that $6 billion in iranian assets that were in south korea, that were sent to qatari central bank, that have been unfrozen, and iran has been given indirect access to it. the way that works is, basically, they can go to qatar and say, "hey, we want $1 billion worth of medicine or food or bottled water." qatar reviews the approvals, those requests. the united states does, too. then qatar handles the transactions. they receive whatever it was. they send it to iran. the only thing that iran touches is when they actually receive the actual humanitarian goods.

the reason i know this works is because we did this in 2011, '12, '13 and '14. at that time, congress imposed secondary sanctions on iranian oil. the u.s. government, under the obama administration, created waivers so countries that were importing iranian oil were still allowed to import it, but to keep those proceeds in banks locally. those funds could only be used for humanitarian purposes. any time there was a slip, and it happened, any time there was a slip, the u.s. treasury was right there, sending officials to south korea, china, india, to say, "hey, we've seen something sketchy with this account. stop it or we're going to expose you or sanction you." there's precedent for this. but the fact is, number one, that $6 billion is for this purpose. number two, it wasn't even spent. and it is not -- the third point is, there are civil servants

there when i was there, who continue to be there, no matter who the president is or administration, who continue to work to undermine iranian support for terrorists across the region. that continues. >> one of the other talking points is the biden administration used taxpayer money. you and i funded an attack, essentially, by hamas on israel. >> good point. the $6 billion is proceeds from the sale of iranian oil. south korea purchased iranian oil. it went to south korea. it got frozen in south korean banks, and that is it. i'm not saying, again, i don't want -- i worked in undermining terrorist financing and the financing of the iranian regime for years. that was the majority of what i did in government. i don't want iran to get more money. i get it. but that money is, that's why it is so heavily regulated and why it is only there to support trade that is already legally allowed related to humanitarian goods. >> jonathan lemire, let me begin

this by saying, for people that are going to hear what i'm about to say, facts, that i'm always opposed to unfreezing any money for the iranians. i was opposed to the nuclear deal. we've had long conversations, battles on this program about it, and iran is the epicenter of terrorism. they have been since 1979. at some point, the united states of america is going to figure that out, and they're going to have a consistent policy that goes from one presidency to another. i've said that. it's on the table. that's where i stand. and, yet, this $6 billion argument is one of the laziest, stupidest arguments i've ever heard from a party that has been replete with lazy, stupid arguments over the past six, seven years. every time somebody brings it up, what they don't understand is, if this is a terrorist fund,

it is the trump terrorist fund. the trump administration saw a spike in iranian oil revenue flooding in. even in 2018, when he finally said, okay, they're terrorists, we're going to get out of the deal. maybe we should. then this money comes from a waiver, and who did he give that waiver to so they could continue flooding iran with money? the communist chinese government and india. by the way, iran's two biggest trade partners when it came to oil. as well as taiwan and, here, south korea. so it actually was donald trump that funded, if this is a terrorist fund, that funded this fund, this $6 billion which

comes directly from donald trump. who said, i'll let the iranians continue to trade with the communist chinese. i'll give them a waiver and india a waiver, because we wouldn't want to screw with gas prices, would we? so, again, it's a lazy, stupid argument, and they don't understand that whenever they put it out there, it always goes back to donald trump. it's his $6 billion. anyway, for all the reasons that, also, there is no direct link to this money and any terrorist attacks. if there were, the ultimate responsibility would go back to donald trump who funded the $6 billion with his waivers in the first place. >> it's a lazy argument. it is a dishonest argument. it is a bad faith argument. it is also a widespread argument. every republican candidate is saying versions of this in the last few days. trump himself and also other candidates who should know better. it is an applause line. people are getting it, cheering

at rallies. we're hearing it a lot in conservative media. it was so important, which we got the fact check over the weekend from the one fox news reporter, good job there, but this is a dishonest argument. it's one that the democrats are pushing back against. it's a rapid response from the biden campaign, checking this in real time, saying this is simply not true. hagar explained so well the process here, how this money came to be, and it's not being used anyway. we're seeing here this crisis, violence, over 1,500 lives lost. it's become a political pawn. we heard from ronna mcdaniel saying the violence in israel was a, quote, opportunity for republicans. we heard some suggesting the president is not working. he didn't have public appearances. arguments could be made whether or not he should have made a statement yesterday. he is doing so today. the white house pointed out, his busy schedule of calls and the

joint statement with european partners, that came forward because of the work the president put in yesterday. this is, like ukraine before it, joe and mika, right now, this issue in israel has become a political football, even as lives are in the balance. >> well, and, by the way, i mean, so the white house has its rapid response team. if you or a family member of yours has a google machine at home, you can google this. you can find out the truth literally in 60 seconds. google about trump, waivers, oil, iran. you will find out that iran's revenues from oil spikes from 2016 through 2019, and donald trump gave a waiver, this waiver that led to this $6 billion from south korea. plus billions and billions and billions of dollars that he

allowed the communist chinese government to give to the iranians. so you talk about that $6 billion. man, that opens up a can of worms that republicans just don't want to open up. because it all goes back to them. >> we want to pause the conversation for just a moment to get a live report from israel. joining us now from a major hospital in tel-aviv, nbc news correspondent kelly cobiella. kelly, what's the latest from there? >> reporter: hi, good morning to you, mika and the rest of you there at "morning joe." we are at the biggest hospital in israel. what you're seeing behind me here is a hospital lobby turned into a massive blood donation center. people are lined up all the way down the hallway. one man said that he came here on his lunch hour and was hold to come back in 3 1/2 hours. the wait is that long. this is the kind of response we're seeing now on what is day

four since that operation, that assault from hamas militants on israel. also at this hospital, interestingly, the ceo tells me that they're preparing for a worst-case scenario. very much on war footing here. the underground parking garage, which is a multi-layer parking garage, is now being turned into a hospital. they're setting up kidney dialysis machines. they can have life-support machines down there. there are sockets in the walls. the parking bays have slots marked out for patient beds. he says they'll start moving patients down there the next couple of days, just so they're out of harm's way, away from the towers, in case there is a massive missile strike in tel-aviv. these are the things happening just in this hospital. again, the largest hospital in israel. on top of that, they are also treating people who survived some of these attacks.

we're hoping to talk to some of those patients a little later today. outside, we took a walk around tel-aviv today, some stores are starting to open. some of the cafes are opening. there's hardly any traffic on the streets still. we spoke to one woman who said she has three children who are in the military right now. one of them a fighter pilot. her daughter is pregnant. she said, everyone here is still kind of in a state of shock but trying to move forward, trying to get back into the flow of daily life, knowing that so much has changed, but needing to somehow get through these next few days, just get into some sort of normal pattern. we know things aren't normal. there were air-raid sirens in the biggest city in the south just a short time ago. the idf launched some 200 strikes overnight and into the morning on hamas and islamic jihad sites in gaza. the situation on the ground in

gaza is incredibly, incredibly difficult. coming up on 800 people dead there. the united nations says there are problems in hospitals, that there are problems getting medicine and fuel to supply the generators that keep the hospitals going. very difficult situation in gaza. then on top of it all, we still have the problem with hostages, the issue of hostages. families still waiting for word on people who are missing and trying to find any information they can on their loved ones, mika. >> nbc news correspondent kelly cobiella, thank you so much for your report on the ground there in tel-aviv. again, a hospital dealing with victims, but also preparing for war. anne applebaum, your latest piece in "the atlantic" is entitled, "there are no rules." in it, you say, hamas had to have anticipated a massive

retaliation in gaza. indeed, that retaliation has begun. as a result, hundreds, if not thousands of palestinian civilians will now be victims, too. can you talk about "there are no rules"? hamas terrorist objectivities here? also, iran's objectives, as many say this could not have happened without iran's backing. >> what really struck me about the events on saturday was the blatant attack on civilians, the bragging about the attack on civilians. >> yeah. >> the hamas terrorists filmed themselves kidnapping women and dragging them over the border, which is a war crime as ancient as homer's "iliad." they took pictures of the dead. they put them on social media. they were trying to show how they are acting in defiance of any norms or laws on war that existed. this is not unlike the way the russians now behave in ukraine. they go out of their way to

attack restaurants, churches, schools. it's now become -- it's almost as if isis' form of warfare, a warfare that is designed to defy anything that looks like a rule, is now absolutely the norm. in my article, i write about how these norms and rules about warfare that were set up after the second world war have been in decline for a long time. the united states bears some responsibility for the decline, as does israel, as do many others, but the result is that we now have a situation in which, you know, hamas doesn't appear to care about israeli civilians, but it also doesn't appear to care about its own civilians. it's a nihilistic movement, and that appears to be the point. >> marc polymeropoulos, what are

the next steps? what your contacts in israel and across the middle east, it seems israel haas few good options. an attack against military sites, or as senator lindsey graham suggested, against the oil infrastructure that funds terrorism across the nation would lead to a massmassive, mae attack from the north into israel. of course, the last thing they can afford right now is a two-front war. bombardment of gaza leads to the pictures we've been showing this morning. massive civilian casualties. what is israel's best step forward to respond to these heinous acts of terrorism? >> the hostages. >> these are difficult times. as i said before, i sympathize with my old colleagues in israeli intelligence. they have three things on their plate. one to choose targets for the israeli defense forces, and that's finding hamas operatives, their command and control.

it is important to get the intelligence right, joe, because there is going to be civilian casualties and israel wants to minimize that. it's going to be difficult, but this is where the intelligence picture comes in. number two, they have to find the hostages. this is an incredibly emotional issue in israel. cour, now, it's emotional for the united states. there are americans who are held. that is critical. the last part, and i think you were talking about it in the last segment, is the degf iranian complicity is important to get right. "the wall street journal" article certainly caused, you know -- it was a bombshell in the united states. it was flying around washington, but there's a nuance here which is important. was the iranian support like it was in the past? you know, money, logistics, training. or was it more direct involvement, the notion they gave a green light? the israeli intelligence community is going to be asked by policymakers to give a definitive call on that. that might call israel to take action. one final point on that. i think you might see some

daylight. there might be a divide between the u.s. and israeli intelligence communities on this issue of iranian complicity down the line. but they've got to get that right. look, imagine if that happened to us. you know, if there were 900 or 1,000 americans killed in a hamas attack, would we be looking to iran? i think you'd have pilots heading to the f-35s. i do sympathize with israel on this. they've got to get it right. >> marc, let me ask you this question. obviously, there are complications with attacking iran's oil infrastructure. there are complications of attacking military sites in iran when, again, we know this -- again, iran has been the epicenter of terrorism since 1979. we understand the $6 billion is for humanitarian aid. but why can't we freeze the $6 billion again? it seems to me that is the least the united states should do at this point, when you have the

iranians responsible for just extraordinarily heinous acts of terrorism. >> right. look, i think that there is a political dimension to this. you know, we talked just now about all the reasons why some of the republican talking points are nonsensical. it almost doesn't matter. you know, the biden administration cannot be seen as soft on iran in any sense right now. i think perhaps freezing, you know, that money is something that should be on the table. but, you know, the world is watching right now. for a long time, frankly, we have not been very good at pushing back at iran. they've attacked our troops with their proxies. there certainly is a big movement now to push in the nuclear deal. we know that. >> marc, marc, let me ask you this question. >> we never dealt with the iran problem properly. >> why haven't we, marc? why haven't we? we saw what happened during the obama administration. again, i got pounded time and again for saying that was a

stupid deal. why have we continually tried to find the moderates in iran, going back to the iranian hostage crisis? they are not there. they fund hezbollah. they fund hamas. they fund islamic jihad. they fund terror groups across the middle east and the globe. when are american presidents of both parties going to wake up to this reality? i say both parties because donald trump is allowing iran in 2019 to sell its oil to the communist chinese and to india and to south korea. because he doesn't want to upset the oil markets. when are we going to learn? >> you know, i think this is,

you know, an age old issue united states national security intelligence. there's still al qaeda members in hiding in iran, senior members. it's messy. it's complicated. america is tired of 20 years of war. friends in israel said time and again, we have to deal with the iranians at some point. same with the gulf allies. perhaps this is something that will come to a head. i'm not a warhawk, not saying something should be done now, but iranians may be complicit, and that'll open challenges and questions for a biden administration that really was trying the diplomatic track. these are really tough issues ahead. this, again, is going to be critical, that the u.s. intelligence community and israeli intelligence gets it right, if iran was responsible. >> we know iran funds hamas. but if israeli intelligence can

determine it directed and gave the green light for the hamas attack on israel, what are the implications of that? what is israel and perhaps the united states doing next? >> you were talking about a multi-front war at that point, and marc is very right. marc is a good friend of mine and i think the world of him. having a very clear understanding of exactly what it was that led to the ru-up of the attack. how much did iran help support it, plan and execute it, versus how much was it a green light from their boss, of "good job guys. go ahead with this"? understanding the difference is critical in guiding how israel will respond. israel is not going to hold back at all. they have no reason to hold back, and they haven't in the past. if they really believe that iran played a heavy role in it. by the way, even if iran didn't play a very heavy role in it, we know for a fact this is how iran gets funded and equipped. it is mostly in iran.

when i work in financing and hamas was under my profile, they were a culprit. we have folks around the world who fundraise, they have charitable efforts and so on. they're not going to target every avenue right now, regardless of how strong the intelligence is. understanding the intelligence, and it seems they're still gathering it, and that's part of the failure, is going to dictate how they respond. it'll rope in lebanon if they do, by the way. >> former spokesperson for the u.s. mission to the united nations -- >> we cut off the last statement. the comment was, will there be war in lebanon if they do that? >> if they open a front with iran, it'll drag in hezbollah. it's the proxy, much closer, they don't care if lebanon is targeted. >> it's going to be a wildfire. u.s. mission to the united nations, hagar. former cia officer, marc

polymeropoulos. and anne applebaum, thank you for being on this morning. joining us now, retired rear admiral john kirby. >> admiral kirby, what's the latest in the white house's response? what should we expect to hear from the president today? >> president is going to be addressing the american people today. he'll talk about how we will continue to solidly stand behind israel. there's a fresh tranche of security assistance on its way to israel right now. he'll talk about the importance of making sure that we continue to find out as much information as we can about american citizens that are in israel. sadly, we know that 11 were killed. we expect that that number will probably go north. again, sadly. he'll also talk about the importance of making sure that we look after the jewish community here in the united states. we're working with state and local authorities to make sure that all jews throughout america can feel safe in their places of worship and community centers throughout this country.

>> admiral, what's on the table from the u.s. perspective in terms of what this administration can do to support israel as this continues to escalate, and then to bring you into the conversation we were just having, is a conversation about freezing the iran money on the table? >> first and foremost, mika, the effort and focus is on making sure that israel has the munitions, the weapons, the tools that they need to defend themselves and to go after these hamas terrorists. as i said, the first tranche of assistance is on its way to israel. we're in constant communication with our counterparts over there. certainly, i would expect there will be additional tranches of security assistance. really, it's that. number two, it's offering israeli's hostage crisis, expertise, recovery, and they have that there, but so do we. we made the offer to support them in the hostage cries

crisis. we don't know if americans are being held, but it doesn't matter. we're willing to help get the hostags freed, whoever they are. with iran, i heard the conversation about $6 billion. it can be refrozen at any time. i'm not here to announce a policy decision one way or another on that. when we got the americans out of tehran, that money can be frozen at any time. we can stop any transaction. not a single denar of the $6 billion has been spent or allocated. it was in a qatari bank, and that is an option available to us. >> admiral, good morning. jonathan lemire. i was struck by a phrase that went out yesterday from the white house in categorizing the president's calls to allies and regional partners, and he in the white house was warning those there in the middle east to not take advantage of what's happened there. tell us a little more about what that means and who is that aimed

toward? >> it's aimed at any actor or nation state that might find opportunity here in what is going on in israel, to take advantage of it, whether militarily or in any other way, to jump in and to make it even worse than it already is for the israeli people. obviously, there's lots of places in that region. iran, certainly hezbollah. it was a strong message to anyone that might want to take advantage of it. the other thing, that's exactly why the president ordered the "uss ford" and the carrier strike group with her into the eastern mediterranean as a strong deterrent. we'll protect our national security interest, and nobody should make any mistake about jumping in, getting involved, and taking advantage of this. >> admiral, the state department, the president, as well, announced 11 americans were among those killed in the hamas attack in israel. is there any update on the numbers? >> right now, we can confirm the 11, willie. we're watching this closely as

you might imagine. we're expecting the number to increase, perhaps even just over the course of this day. we don't have a new number to give. that's 11 families now that have gotten the worst possible news and are dealing with unbelievable shock and grief. >> there may be more, as you say. the president also said yesterday it's likely there are americans among the hostages that were snatched from israel and taken back to gaza. do you have any more information on that? >> no. we can't confirm americans are in the pool of hostages, but as the president said, we have to prepare for the grim possibility that they could. there is a number of unaccounted for americans. we're hearing from lots of families, as you might expect, trying t get information about loved ones they haven't heard from. some of the folks could be lost, some could be hurt in hospitals, some could be missing, but we have to prepare ourselves for the possibility, the likelihood that some of them are being held hostage. obviously, if that's the case, we're going to continue to do everything we have to to get their home to their families.

>> what would that mean, admiral, if there are, in fact, american hostages? does that ramp up american involvement? do you send in teams to extract them? >> again, we're offering expertise. we have expertise in the intelligence community, the military, law enforcement that are good at hostage recovery. we're offering the expertise to the israeli right now. there are no plans to put boots on the ground. i don't think it's useful to speculate about what the options might be in terms of trying to get them home, but we'll do everything we can. this is a difficult, different situation talking about hostages in a war zone in, you know, active combat. that certainly complicates any efforts to get americans out of there. >> retired rear admiral john kirby, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. coming up on "morning joe," updates in the cases surrounding the handling of classified documents by both president biden and former president

trump. plus, nikki haley's standout performances on the republican debate stage appears to have translated to a large fundraising haul. we'll have the latest on her campaign, including a new endorsement from someone who is dropping out of the race. also ahead, another republican presidential contender, florida governor ron desantis, will be our guest. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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primary. according to h ccampaign, she's raised $11 million in the third quarter. she's fighting governor ron desantis for the number two spot in the gop primary polls. she comes into this month with more cash on hand, around $9 million, compared to the roughly $5 million reported by the desantis campaign. haley picked up an endorsement from a former rival after republican will hurd suspended his presidential campaign. special counsel jack smith is hitting back at efforts by donald trump's lawyers to delay his classified documents trial until after the 2024 election. in a filing yesterday, smith wrote, there is, quote, no credible justification to change the trial date after trump's attorney's motion to do so last week. the former president is scheduled to go to trial next may. he has pleaded not guilty to all 40 charges against him in the case. and the white house says

president biden has been interviewed as part of the independent investigation into his handling of classified documents. special counsel robert hur is investigating the improper retention of the documents by biden from his time as a senator and as vice president. a spokesperson for the white house counsel's office says the interview with president biden was voluntary and was conducted on sunday and monday at the white house. and the president and white house were fully cooperating. still ahead, the israeli ambassador to the u.n. described the hamas terrorist attacks on israel as, quote, blatant and barbaric war crimes. the ambassador will join us this morning. we'll be right back.

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as does a widespread hostage crisis. hamas says it kidnapped more than 100 people from israel. the terrorist group now threatening to execute prisoners. nbc news foreign correspondent raf sanchez reports from israel. >> reporter: this morning, families waiting in agony. their loved ones under a new threat. that warning from hamas that it may execute civilian hostages in response to israeli strikes. up to 150 people being held captive. new details emerge of the deadly raids by hamas militants in israeli villages, towns and this music festival. savannah guthrie yesterday. >> if you could speak to hostages holding them, what would your message be? >> these are babies. these are babies, women, families are off limits. show some decency. show some respect.

>> reporter: his wife and little girls, roz and aviv, hostages of hamas. being blind-folded here, one arm around her daughter, mother next to her. later, we went to see joni in person. >> how are you doing? >> trying to be calm. >> if there was some way you could take their place, they could be free and you could go to gaza? >> i'm willing to be killed right now for their lives. >> anything to bring them home? >> they can take me for as long as they want. >> reporter: it's a pain being shared this morning by american families. abby, an american living in israel, told lester hostage. >> it's something that no parent, no human can ever imagine. >> reporter: this israeli father's grief is universal.

his only child, noa, screaming for help. her boyfriend, hands tied behind his back, helpless to save her. he at least has two so many israeli families are praying for. a video from saturday showing her inside gaza alive and apparently uninjured. >> raf sanchez. joining us is ted joich. he is now a ceo of the american jewish committee. congressman, thank you for being here this morning. we appreciate it. >> thanks. >> we watch those stories and the tragedy is those are just three or four of hundreds of stories that are playing out across israel. >> right, and thousands and thousands impacted. can i -- willie, it's only been three days, and if i could just try to put this in context, those stories are so horrific, but imagine that you're at home -- you're rolling out of bed and watching this show and you hear gunshots outside of your house, and then you go into

your safe room and you learn that next door there's a couple with three kids and they're all immediately gunned down, massacred by terrorists and in another house there's a family of five and the husband is killed and one of the kids is killed and the wife and two children are hauled across brutally into gaza. they're hauled away as terrorists, and then there's a grandma in another house in your neighborhood who's an 84-year-old woman who's murdered on social media which is how her family finds out about it and then just to wrap things up for your viewers, then imagine that as you have been in the safe room, that in another house, another family did the same thing to try to stay safe, but the terrorists came and burnt the house down. that's what was experienced across israel. many, many times over, and at the same time, i'll just finish with this, while all of that is happening, israelis from across the country are being called up while still in trauma going to serve their country and they're watching in some friendly

countries around the world. people are going out in the streets to rally in support of the terrorists that committed these horrific crimes. imagine. it's incomprehensible to us, but we have to try to understand the scope of this so that we can continue to stand squarely not just with the people of israel, but stand squarely with morality and decency against these kind of horrific terrorists. >> well, since you raise that, congressman, there was a rally in times square this weekend. it was support for hamas a day after this happened. college campuses tolerating a lot of this stuff as well. as the head of the american jewish committee, what are the threats here at home to american jews? i was saying to you, i hate when something like this happens, because i know there will be a line of cop cars outside the synagogue next to our building and at synagogues around the city. talk about, if you could, the impact at home of the attack on israel. >> sure. first of all, the safety of the jewish community is of enormous

concern at this moment, and when you talked about college campuses, its young people -- the young people who are standing with the terrorists, the terrorists who went to a music festival where young people were gathered and killed 260 people and raped young women. we worry about what that means when there are people standing with terrorists and universities will not make clear exactly what the truth is that we need to stand on the side of the victims and not on the side of the terrorists. so it's a tone that's set on college campuses. we expect university presidents and administrators -- this is not an either/or side. this is stand on the side of keeping the community safe and then more broadly, yes. there's a focus on security at all of our institutions around the country because we've seen this before when something like this happens that it's the entity that some feel for israel and the jews because hamas was

set on slaughtering jews and we're watching this around the world and working with law enforcement to help address it. >> that has sadly happened far, far too many times. one angle we haven't explored too much this morning yet is this idea that perhaps one of the motivations for at least the timing of this attack is the plan for israel and saudi arabia having conversations to try to normalize relations. what's your analysis of that if you think that's correct, and do you think those efforts will continue despite this progress? >> there was great progress into integrating them into the world. we were celebrating the abraham accords, the normalization talks with saudi arabia and israel. they were progressing rapidly. hamas' goal here is to overthrow israel, is to run the jews out of israel. it says so in their charter. this is no surprise.

their goal is to draw people into war. they hate seeing what's happening around them which is the integration of israel more fully into society. look. the coming weeks will be focused on israel intending itself, but obviously as we move through this, and as israel does what's necessary, then the focus will get back to how to continue to israel more fully into the region and into the world because people understand what israel has to offer. they want to have a close relationship and they want to stand against iran at the same time that this is happening. there are stories about iran's potential involvement here as well. >> before we let you go, and i ask you to put on your hat as a congressman, and this has become such a topic and we've talked about it at length this morning. what should happen in the congress? what should happen from the biden administration? >> look. i hear some of the rhetoric around this.

it's unhelpful to say the least. we should be focused on how to help support israel right now and this $6 billion, admiral kirby i think made clear what we should do, and if i were in congress what i would be calling for which is congress should fully investigate iran's role here. we know that none of the $6 billion have left doha, so let's keep it that way. none of this money -- none of the $6 billion should leave doha until iran's role in this is fully study and understood so that determinations could be made based on the outcomes of those investigations and let's take that issue and stop talking about politics and start uniting around our support for israel and our support for -- our support for the jewish community that feels so at-risk. >> increasing calls for just that. freeze the assets until we can see what's going on here. the ceo of the american jewish committee and former congressman ted deutch.

coming up, congressman dan goldman found himself in the heart of this. he will detail his traumatic escape with his family over the weekend. and we'll get to richard engel on the ground. we're back in just a moment. und. we're back in just a moment. as americans, there's one thing we can all agree on. the promise of our constitution and the hope that liberty and justice is for all people. but here's the truth. attacks on our constitutional rights, yours and mine are greater than they've ever been. the right for all to vote. reproductive rights. the rights of immigrant families. the right to equal justice for black, brown and lgbtq+ folks. the time to act to protect our rights is now. that's why i'm hoping you'll join me today in supporting the american civil liberties union. it's easy to make a difference. just call or go online now and become an aclu guardian of liberty.

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with families i know, and i'm, you know, i'm keeping my hopes up that they're alive and well. i know that their father and his spouse were taken also because

we've seen one of the -- >> videos. >> -- one of the videos that hamas put on, so we know that they're alive, and i'm hoping that they're with them. >> an israeli mother sharing the story of her sons who were taken hostage by ha the terrorist group is now threatening to execute dozens of people they have captured, quote, without warning meaning israeli -- israel is promising a complete siege of gaza, launching more air strikes overnight while culting off the area from basic necessities. we're going to get a live report for the latest on all of that straight ahead right here on "morning joe." according to israeli authorities, more than 900 israelis have been killed since the fighting began on saturday. the health ministry in gaza says more than 700 palestinians are dead. 11 americans are also among those killed.

this brings the total number of deaths to at least 1,600. hamas says it has kidnapped more than 100 people from israel. it is believed some americans are among those being held captive. the terrorist group is now threatening to execute a civilian hostage every time israel targets civilians in gaza without warning. willie? >> meanwhile, benjamin netanyahu is vowing to destroy hamas. he said yesterday, the military operations against the terrorist organization are, quote, just beginning. he called on israelis on unite saying, the country has difficult days coming, but israel will be victorious. yesterday israel announced a complete siege of gaza cutting off food, water, electricity, and fuel to roughly 2 million residents there. since then, air strikes have bombarded the border. israel says it has restored full control over the communities hamas militants had stormed in

the surprise attack over the weekend. the country also activated 300,000 military reservists, a potential sign israel could be preparing for a ground invasion of gaza. the last time ground forces entered there was in 2014, and young us now from near the gaza border with israel is nbc news chief foreign correspondent, richard engel. what are you seeing there? >> reporter: well, good morning. we are now on day four of this war, and you mentioned that death toll among israelis that is being reported in the israeli media, 900, and it's been going up every day because frankly the israelis don't know how many people were killed. we are now right on the border with gaza. this is one of the first places that the hamas militants entered and they came into this community. you can see troops have just secured this area, but they don't know exactly what is in store for them as they're going

through homes. they've brought in the ambulances here. they brought in recovery teams. we've seen teams coming out with body bags. they are looking for israeli bodies, and they believe there could be dozens in this village. this is still an active fire zone, so it is possible that there will be incoming fire in this area. there are a lot of troops around the perimeter. so this is the first mission that the israelis must do, is to try and reclaim and secure their own communities before they can potentially go into the gaza strip. so here are some of the soldiers. they're taking a knee, taking a break right now, and they have been going through houses like this to check for booby traps, but mostly victims. we have seen the fighters, bodies on the ground. some of them are under trees and they have been wearing camouflage fatigues and now because it's very hot, the

bodies are starting to decompose. there is -- there are scenes like this all throughout the border communities because this attack didn't just take place at the concert venue. it didn't just take place where we were yesterday. there are many israeli towns all along what they call the gaza envelope, the area surrounding the gaza strip, and those places took the brunt of the hamas assault. we're talking about a large assault. hamas was able to create about 30 different holes in the border fences, breach communities, breach the border, come into communities like this, and go on there killing and kidnapping as a rampage. >> as someone who's covered the region so closely for so many years, spent so much time there, what is your sense of the challenge israel now faces if it does send ground troops into gaza? they're attacking from the air now in response to the terrorist attack of the weekend, but it's a very small space with 2

million people as they look for those hostages, israeli hostages being held there. how difficult a challenge will that be? >> reporter: i think it is an enormously difficult challenge and more so now because israelis have realized how much time hamas has spent in preparation. hamas just put out new videos this morning showing them -- showing their fighters erecting mock israeli border fences, blowing them up, crossing those mock fences with breaching tools in order to train for this assault. the palestinians are calling this the flood, and that was the symbolism they're using, that the people from gaza, they were flooding into israel. if the israelis do go in and engage in street to street fighting in the gaza strip, which they've done in the past and has been difficult in the past, it is very likely to be

even more difficult this time because hamas has the initiative. they chose the timing of this assault and they clearly are prepared based on what we've already seen over the last four days. >> richard, joe here. you mentioned the training, "the washington post" talking about the massive security failures and military failures on the netanyahu government's part, and they're talking about as you were saying, how hamas and islamic jihad terrorists had been trained for weeks, drilling in rocket launchers, practicing kidnapping soldiers, storming settlements. talk about the israeli people and how shaken they are by their government's failure not only to protect them from the initial attack, but also in coming to rescue them from their homes hours after these terrorists had stormed over the gates. >> reporter: there is a lot of uncertainty here. i can say that israelis are

shaken by this. they are much more nervous than i've seen in previous conflicts. they were taken by surprise. israelis are also angry that it took a long time from their perspective to react. the concert has taken -- it's received so much attention for good reason. there was the overnight rave that hundreds of israeli youngsters were attending that was attacked. when i first heard about this assault, i thought it was a relatively quick thing that hamas went in. they opened fire on people, and they grabbed as many as they could and went back over the border. that's not what happened. we've spoken to people who were there, and spoken to people who were on the phone with relatives who were there during the assault. it lasted about four hours, and the israelis have said -- told to me time and time again, where was the rescue operation? why weren't forces coming more quickly? there was a long gap in the initial phases of this assault when the israelis seemed to be

caught flat-footed, and there is anger about that, but now this country is pulling together and i've spoken to people who previously didn't like benjamin netanyahu, and they were opponents and they now say, we'll address these issues and look into it and look at analysis of what went wrong, but right now with hamas militants on the loose, it's not time to focus on that. the truth will come out over the course of investigations in the coming days, weeks, months, potentially, but they have to pu to secure this country and try to get the hundreds -- 100, maybe 150 hostages out of gaza. they don't know how many hostages there are. they don't know how many bodies there are because in places like this, they're still doing clearing operations, recovering people. if that death toll is 900 now, after they go through this right

now, it could go up by a few dozen and this is not the only clearing operation. >> nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel, thank you very much. we'll talk to you again soon. let's bring in the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire, david ignatius, and former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, jeremy bash. he's an nbc news national security analyst. thank you all for being with us. >> david ignatius, we have been wondering how this happened. we have been wondering how the israeli government was caught asleep so badly, especially as your newspaper's reporting that they have been practicing for weeks in plain sight of israeli soldiers of basically committing these heinous acts and now

richard engel reports the concert, the massacre of the concert, over four hours long. we've heard from israelis locked in their homes for hour after hour wondering where the army was. in all your reporting, david, have you been able to unpack over the past couple of days how this could have been such a massive security failure and military failure by an israeli government that has long been considered one of the best, one of the strongest, one of the swiftest? >> one of the most secure. >> one of the most secure. >> joe, the only thing i've really been able to focus on clearly is our own experience after 9/11 when we realized that every indicator that an attack was coming was in the system, but our intelligence analysts didn't see it. in the famous phrase, they couldn't connect the dots. they didn't see what was in front of their eyes. there must be some of that going on in this case. i think the biggest surprise for the israelis and for analysts

looking from outside is not the intense hatred that hamas has, the terrorist tactics we knew their malevolent feelings about israel. it's their confidence in executing this operation, their ability to keep secrets. the operational secrecy that preceded this is extraordinary. there were reports that even the head of hamas may not have known the details of this operation in the weeks before. it was done with that degree of caution. i'm also struck, joe, by the question if the israelis didn't know this with their incredible focus on gaza and hamas, what else didn't they know? i think intelligence services all over the world are going to be asking themselves in the wake of this if our israeli brothers and sisters who were supposed to be the best of the best missed this, what are we missing now? what is america missing about china and china's intentions? what are we missing about

russia? just talking to intelligence professionals over the last couple of days, that's what i'm hearing. what else don't we know? >> and david, as we talk about the miscalculations and the failure to connect the dots, also reporting that netanyahu and his government had come to the conclusion that they could somehow manage hamas, that they could work with hamas, that they could pay off hamas, and their focus was primarily on the best bank and the settlements. how could they have made that grave of a miscalculation? this terrorist group that the world has known to be a terrorist group for so long. >> so joe, i think the biggest nightmare for the israelis today is the recognition that deterrence hasn't worked with hamas. these people have gone in repeatedly to gaza. the level of violence back and forth has been extraordinary. we have had several decades of it, and there was a belief that

hamas was deterred from this kind of major action. that turned out not to be true, so if you are ben netanyahu, the prime minister, you have to determine the level of fear and intimidation. how do you restore that? what action will be strong enough, and in his words will reverberate through generations in a way that will prevent future acts like this? the problem for israeli attack planners today is they've got to plan this overwhelming, intimidating operation, perhaps the invasion of gaza with more than 100 israeli hostages in tunnels, buried in places the israelis probably don't know where they are. the tunnels are probably booby trapped. for an operations planner right now this is a nightmare trying to think through exactly what to do in the coming weeks. >> so mika, this is "the washington post," interviewed

the former head of israeli's national security council and he said, the modus operandi i was, israel would allow it to prosper with the small price israel paid every so often, and that was considered the best that israel could hope for. now that strategic equation has been completely violated, that they somehow could manage a terrorist group like hamas. like iran, hamas can't be managed. >> no, and jeremy bash, what are the questions that united states' administration is dealing with? this morning, you have prime minister benjamin netanyahu vowing to destroy hamas, and as david ignatius pointed out, there are some 100 hostages whose lives hang in the balance, and their location is not completely nobody. >> yeah, mika. first of all -- first and foremost, we may have american hostages in harm's way, and i think the u.s. government is going to be intensely focused on that. second, of course, is to prevent

a wider war, to prevent any mobilization by islamic jihad or hamas elements inside the west bank to go after the palestinian authority leadership or to try to infiltrate israel because of course, israel's main population center is right next to a main population center in the west bank. third of course, is to keep israel's northern border quiet where hezbollah has about 250,000 rocket artillery and mortar pieces. we talked about 9/11. i think this is worse than 9/11 for israel in some important respects. first just in sheer proportionality. it's like 25,000 americans being killed if you take our. lations -- populations respectively. we didn't have rockets raining down on our entire country and we weren't in bomb shelters. fourth, we didn't have a mass grab of every male over 18.

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i want this administration to tell the iranians any escalation using hezbollah to attack israel or killing of hostages, we will hold you accountable. i can only stress this so much. the iranians depend on all revenue for their lively hood. the money comes from the iia toll la.

destroy it. say if they escalate any further, we'll destroy your oil industry and eventually we'll have to deal with this regime by taking it down. >> david ignatius, let me bring you in on that point. obviously it is oil that helps the iranians remain the epicenter of terror in the world, whether they're funding hamas or hezbollah, whether they're funding islamic jihad. the question is can israel afford long-term to stand back and allow iran to sponsor an attack against their country this way without striking back at military targets or as senator graham said, their oil infrastructure which at the end of the day, funds their terrorism across the globe? >> so joe, i want to be careful here. israel and the united states are both stressing that they do not

see evidence of direct iranian involvement in this. >> do you believe that or do you believe that israel and the united states doesn't want the truth to be that explicit because then they may be forced to respond in a way -- because from what i hear, you know, there's a lot of skepticism in the intel community that those denials come from israel and the united states. >> so i share the skepticism by just noting there isn't an effort to put that case out for an obvious reason that they don't want to be pushed into a situation where they have to expand the war and they are then pushed by public opinion into attacking iran. that would be a much bigger and more complicated war, but when you think about the dilemmas that the israelis have in this siege and urban warfare in gaza, you can imagine that israelis might think much more discreet military targets are available

in iran to using the phrase that's very common in israel, cut off the head of the snake to go directly at the funders and encouragers of this kind of terrorism. you would be going after military targets. hostages wouldn't be involved and in some ways, it would be a more simple military operation for an idf planner to think about. so there are reasons to think down the road if this isn't resolved, that might be a tactic that israel would choose again. everything that we're hearing both from israel and the united states is cautioning us that they don't see the evidence. they don't see the smoking gun, and so that kind of expansion of the war is unlikely. the problem with attacking iran is that hezbollah and lebanon would immediately retaliate with its thousands of rockets and these are precise missiles. these are not like the missiles hamas fires from gaza.

these could do damage to the seas of israel. they will think twice before anything that radically expands the war. >> willie, that has been the concern among the israelis and why they don't want this "wall street journal" report that broke sunday night, one of the reasons they don't want it to get legs. they don't want to confirm that iran was involved because any action against iran ultimately rains down hell from the north from hezbollah, and so they're face a two-front war which right now they're still trying to actually figure out the scope of hamas' abilities. >> yeah, and as david said, hezbollah has more sophisticated weapons permanently trained deep inside israel. it would open up an entirely new set of problems. so jeremy bash, you know, the united states and israel may not say explicitly that iran was behind this, but we know as a matter of fact that iran funds, trains, supplies weapons to

hamas, and, in fact, some of the leadership of hamas said explicitly over the weekend that, yes. iran gave us the green light here. so if you are in the pentagon, if you are in your former job at the cia, how are you managing this crisis now from the american side? >> yeah. i have no access to current information, willie, but i will say, common sense dictates that of course, iran supported hamas. of course, iran has been a patron of hamas, and so they bear extensively in my view, a lot of the responsibility for an attack like this. how israel chooses to respond -- look. we didn't go into afghanistan for a full month after 9/11. it's not like we rushed into combat the moment the towers fell down. what we need to think about is we need to respond at a time and place of our choosing. it may be overt or covert, and it may be conventional or through other means, and israel has a lot of options and they'll

have to talk to their american counterparts and colleagues inside the pentagon and intelligence community about what response against iran is merited. >> jonathan lemire, we saw last night a joint statement from france, germany, italy, and the united kingdom and the united states making a joint statement in solidarity of the israeli people, and it was -- it was for those -- for those five countries, it was a pretty remarkable statement of support, and a strong condemnation against the terrorist attacks. i think we're seeing some unify from europe that we don't always see, and of course, in the face of these heinous terror attacks, you would certainly hope to see that. i'm curious though, how much forward do we expect president biden to lean today? how aggressively today do we expect to hear president biden

speak out against the terror attacks and talk about his support for israel? >> extraordinarily aggressive is the sentiment. he will be in full support of israel and its ability to defend itself. president biden and netanyahu have a complicated relationship. they have had ups and downs and the president condemned netanyahu's recent push to reshape the judiciary there in israel, but all of that will be set aside right now. the united states understands that israel is going to respond and they're going to respond with overwhelming force. now what comes next is an open matter. depending how long this conflict lasts, depending what israel's further steps would be, there would be more nuance, and when the u.s. tries to get them to tap the brakes. that is for down the road. that is not going to be the message from today, and in the president's phone call with

prime minister netanyahu over the weekend when he did suggest that they would be going into gaza with a ground support, i'm told the president didn't push back in that, and jeremy, if i can just bring you in on that idea real quick, if that could happen -- if that is going to happen and certainly signs suggest that israel is going to go in, what would that look like? tell us what that would be, that block to block fighting, how long it would last and what the consequences and ramifications would be. >> well, i think it's to david's point earlier, i think israel needs to try to re-establish deterrents. i think if deterrence had slipped or weakened, in essence what that analysis kind of yields is a sense from the military establishment that gaza and the leadership of hamas there haven't felt enough pain. they haven't felt directly threatened, that air strikes can target buildings and structures, but they have enough warning. they can kind of get into bomb shelters and move into harm's way. a ground operation would have to

be heavily armored, and some of it would be geared toward trying to figure out where hamas command and control exists, where islamic jihad command and control exists and where the hostages may be held. there's no sense i'm hearing that they want to reoccupy gaza for a long time. i don't think any politician envisions a permanent military presence in gaza. it's about re-establishing, deterrence, protecting israel's south and sending an unmistakable message to iran that israel is going to take this extraordinarily seriously. coming up, how the rest of the world is reacting to the war in the middle east. we'll speak with israel's ambassador to the united nations straight ahead on "morning joe." " ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ( ♪♪ ) constant contact's advanced automation lets you send the right message at the right time, every time. ( ♪♪ ) constant contact. helping the small stand tall.

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republican congressman kevin mccarthy says he's open to becoming speaker of the house again after he was ousted from the position. he said he would not run for the role after last tuesday's vote removed him from the speakership, but the california republican told conservative radio talk show host hugh hewitt, quote, whatever the conference wants, i will do. we know that. steve scalise and jim jordan are currently the only two who have formally announced they are running for speaker. presidential candidate robert f. kennedy jr. abandoned his bid for the democratic nomination this week and instead announced he will run as an independent. >> i'm here to declare myself an independent candidate. the democrats are frightened that i'm going to spoil the election for president biden. [ applause ] and -- and the republicans are frightened that i'm going to spoil it for president trump.

the truth is they're both right. [ cheers and applause ] now my intention is to -- is to spoil it for both of them. >> all right. so h sister, carrie kennedy tweeted out, bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision, or judgment. today's announcement is deeply saddening for us. we denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country. >> and jonathan lemire, fascinating that when -- >> wow. >> bobby kennedy jr. announced he was running as a democrat, donald trump put out a statement basically saying, fine young man. now that he's running as an

independent, of course, democrats had been the ones that had been wetting their beds, but there's obviously some polling on the trump side that shows that anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists actually may cut from donald trump who responded to this announcement yesterday by calling him crazy. >> yeah. the polls tell a remarkable story in how fast it occurred. a few months ago when rfk jr. jumped in the race, he drooped some democrats and there were worries he was not going to prevent joe biden from clutching the nomination, but he could be a thorn in his side at least a little bit, but every time robert f. kennedy speaks, he grows less popular with democrats and more popular with republicans. polls suggest that now he does much, much better among potential gop voters. that's clearly behind this aboutface from the trump campaign who see him as someone

who might steal support from the republican ticket. there are third-party concerns for president biden. maybe that's cornell west who's now not green party, but independent. rfk jr., not so much. he's someone now the trump team is worried about, and we should note it was a debacle of a speech yesterday. rfk jr. forgot his speech, his mic didn't work and the advanced work was so much people held up their signs and blocked the camera. amateur hour at least to start for this independent campaign. >> we'll move back to our top story, the hamas surprise attack on israel, and in an editorial entitled "netanyahu bears responsibility for this israel/gaza war," it's written in part, above all, the danger looming over israel in recent years has been fully realized. a prime minister indicted in three corruption cases cannot look after state affairs, as

national interests will necessarily be subordinate to extricating him from a possible conviction and jail time. this was the reason for establishing this horrific coalition and the judicial coup advanced by netanyahu, and for the enfeeblement of top army and intelligence officers who were perceived as political opponents. the price was paid by the victims of the invasion. >> that's a harsh editorial from an israeli newspaper literally hours after these attacks. you usually don't see that, but it seems to underline something that you have picked up in your reporting, i've picked up in my reporting from talking to israelis and people connected with the israeli intel services and military services, and that is a deep and lingering distrust

of the people that netanyahu is surrounded by, and i had one person -- they had been telling me for a year and i shared this with you last night. i won't give his name. everybody knows him, but he said what he hears every time he goes to israel or talks to israelis, talking about the security situation there, he says, you have pilots who are secular, and you have their mechanics who are orthodox, and he said there is a divide -- i have been saying this for a year. there is a split. there is a divide that runs straight through the military, and that runs straight through the intel services, and this past week sadly i'm afraid we saw the results of that. >> so joe, obviously it's too early for us to know exactly what led to this intelligence failure and this tragedy, but in

the months before these hamas attacks, israeli was as divided politically as i have ever seen it and i've been covering israel for more than 40 years. the security elite, the officers of mossad, of internal intelligence as you were suggesting, for the most part, secular israelis they live in tel aviv and they see israel as a modern dynamic, secular state and they grew increasingly suspicious of prime minister netanyahu and the ultra orthodox who have a very different vision of what israel should be, and that's split. i think any historian who writes this story in future decades will look at the degree of israel that preceded this

horrible attack and i think will certainly for hamas, as they watch the daily news from israel, they saw signs of a country that was coming apart politically. thousands of israelis demonstrating in the streets, army reservists saying they wouldn't show up for duty because they felt so angry at what they thought they saw as prime minister netanyahu's attack on the state. so i share your concern that those divisions ended up being a prelude to this awful tragedy. thank goodness israelis are all pulling together. the sign is those divisions are over, and the country is united in pursuing this enemy. >> david, one other thing i wanted to ask you about and just so we can underline this, how closely many people in the united states government, the united states military feel towards not only israel as a nation, but to the israeli people. i'm saying this merely just to explain to our viewers that this

is deeply, deeply personal for a lot of people in the united states military who have worked alongside their israeli brothers and sisters. the same with the intel community yesterday. we actually -- we saw admiral john kirby break down in tears on television, something highly unusual in this sort of setting, but it was deeply personal to him, and deeply personal to many people in this government. >> so joe, i thought that was a rare moment for admiral kirby. he's usually such a controlled military spokesman for the administration to show such intense emotion as he was asked about the videos that we've seen that just have horrible degradation of people, and admiral kirby just said, these are human beings. he was trembling as he said it. i think in president biden's speech today that we have been talking about a little bit, we

will see biden in a role that's pretty familiar for him as the consoler, you know, the griever in chief. we've seen president biden at his best reaching out to people who have been hurt as he has been hurt personally. i think that personal connection, americans feeling some of the pain that is in every israeli's face as you watch the reporting from israel. i think that will be a theme that we hold onto tight. it'll be central to how president biden speaks to the country. coming up, one of our next guests was in israel when hamas terrorists stormed the border. congressman dan goldman of new york escaped with his family, and he joins us straight ahead on "morning joe." morning joe. can we get real clear about life with psoriasis? yeah, i'm ready. is your treatment leaving you with uncontrolled symptoms? like the cover-it-ups and brush-it-offs? enough with good enoughs. don't stay hiding or hurting. when your lotions and creams don't do enough to

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true evil. it's really hard to get your head wrapped around these images, and as you've talked about this morning, the operation to come in gaza is going to be absolutely extraordinary. there's no doubt israel has to bring to justice these perpetrators, but inside gaza, that is going to be very, very difficult, especially while a hostage situation is pending. listen. there are a number of really important lines of effort right now. the effort. the biden administration has already forwarded material to israel, ammunition and interceptors are on their way. second, we're beginning to build a supplemental appropriation for israel to get them additional support and supplies, especially

for the iron dome. i would argue that package should also have support to protect domestic jewish communities. we are going to see a rise in threats against synagogues, so we should be there to protect them. then we're obviously engaged diplomatically. the best solution to this hostage crisis is for allies in the region who have relationships with hamas to negotiate their release. we have a lot of work to do in the senate. we're working behind the scenes to put together that supplemental package. we're trying to figure out a way to get nominees and military promotions unlocked. >> how do you handle the iran question we were discussing earlier? that is that iran explicitly

supports hamas. hamas said it got the green light from iran. the biden administration hasn't said publicly there's a link, but most people say they believe they did do something that supported them with material support. what should be the consequences if there is a direct link proven that iran funded, supported and gave the green light for a terrorist attack on israel? >> it's important to state that i have not seen intelligence that suggests, as the "wall street journal" report does, that iran was involved in the planning details. but that question is pretty immaterial. hamas does not exist without the ongoing annual support of iran. all of the weapons and the training, the rockets in some way, shape or form are derived from their relationship with iran. that's why right now the united states has a massive set of

crippling sanctions on iran, its economy and its oil industry, because of their support for terrorism. i think this is going to be a moment where the congress will sit down and try to understand whether there are other tools we can use to make clear their continued support for hamas or hezbollah is unacceptableunacce. it's important to get this question answered as to whether they were involved in the intimate planning details. regardless, hamas cannot launch this attack without iran as its patron. >> this is david ignatius in washington. you mentioned earlier about the importance of reaching out to countries that may have contact with hamas. egypt obviously comes to mind. i'm curious whether you see any diplomatic path forward with the

hostaged. do you think that's an avenue that needs to be pursued? >> i do. this is obviously a very sensitive moment, so not a lot to say about this. but let's also talk about qatar. the united states has a deep, important relationship with qatar. it is often fraught because we have major disagreements with them as well. qatar and egypt are countries that have continued some basic relationships and contacts with hamas. qatar, in fact, has often been the conduit to which humanitarian money flows with israel's consent into gaza. so these are important countries, because obviously the priority is to unwind this hostage crisis in a way that doesn't lead to the additional loss of life. so those are two very important

lines of effort that i think will be under way this week. coming up, governor ron desantis is standing by the latest in his campaign for the republican nomination is straight ahead. first, we'll go to the big board for an in-depth look at how hamas stormed the border and why israel was caught off guard. .

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just a few minutes before the top of the hour, a live look at gaza city, where there are explosions taking place right now. landmarks across the world are showing solidarity with israel after hundreds have been killed in attacks by hamas terrorists. welcome back to the fourth hour of "morning joe." 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. on the east and 4:00

p.m. in israel, where the war against hamas is into its fourth day. israeli defense forces have been launching air strikes into gaza, claiming to have killed about 1500 terrorists since fighting began on saturday. the death toll in the region has surpassed 1600. that includes more than 900 israelis and nearly 800 palestinians and 11 americans. hamas militants also claim to have taken more than 100 people hostage. the terrorist group is now threatening to execute one person every time israel targets civilian homes without advanced warning. >> as you said, mika, not militants, but terrorists, terrorists kidnapping, terrorists killing, terrorists gunning down in cold blood children, women, grandparents.

just absolutely unbelievable. president biden says some americans may actually be among those being held captive by the terrorists in gaza. the president set to deliver remarks on the war later today. >> joining us near the gaza border inside israel is richard engel. >> reporter: we are waiting for a new possible attack against hamas. hamas just issued a state saying that in one hour's time it will attack a city not far from here. the reason it says it will carry out this attack is to carry out retribution because israel is attacking civilians in the gaza strip, so it wants to balance it out in a way. now, it could be a bait and switch. they could be saying they're going to attack with rockets

primarily. that's the only thing they could use to get that far. and they could end up hitting tel-aviv or not carry out a strike at all. generally in the past, hamas has liked to pick its target and then attack them in order to show that it can't be stopped. >> richard engel inside israel along the border with gaza. let's go to the big board with clint watts with a look at where this stands. >> just to give everybody a frame of reference for why this attack might have happened when it did, in recent years israel had formalized relations with the uae and saudi arabia. this had been a big challenge for the one entity we're all focused on right now, iran and what their potential support is

for hamas inside gaza. were they involved? that's a question we're trying to determine. as this kicked off on saturday morning when hamas did their bold assault right here, much to have israeli military was deployed in the occupied west bank. they had a lot of personnel in this location. hezbollah, this has been an area of conflict in 2006. there were some reports of skirmishes here over the last 24 hours. will hezbollah get involved and open up another front on the war? on saturday morning, you saw massive push of personnel by hamas, these militants pushing through the gates going after several of these towns here.

ashkelon, many of you might have seen about the music festival near reim. 260 bodies were recovered there, many others wounded. in the last 24 hours, you've seen israeli forces move into this area and secure these towns. they've essentially pushed hamas back out. they've allegedly killed up to 1500 hamas fighters during this. they've also launched a series of air strikes in this area. you're seeing the air strikes pick up. the big question is, will israel be able to quickly secure the perimeter around gaza and will they do a ground incursion into

gaza? in gaza we're talking about a massive urban area on the ground and in the streets. there is a massive set of tunnels and networks inside gaza. this is a complex fight. we usually say when people are going on a counteroffensive, are they going to attack in an urban area. looking here it's usually three to four to one going against attackers in urban areas. there are at least 150 hostages sprinkled throughout those areas as well. >> joining us around the disable, israel's ambassador to the united nations and democratic congressman dan goldman of new york who was in israel with his wife and children when the attacks began

and forced to shelter in a stairwell. first, ambassador, our sympathies go out to you and your country. committed.unthinkable cri you have said this attack of october 7th is your 9/11. can you explain what that means? >> sadly, since i said it, it turned out to be ten times bigger than 9/11, because until now we suffered the 900 fatalities. so proportionally, because israel's population is smaller than 10 million people, it's like having 30,000 american fatalities. by the way, it's more dangerous and even bigger than 9/11, sadly i say, because your enemies are 7,000 miles away. our enemies are 7,000 feet away.

that's what all the people of israel and especially those who live on our southern border felt on saturday on the jewish sabbath, on our holiday when they woke up encountered hundreds of barbaric terrorists who came into their homes, slaughtering them, torturing, raping. these savages are so close to us. and for so many years since we withdrew from the gaza strip 17 years ago and hamas took power, you know, we thought maybe we can live side by side by supplying them economic incentives, working together on the rehabilitation of gaza. it never helped because exactly like isis or al qaeda, you

cannot change these organizations are economic incentives. you have to obliterate their terrorist infrastructure. you have to. otherwise it will happen again. now they are emboldened by their success. we see and still i can't understand mr. musk and why he still allowed to hold his twitter account and continue to radicalize and inspire many more radicals around the world to attack israel and the democratic world. why would we allow these savages to use our tools against us? it's really unthinkable. >> ambassador, publicly the united states and israel have not drawn a direct line to iran, but we know where hamas gets its support. >> 93% of its terror budget comes from iran. iran is the head of the octopus. hamas is only one tentacle. >> is there any question in your mind that iran had a hand in this attack?

>> for sure, no question. this is really important now to investigate whether they got direction directly from iran. i just tweeted and we've seen leaders of hamas thanking publicly the leaders of iran for the budget, for the weapons. we know they are being trained in iran. we saw the leadership of hamas visiting iran, meeting with the butcher of tehran, the iranian president. no question there is involvement of iran. no question that if iran would continue to acquire nuclear capabilities, their long-term goal is to supply a nuclear umbrella to all of their terrorist proxies that surround israel. we have ezbollah on our northern border, we have hamas

on our southern border. they have the houthis and others. they want to impose their radical hegemony over the middle east. that's why they're testing icbm, intercontinental ballistic missiles. they are not aimed at israel. they are aimed at you. they will be aimed at you. >> before you tell us your experience of this last weekend, there's a major sticking point. nothing gets through the house right now because there's not a speaker of the house. there doesn't seem to be much confidence that one can be elected this week. what do you think is going to happen? >> i think it brings into stark repute the need for congress and the republican party in

particular to get its act together. this has been chaos and dysfunction this entire congress. we have at the precipice here of really needing congressional action to support israel, to support ukraine, and we can't do anything. this is something that the republicans have brought on themselves. we as democrats are eager to work in a bipartisan way to support israel, to support democracy around the world, to support our allies in the middle east and in europe. but if the republicans do not have a speaker of the house, then at some point you have to ask some of the moderate republicans will they come and work with the democrats in a bipartisan way to accomplish what congress needs to do to govern for the people. >> this is obviously deeply personal for you. you were there in israel with your family over the weekend.

tell us what happened. >> i was awakened saturday morning 6:30. i had one daughter on one side of me and one daughter on the other side of me. the sirens were going off. it is the reality of life in israel. it was quite a jolt. it was very traumatizing, especially for my children. we had 90 seconds to get to a stairwell in the hotel to seek shelter. thousands of rockets from gaza were sent 40 miles toward tell tel aviv. israel lives constantly every day with threats from terrorist organizations whose sole mission is to eradicate israel. this is not anything other than the pure elimination of jews and

of israel that is their goal. hamas is no different than cade, than isis. nor for there to be peace in the middle east, we need to eliminate terrorist organizations like hamas. they are bad for israeli security, but they are terrible for the palestinian people and the people in gaza. they have gotten billions of dollars over the last 15 years that they've been in control of gaza. instead of investing in infrastructure in schools, in hospitals, in the economy, they put that money into terror, to tunnels, to weapons. this is totally different than the cycle of violence we have seen over the last several decades in the middle east. this is pure terrorism. we have to separate hamas from the israel-palestinian conflict, because this is a terrorist organization that must be

obliterated. >> hamas has always been very clear. their goal is to wipe israel off the face of the earth. more specifically, their goal is to kill jews. they say it. they haven't hidden it. they are a terrorist organization. they've always been a terrorist organization. mr. ambassador, let me ask you what you would like the president of the united states to say later today? what does the united states need to do to support the people of israel at this terrible, terrible time? >> right now we are grateful to president biden and his administration. i think they are helping us a lot. their public support is extremely important. not only the public support, of course the military aid. we are working together because we share the same values. we share the same interests. we feel there's a deep understanding, as the congressman just explained, that

this time it's no different from what you experienced after 9/11. we have to do everything and everything together, the civilized world, to eliminate, to obliterate these barbaric terrorists, because we have to make sureatrociies won't happen again. it's a battle about our culture, about our values. we will win it and we will win it together. >> thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> congressman dan goldman of new york, thanks for being here. we want to go to a live news conference at the carlton hotel in tel-aviv. four families that are u.s. citizens speaking at an emotional press conference hoping to get answers about their missing loved one. listen in.

>> that are kept in hostage by the hamas terrorists. i want also to speak about the responsibility that the u.s. administration, president biden and the secretary of state blinken have for the lives of every u.s. citizen that is out there and they are responsible to bring the u.s. citizens back home safe and sound. we expect nothing less from the u.s. administration and from president biden and secretary of state blinken. i speak for in the name of myself and my family, and i wish for the quick solution for this

terrible, terrible situation that all of us are in. we never imagined this is how it will look. thank you again for coming. >> i'm just going to read. i'm the youngest of my mother's children. my mother, adrian, is missing and was probably taken by hamas terrorists to the gaza strip. my mother is an exceptional human being. she spent most of her adult life as a nurse in the community and then as midwife in a hospital. when she walked into a delivery

room, she saw a human being in front of her, not a religion, not a race, not a hijab, not an orthodox jew, always a human being she saw. we once calculated that my mother has brought in thousands of lives into this world. when hamas walked into my mother's room, they saw her there alone, but they did not see a human being. >> again, thank you for coming. before starting, just wanting to ask all of you here and thank you for coming and all of those listening to us, please do not think of us only as a headline.

we are more than that. i'm here with my family, my two sisters. we grew up in new york city. we like to say we are the proud outcome of the new york public education system. still have family out in new jersey, in long island. i'd like to talk about family. out of some twist of fate, we became family. in addition to us, we've identified about ten other families like us that have a u.s. citizen missing. this family and my family is now missing. we have a missing person in our family. within my family, i have two

sons. one of them, the youngest, is actually celebrating his bar mitzvah this weekend. the bar mitzvah, for those of you who do not know, is a ceremony where a young jewish boy becomes a man. in order to be home this weekend, he elected to be at his base the previous weekend in order for us to celebrate the bar mitzvah as a whole family. we still hope that that celebration with my sisters and my family will happen in the near future. i'm sure my friends here as well have additional events happening they also wish to have that

wholeness of these events. so please think of us not just as that headline. we're people. we're families. we want to be back families again. my son joined the army about a year ago. he's in the armed corps. he was serving on the border of gaza. the last time we heard from him was saturday morning where he said that they were under attack. we know that he was active, that he was in communication for a while, but since then, silence. the formal indication that we've received from the idf is that he

is defined as missing in action. what does that mean? it means that nobody thinks saturday morning has been able to physically locate him, identify him and say that they saw him. it also means he's not in the hospital. it also means he's not on the deceased list that has been identified. you would think it would be a good assumption to say that after 70 hours, if he's not in the state of israel, he might be some other place. if that is the case, then he is an israeli citizen and a u.s. citizen. what we are asking from his captives and for the u.s. government as well to ask the captives, hamas, if the p.o.w.

should be treated according to international law, meaning, having someone visit him, having a doctor see him, having a u.n. representative see him as well. we want to go back to family as soon as possible. hopefully with your help, we'll help amplify this message to the u.s. government, the secretary of state that until now have been saying all of the right things. we ask the u.s. not to take a back seat. the u.s. has a lot of resources. it is able to do many things that can be different than what the israeli government could do. we are asking on behalf of my

family for president biden -- we are sure that his heart is in the right place -- and the secretary of state to do what they can to make sure we can become family, whole again. >> thank you all for coming this afternoon. i'm a lifetime member of a kibbutz on the border since 1990. it was attacked in the early morning of this saturday. i have children and grandchildren who live there with me. the kibbutz is no more. it was destroyed in a barbaric, inhuman attack in which dozens

of my friends and neighbors were killed. many dozens more are either known to be hostages or missing. i'm here speaking today reaching out to my son, who grew up on the kibbutz. he's an arm length away in gaza, evidently, but couldn't be farther from me and our family right now. i grew up in connecticut, as you can probably hear from the accent, but i've never felt farther away from there either. he is a father of two beautiful daughters. his wife is now pregnant with their third daughter. he is exactly the kind of son that every father would want to have, a leader, a friend, a loving man. he and many other such young men

on the kibbutz are now missing after having tried to repulse the attack by evidently hundreds of hamas terrorists and looters. many died in the process. he was not found. we have heard or seen no trace of him since then. the survivors on the kibbutz, we were a community of 400. at the moment we know of 160 survivors. the rest have either died or are prisoners or missing. the survivors call this a pogrom what happened to us. it's not a war. it's not a fair fight. it is a pogrom. hundreds of heavily armed, well-organized terrorists walked over the border with one

objective in mind. that is to kill, maim, destroy civilian life along the border. as such, it seems to me that the united states, my original home and still a very beloved place for me, always wants to be and must be on the side of good. hamas is evil. it's difficult for me to say. i'm what is called a peacenik in israel, as many of the kibbutz members are in our area. but this kind of savagery and inhumanity must be stopped. as a result, like the other five people on this stage who would prefer to be anywhere but here right now do appeal to the united states government, to the congress to do what they can on the side of good here. we're waiting for my son to come home. we do not know what fate he met

along with dozens of other people from the kibbutz. these aren't all 35-year-old men. these are children, these are aged people and everything in between. if there ever was a moment of good against evil in the harshest terms, this is it. i thank you for listening to us. i'm sure all of us welcome questions. we'll answer as we can both for our children and relatives and for those well over 100 hostages that were taken. >> we have been listening here to the families of missing americans speaking out about their anguish of the moment and calling on president biden and the secretary of state to do everything they can to work for the return of their mother and sons.

again, there are hundreds, apparently over a hundred hostages being held, one here potentially a prisoner of war. these families are asking for anything and everything possible to be done even as it pertains to international law. >> just the face of unspeakable barbarism. let's bring in jonathan greenblatt and barry weiss and the reverend al sharpton. jonathan, i'll start with you and ask you to respond to what you've just witnessed and what we've been witnessing for too many days now. >> i'm going to do my best not to break down on the air.

it sort of helps i have heard so many of these stories. i have friends who were killed. i have family hunkered down right now. i have staff who can't locate members of their family. this is the worst of days. i really appreciate what you said before this segment. like a lot of people are focusing right now on was this a military failure, an intelligence failure. joe, this was a moral failure that we are all accountable for, because hamas told us again and again and again and again in their charter, in their statements, through their actions that their goal has never been a two-state solution. it has never been dignity and

nationhood for palestinians. it is the destruction of the jewish state. it is the murder of jews. we have got to stop referring to what happened on saturday as an attack as if it was military on military. this was a massacre. this was a slaughter. the appropriate word is medieval. and the appropriate point of comparison are al qaeda and isis. so what i have got to ask -- and thank god for the rev and the civil rights group like the national urban league and the naacp who stood up. but where are the university presidents who gave clear statements about all these other causes that mattered, black lives matter, stop aapi hate, stand for ukraine, it matters?

why are they silent on dead jews. why is my inbox empty with messages from ceos from major religious moves? thank god for president biden, thank god for european leaders. but this moral failure, this rot, i see it in our civil society right now. i'm in my office in midtown on sunday. we've been working around the clock. the work we're doing at adl pales in comparison to what they're doing in israel. i hear chanting outside our office. i look down, and there is one of these pro hamas protests. i don't know if you've seen the documentary "night at the garden," but in 1939, 20,000

americans gathered in madison square garden to cheer on the nazi regime. this was after crystalnacht, this was after they prevented jews from working, they stole their money, they were beating men and women in the street. these pro-terror demonstrations, these are like pro-nazi things in this country in the '30s. they will not be remembered well when history looks back, because they are complicit, these accomplices. they are guilty for excusing and for rationalizing the absolutely barbaric irrationality of terror. >> those who are are speaking out on behalf of an organization that has been very clear. this is not just about driving

israel into the sea. hamas has always been very clear about the fact that their goal is to kill jews, which is the question again and again that must be asked in israel is why anybody in that government thought they could somehow strike a deal the devil with hamas, just like why in this country administration after administration thinks they can strike a deal with iran. >> absolutely. >> it never works. it never works. because you can't negotiate with terrorists. barry, we spoke yesterday about you coming on the show. you spent your entire day yesterday talking to family members and loved ones like the people we just saw on the screen. i wanted you to come onto tell some of those stories of the heartbreak of the people who are

missing, the people who were killed, the people that you have been talking to, americans as well who have suffered tremendous loss through this great tragedy and terror attack. >> since the news broke, i'm on west coast time, so i came back from a dinner and my phone was blowing up saying something terrible happened. like so many other people, we're used to hearing terrible news outisrael, but as jonathan was saying, i'm not sure for people who aren't paying close attention that they understand the scale of what has just occurred here. this is the biggest massacre of the jewish people since the holocaust. but unlike the holocaust, in which the germans tried to hide their war crimes -- it took the

allies years to uncover all that the nazis did. here we have people streaming it on realtime, on tiktok, on live stream and on instagram. a message just went out to parents all over the state of israel begging them to delete the apps from their children's phones because hamas has warned it is going to live stream the execution of hostages, and they don't want their children seeing it. i want to tell you just a few stories of some of the people i've been speaking to in israel. i spoke yesterday morning to a young mother of two. she's eight months pregnant with her third child. on saturday morning she got a whatsapp message from her father on kibbutz.

this woman has ten members of her family currently missing, her father, her mother, her sister, her brother-in-law, three children under the age of 10 are missing. the reason they know they have not been killed is a friend of the father's kept calling his phone hundreds and hundreds of times. at some point a voice picks up in arabic and shouts hostage, hostage. and shouts the name of an israeli held for four or five years and given in exchange for thousands of prisoners. another woman i spoke to asks that she remain anonymous because she is so scared if her name is public, it will make the life of her children who are

hostages even worse. her children hid in a safe house a few kilometers from gaza. she heard her youngest child, 12 years old, begging not to be taken because he said he is too young. she wants the world to know this is not about an occupation. israel does not occupy gaza. it has not occupied gaza since it pulled out almost a decade ago. she said these are just teenagers like anyone's teenagers. i am just a mother like any mother who's watching this. i want to tell you about another person who sent a text message to his parents at 8:00 a.m. saturday morning that said, i love you and i'm sorry. they haven't heard from him since. they brought a toothbrush and his hair and his pillow to the police station in the hopes that

they might find him. he was at the music festival like so many others, like a man who hid in a grapefruit grove for hours from the terrorist. he dug a hole to shove his feet into the earth because he was afraid they were going to see his bright shoes. he described what he saw as a slaughter house. we now know that 250 bodies have been recovered from that music festival. the terrorists, who filmed themselves, came on paragliders with automatic rifles to slaughter and maim and mutilate as many people as possible. women were raped at that music festival next to the dead bodies of their friends. the woman whose story i began

with, 10% of the kibbutz where her family members were taken from, 10%. it is the literal meaning of the word decimated. more than 100 bodies have been recovered from that kibbutz. i want to emphasize what jonathan was saying before. this is not a situation with two sides, with militants versus an army. the two sides in what just happened over the past 72 hours is the side of rapists, barbaric people who we are now learning beheaded babies, beheaded babies, versus innocent people. that is what is going on here. anyone who is found cheering, celebrating in the streets of

london or paris or berlin or new york or sydney where they are screaming gas the jews, they are not cheering for the liberation of the palestinian people in gaza, who languish under the jackboot of hamas. they are cheering for barbarism and bloodshed. we should be absolutely clear about what is is going on here. >> incredibly moving stories. those are just a small handful of stories for too many israeli families. in times square there were pro-palestine celebrations. we're seeing banners up on prominent american university campuses celebrating what happened and mealy-mouthed

statements from the leaders of those schools. >> when you look at the rallies and people holding up nazi signs, we're not talking about some gray area here. they've said who they are. the question is, who are we? when i heard about this saturday morning, i reached out to jonathan. jonathan greenblatt and many in the jewish leadership had just marched with us in the march on washington. when a lady named angela carr was killed in jacksonville, florida, he flew to the funeral that i eulogized. if you can stand up against one murder, why would i be absent when we're looking at

debauchery. we're talking about human life here. that is why when he raised the point stop calling them militants, call them terrorists, call them murderers. you have militants in the civil rights movement, but we don't go around holding hostages and killing people and beheading babies. these are murderers. the government of the united states and everybody else needs to do what they can because we are talking about people who have no cause of human life. they're not trying to get a two-state solution or any solution. they're trying to wipe people out. >> they don't want a two-state solution. they want a final solution. >> i'm glad jonathan came out talking about the language. i know you had very positive conversations with people here at the top of the network. because as we are objective in

how we cover a side, we've got to tell the people who the sides are and not mislabel people. >> and listen to barry. this is not right or wrong. this is not some academic debate. this is good versus evil. it is evil that makes one think that it is okay to burn an elderly woman alive in her home and record it. it is evil to let someone think to execute children in front of their parents and then drag those people into gaza as hostages. and it is evil to blame israel for the mutilation and desecration of her citizens. that's what's happening in places right here. these people have to reckon for the rest of their lives. if you are a ceo and you spoke out on these issues, if you are a university president and you spoke out on these other issues,

we are waiting and watching for you to speak out now. >>

. let's bring in republican presidential candidate governor ron desantis. thank you for being with us today. we obviously have a lot of issues we'd love to talk to you about, but obviously i don't know if you heard any of our last conversation with jonathan greenblatt and barry weiss. today we're going to talk about israel, iran, issues involved with that. we'd love for you to come back and talk about some other issues later. i'm sure you agree with us that right now that's the pressing issue. i want to ask you, first of all,

if you heard any of what barry weiss said or jonathan greenblatt said. i know you've visited israel many times. give us your thoughts about the people of israel and what the united states needs to do to support them. >> i tell you, joe, i'm actually down in bal harbor. we have the second biggest israeli community in the country. we have a large jewish population that's really expanded a lot in the last few years. everybody knows somebody who's been over there. people know people that are missing and unfortunately people know people that have been killed. this is perhaps israel's darkest hour. this is a country that had to fight for its inception in the late '40s. they were going to get invaded in '67.

then they did get invaded with the war. i think it's important as americans that we all come together. israel has a right to defend itself. that means you have to uproot the terrorist network, these networks and hamas needs to be no more. i fear what happens in these situations is people start to blame israel. there's no moral equivalence between a hamas terrorist and an israeli civilian. they have ever right to see this through to the hilt. >> let me ask you about a mistake that not only we make in the united states, but israel has made, unfortunately, in this case. that is, with israel the belief that somehow hamas could be

managed through the years. you've been to the middle east many times. there was somehow that mistaken belief, just like the mistaken belief from our government through the years that somehow a relationship with iran could be managed. i'd like you to begin with talking about the security failures in israel if you have any insights on how that happened. and then i'd like to know if if you are president of the united states or if you were president right now, would the desantis administration support an israeli military targets, iran's oil course, funds terrorism across the globe. >> well, on the former, i think it is too soon to tell. i don't have any inside information. but clearly this was an orchestrated attack. israel prepares for things like

this and hamas was able to have unfortunately a great deal of success. i think in the past there may have been some people in israel thought hamas could be managed. i also think there was an impulse against them taking care of hamas once and for all because they would always come under international commendation. people would start attacking israel. how many resolutions has the united nations done attacking israel over the years. so i think there was that practical political consideration that maybe caused some israeli leaders to hold back. in terms iran, look, this is person for me in the sense of i served in iraq back in 2007, 2008, we were in fallujah and ramadi, mostly suni al qaeda fighters at the time, but most of the casualties u.s. troops were suffering were at the hands of iranian backed shia militias. they killed hundreds of our troops in iraq, probably over a thousand. they were responsible through hezbollah for killing our marines back in 1983 in the

beirut barracks bombing. america has a lot of blood on its hands. i think israel should be focused on uprooting hamas to make this a larger role. i think it has some risks. i would say the united states should turn every screw so that iran is not getting money flowing into its coffers. particularly with their oil, i think biden's administration thought there could be a reproachment here, they eased off on the sanctions. they have been getting a lot of money leading up to this. the iranian regime, when they're funding terrorism, it is not a -- necessarily a practical consideration. this is their religious and ideological world view. this is why they exist as a government, and you're just not going to be able to have a peaceful situation with a government like that, so turn the screws on them financially, dry up their ability to fund terrorism, you know, that's something we should all be able to agree on. >> we are obviously talking to

governor ron desantis, if you're tuning in and expecting a conversation on domestic politics and the many things that we disagree on, well, as we have said, that can come another day and we can have those debates on another day. today we're talking about the attacks in israel, hamas, and iran. governor, i want to expand a little bit on what you've said, regarding iran. since 1979, they have been the epicenter of global terrorism. you talk about the beirut bombing in 1983, they had american blood on their hands for a very long time now, whether it is hezbollah, whether it is houthi rebels, whether it is hamas, obviously, whether it is islam and jihad. but you also talked about in iraq. that funding of terrorists in

iraq, that continues even through today, does it not? >> yeah. i mean, i think that you heard reports that you could have iran has said they could act against israel and then so could other states in the middle east, including iraq. and so, look, as a veteran of that conflict, it is definitely leaves a bad taste and in my mouth to see that that country is basically a satellite of the iranians, and you have the shia domination, and they have not been the type of partner that people envisioned back in the day. another lesson learned with respect to national security. but, yes, those shia fighters, that was the reason why qassem soleimani was put out of his misery by the u.s. government. he had been directing attacks against americans for years and that was a justifiable response against him. >> yeah. i want to talk -- you brought up the $6 billion that a lot of republicans had been talking

about. but as you said, as you implied and please correct me if i'm wrong, that $6 billion is not what funded the operation. but oil revenues have been allowed over the past several years to continue to flow back it into iran. i'm wondering, you're running obviously against donald trump and the republican primary. i'm wondering whether you think it was a mistake for president trump to have waivers, the waivers that he pushed back in 2018 to allow china, to allow india, to allow turkey, to allow south korea where the $6 billion came from, whether it was a mistake for him to grant those waivers to iran because as he said at the time, he wasn't -- he didn't want to basically upset the flow of oil and cause prices to go up. is that a mistake? >> well, so, first, on the $6

billion, i think that what biden did was a mistake. i think doing that deal sent the wrong signal. i think the fact that iran was expecting that money, yes, that money did not go fund this, but i think money is fungible and gave them the ability to potentially shift money elsewhere. i would not relieve sanctions on iran. i understand that there is a lot going on with energy markets. one of the things i've been talking about in this campaign is expanding domestic energy production here at home. we have the greatest gas resources, tremendous oil resources, i know that cuts against what the biden administration is trying to do with the green new deal policies, but in terms of our national security, that benefits us at the expense of russia, iran, venezuela, and china. >> you wouldn't have supported that waiver, right, back in 2018? you wouldn't have supported a waiver -- >> i've always supported -- i've always supported from the time i was a congressman now the

strongest possible turning of the screws on iran and their energy, my view is anything that goes to that regime, they are not trying to make life better for the iranian people. they are going to use that and they with going to try to fund terrorism with it and i think that's a lesson. i will also say this, donald trump's approach to iran was stronger than his predecessor's was and it has been stronger than the biden was. i think both obama and biden thought you could have reproachment with them. i don't think that's possible. >> the editorial board of israeli newspaper herat noted in a piece titled netanyahu bears responsibility for the israel-gaza war. they said this, above all, the danger lming over israel in recent years has been fully realized. the prime minister indicted three corruption cases cannot look after state affairs. his national interests will necessarily be subordinate to extracting him from a possible conviction and jail time and

obviously one of the largest newspapers in israel says that his political battles may have distracted from his fight with hamas. his personal battles may have done the same. is that something that republicans in the primary contest that you're having with former president trump should be concerned about? >> well, first, with respect to prime minister netanyahu, i was just out there in april, i found him -- i met with him, i found him to be very engaged on everything, really was amazing the knowledge that he had about everything going on in the region, and that's a pretty left wing paper. so i'm not sure i would buy that. i think that he has been engaged. look, going forward as republicans, you know, my argument has been very simple. if the election is about joe biden's failures and our positive vision for the future, which it would be if i was the candidate, we will win. if it is about what piece of paper or document was left at the toilet at mar-a-lago, or all

these other things on january 6th, if that's what the election is about, then it is going to allow biden to be in his basement and they're going to be able to do it again. just a question for republicans about what you want to be talking about? >> you talk about the toilet, is something being -- that really brings up an issue i wasn't going to bring up. let me ask you really quickly, we're about to run out of time. should americans be concerned, are you concerned by the fact that president trump revealed war plans to invade iran, military attacks against iran to people that didn't have classified ability to see those documents? >> well, look, i think that's an allegation. it remains to be seen. obviously if it is proven, that would be a difficult thing. i would note, i think this is why a lot of republicans are concerned about some of these cases is that he was being attacked for years as being in

collusion with russia, and that was not accurate. that was a false narrative that was created. and so i would be remiss if i dove in and accepted all those things. i think he has his day in court. i think he's innocent until proven guilty. the reality is we're dealing with this situation and if the elections is a referendum on all the other issues and we're not talking about inflation and interest rates and the border and crime, then that gives the democrats a huge advantage to try to retain power. >> you're saying if the -- if the election is about donald trump instead of joe biden, then that is bad news for republicans? >> i think a referendum on joe biden means we win. if i'm the candidate, i think a referendum on donald trump, if that's it, then i think the democrats would win. joe there are millions of voters out there who don't like what biden is doing, think the country is in the wrong direction, going in the wrong direction. they want to vote for a republican. but once it is dal