after we select a new speaker because then the concern is you just kind of go through this process every few months the minute eight or so members get dissatisfied with the speaker. >> congressman gallagher, thank you so much for being with us. our thanks to former congressman fred upton, michael steele, ryan nobles, and ali vitali for all of our coverage on this evolving story. that does it for this two hours of special coverage of the developments both overseas on the israel/hamas war and on capitol hill, our special coverage continues right now with katy tur. i'm katy tur, bear with us because we have two major breaking stories that are strange but necessary bed fellows. there is still more drama on capitol hill as house republicans emerge from their afternoon meeting with a secret ballot nomination for steve scalise as speaker. but not one with enough guaranteed votes to get them the gavel, which is a big problem because the government runs out

of funding in a few weeks, and also because the white house will be asking congress presently for an aid package for israel, one that by all accounts so far can't pass without a speaker. let's goat that story first, and then right back to israel where things are rapidly unfolding as well. jake sherman, cofounder of punch bowl news and msnbc political contributor. thanks for being with us. what exactly is going on? >> so scalise, katy, won the republican conference's nomination to be speaker. this is the initial process by which the republican conference caps their candidate to be the speaker for a house floor vote. as you noted, he only won with 113 votes. that is nothing. that is more than 100 votes shy of winning the speakership and in an alarming sign for mr. scalise, he has several republicans already saying that they will not vote for him on the floor. now, some of that could be bluster. we don't know, but tom massey of

kentucky, max miller of ohio both have said they have not committed to voting for scalise on the house floor. remember, katy, this is the same situation that happened to kevin mccarthy. you can only lose a couple of votes. he's halfway there to not being speaker. the earliest the vote can come is an hour from now. i do not think that's likely. i think they'll have to take a day or more to get the votes together because as i said, he is way short of 217. >> you do not think there's going to be a vote at 3:00 p.m. they don't want to go through 17 rounds of this. >> listen, i've gotten out of the prediction business, but i do not think there's any chance in a vote in an hour from now. listen, could he do it this afternoon, this evening? maybe, i would put that well below 50%, because, again, he is way short. >> what about what congressman mike gallagher told andrea mitchell a moment ago, there was a sense in the conference, the

meeting, that they needed to get together and get back to work, there were some big issues they needed to get working on, including this aid package to israel, that that was going to motivate people. do you see that actually being a motivator to come together and vote for the person who did get the most votes, which is steve scalise, even though he's 104 short? >> i think it's a motivator, whether it will actually motivate enough people to get behind scalise is an open question. i was on the phone with a republican member of the house, let's call him a scalise skeptic who said that for the time being israel does have enough aid money that the biden administration can draw down on. the ndaa, the national defense authorization act is sitting in the senate, which authorizes more money for israel, so they think, you know, this is not as immediate. it's very immediate, obviously. but they say there are ways for congress to get aid to the israel people, the israeli military, without a speaker in place.

i'm not sure i agree with that to be honest with you. i would say this, we are two weeks of not voting on anything in the house floor because republicans have been squabbling about their leadership. this is embarrassing at this point for them, and they need to get behind a speaker soon because the house is frozen. congress is frozen. >> what about patrick mchenry who's the pro tem speaker of the house right now. there's been a lot of talk about what his authority actually is, what he can and cannot do. any clarity on whether he can bring something to the floor? >> it's as clear as mud, katy. no, he can not. listen, the parliamentarian of the house of representatives has told people on capitol hill that he does not have the ability to bring legislation to the floor. the house operates on precedence. there is no precedent for this situation. in a break glass scenario, if he had everyone's cooperation, could he bring something to the familiar, perhaps, that is not the situation we're looking at right now. the overwhelming thought in house republican and democratic

leadership is there needs to be an elected speaker to move forward on legislation. >> we're going to ask representative ken buck where he stands in a moment. i wonder, what about the eight that ousted mccarthy, do we know where they stand? do they plan to be as disruptive to the process? do they like scalise? do they like jim jordan? >> my punchbowl news talked to matt rosen daily, for scalise. matt gaetz said long live speaker scalise, which it is what it is, i suppose. those are two people who are mccarthy skeptics who have come out in favor of scalise, but there are some, bob good of virginia has said he's not as much of a change agent as he's looking for. i'm not sure who he's looking for alternatively to scalise, but, listen, katy, scalise has won the nomination, and there's going to be pressure, internal pressure to get behind scalise. again, this house republican conference has not changed. it's incredibly skeptical of

anybody who wants to be in power. scalise has been in leadership for nine years. that's a long time. and there are skeptics of home. >> what about mccarthy, while we have been covering the war in israel, there have been whispers of mccarthy not exactly ruling out whether he would accept a gavel again, saying it's up to the conference. is that even in the realm of possibility? >> no, the conference has made its voice noun in electing scalise. mccarthy has told people not to nominate him. i will say this, there were eight votes for people other than scalise and jordan. there were two present votes as well. ken buck and victoria sparks who said they would both vote present for a variety of republicans. kevin mccarthy is not in the mix. he's not going to be speaker again. you can't really come back once you're gone. >> jake sherman, who sounds like the representatives, he knows so much about what's happening. you might as well be in the conference yourself. jake, thank you very much, appreciate it.

let's bring in ali vitali. steve scalise was speaking to reporters, as ryan nobles said much like he was the speaker. what did he say? >> reporter: acting like he was the speaker, speaking to the landscape within which he now finds himself, a house per lized -- paralyzed in great peril. that is the backdrop to this. i think the conversation you were having at the top of the show is the right one. just because it's a tumultuous geopolitical climate doesn't mean that the decision process is any easier. yes, there's urgency around needing to put a speaker in place so they can move forward on things like resolutions, condemning hamas. like considering how aid packages will flow from the u.s. through congress and to israel at this moment. it doesn't make the process any simpler because of the realities that jake was talking about, the fact that i have heard from multiple members, even in the

few minutes i have been standing here waiting to talk to you saying that they don't think scalise has the votes right now. what we have learned in the last few minutes, congressman jim jordan is not actively whipping members, he's not telling people, hey, i want you to keep voting for me. they can still do that. i have talked to several members who say they're going to keep voting for jim jordan on the floor, that is their prerogative. but jordan is not mounting an official operation to keep himself in the conversation. i'm also interested in the meeting that jim jordan is having right now with none other than steve scalise. they are behind closed doors, hashing out whatever needs to be hashed out so they can try to take this to the floor in a more organized and less chaotic fashion. i also think it's important to think about the ways that as we talk about how congress can work in somewhat bipartisan fashion on things like israel and

foreign aid, the conversation that democrats are having amongst themselves. there's so much angst and consternation that i have heard from democratic members of all stripes about how the house is effectively paralyzed and chaotic in their eyes because of republicans but this is certainly something that impacts all of them. they would like to see a speaker of the house installed. they know it's not going to be hakeem jeffries but of course all of them are unified behind them. scalise was the person democrats felt more comfortable with. that's something that's important to the larger bipartisan picture. i want to play a piece of what steve scalise says in the last few minutes. watch. >> i want to thank my house republican colleagues for just designating me as the speaker. obviously we have work to do. we're going to have to go to the house floor and resolve this and get the house opened again. we have a lot of work to do.

not just in the house of the people of this country, we see how dangerous the world is and how things can change quickly. we need to make sure we're sending a message to people throughout the world that the house is open and doing the people's business. >> reporter: certainly that's the message that scalise and most others i've spoken to are trying to send now. in the last few seconds, julie tsirkin and frank thorpe with jim jordan as he was leaving the speaker's suite, some of the headlines, he's not whipping votes for himself. the meeting was good, and his focus is on unifying the conference. >> ali vitali, thank you very much. we're going to come back to you with what's happening on capitol hill, the two major stories we're following today make strange bed fellows. steve scalise saying the first resolution will make it clear that congress stands with the people of israel, so let us tell

you where things stand in israel right now. it is just past 9:00 p.m. and the night sky is once again glittering with iron dome intercepts. it was another hard day in israel, both for more rocket fire in border cities like ashkelon and the spreading word of how brutal hamas militants were in massacring innocent civilians, including children and babies. as president biden put it yesterday, isis level terror, which is exactly what one soldier described to my colleague. >> it's something that i never saw in my life. it's something that we used to imagine as our grandfather and grandmother in europe and other places. >> it is also hard in gaza where israeli strikes continue to batter and are still battering the strip. an idf spokesperson says the finding will get worse and warns that the scenes coming out of gaza will be quote, difficult to understand and cope with.

for gazans will be spent in darkness as the power plant is out of fuel. in one hospital there, you can hear the cries of children huddled with family in hallways, looking for the only hopefully safe place they can find. and for the hostages in gaza, some of them potentially u.s. citizens. every next step made is critical as president biden works alongside the prime minister to bring them home safely. the two spoke for a third time today, and we are expecting to hear again from the president himself in just a couple of hours. and what of the american citizens trapped in gaza. the state department estimates 500 duel passport holders could be in the strip. how do they and other innocent civilians get out. can they? secretary of state antony blinken is on his way. what will he be assuring prime

minister benjamin netanyahu, and what will he be warning against? as the threat of a bigger, regional conflict is heightening, as israel now says lebanese aircraft have violated the country's airspace. a live report from that border in a moment, but first, let's get on the ground in southern israel. joining us now from arim, israel, is nbc news foreign correspondent raf sanchez. tell us about your day? >> reporter: just breaking news to share in the last couple of minutes. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu announcing he is forming an emergency unity government for the duration of this war. you and i have talked many times that prime minister netanyahu leads the most right wing government in israeli history, including parties in the far right, but in the face of the crisis, he has invited one of the large centrist parties to join his government and at the heart of this national unity government is going to be what is called a war management cabinet. it will have three members, the prime minister, the defense

minister and the leader of one of these centrist parties and both of the defense minister and leader of the centrist party are former senior israeli generals and that will be the very small three-man committee which is expected to manage this war, and, katy, everyone is taking this as a sign, one of the final bits of preparation being put into place on the political side before what we all expect is going to be a large scale israeli ground offensive. the atmosphere in israel today is one of stunned national unity. it's a feeling that americans might remember after 9/11, and in this environment, with so much horror, such an endless stream of nightmarish news, israelis are looking for moments of inspiration, looking for moments of hope, and i want to share with you one of those stories from a house we went to earlier today. we're at the home of an elderly

israeli couple, david and rael. they were held hostage for 20 hours by hamas gunmen, and i want to show you the scene of devastation in here. you can see bullet holes all over the walls, against the stairs there, more gunfire. but this is the truly extraordinary part of this story. rael, this grandmother, she fed the men holding her hostage. you can see some of the cans of tuna she fed to them. she sang to them, and the entire time she was trying to buy time for israeli forces to gather. now, her son is a policeman, and at some point, he came to the door to conduct negotiations, and rael sent him what she realized was a secret signal. she put her hand over her face like this to signal that there were five gunmen inside. i want to take you upstairs, and i just want to warn, it is a little graphic up here. as i said, the walls riddled

with bullets. there is blood on the stairs. there's more blood as you go up, and rael and her husband david were held hostage, mainly up here on this upper floor. the group of gunmen were gathered here. you can actually see some of the food that she served to them. they were held over in this corner, and all the while, israeli special forces outside were preparing to storm the building. and they did eventually come bursting in through this window. they killed at least one of the terrorists here. i don't know if you can see this, but these are family photographs. this looks like a picture of a little girl. just in a pool of blood. the israeli forces came bursting through this door, back out into

the main room. the gunmen were here. david threw his body over his wife to shield her from the bullets. the police came storming in. and they were able to save this couple. they were unharmed. and this is one of these rare, rare moments of good news that israelis are trying to draw inspiration from right now. rare moments of good news, katy, in a five-day period where there hasn't been a lot of it. there is not much good news in gaza tonight. gaza just a couple of miles that way. the night sky illuminated, iron dome missile intercepters, israeli aircraft overhead. gaza has now no electricity because its sole power plant has been switched off having run out of fuel, according to the gaza health ministry. if you think of the implications of that for the 2 million people

who live inside gaza. think just in the hospitals that you were showing earlier, the dialysis machines that are potentially no longer going to work, the incubators in neonatal units that are potentially not going to work. the sheer scale of the humanitarian disaster that is potentially looming in gaza, to say nothing of the fact that every indication we have is that israeli forces are amassing for a ground offensive into the densely populated strip. it is potentially very very dark days ahead, and there is a feeling that they are coming very soon, katy. >> it's a horrific situation over there as well. raf sanchez, thank you very much, and thank you for that little bit of good news. i think everybody does need it. let's bring in msnbc anchor, ali velshi. thanks for being here. we have been hearing about rocket fire, strikes, just all day long. what have you been seeing in that city? >> you were just mentioning in

your introduction, about ashkelon, right behind me. the lights of the city you see. you will see intercepts from iron dome going up there. we counted eight in a row, and every few minutes, jets were flying above us. you'll hear a big percussive boom. the whole area around the gaza strip, there are a lot of kibbutz like where raf was, and those people have been evacuated. this is now south of here, south of ashkelon is a military zone where the military is building up its potential for a ground invasion into gaza. i spoke to a man who was on one of these kibbutz that are on the border where the fence was from gaza. they have now been evacuated to tel-aviv. and he was telling me about how he and seven others fought off these terrorists from gaza. the army wasn't there. they eventually called the

police and the police arrived, curious as a former army guy, why the army wasn't on site. and what happened to them. i asked what he wants to happen next, and how he sees this moving ahead. here's what he told me. >> i would like that they make gaza flat. make gaza flat. went to egypt, went to iran. i want to go to their friends, not to my house. i don't want any soldier, israeli soldier will come into our gaza. i want to make it flat from up the site of the bomb don't matter now. >> ali, hold on a second. let's go to secretary of state antony blinken who's about to go to take off to israel. he says we stand against

terrorism in the united states. >> it's heartbreaking. not since isis have we seen this kind of depravity, and we will continue to stand very resolutely against it. when i'm in israel, i'll have the opportunity to meet with prime minister netanyahu, president herzog, other senior officials. i look forward to seeing our embassy team that has been doing terrific work during these difficult days. we're determined to make sure that israel gets everything it needs to defend itself, to provide for the security of its people. already significant military assistance requested by israel is on the way, that's on top of everything that we have been doing for years, including with the memorandum of understanding, negotiated wi president obama to make sure that israel has what it needs to defend itself. at the same time, we anticipate there will be further needs, further requests. we have already been working closely with congress on this, and we look forward to continuing to do that to make sure that israel has what it needs. second, we will be reiterating, reaffirming the very strong message that president biden has

delivered to any country or any party that might try to take advantage of the situation, and that message is don't. the president has deployed as you know, the world's largest aircraft to the region, it make clear our intent to deter anyone contemplating further aggression against israel. finally, we're of course very focused on our own people, our own citizens. we lost 22 americans. that number could still go up and it probably will. at the same time, we have a number of americans who remain unaccounted. we are working very closely with the government of israel to determine their whereabouts and if they have been taken hostage by hamas to work to secure their release. so all of these things are on the agenda over the next day or so with israel, but the main point is this, we stand with israel. we'll continue to do so.

thank you. >> mr. secretary, yesterday, jake sullivan said that u.s. officials were talking to the israelis about getting civilian safe passage through gaza into egypt. today john kirby said they're talking to officials about this. what is the hold up? what's the obstacle to getting civilian safe passage out of gaza? >> we are talking about that and we're talking to israel about that. we're talking to egypt about that. it's an ongoing conversation. i can't get into the details. some of this is, needless to say, understandably complicated but we want to make sure to the best of our ability, and israel wants to make sure to the best of its ability that civilians are not harmed. israel has to take steps to defend itself. it has to make sure that any ongoing threat is dealt with and i believe it has to make sure that going forward what happened doesn't happen again. >> is the issue more on the israeli side? >> i'm not going to get into the details, but it's an ongoing

conversation. >> following up on that, in conversations between the u.s. and israel, has the u.s. advocated any degree of restraint in terms of possible ground operations in gaza? either for the sake of the civilians there or the sake of hostages? >> well, again, i'm not getting into any of the operational details of what israel may or may not do. i think you heard the president speak to this yesterday in his very very strong and forceful comments, and of course what separates israel and the united states, and other democracies when it comes to incredibly difficult situations like this, is our respect for international law. and as appropriate, the laws of war. we do everything we can to make sure in these situations we avoid civilian casualties, that is in direct contrast with hamas, that uses people as human shields. it actually seeks to put

palestinian civilians in situations where they could be harmed. this is very much part of their game plan so we know that israel will take all of the precautions it can just as we would, and again, that's what separates us from hamas, and terrorist groups that engage in the most heinous kind of activities. thank you, we'll have a chance to talk later. thank you. >> secretary of state antony blinken boarding the plane to fly to israel to talk to prime minister benjamin netanyahu, also the president there, and getting into what the obstacle is for safe passage for the innocent civilians, the 2 million people or so that are caught in gaza right now with nowhere to go. he was asked is the hold up on the israeli side or the egyptian side? he would not get into that. that is a question that we will continue to ask during the next

two hours. but, again, saying he's going to stand by israel. that's what will the united states will do. joining me now is nbc news ellison barber. the secretary reiterated something that we heard president biden say yesterday that this is isis level depravity. what have you seen? >> reporter: yeah, i mean, look, we keep hearing those stories, right, and that's some of the frustration from a lot of israelis as people have had discussions about the situation here. multiple things in war and in this situation especially can be true at the same time. it is true that there are many civilians stuck in gaza with nowhere to go. it is also true that what hamas militants did here, what has been done to the civilians, things that, you know, raf sanchez was walking you through a home showing you minutes ago things that have been done to civilians since saturday is horrific. it is terrorism.

and people here, when we talk to israelis, they're using a lot of terms that i think probably some of them know resonate with americans and people overseas, things like comparing it to isis-level depravity. one thing we have heard about israelis say, they're talking about saturday, 10/7 as the way we talked about 9/11, there was a life before 10/7, what it meant to be an israeli before 10/7 and after. nothing they feel quite like this in recent history, and it has destroyed people's sense of whatever bits of safety they had from tel aviv to areas that are closer to hamas, where they have dealt with this sort of thing much more frequently. look, where we are standing just in the last 20, 30 minutes or so, we have seen a number of rockets fired up through the air, just lighting up the night sky, coming from both sides. we've seen that throughout the

day. we were on our way initially in this area, further south, about 2 miles from the northern border with gaza right now. we were headed down this road earlier in the day, further south but we were stopped at a check point by israeli forces. they told us we couldn't pass any further, that we couldn't film them. we shouldn't show any of the military equipment further in the area, but before we got to that check point near, we did see a massive build up of israeli tanks in between trees on the road as we were moving, but we could see at least about 100 military, israeli military tanks and other vehicles, seemingly building up in this area in preparation for some sort of land assault, ground assault into gaza, which is something that would be unprecedented in modern times. what we have been watching for and why i sort of keep looking behind is missiles that have been coming. they have largely been coming

from the direction of gaza firing over here into the more densely populated or over the sky of the densely populated area of ashkelon. the majority of them we have seen, they have been intercepted but in the last 30 minutes or so, we have seen -- the most that we have seen probably for the majority of today certainly in the last four or five hours, and certainly since night has fallen far more than we'd seen in the last little bit here, katy. >> what we're looking at are images out of gaza, of the bombing and what's been left there. ellison barber, thank you very much, and joining us now is member of the ka, what is the significance going forward of benjamin netanyahu forming a unity party as you plan for whatever happens next in gaza? >> katy, we are still counting the casualties, and we haven't

seen such horror since the days of the holocaust. more than 1,000 jews were massacred, slaughtered during the weekend. this is the brutality, president biden spoke about isis. i don't remember which isis used such violence against children. they kidnapped children, they killed them. today we found a picture of a young kid that were handcuffed and burned alive. we understand we have to fight evil. with all the pain we have, we stand up, we form the unity government, and together we're going to fight back against evil. we're going to fight back against hamas. we will chase them. we will find them, and we will kill them. the goal will be to eradicate hamas. we have not seen against the population in gaza, but they are hiding behind civilians, using them as human shields.

it's a challenge for us. we are calling on the people of gaza to move out. don't stay around hamas militants or headquarters because we are coming in. we are coming in, and we're going to hit hamas very hard. >> where do they go? >> they should move out. >> where is that in gaza? >> gaza is about 40 miles long. what we do is send text messages before we target a certain neighborhood. and we encourage the population not to stay there. they should move out to another neighborhood. i would advise them to move south now. we know that the majority of hamas headquarters are located on the border with israel, around gaza. they shouldn't stay around hamas. we didn't start this war. it was an unprovoked attack and it came from gaza. we have no other option. we cannot sit idly by and wait

for a second attack. you see the brutality, they targeted civilians, they went to a festival in the south that teenagers were celebrating peace, and in the morning, more than a few hundred were slaughtered in daylight. so we have no choice. we're going to fight back. we're going to win. it's not going to be a shorter provision. i can tell you now, the scene you're showing from gaza. it's only the beginning. it will not be easy to stay in gaza when we're going to come in and find those murderers, we're going to punish them, and punish them hard. >> let me ask you this. i agree what's been reported and what we have seen of the attack by the hamas militants is absolutely awful, terrorism, disgusting. but i do want to ask again about the civilians in gaza. you said it's 40 miles long. it's not that big. what's the obstacle to opening a

humanitarian bridge into egypt right now, getting some of them out and safe into the country of egypt? >> well, i think that's something you're going to have to ask the egyptians. i know in the past they were not happy about this idea at all. we are open to ideas. i say is directly. we care about the people of gaza. president, very close to the palestinians, two days ago for the palestinian sake, hamas would be eradicated because they're suffering from the regime of hamas for so many years. i think we're open minded. we don't want to hurt the population. we want to minimize the civilian casualties. hamas is doing the opposite. they commit war crimes, target civilians in israel and go hide, and use the population as human shields. we will welcome ideas to minimize the damage for the population, but at the same time, we cannot just wait and sit. and we haven't spoken about the

hostages. you know, more than 100 people, americans, the canadians, from all over the world. people who live in israel or visited israel were abducted into gaza. we know they started raping young girls in gaza. when you look at the pictures, it's a horror movie. we have to stop it, and we have the strength and capability to do it. >> it is awful. are you saying it's egypt that's the obstacle here, not israel, egypt is the obstacle to letting refugees out? >> we will not block anyone and actually, as i told you, we will encourage them to move away from the areas where we are going to come and hunt hamas. >> i understand what you're saying. cell service is not exactly easy to get there right now. it's not exactly reliable. let me ask you about what happens next. and when you look at the way the bombs, the strikes have fallen in gaza, some have speculated that it looks like you're paving

a path for a ground incursion. is that what's going on? >> i can tell you very directly, we are very serious about what happened to us. we're going to come after hamas. we're going to come from the air, from the sea, from the land. we're going to come and get them. it's not going to be a nice scene, but we're going to fight hard. we know it's complicated. we know it's going to be painful for us. but we have to do it. you know, 50 years ago, more than 2,000 soldiers died, and it was a high number for us, small population of 9 million people, now when we see the civilians. the civilians should not be massacred. we formed the jewish state to avoid scenes like that. we had problems in europe. we survived the holocaust. we are not going to be here and watch such barbaric actions against civilians in israel, so we're going to use the strength of the idf to protect our

people. >> let me ask you about what happens after all of this. if you're able to root out hamas, what is the next step after that? >> absolutely not. we don't have any intention to stay in gaza. we don't want to occupy gaza. i want to remind you, we pulled out in 2005, 18 years ago, we pulled out of gaza, we evacuated the jewish communities and gave keys to the palestinians. unfortunately, hamas took over, and since then, look what happened in gaza. >> how do you ensure someone like hamas or worse doesn't take over? do you prop up the palestinian authority again? do they have the strength to take over gaza? >> let me ask you what can be worse than hamas? after what happened on saturday, i cannot imagine anything worse than hamas. >> we all said what could be worse than al qaeda and isis came along. i shutter to imagine. >> i don't think, for us, nothing can be worse.

you know, the horror we witnessed and we saw the intention and the fact that they used all the resources from the international community to build a war machine against us. it cannot be worse. it can be something new. i think the palestinians deserve a better future. otherwise it's going to be cycle after cycle. our goal is to live peacefully, we don't have any intention to stay if gaza, to occupy gaza, on the contrary, we pray for the day that we can have peace, like the same way we want to have peace with other countries, we wish we will have peace with the people who live in gaza. >> does that future include a palestinian state, and if so, what do you do about the settlements in the west bank? >> i think the two state, three state, it's not relevant. when you see hamas, what they are doing with the resources and

the power they have, no one wants to have a state next door, so it's not an issue. one day there will be a peaceful partner, you know, we are willing to sit down and negotiate. we signed peace treaties with jordan, egypt, hopefully saudi arabia soon. we pray for peace every day. so i hope we will have peace one day. i think for that to happen, first we have to defeat hamas, and allow a new regime to be in gaza and help the palestinian people. >> minister danny danon, thank you very much for joining us, we appreciate it. >> thank you, katy. now to the election for house speaker, we learned there will not be a vote this afternoon. as jake sherman predicted earlier. let's bring in msnbc political analyst, brandon buck. you have been insightful on this subject. tell me what you think will happen next?

>> it was always a bit of a risk to go straight to the floor from the conference meeting. the vote was very close. he's got a lot of loose ends to tie up. i don't think they can wait too long. i would still be keeping an eye on voting tomorrow so you could move quickly, but it seems very clear that steve scalise has a long way to go to wrap this up. i will admit i was of the opinion that the conference was not willing to put itself through another ugly process like we did in january, like what happened last week with mccarthy, but it seems there are enough members who have had enough of it, and are willing to disgrace the house floor, embarrass the house gop again, and you're seeing more and more members come out and saying they're willing to vote for somebody else. at this moment, i'm looking to jim jordan, kevin mccarthy, to see if their endorsement of steve scalise could wrap that up

and make this process a little easier, but it's important to remember jim jordan endorsed mccarthy in january, and it still took 15 rounds. >> that's a good point. >> i think steve scalise is the most likely next republican speaker. i think he can probably get through this, but he may have to suffer some of the same indignities that kevin mccarthy did with multiple rounds of votes on the house floor. >> jim jordan and steve scalise were huddling together. i wonder if jordan gives him his endorsement, does scalise offer him the number two position, and what will that mean for their ability to work with democrats? >> democrats are not eager to work with republicans on anything hard line, but they have said steve scalise might not be the worst of the options. jim jordan, though, is a different story. >> i have to think something like that is on the table. right now, steve scalise is entirely focused on how do i get to 217 volts i need. if that means making jim jordan

the majority leader, he needs jim jordan on his side. we'll have to see. if jim jordan were to turn on him and support for scalise was soft, if he starts playing games, this could get ugly really quick. i'm talking about the republican conference breaking out into the open entirely. steve scalise, i think, is perhaps unfairly suffering just from the fact he was in leadership, and anybody who distrusts leadership, he was number two to mccarthy, so he doesn't have the outsider, but if this were to fall apart, and jim jordan were to wash his hands of it, i don't know how we would be able to come back together. he's in a powerful spot right now. >> i have heard skepticism and worry about his health. he's got blood cancer and would he be able to do the sort of

traveling that a speaker needs to do in order to raise money, which is a big part of the job. brendan buck, thank you very much. let's bring in nbc news capitol hill correspondent, ali vitali. any indication on when the vote will be? >> reporter: no, katy, as we just reported a few minutes ago, there will be a session at 3:00. you will see lawmakers come to the floor, but then they will gavel out and immediately move to a recess. you'll hear them do the pledge before that, a prayer be given by the chaplain. that's what we call a pro forma session. it is exactly what it sounds like, a formality to opening the house floor and a recess. all of us who watch the floor on the link provided will see the dreaded blue screen in recess subject to the call of the chair, that's playing the waiting game. at this point we don't know when the actual vote on speaker will be. according to democrats that i've talked to, they're of the understanding that republicans will give them maybe an hour heads up on when the speaker vote will be, so likely we'll be

able to get the same heads up from our sources but we're really playing the waiting game and it's for many of the reasons you and brendan were talking about. the idea that although there was consensus to the degree there was a majority opinion behind closed doors, there's not 217 votes actually required to make steve scalise the next speaker of the house. we are starting to watch jockeying from within the republican conference of other members of leadership who might want to move up now, that the leader spot is vacated by scalise should he actually be elected speaker. specifically we're talking about tom emmer who's currently in leadership but wants to move up to the number two spot. that's likely to be contested because kevin hern also wants that number two role. certainly the conflict in the conference is not over yet, even once they decide a speaker, but even that kind of jockeying might be getting ahead of ourselves as steve scalise is trying to buy himself the time to gets votes he needs and avoid

a protracted battle on the floor, a la kevin mccarthy in january. >> thank you very much. and coming up, what more do we know about what iran did in the lead up to the hamas attack, and what will the country do next. we'll speak with former cia director john brennan ahead. a director johbrn ennan ahead. hk —center stage—and is crushed by a baby grand piano. you're replacing me? customize and save with liberty bibberty. he doesn't even have a mustache. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ (sean) i wish for the amazing new iphone 15 pro! only pay for what you need. (jason) sean! do you mean this one - the one with titanium? switch to verizon, you can trade in any iphone, and get the new iphone 15 pro on them. (vo) it's your last chance to trade in any iphone for a new iphone 15 pro on us. only on verizon. ♪ my name is josh sanabria and i am the owner at isla veterinary boutique hospital. i was 5...6 years of age and i knew i was going to be a vet. once alexandra called me to let me know that bank of america had approved my loan...

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at least 1,087 people in gaza have been killed since israel began striking back. among the dead, nine u.n. staffers, who were working in gaza. and overwhelming the 200,000 hospital beds, along with hundreds, thousands of others fleeing to the hospital compounds hoping for safety. joining me on the phone is palestinian-american hanin o call trapped in gaza with her three young children. as i understand it, one of them

is a newborn, a baby you just had while you were there. >> yes. >> how are you? >> i'm good. i'm doing fine. how are you? >> i'm surprised to say you're doing fine. where are you? are you safe? >> until now. i'm trying to stay calm. i'm doing fine. i'm trying, because, you know, i want to feel safe. then that's it. i can't make it work, you know. it's very bad. we're trying our best just to stay calm as much as we can. >> yeah. i mean, i understand that as a mother having to stay calm for your kids so you don't scare

them too much. you're from new jersey. you were visiting family. and i'm told you had your baby early while you were there unexpectedly. your husband was able to make it home, but you've been stuck. have you been in contact with the u.s. embassy or anybody from the u.s. state department about getting out? >> yes, i tried to contact the u.s. embassy so many times, even before the war. every single time, they keep saying we cannot help you. you have to keep checking. so i did so, and i did schedule some appointments, but the problem here for u.s. citizens who live in gaza, that we really need to get permission to crossing border so to coordinate between getting the permission to enter the border and the

appointment that the u.s. embassy may give you or the appointment that they do have, it's very hard, it's really very hard and very complicated because every single time you make an appointment or you schedule an appointment, you can't get the permission easily. all the appointments are given in a very short-term notice, 24 hours or 48 hours maximum. and that's impossible to get a permission to enter the area crossing border into jerusalem or tel aviv. so every single time i had to cancel the appointment and keep rescheduling, it's very very hard for us to get out of here. even if it's not wartime, and the u.s. embassy is not helping at all, work in the embassy are

really treating u.s. palestinians who are located currently in gaza very rude. so they don't help you. you send e-mails, they don't respond at all. every single time they promise to get back to you, but they don't. and even in war, it's the same thing. so it seems impossible to get out of here. i don't know. like they need to do something who used to live most of their lives in the u.s. and now they are not. for some other reason, they're not there, and they are in gaza. evacuation has to be taken into

consideration, a safe evacuation, and until this moment, it's not happening. i went yesterday to a crossing border because now it's the only crossing border that is supposed to be open. now it's closed. but it's the only crossing border that we can use to get out of gaza because crossing border is destroyed. so i went yesterday so i can get out of here. but unfortunately i couldn't make it because they've bombed. people were running. it was miserable in there. we couldn't make it. we went back to here, our kids were very disappointed. very shocked, very scared.

when we were on our way to the crossing border, my son saw all the places destroyed. he was shocked because we didn't get out of home for a couple of days. we didn't know what's going on in the streets, and when we saw that, it was very very sad because you cannot tell that this is the streets that we saw before. so this is the situation right now. i hope that the u.s. embassy can help us, can help the innocent palestinians as well. people are running out of food, fuel, medicine. people are going from place to place because there's no p they keep calling people to get

out, for example, and then people go north or south, but they bomb there. so bombing is everywhere. there is no place safe in here, and i don't know if -- what i know is people should help to get out of here and go back to their lives. kids and women in the situation. >> we're looking at pictures of you and your family, and, you know, i understand your children are scared and you say you feel abandoned by the u.s. government. >> that's right. >> and your husband's no longer there with you. we do hope you're able to get out. duel american citizen stuck in gaza, haneen okal. thank you so much. good luck, we hope you stay safe. >> thank you, bye.

four days after hamas's surprise attack on israel, intelligence officials in tel aviv and washington say they still don't have a smoking gunpointing to iran's direct involvement but nbc news has new reporting that the american officials are investigating whether teheran gave advanced training to hamas militants and whether those militants used recent palestinian protests along the gaza border as cover to place explosives that were later used to breach the fence. let's bring in nbc's courtney kube at the pentagon. explain this reporting. >> reporter: this is all really painting a bigger picture, something that frankly we have been hearing since this past weekend, since this assault really started and that is that for decades, hamas has been supported by iran, training, funding equipping and that has continued up until very recently. the administration does not have

a smoking gun for some direct involvement by iran in the assault on saturday, in the planning specifically for this attack on saturday. what we do know, though, is they are as part of the larger look at whether there might have been some thread that existed in the intelligence world that was missed that may have pointed to that assault. one of the things the u.s. is looking at as well as other intelligence agencies frankly is whether some of these fighters who infiltrated across the fence may have been trained by iran, specifically by the iranian revolutionary guard corps or elite force. >> thank you very much. and joining me now is former cia director john brennan, and msnbc national security and intelligence analyst. thank you very much. what do you think of what courtney just reported? >> it's clear that iran over the last number of years has given hamas the capabilities that allowed it to carry out this atrocious series of attacks. the sophisticated techniques,

tactics that hamas was able to employ, i don't doubt they used those protests along the fence line to plant explosives, as well as using some of the gazans that went back and forth to israeli on a daily basis to do some of the surveillance of the targets they went after. and again, this shows a degree of sophistication that is usually consistent with the type of capabilities that a nation stayed state has such as iran. i know that u.s. intelligence and israeli intelligence now almost certainly are going through all of their intelligence that they have received over the course of the years and to see whether or not iran played a larger role in this than some believe and that the iranians don't acknowledge a role in the carrying out of this attack. >> a lot of the criticism is pointed to the unfreezing of the $6 billion to iran, being helpful for this. the administration has been adamant that that money had not gotten to iran yet, but that also wasn't money that was ever going to be in iran's hands.

it was going to be shipments of aid that they could request. if it does prove there is a direct link between the attack and iran, should that money get refrozen? >> i think if it is determined that iran played a principle role here, there has to be a total reevaluation of u.s. policy toward iran, including in terms of the unfreezing of those iranian assets that are currently in the bank. this is something that i think the biden administration is going to take a very close look at, and i think what they're saying now is they don't want to jump to conclusions about what iran's role might have been. there needs to be a close look at the intelligence and assessment done on what role iran did play, but clearly iran empowered hamas to carry out this attack. so i'm sure that israel believes there needs to be some accountability for iran in terms of the tremendous, tremendous carnage that was done.

>> let me ask you about the intelligence. there were reports out of israel that prime minister benjamin netanyahu was warned by egypt. he made a point to call that fake news and say don't believe it. we got worse from house foreign affairs chair michael mccaul saying, i'm not quite sure how israel missed it. we know egypt warned the israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen. >> there probably was a general warning that the egyptians passed to the israelis. the egyptians understand what's going on in gaza to a good degree. they probably didn't have any of the details, otherwise i would like to think that israel would have acted upon it, but there was maybe some type of general warning that the egyptians had picked up there was activity going on in gaza that indicated there was going to be an operation that was going to be taking place in the near future, so again, it's going to be a

postmortem across the board. not just an intelligence failure. what that report indicates is it may have been a policy failure as well. a number of signs that were missed, and, again, now is the time to focus on trying to mitigate the threat, trying to recover the hostages, but also to try to crush and destroy hamas before it does more damage. >> jim brennan, thank you very much for joining us. our coverage continues at the top of the 3:00 p.m. after this quick break. after this quick break.

good to be back with you for another hour. i'm katy tur. it's 3:00 p.m. in new york, and just after 10:00 p.m. in israel and gaza where the immediate situation is getting worse for

civilians.