a very red district that's not likely to vote for him, he is certainly hoping to create the contrast. that is central to his election campaign, as well. >> no question there. there will be real security concerns about a trip to israel. this is a president who had a secret trip to kyiv. there is a sense that russia, once given the heads-up, wouldn't try anything. unclear whether hamas would listen to those warnings. akayla garner, thank you for joining us this morning. thanks for getting up "way too early" with us on this monday morning. jam-packed "morning joe" starts right now. >> there's limited fighting already on the northern israeli border, and i wonder, what is your message to hezbollah and its backer, iran? >> don't. don't, don't, don't. >> don't come across the border? don't escalate this war? >> that's right. >> is iran behind the gaza war? >> i don't want to get into classified information, but to be very blunt with you, there is

no clear evidence of that. >> president biden yesterday on "60 minutes" doubling down on a warning to others in the middle east. it comes as the u.s. military is increasing its presence in the region amid a threat from iran and hezbollah. u.s. secretary of state antony blinken back in israel this morning to continue diplomatic talks after a weekend of meetings with leaders in the middle east. meanwhile, in gaza, palestinian civilians are in dire need of humanitarian aid. we'll go live to israel-gaza border for the very latest on all of that in just a moment. also ahead, an update on the speaker's race here at home. republicans have a vote planned for tomorrow, but it appears the nominee once again does not have the support needed to win. there is so much news on this monday morning. >> there really is. probably the most important election in europe. >> oh, my gosh. >> over the past decade.

>> poland. >> i don't think that's an overstatement in poland. right now, it looks like the pro west, pro european, the party -- a coalition is coming from behind. it'll probably overtake the law and justice party, but we will see. it is going to be very close. >> big moves. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, october 16th. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay. former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, jeremy bash. he's an nbc news national security analyst. let's dive right into the very latest out of the israel-hamas war. secretary of state antony blinken told reporters yesterday that egypt will reopen its border crossing into gaza for aid. the humanitarian crisis there continues to grow. according to the u.n., hospitals in gaza are expected to run out

of generator fuel within 24 hours. this as the territory's 2.3 million people do not have access to clean running water and are nearly out of food and medical supplies. 600,000 palestinians have been displaced from gaza so far after leaving the northern part of the area in the wake of friday's evacuation order by israel. the israel defense forces say hamas is preventing some of those people from leaving and that many are getting stuck in traffic caused by the terror group's roadblocks. >> let's go to the israel-gaza border. chief foreign correspondent richard engel. richard, of course, humanitarian crisis, it continues to grow there. there is some word that egypt, reluctantly, is going to open that border, their border with gaza. get us up to date on that and

everything else that is developing this morning. >> reporter: so good morning. there's still considerable confusion about the rafah border crossing, the border crossing between egypt and the gaza strip. there is, according to u.s. officials, egypt officials, a deal. the deal is supposed to have begun already, but it hasn't been implemented. the border crossing for right now is still closed. there are hundreds of families, including palestinian americans, who are waiting at that border crossing on the gaza side. they thought they were going to be going through today, but it hasn't happened yet. on the other side, on the egyptian side of the border, there is humanitarian aid sitting there, food and water that is supposed to go in. the people who are on the border, and we've been speaking to some of them this morning, are tired, anxious, frustrated, because this has been going on for days where they've just been

sitting in gaza, in the heat, waiting to try and get out. complicated, it seems like, by bureaucratic issues in a fight, a diplomatic misunderstanding. here in israel, some developments this morning. so this area where i am right now, which is in southern israel, not far from the gaza strip, that's gaza city behind me, this area has been declared a closed military area. civilians have been encouraged, sometimes forced to evacuate so that the military can operate here and to protect civilians in case hamas fis mortars, short range rockets, as they have been doing. israel announced it is going to evacuate 28 communities in northern israel, as well, along the lebanese border. you're going t have, quite

soon, two parts of this country, the northern border and the southern border, both declared closed military zones out of fear that hamas could be firing rockets or fire even more rockets and artillery from the gaza strip, and that hezbollah in the north could intensify its barrages. this morning, israel updated the number of hostages that it says hamas captured in its raid. initially, there was a lot of confusion. these numbers have been moving. if you'll remember in the early days, we talked about 50, then 120, 150. now, israel says 199 people were taken by hamas into gaza. >> richard, could you help us with an explanation on egypt and other arab countries? i've had a lot of people ask me over the weekend why arab countries that will profess their dedication to the palestinian cause are so

reluctant to let them in? egypt is at the top of that list, of course, for a number of reasons. we've seen it over the past decade, other arab countries growing more and more distant with the palestinian cause, cutting their own peace deal with israelis, and cutting the palestinians out. could you explain to american viewers and others watching why that is, why are arab countries so reluctant to help the palestinian refugees? >> reporter: a lot of this has to do with the history of the palestinian people, going back to the formation of the state of israel in 1948. when israel was first formed, early zionist settlers came here. after the holocaust, many more jews came from around the world. i'm not going to retell the whole history of the israeli state, but it is important to answer your question. so when the arab world attacked israel in 1948, there were many

palestinians who were suddenly made refugees. they were displaced. then when the arab world attacked israel again in 1967, a new wave of refugees was created. those palestinian refugees are still displaced around the world. they are still displaced in the west bank. they're still displaced in lebanon. what egypt and other arab countries fear is that we could see another repetition of that same cycle, where a large group of palestinians is displaced once again and that they will be permanently displaced. if egypt opens the door, you will have another situation where you could have a million palestinians living inside egypt for the next several decades or next several centuries. the arab countries are nervous about that precedent. traditionally, the arab position has been that all of these palestinians who were displaced in wars with israel should return back to their own homes.

but that's their idealogical framework. in practical terms, there's a lot of criticism within the arab world, that the arab world isn't doing more, that they're relying on this historic argument in order not to give people aid, that they don't want to open their borders and have a large refugee community sitting on egyptian soil, that they'll have to care for. there could be security concerns because some of these people might be militants. if you ask the people of gaza, they are furious with the arab world. they say the arab world pays lip service to the palestinian people. they say that you turn on al jazeera, and you hear sympathy for the palestinian people, but the arabs are not opening their borders, instead using these historic arguments to justify why they can't. >> all right. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel, we thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. katty kay, what richard said is

so dead on. so accurate. i know you've talked to arab leaders and arab diplomats through the years. the ones i've spoken to for years have been not only dismissive of the palestinian cause but openly critical of the palestinians time and time again. situations like this, when they occur, i always call around and ask, "why aren't you doing more to help the palestinians through this crisis?" there is a, i'll just say it, there's almost an open contempt for palestinians who they believe, time and again, have missed opportunities to strike peace. looks like it's happening again. it looks also like tony blinken is finally getting egypt to open that border to provide some sort of relief for palestinians. >> tony blinken's priority is to

try to get, obviously, the 400 odd palestinian americans who are trapped in gaza at the moment out of gaza before the land invasion happens from the israeli side. the only way to get them out is through that border, through the rafah crossing into egypt. there seems to be confusion about why the border isn't open. it should be open according to this deal. it looks like now but doesn't seem to be at the moment. then to get aid back in again. richard pointed to two very important things. i spent 18 years of my life living in the middle east. always, the mantra was we support very much the palestinians in practice, nothing very much was done because of those historical reasons that they felt the palestinians should be able to stay in palestine. they didn't want them coming into their own countries. at the moment, it is particularly, as well, from the egypt side, they don't want to open those gates and suddenly find they have a flood of hamas militants infiltrating the civilians who might be leaving and meeting up with the mslim brotherhood in their own

countries. all these arab countries are dealing with the extremist groups in their own countries, and they don't want them joining up with palestinian extremist groups. they say one thing, but in practice over the last 20, 30 years, they haven't done very much to support the palestinian cause. >> well, three senior officers in israel's military tell "the new york times" israel is preparing a large-scale invasion of the gaza strip, with the goal of destroying hamas leadership. meanwhile, "axios" is reporting that iran's foreign minister told a u.n. envoy to the middle east, if israel follows through with its anticipated ground offensive, iran will have to respond. now, the u.s. is sending a secondary craft carrier strike group to the eastern mediterranean, led by the "uss dwight d. eisenhower." "the wall street journal" reports the move is meant to dissuade others, particularly hezbollah, from joining the

conflict. spokesman for the israeli defense forces, lieutenant colonel peter learner. thank you for being with us. given what i read, the report about iran watching closely to see the next move by israel, how do you work on a response while hopefully not creating a wider war? is that in the thought process here? >> good morning to you. i'd like to add, perhaps, to your discussion with richard about the arab world and how people are looking at this. hamas is the governing body. it is a terrorist organization, but it is the government of gaza. the prime minister, who is the mastermind of the massacre, he instructed and orchestrated this, the diabolical attack against israel and our communities on the 7th of october. i'd like to add, i think, that there is also a general disdain and a letdown by the arab

leaders towards hamas for deciding to go to war against israel without taking into consideration the repercussions. i think it's basic decency against the butchery against hamas that people are saying, why do we need to bend over backwards for this terrorist organization after they did this to their own people? and to relate back to your question, of course, it has recruited some 300,000 reservists in order to be prepared for any eventuality. if the government instructs us to mobilize on the ground, we will be prepared. we are currently striking hamas extensively from the air. we are taing out their control positions. we're taking out their leaders, the terrorists that infiltrated into the gaza -- into the communities of southern israel. we are determined to make sure the gaza strip can never, ever be used as a staging ground for

massacres and butchery in israel ever again. >> lieutenant colonel, let's talk about the north. we noted towns there have been evacuated in northern israel near the lebanon border. what is the level of activity you're seeing from hezbollah, and what is the level of concern that you have, that the violence there, so far limited to a few skirmishes, but that it could really grow? >> the skirmishes have been in escalating mode the last few days. indeed, there were several anti-tank guided missiles fired at forces and even at civilians along the border. we have, together with our defense ministry, instructed anybody living within the 2 kilometer boundary from the border itself be evacuated. as you rightly pointed out, that's 28 communities. it goes to show, we take civilians out of the line of fire, where our enemies are bent on our destruction and utilize their own civilians to put them in the line of fire. we have, as i said, the 300,000

reservists that have been recruited, are also positioned in the north. we have strengthened the frontier with hezbollah on the border with lebanon. we are very concerned about the prospect of a conflict with hezbollah. it appears that the whole escalation that we've seen over the last few days is under the direction of iran, which are interested in challenging israel, challenging the idf on the front with hamas. you know, they are so invested in the tools of terrorism over the years, whether it's in funding or in training or in equipment. you know, everything has its roots back in iran. that's why they are looking out for their proxies up on the front. we are determined to destroy hamas. we are determined that once they broke the rules of the game on saturday, october 7th, by

penetrating our border, butchering our people, abducting 199 confirmed abductions into the gaza strip, and opening, effectively, opening the wall, they chose to go to war with us. we will win this war. >> what conversations are taking place about what happens after the first days of the invasion of gaza? if you go in with the land invasion, you talk about the destruction of hamas. i wonder how many conversations are happening about who controls gaza after that. how long do you plan to stay? it'll be an extremely difficult military operation, but i imagine there must be some conversations happening about the day after. can you give us some light about those? >> of course. the day after is a core concern, but what we are most concerned about at this time is actually making sure that hamas never

have this ability ever again. you know, hamas have turned gaza into this fortress by taking full advantage of all of the civilian arena, putting their own civilians at risk. we're currently on day four of a huge evacuation plan intended to keep people out of harm's way, keep palestinians out of harm's way, while hamas, on their side, are trying to delay that and keep people in harm's way. so the day after is still, seems to be, quite a time away, and our government has not restricted the time of the operation. i think as much time as is required in order to fulfill that mission, in order to make sure israelis are safe and secure, and that is what we are doing. >> all right. spokesman for the israeli defense forces, lieutenant colonel peter learner, thank you very much. hope to see you soon. thank you for your insight this morning. now, when we come back in

just one minute, we're going to get analysis from jeremy bash. we're also going to show you "saturday night live's" extraordinary cold open. host pete davidson explaining why he was the perfect person to open the show during this tragic time. that's next. we're back in 60 seconds. 60 secs ) with the push of a button, constant contact's ai tools help you know what to say, even when you don't. hi! constant contact. helping the small stand tall.

this week, we saw the horrible images and stories from israel and gaza. i know what you're thinking, who better to comment on it than pete davidson? well, in a lot of ways, i am a good person to talk about it because when i was 7 years old, my dad was killed in a terrorist attack. so i know something about what that's like. i saw so many terrible pictures this week of children suffering, israeli children and palestinian israeli. it took me back to a really horrible, horrible place. you know, no one in this world

deserves to suffer like that, you know, especially not kids. you know? after my dad died, my mom tried pretty much everything she could do to cheer me up. i remember one day when i was 8, she got me what she thought was a disney movie, but it was actually the eddie murphy stand-up special "delirious." we played it in the car on the way home. when she heard the things eddie murphy was saying, she tried to take it away. then she noticed something. for the first time in a long time, i was laughing again. i don't understand it. i really don't, and i never will. but, sometimes, comedy is really the only way forward through tragedy. you know, my heart is with everyone whose lives have been destroyed this week. but, tonight, i'm going to do what i've always done in the face of tragedy, and that's try

to be funny. remember, i said try. live from new york, it's saturday night. >> that was so moving, wasn't it? >> incredible. it was really, really the perfect tone for a comedy show in the midst of this horrific story. wow, that was selfless to share the story. >> yeah, it reminds me of what they did after 9/11. giuliani, then the mayor, came out and talked. >> yeah. >> you had lorne michaels. >> addressed it. >> right. then loren mike -- lorne michaels saying, can we be funny? giuliani said, "why start now?" pete davidson, that was moving and selselfless. >> very moving. >> had to be very hard, obviously, but certainly something that hopefully helped others. our coverage continues now. we want to bring jeremy bash into the conversation.

as we're looking at the sort of grand scheme of things between what's going on in israel now, there are now some 200 hostages, 199 is the number, being held in gaza. with everything we've heard so far, especially from the lieutenant, what is the hope that any hostages will be retrieved? >> well, there's no playbook -- >> alive. >> -- for this, mika. to have 200 hostages held, including babies, the elderly, disabled. including potentially 20 american citizens, which is obviously the highest priority of president biden, secretary blinken. jake sullivan addressed this yesterday. essentially, the united states has to go to other countries, go to the government of qatar, go to the government of egypt, go to other players in the region and say, whatever influence you have with hamas right now, we need two things. number one, we need the international red cross to pay wellness visits to these hostages. that is mandated under international law. some of them are grievously

wounded. some are elderly. they all need medical care. secondly, we need to know where they are so we can begin a process of negotiating their release. i think the idea that the idf is going to be staging unilateral ground operations to rescue 200 hostages is a very dicey proposition, particularly if they're held in tunnels. we need to know where they are and need to pay wellness visits to them and hopefully get them home. >> jeremy, the fact we don't know where they are, and i haven't heard any reporting of wellness visits. how -- if they're not operating under these rules, is it a little less hopeless than -- i mean, it doesn't seem -- >> it's dire. >> -- that they want -- >> let's not sugar coat it. it is dire. it's 200 people. it is difficult to -- it's not one soldier like the one moved from safe house to safe house for years, the idf soldier exchanged for 1,000 palestinian

prisoners. it is 200 people. it is almost impossible to believe that there aren't people who have sightings, who have seen these people, who have information about them. hamas does, and i've been talking to leaders from around the region, including several leader from the arab world, and they say there was some discussions in recent days about the release of the civilians, but, you know, things got chaotic and the deal fell apart. hamas will want a deal for these hostages. if they're going to have to fight israel, they're ultimately going to want to use them as human shields. this is a dire situation. the united states, international partners, need to maintain resolute focus on getting the hostages out. >> katty, we also were talking to the white house and talking to other u.s. leaders. we also must all admit here, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes. this is one of those moments where qatar, having a very

complex relationship, not only with the united states, being an ally of the united states, but also with hamas, hezbollah, other terror groups, these are the moments where u.s. officials start talking to qatar officials who talk to hamas. apparently, negotiations continue behind the scenes through qatar. >> qatar also having a close relationship with iran, as well. remember the spat between saudi arabia and qatar was over qatar's links with iran. it has the right people it can talk to. if any country in the region can bring about some kind of negotiated hostage swap, perhaps we're hearing reports that it will be initially for children and women, then it'd be qatar. watch tony blinken's movements over the ourse of the last few days. i haven't seen this middle east shuttle diplomacy since before invasion of iraq when dick

cheney was trying to rally support from arab countries for the u.s. invasion of iraq. that is exactly what tony blinken is doing. one of the first places he went was to qatar to try to get these negotiations happening. it complicates the military operation exponentially. all of the military analysts i've spoken to and read about this said just having these hostages in these tunnels, the tunnels themselves make it difficult. usually with the military field, you're operating on two planes. this adds another plane. there's potentially a whole other gaza city worth of tunnels underneath gaza city. it is compcomplicated. it seems negotiation is the best chance of getting these hostages out alive. >> it's been suggested one of hamas' goals for this attack two weekends ago was to disrupt the possibility of normalization between israel and saudi arabia. the pause button has been pushed, critical of israel's response.

on the backdrop of this, the white house is considering a visit by president biden to the region. there are real security concerns. to sort of stand in solidarity with israel, the president may go as soon as this week. if he were to go, the moment when this ground operation may begin, that further complicates things. walk us through what a full of on siege from israel to gaza, what would it take? seems it'd be brutal. >> with respect to president biden's standing in the region, his response over the last nine days has been incredible. the israel people have felt it. i think he spoke with such morally clear terms, and the people of israel believe the united states truly has their back. that's exactly what we want our ally to think. i think with respect to this operation in gaza, it's kind of being characterized, maybe mischaracterized, as a bulldozing of gaza on the ground. it's not going to be that at all. it'll be a combined arms operation that will include infantry, armor, long-range

fires, aircraft, unmanned platforms, rotor wing platform. because it is a coastal strip, naval platform, as well. this will be a targeted, intelligence driven, specific attack. they have interrogations, communication intercepts, where are hamas leaders located? what are the last known addresses? what vehicles are they driving? what are the weapons? it's not going to be civilian infrastructure but a targeted set of operations to chase down, decapitate the leaders of hamas. >> former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, jeremy bash, thank you very much for your insight this morning. coming up, the latest in the race to elect a new house speaker. we'll have new reporting from capitol hill as republicans plan to hold a floor vote tomorrow. we will also be joined by two lawmakers from both sides of the

political aisle about the chaos in the chamber and how it might impact support for america's allies at war. plus, national security counsel spokesman john kirby will join us live from the white house. new york city mayor eric adams will join the conversation. he gave a powerful speech last week in support of israel. we'll ask him about that. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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and i kept it off. so with other diets, you just feel like you're muscling your way through it. the reason why i like golo is plain and simple, it was easy. i didn't have to grit my teeth and do a diet. golo's a lifestyle change and you make the change and it stays off. golo's changed my life in so many ways. i sleep better, i eat better. took my shirt off for the first time in 25 years. it's golo. it's all golo. it's smarter, it's better, it will change your life forever. remember, republicans eat their young. they do. terrible statement. >> but it's true. >> yeah, um -- >> former president trump in a recorded message over the weekend, like he meant it to happen. he recorded it and then -- yeah. revealing republicans eat their young. >> okay. >> well -- >> he's had some really strange -- said some really strange things.

>> one thing he said at a speech was cruel. we were thinking of saying it, but it is so cruel and disgusting, we're not showing it. >> again, he battls through so many of the speeches. maybe somebody should know he's not running against barack obama. last couple weeks, he said repeatedly he is running against barack obama, he was ahead of obama in the polls, that he beat barack obama in 2020. remember when he beat barack obama in 2016. it is almost as if he's obsessed with barack obama. really, if he were a leader of a party instead of just a leader of a cult, this personality cult, he would be more concerned about what's going on in the house of representatives. >> right. >> well, again, he doesn't care about israel. he's shown that with his attacks of the israelis, of their

leadership. but right now, israel desperately needs -- they're going to need support from the house of representatives, like the ukraines are. more importantly, the united states of america needs to show we're here, ready, standing by to face our enemies. israel is facing enemies. hamas considers the united states their enemy. iran considers the united states their enemy. of course, russia considers the united states their enemy. china considers the united states their enemy. if you don't think we're not facing serious, grave challenges from those four countries who consider the united states of america to be their enemies, then you're just naive. i've got to say, there are a lot of house republicans that must be naive and think they can continue playing games, instead of moving towards a speaker and putting a speaker in place.

>> still following this man, the so-called republican, but he is the frontrunner, who says that republicans are eating their young. when they're not eating their young, they continue to eat their own, as the party still cannot agree on a house speaker. tomorrow, republicans plan to try again, holding a house floor vote on congressman jim jordan of ohio for the position. on friday, he won the gop nomination for the speakership in a second try. meanwhile, republican congressman mike johnson of louisiana is reportedly laying the groundwork to seek the speaker's gavel. if jordan is unable to get the votes needed on the house floor. where does this all stand? joining us now, congressional investigations reporter for "the washington post," jackie alemany. msnbc contributor mike barnicle. co-host of "the circus" on show time, mark mckinnon, political strategist.

>> mark mckinnon, ever seen anything like this? >> they managed to claw the way to the bottom. it is incredible, joe, at a time of existential crisis in the world. we have no leadership in the republican congress, and we have the former president of the united states talking about our enemies as being smart. it's -- you know, at a time when we need leadership more than we can think of in recent history, there's just none there. >> mike barnicle, obviously, you spent your formative years as a reporter with people like tip o'neill, speaker of the house. we saw nancy pelosi, the way nancy ran the house. it is just beyond stunning to me. i know for most republicans that are actually in the house right now, this continues. they don't do what republicans and democrats have always done. go to conference, elect a speaker. the person that gets the

majority votes, go to the floor, and do the people's business. this group of republicans refuse to do the people's business. one of the great times of crisis on the international stage in our lifetime. >> joe, you know, you can look at the congress from the mid '70s, late '70s through the '80s and early '90s, and the republican party was different. they worked with democrats, with o'neil as speaker, jim wright as speaker, they worked together. there were many, many republicans who worked for the country first and the party second. they knew how to legislate, how to govern. that's gone. the idea that today they'll be discussing in washington, d.c., jackie alemany is with us to tell us about it, the idea that they're going to be discussing, potentially, the next speaker of the house would be a man from ohio who, 2 1/2 years ago, tried to overturn an existing elected

government coming in, the biden presidency. he voted against -- he was against the constitution of the united states, jim jordan. he's on the precipice of becoming speaker, perhaps. >> jackie alemany, is this going to happen, or what is the latest there? >> that is the question. i mean, these guys have one job, which is, at the end of the day, to appropriate. right now, they've gone 13 days without a house speaker to get anywhere near that job done. jim jordan, on friday, knew he had 55 votes to shore up. that was 55 people who had voted against him in the secret ballot. people that his team had sensed were still against him. he made calls over the weekend. some of these pressure tactics, as described by some moderate republicans to my colleagues, did not sit well. you had sean hannity emailing colleagues. a producer for his team with

very lightly veiled threats about, you know, potential primary threats. we know that the trump team did not get involved directly. some people are sort of depositing this vote for lawmakers holding out for jordan as a vote against donald trump, again, with the threat of a primary challenger if they fail to support jordan on the house floor. jordan previously said he was not going to hold house vote if he didn't have that 217 number. now, it's looking more like he's going to sort of try to force a play and get people on the record to being against him and, therefore, you know, against moving forward on a lot of really important legislation that is just not getting done right now. >> mark, maybe that idea of trying to get people on record, trying to shame them into voting, that would work if perhaps you only needed a few votes. jordan is not close.

there certainly is expectation to people i spoke to over the weekend that this isn't going to be his at the end of the day. give your take, whether jim jordan can, but if not him, who else can get the votes needed? >> he can't. it'd be suicide for those republican members who got elected in biden districts, you know, many of them here in new york, for example. the question is, where does it go? there's a guy named patrick mchenry who i worked for in the bush campaign, who is a very decent guy. he is well like on both sides of the aisle. democrats like him. there is discussions with the problem solvers caucus about expanding his role as speaker pro tem as a kind of temporary measure. i can see a road map where, at the end of the day, you know, all these bombers like jordan, it's never going to work, given how close the margin is. he can't ever get the votes at the end of the day. it'll have to be somebody like mchenry. >> jackie, these members are all up for re-election next year. how much conversation are they having about how much this damages their chances of holding

on to the house in 2024? >> yeah, katty, i think that, right now, that is the secondary conversation with so much currently right in front of them that urgently needs to get done. the government might shut down again on november 17th, i believe it is. they need get supplemental emergency aid package done for israel, potentially taiwan and ukraine, though those things are less popular among the gop conference. on the tails of this are concerns about what is going to happen in the 2024 election. mccarthy, obviously, the former house speaker who lost his position a few weeks ago has made that argument, that this puts house republicans in a really weak position going into 2024. he was the lead fundraiser. he made that very clear in his sort of scorched earth end of speakership press conference that house republicans are going

to suffer without his fundraising efforts. there's already a fear on top of the last midterm performance where house republicans were expected to have major gains and wins and only clinched the majority by a very few votes, which is obviously now what's hampering a lot of the action that they had promised, and that that's going to be even worse next time around. >> "the washington post"'s jackie alemany and political strategist mark mckinnon, thank you very much for being on this morning. >> can i ask mark one more question? >> a quick one. >> he has a cowboy hat on, and i don't want to let him go yet. >> okay. >> mark, you're out on the road with "the circus," all over the country talking to republicans and democrats. i'd like you just to report from the great outdoors and everywhere you go, east, west, north, south, about donald trump

and his continued hold on the republican party and the continued question that many democrats and independents have, is how can -- >> some republicans. >> -- a guy that is just so hateful, a guy who attacks our own allies, israel, at their lowest moment, a guy who continues to say wonderful things about groups like hezbollah, vladimir putin, and president xi, and steals nuclear secrets. i do that big windup just to say, just to ask the question, how do they continue to hold on to their support of such a man, especially a man who has lost every election for republicans since 2017? >> well, joe, the story of the race so far has been the extent to which donald trump has not only maintained support but grown in the face of all his legal challenges and everything else that's going on. in our show last night, what we

reported on last week was that the new factor is what's happening in israel and how the republican challenges are, for the first time, really going after donald trump now, because of what he said about our allies and our enemies. it's been very stable, but this is a new factor in the race. we watched over the course of the race, first mike pence attack, then desantis attack and, ultimately, nikki haley came. given her portfolio in the u.n., you know, they have really decided that this is the moment to make a break with trump on this critical issue facing the country. listen, it's a steep hill and a big rock, but this is changing the equation. >> okay. ahead, how the weekend's election results in poland could help ukraine in its fight against russia. >> it's a massive election. >> it's a big story in europe. plus, another live report from on the ground in israel. the latest on the war with hamas, as the possibility of a ground invasion looms.

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are the wars in israel and ukraine more than the united states can take on at the same time? >> we're the united states of america for god's sake. the most powerful nation in the history, not in the world, in the history of the world. the history of the world. we can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense. >> how do these wars in israel and ukraine relate to the safety of the american people? >> overwhelmingly, they relate. for example, in ukraine, one of my objectives was to prevent putin, who has committed war crimes himself, from being able to occupy an independent country

that borders nato allies and is on the russian border. imagine what happens now if he were able to succeed. have you ever known a major war in europe we didn't get sucked into? we don't want that to happen. we want the democracies to be sustained. ukraine is critical in making sure that happens. >> president biden speaking last night on "60 minutes" about the wars in israel and ukraine. international support for ukraine likely got a boost yesterday with poland's centrist and progressive parties appearing to have won enough votes in the weekend elections to form a coalition government and oust the country's current nationalist ruling party. the election drew over 70% of voters to the polls, which is the highest turnout in poland since the end of communist rule back in 1989.

joining us now, u.s. national editor at "the financial times," ed luce. and staff writer at "the atlantic," anne applebaum. good to have you both this morning. >> anne, let's begin with you. the exit polls suggest a winner for the centrist parties but, of course, the votes still being counted. the votes now do seem to be lining up with those exit polls. but explain, if you could, for people watching why this election was one of the most important european elections over the past decade. >> so in poland, we've had for the last eight years a nationalist conservative ruling party that was essentially trying to change the rules of polish democracy, change the legal system, change the judicial system, change the rules of elections to make sure that they would never lose, essentially. they turned state media, which is very important here, into a propaganda tube, spitting out

this very negative, harsh, angry smear campaigns against the democratic opposition. so the fact that a group of three polish parties, center, center left, center right, managed to win a majority against this kind of autocratic pop ou populist language is important for other parties in europe who will be fighting important elections over the next several years. you know, just because autocratic populists win doesn't mean they win forever. they can be defeated, and this is an important sign. regarding the war in ukraine, it matters because the ruling party, in a bid to win over a kind of fringe nationalist vote, it began using anti-ukrainian language, very negative language about ukraine over the last couple months, despite having supported them prior to that. a new coalition, led by the

centrist opposition, will realign itself with ukraine and continue to fight for ukraine, and i hope, eventually, help bring ukraine into european institutions. >> ed, there has been a battle in the middle of europe for some time now, led by orban and hungary. there has been a battle between autocratic populism and western democracy. anybody that doesn't believe that, just listen to what orban himself has said. he hates liberal democracy. he calls himself an illiberal democracy, calls hungary an illiberal democracy. poland, obviously, so much more significant for so many more reasons. talk about how important this election is and if, in fact, tusk ends up running the country, what that means for western democracy. i don't mean to overstate it, but i don't think i can overstate it. >> no, you're not overstating

it. i mean, poland is, by far, the most important of the former eastern bloc countries. it's the largest. it is four times the size of hungary. if the law and justice party had been re-elected, as anne pointed out, if they'd been re-elected, this would have been probably the last relatively free and fair election in poland's democratic history. i think that's why you've had a surge in turnout. the polish voters realized what was at stake. this was the orban moment. they've closed down independent judiciaries, snuffed out independent media, used state companies to broadcast law and justice propaganda. it was not a level playing field. the fact that the opposition parties could have won on a playing field very steeply tilted against them shows just how much the polish electorate realizes what was at stake.

this, i think, isn't just a big moment for poland. it is a huge moment for poland. it is a huge moment for europe, as well. europe has been withholding billions and billions, 35 billion euros of aid to poland because it's been breaking all the rules of the club by packing the courts, by closing down independent media. that money will now be, once a new government is in place under donald tursk, which looks like will happen, that money will be released. poland will cease to question the enormous number of ukrainian refugees it's taken in. it's played an extraordinary role. they'll again feel welcome, because their status had been coming into question during this campaign. >> right. >> we'll get a front line state that believes in the democracy it claims it is fighting for. >> anne, watching from this said

of the atlantic, americans see the far right doing well in germany, doing well in france, doing well in italy over the course of the last couple of years. what should be the canary in the coal mine in europe more broadly? is it what happened in poland or slovakia a couple weeks ago where a pro-russia, far-right party did very well? >> this is not a contest that is going to end following one election in poland or one election in slovakia or even an election in germany or france. there is now a permanent competition in europe between parties of the center right and center left who want to keep institutions together, maintain democracy inside of their own countries, who believe in a transatlantic community, and parties who don't. this is now the dividing line in european politics.

pretty much every election from now on will feature that argument and that set of arguments. the polish win is very important because, in poland, the far right essentially already captured the state. as ed just said, they were using state money, you know, taxpayers' money to run and pay for their enormously expensive election campaign. they fiddled the laws to gerrymander the system. nevertheless, the opposition proved it's still possible to win. that will inspire a lot of others, i believe. >> ed, we talked about the impact of this around the world, but what about locally in poland, for the polish people. how does this impact women's rights, lgbtq, and other communities that have felt, a very least, excluded? >> it's a great question. i think anne is in a better place to answer, but poland, the law and justice party passed the most strict anti-abortion law, i

think, in all of europe. the anti-lgbtq cord nan ordinan have come into place over europe have been the most draconian and reactionary in europe. one assumes all of these are going to be rolled back by the coming coalition government. but, you know, a lot of the meat being put in place at the local level in smaller towns, in the areas of strength and support for the law and justice party, so some might stay in place. it is, as anne points out, an ongoing battle. we shouldn't forget that even though the coalition parties have won this election, by the looks of it, the law and justice party is still the largest single party. it's still got 36% of the vote. it represents a very potent force in poland. >> yeah. they're still there. >> also, if you look at the exit polls, interestingly enough, the

party that was the most far right, that we profiled on friday, that was supposed to do much better did not do well at all. underperformed. >> interesting. >> also, before we go, there are the social issues and also the economic issues. the fact is, polish leaders have been fighting europe over the past decade. if, in fact, tusk is the leader, steps in and is the leader of poland, the integration into europe, the integration into the eu, the money which they are going to be able to access, the support they're going to be able to access is going to be remarkable, a remarkable transformation for that country after -- >> what incredible potential. >> -- a decade of fighting europe. >> ed luce of "the financial times" and anne applebaum, thank

you. i know what my brother is going to be doing at the embassy. idf spokesman says there are currently 199 people who are being held hostage by hamas in the gaza strip. >> the news comes as israel's military continues to gather near the israel-gaza border ahead of the anticipated ground invasion. and the united states is sending a secondary craft carrier to the mediterranean in hopes of preventing further escalation in the region. meanwhile, documents found on the bodies of hamas terrorists show the group intentionally targeted elementary schools and a youth center in its attack on israel. in detailed maps and pclusivelyc news, the agenda was to kill as many as possible, siege house

hostages, and quickly move them to gaza. the documents list the names of specific schools with different combat units assigned to each one, according to two sources. these plans are part of a trove of documents now being analyzed by israeli officials. joining us from tel-aviv, israel, senior national correspondent for nbc news, jay gray. jay, what's the latest there? >> reporter: yeah, mika, let's give you an outline of what it is line on the ground now. the last 30, 35 minutes, we've heard the iron dome doing its job, diverting potential attacks here. we're in an open air market in downtown tel-aviv. you can see, it is empty. a lot of the shops aren't open. those that are, like this shirt printer, supporting the defense forces. take a look down the way. this is usually teeming with families, especially in the early afternoon here in tel-aviv. you can barely walk around now where it is not wide open.

vendors doing a slight business here. what i can tell you is, we continue to see military choppers in the skies over tell tel-aviv and making their runs there. a lot of the focus for a lot of those here, clearly with this place being empty, there is an uneasy tension, it's what is going on at the rafa boardrafah crossing. large crowds not going either way. you've been talking about that. secretary blinken trying to work the diplomatic angles of that, but there's been no movement either way on that. they are also talking in this city about the potential for the ground movement and when that may happen and what it will be like. a lot of people very concerned that israeli soldiers will be put in harm's way as they move in to do a job that most here believe they have to do. it is something they have decided that they're going to

do. they're still uncertain about when and very anxious for that process to begin, mika. >> nbc's jay gray, thank you very much for the latest reporting out of israel. mike barnicle, i want to follow up on mika's reporting, what we've seen over the weekend. you actually had hamas specifically targeting elementary schools and young children with the instructions to kill as many young children as possible. they, of course, video taped that and so many other horrors. we've also heard politicians talk about how hamas is, quote, worse than isis. seeing these reports reminded me of a moment in, i believe it was probably 2007/2008, when osama bin laden actually, we found out that he and his top lieutenant

was sending messages to the leader of al qaeda in iraq, zarqawi, and saying, "stop targeting the civilians in jordanian weddings. stop being so savage. you are hurting the cause." of course, that's rich, of course, coming from osama bin laden. but what hamas has done actually is on a larger scale, more grotesque, more inhumane than even what zarqawi was doing that caused the condemnation of osama bin laden. those words about hamas being worse than isis, worse than al qaeda in iraq, i mean, they ring true. this is a savagery unlike any i think any of us have seen. >> you know, joe, wait until the

world gets the information on all of the autopsy reports now being conducted in israel on the victims of last week's invasion of israel but from gaza. those autopsy reports will tell the tale and tell the truth of exactly what you just said. hamas is worse than isis. their behavior has been worse than isis. unfortunately, going forward, we'll hear a lot about proportion, let's be proportional in the israel's invasion of the gaza strip when it occurs. let's be proportional. in other words, let's not kill too many people. it's amazing how we think this is a movie. as a culture, war is movie that you can move and stop whenever you want, that the chaos of war doesn't exist. that the random violence of war existing every second of every day you're in the theater of war

doesn't exist. it'll be interesting going forward. but your original point about hamas is absolutely correct. the world will eventually, quickly, i think, sooner rather than later, find out exactly what a truly evil, evil menace hamas is. they are not soldiers, they're terrorists. >> they're not soldiers, not freedom fighters, not moving for the palestinian people, moving toward their own two-state solution with israel. they are talking about killing jews and doing it in the most savage, savage of ways. jonathan lemire, israelis and supporters of israel over the weekend have pushed back, basically echoing what mike barnicle was saying there, saying, you know, nobody was talking about peace and

restraint on september the 12th. nobody was talking about that after pearl harbor. nobody was talking about that when america -- you americans weren't talking about that when you were at war with germany, when you were dropping boms and killing civilians there. or firebombing tokyo and killing more people there than were killed in hiroshima or nagasaki. the fact is, the united states of america was focused, and there was a deadly focus on destroying adolph hitler's regime and destroying japan's regime, just like they were focused on destroying al qaeda and took some tragic, tragic wrong turns, obviously, after 9/11. but the israelis have been very clear. they don't want to hear from us, talking about, hey, you need to show restraint. now is the time to talk about

peace, after their children were slaughtered, their babies were burned alive. as mike said, this is not a hollywood movie. this now is moving to an operation to uproot and destroy a terrorist organization that is far worse than isis ever was. >> and everything you said is right about the historic analogies, about restraint not being shown, rightly not being shown in other moments of war like this. but for the biden administration, it has to be said, they are trying to thread a needle here. there's no doubt. we heard from the president last night on "60 minutes," and he's been saying it more than a week now, israel absolutely has the right to hit back. they have the right to hunt down hamas terrorists. they have the right to enact some vengeance for the atrocities. they grow more horrifying the more we learn about them by the day. that said, we also heard -- >> sorry, go on. >> we also heard from the president, though, issue a warning. they don't think israel should

occupy gaza. behind the scenes, secretary blinken, secretary of defense austin, urged the israeli government to show restraint, to be careful when they go in there, to try to limit civilian casualties and the like, in part for just pure humanitarian reasons, saying these are civilians and they don't have a piece of this fight, but also because of the fear of what could escalate, the escalation that could come, pretense to expand the war. it is a tricky matter for the biden administration. >> it is an extraordinarily difficult situation. hezbollah could come in. iran could come in. we could have a regional war. it's the last thing we want. it is the last thing we want. we want to be -- we want to see israel move forward as cautiously as possible. at the same time, israel is going to move forward, and they're going to do what they can to destroy hamas. unfortunately, they're going to have to do it in an area where hamas leaders are telling

civilians, "don't leave. stay in the war zone." they're saying this, of course, while holding press conferences at four season hotels in other countries. they're also saying they don't want the humanitarian corridor opened up into egypt. they're telling people, don't leave with your families. don't go to egypt to be safe. stay in the war zone. the reason why, we've been saying it all along, for hamas, for hamas, an organization, a terrorist organization that targeted little babies, that burned them alive, that targeted elementary schools, that killed grandmothers, that killed children in front of their parents and killed parents in front of their children, for hamas, when an israel dies, that's a win. for hamas, when a palestinian dies, that's a win. this is who israel is having to fight against. let me just say one other thing,

too. we have been critical, and i at times have been critical over the past 15 years, about israel not doing more to move toward peace. we have seen the face of hamas. we've always known hamas is a terrorist organization, but we've seen the face of hamas. they've revealed themselves, and they've shown exactly why israelis knew there was no peace treaty to be had with a terrorist organization whose founding documents say their focus is on killing jews. that's exactly what they're doing. >> it's why the conversation around israel's response, the concern about a wider war, it can be a perilous one. but david ignatius really puts it into words quite well. he has a piece out this morning in "the washington post" entitled, "a war that must be waged with an eye toward what comes after." david writes in part, prime minister benjamin netanyahu must be wise to wage war in a way

that allows for stable peace after his adversary's defeat. if he waits until the conflict is over to think about the day after, it might be too late. and if he conducts a war that punishes palestinian civilians rather than hamas, he might lose global support and undermine his mission. netanyahu has one wild card that, if he plays it well, could reorder the middle east. that is the growing willingness of saudi arabia, the dominant arab power, to form an open partnership with israel, so long as israel seeks a stable and lasting peace with the palestinians. >> katty kay, there's so much that is important in david's op-ed in "the washington post" this morning. you can speak especially to the view from europe and what you've

seen through the years, and how important it is that netanyahu understands that the europeans are being more supportive of israel than they probably have over the past 20, 30 years. that is tenuous and something that must be tended to as this operation in gaza moves forward. >> so the reason that you've got the u.s. administration now trying to urge some kind of restraint, to try to limit civilian casualties, is because those images of civilian casualties are already being beamed not just around the middle east but around europe, as well. europe has been very supportive of israel, more so than i can really remember in living memory. they've really come out in favor of israel, and in the uk, as well, over the last week. the u.s. administration understands this, if you start

seeing pictures of babies in gaza and children in gaza being killed -- you know, we've already had reports of hundreds of children being killed in gaza over the last week -- that starts to fray that support. if the aim is to try to keep support together for israel, then those kind of images are not helping. i'm already following more pro palestinian social media activists in the middle east to get a sense of what they are seeing. the picture they are seeing is very different. the language they are using is very different. they're very much focused on the fact there have been hundreds of babies killed in gaza. they're not talking so much about the babies and the children who may have been killed and are being killed in israel. it's a question of balancing these incredibly complex and fraught, at the moment, realities, in order to try to get to some kind of long-term strategic goal which resembles a

peace that both sides can live with. >> let's bring in former tel-aviv bureau chief for nbc, martin fletcher. we've appreciated your analysis. are we missing anything? fill in the blanks from this conversation about the complications for israel and the u.s. moving forward, and what is the latest as far as you know? >> also, martin, please, if you can, also weigh in on the so-called war plans we found, where hamas intentionally targeted children and elementary schools. >> yeah, let me start with that, joe. you know, the fury with which israel is reacting to the discovery, to the atrocities of hamas, and now finding out that, actually, it was all planned in advance, it raises this question of, to what extent are these islamic resistance organizations? let's remember one thing, they emphasize bin laden, zarqawi,

they emphasize, they are islamic resistance organizations. at the same time, they're committing these appalling atrocities against civilians. and at the same time, islam is always put forward as a religion of peace. there is in contradiction. what i'd like to hear is from the arab governments, arab states, saying and also condemning very loudly these atrocities. we're not hearing much from the arab governments because, of course, they're worried about the reaction from their citizens. that's something i would like to see. you know, what is the response of arab states to islamic organizations that are committing atrocities? we're not seeing that. the other question, i think, we'll be talking about right now, is israel still has the moral high ground, but it is going to change as we've been talking about just now. they're going to lose the moral high ground. they know that. as a matter of fact, i was actually called by a group of

israeli citizens yesterday, last night, who, separate from the government, want to form a kind of public relations organization, if you'd like, in order to continue to press this issue that israel is the victim of atrocities. they don't want to commit atrocities, even though they know that's what's going to happen as they continue their push into gaza. so this comparison of israeli babies beheaded and killed and kidnapped even from their parents, versus pictures, coming pictures from the invasion of -- the presumed invasion of gaza of palestinian babies. they don't want this to be a war of the babies. they want people to understand that israel is continuing and responding in a way that was forced upon it. you know, moral high ground israel has now, it's a slippery slope. they're going to lose it as the pictures start changing, and they know that. >> martin, when you were with us on friday, you pointed out to us

that there's a reason why saudi arabia, egypt, united arab emirates, bahrain, qatar, have played very little role in saying, we will take on palestinian refugees. we'll take some people. we will lighten the load here. they have not done that. you pointed out, basically, that the palestinians are somewhat abhorrent to many other arab leaders. but today, i'd like you to explain to people, there's been a lot of talk, obviously, over the last seven or eight, nine days, that the plight of the palestinians in gaza is horrendous. everybody agrees, it's horrendous. everybody agrees, it's an outdoor prison from top to bottom. could you go over who has ruled gaza at least since 2007, who has been the dominant force, the governing force? obviously, if you're the governing force, you're supposed to help your people.

who has been the governing force? >> well, obviously, hamas. the money they've been receiving, to a large extent, from the world, qatar is giving them $10 million a month, so they're getting all kinds of aid from the european union and other sources. what's happening to the money? the misery people are living in hasn't changed. i've been going to gaza, you know, dozens of times, and it doesn't change. where's the money going? it's building tunnels. very sophisticated tunnels with concrete and wood. i've been in some of them, wooden supports, cables, communications, very sophisticated. the weapons israel just discovered inside israel was enough to equip several brigades. they were planning an occupation of israel. israelis know that now. that's where the money has been going, building up weapons of war. hamas, the dominant power, has been focused more on fighting

israel than helping its people. that's clear. i'd like to point out one thing that occurred to me this morning on the way here in the cab. today, the situation we're seeing in gaza is hundreds of thousands of palestinians being chased away from the north because of israel's warning of them of the war to come. nowhere to go. no country, nowhere to hide. no countries want to accept them. half a million people knowing the possible death awaits them. what does that remind you of? reminds me of 1939/1940 of the jews in germany in the exact same situation. nobody wanted them, had nowhere to go, no countries would accept them. death awaited them. in their case, 6 million ended up dying, of course, in europe. if anybody should understand the situation, it is a strong parallel. palestinians today, jews in 1939 and 1940, same situation. >> wow. >> it's this unending wheel of

tragedy, which is so nauseating and depressing. >> former nbc news tel-aviv bureau chief, martin fletcher, thank you very much for coming on with your analysis. joining us now, senior adviser to israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu, mark regev. thank you for coming on the show. i think we'll start there, about the civilians that are being warned to leave, maybe alerting to the ground invasion starting. but where are they to go? that is the big question for many of them. >> good morning. of course, we want to see minimal civilian casual tis. unfortunately, every war in modern history has civilian casualties, and there will, unfortunately, be some. we don't target civilians, and we make an effort to get civilians out of the way. we asked palestinians in the

gaza strip where we know there will be intensive fighting, that's where hamas has their underground tunnels, where they launch their missiles, where they have their command and control, where they have their arms depot, all buried underground, under civilian neighborhoods. we've asked them to relocate south. i can tell you, they have done so in their hundreds of thousands, and that's good. i understand it is difficult for people to move, but it is better that they move than they are in harm's way and caught up in the crossfire between us and hamas. what i find astounding, and it conflicts the narrative that is out there, that, actually, israel is taking efforts. we're supposedly the enemies of the palestinians, yes, but we're making an effort to save palestinian lives, while hamas, which claims to speak for the palestinians is, in fact, preventing people from leaving. telling people not to leave. those who are leaving, roadblocks are being put up to prevent them moving south. by moving south, they are

getting out of a combat zone. that is common sense. just as people fled violence in other conflicts, whether in syria or the ukraine. fleeing a conflict zone is the most natural and normal thing to do, and we urge them to do so before the fighting gets off. it is going to get serious very soon. they should be out of the way. >> there are many conflicting reports out of the region. there have been many conflicting claims. there are a few things that we just, for our viewers, we need to establish as fact. one is, hamas is hidden among civilians for 15 years. two, hamas leaders, while holding press conferences at four season hotels in other countries, are telling the palestinians to stay there while the israelis are asking them to evacuate for their own safety. i must say, the third thing is arab countries put out a great

press release about supporting palestinians but do absolutely nothing in their time of need. that is what i'd like to ask you about next, sir. that is, egypt. the united states has been pressing egypt to open the border with gaza so families can get out. they can be safe. can you give us any update on what you're hearing? will the egyptians and will other arab countries do more than just put out press releases saying how much they care about the palestinians and then do nothing about it, or will they actually allow some families to move out while the fighting is going on? >> as you correctly said, this is one of the issues on the table. your secretary of state, antony blinken, was just in egypt. he's now meeting in jerusalem with my prime minister. it'll be interesting to see what we hear, what he heard in egypt. but can i take on something -- talk about something you spoke

about earlier? you said hamas is worse than isis. that's true, they are. the question is, why are they worse than isis? because like isis, hamas has the crazy, murderous, extremist ideology, yes? they murder the innocent, rape women, terrible things. i saw pictures of children gunned with multiple bullet holes in their bodies because they were just slaughtered. that's without talking about the abducting of innocent people and taking them back to gaza and holding them in some dark dungeon. but why is hamas so dangerous? this is the important difference from isis. isis didn't have a state sponsor. the international community united and destroyed isis' territorial caliphate, whether it was in syria or iraq. why is hamas so strong? because it has a state sponsor, and that state sponsor is iran.

hamas receives some 93% of its budget from iran. it gets weapons from iran. it gets training from iran. it gets other support from iran. funding weapons, everything. without iranian support, hamas wouldn't be the power it is today. now, we will defeat hamas. we will win this. we didn't want this war. they started it, and we'll finish it, finish it on our terms. we have no illusions about what danger hamas poses, and we will fight to win this. my young daughter was on holiday in europe. she raced back from europe to join up with her army unit. she is a reserve officer in the idf. she's down south. she and thousands, tens of thousands of young israelis have volunteered for duty. this country is in a moment of unity. we understand there is a threat. we understand that threat has to be defeated.

hamas, we will dismantle its military machine. we'll dismantle its political control over gaza. we will not go back to a situation where we live next to a neighbor controlled -- a territory controlled by an isis-type group that butchers our people. no country should have to tolerate that. israel definitely won't. >> no country would tolerate that. it's fascinating that people lecture israel, telling them what they can and cannot do, when they have an isis-type state living next to them. senior adviser to israel prime minister benjamin netanyahu, mark regev, greatly appreciate it. thank you so much. >> thank you. mike barnicle, i want to talk for a second about just a little sidebar here. mr. regev talked about his daughter coming back to fight, to defend the country. that reminded me of young women, young men on college campuses across the united states.

we have seen controversy it is that have erupted at penn, at upenn, harvard. >> meltdowns. >> at other elite institutions, where, for some reason, it has taken leaders of those institutions a very long time to call out hatred and to call terrorism terrorism. i will say, even more unfortunate is the fact that on college campuses across america, college campuses across america, jewish students do not feel safe. signs and banners are hung across college campuses in america that talk about how the attacks, the terrorism agains jews by hamas was justified. signs and banners saying things like, "this is what decolonization looks like." signs and banners that whip up

frenzy and a hatred against jews. i've got to say, there has to be a better balance of free speech and the protection of jews, young jewish -- i say children, because for you and me, they are children, mike. young students on college campuses. right now, make no mistake of it, make no mistake of it, jews on college campuses, especially elite college campuses across america, do not feel safe. i want to know what university presidents and what the boards are going to do about that. >> you know, joe, you just used a phrase that is very, very interesting to me, and i think more than a few others. elite college campuses. it's kind of a class thing when you think about it, what's been going on for the past nine or

ten days. this criticism of israel largely from elite college campuses, as you just indicated. i would bet that if you went to a community college in greater boston, new york, any urban area, a community college, where people are from low or moderate income families, where they work hard to pay the annual tuition, actually they pay it by credit hour to get a college education, and sometimes the college education results in a degree after five or six years because they all work part time. they come from homes and neighborhoods that are truly inclusive, not separate, not gated communities, not rich people's homes, you know, in the suburbs and stuff like that. places where i live, places not like that. it also leads to something else about this country's feelings to understand the plight of one specific group of people. not israelis, jews. people who wake up each morning

in a country, israel, where they could die that day for being jewish. only for being jewish. don't that i don't understand, a lot of young people in this country don't understand the complexity of that situation, the complexity and the simplicity of it. i think it's because, in this country, we fail to do one critical thing that i think would transform the nation overnight, have universal service for young people. you know, you don't -- >> amen. >> everybody doesn't have to go to college. take a year off. meet other people of religions, other young people just like you, people of color, muslims, arabs, whatever. meet them. leave your restricted community of the mind as well as your physical restricted community and meet other people, get to know them. >> mike, it is so fascinating that you said that. >> absolutely. >> this weekend, as i was thinking through this and thinking through just how

isolated and how sheltered people are from each other -- >> and what ails our kids. >> -- and those on elite college campuses, also what ails our kids, i was thinking the same thing. a year of universal service, whether it is in the military, whether it is teaching, whatever it is. >> yes. >> i'm telling ya, i think a lot of americans would support a year after high school, a year of universal service for this country. it is crazy, also, on these college campuses, mika, terrorism is terrorism. >> i know, is terrorism. >> the fact that you've had leaders of the top universities in this country -- >> take a beat. >> -- take a beat, i mean, it's taken some two or three different statements to finally get around to the fact that these are terrorists.

it shows you a real breakdown and a real problem with our educational system. we need to get to our next guest. national security council coordinator for strategic communications at the white house, retired rear admiral john kirby. admiral, why don't we start with, we haven't talked about it in a bit here, the hostages and the complicating factors here of trying to get them out alive, and some of the strategies we know hamas might be using to use these people in their warfare. >> we, unfortunately, don't have a whole lot more information this morning, mika, about where they are, what kind of groups they might be in, whether they're being moved around. we don't even know the full total hostage pool, certainly for americans. we think a small number of americans are in that group, but it could rise. we still have some 15 unaccounted for americans. we don't know where they are. it's entirely possible some of them could be also being held

hostage. we're working very, very hard. you saw secretary blinken working hard, trying to get as much information as we can, so we can get effective policy solutions to get them home with their families where they belong. >> admiral, we've been talking this morning about the fact a lot of arab countries will put out great press releases, talking about how much they support civilians of palestine, then they don't do a damn thing for them. bluntly, the leaders hold the palestinian people, and certainly hamas, in contempt. that being said, there is a massive humanitarianbuilding ri. i know that secretary blinken and the entire administration is working hard to get egypt to open up their border, to have a humanitarian corridor, so those palestinians can get out with their families, with, of course,

the right to return, the guaranteed right to return. nobody is talking about emptying out gaza. but while the fighting is going on, for them to go out with their families and be safe until they can again return and rebuild their lives. what can you tell us about our ongoing talks with egypt, to please open up that humanitarian corridor? >> why wouldn't they? >> you saw secretary blinken was in egypt yesterday working on this very, very hard and very directly, very candidly with our egyptian counterparts. you're absolutely right. the humanitarian situation in gaza is getting worse by the day, if not by the hour. there are thousands and thousands of people now that have left the north part of gaza and are trying to get down south to the rafah gate. we want them to get out. as you said, joe, we want to make sure, and this is the other thing that secretary blinken is working on, making sure humanitarian assistance can get in. not everybody is going to want to leave. we have to make sure food,

water, medicine, all that stuff can get in. we are working on this very, very hard. i wish i had better results to talk to you guys about today, but we're still really hard at work on it. >> admiral, good morning. it's jonathan lemire. news from your colleagues there, president biden was slated to travel to colorado today. the white house saying the trip is off. he'll remain at the white house to monitor national security meetings. there has been speculation he may be planning a trip to israel in the coming days. please give us an update on that. moreover, we heard from the president last night on "60 minutes" say that he doesn't believe israel should occupy gaza at the end of this coming conflict. has that message been communicated to netanyahu, and what's the response? >> i won't talk about our private conversations with the prime minister. we talk about all manner of issues with respect to this war against hamas that they're conducting. you know, president biden is not afraid to be candid and forthright with netanyahu. they've known each other a long time, don't agree on everything.

he never shies away from speaking his mind. on travel, i just don't have any announcements to speak to today in terms of travel. we're obviously staying laser focused on this war against hamas. that's why secretary blinken is still in the region. he is going to israel today to talk once again to our israeli counterparts about the conversations he's been having, to joe's point, in the arab world there in the middle east. we'll just, you know, stay focused on this. the president will be staying home here at the white house today to focus on national security issues. he'll be meeting with his national security team. obviously, this will be the top of the agenda of those discussions. >> john, do you know how many americans are stuck inside gaza? what are you doing to ensure their safety and, if possible, get them out? >> we want to get them out. absolutely want to get them out, but the only way to really do that is through the rafah gate in the south, which is another reason secretary blinken has been working on this very, very hard. i don't know we have a very

specific fingertip feel of exactly what the number is, but it is clearly in the hundreds at least. again, we're working at this. it's not just the americans, katty. it is also so many other people that live there, of foreign nationality and also palestinians, who want to get away from the fighting. hamas is literally, and i heard your guest previously, they are literally throwing up roadblocks. egypt, certainly, we have to work to get the gate open, but hamas is making that travel to the south much, much harder. >> i can imagine. retired rear admiral john kirby, thank you so much for updating us. we'll see you soon. still ahead right here on "morning joe," new york city mayor eric adams will join us. we'll talk with him about the moving message he delivered to new yorkers in the wake of the hamas atrocities. "morning joe" will be right back. right back >> the new york city police department is going to fulfill

their obligation here in the city of new york. no one does it better. we will ensure that, readregard of the hateful terminologies that are used through social media and other methods and those lone wolves that are being radicalized, we will do our job, seek them out, apprehend, and protect the people of this city in general, but, specifically, our jewish residents and jewish community.

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it's a moment i'll never forget, hearing the gunfire. we looked at each other, and we had the same look of -- >> they're here. >> -- they're here. >> we heard the arabic, they're here. >> they were that close? >> at first, it was from the fields of the kibbutz, then you heard it in the neighborhood. they heard it outside our window. i realized nobody is going to come, and i called my father. i said, "this is the situation.

you know, the terrorists, maybe they're inside the house, maybe they're outside, we're not sure. all over the kibbutz, people are trying for help." ahead, there is a military jeep ambushed by hamas, and several soldiers are killed, injured. my father and this brave soldier who joined in get out of the car and start fighting. >> what? >> joined the fire fight. hear my father's voice. he says something like, "open, open." galia, our older daughter, says -- "grandfather is here." that's the first time we started crying. >> where were the police? where was the military? why did a grandfather have to go to rescue you? >> that's a very good question, leslie. i hope all of israel is asking this question. >> it is the biggest failure in the history of the state of

israel. civilians by the hundreds being massacred by terrorists, and nobody came. >> that was a member of an israeli family living near the gaza border, sharing their story of survival after hamas began its attack on the small kibbutz where they live. ameer described to "60 minutes" how he called his father, a retired israeli military officer who came to help rescue him, his wife, their two young children, caught in the middle of the terrorists' murderous rampage. they got out alive barely. joining us now, alanna cishek, six members of her family in israel, including twin 3-year-olds were kidnapped from their kibbutz by hamas and are now believed to be hostages in gaza. alanna, thank you for coming on and sharing your story. >> thank you for having me. >> what is the latest that you

know about the whereabouts of your family? who in your family has been taken? how were they taken? what is the latest you can tell us about them? >> sure. so the latest we know is they're alive in gaza. that's what the idf commuicated to the immediate family. i have six family members missing or hostages. my cousin and her husband, daveed, and their twin girls, emma and julie, 3, they live in kibbutz near oz. her sister was visiting them for the weekend with her 5-year-old amelia. all six were in the kibbutz sleeping. woke up to a red alert, which is what we know is business as usual down by where they live near gaza. that happens all the time when the rockets are going off, and the iron dome is intercepting them. they ran to their bomb shelter,

as they do. then they began, as the hours progressed, to realize it was very different. they were in contact with my aunt and uncle and their brother the whole time. we discovered that they started to hear people in the neighbor's house. the homes began burning. smoke began filling into their house and into the bomb shelter. my cousin sent a voicemail to my aunt about the smoke, and she said, "i don't think we're going to make it. we love you." that was the last we heard from them. >> was there any word of israeli police coming onto the scene or anything, or was it just -- >> it took hours, from what i know. daveed, his family also lived in the kibbutz, and they're the ones who confirmed that the house was empty and they weren't there. this was after several hours of

us just waiting and waiting for news. i think they had quite a few hours, like hamas had hours to ravage the kibbutz. the kibbutz had 400 residents. now, it has, what we know of, 160 remaining. >> national security expert on our show earlier described this situation with the hostages as dire. the helplessness must be unimaginable, impossible to live with. i guess i ask you, what is your message to your family's captors, to the united states, to israel? >> i don't think there can be a message to the captors. the captorscaptors. the captors are evil, so they're not going to listen to me. my message is really to my community here in america and the israelis, i feel that we need to come together more than ever. this is a crisis against humanity, and this is not a time -- i spoke at the u.n. on

friday. i said, this is not a time for discourse, and i know this is your job, discourse and debate, but i don't think among the people it's the time. we have to come together, free the people from hamas, we have to bring my family back, bring all of the hostages back. that should be our number one focus. >> alana, take us to a week ago saturday morning, an average american saturday morning especially in brooklyn. >> mm-hmm. >> what happened to you? >> i woke up and saw the news and knew it was different instantly. i started crying hysterically. i usually would see the rockets, but i knew something was different. i waited hours and hours and hours. you know there's a time difference and there's going to be a delay only some sort. my brother came over and we sat around waiting. i thought, okay, it's fine, they're going to be fine and they'll get out. my mom called me and wailed they're missing, they're gone,

they're gob. i don't know. i fell to my knees. there are no words to describe. this is a trauma i could have never been prepared for. >> alana, you said that the israeli defense forces say they believe your family is alive, but they haven't said how. what do you -- beyond obviously their release, what do you hope can happen now? what do you want to see from the is rah i will government and the united states government. what do you want them to do to help your family and famiies like yours who have family members missing? >> first of all, have a conversation with us. i think because my family is israeli, not americans, i am american and this is my family. i need to get them back. we need to get them back. so i want to have a conversation. that's what i would say to start. i'm just a person who loves her family very deeply and will do anything, anything for them to get them back. so i just want to have a

conversation. >> alana, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. >> thank you for having me. >> thank you. >> thank you. and we'll be right back with much more on "morning joe." th much more on "morning joe.

a couple of other stories we're tracking today. the trial with donald trump and michael cohen that was expected this week was delayed. former president donald trump was expected to attend michael cohen's $250 million civil trial fraud. that testimony has now been delayed because of a health-related official. cohen told nbc news he will reschedule. it's unclear whether trump will still attend trial this week. he's scheduled to be in new york for a deposition in a separate indicate. meanwhile the judge overseeing trump's federal election obstruction case in

washington will hold a hearing today on potentially issuing a gag order. "the washington post" reports prosecutors requested the gag. they worry the former president's inflammatory comments could prejudice potential jurors or intimidate witnesses. trump's team has argued that a gag order would violate his constitutional rights to freedom of speech, particularly as he is, again, running for president. the judge could issue a ruling as early as today. and the judge in rudy giuliani's defamation case is punishing the former trump lawyer. the judge said friday she will tell jurors that you any intentionally hid financial documents, the jury ruling how much giuliani should pay to election workers he defamed will be told they can assume the worst about why the former new york city mayor has failed to

turn over his financial records. the defamation suit was brought against giuliani by ruby freeman and her daughter shay moss. rudy giuliani made false claims about them following the 2020 election that led to both women receiving death threats. coming up, nbc's richard a engel will bring us the latest from the is rawle i gaza border. more on the defense forces. "morning joe" is coming back in just 90 seconds. coming back in just 90 seconds.

there's limited fighting already on the israeli border, and i wonder what is your message to hezbollah and its backer iran. >> don't. don't, don't, don't. >> don't come across the border. don't escalate this war. >> that's right. >> is iran behind the gaza war? >> i don't want to get into classified information, but to be very blunt with you, there's no clear evidence of that. >> president biden yesterday on "60 minutes" doubling down on a warning against the middle east. it comes as iran is coming on as a threat. secretary of state antony blinken back in israel this morning to continue diplomatic talks after a weekend of meetings with leaders in the middle east. meanwhile in gaza, palestinian civilians are in dire need of humanitarian aid. we'll go live to israel/gaza

border in just a minute. also the speaker's race here at home, the republicans have a nominee, but once again they do not have the needed support to win, and there's so much news on this monday morning. >> there really is. probably the most important election in europe. >> oh, my gosh. >> over the past decade. >> poland. >> i don't think that's an overstatement. in poland. right now it looks like the pro west, pro-european party -- our coalition is coming from behind. it will probably overtake the law and justice party, but we shall see. it's going to be very close there. >> yeah, big moves. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, october 16th. with us we have the host of "way too early" white house chief

jonathan lemire, business news katty kay, and former cia and defense correspondent jeremy bash. anthony plinken told reporters egypt will reopen its border. the humanitarian crisis there continues to grow. according to the u.n., hospitals in gaza are expected to run out of generator fuel within 24 hours. this as the territory's 2.3 million people do not have access to clean running water and are nearly out of food and medical supplies. 600,000 palestinians have been displaced from gaza so far after leaving the northern part of the area in the wake of friday's evacuation order by israel. the israel defense forces say hamas is preventing some of those people from leaving and that many are getting stuck in

traffic caused by the terror group's roadblocks. >> let's go to the israel/gaza border. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel. richard, of course, the humanitarian crisis continues to grow there. there is some word that egypt reluctantly is going to open that border, their border with gaza. get us up to date on that and everything else that's developing this morning. >> reporter: so good morning. there's still considerable confusion about the rafah border crossing, which is the border crossing between egypt and the gaza strip. and there is, according to u.s. officials and egyptian officials, a deal. the deal is supposed to have begun already, but it hasn't been implemented. the border crossing for right now is still closed. there are hundreds of families,

including palestinian americans, who are waiting at that border crossing on the gaza side. they thought they were going to be going through today, but it hasn't happened yet. and on the other side, on the egyptian side of the border, there's humanitarian aid sitting there, food and water that's supposed to go in. the people who are on the border, we've been speaking to some of them this morning, they're tired, anxious, frustrated, because this has been going on for days where they've been sitting in gaza in the heat waiting to try to get out, complicated, it seems like, by bureaucratic issues in a fight, in a diplomatic misunderstanding. here in israel, some developments this morning. this area where i am right now, which is in southern israel, not far from the gaza strip -- that's gaza city behind me -- this area has been declared a closed military area, so civilians have been encouraged, sometimes forced to evacuate so

that the military can operate here and to prevent -- protect civilians in case hamas fires mortars, short-range rockets, and it has been doing that. the latest development in the last couple of hours, israel has announced they'll evacuate northern communities in northern israel as well along the lebanese border. so you're going to have quite soon two parts of this country, the northern border and the southern border both declared closed military zones out of fear that hamas could be firing rockets or firing even more rockets and artillery from the gaza strip and that hezbollah in the north could intensify its barrages. this morning israel updated the number of hostages that it says hamas captured in its wake. initially there was a lot of confusion. these numbers have been moving. if you remember in the early days we talked about 50 and then

120 and then 150. now israel says that 199 people were taken by hamas into gaza. >> richard, could you help us with an explanation on egypt and other arab countries? i've had a lot of people ask me over the weekend why the arab countries that will profess their dedication to the palestinian cause are so reluctant to let them in. egypt's at the top of that list, of course, for a number of reasons, but we've seen it over the past decade. other arab countries growing more and more distant with the palestinian cause, cutting their own peace deal with israelis and cutting the peace deal out. could you explain to american viewers and others watching why that is, why are arab countries so reluctant to help these palestinian refugees? >> reporter: a lot of this has

to do with the history of the palestinian people, going back to the formation of the state of israel in 1948. when israel was first formed, early zionists settled here and then after the holocaust many more jews came from around the world. when the world attacks israel in 1948, suddenly many refugees were displaced, and then after another attack, a new wave of refugees was created. those palestinian refugees are still displaced around the world. they're still displaced in the west bank. they're still displaced in lebanon. what egypt and other arab countries fear is we could see another repetition of that same cycle where a large group of palestinians is displaced once again and that they will be

permanently displaced, and that if egypt opens the door, you'll have another situation where you could have a million palestinians living inside egypt for the next several decades or next several centuries, and the arab countries are nervous about that precedent. traditionally it's been that all these palestinians were displaced in wars with israel should return back to their own homes, but that's their ideological framework. in practical terms there's lots of criticism even within the arab world, that the arab world isn't doing many, that they're relying on the fact they're not giving aid and they'll have a large refugee community sitting on their soil that they'll have to care for, there will be security concerns because some of those might be militants. if you ask the people of gaza, they're furious with the arab world. they say the arab world pays lip

service to the palestinians. they say you turn on al jazeera and all you hear is sympathy for the arab world, but they're not opening their borders, instead using their historic arguments to justify why they can't. >> all right. nbc foreign news correspondent richard engel. thank you so much. we appreciate it. you know, katty kay, what richard said is so dead on, so accurate, and i know you've talked to arab leaders and arab diplomats through the years, and i can at least tell you the ones i've spoken to for years have been not only dismissive over the palestinian cause but openly political of the palestinians time and time again, and so because when situations like this occur, i always -- i call around and i ask, why aren't you doing more to help the palestinians through this

crisis, and there is a -- i'll just say it. there's an open contempt for palestinians who have missed time and again opportunities to strike peace, and it looks like it's happening again, but it looks also like tony blinken is finally getting egypt to open that border to provide some sort of relief for palestinians. >> tony blink p's priority is to try to get the 420 americans out of gaza before the invasion happens from the israeli side. the only way to get them out is through that border, through the rafah crossing into egypt. there seems to be some confusion about why the border isn't open. it should be open according to the deal, but it looks like it wasn't. i've spent 18 years of my life living in the middle east, and always the mantra was we support

plipians in practice. nothing very much was done because of the historical reasons that they felt palestinians should stay in palestine and they didn't want them coming into their country. the reality is they don't want to open the gates and suddenly find they have a mass flood of those leaving and meeting up with the muslim brotherhood in their own countries. all of these arab countries are dealing with extremists in their own countries and they don't want those groups joining up with palestinian groups. they say one thing, but in practice over the last 20, 30 years, they haven't done much to support the palestinian cause. >> well, three senior officers in israel's military tell "the new york times" israel is preparing a large-scale invasion of the gaza strip with the goal of destroying hamas leadership. meanwhile axios is reporting

iran's foreign minister told the envoy to the middle east if they follow through, iran will have to respond. and now the u.s. is sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern mediterranean led by the "uss dwight d. eisenhower." the report is meant to disway hezbollah from joining the conflict. joining us now a spokesman from the israeli defense forces lieutenant colonel peter learner. thank you very much for being on this morning. given what i just read, the reporting about iran watching closely to see the next move by israel, how do you work on a response while hopefully not creating a wider war? is that in the thought process here? >> good morning to you. i'd like to add, perhaps, to your discussion with richard about the arab world and how people are actually looking at

this. now, hamas is the governing body. it's a terrorist organization, but it's the government of gaza. the prime minister who is the mastermind of the massacre, he instructed and orchestrated the diabolical attack against israel and our communities on the 7th of october. so i'd like to add i think there is also a general disdain and letdown by leaders of hms for deciding to go to war against israel without taking into consideration the repercussions. you have people saying why do we need to bend over backward for this terrorist organization after they did this to their own people. to relate back to your question, of course, it has recreted some 300,000 reservists in order to be prepared for any eventuality. if the government instructed us to mobilize on the ground, we

will be prepared. we're currently striking hamas extensively from the air. we're taking out their control positions, we're taking out their leaders, the terrorists that actually infiltrated into gaza consider into the communities of southern israel, and we are determined to make sure the gaza strip can never, ever be used as a staging ground for massacres and butchery in israel ever again. >> lieutenant colonel, let's talk about the north. we just noted that some towns there have been evacuated in northern israel near the lebanon border. what's the level of activity you're seeing from hezbollah, and what's the level of concern you have that the violence there, so far is limited to a few skirmishes, but that violence could grohl. >> the skirmishes have been elevated over the last several days when there were several

anti-missile tanks firing. we have to instruct anybody living within the 2-kilometer boundary from the border itself be evacuated. as you rightly pointed out, that's 28 communities. that goes to show we take civilians out of the line of fire where our enemies are bent on our destruction and utilize their own civilians to put them in the line of fire. we have, as i said, the 300,000 reservists that have been recruited are also positioned in the north. so we've strengthened the frontier with hezbollah on the border with lebanon, and we're very concerned about the prospect of a conflict with hezbollah. it appears the whole escalation we've seen over the last few days are under the direction of iran, which is interested in chamging israel, challenging the idea on the front with hamas

because they're so invested in the tools of terrorism whether it's tools or training or equipment. everything has its roots back in iran, and that's why they're looking out for their proxies up on the front. so we are determined to destroy hamas. we are determined that once they broke the rules of the games -- the game on saturday, october 7th, by penetrating our border, butchering our people, abducting 199 confirmed abductions into the gaza strip and opening -- effectively opening the wall, they chose to go to war with us. we will win this war. coming up, a live interview with the top two members of the house intel community tee. mike turner and the ranking democrat jim hines join our conversation straight ahead on "morning joe." conversation stran "morning joe."

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i saw so many terrible pictures this week of children suffering, israeli children and palestinian children, and it took me back to a really horrible, horrible place. you know, no one in this world deserves to suffer like that, you know, especially not kids, you know. after my dad died, my mom tried pretty much everything she could do to cheer me up. i remember one day when i was 8, she got me what she thought was a disney move but it was actually the eddie murphy

standup special "delirious." we played it in the car on the way home and when she heard the things eddie murphy was saying, she tried to take it away, but then she noticed something. for the first time in a long time, i was laughing again. i don't understand it, i really don't, and i never will, but sometimes comedy is really the only way forward through tragedy. my heart is with everyone whose lives have been destroyed this week, but tonight i'm going to do what i've always done in the face of tragedy, and that's try to be funny. remember, i said try. and live from new york, it's saturday night. >> that was so moving. >> that was incredible. really, really the perfect tone for a comedy show in the midst of this horrific story. wow, that was selfless to share that story. >> it reminds me of what they did after 9/11.

>> yeah. >> where giuliani as the mayor came out and talked and lorne michaels. >> right. >> lorne michaels saying can we be funny and giuliani's response, why start now. pete davidson, incredibly moving and selfless. >> very moving. our coverage continues. we want to bring jeremy bash into the conversation. as we're looking at the grand scheme of things between what's going on in israel now, there are now some 200 hostages, 1 99 is the number being held in fwz, so with everything we've heard so far, especially from the lieutenant, what is the hope that any hostages will be retrieved? >> well, there's no playbook for this, mika.

to have 200 hostages held, including babies, including the elderly, including the disabled, including potentially 20 american citizens which obviously is the highest priority of president biden, secretary blinken, jake sullivan addressed this yesterday. essentially the united states has to go to other countries, go to the government of qatar, go to the government of egypt, go to other players in the region and say whatever influence you have with hamas right now, we need two things. number one, we need the international red cross to play wellness visits to the hostages. and some of them are grieve usually wounded. some are elderly. they all need medical care. second, we need to know where they are so we can begin the process of negotiating their release. i think the idea that idf is going to be staging eun loll rat ground rescues is going to be a very dicey operation. so we need to know where they are and we need to pay wellness

visits to them and hopefully get them home. >> jeremy, the fact that we don't know where they are and i haven't heard any reporting of wellness visits. if they're not operating under these rules, is it a little less hopeless? i mean it doesn't seem -- >> it's dire. let's not sugarcoat it. it's absolutely dire. but it's 200 people. it's very difficult -- it's not one soldier lie a soldier who was moved from safe house to safe house for years and then exchanged for a thousand palestinian prisoners. it's 200 people. it's almost impossible to believe that there are people who have sightings, who have seen these people, who have information about them and hamas does. and i've been talking to leaders around the region including several leaders from the arab world. they say there was some discussion in recent days about the release of the civilians but things got chaotic and the deal fell apart.

hamas will want a deal for these hostages. if they're going to have to fight israel, they're going to want to ultimately use them as human shields. i think this is an incredibly dire situation but the united states and its international partners have to use resolute focus to get the hostages out. >> and, katty, in talking to the white house and other world leaders, we must all admit here, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes. this is one of those moments where qatar having a very complex relationship not only with the united states, being an ally of the united states, but also with hamas, hezbollah, other terror groups. these are the moments u.s. officials start talking to qatar officials who talk to hamas and apparently negotiations continue behind the scenes through qatar. >> qatar also having a close

relationship with iran. remember that spat between saudi arabia and qatar was over qatar's links with iran. so it has the right people it can talk to. if any country in the region can bring about some kind of negotiated hostage swap, perhaps we're hearing reports it will be initially for children and women. then it would be qatar. just watch tony blinken let's movements over the course of the last few days. i haven't seen this kind of middle east shuttle diplomacy since before the invasion of iraq when dick cheney was flying around the middle east trying to rally support from the arab countries. that's what tony blinken is doing. one of the first places he went is qatar to get the negotiations going. it complicates the military operation exponentially. all the military officials i spoke to say having these hoss tamgs in the tunnels, the tunnels themselves make it difficult. usually with a military field

you're operating on two planes. this adds a whole other plane and it's a whole gaza city worth of tunnels underneath gaza city. it really is complicated. it seems like negotiation is the best chance of getting hostages out alive. >> it's been suggesting one of hamas' goal was that. they said, let's push pause on that because he's been critical of israel's response on that. jeremy, with the backdrop of all of this, the white house is considering a visit from president biden to the region. i got some reporting on that this morning. it's far from a sure thing. there are real security concerns, but to stand in solidarity with israel, the president may go as soon as this week, but if he were to go the moment this ground operation may begin, that further complicates things. walk us through what a full-on siege from israel into gaza

would look like, how long it would take. it looks like it would be brutal. >> first of all, with president biden standing in the region, i think his response over the last nine days has been incredible, and the israeli people have felt it. i think he spoke with such morally clear terms, and the people of israel believes truly united states has their back, and that's what we want our allies to think. it's been mischaracterized as a bulldozing of gaza on the ground. it's not. it's going to include infantry, long-range fire, air wing platforms and because it's a coastal strip, it's going to be ships as well. they've got to go to specific hamas locations, go where the hamas leaders are located, last known physical addresses, where

their vehicles are driving, where their weapons caches may be, where the hostages are. . it's go doing be a very targeted set of plans to decapitate hamas. coming up, an update on the rising tensions when "morning joe" comes right back. e rising tensions when "morning joe" comes right back. pain? cancelled plans? the worry? that was then. and look at me now. you'll never truly forget migraine. but qulipta® reduces attacks, making zero-migraine days possible. it's the only pill of its kind that blocks cgrp - and is approved to prevent migraine of any frequency. to help give you that forget-you-get migraine feeling. don't take if allergic to qulipta®. most common side effects are nausea, constipation, and sleepiness. learn how abbvie could help you save. qulipta®. the forget-you-get migraine medicine™. (vo) in three seconds, pam will decide... qulipta®. (pam) i'm moving closer to the grandkids! wait. i got to sell the house!

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but remember republicans eat their young, they really do. they eat their young. they really do. terrible statement, but they do. >> yeah. >> former president trump in a recorded message over the weekend, like he meant that to happen. revealing republicans eat their young. okay. >> okay. he's had some really strange -- really strange things in his speeches. >> the one thing he said at his

speech was cruel. we were thinking of showing it, but it's so cruel and disgusting that we're not showing it. >> but, again, he basketballs through so many of these speeches, and, of course, i don't know. maybe somebody can let him know he's not running against barack obama. over the last couple of weeks, he's said repeatedly that he's running against barack obama, that he's ahead of barack obama in the polls, he beat him in 2020 and remember when he beat him in 2016. it's almost as if he's obsessed with barack obama. he really -- if he were a leader of a party, instead of just a leader of a cult, this personality cult, he'd be more concerned about what's going on in the house of representatives. >> right. >> again, he doesn't care about israel. he's shown that with his attacks of the israelis and their leadership. but right now israel desperately

needs support from the house of representatives like ukrainians, more importantly like the united states needs to show we're here, we're ready, we're standing by to face our enemies. israel is facing enemies. hamas considered the united states their enemy. iran considers the united states their enemy. of course, washington considers them their enemy and china considers the united states their enemy. if you don't think we're not facing serious grave challenges from those four countries who consider the united states of america to be their enemies, then you're just naive. and i've got to say, there are a lot of house republicans that must be naive and think they can continue playing games instead of moving toward a speaker and putting a speaker in place. >> so following this man who was the so-called republican, but he is the front-runner who says republicans are eating their

young. and when they're not eating their young, they continue to eat their own as the party still cannot agree on a speaker. on friday jim jordan won the gop nomination for the speakership in a second try. meanwhile republican congressman mike johnson of louisiana is reportedly laying the groundwork to seek the speaker's gavel. if jordan is unable to get the votes needed on the house floor. where does this all stand? joining us now, congressional investigations reporter for "the washington post," jackie alemany. msnbc contributor mike barnicle. and co-host, political strategist mark mckinnon. >> mark mckinnon, have you ever seen anything like this?

>> they continue to claw at the bottom of the barrel. we have no leadership in the republican congress and we have the former president of the united states talking about our enemies as being smart. it's at a time when we need leadership more than we can think of in recent history, there's just none there. >> look, mike barnicle, obviously you obviously spent your formative years as a reporter with people like tip o'neill as speaker of the house. we saw nancy pelosi, the way nancy ran the house. it is just beyond stunning to me, and i know for most republicans who are actually in the house right now that this continues, that they don't do what republicans and democrats have always done, go to conference, elect a speaker, the person who gets the majority votes go, to the floor, and do the people's business. this group of republicans refuse

to do the people's business. at one of the great times of crisis on the international stages in our lifetime. >> you can look at the mid-'70s, late '70s, early '80s, '90s, the republican party was a different party then. they actually worked together with democrats with tip o'neill as speaker, with jim wright as speaker. they worked together. and there were many, many republicans who worked for the country first and the party second, a bld they knew how to legislate. they knew how to govern. that's gone. the idea that today they'll be discussing in washington d.c. -- jackie alemany will be with us to tell us about it, potentially the next speaker of the house will be a man from ohio who 2 1/2 years ago tried to overturn an existing elected government coming into the biden presidency. he voted -- he was against the

constitution of the united states, jim jordan. >> right. >> he's on the precipice of becoming speaker, perhaps. >> so, jackie, alemany, is this going to happen, or what is the latest there? >> that is the question. i mean these guys have one job, which is at the end of the day appropriate. right now they've got 13 days without a house speaker to get anywhere near that job done. jim jordan on friday knew he had 55 voigts to shore up. that was 55 people who had voted against him in that cvent ballot, people that his team had sensed were still against him. he made calls over the weekend. some of these pressure tactics as described by some moderate republicans to my colleagues did not sit well. you had sean hannity emailing his colleagues by a producer of his team with lightly veiled

threats, potential primary threats. we know the trump team didn't get in involved directly, but some people are sort of positing this vote to lawmakers who are still holding out their support for jordan as a vote against donald trump with, again, that threat of a primary challenger if they fail to support jordan on the house floor. jordan had previously said he was not going to hold a house vote if he didn't have that 217 number, but now it's looking like he's going to try to force a play and get people on the record to being against him and, therefore, against moving forward on a lot of really important legislation that is just not getting done right now. coming up, the mayor of new york city eric adams is standing by. we'll talk about the stepped up security here at home in the wake of terror attacks in israel. "morning joe" is coming right back. ultomiris is for adults with generalized myasthenia gravis

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we are not all right when hamas believes that they are fighting on behalf of something and that the destructive action they carried out. we are not all right when we still have hostages who have not come home to their families. we are not all right, and we're not going to say we have a stiff upper lip and act like everything is fine. everything is not fine. israel has a right to defend hisself, and that's the right we know. your fight is our fight. your fight is my fight. that swastika not only displays anti-semitism but more.

you marched with dr. king and stood with us with all the fights we had, and i'm saying we're going to stand with you and stand united together and we don't have to be all right. we should be angry about what we saw. >> that was new york city mayor eric adams last tuesday speaking out in support of israel after the horrific terror attacks. the mayor continued his message of support in a synagogue on friday vowing the new york city police department will continue to defend all jewish residents. joining us now, mayor eric adams and reverend al sharpton. thank you both for being with us. mayor adams, i appreciate you being here, appreciate your words. i want to now read another quote from you that's striking. something is wrong that within the city of new york where we

have the largest jewish population outside of israel, if you don't feel safe here, where else can you feel safe? we have to change that course. and there's so many jews that i've spoken to that don't feel safe on college campuses, don't feel safe in schools, don't feel safe in parts of new york city. you're exactly right. even in the best of times, it can be dangerous. there will have to be police posted outside of synagogues because of anti-semitism. can all new york city leaders not be unified on this issue and speak out like you? >> well, i think that some new york city leaders don't have the consistency in standing up on the rights of individuals. i have a long track record of standing up and fighting on the rights of individuals as has rev rnld sharpton. when i speak to my brothers and

sisters, i take them back to 2001 how i led the fight that young muslims should not be forcefully incarcerated. i know what i did when someone called for "kill a muslim" day. i walked the streets with them to show my support. the consistency about how i feel about my jewish residents is no different than i feel about all residents of all ethnicities. anti-semitism has no room in this city, no place for hate in this city, and it really, i think, was despicable while our jewish brothers and sisters were mourning the immediate aftermath of the slaughter that we saw in israel, that you had the and others carrying swastikas and calling for the extermination of jewish people. that's not acceptable. we cannot stop the march because of their rights to march, but we darn sure can speak out against

it and make sure this city is a safe place for jewish residents and others. >> mayor adams, whether it's in support of marches, peaceful marches after george floyd or whether it's in support of the jewish people after these terror attacks, we all need to speak with one voice. my question is, why is it so hard for some elected leaders in new york to come out and call terrorism terrorism? >> you have elected leaders that joined the march that took place, they actually were sponsors of it. i think we have allowed the loudest among our group to silence the voices of those that know this is wrong. i refuse to do that.

that is not who i am and that is not what i committed my life to doing. everyone should be talking about horrific actions of watching children slaughtered in front of their parents. a holocaust survivor was removed, women being raped. in general, all of us have some horrific moments in our past that we should be standing up and say this is not acceptable. hamas is a terrorist organization and they should not be depicted as anything other than that. they are destructive to the people of palestine as well as destructive to peace and humanity across our globe. >> reverend sharpton, a generation ago you had a difficult relationship with the jewish community in new york. you talked about a conversation you had with coretta scott king.

you talked about transformation. and you have dedicated your life since then to fighting for all people. i talked about you and jonathan greenblatt pushing back against anti-semitism, not just in new york city, but i remember what you all said and did after pittsburgh and what you've done time and time again over the past few decades. what is your message to those leaders that will not call terrorism terrorism? what is your message to those leaders who say we are going to fight for the rights of some people, but when it's jews under siege, we're going to say nothing or keep quiet or morally equivocate? >> you cannot be selective about

fighting for what's right. you have to fight for what's right for everyone, or you're fighting for no one. you have to choose whether you're going to be a political leader or a political punk because you're afraid to stand up. as soon as this happened saturday before last, i was exchanging text messages with mayor adams, because we go way back in these fights. he was in south america texting me back, telling me how he felt and how we need to move forward. before he got off the plane, he was already giving orders, because you must fight against what is wrong. what happened was not activism, was not militant. it was absolute murder. those of us that have been the victims of this should be the first ones online. i remember years ago when i was stabbed by a lone person in

bensonhurst marching against racial crime and mayor adams was head of police, he sent security to take care of my family. we remember in 911 friends of ours in that building. bin laden didn't care that blacks were in the building. they were going after what they wanted. so are these people. we don't even know who the hostages are. it could be people there visiting the holy land. we're not only talking about jews. we're talking about on the muslim side, a 6-year-old kid stabbed in illinois for being a muslim. that's just as wrong. you can't have it both ways if you don't have it all the way. mayor adams, one of the things that struck me when i saw your speech at the synagogue was how you talked about you are going to secure and look for those lone wolves, people that are

inspired to do something like this guy i talked about in illinois that killed a young arab 6-year-old kid yesterday. talk about how you are trying to make sure we secure everyone and how we need to deal with the fact that everyone needs to be involved. we saw islamophobia after 911. we don't need anti-semitism or islamophobia. >> so true. that was the orders handed down to our law enforcement officers. we secured sensitive locations in the jewish community, but we also secured sensitive location in our muslim, christian and other communities. it is imperative that we send the right message that hate is hate. i've stood side by side with my chinese brothers and sisters

during the high level of asian violence. that consistency is important. we had a moment at gracie mansion where we brought together all of our faith leaders from different walks of life to pray for our city and push the faithful peace that we all look for. there's a war taking place right now. we all know, like the war in ukraine and other places, that innocent people die during war. that hurts all of us. but let's be clear. hamas initiated this action. what hamas did was terrorism. they wanted to bring about terror and they wanted to bring about a level of hate. we should really identify that. here, back on our soil in new york city, i have the obligation to make sure that all new yorkers are protected and we are keeping our eyes out by looking at intelligence for those lone wolves, like the lone wolf we

saw in buffalo that took the lives of innocent african-americans in a supermarket. people are being radicalized through social media. we need social media to step up. they need to stop using their algorithms to continue to radicalize our young people to help promote this violence. they are not silent in many of these actions we're seeing across the entire country. >> mayor adams, let's talk more about the current security situation in new york city. there was a lot of chatter this past friday where hamas leaders called for violence. thankfully, there was none in new york. can you talk about some of the steps you're taking to keep new yorkers safe? >> we want to be extremely clear to new yorkers. there are no credible threats against new york city or new york city residents at this

time. but we're not going to rest because there are no known credible threats. so we're approaching this on multiple levels. one of the things we're doing based on intelligence and the commissioner of intelligence has a full monitoring system in place to look for any form of credible threats. we also want the visible presence of our police officers. many of our officers are assigned to plain clothes assignments. we have the entire team back in uniform to have the omni presence we needed on our subways and on our streets. we had several meetings with our leaders throughout the city to put them also on high alert. if you see something, say something, but do something and reach out to the authorities so we can properly investigate.

i want to commend the men and women of the new york city police department and our law enforcement entities for the collaboration of this weekend and we're going to continue to stay on high alert in the next days. >> do we have enough police officers? numbers are down from what they were ten years ago. do we have enough police officers? >> we could use more. i'm very clear on that. we do have a decrease in numbers of police officers. i think we have a law enforcement crises across the entire country. we must start recruiting young people to get back into the profession of law enforcement. the numbers are down. but based on the numbers that we have, no one does it better than the new york city police department. we're going to make sure we mobilize our manpower to get maximum results. we see crime is decreasing

across the city in the seven major categories. we're deploying our police in the right way and utilizing our manpower to get the results we're looking for. >> new york city mayor eric adams, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. and reverend al sharpton, thank you as well. it is the top of the fourth hour of "morning joe." we turn to the latest in the israel/hamas war. this is a look at the rafah crossing from earlier this morning, a vital humanitarian corridor at the gaza/egypt border where palestinians and some american citizens have waited for days to cross. meanwhile, in northern israel americans were on a cruise ship that left moments ago, setting sail for the island of cyprus. israel's defense forces say at least 199 people are being held hostage by hamas in gaza.

joining us from the israel/are gaza border, nbc news correspondent richard engel with the latest. what's the latest there, richard? >> reporter: concerns are growing here that this could escalate into a multifront war. the israelis have said they can handle war in the south and in the north, but that is obviously something they don't want. it is something the united states is trying to deter by sending more warships to the region. this area near the gaza strip is already a military zone. civilians have been asked to leave so the military can operate freely here and not have the concern about civilian casualties. just today, israel said it is clearing villages in the north of the country as well along the border with lebanon. so now two of israel's borders here in the south and in the north are military zones. waiting for a way out of the war

zone, palestinians with foreign passports, including hundreds of american citizens, are gathered at the rafah border crossing into egypt. they're tired and anxious after days of false starts. israeli troops are ready to attack and are lined up on the border with gaza. but after appearing imminent, israel seems to be taking its time as diplomacy moves to center stage. amid quiet, back-channel negotiations to free the hostages captured by hamas, israel said 199 hostages were taken into gaza. their relatives have been appealing to hamas to show humanity. the group even kidnapped babies. >> i don't know if he got his formula. >> reporter: israeli officials say air strikes in gaza won't stop until hamas is driven from power completely.

but that could be difficult without israel reoccupying the gaza strip and imposing a new government for 2 million people. president biden on "60minutes" advised against that. >> i think it would be a big mistake. what happened in gaza, in my view, is hamas and the extreme elements of hamas don't represent all the palestinian people. >> reporter: in gaza, the humanitarian crisis is worsening. around 600,000 palestinians have followed israel's orders, according to the israeli army, to evacuate northern gaza, which is expected to bear the brunt of an israeli ground assault. but not everyone can leave, like the 22 orphans at an orphanage in gaza city. 12 of the children are disabled. they're being cared for by only two adults after the rest of the staff left for a safer area. this boy is 9 years old, is blind and has profound

disabilities. maria is 7 years old and can only scoot. these children can't get out of the way of a coming ground war. >> richard, that's the question. how are palestinians supposed to flee for safety or follow the directions to leave when they have nowhere to go? where are they supposed to go? >> reporter: the idea is they would go to the south. there was some talk this morning of making that area a safe zone, a safe haven. israel has said it is not a safe haven. israel has conducted air strikes in that southern area. hamas has launched attacks from that southern area. it is nothing like a safe zone. it would be safer, in theory, than the north of the gaza strip, which is still a very active military area. we're hearing some small arms

fire right now. it would be north of the gaza strip and gaza city that would likely be attacked if israeli troops went in to try and clear out hamas and eliminate its capabilities. >> richard engel, thank you very much. joining us now, former supreme allied commander of nato, retired four star navy admiral james stavridis, and senior fellow at the jewish people policy institute yakov katz. jonathan lemire, mike barnicle and katty kay are with us as well. >> admiral, were you leading israel and the israeli army, what would you be doing right now? what would the strategy be? >> this is not entirely

theoretical. as you know, joe, i spent four years at u.s. european command and i was in charge of u.s./israeli military-to-military relations. good friends with general benny gantz. happy to see him go into the government. i would never presume to stand up and direct israeli forces, but i'll give you my sense of what they are trying to do. number one, avoid collateral damage, avoid killing innocent civilians. in all my experiences with the idf, i've seen them place that at the absolute top of their mission set. that's job one. job two, i think, is to try to find and rescue the hostages. that gets us to number three. why have they not started the ground assault? i agree with our reporting, which says they are ready to go. it's a very complex operation,

perhaps 100,000 plus troops will push into gaza city. i think they are hitting pause for the right reason, which is to give time for these evacuations to continue, allow diplomacy to try and establish the kind of safe zones that you spoke about a moment ago and allow possibly some level of negotiation for the hostages. i think they've hit pause for, again, the right reasons at the moment. >> admiral, we saw an intelligence failure before this attack. this is going to be a very difficult operation for the israelis. hamas has drone capability. they have tunnels, missiles and rockets. how confident are you israel's intelligence failures before the attack have been resolved and they have the capacity to carry out the mission in gaza? >> i am confident that they have put their full attention on the

challenges they experienced, just like the united states did after our intelligence failures in 9/11. we moved quickly to rectify those and it created a host of follow-on actions. at the moment job one for the idf and israel is to get into gaza and ensure hamas cannot continue these kind of horrific attacks. you're right to draw a line under how hard this will be. this will be an operation not of days and hopefully not of many, many weeks, but i think a minimum of four to six weeks based on other urban combat situations. i'll close with this. the enemy gets a vote. so the degree to which hamas decides to stand and fight or cut and run and try and blend in with those waves of individuals leaving gaza city, that will be

determine how long the mistakes. overall i'm confident the idf has the capability and will to succeed. final thought, they are, as you would imagine, incredibly motivated after watching a thousand civilians slaughtered, watching babies attacked, this is a very motivated force. they will go in high and hard. >> give us a sense to the best of your ability as to the mood right now in israel in terms of the anticipation of this potential ground operation. let us know the level of apprehension about escalating the violence and what is the current status of how people feel about prime minister netanyahu in the wake of such an intelligence failure that

allowed the attacks to happen in the first place. >> there's high motivation by the troops. israel's military is mostly reservists. there was over 150% participation in units. the other story happening here is some units don't have enough equipment because so many people showed up. there's a lot of motivation from the soldiers and the public as well. people understand this is a different time, this is a different operation. this is a war over our homes, because they went into our homes and killed people, babies, holocaust survivors, parents in front of their children, burnt people alive in their homes. that's why this is a fight the likes of which we have not seen in the past. people recognize there will be a price to pay. as everyone's talking now about the civilian casualties that might come in an israeli ground offensive in gaza even though israel is doing everything it

can to move people to the north. there's also going to be an israeli casualty here. you have hamas fighters jumping out of tunnels, ieds, who knows what other surprises might be waiting for these soldiers. the israeli public, i feel, is prepared for this because they recognize this is a different fight. as to your question about netanyahu, he's being pretty much quiet, because he understands that what happened on saturday about ten days ago is not something the public is likely to forget. he's trying to hold onto his premiership until now despite the investigations against him, despite the trial ongoing, despite the protests bringing out a quarter of million israelis every week. the idf chief of staff came out already twice and said in the end, i was responsible. i messed up, our military messed

up. we have not heard any words of responsibility by the prime minister. ultimately it is he who is most responsible inside israel. >> it's our understanding that your daughter is in the idf and she's stationed in the south of israel. we in america, as you know, are blessed. we're separated from daily violence by two oceans. we've been under attack really only once on september 11th. could you give people watching this program here in the united states of america what it's like for you, your family and everyone you know in israel to live each day in a war zone? >> that's literally where we live. we live in a war zone. we're surrounded by enemies, hamas in the south, hezbollah in

the north, iran, of course, the head of the serpent, they want to annihilate us. this idea of containment exploded in our faces on october 7th. yes, my daughter is down south and i have a brother who's along the border in lebanon who spent days sitting somewhere in some bush trying to prevent hezbollah from crossing. that story is not unique to me. it's the story of every israeli who have loved ones serving right now for their country to fight off this enemy. israelis understand that something has to change. we cannot continue to live with the sword against our neck like we did with hamas in gaza, which crossed into our cities and murdered a thousand of our

people, not to mention hundreds more that have yet to be identified. to continue after all this with hezbollah in the north able to do the same thing if not worse, and therefore the equation in this region -- and we have to thank president biden for standing so strongly next to israel. but something has to change in this equation. something is severely wrong with what's been happening here in the middle east. >> yaakov katz and former nato commander james stavridis, thank you both. coming up on "morning joe," congress is preparing for a funding request from the white house for additional aid to israel and ukraine. but any new legislation would likely need to originate in the senate, as the house remains paralyzed without a speaker. we'll be joined by the chairman of the house intelligence committee, republican congressman mike turner, and the committee's ranking member, jim

himes. as weo to break, we have this political announcement. nbc news will host the third republican presidential primary debate in miami. it is set to take place on wednesday, november 8th. it will air from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. eastern on nbc news and streaming services and digital platforms. the rnc also selected the republican jewish coalition as partners. the moderators and format will be announced at a later date. we don't know which republican presidential candidates have qualified for the third debate. we'll be right back. d debate we'll be right back.

this week congress is expected to consider additional aid packages to both israel and ukraine. congressional and white house

officials tell nbc news the biden administration may make an fishlg request for supplemental funding. the house remains without a speaker. joining us now republican congressman mike turner of ohio and congressman jim himes of connecticut. congressman turner, i'll start with you. do we see an end in sight in terms of the ability to get a speaker in place so the house can play a prominent role in these important international events? >> sure we have to get a speaker and get our job done. there's nothing that evidences more the need for the house to be functioning again other than this spending bill. they're looking at a quad bill. obviously we have our own border

security that needs additional funding. they're looking at asia itself and what we could do there to assist in taiwan and other security issues and then also israel and ukraine. putting it all together makes it a national security focused bill. we hope it gains momentum. >> congressman himes, same question. what keeps you up at night in terms of what the house could or couldn't be doing without a speaker? >> the chairman and i have worked in tandem together in a bipartisan fashion. it's hard to see the house brought to a standstill. i hope we can get our act together. it's not just the national security package which is critical for israel, critical for ukraine, critical for the pacific. it's also the budget. the clock is ticketing on the budget. the last thing we want to do is

be approaching a government shutdown without clarity as to who's leading the house. >> this funding bill, there are members of your own party who have thrown up loud objections to sending more money to ukraine in particular. are you confident that tying it with israel will work? there has been a pretty isolationist view from some in the gop. bro support in the house for ukraine funding. most of the bills we've gone through over the last month and a half that had ukraine funding in it was in the 300 to 340 range. there have been members of the house who have voted no for ukraine funding who are yeses but they want increased information on the funding. we got a commitment there's going to be senior officials from the white house coming to capitol hill meeting with our

members who have concerns but who are supportive of the overall goals in ukraine to give them the assurances they need that this package is going to make a difference and is targeted correctly. >> intelligence gathering is a dicey affair. sometimes it's 100% correct, sometimes it's not. i'm not going to ask you to criticize any ally, but the intelligence failure in israel clearly has been massive and the indictment of the intelligence failure in israel is summed up in two words that you hear repeatedly from victims from the past ten days. nobody came. talk about intelligence failures and how they can happen and what happens if they happen here. >> 9/11 is the classic example. the united states pulled together a commission that works for years to look at what happened on 9/11. mike and i have been very careful in answering this

question. when they're still grieving in israel, this is not the moment to be saying how did you get this so wrong? but the fact of the matter is it was a massive intelligence failure. it's not just israel. we would like to believe as a critical ally of israel that we might have gotten more warning than we did. once the dust settles, it's indicative of hamas being operationally more capable than anybody thought, but it's also a failure. israelis have been defending against precisely what succeeded ten days ago. >> this is, i think, the third time in a decade that an islamic extremist group has managed to catch the western intelligence agencies effectively by

surprise, in 2014 with isis declaring a caliphate and the taliban in afghanistan just a couple of years ago and now in hamas. does it make you worry that western intelligence writ large has underestimated the capability of these groups? and what else might we not know in that field? >> there are two things we have to be concerned with. it was beyond an intelligence failure. it was also an operational failure in that no one came. they were not set up for the response that they needed. that's going to be an issue that's probably reflective of the tumultuous political environment you've had in israel where they've not been able to solidify their leadership. we should take that into consideration ourselves as we try to get stability in our political realm. jim and i push this frequently on the intelligence community. i think we're too comfortable

with just observing, with signals intelligence, overhead imagery intelligence. we have weakening our ability to gather traditional intelligence that would have been able to more ready identify this. >> we don't have a speaker of the house yet. jim jordan is the republican nominee. does he have your support to be speaker of the house despite the fact that he did not vote to certify joe biden's election? >> yes, he has my support. jim has come a long way. he says he is the guy to bring the republican conference together. i think he can do that. obviously that's going to be the test over the next several days. it's a terrible tragedy that kevin mccarthy was taken out of the speaker's chair. the small handful of republicans that stood up to take him out openly said they were doing so because he didn't let them shut

down the government and because he was working in a bipartisan way with democrats. and then democrats voted to remove him too. that has a chilling effect on bipartisan work. it really does make it very difficult going forward to pull republicans and democrats back together. >> not to risk the spirit of bipartisan, but congressman himes, do you think jim jordan would be an appropriate candidate for speaker of the house? >> no, i don't. i'm hoping against hope that maybe we'll see this week, but if the republicans can't coalesce behind jim jordan, a week or two weeks from now they might realize it's time to try to form a bipartisan governing coalition in the house. is it impossible? netanyahu did it in israel. if he can do, maybe we should open the door to it. that would look like a certain number of democrats voting for somebody who was perceived as a

moderate constructive republican. there's lots of those by the way. jim jordan is not that guy. he is a guy who has defied congressional subpoenas, who coordinated with president trump to attempt to reverse the results of the election. this is an issue for republicans to figure out, but there's not a lot of love on the democratic side for jim jordan. >> congressman mike turner and congressman jim himes, thank you both for joining us this morning. still ahead, we have a live report from near the israel/lebanon border which the idf has declared a closed military zone as fighting with hezbollah intensifies. plus, israel's ambassador to the united states will join the conversation. s will join the conversation

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now to the latest in northern israel, where some americans are being evacuated by ship to the island of cyprus. nbc news foreign correspondent josh lederman has the latest. >> reporter: as americans prepare to leave israel on this cruise ship, in gaza foreigners are amassing on the egypt border, hoping for a potential cease fire that would allow the board crossing to reopen. this morning, hamas and israel with both denying there is any such deal, while in northern israel authorities are evacuating towns on the lebanon border. this morning, israel is bracing for battle, on the brink of a likely ground invasion of gaza after the hamas terror attack inside israel that killed 1300 people, including 30 americans. with gaza reeling from hundreds of israeli air strikes, u.s. secretary of state antony blinken back in israel this morning in search of diplomatic solutions, trying to get

americans trapped in gaza out through egypt. in israel, some americans are fleeing by sea. bordering a cruise ship to ferry them to safety in cyprus. dragging suitcases and carrying children. families started showing up early this morning hoping to get a spot on that ship. officials tell me it can fit about 2500 people, but it is unclear whether everyone here is going to make it on. will you feel safer when you're back in america? >> for sure. >> reporter: the americans here are among thousands who couldn't find flights home. the big u.s. airlines have all stopped flying leaving this ship and government flights to europe as the only ways out. this woman and her friends were on a christian pilgrimage to israel, now cut short. >> it was impossible to get a flight home. >> reporter: are you hearing

from friends and family woried about your safety? >> absolutely. >> we were shocked and outraged. >> it is hard to hear their stories. some people are pregnant and some people have children. >> it reminds me of world war ii. i can't believe this is happening again. >> reporter: with this ship on its way out of israel, it's about a nine-hour journey to cyprus, where buses are waiting to bring americans to one of two international airports. it's then up to americans to book their own flight home. 30 miles to the north from where josh was reporting, the fighting between israel and lebanon is intensifying. let's bring in correspondent matt bradley, who joins us live near the israel/lebanon border.

what's going on there? >> reporter: we've been seeing a slow sort of simmer over the last week. now just about anybody who makes the wrong move will bring this situation to a boil. we've been seeing a lot of fighting over that border. there's been multiple casualties over the past week. yesterday we heard from the israeli defense forces. they said that hezbollah, the dominant paramilitary force here in the southern lebanon, that they had fired six anti-tank missiles into israel, killing one civilian and injuring several. since then, they have demanded all civilians in the 2 1/2 mile buffer zone between the border with lebanon in northern israel leave. that's a radical increase in tensions. they've also been bringing a lot of troops and tanks into that border area. just over that ridge line is where josh lederman is miles down that way.

if you zoom out, you'll see there's been a lot of diplomacy going on in the region. the iranian foreign minister has been traveling to multiple countries in the region visiting with heads of state and proxies, especially the leaders of hezbollah here in lebanon and the leaders of hamas. i spoke with a member of parliament a couple of days ago and asked him whether he was afraid of the u.s. naval assets parked in the mediterranean? here's what he told me.

>> reporter: as you can see he laughed openly at my question. that's a little bit of bluster and bravado, but that reference he made was quite sinister. he was talking about the 1983 attack blamed on hezbollah in beirut, the last time the u.s. posted servicemen here. that killed more than 250 u.s. servicemen. that is a very real, sinister threat. we've been hearing from the u.s. secretary of state and others in the u.s. government saying the reason why there's now that naval fleet and now another one joining in the mediterranean is to deter any temptation from any regional actors, be they nations or militant groups like hezbollah or hamas from internationalizing this conflict. we've seen antony blinken himself doing parallel rounds around the region, visiting phi

or six different countries trying to shore up american allies in the region, trying to push for peace, while doing while girding for war. >> joining us now is the israeli ambassador to the united states michael herzog. thank you for coming on. give us the latest as it stands now. also there's been a lot of talk this morning on the options for civilians that might be in the way of any response to the savage attack on israel. >> good morning. we are in the ninth day of the war imposed on us by hamas. they carried out the most severe terror attacks in modern history, claiming the lives of

1400 israelis, injuring ing nea hostages, not only israelis, but americans and others. 30 americans were killed in their attack. we are at war. [indiscernible] we are not talking about a diplomatic solution at this phase, much the same as nobody will talk to the american -- [indiscernible] about diplomacy on 9/12. >> your connection is not great, just fyi to our viewers. >> breaking up a little bit. mr. ambassador, let's move forward on that a bit and take it one step further. you are right, nobody was

talking on september 12th about diplomacy to the united states or the day after pearl harbor. we often hear language when we've talked about hamas in the past that israel would degrade their war making ability, their terror making ability. is this time so different that israel cannot simply degrade hamas' ability to launch terror attacks, that it's israel's position that hamas must be destroyed? [indiscernible] >> they will wage an all-out war against the state of israel. we are determined to destroy their war machine so they cannot threaten us again. this is a message to them, to their friends, to their partners

and to their patrons. all of them have to realize that. our goal is that when this war ends, hamas and all its coalition will come to the conclusion that it was a grave mistake to start the war against the state of israel. definitely it's not only about destroying the capability to threaten us. >> there has been a debate in media circles, also in diplomatic circles and governments on how involved iran was in the launching of this attack. the "wall street journal" said it was intimately involved. others have pushed back on that. what can you tell us? what is the latest information israel has on how involved iran was in the launching of these

horrific terror attacks? >> so we're still looking back and investigating the iranian role and to what extent is beirut involved operationally in this. [indiscernible] 90% of its funding came from iran. they with part of the same coalition. training and material came from iran to hamas. hamas deferred this attack for many months, maybe a year. i found it hard to believe they would -- [indiscernible] without any iranian involvement. it doesn't make sense. >> israel's ambassador to the

united states, michael herzog, thank you very much for coming on the show. >> right now, of course, israel is focusing its attention on gaza. there are growing concerns of possible attack from the north with hezbollah. right now iran is openly contemplating whether they are going to become more involved. the possibility of a full-blown regional war, an extraordinarily dangerous war, actually has to be front of mind for the biden administration. >> it's interesting. when you ask israeli officials at the moment and we have done that during the course of this show even, trying to get a sense of how much are you looking beyond tomorrow and next week to what happens afterwards. there's a real reluctance to

answer that. after 9/11, nobody was looking toward diplomacy and what came next. but actually it's important for israel to be doing just that, to be thinking about what the diplomatic end of this. the long-term security will shape what the fallout from this war is. and the fallout is dictated in part by how this war is conducted. i don't know there is the option of saying we're just going to park the future. the future will be affected by what is happening in the present. for israel's own security, it's important to look at that. >> jonathan lemire, this is something the white house is not talking about right now. as the ambassador said, nobody was talking about peace on september 12th. that said, the biden

administration understands there is a two-step process here. one is rooting out and the destruction of hamas as an effective terror organization. then the second is, of course, moving back toward a two-state solution, which has been on hold for 20 years now. talk about how the biden administration understands that even if they aren't talking about what comes next, everything that president biden and tony blinken and the national security advisor jake sullivan is doing, they have their eyes on what's over the horizon. and that is how do they move to a two-state solution where this never happens again? >> there are short-term and long-term goals here. short-term is just to support

israel and understanding it is trying to destroy the hamas terror network and that there's going to be an escalation of violence in the days ahead. they understand that. but, yes, of course, there's the two-state solution. there is of course still this hope of this deal to normalize relationships between israel and saudi arabia. that has been dealt a setback here. in that regard, hamas has already achieved a victory. we heard the crown prince expressing concern about what israel is doing or could do in gaza. that is a concern. the biden administration also is nervous about the presence of iran here. that's why we have not one, but potentially two aircraft carrier groups heading to the region as a deterrent. there were some reports about the skirmishes in the north becoming more violent in recent days.

the president also is potentially weighing a trip to visit israel in the days ahead. one would think it would be before a potential gaza operation. >> you know we use the phrase to describe iraq and afghanistan as the forever war. but we're talking today about the real forever war, war against israel in the middle east. the idea that if you talk to enough people in washington, you get the sense that there is no real desire to talk about the end of this forever war without talking about the need to pull together egypt, saudi arabia, united arab emirates, bahrain, all the countries in the middle east against a common enemy that you can define. that common enemy is iran. something has to be done. it might get done soon in a

violent way. we don't know that. we don't know how the chips will fall. but this is the real forever war we've been talking about for decades and will continue to talk about. >> you know, there was a time back when dr. brzezinski and the carter administration were working in camp david where egypt stepping out on its own was an extraordinarily courageous thing to do. anwar sadat ended up being assassinated. starting in the early 2000s we actually did see a shift. it used to be that any time israel made a move against palestinians, the entire arab league used to be when anybody made a move, the entire arab league would come together and condemn israel. it started to change when sunni eye arab states saw them as a threat to israel.

that has been the state of play for the past 20 years. i do wonder if this is handled well, if you will not have saudi arabia, the uae, other sunni arab countries actually being a part of a peacekeeping force with the united states and the united nations taking part in gaza. again, pressuring, pushing everybody towards just a viable two-state solution that can stop this from ever happening again. >> at the moment it's hard to imagine certainly a force in the sense of saudi troops. that's hard to imagine. the long-term strategic goal here is clearly normalizations of relations between israel and saudi arabia, and the biden administration is doing everything it can to try to keep that back on track.

mbs has had to said he was going to pause this. that's why i'm saying that what happens over the next few weeks will impact the viability of that relationship. mbs has to watch out for his own public, his own population, as do all of the arab leaders. it starts to be a groundswell of vocal criticism of their leaders for -- starting with israel in any form, if people in gaza are being killed in large numbers and those images are being played around the middle east, it makes that much more difficult. it will be harder for mbs to say we're going to come into some tort of long-term solution and work with the israelis if the veils already killing in large numbers. it's a very volatile moment. it's possible, joe, you're

right, that out of this can come a real two-state solution that has the backing of influential sunni arab states that will look out for both palestinian and israeli interests. it's what tony blinken is flying around the middle east i imagine trying to talk about as well, even at the moment. coming up, a look at the other stories we're following this morning. we'll be right back. 're followi this morning we'll be right back.

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jonathan, and mike, let's talk about a couple other things. football, and let's start with football. jonathan let me hear -- your patriots should have won the game yesterday. can't blame it on mike brown if he throws a perfect pass at the end of the game, you can't drop passes. but a couple of shockers. >> let's not talk about that anymore. but, yes, the new york jets -- the new york jets of all teams

beat the philadelphia eeg knocking the eagles from the rank of the undefeated. the cleveland browns defeated the san francisco 49ers. the 29ers took some injuries, too, so that's a concern for him. >> it's the hope that kills you. it's the hope that kills you they say. for jets fans, we're sorry. you actually think you still have a chance. but san francisco losing, like you said, best team in the nfl. >> exactly what i was saying. >> lost to the browns. >> other big news this morning, the world lost an entertainment icon over the weekend. suzanne somers passed away in her palm springs home yesterday. nbc news correspondent dana grave fin reports on her life and legacy. >> reporter: from tv sitcom stardom to trend setting pitch woman, suzanne somers was a household name for decades. suzanne marie mahoney wasn't

always so confident. >> quiet, insecure, the kid who stayed in the corner. >> reporter: she began her career on the game show hosted by alan hamel who would become her second husband, a love story asking more than half a century. the role as the illusive blond in american graffiti launched her career. her big break come as the loveable and klutzy chrissy snow, making three's company. fired for demanding to be paid as much as popular male stars. >> the men were taking 10 to 15 times more than me on lesser series. >> reporter: she went on to play carol lam bert, america's mom next door on the comedy sitcom "step-by-step." >> give us a chance to be together and talk. >> reporter: all while making the thigh master a household product selling millions.

>> we may not have been born with great legs, but now we can look like we were. >> reporter: through the years, she lived the live life to the fullest mentality. >> it's how you respond to the problems in your life that define how you were as a person. >> very sad passing, dead from cancer at the age of 77, and one of the nicest things i read about her is that she was overall so incredibly nice to everybody. i remember her from "three's company" because i'm that old. her husband wrote her a love letter right before she died. their relationship spanned many decades. beautiful. that does it for us. ana cabrera and jose diaz-balart pick up the coverage right now. ahead this hour on special coverage of the israel-hamas war. half a million civilians fleeing