country. the prime minister announced the defense minister won't be leaving any time soon. you can see, right now, the government is run by a coalition of parties that, in normal times, don't agree, and that'll lead to disagreements likely as things move forward. >> we just saw there the headline, that israeli defense officials saying troops will soon see gaza from inside. we wait for that. white house correspondent for "the new york times," michael shear, come back soon. thank you for joining us this morning. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this monday morning. it is going to be a busy week. "morning joe" starts right now. we expect that there's a likelihood of escalation, escalation by iranian proxies directed against our forces, directed against our personnel. we are taking steps to make sure we can effectively defend our people and respond decisively if

we need to. this is not what we want, not what we're looking for. we don't want escalation. >> is -- >> we don't want a second or third front develop. we don't want to see our forces or our personnel come under fire, but if that happens, we're ready for it. >> secretary of state antony blinken making it clear, the united states will respond to any provocation from iran connected to the israel-hamas war. it comes as israel's defense forces are expanding air strikes in gaza. we'll get the latest with a live report from israel straight ahead. plus, new reporting on how president biden and other u.s. officials helped delay the ground invasion of the territory. also ahead, we'll dig into the republican-led dysfunction on capitol hill. there are now several candidates hoping to become house speaker after jim jordan's failed bid. and we'll get you expert legal analysis on donald trump's

violation of the gag order in his civil fraud trial, as well as another new guilty plea deal from one of his co-defendants in the georgia case. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." the news just doesn't stop over the weekend. it's monday, october 23rd. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. former aid to the george w. bush white house and state departments, elise jordan. columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius joins us this morning. and former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense jeremy bash is here. he is an nbc news national security analyst. and we'll dive right in. israel's defense forces launched new air strikes into gaza, the west bank, and lebanon, as israel expands the scope of its offensive against hamas terrorists.

residents of north gaza received new warnings from israel to evacuate to the south of the territory, warnings that suggested the residents could be identified as sympathizers with a terrorist organization if they stay put. in the west bank, the idf says its air strike on an underground compound at a mosque struck a terror cell. overnight, israel's military says it hit two hezbollah cells in lebanon that it believed were designing a plan to launch missiles and rockets into israel. meanwhile, a second humanitarian convoy has reached the gaza strip. a total of 14 trucks carrying food, water, and medicine arrived yesterday according to a u.n. official. the trucks were inspected by israel's defense forces prior to entry, and no fuel was allowed in. yesterday's convoy followed the first round of trucks carrying supplies to be allowed into gaza on saturday.

that shipment was packed down to 20 trucks and was described by the u.n. as, quote, a fraction of what is needed after 13 days of complete siege. >> all right. let's bring in nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel, live from northern israel near the lebanese border. richard, you're following the latest on the potential ground invasion. what can you tell us? >> reporter: so, first, let me set the scene where i am. you just talked about those israeli strikes against hezbollah. we are in the town right on the lebanese border. the hills behind me, on the back side of them, that's lebanon. that territory right behind these hills is where hezbollah has its fighters, it has rocket positions. if a war were to expand, that second front that blinken was concerned about that, israel is concerned about, that the united states is concerned about, it'd come potentially from this area with rockets and/or fighters

coming over these hills and then down into israel. the big news here this morning, a lot of talk on israeli media, the television and leading newspapers, that the ground offensive may be delayed for an indeterminate period of time, after the united states was, not pressuring israel, but encouraging israel to slow things down, to give it a beat. there does seem to be some movement with the negotiations via qatar to free hostages. as you'll remember, american-israeli hostages were freed on saturday. there does seem to be some progress. to allow military buildup in the area, to harden american defenses in case there is an escalation, in case there is a war with hezbollah, a war with iran, and to see if diplomacy can have some sort of impact to

de-escalate this crisis. over the weekend, there was a summit in cairo. a lot of pieces are in motion. israel is still carrying out its air strikes. it also carried out a ground commando raid near the border. the military activity is not slowing down. in fact, last night was the most intense night of air strikes according to people in gaza that they have seen since the beginning of this conflict to date. the air strikes are more intense than ever. israeli troops are going in in limited forays, but according to reports that are all over the media here, the ground offensive may be delayed. >> nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel, thank you very much for that report. >> greatly appreciate it. david ignatius, let's bring you in. there has been a lot of diplomatic efforts undertaken by

the united states especially to slow down -- well, first of all, to stop any fighting north, but also to slow down the ground invasion. if you look at the opinion of people that help shape american foreign policy in washington, d.c., and i'll start with you, your column last week very wisely said, they should begin this war by thinking about what follows it, what follows the day after. i'll read you what tom friedman wrote this weekend at "the new york times." said, israel is about to make a terrible mistake. quote, i believe if israel rushes adlong into gaza now to destroy hamas, and does so without expressing a clear commitment to seek a two-state solution with the palestinian authority and end jewish settlements in the west bank, it'll be making a grave mistake that will be devastating for israeli interests and american interests. it could trigger a global conflagration and expose the

pro-american alliance structure that the united states has built in the region since henry kissinger engineered yom kippur. it is about the right way, the way that doesn't play into the hands of hamas, iran, and russia. otherwise, what began as a hamas onslaught against isrl has the potential to trigger a middle east war with every great power and regional power having a hand in it, which would also make it very difficult to stop once it is started. peggy noonan also writing this weekend for "the wall street journal," talked about how she, too, said, i fear it may be too late. it looks as if plans for a ground invasion of gaza are in place. decisions have been made. possible repercussions considered and perhaps accounted for. that's it, david. the repercussions. we're talking about hamas, but that expands out into iran,

which expands out into russia, which expands out into whether china will feel the united states, distracted with two regional wars, can go into taiwan. suddenly, we have an emergency the likes of which we really haven't seen since world war ii. >> it is an exceedingly dangerous situation. i think what observers like my friend tom friedman, like peggy noonan, like me have been writing, reflects what senior officials at the administration tell me. it is important that israel learn the lessons the united states has from its wars in the middle east. prime among them, you have to think carefully about the day after the war seems to end and how you govern that area in a way that doesn't just produce more instability. also, clearly, in this environment, you have to think about the danger that war will

expand in ways you can't predict, that this will move from being a one-front war to a two- or three-front war. then what happens to russia? what happens to china? i think there are two fundamentals that people should realize haven't been altered in any way in israel. the first, they believe, and they have strong support from the administration, secretary blinken said it yesterday, that political power of hamas must be destroyed. that hamas is simply not prepared to make compromises. it remains committed to the destruction of israel. israel fights wars every few years, and then it comes back. i think after the horror of the attacks of october 7th, israelis and senior american officials are united in thinking, we've got to stop this. figuing out how you get a

different government in gaza that will work is exceedingly difficult. there are a lot of talks going on with saudi arabia, jordan, egypt, all those countries. the second thing i think people are thinking increasingly about is, how do you deal with the humanitarian problem? also, how do you keep as many of the hostages as possible alive who are being held? it is over 200 people. people are trying to think carefully, how do we conduct the military operation and keep those people alive? that's one big reason we're seeing the delay. prepare the battlefield. make sure you know where the hostages are and exactly how you'll move in and not get them killed. >> of course, hamas holding, the terrorist group hamas holding those hostages, and qatar negotiating to try to release them. david, i'm curious here. we are three weeks, a little more than three weeks away from the horrors of october 7th.

many things have been going through all of our minds. so many concerns. so many shocking revelations. peggy noonan touched on one of those, and i want to know if you have insight into what the hell happened. we have the possibility of netanyahu and a split between the secular professionals who ran israel and protected israel for since 1948, then sort of this new breed of ultra orthodox supporters that netanyahu had and, well, quite bluntly, bringing people around him that were not equipped to protect and defend israel. this is what peggy wrote. israel needs to dig deep and fortify. what's happening now doesn't feel like the past. when, say, a surprise and underdog israel, a tough and scrappy nation, spiritedly repelled its invaders.

later, when a determined nation came down on the foes with the hardware those foes didn't have. this feels, peggy writes, and has felt from the beginning, like a nation that is not as competent, not as certain. it felt like an israel that had grown less disciplined with a government that was complacent and distracted. israel more generally removed from its founding ideas and its founders. peggy concludes by saying, i hope israel digs deep, refortifies, and devotes its focus to making itself stronger than it seemed on october 6th. david, that leads to the question once again, what happened with israel? i don't think it was just what happened leading up to this attack. what happened that the netanyahu government on october 6th revealed israel to be everything we thought it was not leading up to october 6th. you know, we have grown up hearing about the israeli armed

forces, hearing about how they were next level, a step above. as peggy says, and it's really what's frightening because this puts more of the burden on america's shoulders, they did not seem competent on october 6th. a lot of people died because of it. the question is, why were they so incompetent? i think as friends, we have the right to ask that question because the burden passes to us if netanyahu's government can't do the job. >> so, joe, there's no secret that the months before this hamas attack on october 7 were as divisive as any of us have ever seen in israel. israel seemed almost at war with itself. it was, as you say, a war between the secular folks who dominate the military and intelligence services and a more conservative group, many of them ultra orthodox, who were part of the netanyahu coalition.

that israel was at war with itself, and there's just no question that encouraged hamas to think that israel was weaker. i've seen the country come together, and i think the things that they're planning to deal with, hamas' political power, to get hamas out without getting too many civilians killed, without getting hostages killed, are at a level of technological expertise that is extraordinary. there will be things that are really the very latest uses of robotics, of technology. i wouldn't worry about the competence of the israeli military. i think the central problem that americans need to understand is that israel is haunted after the october 7th attack by the reality that deterrence against hamas failed. israel thought hamas was deterred, they'd open the

borders. more gazans were working in israel. they seemed to be prospering. the thought was, okay, they're not going to be as militant as they've been. that was wrong. they were not deterred. they attacked. when israel looks now at hezbollah and lebanon, they think hezbollah is deterred. they think these are a few rocket attacks that hezbollah has to do to keep face in this axis of resistance, but maybe they're wrong. maybe hezbollah isn't deterred. that's what's troubling israel and we should, i think, understand and sympathize with. >> speaking of the burden you were talking about, joe, the u.s. is increasing its military presence in the middle east after a series of suspected iranian proxy attacks. joining us now, nbc news national security and military correspondent courtney kube. what are these new moves? >> that's right. one of them involves an aircraft

carrier strike ground, the uss eisenhower, that was already planning to head to the mediterranean. we heard that announcement several days ago. now, over the weekend, secretary of defense lloyd austin decided instead to move it more towards the middle east, what we think of as the fifth fleet area, the centcom area. think of the red sea, the persian gulf, the gulf of oman. i spoke with a number of officials over the weekend. we don't know exactly where it'll go, but it'll be closer towards the iraq side of fifth fleet as opposed to the further west side where it would be potentially supporting israel. that's one thing. in addition to that, secretary austin has now authorized a number of additional air defense systems and capabilities moving into the region. that includes the f.a.d., a ballistic missile system. that's going somewhere in centcom. the pentagon is being pretty vague about where these systems and these individuals are going to go. there's also going to be additional patriot battalions

going in. there are already systems in the region which are air defense systems, but they're sending additional systems. we don't know exactly the specifics of it. also, some of the personnel to operate the systems. in addition to that, we learned a week or two ago the secretary of defense also put about 2,000 service members on what's called a prepared to deploy order. what that means is, rather, most of these were already individuals what were on a short leash to deploy, about 96 hours. they were switched to 24 hours. that means that from the time you get the call that you have to go until you're on that airfield ready to get on the plane, is 24 hours. he's added an additional couple hundred people to that list. these are support personnel. the first question i always get when i talk about the prepare to deploy orders is, are these people who will go in and fight in gaza? officials say that is not the case. these are support personnel, medical support, explosive experts, more air defense experts, so people who will be brought into the region to help out with exactly what you all

have been talking about, and that is the threat from some of these regional actors. last week, we saw a real uptick in attack against bases housing u.s. forces in iraq and in syria. i cannot underscore how unusual what we saw with the uss carney, where they took out a couple of missiles fired from the houthis up toward israel. that is basically unprecedented. >> right. >> also new. we did not realize the houthis had the capability to fire missiles that could go from yemen up to israel. these things really have u.s. officials, defense officials concerned, and they're moving forces in to deter and protect against them, joe and mika. >> nbc news national correspondent and military analyst, courtney kube. thank you for that. >> jeremy bash, it seems a couple things are going on at once. israel is slowing down. i think based on, i wouldn't say

pressure, but advice from the united states. the united states is using this time to refortify israel, and the united states and qatar are using this time to negotiate, to try to get hostages out. i'm curious, at the end of the day, i still don't think we're talking about an israel that co-exists with hamas inside its borders. >> i think that's right, joe. for all the discussion on how israel has to figure out its end game, i mean, what is the end game for those who say israel should not conduct count terrorism operations? that's the issue that's confronting u.s. and israeli policymakers and arab leaders, too. which is, if hamas is allowed to exist in the gaza strip, won't these attacks just unfold over and over and over again? as you pointed out, hamas was not deterred. so, you know, in some respects, although i think it's fair to say the u.s. and israel are

closely coordinating the timing of israel's counterterrorism operations, i don't see fundamentally israel calling off the offensive against hamas. how could they? they killed 30 americans, maybe have 10 american hostages as well as an additional 200 israel hostages. actually, hostages from many nations. undoubtedly, hamas is not going to be allowed to control the gaza strip. joe and mika, i think this is going to fall on arab governments and leaders, primarily egypt, to figure out what security in the gaza strip looks like over the long term. >> david ignatius, i want to circle back to you there. i've talked to, like you i know, i've talked to a lot of contacts across the middle east. talked to contacts in the united states who have a long history of working with israel and in the middle east. it does seem, while there is initial pushback, it does seem,

as jeremy was saying, the best move is to rid gaza of terrorists, bring in an arab-led peacekeeping coalition, perhaps under the united nations, and i must say, there's a third part of this that really surprises me. you know, what we see in the news is the arab street hates america, et cetera, et cetera. but it seems one arab nation after another arab nation after another arab nation says, yes, we'll consider this. the united states has to be there. you guys have to lead. we're not going to be out there on our own. if the u.s. is in, these sunni arab nations will be part of the peacekeeping process. i say, what about the u.n.? they go, what about the u.n.? we need the u.s. to be the leaders that they need to be right now. again, surprised me but probably doesn't surprise you.

>> so we say so often, joe, that the united states is the indispensable requirement in international order. here's a good example of it. you have all of these countries saying, we're prepared to help, but we need u.s. leadership. that's especially true with the moderate arab countries. they don't like hamas. in their own countries, hamas is generally banned. they certainly don't like the iranians who were hamas' biggest backers. this is a fundamental opposition. in that sense, they support israel's desire to destroy hamas power in gaza. the question is how to do that in a way that doesn't lead to their own political disasters. you see crowds in the streets in amman and jordan, denouncing any efforts to help israel. you see the nature of their problem. as i talk to arab leaders, they

want to be part of a long-term solution that springs different governance to gaza, and also to the west bank. a new kind of palestinian authority. finally, some progress in getting decent governance for the palestinians, less corruption. they want to help in that, but they can't do it alone. they simply can't organize it. there's a big choice ahead for the biden administration, whether to jump back in to the middle east. not just in bolstering israel in this crisis but in really forging a mechanism to get, eventually, a palestinian state over the resistance of many israelis. israelis are fed up with dealing with the palestinians. you can hear that in their voices. that's part of it. that's part of the political drama that's playing out. but you're quite right, the many arabs would be willing to do this if the united states was willing to lead it. >> yeah. senior biden officials i speak to certainly have throughout the president's term, have not wanted to make the middle east a

priority. they've tried to shift away from that. the pivot to asia, obviously the war on ukraine became a focal point. now, they see this on a precipice. aides i've spoken to over the weekend said, yes, they've tried to get tel-aviv to slow down, to minimize casualties, to prevent the u.s. from being dragged in further into this war. israel has, indeed, pushed the pause button, but i think aides caution me not to read too much into that. there's not a real sense that israel is adhering to the u.s.' wishes. this might be strategy, they're trying to soften the ground with the air strikes which we saw escalate dramatically over the weekend. there's also the concern about the hostages still there. elise jordan, i mean, aides point to me, there seemed to be some momentum building perhaps for israel to have more targeted, smaller strikes into gaza. the buildup is extraordinary. the size of the manpower and the equipment that israel is putting near the border that could indicate a full-on operation.

if that is what happens, if they go in all the way, how to you see that happening, both within the situation in gaza itself and also the region reacting? >> i think we're going to see what is now a counterterrorism operation turn into, gradually, that dirty word that no one wants to hear, counterinsurgency. that's what i'm really concerned about, the israelis get involved into a long counterinsurgency in gaza that is only going to be horrible for both sides and especially for civilians. you look at the history of the last two decades and how this went for the american military in fallujah and those hard battles. in mosul against isis, that went on 200 days. mosul is probably about the same size, battle space as gaza. this is going to be very difficult, very bloody, and very long. >> jeremy, i wanted to follow up on that. we hear people talking about how this can't be done.

street to street fighting in gaza will be terrible. we did it in mosul. we had to do it in mosul. people wanted isis destroyed, and that's ultimately what we had to do, isn't it? >> yeah. we decapitated al qaeda's leadership. we ultimately thwarted isis. this can be done with precision intelligence, precision fires, good ground operations, good air power, good naval power. israel has all of those capabilities. having the u.s. and israel closely coordinate on this campaign, i agree, there's no rush here. after 9/11, we didn't go into afghanistan for a full month. israel has time here. they have the ability to set the force. the u.s. can set the force. but this is going to be a military solution to take out hamas' leadership. the people who think, oh, israel should hang back, it's not worth it, it'll be too costly, that's unrealistic. this would be the equivalent of 50,000 americans being killed in a terrorist attack and 5,000 hostages. there's no way we would hold

back, and neither will israel. >> well, and the united states will not tell israel not to destroy hamas. because, well, israel wouldn't listen. in fact, i think no country would listen that had the equivalent of 50,000 americans killed in a terror attack the way these israelis were tortured, beheaded, burned, raped, a kid shot in front of their parents, parents shot in front of their kids. a list of the most horrific, barbaric acts. david ignatius, let's not kid ourselves. this is ultimately going to move forward, but it doesn't matter how good israel's intel ultimately becomes, doesn't matter how precise their weapons are. it doesn't matter what robotics they may have. this is still going to be street to street, building to building, room to room fighting, and it is going to be ugly. >> war is ugly, and this war is

going to be especially painful to watch on tv. the attack on an urban area. i said to an israeli official over the last few days, remembering general petraeus' formula for iraq, clear, hold, build. okay. israel is going to go in, whether it's this week, next week, whenever, they'll go in hard against hamas. they're going to destroy hamas, no question about it. they will clear hamas political power in gaza. you can bet on it. who is going to hold gaza in the chaos that follows in that power vacuum? well, israeli answers are not clear yet. they wonder if the arabs would help them. could the palestinian authority in the west bank be revitalized and come in? could you have some kind of international force? not a good answer. how are you going to build that place so it is not just a mess, a barren mess? i've been in gaza. it is one of the saddest places

on this planet. how do you change that over time? i think thinking about the three. clear, okay, we have that. hold, how do you do that? finally, build. how are we going to do that? that'll help think about what's ahead. >> almost impossible questions that have to be answered for this all to work. david ignatius and jeremy bash, thank you both very much for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," we now know the next house speaker will not be jim jordan, but what's about all we know. there are now nine others running for the gavel and no speaker for a long time. >> hopefully one of those nine will get the votes needed for the republicans to start running the house again. >> kind of need one. >> let's keep our fingers crossed on that one. also ahead, following sidney powell's guilty plea in the georgia election interference case, donald trump claimed over the weekend she was never his lawyer. >> yeah, but she was according to him. >> well, you'll never guess who once did announce sidney powell was his lawyer. >> oh.

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i want a speaker. my committee of war and peace, it's too dangerous right now. the world is on fire. this is so dangerous, what we're doing. most importantly, it's embarrassing because it empowers and emboldens our adadversaries like chairman xi who says democracy doesn't work. >> chair of the foreign affairs committee, republican congressman michael mccall of texas. what do you think of what he had to say? i think he is right. >> i think the chairman has been right on so many fronts over the past six months, including ukraine, where we hear from the isolationists who want the united states to turn ukraine over to russia in the republican party. michael mccall, the chairman, has always been strong and

forceful, said, not only do we support what the administration is doing in ukraine, we think they should do more. send weapons sooner. again, that's a good balance, and that's a good debate to have. here, chairman mccaul is exactly right. the members of the house of representatives who just get more hits on tiktoks, donations from donors. the real winner here, chairman xi, as mike mccaul said, are chairman xi, vladimir putin, kim jong-un, hezbollah in iran. all the people who say freedom doesn't work. all the people that say american democracy doesn't work. that is what they say. and they do use moments like

this to talk to our allies in europe and say, "see, the united states, they don't have their act together. follow us. be on our side. be in our camp." this doesn't even -- i mean, i've talked to some leaders from not aligned countries like india and across the middle east, who are kind of getting the push and the pull from china and the united states. they will say to me, why do you keep talking about how great america is? you all can't even run your own congress. so i know we look at one or two members that are cynically using this just because they want attention, but i hope the republican party will come together and find a compromise candidate that sends a message, not just to voters a year from now -- >> which would help them. >> which would help them, right. but, also, sends a message to our enemies in communist china, people who think we're they're enemies. i don't consider any country our

enemies other than iran, but, china, they're our rivals. we can't have our rivals there or in russia or anywhere, iran, anywhere else across the world pointing to the united states congress and saying, "look how dysfunctional they are. follow us. be on our side. our model of government works better." >> it was already a joke when kevin mccarthy had to do vote after vote after vote after vote and not getting them every time until finally cutting a deal that was impossible for his survival as speaker. >> right. >> now, they're finding a new level here. no speaker, literally no speaker. this morning, there are now nine candidates vying for the position. all declared their candidacies after congressman jim jordan of ohio dropped his bid late last week, following three failed house floor votes. who goes out without the votes? republicans. joining us now, congressional investigations reporter for "the washington post," jackie

alemany. what happens next? >> good morning, mika and joe. these nine candidates are going to make their case to the conference in an internal setting, starting this evening. appears highly unlikely we're going to get to house floor vote imminently, as, you know, based on the past few weeks, what we've seen with steve scalise and jim jordan, people who were two very popular members with pretty big constituencies within the party, and these nine members whom you mentioned and showed up on the screen are all, i think, fair to say, backbenchers, people who do not have the largest profiles, who do have minor leadership roles within the party, but, again, are -- have nowhere near the national profile as scalise and jordan. but that actually might work to their advantage. people who have been talking to me behind the scenes advocating

for either of these various candidates have said that people like mike johnson, who are well-liked within the conference and developed a good reputation but don't have a national profile, and, therefore, are less likely to become a boogieman going into 2024 midterms, expected to be fairly competitive, that might be the best bet for the conference going forward. again, none of these people off the top of my head seem to be getting anywhere near 217. >> jackie, looking at the tier of candidates now, it does seem a little bit like a republican debate, the second debate stage, where the next group of finalists, you know those people in the republican debates, of course, are not going to make it to become the nominee. here, this is really -- someone from this pool needs to win if the country is going to start to function again. how do you see this playing out over the next few days, or do you just see it as a much longer process than even this week?

>> yeah, elise, you know, i was telling some people over the weekend that i wouldn't be shocked if this went on another 20 days. the common refrain that we have been hearing all along is that it's always been mchenry. that's patrick mchenry of north carolina. he's the third person in the holy trinity of jim jordan, kevin mccarthy, and mchenry. he is someone who has shooed trying to be house speaker. he said he didn't want to take advantage of the powers as the interim speaker. he has said that he opportunity think that he has the constitutional right to get any legislation and sort of facilitate that on the house floor. but he is someone that everyone keeps coming back to, and there is a feeling that after we go through what we're about to go through for a few more iterations, another candidate within the party going through the speaker's cycle and losing on the house floor, that mchenry

is the inevitable option. we had the resolution brought forward by dave joyce last week that did gain a little bit of momentum, although not enough to have people support it in the closed door meeting on friday where jim jordan ultimately bowed out after he failed to win a secret ballot. then there's some rumors that another resolution that would include propping mchenry up as the interim speaker on a little bit of a more permanent, extended basis, will be introduced again. but that is contingent on democrats also stepping in who are now waiting and just watching this infighting take place within the gop and are going to, i think, wait it out a little bit longer. >> to jackie's point, democrats i've spoken to say that they're not inclined to rush in there. if they were going to make some agreement to help, say, mchenry, become a coalition type leader, they'd need concrete, enforceable concessions to make that happen. nothing has been of the offering

yet because republicans simply don't want to go down that path. congressman emmer, who is perceived as the slight favorite perhaps, donald trump weighed in on this over the weekend, has made it very clear he does not want emmer to be speaker. now, we don't know how much of a real voice, how much influence he truly has in the house. jim jordan was his guy initially. first, gop went to scalise and then jordan after his lost his two rounds, was resoundingly shot down in the secret ballot. so striking, the republicans in public back jordan, but as soon as they got the option to vote in a secret ballot, they decisively knocked him down. joe and mika, of course, as this continues, it's not just about israel and ukraine aid that can't be produced, the government is due to shut down in under a month. there's no sign of a deal here. >> there's that. >> unbelievable. you know, i've got to say, elise jordan, does that not sum up more effectively years under

trump than anything we've ever seen? you talk to 98% of the members in the house and senate, those who are republicans, and they privately hate trump, hate him and always have. they get in front of a camera, and they just sell their political soul to him. here, jim jordan, the overwhelming majority voted for him when it was a public vote. when it was a private vote, they couldn't get away from him fast enough. >> the flip was incredible. >> yeah, just the cowardice of so many of these members, pretty shocking. i mean, you know, people knew if i were for them or against them. private votes, public statements, you know, at least when we served, you knew where everybody stood. now, it's just the opposite. >> well, joe, i want to go back to what happened to those members who decided not to vote for jordan. they got a lot of threats. they had to send a sheriff to their child's school.

the death threats. you know, to deal with that is not something you take lightly. and so it took a lot of courage to make that vote, but this is the climate of extremism that donald trump has wrought and that, now, it's being embraced by, you know, the most extreme of his followers. we see how that now comes into this speaker's race. it's very scary. you think about how it degrades the caliber of men and women who dare to go into politics if they know this is what they're going with, members of their own caucus inciting violence against them. >> i was going to say, it's not even -- >> so many consequences. >> -- republican or conservatives threatening democrats or conservatives threatening media members, which they do all the time. i say conservatives, trumpers. extreme maga trumpers threatening all these different

people. it's now these maga trumpers threatening republicans. that's just how much the virus has spread. it's obviously horrible when anybody is threatened because of their political views, but it's gotten so extreme that it's now inside the conference on votes for speaker of the house. >> that's just crazy. "the washington post"'s jackie alemany, thank you, as always, for being on this morning. we need to turn now to some major developments surrounding donald trump's indictments. trump campaign legal adviser kenneth chesbro is now the third co-defendant in the election interference case to plead guilty. chesebro entered the plea friday as jury selection for his trial s under way. he was charged with one felony count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents. he faces five years of probation and a $5,000 fine, among other terms. he will also be required to

provide documents and evidence to the state. chesebro had rejected an earlier deal and was set to stand trial alone after co-defendant sidney powell took a deal last week. as for powell, trump is now claiming she was never actually his lawyer. >> really? >> yeah. >> that's interesting. i'm so confused. >> because he used to say she was. >> rit. >> in a post on truth social. >> truth, truth social. >> w put that in quotes, truth. >> truth social. >> trump said, quot ms. powell was not my attorney and never was. >> huh. >> however, that contradicts a november 2020 tweet in which trump wrote powell had joined his legal team and the team was being spearheaded by his personal attorney, rudy giuliani. >> truly great team. wonderful lawyers. >> confirmed powell's involvement during a november 2020 press conference.

>> this is representative of our legal team. we're representing president trump, and we're representing the trump campaign. when i finish, sidney powell and then jenna ellis will follow me. there are a lot more lawyers working on this, but we're the -- i guess we're the senior lawyers. >> senior lawyers who spent a lot of time in the white house. >> that is -- >> let's bring in former u.s. attorneys barbara mcquaid and joyce vance. this is like having half of the avengers, right? this is half of the sisters-in-law. on their podcast, they talked about this. you know what the title was? >> what? >> cheese and kraken. >> that's really good. >> i wish i thought about that myself. >> let's talk about it. also, i have to be nice to barbara because michigan just seems winning.

so go blue, barbara. >> thanks, joe. >> hard for me to say from alabama. all right. let's talk about this. we'll start, barbara, with you. what is the significance of chesebro's plea? >> i think this is an incredibly significant plea, joe. you know, i think sidney powell felt a little more important because she was the face of the legal team, out there with her release and kraken and other things, but chesebro was the one who was the architect of the false electors' scheme. he is someone who can provide a lot of testimony about that scheme, and he may be the domino that knocks over some other dominos that are really important. jenna ellis, john eastman. john eastman, of course, was someone who was close to donald trump, was whispering in his ear, and was the one pushing this theory. i think it is an incredibly significant moment. >> on your podcast a couple days

ago, you also talked about, joyce, you talked about what this would mean for the other defendants in the case. explain that here. >> right. so it's exactly as barb says. what prosecutors are looking for here is a domino effect. because these two plea bargains taken together really put pressure on other co-defendants in a couple of different ways. first off, there is this notion that the defendants who are first in to make deals will get the best deals. neither powell nor chesebro has to serve time in prison as a result of their plea agreement. that's a powerful motivator. now, we're looking at this big block of remaining defendants. there's no trial date set right now. that's something i think we'll see happen in the next week, as judge mcafee gets back to work. the question is, who among the remaining defendants now wants to come in and cut a deal with fani willis in hopes they have

unique, valuable information that prosecutors still need before everything else gets under way? then, joe and mika, there's one final interesting factor here that we really don't have much insight into, and that is whether these folks who are now cooperating in fulton county will also coordinate in the federal investigation. chesebro was the architect of the fake electors scheme, not just in georgia but in multiple states. he would certainly be very helpful for jack smith as he looks more globally at trump and his cohorts' misconduct. >> we'll be watching whether he cooperates there, as well. barb, i want to turn to the new york civil case. the judge slapped trump with a violation of the gag order. we all recall, a few weeks ago, trump posted about a law clerk there, a person who worked for the judge. he was reprimanded, took it down. turns out, the posting was still on the campaign website. the campaign said it was a mistake. the judge said he believed them

but offered a $5,000 fine for trump. noteworthy, a, it's the first time a gag order penalty was issued. also, trump spent last night seemingly violating it. he went after jack smith again by name, called him deranged, et cetera, et cetera. trump is playing with fire here, barb. how do you see this playing out? could we see stiffer penalties in the future? >> yes. you know, i was actually impressed with judge e nengoron new york, even though the fine is low for donald trump, $5,000, i suppose. not a huge number. i expected a warning for the first offense and then escalating levels of sanctions. instead, he hit him right away with $5,000 and made it clear he was not going to tolerate any future violations. you know, he is making a record. he is going on record of saying, these are serious matters. i would imagine if there is a second offense, that number is higher. the ultimate card the judge

holds is jail. now, donald trump certainly seems to be testing a different judge, judge chutkan in federal court. he may perceive that he has a little bit of a window of opportunity because there is another hearing on this matter. he said he is going to appeal, and he wants a stay of that order. it is stayed until there can be that hearing. it may be he is taking advantage of his last few days of opportunity before he does that. but i think judge chutkan would be wise to watch what's happening in new york. the only way to stop him is to sanction him with making a record and escalating levels. ultimately, she has the ultimate card of jailing him. >> joyce, barb led me exactly to what i wanted to ask you, the idea of judge chutkan. she's stayed through the gag order, at least for now. she's seeing what happened in the new york case, a, and, b, the truth social screens from

trump. will she move on this? >> she is an experienced judge, and she is doing exactly the right thing here. she's building a record. if you are thinking of sanctioning a defendant for violating a gag order, make sure whatever you do will be upheld on appeal. you don't want the court of appeals to reverse you. this was the case where the magistrate judge at arraignment took the unusual step of cautioning trump and of making sure he understood that, as one of his conditions of release, he was not supposed to do anything that would discuss witnesses, court personnel, that he needed to be careful about not violating those rules. this is a court that from the get-go has been looking forward to the moment where donald trump inevitably violates a gag order. judge chutkan is making sure she's giving him, essentially,

enough rope to hang himself here. we've seen what happens when she stays the gag order. trump goes ahead and violates what it would look like if it was in place. she's just making the case on appeal stronger. >> all right. former u.s. attorneys barbara mcquaid, go blue, and joyce vance, we saved the best for last. alabama, third saturday in october, was looking rough the first half, but we ended strong. >> you could hear the cheers swell up in my neighborhood, joe, especially as our kicker, rikard, became the player in the s.e.c. to score the most points. roll tide. >> roll tide. now, roll or go sisters-in-law? >> you can't do it. >> thanks, guys. >> something like that. >> thank you for being on this morning. coming up on "morning joe," one of our next guests says israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu's attack on democracy

left israel unprepared for the hamas attack. a lot of questions about how they knew nothing about this. >> i still find that unfathomable. >> i know. we keep asking. the "atlantic's"e applebaum joins us ahead. >> sunrise on a monday morning over new york city, almost 7:00. s and tongues wagging. ♪♪ fastsigns. make your statement. only unitedhealthcare medicare advantage plans come with the ucard - one simple member card that opens doors where it matters for you. what if we need to see a doctor away from home? ucard gets you in with medicare advantage's largest national provider network. how 'bout using it at the pharmacy? yes - your ucard is all you need. huh - that's easy!

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he cannot be the next president. because if he is, all of the things that he attempted to do but was stopped from doing by responsible people around him at the department of justice, at the white house counsel's office, all of those things he will do. there will be no guardrails. everyone has been warned. after january 6th, after our investigation, after all of the evidence that we laid out about all of the steps in his multi-part plan to overturn the

election, there can be no question that he will unravel the institutions of our democracy. so we are facing a moment in american politics where we have to set aside partisanship, and we have to make sure that people who believe in the constitution are willing to come together to prevent him from ever again setting foot anywhere near the oval office. >> former republican congresswoman liz cheney again warning about the dire consequences of a second presidential term for donald trump. welcome back to "morning joe." it is monday, october 23rd. jonathan lemire and elise jordan are still with us. we will be continuing to look at the potentials of a trump presidency, as we also follow the war in israel which continued to bombard gaza from the air to weaken hamas in anticipation of an imminent ground invasion. but the continued delay may be in part due to pressure from

white house officials. according to a u.s. official who spoke with "the washington post," a core objective of president joe biden's trip to tel-aviv last week was to buy time for israel to, quote, think through a possible ground assault. >> i think it is also time for us to buy time to refortify in the region, to bring more forces over there and freeze everything in place before launching anything that could start a regional war. >> in meetings with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu, biden reportedly expressed concerns about the logistics of a ground invasion and the possible impact of war spreading across the middle east. in marathon meetings of their own, secretary of state blinken and secretary of defense lloyd austin reportedly worked with their israeli counterparts last week on plans to minimize more civilian casualties. meanwhile, more than two weeks into israel's war against hamas

terrorists, there are new questions about how prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his right-wing government's actions domestically may have played a role leading up to the crisis. joining us now, staff writer for "the atlantic," ann apple bum. her piece is, "netanyahu's attack on democracy left israel unprepared." great to have anne on this morning. i do think, as israel makes major decisions moving forward with the ground war, if they start the onslaught, which hasn't yet, how much support is netanyahu going to have in israel? how much trust is he going to have if people aren't given an explanation as to how this breakdown happened? >> i think. >> in the first place. >> i think as we would say in the deep south, that horse is already out of the barn. they're not going to trust netanyahu. if question, anne, is how did this happen, and how can israelis prevent this from ever happening again? >> so i think to answer mika's

point, israelis are very angry at netanyahu. that isn't preventing them from rallying to the army, to the military, for the reservists from returning to defense the country. but people are asking, why did netanyahu spend the nine months before this attack attacking the rest of israeli society? why was he increasing polarization? why did he create this assault on the judiciary to pass this package of so-called reforms that many believe would lead the country to autocracy? why did extremists dictate the policies of his government? why did he throw so much scorn on israeli institutions? not just democratic institutions but security institutions. the army reservists who were protesting. you know, he created these divides and, first of all, weakened the country in the eyes of the outsiders, but he also

weakened israeli institutions. you know, we don't know yet what's the exact trajectory, you know, why exactly was israel not aware on the day of the hamas raids, what was going on until too late. you know, a dysfunctional society like the one that netanyahu created is naturally more, you know, more likely to be attacked, to be distracted. many israelis are going to want answers sooner rather than later. >> anne, the thing is, this is a monday morning quarterbacking, but this is something you also heard out of israel a year leading up to these attacks. i heard about a divided israeli military, a divided israeli intel agency. netanyahu getting out the secular professionals, bringing in people, i'm just going to say what they were described as to to me, bringing in, quote,

clowns who just were so many levels below the secular professionals that had protected israel since 1948. then you add on top of that his attempt to declare war on the judiciary. we reported on this show day in and day out while those protests were going on that it was mainly the intel communities and the military that were putting weight behind those protests to protect israeli democracy. >> that's absolutely right. i mean, the core of the protests were the tech community, which does have deep links to the security of israeli and always has, as well as the army reservists who created an organization that ran and organized many of the protests. there were also others. there were students. there were academics, lots of ordinary israelis who participated. but the defense community made

it clear that these kinds of -- this assault on israeli freedom and on the role of law was unacceptable to them, and that it'd create a country they wouldn't be able to fight for. netanyahu was told this over and over again, by his army chief, his defense minister, and he chose to ignore it. he did back away from some of the reforms, but it seemed even, you know, even in the weeks leading up to the hamas raid, it did seem as if he was still likely planning to push forward. in other words, his desire to establish a more autocratic israel, an israel in which it would be hard for him to lose an election and for his coalition to lose an election, that was more important to him than israel's security. i think, you know -- >> well -- >> -- it will be asked retrospectively, was that a good idea? >> mika, of course, one of the largest newspapers in israel

wrote the op-ed immediately, or the editorial immediately following the attack, saying, why did we have a prime minister with three indictments against him who was more focused on staying out of jail and declaring war against the judiciary than protecting israelis from hamas and other terror organizations? >> well, anne, you spoke with organizers of the protests against netanyahu this past summer, including one israeli military veteran who told u, quote, the govt is breaking the basic contract, the unwritten contract between itself and the soldiers. someone is going to risk his life, he told me, theyeed to feel a deep connectioo the country, that it is the country. netanyahu was trying t cut that connection, to change what it meant for some people to be israeli. how was he doing that, and what was he trying to change it to? >> in essence, he was trying to

change the judicial system. you know, these were first steps towards what many israelis feared would become a kind of theocracy, you know, united the religious part of israel and the more extreme nationalist part of israel who are less interested in democracy. they'd unit to create a government that couldn't be checked and couldn't be stopped. for a lot of israelis, and that includes many of the most educated israelis, including the tech community, including the highest level of the army reservists, actually, the man i was speaking to was a member of the israeli's elite special forces unit. many feel this was not the israel they grew up in, they were not loyal to it, and it wasn't what they were fighting for. they said so. as i said, in the event, in the moment after the hamas raids, all of those people went back to serve. it's not as if they were

disloyal, but they did warn netanyahu that this kind of behavior risked weakening israel. he was told that over and over again, and, yet, he persisted with it anyway. >> anne, let's move from israel to poland, one of the most significant elections, i would say, in europe over the past decade. you tweeted this about the law and justice party, saying, poland's ruling party just lost an election which they, themselves, organized and manipulated to their advantage. now, their propagandists are suggesting they were cheated and somehow deserve to stay in power. sound familiar? it is quite rich. >> yes. >> that a party that manipulated that election as much as they did, and a party that used all of the instruments of state as much as they did, and still lost the election would say, we rigged our own election against us. how are things moving forward in

poland right now? >> so trumpy. >> before answering that, i'd say, there is an interesting parallel to what netanyahu was doing in israel and what the polish ruling party was doing. it was a similar package of -- >> anne, that's what your book several years ago talked about, "the twilight of democracy." you know, it really helped me connect not just these illiberal powers but helped me also, sort of in my mind, draw a line between all lovers and defenders of western liberal democracy. you are right. you can draw a line from washington and donald trump to warsaw and some of the people in the law and justice party to israel and what netanyahu was trying to do to hungary, to what orban has done, now to slovakia. there is a battle for freedom. there is a battle for western

style democracy. you are so right. israel and elements of the law and justice party, you can draw a direct line between them, can't you? >> you can. i mean, it's not a conspiracy. they don't, you know, necessarily all talk on the phone, but they do watch what one another does. the law and justice party did watch what happened on january 6th in washington and may well be cooking up some version of it themselves. if donald trump can do it, why can't they do it? they all watch one another. they steal tactics. actually, the ruling party in poland used a lot of hungarian tactics in their election. i mean, it didn't work for them, but they certainly tried. netanyahu borrowed some of the judicial reform, so-called reform tactics from poland. these are democratically elected leaders trying to change their democracies, to make sure they never lose again. to manipulate public opinion to

keep themselves in power indefinitely. in other words, to deform their democracies. they do work with one another and imitate one another, and so that is happening in poland and is completely unsurprising. >> it works for orban in hungary so far. it did not work in poland. it led to catastrophe in israel. i tell people, if you want to see what donald trump is going to do if he gets re-elected, don't think about him lining up people against the wall and having them shot. see what orban has done in hungary. he's bragged about having illiberal democracy, and he's wiped out the judiciary, wiped out the free press. anne, i suppose, that's probably what donald trump will look for as a blueprint if he gets elected again. >> one thing we know he'll do, and there are plans floating around that indicate he'll try

to, certainly, try to eliminate the civil service of the united states, the public administration. why, you know, civil service can always be reformed and we can have legitimate arguments about it, the idea that he could fire everybody and replace them with loyalists, in other words, with just people loyal to him and who aren't necessarily qualified in any other way, that is exactly what netanyahu did. that's exactly what he is being accused of right now. that is exactly what law and justice did. they brought in people who weren't competence but, instead, were somebody's cousin or somebody's wife or some party member to run the state. that is incredibly dangerous. you just don't know what you're opening yourselves up to. in the case of netanyahu, i mean, at the very least, we know for a fact that the aftermath of the hamas raids, in other words, cleaning up the towns and villages that were attacked, all of that has been done by volunteers, including some of the volunteers organizing demonstrations.

because the government is pretty incomp incompetent, and they were not able to come help in the aftermath. >> so tragic. >> that's the kind of disaster we could also face. >> anne applebaum, thank you very much. of course, ending on a really bright note, saying that sarcastically. >> well, no, it's the warning we need to take. >> we're seeing it before our eyes. we have been now. let's bring in "new york times" opinion columnist and contributing writer at "the atlantic," david brooks. his new book out tomorrow is titled "how to know a person, the art of seeing others deeply and being deeply seen." >> david, i suggest you stop writing articles for "the times" if they're not supporting your book. >> this is a travesty. >> that they only give you a slight mention here. >> yeah. >> i have to tell you, we're going to get to this in one second. i want to follow up, though, with a conversation we had with

anne. i know you certainly have to have ideas, not only about what's gone on in israel with the attacks, but also before the attacks and this sort of lurch toward illiberalism that divided the country. we just saw what happened in poland. see what's been happening in hungary. what are your thoughts as we talk about this fight between liberal democracy and illiberal knock and the possible con consequences for america? >> first, you know, your viewers should know i have a son who served in the israeli military until two years ago, and he was down in those bases. when i looked at the casualty lists in the israeli military, it was his unit. dellani 13, over and over again. so many men and women from his unit were killed that day. i looked at it with outrage at that fence, which is supposed to protect the soldiers around there and the communities around there. they turned it into a high-tech

disaster. they took away the human elements that were to control the area, put in remote control cameras, alleged machine guns, and it was a complete disaster. i look at the israeli government with a mixture of, they need to establish deterrence but are they really competent? that's the mood i come in. for the larger point, joe, you made it with anne, there is a war of freedom, but it is only a war of freedom and basic civilization. we are in a time of increasing barbarism, not only in ukraine, but with what donald trump is trying to do with this country. the question for myself and all of us is, how do we show up at this moment? i decided i'm not going to be calloused over. i'm not going to be made barbarized by the times, but i'm going to try to lead with respect to people. i'll try to be curious about them, and i'm going to try to do the thing most honoring to the

other human beings we encounter. that's to try to understand them. understand their point of view and make them feel seen, heard, and understood. the book is my personal response to barbarist times. it is a guidebook on how to survive in times like this. >> let's talk about it in minute, but you brought up an important point. you talked about the incompetence of the israelis. it leads to, if anybody read anne's book, "twilight of democracy" from 2017 or 2018, anne talked about how countries that are moving from western style democracies to illiberalism will, first, clear out the competent players, clear out the people in the state who know how to do their jobs, and they'll bring in cronies and thugs who will blindly follow this illiberal leader. we saw it with donald trump, especially in the last two

years. we've seen it in hungary. tragically, we have seen it in israel where, as peggy noonan wrote this weekend, all of the things we believed about israel, about their competence, about their ability to protect not only their people but be a bulwark against extremism in the region, all of those assumptions have been completely dashed. >> shattered. >> in part, i hate to be political about it, but it's the truth, you have a government that brought in a bunch of incompetent ideologues that may have played well for benjamin netanyahu politically in cobbling together a government but didn't know the first thing about protecting israelis. you had people, settlers, waiting, like, six hours, six hours for the army to come to protect them while their children were being shot to death. >> yeah. you know, we undervalue this,

just the mere act of being great at what you do, at possessing the skills of governance. every profession has a series of deep skills. if you're in government, it's how to host a meeting, how to entertain different points of view, how to ask for forgiveness when you've screwed up, and these skills, these social skills, these moral skills just deteriorate when you have third-rate people who don't care about competence. so when i look at the trump administration, i look at, frankly, a lot of people i've been covering for decades who i consider the a-team in the republican party, they were not going to be in the trump administration, neither was the b-team or c-team. what mattered was fealty to one guy. i'd look and say, really? these are the people running the country? aside from ideology, everything else, it is having the courage and standing to hire people just outstanding at their jobs. that's not the way things

worked. >> i read the article yesterday in "the times" and can't wait to read your book. my first thought was, my gosh, i need to get this to my four kids to help them, just help them in interacting with other people, because this was great advice. halfway through the article, i said, wait a second, i need to get this for myself. i need to absorb the lessons of asking better questions, really listen, be vulnerable, make others feel known. the essential skills to being human. there are some of these things that, you know, my parents and my family naturally taught me. there were other things in there, other bits of advice that were just great. when somebody tells you a story about something they're going through, you say, don't one-up them and go, "i understand that happened to your child. i'll tell you what happened to mine." there are so many things like that that you say make all the difference in getting people to relax. the one i love the most is the

question, where were you born? that opens up so much. >> yeah, no. being just a great conversationalist and asking great questions are so important. what you referred to is what i call don't be a topper. if somebody says, "i'm having a trouble with teenage kids." don't say, "i'm also having trouble with my kids." it seems like you're relating, but what you're really saying is, i want to talk about myself, not you. i have a buddy, when you talk to them, it's a pentecostal church, like, amen, preach. love talking to that guy. a final one, don't fear the pause. if we're talking, i start the comment on my shoulder and get to my fingertips, what point did you stop talking to you can think about what you'll say? i'll talk to the end of my comment, pause, and listen. what you do on the program every morning is just be a great

conversationalist. be a good questioner. i will tell you, people love vague questions. they want the question, like, what transition are you in the middle of? what crossroads are you at? give them a chance to talk about their own life from a 30,000 perspective. how does fear show up in your life? if this five years of your life is a chapter in your life, what's this chapter about? if you ask a big question like that, you have a phenomenal conversation. people leave feeling honored and respected and understood. there's just nothing more delicious than that. >> i absolutely love it. >> you're saying people love to have big conversations about themselves? see, be a looper, which is great. you repeat back what they said, right? so, in this case, it would be, so you're telling me people like the big questions? they like to talk about big chapters in their life, and you let them go, right? >> yeah. i read into research of dan

mcadams at northwestern, he studies how people tell their life stories. he pulls them into the office and asks them questions, tell me the big points of your life, turning points. half the people cry while talking about their lives. then they have a little fee, a research fee, and a lot of the people push back the envelope and say, i'm not taking money for this. this has been one of the best afternoons of my life. no one has ever asked me about my life. i have found that i'm sure we've all found it as journalists. how many times do people say, none of your damn business? zero. people don't say that. if you ask them respectfully about their life, they love to tell their story. if you let them tell their story, you're letting them create their story and become a better version of themselves. to me, paying attention to other people is a generous act. you bring out the best version of themselves that they can be. it is a tremendously fun experience. >> well, david, you say another great prompt is asking somebody to tell them something about themselves that people don't

know. tell me something crazy about yourself that people don't know. >> yeah. well, i have a question i once asked a group, tell me your favorite unimportant thing about you. i confess about my obsession with early taylor swift. i'm good with later taylor swift. you sing me a good song about why i'm stuck, like, the guy i really like is going out with a cheer captain and i'm stuck in the bleachers, i'm a happy man. i can't remember high school, but i love high school breakup songs. >> taylor swift, early taylor, so something unimportant about you that i wouldn't have known? >> you know it but others don't. >> what is it? >> i picked this up later in life. you know, i don't carry around stress, but when i start to, i have these baseball cards. >> it's true. >> they have all the world series and cartoons from 1903 forward. i just mindless he get them out and just look at them. >> he carries his cards around. >> five minutes, it's my thing.

five minutes, it takes me back to when i was 6 or 7 years old when i bought the cards, and i sort of exhale, put them down, feel good. >> okay. i like it. >> simple. >> what about you? >> mini melts, i eat, like -- >> four or five a day. >> four a day. is that bad? >> yeah. >> david, i'm going to read an excerpt while you ponder that from your new book in "the new york times." it's entitled "the essential skills for being human." you write about the two types of peop who you frequently see in any group. quote, i've noticed along the way that some people are much better at seeing people than others are. in any collection of humans, there are diminishers and there are illuminators. diminishers are so into themselves, they make others feel insignificant. they stereotype and label. if they learn one thing about you, they proceed to make a series of assumptions about who youust be.

illuminators, on the other hand, have a persistent curiosity about other people. they have been trained or have aid themselves in the craft of understanding others. they know how to ask the right questions at the right times, so that they can seethings, at least a bit, from another's point of view. they shine the brightness of their care on people and make them feel bigger, respected, lit up. i love this. jonathan lemire. >> yeah, no question, i think that's some of what we try to do as journalists. we're not always successful, but it is something we strive at each and every day. david, someone in their everyday life, not trained to ask questions for a living, what advice would you give them in order to be a better conversationalist, to be a better listener and illuminate somebody else? >> first, be curious. a perfect illuminaor is a guy named -- there was an organization, this famous research lab, and some of the researchers were more innovative than others. they couldn't figure out why.

so they tested, well, are they smarter in do they have better education? then they determined the people who were really innovative were in the habit of having breakfast and lunch with harry nyquist, an engineer. he asked about their problems and got inside their heads and helped them think through what they were trying to do. harry nyquist is an illuminator. he is curious enough about you. it's the ability to ask direct questions. i have a friend in new york, she teaches kids to be journalists, what we do. eighth graders, ask me anything, and i'll give you an honest answer. married? no. >> divorced? no. still love him? she was like, whoa. kids are phenomenal at asking questions. like, once you get to know somebody, how do your ancestors show up in your life? we are all shaped by our heritage. if we can have a conversation about that, i had a dinner

conversation about that, and we left feeling great. we all got to know something. just in this program, five minutes ago, i learned something about joe i didn't know. i've been watching the show for years. i know all the political points of view. baseball cards. i'm going to carry that every time i see the show, i know something human about the guy. that's just a depth we want to be operating in. >> i love the premise of this because listening and growing through listening, and i read the other day that fdr, one of the things, the master, charisma oozed out of his pores, made everyone feel like a million bucks, he leaned in and cupped his ear, which may have been because of hearing, but it made the person talking feel heard. how does that contrast with the narcissism we're seeing in politicians? >> you should treat attention as an on/off switch, not a dimmer. if you're paying attention to

someone, it should be 100% or zero, not 60%. don't multi-task. the thing he had was the ability to understand other human beings. there was a story about fdr. lyndon johnson was 28. he comes into the oval office, and they have a conversation. he leaves. fdr says, you know, that young guy, powers moving south and west, that guy could be the first u.s. president from the southwest. he said this when johnson was 28. he just paid attention to other people. a crucial skill is asking questions. i go to a party and sometimes think, i leave and think, nobody asked me a question the whole time. i've learned that 30% of the people are question askers, and the others are nice people, just not question askers. i'm trying to help us improve to become a question asker. a guy like donald trump or vivek ramaswamy, you think the guy is asking questions? no, he is on broadcast mode. if you're on broadcast mode,

you're trying to overwhelm me with you. it's got to be reciprocal, and you have to be able to do reciprocal. if you want to be beheld, you have to be willing to behold. it has to be back and forth. we've been invaded by people just in show business and not in regular life in politics. >> how would you assess, david, joe biden? >> i think biden is actually an empath of great still. empathy, you can mirror emotion, catch emotion. because he suffered, people who suffered, there is a great phrase, where would your power be without your wound? it's your low voice that makes your -- it's your low pain that makes your voice tremble in the hearts of men, in loved service, only wounded soldiers can serve. joe biden is a wounded soldier. because of what he experienced, he feels the suffering in others. i've experienced it myself when i had loss in my life and i had a call from him. then it is the ability to care about the other person. not only to offer them what i

would want, but effective care is what you would want. there is a story of a rabbi, a woman had a brain injury and collapsed to the ground from time to time. she said, people pull me up because they're uncomfortable seeing an adult on the ground. sometimes, i just want somebody to get down on the ground with me. it's not doing the thing that would make us comfortable, it's what the person in need needs to be comfortable. sometimes you have to be on the ground with people. going through a hard time, get down on the ground. >> get right in there. the new book is entitled "how to know a person, the art of seeing others deeply and being deeply seen." david brooks, thank you so much for writing this book. we really appreciate it. thank you for coming on this morning. >> it's always a pleasure, mika. thank you. >> take care. still ahead on "morning joe," republican senator mitt romney has had a lot to say about the changing face of the gop, including former president trump and his allies in

washington. some of his sharpest criticisms are written in the pages of his new bbiography. the book's author, mckay coppins, joins the conversation. plus, john kirby will join us live from the white house to discuss the u.s. buildup in the middle east, as the war between israel and hamas enters its third week. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> tech: when you have auto glass damage, trust safelite. my customer really relies on his car's advanced safety system. [alarm] >> instructor: veer right. [ringing] >> instructor: and slow down. >> tech: so when he got a cracked windshield, he turned to safelite. we're the experts at replacing glass and recalibrating your vehicle's camera, so automatic emergency braking and lane departure warning work properly to get you back on the road safely. >> instructor: and that means a lot! >> tech: schedule now. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ ♪♪ with fastsigns, create custom graphics

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israel's need to minimize civilian casualties in gaza while carrying out its mission to wipe out hamas, the terrorist organization. this morning, a second aid convoy is now in gaza. the trucks arrived through the rafah crossing yesterday. officials reopened the egypt-gaza border on saturday, allowing the flow of aid to resume for the first time since the war began on october 7th. however, the united nations is warning more needs to be done, saying the humanitarian crisis is worsening. joining us now to talk more about this, commissioner general of the united nations relief and works agency for palestinian refugees, felipe felipe lazarin. thank you for joining us. it seems the world right now has lost its humanity, you tell us. can you tell us the plight of the people caught in the middle here in gaza? >> yes, good morning.

indeed, it's an unprecedented tragedy which is unfolding. already on october 7th, the situation was dramatic in the gaza strip. 80% of the population was dependent on the international community. since october 7th, there has been a total siege imposed in gaza. no water, no fuel, no food, no medicine has entered into the strip. this is a kind of connective punishment. at the same time, 1 million people are displaced, half a million are sheltering in u.n. houses in the south of gaza. and the number of killed among them, half are kids, and it is increasing on a daily basis. >> what about the aid that is coming in now in trucks, is it getting to people who need it?

>> listen, we had two convoys. it's still a drop. before october 7th, we used to have 500 trucks a day. for this operation, we need more than 200. in two days, only 30. let me be very clear, the aid is going to the people who are in need. when it comes to this, we know all our beneficiaries, all our partners, all our contractors who are checked against a sanction list. we know all our walkers. we have absolutely no intermediaries, and we are indeed directly providing assistance to those who need it. there is no diversion. >> to your point, there was some estimates that the aid that's gone in so far is 3% of just one day's need. certainly, a long way to go. can you speak about the prohibition of any fuel being part of these aid convoys?

the region in gaza has been without power, much of it, for most of these last couple weeks. how dire is that situation? >> indeed, i lawn mentioned yesterday, the fuel is running out of gaza and there hasn't been fuel entering gaza, despite some media reports the last 24 hours. so in two days, we will run out of fuel. if there is no fuel, that means no water station, no functioning hospital. it also means that we will not be able to carry on our military operation because we need f to move the relief to the people. >> commissioner general of the united nations relief and works agency for palestinian refugees, philippe lazzarini, thank you very much for being on this morning. joining us now, national security counsel coordinator for strategic communications at the white house, retired rear

admiral john kirby. good to have you back to get the latest. i want to talk to you about some concerns and hopes that israel will slow down on its military efforts invasion, but i first want to back up a little bit. it is october 23rd. this assault happened on october 7th. i am curious, as president biden and the united states shows in the deepest, most blatant way that the u.s. stands with israel, going there, standing, when others wouldn't, quite frankly, shoulder to shoulder with benjamin netanyahu, meeting with the war cabinet, and doing much, much more to show support, is the united states also putting some contingencies in place for this support, including a full review of exactly what happened that led up to october 7th, how the guard was let down so terribly? >> thanks, mika. appreciate having this chance to be with you.

i would tell you, right now, we're very much focused on making sure israel has what it needs to prosecute their operations against hamas and the terrorists that committed those atrocities on the 7th of october. that includes security assistance. that includes sending a strong deterrence signal through additional forces in the region to anybody else who might want to widen this conflict. that's where our focus is on. i think the israes will, as you would expect them to do, at some point, take a look back at the intelligence picture, see where the gaps are and how they can be filled. that's reasonable. to the degree we can be helpful in that regard, we will. the focus on the intel picture is making sure they've got what they need, the information they need, that they can act on to go after these leaders. >> all right. let's talk about the concerns about a ground invasion, when it happens, how it happens. what is the united states hoping israel will do, perhaps wait a little bit? >> well, with the caveat that we won't speak for israeli military

operations, i can tell ya, as secretary austin made clear yesterday, we have been in active discussion with israeli officials since the beginning of this conflict, to make sure we had a good understanding of their intentions, their plans, where they were trying to take things, to see if we could better understand how they've answered the very tough questions that any military needs to ask themselves before they commit to a large-scale operation of any kind. we want to make sure we have an understanding of how they are coming to those solutions and those answers. of course, we made it clear that we'll be willing to help in any way that we can. it is important to remember that the idf, the israeli defense forces, they make their own decisions. they decide what they're going to do and when they're going to do it. again, we're trying to make sure they know we're here as a resource, certainly for anybody and context. we've had a lot of experience in this kind of thing. perspective. >> admiral, good morning. great to see you. there were two american hostages released the end of last week.

terrific news. we know the president spoke to both of them. do we have any updates on the plight of any other americans still being held hostage? and is there a sense as to why hamas let these two go? >> i wish i knew the answers to those, jonathan. we don't have a great sense of how many more americans are in the pool. we don't think it is very many. certainly, there are dozens and dozens of other hostages from other countries, including, of course, israel that we're concerned about, as well. we all want to see them get released. they should be released immediately. now, as for hamas' motivations, i think i'll let them speak for themselves. i think you can understand that when you're in an active negotiation, and when you expect to continue negotiations, the less said publicly, the better. we're glad those two americans got out. we want to get all of them out, and we want to preserve as much space publicly as we can for that. >> admiral, elise jordan here. the state department has issued several warnings in the region at different locations that

americans should either leave the embassy if they are a non-essential personnel or not be in the region. specifically, the iraq warning really took my breath away. i've never seen anything that dire in a state department warning. it said that one should prepare a will if they go ahead and go to iraq. can you talk about the threat we're seeing in iraq to american citizens? also, are we seeing an upswing in activity by iranian proxies? >> thanks, elise. the state department is, you know -- you have to give them credit for being honest with people. they have an obligation they take seriously, to make sure americans overseas understand the risks wherever they are. that's a key responsibility, again, that they've put pretty high up on the list. it's no secret to anybody who is in iraq that there are iran-backed militia groups that are active there. they have attacked our diplomatic facilities. they've attempted to attack our

small fort presence there in iraq. it's a serious threat. we're going to be making sure we have all the information available to us. we're making sure we're taking the appropriate force protection measures. if you are an american in iraq, not inside the government enclave, if you will, not inside that bubble, you just need to know what the risks are and be very, very careful, keep your head on a swivel. if you can avoid going, you should avoid going. this is very much tied to the activity from these iran-backed militia groups. >> national security counsel coordinator for strategic communications at the white house, retired rear admiral john kirby, thank you. we'll see you soon. we appreciate it. coming up, you may have heard a lot lately about the unvarnished things republican senator mitt romney has been saying about certain members of the republican party. those quotes and stories are from the new biography of romney by our next guest. staff writer at "the atlantic,"

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no question, i don't really have a home in my party. i come from a tradition of ronald reagan and george herbert walker bush and george w. bush and john mccain. those are the people that shaped our party. anti-putin, anti-russia. anti-kim jong-un. character counts, the character of our leaders makes the difference. that's the party i've come from and i don't recognize that in the great majority of our party today, and that for me is very troubling. >> republican senator mitt romney who was the party's nominee for president in 2012 now says he doesn't have a place

in today's gop. joining us now staff writer at "the atlantic," mckay coppins, author of "romney: a reckoning," which, officially goes on sale tomorrow. a lot of people talking about the book already. mckay, let's go through it and i do think his relationship with trump and how it progressed and digressed would be a great place to start. >> yeah, it's interesting. he actually first met donald trump in the '90s when he had this kind of strange trip to mar-a-lago that i write about in the book and at the time he thought of him as not, you know, an especially serious person. said he didn't think of him as a businessman. thought of him as a celebrity and kind of a cartoon character, but over the years, you know, he went from seeing him as sort of this comic relief side character in his life, not a real political figure, even when he accepted donald trump's endorsement during the 2012 republican primaries sort of

wrote it off as, you know, just a weird celebrity that some people seem to like and obviously over the past ten years he became more and more menacing, more and more influential and as he took center stage in american politics, romney became more and more kind of concerned about him and obviously now sees him as one of the most destructive forces in the republican party and in american life. >> it's quite a transformation i think a lot of people have gone through with donald trump. you write about how romney says florida governor ron desantis has no worth at all and called newt gingrich a, quote, smug know it all, smarmy and too pleased with himself and called ted cruz, frightening, scary and a demagogue and huckabee

similarly and on former texas governor rick perry he said republicans must realize that we have to have someone who can complete a sentence and this is what romney had to say about former ohio governor john kasich, lack of thoughtfulness, attentiveness, ego, no wonder he and chris christie spark. why do you think he's speaking so candidly. some are pretty serious. some spot-on but go ahead. >> some of those quotes are from his journals which he gave me early on in the process of writing the book and i later found out without having read them himself. he hadn't reread them and handed over hundreds of pages of his prior journals including candid comments about members of his party but a lot of those comments are from interviews he gave me over the two years that

we spent together. i mean, look, as those quotes have gotten out, some people have said, well, romney looks petty or consumed with old resentments and i'll let people make that judgment for themselves. what's really at play, romney is enormously disappointed in the leaders of his party and feels like, you know, this party that once stood for all these things that he believed in, democracy, the constitution, value, you know, family values, character, has been fully corrupted by donald trump and that all these people he once respected have rallied around him and so while, you know, it's fair to question whether it was wise for him to make these comments, i think that at the root of them is a profound frustration with what his party has become and seeing old friends and allies kind of rally around donald trump in a way that he finds pretty dispiriting.

>> mckay, congrats on the book. senator romney retiring. tell us about his fears for the future for his republican party that completely rallied around donald trump who looks almost certain to be the nominee next year, also mitch mcconnell who though these days has turned into a trump critic but let's recall he said in the past he'd vote for him again and he is the one who decided to not to rally votes to convict him in impeachment which would have prevented from him running again. where does he see this going? >> when he entered the senate in 2019, he had this sort of quaint idea in retrospect that he could steer the party back toward its sensible recent past, right? he believed that all the republican caucus needed was a voice of sanity and that there was still a lot of good people in the party who are just scared to speak out. over the next several years and

i was talking to him through a lot of this, he became more and more aware that that wasn't going to happen. he told me at one point that, you know, i thought that there were more of us and just a few of them speaking of kind of the pro-trump maga wing of the party and over time i realized oh, there's way who are of them and only a few of us left so i think he's worried about the future of the party to the point where i'm not sure, you know, how much he'll even continue to identify as a republican. >> mckay, in these excerpts i've been struck by senator romney's honesty. he seems to hold nothing back and candor about his colleagues that he still walks down the hall at the capitol and sees and even candor about why he was willing to attempt to become donald trump's secretary of state and he said, i wanted to be president and secretary of state was a pretty good backup. why do you think that senator romney was so willing to just bare all even in ways that

weren't necessarily flattering to him? >> this is where i think he deserves credit. when i started this process i told him i want to write this book about you because i think your story is fascinating. i think you've seen a lot behind the scenes and haven't told many of these stories but i only want to do it if you're ready to be fully candid and to his credit, he was not only fully candid about what his party had become but about himself and we spoke a lot over our two years together about the various points in his career where he would rationalize things in his self-interest as being the right thing to do, you know, he said all of us in politics have this constant voice in our head that is saying, you know, whatever is necessary to win the next election you've got to do because, you know, it's the best thing for the country, right, but that voice is what has led the republican party to compromise and talk itself into doing so many of the things it's done during the trump era and so

he approached this project in a spirit of introspection that i think is incredibly rare for a sitting senator or any politician still in office, and i think that comes through in the book. >> do you think the -- >> sorry. >> i was going to say do you think january 6th propelled that? >> no question. i first started talking to him a couple months after january 6th and i could tell that that moment had sort of, you know, caused him to reconsider not only what his party had become and what was happening in the country, but his own career and what brought us to this moment and i think that also informed our conversations. >> all right, the new book is entitled "romney: a reckoning." author and staff writer for "the atlantic" mckay coppins, thanks very much. congratulations on the book. ahead israel launches air strikes in gaza, the west bank

and lebanon over the weekend as it prepares for a ground invasion of the gaza strip, one the white house is behind the scenes trying to get delayed. we'll get the latest reporting from richard engel in israel and analysis from "the washington post" david ignatius plus the house speaker chaos continues on capitol hill with multiple republican candidates now in the hunt for the speaker's gavel after congressman jim jordan failed to win enough support for the top spot. we're back in 60 seconds.

we expect that there is a likelihood of escalation, escalation by iranian proxies directed against our forces,

directed against our personnel. we are taking steps to make sure that we can effectively defend our people and respond decisively if we need to. this is not what we want, not what we're looking for. we don't want escalation. we don't want to see a second or third front develop. we don't want to see our forces or personnel come under fire but if that happens we're ready for it. >> secretary of state antony blinken making it clear the united states will respond to any provocation from iran connected to the israel/hamas war and comes as israel's defense forces are expanding air strikes in gaza. we'll get the latest with a live report from israel straight ahead, plus, new reporting on how president biden and other u.s. officials helped delay the ground invasion of the territory. also ahead we'll dig into the republican-led dysfunction on capitol hill. there are now several candidates

hoping to become house speaker after jim jordan's failed bid, and we'll get you expert legal analysis on donald trump's violation of the gag order in his civil fraud trial as well as another new guilty plea deal from one of his co-defendants in the georgia case. good morning, and welcome to "morning joe" and the news doesn't stop, it's monday, october 23rd. we have the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire, former aide to the george w. bush white house and state department elise jordan, an msnbc political analyst, columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius joins us this morning and former chief of staff of the cia and department of defense jeremy bash is here. he is an nbc news national security analyst. and we will dive right in. israel's defense forces launched new air strikes into gaza, the

west bank and lebanon as israel expands the scope of its offensive against hamas terrorists. residents of north gaza received new warnings from israel to evacuate to the south of the territory. warnings that suggested the residents could be identified as sympathizers with a terrorist organization if they stay put in the west bank. the idf says its air strike on an underground compound, and israel's military said it hit two hezbollah cells in lebanon that it believed were designing a plan to launch missiles and rockets into israel. meanwhile, a second humanitarian convoy has reached the gaza strip. a total of 14 trucks carrying food, water and medicine arrived yesterday according to a u.n. official. the trucks were inspected by israel's defense forces prior to entry and no fuel was allowed

in. yesterday's convoy followed the first round of trucks carrying supplies to be allowed into gaza on saturday. that shipment was packed on to 20 trucks and described by the u.n. as, quote, a fraction of what is needed after 13 days of complete siege. >> let's bring in nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel live from northern israel near the lebanese border. richard, you're following the latest on a potential ground invasion. what can you tell us? >> reporter: so, first let me set the scene. you just talked about those israeli strikes against hezbollah, so we are in the town here on the lebanese border, in fact, those hills behind me, on the back side of them is lebanon and that territory behind the hills is where hezbollah has its fighter, it has rocket positions so if a war were to expand, that

second front that blinken was concerned about that israel is concerned about, that the united states is concerned about, it would come potentially from this area with rockets and/or fighters coming over the hills and down into israel. the big news here this morning is a lot of talk in israeli media on the television and all the leading newspapers that the ground offensive may be delayed for an indeterminate period of time after the united states was pressuring israel but encouraging israel to slow things down, to give it a beat because there does seem to be some movement with the negotiations via qatar to free hostages, as you remember, too, american hostages were freed on friday and those hostage negotiations have been continuing all weekend and do seem to be making some sort of progress to allow more u.s. military buildup in this area, to harden american defenses in case there is an escalation, in

case there is a war with hezbollah, in case there is a war with iran, and to see if diplomacy can have some sort of impact to de-escalate the crisis. there was over the weekend a summit in cairo, so a lot of pieces are in motion. israel is still carrying out its air strikes, it also carried out a ground commando raid near the border so the military activity is not slowing down, in fact, last night was the most intense night of air strike as cording to people in gaza that they have seen since the beginning of this conflict to date. so the air strikes are more intense than ever. israeli troops are going in in limited forays but according to reports that are all over the media here, the ground offensive may be delayed. >> all right. >> nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel, thank you very much for that report. >> greatly appreciate it and, david ignatius, let's bring you

in. there has been a lot of diplomatic efforts have been undertaken by the united states especially to slow down -- first of all, to stop any fighting north but also to slow down the ground invasion, and if you look at the opinion of people that helped shape american foreign policy in washington, d.c. and i'll start with you, you've -- your column last week i thought very wisely said they should begin this war by thinking about what follows it, what follows the day after and let me just read you what tom friedman wrote this weekend in "the new york times." he said, israel is about to make a terrible mistake, quote, i believe that if israel rushes headlong into gaza to destroy hamas and does so without expressing a clear commitment to seek a two-state solution with the palestinian authority and end jewish settlements in the

west bank it will be a great mistake and devastating to american interests and could trigger a global conflagration and explode then tire pro-american alliance structure that the united states has built in the region since henry kissinger enengineered the end of the yom kippur war. this is not about whether israel has the right to retaliate. it surely does. otherwise, what began as an hamas onslaught against israel has the potential to trigger a middle east war with every great power and regional power having a hand in it which would make it very difficult to stop once it started. peggy noonan also writing this weekend for "the wall street journal" talked about how she too said, i fear it may be too lathe, it looks as if plans for a ground invasion of gaza are in place, the decisions have already been made. possible repercussions considered and perhaps accounted for. and that's it, david, the

repercussions. we're talking about hamas but that expands out into iran, which expands out into russia, which expands out into whether china will feel the united states too distracted with two regional wars to did then go into taiwan and suddenly we have an emergency the of which we really haven't seen since world war ii. >> so, it's an exceedingly dangerous situation. i think that what observers like my friend tom friedman, like peggy noonan, like me have been writing reflects what senior officials of the administration tell me, which is that it's important that israel learn the lessons the united states has from its wars in the middle east, prime among them, you have to think carefully about the day after the war seems to end and

how you govern that area in a way that doesn't produce more instability. also clearly in this environment you have to think about the danger the war will expand in ways you can't predict that this will move from being a one-front war to a two or three-front war then as you say what happens to russia, what happens to china. i think there are two fundamentals people should realize have not been altered in any way in israel. the first is they believe and i think they have strong support from the administration, secretary blinken said it yesterday, that political power of hamas must be destroyed, that hamas is simply not prepared to make compromises that remains committed to the destruction of israel. israel fights wars every few years then it comes back so i think after the horror of the attacks of october 7th, israelis and senior american officials

are united in thinking we've got to stop this, figuring out how you get a different governor in gaza that will work is exceedingly difficult, there are a lot of talks going on with saudi arabia, jordan, egypt, all those countries. the second thing i think people are thinking increasingly about is how do you deal with the humanitarian problem and also how do you keep as many of the hostages as possible alive being held by israel? it's over 200 people and people try to think carefully, how do we conduct the military operation and keep those people alive? that's one big reason why we're seeing a delay, prepare the battlefield, make sure you know where the hostages are and make sure you know exactly how you'll move in and not get them killed. >> and, of course, hamas holding those hostages in qatar

negotiating. i'm curious. here we are, three weeks, a little more than three weeks away from just the horrors of october 7th. many things have been going through all of our minds, so many concerns, so many shocking revelations, peggy noonan touched on one of those and i want to know if you've gotten any insight into what the hell happened and talked about the possibility of netanyahu and a split between the secular professionals who ran israel and protected israel for -- since 1948 and then sort of this new breed of ultra-orthodox supporters that netanyahu had and, well, quite bluntly bringing people around that were not equipped to protect and defend israel. this is what peggy wrote and israel needs to dig deep and fortify. she said, what's happening now doesn't feel like the past when,

say, a surprise underdog israel a tough and scrappy nation spirited repelled its invaders or later when an unstoppable and determined nation came down hard on its foes with all the hardware those foes didn't have. this feels, peggy write, and has felt from the beginning like a nation that is not as competent, not as certain. it felt like an israel that had grown less disciplined with a government that was complacent and distracted and israel more generally removed from its founding ideas and its founders. peggy concludes by saying, i hope israel digs deep, refortifies and devotes its focus to making itself stronger than it seemed on october 6th and, david, that leads to the question once again, what happened with israel and i don't think it was just what happened leading up to this attack? what happened that the netanyahu government on october 6th revealed israel to be everything

we thought it was not leading up to october 6th? you know, we have grown up hearing about the mossad and how they were next level, a step above and as peggy says and it's really what's frightening because this puts more of the burden on america's shoulders. they did not seem competent on october 6th and a lot of people died because of it, and the question is, why were they so incompetent, i think as friends we have the right to ask that question because the burden passes to us if netanyahu's government can't do the job. >> so, joe, there's no secret that the months before this hamas attack on october 7 were as divisive as any of us has ever seen in israel. israel seemed almost at war with itself. a war between the secular folks who dominate the military and

intelligence services at a more conservative group, many of them ultra-orthodox who are part of the netanyahu coalition, that israel was at war with itself and there's just no question that encouraged hamas to think that israel was weaker. i've seen the country come together and i think the things that they're planning to deal with, hamas' political power, to get hamas out without getting too many civilians killed, without getting hostages killed are on a level of technological expertise that's extraordinary. there will be things that are really the very latest uses of robotics, of technology. i wouldn't worry about the competence of the israeli military. i think the central problem that americans need to understand is that israel is haunted after the october 7th attack by the

reality that deterrence against hamas failed. israel thought that hamas was deterred. they opened the borders more. gazans were working in israel more than in many years and seems to be prospering a little bit and thought, okay, they're not -- they're not going to be as militant as they've been. that was wrong. they were not deterred. they attacked so when israel looks now at lebanon and hezbollah, they think hezbollah is deterred. they think these are just a few rocket attacks that hezbollah has to do to keep face in this axis of resistance but maybe they're wrong. maybe hezbollah isn't deterred and that's what's troubling israel and we should, i think, understand and sympathize with. >> well, speaking of the burden you were talking about, joe, the u.s. is increasing its military presence in the middle east after a series of suspected iranian proxy attacks. joining us now nbc news national

security and military correspondent courtney kube. what are these new moves? >> reporter: yeah, that's right. so one of them involves an aircraft carrier strike group, the "uss eisenhower" planning to head to the mediterranean and heard that several days ago. now, over the weekend secretary of defense lloyd austin decided instead to move it more towards the middle east, what we think of as the fifth fleet area or centcom, the red sea, the gulf of oman. we don't know where it's going to go but closer towards the iraq side of fifth fleet as opposed to the further west side where it would be potentially supporting israel. that's one thing. in addition to that, secretary austin has now authorized a number of additional air defense systems and capabilities moving into the region so that include a ballistic missile defense system going somewhere in

centcom. there's also going to be additional patriot battalions. there's already some in the region. those are air defense systems but they're going to send additional systems, we don't know exactly the specifics of it, and some of the personnel to operate those systems. now, in addition to that, we learned a week or two ago that the secretary of defense had also put about 2,000 service members on what's called a prepare to deploy order. what that means, most were individuals who were on short of a leash. that means from the time you get the call you have to go till you're on that airfield ready to get on a plane is 24 hours. he's added an additional couple hundred people to that list. these are support personnel so the first question i get when i talk about these orders, are these people who will go in and start fighting in gaza? the officials say that is not the case.

these are support personnel. medical support, explosives experts, more air defense experts, so people who will be brought into the region to help out with exactly what you all have been talking about and that is the threat from some of these regional actors, now, last week we saw a real uptick in attack against bases housing u.s. forces in iraq and in syria and i cannot underscore how unusual what we saw with the "uss carnie" and took out a couple of missiles fired from the houthis and that is basically unprecedented and also new -- we did not realize the houthis had the capability to fire missiles that could go from yemen up to israel so these things really have u.s. official, defense officials concerned and they are moving forces in to try to deter and protect against them, joe and mika. >> all right, nbc news national security and military correspondent courtney kube, thank you very much for that report. we appreciate it. coming up, the house is back to square one on picking a new

speaker after congressman jim jordan dropped his bid. we'll have the latest from capitol hill as nine new candidates vie for the gavel. >> hope one of them gets it. >> "morning joe" will be right back. new emergen-c crystals pod fizz when you throw them back. and who doesn't love a good throwback? [sfx: video game] emergen-c crystals. when you're ready to begin treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, calquence helps you do the fighting. and you can do the exploring. you can do the splashing... ...the sightseeing... ...and the playing. calquence is an oral targeted therapy for cll. more patients begin with calquence than any treatment of its kind, and calquence is proven to work better than chemoimmunotherapy in patients with previously untreated cll. calquence may cause serious side effects, which may lead to death. these include serious infections with fever,

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i want a speaker in the chair so we can move forward. my issues and my committee of war and peace, it's too dangerous right now. the world is on fire and this is so dangerous, what we're doing and most importantly it's embarrassing because it empowers our adversaries like chairman xi who says democracy doesn't work. >> that was republican congressman michael mccaul of texas. what do you think? >> i think he has been right on so many fronts over the past six months including ukraine where we hear from the isolationists

who want the united states to turn ukraine over to russia in the republican party and michael mccaul, the chairman, has always been strong and forceful saying not only do we support what the administration is doing on ukraine, we think they should do more. we think they should send weapons sooner which is a good balance and that's a good debate to have but here chairman mccaul's exactly right. the winner of this other than five or six members of the house of representatives who get more hits on tiktok and get more small donors sending $25, $50 from across the country, the real winners here are chairman xi, as mike mccaul said, are chairman xi, vladimir putin, kim jong-un, the mullahs in iran, all the people, all the people that say freedom doesn't work,

all the people that say american democracy doesn't work. that is what they say and they do use moments like this to talk our allies in europe to say, see, the united states, they don't have their act together. follow us. be on our side. be in our camp and this doesn't even talk -- i mean, i talked -- i've talked to some leaders from nonaligned countries like india and across the middle east who are kind of getting the push and the pull from china and the united states and they will say to me, wait, why do you keep talking about how great america is you all can't even run your own congress? so i know we look at one or two members that are cynically using this because they want attention, but i hope the republican party will come together, they will find a compromise candidate. it sends a message not just to voters a year from now.

>> which would help them. >> which would help them, right. >> but also sends a message to our enemies in communist china who think we're their enemies. i don't consider any country our enemies other than iran but china, they're our rivals, and we can't have our rivals there or in russia or anywhere -- iran, anywhere else across -- we're pointing to the united states congress and saying, look how dysfunctional they are, follow us. be on our side. our model of government works better. >> it was already a joke when kevin mccarthy had to do vote after vote after vote and not getting them every time until finally cutting a deal that was impossible for his survival as speaker and now they're finding a new level here. no speaker, literally no speaker and this morning, there are now nine candidates vying for the position. all declared their candidacies after congressman jim jordan of ohio dropped his bid late last

week following three failed house floor votes. who goes out without the votes? republicans? joining us now congressional investigations reporter for "the washington post" jackie alemany. what happens next? >> good morning. these nine candidates are now going to make their case to the house gop conference in an internal setting that will start this evening. it appears highly unlikely we'll get to house floor vote imminently as, you know, based on the past few weeks, what we've seen with steve scalise and jim jordan, people who were two popular members with big constituencies within the party and these nine members who you mentioned and showed up on the screen are all, i think, fair to say back benchers. they don't have the largest profiles. minor leadership roles within the party but have

nowhere near the national profile as scalise and jordan, but that actually might work to their advantage. people who have been talking to me behind the scenes advocating for either of these various candidates have said that people like mike johnson who are well liked within the conference and developed a good reputation but don't have a national profile and, therefore, are less likely to become a bogeyman going into the 2024 midterms that are expected to be fairly competitive. that might be the best bet for the conference going ahead, but, again, none of those people off the top of my head seem to be getting anywhere near 217. >> coming up, another one of donald trump's co-defendants in georgia strikes a plea deal with prosecutors. we're going to break down what president in the election interferes case including the potential trouble for members of his legal team. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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trump campaign legal adviser kenneth chesebro is now the third co-defendant in the fulton county election interference case to plead guilty. he entered the plea friday as jury selection for his trial was under way. he was charged with one felony count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents. he faces five years of probation and a $5,000 fine among other terms. he will also be required to provide documents and evidence to the state. chesebro had rejected an earlier deal and was set to stand trial alone after co-defendant sidney powell took a deal last week. as for powell, trump is now claiming she was never actually his lawyer. >> really? that's interesting. i'm so confused. >> because he used to say she was. >> right. >> and a post on truth social -- >> h, truth. >> we put that in quote, truth.

>> truth social. >> trump said, quote, ms. powell was not my attorney and never was. >> huh? >> however that contradicts a november 2020 tweet in which trump wrote powell and had joined -- wrote that she had joined his legal team and the team was being spearheaded by trump's former personal attorney rudy giuliani. >> a truly great team. >> wow. giuliani also confirmed powell's involvement during a november 2020 press conference. >> this is representative of our legal team. we're representing president trump and we're representing the trump campaign. when i finish, sidney powell and then jenna ellis will follow me. there are a lot more lawyers working on this but we're -- i guess we're the senior lawyers. >> senior lawyers who spent a lot of time in the white house. former u.s. attorneys barbara

mcquade and joist vance. this is like having half of the avengers. this is half of the sisters-in-law -- >> we need to do the whole -- >> their podcast a couple days ago they talked about all. this the title of it was "cheese and kraken." >> i wish i had thought about that myself. pretty good. >> i also have to be nice to barbara because michigan just keeps winning, so, go, blue, barbara, go, blue. >> thanks, joe. >> safe from alabama. let's talk about this and we'll start, barbara, with you. what is the significance of chesebro's plea? >> i think this is an incredibly significant plea, joe. you know, i think sidney powell felt a little more important just because she was the face of the legal team. she was out there so much with her release the kraken and other

things, but chesebro was the one who was the architect of the false elector scheme. he is someone who can provide a lot of testimony about that scheme and he may be the domino that knocks over some other dominos that are really important. jenna ellis, john eastman and eastman, of course, is someone who was close to donald trump, was the one who was whispering in his ear and was the one pushing this theory so i think it's an incredibly significant moment. >> on your podcast a couple of days ago, you also talked about joyce. you talked about what this would mean for the other defendants in the indication. explain that here. >> right, so it's exactly as barb says, what prosecutors are looking for here is a domino effect. these two plea bargains taken together really put pressure on other co-defendants in a couple of different ways, first off there is this notion that the defendants who were first in to make deals will get the best

deals and neither powell nor chesebro has to serve time in prison as a result of their plea agreement. that's a powerful motivator. but now we're looking at this big block of remaining defendants, there's no trial date set right now. that is something i think we'll see happen in the next week as judge mcafee gets back to work. the question is who among the remaining defendants now wants to come in and cut a deal with fani willis in hopes they have unique valuable information that prosecutors still need before everything else gets under way and then, joe and mika, there's one final interesting factor here that we really don't have much insight into and that's whether these folks who are now cooperating in fulton county will also cooperate in the federal investigation. chesebro was the architect of the fake elector scheme, not just in georgia but in multiple states. he would certainly be very helpful for jack smith as he

looks more globally at trump and his cohorts' misconduct. >> we'll be watching whether he cooperates there, as well. barbara, i want to turn to the new york civil case. the judge there slapped trump with a violation of the gag order. we all recall it was a few weeks ago trump had posted about a law clerk there, a person who worked for the judge. he was reprimanded and turned out it was still on the campaign website. the judge said he believed them, but still offered just a $5,000 fine for trump. but noteworthy, "a," the first time a gag order penalty has been issued. i'm curious to get your take whether that opens the door for more and, secondly, because he got a reprieve on the back order he spent last night seemingly violated it and went after jack smith by name and called him deranged, et cetera, et cetera, so trump is playing with fire. how do you see this playing out? could we see stiffer penalties in the future? >> yes, i was actually impressed

with the judge in new york assessing this fine even though it's relatively low, $5,000 for donald trump, i suppose, is not a huge number, but i fully expected a warning for the first offense and then escalating levels of sanctions, instead he hit him right away with $5,000, made it clear he was not going to tolerate any future violations and, you know, he's making a record and going on record as saying these are serious matters. i would imagine if there is a second offense that number gets higher and the ultimate card he holds is jail. now, donald trump certainly seems to be testing a different judge, judge chutkan and may perceive he has a window of opportunity because there is another hearing on this matter, he said he's going to appeal and wants a stay of that order and it is stayed until there can be that hearing so it may be that he's taking advantage of his last few days of opportunity before he does that. but i think judge chutkan would be wise to watch what's

happening in new york because the only way to stop him is to sanction him with making a record and escalating levels ultimately she has that ultimate card of jailing him. >> coming up, a report from tel aviv and a senior adviser to prime minister netanyahu about potential plans for a ground invasion. "morning joe" will be right back.

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with the nfl season under way the fwhb is set to tip off on october 24th. one of sport's most influential figures is stepping out from behind the scenes to share his story. rich paul and his agency represents jalen hurts and the nba's all-time leading scorer lebron james. paul has known him for two decades and joins us now the author of "lucky me: a memoir of changing the odds." so great to meet you. i followed your career so

closely going back 20 years to your beginning in the business, but the book, of course, goes back even farther than that. >> yes. >> to show how you got to where you are, the things you learned growing up on the streets of cleveland, so let's go back to that time, the influence of the way you grew up. your mother not being there. your father being there for you and kind of steering you. what were the early years like? what did you learn from those days that we see in the business you run? >> the early years were -- i would imagine like most children that grew up like me, it was tough. i think there's an umbilical cord for a reason when you're born, that connectivity with your mother and for me not to have that was tough, because, you know, those nights where you're trying to wake up because you're feeling sick or something, i really didn't have that loving comfort to be given to me but on the other side i had a dad who was present and

was a great influence for me and so there were roller coasters then my mom was present. she just -- it was this unbelievable light shined but came and went. >> we talked about the moment you met lebron at the airport in akron. >> yes. >> you were hustling selling jerseys at that point and, in fact, you were wearing a warren moon throwback jersey from the houston oilers. >> yes. >> take us back to that pivotal moment where you write about the road changed for you and brought you somewhere. it was a chance encounter with lebron and it's a great lesson i think to people, you took your shot. >> you know what, at that time there wasn't a shot to take, right? i was traveling, i was actually meeting a guy named andy hyman who had a store in atlanta and through the travel i just so happened to go to the airport. probably my 15th time going to atlanta at this point and this young man and other young men

are at my gate and approached me about my jersey. i had no clue that it was going to be the lebron james it is today. >> he was still in high school. >> yeah, he was on the cover of "sports illustrated," not yet but i loved to dress and my dad loved to dress and i was being nice. he asked me a question. i was taking the time out to say, hey, this is where you're going. if you need any help, drop my name and the guy will take care of you if i'm not there and that encounter turned into a friendship, turned into a relationship to a business relationship, but more importantly it turned into an unbreakable bond that we have as brothers. >>

we see a lot not many people to lean onto say, hey, can you show me how to do a business plan, can you give me a loan? we see a lot of successful people. if you look at how they started, their fathers gave them a loan or someone supported them. when you're young in black in america, it's tough. also, i knew right from wrong, but i was trying to find the right within doing wrong. >> i don't endorse a lot of books, but i think this book is very important, because you're so candid, because you didn't come from the elite and go over. you came from the rough and tumble, and you talk about it. the two things i want you to address that i most respect

about you is, one, you chose the business lane and stayed there. james brown was like a father to me. he used to tell me most blacks get in to show, i'm in show business. also, you stay in your lane, but you don't forget where you come from. talk about the discipline of not getting seduced out of what you're about and at the same time being able to support people in what they're doing. >> anybody that's truly successful, it comes with a focus. i was just trying to find a place. when lebron gave me an opportunity, i had no title, i had no position. i didn't let it discourage me. we went from a two-lane highway

to a six-lane highway, and i found my lane and stayed there. within that lane i developed my own off ramps and other roads to diversify my portfolio. it's important to stay true to who you are, but it's also important to what you understand what's important. the other day i'm leaving my beautiful office in beverly hills. i get a call, my nephew was killed. he was 17. my mother's second youngest brother, beautiful guy, my uncle kevin, but he has to bury his grandson this weekend and he buried one of his sons. he's outlived his son and his

grandson. these kids don't get the opportunity to understand there is clarity in life. i talk about that in my book as well, because that's extremely important. >> i'm so sorry about your cousin. that's terrible news. it's why this book is important. it's something to look to and say, rich did it, there's a way, we can do it. >> i'm in my community. i'm not doing that from los angeles. i'm in cleveland. >> i want to ask you quickly about the way you've changed how athletes almost view themselves as being empowered. the numbers are huge, the contracts you have negotiated, but also players in the nba or nfl are saying, actually, i'm

holding the cards here. i can get what i want out of this situation rather than being pawns moving around. how have you helped instill that mentality in your clients. >> i lead with educating the person that happens to be a good basketball player, not a good basketball player first. the guys i represent, i'm only representing them because they allow me to, all of them. it's not just lebron. it's several. and i appreciate that. they disrupt the industry just as much as i did because there was a time if you were a top talent, your representation didn't look like me. i want kids to understand i'm telling my story not for me, for us, for them to have a different example to understand you don't just have to be the talent.

i was not the best player on my team. i learned to understand the ecosystem of support, and here i am today. >> lebron james met you because you had a jersey on, but the reason he went into business with you is because you're so damn smart. the book is "lucky me." rich paul, thank you. >> thank you. me. rich paul, thank you. >> tha ynkou when moderate to severe ulcerative colitis takes you off course. put it in check with rinvoq, a once-daily pill. when i wanted to see results fast, rinvoq delivered rapid symptom relief and helped leave bathroom urgency behind. check. when uc tried to slow me down...

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a live look at capitol hill where the republican-controlled house has been without the leader for almost three weeks. there are now nine candidates in the speakers race, following jim jordan's failed bid. >> republican leaders like chairman mccaul saying they've got to get this done. his party has to get this done

because too much is at stake in the middle east, in europe, in china, across the world. >> we'll get a live report on where support stands for any of those nine lawmakers trying to get the gavel. meanwhile, mitch mcconnell is pushing back against some members of his party suggesting the united states cut funding for ukraine. also, new york governor kathy hochul is our guest fresh off her trip to israel. it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. we begin with the latest out of the israel-hamas war and the deteriorating situation in gaza as the idf continued air strikes overnight in a bid to target hamas terrorists. the strikes come as israel's military continues to gather on the border with the territory ahead of a potential ground invasion. the news which broke on friday

that the hamas terror group released two american hostages. they'd been held captive since october 7th. we're joined by kelly cobiella live in tel aviv. >> reporter: good morning. today the idf revised the number of people being held hostage in gaza to 222. a mother and daughter from the chicago area were the first to be released. we spoke to their cousins earlier today. they said they couldn't talk about details about what judith and natalie went through while being held for those two weeks, but they did say it was an emotional reunion, that moment when they were reunited with their family members. the israeli military says it's conducting raids into gaza, searching for information on the hostages taken by hamas as

families wait for answers, some now more hopeful after americans judith and her 17-year-old daughter natalie were freed, the two reunited with relatives over the weekend. >> when i hugged judith and natalie, i realized i haven't breathed for over two weeks. it was the first time i could breathe deeply. >> reporter: the mother and daughter from chicago were among the more than 220 israel says were kidnapped october 7th during hamas' deadly attack in israel. >> this ordeal is unimaginable. >> i can't tell you how many messages i'm getting from people saying thank god your family is out. can you help us with my family? >> reporter: the state department says at least ten americans are still missing,

some possibly being held by hamas. the family of judith and natalie hoping for another miracle. >> they're just innocent civilians who were taken from their homes. >> right now we have to do everything we can and to manage our energies in a way that it can help bring back the hostages. so this is the only focus. >> reporter: they say that is their sole focus because they have eight members of their family still being held by hamas. they were just at two funerals last week for family members who were killed on october 7th. among those still being held are three children. the youngest is just 3 years old. they are obviously very, very worried and spending every hour doing whatever they can to try

to secure their release. >> kelly cobiella, thank you very much for that report. joining us now, senior advisor to israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. thank you for being with us. >> the "new york times" column yesterday in the "new york times" entitled "israel is about make a terrible miak" tom wres, i believe if israel rushes headlong into gaza to destroy hamas and does so without expressing a clear commitment to seeking a two-state solution with the palestinian authority, it will be making a grave mistake that will be devastating for israeli interests and american interests. it can trigger a global con fla

conflagration. this is not about whether israel has the right to retaliate. it surely does. this is about doing it the right way that does not play into the hands of hamas, iran and russia. otherwise what began as a hamas onslaught against israel has the potential to trigger a great war with every regional power having a hand in it which could make it a very difficult war to stop once it started. i certainly wouldn't have just read tom friedman's op-ed to you if it wasn't reflective of other op-eds i read this weekend. what would your response be to those worried that israel is going to move too fast into gaza, kill too many civilians and start a global war? >> first, joe, we have to say

what is obvious, that israel is not shooting from the hip. israel has been very judicious. your own reporters on the ground have said that israel has still not moved. we're preparing and planning. and when we do go in, it will be after much thought and after we've thought not only what the next step is, but the step after that and the step after that. we're not acting from anger. we're not acting hastily. we're thinking this through thoroughly. if israel can't defeat these hamas murderers, that's a victory for terrorists, a victory for hezbollah, a victory for iran. we have to show the world the sort of violence they inflicted upon us on that terrible saturday two weeks ago, that doesn't pay. by hitting back hard at hamas, by destroying their military machine, that will strengthen

every moderate arab voice in the region. >> what you just said about destroying hamas' war making ability, i think that is shared by americans who are writing many of these columns. i guess the question is how best to do it. and in a judicious way. >> we understand the reality. ultimately it's our young men and women on the front lines. we're going to be risking their lives as they go into battle in gauze. it will be difficult. hamas has been in power for 16 years. they have built, with the help of the iranians, a formidable military machine. they have tunnels, bunkers and they are strong. we know what sort of brutality they're capable of. we go in prepared. but i speak to our young people. i see our young soldiers.

some of them when they go into battle won't be returning home, unfortunately. they know this is necessary. they know that we cannot continue to live with the terrorist enclave on our southern border raining down terror on us. with the end of hamas, that is the only way this can end. >> you brought up iran. they were funded and backed by iran. the "wall street journal" editorial today talks about how coming up this monday is the 40th anniversary of the beirut bombing where iranian-backed terrorists killed 241 americans in beirut, and iran didn't pay a price. you could look at a 2008 op-ed from the "wall street journal" editorial page talking about how

george w. bush, a man not known for backing down, was not moving against iran when they were bad actors. what about the bigger problem, the country that's been the epicenter of terrorism since 1979 that's funding not only all of your enemies in the region, but ours? >> i agree with your analysis. if we hit hamas hard, if we destroy their military machine, if we dismantle their political structure in gaza, that's a blow for iran and all of iran's proxies in the region, the houthis, the shia in iraq, you defeat them. it's a war which we didn't want, but they started it. there is only one thing we need,

and that is victory. we will prevail. when we do so, it's not just going to keep israelis safer, i believe it will be good for the palestinians too. the people of gaza have only suffered and become impoverished under this terrible hamas rule. there should be something better for them in the gaza strip as well. >> mr. ambassador, israel's response being the end of hamas is going to get a lot of support from around the world. there's 222 hostages. the issue of when a ground invasion begins, the suffering that's already happening there and the civilian lives bound to be lost during that invasion, all of this just to be very clear a response to the savage attack by hamas terrorists on

october 7th. october 7th was too soon to ask the question why were israelis waiting six hours for a response? why was israel not prepared? but it is october 23rd. i'm curious, is it a critical point of moving forward, finding out where the lapses were and what happened, especially when it comes to keeping trust with the israeli people as well as your international partners? >> you're asking exactly the sort of questions that israelis are asking themselves. it's clear that there were failures. there was an intelligence failure. they caught us by surprise on that bloody saturday. then there's questions about the speed of the israeli response. how could they cross our borders so easily, how could they kill so many people before we mngmand to retake our territory and

eliminate the terrorists. these are legitimate questions. but they've started the war and we have to finish it on our terms. we have checks and balances, but at the moment i think everyone in this country is focused on victory. in the first part of your question, you raised the question of the hostages. we saw on friday night two american citizens released. that's two out of 220, if i'm not mistaken. they were released because hamas and its allies are under amazing pressure. if we keep that pressure up, both the military pressure and the other pressure, i believe we can get more, but it's crucial we keep the pressure up. that's how we're going to get more people out. >> jonathan lemire, you have the next question. what mika asked really does echo much of what peggy noonan wrote

about in her "wall street journal" weekend column. let me read this briefly to follow up on the last question. a day or two after the october 7 horror, i wrote to friends. what is happening now doesn't feel like the past when, say, a surprised and underdog israel, a tough and scrappy nation, spiritedly repelled its invaders or later when an unstoppable and determined nation came down hard on its foes with all the hardware those foes didn't have. this feels and has felt from the beginning like a nation that is not competent, not as certain. it felt like an israel that had grown less disciplined with a government that was complacent and distracted and israel more generationally removed from its founding ideas and its founders. a lot of americans, a lot of israeli supporters saying the same thing that peggy wrote this

weekend. >> question about whether the prime minister's focus was distracted, too much on the west bank perhaps, too much on his own legal issues, too much on his effort to reform the judiciary and maybe not as well prepared for what did eventually come. mr. ambassador, there is great concerns about a widening war and the move israel took in recent days to evacuate more and more towns from the north away from the lebanese border away from hezbollah. give us an idea of what's happening up there and the level of concern that it may escalate further. >> so we don't want to see a two-front war, for obvious reasons. we want to try to keep the violence as contained as possible in the north, but we have to be prepared for an escalation because ultimately it will be hezbollah's call and hezbollah is listening very closely to the iranians. the united states has played an important role by moving your aircraft carrier task forces

into the region and by saying to those actors who think this is a time to exploit the fighting in gaza to start another front. the president was very clear. he said don't. i hope that works, but we have to be prepared for a two-front war. all of you who know a bit about my country's history know we fought a two-front war in '67 and prevailed and in '93 and prevailed. if we're forced to fight a two-front war today, we'll prevail. i feel sorry for the lebanese people, because the suffering will be tremendous on both sides of the border. and lebanon, a country that's gone through such a crisis over the last couple of years internally, this would be terrible for lebanon. i hope that hezbollah doesn't escalate the whole situation into another blowout in the

north. >> senior advisor to israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu mark regev. thank you very much. >> let's bring in "new york times" opinion columnist michelle goldberg. michelle, there were so many moving op-eds this weekend. it really spanned the idealogical divide on this issue. i was particularly moved by yours talking about mistakes that many people made, many networks made and newspapers. and you talked about the misinformation. it is impossible to know what to believe in this hideous war. talk about that. >> i should say it's not always impossible to know, but it is often impossible to know

immediately. we have both malicious propaganda, trollish propaganda, misinformation. i think what we saw with this hospital bombing, have many, many people, myself includes, initially assumed this was the result of an israeli air strike. it's important to note that in the past when israel has accidentally killed civilians, it has blamed it on an errant islamic jihad missile and it's turned out to be an israeli air strike. so it's understandable why people believe that. but the rush to judgment in this case has had devastating consequences that can't be rolled back by a correction, because that's not how the flow of information works anymore. >> michelle, this last episode, i saw a bit as the first of what will probably be many. when i worked in afghanistan, we

dealt with these bombings gone wrong of churches, of weddings -- not churches, mosques. but what was so important is getting out the truth immediately. that was a lesson that the u.s. military gradually got better at in order to build credibility. here going forward, will the israelis have more credibility after it was such a media fail? >> again, i mentioned these incidents last year. there was five boys killed in gaza who initially the israeli military said was this errant missile. there was the killing of the palestinian-american journalist who it turned out was killed, it looks like by an israeli munition. i think what we're seeing is the cost of squandering some of your credibility so that when you really need it, when you have

the world in such a combustible situation, it becomes very difficult for you to convince -- you know, there are a lot of people who are never going to believe what israel says regardless, but israel needs to be in a position where people of good faith can trust their version of events. meanwhile, there's this intensely painful thing happening right now where there's been a lot of doubt cast on the scale of atrocities from hamas' attack. again, some of that is about anti-semitism and denial, and some of it is maybe about mistakes that were made in the initial round of reporting. but you have this situation where israel has been forced to show basically hours and hours of unedited hamas footage of atrocities just to try and convey the truth of what happened on october 7th, which many people around the world

still refuse to believe. >> "new york times" opinion columnist michelle goldberg, thank you very much for coming on this morning. we appreciate it. and coming up on "morning joe," is kevin mccarthy to blame for the ongoing speaker chaos in the house? we're going to show you the argument from former republican congresswoman liz cheney and we'll go live to capitol hill, where nine new gop candidates are now competing for the gavel. this is crazy. highlights from the mlb playoffs as the texas rangers and houston astros prepare to have the lone star state showdown in game seven tonight. lone star state showdown in game seven tonight.

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i wish that it were surprising. you know, what we've seen is a result of really the leadership decisions that kevin mccarthy made all the way back after the

2020 election and certainly after january 6th, then looking the other way in the face of the kind of assault on our democracy we've seen from donald trump and his allies in the house, including jim jordan, elevating those members, frankly some of whom are white supremacists, some of whom are anti-semitic, in an attempt to seize power and overturn the elections. >> that's liz cheney blaming kevin mccarthy for the current mess in the house that's left the chamber without a speaker for nearly three weeks. this morning nine house republicans are competing for the position. all jumped into the race after congressman jim jordan's bid for the post fizzled out in a dramatic manner last week, following three failed house

votes. let's bring in ali vitali. give us a timeline for the new round of voting and whether there's a feeling any of these nine have a shot at getting the votes they need to become speaker and ending this madness. >> reporter: who even knows, joe? still they come out having ousted whoever was next in line to be put on the floor as house speaker. we'll see if that's ultimately what ends up happening. they have nine choice before them now, as you pointed out, nine men vying to be speaker of the house. i think it's notable that you don't have any women on that graphic that you have on the screen right now. maybe it's because the women know this job is thankless and not worth running for at this point given how unruly this republican conference is. nonetheless, those are the nine republicans have to choose

between. tonight at 6:30 everyone will come back into town and do candidate pitches behind closed doors. tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. is when the balloting will begin. they're once again going to be in private and the ballots they cast will be secret. what's going to happen is a win winnowing. they'll start with nine and each round whoever earns the least amount of votes will drop out. technically my sources have pointed out to me that that person could still receive votes, but they are officially out of contention. we're in uncharted territory at all times now. it's worth pointing out the thing that's unlikely. nevertheless, this process can end as soon as someone in the room gets a majority of the people in the room. even if there's six candidates

left, who are gets the majority are then the speaker designee. they could go to the floor as soon as that balloting round is done. whether or not they will, completely unclear, but it is a possibility as they try once again in week four to get a speaker. >> some of the leaders of the republican party inside the conference have expressed real concern here. i mean, we've looked at a lot of back benchers who created this chaos, who love the chaos because it helps them on twitter and tiktok and with fundraising from small donors across the country. you have kay granger, the chairwoman, who wants to get the job done. also you have chairman mccaul saying this. >> i want a speaker in the chair so we can move forward. it's too dangerous right now. the world is on fire.

this is so dangerous what we're doing. most importantly, it's embarrassing because it empowers and emboldens our adversaries like chairman xi, who says democracy doesn't work. >> that's how republicans spoke when i was a republican in the house. it just leads me to wonder how much resentment there must be between republicaairm mccaul an granger who want to get the job done and these back benchers who just want to blow things up. >> reporter: the limit does not exist there as to how much frustration and ire exists. even last week in those close-door conference huddles, the fact that you have members lunging at matt gaetz and then having to apologize and there are screaming matches in the room, that's just a slice of what the feeling is towards the eight people who voted to oust

mccarthy, but specifically towards gaetz, who put this thing into motion in the first place. in terms of the conference, what you pointed out is really important, how unruly this conference is. the other thing that's worth mentioning is in my conversations with democrats last week, they continue to say they think jim jordan was an unfit choice because of the role he played in january 6th in decertifying and trying to overturn the 2020 election results. fine. but look at this slate of nine candidates now. only two of them, tom emmer and austin scott actually voted to certify t 2020 election results. even though it's not jim jordan on the ballot, and he certainly occupies a different space given the january 6th committee and the subpoena he ignored from that committee, but you're not changing the likelihood that you do end up with someone as speaker of the house in the

presidential line of succession who voted to decertify joe biden's win. that's a striking point to make too. >> thank you so much for being with us. good luck following this story. >> thanks. let's turn now quickly to major league baseball. there's going to be a game seven of the alcs. the rangers won over the astros last night. the winner of tonight's game seven will go to the world series. this is so much like the 2019 world series where you had the astros playing the nationals, and the away team won every single game. that's what's happened through the first six games of this alcs. >> it's been a great series, game five in particular. there was the home run garcia hit for the rangers, the bench-clearing near brawl that followed that with some ejections and jose altuve with

the clutch run to win it. and tonight they go into houston. we get max scherzer on the mound tonight after he struggled in game three. the other game is the phillies with a chance to close out the diamondbacks. they lead that series 3-2. zach wheeler was brilliant. philly has a chance to close it out this afternoon. >> speaking of philly, what about that game last night in the nfl? the eagles hosted the miami dolphins. quarterback jalen hurts lifted the eagles to another victory, throwing for 279 yards and two touchdowns. he also ran for a score.

the 32nd rushing touchdown of his career. hurts needed a brace on his leg in the second half. eagles beat the dolphins 31-17. they matched the chiefs at 6-1 for one of the best records in the league. the 49ers have a chance to keep pace tonight against the vikings. the lions got crushed and the ravens had a good game, but they blew out detroit 38-6 yesterday. and one final note, your patriots, the lowly, sad, almost reaching at times 1976 buccaneer levels, those patriots beat the bills, won belichick his 300th

regular season victory of his coaching career. that was a shock. this morning waking up and seeing the buffalo bills are 4-3 raises so many questions about josh allen, who was at the top of his game two years ago. >> he's a very up-and-down player. this bills team has been so inconsistent this year. one week they crush the dolphins and then they lose to jacksonville, now here losing to a pretty lowly patriots team, who played well yesterday, sure. it will maybe silence some of the speculation about bill belichick's future as the head coach on that team. going forward, one has to think the bills are a clear step below the kansas city chiefs as the class of the afc east. that's why taylor swift is dating travis kelce and not trevon diggs perhaps. our next guest led a sniper team in afghanistan. now he's a journalist recently

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if you look at the ukraine assistance, let's talk about where the money is really going. a significant portion of it is being spent in the united states in 38 different states replacing the weapons that we sent to ukraine with more modern weapons. so we're rebuilding our industrial base. >> that's what president biden is seeking to do. >> it's correct. no americans are getting killed in ukraine. we're rebuilding our industrial base. the ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. i have a hard time finding anything wrong with that.

i think it's wonderful that they're defending themselves. and also the notion that the europeans are not doing enough, they've done almost $90 billion. they're housing a bunch of refugees who escaped. i think our nato allies in europe have done quite a lot. >> that's senate minority leader mitch mcconnell pushing back against some of his own party who are hesitant to approve more funding for ukraine. let's bring in a ukraine correspondent for the "new york times." he recently spent a day embedded with ukraine troops. his piece in the "new york times" "ukraine, a sniper mission and the myth of a good kill." i was so riveted and moved by what you wrote. for our audience, i want to read

a couple lines here. we kill not because we're vicious, but because it's our order, our duty raptor said. raptor stood in front of me wrestling with something we dared not talk about in afghanistan. he was breaking the fourth wall. i think about the people on the other side, he said. they may not want to be here, but they are here. raptor was working his way through the subject that sniper cultures often avoid. few times during my deployment did i pause to consider the taliban. it would take a few years to realize how indoctrinated we all were. thomas, thank you for your service. thank you for this article. talk about this extraordinary experience of actually being let in to follow ukrainians around

as they were doing what you were doing in afghanistan. >> thanks for having me. it was definitely kind of a surreal moment. we had been with the team for a few days and had gone on a mission before. it was earlier in the day and raptor had kind of just come off the gun. we talked about it at breakfast before about the mental gymnastics i had gone through and my teammates had gone through in the marine corps and what he was kind of grappling with at the same time. it's just one of those moments in your life that will kind of always be there. yeah, it was something else. >> for raptor, his country was invaded, more of a black and white issue. he was still struggling with things, like you said, most sniper cultures don't struggle

with. but you've talked about since coming back to the united states and looking back and talking about how you were, quote, indoctrinated. i'm sure it's been more complex for you. and yet one thing i noticed in your story is, even with that moral clarity that the russian invasion provided raptor, he was still exhausted, he was still weary and guilt-ridden about the other side. >> i think it gets lost. i call it good guy syndrome. we kind of get lost because there is this moral clarity to look back and say the russians invaded and the ukrainians are defending their home, but that doesn't excuse the level of violence and ferocity and death that these men and women are experiencing every day at levels when i compare my time in

afghanistan as a marine, as a journalist versus what's happening on the ground in ukraine, it kind of melts your brain sometimes. for raptor to step back and still feel it on his shoulders, it made sense. ukrainians have family in russia, many of them speak the same language obviously, russian. he's processing a lot too that i didn't really hit in the article. >> your essay was really moving. i thought that the part about nations building and counter insurgency and america's role doing that over the last two decades was really important. how today when you see the ukrainian soldiers that you embed with, how is their morale different than what you and your men experienced inning

afghanistan with a more vague mission? >> i mean, that was actually a conversation at breakfast with raptor. i think it was before that mission. i said at the end of the day, you know, no matter what happens, you have your own choices that will end people's lives, but you can always go to bed with the fact that you're defending your home. that obviously was something that we did not have in afghanistan, especially eight, nine years into the war i think that had been diluted as far as the september 11th attacks and what exactly we were doing there. >> thomas gibbons-neff, thank you so much for being here. >> thanks for having me.

coming up next, new york governor kathy hochul just back from israel, where she visited a border town decimated by the hamas terror attacattacks. she shares her experience there with us. going to ask her about the terrible news she received on the way over about her father's passing. s passing. i'm a retired school librarian. i'm also a library board trustee, a mother of two, and a grandmother of two. basically, i thought that my memory wasn't as good as it had been. i needed all the help i could get. i saw the commercials for prevagen. i started taking it. and it helped! i noticed my memory was better. there was definite improvement. i've been taking prevagen for a little over five years. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ [bell ringing] and doug says, “you can customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual.” he hits his mark —center stage—

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israel continues to discover, uncover people who were killed, who were slaughtered, and i use that term very advisebly, slaughtered on october 7th. israel has not only the right, as we've said, but the obligation to defend itself. we're not in the business of second-guessing what they're doing. we are talking to them on a regular basis about how they do it. >> joining us now, democratic governor of new york, kathy hochul. she's just returned from israel

where she was the first elected u.s. official to visit a border town massacred by hamas. she also met with prime minister benjamin netanyahu. governor, thank you for being with us. i want to first talk briefly about your father who you lost. i had read his final words to you, the final words that jack courtney gave to you which was -- says here in the buffalo paper, they were characteristically blunt. i'm proud of you, dolly but get your gd head down. tell us about your dad. >> oh, he was tough, but he started with nothing. he worked in the steel plants with his father, hot dirty work. he lived in a trailer park with my mom when they first were married, had a lot of kids. when he got a college degree, he worked hard. he literally lived the american

dream and rose up not to just become a social activist in many causes, but headed up a company that grew to over 3,000 and took it global and national. so that's the story that so many people come to our country for, and my family lived it. he was always giving me advice, always concerned about me. i'll say it on television, he said, dolly, i'm so proud of you but keep your god damn head down. that's how he spoke. he was worried about me, but i had to tell him efs going into harm's way. last words heading to jfk airport. i miss him dearly. i really do. >> you continued on that trip instead of coming home. i guess you did that because that's what he would have wanted you to do? >> and i needed to comfort a nation. there were so many people i knew were suffering. new york city has more jews than tel aviv and jerusalem combined, 2.2 million.

everybody knew somebody. everybody experienced real pain, and i needed to go there and let people know that we stand with israel. we condemn the terrorist act of hamas. i needed to see and bare witness and tell stories upon my return to strengthen our resolve, to eradicate evil in places in gaza, and free the palestinians from the stranglehold of hamas. i'm concerned about innocent palestinians. of course we are. but what hamas did on october 7th will go down in the annuls of history as one of the worst terror attacks in the scale of the population. i met with one of the refugees one mile from the border. a population of 700. this is a kibbutz. if they were in the u.s., they would be hippies. they lost 70 of their own residents, 10% of the population

slaughtered that day and many were taken hostage. i needed to see that, talk to the leaders about our own hostage, but also to give comfort to people who in turn were trying to give me comfort. it was something i'll never forget. >> governor, good to see you this morning. you started to mention about your trip to israel and the kibbutz. tell us a little mover, if you will, about what you saw. i know there must have been some difficult images as well as some truly harrowing and horrible stories. >> our video -- videographer was kept out of some of the rooms that i went in to. the two horrors not revealed, but it really was a house of horror when i walked in, and stepping over not just everything, broken glass, broken windows, mattresses up against the wall covered in blood. they showed me where a young couple was found on top of their children, all of them murdered, assassinated. went into a safe room.

the israeli government provided all these little homes with a safe room to protect them. what they found in there were naked bodies of two young women who had been butchered. it was hard. i saw where someone had been a hostage, and they shot him and what you saw on the wall was pretty horrific. i needed to see that directly. i'm not afraid to walk into a room like that and smell the smell of death and to experience that and be the person who can come back and reveal what these people, these innocent people, peace-loving people were having to experience. it is an atrocity just like the holocaust, can never be forgotten. i needed to talk about what i saw to others, and i will continue to do that and also to fight for american hostages, all

hostages. i raise their names and i left the picture of omar whose parents i met. i was with his aunt and uncle in jerusalem. i left the photo with the president of israel. i said we need to get all the hostages home, but i'm here because there's somebody with a new york connection, either new yorkers themselves or have a family member that's distraught without having the knowledge of knowing whether they're even dead or alive. >> governor hochul, could you talk about some of the whose stanls, the american whose stanls who have new york connections? >> well, one was a young man, omer nutra, his parents live on long island. he took a gap year. he was going to become a student at suny binghamton. het went to israel. one man who is 64.

he said his brother and wife had been kidnapped from the kibbutz. he said these were peace-loving people. they were trying to establish relationships with the people of gaza. they lived there because they wanted to find some way to bring peace to the world. we have not heard from them at all. we don't know where they are. another father told me about italy, his young son. they don't know what happened to him. they have no idea where he is. so some people have grown up in rochester, new york, some long island. there are a lot of connections, a lot of relatives. they're in the dark. they have no idea whether these family members are dead or alive, and they're not going home until they know. i had to go there and say, mr. prime minister, mr. president, we stand with israel. what you did was important to fight back against terrorism because we do not want hamas and hezbollah now to feel emboldened, and we are certainly a city -- new york city has a lot of experience with terrorist

attacks, but bring these hostages home. get the aid flowing into gaza. >> new york governor kathy hochul, we greatly appreciate you being with us. thank you so much. >> thank you. all right. that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera is going to pick up the coverage in 90 seconds. the s ♪i'm hearing different ways for me to screen for colon cancer.♪ ♪it's time to use my voice,♪

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