right now on "ana cabrera reports", a thanksgiving under the shadow of war with new hope in the last hour for reuniting hamas held hostages with their families. friday morning 7:00 a.m. local time in israel, midnight here on the u.s. east coast. that is when there will be a pause in fighting. then later, a release of the hostages. we're in the region with how many are expected to be freed as well as the complicated and delicate work that goes into recovering and caring for these hostages. also this hour, the ball of

fire at our border, what we're learning about the airborne car that crashed into the u.s. canadian border area as the fbi wraps up its investigation on the ground. and later, campaign cracks, the chaos hitting a super pac for ron desantis, courtesy of a former governor. it is 10:00 eastern, thank you so much for joining us on this thanksgiving. i'm ana cabrera, and we want to begin with that breaking news from the qatari foreign ministry, in the last hour about what to expect when the deal between hamas and israel goes into effect tomorrow. the truce critical to release those hostages is set to start at 7:00 a.m. local time. that's midnight eastern. the spokesman says to watch for the first group of captives to be released at 4:00 p.m. local time or 9:00 a.m. eastern

tomorrow. david noriega is in tel aviv for us. what more do we know about who exactly will be released? >> reporter: ana, good morning. here's what we know. there is a confirmed first group of israeli hostages consisting of 13 people. they are women and children. the thinking in terms of selecting those prisoners was, according to the qatari officials who released this information made primarily on humanitarian grounds, also intended to keep families together. we know that there will be complete family units released in that first group of 13. we also know there's a concurrent group of palestinian prisoners that will be released at the same time. we don't know exactly where these hostages will be released, whether they will cross the border directly into israel or go through the rafah crossing in egypt. we also know they are going to be creating new lists of hostages every day of this four-day cease fire. ana. >> david noriega, thank you so much for bringing us the very

latest information. i want to bring in israeli consul general in new york, ambassador e loan pin kis and "new york times" chief white house correspondent peter baker. ambassador, there's this nine-hour span between the pause in fighting and the release of hostages. why is that? what happens in that time? >> both sides, ana, need to affirm that the truce or hiatus or cease fire is being kept, and no one -- it's a ploy, actually, and that no one is trying to subvert the entire operation. it's -- you know, it's unfortunate that it's going to take nine whole hours of people's nerves being stretched this way. i think it's mainly to make sure the cease fire is being adhered

to. >> do you have any worries about anything throwing this deal off? >> well, yeah, you know a break in the cease fire is going to throw it off. a drone that wasn't supposed to be where it was found. there's something -- there's a term, ana, called the strategic corporal. the strategic corporal described a situation in which a corporal makes a mistake that has a strategic effect on the battle, on the war, or in this case on the hostage deal. so one guy makes a mistake, a miscalculation. a misperception. starts shooting on either side, by the way, and before you know it, the deal can be hampered. i doubt this will happen. too many interests converge here for it to go sideways. >> there are a lot of layers to making this all happen, peter. the white house says president

biden spoke to the emir of qatar and the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu as recently as yesterday. what do we know about any role the u.s. played in working out the details of this plan that we have now? >> well, the u.s. has been in the thick of this really for five, six weeks. i mean, this really began the first hours, days after the october 7th hamas terrorist attack when qatar reached out to the white house is and said it had information about these hostages. in the five or six weeks since the president biden assigned a small team of aides to work on this. kept it secret will from most of his government, worked closely with the israeli, and basically were shepherding this process from start to finish. they're very intent on making sure that the terms of the deal that was reached in the last couple of days are abided by by both sides. they would like to be the first of a multistate process in which more hostages released presumably for a somewhat extended pause in the fighting.

>> ambassador, in your latest piece, you bring up critical questions about the challenge ahead for president biden once this truce is up. quote, what happens on the fifth day, does the united states support a resumption of the war toward what political end? is he simply in a rock and a hard place right now? what options does president biden have? >> he's going to face -- i mean, the administration is going to face a vexing paradox. on the one hand they have repeatedly said lately, most recently secretary blinken that there's no reverting to the pre-october 7th reality in which hamas governs gaza. so that invariably means resuming the war. but biden, president biden does not want israel to resume the war. as peter correctly observed, there could be a series of deals such as this, meaning that there

could be a cease fire in increments in which case israel would see its entire military momentum assuming such exists. and that leads -- that's going to lead to a dilemma. do you support israel resuming the war? that also contradicts america's prime interest here, and that is preventing escalation. the more the war goes on, the more it escalates in gaza, the chances increase that it would escalate horizontally into lebanon. so the administration is going to have a major problem, not to mention -- i'm sorry for going into too long -- not to mention the big dilemma here, and that is who's going to govern gaza the day after, whether the war stops or whether it resumes and stops in two and a half months. who knows. and israel and the u.s. do not see eye to eye on this at all as

peter can probably attest better than i. >> well, first of all, you don't need to apologize for going too long. we are so lucky to have your wealth of knowledge and understanding of how the diplomacy in these moments work and what may be happening behind the scenes and your experience in the region, but to the point about what's next, peter, what is the biden administration's plan now? they've made it clear that israel has the right to defend itself, but are they prepared for what could be a long war after such a big diplomatic breakthrough with this current deal? >> i think the ambassador's got it right. i mean, basically there is going to be a public show of support for israel's right to defend itself as has been the president's position since the day of the attack on october 7th. at the same time, it wouldn't make them very sad if the -- i don't know, military campaign evolved into something a little bit different after this pause or these succession of pauses if there are more to get more hostages out is over. in other words, if they ended up with a more surgical operation

or something else other than a complete onslaught, that wouldn't have made the biden administration happy. they did not support extension of the military campaign into southern gaza at the moment. that's where many gazans were told to seek shelter. the idea that moving that operation to the south bothers the administration. at the same time, israel's saying we can't just give a shelter to hamas by saying some part of the gaza strip off limits and therefore they can simply reconstitute themselves there. the israelis are obviously worried about the reuse of this pause to requip, rearm, regroup. there's a lot of conflict about how to go forward. >> the israeli government has drawn up incredibly detailed guidelines about how to handle children, including telling soldiers when they first encounter these hostages, do not pick them up without permission, if these children are among that

first batch, and that's what we're expecting. if the kids ask questions about their parents, don't answer them. it's not for soldiers to share information about their parents' life or well-being with these kids. is the government prepared to handle what will be, i assume, a massive undertaking to try and help these hostages heal? >> well, yeah, i mean, i like to think that they're prepared. i know that teams of psychologists and social workers, child psychologists in particular have been preparing for this, and there's a whole -- as you said correctly, there's a whole set of guidelines of do's and do not do's in terms of the initial contact. when a 4-year-old or a 16-year-old is handed over to an israeli soldier, they might be asking questions about their parents, their town, their friends, the people left behind. where am i going? who are you? so this is -- this is a

post-trauma situation that not many countries on this scale have any experience with. so i really like to think that the proper preparations were made because, you know, how do you even begin to deal with the number of people -- i mean, everyone has experience in terms of p.o.w.s who spent years even in japanese or german p.o.w. camps, but no one has experience with children who have been abducted, don't even know by whom, don't even know how long it's been since it happened, don't even know the whereabouts or the well-being of their loved ones and family members. so we'll have to wait and see. >> it's heartbreaking to think about all of that, what trauma they have endured. thank you so much, ambassador, pinkas as well as peter baker. really great to have both of you here. happy thanksgiving, thank you. >> happy thanksgiving.

i'm going to bring in msnbc military analyst now and retired four-star general barry mccaffrey. good to see you. i want to get your insight into this news on timing for tomorrow. we're seeing this long nine-hour pause in fighting before the release of hostages. what does that accomplish, that gap? >> well, i think there's a lot of things going on here in the background. first of all, i think the hamas chain of command has been hammered. it's dishevelled. it's incoherent. i doubt they know where all of these hostages are. some of them may well have been murdered, died of their injuries, so hamas is trying to understand their own internal situation. i think the other thing that is true is the only purpose of hamas right now is to extend the truce. so they're going to drag this out to every extent they can. but both sides, in my view, both politically and militarily, have

a tremendous incentive right now to make this work. so in the coming days, hopefully some of these traumatized infants and children and women will emerge from captivity and 150 palestinian women and minors convicted of terrorism offenses or detained under internal security rules by the israelis in prisons will also be returned possibly not to gaza but anywhere they wish in the middle east! . >> and again, this truce or pause expected to start at midnight eastern time, 7:00 a.m. local time there. in the meantime, the fighting continues and the idf just released this new footage behind a hatch door they say that was breached at the al-shifa hospital, that main hospital, where the idf says they saw, quote, war roomts and air conditioned living room, a hiding place as well as toilets and a kitchen for extended stays

that were found in a tunnel they say. nbc cannot independently verify that video. i know you've had a chance to see this. what do you make of what we're seeing here? >> well, the video evidence seemed pretty clear in one respect, that these hospitals were being used actively by hamas fighters. we saw videos of hostages going into these hospitals. i think a lot of the access points to the tunnel system were under or in the vicinity of so-called protected areas, hospitals, schools, u.n. designated areas. so far what we've seen on video, though, is only scratching the surface. at some point we need to see the command and control centers. 75 people, wire communications, you know, bringing together their various factions. hundreds of tons of rocket munitions and factories for

making these rockets. that hadn't happened. the idf is going to be very careful exploring this tunnel complex. they'll be booby trapped. they'll be fearful of harming their own hostages. so i think more to come on the tunnel complexes. >> so what i'm hearing you say is this doesn't look like a command and control center. what we're seeing so far in that video. there's also some video that the idf allowed reuters to join them to get. again, this is in tunnels connected to al-shifa we're told. the israeli army did review their footage. reuters says no footage was removed. we're showing some of that now. if these aren't the command and control centers, what does that mean as far as what the idf claimed was here at al-shifa. does this help or hurt their case to the broader public, to the international community that's been so critical of their actions. >> well, of course a dynamic situation. the idf is releasing what they

got. i didn't see in these videos hastily abandon underground structures that would be capable of housing hundreds of fighters or a significant command control. there's no massive logistics we've seen yet, but there's a lot of blast proof doors. and again, i think the idf is going to be very cautious about extending their underground search knowing they will take casualties. i mean, we used to do this in vietnam with 19-year-old soldiers a flashlight and a 45 caliber pistol. so this is dangerous work, and the idf has not yet in my view encountered significant underground structures. >> we are very lucky to have your insights and expertise. general barry mccaffrey, thank you so much for spending part of your thanksgiving with us. i appreciate you being here. still ahead, an investigation underway into that deadly fiery car crash at the the u.s./canada border.

was it intentional? we're live in buffalo. plus, president biden and vice president harris set to honor the late first lady rosalynn carter. the details on those service when is we're back in just 60 seconds. when is we're back in just 60 seconds. it's pie season. and while you may have already picked up an apple pie, don't forget to grab pumpkin too. same goes for your fall vaccinations. you may have already been vaccinated against the flu this season, but don't forget to get an updated covid-19 shot, too.

we're back with new details on that deadly car explosion near niagara falls. the fbi has now turned over the investigation to local police, federal authorities say they found now connection to terrorism. the fiery crash at rainbow bridge occurred on one of the busiest travel days of the year. nbc's marissa parra is there in niagara falls for us. marissa, where are the local police now focusing their investigation? >> reporter: hey, ana, we're about as close as we can get to rainbow bridge behind me. we actually had a chance to speak with the niagara falls police department who said their crash management team is still on scene. rainbow bridge remains closed right now behind me.

they're of course not just cleaning all of the debris, but as we expect gathering evidence because this is an investigation that they have now taken on from the fbi and customs border patrol once they said their investigation had concluded. i'm going to give you all the details on everything we know so far. just to give you a sense of where everyone's heads were yesterday, you can imagine the shock here from witnesses when this happened. i mean, this car when you look at the video of it was traveling at such a high speed. people did not know what had happened. you see in that video traveling at such a high speed, also going so high into the air completely clearing this eight foot fence behind me, and so there were a lot of questions, of course. there were a lot of alarms raised. take a listen to a shocked witness on what he saw and heard. >> he was flying over 100 miles an hour. there was a car in front of him. he swerved out. went in front of the car, hit the fence, went flying up into the air. hits -- i think there was an

elevation part, he went up into the air and we just seen the fire ball, and that's all we could see. it was just covered in smoke everywhere. >> reporter: immediately after this crash, the fbi and customs and border patrol immediately started getting to work. we saw both countries, canada and the united states on high alert. we saw local bridges impacted, regional airports impacted with their air traffic. we saw lot of theories and speculation up until the fbi posted a statement on their twitter saying they had concluded their investigation just six hours after the incident saying, quote, a search of the scene revealed no explosive materials and no terrorism nexus was identified. so right now this is a traffic investigation, ana. we know two people lost their lives. still so many questions as they're continuing gathering the evidence here, though, of what exactly happened, what sent that car spiraling into the air. ana. >> yeah, and thank goodness not more people were injured and, again, no connection to terrorism. thank you very much, marissa

parra. and turning now to the memorial services for former first lady rosalynn carter, who died sunday at age 96. services will begin next week as president biden and vice president harris head to georgia to attend a tribute on tuesday. nbc's white house correspondent kelly o'donnell is joining us with more now. kelly, what can we expect from next week's memorial events? >> well, certainly the family will be receiving members of the public, and there's already been an enormous outpouring according to the carter center of people who were sending good wishes and sympathies and remembrances about mrs. carter and there are a lot of ways people can do that. next week in person in atlanta, there will be a wreath laying on monday. mrs. carter will lie in repose at the presidential library of jimmy carter in atlanta. on tuesday there will be a tribute and celebration of her life, and that is where president biden, the first lady jill biden, vice president harris, and her husband the second gentleman, doug emhoff

will be among those invited guests who will be attending. mrs. laura bush will be there as well. we've reached out to the other former first families to check on their plans. this will be a chance for mrs. carter's life of service to be remembered. she of course was very influential in the white house. she was the first first lady to have an office in the east wing. she attended cabinet meetings. she was an advocate on mental health and on care giving, and for all the decades since, the carters left the white house, she has been as president carter referred to her a full partner in all of the things he's doing. and then on wednesday in plains, georgia, their long-time hometown, there will be a funeral service at their church, their local hometown long-time church, and then mrs. carter, the internment will be at the carter residence, which will ultimately be a part of a national park service site where the public will be able to visit and pay their respects right

there on the property where the carters have lived for so many years. it will certainly be a chance to think about her time of service, to reflect on the kind of grit and charm that she brought to her role, and for the other first families and for the country to really say thank you for the work that she has done and to remember a life that was long, 96 years, and also consequential. >> and a marriage that was really long, 77 years of marriage. we see so many images, you can see that love and that amazing love story between the former first lady and the former president. kelly o'donnell, thank you very much. up next on "ana cabrera reports," the new additions to the 97th annual macy's thanksgiving day parade, which is well underway. we're live here in new york along the parade route right after this. and then later, how our troops overseas are celebrating the holidays. stay with us. >> hi to my family back at home

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there are some new additions to a 97-year tradition this morning as the macy's thanksgiving day parade passes by our newsroom on 6th avenue. four new floats, six so-called balloonicles, if i said that right, and seven new character balloons including a giant beagle scout, snoopy, they're

slowly huffing and puffing their way through the tightly packed streets of manhattan. the president and first lady called in to al roker. >> we have to remind ourselves how great it is, nothing beyond our capacity. today is about coming together, giving thanks to this country we call home, and thanks to all the firefighters, police officers, first responders, and our troops at home or stationed abroad. i've never been more optimistic, al, so we're delighted to be with you. >> great reminder of all we have to be thankful for today. nbc's emilie ikeda is joining us along the parade route. oh, it looks like so much fun. the weather is decent. so what's drawing the biggest gasps out there so far this morning? >> reporter: it's been such a fun and exciting day already. well, when we first saw tom

turkey round the corner here on 6th avenue, you could hear an audible gasp from the crowd, so excited to see that the 97th annual macy's thanksgiving day parade was officially underway. but of course the major balloons that sometimes take an hour and a half just to inflate, those always are turning heads. there are seven new character balloons. we just saw po from kung fu panda make its way down 6th avenue here on a two and a half mile journey that starts at 77th street and ends at herald square. you heard the marching band playing behind me. that's always a favorite for so many people here that have traveled from around the country, many their first time to new york city, and among those who have been extremely excited, i'm going to walk over here to brandy. hi, brandy. her daughter actually performed. tell me, what was it like to see your daughter in the color guard? >> it was phenomenal. she's an awesome kid, an awesome performer. and getting the chance to come up here and see her perform live in this big city is awesome.

>> have you ever seen the macy's thanksgiving day parade before? >> just on tv. this is a whole new ball game. fantastic. >> thank you so much, brandy. even out here having a complete blast this thanksgiving day. >> oh, good to hear it, and so far so good, no major drama, it sounds like. but we have seen, you know, a huge speak in anti-semitic and islamophobic incidents in major cities including new york since that attack on october 7th. what do we know about security measures today to make sure everybody stays safe? >> reporter: yeah, you bring up an excellent point. it's top of mind for the nypd here. as you mentioned, this city and other major cities across the country have been under a heightened threat environment or alert, since october 7th, and when the ongoing violence in the middle east, but they say that they are prepared for this event. it's something that local, state, and federal law enforcement prepare for for an entire year leading up to this since last thanksgiving day.

the nypd says they have some 50,000 officers contributing to keeping this event safe. the mayor last night saying it is their job to keep us safe. it is our job to have fun. >> emilie ikeda, keep having fun, my friend. happy thanksgiving. and this thanksgiving your meal will cost less than last year, but more than it did before the pandemic. accoing to money geek, families paying the most for their dinner this year are in seattle, averaging $176, and the holiday spread with the least amount of doling out cash is in brownsville, texas, at 121 bucks. here's cnbc's jane wells. >> reporter: well, perhaps the best news about cooling inflation is the cost of a thanksgiving dinner. yeah, it's not the best news for the turkeys. turkey prices have been falling because we went from a shortage

of birds last year cue to a devastating avian flu to an oversupply this year because farmers raised more birds fearing the flu might come back, but it really hasn't yet, so the american farm bureau fedation says the average thanksgiving cost a little over 61 r will year's record, but still higher an pre-pandemic, and turkey prices, which shot up almost 50% are down almost 6%, though still way up from 2019. will your revenues this year top 2019? >> the revenues probably will top 2019 because we've continued with price increases. margin contribution, though, will not. >> reporter: margins are eroding meaning profits are down because of higher costs, especially with labor, and rodney lee of lee's turkey farm in new jersey fears the consumer may not be ready to buy a really big bird. >> this year we started our turkeys later than we've ever started them before because i am predicting that the size is just going to be a little smaller

than last year. >> that was cnbc's jane wells reporting. up next here on "ana cabrera reports," the battle to be the non-trump candidate, why one desantis donor is now comparing the campaign to a radio shack store. o a radio shack store. ♪ students... students of any age, from anywhere. students in a new kind of classroom. ♪ using our technology to power different ways of learning. ♪ harnessing ai to plant new beginnings. ♪ so when minds grow, opportunities follow. have fun, sis! ♪♪ can't stop adding stuff to your cart? get the bank of america customized cash rewards card, choose the online shopping category

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welcome back to the campaign trail now, and ron desantis is facing new challenges this morning after the head of his

primary super pac quit. apparently the result of growing frustration and infighting stemming from desantis's struggle to breakthrough. the campaign has been particularly alarmed by nikki haley's rise in the polls, cutting his lead over her nationally from 11 points to just 3 over the past three months. and things got so bad during a strategy session last week that nbc news has learned that one long-time confidant of desantis and a representative of the never back down super pac nearly got into a physical fight. i want to bring in nbc's ali vitali along with brendan buck and julian castro who served as hud secretary under president obama and ran for president himself in 2020. brendan, it fight seems rather emblematic of the larger problem of infighting and frustration going on inside the desantis campaign. what do you think's gone wrong? >> well, a lot of things. i think the most interesting

dynamic here is a campaign that really outsourced all operations to a super pac. this has been a bit of an evolution where a lot of campaigns have tried to do that to some degree because you can raise a lot more money on a super pac. but you have a situation here where the day-to-day functioning of the campaign is effectively run by an outside organization for a candidate who is famous for being a micromanager. and so it's not surprising that someone who is at arms length from what's going on in what is basically the campaign is growing frustrated and people close to him are frustrated. but of course, you know, you can blame the super pac, you can blame the structure all you want. the reality is that ron desantis has proven himself to not be a very good candidate. he's not very good on the stump. he doesn't connect with people, and ever since people have gotten a closer look at him, they don't like him. we can have a lot of conversation at the structure, but i think ultimately this is candidate problem. >> desantis's original super pac that has been so important to his campaign launched ads attacking nikki haley, and that

seemed to backfire. so then there was a spinoff, and people formed a new desantis super pac, which just launched an ad trying to link nikki haley to hillary clinton. they're already getting pushback for that ad. what can you tell us about that and how haley's campaign is responding? >> i think what brendan is saying is really important. as much as the desantis camp has a nikki haley problem, they've also long had a ron desantis problem. those two things are now coming to an intersection because of the way that we're watching polls show haley in some states eclipsing desantis, and in other states just cutting into his lead overall. this is something that has to do with momentum. it's also showing in the way that they're trying to air ads that frankly pull her so far out of context that it's almost difficult to believe. look at this one about nikki haley and hillary clinton and watch the ways the nikki haley campaign is showing these quotes are out of context. watch. >> we know her as crooked hillary, but to nikki haley,

she's her role model. the reason she ran for office. >> i often say that the reason i got into politics was because of hillary clinton. >> it's important to note this ad takes past quotes from haley about clinton completely out of context. let's say that again. completely out of context. it shows a desperation of the desantis camp. >> the reason i got into politics, believe it or not, i don't agree with anything that she has to say, but it was because of hillary clinton. >> and ana, i've got to tell you, as the person who wrote a book about women and the presidency and women in politics, the first thing i thought when i saw this desantis ad, not even knowing though i did the full nikki haley in context, a lot of women look around at the larger political landscape, and when you have so few women who have risen to the top of these plimt environments and spaces, of course they look at role models on both sides of the aisle. it's really important to note, even sarah palin in 2008 when she was receiving the vice presidential nomination with

john mccain said she was there to in many ways finish what hillary clinton had started. this is a lack of role models criticism of the larger political space, certainly not one of nikki haley saying she's in any way simpatico with hillary clinton. >> secretary castro, let's talk more about the crent state of play in the republican race. i want to rea quote from one desantis donor who expressed their own frustrations saying, quote, i'm a bit agitatedhe guys have spent all this money for no return. you don't just keep throwing money at radio shack. so they're losing momentum. it appears the donors are getting fed up. is there any way to right this ship for desantis at this point? >> yeah, i mean, you're right, and i think brendan and ali are right as well, desantis has not been a great candidate. this was a classic example of somebody who sounded better on paper and was better with voters in theory than he has been out there on the campaign trail. he's also made some strategic

mistakes, not going after donald trump earlier. he's having to play catchup now, has not stood out on the debate stage during those three debates they've had. he's in this vicious cycle that you describe. in terms of going forward, they have seven weeks left until the iowa caucus. that is some amount of time. they have money that's in the bank, that has paid for ads. he has organizing folks on the ground. my understanding is that he actually has one of the better, stronger organized operations. we've seen that donald trump is vulnerable in iowa. crews out organized him and beat him in iowa in 2016. but at this point desantis has lost so much momentum, and haley has all of it to be the non-trump alternative, that it doesn't look good for him. i don't think that he's going to recover, frankly. >> i mean, our reporting is that his super pac has spent some $100 million, and yet, again,

what do they have to show for it? brendan, we've talked about what desantis maybe has done wrong and the problems with his own candidacy. but what do you think nikki haley has done right that's gotten her to this point where she's now knocking on the door of second place? >> first and foremost, she hasn't just copied donald trump, and that's what so many of the other candidates were doing, not just not attacking them, but ron desantis started off basically trying to be a mini trump, and if you are into trump, you would just vote for trump, and i think nikki haley understood that. she has also been the alpha at these debates. you know, other people have had okay debates but she has stood out as the strongest candidate on that stage. she's quick on her feet. she knows her stuff. she knows how to throw a punch, and republican voters like strong candidates, and she has projected that really well. she does have a few fundamental problems, though. electability is probably her best argument. there are poll after poll showing that she goes best against joe biden head to head. the problem is those same polls are now starting to show donald trump can also beat joe biden,

so that takes away one of your main arguments. i think what she needs more than anything is for ron desantis to drop out. at this point, if she has a chance and it's not much of a chance, but if she has one, there needs to be a clear one on one race between her as the alternative to trump. as long as desantis is there, that makes it really hard to do. >> secretary castro, the problem for haley if she's able to keep pulling away voters from desantis and other candidates in the race right now is that her numbers are going up, so are trump's. trump's already above 50%. even if she got everybody else's voters coming to her, she still can't get the majority of republicans. is there any sign that she's an actual threat to trump himself? >> frankly, no, not really. not right now, when you have seven weeks left and still 40 points behind in iowa is and these other states. i mean, there are a couple of state where is she's a bit

closer to that. south carolina is one of the earlier states. there's hope as she gains momentum yl especially in south carolina, and i think it is true for sure that the more consolidation there is, the more people drop out of the race, the better that either she or ron desantis, the non-trump alternative is going to do. but when you're 40 points behind and trump has the kind of name i.d. that he has and people know all of his issues and they've built that in already to their judgment on him, i don't see how somebody's going to come back at this point unless he ends up getting convicted or something else happens in one of these legal trials that he's going through. it causes republicans to finally take a long, hard look and say it would be a colossal mistake to nominate this guy because he's definitely going to lose to joe biden. >> all right, julian castro, brendan buck, ali vitali, thank you all so much. i'm thankful for you on this thanksgiving.

i hope you have a wonderful day. and still to come, serving on thanksgiving, how para troopers deployed after the start of the ukraine war are celebrating the holiday. nbc news reports from del din base next. >> i'd just like to say happy thanksgiving to all my friends and family back home. i miss you guys. and family back home i miss you guys. hello! hello is friendly... hello is open... it's welcoming... everything we want to be when helping people find a medicare plan during the annual enrollment period. so, say hello... to hellomedicare,

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but the dinner table comes to them. we get more now from nbc news correspondent meagan fitzgerald. >> reporter: they're constantly training to stay sharp and on the top of their game. always ready to be instantly deployed at a moment's notice when duty calls, rifles assigned, weapons assembled, bags packed. these men and women are u.s. paratroopers with the 173rd airborne brigade stationed in northern italy. >> we're constantly preparing for what's next. >> reporter: but these troops are more than just soldiers. they're family. >> working together every day, we live together in the barracks, so it brings us closer together. >> reporter: and that togetherness is palpable on thanksgiving when loved ones are celebrating the holiday thousands of miles away here at the del din army base, a feast provides a small taste of home. >> they are really eating this turkey up.

>> mac and cheese. >> reporter: the soldiers served by their leaders in full dress uniform. >> what can i get you? >> there we go. lots of ham. >> reporter: a gesture of gratitude for their service. >> a little bit of protein on there. >> thank you very much. >> happy thanksgiving to you. >> reporter: with all the thanksgiving traditions, it feels familiar. >> feels like home. >> reporter: creating this meal is a mission in itself, a labor of love by 80 working tirelessly preparing 1,000 pounds of potatoes, 59 turkeys, and 100 different sides. and for dessert, all-american classics including this cake in the shape of a turkey, all displayed on the most special table of all. these empty seats pay tribute to the fallen whose sacrifice is not forgotten on this day. this brigade is here to support

america's nato allies across europe, they're highly trained to parashoot into combat when needed. >> the turbulence in the world today has made the role of a response force more important than ever. >> reporter: these troops constantly reminded of the dangers, but on this thanksgiving, a moment to enjoy with their brothers and sisters in uniform and for a grateful nation to give thanks. >> nbc's meagan fitzgerald with that report. our thanks to all of those service men and women. today msnbc films kicks off with "civil war" and "stone ghost" and then rounding out with "paper and glue" at 10:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. but first, when we come back, holiday travel and what it means for your wallet. plus, how to navigate delays, potential weather problems, and long waits in line. stay with us. ay with us

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right now on a special second hour of "ana cabrera roars," the plea from israeli families of hostages this thanksgiving to keep a seat open at the table. i'll talk to a cousin of one hostage as we learn new details about who will be among the first to be released. plus, the new york ag's office is looking to reimpose a