much. appreciate it. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz-balart. you can reach me on social media. you can watch clips from our show at youtube. thank you so much for the privilege of your time. andrea mitchell picks up with more news right now. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," defendant donald trump speaking at trump tower after trying to delay or reduce the $5 million he has been ordered to pay e. jean carroll for defamation. separately in his hush money case, which he was convicted in may, the former president is asking that judge to delay his sentencing until after the election. on the campaign trail, mr. trump heads to north carolina later today. vice president harris remains in pittsburgh, holding mock debates before tuesday's big face-off in philadelphia. in georgia, the father of the suspected charged with second degree murder, appearing

in court amid revelations the father gave his 14-year-old son an ar-15-style rifle after both had been questioned about alleged threats the boy made to carry out a school shooting. the teenage suspect was in the same courtroom, shackled and tried as an adult. it's now a campaign issue. j.d. vance on the defense after the harris campaign pounced on him saying he wishes school shootings were not a fact of life. >> i don't like that this is a fact of life. if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. we have to bolster security at our schools so that a person who walks through the front door -- - ♪♪ good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington with donald trump speaking in new york city just

at this hour. he has been lashing out at his multiple legal cases and at the judge overseeing them and at the justice department. the former president claiming again that he has no idea who e. jean carroll is. the writer who won her sexual assault and defamation cases. earlier, the former president facing a skeptical three-judge panel as he appeared before a court of appeals trying to delay his payout of $5 million in damages to carroll. her attorney pointing out in court that mr. trump had the opportunity to defend himself on the stand in the first trial but did not. he also had the chance to put witnesses on the stand, but chose not to. joining me now, lisa rubin who was inside the courthouse today. busy day in the courthouse. vaughn hillyard in north carolina ahead of donald trump's event there.

vaughn you have been listening to former president trump as he continues to speak at trump tower in new york. characterize what he has been saying. >> reporter: was that to me? >> yes, vaughn. >> reporter: sorry about that. i'm listening in real time. i was distracted by donald trump himself. one of his attorneys in this appeal here in front of the appeals court trying to get the decision that was made in 2023, that was made by a jury, we should repeat, made by a jury that found donald trump to have sexually abused e. jean carroll. this was going before the appeals court. donald trump for the better part of the last 30 minutes now has been essentially doing exactly what led to the defamation

liability found against him earlier this year by a separate jury in which he was penalized for $83 million. he is continuing here at trump tower right now where this press conference is taking place, he is saying that he did not know e. jean carroll, he never met her. there's a photo of them together. he is saying that he regrets not going and testifying before that jury in early 2023 and blaming his attorney for telling him it was beneath the office of the presidency. of course, he was the ex-president at the time. he should not go and testify before that jury to his own defense. that jury found him guilt -- or i should say liable of sexual abuse and defamation. we heard -- you can see in the shot, you see he is flanked. there were other attorneys involved in the cases, including the hush money payment scheme. this is a moment that was

actually quite striking just a few moments before we came on air is when he very specifically said that he was not very happy, were his words, with his legal defense team here. he is looking at a potential sentencing on september 18th. we are waiting to hear from the judge in lower manhattan on whether that sentencing is going to move forward on september 18th or whether at donald trump's request he is going to postpone it until after the election. what you hear right now is donald trump -- let me be very clear. it's a lot to take in. frankly, he was bringing up other allegations other women made of sexual harassment and of abuse dating back years ago, including a woman who alleged they were on a plane and that he moved into her seat and began making out with her against her will. this is stuff that donald trump

is bringing up himself. they are touting this as a press conference, but he is not saying all of this in response to any actual questions. donald trump is clearly just getting a lot of thoughts off of his chest after leaving that courthouse there in this attempted appeal of the e. jean carroll decision here. one other note here. then i will let lisa and you break it down. he also started off at the very beginning of this press conference or remarks by noting that doj indictment handed down against the two russians who have been accused by the justice department of funneling millions of dollars to a media company in tennessee, a right wing media company, including providing hefty salaries to trump-aligned right wing provocateurs. in order to push russian propaganda. he made mention of that indictment. instead of saying what we heard

from others, who have u.s. national security in their interest, you heard him push it aside and saying that this is another effort for the russia, russia, russia effort, which for the last eight years he has come back to suggesting that in the 2016 campaign there was undue effort by the department of justice to tie him directly to efforts of russian propaganda and election interference. there was a lot to that. there was, in fact, conversations that took place between paul manafort, roger stone, who was having conversations with individuals with russian ties who ultimately hacked into the dnc email system. john podesta's emails. every time donald trump says it was a hoax, that's not entirely accurate. of course, there is no evidence that donald trump himself ever

colluded with the russians. yet, he did use the emails to further his campaign in 2016. of course, that was at a time in which the u.s. national security apparatus had publicly said in early october that they had good reason to believe that it was the russians that hocked into the emails and were releasing the wikileaks. i say that because at the top of the remarks, donald trump pushed aside this recent indictment. we heard him over the last course of the summer here continue to lay a foundation to claim that the federal government and the justice department and the state prosecutors, the judges, essentially, they are all in it to lay claim to the american electorate before people cast their vote, that this election is unfair, rigged and that there's undue interference, not on the part of the russians, per se, but on the part of democratic prosecutors and department of justice.

>> it's a lot to unpack. thank you so much for that. lisa rubin, let's talk about what happened in court today. what was probably triggering a lot of this outburst? >> reporter: it's interesting, because we are so used to donald trump sort of free associating. sometimes even rambling in his public appearances. vaughn made note of the fact that he was talking today at that press conference about a woman who accused him of assault on an airplane in the 1970s. actually, it ties directly back to the appeal of the e. jean carroll verdict that i attended this morning. in particular, donald trump and his lawyers contesting three pieces of evidence that they say the jury relied on and were improperly admitted by the trial judge of the southern district of new york. those three pieces of evidence start with the testimony of jessica leads. she sat next to donald trump on an airplane in the 1970s, where

she alleged that donald trump, after exchanging pleasantries, assaulted her sexually against her wishes. much of the argument today was taken up by a discussion about whether her testimony was improperly admitted under a rule of federal evidence that allows prior evidence of sexual assault to come in under particular circumstances. those circumstances entail conduct that meets the definition of federal crimes. there was a lot of debate and back and forth about whether what happened with her constituted a federal crime at the time that she alleged it took place in 1970. at the very end, e. jean carroll's lawyer was asked, even if we get rid of this evidence that the former president is contesting, the testimony of another accuser who says she was assaulted by the former president at mar-a-lago and the

"access hollywood" tape, if we got rid of that, would you still have enough to win? yes, but we still maintain the "access hollywood" tape was appropriately admitted, not to show that donald trump had a propensity to commit sexual assaults of the nature he committed against miss carroll but it was a confession that this is what he routinely did. >> that controversial airport alleged incident came up in 2016 in the immediate aftermath of the "access hollywood" tape. that was one of the issues that came up in that election cycle as well. as well as, of course, later in the court case. let me bring in paul butler, former prosecutor. there's another issue that's clearly also on the former president's mind today, which is the question of judge merchant

and whether he will succeed -- in what his defense lawyers want is a delay in the september sentencing. >> i can't imagine a defendant in any other criminal case asking the judge to postpone his sentencing after being convicted by a jury that request for the postponement is because the defendant has a busy time coming up at work. that's essentially what trump is asking. any other defendant making this request would be laughed out of court. the day job of a criminal defendant has no bearing on his proceeding as judge chutkan made clear. whatever the judge decides is going to be criticized. the reality is donald trump is the gop candidate for president. the election is a few weeks

away. if the judge does proceed to sentencing on september 17th, when it's scheduled it could have a huge reverberation in the election. is that something the judge should take into account? i think it's going to be a tough decision for this judge. >> lisa rubin, do you want to weigh in on that? >> reporter: yeah. in some cases, we are talking about putting the cart before the horse. in addition to scheduling that sentencing for september 18th, judge merchant has another decision date coming up. that's september 16th when he is scheduled to decide trump's motion to set aside the verdict in that new york hush money case on the grounds that some of the evidence in that case was evidence of his official acts while president and, therefore, under the supreme court's presidential immunity decision should never have been admitted in the first place. judge merchant facing a tough decision. that will come before whether he even decides whether that is

warranted. he told the parties to reserve september 18th for sentencing or other proceedings as appropriate. we may get a glimmer of what he is going to decide on the 16th today through his decision on whether to hold a sentencing. the other thing i would add is it's not the last word. i and others have talked on our air about the efforts by donald trump's attorneys not only to postpone the sentencing by asking judge merchant but by filing a notice of removal. the reason they have done that, particularly a year after doing so for the first time, is because there's a sentence in the federal statute that says, while a federal notice of removal is pending, you can't proceed to a judgment of conviction in a state criminal case. a judgment of conviction is what a sentencing is. that notice of removal is yet another effort by donald trump's lawyers in a different forum, this being a federal court, not a state court, to postpone the

sentencing. even if judge merchant decides he is going to proceed with that sentencing, donald trump still has an application to the second circuit court of appeals behind me to stay that notice of removal and keep -- stay an order denying his ability to file a notice of removal and keeps his hopes alive that a federal court will accept jurisdiction, yank it away from judge merchant and end his ability to sentence him to begin with. >> that had been denied, i know. of course, the issues of what is immunity, what's official, is what was heard this week by judge chutkan just yesterday in the january 6th case, the attempt to overturn the election. vaughn, before you went to north carolina, you were at the economic club in new york yesterday. before i let you go, let's play what he said in answer to a

straightforward question about what his policies would be on providing childcare, a big issue for a lot of americans, by one of the moderators, one of the questioners at the economic club of new york before a big new york audience of bankers, wall street executives and the like. let's listen. >> childcare is childcare. you have to have it in this country. when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that i'm talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they're not used to, but they will get used to it very quickly. it's not going to stop them from doing business with us. they will have a substantial tax when they send product into our country. as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, relatively speaking, it's not compared to the numbers we will take in. >> vaughn, briefly, he never answered what his policy would be on childcare.

then he just said he would pay for it by the tariffs that he proposes on other countries which are, according to most economists, really taxes on american consumers, something he has not acknowledged. there's been criticism of his lack of specifics in that answer. >> reporter: right. the interesting part is that question and answer came directly after another question from another member of the economic club who asked him about, how do the numbers work? understanding the united states went further into the deficit during the trump administration, the first four years there, and donald trump's response to how he would pay for some of his proposals while keeping the 2017 tax cuts from sunsetting and extending them and his response to that man, that member was that the tariffs were going to be able to cover the loss of revenue. then when he was asked about

childcare, what his policy was, to note his own vice presidential running made, j.d. vance, floated his own policy of a $5,000 childcare tax credit regardless of income, which donald trump did not repeat and has not signed on to himself, but instead what you heard was i think that it would be fair and objective to say either was a clear lack of understanding of childcare policy in america and discussions over potential proposals that could help american families across the country, or it was an intentional obfuscation over an issue that kamala harris, his democratic rival, is going to be quick and keen to draw the contrast on. i think you heard from him there, it was a little bit of incoherence at best, i would say. >> the debate is only four days away. lisa rubin, vaughn hillyard, paul butler, thanks to all of you for starting us off. still to come, president

biden is about to leave the white house for "andrea mitchell reports" -- michigan to shore up support. first, a live report from georgia. the teen gunman who killed four people allegedly two teachers and to students at his high school appears in court for first time. that's next when "andrea mitchell reports" is back in just 90 seconds. you are watching msnbc.

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the 14-year-old charged with murder fo allegedly shooting two teachers and two students appeared in court today. his father appearing shortly afterwards in the same courtroom, just hours after being arrested overnight on two charges of second degree murder. law enforcement says the father bought his son an ar-style rifle after both were interviewed by the fbi about his son's alleged threats online to carry out a school shooting. the charges are even more severe than what the parents of ethan

crumley faced. tell us about the charges filed against the father. >> reporter: that's right. colt gray's father being arrested. he faces four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children. the judge told him what his potential punishments could be for each of those crimes. each count carries around ten years of imprisonment. that's a total of 180 years of imprisonment. we asked the georgia bureau of investigations director last night when he gave us the briefing what evidence he had to put these charges against the father of colt gray. he wouldn't give us too many details. at the heart of the matter, which you mentioned, is how colt gray got that ar-style rifle that we were told by authorities

was used in this shooting that took place at apalachee high school. two senior law enforcement officials saying his father gifted that to him after fbi directed jackson county sheriff's deputies to interview colin and colt great one year ago after they were anonymously tipped off that colt was trying to carry out a shooting like we saw here. that's something that really infuriates people that he was on the radar of federal and local law enforcement agencies as recently as a year ago. >> thank you so very much. this is just a terrible case. it's causing big waves on the campaign trail. thank you. j.d. vance was asked what he would do to prevent more school shootings like the one in georgia. >> look, i don't like this.

i don't like to admit this. i don't like this is a fact of life. if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize our schools are soft targets. we have got to bolster security at our schools. >> after the associated press tweeted the fact of life comment, harris and walz jumped on it. talk to me about this, how the harris-walz campaign reacted so quickly to the ap tweet about j.d. vance's comments, but that initial ap tweet, which was later corrected, took it out of context. he was talking about social security versus common sense gun laws and what the democrats are

pushing for. but he was also saying that he lamented school shootings were now a fact of life. let's give it the context and why it has become an issue. >> reporter: is so often the case, phrases can drive political reactions and responses among voters and sometimes among candidates. certainly for harris and walz, the position of school shootings is one that reflects their broader policy that they believe that real policy changes can take place from things as anticipated as trying to seek a ban on assault weapons, but also other kinds of changes in culture and policy. they aren't backing away from what they said. although, you are giving a more full context for what it is j.d. vance, the senator from ohio and the running made for donald trump talked about. as you said, more lamenting it has become a fact of life, that school shootings are a part of

modern american culture as much as so many people say they must stop. for harris and walz, especially walz who is comfortable engaging in sport shooting, that there's a way to protect students and schools, obviously a former teacher as well, and also secure the second amendment right. this is very much falling into the kind of atmosphere where even initial comments can get spun in certain directions and then can be more fully litigated as the campaigns go. they are not backing away from their distinct views that separate them from the trump-vance campaign. >> first of all, i want to tell our audience that donald trump completed what he was saying at trump tower. he was talking -- i'm not

exactly sure when he started, but for quite a long time, maybe 45 minutes. he then left, walked off without taking any questions. it was billed as a news conference when he took questions, we were going to bring you highlights, bring it to you live. he never stopped a series of false statements, frankly, about his legal cases and accusations against -- false accusations against kamala harris and members of the top justice department officials. in any case, president biden today is going to be back on the campaign in michigan this afternoon, signing an executive standard on labor standards. important in that state. talk to me about that and the fact he is in a battleground state. the harris campaign is focused on how they are going to use president biden. how are they navigating that? >> thanks. the trump press conference that wasn't is ptsd for all of us who

lived through those four years. i can't tell you how many of those 45-minute rants i remember listening to. without getting questions, which happened a lot. as for biden, i think the harris campaign, which is -- used to be the biden campaign, they are full of the same people, they want to use president biden. but they are going to do it carefully and in a limited way. you are not going to see a lot of campaigning of the two of them together. that's awkward, as harris tries to develop her own political identity out of the shadow of the president. you won't see a lot of that. you are not probably going to see, according to officials in the white house and the campaign, a big presence from the president in campaign ads. that's largely kamala harris. you will see him go to places like michigan, like

pennsylvania, especially western pennsylvania, like wisconsin, the battleground states where there are communities of people that really still are fond of him. it wasn't so much that people -- democrats thought that they didn't like joe biden anymore. it was that they were worried that joe biden couldn't win and he was too old and essentially too feeble to make the case that they thought needed to be made for the administration. the harris campaign thinks, let's put him in places that union halls, white working class voters who have long had a warm spot in their hearts for him, let's put him there, generate headlines, especially in local newspapers. you might see targeted radio ads with the president carefully done to target specific groups. they also want him to be president. they think the more he is -- the

more people see him doing things as president, it's a reminder of the broad agenda that they still support. >> this election is going to come down to the battleground states, obviously, pennsylvania, obviously, but the debate -- we can't overstate the importance. this could be the only matchup. we know what happened last time. kamala harris has debated in state races and also, of course, the vp race. what do we expect? >> i saw a really good point made this morning on social media, which there are not a lot of good points made on social media, but there was one. this will be donald trump's seventh general election presidential debate. which i do think look -- you know this. the first day you anchored you were probably more nervous than today. you get better at these things. you build the muscle. we know what we will get with

trump. he has one setting, whether it's a press conference today or in the debate. i think it's more interesting to see how kamala harris reacts. she has done this before. she's been in a vp debate. she's never been on this stage. only one debate currently on the schedule. we don't know if there will be more. the stakes with high. she's the most unknown known person in the country. most people know she's vice president of the united states. ask them to tell you one or two other things about her, particularly among swing voters, they might struggle. this will be -- the last two months are a battle to define her. donald trump is defined. people don't like him. people don't know necessarily how they feel about her. i think this debate is really critical. is it donald trump's definition of kamala harris that people glom on to or is it kamala

harris' definition? >> we saw a different donald trump in the first debate, because he was very controlled. he let joe biden unravel, arguably. he kept returning to immigration. no matter what he was asked, he answered about immigration. he stuck to his best issues. >> it's true. you are right. the thing i would say about that is, even trump, who i think is very self-focused, could see within the first ten-ish minutes that it was not going well for joe biden and it didn't appear to be getting better. to his credit, trump's credit, he got out of the way, which he struggles to do. he stepped a little out of the spotlight. i don't expect that. kamala harris is not -- whatever you think of the performance she's going to give, she won't give a performance where she won't know what to say. >> she's been trying to get under his skin, starting with the word "weird."

>> it's working. he is fixated on that. >> thank you. on tuesday, join us for live special coverage of the first presidential debate between kamala harris and donald trump. live from philadelphia, all day long, we will be there right here on msnbc. coming up, new numbers out today show hiring for new jobs is slowing down. the president's top economic advisor joining us next. "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc.

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new numbers out today show slightly fewer jobs were created in august than economists expected. the bureau of labor statistics reporting they added 142,000 jobs. wage growth came in stronger than anticipated with hourly earnings rising .4%. the report comes at a critical time for federal reserve officials who are expected to meet in a few weeks to talk about key interest rates. markets are down in response to the weak jobs report and sell-offs in the tech sector. joining me now to respond to this, jared bernstein, chair of the white house council of economic advisors. in terms of this jobs report, lower than expected jobs

numbers. is this cooling down? markets were reacting earlier. is this worrying? is it possible the fed went too long in keeping rates high? >> i think 142,000 jobs that we got in august, that's strong enough to keep the unemployment rate from going up. the unemployment rate ticked down from 4.3 to 4.2. that's a slower pace of job gains than we saw. but we were sustaining a breakneck pace we knew was going to slow down. the question here is, are we generating enough jobs to give people ample opportunities in the labor market to keep the unemployment rate from going up and to especially maintain the solid wage gains you mentioned? with wages up 4% on a year over year basis, that's well ahead of inflation, last seen at below

3%. jobs, wages up, unemployment and inflation is down. that's the direction of travel. it's the right one. >> president trump was responding today and citing some figures that i didn't quite understand. i don't know where he is getting these figures. he was blaming job losses on foreign-born workers. could you put that in any kind of context? >> probably not. there haven't been job losses. we have had job gains. we have had job gains. >> what about the contrast between american -- foreign-born -- i don't know what he means. they can be american citizens as well. >> we are familiar with this argument. it's certainly not supported by the data, anything like the idea that all the jobs are going to one group or another. probably the simplest way to look at that is to look at the

unemployment rate for native-born workers and those born in other countries. that's folks naturalized and other groups. it's a catch-all category that he uses inaccurately. both of those unemployment rates are near record lows. we have a job market that is providing and has been ever since this president got here just a strong opportunity for all comers. about 16 million jobs since this president got here. 1.6 million, if you combine construction and manufacturing, and that's very closely related to the legislative measures that this president and vice president got over the goal line to build up domestic production in semiconductors, in clean energy and so on. nothing he has to say on this front tracks the numbers as they exist. >> thank you, sir. >> my pleasure.

don't forget, tuesday join the team for special coverage and analysis of vice president harris and former president trump's first presidential debate hosted by abc news. we will be broadcasting live from philadelphia as well. it starts at 7:00 p.m. eastern tuesday right here on msnbc. coming up, the latest on the gaza cease-fire deal, or lack of one, as hamas turns up the pressure on israel to accept the current u.s. brokered agreement. jonathan deckle chen joining me on how his family is coing while his son is in captivity. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc.

the u.s. and israel are at loggerheads over the status of cease-fire and hostage release talks. secretary of state blinken in the dominican republic saying an agreement is 90% there, but israel's prime minister netanyahu insisting those estimates are inaccurate, adding there's no deal in the making. no deal in the making, a quote. the white house today confirming the death of a 26-year-old american turkish woman, a u.s. citizen, during a protest in the west bank. the administration says it's disturbed by her tragic death. the white house is requesting an official investigation from israel. moments ago, secretary blinken cautioned to wait until those facts are determined when asked whether he would take action

against israel for this, against the israeli army. >> most important thing to do is to gather the facts. that's exactly what we are in the process of doing. we are intensely focused on getting those facts. any actions we take are driven by the facts. first things first, let's find out exactly what happened. >> he also gave his condolences to the family. joining me now is former deputy secretary of state, ambassador wendy sherman and jonathan deckle chen, father of a hostage. welcome to both of you. wendy, let's start with breaking news. turkey says this 26-year-old woman was shot by the israeli defense force, or israeli security forces. two other americans have been killed in the west bank. this is not the first. we don't know who did it. there's been a lot of shooting

on all sides. the settlers are well armed as well. we want to talk about this and the tensions between the u.s. and israel about the reality of those hostage talks. it's been going on since may. >> truly, we are in a really tough place. obviously, your other guest is very concerned about his son who remains a hostage. there are seven americans who remain hostages. all i can say is i'm very glad it's president biden and vice president harris who are trying to manage this incredibly complex situation, as all of these are in the world. the west bank has been in some ways underreported because there is settlement activity there that increases violence and increases the likelihood of having two fronts happening along with lebanon, along with what iran might be doing in the region. this is a very tough situation. the toughest, of course, as a

mother is having watched hersh buried along with others this week. just devastating. >> jonathan, let's talk about your family, your worries, your fears for your son and the devastation. your son has yet to meet his newborn daughter. born while he was in captivity. how do the families deal with what happened to hersh? >> it's a horror. no question. it's not just hersh. six beautiful young people were murdered, executed by hamas. the israeli army recovered their bodies. these were unnecessary deaths. hamas is a savage terrorist organization. there could have been an agreement that brought these people home. the week before that, six other

israeli hostages having been executed or died by friendly four were recovered. four were friends of mine for 40 years. clearly for all the hostage families, and for anyone who cares about the future of the possibility of future -- forget about peace, even calm in our region, the clock is working against us. if the sides, particularly israel in this case, continues to do nothing and just stonewalls the process, then the salute sure result is of the 101 remaining hostages that they're all coming home in boxes, if at all. it's incumbent on any right-thinking person, from the families to governments and to supporters of hamas, quite honestly, to put on right now maximum pressure before,

obviously, all of the hostages are killed by hamas and to avoid what is clearly becoming a scenario of a major regional war. the only way to diffuse that seems to me and most diplomats would agree and statespeople, the only way is by gets to this -- getting this agreement done in its current form. i call on all friends of israel, whatever your party or inclination, zionist or otherwise, all friends of hamas, whoever you are, this is the moment that you have to do your part to push both of these parties to yes. >> jonathan, wendy sherman is nodding. what do you say when the defense minister, the israeli intelligence services are all saying publicly and during the

war cabinet meetings to the prime minister that it's time to put the hostages first and deal with hamas later, and they don't? what do you as a father say? >> as a father and also as an israeli, i'm outraged. i'm crushed. i came to israel in 1981. this government and its behavior since january of2023 brought me to question that choice in 2023. it's an unprecedented situation. the elected government -- it's elected coalition government. for the first time in israeli history is consciously and consistently working against the national interest of the country purely to preserve its own power and in pursuit of an insane vision of the most radical elements in all of israeli

society that constitute a tiny proportion, yet we have because of the coalition government and prime minister netanyahu's legal problems, have enormous influence over it. >> secretary sherman, what can the u.s. do with an ally when his own country is so divided on this policy? clearly, hamas is the culprit. they could release them immediately. what do you do with an ally? >> hamas is the culprit. we are working with qatar and egypt to put pressure on hamas. at the same time, i would say to prime and at the same time i would say to prime minister netanyahu, the knesset is out until after the holidays until late october. that means that he has political space to make very tough decisions and who cannot respond listening to jonathan speak about what is nest. it's time for the prime minister to take tough decisions.

i understand how difficult this is, but one of the issues israel can take control of that any time it wants. there are ways to make sure hamas cannot use it to undermine israel's security. other options here. we should get to a cease-fire and get to it now it's important. it's critical for the long-term security of israel and, of course, it is critical for the livelihoods and the life of palestinians. >> thank you so much. jonathan, thank you very much. our hearts are with you in this terrible struggle. and up next, donald trump continuing to repeat his threats to jail political opponents if he wins in november. author david rhode joins us. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. ms define you. emerge as you. with tremfya®, most people saw 90% clearer skin at 4 months

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. in what was supposed to be an economic speech yesterday, donald trump again pushed false claims about vice president harris and also openly threatened to prosecute rivals if he wins this november. >> she and her party are weaponizing the justice system and trying to throw their political opponents, me, in jail. they always have to remember two can play the game. >> in his book "where tyranny

begins, the justice department, fbi and war on democracy" senior executive director national security editor david rhodes examines how mr. trump has coopted federal law enforcement. growing number of fbi agents saw politically charged cases as career enders that could result in public villfication of the loss of their pensions and given trump's vows of revenge for criminal prosecution. what seemed like paranoia is clear, trump wiped away the norms to protect the justice department and the cost to holding him to account was devastatingly high. my colleague, held hostage after being captured by the taliban in 2008. you have so much to share here. >> thank you very much. >> you're not -- you're a national security expert, former hostage. you are a down the middle reporter first and foremost. >> thank you for saying that. >> but the facts, when they are

so clear about what you have uncovered, about trump and the justice department during his term, are laid out in this book. it's remarkable. >> well, there's a positive side. there were a lot of career, government servants here in washington sort of trying to do the right thing, and it's a confusing position, the attorney general. the president is elected and they have to carry out certain policies. post-watergate the rule the president never meddled in specific individual cases. to have the, you know, former president talking specifically about jail his enemies, is, you know, a frightening thing. and i found that merrick garland on the other hand was in a way almost -- maybe -- liberals say too cautious in terms of prosecuting trump, and so it's this hyper partisanship causing

public servants that quote you had about they just feel they're going to have their pensions revoked and vilified and i fear people will leave nonpartisan public service. >> the criticism, too cautious about proceeding with the investigation and prosecution of donald trump which led to the jam up at the back end, him not being brought to trial on the major election case. >> and the delay. the supreme court's immunity ruling which created more leeway. again, the model before, since nixon, all presidents for half a century would never meddle in a criminal investigation, particularly an investigation of themselves or their aides, and that -- this new immunity ruling said any conversations between the attorney general and the president are absolutely immune from being looked at as criminal. >> and now the mar-a-lago search which was textbook, by the book, a search warrant, a judge, warnings, fbi and evidence that

hasn't come to court yet, it's in the indictment, evidence, video evidence, other witnesses, so that is now the concern, that the fbi is going to be under attack for that if he were elected? >> the book begins with a meeting a few weeks before the search of mar-a-lago and there was a group of fbi agents the head of the washington field office did not want to carry out the search. it wasn't the person was pro-trump. he was pro-fbi. he kept saying to the justice department, people who were there, superiors, let's give trump more time. let's have a voluntary search. anything to not search it because he felt that was playing into trump's conspiracy theories that the fbi was somehow setting it up. in the end, the system worked. a career civil servant, the deputy fbi director ordered the search to happen. there were over 100 classified documents found. trump went on the attack said his home was being occupied and it's that messaging effective

today, about 75% of voters and 80% of republicans say they have little to no confidence in the justice department and same for the fbi. >> that's a huge challenge. more to come. the book is amazing. all your reporting. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> the book is "where tyranny begins" and that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." follow the show on social media @mitchellreports and watch the best parts of our show on youtube, msnbc.com/andrea. "chris jansing reports" starts after a short break. ter a short. ? honey! [bees buzzing] and how do i keep my protection against covid-19 up to date? with a covid shot this season, designed for recent variants. you can get your covid-19 shot when getting your flu shot, if you're due for both, as recommended by the cdc. ♪ the fresher ♪ ♪ the better ♪ ♪♪ ask your healthcare provider about getting this season's covid-19 shot when getting your flu shot. (vo) you were diagnosed with thyroid eye disease

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