pets. the city manager told his team that the claims were tasteless. but still jd vance repeated them online. the next day trump use one of the biggest platforms in the world, a presidential debate to push the claims again. claims his campaign knew were lies. the new reporting from the wall street journal should be devastating to the trump campaign. the stunning thing is, they probably will not care because trump and vance invocation of springfield was never about the truth to begin with. springfield is less important as the actual place with actual people and more important as a symbol. >> you can see the four states that border springfield, ohio, nevada, maine and kentucky. and

springfield in 34 states in this country so springfield really could be just about anywhere >> active participation is a good pasz of citizenship don't you kids realize the habits you form at home is the one you're going to take with you into your community life >> you might also know springfield from the 1965 sitcom "father knows best." it's any town usa, the conservative eisenhower ideal of an american town with white picket fence and white nuclear families with 2.5 children this is the springfield that matters to trump and j.d. vance. a symbol that has nothing to do with the reality of springfield,

the actual story of springfield, ohio, is that it sprang into existence because of funding from the federal government and the building of the nation's first highway. it was first settled by irish immigrants in the 1800s, then german immigrants, then black americans heading north because of the great migration. the real story of springfield, ohio, is a story of immigration and integration. but donald trump and j.d. vance don't want to tell that american story, the story of expansion and growth. they want the tv springfield where nothing ever changes and everyone looks the same and there are white picket fences as far as the eye can see. trump and vance want to use the symbol of thatsprifield to stoke fear and paranoia about change, specifically that haitian immigrants, 15,000 of them are descending on every town usa, and they are ruining it.

so springfield has become a symbol for trump and his running mate, a symbol that they can use at their rallies across the country, a cautionary tale about immigrants and people who don't look like you or speak the same language and what they might do to your america. and that way it doesn't matter to trump or vance if haitians are actually eating cats or dogs. what matters is the way in which springfield can be perverted to make the case that outsiders are poisoning a the blood of this country, that they are vermin, and that they are destroying the country from the inside out. >> if i have to -- >> it wasn't just a meme. >> if i have to create story so that the american media pays attention to the suffering of thepa american people, then thas what i'm going to do, danna. >> that is why you will never, ever hear j.d. vance or donald trump back down from their claims about springfield, ohio because to them springfield isn't really in ohio. it is a symbol of the maga world

view. >> you've talked a lot about how we need to deport illegal aliens, but i wanted to ask you the majority of the haitians in springfield came under tps, so they are here legally. my question for you is if you become a vice president i under the trump administration, what will you guys do about the migrants that are already there, since they did arrive legally? >> if kamala harris waves the wand illegally and says these people are now here legally, i'm still going to call them an illegal alien. >> long island is an incredibly different community than the actual town in springfield, ohio, but the symbolism trump and vance using, well that works here, too. long island is also experiencing demographic change. there are lots of immigrants including haitian immigrants and more recently a large influx of migrants from central and south america. and, again, the reality here is

that long island much likesprifield, ohio, is a product of generation after generation of immigration and integration. but rather than lean into the reality of america's past, trump and vance are using their lies to gin up fear and paranoia, to win people over to their incredibly dark and dystopian vision of america's future. >> how about in springfield, ohio, they had 32,000 -- this is a little beautiful town, no crime, no problem. 32,000 illegal immigrants come into the town. so the mayor of springfield -- and i think he's a very nice person, but instead of saying we're getting them all out. we're getting them out. he saysth very simply we're hirg teachers to teach them english. can you believe it?

we're hiring interpreters so when they go to school and take the place of our children in school, we have an interpreter, each one will have a private interpreter. what the hell is wrong with our country? no, no. we're getting them out of our country. they came in illegally. they're destroying our country. we're getting them out. they're going to be brought back to the country from which they came. >> there are not 32,000 illegal immigrants in springfield, ohio. there are 32,000 legal immigrants. it is about his plans for all of america. >> they're coming from the congo, coming from africa, coming from the middle east, alo over the world. asia. a lot of them coming from asia. and what's happening to our country is we're just destroying the fabric of life in our country. and we're not going to take it

any longer. and you've got to get rid of these people. give me a shot, you'll have a safe new york in three months. t three months. >> trump's campaign was told over a week ago the lies they were spreading were not true. today three grocery stores in springfield had toes be evacuat because of bomb threats. that comes on top of literally the other dozen bomb threats the town has received in the past week, but donald trump is still pushing this stuff, and now the american right has descended upon springfield with proud boys marching in the streets and the ku klux klan distributing anti-haitian fires. tomorrow right-wing vivek ramaswamy is headed to springfield to hold what he's calling a town hall. trump himself says he plans to visit an ohio town. and as much as this story should have ended last monday when

trump's team were told their claims were lies, well, it seems trump's story of springfield was only just beginning. joining me now is denise williams, president of the springfield, ohio, chapter of the naacp. what is lifelike in springfield right now? >> first of all, alex, thanks for having me. i have to tell you it's a mess here. i don't know if i can clearly express the issues that we're having here. as you stated earlier in your segment, three grocery stores had to close because of bomb threats. every day we are waking up to not one bomb threat, two, three. the schools have been threatened with bomb threats. my grandchildren are not safe.

it has been a complete and total nightmarete here. >> what does it mean given the fact that it's a nightmare that donald trump wants to come to springfield? what does that mean for life in springfield as far as you see it? >> as far as i see ait, i'm gog to tell you the truth, it's going to make things worse. i am begging for the government to help us with this. he does not need to come here. i mean the simple fact that he has had the truth said time and time again by our city manager, by our mayor and to no avail, he and his running mate are still pushing this false narrative. i don't know what the angle is withan this, but we do not need him here right now. he has put us all in danger.

trust me, the entire community. >> there are reports that the proud boys, the blood tried, a neo-nazi group marched in the town. we have reports about the ku klux klan distributing flyers. you're the head of the naacp chapter there. what has that been like for people in town to see the most vicious poisonous wing of the right descend on springfield? >> well, let me say this. springfield communities are angry. those who are not voting for trump and his -- his vice. we are angry. you know, listen, we cannot -- i cannot send my grandchildren -- my grandson to the high school right now for fear. and i really don't want my

youngest grandson, who is 6, to go. these guys you've got proud boys, you've got all these hate groups marching in the streets and nothing is being done. nothing is being said about them. i mean, i get the free speech of things, butfr this is a city of love, compassion. this is a city of hope. we don't understand how and why we made the debate stage. why that these hate groups feel empowered to come here. andto guess what? they're unmasked. they don't care who they are. they don't care about showing their faces. so for trump and j.d. vance to not care about the citizens in this city is disgusting. and to continue to push -- to continue for him to push this

false narrative is horrible. it's -- i can't find words to put into that. i just can't imagine why he -- go ahead. i'm sorry. >> i'm sorry to cut you off. i do wonder because it's so clearly not true what you're saying, are neighbors having conversations with neighbors? you know, are you saying to people who might otherwise be trump supporters, hey, these are lies and you know as well as i do that they're lies? are those conversations happening on the ground? >> yes,pp they are. but as long as trump is saying it, it doesn't matter. it's falling on deaf ears still in our community. those trump voters they're not willing to hear what the message is. they are believing everything that he is saying, and they're carrying out his hate. >> i know, ms. williams, you were around for the race riots in dayton in the 1960 ms.

and i wonder if you could compare that moment -- we're all trying to get some perspective how deeply the country is fraying at its seams. i wonder if you could put into perspective that period and this period now since you're living through both. >> yes. i've got to say i was probably 13, 14 at the time when this happened. and actually it was myme cousin that a group of white guys drove by and shot him while he was sweeping off his sidewalk. and i remember my parents telling us to pull the shades down and cut the lights out. and then the aftermath. i used to still smell the scent of fire. you can still hear the gunshots. so back then the kkk and those guys wore masks. right now they have been

emboldened by trump and his people. i can tell you the atmosphere is the same. as a matter of fact, i predicted this back in january, february, march. my chief of police can tell you i said to her we are on the brink of something happening, and we are not prepared. now, here we are. the atmosphere is the same. we have to to watch where we're going becausewa we don't know. is it our neighbors that's part of this hate group? because now they're not disguised. they're coming in and they don'o have the face masks on. so for me this is a -- i can't compare it. i can only say the atmosphere feels the same because i lived through that. >> denise williams, president of the springfield, ohio, chapter

of the naacp,mist williams, we are sending you our best wishes and strength for what is just an appalling chapter in american history. thanks for your time tonight. >> thank you so much for having me, t alex. god bless. when we come back, it is not just springfield. what america is seeing right now in springfield is just a taste of what is to come if donald trump and j.d. vance take the white house. we'll have more on that just v ahead with michelle goldberg and heather mugo. stay with us. heather mugo stay with us most people call leaffilter when their gutters are clogged and they notice one of the many issues that can bring. sometimes it's the smell of mildew when water has seeped into the interior walls. or maybe they've spotted mold in the attic. but most often it's the more obvious signs of damage like rotten soffit, fascia, or water pooling near their foundation. you can get ahead of costly damage by protecting your home's gutters today. we're in your neighborhood and ready to help. schedule your free gutter inspection today,

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fair border laws and listen to them. listen to them when they complain about it. don't pretend they're bad people. we're not bad people for loving this country. you're a bad person for doing this to the country in the first place. >> today j.d. vance spent half of his rally in north carolina trying to pretend that the racist lies he has been spreading about springfield, ohio, were actually part of a conversation he's been trying to have about affordable housing. to be clear, that was never the case. up until basically today the focus of the republican ticket has been on whether haitian migrants are eating cats and dogs, which is not at all an invitation to a conversation i'm sure many people would like to have about the drivers of housing prices in america. although it is not clear that j.d. vance really wants to talk about affordable housing as much as he would like to continue to

propagate lies about black and brown people just like his running mate. joining me now are michelle goldberg, "the new york times" opinion columnist, and heather mcgee, author of the color of us. and michelle, i'm so eager to talk about what's happening here. michelle, let me start with you. we spent the last segment of show talking about the fear this community is living in because of it lies trump and vance have been spreading. what's so stunning is the degree to which they're completely detaching themselves from the truth and openly embracing the great replacement theory that black and brown people are here to destroy the country and take it away from you. >> it's appalling but not stunning. i think it's been part of trump's strategy from the time he came down that elevator. and what's interesting is even the republicans in springfield, the mayor is republican. there's a republican governor.

there's -- there was a story about a trump supporter who at first accused haitians of stealing her cat, then she found her cat, which was like in the basement and used a google translator to go next door and apologize to them. so there's a level of decency even among some of the maga types in that area that you are not seeing at all from their leaders. and i think that -- i think in a way they sort of revel in the fact they're not going to be bound by facts, that they're not going to be bound by truth, that they can pretend it's fine to make up stories in the service of what they see as a higher truth and make us talk about what they want to talk about. >> well, i do think, heather, they're pretty open about the fact springfield is aspringboard, or a metaphor what

they want to stop at all costs. it's abundantly clear the issue for him isn't necessarily hagds migrants. it's brown people and the influx of brown people to america. i just want to play this for anyone that missed it in the last block. this is just a few minutes ago on long island. >> they're coming from the congo, coming from africa, coming from the middle east, coming from all over the world, asia. a lot of it coming from asia. and what's happening to our country is we're just destroying the fabric of life in our country, and we're not going to take it any longer, and you've got to get rid of these people. give me a shot. you'll have safe new york within three months. >> it shouldn't be surprising but it doesn't make it less chilling, heather. what do those people have in common, they are the fabric of

america. asians, black people, that's the fabric of america merchandise. >> i write about this core question who are we as americans, what are we to one another, and with who's responsible for it massive rise in inequality is the fulcrum of our politics. here's a millionaire, multiple-in air depending on the day and this rich wall street guy saying blame the diversity of our country, blame people who come to this country with very little to their name, doing exactly what most of the white people they're speaking to, your own ancestors did when they were irish and german and polish and swedish, and blamed them not for housing crisis, blamed them and

not the big corporations for shipping your jobs overseas. it's the direct blame many americans feel about the angst of white, black and, brown. you have to look at the strategy. it's not just about hate and demonization and morality. it's about economics. it's about greed. and the big problem here if they were to win and act out their racist agenda of mass deportation, of cutting off asylum, economists left, right, and center have calculated it would cost the american economy far too much. in springfield, ohio, the reason why republican legislators and policy makers and officials at the local and state level are lining up to defend the haitian community is because they have created a little bit of an economic rebound in a place where there were boarded up shops on the main streets and where like so many places in the post-industrial country there was population loss. and so the influx of the people who are coming to this country

to help rebuild it, is an economic boom. and it is what i call drained pool politics to say fear an integrated america. go ahead, drain the pool. be willing to have the economic consequences of not being willing to swim with people who you don't look like, and we know how that story ends. >> she's absolutely right. the polling on mass deportations. do you support the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants -- again, which the haitians are not part of that group, but nonetheless 54% of the country supports it. 42% opposes it. people are being conned by this narrative that the immigrants are the root caw of any economic

disparity americans may feel. >> i also think that kamala harris and maybe she started to do this -- needs to do more to explain what mass portation actually looks like. what it actually looks like to have either the national guard or whatever police force trump envisions going into communities and rounding people up, setting up a network of massive camps across this country. i think that people -- i think some percentage of those people are just saying i don't think there should be illegal immigration. >> not fully comprehending what that means. >> right, not fully grasping the sort of police state crackdown that would be required to do what donald trump is trying to do. at the same time there is obviously a very substantial political appetite for this, and i think that's why this, you know, at first people kind of either laughed at the they're eating cats and dogs line or

gaped at the horror of the demagoguery of it. and there's a reason why they blink and revel in their own lies as j.d. vance did, they keep at it because they know that this strikes a chord with people. like heather said people extremely anxious and angry about a change in country. it's kind of -- it doesn't need to actually -- it doesn't need to be true, it maybe feels true to a lot of these people. >> well, and i guess that raises the question, heather, whether you think there's an actual push back on the left about immigrants poidsening this country. that's not the say democrats have embraced that, but generally speaking when you talk about the immigration crisis in the country and talk about the policy even in the deal making on capitol hill, the republican kind of ideology about the borders needing to be shut and immigration is bad for the country has become ascendant,

and i wonder whether you think more vociferous push back needs to emanate at least from the progressive left. i think that's such an excellent point. you know, what most people don't understand when they hear undocumented immigration, they hear people broke the law, right? and they think it's somebody stealing a car. they have no idea how hard it is to illegally migrate into this country. they have no idea how oftentimes if they're white, their ancestors faced zero of those barriers to legally coming into the country. many white americans in the 19th century were able to actually vote in states and cities even if they weren't actually citizens. this is very, very different immigration regime that today's more diverse, future americans are facing. and so that's the starting point, there's this sort of good, bad criminal versus citizen morality that's put on the story from the outset that

hasn't been corrected, that isn't part of the narrative. and so that has bled into policy. we have gone more than two decades. we've had this narrow carve out sliver for dreamers, and it's the dreamers who are the kids who didn't do anything wrong, right? they didn't come here to make a better life. they were taken here by their parents. they didn't do anything wrong, they get to be carved out as good immigrants. we've got to stop the sort of moralizing what it means coming to this country and try to make a better life, and we've got to fundamentally rewrite our immigration laws for our economy, for our democracy. and most of all for communities like springfield, for communities where there is such population loss, and where we finally got, you know, more factories opening up, more manufacturing happening in this country since the 1970s because

of the biden-harris economic policies. but now it's time to make sure we have enough people to work in those factories and that we refill the pool as it were of public goods for all americans no matter where they come from or as vice president harris says, no matter what language their grandmother speaks. >> michelle goldberg and heather mcgee, it's so great to have you here. i really appreciate your time. coming up today kamala harris received some very good polling news in some key battleground states. i'm going to discuss with democratic strategist simon rosenberg coming up next. ic str rosenberg coming up next

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new quinnipiac polling out today shows vice president kamala harris leading donald trump in three blue wall states. she's up by 6 points in pennsylvania, 5 points in michigan, and 1 point in wisconsin, the only state within the poll's margin of error. this may be part of a more national trend in harris' favor. the latest des moines register poll from iowa shows trump leading by just 5 points in that state after leading president biden by 18 points in june. joining me now is simon rosenberg, veteran political strategist and author of the

"hopeium chronicles" on substack. you can see a connection between harris gaining maybe as many as 14 points in iowa, a largely white state, and doing better potentially in these three blue wall states. do you see -- should we be connecting dots there about what white working class voters may be doing, or is that overstating the case? >> here's what we know. since the debate the election has probably shifted 1 or 2 points or more in her favor. there's been a lot of polling post the debate and it's all been saying the same thing, which is that she's gained ground, and we'll know how much ground she's gained in the last few weeks. you'll see a lot of state polls also at biden's numbers. she's silting basically where joe biden was in 2020 either at the floor and pennsylvania and

michigan, biden only won those states by a point and she's up 3, 4 points. look, the debate really helped her and really hurt donald trump. and i think the aftermath which you just covered of the debate and the way they tried to change the subject clumsily to this eating cats and dogs stuff has been a huge failure for them. i feel we're in a strong place right now where things are better, and most importantly we're about to see as the voting season begins on friday we have a much stronger capacity to close so it's much more likely we gain a little bit in the coming months in my view. >> in your blog today talking about the race as it stands and the strength of the democratic ticket you noted one of the most remarkable and encouraging bits of data in recent polling is how well liked the democratic ticket is. both vice president harris and governor walz are in or close to

positive territory in what's called favorables or unfavorables in most polls. do you attribute that to the likability just as it is of the democratic ticket or the apparent nature of the lies donald trump has focused on. i think it does gin up the space, but, man, is it distasteful to a lot of americans even if they don't have opinions about haitian migrants. >> the debate did what the campaign wanted it to do which created this contrast between him, the ugliness of trump and the ugliness of maga and it changed the race. one of the things remarkable there's generally a view in polling we're now at a point we may never see a president again in positive territory in favorables or unfavorables.

right now harris is even favorable or in some parts she's above. our side seems much more favorable -- in a much more favorable light than they are. the other thing is trump continues to make this negative noise. i think we have a joyous, positive message to take to the american people. all they have is uglenasz. and i think that's not going to serve them well when they're behind in the race the way they are now. they don't have the ability to generate positive stories about their ticket anymore, and that's a big problem when you're losing. >> do you think the teamsters none endorsement matters? i think it's 59.6% of the union supported a trump endorsement compared to 34% supporting a harris endorsement. does that worry you? >> yeah, we'll see. i think we have to recognize as a starting place this ticket has

more enthusiastic ticket support than any ticket in modern times for the democratic party. we saw local and state teamsters endorse today. even though the national didn't endorse in the battlegrounds where it really matters, you saw a lot of endorsements from local teamsters. i think net-net we'd probably have the most enthusiastic labor support the democratic ticket had in many decades, so i don't know it's going to be consequential, but we'll see. i feel like the campaign has worked very, very hard to make unions and union workers and union leaders central to what they were doing, and they were very on display in the convention. i think net-net in good shape, but we've got to pull as many of these teamsters into our coalition as possible. >> thank you for your time and thoughts tonight, simon. appreciate it. >> always good to see you. thank you so much.

coming up the craziest fake news i have seen in a long while. and man, is that saying something. and it's coming just in time for election day. we're going to get into that right after the break. that right after the break. ♪♪ whenever heartburn strikes, get fast relief with tums. it's time to love food back. also try new tums gummy bites.

as a warning the video i'm about to show you is entirely fake. none of this content is true. >> today we share with you the tragic story of 26-year-old alicia brown from san francisco.

the accident that happened to her 13 years ago turned her life into a nightmare and forever deprived her of the ability to walk. >> we were crossing the road and out of nowhere a car came out from behind. i was just hit on the side and thrown into the road. >> as a result of the impact alicia suffered injuries to her pelvis, ribs, and spine. >> the day after the incident, i saw my mom talking with two men who came at the hospital. she said that the woman who hit me was kamala harris, a very powerful woman. >> that is a woman accusing vice president kamala harris of hitting her with a car and then paralyzing her. again, that video is entirely fake. it is presented as a story from a san francisco-based local news outlet, but that news outlet does not exist. images in the video appear to have been pulled from the internet including those x-rays you adjust saw, which appear online in a medical journal and

were taken 7 years before the alleged accident. images of the accident scene itself were taken from a 2018 incident in guam. despite all of that, this fake news package has been viewed nearly 7 million times on "x" where you can still to watch it today. it was also shared on facebook and tiktok before those sites decided to take it down. so all of that on its own is cause for concern. but what makes this fake news truly terrifying is that it appears to have been created as part of a new russian disinformation campaign targeting the harris-walz campaign. a new report from microsoft's threat analysis center finds russia has begun ramping up attacks on harris. microsoft researchers found the video we just showed you was produced by a russian troll farm. that same russian troll farm is also reportedly behind another fake viral video purporting to

show two black harris supporters attacking a white trump supporter outside a trump rally in johnstown, pennsylvania, a video that is expressly designed to stoke racial tension. and it is no coincidence that we are just starting tosee these things pop up now. according to microsoft russian influence operations initially struggled to make the pivot after president biden withdrew from the race and endorsed kamala harris. but now they have apparently found their footing, and microsoft expects we will start seeing more and more russian disinformation in the lead-up to election day. all of this comes at a time when social media platforms like facebook and youtube have reportedly rolled back their investments in combating misinformation at a time when the billionaire owner of "x" is actively fueling the rise of misinformation himself, at a time when the rise of artificial

intelligence has made it easier than ever to spread fake content on the internet, and at a time when leaders of the republican party are doubling and tripling and qua druping down on their own misinformation for pure political gain. there are just 48 days left until election day. buckle up. coming up, first it was exploding pagers, then today it was exploding walkie-talkies. what does the second day of coordinated attacks in lebanon mean for the stability of the middle east. we'll have more on that after the break. east. we'll have more on that after the break. shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects. only shingrix is proven over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today.

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it was chaos today in lebanon as the second wave of exploding devices, walkie-talkies belonging to members of the iran-backed militia and political party hezbollah killed at least 20 people and injured hundreds more. yesterday hundreds of pagers also belonging to hezbollah were

detonated killing at least 12 and injuring nearly 3,000 others. u.s. officials say this was a targeted attack by israel, which was somehow able to tamper with the devices and turn them into deadly explosives. joining me now is msnbc political analyst and editor at large of jewish current magazine. my first thought is the scope of damage that this caused, granted they were trying to target hezbollah, but children died in the course of this, thousands of people were injured. how do you read israel's motivations here? >> first of all, there's been something to me that's been a little bit sickening about the kind of gee whiz, isn't this cool kind of coverage to this, right? this is real life. these are people's lives and including a lot of innocent people who have been killed. beyond just the destruction of human life, strategically i've yet to hear anyone explain how this maked any sense, right?

israel went to fight a war in gaza that benjamin netanyahu vowed would destroy hamas. you noticed almost no one in the israeli security establishment anymore claims they can destroy hamas. so if they couldn't destroy hamas, which is considerably weaker, why on earth would you believe they could destroy hezbollah? they have a problem with hezbollah because hez bowela is launching rockets into the nrkt of israel, and israelis need to return tothose homes. but the answer to that is very clear. if you get a cease-fire in gaza, hezbollah's rockets stop and you have the opportunity for diplomacy to bring those israelis back. instead having failed in one war, you want to start a bigger one? >> i do wonder is that what it is? is it basically a distraction from failures in gaza and the the intent to stay at war at whatever cost? >> i think that's partly it. and i also think that benjamin netanyahu and some of the people around him think they have this hammer, the israeli military can do tech logically remarkable

things so they think every problem is a nail. we have that problem in our own country. israel cannot destroy and defeat hezbollah militarily. it has a problem with the palestinian people, and hezbollah is related to that problem. if you don't address that problem, you're never going to have security for our own people let alone palestinians and lebanese. >> do you think this was i guess a twisted effort because israeli security forces failed so much on october 7th they can prove to gather intelligence when it comes to i won't even call it spy games but warfare. >> yes, some of them are saying this is going to restore deterrence, which was weakened on october 7th. what does that mean? and no one actually believes you're going to solve your problems with hezbollah by doing all these things. more likely you're going to get hezbollah to launch more rockets into israel. and instead not only the north of israel being uninhabitable.

tel aviv will have to go underground into bunkers. unless you deal with the political problem, you will never solve your security problem. >> and we're heading into the u.n. general assembly, and i guess the question is what does the biden administration do about all this? it certainly doesn't make life any easier for president biden or kamala harris heading into an election. >> the biden administration simply can't go around the world saying that the difference between america and our adversaries like russia and china is we believe in the rule of law, the rules based international order. how many times have they said, right, and continue to arm and protect israel when israel does things blatant violations of international law. none of this is to say that hezbollah is a good actor, that hezbollah doesn't have blood on its hands as well, but ultimately here the answer is a political solution based on the rights and dignity of all of the people, and if you keep evading that and brutalizing people even

more, you're making it more dangerous for everybody. and america is bankrolling that. >> well, and then there's the naked political reality that anything that benefits netanyahu in this period is not necessarily going to benefit joe biden and kamala harris or democrats in this period. >> right, you were talking about vladimir putin who wants donald trump to win. benjamin netanyahu wants donald trump to win. the difference is that we are -- the biden administration is in many ways helping benjamin netanyahu, providing him the impunity to do the things that not only end up killing palestinians and lebanese and endangering israelis but also increase donald trump becoming president. and. >> and then there is the human toll, peter. chers the accountation going to be retaliation on the part of hezbollah. i sort of wonder how you're girding yourself as we're in this strange interregnum period. i guess there could be more explosions tomorrow, but as we

as a community sit and wait for more attacks that israel began yesterday. >> the biden administration has to use american leverage visa vi israel to get israel to recognize that its problem with hezbollah and with gaza is a diplomatic problem, and the way to get an end to the rocket fire from hezbollah is to get a cease-fire in gaza. a cease-fire, by the way, that many of israel's own security chiefs wanted, but benjamin netanyahu has torpedoed. we have a tremendous amount of leverage with israel. when is this president -- it's almost a year now into the war in gaza. when is this president going to use it? >> asking big questions at this hour. thank you for your time. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. and the reason i'm here is because it hasn't been done in