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welcome back. it's now 11:00 a.m. eastern, 8:00 a.m. pacific. i am ana cabrera in for josé diaz-balart. a senior white house official telling nbc news, quote, the united states has indications iran is preparing to imminently launch a missile attack against israel. this comes as we are closely watching the israeli-lebanon border as israeli launched a ground mission in lebanon. this morning, secretary of state antony blinken said this about the situation right now in the middle east. >> we're, of course, tracking events in the middle east very closely and the united states is

committed to israel's defense. we are watching all of this, as i said, very carefully. >> now joining us is richard lingual from lebanon. what can you tell us about this potential strike from iran? >> reporter: in many ways iran has been forced to take this move. iran has been embarrassed over the last several weeks. health is its strongest proxy in the region and strongest militia group and it's losing that militia group as we speak. iran's leadership has been dealt a huge blow with the loss of the leader, and many are blaming

iran for not defending its allies. some were saying iran potentially sold out hezbollah and sold out nasrallah to save itself and it could be a face-saving gesture by iran, where if it doesn't act or do something when it's most powerful proxy, hezbollah, has been so badly hit then other proxies in the region will ask, are they next? does iran's support mean anything? it's an enormous gamble. there's a possibility where we could have an april scenario and iran seems to protect this could happen and israel and the u.s. have tremendous air defenses, but there's no guarantee there will be a repeat of april. if you remember what happened in april, there's a projected attack and it was shot down and

iran fired back in a symbolisic way and things moved on. and this is different. prime minister netanyahu just yesterday made an address to the iranian people in which he sort of suggested that regime change could be coming and could be coming soon. if iran does take this move to impress its other proxies and save face, it could get a different reaction from israel than it did in april. >> raf, you have spoken with officials there, i imagine. what are you hearing in terms of what an iranian retaliatory strike, you know, could mean, and is it part of their considerations as they move forward going into lebanon? >> reporter: absolutely, ana. i think you might be able to hear the sort of rumble behind me and that's the israeli

artillery going into the hreb lebanese border. it knew it was risking the possibility that iran would, as richard said, it would have no choice but to swing in behind and support its most powerful proxy, hezbollah. according to u.s. officials iran has made that decision in just the last hour, the chief spokesmen of the military made a statement, and he said at this point israel has not detected any missile launches from iran. he said, as you can imagine, israel's air defenses are at peak readiness and warplanes are in the sky already ready to intercept the incoming missiles if they do come.

we are, as richard said, potentially looking at a snap back to what happened in april when you had this coalition of american, israeli, european nations with some support from arab states, some of whom israel does not have relations with, they were able to shoot down the incoming wave of 300 missiles, drones and cruise missiles. the officials speaking to nbc news say iran is preparing a significant missile attack, ballistic missile attack and it only takes 12 minutes to reach israeli airspace, and they are much faster than the cruise missiles. israel has asked citizens to be

on alert and at this time there are no missiles in the air. that could change and it could change quickly. you can imagine how compressed the timeline is. the spokesman goes up and could tell the israeli public that we have six minutes, five minutes until the attack. as we speak we believe there are right now israeli forces on the other side of that border carrying out this ground operation against hezbollah. >> courtney, what did the u.s. see to warn israel that iran was warning to launch a ballistic missile attack against israel? >> well, in april, as we all remember, iran and some proxy groups launched about 300

projectiles towards israel. what we are looking at that is likely to be different this time, if and when iran launches this, is we expect there to be more missile ballistics involves, and why that's significant because even if the total number of projectiles are smaller than in april, the firepower is significant. we are talking about faster missiles that have a higher pay road. officials are hopeful, if not confident, that the missiles will be fired toward the government, and believe it or not the u.s. has ramped up the number of military assets they have in the region that could potentially protect against something like this. we are talking about ballistic missile ships in the

mediterranean and other ground-based assets. in addition to that, the u.s. has a pretty robust component of aircraft there that could shoot down other projectiles that could be coming in like munitions or drones that could be coming in. that gets me to the second thing where we are trying to figure out how that could be different from april and that's allies in the region, whether they are going to help with the defense of israel here as we saw in april or if they will even allow over flight of their countries for u.s. military and other potential allies to shoot down some of the incoming projectiles. as raf mentioned, we still don't have any confirmation anything started here and we have no confirmation iran launched anything off but he said it could come quickly. another thing that could be different from april here, ana, is you will recall the iranian

response was it came in waves. they launched off things like drones that are slower and would take longer to get from iran and from some of the proxy groups to israel. those were launched first and the missiles were launched last, and if this is more of a missile-based barrage against israel, and we are not talking hours between launch and potential impact, it's more like minutes. >> right. gabe, what is the white house saying? any reaction yet? >> hi, there, ana. as you have been reporting, u.s. officials tell us this attack could be imminent and i want to put up a full statement from a white house official which you eluded to earlier. the united states has indications that iran is preparing to imminently launch a ballistic missile attack tkpwepbsz israel, and we are actively supporting defensive preparations to defend israel against the attack.

we have asked what the severe consequences could be and as you might expect the white house not talking about that at this point, ana, but the biden administration is in a different political position here because especially over the last few days, president biden is ramping up his rhetoric about calling for a cease-fire while at the same time reiterating israel has the right to defend itself and so in some ways, it could be painting itself into a corner here. administration officials are looking to see what the scale of this attack will be as compared to april. we still don't have a firm answer on that yet. president biden, we don't have any indication he may speak later today to address these developments in the middle east. it's too soon to tell. again, administration officials stress they are monitoring these developments closely. we do expect to see president biden later today when he

delivers virtual remarks to a group of rabbis here. again, no indication whether he might address this. he was asked about whether he was aware of these latest developments in the middle east and aware of whether israel might -- yesterday whether israel might start the ground incursion into lebanon, and he said he was aware, as you might expect, but also that he was comfortable with israel stopping. of course, we know they did not and now the administration must deal with the fallout here. again, it says it will carry severe consequences for iran if iran follows through with this, ana. >> richard, the u.s. with that strong language threatening severe consequences if iran goes forward with this, and courtney and as we have all been discussing, the drone attack and missile attack back in april, some 330 missiles drops and almost all intercepted and no

injuries or severe injuries or damage from the attacks, but is this time different when we talk about whether allies would participate in a defense of another iranian attack? what is the regional dynamic now compared to then? what would an iranian attack now mean for this region? >> reporter: well, it has the potential to be very significant. it has the potential to escalate all the way to regime change in iran if you want to go that far. i have been speaking to senior arab diplomats a short while ago and asked what they expect and the answer was they really don't know. they expect iran might do something that israel will respond to iran's response, but will this be the pretext that israeli prime minister netanyahu uses to launch a full-scale war of regime change against iran

potentially with american support at this moment with a power vacuum in the united states, and the united states is going through a transition of leadership. prime minister netanyahu seems to be acting the way he wants to act and feels unconstrained. the u.s., according to two u.s. officials yesterday said they urged for a cease-fire and clearly things are heading in the opposite direction and we are in the midst of an escalating ground war here in lebanon. a short while ago i heard israeli jets breaking the sound barrier over the city where i am now and there were explosions over the hillside behind me, and israel is telling people to leave south lebanon and go north of the law taupby river, and it specifically told people to

leave immediately in more than 30 villages along the israel/lebanon border, and there are displaced israelis forced out of northern israel because of the hezbollah fire according to the lebanese government. there are about a million people in the country who are displaced and when i walk around the city where i am now, you hardly see anybody on the streets. people are very frightened. hezbollah said it's ready for the next phase of the ground offensive and wants israeli troops to come into lebanon and said it would be better equipped to face them in a face-to-face fight than to fight with missiles and drones. it could be bluster. hezbollah has been deeply damaged. all of this to say is the regional dynamic now is very different than it was in april. israel feels much more empowered and prime minister benjamin

netanyahu is acting in a much more empowered way. he's wrapping up his ground war in gaza focusing now on lebanon. will this be the trigger that allows him to focus on iran, which he has been talking about very publicly, including a fiery speech at the united nations just a couple days ago. >> thank you all. please stay close. joining us now is peter learner, a spokesperson for the israeli defense forces. what information does israel have about the attack from iran? >> well, we received the information from the allies in the u.s. and, of course, there's a possibility that will happen so we are prepared for any scenario, and our forces are on

high alert in case something heads over from iran. of course, we need to be very accurate and cautious and that's precisely why the idf chooses the renewed rules about people gathering in one place at anyone time. we take it seriously, and we are confident we can defend ourselves and we are in correlation with our american friends in order to try and field off any attacks that can originate from iran. this is not the first time this has happened so we understand the types of threats we face. the situation remains that we are focused currently on pushing hezbollah back in lebanon in order to restore safety and secure to israel, and that's what the civilians living out of

their home for more than a year now deserve. >> it could be a ballistic missile attack, as our reporters described it, these are missiles that can go launch to impact in 12 minutes from iran into israel, so they are faster and have more firepower than maybe some of the missiles deployed the last time we saw a direct attack from iran into israel back in april. how soon could this come and are you all maneuvering differently with this news? >> in april, there were different missiles and drones and each have their own flight time from iran to missile. 12 minutes is a short time but long enough for our aerial systems to identify and intercept and that's how we were successful in april. we are holding a very high-level

of readiness and preparedness to confront anything that could come our way. i think it's not something new, but we do need to be vigilant and prepared. i think most importantly we will be able to keep our civilians here and israel safe and secure and aware as things can change from one minute to another. >> does the prospect of an iran attack complicate the goal in lebanon? >> i think we revealed today extensive footage of what we have revealed from the lebanese side of the border. the staging grounds, the weapons caches, the plans themselves to infiltrate into israel. all of that considered, we have no choice but to make sure that

hezbollah does not reside and loom over us from the northern border. that is why the government instructed the idf to go on the offensive after a year almost of negotiations of trying to come to a negotiated agreement that would get hezbollah out of this area. unfortunately, it did not succeed and that's why we are currently moving forward. yes, there are currently complications and when we see iran getting involved, it reminds me of the 8th of october last year when hezbollah decided to get involved. i would say to iran, look cautiously and carefully about how we decapitated hezbollah last week, taking out their operational commanders and strategic assets in a vast majority of those and look closely on how we dealt with hamas on the other hand. nobody has an interest to first

escalate that in the region. we want our citizens to go back home and live security. we are currently operating in the border area or in the targeted precise and limited location areas, and precisely to deliver that. i would say that we would operate on one hand to defend our skies from any potential iranian threat but absolutely push forward to make sure hezbollah cannot launch attacks and breach the border area and perhaps try and conduct an infiltration or invasion into israel, because from the plans we found that is clearly what they were planning to do, breach the border and storm into the border with their special forces, come into our communities, abduct, kill and massacre in the northern

communities and towns, and that, from our perspective, of course, is unacceptable. in the aftermath of october 7th with hamas attacking the south, it's a very sore spot and israel can't tolerate the concept that hamas or hezbollah or anybody on any of our borders will pose such a threat ever again. >> coming back from the threat from iran and the development we are learning more this morning in the u.s., i am learning where prime minister benjamin netanyahu made a direct statement towards tehran saying if you strike us, we will strike you. that is a quote. what is israel prepared to do in response if iran launched this ballistic missile strike? >> i will not hypothesize about what we can do, of course. if we want a glimpse into the operational capabilities, we

flew our fighter jets all the way to yemen, 1,200 miles away from israel. iran and tehran are within our reach if need be, and the prime minister's words were clear. iran should not mess with us. we have shown we have the abilities, the capabilities and we have the resolve to defend the people of israel. >> as the operation is underway in lebanon, how long do you anticipate that operation will last? you called it localized and targeted. >> it's so the israelis can get home and that is reached. that is the primary goal and that's the cause and what the israeli government instructed us to do. we need to make sure it's safe enough for them to come back. the amount and extent of their infrastructure they built the

last 20 years to conduct the infiltrations and missile and tank attacks and drones attacks, they need to be gone. i am confident the delivery of our security can be delivered. i think we need to be patient. it won't be done by dinner. i think there's an understanding that there's a terrorists organization that has been built under the nose and watchful eye perhaps ignored by unifill located in southern lebanon for so many years, and it's not going to be over quick. we need to make sure that this is no longer a threat. >> the u.n., in fact, called this and said any crossing into lebanon would be a violation of lebanese sovereignty. what do you say to that? >> since the 8th of october hezbollah has been launching daily rocket and missile and drone attacks.

in the first month of the war in october and november, there were seven attempts to infiltrate our border like on october 7th, so we have been waiting for a diplomatic situation for a year now and that diplomatic solution has not been reached until now so the government charged the idf to restore safety and security to the north to make sure that there are conditions that israelis can go home. i would basically and fundamentally say you wouldn't like it if you had to be evacuated from your house for security reasons from an imminent terrorists threat. you would not like it even more if it took a year to try and resolve. and you wouldn't, like any decent human being, demand from the government to restore safety and security for me, my family and for everybody. i would say, yes, there are operations ongoing. we have been conducting covert

operations as we revealed earlier today here in israel of the extent of what we found of the staging grounds of the plans of the munitions, the weapons, the tools for terror and death, that's all they wanted to do. all of this would have made what happened on the 7th of october look pale. that's an unbearable reality and unfathomable reality we cannot accept. >> thank you for joining us. we appreciate your time. we will keep monitoring the situation in the middle east and bring you news as we get. up next, i want to take you live to north carolina where roy cooper gave an update on the impacts of hurricane helene. we will ask the mayor of asheville what her community needs right now.

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just moments ago north carolina governor, roy cooper, gave an update on the ongoing search and rescue efforts saying officials across the state are working around the clock to reach those still stranded. the devastating and destructive storm took the lives of at least 49 people in that state alone with hundreds still missing in western north carolina. meanwhile, at least 125 people are dead across the south and

multiple states. that number will likely climb as the desperate search continues for hundreds still unaccounted for. more than 1.5 million people still affected. bring us up to speed. >> reporter: it's a situation that appears to be getting worse before getting better. talking to residents on the ground the next several days, the need is water. take a look at that. volunteers are setting up these bladders is what they are called, it's for people to take and some people asking if they can take more to give to those people having a hard time getting out. it's a bright spot in all this is how much resiliency the community has in sharing resources that are becoming more scarce and limited.

fema said we need to know where the areas are so we can get the resources are. residents are still somewhat critical saying they have not seen them, and the director said there are 1,200 personnel here working with the local, state and federal agencies on the ground right now trying to get to these people so impacted. it's so sad what we are seeing, ana, especially in the communities that have been devastated and washed out in this historic area, the river arts district where we are talking with business owners and seeing the devastation of their livelihoods firsthand now. the look of despair on their faces is something i can't

describe. looking at their businesses washed out, in ruin, and people trying to loot their businesses, whatever is standing there. we talked to a gentleman whose business of 30 years was washed out. take a listen to what he told us. >> we lost everything. this is how we feed our families and we have been here for 30 years in the same building. nobody will help us. i don't know what we are going to do. >> you have heard anything from the federal response -- >> no, no. >> this is your whole life right here. it's an old building to somebody, but to us this is our life. >> reporter: again, it's just heartbreaking to hear these stories. there are so many of them out there. again, i can't speak to just the amount of resiliency here in the community, the people coming together especially as resources are starting to run low in some of the communities. some people taking these bladders to their neighbors and people to make sure they have

water as they wait for the resources to come in and start mobilizing. >> thank you for that update. joining us now, asheville mayor. mayor, i am so sorry for what you are experiencing there. what are your top concerns right now and what do you need? >> well, your reporter is right outside the building and talking about what our highest priority needs are right now. we have got to continue to ramp up provisions for folks like water and food and household items that anybody needs to make sure that they can stay safely in their home. diapers, cleaning supplies. those basic necessities are the things we need. we are seeing that dramatically increase and improve in terms of the amount, quantity in our community as well as getting out there and establishing distribution sites to bring those things to the people. i want to thank the army of

people that have come in to help our community already, those folks on their way to help us and also all of our local communities with us pulling together and checking on neighbors, it's an amazing, amazing effort. >> we have heard from business owners that had literally water up to the ceiling of their businesses, like at 12 bone smoke house there in asheville, and those business owners can't get to their businesses. they were away when this all happened. how are you able to get the critical resources in? i understand people don't have clean water for drinking? >> that's right. what we have seen so far, we

can't have the president land at the airport because his motorcade will block the highway get into nashville. we just had a second route open into asheville of the four major highways, and two are blocked and two are open. just getting folks in here has been a challenge just to establish that. we have an incredible group of people running the emergency operations center here making sure that everything is running smoothly and coordinated as well as possible to help in the relief effort. we do have -- we do have outages. our power is out. our water system is out, so just getting all those infrastructure pieces up and running is a huge effort and we are seeing incredible from the federal government to the state to private sector and nonprofit and

faith-based organizations, everybody pouring in with their help. i was just going to say, i don't want to make it sound like this is done. obviously we are looking at unprecedented never-before levels of flooding and the highest crests our rivers have ever seen and historic flooding that has beat any records we have so far. this is going to take us a long time and a lot of resources to be able to rebuild. >> it's breath taking when we look at these images, the aerial shots we are seeing there on the ground, and to be there in person and to see all of that destruction with your own eyes, how would you describe it? >> you know, it's catastrophic. it's absolutely catastrophic. i mean, just -- you know, you are looking at images of all sorts of businesses that were located in areas that had not historically flooded and now have flooded and they washed

away. entire structures, you are seeing incredible damage. it's something that this community has not experienced. we are used to some flooding. we do have rivers that flow through our cities. we are not used to what you are seeing here. the number of trees down and the wind damage, you can't believe your eyes. when you are on the ground and see it, you can't believe your eyes, can't believe what you are looking at. >> mayor, thank you for take the time to share what you are all experiencing there. we send you the best and good luck and strength as the road ahead, the road to recovery, will be a tough one. thank you. >> thank you very much. up next on "ana cabrera reports," we will go back to the update where the u.s. is expecting iran to launch a missile attack against

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and wondering, is that place legit? those commercials are nice, but is that a real thing? and having lived it, i can say for sure that money is being put to incredible use. i've never once had to wait for insurance to approve a test or approve a medication. we didn't have to worry about any of those things thanks to the donations. and our family is forever grateful because it's completely changed our lives. we're back with more of the breaking news coverage out of the middle east. now we have new information. the u.s. expecting iran to launch a missile attack against military and government israeli sites. with us, retired major john

spencer and courtney. >> the more this develops as the morning goes on, ana, the more it looks like this will have a similar pattern to what we saw when iran attacked israel back in april. there are still differences that we are starting to get a little more information on. now, number one, the similarities. you recall back in april most of the targets were israeli military or government structures or locations, so a military base in one case as opposed to iran intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure or locations. now, i say that, the majority of the projectiles fired in april, only a small number impacted anything and most were shot down before they were in israeli airspace or just inside israeli

airspace. where it's expected to be potentially different this time, yes, u.s. officials are still expecting a large number of projectiles, and it's the nature of the projectiles that are expected to be different here. we may see more ballistic missiles this time opposed to drones, loitering munitions and the sorts of things we saw in april. those are expected, according to officials, to be smaller in nature as opposed to more ballistic missiles this time. why that's significant, even if it's a smaller number of projectiles, if they have a larger payload and fly faster and are more difficult to take down, it could pose a bigger threat. officials are looking at the possibility that iran could launch a number of these

missiles at once with the goal of overwhelming the system of israel, the united states, who has vowed to help israel, and others that would be willing to help defend israel here. now, they are confident in their ability to shoot down the projectiles. the big question is has anything big started. u.s. officials do not have confirmation that anything has started. since april it's not just the u.s. and israeli military at a state of readiness, but iran has as well. they have been able to launch another attack like this in a very quick order, a very quick succession. the question is if there are more ballistic missiles they are launching off, what kind could there be? based on how long it takes them to get loaded on a launcher, and

some have different types of fuels that they use to take longer to ready. these are different questions we are asking, and we still don't have information that an attack has started and officials feel it could be a minute. >> is the u.s. doing anything at all to help defend israel? >> they are more prepared now than in april if you look at the shear volume of u.s. military assets in the region, at least 40,000 troops and an aircraft carrier, a number of ballistic defenses, and they have the ability to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. after the killing on friday, they had more assets brought into the region and some are still making their way, and with that the u.s. military and pentagon are confident they

could help defend israel. overall the expectation this would be similar to april, and it could look different in that we may see more missiles -- frankly, they have the potential to be more destructive than the drones and loitering munitions that we saw in april. >> keep us posted. thank you for reporting. we have new reporting that iran is specifically planning to target military and government sites and not civilian sites, and courtney just laid out about the tactics and weaponry they will use. what does it tell you about iran's intentions? >> it tells me it would be a significant escalation. when we say israel escalates things when it defends itself, and it would be significantly

problematic, and i trust them as much as i trust any other terrorists regime. you have hundreds of civilians living, and this is not acceptable. it's clearly expected to be consequences no matter what they are targeting with what, and missile, one drone is one too many. very problematic. >> does israel have a way aprile 300 plus drones and missiles fired from iran were largely captured before they even reached any site in israel. in fact, it was the cia director who said four or five actually impacted israel. none of them did any significant

damage. >> right. i'm very confident from what i know about israel and the united states, its protection and defense of israel, that they will be able to interdict any attack. but that's also -- i don't want that to be an excuse for iran doing this like last time. you knocked them all down. there are rules within the international global order. you can't just attack whenever you feel like it another nation and not expect consequences for those attacks, even if you are not successful. action actually matters. this would be really absolutely concerning and very dangerous. >> then there's the what's next. we heard from the secretary of defense in the readout from his call with israel's -- his israeli counterpart, there would be serious consequences for iran if iran were to strike against israel. we heard from benjamin netanyahu last week at the united nations

telling iran, if you strike us, we will strike back. there's nowhere out of reach for israel to go. what kind of retaliation or response could then this trigger? >> yeah. it would be very calculated, of course. even after the april attack, israel showed amazing restraint but demonstrated to the islamic regime in iran that they could penetrate their air defenses. you would think that would establish enough deterrence for iran not to do this. it seems to not. yes, it's actually -- this would trigger a very problematic situation where the world would be asking israel to show restraint while there would still have to be some type of consequences just to establish the deterrence. nobody wants this. i think the international body -- the international community as a whole needs to signal the islamic regime in iran, don't do it.

>> major john spencer, thanks for joining us on this breaking news. let's bring in matbradley from beirut. what's the latest? >> reporter: we are hearing more bombardments in the area south of beirut, a shiite muslim majority area. a stronghold of hezbollah. it's where we saw the head of hezbollah killed there. the reason we are seeing this talk of retaliation is they have two open accounts against the israelis as far as they are concerned. the first was the killing of haniyeh back a couple of months ago inside tehran. that they had vowed to take revenge on. they have not done that yet. they have continued to say they will take revenge for the killing of haniyeh.

le the israelis never say they killed those people. in the same strike that killed the leader of hezbollah on friday, they killed a leader -- a commander who is one of the commanders of irgc. he was responsible for coordinating between tehran and the proxy groups. the iranians are mourning the death of hasrall aah. it was the death of the iranian

commander that the iranians say they will take revenge for. that's why we see this uptick now in threats by the iranians against israel. those two men are the cause of the vengeance we are seeing from the iranians. we don't know when this is going to happen. i will leave it up to the washington people who have been reporting on this. this is an open account as far as the iranians are concerned. >> matt bradley from beirut. thank you for joining us. joining me now here in studio, nbc's garrett haake who spoke with former president donald trump moments ago about this potential strike against israel coming from iran. what did he say? >> he is watching it closely. we talked about it in a political context. he doesn't think iran should do it. he warned them not to do it. he argued as he often does that he thinks this country, this

world is closer to world war iii than any time in recent memory. instability in the world is good for donald trump the campaigner domestically. they look around and see wars in the middle east and in ukraine and they say, this is a kamala harris and joe biden problem. i want to be the solution. that requires a suspension from his time in office. i would be shocked if this is not something vance pushes to argue that this unstable world that we are living in is a product of he will say a weak presidency. >> as far as that debate, does this change the approach at all, do we anticipate? >> it may. i think the issues that motivate american voters are almost always domestic issues, unless you talk about a full-scale war. it's the economy. it's the cost of everything. the trump campaign wants it to

be immigration. those are issues that will probably be the primary driver to if the debate moves anybody's mind it's the discussion of those issues. but a major shooting war in the middle east is one thing that could break through and alter the way americans think about a race. we will see if it overshadows tonight or if this is the story with a longer tale through november. >> thank you so much for bringing us that latest reporter, garrett haake. we will have special coverage tonight here on msnbc for the vp debate starting at 7:00 eastern. that's it for me this hour. i will be back tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern. you can catch our show online around the clock on youtube and other platforms. thank you so much for joining us. andrea mitchell picks up with much more on the breaking news out of the middle east after a quick break. stay right there. here ♪♪

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good day, i'm andrea mitchell in new york. we start with breaking news from the middle east. u.s. officials warn today, iran is preparing to launch a ballistic missile attack against israel. israel says they are fully prepared. they warn any attack against israel will have repercussions. the white house says the u.s. plans to support israel to defend itself against an attack. >> we are tracking ein