people are coming out of the woodwork and their desperate to beat donald trump and excited to elect kamala harris and everyone knows and every state we are operating in, so many swing districts, it's incredibly close. that's why we say it could come down to the margin of ever. these people are getting hit with a ton of different ads. hit by every possible medium of paid advertising. a lot of the folks in a people who start with a high level of trust in the political system. a conversation with a friend, a neighbor, can make a difference. >> thank you both. that is all in . alex wagner starts right now. ight now. >> basically everything matters, people care about democracy, vance is a big liar. those are three of the many take-aways of the show i just watched. >> those are good top lines,

betters, than chatgpt could do. thanks, jen. >> this is the little white schoolhouse in a -- still standing there today. a group of people got together in that little white schoolhouse and came up with an idea that that would end up changing the course of history, at least political history. in a time when america was hotly divided over the question of slavery. the people who met in that building decided they should start a new political party, a coalition party that brought together members of the wig party and free soil movement and

also disaffected democrats who often had different political investigations for the country but who were all united around their operation of the moral crisis at the time of slavery. now, they decided to call their new pliical party, the republican party. and the rest, as they say, is kind of history. thend republican party would, o course, become the party of lincoln, the party that would end slavery and establish itself as one of america's two major political organizations for the next century and a half and still today. it's one of theistry's greatest tragedies that the republican party of today isth no longer tt coalition of people committed to the idea of fighting back against america's worst impulses because today's republican party is instead a cult of personality that basically revolves around one guy, donald trump. but there's still moments of brightness because today in wisconsin, the birthplace as i

just walked you through of america's grand ole party, a new coalition came together to put its own stamp on american history. earlier thisca evening a republican sheriff from iowa, you can see him right there, took the stage to introduce another republican, the daughter, of course, of a republican vice president who has long been despised in many democratic circles for his role in pushing the war in rain rack, a wam who was once a member of republican party leadership, serving as the chair of the republican house conference just three years ago. yeah, she was there along with other republicans as part of a new wide reaching basically moral coalition who stood on the stage with the democratic nominee for president, d kamala harris, and said this. >> i tell you i have never voted for democrat, but this year i am proudlyea casting my vote for ve

president kamala harris. thank you. but mostly we're not going back. i ask you to meet this moment. i ask you to stand in truth, to reject the depraved cruelty of donald trump. and i ask you instead to help us elect kamala harris for president. >> there are so many powerful forces that have been the intent on trying to demean and belittle

and make people afraid, and there are many who know it is wrong, and then there are those who have the courage to speak out loudly about it and the conviction to speak truth. and, you know, it is so admirible when anyone does it and especially when it is difficult to do in an environment such as this. but liz cheney really is a leader who puts country above party and above self. >> now, you may be sitting at home and thinking -- and you hear this a lot, this doesn't matter, nothing matters, liz cheney is not going to move the election. i happen to think it matters, but, listen, maybe you're right. but here's the thing, wisconsin is it state that has been won or lost by less than 1 percentage in the last two elections. it is always close and going to

bese close. in that context pretty much every covote, every new coaliti number, everything may matter. this endorsement and cheney's decision to campaign for harris are also not happening in a vacuum alone. i mean in the last few weeks over 100 former republican officials have endorsed kamala harris. and believe me, and they've said this, it's not because they agree with everything the harris-walz ticket believes or isti advocating for. it's because they feel as liz cheneyel feels today, that puttg patriotism ahead of partisanship isn't an aspiration, it's a duty. cassidy hutchinson, a lifelong republican even though she's quite young but been a republican her whole life, former trump white house aide put it this way with my colleague lawrence o'donnell last night. >> i am really, really proud as a conservative to have the opportunity to vote for kamala harris and tim walz in this election. i say to republicans who may be

on the fence, i understand how frightening it can be to potentially break with your y party, but donald trump and j.d. vance cannot be trusted with the constitution. they cannot be trusted to uphold our rule of law, and they can't be trusted to enact responsible policy. >> of course it's good to have republicans like cheney and officials all speaking about the fact one candidate will defend the constitution and one won't. but, here's the thing, the whole lot of other republicans, prominent onesli voiced their oppositionoi to trump and very specific things about his ability to be commander in de chief, about his temperament and even his morality who have still stopped short of endorsing kamala harris. people like mitt romney who says he fears trump will target him and his family if re-elected.

people like former president george w. bush, who trump has castigated andwh attacked at evy turn, people like john kelly, and people like mike pence, who would definitely know, whose life was literally threatened by trump and l his mob on january h and whose safety was a matter of such indifference to trump, warranting only a so what. i'm not saying it's easy. it's never easy to go against your ownas political party. liz cheney has definitely felt the consequences. i mean she was excommunicated from the party she spent her life, that her father spent his life serving in. but asvi kamala harris said tonight about the threat trump poses,ru there are many who kno it is wrong, and then there are those who have the courage to speak outhe loudly about it, an the conviction to speak truth. so mitto romney, george bush,

john kelly, mike pence, we are 33 daysel from an election. if you aren't going to speak up loudly now, your moment to play a role in the history books may be passing you by. joining me now are ben wickler, chair of the democratic party of wisconsin, and atlantic staff writer, mark leibovich. thank you both for being here. mark, i'm going to start with you because you're sitting with me. you were with liz cheney when she came out endorsed kamala harris, so that was a significant piece of news, but i want to start by asking you this does it matter question because you do hear this a lot. do youth think it matters? >> there is this cavalier brush off you hear from republicans, and oh, liz cheney was roundly bootedas out of her party, she lost re-election. you know, there's no constituency for mitt romney, fort liz cheney. first of all, tens of millions of americans voted for dick

cheney for president, for mitt romney for president. and there those all of who have been on republican tickets who are not voting for donald trump. listen, the key words here are permission structure. there are tons ofsi republicans out there and independents out who have voted for donald trump in the past, who have voted for many republicans who need that extra push. it is -- you get some credit, i guess, if you're going to say, no, i'm not voting for donald trump, but you get full credit if you're actually going to vote for the one person who can beat him. >> let me b ask because you've covered them as well. you'vere covered all these peop. they have something to lose certainly as liz cheney did, but what is holding them back? is that or something else? >> penceis and romney both have said they're not voting for

donald trump, both are personal i think for , unsurprising reasons. why they're not going -- often you hear cutesy things like i'll writeik in whoever. i don't quite know why. i don't know why they think they're protecting themselves or i don't know understand what's stopping there. ande then a whole different category where you don't know what paul ryan is thinking. george w. bush in texas a couple weeks ago when i was interviewing liz and a couple days earlier she had endorsed kamala harris, and i asked her who her dad was voting for, and she said her dad was voting for kamala harris, made a little news. the predominant follow-up i heard from a lot of people that day is where's w.? when are we going to hear from him? there is a pretty solid core of republicans, but some really big names are out there who haven't really spoken out. i think this is as existential an election as people have said.

i hate to be overstating this, but it is that big. >> it ishi and the liz cheney news, which is significant newss ben, let me go to ask a similar question. it's also the birthplace of the republican party, as we all have been learning over the last 24 hours. but as you've talked to people after that rally and even in advance of it, how much does a liz cheney -- do these endorsements of t these nationa security officials and republican officials matter to the voters we're talking to in your state who may be on the fence or waiting as mark just said for a permission structure? >> these things do matter, and they matter to two different groups of voters. there's one group of voters that are the typical swing voters thate people talk about. these are people who don't pay attention toar politics, who thk about politics the way you and i think about the javelin at the oolympics which is something we're awareic happens every fou

years. it'ser not something we're seekg out. for voters who agree that joe biden andha kamala harris are t persons that might filter out. for the highly engaged, conservative republicans whose first and corefullity is to the flagit and constitution and the united states of america. and for them liz cheney shows you can be yourself with your conservativers commitments but t country over party, over anything else, and p cast a balt and still maintain and build on integrity as a person. and open the door for those voters who normally would not be swing voters in any stretch of the imagination, that can matter in a state likely to come down to lessdo than one percentage point. >> it was a really compelling event to to watch on television. who are these undecided people,

and what are they waiting to hear at this point in time? i mean, how do you assess the percentage -- or a number of undecided voters in wisconsin? and kind of what are they on the edge over? >> it's less than 5% of the electorate at this point, and we're doing everything we can to reach them while also reaching all the folks who will vote for harris in their houses right now who haven't returned them. anyone who wants to help us reach those folks, volunteer to chip in and fuel the get out to vote. the of them are generally vote republican but think the abortion ban is an uncrossable line and are trying to decide can i really vote for someone who supports an abortion ban given they agree with me on other things? for some people it's the opposite. there are people whose faith tells themte they can never vot forne someone on the other side. that group is a lot smaller, i'll tell you. butle i agree with kamala harri

on taking on the price gouging of big companies and thinktoid be better on the economy if they vote for harris. some of them think all politicians are t crooks. they're fed up. kind of like donald trump at least obviously is correct. talking about how it will affect their life directly, the $4,000 trump tax and others is different. and you sometimes read about a medianme voter in a poll. in talk to those people at the door they have a grab bag of views. it's about showingg up, listeng to them, and connecting at a level of shared views often with trusted messengers that makes a difference. then there's this other group, the conservatives often veterans furious about trump's diserment for the core principles of this country. those folks are on the floor in different events. >> to the point of those veterans, and that was a very comprehensiveer breakdown. that's why he's such a good

state party chair. one of the things that struck me in the speech today was the messaging of it, i mean patriotism, love of country, a big chunk of the speech on kwlu ukraine, those are obviously messages that work well for liz cheney. and that's a speech i think and you tell me if you disagree here, could have been by a protump republican 33 days before the election. you're trying to reach a lot of different people at this point in the election. >> you could have heard that speech from mitt romney, any number of main stream republicans. liz cheney does specifically narrow her focus to the constitution, to the rule of also foreign policy a little bit. and these are three core, pretty traditional republican constituencies. then there's -- liz didn't get into this but also part of it is just conduct, basic deesance, it

was asi basic american tenant tt you sortam of heard her alludin to repeatedly, and i think that's a big part of the harris-walz message, just basic decency. i wassi out with alzheimer a couple weeks ago. you just hear nothing but neighbor, neighbor, neighbor. that's a big world you hear with them. as far as the basic core principles of conservative, i think they definitely hit that today. obviously if it's the birthplace ofsl the republican party, it seems consistent. >> it was a smart message i thought there today. but so interesting this many days out from an election. mark leibovich, thank you so much. ben wikler, you've got 5% of undecided voters 5 to reach. also javelin is a big thing i think about a lot, so i'll give a shout out to the javelin. appreciate you both. coming up trump spent his first term trying and failing to prosecutean his political enemi,

but what happened a second term? legal experts worn trump will try again if he returns to power rb we know that, and this time the results may be very different. we'll discuss why. ween have a very quick break, a we'll be right back. we have a v we'll be right back.

kamala harris can never be forgiven for erasing our border. she should be impeached and prosecuted for her actions. >> vice president harris is just one of many people that donald trump believes ought to be prosecuted. on multiple occasions we showed you one of them, but multiple

during the campaign, he has fantasized about exacting legal revenge on his political enemies including president biden, nancy pelosi, liz cheney, and her fellow members of the january 6th committee. and now a new piece in "the new york times" this out today, cites experts warning trump must be taken at his word. the paper surveyed 50 legal experts. 39 of them said it was likely or very likely that trump would order the justice department to investigate a political adversary, if he were to be elected to a second term. joining me now to discuss, emily, author of "the new york times" piece and ankush cudory, his latest piece, both excellent pieces. may scare you but have great information. so let me start with you. there were a number of stark and alarming quotes in your piece. i mean, this one stuck out to me that kind of summed it up by the

counselor of the federalist society and assistant acting attorney general for president george w. bush. this is what he said. there's every reason to believe that donald trump would seek to use criminal enforcement in the fbi as leverage for his personal and political ends in a second term. the risk is more concrete with a higher probability than any election in my lifetime. 42 of the former officials surveyed said it's very likely trump would create a significant threat. also the norms and how the norms have been abided by a number of presidents. i wanted to ask you as people are trying to understand the specifics, like what do these experts fear could happen when the norms are not abided by, that the system may not be prepared for?

>> yeah, that's a great question. since watergate we've had this example of richard nixon who was pushed to resign after he meddled in an fbi investigation. right, we have a blaerl burglary of the national democratic headquarters at watergate and nixon's people interfere in the investigation and that's why nixon lost his presidency. since then it's been a bedrock assumption presidents do not try to use the justice department for their own political ends. and especially they don't try to prosecute their adversaries for politically motivated reasons. that's an abuse of power. but all of that hinges on norms. because the justice department and the attorney general work for the president, they are part of the executive branch, the person who restrains the president is the president. it's not an outside check. and that's why this is such a delicate situation. and then when you have a candidate like former president trump who is being so loud and clear about his plans to

prosecute his enemies, the people we surveyed who work for the justice department formally, who were at the white house counsel's office, they were the government officials who cared about upholding these norms. and what they're saying is that they're alarmed. they're pretty freaked out by the things he's saying because they understand how much the system depends on the self-restraint of the person in the white house. >> yeah, it's such an interesting -- the consistency over presidencies -- i mean i worked for two presidents, and there was just this, of course, unspoken respect for the independence of the justice department, of the role the white house counsel played and i know that was the case for the republican presidencies as well. one of the points you make in your piece is a second trump term would not be full of don megans, right? it would be full of jeffly clark types potentially. so in terms of the role

different people could play, because you really break this down in a framing way. the attorney general which people think of, oh, he's responsible for announcing prosecutions or announcing investigations, what are the things, all of the things -- and an acting attorney general even could have the power to do that people should be aware of? >> look, the attorney general runs the parliament, right? they can direct subordinates to open investigations, pursue charging theories, to file certain types of cases. but the attorney general by design exercises a lot of power within the justice department. now, he's not the only figure sort of in this sort of universe we need to be concerned about. there are other people besides the attorney general who exercise a lot of power in this area, too, who don't always attract as much attention. >> so this is a really interesting part of your piece because -- i mean i spent ten years in government, some of these jobs i couldn't tell you

exactly what tay do, but you mentioned a couple of roles that people may never have heard of but have perhaps an outsized role given a lack of understanding of the job. give us some of those. >> yeah, look, the white house counsel is an incredibly important position in this regard. it's not a senate confirmed position either. >> could be anyone that trump wants. >> and that would be the person really probably be trump's liaison to the justice department to carry out this effort simply because the president has many things to do including watching television if we're talking about another trump term. but the white house counsel would have a pretty important role in that process. >> i know about that. give us another one. >> at the justice department, right, the head of the criminal division overseas a lot of prosecutors in washington, the head of the fraud section oversees prosecutions across the country. an crew wiseman used to run the fraud section, i used to work there. it can be a very, very powerful

office. the u.s. attorneys throughout the country but particularly in the ones in manhattan, northern virginia, d.c., delaware, if trump wants to pursue the bidens, those are going to be particularly important positions as well. >> such an interesting -- because you don't always know about all of these roles. you know, emily, you also in your piece you talk about -- the phrase you use is "tension in the system," which i thought was such an interesting phrasing in terms of how you describe it. and you just talked about this, kind of the trends we've seen since nixon and what we've seen complying with history and kind of how presidents and white houses typically work. what happens -- i mean what, as you talk to these experts, in terms of their worst fear, where authorize no voluntary compliance with that, what is the thing they fear the most? >> i think they're concerned about losing this norm of independence for the justice department. the idea that, you know, rule of

law depends on the faith of the public, that the decisions being made about who to prosecute, who to investigate are based on whether there's evidence of a crime. and the priorities of law enforcement officials are about keeping the country safe and making sure that our laws are fairly and even handedly enforced. if you have a president who is using prosecution as a tool of his own power, things become very arbitrary and unstable, and people lose faith in the rule of law. and that is a real threat to democracy, so i think the people we were talking to, most of whom worked for the justice department or for former presidents, they care deeply about the stability of the rule of law and preserving the country and the democracy as we know it. >> it is the independence of the justice department such an important tradition, just to state the obvious. you did have -- before i let you go both back to your lives, you

did have a more positive note in your piece or kind of a note to bring people back from this fear a little bit. and you talked a bit about the headwinds for trump including this. you said then there's the challenge of getting it line prosecutors, people who would actually litigate in court to go along with the long reputation of legally thin or baseless cases. it is do-able to dee that to be sure but not necessarily a simple matter, as if all of these people are out there doing what trump wanted them to do. >> i hope not. you would have potentially career prosecutors potentially saying, no, i won't sign onto this. there are a lot of career prosecutors at the department. you can shop around for them. the way i sort of thought about this is sort of the guardrails around this -- in this area, a lot of them are internal or internal in the justice

department government and when the investigation begins, the process of running an investigation and things like that. that has become riskier now as a result of the supreme court decision in the trump case. but the other guardrails that exist outside the government, at least outside the executive branch, thinking about grand jurors, trial jurors, trial judges, appellate judges, those things may be able to sort of operate in the way we'd hope and expect them to operate. >> yeah, it's important for people to understand. thank you so much. these pieces are so informative, so smart. you'll feel almost like a lawyer or at least i did. i appreciate you joining me and explaining it. still to come tonight coach tim walz is about to get off sidelines, thank god, and into the game. that's coming up next. thank goo the game that's coming up next.

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these are weird people on the other side. they want to take books away, want to be in your exam room. don't get sugarcoating this. these are weird ideas. >> remember weird? tim walz made weird happen. his ability to connect on television was a big part how he pretty much single-handedly catapulted himself onto the democratic ticket. i mean he is funny, engaging, and sometimes imperfect in how he communicates. that's how it works. people see themselves in him. everybody feels like they know

tim walz. we've gotten to know him as the football coach, the teacher, the minnesota nice guy who talks openly about his troubles with starting a family, whose son made us all cry at the convention, right there. i may get teary now. a guy who knows how to actually accurately pick out a donut or a whoopee pie because he's a normal person. it's also relatable and appealing and you would think it would be particularly appealing in states harris has to win. and that guy who the democratic party fell for this summer, just hasn't been as visible or as are viral since then. i don't think it's that the walz magic went away, that's not why. it's because he hasn't been out there much on the national stage, and maybe it's because of debate prep. that certainly does take time and he's never done anything of that level before, or maybe it's out of fear he's occasionally going to slip-up. i don't know entirely the reason, but i do know this.

i've worked for a lot of politicians, people running for congress, for governor, and, yes, for president for many years. the best ones are imperfect. they are a little rough around the edges sometimes, but that authenticity is part of what people like about them because people, voters out there, aren't perfect either. the good news is now that the debate is over, the campaign is putting tim walz back on the trail where he belongs. and he's been out on the trail a little bit, but i mean out on the trail doing lots of stuff. yesterday he embarked on a bus tour through central pennsylvania including a rally in new york with senator john fetterman and latinos in reading. today he's back in minnesota participating in a virtual event with muslim voters, saturday he heads to ohio, and then the west coast. next week he'll be in swing states of arizona and nevada. and including an appearance with "60 minutes" interview with vice

president kamala harris and a late interview on jimmy kimmel live. guess what? he may make some mistakes along the way, but that's okay. it's not a chance to play scared, it's a time to take chances and see people a little rough around the edges but super authentic and appealing out there. as i said earlier in the show, this race is so close, everything may matter including making sure you're utilizing one of the better communicators the democratic party has seen in a very long time. we'll be right back. l be right .

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i think there's a real possibility this thing's going to come down to our blue walled states. >> the road to the white house runs straight through pennsylvania. it may run right through the restaurant, who knows. the key, though, to a democratic victory there is philadelphia where nearly 20% of the state's democratic voters live. but the philadelphia inquirer has this really interesting report out about working class voters in philly. once a key democratic base are now increasingly leaning republican largely, according to this reporting, because the impact people are feeling there of rising prices and a nostalgia from the trump era. i mean this is a messaging push straight from trump himself from the pre-covid era when he was

president. it's not on the level, but people are buying it. and this piece also notes that the shift began back in 2020 when democrats lost ground in neighborhoods where education levels were lowest and poverty rates were highest. and this trend cuts across racial lines but is most prominent in neighborhoods predominantly home to latino voters, which is the fastest demographic group in the city and one across the country moving in some ways republican. joining me now equity reporter for the philadelphia inquirer on that new data driven piece and i think it's excellent reporting and important for people to understand what voters are saying out there. thank you to you and your colleagues for doing that, and thank you for being here with me. i gave a quick summary here of your reporting that shows lower education level -- lower education levels and hilar poverty levels, there's some trend towards republicans. as i said, i outlined a bit of

the reasons why. but you tell us, you did the reporting, what you found when you talk to voters. >> sure. so thank you so much for having me. what we found was that like you mentioned, a lot of the reasons people were citing for their shift kind of to the right was because of the economy. they felt they were doing better under trump's presidency than they had under president biden's administration. so we found that in 2020, actually, biden performed worse than clinton in more than half of the city's wards. this trend is across races. there are white working class neighborhoods that have moved right, black working class neighborhoods that have moved right. but like you said the largest shifts have been in latino neighborhoods. i do also want to note, though, there have been shifts to the left in more educated neighborhoods. >> yeah, it's really

interesting. the educational divide we saw back in 2016, and some of your reporting, as you just noted, talks about this trend going back to 2020. and one of the things you just referenced stuck out to me. you say in the piece, quote, in some areas voters increasingly cast ballots for trump. in others democratic vote totals declined because turnout did. fewer people showing up in blue states for republicans. in 2024 and the election that's 33 days away are you hearing more people shifting to trump or maybe don't want to show up, or what is the trend you're hearing from voters at this point? >> i think the overall trend i have heard has been more about disengagement in general from a lot of the voters than going toward trump. you know, in philadelphia it is still a democratic stronghold. voter registration does still outnumber democrats to republicans by about 7-1.

so rather than people shifting to the right from the voters i spoke to, what i am hearing more is that they just don't feel engaged by the campaigns, and they're not sure exactly how voting in this election will benefit them in their day to day lives. so i think that low voter turnout is where we might see the biggest impacts. >> you referenced latino voters as being an area that you -- are hearing the kind of larger potential shift and seeing that across the country. barack obama won 70% of the latino vote. harris is polling in the high 50s, mid-50s depending on the poll. there's 600,000 eligible latino voters in pennsylvania, which is a large number. is it the same feeling among latino voters, that they feel disengaged? there's a nostalgia for the pre-covid trump era? are there differences in what you're hearing from these

voters? >> so among latino voters we spoke to for this article, which latino voters in philadelphia make up 16% of our city's population and growing, the fastest growing demographic. we heard things about the economy, which matches what we heard from a lot of the other working class neighborhoods. we also saw some depressed voter turnout, and there were some individuals who talked about immigration and actually how they weren't confident in vice president kamala harris' immigration plan based on what they felt they knew about former president donald trump's plan and vice president kamala harris' plan. and so those were kind of the three big things. the economy, just overall dish engagement, and immigration that we heard from some latino voters. >> such interesting reporting. layla, thank you for what you do and being onto explain it to us this evening. i could ask you a million more questions. we have to get to one more block, but i appreciate you joining us. layla from the philadelphia

inquirer, and thank you for making the time. and we'll be right back. and tha making the time. and we'll be right back.

let's say you're deep in a show or a game or the game.

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tonight at least 250 americans have been evacuated from lebanon as violence between israel and the lebanese group hezbollah mounts. according to the associated press, rescue workers in southern lebanon are struggling to save people following israeli air strikes. quote, body parts are everywhere. children, civilians, and bodies under rubble. now, these air strikes happened just days after tehran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles at israel earlier this week. the nature and degree of that israeli response -- the israeli response to that, i should say, as well as what iran may do in response to that, could, of course, have huge implications on the region and the world. joining me now is ben rohdes. oats actually about world events. ben, thank you for being here.

you and i have had so many conversations over the years at a variety of times including when i was at the state department and you were in the white house. this is different, i think it's important for people to understand. and we're all kind of in this waiting game of what's next. how will israel respond, what will iran do? you've been a lot of these meetings in a situation room over the years. i mean anticipating similar types of questions, what are kind of the scenarios for people sitting in the situation room that they're looking at right now in the u.s. government? >> well, first of all, jen, this is the scenario that you and i worked to avoid, this specific scenario of a direct potential military conflict between israel and iran that could engulf the tire region even beyond what we've seen since october 7th. there is something that they could do that is proportional, that is a response to the ballistic missile attacks but does not aim to, you know, ignite a larger war match they

could hit some targets of the iranian revolutionary guard, some military installations or military targets inside of iran to send a message to respond. or they could launch a response that hits at the core of the regime much harder. they could bomb oil facilities in iran, the revenue the regime depends on. they could bomb nuclear facilities in iran, obviously an incredibly sensitive area. and that is much more likely to unite a conflagration across the region in which the iranian response is bigger than anything we've seen to date and iranian proxies like iraq could be mobilized. eiran could choose to mobilize against oil fields in u.s. partners abroad and you could be looking at disruptions and obviously potential loss of life across the region including attacks on u.s. forces. so that is what the administration would like to avoid. right now the decision-maker is not really in washington, it's bibi netanyahu in israel.

>> we knew this, and anyone who's worked in the u.s. government over the last few decades, what's been clear over the last few years or so the u.s. does not tell netanyahu what to do in the sense he waits for it. he's disincentivized really because it's keeping him in many ways in power. with all that being said, and you can disagree with that, of course. you know more about this than i ever will. what can the u.s. be doing, what can they really do in this moment? >> honestly, jen, not all that much. there were times earlier since october 7th when the u.s. tried to use leverage on netanyahu and tried to potentially with hold weapons shipments, put more pressure diplomatic publicly and that might have helped get back to cease-fire and hostage deal in gaza. right now, though, israel's been on a path of escalation for several weeks starting with the pager attacks and then growing

into the strikes into beirut, the killing of the leader of hezbollah, israel's fired back at the houthi proxies -- the houthi group in yemen. and they've committed to taking a retaliatory strike against iran. right now there's a logical escalation that's taken hold. what is the off-ramp to this becoming a bigger and wider conflict? that's what the administration is trying to do. and i'm sure what they're doing diplomatically is not just talking to israelis. they're sending messages i'm sure through channels to the iranians to not escalate further. they are in a bit of a wait and see mode here, and that's always a tenuous place to be when you're kind of watching events as you're trying to shape them. >> we only have about 30 seconds left but you're a professional. aside from impact in global oil

markets, which you mentioned. aside from a horrific event like the death of u.s. citizens, in terms of the political impact, what are you watching? >> i'm watching just the generalized scenes of chaos, which trump will try to make use of. images of war are not good for an incumbent party in october. i'm watching for lebanon in addition to gaza where you have a number of palestinian americans and american citizens many have family in places like back in michigan. and those price disruptions could really disrupt the global economy because not only are you talk about potential increases in gas prices but the disruptions in the economy. these things are all challenging. >> ben rodes, i could talk to you forever. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. of all else, i know that the