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someone get a helmet on this guy. xfinity internet customers, ask how to get an unlimited line free for a year. plus, a free samsung galaxy s24 fe. people around the world celebrated the killing of hamas leader yahya sinwar. it's not clear what that death means for the 101 hostages still being held in gaza. for their families this past year has been a terrifying emotional roller coaster as they get their hopes up for a breakthrough only to be disappointed. seven americans are currently being held captive, four of whom are believed to be alive. they include 36-year-old sagui who was captured on october 7 at his kibbutz. his wife and three young daughters, includes ingcluding born while he was in activity,

they are waiting for him to come home. joining us is his father. it's good to see you. i was thinking about you yesterday and, of course, the other parents and relatives. what is your immediate reaction? what do you think the impact will be of sinwar's death? >> first reaction is the obvious one, justice has been served. humanity will not miss yahya sinwar. as far as what does this mean for the hostages? we really don't know. there are two possible directions. the first direction is the opening of opportunities that didn't exist. this undisputed leader of hamas following the assassination of haniyeh, sort of the singular leader, military and political, is gone, unexpectedly. that should allow for opportunities to renew

negotiations, bring them home and perhaps explore other alternatives of how to get hostages out in a non-military manner, given the chaos that probably is running rampant through hamas right now. that's one possibility. the other possibility is that hamas fighters now, those that are holding the hostages -- who knows what's going through their mind right now. they could exact vengeance on the hostages, those that are alive. they may be panicking. who knows what they would do to the hostages at that moment. it's very difficult to know. it only reinforces the urgency of getting them home and stopping the madness in gaza. >> the prime minister said yesterday the war will continue. perhaps he had to signal that to israel's enemies as a deterrent. do you think he is really

committed to that? u.s. officials from the president on down are saying, you have done enough, this has been a successful military operation at a horrendous cost, of course, for the people of gaza. do you think -- >> i don't know. his track record is not good for really focusing on the hostages as the main war goal. so it's hard to say. what i can say is that i think what he declared yesterday, or perhaps it was meant for the ears of israel's enemies, and they exist, but i think it was meant no less for his domestic coalition partners who -- from the radical right who seem committed to a perpetual war, whether it's with all the enemies of israel as they see them. there is real worry among the

hostage families that instead of using this opportunity that came as a surprise to israel. this was not a planned operation in the conventional sense. instead of seizing on this kind of gift that was given, the end of sinwar, to really pull out all the stops to get hostages home, netanyahu and his coalition partners will use this to beat their chests and show it as some kind of bizarre proof that military action on its own is really what they are looking for and can get the hostages out, which is complete nonsense. it was nonsense 24 hours ago as it is right now. the israeli military itself has said repeatedly in recent months that hamas, before the death of sinwar, had been degraded enough militarily and as a governing

organization that no further sacrifice of hostages' lives could be substantiated by incremental military gains. now sinwar has been killed. there really is no other justification available that's legitimate for the israeli government to not go full bore with the negotiations or other arrangements with hamas fighters to get the hostages out and to end this madness that's caused such suffering among the civilians in gaza. >> have you heard from the administration here? >> yes, most definitely. the u.s. families, the families of the seven hostages you showed before, we have, since yesterday, have had two conversations, both with state department officials and very shortly we will be having video talk with a senior member of the white house staff.

it has been the one constant, i think, that we as hostage families can count on is the engagement of the administration. >> what would you like second blinken, who is going, to say to netanyahu? >> well, i guess he could congratulate -- secretary blinken could congratulate on a successful conclusion on the war on hamas. it's time to look how to resolve the crisis and the resolution of the crisis. it's getting the hostages home. that will faciliate a cease-fire and figuring out what in the world is going to become of gaza the day after sinwar and

hamas. under no circumstances to go along with the israeli government insisting that now that we have them on the ropes, let's really beat them down completely, because it's simply not justified by facts on the ground. >> thank you so much. our best to you and, of course, to your daughter-in-law and the grandchildren who want to see their father. thank you. >> thank you. the vote watch. next i will talk to the leaders of a growing legal effort to boost public confidence in state and local officials facing unprecedented scrutiny ahead of election day. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports." this is msnbc.

as early voting gets underway, republicans are filing legal challenges in many key states and pivotal battlegrounds. the gop is challenging ballots cast every election by u.s. citizens who live abroad, including members of the military, claiming there could be fraud. there's no basis anyone knows for that yet. this as donald trump continues to sow doubts. he called the january 6 attack a day of love. j.d. vance insisting this week that trump did not lose in 2020. joining us now are two nationally recognized election experts, bob bower, former white

house counsel and ben ginsburg. they have been traveling as co-chairs of their new group, pillars of the community. this is an effort to try to ensure election officials they have the support they need to do their jobs. thanks so much for both of you being with us. >> thank you. >> ben, to you. there are a lot of challenges on the republican side. there have been a lot of threats. election officials afraid do their jobs after what happened four years ago and what's happening. what do you think that you two can accomplish? how well protected are the local officials? >> we hope to be able to give them the support of community leaders. i think what bob and i have found traveling around the country is that on a local level, people care about their communities. they want peace and prosperity in their communities. having elections that are generally accepted is part of that.

we have been getting community leaders in the most contentious election jurisdictions to kick the tires of the election system with the local election officials. we would like those community leaders to be able to voice their support for the job that the election officials have been doing. >> bob, what are election officials telling you? are they afraid? >> of course, they are very concerned about an atmosphere of threat and intimidation that has developed over the last several years. those who have been in this work for a long time have never experienced anything like it. at the same time, though are proceeding. these are professionals. ben and i came together in this work when we were co-chairs of president obama's commission on election administration. we traveled around the country and met with officials everywhere. the report that we produced for the president reflected the view that it's true of election officials that they are professionals. they are going to carry on with

their work. but they need the support of state and local community leadership that are trusted voices in their neighborhoods where they live and can communicate to their public that these elections are being professionally, carefully, meticulously and impartially prepared for. >> ben, as a republican, you have done this for a long time. you were a fierce partisan in 2000 when you needed to be, from the perspective of george w. bush. what do you see the impact of donald trump claiming, without any evidence, that there might be fraud in this election? it seems as though he is trying to sow doubts about not just speaking about the last one, about the one to come. >> yeah. i think it's unfortunate and short-sided. i think trust in the election system is really important for all the fundamental basics of our country, peaceful transfer of power, losers accepting the

results. if you don't have that public faith in the reliability of elections, that's going to impact negatively whoever wins this election, whether it's donald trump or kamala harris, because this sort of real fighting over the election system is going to have two sides to it. by questioning the results, the mechanism for delivering who wins our elections, that corrodes public faith on both sides of the aisle. so it is a genuinely harmful to the institution of american government and elections to have these charges being bandied about. >> the latest example of the way they are trying to create challenges in advance, bob, is this question in the key battleground states, of course, of questioning military ballots

and people from overseas. they have been done forever, people who are overseas who are american citizens can vote. do you think there will be problems getting those counted with perhaps state courts? >> i don't anticipate that these votes will not be counted. you are right, it does appear -- i say this based on what they have said publicly, it does appear that they are picking at various issues that they can raise that should trump lose, they will bring into the public debate as the reason why he was quote unquote cheated. they are looking in every direction you can imagine. some of them brought directly by the republican national committee, republican party organizations and others by other organizations that are sympathetic to them. the goal there is to suddenly open up a question about military and overseas voting that has for a very long time

not been treated as a source of particular controversy. they're trying to turn it into one. the same thing is true also about these allegations about non-citizen voting around the country. >> ben, let's talk about the safety of these local officials. we saw had a happened to the mother and daughter in georgia and how it changed their lives as the amplification by the president of the united states calling them fraudsters led to them being attacked at home. they couldn't go out. >> yeah, it's a real tragedy when something like that happens. these are people who are volunteering for their community. they are doing it to the best of their ability. there are poll watchers from both parties present. these allegations have since

been refuted and overturned in court. i do think that this time around, election officials are doing a much better job of preparing for this threat and providing resources for their workers so that in working with law enforcement much more closely, i think there will be additional protections in 2024 for people working at the polls that were not present in 2020. >> bob and ben, you are quite a team. quite a matched pair, i should say. it's great to see you. thank you for all the public service, both of you are doing, and have always done. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. we turn to battleground pennsylvania for a closer look. democrats are trying to boost their turnout in the philadelphia suburbs by engaging the key voting block. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. repc

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is correspondent trymaine lee. thanks for being with us. so let's talk about this. how important is it to run up a big vote in the city's, in particular philadelphia and pittsburgh and pennsylvania, with such a large trump vote in the central part of the state. >> reporter: our beloved city of philadelphia is 40% black and many of the black folks live in community like this in north philly, the heart of the black community. when you think about how close this race will be in pennsylvania. it could come down to the thousands. so folks are here on the ground in communities across the state engaging with black voters who may still be undecided or unregistered. today's event organized by a national organization like vote.org and local community organizations are aiming their focus at black men in particular. in recent election cycles we've seen voter turnout in this city

dwindling because of younger black men who are not engaged with the process. when i talk about how important pennsylvania and philadelphia is and boil it down further to talk about the black enclaves where there are votes waiting on the table. >> and what about the gender gap? because there are plenty of reports that young black men have some problem voting for a woman? >> reporter: i'll tell you what. what black men are voting, the vast majority are voting for the democratic candidate. that is how it works. when you talk to young black men in particular across this country and in cities like philadelphia, there is a disengagement, they feel overlooked and unseen. but donald trump is a master at branding, people point to the ppp loans that he signed his name on and that's resonated with folks. young voters could say we got paid on donald trump so it felt better but now folks on the ground are doing a narrative

correction or trying to do on the democratic side to make sure young black men are armed with everything they need to vote in a responsible manner. >> that was passed largely by democrats in congress. trymaine lee, thank you very much. and this sunday you could watch kamala harris when she sits down with reverend al sharpton from atlanta. watch "politics nation" at 5:00 eastern right ear on msnbc. we'll be back next week. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." and follow us on social media and watch highlights on youtube just go to msnbc.com/andrea. anna cabrera picks up our coverage after a short break.

your business needs a network it can count on... even during the unexpected. power's out! power's out! -power's out! power's out! -power's out comcast business has you covered, with wifi backup to help keep you up and running. wifi's up. let's power on! let's power on! let's power on! -let's power on! it's from the company with 99.9% network reliability. plus advanced security. let's power on! power on with the leader in connectivity. powering possibilities. comcast business. power's out. hello and happy friday, i'm anna cabrera in for chris jansing. one of the tightest presidential races now g