Transcripts For MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports 20241005

Declining to endorse either candidate. Melania trump breaking from her husband by making her support for Abortion Rights public. The timing of her announcement raising questions as former President Trump prepares to head back to butler, pennsylvania, this weekend, the site of the first attempt on his life. Live to israel as The Middle East braces for Potential Retaliation by the netanyahu government against iran and ahead of the first anniversary of the act 7th terror attacks. Good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell. Economy and the inflation the top issue for voters. A nearly perfect Jobs Report blowing past all expectations. Heading into the final weeks of the campaign, the Labor Department reporting employers added more than a quart billion jobs. That drives the Unemployment Rate down to 4. 1 . Harris Targets Union voters today. Those are critical in battleground michigan. The campaign has been having Labor Pains after the Firefighters Union, perhaps joe bide n bidens most stallworth endorsers, failed to endorse her. Shes trying to court Swing State republicans with Last Nights big endorsement from former Republican Congresswoman liz cheney, who lost her seat in congress because of her leadership of the January 6 committee. Cheney, who had jobs in both bush administrations, told antitrump republicans they should take the Plunge And Vote for a democrat. We may disagree on some things. But we are bound together by The One thing that matters to us as americans more than any other, and thats our duty to our constitution. 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. [ cheers and applause ] harris will get another boost next week when former President Obama will appear for her in pittsburgh. He will continue to crisscross the country for the ticket until election day. Donald trump returns to butler, pennsylvania, tomorrow, the site of the failed attempt on his life back in july. Former First Lady Melania Trump making headlines. Shes not appeared on the campaign, just briefly at the republican convention. Now shes breaking with her husband and defending Abortion Rights in her upcoming memoir. Trump defending his wifes decision. We spoke about it. I said, you have to write what you believe. Im not going to tell you what to do. You have to write what you believe. We begin with Washington Correspondent yamiche alcindor, following the Harris Campaign in michigan, and dasha burns. Yamiche, todays numbers could be a big win for harris if people can be persuaded the economy is actually improving. Its going gangbusters, according to the economists. Just not hitting the kitchen table. Reporter thats right. Good afternoon. The if in that question, if they can be persuaded the numbers will translate to their lived experience is a big if for the Harris Campaign. Thats why you see her campaigning here in michigan where polls show the race is neck and neck, within the margin of error. What you have seen here really is Vice President harris doing two things. Shes trying to tell people the economy looks good on paper, inflation is down. They really feel good about the way things are looking on paper. Shes said she says it in a number of speeches, she understands americans are hurting and that the numbers on paper might not be translating to their wages, to the cost of gas, the cost of groceries. That is really a big, Big Challenge for her, making people feel good about the economy and getting the vibes in a situation in a place where americans and voters, especially the undecided and Swing Voters see her as best on the economy, because we have over and over again that voters have said that they trust former president Donald Trump more on the economy than Vice President harris. Yamiche, how does Liz Cheneys Appearance help harris in wisconsin and other Battleground States . Reporter its a real question. When you look at the polls, it goes back to what we see in the numbers. Pull up some Gender Gap numbers. Harris is Plus 21 when it comes to women, former President Trump is Plus 12 when it comes to men. Another poll, this is Plus 18 for women for Vice President harris, Plus 14 for men for Donald Trump. You see this Gender Gap that is continuing to show up. When shes doing these events and leaning in on the idea that she will be a president for all americans, thats why you see her sort of trying to convince voters that even while she might have a historic campaign and might be a historic president if elected as a woman and a person of color, a black woman and south asian, theres an idea shes trying to hammer home that voters should feel comfortable putting their faith in her. Im talking to voters, including Men Voters in particular, thinking about yesterday in wisconsin, who have been saying to me not all men but some men that they see themselves in her when she talks about her middle class background, working her way up the system and working hard for everything shes gotten. That message is something she will continue to do over and over again. She tries to close the gap we see in polls in the critical Battleground States. The polls may not be capturing all of it. The polls have always understated Donald Trumps vote. We tried to fix that. Thats what the statisticians do. Its not clear its capturing it. More and more men are saying to me, as i travel, that they dont really have confidence in her. Its a continuing problem when you see this in the labor movement vote. The decision by the firefighters is stunning. They endorsed Joe Biden in 2019. They were the first and always have been for him. The membership was split. They wouldnt let the leadership endorse. Dasha, thats been particularly a problem in pennsylvania. Donald trump returning to butler tomorrow. Add up all the times each of the candidates have been in pennsylvania. This is where he was shot. You were there with your incredible reporting that day. What is the strategy of his going there . Reporter look, the former president says that he wants to come here to fulfill a promise, to fulfill an obligation to finish what he started here. He was a few minutes into his rally, into his speech when those shots rang out. This return, the campaign wants it to be a major moment. They are trying its a long list of speakers, including the family of the man who was shot and killed, the father, the husband, his family will be speaking. Others who were injured, other rallygoers who were there on July 13th will be speaking, first responders. Elon musk has said just this morning that he will be attending. J. D. Vance will be there as well, his running mate. So will several of the people that i met in the aftermath that day that i spoke to. They say this is going to be a big part of the Healing Process for them as they have been traumatized by what they witnessed that day. I will tell you that everything feels different here in terms of security. We cant even get near the rally site. Before i was talking to some of the Merchandise Vendors behind me, they were here last time as well. They said you could walk around pretty freely. You could access the site, see what the setup was like. Thats not the case this time. If you get near security will turn you away. We have seen them putting up a visual blockade, shipping containers. Its a huge difference and more heightened security. The Secret Service told Kelly Odonnell that the former president is receiving the highest level of security. They increased federal resources for this rally with technology, with personnel and they are coordinating with Pennsylvania State police, local law enforcement, emergency management. This is a locked down fortress at this point. What a difference a couple of months make. Of course, that horrible experience. Victoria, lets talk about the timing of Melania Trumps support for Abortion Rights. We never heard this. Its ahead of a new memoir. She will sell a book. Her husband has been struggling on this issue. A big issue, part of the Gender Gap that yamiche was talking about. Trying to kind of i guess you could say gloss over his support for the dobbs decision, his appointment of the Supreme Court Justices by kind of modifying his statements during this campaign, and now she comes out in favor of reproductive rights. It seems rather tactical. You see a general softening in terms of the Gop Stance with this book by Melania Trump, even though shes not a super public figure. She was the former First Lady. Shes the wife of now gop candidate Donald Trump. You have this issue of abortion. Another major issue that comes out in the book, andrea, is the issue of immigration. She was she claims she was able to soften president then trumps approach to family separation, to separating out the kids. As im reading these things, two words come to mind. Compassionate conservative. 1990s, 2000, republican party where there was a social conservatism, a moral conservatism, but that was grounded in a compassion. The timing does make you scratch your head a little. Is this really what she feels in her heart of hearts . Perhaps. You can see how strategically this makes sense given the struggles we saw. Yamiche earlier talking about the Gender Gap. To see if this will move the needle. One last point here is, youve got be a little worried about the base. The base is very antiabortion. Does this make them angry, frustrated . Does it make up for the difference of perhaps moderate women that it attracts . Good point. Although, that base is so loyal that they have been willing to overlook a lot of other things that he has done that are against principles. One thing is that we havent seen her on the campaign at all. She appeared One Day one night at the republican national convention, not with him and the family for the day leading up to it. She hasnt been on the trail. I dont know whether we will see more of her. We will have to report that out. As the campaign progresses in the final four weeks. Amazing, four weeks and a couple of days. Thanks to awful you. Joining us now is texas congresswoman jasmine crocket. Its great to see you again. You led the Campaigns Campaign for reproductive freedom. Does the Harris Campaign welcome any support for Abortion Access wherever it comes from, even from the former First Lady . I think that thats actually been the really kind of scratch your Head Moment that we all are examining right now, trying to figure out, are you trying to play good Cop Bad cop and bring people in to trust Donald Trump . When we think about his spouse, we think about pillow talk. Maybe he will be good on this issue. Let me tell you, theres one thing that i believe that the american people are better at. That is being tricked or fooled. This is Donald Trumps supreme court that literally stripped us of our rights. Considering the fact that he is The One that set us ablaze and set us on fire, i dont anticipate that he is going to be the fireman to actually put this fire out. We dont have to trust what they say. We have to trust what they do. What we know is that Donald Trump has bragged about the overturning of roe. Congresswoman, as a cochair of the campaign, theres criticism from some that Vice President harris is not doing enough interviews. Shes not taking part in interviews. She was willing to do another debate. Donald trump refused so far. Time is running out. She seems to falter in interviews. She did one with stephanie ruhle. She did one with dana bash. She did one with local pittsburgh kdka. Thats three in this entire campaign. Yeah. Honestly, i was one of those that said, i dont care if she doesnt interview at all. I will be honest. Shes running a historic campaign in a historic amount of time. When you are trying to figure out which one you should really take the time to do, i honestly am the type of person that believes in taking your message to the people. When we hear things like people say they dont know her and that stuff, i think they want to interact with her. I think that thats actually where shes her strongest, when shes able to actually be there with the people, feel the energy of the people and the people be able to feel her sincerity and the policy positions shes taking and in her message, trust me. I will take this country forward instead of allowing it to go back. I think that this is just a very different election. I think that shes doing the best that she can with the minimal amount of time she has left. She could do more interviews, local interviews, network interviews. Those get carried on television. Its the same as a rally. Its having the same impact in terms of reaching a lot of people. That said, you are going to have surrogates. You have liz cheney, President Obama will start campaigning. Do you think we will see Michelle Obama . I think theres a good chance that we may see michelle. This isnt any information that i have been given. I dont want anyone to perceive you are breaking news right now. We are a big tent party. We have got a really big bench. I think that we are all Hands On Deck right now. I think thats what you are seeing. Theres surrogates from the house, surrogates from the senate and beyond that are out there campaigning. As you just mentioned, the former president will be out there. I think we all know what he is. I personally believe she will be out there as well. We know this election will come down to every single vote mattering. Its very, very tight. Are you concerned about the Firefighters Union . That has been a key part of the biden constituency, biden base, if you will, the labor movement base. Its the teamsters, its the firefighters. Is there something she can do to reassure the labor unions, Working Class people, men in particular that shes got their back and that she knows their issues . Yeah. Because i havent been in the rooms to understand what the disagreements have been about, its hard for me to say what potentially the Vice President could do to earn their support. I can say that she has a very strong record. A lot of times when we go through elections, we only have the promises that are put out there out front. We know that this is someone who has stood with the pro act versus we know Donald Trump and the vast majority of his minions dont support the pro act. She does have a record. That record is strong on unions. In record fashion, we know that the Teachers Union came out almost immediately when the transition was made. There have been so many other unions. I cant really speak for whats going on with some of these other unions at this moment. I dont know what the disagreement is. Without me being able to assess what the underlying issue is, its hard to say what she can do. I can say that if you are a middle class working person, theres only person in this race who has ever experienced that type of life. The other person was born and given 400 Million and has never had to work to earn an honest penny a day of his life. We know that he got caught up for fraud in New York. We know that he had to file for bankruptcy six times. Theres one person who came from the middle Class Family and has worked her way up. If Theres Anybody you can trust in this fight, if theres one team thats not talking about union busting, its the blue team, the harriswalz team. Let me ask you about your Home State of texas. Theres a hot senate race. You are making gains on the democratic side with allred against ted cruz. They moved that race from leaning ready or likely ready to leaning ready. Thats progress. This could be a key factor in control of the senate. Is there any chance of a Senate Victory in texas . I think theres a chance. Here is the deal. We have been for voting turnout. Ted cruz won by three points. This is a guy that no one likes. Theres plenty of republicans that dislike him. Definitely independents dislike him as well as obviously democrats dislike him. Its a matter of us deciding that we will show up and get to the polls. If we get to the polls, then its Game Over for ted cruz. Its better days in the state of texas. Im encouraging everyone, regardless whether you think we can get this done or not, because i remember in 2008 that i didnt quite believe, but i hoped that we could elect obama. Even if you dont believe, lets go ahead and hope that allred can take out cruz and make sure that we show up to the polls and vote up and down the entire ballot. Again, as you just mentioned, so long as we can get a Vice President harris to become president harris, shes going to need to govern. It starts with having a democratically controlled house and senate. I love the picture behind you. Thank you so much. One of my heroes. In 90 seconds, israel and nations across the middle East Region preparing for the next wave of military engagement, waiting for israel to retaliate against iran. Thats next. We will be right. Andrea mitchell reports in 90 seconds. You are watching msnbc. Are watcc s were in my way. I needed more from my antidepressant. Vraylar helped give it a lift. Adding vraylar to an antidepressant is clinically proven to help relieve overall depression symptoms better than an antidepressant alone. And in vraylar clinical studies, most saw no substantial impact on weight. Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Report unusual changes in behavior or suicidal thoughts. Antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. Report fever, stiff muscles, or confusion, as these may be lifethreatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High Blood Sugar, which can lead to coma or death, weight gain, and high cholesterol may occur. 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The idf releasing this new video of israeli troops in lebanon, a possible indication of a wider offensive thats coming. An israeli Air Strike cut off a key road that thousands of lebanese have been using to escape into syria. More than 1. 2 million lebanese people have been displaced. Joining me now in Northern Israel near the lebanese border is raf sanchez. Raf, theres an exodus from lebanon. The devastation of the israeli attack is in beirut. Is there any indication that they did get another Hezbollah Leader . Nasrallahs successor. Reporter the israeli military is carrying out a battle damage assessment. They are scouring all available intelligence, trying to confirm whether or not they killed the successor. He was nasrallahs cousin. He was a member of hezbollahs executive council, the top decision making body. He was widely presumed to be the next in line if something should happen to nasrallah. We know exactly a week ago, israel dropped americanmade Bunker Buster bombs on nasrallahs complex in southern beirut. Hezbollah had not officially announced a new leader. An israeli official tells me the target of Last Nights strikes was the successor in the anticipation that he would step up and he would become the new leader of the militant group. They say he was meeting with a group of hezbollah others surviving leaders. There arent that many given the top leader and military leadership has been taking out by the Air Strikes. At this point, its not clear whether or not they killed him. We should say, given it appears israel once again used very, very heavy Bunker Buster bombs in a densely populated Civilian Neighborhood where it says hezbollah deliberately put its headquarters, its not clear how many civilians may have been killed. Also, do you have any idea yet of what israels Game Plan is regarding iran . We know theres going to be retaliation. Everyone is waiting for it. The u. S. Has been trying to say it should be proportional and not go after the nuclear program there. There are other targets, including the oil fields. Reporter yeah, theres no shortage of targets in iran. Israel, i think, would struggle to independently carry out a major attack on irans nuclear program given so much of it is in fortified bunkers, under mountains. Theres a longstanding feeling among military Analysts Israel would need help from the united states to carry out an attack like that. The possibility of targeting military bases, targeting oil infrastructure. Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Military Intelligence chiefs. It may be that they have made the decision and its just a question of carrying it out. Certainly they have the u. S. Agrees its expected. It will be bigger than what they did in april, even if they go after the same sites. It would be a much bigger strike of the barrage of 180 to 200 ballistic missiles, whatever number, that they actually defended against successfully. Raf sanchez, thank you very much. Joining us now is the president of the Council On Foreign Relations and the former u. S. Trade representative. Thank you so much. Its good to see you. Thanks for having me. This is a fraught time in the region. There are economic implications as well. The Persian Gulf neighbors are nervous but would not mind if iran was seriously defeated, very frankly. Netanyahu, according to a lot of reporting, and some of my conversations with officials there and elsewhere in the region, he sees an opportunity here. He believes very strongly that iran is the head of this axis with all of their proxies that were determined to destroy israel, to eliminate israel entirely, according to israeli officials who talked to us last week in New York at the u. N. , by 2040. They had a time line, and that the attacks from hezbollah were about to become that. Hamas jumped the Gun On Hezbollah and its allies on october 7th, a year ago. They feel justified and theres a window here in our election calendar. Its a fraught time, as you said. Hezbollah has always been irans second strike capability. They wanted hezbollah to be there and be strong and threatening israel so that if israel did attack and their nuclear sites, they could retaliate. They see hezbollah degraded. The political and military leadership eliminated. A lot of the military capabilities also degraded. In iran, it may be pushing them to the decision they need to cross over into the nuclear threshold because they no longer have the second strike capability. On the other hand, as you said, thats The One Thing Israel said they will not permit is for iran to get a nuclear weapon. Not just israel but the united states and others have said the same. Its a fraud time. We dont know yet as your reporter said what netanyahu intends to do in terms of retaliation. This could escalate very quickly. Interestingly, the u. S. Does not know. Its proved they have little leverage in terms of the ceasefire in gaza, more humanitarian aid getting into gaza, the timing of what happened with hezbollah, the pagers they didnt know. They didnt know about the Haniyeh Assassination in advance or the nasrallah assassination. The u. S. Is not calling the shots here. Theres deference for them to figure out whats in their security. The president doesnt want the nuclear sites attacked. There was discussion, including as recently as Last Night, about whether oil infrastructure, refineries, Export Terminals might be on the list as well as military targets. What if there is a hit on the Oil Strikes or some really large hit on iran which then theres a tit for tat, they go back and forth and you are in a regional war . That could affect the Red Sea with the houthis. We have a lot of forces there. We have been taking american citizens out by charter. You are talking about big implications. What do you see in the oil markets, for instance . The prices going up with the war talk. Experts are telling me that theres so much Over Capacity in the Oil Supply and that the saudis and the u. S. Could quickly Ramp Up Production. Oil is up this week, almost 10 . Whats remarkable is with all the tension in The Middle East over the last year, that oil is only 75 a barrel or so. As you said, the excess capacity in Saudi Arabia and the united states and elsewhere, plus the reduced demand, particularly in china where the economy has slowed, is affecting the overall macroeconomic environment. I want to talk about your article. You talk about the challenges to whoever is elected the next president. You have divergent economic proposals from the two candidates. You warn the biden administration embraced a range of things. The next president are going to need to develop a more systematic approach. Theres not a real integration in all of these different tools. Thats right. The biden administration has been targeted. They focused on key technologies in order to both reduce their export to china chips. The most advanced chips. To restrain foreign investment into our country and outward foreign investment. What would the next administration do . Having opened the pandoras box, does this become an excuse for broader protectionism . Are we trying to prevent china from getting the materials to compete military or strengthen their Intelligence Capability or to compete with us in general . Those lead to different restrictions. All of these may make sense. Theres a tradeoff involved. One thing that the next president will have to do is address the issue of, we want to reduce our dependence on china and we dont want a high cost of living. The things we do to reduce the dependence on china will raise the cost of products. Thats a tradeoff. What about the Trump Proposal which relies on tariffs and says this is a Revenue Raiser rather than a tax on american consumers . A 60 tariff on anything from china and 20 tariff on the rest of our imports, including from partners and allies around the world. That would be disruptive. It would cost the Average American family at least 2,600. Its a tax on the american family. Despite what the former president says, its ultimately the consumer or the importer, the manufacturer who needs that input in order to be competitive in the market, thats ultimately paying the cost. There may be cases where tariffs might be appropriate. We should make sure we do it cleareyed with what the costs will be. What a pleasure to have you here. Good to see you. Next, we will bring you the key takeaways from todays better than expected Jobs Report a month away from the election. 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The Unemployment Rate ticked down to 4. 1 . Of note, hiring gains for july and august were revised up by 72,000 jobs. Joining us now is former congressional Budget Office Director former chief economist, douglas vulsekan. Welcome. Good to see you. You bring good news for the economy. This is a good Jobs Report. No question. How about hourly wages . Hourly wages are rising at a 4. 5 rate. Thats down from last month. Its a sustainable number. Not a cause of concern at the fed. This is a report thats solid, especially because of the revisions you mentioned, past months getting revised up. Is it inflationary . Does the fed have to worry they do a quarter, not 50 in november . I think this is a good News Report for the fed. The concern has been that the economy is weakening too quickly. That doesnt seem to be the case. The wages arent going to make inflation go up. We have seen inflation go down. The test is next week, another inflation reading. Does it continue to moderate . Whats going to happen with The Middle East, which is the great unknown in terms of that escalating. We have had horrific news in The Middle East. The hurricane. The Port Strike is now temporarily off the table. Three big concerns have arisen recently. We got one of them off the table. The hurricane, by the way, its billions in terms of reconstruction. Is that a wash for the economy . You have lost so much jobs, people, buildings. Businesses wiped out. It will do three things. Number one, it destroyed a lot of wealth, peoples homes are gone, businesses are destroyed. Theres some activity that comes from rebuilding and people who are in that activity get paid. Thats a strength for the economy. It makes it really hard to figure out whats going on. This Jobs Report looks like a lot of recent Jobs Reports. Next month is hard to read because this hurricane is going to disrupt all of the surveys. Were not going to know how the economy is doing. What about the political impact . You have Donald Trump campaigning every day saying that Kamala Harris is destroying the economy . The economy is doing well, according to the statisticians. People still say, im paying more at the grocery store. The usual reasoning is that people make up their mind about the Economy Something like three to six months out. That is done. Theres not much you will do to change peoples perceptions of the economy. If they are upset, they will continue to be. As you know, there are seven Swing Voters left in america. What arguments move them, they are working like mad to find out. Door to Door To find those seven people. The dockworkers, thats really a great its great news for the White House that they got this pushed back. First of all, they agreed tentatively on a wage number. They have other things to settle. They pushed the deadline back to january. This is great news for the White House. They dont have bad economic news prior to the election. They get a win for supporting the union prior to the election. This is a good day for them. Its not a resolution of what is the big fight, automation and what jobs will be available. That comes in january. Stay tuned. Places like baltimore, which had been hurt by the key bridge collapse, when this started just a couple days ago, Governor Moore was saying, our community cannot take this. We have come back quickly, that bridge was rebuilt, they are back in business. For the economy, a week of interruption turns into six weeks of delays is the rough estimate. To have this resolved quickly takes a big snarl in the Holiday Shopping Season off the table. Thats good news for the Average American. Its great news to have you here. Thank you very much. Thank you. As The Middle East braces for another Potential Wave of violence, how wide could the conflict get . I will talk about that with former nato Supreme Allied Commander james stavridis. 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Joining me now, james stavridis. Congratulations on the book. Cant wait to read it. You write in bloomberg the potential for a wider r conflic hasnt been larger than right now. I think we have very limited influence at this point, unfortunately. You see that the biden administration has tried so hard. I give them credit to try to get to a ceasefire in gaza, to try to encourage another ceasefire with hezbollah, to try and encourage the israelis to take another measured response. I just dont see that happening at this point. Israel is going to hit back and hit back hard. Then the ball will be in the iranian court to see if this thing does turn into a wider war. Its very worrisome. Iran says they will retaliate. Then you have tit for tat. By definition, you could end up in a wider war. Do we know what netanyahus End Game is . Is it to take out im not sure they they could not take out the nuclear program without u. S. Help, which the u. S. Has said is not forthcoming. But they can ding it. They can do things to slow them down. In terms of attacking some of the sites, even if they dont get the underground fortresses. Your analysis is spot on. I think theres three big potential targets here. One, the nuclear sites. The problem with that is, very hard targets. 25 locations. Scattered across iran, which by the way, is three times the size of texas. Number two set of targets would be the military industrial complex. Here i would go particularly after the ballistic Missile Production facilities. That would be quite proportional to the attack that they received from iranian ballistic missiles. Number three, the energy facilities. Go at the economic heart of iran. I think thats the conversation occurring in jerusalem right now. Nobody knows which way prime Minister Netanyahu will ultimately decide. But i think its quite clear this is not going to be a Light Tap on the brakes to iran. It will be a significant strike. I would bet on him going after the military industrial complex. Cant rule out an attempt at the nuclear or at the energy. If it is the energy sector, as we were just discussing earlier here, theres a lot of Over Capacity right now in energy. The u. S. And saudis are prepared to Ramp Up Production if they need to. But it still is destabilizing. Is the u. S. Military prepared to protect and perhaps escort ships . Thats the key question. There is plenty of additional capacity to make up for whatever gets taken off the table by strikes against the iranians. The worry is that iran would then turn around and try to close the strait. They do that with mines, with small boats, with cruise missiles, potentially use submarines, particularly in the deep water at the far end of the strait. They have options. Could we stop them . Ultimately, yes. But it would drag the united states and our allies directly into confrontation with iran. Lets hope we dont end up going there. Final thought, we had this exact scenario in the 1980s when young Lieutenant Commander Stavridis was on a navy cruiser. The iranians know that waters well. It they tried to close them, there goes 35 of the worlds oil. I dont care how much Over Capacity there is in the system. Oil prices will go well above 100 a barrel at that stage. One top official here told me Last Night that President Biden is basically in a political straight jacket at this point in the campaign, not being the candidate and not having leverage with netanyahu and not really being able to put pressure on israel. I think thats unfortunately a fair point to be made. What he does have is some pretty good lieutenants out there, if you will. Secretary of state antony blinken, director of the director of the see yeah bill burns, Lloyd Austin at the pentagon. Hes got some strong players in those cabinet posts. Hell deploy them. At the start not a lot of real direct influence the u. S. Can bring to bear here. Admiral stavridis, thank you very much, and congratulations on the book. Thanks. Next, well head to North Carolina, where thousands of residents are still sorting through the devastation caused by helene one week ago. Youre watching Andrea Mitchell reports on msnbc. Reports on msnbc. Help Fuel Today with boost high protein, complete nutrition you need, and the flavor you love. So, heres to now. Now available boost max dry. Tired. Itchy, burning. My dry eye symptoms got worse over time. My Eye Doctor explained the root was inflammation. Xiidra was made for that, so relief is lasting. Xiidra treats the signs and symptoms of dry eye disease. Dont use if allergic to xiidra and seek medical help if needed. Common Side Effects include eye irritation, discomfort, blurred vision, and unusual taste sensation. Dont touch Container Tip to your eye or any surface. Before using xiidra, Remove Contact Lenses and wait fifteen minutes before reinserting. Dry eye over and over . Its time for xiidra. 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More than half of the deaths have been in North Carolina alone. More than 700,000 customers across the south are still without power, many of them isolated. Joining us is correspondent sam brock. The threat of the Flood Water is gone, but theres a lot of danger remaining. Reporter so much danger. I had to put this Ear Piece in closer to hear whats going on because you can obviously listen to the sounds of helicopters over me right now. I Cant Answer how important the cellular Communication Or Lack thereof is. Ive had countless people unable to reach loved ones. This has been going on for days today. As far as communications, you would not be hearing from me, i couldnt hear you if we didnt have a starlink. This is effectively a dead zone in that sense for cellular connectivity. There are homes wedged into the mud. You have crews helping clean up debris, insurance adjusters going and talking to businesses. One of the realities on the ground is none of the homes or businesses have Flood Insurance. One woman said to me why would we be required to have Flood Insurance . And yesterday now this Hellacious Situation has unfolded. I saw private Supply Planes taking off to get critical Food And Water to people in the mountains. Where i am right now, this is accessible by road. But so many areas thats not the reality. There are crews in front of me taking contaminated meat out of their business to make sure it doesnt have any sort of issues from its immediate environment. Health officials came out and said the river water, you should treat it as an active hazmat situation. We have heard some groups are having to wash their children and themselves in river water. That is incredibly dangerous. Officials are urging people not to do that, one of the many communicative issues unfolding in trying to get information out to the general public. Thank you so much for Everything Youve done all week there and continue to do and to our teams. That does it for this edition of Andrea Mitchell reports. Rewatch the best parts of our show any time on youtube. Ill see you on Meet The Press with kristen welker. Chris jansing reports starts after a short break. S starts after a short break. Citis industry leading global payments solutions help their clients move money around the world seamlessly in over 180 countries. And help a partner like the World Food Programme as they provide more than food to people in need. Together, citi and the World Food Programme empower families across the globe. Empower families across the globe. Like a relentless weed, moderate to severe Ulcerative Colitis symptoms can keep coming back. Start to break away from uc with tremfya. With rapid relief at 4 weeks. Tremfya blocks a key source of inflammation. At one year, many people experienced remission. 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