a camp in rafah leaves dozens dead. breaking moments ago, israel s prime minister now calls that strike quote a tragic mistake. then later, a bipartisan group of lawmakers now putting china on notice while in taiwan meeting with their new president. so a lot to get to today and we begin with that breaking news right now. 21 people are dead. that s a higher number than we had just an hour ago and nearly 600,000 homes are without power across 11 states. 71 million people are still under severe storm risk from alabama to new york. eight of the deaths were in arkansas alone where hard hit neighborhoods now look like war zones, streets littered with debris. winds so powerful, they ripped off the front half of this dollar general store. in kentucky, take a look at this massive twister that touched down in edlyville, two hours west of bowling green. governor bashir said one tornado was on the ground for at least 40 miles. in missouri, 20 minutes outside of st. louis, golf ball siz
Good evening from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 557 of the Trump Administration, 99 days now until the mid term elections. And this might go down as the day we witnessed a change resulting in the new defense strategy. It is about something Rudy Giuliani has started to say. In the days after the president ial election Donald Trumps advisers had a message about contacts between russians and members of the campaign team. In the ensuing months as numerous such communications were revealed the message changed. There was no collusion with russias effort to disrupt the election. On monday President Trumps lawyer Rudy Giuliani presented a third line of defense, even if mr. Trump did collude with the russians he committed no crime. My client didnt do it. Even if he did it it is not a
crime. Hacking is the crime. The president didnt hack. He didnt pay for the hacking he said on cnn. The article goes on. It is just a word choice, said a Criminal Law Professor at georgetown. Im s
A recap of the days news. Its the idea that in the Republican Coalition right now it is a cult of personalty around trump, and that ad is a perfect example of it. Its i am trump. I am trump. I am with them. And theres it is the only strategy. You cannot win a republican primary in this country right now without siding with trump. This is access is reporting tonight that trumps power over politics and republicans is growing. They say his sway often flows from fear. He is a powerful hold on supporters minds. Hes refined the social issues that animate the Republican Base and plucks candidates from obscurity and turns them into household names. How do you describe this president s control over understanding the understanding of his base . Well, i think its an addition and subtraction game. Hes adding to the republican
say that so i wont. And im very proud to report that new core is going to build a brand new 240 million steel mill. Thats a big one right here in florida. So that we fact che
You dont believe that to be the case . We acknowledge the threat, it is real, it is continuing. And were doing everything we can to have a legitimate election. If you dont catch a hacker, okay, in the act, it is very hard to say who did the hacking. With that being said, ill go along with russia. Could have been china, could have been a lot of different groups. Make no mistake, the scope of this foreign influence threat is broad and deep. Ive seen it described as two administrations. John mclaughlin says were seeing orwellian. You have senior advisers saying over and over again as you heard there. And then you have the president saying something entirely different. What do you make of it and what is the lasting effect of that . One thing that we didnt see in that clip is even john bolton said that the president supports our efforts and top priority. Exactly. But that is not true because the
of law, but court of public opinion. And he is really good at that about tapping into his base.
they re filing subpoena after subpoena because that is more evidence that this is a document heavy case, that they re looking into tax fraud and into other uses of former president trump s business in ways that may have violated the law. so then you just want to know, okay, what are those subpoenas producing? yeah. what do you think of the significance, if any, of these trump family members and executives speaking out now? i mean, i think that that cornell is right. this is a political move that you make to stir up your base. you re going on fox news. you re saying to people, there is nothing to see here. we have done nothing wrong. this is a witch hunt. and it is a tactic that president trump used over and over again in office. and i absolutely could see why it would be politically attractive to the trump family to continue casting themselves in this light in front of their audience. it s also interesting that even though there was some criticism of fox from president trump at