friends. it is wednesday, december 27th, i m willie geist. joe and mika have the morning off. a lot to get to including israeli forces shifting military efforts to southern and central gaza with officials warning the war could take many more months. and hours from now, antony blinken and alejandro mayor kas are set to meet with mexican president obrador. plus donald trump continues to claim he should be immune from any prosecution surrounding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. we ll have the latest there. also ahead, bus drivers across the country increasingly under attack on the job. we ll dig into an alarming trend and what officials are doing about it. with us this morning, jonathan lemire, susan paige, and retired four star navy admiral james stavridis. good morning to you all. let s begin together with israel expanding the ground invasion in gaza. this as the united states continues to urge israel to protect civilian lives and shift to a more low intensity oper
to keep donald trump off the ballot in 2024, and overseas israel s expanding its ground offensive into refugee camps in central gaza in what it calls, quote, a new battle zone. the government there saying the war against hamas will go on, for, quote, many months. secretary of state tony blinken, and other top biden officials, set to meet with mexico s president in the next couple hours for critical talks about the border crisis happening as a caravan with a reported 8,000 migrants heading towards the u.s. border. hey, everybody, good morning to you, we re going to begin with the latest developments in the israel-hamas war. israeli defense forces saying they have expanded their war effort into central gaza where several refugee camps are located. it is the same area where just earlier this week 70 people were killed in the strike on a refugee camp, the announcement coming with no clear end in sight for the war, israel s army chief saying their operations could last for mo
number of migrants putting a strain on both their governments. what can they get done? we ll have the latest coming up. we re going to start in the middle east where israel says it is battling enemies in gaza, in the west bank. lebanon, syria, iraq, yemen, and iran simultaneously. the heaviest fighting is happening in central gaza right now where israel says refugee camps are now considered a new battle zone. the u.n. says bombings there have killed at least 100 palestinians since christmas, and despite evacuation orders there is, quotes, no safe place for gaza residents to go. jay gray is live in tel aviv. jay, give us the very latest on the intensity of fighting happening now. reporter: yeah, it s very intense right now. in fact, some humanitarian agencies saying this is the most violent and deadly fighting we ve seen since the beginning of the ground invasion into gaza. we know that the idf is working, as you talked about, in these refugee camps, in central gaza just o
voted to award the gold medals, the highest honor they can give to the departments that saved their lives in many cases on january 6th. the delay in the process is logistical as it takes a while. now we are near the end of the democratic control in the house in particular, it felt like the time was now to get this done. on the senate side, the gold medal was approved unanimously, but there were 21 republicans that voted against the gold medals for various reasons, and it was a democratic move towards the medals, and there were two republicans speaking on behalf of all republicans in gratitude to the officers. as the ceremony is going on,