menendez. we begin with heavy bombing underway right now as israel announces a new phase in its war against hamas. the past 24 hours, israeli forces have intensified ground attacks inside the gaza strip, and increased the already constant airstrikes. nbc news crew member in gaza says the situation is growing desperate for civilians, quote, no water, no food, no medicine, no fuel, no electricity, and the bombing does not stop. the palestinian health ministry reports more than 7500 people have died in gaza, 1400 have been killed in israel. protesters around the world today calling for a humanitarian cease-fire. it s real s prime minister, netanyahu, dismissing the criticism, and predicting a long war ahead. there are moments in which a nation faces two options. to exist or to seize. right now, this is the kind of test we are facing, i have no doubt how it will end. we will come out triumphant. we ve eradicated the infrastructure of terrorism, and it s only the beginning of th
that was not just something that was planned, it was planned after republicans got the speaker s gavel. neil: i m curious what you make of this trip on part of the president now to philadelphia, that s the kickoff to his campaign. he announced, i think more than 53 days ago and now going to philadelphia this early endorsement of the afl-cio, a fox alert, that they re backing a democratic candidate. they have resources and a lot of money and they did the last go round and the go round before that. what do you make of that. getting an endorsement for a democrat as you mentioned, neil, from the afl-cio executives, that s not hard. getting the support of a good overwhelming majority of their rank and file, that s what democrats have to worry about. that s where republicans and in particular former president trump has attracted a lot of blue collar votes. that s where unions have to be
face reporter: look, ana, when george santos ran last time, he had basically everything possible break in his favor. he was largely unknown, running for an open seat, got almost no scrutiny from the national or even local media, and he was able to raise some money as kind of an unknown figure running in a good republican year basically all of that will be different this time around he s going to have a huge political target on his back, both in a republican primary and if he should survive that, in a general election he doesn t have the support of the new york republican party. he doesn t have the support of the speaker whom he tied himself to during that long fight for the speaker s gavel, kevin mccarthy asked about santos last night and only laughed and his biggest problem may be fund-raising he s raised only about $5,000 so far this year, and he s used most of that to pay back donors from his last campaign, who wanted refunds after all these various scandals started to break. so,
historic 15-ballot fight for the speaker s gavel. was this a move that mccarthy was forced in the making? i think this is one of the one that he wasn t forced. he was happy to do it, but it was part of that conversation with those folks on getting the deal. this is something that mccarthy and other republicans talked about during the first two years of the administration talking about wanting to look into their eyes the weaponization of the federal government. so this is something across the political spectrum of the republican a party they have been in on for a long time. i will say if someone covering the white house, their view of this and these kinds of investigations that they know are coming is they are going to pick and choose how to engage with these investigations. . they continue to tell me and i m sure they are going to age on
up next, relief for your family budget. inflation is easing and the president wants some of the credit. plus, the price of winning the speaker s gavel. freedom caucus members get top committee roles as we learn more and more about what kevin mccarthy traded for the final votes. wayfair has deals so big