pathway toward peace. thank you very much. i appreciate you coming on, as always. that is going to do it for me today. "deadline white house" starts right now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york on a very busy day of breaking and developing news here in america, and of course overseas with a volatile situation in israel and gaza. israeli forces are amassing for a possible ground invasion, while communities in israel continue to come under rocket fire from hamas, even forcing u.s. secretary of state blinken to shelter in place during his visit to israel. on the other side of the border, in gaza, nearly 200 people kidnapped during last saturday's terror attack inside israel are currently being held hostage by hamas, and a dire humanitarian crisis is unfolding. we'll get to all of it coming up in this broadcast. we begin with a story that we have been following very, very closely on this program. one of the significant consequences for our democracy and the rule of law in america, and one that will go a long way toward answering questions about whether every criminal defendant in america is treated the same way. earlier today, federal judge tanya chutkan imposed a partial gag order on the ex-president in the federal election interference case. donald trump has been restricted from making statements about potential witnesses andheir testimony in the case, prosecutors and court sta. "the new york times" reports this about the judge's comments, quote, trump's freedom of speech rights do not permit him to launch a pre-trial smear campaign against those people, said the judge. quote, no other defendant would be allowed to do so, and i'm not going to allow it in this case. donald trump is still allowed to attack the biden administration and the justice department and he is still allowed to make comments about washington, d.c. and its residents, who, of course, make up the jury pool for the trial. they describe it as nuanced and limited, saying she appeared to be attempting to thread the needle on rights to trump's rights to freedom of speech and her duty to protect the proceedings in front of her. the judge appeared not to buy the argument that a gag order would be a violation of the ex-president's right to free speech. the judge laughed after the lawyer argued the current conditions are working, saying she disagreed before she went throh some of trump's staten one by 1. she said he does not have unfettered rights and the court is allowed to draw restrictions to ensure the fair administration of justice. "the new york times" reports, quote, the judge did not immediately dress how she will enforce her gag order. she merely said she would assess any consequences for trump if and when he violates it. the ex-president of the united states, under a limited gag order in the federal case, his campaign to overturn democracy and the results of the 2020 election is where we begin with some of our favorite reporters and friends. former assistant u.s. attorney glenn kirsch ner is here and nyu law professor, and former top official of the department of justice, our friend andrew weissmann is back. glenn, you were there. take us inside. >> yeah, it was fairly intense, it was a pretty heated discussion, particularly by donald trump's criminal defense attorney, who took the lead arguing for donald trump, and at times it got pretty animated. he kept saying the quiet part out loud. he said a couple of times, the way to avoid all of these problems, judge, and in fact, the only solution, is to push this trial until after the november 2024 presidential election, and i think that is when judge chutkan herself got most animated, and she said, and i quote, this trial will not yield to an election cycle and we will not revisit the trial date. so she gave him a full hearing, let him say anything he wanted, often she observed that you seem to be speaking to an audience other than the court. the signal was pretty clear that he was saying, at least at times, what his client wanted him to say. he honestly did sound like an assistant campaign chairman much of the time. but, you know, it seems that judge chutkan was determined not to let donald trump continue to endanger witnesses, the court staff, or the prosecutors or their attorneys and their staff. so she imposed a somewhat limited gag order that she did. >> andrew weissmann, you know as well as anyone how we struggle mightily with reporting on trump's statements without amplifying them. i think in this instance it's important to understand what he's telegraphing to his supporters, and what he said, i think, hours before the gag order was imposed. i'm going to paraphrase, because there are nonsensical things in between. you'll get the spirit of it. tomorrow is a big day for democracy, a leaking, crooked and deranged prosecutor, jack smith, who has a terrible record of failure, is asking a highly partisan obama-appointed judge, chutkan, who should recuse herself based on the horrible things she has said to silence me through the use of a gag order, making it impossible for me to criticize those doing the silencing, namely crooked joe biden and the weaponized doj and fbi. he goes on and on. i'll stop there. the point is, you see how critical smearing and annihilating the credibility of the doj, the fbi, judge chutkan and everyone involved is to his political strategy. it seems that, instead of being intimidated, the judge nodded to that and said i will not be bullied into something that endangers the rule of law. is that the right read? >> i think it is. but i would give sort of two notes or sort of footnotes to that. one is, i thought it was striking that the government up front conceded that there was absolutely nothing they were asking for that would restrict donald trump from criticizing the current sitting president, saying that is not -- he's not a party to this. you can say any and all things to try and draw the sting out of that particular argument that donald trump is making, that somehow this is joe biden saying he doesn't want to be criticized. that was something that the government up front said that is not what they're seeking. he can continue to say anything he wants, and, in fact, the judge then said that she is not going to bar that. the second thing is, if you remember, the government's motion here was tailored to trying to protect the jury pool. it was about protecting the information flow to the jury. that's not really how the judge ended up ruling. the judge ended up saying, i understand that, but i can deal with that issue when we pick a jury. what i'm concerned about is violence. and so the line that she drew was, you can attack institutions, you can attack doj, you can attack the institution of the executive branch, the white house, joe biden himself, but you cannot attack prosecutors and their families, judges and their families, the judge's staff, jurors and witnesses. so she was very, very concerned about something that i think she's looking at what happened in new york, she said she was looking at that, and she's concerned about trying to forestall the problem of violence being taken in response to the former president's words. and so that's why you see this differentiation in her ruling as to what's allowed and what's not allowed. >> melissa, we should also keep in mind that one woman has been arrested already for threatening the life of judge tanya chutkan. this is from "the new york times" profile about her this weekend, quote, so far she has treated trump like any other defendant and has indicated to colleagues that she will approach the trial as she would any criminal ocding, even in the midst of a history-making case against a former president, she continue to say take on more routine cases and has not requested a production in her docket. but there are differences, because of threats to her life from trump supporters, judge chutkan no longer rides theive miles by bicycle from her house to the federal courthouse in washington. instead, she jogs with u.s. marshals on different routes and then they drive her to work. for someone who is not very sentimental, my sister is surprisingly patriotic. quote, we come from a country that has a precarious relationship wh democracy than america and it gives her a reverence for democratic institutions. when the curtain is pulled back on all the people who have touched any effort to uphold our institutions, and i'm thinking of ruby freeman, i'm thinking of judge chutkan, fani willis, the da in new york, everyone's life changes, right? this may seem minor, and of course it is. it's her daily workout change. but no one can be part of the effort to hold donald trump accountable under the rule of law the way any of the four of us would be, without risking threat to their life. >> yeah, that's exactly right. and the threat to judge chutkan was not minor. someone threatened to kill her if donald trump was not elected in 2024, and we know from recent history these threats on the lives of members of the federal judiciary can sometimes come to really serious consequences. the judge in new jersey saw her son killed and husband injured because someone was taking aim at her, and the same person had a dossier as well. these threats are taken seriously because they can be consequential. i'll note the individuals named, fani willis, judge chutkan, ruby freeman and shay moss, they're black woman. and not to say that there's anything particular about that, but they can be a lightning rod for some of the ire that donald trump's diehard supporters like to direct at those who they believe are targeting him unfairly. she took a hard line to try to balance the equities on both sides, the fact that there are first amendment concerns, this is someone who is in a presidential campaign, but the public safety and the rule of law and this process are also at stake. >> melissa, let me follow up with you, again, with the intent -- not with the intent to amplify but stay with the latest. donald trump in iowa said a little bit ago, quote, we'll appeal it and we'll see, but it's so unconstitutional. he does plan to appeal. what do you see is the legal trajectory for today's ruling? >> again, it's really important to underscore that although gag orders are common in criminal trials, this one is somewhat unusual because we don't often have defendants who are also running for president of the united states. so this is, in some way, unprecedented, uncharted in many ways. it is likely to be appealed. this is a very litigious defendant. it may go up to the supreme court. again, the first amendment is not an unfettered freedom. there are limits on first amendment rights and you can't just say anything, you can't just do anything. there are limits. even to rights that are protected under the constitution. the interest in public safety and securing the safety of these individuals who are vital to the administration of justice i think would weigh quite heavily. who knows what the supreme court would do. i think there are strong equities to be made on the side of judge chutkan here. >> andrew, let me come back to one of the things this is also about. it is also about something that trump does as often as some of the rest of us, breathe, and that's witness tampering. i wanted to share with you what the judge said about trump and mike pence. chutkan said trump could make statements about one of his republican rivals, mike pence, but could not speak about his role in the case. so trump this month, on his media platform, went on and on about pence, saying he made up stories about me which are false, i never said for him to put me before the constitution. again, trump never talked about the constitution as much as a president, only as a criminal defendant. just talk about what she's trying to protect in terms of the witnesses. >> i think it's really clear that she is trying to protect witness intimidation. i think that the concern, just generally speaking, and people knowing that his view is that they're liars and that he's being framed, et cetera, that's, i think, less a concern as you see in the transcript of today's hearing. i think it's much more about making sure that there is not some lone wolf who is inspired by this rhetoric and takes action in the way that melissa talked about with respect to judges and their families. judges tend to be incredibly solicitous about witnesses and jurors in particular, to make sure that they are not in any way intimidated. when she came out after hearing everyone on both sides, that was clearly something that was paramount to her, and i think that's why you're seeing that. she rejected the argument that was made by mr. trump's defense counsel that these people have a thick skin and they chose to be part of his administration, and so they had it coming. she rejected that, and i think she wanted to take steps, because like any judge, you do not want to have violence occur and think there is something more that could have been done. i do expect, by the way, that this will be appealed. the way the law works is if donald trump doesn't appeal this now, it's now law of the case. and if you were to violate it, it's too late for him to then say it's unconstitutional. so this really is something that, if he wants to appeal it, he has to do it now and not late. so i do expect there will be more to come. but just one note on that, which is if part of the ground is that you are concerned about threatening the family members of judges and prosecutors and the staff of judges, that's a bad record for donald trump to be going up on appeal. >> your restraint is impressive. it's insane. donald trump had a lawyer who argued in a courtroom that he should be allowed to threaten and intimidate and harass the family members of employees of a judge. and because we have to cover events on earth, too, i feel like sometimes it's hard to just talk about how insane it is. glenn, this is the current threat level we're living under in this country, and i believe this bulletin predates the commencing of what's happening in the middle east and the terror attack last sunday. but thiishat it says, quote, in the coming months, factors that could mobilize individuals to commit violence include their perceptions of the 2024 general election cycle and legislative or judicial decisions pertaining to sociopolitical issues. the perceptions of 2024 are revealed, i guess, in the death wish that the one woman who was arrested in texas had more judge chutkan herself. as melissa said, if trump doesn't win in 2024, she's going to kill her. we're already there that the rhetoric and the law enforcement's belief about where the threat exists is from people who adhere to an ideology that says that perceptions of the 2024 general election cycle intersects with domestic violent extremism. what is the actual prospect for succeeding in gagging the rhetoric that fans the flames of domestic violent extremism? >> well, we took a first big step today nicolle, in judge chutkan trying to strike the right balance. i think she did. i think she could have gone further than she went. now the question will be when, not if, donald trump violates the conditions that were just set for him, what does she do. now, she discussed today the full panoply of options, they discussed home detention, contempt, and revocation on release, actually putting donald trump in a jail cell pending trial. the judge said something at the end, which i was heartened to hear, she said if there are violations that come to me or that i see, in other words, usually when a defendant violates a condition of pretrial release, the prosecutors will file what's called a motion to show cause, asking the judge to bring the defendant in and have him show cause why he shouldn't be sanctioned up to and including detained pending trial. but she added that she may do it with a fancy word for on my own. it sounds like the judge will actively sort of police donald trump to see if there's anything that comes to her attention, the court's attention, that could represent a violation of her order. so i think we're going to see more on this front sooner rather than later once donald trump tests judge chutkan's resolve. >> there's a lot of things going on, but i really appreciate the three of you having this conversation with us. it feels like the stakes couldn't be any higher. thank you so much for starting us off on this today. when we come back, we'll turn to the unfolding crisis in the middle east. we'll have a live report from the israel/gaza border where israeli forces have been positioned for a possible ground invasion. just as the struggle continues to allow both emergency aid into gaza and for foreigners to safely leave. plus, president joe biden on how to rid the world of hamas, while protecting the palestinian people. top level administration officials remain in the region today. later, much more on tragic real world consequences of the war, investigating a hate crime after a 6-year-old palestinian child was killed by a man who authorities say was motivated by the fighting in the middle east, right here in our country. all those stories and more when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. tourists photographing thousands of miles of remote coral reefs. that can be analyzed by ai in real time. ♪ so researchers can identify which areas are at risk. and help life underwater flourish. ♪ (all) ♪ toooo youuuuu! ♪ (sean) i wish for the amazing new iphone 15 pro!h. 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(vo) it's your last chance to trade in any iphone for a new iphone 15 pro on us. only on verizon. here's why you should switch from chrome to duckduckgo. duckduckgo is a browser you download to your mobile and desktop devices. unlike chrome, the duckduckgo browser has privacy built-in. it comes with a private alternative to google search, which doesn■t spy on your searches, and it blocks cookies and creepy ads. and there's no catch. it's free. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you around. join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on mobile and desktop today. my grandmother is sharp-minded, she gets the situation. but, you know, she's looking in the eyes and saying you can kidnap me, but you won't humiliate me and take my pride, and you won't see me hurt. she sits there and she looks in their eyes, hoping they will see she's a person. >> a portrait of what was done last saturday in israel in this terrorist attack only becomes more grim and bleak and heartbreaking. she was on msnbc earlier today talking about her grandmother, who was kidnapped by hamas. it has been nine days since israel woke up to the deadliest slaughter of jewish people since the holocaust. now the entire region has been transformed in the wake of that terror attack. at this hour we are following israel and hamas on the brink of a full-scale war, an increasingly dire hostage situation inside gaza, and a ballooning humanitarian crisis for thennocent civilians caught in the cross fire. israel says that 199 people are believed to be held hostage by hamas inside gaza. that number has only gone up as the days have gone by. men, women and children of multiple nationalities now in the midst of the world's most complicated hostage crisis in recent memory. just across the border in gaza, a desperate humanitarian crisis, more than 2,800 dead and more than a million people with dwindling supplies of food, fuel and medicine. palestinian authorities say water can't be distributed because there's no electricity to pump it. the only way out, crossing into egypt, which is, at the moment, closed. our colleague, richard engel, spoke to an american trying to get out. >> we don't have water, we don't have light, we don't have nothing. i have to go to doctor. i don't feel good. i don't sleep. when i close my eyes, i see a lot of bombs, i see houses down. it's not fair. it's not fair. >> let's bring in nbc news correspondent ellison barber in the border area. we spoke yesterday, and i'm still so moved and haunted by your reporting. just take me inside what you've seen today. >> reporter: nicolle, we have talked amongst each other, our team here, we've been in this area for days now. but the last two, three days, when it gets into the late night hours, we've all described it as eerily quiet, we've seen military getting into some sort of formation early this morning, local time, right before the sun rose at 5:00 a.m. local time, pointed in the direction of gaza, but then no big movement after that. you may be able a hear some sort of military aircraft in the air overhead of us, we often hear drones circling by this area, but there has not been so far anything to indicate the next phase of this war. but we do know from everything we have seen, from everything israeli military leaders have said, that that next phase could happen at any minute. the people are in place for it, the equipment is in place for it. when i spoke to one idf soldier this morning when we were leaving for a bit of a break before we came back tonight, i asked him how things were going, and he said, we're just preparing, a lot of the focus, a lot of the conversation today is on those hostages that are being held inside of gaza. the number coming from israeli officials has risen. they now say they have been in contact with 199 families of people abducted, but in a speech just released within the last hour or so, a spokesperson from hamas' military wing said they have between 200 and 500 people in their custody. the international red cross have said they are in contact with both israel and hamas, trying to work on negotiations to get people released. at a press conference they held on thursday, they said they had daily contact with hamas, but so far no major changes, and that is something that is incredibly difficult for israelis, because they watch the days, the minutes tick by, and they're frustrated that they feel like the security response wasn't fast enough when the initial terrorist attack was launched on saturday, as these days move by and these people, innocent civilians, among them, we know there are believed to be infants, based on what families have said, inside of gaza. that's difficult for people here to understand sometimes, why they haven't been able to get them out. the idf are tight-lipped on information when it comes to hostages, in a very early morning conversation with reporters, an idf spokesperson said it's a very sensitive topic, when he was asked about the fact that hamas is claiming 20 plus hostages have been executed. he said he couldn't confirm that, but he did issue a reminder that hamas has warned days ago that they would begin executing hostages. they said they have carried out israeli forces, a few tactical raids inside of gaza along the border to try and gather intel as it relates to hostages, but there are still so many families desperate for answers, with very little information. as the days tick by, it seems like less and less hope for the israeli people that they will be able to get those people, those innocent civilians out alive. >> the accounts of what you're talking about, this incredibly delayed response time, they only grow more harrowing. i'm not going to play this, but this was an interview with a volunteer emergency response group on the recovery efforts -- actually, i will play this. we shouldn't look away. this is from sky news. >> we're talking about a total of, i would say about 280 bodies, 280 casualties. i would say 80% was tortured. piles of ten children each were tied and burned to death. this is something beyond -- this is next level. >> we talked in the early days about the blast radius of trauma, and it feels like the after-action efforts that the israelis have said they will do, that you're reporting suggest they've already started to do, will usher in new waves of trauma. >> reporter: yeah, i mean, it's so much for people to process. i was talking to a medic with an israeli volunteer organization, but for him it's his job, he's done this for years. they had amassed more volunteer paramedics to go in and deal with the aftermath of the terrorist attack. i was talking to him on monday in sderot along the border, kind of in the northwest pocket of the border, and i asked him what is the youngest victim that you have had to treat since saturday. and he said it has been so many children. he talked about going into a home, and he said they knew, based on information they had gotten from people in the community that they believed most of the family was dead, but that one child, an 8-year-old, was still alive. they went into the home and found this little girl hiding in a closet. her mother was dead, her father was dead, her sibling was dead. i asked him what you do in that moment, and he said they grabbed her and hugged her and took her to get medical assistance. and then i asked him if he was a parent, and he kind of got quiet, and said i have four kids. i asked, how do you get through this with just all the emotions of everything, surely seeing your child's face in those children as well, and he said i cannot let myself think about it. we just have to keep going and keep doing this right now. there's been this mode in israel of where -- and we heard it when the head of the security forces today said that he takes responsibility for the security failures in the initial attack. but then he said right now we have to fight. there's this focus forward. and i think in some ways it's probably because it's too difficult to stop and fully process everything that has happened. at the same time, you have civilians in gaza that are being killed, hurt, severely traumatized by what's happening as well. we were talking about an area of land that is the size of philadelphia, with a third more people, and they're being told to move south as air strikes fall on their cities. every time we hear a bombardment, an artillery explosion, the reality, because of the dynamics, the density there, the reality is there are probably civilians right in that blast area who had nothing to do with this. there have been four wars between gaza and israel prior to this. this is the fifth one. already, nine days in, this is the deadliest war between the two of them in terms of civilian casualties on both sides. >> we are so blessed to have you there as our eyes and ears. i think about all of you, journalists from all over the world taking in all this information and bringing it to us. please take good care and stay safe, my friend. up next for us, we'll get reaction to reporting and the efforts to get the hostages home safely, as well as the balance president joe biden and his administration are seeking in the region. much more to come after a very short break. don't go anywhere. safelite came right to us, and we could see exactly when they'd arrive with a replacement we could trust. that's service the way we want it. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ that first time you take a step back. i made that. with your very own online store. i sold that. and you can manage it all in one place. i built this. and it was easy, with a partner that puts you first. godaddy. conquer financial reports. conquer 2000-word essays. conquer 300 thank-you notes. rule over what you write with the smooth writing, longest lasting gel ink pen in america. do you g2? if you have this... consider adding this. an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan from unitedhealthcare. medicare supplement plans help by paying some of what medicare doesn't... and let you see any doctor. any specialist. anywhere in the u.s. who accepts medicare patients. so if you have this... consider adding this. call unitedhealthcare today for your free decision guide. ♪ here's why you should switch from chrome to duckduckgo. duckduckgo is a browser you download to your mobile and desktop devices. unlike chrome, the duckduckgo browser has privacy built-in. it comes with a private alternative to google search, which doesn■t spy on your searches, and it blocks cookies and creepy ads. and there's no catch. it's free. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you around. join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on mobile and desktop today. what happened in gaza, in my view, is hamas and the extreme elements of hamas don't represent all the palestinian people, and i think that it would be a mistake to -- for israel to occupy gaza. >> do you believe that hamas must be eliminated entirely? >> yes, i do. but there needs to be a palestinian authority, there needs to be a path to a palestinian state. >> that was president joe biden on "60 minutes" last night on a possible end game in the region and about the possibility of israel occupying gaza. joining us, bbc special news correspondent and msnbc correspondent, and former israeli ambassador to the united states, michael oren is back. mr. ambassador, i start with you. you wrote this over the weekend, the task of annihilating hamas can wait for a later stage. in contrast to hamas, hezbollah enjoys almost unlimited maneuverability and supply lines. as long as hezbollah remains intact, it constitutes an intolerable state of threat to israel. if they're intolerable, does that suggest we're waiting and watching the wrong thing? >> i wrote that article to ruffle a few feathers and apparently i have, to shake up our conventional thinking, which is that hamas has committed this atrocious, unspeakable attack against our people, and we have to decimate hamas, whatever adjective you want or verb you want, we're going to have to do this. at tremendous cost to our troops, tremendous impact to israel's standing in the international community, because the pictures of the palestinian civilians and refugees standing out in the night without shelter and without essential food and water is going to have a great cost for us. and i asked myself the following questions, hezbollah has a missile arsenal that's roughly 15 times that of hamas. hamas has 10,000 or 15,000 rockets. hezbollah has 150,000 rockets. many of them can take out our oil facilities, our airport, they could take out a nuclear reactor. hezbollah has an army that has been experienced in killing syrians now. they murdered a half million syrians and what they did to the syrians, they'll certainly do to our people if they get the chance. we are at maximum military utilization, we have well over 100,000 standing soldiers, a roughly the size of the united states in 2003, it's huge, american strategic backing, two aircraft carriers in our vicinity. hamas is not going anywhere, nicolle. hamas is trapped. we can continue to hit from the air, sea, ground, and we can deal with it at a later stage. the question i raise in this article, i don't know that we'll ever get an opportunity like this to deal with hezbollah, which will always be hanging over our head. we don't know at what point hezbollah is going to do what hamas did, cross the border and kill hundreds and hundreds of israeli civilians. they are shooting at us. they've killed five of our soldiers. and i have the assumption that if and when israel does go into gaza, the hezbollah will not be able to sit quietly on the sidelines. and i hope that america's military presence will be enough to deter them. i'm not sure it will be. >> mr. ambassador, i guess a two-part question. what does prime minister netanyahu think in terms of the priority, and is he inclined to wait, as you just articulated, and is there an added layer of -- the number of hostages grew over the weekend to 199, hamas is using numbers that are bigger and we don't trust those, so we won't use those numbers. but 199 is the number from your government. i mean, what is the prospect that something like that could be the path forward, and what are the risks of proceeding with an offensive against hezbollah? >> i'm not privy on those discussions, i'm not in government anymore, the cards are on the table. but i'm sure it's been raised as a possibility. i hope it has been. you always need someone in america, known as the red team, a person that's going to come along and challenge the conventional wisdom. i'm just trying to challenge the conventional wisdom. the question is, do we want to absorb the first blow from hezbollah or take the initiative? next question, and this is a valid question, people might say, well, if israel defeats hamas in an unequivocal way, that will send an unequivocal message to hezbollah, don't get involved in the fighting. it's sort of the opposite scenario i'm saying, once we begin to win, hezbollah will begin to shoot. i come from a different position. hamas is a sunni organization and hezbollah is a shiite organization. it's hard for me to imagine that this force, this shiite force will sit by quietly, passively, while hamas is shown to the world, to their world as the force that stands up to israel and has taken the brunt and they're not coming to their aid. that's the assumption of a worst case scenario and that is definitely worst case. >> tom freeman has some of this role in making policymakers and leaders stop and think. >> i want to add one more thing. i may be older than both of you together, in 1962, i remember this very well, john kennedy was willing to go to nuclear war to prevent russia from putting missiles on the shores of cuba. i don't know how many missiles the russians actually had, but my guess is there weren't 150,000 of them. it's the size of the state of new jersey. so what was intolerable for kennedy is certainly unbearable. >> i think that lacking the sort of intimate historical background and knowledge, i think all americans are highly attuned to two things, the atrocities that unfolded last saturday in israel, and the details get more harrowing and more tragic, the picture of innocence and children and grandmas is impossible to process, and the incredibly fraught moment the whole world finds itself in with all of these actors sort of on high alert. where do you sort of assess the administration's posture on all of this? >> i think you're right that it's fraught. i can't remember a conflict spilling over into american institutions and corporations and universities in the way that this one is so quickly in the past, and it has put everybody -- everybody's feelings seem to be so tense. the administration's role, i just watched tony blinken, his travels over the course of the last two days. now he's changed his plans to go back to jordan again. this is the kind of intense shuttle diplomacy you'll remember. i remember dick cheney flying around the middle east before the invasion of iraq. this is tony blinken on a similar type of schedule, desperate to try to do a couple of things, to try to make sure that, first and foremost, that hostages are allowed out, that there is some kind of restraint in the israeli response when it comes to civilians in particular, and try and get some kind of relief to those civilianness gaza. the problem, i guess, from what the ambassador is saying, going after hezbollah and putting hamas on hold, is that you already have a situation in gaza that is increasingly untenable, or will become increasingly untenable from an international perspective, to have so many people displaced. you've got dozens of families living in one tiny apartment in the south of gaza with little access to food, electricity, water. you've got hospitals that are crippled at the moment. those stories are getting out. they're the stories that the middle east is hearing far more than the stories of the israelis who were attacked last weekend. and that just adds to the volatility, and i think it's why you see tony blinken going around to these countries trying to do a number of things, but also trying to make sure that whatever comes out of this leads to a middle east that is more stable, not less stable. >> mr. ambassador, do you want to respond to that? >> i agree with everything you said as true, we're up against a number of clocks. israel to remain at this mobilization, we're talking about the soldiers called up, the most productive sector of our society, young women and men in 20s and 30s, the combat soldiers, the costs are becoming increasingly prohibitive. there is the international attitude and media cycle of those pictures that are going to be coming out of gaza more frequently. and i have to say, again, i'm rather contrarian, i wasn't born this way, but i've become this way maybe in my age, but the israeli public opinion is not in the mood to be very empathetic to the palestinians in gaza, and during the day, and i'm hearing this quite often, the palestinians voted for hamas, they celebrated hamas, many, many hundreds and thousands of palestinian civilians who do not belong to hamas came through the fences and butchered and murdered israelis and took prisoners. so there's not a tremendous amount of empathy there. empathy aside, the president and secretary blinken have said several times this is what they expect from us. it's quite an amazing thing, not only are they breaking the one consensus between republicans and democrats in washington, not getting involved in entanglements to the middle east, taking on a dysfunctional congress, preemptively providing us with arms, it's never happened before. i've been many years in this field of relations and i've never seen anything like this. but they also come with a caveat, you've got to hold down the civilian casualties. you've got to help us help you, because we're going to be under a lot of heat, a lot of heat in our own party. there was a poll yesterday that said two-thirds of americans support israel in the crisis and there are far fewer democrats who would subscribe to that than republicans and that's an important distinction. -- presi the secrery gone a lot against the currents here. and all they're saying to us is -- they understand that we have to move the population away. they understand that the palestinian population cannot be in the war zone because then many, many thousands will be killed. and there's no easy way out of this. it's palestinian civilian suffering versus palestinian civilian death. i mean, really it's that black and white. and that is -- the secretary and the president showing tremendous understanding. they really are. but. but we in israel are going to have to i think expect that and do our best to meet the president's expectations. >> let me ask both of you to stay with us. i want to bring in my colleague, nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel, who has some breaking news for us. richard engel. >> reporter: so the chief spokesman for the hamas military wing just issued a statement on camera in which the group is offering to release foreign hostages unconditionally. and i think this could significantly change the way things develop here over the next several hours, potentially change the course of this conflict so far. it is a statement from abu abayda. it is on the same channels that hamas releases its normal videos. i've listened to the audio and verified it in arabic. he starts out by saying that hamas is holding 200 foreign -- 200 hostages, that they were taken when hamas militants crossed into israel, they blew up the border fence, and that they are confirming that among those hostages there are a group of foreigners. he didn't say how many, and he said that they failed to verify their identities during the time of the capture and that now they've confirmed that they are foreign nationals, that they are not party to the conflict, that they're being treated, quote, as guests and that hamas will release them, quote, when field conditions are right. this is -- i think it's coming from hamas, so it's healthy and appropriate to treat it with a great deal of skepticism, but i know from diplomatic sources i've been talking to all day that there has been a lot of effort to try and convince hamas to release some hostages. there have been discussions with arab countries to try and put pressure on hamas to make some sort of gesture. there had been talk initially that hamas might release women and children. what hamas is doing now is making a distinction between israelis, which it says are party to the conflict, and foreigners, foreign nationals, which it says are, quote, being treated as guests. so i'm quite sure that diplomats around the world, hostage negotiators are going to be taking this offer very seriously, wanting to know much more about it. it could impact how israel proceeds with its campaign because hamas -- if hamas is saying it's willing to release american hostages and other foreign nationals unconditionally, there will be pressure on israel to get those people out. they're certainly frightened. some of them might be injured or sick. they could have intelligence, likely do have intelligence about other hostages, about their captors. it is something that certainly could benefit not just the hostages but could change the course of this war at least in the short term. i don't think it's going to prevent israel from continuing its campaign about hamas. but there are many reasons for the hostages especially to try and see if hamas is legitimate in its offer and get those people out. >> richard engel, is abu abayda a credible person? >> reporter: yes. he is the main spokesman for hamas. he is the -- this video was released on the same channels that the other videos have been released on. he is someone who is taken seriously within hamas. he is a very senior figure. this is not a fringe character. what was interesting as well about this statement is that he said that there are between 200, 250 or more hostages inside gaza. so he's acknowledging hamas does not exactly how many hostages are inside israel -- hostages. not just foreign hostages. 250 or more hostages inside the gaza strip. what happened on that day, and i'm not sure if this has been fully explained before, when -- at 6:30 in the morning on the 7th when hamas broke through the border fence in multiple locations, about 30 locations, and streamed into the kibbutzim near the border and went to that music festival and went on their killing and kidnapping spree, other palestinians also went through those gaps. some of them started to loot and take what they could. others grabbed people. others grabbed hostages themselves for personal reasons and brought them back. so hamas is saying it has 200, that there are other groups that are holding the other 50 or so, and that of the 200 that it has it has confirmed, quote, that there are foreign nationals among them and that they are being treated as guests and that they are not party to this conflict and will be released when the field conditions are right, which means when some safe passage can be arranged. >> richard engel, how is the news being received in israel? >> reporter: this is new. it is being broadcast on israeli television right now. i'm sure -- i know a lot of work has gone into this because i've been speaking with arab negotiators all day. they were expecting some sort of news and they'd been talking about having some sort of progress earlier. so i do believe that the people who are involved in arranging this probably already had some sort of idea. so i think this is something that we're going to see not play out in public but with hostage negotiating teams government to government, state department to its counterparts. i'm sure they are burning up the phones right now. >> richard engel, is it your sense that these hostage negotiations and efforts to rescue all of them -- it's such an important piece. that we don't know what we don't know. we don't necessarily know that the effort to keep them inside gaza is a centralized one is what it sounds like you're explaining for us. do we know if this is the factor driving the timing, what many expect to be the ground invasion of the gaza strip? >> it could very well be hamas's attempt to push back a ground invasion or it could be an attempt by hamas to not pick a fight with the united states, to say that its fight is with israel and with israel alone so that it doesn't have delta forces and navy s.e.a.l.s landing in the gaza strip and looking for these people. it is also an attempt by hamas to re-establish its credibility, if you will. hamas in this statement is going out of its way to say we are treating these people well. well, if it's serious and it's willing to release the hostages, foreign hostages unconditionally, then the world will know how they were treated. so even though hamas has -- is a terrorist organization, has tremendous credibility problems, i can imagine there will be lots of pressure to at least pursue this from the families of the hostages, from the governments who are doing everything they can to try and get these people out. if hamas says it's willing to release them, i'm sure there are many people who would like to explore that at the very least. >> of course. richard engel, thank you so much for bringing us this extraordinary development. we're really grateful to get to talk to you. thank you. mr. ambassador, let me come to you for your reaction. >> i think we have to be very cautious in saying that the spokesman for a terrorist organization may be credible or not. we're certainly dealing with disinformation from hamas on a daily basis. saying that they're willing to release them unconditionally but there's a condition that field conditions have to be right is kind of a contradiction. and it begs the question. when you say foreign national, what is a foreign national? an israeli who has two passports? i was visiting one of the families today. and by the way, it's not heartbreaking, it's soul crushing to visit one of these families. 21-year-old daughter taken, apparently sick in a hospital. that's the last thing they know. she has french citizenship. so does that mean they're going to distinguish between israelis who have two passports or don't have passports? how many actually foreign nationals did they capture? we don't have large numbers of foreign nationals running around the negev desert at any given time. so that begs that question. my working assumption, and i've been in touch with our security officials on this, is that hamas is going to hold on to these hostages for as long as humanly possible because they're the ultimate human shield. we've often says hamas uses civilian populations as a human shield. it does. it puts its headquarters under hospitals, under schools. its tunnels go under the streets of gaza. but they also use this -- that's why hamas is trying to prevent the civilian population from running away, because it wants to use them as human shields. it's not enough to kill our people. they want our people to kill their people. so we will be branded as war criminals and we'll have the security council impose a ceasefire so that hamas will get away with it. literally, that's their strategy. why do you have the hostages, then? hostages are the best human shields in the world. and right now they're playing for time. because they know what i talked about earlier, they know about the clock. they know we have a clock on our mobilization. they know there's a clock, an international clock that is following the palestinian refugee situation. they're not stupid. they may be vicious. they may be barbarous but they're not dumb. and they're playing very smart. >> i was told i had to share richard engel with other nbc news platforms. he's back. richard engel, you have more. >> reporter: no. i was just -- there was one part of the statement that was -- that is pertinent to the conversation you were just having. >> please. >> reporter: and clearly the airstrikes are still continuing into the gaza strip. on the issue of dual nationals. yes. tremendous confusion, tremendous ambiguity. what does it mean that we will release them when the conditions are right? unclear. at least unclear to us. perhaps it's clear to the negotiators who've been trying to work behind the scenes. but for the israelis hamas is suggesting no mercy, no compromise. also, if israeli soldiers had dual nationals, hamas is saying according to abu o'baida they will be treated as israelis, they will be considered an enemy even if those israeli soldiers were -- had a foreign passport. >> just such a horrific portrait, katty kay, of what the circumstances make not just possible but urgently required. richard engle's reporting that many, many, many parties behind the scenes because every one of the hostages is the center of the universe to one family. and there are, according to richard, 200 or more. your thoughts on this piece of information that richard has just brought us. >> this is becoming an awful situation that hostage negotiators face. the possibility of bringing some out and not others out and how do we distinguish. we'd heard those reports it could be women and children, which might be what you expect. and maybe this is what some of tony blinken has been talking about as he's been traveling around the middle east, particularly to qatar, which has more of a line to hamas than other arab countries do. but the british prime minister announced today there were six dead, british people dead amongst those killed in israel last week. and also ten missing. now, some of those missing may be dead. we don't know. in the uk. some of them may be hostages as well. the prime minister didn't say whether they were british israeli or whether they were just british. i mean, it's just this awful situation that these poor hostages are in and the poor families are in. and it's -- as the ambassador was saying this is part of the clock. this is why it's very difficult for israel even if it wanted to to switch focus and focus on hezbollah at the moment. it can't do that while these hostages are still there. if foreigners leave, that still leaves all of the israeli hostages there. it might take some of the pressure off foreign governments to be pushing as hard as they are in their diplomatic efforts. that wouldn't necessarily help israel, to get its hostages home. so this is layer upon layer of complication and heartbreak all around. >> you also think of the reporting today, mr. ambassador, that 80% of the bodies that were recovered were tortured. it doesn't inspired much confidence that anyone is being treated as, quote, guests. right? >> i would say that's also the reason that we don't know the actual number of dead people. people are missing but the bodies are so mutilated that they're having problems with identification. i know several people involved in the identification process. they all say the same thing. that short of cannibalism hamas did to these poor civilians what -- every possible atrocity you can do to a human body. and i know people who have been through terrorist bombings and terrorist attacks. they've never seen anything remotely like this. and by the way, about the 199, that's more or less what we know from video. we actually don't know the total number. it could be higher. and the dual national issue is going to be very complex. i think it's what richard engel was saying. until i was ambassador i was a dual national. as a soldier i was a dual national. if i were to fall into captivity by hamas i would be treated as an israeli, not as an american. and as katty was saying, there are two israeli civilians who have been in hamas captivity now for almost a decade. for almost a decade hamas has held on to the bodies of two of our soldiers who were killed in the 2014 fighting. those poor families can't bury their loved ones. and hamas holds on to its hostages for a long time. gilad shalit was a hostage taken in 2008, released in 2013, was five years in captivity. so yes, there is a certain clock, degree to which we can keep these hostages in captivity but that is a clock that hamas -- we don't even know how that clock works, to tell you the truth. we don't see it. we don't even know if hamas has a clock about releasing hostages. i'm not sure they know. so it's -- part of my scenario that maybe we should be focusing on hezbollah, the prospect of releasing the hostages at an early date would probably not be the paramount israeli concern. >> an extraordinary state of affairs. i'm grateful to have both of you, especially with richard engel's breaking news. katty kay and ambassador michael oren, thank you both for joining us today. >> thank you. have a quiet night. >> you too. for our part we are at 5:05 p.m. in new york. it is just after midnight in israel and in gaza where the rocket strikes you just saw and heard behind richard engel continue. let's bring into our coverage nbc news foreign correspondent raf sanchez in ashdod, israel. raf, we've talked every day, and i'm always struck by studio guilt that i'm here in this safe cavernous new york studio while you are watching literally the center of the world. i wonder if you can just take me inside what the day has brought and what you're looking to tonight. >> sure. well, nicolle, israel knew that this moment was going to come. they knew that there would be an hour when a video would emerge from gaza showing one of these hostages in hamas captivity speaking quite possibly under duress. this country knew that moment was coming. there 200-ish of its citizens there. but this was still just an absolutely stunning moment when this 21-year-old woman appearing in front of the camera, you can hear the explosions presumably of israeli airstrikes as she delivers this literal hostage video piece to camera. i can tell you, nicolle, we got this message from the qassam brigades, the so-called military wing of hamas with this video in it, and literally within minutes the video was on israeli national television. we are not playing it. it's our policy not to show videos where people are under duress. but it was instantaneously on israeli national television. and i can tell you this is a country that was just glued in horror. you know, desperate for news of these hostages and also understanding that they are being manipulated, understanding that hamas in this moment has leverage over this powerful nuclear armed country of israel. i'll tell you, nicolle, in just the last couple of minutes the israeli military has weighed in on this video. they are confirming that this young woman is who she says she is in the video. they say in this video hamas is trying to portray itself as a humane organization while it is a murderous terrorist organization responsible for the murder and abduction of babies, women, children and elderly. but the reality is nobody has any good answers. no one has any clear plan to save these hostages either through a rescue operation or through negotiation. the anchors on israeli television looking pained as they debated amongst themselves about whether or not it was the right thing to air this video but deciding that basically this is a country so desperate for information that it would make sense to do so. but this is a moment everyone knew was coming, and it's been painful nonetheless. nicolle. >> raf, there are slivers of your reporting that sort of build on what we talked about the first day in that blast radius of trauma, and this seems to deepen the crater for the country. and as your reporting and reporting of other organizations reveals what i woke up to today, that 80% of the bodies that were recovered from the slaughter last saturday were tortured, just more and more questions about how the terrorists had that much time to do that much damage. >> reporter: yeah. and nicolle, we heard tonight for the first time from the israeli intelligence community. this was a statement from ronen bar. he's the head of the shin bet, israel's domestic security agency, which like the israeli army, like the israeli air force is a vaunted institution. it's an institution people trust to protect them. and he said in this statement that he understands that his agency failed, that they did not produce the intelligence to give enough of a warning for this attack to be stopped. he said as the head of this institution he takes responsibility for it. there's widespread speculation here in israel that he plans to resign after this war that hasn't been confirmed yet. he also said, nicolle, that ten of his agents were killed either in the initial attack, these were people who lived in the kibbutzim and were killed in their homes or were killed rushing down to the south to try to fight these terrorists street by street. and you can imagine that this is if not the single largest life for his agency it's certainly one of them. in the same way that the fbi, the cia has days that are etched into their institutional memory. this is a very, very dark day for the shin bet, for israel's other intelligence agencies. every expectation is that there is going to be some kind of national commission, a little bit like the 9/11 commission in the united states, to answer these questions. there was one of these commissions after the 1973 yom kippur war, which led to the fall of golda meir's government because the political leadership of israel was blamed as well as the military leadership. but the refrain we hear over and over again is right now we fight the war and then there will be a lot of time to ask and to answer these questions. nicolle? >> raf, i understand this first video, a decision was made albeit painfully to broadcast it. i imagine hamas and the terrorist network is also watching. how -- where's the conversation in israel about what to do with subsequent hostage videos? >> referee: yeah. nicolle, one of the interesting dynamics about hamas as an organization is so many of its senior leaders including yahi sinwar, the head of hamas in gaza, has spent a lot of time in israeli prisons. so they speak fluent hebrew. they know the language of their enemies. and i know that these people read israeli news sites. they watch israeli television. and you can absolutely guarantee on a night like this they are very closely monitoring what is going on in israel, on the media, on social media, what are politicians, what are normal people saying to try to gauge what impact they're having by releasing these videos. people are very split in this country about the right way forward. nobody has any good answers. a lot of people feel that israel just needs to roll into gaza, needs to smash hamas, that this war should be fought as if the hostages didn't exist, that israel can't fight with one hand behind its back. but you can imagine for the 200 families who have loved ones inside of gaza that is not how they feel. there's a very wide range of opinion. some people would favor negotiation through qatar, as richard engel was talking about. i spoke to the red cross earlier today. they confirmed that they are having face-to-face discussions with senior hamas officials trying to get access to the hostages, trying to ultimately secure their release. nicolle, these people are not just hostages, but there is a wide range of medical conditions among these 200 people. a report out from a hostage family umbrella group basically saying you have nine-month-old baby who needs formula, you have an 85-year-old woman who needs parkinson's medicine. there are people with diabetes who need insulin. nicolle, there is a number of young people with special needs. there's a young woman who's autistic who's non-verbal, who as you can imagine very sensitive to overstimulation. and the idea of this poor young woman being held in this terrifying situation not knowing what's going on, it just -- can't even begin to find words. nicolle? >> you always find the words. i interviewed a family member whose young son ron has asthma. people that need their inhalers. i mean, it's unbelievable. and you're right, there are no words. raf sanchez, thank you so much for your reporting. please stay safe. fears are also growing about the possibility of a widening conflict. there's been back and forth fire along israel's northern border with lebanon. let's bring in my colleague, nbc news foreign correspondent matt bradley, in tair, lebanon. matt, you blew my mind open with your reporting yesterday when i was anchoring a special sunday shift. and i wanted to come back to your articulation and reporting on sort of the coalition iran is amassing. and obviously the united states standing behind israel. but just take me into the broader conflict as those lines are being drawn. >> reporter: yeah. well, thanks very much, nicolle. what we've been seeing now, actually, in just the last hour or two is something that really kind of taps into what i was telling you yesterday because i was talking about the foreign minister of iran and the rounds he's been making in parallel to the rounds that antony blinken, the u.s. secretary of state, has been making in the region. they've kind of been dancing around each other in sort of reciprocal diplomacy. and now just today it looks like the foreign minister of iran really ramped up his rhetoric in a way that got -- you know, made my hair stand on edge. this was something -- he used language that he hadn't used before because he's been using menacing rhetoric for the past week. but just today he said that there could be the possibility of a pre-emptive strike. he used that word, pre-emptive, in the next couple of hours. so he put a timeline on it. and he used the word pre-emptive for the first time. he also said that all of the options are open. now, this could just be bravado of the kind that i've been hearing when i speak with hamas officials and stuff down here in this region. you know, we go to rallies and there's people waving flags and everybody's saying we're prepared for war, we're ready to be martyrs. this is the typical posture that you would see in a situation like this. but when you hear it from a foreign minister, it's not necessarily just posturing. he could be trying to put his -- he might have to at some point pay the piper, put his mouth -- basically back up his language if he's going to be using this kind of talk. now, we've also been hearing from hezbollah saying that they've been fighting back and forth across the border from here in lebanon over into israel, and the tempo of this has been increasing over the past several days. and we've started to see more fatalities. we saw one fatality from a civilian on the israeli tied. two civilians dead on the lebanese side where i'm standing now. just yesterday there was a journalist killed this week and several other journalists who were injured. and there's been fatalities on both sides of the military side. this is something that is increasing in tempo like i was saying. we're seeing more and more fighting. and it looks like some of this at least is coming from the hezbollah side. the israelis are saying the hezbollah fighters are deliberately trying to provoke them and lead them into a war that would split their ranks, that would give them yet a second front, drag another country into the fighting and another militant group, another one, hezbollah, that's backed by iran like hamas. now, hezbollah, which is again the dominant military group here in southern lebanon where i am, they're the tip of the spear for iran. so a lot of eyes are going to be on hezbollah. if iran does decide to make this pre-emptive strike as threatened by the iranian foreign minister. it most likely would be with hezbollah. here around in this neighborhood. so that's something that is going to be very threatening for the israelis and very threatening for the people of lebanon, nicolle. this is a war-weary population. they're not all shia. they're not all in favor of hezbollah. a lot of them are christians, druze, sunni muslims. they're tired of war. and a lot of them are tired of carrying the banner of the palestinian cause even though they support the palestinians they don't necessarily want to be dragged into another war with israel that nearly destroyed the country last time in 2006. nicolle? >> matt bradley, when you talk about journalists i want to say what i've said to all my colleagues please keep yourself safe. thank you for your reporting on this. we'll continue to turn to you. let me bring into our coverage senior analyst for the "times of israel" haviv gur and former "washington post" jerusalem bureau chief janine zakaria. it's just an extraordinary amount of carnage and tragedy and trauma to process in israel. i still can't get past the first thing i read, haviv, this morning about the recovery effort showed that 80% of the bodies recovered have been tortured. it speaks to the -- what president joe biden keeps talking about, the savage barbaric nature of the attack on the israeli civilian population, the part of the population in the country of israel that most wants peace with their neighbors. irony died a fast and tragic death on saturday. and then there seems to be a rapidly escalating regional conflict under way. and i want to hear from both of you on both those fronts, the trauma, the carnage, the tragedy, and the new transformed regional politics. haviv, you first. >> yeah. what happened was that the crime scene investigators of the police were tasked -- these are people who are used to dead bodies and they're used to crime scenes. they were tasked with going through the bodies one by one and actually creating that first, you know, scientific study, so to speak of, of what actually happened to each and every single one. and what came out of that was a single body would -- you know, they would open the bag and they would deal with this body and sometimes it was children and the body would be tied and then after the body had been tied they were stabbed and then after they were stabbed they were burned. and then after they were burned they were shot. and so this is a single -- that's what we're talking about when 80% are tortured. what the police reports say, what the csi reports say is that they were attacked in ways that had -- it wasn't about killing them even. it was about something much slower. so there are traumatized csi investigators right now. that's about that question. and israelis are trying to come to grips with that. it seems we're nine days after, ten days after and the news continues to shock. there continue to be new depths to what happened on october 7th. and it is, as you said, escalating into a regional conflict. i have to tell you, i've been speaking with israeli officials. israeli officials today believe that the last 12 or 15 years of quiet with gaza -- not quiet. rounds of fighting but limited rounds of fighting. that those limited rounds of fighting were actually bought on credit and on october 7th the bill came due. and they no longer believe in quiet. they believe in removing those kinds of threats from the border. and so hezbollah's threats, they're not being received in israel with concern. they're being received in israel with a little bit of eagerness. it would be very convenient for israel if hezbollah attacks first. the iranians are used to -- the iranians have a strategy of trying to force israel into a death of a thousand cuts. right? through syria, through hezbollah in lebanon, through hamas, through an encirclement strategy that even has brought in the houthi of lebanon threatening to fire rockets at eilat. israel is eager to cut that strategy now by turning the massacre of october 7th into a strategic turnaround, into a war that israel then goes on the offensive and produces strategic surprises. so the escalation threat is real. israel won't start it. but i don't sense among israeli leaders any concern about joining that kind of a war. there's even a little bit of an eagerness to. >> haviv, what does that mean? i mean, what does that put on the table? >> it puts on the table a massive response in lebanon, a kind of response in lebanon that would degrade hezbollah. hezbollah is deeply dug in to about 200 villages in south lebanon. the rocket fire that you reported was referencing was from -- was not from shia villages. it was from christian and other areas. it was from christian and sunni areas in south lebanon. because hezbollah knows that if it starts launching rockets from shia villages and israeli artillery fire in return hurts the shia community, hezbollah would be politically hurt. people are braced. and the minorities, the non-hezbollah minorities, the shiites in lebanon are a plurality. they're not a majority of the country. but they have this iranian-funded and iranian-trained militia that makes them the most powerful force in lebanese politics. and everyone really is braced for hezbollah to drag them into the war. there's a tremendous amount of frustration and concern in lebanon at hezbollah doing this. it is doing this of course at iran's direction. this is not a lebanese decision, a lebanese choice. but it involves a massive war in lebanon. i don't know more than that. i don't -- you know, i don't have the security clearance. i don't sit in on the war cabinet. but the israeli military has been preparing for a decade to strike iran. what can it do? how can it do it? the iranians have been preparing for the same decade to survive that strike and strike back. but there is this -- there are these forces. there is this military capability. and will that be the war we're looking at? there is a willingness in israel for strategic surprise. >> janine, what -- what sort of forethought do you think went into the terror attack that hamas engaged in last saturday? do you think it was the intent to instigate a regional war? >> i don't know -- i'm not going to be able to read, nicolle, the minds of the qassam brigades. they sensed an opportunity to be able to strike israel when it wasn't prepares, when it was weak and there were a lot of soft targets on a jewish holiday. i want to pick up on a couple of things haviv said and the previous guests. first of all, the terror is the point. they were broadcasting the murders live. they were posting them. they were showing them. so the fact that 80% of the bodies, there's now evidence of the torture, we know it from eyewitnesses and we know it from their own -- what they were posting online. so it's not shocking in that respect. we anticipated that they would start unfolding these videos now of the hostages. they've -- you know, parents in israel have been instructed to delete social media from their kids' phones in anticipation of possible live executions. that's what it's come to right now. and so i think that at this point -- originally i thought that maybe there would be a negotiation of a hostage exchange with hamas prisoners in israeli jails. but it looks more now like sayeret makal and -- which is the israeli equivalent of the delta force and the navy s.e.a.l.s are going to have to do what they're going to do. and that brings me back to thinking 29 years ago almost to the day when israeli elite forces tried to rescue one soldier that was being held hostage in the west bank two miles from his home in jerusalem and it failed. he was killed by the qassam brigades and one of the rescue force was killed as well. so it's going to be very hard to perform that kind of rescue maneuver. apropos lebanon and that border, iran keeps hezbollah armed to deter an israeli attack on its nuclear sites. so i think they're trying to keep the border hot, as haviv said, and the israelis have started to evacuate people from towns in the north in anticipation of possible fighting there. but at the moment, i mean, we're still focused on when the israelis are going to take over -- do a major land offensive in gaza, i would say. >> janine, i wrote this down as soon as the words came out of your mouth, that the terror was the point. at what point does the possibility, as matt bradley just reported, of a pre-emptive strike from iran reshuffle the deck all over again? >> i mean -- you mean like from iran -- i don't anticipate iran's going to launch from iran. right? you've got -- >> hezbollah? >> right. they'll direct hezbollah. but right now it's sort of like hezbollah doesn't want to -- they don't have the element of surprise that hamas had. everybody's ready. there's groups in the eastern mediterranean. so they don't want to be left out of fighting the occupiers or the zionists or whatever they're saying. but on the other hand, iran uses them for very specific strategic reasons. so i think that there is stuff to be done diplomatically. they're going to want something in return, the iranians, for sort of holding hezbollah back, and i imagine there's a lot of negotiations going on along that front through intermediaries that the united states has. but definitely those carrier groups are sending a direct signal. israel and the u.s., with the firepower they have there, could just take out most of hezbollah's capabilities in south lebanon at this point. and that's not something -- i don't think iran wants that. >> just an extraordinary fast-moving and extraordinary turn of events. haviv gur and janine zachariah, thank you both for send spending time with us. we'll continue to call on you. when we come back, heartbreaking, really terrifying scenes in suburban chicago, where a funeral was held for a 6-year-old. 6-year-old palestinian american boy who was stabbed to death in an attack that the justice department is now investigating as a hate crime. it is part of a rise of violence and threats facing jewish and muslim people all around the world in the aftermath of the horrific hamas attacks last saturday. and later in the broadcast the search for house speaker here at home. republicans chose jim jordan. but he doesn't have enough votes to actually win and be on the job, even among republicans. and now there's a behind-the-scenes pressure campaign to strongarm the holdouts into supporting him. being helped along by a high-profile right-wing media figure. we'll have the latest from capitol hill later in the broadcast. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. please stay with us. continues after a quick break. please stay with us. ♪ did you know 80% of women are struggling with hair damage? dryness and frizz that keeps coming back, could be damaged hair that can't retain moisture. you need pantene's miracle rescue deep conditioner. it's filled with pro-vitamins to help hair lock in moisture, visibly repairing six months of damage in just one use, with no weigh-down. guaranteed, or your money back. for hair that looks healthy and stays healthy. if you know, you know it's pantene. i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. fornow, there's skyrizi.thy and stays healthy. ♪ things are looking up ♪ ♪ i've got symptom relief ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ feel significant symptom relief with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements at 4 weeks. skyrizi is the first and only il-23 inhibitor for crohn's that can deliver both clinical remission and endoscopic improvement. the majority of people on skyrizi achieved long lasting remission at 1 year. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn's disease. ask your gastroenterologist how you can take control of your crohn's with skyrizi. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save. the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. rising tensions amid the terror attack in israel is raising the threat here at home as well. crowds of mourners gathered today for the funeral of a 6-year-old palestinian american boy who was murdered this weekend in plainfield, illinois in what authorities are calling an anti-muslim attack. the alleged attacker, a 71-year-old chicago-area man named joseph czuba, appeared in court today where he was detained before trial on eight charges including first-degree murder. prosecutors say that the boy, wadea al fayo and his mom, hanan shaheen, were at home when czuba came to their door. when the mother answere the door, quote, czuba told her he was angry at her for what was going on in jerusalem. shaheen stated she responded to him, "let's pray for peace." shahin stated that czuba then attacked her with a knife. shahin sustained more than a dozen stab wounds and is recovering in the hospital, but her son, wadea, was stabbed 26 times and died later at the hospital. wadea just turned 6 years old weeks ago. here he is in the words of his father and cousin. >> wadea was such an intelligent boy. he was a sweetheart. he just -- he loved his ipad. he loved games. he loved watching cartoons. he was our world. he really was the light and day in our lives. >> it's like a dream. i still didn't believe my son is gone. >> "he was our world." the u.s. attorney's office in illinois is investigating whether federal hate crime laws were violated in thi horrific murder. it comes as the fbi has said they are tracking an crea in threats to both jewish and muslim americans in their communities in the aftermath of the hamas attack. joining our coverage mary mccord, former top official in the justice department's national security division. mary, we talk about it all the time. how do you protect innocents, in this case the most innocent, a 6-year-old child? from the threat of lone wolf terrorism. >> i think this case shows how hard it is. this is a 71-year-old man, a landlord, very likely not connected directly with any type of foreign terrorist group or probably even any extremist group, although that has yet to be determined. yet he was apparently infuriated by what he saw in terms of the hamas attack on israel and took it upon himself to let some of that hate come out and came out in the most vicious possible way. and so it's the lone wolves. and i think we talked about -- we've talked about this before, nicolle, that are so hard for our law enforcement to have knowledge of in advance. and it's particularly concerning because i also have seen today that a different person -- i should say a person acting on behalf of a different terrorist group, not hamas but the islamic state, committed an attack on two swedes overseas. so you worry about a terrorist attack, hamas terrorist attack now potentially spurring other types of terrorist attacks. and so -- and again, that was one person claiming to be acting on behalf of the islamist state. this person in illinois didn't claim to be acting on behalf of anyone but was no doubt inspired by what he'd been seeing and hearing and probably a lot of it disinformation, misinformation. it's appropriate of course that the u.s. attorney's office would be investigating this as a hate crime. hate crimes, you know, murder committed because of someone's religion is punishable by life in prison or even death. and you know, these are things -- and i'm not a proponent of the death penalty. i just wanted to say that it's very serious here. so we're talking about potential federal charges as well as state charges. but it's still so hard to keep tabs on. and i think that's why we do have the fbi going out and visiting religious institutions, both mosques as well as synagogues and other religious institutions and trying to do their best to keep people safe. but it's a really tall order. they also recognize that their presence at some places, particularly mosques, can be very uncomfortable to those communities. that makes it doubly difficult. >> mary, fbi director christopher wray said basically what you just said about the inire violence in the united states. this is his e. "the greatest potential threat of violence in the ustat comes from lone actors who can be hard to detect because such people are typically not known to law enforcement officials ahead of time." i think that comment was made just ahead of this horrific attack being in the headlines. without sort of a civic connection, which i think it's fair to say we don't have anymore. you and i talk about the domestic divisions in this country and the lack of tools to deal with just what christopher wray talks about, a lone wolf sort of breakout threat. what is there for communities to do? i mean, what is the toolkit for protecting innocent civilians? >> yeah, i don't have any great answers to that. i do think being neighbors and being community members is almost the best you can do at that community level, being resilient, watching out for each other, watching each other's backs and really considering reporting to authorities when you see something suspicious. my understanding from some reporting i saw over the weekend is this man -- and this is not verified by other independent sources. but is that this man has also posted some pretty polarizing sort of election-related messages on -- you know, in signage. i don't know if it was outside of his home or his place of business. now, one would not necessarily think that someone posting maybe extremist or election-related messages would create any crime like this at all. yet all we can do is sort of be vigilant as people -- as we see signs of radicalization toward extremism, whether it's in our politics or whether as we talked about before our political debates and the debates over the election and whether it's been stolen, it was stolen, have kind of coalesced with other extremism including anti-muslim extremism, anti-semitic extremism and anti-government extremism for that matter. so you know, i think really vigilance. but here it appears that this landlord had not had any negative relationships, at least based on just the limited information we have, with this particular woman and her son. and she apparently, you know, at least to a certain extent opened the door to welcome him in. so that's obviously the hardest to try to prepare for. >> mary, we have this from the prosecutors. the suspect's wife said he listens to conservative talk radio, thought shahhin was going to attack him. "mary czuba advised joe listens to conservative talk radio on a regular basis. mary advised joe has been heavily interested in the events that have recently occurred in israel. joe believed that they were in danger and that shahin was going to call over her palestinian friends or family to harm them. he also thought that a national day of jihad would happen on october 13th and withdrew $1,000 from the bank in case the power grid went down." we will continue to turn to you to focus on the connection and the power between words and actions. mary mccord, thank you very much for spending some time with us on this really sad story. shifting gears for us, at a time of crisis and historic moment in the middle east that is on the precipice of expanding broader than that, a capitol hill that can't find a speaker. there isn't a speaker of the house right now, today at this hour. the latest candidate for the job is jacketless jim jordan. as of right now he's still short like dozens and dozens, bushels of votes that he needs to win. we'll bring you the latest developments on who's putting the squeeze on reluctant republicans next. pods handles the driving. pack at your pace. store your things until you're ready. then we deliver to your new home - across town or across the country. pods, your personal moving and storage team. if you're looking for a medicare supplement insurance plan that's smart now... i'm 65. and really smart later i'm 70-ish. consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan from unitedhealthcare. with this type of plan, you'll know upfront about how much your care costs. which makes planning your financial future easier. so call unitedhealthcare today to learn more about the only plans of their kind with the aarp name. and set yourself and your future self up with an aarp medicare supplement plan from unitedhealthcare. there are some things that go better... together. like your workplace benefits... and retirement savings. with voya, considering all your financial choices together... can help you be better prepared for unexpected events. voya. well planned. well invested. well protected. hi. my name is kim and i am 41 years old. i've been given the opportunity to work from home, so that means lots of video calls. i see myself more and i definitely see those deeper lines. i'm still kim and i got botox® cosmetic. i wanted to keep the expressions that i would normally have, you know, you're on camera and the only person they can look at is you. i was really happy with the results. i look like me just with fewer lines. botox® cosmetic is fda approved to temporarily make frown lines, crow's feet, and forehead lines look better. the effects of botox® cosmetic may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life-threatening condition. do not receive botox® cosmetic if you have a skin infection. side effects may include allergic reactions, injection site pain, headache, eyebrow, eyelid drooping and eyelid swelling. tell your doctor about your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. see for yourself at botoxcosmetic.com. ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ( ♪♪ ) constant contact's advanced automation lets you send the right message at the right time, every time. ( ♪♪ ) constant contact. helping the small stand tall. there's been a lot going on. if you missed this you are excused but the country is nearing a two-week anniversary of having no speaker of the house. and the only thing that sort of suggests that an election of the speaker could happen very soon is activity that we're able to report now. but it all moves in the favor of trump ally and insurrectionist jim jordan. he won the backing of his party in a vote friday afternoon. but it remains unclear if he's going to be able to get to 217. that's the magic number. despite an all-out public and private pressure campaign by his allies in congress and in the media to convert the so-called never jordan republicans into supporting him for speaker. joining our coverage of this senior national political reporter for nbc news sahil kapoor. he's at the capitol. also joining us the editor at large for the bulwark, charlie sykes is here. and former u.s. senator claire mccaskill joins us. sahil, i heard that -- is it the hannity factor? i heard he's making progress. >> yeah, he's certainly making progress, nicolle. last week, late last week jim jordan was about 65 republican votes away from becoming speaker of the house. that was after a second ballot where they asked do you have confidence in jordan, would you vote for him on the floor? now his whip count is very different. he's only five to ten votes away from getting that magic number of 217. that's according to the republican congressman larry bouchon who i spoke to as well as a second source familiar with this whip count. this comes after some very aggressive tactics by jordan allies that many republicans have been frustrated with, unhappy with. one senior republican aide told me they've been threatening people with primaries, they've been using conservative media hit pieces. i'm just quoting this person directly. and mean tweets from their influencer army tactics that are described as intimidation and bullying. the question now is not who's going to support jordan, nicolle. it's who's going to block jordan on the floor of the house and take this incoming from wng media. who's willing to withstand that pressure. it is not clear that there are five republicans who are going to do that on the floor. and that is the margin. if five republicans say no, jim jordan's path to becoming speaker of the house is blocked. but his allies feel pretty confident he can get there as early as tomorrow, when they're hoping to have votes on the floor. and by the way, not just one vote. if he fails on the first ballot, they expect to do further ballots and use that pressure to wear down his critics. >> it would be funny if it didn't have such dire consequences. sahil, thank you for your great reporting on this. charlie sykes, israel is getting ready to stare down enemies on every border as it buries murdered, slaughtered, mutilated babies. and there are republicans afraid of a mean tweet from jim jordan? it's sick. >> no, it is a hell of a split screen when you have this deeply serious world crisis and the deeply unserious politics of washington, d.c. well, donald trump appears likely to get his -- to get his speaker here as you see the normies and the so-called moderates caving in to this kind of pressure campaign. and maybe they have simply calculated that as crazy and as absurd as electing jim jordan as speaker of the house is, putting him third in line to the presidency, at least it's not as crazy as what they're about to do by renominating donald trump. and apparently they're more afraid of cutting a bipartisan deal to have some power sharing with democrats than they are in putting a january 6th co-conspirator in the speaker's chair. >> so the january 6th role is something we should revisit. this is injured capitol police officer michael fanone's statement. "jim jordan is an insurrectionist who has no place being second in line to the presidency. i witnessed the deadly assault on our democracy with my own eyes, which is why it absolutely disgusts me that extreme republicans could choose an insurrectionist and election denier as their leader, someone who knew about january 6th ahead of time yet did nothing to stop it. this is a very dark time for our democracy and should serve as a wake-up call to all americans that we can never take our democracy for granted." you know, kevin mccarthy is a special sort of coward in that he really saw trump's role on january 6th the way the three of us did. jim jordan is different. he helped trump plan it. liz cheney tweeted yesterday he pressured pence to overturn joe biden's victory without any evidence at all. >> yeah. and i don't know why we keep holding out hope that there are going to be republicans that have the courage to lead against this kind of despicable behavior, that they want to elevate this guy to be the highest leader in the republican party right now is astounding. when there's just -- it would just take people who won biden districts. republicans who won districts that joe biden won. how hard could it be to stand up to this guy? but i tell you, the other thing that's going to happen if he gets these votes, and i am now closer to saying that he will than i certainly was 24 hours ago. you know what he's done, he's cut a deal with rogers on defense and he's cut a deal with defense appropriations. those two members were absolutely anti-jordan until he made them promises. now, how are those promises going to play out with this crazy caucus? because you know it's about helping ukraine. you know it's about not shutting down the government. you know it's about not doing defense cuts. so once again you find promises being made that will be hard to be kept within the chaos of the republican caucus. so it's going to be -- if he wins it will be because he has made promises to some members who feel strongly about keeping the government open and feel strongly about supporting stron about supporting ukraine. i don't think know how it would play in crazy-town. i remember during the trump presidency, i talked about a media-run state, when a lot of very great journalists started reporting on how trump got all of his great things from "fox & friends" and fired out tweets and even made hiring decisions. i believe some of his communicators are from fox anchoring, including sean hannity. he's playing a role put ago squeeze on rep holdout. if you need sean hannity to win the job of speaker, what do you owe sean hannity once you have in, charlie? >> well, yes, clearly this is very on brand, the bullying of the threats, the doxing of supporters. there are people fighting for their lives, and we've seen examples of real -- and now we're dealing with a congress of the united states where we have member -- and a -- as a legacy. they are afraid that sean hannity may say something bad about them. that tells you so much about the state of the modern republican party and the congress right now. the claire, i'll follow you to substance. jim jarreden doesn't stand for much on that front, but one thing he took on was one of the biggest flops of the republican-controlled house. that's the so-called weaponization committee. even by republican maga standards, he hasn't assembled the three cars of a three-car parade. the competence is clearly not jim jordan's thing. what does that put in motion, as he seems perhaps ready to ascend to the speakership? >> well, it will be interesting to see how he handles hi first big change. it will be a bill i think will come through the senate fairly quickly, but will also assist ukraine, and probably taiwan, and probably funding for the southern border. that's going to come over to the house. you know, the crazy caucus will try to slice and dice it. he won't get it through unless all four pieces are there. i don't know how long he will be speaker. we may be back in two months and talking about him being removed. they have a huge schism in the party. it's between people that have the same foundational values that the republican have, and the trump people. never the two are they going to mix well. i can't imagine this will boat well for our country over the next six months. >> if it's monday, it's vacate the speaker day, it writes itself, right? some of that is structural. it's the things that kevin mccarthy gave away. it doesn't bode well for the people who come next. charlie sykes, claire mccaskill, thanks for spending time with us on this story. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. is story a quick break for us we'll be right back. your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire ( ♪ ♪ ) start your day with nature made. the #1 pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand. the first time you made a sale online with godaddy was also the first time you heard of a town named dinosaur, colorado. we just got an order from dinosaur, colorado. start an easy to build, powerful website for free with a partner that always puts you first. start for free at godaddy.com (pensive music) (footsteps crunching) (pensive music) (birds tweeting) (pensive music) (broom sweeping) - [narrator] one in five children worldwide are faced with the reality of living without food. no family dinners, no special treats, no full bellies. all around the world, parents are struggling to feed their children. toddlers are suffering from acute malnutrition, which stunts their growth. kids are forced to drop out of school so they can help support their families. covid, conflict, inflation and climate have ignited the worst famine in our lifetime. and we're fed up. fed up with the fact that hunger robs children of their childhood. fed up with the lack of progress. fed up with the injustice. help us brighten the lives of children all over the world by visiting getfedupnow.org. for as little as $10 a month, you can join save the children as we support children and families in desperate need of our help. now is the time to get fed up and give back. when you join the cause, your $10 monthly donation can help communities in need of life-saving treatments and nutrients, prevent children from dropping out of school. support our work with communities and governments to help children go from short-term surviving to long-term thriving. and now thanks to special government grants, every dollar you give before december 31st can multiply up to 10 times the impact. that means more food, water, medicine and help for kids around the world. you'll also receive a free tote bag to share your support for children in need. childhood without food is unimaginable. get fed up. call us now or visit getfedupnow.org today. there is some breaking news this hour to tell you about, from brussels, where according to local reports, a terror attack has left two people dead, and a third person possibly injured -- the suspect was motivated. and the threat level has been raised, and a soccer game has been postponed. city workers are working to get the spectators out of the stadium safely. after a break from us, we'll be right back. safely after a break from us, we'll be right back. the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? 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"the beat" starts now. >> thank you, nicolle. later we have reporting on the new efforts to try to still pick a speaker of the house. the floor vote is slated for tomorrow, as you may have heard. we have michael steele comin