Mitchell reports, more drama on the house floor this hour. Louisiana republican mike johnson, an Lection Denier who helped craft the objections on january 6, he is next in line, chosen last night by the republicans in a private meeting when a more experienced lawmaker, tom emmer, failed just because of Donald Trumps opposition. In the israel hamas war, back channel negotiations continue for the terror group to free more of the 200 hostages still being held. International pressure is growing on israel for humanitarian ceasefire to stop air strikes. Jordans Foreign Minister from a speech at the u. N. Will join me as well as israels government advisor. President biden hosting a state visitor. The Prime Minister of australia, a major u. S. Military and intelligence ally, with a red carpet welcome on the south lawn and a News Conference this afternoon. We are starting with israel against hamas terrorism. We are standing with ukraine against putins tyranny. Democracy can deliver. Good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington where the house is back in session. Again. We have a fourth frontrunner, trying to fill the void after Kevin Mccarthys ouster three weeks ago. Potential successors repeatedly fell by the wayside. Today the spotlight son mike johnson who never held a major leadership post. He emerged as the latest Standard Bearer and has momentum after donald trump torpedoed tom emmer. Joining me, Garrett Haake and Steve Kornacki. Garrett, to you. Give us background on mike johnson and his chances of getting 217 votes today. Reporter here we go again. Mike johnson coming to the vote for excuse me. The first republican to reach there we go. We got you. Reporter thank goodness. Mike johnson is going for the 217 vote threshold today. His first attempt. The fourth attempt since Kevin Mccarthy was ousted from the speakership 22 days ago. Johnson would become the least experienced speaker in modern history if he were to win. He won election in 2016. He served here since 2017. He is a lowranking member of the house leadership, the number five House Republican leader. He is on some of the more relevant committees. He has been active on Judiciary Committee where people have seen him. He has never been a committee chairman. He may hit whats turned out to be or may turn out to be the sweet spot in the republican conference. Been here long enough, wellknown enough to be well liked but not so long as to have some of the deepseeded enemies or rivalries or people dug in against him. That might be whats necessary here to not have the foes who have taken down some of the candidates who have longer resumes. The other thing to know about mike johnson, he is very conservative on basically every major issue from abortion to transgender rights and issues to trying to overturn the 2020 election. He was a very loud supporter of donald trump in that area. As best we can tell, remains so today. He has not taken direct questions on it of late. Steve kornacki, we see behind us they are doing the prayer. They will do the pledge. We see different groups opposing Kevin Mccarthy, steve scalise, jim jordan. Who are you focusing on today . Who might be The Magic Number of opponents . Yeah. A couple ways to look at this. The frame of reference for if theres going to be any opposition, i think that is the key word, if theres going to be any opposition to johnson on the floor, i think basically the group you are looking to is anyone who voted against jim jordan at any point. As garrett was saying, jordan and johnson sort of similar, very, very conservative profile on a lot of issues, similar in terms of who many of their allies are. What we have got here we will track as this vote plays out is everyone who voted against jordan at any point in those three ballots last week. We added to the list, there are nine other republicans who come from blue districts, districts that voted for joe biden, that backed jim jordan, but they do come from democratic districts, so they are worth keeping an eye on. There were three republicans who last night when they nominated johnson, there were three republicans who actually ended up voting present. They all seem to be indicating this morning that they are on board with johnson. They are on this list. Again, to underscore what garrett is saying, some of the surprises, ken buck, who is probably is very conservative and one of the biggest opponents of jim jordan, and said a key criteria is accepting the 2020 election is saying he is on board with johnson. A lot of folks who were against jordan are sending different signals with johnson. To tell you, the math on this, theres one republican from wisconsin who is over in israel. If every other republican is present, they would have 220 members in the chamber for this vote. We are getting indications that all of the democrats will be present. Thats 212. If its 220 republicans, 212 democrats, that would mean 50 plus one, The Magic Number to be elected speaker on this vote is 217. If the democrats vote for hakeem jeffries, then you can do the math. Johnson can afford three republican defections and still win. Three defections, he would still have 217 votes. We will see. A lot of the names here have indicated we will see how they vote. Have indicated that they will vote for johnson. We want to check and see. Again, that is a very low number that could still scotch this for him. Garrett, last night when they were in the private conference, there were three, i believe, who voted present and 22 who were not there. We dont know where the 22 are. We dont know why they voted present. Reporter we know some of that. For example, Thomas Massey voted present. He tweeted that he didnt know enough. He had conversations with mike johnson and he will be a yes vote today. As for the absences, they were varied. Late night in the capitol with no votes scheduled and a lot of people fed up with this Closed Door Process thats been going on for several weeks now. Frankly, i think a lot of folks went out to dinner or to get drinks and decided to skip this and see where the chips fell. Thats the more interesting element of this to me than the present votes. For johnson and his team, knowing who your opposition is makes it a little easier to address their concerns. Not knowing the views of some of the other folks who just didnt show up could be more complicated. For example, some of them that were not there, tom emmer was not present last night, i have a hard time imagine he will vote against the nominee of the party despite fact this time yesterday he was the nominee of the party. How much is exhaustion and embarrassment a factor, that they know enough . Kevin mccarthy was on Meet The Press and said, this is embarrassing for the party. They know theres been political fallout from this. Reporter its absolutely a factor. Ask most of the republicans and they will tell you that they are embarrassed by how this has gone. They think it made their party and this body look unserious in serious times. Theres a war going on. They would like to address that more directly. They have been unable to do so because of the infighting. A lot will blame the original eight who voted against mccarthy or blame democrats for that. That may have a certain amount of truth into how we got into this original situation. For the 21 days in between that day and this, republicans have only themselves to blame for it. I think they are very eager to get back to looking like they know how to govern. I think thats been part of johnsons appeal. He sent several letters to the conference suggesting the calendar he would follow, the priorities he would follow, how he wants to handle the next year in this congress. I think thats reassuring to people who want something that looks like what passes for normal in congress in 2023. I think one of the letters that i saw, he didnt mention the supplemental, he didnt mention israel and ukraine aid, the biggest military challenges, appropriation challenges facing them. At the time the letter you are referring to was sent, i dont know that the supplemental had been released yesterday. Its possible they didnt have the details. Make no mistake, thats a heavy lift in this house. Basically, the list of people who feel as strongly about passing additional aid for ukraine and israel in the house on the republican side is fairly short. Kevin mccarthy was arguably one of them who was more likely to do so. Getting it done now i think will be more challenging. Here is someone who might be worth asking. I think we will come back. Reporter are you worried mike johnson might not move the supplemental you want to see passed on ukraine and israel . Couldnt catch the answer. We are working in real time here. That was Congressman Mccall who is, of course, very concerned about the foreign issues. I was going to say, it seems to me if you look at his record, its deeply conservative on a lot of issues, cultural as well as some of the military issues that are really front burner now. He is not a bomb thrower. He is not jim jordan. Reporter exactly. Thats right. On the issues he and jordan are difficult to separate. Stylistically, they could not be more different. Johnson is soft spoken and not somebody you see on tv throwing a lot of shots, at least not at his fellow republicans. He is not calling people rhinos. Thats part of how he got here. Jim banks, the republican from indiana just told one of my colleagues that the thing about johnson is that people trust him. Thats been whats lacking going back to mccarthy. Theres too many people with too many broken promises. Johnson, either by who he is personally or the fact he hasnt been here long enough to make promises to break, doesnt have that history. A lot more to come. Garrett haake, steve car knack i can kornacki, stay with us. Hospitals in gaza struggling. Thats next. This is Andrea Mitchell reports. We will be back in 60 seconds. Stay with us. You are watching msnbc. Through the right steps to be successful. And thats what Bank Of America was for me. The hamasrun Health Ministry in gaza says the Health Care System is in complete collapse. The few remaining hospitals out of fuel as of tonight. Its nighttime there. Doctors say the situation is the worst they have seen. Israel has been blocking fuel from the humanitarian supplies that egypt has now been permitting into gaza for the last few days. Israel is saying it fears the fuel would be confiscated by hamas and used for weapons. The u. S. Is pushing for small tactical pauses in air strikes, but not a full ceasefire. As well as calling for a humanitarian corridor. Americans are wait agent the crossing but not able to get out along with International Aid workers trying to leave. Ellison barber is reporting on the state of a hospital. Thesounds, the screams, its disturbing. This is the reality of life inside gaza. Reporter if the walls of gazas hospital could talk, they would tell a story of perpetual hell. If children crying out in agony, bloodied, fighting for their lives after israeli air strikes. 40 of all of the wounded are children. This is a 9yearold boy with a huge blast on his back. Reporter they would tell you how the hospital has no room. How medical teams have been forced to treat patients in the hallway. The walls of the hospital cannot speak, but the dedicated doctors working here can. Over the last 24 hours, we have received 600 dead. Three times the number of wounded. This is putting even more pressure on the system thats falling apart. Raf sanchez joins us from ashdod. You have been to this hospital on different occasions during previous conflicts. Why is this so different than what the doctors have been dealing with in the past . Reporter i have been to the hospital many times. Its the main medical facility in gaza. I have been there during mass casualty events when there were protests, riots on the border. Many, many people shot by israeli marksmen. I have never seen it in the condition as you saw in ellisons report. The hamasrun Health Ministry in gaza says 6,500 people have been killed. They say 17,000 have been injured. What you are seeing in the hospitals is medical staff just completely overwhelmed by this wave of human carnage. There are surgeons operating in the dark using the light only of their cellphones. There are reports having run out of antiseptic. They are using vinegar. One of the key issues here is fuel. The palestinians are saying, we cannot keep the lights on at the hospitals without fuel. The u. N. Is saying, they are about to run out of fuel for their humanitarian operations later tonight and they will be forced to start scaling back those aid operations. The israelis say, any fuel that goes into gaza will end up in the hands of hamas and used for the war effort. They are saying hamas has large amounts of fuel stockpiled which they could share with the hospitals. Thats not something nbc news has independently verified. The u. N. Is warning, the next 24 hours are going to be absolutely critical on the fuel front. On the side of the border where you are right now, the Israeli Military allowed you and other foreign journalists to screen 46 minutes of what they describe as raw, unsensored footage from the massacre of october 7, the hamas terror attack. I have heard you talking about it earlier today on one of our calls. It sounds horrific. Reporter it was horrific. It was very, very difficult to watch. One of the most difficult thing things i have seen. I watched i. S. I. S. Beheading videos. They were horrible. This was 46 minutes long. The Israeli Military is not releasing the footage. They are allowing us to describe what we saw. I will tell you one scene. An israeli father, his young sons, they run into a bomb shelter. A terrorist follows them, throws a hand grenade in. The blast kills the father, the two little boys are wounded but still alive. They run back into the house. There is cctv in the house which picks up the sound. One boy tells his little brother, this isnt a joke, this isnt a prank, dad is dead. Then he screams. He is howling. Why am i alive . He is trying to tend to the injuries of his sibling. Theres a hamas Terrorist Standing over them looking on kind of impassively. He opens up the fridge and takes out a bottle of coke and drinks as the little boys are bleeding in front of him. Later in the footage, you see their mother arriving at the scene. She see her husbands body on the floor. You can see her world collapsing in real time. She physically collapses into the arms of the Israeli Security guards with her. You can see her life collapsing. That was just two minutes out of 46. A very, very difficult thing to watch. The Israeli Military says they want the world to know what happened. Raf sanchez, its just beyond comprehension, all of it. Thank you very much. Joining us now is jordans deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. Minister, thank you very much for being with us. Thank you. Theres death on both sides. Aside from egypt and camp david, jordan i was there. Its the most important ally, the second ally. Let me ask you about your powerful speech yesterday. First of all, the king in cairo was very strong in describing what he described as collective punishment against the people of gaza. It was held up by hamas and egypt. It was a threeway complicated process. You had a powerful speech yesterday. The queen also spoke out about collective punishment. Unusual for her to speak out very strongly in an interview on cnn. I want to ask, from your perspective, what needs to be done . Thank you so much. I do speeches because of the reality with which we are all faced. Theres a lot of frustration out there. We are a country thats invested so much for peace. We know that only peace would not allow those horrific images we just saw from haunting the lives of everybody in the region. Its a call that enough is enough. We have to accept once and for all that violence and war will not secure israelis, will not secure palestinians. Only peace will do so. We are living that day in and day out. Ultimately, unless we all acknowledge the humanity of the other, unless we acknowledge that the pain that you just put on your screen is a real pain that unless we see the pain of the other, both sides, then were going to be falling deeper into this abyss. How can israel not respond . The president of the United States as well as Secretary Blinken have said that israel has an obligation, a duty to respond to what happened to israel. I think the pictures you played would speak more eloquently than any of us. Is this selfdefense, killing 6,500 people selfdefense, denying people their right to water and medicine selfdefense . Is destroying over 170,000 Homes Defense . The wasteland that israel is reducing gaza to is not going to produce the protection that israel and palestinians need. There needs to be selfrestraint. War has rules. The sad reality is, the more death you see from both sides, the more hatred there is, more difficult our job to bring about peace, more palestinians and israelis deserve. Nobody in their right mind, no human being would not but condemn those horrific images of death on both sides, israeli and palestinian. I think there is rage. Theres anger. Do we allow rage to determine the future of the region . Do we allow rage to add to the cycle of violence that have haunted this region for so long . Do we say, lets all bite the pain and lets all focus on making sure it does not happen ever again . The only way it will not happen again, if we reach peace on twostate solution so that between the river and the sea, you have peace and you have two states. Hamas charter is against a twostate solution. They dont recognize israels right to exist. How can israel remove hamas as the