this year. since then, the former president has made no secret for his plans of revenge if he wins a second term in november, including in an interview aired just last night. >> they have done indictments in order to win an election. they call it weaponization. and the people aren't going to stand for it. yeah, they have done something that allows the next party. if i happen to be president, and i see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, i say, go down and indict them. mostly that would be, you know, they would be out of business. they'd be out. they'd be out of the election. >> so this is not the first time that we've heard that a victorious president-elect trump would do things differently the second time around. "the new york times" recently reporting on how allies of the former president are preparing to pack the white house with aggressive right wing lawyers who would be less likely to stand in the way of his agenda, which was a frustration of his during his four years in office, and guardrails were repeatedly tested, but how easy would it be for donald trump to follow through on threats like weaponizing the doj and the fbi against his perceived enemies, if he does, in fact, win a second term, a real reality we're look at in this country. joining me now, nbc news correspondent, vaughn hillyard, nbc legal analyst paul butler. former rnc chair, michael steel. there was a lot more we heard in the interview. i know that you were at a rally in florida talking to voters down there. talk me through more of what we learned. >> i'll let paul get into the mi if donald trump was president, how he would arrest his political opponents. we have heard donald trump say he would call up his attorney general and order them to go after his political enemies. he was upset with the likes of jeff sessions and bill barr at the end of the term, and he would put in office an attorney general who would all but do his bidding and allow political influence to rain over through his white house. i want to let you hear to somebody i talked to at his rally wednesday night. when you talk to supporters at each of his events, you consistently hear a defense of donald trump in what would amount to greater authority and executive power and use of it to go after folks who they believe took away the white house from him for a second term. take a listen to one man who i talked to. >> reporter: when you say go after them, what do you mean? >> arrest them. imprison them for violating our constitution. >> reporter: how do you do that? >> police are probably with us. >> reporter: you mean, the police will be on the side of -- >> the patriots. they sure will. they haven't been corrupted yet, as far as i know. >> reporter: that's an actual civil war you're talking about. >> oh, yeah. >> reporter: you believe the election was stolen in 2020. >> absolutely. it's right on the nose of your face. >> from my conversations with folks around the country, i think it's important to understand this is not just what donald trump wants. it's not just donald trump who wants to arrest political enemies but what his legions of supporters around the country want from him if he gets back in the white house again as well. >> to be clear here, paul, in this interview as well, he talked about how essentially if, in fact, they are successful, right, this is, in fact, what i will do in this interview. the attorney general, the president, have said repeatedly they are not weaponizing the fbi, they are not weaponizing the department of justice against the former president of the united states. we know currently there's a special counsel investigation into classified documents with president biden. hunter biden, his son, has been charged on three separate counts as well. all of this being said, are there guardrails in place in the department of justice specifically to protect against actions like this from a possible reelection of donald trump. >> there are guardrails, but the guardrails are about policy and norms. there's no law that would enforce or prevent donald trump as president. he could totally politicize federal prosecutors and the fbi. if trump appointed an attorney general who didn't respect the existing norms, that ag could direct investigations against anyone who trump does not like. whether there could be prosecutions is another issue. but, yasmin, there's a supreme court case that says that there are so many federal crimes. there are at least 4,000 federal crimes, that any determined prosecutor who really wants to bring a case against someone, she can usually find a crime to charge. >> i want to play some sound, michael, of chris christie, donald trump's republican opponent last night about this very thing, and then have you react on the other side. >> you had good folks, like bill barr who were keeping him on the rails, and stopping him from doing stuff like this at the justice department. nobody as good and decent and honest as bill barr is going to agree to be donald trump's attorney general if he ever became president again. >> if you will, michael, talk more about this because you look at what has happened to the people who also served alongside donald trump, many obviously that have been indicted, especially if you're looking at the georgia election interference case, the fulton county d.a. case. but you also think about someone like john eastman, right, who is considered a high standing constitutional attorney, right, who also looked to overturn the results of this election. how problematic would it be, not only the reelection of a former president, donald trump, but also the people he would choose to surround himself with inside that white house? >> the election itself wouldn't be problematic, from that standpoint, you know, if it plays out that he gets elected. the challenge would be probably finding a pause point, individuals who would come in and if things started to go sideways, say to the president as we know now that infamous oval office conversation in which he's told if you do that, sir, you will have, you know, nothing but resignations throughout the department. the reality of it is this team, and this is something that some of us have been trying to get folks to focus on for a while, they have learned from the last four years. they have learned from january 6th. they know now what traps to avoid. they understand what type of people they need to put in place, so that becomes less of a problem for them once the process and the ball starts rolling. so that's the problem is that there will be people they will find, who will very happily step in. just like that gentleman that vaughn interviewed. there are a lot of people like that right now serving in government. i love how he sort of whispered, well, the police are with us. that's their thinking. they know they've got people already inside to set the trap. so this is a real thing for us. as americans right now. there are citizens among us who are ready to turn on us for donald trump. that's what this election is about. it is giving them not only the power, but the power to act with impunity. because they'll have officials in place who will walk into that oval office or take that president's call and do exactly what he says without question because they firmly believe, a, donald trump won the last election, and, b, that all the rest of us need to be dealt with for having stopped him for assuming the oval office in 2020. that's what this election is about. it's not complicated. >> and, in fact, when he says my attorney general, it will be his attorney general. >> it will be his attorney general, that's right. >> paul butler, i want to read from the "new york times" and have you expanonhat michael f was talking about here. close allies of trump are aring to populate a new administration with progressive breed of right wing lawyers who they believe stymied the agenda in the first term. the aim is to reduce the chances that politically appointed lawyers would frustrate a more radical white house agenda, paul. >> we already know trump started down this path during his presidency. he set williams sessions as his first attorney general was a big mistake. sessions wasn't loyal. he selected barr. i have to disagree with governor christie. barr was not good and honest. barr got the job of attorney general after he wrote an op-ed suggesting that the russian investigation was a hoax, and of course barr went on to protect trump by misrepresenting what the mother report said and shutting down a criminal investigation. maya angelou said when people show you who they are, you should believe them. not only has donald trump shown us that he's entirely capable of using the criminal legal system for partisan politics, he's literally saying that is what he will do if he is reelected. we should believe him. >> and vaughn, he's not just talking about going after former politicians, going after the former president of the united states, if he's reelected. he's talking about going after attorneys general. >> to paul's point, he's saying this repeatedly out loud and posting on his social media account. just this afternoon, while we were having this conversation, he just explicitly said on his truth social media account, that letitia james should be prosecuted. he is laying out this list for his, his own enemies list of who he wants to seek retribution against in 2025. >> he's telling us to believe him. michael steele, i'm keeping you on a little bit longer. don't go anywhere. coming up, we are seven days from a government shutdown. new explosions over gaza. what we know about the targets and the timing. we are back in just 60 seconds. we are back in just 60 seconds my skin, thanks to skyrizi. ♪(uplifting music)♪ ♪nothing is everything♪ i'm celebrating my clearer skin... my way. with skyrizi, 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. in another study, most people had 90% clearer skin, even at 5 years. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. 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. thanks to clearer skin with skyrizi - this is my moment. there's nothing on my skin and that means everything! ♪nothing is everything♪ now's the time. ask your doctor about skyrizi, the #1 dermatologist-prescribed biologic in psoriasis. learn how abbvie could help you save. welcome back. not long after president biden hailed israel's agreement to maintain daily four-hour humanitarian pauses in gaza as a quote, step in the right direction, an intense new round of air strikes at or near several gaza hospitals are reinforcing israel's insistence there will be no cease fire. the video we are about to show you is disturbing. at al-shifa hospital, shows a young girl, hysterically shouting for her father and her brother. after one of the explosions. the bombardment. it's pushing more gazans to join the mass exodus of civilians heading south where air strikes are as well. keir simmons has more from israel. >> reporter: this morning, no pause in israel's war with hamas. overnight, israel releasing new video of air strikes. filmed from a children's hospital this morning, israeli tanks on the streets of gaza industry. israel's prime minister telling fox news there's no cease fire. >> a cease fire with hamas, means surrender to hamas. >> reporter: this explosion was next to another hospital, al-shifa, where israel has said there's a hamas headquarters. hamas accused of using civilians as human shields accusations denied by hamas. the pictures there today show people killed, injured and terrified. hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee from the north, and israel says the daily four-hour pause announced by the white house is a continuation of its humanitarian corridors. but for the families of israeli hostages taken in the october 7th terror attacks where 1,400 were killed, any pause is hopeful. >> yesterday, the group holding 77-year-old hannah katzia and a young boy, released a propaganda video of them, then promised to let them go. there's no news this morning. and the international committee of the red cross, which would facilitate any release tells us it would need guarantees. >> we cannot force our way through the bullets. >> reporter: yana believes his 74-year-old peace activist mom is held hostage too. >> first of all, bring back the hostages, that's the first thing, we can't move on without it. >> joining us now from tel aviv, nbc news foreign correspondent, josh lederman. a couple of things i want to tick through with you, josh. what more do we know this hour about the strikes near this hospital, and the continuation of these humanitarian pauses as they're being called? will there be more of them? >> reporter: look, israel has said there will be no cease fire, that despite those limited pauses which are narrow in geography, we are seeing that israel meant what they said. we are seeing a bombardment of the gaza strip just in the last hour or so. dramatic scenes over the northern part of the gaza strip, of flares, of explosions in the distance, once again lighting up the night sky. it's one of the more intense aerial bombardments we have seen so far in this war, at least from our vantage point. we know that israel has acknowledged the fact that there was a hospital that was struck in the gaza strip today. now, they are saying that it was struck not by t israeli military, but by a projectile launched by a militant group that misfired. now, of course the gaza health authority, they are claiming israel struck hospitals on multiple locations throughout the day today. once again we are in one of the positions where the basic facts are in dispute. we want to be very careful. nbc news cannot say with any certainty exactly what has happened at those hospitals today on the ground there other than the fact that we know the israeli military has acknowledged that they are operating in very close proximity to some of the same hospitals where we have seen dramatic damage throughout the day. we heard from an israeli spokesperson saying we're not targeting hospitals, but if hamas is shooting at the israeli military from the hospitals, we will do what they have to do. and so, despite the fact that under normal circumstances targeting hospitals is against international law, the israeli military making clear that those protections don't necessarily apply when hospitals are being used by a terrorist group to house their fighters and their weapons, an allegation israel has made repeatedly against hamas, that officials continue to deny. >> josh lederman, thank you, i appreciate it. i want to bring in senior fellow and the american state craft program at the carnegie endowment for international peace. aaron david miller, served in the state department, most recently as a senior adviser for arab-israeli negotiations. we are hearing from secretary of state tony blinken saying far too many palestinians have been killed. much more needs to be done to protect civilians and to make sure that humanitarian assistance reaches them. with what we're seeing, these images coming out of the strike nearby, this hospital, the civilian casualties continuing to rise at a disproportionate amount, do you think there's an opening for even more quote, unquote, humanitarian pauses for longer periods of time at this point? >> maybe. there's a clear distinction, yasmin, i think you know between localized and time bound humanitarian pauses to allow people to leave and humanitarian assistance to surge in from cease fires. the administration has not -- actually, they made it quite clear, quote, at this time, they're not in favor of a cease fire. the real question is over time as pressure grows, and the numbers of palestinian casualties and humanitarian catastrophe that the israelis have visited on gaza in an effort to destroy hamas's military infrastructure which is co-located and embedded near civilian areas, whether or not israel's operational clock, which is ticking much slower than joe biden's political clock, under pressure from democrats and just about everybody else, whether or not there will be a tipping point when the united states would come to the conclusion that a cease fire is something they're prepared to accept. we're not there yet. but in the weeks and perhaps months ahead, perhaps even sooner, we may see additional pressure from the administration on the israelis. >> what would get the biden administration there, you think, aaron? >> i think you would need a mass casualty event, not that 10,000 or more palestinians who have been killed by israeli air strikes and artillery, and the effort by the israelis to eradicate a mass should be sufficient cause already to create a real sense of alarm in the administration. i think that the president is trapped in the same cruel dilemma that the israelis are trapped in. if you want to eradicate hamas in heavily populated civilian areas, i don't see, and no one has found an alternative how to spare palestinian lives, and that, i think, is critically important. israelis pay abide by international humanitarian laws, but it's clear that on the two key issues, the distinction and proportionality, i think the israelis have expanded their rules of engagement. it's a cruel dilemma, and i don't think there's an answer to it right now. >> i want to read for you analysis that i read and i thought was prey fascinating, and it's something that you and i have spoken a before, and i would like you to eand upon a little bit saying this, israel needs to implement in the immediate a intermediate time frame order to change the strategic trajectory two things, regain international legitimacy, and strengthen the p.a., the palestinian authority the first involveding.s. adce, and increasing request for humanitarianaus and intermittent local cease the second, strengthening the p.a. requires aramatic shift in israel's political strategic miset, one that may lead to a political process once a settlement in gaza is extended to the west bank. two are patently diplomatic political courses, and neither is possible as long as israel is governed by the hubris of benjamin netanyahu, i'm not responsible, no one warned me, and the band of incompetent extremists he calls his government, and as long as the p.a. is inept, and unpopular. what do you make of the analysis? >> they have made their views as benjamin netanyahu's extremist, homophobic government quite clear is correct. the clock on the international legitimacy is running out. it's extraordinary in a month how far we have moved from the slaughter and carnage of october 7th to a new reality in gaza, which is bringing additional pressure on the israelis. as far as the palestinian authority is concerned, it will not be an easy lift. mahmoud abbas is in the 18th year of a four-year term. he has virtually no credibility. clearly by settlement activity, and acquiescing in vigilanteism, which the biden administration has raised repeatedly with the government of israel. as far as the future of the netanyahu government is concerned is 1.8 years. the netanyahu government, one year mark comes up in december. if you and i were having this conversation next year at this time, i suspect the current government of israel will have changed. >> aaron david miller, as always, it's a pleasure, sir. thank you. >> thank you. coming up, everybody. what's at stake if house speaker mike johnson cannot strike a deal to avoid a government shutdown in seven days. plus, what joe manchin's decision not to run for senate could mean for the balance of power in the senate. michael steele is back with us. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. flu relief with more concentrated power because the only thing dripping should b