it's tuesday, november 14th. congress has until friday to pass a funding bill to avoid a government shutdown. speaker mike johnson might get support from house democrats on his two-step strategy to avoid that shutdown. we'll explain that plan. plus, special counsel jack smith responds to donald trump's push for cameras in the courtroom in his federal election interference case. meanwhile, the former president's eldest son takes the stand again in the civil fraud trial against the family business. we'll get legal analysis on that testimony. and we'll have the latest out of gaza on the efforts to evacuate patients at the largest hospital, which israel says sits above a hamas command post. >> you look at the papers today, and that's the headline on so much. it's about the fact that the israel forces in gaza reached the hospital. this is in the "wall street journal." talks about, as conditions worsen. the lead in "the new york times," "hospital shakes in gaza as fights rage at the doorstep." it really does, willie, for both sides, it feeds into suggestions of what both sides are accusing the others of war crimes on. >> right. >> whether it's israel going after that hospital because they believe that hamas is actually committing war crimes by hiding behind civilians, having a vast network of tunnels right under these hospitals and other civilian targets that they are certain would not be bombed by israel. it makes, obviously, the situation there so much more complicated for, first of all, the israelis, who are trying to root out the terrorists, but also to try to figure out what's underneath there. we're going to be covering that throughout the morning. also, david ignatius posting from israel that we've heard that deal between israel and hamas to free dozens of hostages, maybe up to 100 women and children, they are actually closing in on that deal. we may hear some good news on that in the next few days. >> let's hope that's true. back to the first part of what you were talking about, that is the central dilemma of the war. palestinians are saying to israel, militarily, stop attacking civilians. israel is saying, stop building your command centers, hamas, under hospitals and under schools. we're seeing that play out right now. we'll get to that in a bit. we do want to begin this morning with new revelations in the fulton county election interference case against donald trump and 15 other co-defendants. "the washington post" and abc news have made public excerpts of videos of former trump lawyers, jenna ellis and sidney powell. watch as ellis recounts a conversation with one high-ranking trump adviser where he said, "the boss is not leaving the white house for any reason." >> i emphasized to him, i thought that the claims and the ability to challenge the election results was essentially over. he said in an excited tone, "we don't care, and we're not going to leave." i said, "what do you mean?" he said, "the boss isn't leaving under any circumstances. he's going to stay in power." i said, "it doesn't work that way, you realize." he said, "we don't care." >> ellis was required to lay out everything she knew that the prosecution could use in exchange for a plea deal. nbc news did not obtain the videos. they've not been independently verified. ellis is one of four co-defendants in the sprawling georgia rico case that accepted a lighter sentence in exchange for information. sidney powell discussed in her proffer session a meeting with former president trump where he was told he lost in 2020. >> were you ever around when someone, anyone, told donald trump that he had lost the election? >> oh, yeah. >> who? >> pat hirschman, all thought he lost. >> was that in a separate meeting? >> yes. >> what was president trump's reaction when these advisors would say, "you lost"? >> it was like, ah, well, they would say that, then they'd walk out. he'd go, "see, this is what i deal with all the time." >> powell also discussed her scheme to seize voting machines from across the country. said she talked with the former president often while carrying out her plans. she and trump now claim she never represented him. "the washington post" also reported chesbro, a key figure in the plan to use fake electors, told prosecutors he'd brief trump on the attempt to falsely certify his win in battleground states. chesbro's statement personally ties the former president to the elector plan. the fulton county district toey's office has refused nbc news requests for comment. the lead attorney in georgia said this about the report. quote, if this is the nonsense line of inquiry being pursued and this is the type of bogus, ridiculous evidence d.a. willis intends to rely upon, it is one more reason that this political travesty of a case must be discussed. that comes from an attorney for donald trump. let's bring in barbara mcquade, correspondent vaughn hillyard, and the host of "way too early," politico's jonathan lemire. vaughn, you've been covering this very closely. it is striking to see these two attorneys, these two women who were so brash during the 2020 election with their claims of a stolen election, being humbled now that the law caught up to them and they've cut a deal with prosecutors. >> what is so striking is to see these two on video saying this. this is the part that i keep coming back to. i was at trump's counterrally to the debate last week down in miami there. folks to this day, i mean, one gentleman telling me that he's locked and loaded, ready to go, a hot civil war in his words. it's because of people like jenna ellis and sidney powell. sidney powell standing there after presser after presser, suggesting she was going to release a kraken. there was an international -- jenna ellis, in arizona, she was down there with rudy giuliani, making the case to speaker rusty bower to overturn and allow the legislature to give donald trump the win in arizona. to hear this to the extent that trump loyalists hear from these folks and see the proffer videos, i'm not sure, but it hits at the heart of the argument for the cameras being in the courtroom for the federal election interference case. these are compelling and revealing. >> jonathan, you wrote the book on the big steal. tell us about these two players and the significance of them stepping forward now and saying it was all a lie, and specifically that donald trump was told by his lawyers -- >> many times. >> -- by his lawyers many times that he lost the election. >> that's the most important point, which we'll come back to. in terms of refreshing people's memories, sidney powell, the kraken, jenna ellis, and rudy giuliani made up the heart of trump's legal team after the 2020 election. they worked with eastman and chesbro on not just the fake ector scheme, which is central to the federal january 6th case, but also these other measures, whether it was voting machines or challenging the results or filing lawsuits, which they had a right to do. those were all, without exception, defeated in court. but they propagated the big lie. that is, to vaughn's point, what people are still believing three years later. people still believe that the election was stolen from donald trump. polls suggest the majority of republicans don't think that joe biden was duly elected. that's the poison they injected into the american political bloodstream that is not going away. now, certainly, ellis and powell, you know, their testimony here that they were aware that the election was not, in fact, stolen, that they told donald trump, now, that may get into whether trump's mindset, whether he truly believed or not that he won or lost. i reported in my book, and others have, as well, that trump did at times privately concede that he lost, telling kellyanne conway at one moment "how can i lose to this bleeping guy," meaning joe biden. the trump team is downplaying the significance of these two lawyers' testimony, but there is a limit to what they can do. there is a sense that ellis and powell are part of a chain that could flip in georgia, as well, and endanger the former president further. >> let's take it to barbara mcquade. how valuable is this testimony? is it to get others to flip? do you think some of the things we're hearing from these two individuals, how can it be used in the trial? how useful and valuable will it be? >> well, the purpose of recording their statements is just to lock them in so they can't change their story later. what we'll see at trial is their live testimony. they will discuss all of these things and more, and, of course, be subject to cross-examination. but they revealed important things just in the excerpts, and perhaps there's more. the fact that donald trump was aware of the fact that he lost the election, really important. they had meetings with him where they disclosed the plan, according to chesbro. and a statement that scavino, the deputy chief of staff, said, "she's not leave "he's not leaving under any circumstances." that rebuts the claim he legitimately thought he won the election. another important dynamic is having people on the inside admit that it was all a con. to the extent that a jury presumes a defendant to be innocent, you know, hearing the evidence of a prosecution says one thing, but to hear people say," yes, i have pled guilty. i am accepting responsibility, and i was in on this. here's how it went down." that can be very valuable for a jury to hear. >> special counsel jack smith's office is arguing against having cameras in the courtroom during former president donald trump's upcoming federal election interference trial, saying the former president wants a, quote, carnival atmosphere. in a filing yesterday, smith's team wrote, there is a, quote, constitutionally sound broadcast prohibition that has governed federal criminal trials, no matter the defendant, for decades, and there is no reason to depart from common practice. media outlets, including msnbc's parent company nbc universal, are arguing for the trial to be televised. initially, trump's attorney said they took no position on televising the trial. but over the weekend, the trump team changed course, asking for the trial to be broadcast while accusing the special counsel of wanting it to proceed in secret. at this point, the trial is unlikely to be televised given the federal criminal proceedings have never been aired on television. what's more, judge tanya chutkan repeatedly stated she will treat trump like any other criminal department. that broadcasting his trial would be a major departure from the norm. what do you think, joe? secondly, it's going to be really hard to treat him like any other criminal defendant, but i guess she can try. i mean, he gets special treatment the minute he walks in the door. he has secret service. people can't put him in jail necessarily without the secret service. how does this work? how is he treated like a normal person? >> donald trump wins when donald trump is able to play the disruptor. >> right. >> when he is able to go outside of the courtroom and yell and wave his arms and tell america what just happened inside the courtroom. we've seen it. we saw it with robert mueller. i'm afraid we're seeing it now with jack smith. people are saying, just by the book, let's go by the book. head down. we're doing this like any other case. it's not any other case, and it's not any other defendant. >> no. >> the key, it seems to me, barbara mcquade, for transparency in this case, is paramount. i'm really surprised and really disappointed that jack smith is talking about head down, no transparency, let's just do the case like we do every other case. americans need to see this case. they need to see it because the rule of law is under attack, and they need to see what is happening when a former president is being tried and possibly convicted for the crime of trying to steal an election. don't you think? >> well, what we'd like to see is different, i think, from what we can see. i'd love to see this televised. i think, otherwise, donald trump will misrepresent what is going on in the courtroom. however, jack smith is saying we don't want it to be televised. he is saying the judge lacks the authority. procedure 53 prohibits cameras in the courtroom. any advocacy on this issue has to be taken up at a different level with the judicial conference, the group of judges who make up the rules for what happens in court. her hands are ties, so i think -- >> can't he make a motion to do that? can't he move to get that done? >> the judge lacks the authority to do this. i think what the media companies are arguing is that she should strike down the rule as unconstitutional. if she makes that finding, then i suppose so. other courts already found that it is, so i think she lacks the power to do that. the place to advocate is with the judicial conference to change the rule, and they have time to do that before this trial begins. >> so the trump campaign is trying to downplay alarming comments made by the 2024 republican frontrunner over the weekend, which echoed the words of 20th century fascists. on social media and then later at a rally on saturday, trump vowed to, quote, root out his perceived political enemies, who said, live like vermin. that's what he said, live like vermin within the confines of the country. that's his quote. in a statement to "the washington post" afterwards, a campaign spokesperson hit back at those drawing for le paralle between trump's words and the words of dictators by using extreme language. he told "the post," ot those who make that ridiculous assertion are clearly grasping for anything, and their entire existee will be crushed when president trump rurns to the white house. >> just stop there. >> let's -- yeah. >> their entire existence will be crushed when president trump returns to the white house. >> that makes things better. >> later on, he said, sad existence, not entire existence. i mean, it's a distinction without a difference. i mean, how ridiculous, that a guy comes out, fat, white, pink boy who is trying to talk tough for a fake populist who is going around spreading hatred and trying to overturn american democracy, and his response to it, to trump grasping back at a nazi reference from the 1930s is to say, these people that are criticizing him are going to have their entire existence crushed. i mean, are these, you know -- where do you find people so vacant and so desperate and just lacking any center, any core, that they would talk about people's entire existences being crushed? >> well, it's a job requirement, as you know, to work for donald trump. all those things you laid out. echo exactly what he said. in this case, it's not a reach. it's exactly the thing that adolph hitler said, using the term "vermin." it's playbook 101 as an authoritarian, dehumanize your opponents so, to your supporters, it seems just in some way because they're not human. vaughan, it's been striking to see the lack of response from any republican on any of this. >> it is a given at this point. >> we've been down this road almost a decade now. can you believe what donald trump said? oh, i don't want to talk about if campaign. we're focused on other things. can you believe he said general milley should be executed? oh, i didn't hear it. they won't talk about this either. >> it's what we've been living through, that donald trump could be in the white house four more years. you know, he's utterly vowed to destroy kim reynolds, the iowa governor. for the constituents back home in the state of iowa, when you see your governor threatened like that, you know it is a hostile environment to be. the one time i was invited to donald trump's plane this year was from waco, texas, back in march. i work with these campaign staffers, including the press secretary, on a daily basis. what is so striking this go-around is how keenly aware this campaign team is to have only loyalists on their staff. there are no alyssa farrahs this time around. there is nobody trying to do good from within. when he got back on the plane after the rally in waco, texas, which there were remarkable remarks, everybody applauds, great job, boss. he put his hands up like that. that's what he wants to hear. when he has polling numbers like there is now, he can feel good about his position. >> we'll see if he is re-elected, his cabinet, the people he surrounds himself with. we heard from the white house on the vermin comments. >> the white house upped their rhetoric against trump, criticizing trump in the last week or two. >> good. >> we reported in the last week or so that they were mulling that shift and, well, they've done it. they have decided to draw the contrast as much as they can. they've been really sharply critical of trump on comments like this but also his stance on abortion, other political issues, as well, as a year out with a trump/biden rematch so likely. they're not wasting any time. some felt they should have made this move sooner. i know joe does. but they're doing it now, where their drawing contrasts. it'll be purely loyalists in the next trump administration, were he to win again. we spent time yesterday talking about the 2025 project as they've deemed it and trump's immigration proposals, draconian to say the least, involving camps and un-american measures to rid the country of illegal immigrants. that is what is coming. it'll be rhetoric followed by policy. certainly, we have heard trump since 2015 use subhuman terms to describe his political foes. we're seeing that again here with the vermin over the weekend. there's no sign of it stopping. >> yesterday afternoon, he said in a post on social media he would institutionalize special counsel jack smith, the current deputy attorney general, as well as former doj prosecutors. >> the vermin comment wasn't an ad lib or slip. he posted it to his social media website. this is a story he wants to tell now. >> it's a choice. >> it is another line that's crossed, another time that is shocking but not surprising. again, i'm glad the white house is doing what they're doing. it makes sense. when somebody apes adolph hitler and apes mussolini, when they lift words from 1930 fascist speeches focused at dehumanizing jews, when they talk about executing the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff because he would not go along with a military coup, when they talk about institutionalizing the second he is elected -- and this was just yesterday -- institutionalizing people at the justice department because they're pursuing investigations against him, when he talks about terminating the constitution of the united states of america, then, yeah, yeah, i think, jonathan lemire, the white house is really doing what we're talking about yesterday. they're focusing on donald trump's words. each one of these cases, institutionalizing people in the justice department you don't like, and he makes that threat yesterday after lifting hitler and mussolini's words, what they used to describe jews and other enemies of their fascist regimes. when he's talking about terminating the constitution. when he's talking about doing all of these things. and when he has such extreme remarks on fallen soldiers, saying he doesn't respect them, doesn't understand why. he calls men and women who gave their lives to the united states losers. well, you know, it's a good thing he is bringing it out. i just want to say, i want to underline, again, that i think it's donald trump's words that he is doing now. you know, he has an old act. this is like elvis '77. it is an old act. he's near the end. so what does he do? all he can do is keep reupping for the shock value. he wants to reup for the shock value, so we'll talk about him and other people will talk about him. what he doesn't understand is it is a double edge sword. those very words he's using are now being put together by a campaign that