>> your question presumes at this very early hour that it was a deliberate strike, that they knew what they were heading, that they were hitting aid workers and did it purpose. there is no evidence of that. >> outrage and anger after an israeli military strike kills aid workers in gaza. >> these people are heroes. they run into the fire, not away from it. >> tonight, the fallout from the attack, the threat of regional escalation and renewed pressure on israel's biggest ally. >> the united states should not be giving another nickel to israel to continue this terrible war against the palestinian people. then, a new gag order against donald trump. the only presidential candidate on trial. >> i got invited more than alphonse capone. scarface. election night in america as biden embraces choice and from places church. >> november 5th is going to be, i call it something else. you know what it is going to be called? christian passivity day, when christians turn out in numbers nobody has ever seen before. all in starts right now. good evening, from new york, and chris hayes. the u.s. unwavering support of the benjamin netanyahu led governments were in gaza has been a moral, political, and strategic failure. it is long past time to change course. israel's war in gaza has raged for almost 6 months now. one thing is abundantly clear, israel's far right leader, prime minister benjamin netanyahu, has no incentive to stop the catastrophe . he needs the war to go on so he can remain in power. for the brutal hamas deadly attacks on men, women, and children on october 7th, benjamin netanyahu's long political career looked like it was crashing to an end . in an effort to avoid criminal corruption charges, he launched an all-out attack on a cornerstone israeli liberal democracy, cracking down on the independence of its judges. that spurred the longest, biggest protest in israeli history. then in october, hamas attacked and killed over 1000 people, most of them civilians in their homes, barricaded, desperate, at a concert. they took more than 200 hostages back into gaza. benjamin netanyahu, the man that has long claimed the mantle that he alone could protect israel oversaw the worst security failure in the nation's history. and, israeli polling shows the people print them for it. the political factions came together to form a wartime government with benjamin netanyahu at the head, at least until hamas was destroyed, the war, and and his legal and political fate can be decided. that was almost half a year ago now. what has happened since then is a campaign that has been brutal in its civilian toll in gaza. palestinians in gaza forced en masse to flee their homes, over 1 million, 1.5 million, disease, desperation, hunger run rampant. 32,000 civilians are now dead. two thirds of whom are women and children. i should say 32,000 our debt, two thirds of whom are women and children. we are now at a point where just about every aid organization in the world, at least the ones active in the region are screaming that hundreds of thousands of people in gaza are on the threshold of starvation. now, the israeli government claims there is no limit on eight going into gaza. every organization involved in the provision of aid says that there's not enough getting in, that israeli's are slowing down aid and blocking it. they are not allowing enough food into gaza. the international organization that assesses famine assess the population of gaza as "at higher risk of starvation." u.s. eight administrator samantha power has been saying not enough food has been getting in for months. >> we were just briefed by wf pete officials who had just left gaza about the catastrophic levels of food insecurity and the aid workers who, on the ground in gaza, are risking their lives to get food to people in desperate, desperate need, those aid workers have to be protected. >> the u.s. has had to resort to the next ordinary step of air dropping food. this is usually only done in the most horrible conflict, when, for instance, your allies are surrounded, not the ones doing the surrounding. it was used to get aid to embattled folks on the top of a mountain surrounded by isis. the food drops themselves are incredibly inefficient, they have proved insufficient. the next plan, announced with great fanfare and the state of the union, was to build a temporary dock on the water, on the mediterranean sea on the west coast of gaza, where the u.s. could facilitate aid deliveries because the checkpoints are not allowing trucks through enough. in the meantime, the world central kitchen, founded by renowned chef jose andres would need to build a temporary vision, a jetty, where food could come in by ship. the ship through the mediterranean and be distributed in northern gaza, which is where there is the most risk of famine, the hardest part to get food and. world central kitchen has done similar work in all kinds of disaster areas after hurricanes, earthquakes and war zones like ukraine. three weeks ago, he explained why he went to gaza. >> of course we should be bringing humanitarian aid by road. failure is a possibility. what we cannot do is fail the people of gaza. that would be the true failure is not trying. we are trying. >> so, world central kitchen got tons of food, literally tons of food. they uploaded it from their ships, they unloaded it from their ships and sent it to the local headquarters for distribution in northern gaza. yesterday, a convoy of their trucks, marked as their trucks, left that warehouse driving through northern gaza. their logo, clear as day on the top and three of their vehicles were hit by air launched missiles, one after another after another in quick succession. the first one being hit, people evacuating the injured to a second car, that being hit, then the third being hit. it killed seven aid workers, including lalzawmi 'zomi' frankcom, a manager for world central kitchen, appeared on msnbc late last year. today, prime minister benjamin netanyahu said the strike was unintentional and tragic multiple israeli defense sources have told reporters the strike was a mistake that they did precisely targeted the eight trucks knowing they were eight trucks because they thought there was a militant writing in it. the idf releasing an official statement saying "it was a mistake that filed a misidentification at night during a war, very complex conditions. it shouldn't have happened." national security council spokesman john kirby, from the podium, pushback on reports the israelis knew they were hitting and ate convoy. >> your question presumes at this very early hour that it was a deliberate strike, that they knew exactly what they were hitting, that they were hitting aid workers and did it on purpose and there's no evidence of that. >> world central kitchen is now passing its operations in gaza saying the risk is too great. other aid groups are pulling out. the risk of mass starvation looms as intense as ever. this all only ends when the israeli government, which is led by benjamin netanyahu, says it ends. that is not sitting well with many israelis, including many families of the october 7th hostages. about 100 of their loved ones remain in hamas custody in gaza, in this beseeched territory where they are in danger. some of the family members of those hostages were among the tens of thousands of israelis who took to the streets in massive protest against benjamin netanyahu over the weekend, the largest since the attacks of october 7th . there has been enormous pressure from many of the hostages families to strike some kind of deal that releases the rest of them. again, the only mass release of hostages came during the first initial weeklong cease-fire fairly early in the war. more durable cease-fire talks keep breaking down. they broke the last month. some mediators telling the "wall street journal," they sent negotiators to the talks without any real power to make a deal, undermined the talks. israeli officials disputing that notion. benjamin netanyahu appears to be ready for more war. within hours of the news on the strike on aid workers, precision strike where the munition goes through the logo of the world central kitchen at the top of the car, okay, israeli forces used their precision weapons to bomb an iranian consulate in syria, killing seven high-ranking military officials. now, consulates are off-limits, as a matter of international law. one former u.s. official called the strike "incredibly reckless." it is raising fears of a wider israeli war with iran and syria, a war that could drag in the united states. it has been clear since day one just what benjamin netanyahu's political interest is. i mean, the failure of the security failure of october 7th, the horror of it, the bone deep horror of it was benjamin netanyahu's fault. he was the head of the state and israelis understood as such. his survival always depended on staving off the day of reckoning. for the war to stretch on as long as possible. the reckoning is overdue and is coming as soon as the war ends. it comes on the day after. that is what his incentives are and they have been. president joe biden's intent incentives are to broker a deal with hamas, crucially, to release the hostages and then to figure out some kind of post- conflict equilibrium and trajectory that isn't just a descent into more catastrophic militant nihilism and humanitarian suffering. those two incentive structures, biden's and benjamin netanyahu's, cannot be reconciled . so, instead, what we get is this completely incoherent u.s. policy of embracing israel in public and criticizing its actions in private, or in selling them weapons while saying things that they don't like the way they are doing. a policy that aaron david miller, former state department official, who played a role in middle east peace negotiations since worked on the issue for decades, described today in "the new yorker," as "passive- aggressive." which, is an understatement. on the same day israeli killed aid workers and struck an iranian consulate, news broke the u.s. is considering transferring $18 billion in us/made arms to the israeli, including up to 50 f-15 fighter jets. israel is a sovereign nation. has probably the most powerful military in the region. if they want to continue to pursue this war, in this reckless fashion, they can do so without the active aid, assistance, and apologetics of our government. wendy sherman, served as deputy secretary of state from april 2021 until july, 2023. she was the lead negotiator on the iran nuclear deal under president obama. the president of refugees international, previously served the biden administration in usaid and we have , covering the protests in israel. i want to start with you, join me, as someone who has had experience in a provision. conflict zones and/or zones are dangerous places. aid organizations know that and mistakes happen in war and the israeli government is saying this is a mistake. in your experience, how common are mistakes like this, we are precision guided munitions, not like, this is not like someone is caught in gunfire intended for someone else but an actual precision guided munition is directed at an aid convoy, have you experienced that before? >> it is rare. we've seen this sort of thing from russia in syria, for example. russia would strike you and convoys from time to time during the syrian civil war. it is not that common and it is frankly hard to swallow that they didn't know what they were striking and it doesn't absolve them, frankly, that is the case because there is an affirmative obligation under international humanitarian law for a military to know what it is targeting before it dropped a bomb on something. if in fact they didn't realize they were striking and ate convoy, it is hard to believe that, as you said earlier given the logos were so prominently clear on the top of the vehicle when the bomb went right through them, if that is the case, that does not mean this was not somehow a grave breach of international human aquarium law. >> one more follow-up on this because i want to talk about deconstruction, which is something talk about here, the world central kitchen folks of said we were in contact with the israelis about what we were doing and where we were, as all aid organizations would be in a conflict somebody mentioned even the russians, that there will be avenues between aid organizations and the russian government. what does that say to you? there was some back chat. they were communicating. they may have tried to communicate after the first strike, in between the first and the second to say you've hit us. >> humanitarian deconstruction is a well-established principle and process by which human aquarium groups coordinate with a military or militaries that are conducting hostilities in the area where they are working. israel did this, 2006 lebanon war and they had a very effective deconfliction channel with the you and there and it works, it served to protect humanitarians. they have refused to establish a working deconfliction channel up to this point in the war. there is a very rickety process that does not protect aid workers. workers have been screaming about this for months. the u.s. government has acknowledged for months that it is not working and they have been raising with the israelis, you heard kirby made reference to that today. and a senior idf general that now we will establish a more robust to monetary and trent watt deconfliction operation but that begs the question of why didn't they do that from day one of the war? he militaries and the u.s. government have been urging them to do it and that, again, make it harder to view this as an innocent mistake because they did not establish the kinds of systems that they know how to establish to prevent this kind of thing from happening. >> noga, this has received a lot of attention in the israeli press. haaretz has remarked on it. tell me about the weekend protests, noga, and this on top of it and what that has done to the tenor of conversation happening there? >> the tenor of the conversation or public debate has gotten very, very feverish. what has happened this week, even before this event is that this week was planned to be a week of escalation of the protest against benjamin netanyahu and the explicit unification of the struggle of families of hostages still held by hamas with the political struggle against benjamin netanyahu with the families blaming benjamin netanyahu, saying you have pushed us into the arms of these protests against it because we are not persuaded that you are helping us to get our hostages back. what happened tonight in jerusalem was unexpected for me was by far the most tenacious, the most edgy and the most violent protest against, between police and anti- benjamin netanyahu protesters in the streets of jerusalem. at one point, a torch was thrown at the mounted police. there are thousands of people right now sleeping on the streets outside the knesset in these tent cities. late tonight, the police have lost control over streets in downtown jerusalem near the prime minister's residence , where people are quite simply demanding an end to the war and return of the hostages. i do think we have to add to this conversation that hamas has not agreed to conditions. the fact that all of these israelis are blaming benjamin netanyahu is natural, they are blaming their own government. that said, the other side is not helping. >> you can't, you cannot create a unilateral cease-fire, although there are people calling for that. senator chris murphy saying israel should hold immediately suspend military operations inside gaza, allow for a search of unitarian aid. as someone who worked on issues in this region, can you cling to me, aaron david miller called it "passive-aggressive," which seems like an understatement. you criticize the benjamin netanyahu government, you have samantha power at the entrance to gaza saying not enough eight is getting in, we will airdropped it, build a jetty and yet you don't change anything about the material support for this ongoing effort. >> first of all, i think that john kirby set it right. we are all outraged by what happened to these aid workers and it is unacceptable. i think secretary antony blinken calling them heroes is exactly right. all of the aid workers, u.n. and otherwise, many of them are palestinians who have died in this horrible warm, i want to recognize them and salute them and give whatever comfort we can to their families. the great irony is this incident has pulled aid out of gazan, not put more aid in. one of the things that israel could do is to, in fact, open the channels for aid that have been so difficult to get through, as samantha power stated in her interview. that is one thing that benjamin netanyahu could do . i think as noga was pointing out, this is really a game of chess, not checkers. it is very complicated. i believe that president biden is trying to de-escalate, get the cease-fire, get hostages out, have that cease-fire become permanent to end this war . get humanitarian aid in, which can happen now and should happen now. israel has a responsibility to make that happen and to show the world that it understands what this incident and all the others mean for how they are isolating themselves in the world community because of these actions. at the same time, the president is trying to de-escalate and get this surge of humanitarian aid in. he's looking ahead to try and ensure that there is gaza when this is all over, that there is a two state solution, as difficult as that may be. jake sullivan is headed to saudi arabia to talk about saudi arabia's recognition of israel and part of that demand from saudi arabia will be a two state solution, some way to protect palestinians. all of these things in diplomacy, all of these very hard things happen when you have the right leaders, the right leadership and i think we have seen, as you described, chris, as both jeremy and noga described , the people of israel want the hostages back, yes, they don't want hamas to be a threat to them. hamas is a terrorist organization, israel is a state and so they want to end hamas ability to repeat october 7th again. i think most israelis noga knows better than i do, support making sure hamas cannot do october 7th all over again. in order for that to happen, palestinians need a secure future and certainly what is happening now is not leading to that security. it is leading to a whole new generation of palestinians who are quite angry and understandable he so. >> the reports that we have from the north of gaza, which is the place where the ground incursion first happened, where i think the israeli government will say that most hamas fighters were cleared out, where there was intense fighting, essentially it was armed groups and militants of different kinds in a kind of roving gang situation with a total breakdown of civil order because there's no governing structure. it is hard to imagine something better growing up in that kind of situation than even what came before it. there's a lesson that anything can get worse. benjamin netanyahu, noga tarnopolsky, thank you all. donald trump tries to get the judge kicked off the case of his hush money trial. lisa rubin joins me here to break it all down, next. next. 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trump. since then, trump has been attacking the judge, but, notably he has stopped just short of attacking the judges daughter. when mina is msnbc legal correspondent, lisa rubin. i want to start with this, that, every time we do one of these, you can sort of lose sight of how completely out presidents it is, how different it is. it does not happen, it doesn't happen in courtrooms. it doesn't happen with defendants. we are just in a totally different universe in which this man with a lot of power and a lot of followers is berating the judges daughter. >> every time you and i get together or i show up on other shows, talk about the extorting arenas of the moment, that in and of itself becomes ordinary for viewers, who then grow inoculated to this kind of behavior that is so far beyond the pale of what is acceptable in most courtrooms in the united states that we forget. >> or even what would be attempted. you know what i mean? yes, it is unacceptable but even in a universe in which there are millions of criminal defendants, this just doesn't really happen. >> no, it doesn't. most criminal defendants would face consequences for sooner than donald trump has. >> there have been some consequences. at least the gag order has been extended. and, again, we've seen this, we saw this in the past, we've seen this in other places where he does know what he's doing and so he stopped just short. >> he stops just short. what does he do now ? he reposts other people statements about the daughter in order to skirt the prohibition, which is framed as he can't make or direct others to make public statements about certain folks. he is not making a statement, he's not directing others to make a statement, he's merely republishing a statement but that has the exact same thrust and just to the things he was saying before. >> there's also now a request of recusal, which strikes me as, you know, i don't know, a not serious motion. >> it is worse than that because it is the tail wagging the dog. one of the things i noticed in opposition to the gag order, just a couple of hours before judge juan merchan issued the gag order was all trump was doing he was trying to amplify defense arguments about juan merchan. in his post about judge judge merchan's daughter, they claim what that was about was trying to help his lawyers communicate to people how necessary because it was. i don't want to rehash what he posted but that was not the aim. here, what they are trying to do is conflate the political and the legal so that it all collapses into one and take what would be opposition research in an ordinary political campaign and migrate it into this case and the trojan horse of a recusal motion. >> the question is there's always been this sort of there's these two universes like we saw this in the litigation after the election in 2020, which is they can make all the wild claims they want and hosted by republican lawmakers and say all sorts of crazy stuff. as soon as those claims into a courthouse, they got reduced to rubble. what good does it do them to be doing this in a court, i guess is the question? >> it is not that it is the many good in the court, it is that the court is the forum for their political campaign now. the courts are his stage, effectively so that anything he says in court gets amplified, repeated, and becomes a part of his political messaging. it's not about trying to obtain a particular result in a court of law, it is about trying to obtain a result through the courts in our political system. >> right, because ultimately he's not, he doesn't care about winning in the court, he cares about winning the election because that is the only thing that will give him, essentially the community and security from immediate prosecution and possible reason he would otherwise be facing. >> diversely, i think it would almost prefer to lose in these trial courts knowing that it will help him elect oily and if he can only survive through november and 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federal guarantee to the right to choose. donald trump doesn't trust women. i do. >> that comes one day after the florida supreme court allowed a six-week abortion ban in that state to sing and while also rolling an amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution can appeal and appear on the ballot. now with florida set for a shorter nonreproductive rage, republicans will have to make the case to the voters, a fight they have lost every time so far since roe v. wade was overturned. debbie powell is a democratic congress woman running for senate against florida republican rick scott, incumbent republican, focusing on these issues. it is nice to have you here. >> good evening, chris, thank you for having me. >> for the folks in your state you are running to represent statewide in the u.s. senate, what does it mean to be that the florida supreme court has upheld this six week fan ? >> it will be dangerous for tens of thousands of women. this is a total ban on abortion without any exceptions to and benjamin netanyahu, a banner rick scott said he would have supported and signed into law if he was governor. we know florida was the last state to offer reproductive care in the southeast region. i'm concerned as a mom for the safety of young women across the state. i'm concerned about the rise in maternal mortality rate, which we know is affecting black women and latina women at high rates. what we also know, though, is that we are going to have an opportunity in november to make sure that we protect reproductive freedoms in the state and we are going to win. rick scott knows it, the millions of audience website onto the ballot amendment know it and that is why he placed an ad. that is why i need you to go to debbie for florida and support my race. >> i have known you, i've interviewed you in the past, i've had you on the show. i knew you were running in this race and i thought of you when i saw that those two rulings but about this november referendum, what does it mean for you, your campaign, democratic candidates in the state or any candidate that supports abortion rights but just generally for the texture of a state that i think a lot of national democrats have viewed as out of reach, it has moved so far to the right, it has become a sort of red state ? >> i have been saying to you and to many others that florida is a purple state. we saw it in the ballot initiative. this is not a partisan issue. about 1.5 million variance signed on to the petition to get it onto the ballot and it included 150,000 republicans. my campaign -- >> you are saying ballot signature ? >> yes. it included a lot of republicans. over 150,000 registered republican voters. we have one third of our voters are independent voters who have been coming out voting for democrats. we saw it in orlando with tommy keane, who was elected. that was because of the independent voters that came out to support this race. i have been focusing on the issues not only on abortion and protecting a woman's rights to choose and the freedom to choose, this is about the dignity of a woman to make their own decisions on when and how to start a family. >> you know, obviously there's a state ban that was signed by governor desantis. i don't think there's any confusion about where rick scott is on this. he said he would support that ban. i imagine he would vote for a vision wideband. donald trump had this to say. he was asked about the six-week abortion ban and this is what he had to say today. take a look. >> mr. president, do you support the six-week abortion ban the florida supreme court just upheld? >> we will be making a statement next week on abortion. >> he said he's going to make a statement next week on abortion. the biden campaign tweeted this out. "you made your statement, donald " and circled a post where "i was able to kill roe v. wade. without me, there would be no six weeks." how much does the top of the ticket matter for your race ? >> i can tell you that rick scott also celebrated overturning roe v. wade. rick scott also supports a six- week abortion ban. what is happening with trump and what is happening with rick scott is they are trying to run away from this toxic record that they know very well they are going to lose. i think that it is going to galvanize voters of all ages, of all political affiliations and what i'm telling voters in florida, chris, it doesn't matter if they sign and they vote to detect abortion rights in the state constitution. if they elect rick scott and send them back to the senate and he pushes a national abortion ban. that is why my race has become more critical than ever. >> it is a good point. you do have a distinct situation, which is an extremely restrictive ban in place now. the opportunity to overturn that ban and enshrine the rights into the state constitution on election day on the same day that you might have a situation in which a republican senate and republican president and republican house would pass a national ban that would overturn whatever the state did. >> that is what voters need to connect with and that is going to be the work of my campaign. it is not just about abortion, it is also about protecting medicare, social security. rick scott wrote a plan to eliminate, to sunset social security and medicare in a state where we have the highest number of seniors that depend on that care to get their health care. it is also about protecting our environment. rick scott band the words climate change to be used when he was governor. >> i covered that story when he was governor. debbie mucarsel-powell, thank you very much. >> thank you, chris. still ahead, how a big city, and convinced the religious right that he was the man to lead the country in righteousness. that is next. that is next. ohhh crap. now we gotta get france something. wait! we can use etsy's new gift mode! alright. done. ♪♪ plateau de fromage! oh la la! don't panic. gift easy with gift mode, new on etsy. to me, harlem is home. but home is also your body. —last one everyone. i asked myself, why doesn't pilates exist in harlem? so i started my own studio. getting a brick—and—mortar in new york is not easy. chase ink has supported us from studio 1 to studio 3. when you start small you need some big help. and chase ink was that for me. earn up to 5% cash back on business essentials with the chase ink business cash card. make more of what's yours. i've struggled with generalized myasthenia gravis. but the picture started changing when i started on vyvgart. ♪♪ vyvgart is for adults with generalized myasthenia gravis who are anti-achr antibody positive. ♪♪ in a clinical trial, vyvgart significantly improved most participants' ability to do daily activities when added to their current gmg treatment. most participants taking vyvgart also had less muscle weakness. and your vyvgart treatment schedule is designed just for you. in a clinical study, the most common side effects included urinary and respiratory tract infections, and headache. vyvgart may increase the risk of infection. tell your doctor if you have a history of infections or symptoms of an infection. vyvgart can cause allergic reactions. available as vyvgart for iv infusion and also as vyvgart hytrulo for subcutaneous injection. additional side effects for vyvgart hytrulo may include injection site reactions. talk to your neurologist about vyvgart. ♪♪ i'm adding downy unstopables to my wash. now i'll be smelling fresh all day long. [sniff] still fresh. ♪♪ get 6x longer-lasting freshness, plus odor protection. try for under $5! i'm wondering what one or two of your most favorite bible verses are and why. >> i wouldn't want to get into it because it is very personal. when i talk about the bible, it is very personal. >> is there a favorite bible verse or bible story that has informed your thinking or your character through life, sir? >> well, i think many. i mean, you know, when we get into the bible, i think many, so many. and some people, look an eye for an eye. there are so many things you could learn from it. and i've had that thing all of my life where your people are bending to envy. >> back in 2016, donald trump gambled he could win evangelicals including i read the back of the book of the bible. and it does not appear to be in the bible. so the image of the ex- president hocking bibles, while obviously never having read one himself, perfectly incapsulate his buck breaking, but also transformation in a certain kind of an american christianity that's happened over the past eight years. remember in 2016, when they talked about this time and time again, the republicans were the most skeptical of trump early in the primary were the most religious. today though evangelical christians are his most die hard supporters. truthfully not because he moved towards their version of christianity, but rather american christianity has moved towards donald trump as an increasingingly authoritarian personality cult around the ex- president. writing in the new york times, michael bender says, "even more than in his past campaigns, he is framing his 2024 bid as a fight for christianity." one history professor out of pennsylvania evangelical university told bender, the apparent effectiveness of such tactics has made trump the nation's first major politician to separate character from religious voters. and michael bender joins me now. michael, enjoyed the piece. sketch for me what you think has changed this time around, what you've observed has changed this time around in terms of the invocation of christianity as a sort of central theme, rhetorical ordering force in this campaign? >> reporter: yeah. i think a couple of things. one is sort of these evangelical christians, the mainstream, like broad, big tent evangelicals. trump is far from the first republican president presidential candidate to make a direct appeal to evangelicals. that's a very important voting block for our lifetimes in the republican party. but trump in his four years would kick through a list of accomplishments for evangelicals that has made him in their mind their great est champion. and they are more transactional here with trump than maybe in the past. the other thing that's happening here is that i think the thing to think or the way that trump is presenting his rallies now and making them sort of esthetically religious experience speaks to a broader approach from trump to tighten his grip around the entire party, to position himself as the one true republican leader. we've seen it on a number of levels from him, strong arming members of congress to back off endorsements. replacing pretty strong supporters at the republican national committee in charge there with people who are even stronger loyalists to him. and then at the rank and file level, giving them a sort of culturally familiar christian undertones at the end of his rallies that, you know, again, to sort of underscore his insistence. >> you're right, while he's eager to support evangelical voters as a battle of the nation's soul. he has mostly been careful not to speak in those terms. still he and his allies have inched closer to the christ comparison. i want to just play you some interviews from folks that are at a trump rally january of this year, basically making that explicit comparison. take a listen. >> when jesus died, he died for us. so out of all these things, he's doing it for us. >> i'm being indicted for you. my first thought jesus christ died for my sins. jesus died for me. so it connects in my brain that way. >> i got to say someone who sort of spends a fair amount of time kind of reading around the different circles of the american right particularly on this. even if trump doesn't specifically say this, although he flirts with this, this kind of thing is extremely common, particularly in the hardest core groups of his supporters? >> oh, absolutely. it is important to understand this. when it comes to understanding why trump, who is the subject of dozens of criminal and charges, and someone who has led his party into repeated political failures over the last few election cycles. with that kind of record, why he is still, you know, the nominee for a third presidential cycle in a row and positioned to potentially win the white house again. in a closely divided country, you know, each candidate needs to keep every vote inside their party and they need to keep that column nice and tight. the republican and democratic side, if they will have any chance of winning, and then this with trump and republicans is a pretty clear advantage in april of 2024 heading towards november. >> yeah. in fact for the voter verified exits that we would have, he shared that vote to climb from 16 to 2020 and a question of whether that will go back up to those numbers sort of on the table. the final question for you that it is calling your time as one of the great religion reporters that we would have in the country. she had a piece sort of about this debate within christianity and increasingly a version of christianity and that this sort of trumpness is sort of flowing into the actual christian culture as much as that culture flowing into trump that it is transforming the way that people sort of the vocabulary of the certain form of the christianity as well? >> yeah, i think so. and it is interesting. i mean you brought it up earlier the sort of people who are willing to call, you know, to put trump next to jesus. and to kind of make him, you know, a figure. these are folks who are pastors of local small churches who are coming to the trump rallies, reading the innovations. giving you these invocations in the beginning of the rally. it's the big mainstream churches where this is happening. and a number of people are telling me that the people, trump is bringing it in to give them these in the beginning of the rallies. that they never heard of. >> right. >> the big major leader in this country. you know, who won't go on the record to say these kinds of things that the people will go to trump rallies often will. >> michael bender, thank you very much. that's all in on this tuesday night. good evening, alex. >> the church of trump, i never thought i would live to see it, but here we are. thank you, my friend. thanks to you at home