collins starts now. anderson, thanks so much. good evening, and thanks for joining me. about last night, the 70 minutes i spent on stage in new hampshire with former president donald trump was a major inflection point in the republican party s search for its nominee and potentially the starting line for america s next presidential race. it s important to remember that he is right now the gop front-runner, a race that he is running, as noted, while being criminally indicted, found civilly liable, and under investigation for everything from his handling of classified documents to his wiz empire. also notable the republican reaction on capitol hill today to someone who could easily once again become their party s nominee. are you worried the party s leading presidential candidate of course. that s why i don t intend to support him for the republican nomination. last night provided a clearer view of where trump stands on the key issues that america is grappling with rig
continues to spawn violence across the country. meanwhile on capitol hill, the stalemate over the debt ceiling continues as the country hits its borrowing limit. we ll have the latest on efforts by the white house to find some sort of compromise. plus, the george santos saga takes another really strange turn. now there are questions about where his mother was on 9/11. also ahead, we are hours away from a decision on criminal charges in the deadly shooting on the set of rust. remember that? we ll get you caught up on the case that could come to a major development this morning. and we ll dig into new reporting on an aggressive new proposal from the biden administration as it pertains to the war in ukraine. joe has the morning off but willie and i are here in new york, and we have with us, the former aid to the george w. bush white house and state department, elise jordan, an msnbc political analyst. former white house communications director under president obama, jennifer
Israel once again hammers the gaza strip with airstrikes. According to the Israeli Military, it struck 750 hamas targets overnight, including Underground Hamas terror tunnels, military compounds and posts, as well as the homes of senior terrorist operatives. It comes as the military, the Israeli Military informs the United Nations that all Palestine Missions in northern gaza should relocate in the next 24 hours. The Israeli Military also revealing that it will continue to operate significantly in gaza city in the coming days. A un spokesperson says that amounts to more than 1 Million People and us cities and universities are on high alert after hamas calls on its supporters to hold worldwide a day of rage. Protests friday, that is today. There are mounting fears those protests could turn violent. Now for more on these latest developments, lets turn to Senior National correspondent kevin corke. Kevin, lauren, i have to say this is one of those circumstances that will have people talking
one out. david, what s your sense of how republicans are responding to what you saw today? and also the fact that the white house immediately was like, you want four more years of this? they re fundraising off it. to van s point on your last point, a lot of americans don t share this halls-on view of what those years were like. those years were chaotic. they were exhausting. and the more you see of trump, as we saw him last night, the more it brings that back, so i think that s strategically was smart of them to do it. in terms of how the republicans reacted, i think just as a reality check, they reacted the way they did because as they have been for years, they re fearful of trump s base, which is the dominant force in republican politics today, and he is in fact a i think a fairly substantial front-runner in this race. there are a lot of republican who is share other views who wish that weren t so. but you heard it in that room. people said, well, it sounded
commanding lead over ron desantis. according to a new morning consult poll, president trump leads with 48% support among potential gop primary voters. governor desantis follows with 31%. no other candidate has double digit support. sam stein, i feel like this is the first time we ve seen it flip this way, where usually it s ron desantis who s got the edge over donald trump? well, yeah, i mean, the national numbers have stayed like that, what you saw. what we ve seen recently is that desantis in key states has, in fact, moved ahead of donald trump. this is all hypothetical. donald trump has declaredment ron desantis has not. and tying this to our last conversation, you see donald trump as much as some republicans wish it weren t so, donald trump does continue to have a pretty good grip on a very significant portion of the party. and until someone rests that from him, i think it s fair to say this is still donald trump s party. what happens when ron desantis jumps in, assuming he does.