Meet the Press NOW – December 1

If it's Friday, violence returns to the Middle east as the truce between Israel and Hamas ends amid new reporting from the New York Times that Israel was warned about Hamas attack plan and failed to act. Plus, disgraced George Santos is ousted from Congress in a historic House expulsion vote as Republicans grapple with an even more narrow majority. Add two governors, two visions and a whole lot of fighting. What last night's fiery and bitter debate really means for two aspiring politicians looking up at two aging and unpopular party leaders.

Welcome to be the press now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington following the latest developments in the Israel Hamas war as fighting resumes in Gaza with no agreement to extend the seven day ceasefire. Flares could be seen on the Gaza Gaza's skyline in the last few hours as Israel resumed its bombardment, accusing Hamas of firing first with rocket attacks and smoke and explosions seen earlier in the day. There have been reports of fierce fighting in central Gaza and this video captured by our NBC team shows the aftermath of strikes in the southern city of Khan Yunus and over Tel Aviv.

Interceptions by Israel's Iron Dome defense system could be seen. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad now say they've launched more missile attacks targeting Israeli cities. The White House says it's working with Israel and Qatar to broker another truce with Hamas. Secretary Blinken blamed Hamas today for ending the ceasefire.

Listen, it's also important to understand why the pause came to an end. It came to an end because of Hamas. Hamas made in fact even before the pace attack in Jerusalem killing people who began buying rockets before the pause ended. If we make on clearance of May in terms of the issuing, we remain intensely focused on getting everyone home, getting hostages back, something that I also worked over Dick.

So we were still at this. During the seven day troops, 105 hostages were released. Roughly 137 hostages remain. That's according to Israeli officials.

And more tragic news today is the hostage and missing families forum announced the death of three Israelis in captivity including Ronan Engel, who wife and two daughters were released this week. The end of the ceasefire comes today after Secretary Blinken publicly warned Israel to take steps to protect Palestinian civilians before resuming military operations. Here's what Blinken said today after the State Department announced that Israel had agreed to designate safe zones in southern Gaza. I make clear that capital it was imperative that Israel put in place clear protections of civilians and after assistance going forward.

And as we've seen yesterday, it's also doubt parts of that including sending out information, making clear where people would be in safe areas in Gaza and We'll be looking at looking back going forward. It's very, very important. IDF flyers and con units in southern Gaza are urging residents to evacuate. Further south, more than 1.7 million people have been displaced in Gaza, and it is unclear where those evacuating can go.

Joining now is Eric Laughlin in Tel Aviv, and Ali Rafa is at the White House. Aaron, let me start with you. The fighting has resumed. Negotiators have been trying to prevent this from happening for another several days, but that did not come to pass.

What, if anything, have you been seeing and hearing? How does this compare to the initial bombardment? What we're seeing right now, Kristen, is bombardment both in the north, where most of the fighting has been concentrated in the first phase of this war, but also heavy bombardment reported in the south, to the south of the Wadi Gaza, where some 1 million Palestinians have been told to go to evacuate to safety, presenting a whole host of new challenges. Our team on the ground today reported that there were bodies and injured being brought to hospitals both in the central Gaza and to the south.

One resident reporting the bombs were falling every 10 to 15 minutes. There was a UNICEF spokesperson inside a major hospital in southern Gaza reporting that there was bombardment 50 meters away from that hospital. And the issue there being. I was speaking to who official just a few days ago.

He was describing just this desperate humanitarian situation with respect to the hospitals. They've lost some 20 hospitals in the north. He said they can absolutely not afford to lose another hospital in the south. This is.

I was speaking to a UN representative earlier today, and she told me that not a single truck of aid made its way into Gaza today, fuel or otherwise, deeming an already serious humanitarian crisis. And obviously there has been so much focus on getting that aid in. Erin, we know that the other big focus for the negotiators, as I was just saying, is trying to extend the ceasefire, trying to get more hostages out. Do you have a sense of where talks stand right now?

Is it possible there could be another pause in the fighting? Well, there's been no sign, no suggestion from Qatari or Egyptian officials that they have made progress today with both sides, both the Israelis and Hamas blaming each other for this breakdown in the negotiations, this breakdown in this fragile ceasefire, Israel pointing the finger at Hamas, saying that Hamas did not meet its obligation to release all female hostages. And Hamas pointing the finger at Israel, saying that they had offered to release the elderly hostages, that they did not want to release the female Israeli soldiers. That was a red line for them in the negotiations.

And so at 7am we saw a barrage of rocket fire from Gaza toward Israel. Our own team on the ground there in southern Israel. So they saw the Iron Dome intercept those rockets signaling that the war was once again starting. And I have to say, Kristen, this has just been an emotional roller coaster for the families of the 136 hostages that remain inside Gaza in Hamas captivity.

I was speaking to the uncle of 38 year old Igor Szetsky earlier today and he was just describing how he understands that hostages have been dying in this war. He understands the risks and he's calling on the Israeli government to do more to save his nephew. Not only that, he says that they're obligated to do more to save his nephew. Take a listen.

We expect the government, the Israel government to do whatever it can to save more and more lives. We believe that, you know, the Israeli nation, the Jewish nation was built under, after the Holocaust under the, the main, and the main purpose is to save Jewish lives, Israeli lives. And that is our expectation from the, from the government to do whatever it can to save lives. And he said that there was one ray of hope that some of the hostages released this week came out of captivity and reported that they saw his nephew.

It was the first proof of life that they've had for him in more than 50 days. Hamas is not allowing the Red Cross to visit the hostages to offer those families that all important proof of life. Kristen. Aaron, your interview, so emotional and just underscores the human toll there.

Please continue to stay safe and thank you so much for your reporting. Aaron Ali Rafa, let me turn to you. As we have been reporting, Secretary Blinken made his third trip to the region this week and of course he did leave without extending a truce. What is the White House saying?

Because one of the big accomplishments or takeaways that he is saying is he has gotten Israel to agree to a plan to try to limit civilian deaths. But the question is what if any assurances did the White House get? Yeah, White House officials are saying that they do believe that there were some accomplishments that came out of this trip by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Israel. They say that he went in with a list of expectations and some of what came out of those are actual actionables and some of them were more expectation setting where the US Drawing a line in the sand as far as what they expect of their Israeli counterparts and assurances they expect from their Israeli counterparts as well.

One of the things White House officials are pointing to as far as progress made is the humanitarian aid front. Blinking going into this with the goal of resuming obviously the ceasefire, to be able to get more hostages out, more aid in, and also those safe zones that you mentioned. Spokesperson Admiral John Kirby told reporters on a call a few hours ago that while Israel has significantly reduced the amount of humanitarian aid that will be able to go into Gaza during the end of the ceasefire, he said that it is expected to continue flowing in. Kirby saying it's going to be around dozens of trucks rather than the hundreds of trucks we were seeing going every day during the ceasefire.

As far as these safe zones that Lincoln talked about with his Israeli counterparts, of course, we know yesterday he asked for assurances that there would be humanitarian safe zones designated in southern Gaza. He said that the human carnage and loss that was seen in northern Gaza once the military operation started by Israel cannot happen again. And a senior State Department official is telling us that Israel has agreed to designate large safe zones in the south of Gaza. This official saying that details are still being worked out, but these safe zones are expected to be around the size of an entire neighborhood.

And this is something that officials are going, are saying that they're going to continue to monitor as we see the next phase of this end of the cease fire play out. Because, yeah, there will undoubtedly be a lot of focus on those safe zones to see whether or not Israel, if Gaza is able to in fact, protect civilians there. Ali Rafa, thank you so much. Now I want to bring in Richard Haas, President Emeritus at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the book the Bill of obligations, the 10 habits of good Citizens.

Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Great to have you here on yet another significant day of developments in the Middle East. And I wonder if you can tell us what you make of this breakdown of the temporary ceasefire.

Obviously, Secretary Lincoln was in the area. He was trying to extend the temporary ceasefire and that did not happen. Some ways it was inevitable. You can almost be impressed that it didn't happen until now.

So long as Hamas is still there, the Israelis have made it clear that their goal is essentially machine change. Not just the military defeat, but the political defeat of Hamas. So Israel is going to continue to prosecute the war and as you're just getting at it in your report is a big issue now, is how it goes about it. I think what you'll see, at least as important as whether this renewed warfare, which again I think is inevitable for the foreseeable future, off and on it's going to be the question of how it is carried out.

Well, to that point, what, if anything, can the United States do to make sure that Israel is in fact, as Secretary Blinken has said, enforcing what the Secretary said would be a plan to limit civilian deaths. You heard Al Rafa talk about those safe zones. How do they make sure, Richard, that the safe zones in fact remain safe zones? It's a big question.

Obviously, the Americans, the United States, the administration is using its voice privately and publicly. If that doesn't work, then it becomes a really, really difficult moment. The question is, does the administration begin to potentially support certain types of action critical of Israel inside the United Nations Security Council? Plus, you're going to see moves probably in the Senate or hearing stirrings among Democratic senators to potentially condition certain types of arms or say you can't have bombs of a certain size because those inevitably are going to cause civilian damage.

So eventually we get into some very, very difficult areas for US Israeli relations. What do you think at this point would need to happen in order for negotiations to resume to release more hostages? Obviously, it's estimated there are more than 100 that are still being held, including several Americans. At some point, one or both sides is going to want to rest it, most likely Hamas.

If it's getting hurt again, I think they'll want to slow things down and that's why they took the hostages in the first place. The whole idea was to give them leverage, to give them protection, to play for time. So I think it's inevitable that we'll probably go back and forth between these pauses and renewed, renewed fighting. So I think that day will come together.

The Israelis may also want a pause. If they're getting a lot of criticism for what they're doing, they may decide a pause is a better outcome than pressure for an open ended ceasefire. And of course, there's the big question of what becomes of Gaza once the fighting stops. Who will govern Gaza?

And frankly, as you know, it's not just about governing Gaza, it's about rebuilding Gaza as well. You have President Biden, Secretary Blinken talking about a revitalized Palestinian Authority, but that presumably would take some time. How realistic is that? And also I hear a lot of talk about the possibility of international force coming in.

Do you see that as a likelihood? I'm not sure there's the will to have an international force, particularly if Hamas is still there. That wouldn't be peacekeeping. That would have to be peacemaking.

I don't think the world is going to want to do that. Palestinian Authority doesn't have the capacity, may not have the will right now in order for them to get involved in Gaza, you would need all sorts of political assurances to them so they wouldn't look as though they were doing Israel's bidding. I think there's no chance that this Israeli government would give them those kinds of assurances. So I don't have an answer to your question.

And more important, Israel doesn't have an answer to your question. They so has violated one of the rules of warfare where they've gone out, they're using military force. But it's not clear how you bring about war termination, how you bring about an outcome that would allow their interests to be to be looked after. And the answer can't be a prolonged Israeli occupation.

At the moment it's not clear who authority could be handed off to. And obviously you don't want Hamas to stay in power. So I can articulate the dilemma. But at the moment I don't think there's an answer unless we see a major change in Israeli thinking first about the use of military force, much more careful and then about empowering the Palestinian Authority.

Really fascinating. As you look at these flare ups of violence in the region, including in the west bank, how much concern is there at this very moment that this could become a wider war? Well, there's two types of wider war. One is the one people are worried about Hezbollah and Lebanon getting involved in.

Obviously Iranian inspiration. We're seeing Iranian supported proxies in Yemen shooting at American forces. So that's been that concern for the last two months. I think it's a different concern about the west bank where you're seeing settler violence against Israeli, settler violence against local Palestinians in some cases pales violence pushing back against security forces or civilians.

And that can really poison or further poison relations between Israelis and Palestinians. So either aspect of worldwide I think would make a bad situation worse. But at the risk of being pessimistic, that's in some ways the modern history of a lot of the Middle East. Bad situations can get worse, particularly if they're allowed to drift.

And I think that's why you see Tony Blinken as active as he is, Joe Biden as concerned as he is, because this is not going to get better by itself. Richard Haas, thank you as always for your great insights. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

Coming up, an historic vote in the House is Republican Congressman George Santos becomes just the sixth House lawmaker in U.S. history to be expelled from Congress. What it means and what comes next ahead. But first we're digging deeper into that bombshell New York Times report that revealed Israeli Intelligence knew the details behind Hamas's attack plan more than a year ago.

Former CIA Director John Brennan joins me next. You're watching me the press now. Stay with us. Two thirds voting in the affirmative.

The resolution is adopted and a motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. Welcome back. That was speaker of the House Mike Johnson gaveling today's historic vote, officially expelling Republican Congressman George Santos from office. Santos hurried off the floor, leaving the Capitol perhaps for the last time.

He is just the sixth person ever to be expelled from the House. In the first in 20 years, 105 Republicans joined 206 Democrats in the vote to oust him. It comes after the House Ethics Committee released a scathing report saying Santos repeatedly liked voters, used campaign funds for personal purposes and broke federal laws. Santos is also facing a 23 count federal indictment that charges him with, among other crimes, wire fraud and money laundering.

Me to news in your congressional courts on Garrett Hick joins me now. So what happens now, Garrett? Stunning developments. Yeah.

All eyes are going to turn to Albany now, where New York's governor has 10 days to set the date for a special election to spill this seed. And, Chris, it'll be one of those closely watched and probably one of the most expensive special elections we've seen in a while happening in the New York City media market early in a presidential election year at a time when both parties are keenly interested in what kind of messages will move these swinging districts. The idea that abortion rights could be on the ballot or any number of other issues will be the kind of election that will matter a great deal for control of Congress, but will be watched extremely closely by strategists on both sides. So what's going to tell us about the presidential election will happen later in here.

Yeah. And if Republicans lose that race, it will shrink their already very narrow majority. Garrett, obviously New York Republicans played a big role in this. They were among the first to come out and say this cannot stand.

What was their reaction today? Yeah, and they want credit for it. I mean, look, all these New York Republicans, or really the freshman Republicans, I should say specifically, were embarrassed to be associated with George Santos. And they realized that he could be an albatross around their necks.

When it came time for re election, they were quick to condemn him and quick to claim credit for his ouster. Today, listen to this. The voters were defrauded. And this expulsion provision today was unwinding that fraudulent elections voters now have a real opportunity, probably at the end of February, the beginning of March, have a real opportunity to send somebody they actually can trust.

The Congress they voted on someone who was made up. Quite frankly, it could have been a Disney character because it wasn't real. Now they will have the opportunity to elect someone who's real, who's had the trustworthy, who conducted bipartisan investigation. That was his due process.

He basically has admitted to the criminal accusations. And I'm happy with the President Yarsa, which is a standard of conduct that we think members must at least uphold. And these New York Republicans, by and large are a little bit more moderate than your standard issue GOP House member. They don't have a lot to show for their first year in this Congress, but at least they can tell their voters they were the kind of leading edge of keeping the House.

Well, just fascinating to hear from them. Garrett, talk a little bit about how House Republican leadership handled this entire saga. They didn't whip this vote, for example, and it seems like they tried to take a hands off approach in terms of pressuring anyone to vote a certain way. Yeah, this has been baffling to me because they didn't whip it, but they all came down on the wrong side of it.

And the top four House Republican leaders all said either publicly or made clear privately, and then ultimately did vote to keep Santos in the chamber. Now they can make the argument they were doing it because they didn't want to change precedent about somebody who hadn't been convicted of a crime. Or they could make a narrow political argument about not wanting to give up a seat and a vote that they need, but none of them really made any of those arguments in public. They were now kind of advocating for any of this.

There was a lot of leadership there, one direction or another by the House leadership team and they can beat up for. We've heard from some of the more moderate members of the members who voted for expulsion, like Steve Womack, who's very critical of House leadership for not, you know, defending this institution by wanting to get rid of Santos. And you heard from people on the right like Charlie Kirk saying they didn't bother to defend our majority. So tough spot for Speaker Johnson and his team.

Still kind of getting their sea legs around here. Absolutely. Garrett, let me ship some other news that you're following there on Capitol Hill. Sounds like House Republicans are planning to formalize their impeachment inquiry potentially.

But you've got a bad timeline there. Yeah, it looks like that happened as early as next week. They are trying to get this done to generate some momentum for an impeachment that has really stalled. I mean, it's just almost completely failed to get off the ground, both in Congress specifically and with the American public generally.

House Republicans have argued that they're not getting what they need from the White House. And to formalize this inquiry, to put more pressure on the White House in a legal sense, to get more documents, more information, we can do everything of substance that you asked for. There's just nothing in it. And that's what you guys are unhappy about.

The House Republicans got a presentation this morning from some of the committee leaders who've been handling that effort. They seem reasonably comfortable with the idea of formalizing this again. It could be a tricky vote for some of these members from Biden districts. But the House is trying to make this a thing, Kristen, and so far it hasn't been one.

All right. Garrett Hake, you have all of the angles covered for us on a very busy Friday. Thank you so much, my friend. Good to see you.

Coming up, Governor DeSantis goes head to head with Governor Newsom on crime, abortion, America's future. We've got the top takeaways from last night's fiery face off straight ahead. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now. Welcome back.

Turning out a more on that bombshell report from the New York Times that Israeli officials had specific details about Hamas's plans for a major attack on Israel more than a year before it happened. The Times reviewed a blueprint of Hamas's battle plan obtained by Israel and codename Jericho Wall, which details an attack that included breaking through border fences and using rockets, drones and paratroopers, just like what happened on October 7. But Israeli intelligence leaders dismissed the document and warnings by analysts calling it aspirational and beyond Hamas's capabilities. NBC News has not seen the document more independently verify its details.

Joining me now is John Brennan, former director of the CIA and NBC News senior national security and intelligence analyst, long title there. Good to see you, Director. Thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

Sure. So what is your reaction, Director Brennan, to learning this new reporting by the New York Times that by all accounts, Israeli officials may have seen Hamas's battle plan a year before this attack? I think the reporting is shocking, quite frankly. It's exceedingly rare to obtain a copy of your enemy's battle plan, especially more than a year in advance of an attack.

And so it did demonstrate that the Israelis had access to Hamas's terrorist corps, but clearly they didn't take advantage of having that battle plan. That document should have been driving Israel's collection efforts in the past year. They could have made the determination last year that what was in the plan was very aspirational and that Hamas didn't have the capability to do that. But they should have been very diligent in terms of looking at whether Hamas was gaining the capabilities, was gaining traction in terms of moving with the different parts of that battle plan.

And it shouldn't have just rest on the shelf. It should have been used by Israeli collection experts as well as analysts. And I think, as the reporting shows, there were analysts who tried to bring it to the attention of senior officials, senior Israeli defense officials, that they were seeing some evidence that elements of the battle plan were being operationalized in a plan's preparation for an ultimate attack. What does it say?

We don't know the answer to this, but given how closely Israeli and US Intelligence typically communicate, is it possible, is it likely that US Intelligence would have seen this information as well? DIRECTOR well, quite Frankly, I think U.S. intelligence should have the U.S. israeli intelligence relationship is probably among the closest, not the closest in the world.

We work very closely with Israeli intelligence. And what I think Israeli intelligence should have done was to see whether or not their closest intelligence partner had any intelligence that could, in fact, verify some of the information in that Hamas document and to see whether or not US collection could, in fact, be directed to determine whether or not Hamas was actually trying to, again, operationalize that plan. So I don't know how broadly or widely it was shared within Israeli intelligence circles, and I certainly don't know whether that was shared outside of Israel. But this is the type of document, since there doesn't seem to be any doubt, at least according to reporting, that it was a legitimate Hamas document that was being used inside of Hamas.

And that's why Israeli intelligence and IDF officials should have been able to take advantage of that opportunity by getting as many views as possible about and we are now joined by Ronan Bergman of the New York Times, who is the reporter behind this stunning piece of reporting. Ronan, thank you so much for joining us. Take us inside your reporting. How did this happen and how high did this go?

Because you say it's not clear that Prime Minister Netanyahu saw this information. Yes. So hi. This report is written and with my dear colleague, Adam Borman.

Ingest this was obtained after massive efforts of Israeli intelligence more than a year ago. It has detailing, I would say, chilling details about what Hamas knew about Israel, the fortification of the border, the different towers for cameras, these submachine guns controlled from remote, the different arrangement that was supposed to make this fence that was built above ground in subterranean invincible. The fence made Israeli security forces, in a way, sleepy. They thought they were enchanted.

They thought that nothing can take the fence out. And they put less forces, less sharp on the border. The Hamas realized that when you read something like 40 pages of this plan called coding by Israel Jericho Bone, you understand the Hamas knew a lot about Israel. And I suspect that at least some bits of that intelligence could not come not from open source, not from social media, not from commercial satellite, not even from people who came from Gaza to work in Israel were recruited by Hamas.

I believe some of that comes directly from the core of Israeli defense establishment and could not come from anywhere else. I assume one day we'll hear about someone investigating how Hamas could get hold of this. But it's not just intelligence. It's about the translation of intelligence to massive raid some almost 2,000 Hamas commandos to break the fence in 60 different places at the same time, use paraglider drones to take out the towers of the machine guns and the communication centers.

And the cameras paved the way to another force to rush in and run over the division brigade, the division headquarters that is in charge of the security of the front, paving the way for hundreds of different teams of Hamas gunmen to storm into Israel. Each team with a different order to go to that village or that party. The pictures that we see now of the noble party, the memory and kill and loot and rape and massacre and abduct. But it's all dependent on Jericho.

The ability to storm defense, use artillery and rockets to divert attention and create operational fog that would confuse the military and would allow Binnan enough time to infiltrate Israel. Once they take this fence down, it was too late. Ronan, what you're describing is really in chilling detail. What we saw play out.

It's really just extraordinary. Do you know if the Israelis shared this with US intelligence record and saying that that is what one would anticipate would happen. And to what extent has this diminished trust in Israel's intelligence? Well, I'm sure the Israeli citizens don't need to wait.

You see the pictures. I've been there since the second day. It's horrible. It's horrific.

Nobody needs the tiny details to understand that this is a massive failure. Failure of intelligence, failure of the military to protect the border without intelligence, failure of the military to get it Foster. But we just need also to bear in mind, put things in proportion that this document was not neglected, it was not disregard, but it was assessed by the best intelligence analysts in the military and in Shin Betta, the domestic secretary, as a wishful thinking as an inspiration plan. They call it a compass for the building of the force.

So it's not about what Hamas can do now. It's about what Hamas wants to do in the future. And the gap, those analysts said, between where they want to be and where they are is massive. They cannot.

Another document says they cannot operate more than 77. Zero gunmen deploy them at the same time. Jericho always talking about 2000 in 60 places. Israel failed to understand the advancement of Hamas to narrow that gap until closing it down and launched the attack on Khubbasid.

Director Brennan, can I just have you respond to what you just heard? What are your key takeaways from what Ronan has mapped out these chilling, extraordinary details? Well, two takeaways. One, as Ronan said, the document contained a lot of information about Israeli security presence and capabilities.

And this was over a year ago. And so it did show that Hamas had some access to that information that was not publicly available. That's a big question. How they get access to that information that could allow them to then chart the battle plan.

And then secondly, it's again quite clear that Israel's assessment of Hamas's capabilities remains static. They believe more than a year ago that this was only aspirational, that Hamas did not have these capabilities. But they should have constantly reviewed and went back to that assessment to see whether or not Hamas was gaining, attaining those capabilities and preparing for the onslaught that took place on October 7th. So I don't question their determination of assessments.

That was done more than a year ago, that this was aspirational, but clearly it wasn't just aspirational on October 7th, and that's the failure of the system overall. Well, thank you both so much, John Brennan, Ronan Bergman, for taking us inside your reporting. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

We want to take a moment now to remember the life and legacy of Sandra Day o', Connor, the first woman to serve on the U. S. Supreme Court. The High Court announced Justice o' Connor passed away at her home in Arizona this morning at the age of 93 from complications related to advanced dementia.

Justice O' Connor was appointed by President Reagan to serve on the nation's highest court in 1981. In a statement today, Chief Justice John Roberts that O' Connor met the challenge of being the first female justice with, quote, undaunted determination, indisputable ability, and engaging candor. Here's what Justice o' Connor herself said about taking that mantle. It's thrilling in a way, to be the first to do something, the first woman to ever serve on the court, but it's dreadful if you're the last.

Now, if I didn't do the job well, that's what would happen. Justice o' Connor often acted as the court's swing vote. She cast multiple votes that uphold abortion rights in the 90s and later cast the deciding vote in Bushy Gore, ending the Florida recount in the 2000 election. Justice O' Connor retired in 2006 after serving more than 24 years on the Supreme Court.

Here's former Vermont senator and then ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy on the press speaking about Justice o' Connor's legacy as the court's moderate center just after she announced her retirement. No, the irony is if Sandra Day o' Connor was being nominated today, the left would start complaining that we can't have her. She's a conservative Republican. The right would complain we can't have her.

She's too much of a moderate and a consensus voter. And yet every one of us will agree she's been a darn good justice. Welcome back to the nation's most high profile governors clash on the debate stage last night. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom of California exchanged fire on a number of issues at an event moderated by FOX News opinion host Sean Hannity.

Both governors are vying to become the face of the future of their parties. DeSantis, of course, running for president. Newsom has been mentioned as a potential successor to President Biden. Contentious, combative, pugilistic and personal.

The governors pulled no punches. The word liar was used more than 20 times. Here's a look at some of the back and forth. Gavin Newsom was mayor of San Francisco.

So he took the San Francisco model, turned that into a template for California's collapse. Now the left wants to take the California model and use that as a template for America's collapse. You're trolling folks and trying to find migrants, play political games, trying to get some news intentions you can out Trump, Trump. And by the way, how's that going for you, ron?

You're down 41 points in your own home state. Joe Biden is in the pocket of the teachers union and so is Kamala Harris. That's why they. Fireworks throughout the night.

I'm see Dasha Burns was at the debate last night and joins me now from Georgia. So Dasha, take us behind the scenes. What was the reaction once the fireworks were over, once they left the stage? Well, behind the scenes there were even more fireworks than what you saw on screen.

Kristen. We have some original reporting here to tell you about that. If you watch the debate you saw at the end, it seemed like they were just having so much fun that they were eager to keep it going. At one point, Hannity said that he had more questions and more time to keep the debate going past the agree upon 90 minutes.

Newsom said he'd be happiest day. They cut the commercial break. When they came back, no more candidates. Hannity said they had other commitments.

But we learned, according to four sources from the DeSantis campaign and one source that was unaffiliated with either of the campaigns, that Governor Newsom's wife actually came onto the set and put an end to it, said that they didn't want to keep going. The Newsom campaign denies that this happened. And they actually accused the DeSantis campaign of breaking rules of debate, talking to his wife and to the staff. So a lot of accusations flying around, around from both teams.

Meanwhile, we did talk to some voters. The vision for this debate was the contrast between a red state and a blue state. And we talked to a voter that moved from Florida to California and a voter that moved from California to Florida. And at the end of the day, this is about people, and that was the point of this whole thing.

So listen to what we heard from them. I made the move because it didn't feel safe to live in Florida anymore. There are a number of actions that have happened with the introduction of DeSantis to the political climate there, and none of them made any sense for someone like myself. We felt like Florida was more aligned with our values.

We had more people that we could relate to, and we felt the freedom of being able to speak openly. Whereas in California, certain perspectives you just kept to yourself because the vehemence that would come against you, aside from the drama that we saw sort of on and off screen, ultimately this was two very different governors, two different ideologies, two different visions for the future, and two very different ideas of freedom. As you heard from both of those voters that felt their freedoms restricted in those respective states and decided that it was so, so intense that they decided to move to another, another state altogether. And this is what people got to see last night.

Dasha, great reporting, great interviews with those voters. Really appreciate it. And all the drama that you're laying out makes it feel like it's an actual campaign. So thank you for that as well.

Great job. Really appreciate it. Join me now on set as Nicholas will be the reporter for Politico Fashion, senior advisor to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. And Sarah Fagan, former White House political director under President George W.

Bush and NBC News contributor, thanks to all of you for being here on a busy Friday. Nicholas, let me start with you. What was the purpose of last night and did both of the governors achieve what they sought out to achieve with that? I think what we saw last night was really a channel for a lot of ambition.

But right now it being pent up by this current state of the presidential Biden and Trump Marcel frontrunners and by all accounts are very likely to be non verballies. And so we're looking at potential matchup where folks are going to be part of the matchup that's half a decade down the line. And so this dynamic that it speaks to is really, you know, a lot of interest in what could happen next. It's a really great point, Sarah.

There is some urgency for Governor DeSantis because he's looking at this crowded field. He's looking at former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who's been surging the polls. She's got some momentum heading into Iowa. He is trying to catch up to her.

Does a moment like this do anything to help DeSantis stand out? I think potentially. I mean, certainly he has a huge spotlight shown on him today. There's no ton of coverage of it.

And Fox News is an important vehicle for information in the Republican caucus in New Hampshire primary. Iowa, New Hampshire. So, you know, with that said, and I thought he did very well. I mean, he what was great about this debate was that there really was a debate about two governing philosophies and we so rarely see that anymore in any of the public interactions between the candidates in a primary.

And then the, you know, we'll see if there's even debates between the general election candidates. That's a big open question right now. So in one respect, I thought Sean Hannity did a great service to the discourse to show there really are two very bright lines here in terms of which way the country moves forward and both of those candidates engaged in thoughtful debate. It's a great point.

And to see two governors as discussing these issues that frankly voters care about that could have been a part of a general election debate. But let me just ask you, take us inside your conversations because my reporting at the time this was first announced was that some of the president's allies were irked by this, that whether Newsom was intending to or not makes it look like a shadow campaign. Now, you heard him last night, defiant, saying he has no ambitions for 2024 and he's not against the race no matter what. But what are you hearing in terms of the reaction today from Democrats?

I think excited. The way in which he animated the fight and defense is done in a way in which President Biden himself doesn't often do. You see fire, you see facts, you see punch, you see passion. The president by his own nature is a person, tones everything down, peacemaker by nature, easy going.

And here comes the fisticuffs from Newsom. And I think both of you put in the way Newsom negotiation. Remember recently Rakana did his own kind of debate with Vivek. And so I think that there's from the White House's perspective, I think they know that if this election is just Biden himself, it's not enough.

He's got to have an army, it's got to be a team. It's got to be a cause around him. And so you're seeing the allyship and I think it benefits him. I was going to say what was problematic I think for Biden though is just how smooth Gavin Newsom is a Republican watching it, I don't agree with any of his politics.

I thought he was very Clintonesque. I mean he has a skill that very few people, including people who've been in office of the president have. And that really shone through last night. I don't know that that was the best contrast for DeSantis who was very strong on policy on that point on styles, when I was remarking on the in the 90s, the West Wing and in some sense the little conception of the president in the West Wing, the person is very back when you get in and you get a lot of, you know, debate.

I think Newsom is that style. Right? It's a different style for this day and age in which people seek authenticity and bluntness and off the cuff remarks. But Newsom's much more of a, you know, kind of by the book facts and a style that is more akin to like Hollywood.

It certainly was a fascinating night politics and our first read, Team Mark Murray made the point that one of the other takeaways is that the issues were the same. The two people debating them were different, but the issues really remained the same. I want to talk about something that we saw today, the extraordinary things on Capitol Hill. Representative Santos, expelled from Congress after that scathing ethics report, found that he had a number of ethics violations.

Talk about the significance of this. How big of a deal is it? Well, this is a fragrant, momentous moment in Capitol Hill. This is the first expulsion of a member who hasn't been convicted of a crime since the Civil War.

And we gotta remember that folks who were expelled up as the Civil War fought for the Confederacy. A much different kind of offense here. And so this was quite a step then for two thirds of the House to step up and say that we didn't want to see this person. And so, you know, the office has now been turned over.

It's now in the hands of the clerk. Consentus has been expelled. And I think what I'm looking to next is the political fallout from this. What does this mean for the inevitable special election we're going to see in New York?

York's third Congressional District? Yeah. Do you think Democrats are gonna win this? Feedback it's gonna be epic.

I mean, there's so much money spent on this one. It is so much polling. Everyone will overread it. Of course, as we often do these special elections.

It will matter a lot. It'll be interesting to see how many bilious candidates first. All jump into this race. Yes.

Probably about the right number. So we'll see if the Republicans can clear first wise. We'll see. But I also think in general, I mean, I'm queasy about anytime you reject a member of Congress.

I think in this, in this time, in this moment, the picture how he corruptly gained office was as important as the fact that when he was in office he maintained the corruption. And I think had he rectified his behavior and he showed that having now acquired office, I am now no longer going to engage in corruption. May have been a different world for him, but that next report was telling everybody. Can you do, Sarah, what's your take and how concerned are Republicans about holding onto that seat?

And we should note that to the point that you're making, because there were a number of Republicans who said, hey, wait a minute, let's wait and let the legal process play out and see what happens. Yeah, I think, look, I think there are some Republicans who had that genuine philosophy and belief that it was a bad precedent until the justice system spoke. I think others didn't want to lose the seat. And to me, this was a very fair case.

This guy's a bad actor. He's been a bad actor his whole life. You know, Tafaza's written his report. He had no.

He continued even after elected office behaved badly and inappropriately. He needed to go so good on the Republicans who voted him out. And let's just. Big picture.

I kept thinking as I was watching this about all of the work that Congress has to do. How hard? How much does this complicate their efforts to try to move on the supplemental request to get worried to Israel, worry to Ukraine, aid to the border, aid to Taiwan? It makes it that much harder of a task for Speaker Johnson and the Republican majority because the House only just returned to its full cohort of 435 members recently when the new member for Utah was sworn.

Now down a number and with that razor thin margin, it really empowers any single small group of lawmakers to be the flying appointment on things like the supplement on things like government funding and any number of must pass items that are going to complete by the end of this year. All right. Well, great conversation. Thank you so much, Nicholas, Sara and Faz really appreciate it.

Happy Friday. Before we go, we are hearing from one of the three Palestinian American college students that were shot in Vermont. Kinan Abdul Hamad and two of his friends were shot last Saturday night, Burlington, near the University of Oman campus. Two of the three were wearing Kafifa's, a traditional Palestinian scarf, and all of them were speaking in Arabic.

48 year old Jason Eaton has been charged in the shooting. Prosecutors are still deciding whether to treat the incident as a hate crime. In an interview with my colleague Zigli Asimwah, Abdul Mala describes what unfolded. We walked around the block and on the way back across the sidewalk, we see this man standing on his porch looking away.

He turned around and as soon as he saw us, he ran down the steps, pulled out a pistol and started shooting. He first shot my friend Tassin, which I assume heard the thought of his body on the ground and him start screaming. And that was my signal to run, run. Then I soon heard another pistol shot while running hit he sham and his stud hit the floor.

So I jumped the fence. I believe that's when he shot me. That interview with Abdul Hamad is part of the special report that airs tonight at 9pm Eastern on NBC News. Now, fear and faith, Palestinians in America.

And that does it for us this hour. We're back Monday with more MEET THE PRESS now. And if it's Sunday, it's MEET THE Press and a little NBC News station. I'll have an exclusive interview with Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis all of this week to John Kirby, national security coordinator for strategic communications.

Do not miss it. NBC NEWS NOW with Hallie Jackson continues right now. He was a young Marine. She didn't care about convention.

They made a life together. Then one night the Marine died. And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Magewitz and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all new podcast from day one.

Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicion now, wherever you get your podcasts.