Welcome to Meet the Press Now, I'm Gabe Gutierrez in Washington, where we have breaking news about the Americans caught in this escalating war between Israel and Hamas. Speaking from the White House this afternoon, President Biden confirmed that Americans are among those currently being held hostage by Hamas terrorists following this weekend's brutal attack inside Israel. Moments later, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that the administration believes at least 20 or so Americans are missing. Sullivan caution, that does not mean everyone missing has been taken hostage.
And the State Department just announced that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will be traveling to Israel, leaving tomorrow, to assess the situation. Biden also said today that the number of Americans killed has risen to 14, and he reaffirmed American support for Israel while decrying the brutality of Hamas's actions. The brutality of Hamas, these bloodthirstiness brings to mind the worst, the worst, rampages of ISIS. This is terrorism, but sadly, for the Jewish people, it's not new.
This attack is brought to the surface painful memories, and the scars left by a millennia of anti-Semitism and genocide for the Jewish people. So, in this moment, we must be crystal clear. We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel.
I'm directing my team to share intelligence and deploy additional experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts. Because as president, I have no higher priority than the safety of Americans being held hostage around the world. Today's remarks came after President Biden and Vice President Harris spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the attacks from Hamas continue toay from the air with dozens more rockets targeting Israeli cities and neighborhoods. This is footage from Richard Engle's crew as he was live on the air earlier today, showing rockets being intercepted in southern Israel.
Israel, meanwhile, continued its attack from the air today on Gaza and is preparing for a potential ground invasion there, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of Israeli reservists. The situation on the ground remains highly volatile. Our correspondent, Alison Barber, and her crew led sounds of gunfire just a few miles from the Gaza border. Also, today's release body camera video showing officers carrying out what it says was a hostage rescue mission in southern Israel.
NBC News cannot independently confirm the events shown and we should note that blurring on the video was done by Israeli officials. Israel says it has secured its border with Gaza, but in many ways the war is just beginning and already the fighting has left more than 1,800 people dead, at least 1,000 in Israel and more than 800 in Gaza. Joining me now is our NBC News team, Alison Barber on the ground in Israel, Monica Alba is at the White House. Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent, Andrew Mitchell joins me here on set and Tehran bureau, Chief Ali Arruzi is in Iran.
Alison, I want to begin with you. What is the latest on the ground at this hour? We saw increased rocket fire where Hamas had given residents an ultimatum to lead them earlier today. What has been the aftermath of those attacks and is your crew safe?
Yeah, I mean, where we were earlier today, we saw just how quick this happens, right? If you spent time reporting in Ukraine and you know in some situations in war when there will be an air raid siren and alarm alerting people that there is something in the air possibly headed in their direction, sometimes there's a buffer zone, you have time to get to a shelter to seek safety and you can keep you often have at least 40 minutes because things are being fired from afar. That's not the case here, where we were today, we're about two and a half miles from the border with Gaza and it is not minutes, it is not hours, it is seconds from when you hear an alert saying that there is a warning to when you hear explosions or see something in the air, you really have less than 10 seconds to try and get to a safe place where we were, this is a community where there were civilians, most of them are gone at this point, we initially went there because we heard that Israeli forces were trying to evacuate that city. There were one man who we spoke to who had still stayed there and he'd talk about being there over the weekend and seeing Hamas militants come in hearing artillery on the street outside of his house and ducking down behind his window because he was afraid if they saw him they might shoot.
We have seen this sort of back and back as back and forth as things have escalated where there are attacks coming by air in waves, Israel says that they have shifted to doing airstrikes in waves right now while they are also building up infrastructure and adding troops and brigades around the border with Gaza, Hamas has fired a number of rockets throughout the day, you saw that very vividly where Richard Ingle was, saw it a little bit where we were and it's just this constant back and forth right now and when you speak to Israelis, particularly those like we talked to today who live so close to Gaza, they say you just don't know what is about to happen, one medic we were talking to, he said he'd never experienced anything like this in his life and he'd never seen anything like this in his life, there's been tension, there's been back and forth in recent years but this scale, this scale of an attack on civilians in his memory of the last 20, 30 years here didn't remember it, he talked about feeling like it is the wild wild west right now and saying that you don't know what is going to happen in the coming hours, the coming days and certainly not in the coming weeks but in Tel Aviv and other cities Israelis at least are very supportive of the idea of a full ground assault or the ones we've spoken to at least in Gaza and primarily for them is because of the attacks on civilians, in their mind we're very unwarranted, unprovoked, they describe it as a terror attack and the fact that so many civilians are being held hostage right now. And picking up at that point, Alison, talking about potential ground offensive, yesterday we saw that video of those military assets heading towards southern Israel, what is the latest on that potential ground offensive, is there any indication how imminent it may be? Yes, so Israeli military, they started saying yesterday that it was a full blockade of Gaza, overnight they talked about firing over 200 plus missiles into Gaza saying that they were targeting a Hamas command center as well as a weapons storage unit for Hamas because of the density and things in that area, the spaces they say that they hit were what most of us would consider civilian areas, they hit a mosque, they also acknowledged hitting homes but again they say that's where Hamas was operating out of what they'd also said they'd started to do overnight and into the morning and throughout the day is to move brigades all around the border there with Gaza, they say it's fully secured, as of this morning they said they put about 35 battalions along that border and that they were building up infrastructure around the border with Israel and Gaza, again all of that suggesting that some sort of ground assault could happen any minute. Okay.
Alison, thank you. I'm going to move now to Monica Alba who's over at the White House, Monica, the president making a lot of news this afternoon also as national security advisor, president confirming American hostages are being held by Hamas, 20 or more Americans are missing according to the national security advisor, what do we know, what more information do we know, how closely is the U.S. coordinating and the rest of you efforts there? Very closely Gabe, of course they are monitoring this, it is really an hour by hour situation according to the White House and they are coordinating with different law enforcement like the FBI, they're working with different third party countries of course with Israeli counterparts there on the ground and the fact that we now know that confirmation that Americans are among those being held hostage by Hamas, that's significant because we know that the U.S.
is deploying this team of technical experts who have worked in hostage situations, we're going to go there and essentially work with Israelis to advise them on how to potentially free some of these hostages and we're not just talking about Americans so of course that will be a high priority but anyone who is being held and we know that sometimes these situations can take a very long time so the U.S. is pledging support in that way but they're making clear according to a U.S. official that I spoke with that that doesn't mean that there are any current plans to send in special forces or U.S. troops with the intent of extracting Americans so that's not the conversation that they're having at least right now, instead it's all about surging resources there to try to help those that are already trying to free hostages but given the fluidity and how uncertain some of these numbers are the fact that it's 20 who are unaccounted for but we just don't know how many might be held or how many may be still injured or elsewhere or sadly may have lost their lives and we know that up till now it's been confirmed 14 Americans have died in these attacks but many officials that I've been in touch with say they do anticipate that number could go up.
Yeah so no American boots on the ground at least not yet according to the administration Monica. I want to ask you about the call earlier today between President Biden, the Vice President and Prime Minister Netanyahu, what more do we know about that call? Well this was really a call to continue to pledge this support, this solidarity to be clear that the U.S. is standing with Israel but now there's also a little bit more nuance to how the U.S.
feels about what could happen next in terms of a potential ground offensive and the president said clearly that after speaking with Prime Minister Netanyahu that he does understand that Israel is going to respond in a way that is decisive, that is swift and overwhelming those with the words President Biden used but that also would follow the rule of law so a hint there perhaps signaling to a bit of their conversation about trying to take into account a potential civilian toll with that possible action and ground invasion if that is what happens in to Gaza so we know that the two spoke about that this was their third phone call in the last couple of days and we expect them to stay in very close touch. The U.S. has already sent ammunition, interceptors, essentially whatever Israel is asking for from a military assistance perspective that will arrive shortly and then we expect more could be on the way soon Gabe. Monica very briefly notably the president did not mention Iran in his remarks as the White House is still pushing back on those reports that Iran may have been behind the Hamas attacker.
What's the latest on what the White House is saying? Well they're pointing to the complexity of this and that both Israel and other countries including the U.S. are obviously analyzing intelligence to try to see if they could identify a quote smoking gun that would link Iran directly to this specific attack that we saw this terrorism from Hamas on Saturday but because that hasn't been evident that is simply something they're saying they can't point to however they add the important context in all these moments that in the past Iran has supported financed and helped Hamas in terms of becoming the terrorist organization that they are today so there's clearly that historical linkage but there's nothing in this moment that is a direct tie even though they are continuing to evaluate that. Monica how about the White House Monica thank you I want to bring in our chief one affairs correspondent Andrew Mitchell.
Andrew thanks so much for joining us here on set within the last hour we just heard that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is heading to Israel just tomorrow what is the significance of this? To show the close coordination between the U.S. President Biden of course and Prime Minister Netanyahu they've not always had the closest of relationships on the political the domestic political strife the Palestinian relationship frankly but on this on Israel's security Joe Biden is absolutely in lock step there there's an ironclad understanding there and this attack was so horrific it exceeds anything that has ever happened to Israel you know since the six day war so that's basically the the mission is to completely put his arms around it and to coordinate in a way that you can only do face-to-face they can talk they can strategize but with him there in working with the foreign minister with his counterparts and probably with the Prime Minister himself who they know each other very well Tony Blinken was in the White House before the State Department before during previous Netanyahu prime ministers. Now the president referenced and he has been talking a lot about deterrence that's why the carrier strike group you know heading to the eastern Mediterranean what is that aimed more towards is that in the Hamas Hezbollah or other countries in the region is that Iran what what is the main message that message of deterrence if the U.S.
is trying to take to the Middle East three words Iran Iran and Iran. Iran is you know uses proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas of course in Gaza but it is a ram that arms and trains and resupplies these proxy groups and Hezbollah would not do anything like open a northern front against Israel from Lebanon without the approval a green light from Iran. Andrea you've covered this region for so long what do you think that the announcement that there are in fact American hostages on the ground how does that change the state of play? It changes everything you know you can't imagine that the Biden administration was happy about unfreezing six billion dollars it was politically very damaging to them already has been erroneously Donald Trump and all the Republican candidates trying to link that to any money that's been spent by Hamas or even Iran on arming Hamas which is not true none of it has been spent yet it's frozen it's in Qatar but already they were agreeing to six billion dollars unfrozen are very complicated and politically toxic agreement just to get five Americans back not just but to get five Americans back just as Israel you know sent back a thousand within a thousand Palestinians just to get one Israeli soldier back so getting hostages back saving their lives is absolutely critical but interestingly today importantly both this is Ali officials whom I interviewed and what we heard from the White House today is that they're not restraining Netanyahu at least not publicly from a ground invasion or anything else he feels he needs to do very right now that that is job one for them not getting their hostages back.
Andrea Mitchell I want to stick with me here on set but I want to get to Tehran right now Ali Aruzi who's been reporting from there what have we heard today Ali from Iranian leadership his questions are still circling about Iran's involvement. Hey Gabe so Iran's top authority Ayatollah Khamenei gave his first televised speech today since the attacks happened and he denied Tehran was involved but he did hail the attacks he glorified the attacks saying you know Israel was imperably military and intelligency defeated he was wearing a Palestinian style scarf to show solidarity with Hamas and he went on to say that he kisses the hands of those who planned their attack on the Zionist regime Iranian officials don't refer to Israel as Israel they call it the Zionist regime he called the attack a destructive earthquake that has destroyed critical infrastructure in Israel which can't be repaired easily and then he went on to warn the Israelis that any attack on Gaza as he put it would unleash a much heavier torrent of anger now Gabe even though officials here have denied any involvement Tehran has openly and enthusiastically supported these attacks by Hamas needing up to these attacks there was a flurry of senior Hamas leaders visiting Tehran holding meetings with top officials including Common A if you look at the IRGC channels there was a lot of cheer and a lot of pride in these attacks and even though ideologically Hamas and Iran are not on the same page they do share one common goal and that's the destruction of Israel and that's why Iran has thrown all of its weight behind Hamas because it supports it financially it's given it vast quantities of weapons you look at Common A's website they keep boasting about you know Soleimani helping the Palestinians fight Israel with rockets and not rocks anymore talking about the Iranians helping them circumvent a circumvent blockades to get weapons into there so even though the Iranians are denying that they were involved in any of the planning of this attack they certainly support Hamas up into a huge degree financially and militarily and that's not something they're hiding they're very open about that and the US says that there was no smoking gun but they say Iran was complicit and you can see why right and Ali Iran walking that fine line not taking responsibility but still glorifying the attack as you reported I want to ask you about reports of Hezbollah firing rockets into Israel from Lebanon what does Hezbollah's involvement mean potentially for a larger conflict across the region well I mean that could be a huge conflict because firstly if Hezbollah get involved you're not talking about Palestine anymore you're talking about in another country getting involved in that's Lebanon where Hezbollah is based but unlike Hamas I mean Hamas wouldn't take direct orders from Iran they will do what they need to do Hezbollah will take direct orders from Iran Hezbollah's spiritual leader Hassan Nasrallah says that they take direction and they take orders from Iran Hezbollah is an Iranian creation so they're very much in Iran's pocket whatever they do is by direction of Iran and if we're going to take common A's warning seriously he's saying that if Israel goes into Gaza then this will unleash much greater anger and terror that could be an indication that Hezbollah will get much more heavily involved than they are right now but you know then all bets are off that would unleash a massive conflict that could engulf several countries in this region and then that could really be a very long very bloody and very undetermined fight Ali roose in Tehran and Andrew Mitchell here with me on set thank you to go and still ahead after the worst terrorist attacks in 50 years Israel's challenge now is how to respond what an all-out invasion of Gaza could mean for the region and the world that's next plus the stories of agony from the families with loved ones missing amid what a senior defense official called ISIS level savagery and later as president Biden responds to this international crisis back at home he sat down for an interview with a special counsel investigating his handling of classified documents we'll dive into what that means for where that investigation could be going next you're watching meet the press now and welcome back more than a thousand people are confirmed dead in Israel after those brutal attacks by Hamas on Israeli villages homes in the music festival and more than 100 people are believed to be held hostage in Gaza including American citizens families are in agony waiting for news on their missing loved ones she was saying mommy we are trying to get out of here I'm bleeding we were shot everybody here was shot and she said mommy I'm afraid I will die and I said no you're not going to die I'm trying to be strong but it's so hard I was hoping because I can't deal with something like this I could hear people speaking in Arabic outside of the door and they broke in and the last thing I heard was the youngest who is 12 saying to them I'm so young don't take me it is our hope which is a bit ridiculous at this stage to say that the optimistic scenario here that she's held hostage in Gaza and not dead on the street we go up we don't know if she's in Israel she's in Gaza even if I know that she's in Israel she's probably dead and if she's in Gaza well I've seen what they can do I just can't describe in words I said in previous interview that I'm almost ashamed to be called a human being if other human beings can do such things to their own kind when I saw that the only husband and I personally tears and started shaking it's it's something that no parent no human can ever imagine to see a child in the hands of terrorists it felt like a horror movie it felt like it made their television shows about this there's movies about this this doesn't happen in real life I'm willing to get killed right now for their lives anything bring them home they can take me for as long as they want just heartbreaking to hear all those stories and joining me now is Michael Orr and former Israeli ambassador to the United States and as an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces he was also a paratrooper during the 1982 Lebanon war it was the IDF spokesman during the second Lebanon war and the Gaza operation in 2009 Michael thank you so much for joining us and we just heard there's devastating accounts from the families of the missing ambassador I want to talk to you about the effect of this war on Israel's psyche he wrote in the Atlantic yesterday quote the Yang Kapoor war had a profound impact on Israeli society and politics the current conflict too is certain to have a tectonic effect further shaking Israel's confidence in the government and perhaps even the army making them either more opposed to or more desperate for peace is that shaken confidence likely to be most profound among younger Israelis who might not remember the previous conflict ambassador and certainly and certainly in seeing those interviews and and we're living this reality here Gabe we all know people who are going through this we all know a families that have been taken out and shot we all know young people who are present at that rave concert 260 young people just simply massacred in cold blood and and we're still in deep shock but the shock does not prevent this from acting and the army has not called up 300 000 reservists they report for duty is more than 100% if that's possible and Israel is ready to defend itself the people of Israel today I was at a food collection center for soldiers and just piles and piles of cakes and cookies for our soldiers they go off to battle so this country is far far from defeated but yes yes shaken and that could be understood and it's going to have revocations socially politically after each one of these wars there's always a committee of investigation and responsibility as a portion heads do roll and a future of peace process as well ambassador you know you mentioned that you know so many people are connected to this in Israel and he's eroding the peace and I want to make sure if he doesn't understand there have been many comparisons as he made to the 1973 Yankarpur war but in what key ways does this unfolding war now differ it's different because that war 73 was fought in the distant desert not on the go on heights fought by regular armies with tanks and planes this war was fought by terrorists penetrating 22 villages and killing civilians women children old people and so it's very different hostages taken at least 100 hostages taken just tonight they discover close to 100 bodies and the key votes it is a keep a thousand is really dead in American terms would be about 15 16 times what America lost on 9 of them I was talking about the equivalent of 45 40 000 is American skilled in an afternoon so this is quite a shock for this country's the largest number of Jews killed in any instance the Holocaust and so that is deeply impactful and for our younger people it'll make them even those people who are maybe in favor of a two-state solution with Palestinians they look at the Palestinian Authority in the west bank where there's a Palestinian Authority there's not a boss who's serving in the 18th year of his four-year term he won't run because Hamas will take over the west bank as well they're going to be opposed these young Israelis to any type of solution that would put Hamas along our entire border obviously our major cities I'm talking to you from south Tel Aviv in my bomb shoulder but I have a window I look out that window and I can see the outskirts of Hebron you know in an ambassador some Israelis are blaming or laying blame at the government you know upset that and I was caught off guard you know yesterday the prime minister called for a unity government but is that too little too late this this risk furthering political divisions within Israel especially since of the last several months there had been so much controversy so many protests over the judicial overhaul there indeed but tonight there wasn't actually the government formed that was very timely very important there's going to be a time for investigating this that time is not now right now we have to defend ourselves right now we have to rid our border and I think the Gaza Strip of Hamas and Israelis are uniting and not questioning right now not a portion of blame that will come certainly they'll be a reckoning and that's so ambassador Michael Oren I know you got to go thank you so much for your time and join us here on the press now we really appreciate it thank you and up next with war now ranging house republicans are about the huddle behind closed doors as congress remains paralyzed without a house speaker they're watching me the press now say with us and welcome back the first major piece of legislation has been introduced in the u.s. house of representatives tied to the escalating war between Israel and Hamas it comes in the form of a bipartisan resolution standing with Israel that's being backed by nearly 400 house members that's nearly the entire chamber while it has overwhelming support it currently has no path to passage not until there's a new speaker anyway remember without an elected speaker the house can't pass anything from emergency military for israel to even a civil resolution but in roughly 30 minutes from now house republicans will be gathering behind closed doors to hold a forum for speaker candidates as the conference hopes to begin rallying around someone who can unify the conference and quick joining me now in capital hill is any see sahokapur and sahokapur which is a few minutes away from the republican conference meeting unless something drastically changes does anyone have a path to getting the necessary support to get to the floor not at the moment gay we're not expecting white smoke from this house republican meeting but they will gather behind closed doors at 5 p.m. eastern time today where the major candidates for speaker will present themselves to the conference and make their case that is steve scallese the house majority leader uh currently the the second in line to former speaker kevin mccarthy and then there's jim jordan the other major candidate of ohio a right-wing fire brand who's currently the chair of the judiciary committee currently none of them has anywhere close to the 217 votes they'll need to become speaker and gave it to call order because they're 221 republicans and any candidate is going to need 217 of those members to become speaker on the floor the chamber remember there are no democrats expected to vote for a republican speaker and this is a narrow majority today it's going to be a forum they're going to discuss the way forward there are some who want to make a change to the rules to ensure that no uh ballots take place on the floor of the house until republicans have unified behind a speaker to prevent that embarrassing 15 rounds from happening again and then tomorrow they're going to vote on a way forward highly unclear between today and tomorrow that they'll come to an agreement as to who should be their next speaker so so would you rather be steve scallese or jim jordan right now it's an excellent question if you look at the public numbers in terms of who's endorsed who publicly then you got to say that jim jordan has the edge we can simply count more members on the republicans i'd say they uh they will vote for him but steve scallese is the heir apparent and this will be at least uh you know the vote tomorrow will be a closed ballot and we are expecting a lot of members who haven't publicly announced to be in favor of scallese so behind closed doors there's a school of thought that scallese might you know be in a better position here but at the end of the day you know going by the public numbers eventually people are going to have to put their name to their vote and who's going to wear who down there are some who think jordan has the edge it's very very difficult to say it and so i'm told that you have some reporting about where is real funding can go once we have a speaker what can you tell us about that that's right well currently as you point out it can't go anywhere the house of representatives cannot vote on any legislation even a symbolic resolution like the one you put forward that has near unanimous support without electing a speaker but there is a school of thought there's a belief in the Biden administration and lawmakers in both parties that there should be an aid package that that goes to multiple american allies who are under attack that includes israel that includes ukraine uh there are a lot of skeptical house republicans though i put this idea to many house republicans uh last night at their meeting and they're not in favor of it there are some who say emphatically they're not going to support aid to ukraine under any circumstance that includes lawmakers like brine master florida marjorie taylor green of georgia simply not in favor of it whether it's uh you know whatever the package is and there are other republicans who say they do favor aid to ukraine but they don't want it tied to israel they say israel should be dealt with first should be dealt with separately and they should consider aid to ukraine still aid to ukraine on a very perilous cut forward ultimately it's going to need the support of the house republican majority okay so i'm reporting live first on capitol hill style thanks so much and we learned late last night that president bine sat down for an interview with the special council leading the criminal investigation into his handling of classified documents according to the white house the president participated in a voluntary interview sunday and monday with special counsel robert her signaling that the criminal probe could be coming to an end emcee's ryan riley has the latest and what we know and ryan what does this signify about this interview happening doesn't look like this investigation is wrapping up the white house uh you know u.s official said that this had been scheduled though for weeks yeah you typically don't get this sort of interview unless you're really getting to the end of things and i think that the closest analog we can point to is really arguably what brought donald trump uh to power in the first place back in 2016 the interview with uh hilly clinton and that would involve hilly clinton going to the fbi and conducting this interview was sort of the last step in the investigation into her handling of classified documents before the thing was ultimately closed out um of course uh so i think that that's sort of where we would track this um you know this is a much different situation i would say though versus trump because obviously if it's an involved Donald trump doing some sort of interview wouldn't have a situation where it kept so secret that was the big sort of news to me is that this held on both you know sunday and monday when he conducted these interviews of course he has the advantage of being able to conduct this in the white house so there wasn't any public spectacle around this but i think that does indicate that we're coming to a close here and speaking of former president trump you know he's brought up this a lot you know uh contrasting it or bringing it up in the context of his own special counsel investigation regarding classified documents uh layout for our viewers what are the key differences between the two cases well in biden's case it involved a garage and then in trump's case it involved documents around a toilet with a chandelier above so that's one little bit of a difference but i think overall a little bit but i think overall the the broader thing is here the level of cooperation and working with uh you know the special counsel here in this in this case um special counsel her because that's not something that we saw on the trump side i think you know had the trump situation gone a different way and there weren't these allegations that he was hiding information and trying to hold back information uh from the federal government i think uh you can you can conclude that the justice department would have been very hesitant to bring charges for charges against trump had there just been more of a level of cooperation um so i think predictably probably what we're looking at unless there are any you know surprises that came out of this interview is probably some sort of closure to this investigation i guess the big question is whether or not there's gonna be some sort of report which might be critical at all of biden even if there's not criminal charges brought for yeah that was my next question how long might it take to write up that report we just don't know yeah we really don't know but i would expect that you know the attorney general mary carlin would be expected to make that public but you know obviously her has sort of looked at what's happened to other individuals who have investigated and see he knows what he has coming when it comes to the house republicans in terms of oversight of of that investigation so he knows there's gonna be a critical eye on this but remember he's a republican appointee who's appointed by donald trump previously and has well respected and had a history of a career nonpartisan federal investigator critical eye is an understatement ryan riley thank you so much and next nothing questions over israeli intelligence and the u.s.
his visibility into an escalating wartime situation we'll talk to the chairman of the senate senate intelligence committee senator mark warner next you're watching meet the press now let me say again to any country any organization anyone thinking of taking advantage of the situation i have one word don't don't our hearts may be broken about our resolve is clear and welcome back this afternoon president biden reiterated that israel will have unequivocal u.s. backing as a response to ongoing attacks by hamas but the details of what that support looks like are still taking shape meanwhile members of both the house and senate intelligence committees are receiving intelligence briefings on the war today in just a moment senator mark warner is going to join us but we're working on a technical issue with him but joining me now on set peter baker chief white house correspondent for the new york times and nbc news political analyst democratic pollster marjia marro and breden bock former advisor house republican speakers john dader and paul ryan as well as an nbc news analyst and peter i just saw your short time ago over at the white house uh you were there for the president's remarks what did you make of his speech did he strike the proper tone here well i was like struck actually because i've heard a lot of presence to announce terrorism and israel over the years uh going back the 90s when i started there and i have to say this is probably one of the sharpest and angriest i've ever heard of president he used examples that were uh visceral and outraged he used words like atrocities and butchered and evil at least three times he he left no room for any uh distinction between his view and israel's view of the attack on hamas even of course as he uh promised more aid and promised to be standing by israel throughout uh what happens next you know if there was any tension in there clearly was any tension between the president and prime minister nen yahoo for years you didn't see it today no you really didn't and he'd just come for a phone call or a video call with prime minister nen yaku he and the vice president and he realized about a little bit of what the prime minister told you can see how therefore the president would be kind of riled up the right the prime minister told him about some of the specific atrocities including children and old folks and holocaust survivors who have been targeted by kamas and clearly got to the president because he was conveying that in a very personal way today and i want to turn to you we're a long way from politics you know stepping into the waters that year but with the president uh you know how has he done so far has he made the right moves in order to stop republican criticism that he may have been emboldening around here by his previous foreign policy yeah as beaters said it was it was a really striking strong statement and i think part of it you have to assume is to not leave any space for that criticism to come in and i have to say i think he did that he he was very strong and what he talked about it and he probably learned a lesson from his predecessor president obama and i know peter remembers well the seemingly silly debate now whether he called him gazee terrorism in the aftermath he made clear no uncertain terms the moral stakes that that are going on here of course we're the very beginning of this there's a long way to go you know statements at this uh julchan matter a lot and the way that he's been able to bring together four leaders matter a lot we got a long way to go i mean i know that there's going to be an interaction with congress on this and so there's there's there's still more to come but i think he he's done a lot the best he can do to prevent some of that that political attachment seeping into what's going on and marjorie marjorie excuse me these were his second on camera remarks that he did following uh you know when the uh the fighting began has the president been out in front of this enough of the last couple days the white house making point to you know release this long list about you know 30 interactions meetings phone calls right joint statement with other leaders i mean there's been a lot and i agree i had the same reaction watching it that peter did that he was very crisp and clear and emotional and said exactly it reinforced the values that he shared that american share i i think i disagree with Brendan that this will stop republican criticism not because of something that the president just because i've been watching republicans and they are they many of them really look for any opportunity to make something political or partisan and i think it would be a mistake as voters are tuning into this issue who may not be following this issue closely the rest of the time now are paying attention to hear from republican leaders sort of the same old kind of partisan attacks the way you heard from the head of the republican party say this is an opportunity that's the kind of partisanship that people really have had enough of and i hope we don't see that i don't i don't know if i share Brendan's office right now he did what he had to do but i think republicans have now kind of lost that ability that muscles to say like okay let's come together for you know bipartisan and it's not for them to make that argument considering that they don't have a speaker of the house they have their own inviting and to worry about before i get to the situation capitol which is our next topic i wanted to bring in peter one more time the president did not mention iran at all uh today in his comments uh would you make of that yeah the the administration is taking a cautious post when it comes to iran in terms of blaming it or assigning uh responsibility to iran partly i think because i obviously want to avoid an escalation if they can that's one of the reasons why they sent the carrier group to the eastern amend in order to deter any potential iranian uh direct involvement also because what they're telling us is their intel yet has not established any direct connection of course hamas is you know it comes from a creature of iran it's obviously been supported by iran for many many years you don't get that many missiles to fire at israel without iran's help but so far what the american intelligence is saying is they don't have anything to say specifically that iran knew and was participating in the planning for this operation so i think they're trying to keep keep careful until they get that kind of but they're also making the point that iran and hamas have had a very long relationship here um so Brendan i want to turn the situation on capitol hill i asked our reporter sahel on the hill who would he'd rather be at this point uh steves go east or jim jordan i'll ask you the same question who's looking better right now yeah i honestly i've no idea and i'd like to be able to point in one direction or the other i don't know who's gonna win there's a lot of people who are undecided at this point one thing i probably challenged on what sahel said earlier that there's this narrative that no one has 217 218 votes right now so that we're gonna be in this for a long time i don't know that i buy that i think whoever wins in that closed or meeting all you have to have is a simple majority i think whoever wins that simple majority is very likely to be the next speaker of the house do you think the situation right now in the middle east is adding a new urgency to the republican conference to choose that speaker i do in two ways one there's obviously the idea that they need to pass something relatively soon but i think the bigger issue is that this whole situation i think puts in stark contrast how sort of silly what's been going on in the house is and it makes them seem very small and petty and i think a lot of them are sitting there thinking we probably need to get our act together sooner rather than later we can't allow this to bleed into another few weeks so whether or not they're able to pull that off there's been a lot of times where members thought they needed to get their act together and couldn't but i do think this makes them think long and hard about how much time and space they have to act like this and marjorie to that point how are democrats looking at this and looking at the chaos in the republican conference so they're just kind of sitting back and watching it all happen democrats want to get stuff done and look and if let me tell you how voters react to this and i did focus groups now it feels like eons ago when we thought there might be a shutdown but we still had a speaker so that was how long it was three weeks or two weeks ago they felt like a long time ago and i do i do a lot of focus groups i do you know i've done maybe 150 focus groups over the last two years i've had an increasing number of people in tears over all kinds of things the economy abortion bans etc i did not expect people to come to the focus group in tears thinking about a shutdown because they were thinking about the things that would be cut that would affect them personally so this is real and when they see what happens when republicans can't get their act together they can't decide you know they're they're playing political games they think they don't really have the same sense of urgency because if they had the same sense of urgency they would not act this way if they felt what i felt about the importance of of having the government function having a speaker having a washington dc that works in functions they would not act this way and do you think that um you know that was part of the reason at least why can't what car they decided look we're gonna have to go for the stopgap measure because i don't want to get blamed for the shutdown you know i couldn't i couldn't decide about how he you know i would like to think it was influenced by our focus group showing that people would find uh that wanted to have a focus group but that idea that there's always our paying attention i would hope that all members of congress think about what is what is the legacy of my service that i'm doing here as opposed to you know having sort of a zinger or a fun day on twitter what is my purpose in public service and is it to make the american country and the people more united and have our government function i don't know if kevin mccarthy was thinking that or other members were thinking that but that's what they should be thinking about and peter i want to turn to you and i want to play a little bit of uh sound from uh former uh former speaker kevin mccarthy on this program yesterday with ryan elbows let's take a listen are you a candidate in that conversation no i'm not a candidate whoever the conference picks i'm going to support but if the conference chooses you if there's been a number of of moderate republicans who have come out and said that they think that you should attempt to reclaim the speaker ship if that were to happen would you accept the 96 percent of that let the conference decide that the conference has to unify and want to definitively make us clear you are not ruling yourself out as a potential speaker house the conference could do whatever i am not so okay it's a conference except who every day thank you and then he just spent the day talking about standing with israel does this look like somebody who's fading away from public life and fading away from being speaker no i'm actually where he was saying i will take myself out of it but i think you're right he does obviously still harbor some possible hope that maybe a brokered conference leads them to say let's go back for the grown-up version of this and mccarthy is the best grown-up we have and so let's go ahead and put him back i don't know better i think that's probably not likely at this point i think the conference ready to move on but he's not ready to move on he has a young guy like a still do something like well brandon look there's a monitor to say that they might still back him does that do you count them out yeah yeah i just said that no i think i think beaters right he probably wanted to like at least test the idea that people have regrets over what they did i don't think they do and i think some of the people have made very clear they're not going to vote for him now some of this may be him trying to influence the outcome of the election you know there it's been long reported that he has intentionless steve skilis maybe he's trying to hold off some of his members who like him instead of who might otherwise be citing with steve skilis i don't know if that's actually gonna you know that's gonna impact the outcome but it feels like he's trying to at least put his fingers a little bit on what's happening you know and in that interview and in several interviews before and after that he has still tried to make the case that it was actually democrats that actually somehow voted him out and marjorie um marjorie what do you make of that what do you make of you know kamikar he's still trying to blame democrats for his ouster even though it was those hard line republicans that obviously got him out i mean look i guess you know i guess if what else is there say he still wants to potentially have those members vote for his you know his republican caucus so um so there's i don't think it's a credible argument and i don't think it's gonna persuade any swing voters it's not gonna persuade you know voters in districts where there's a republican member but the district voter for biden um it's not going to convert any democrats to be sure um but does it feel good for republicans to say that you know maybe it does but it's clearly not the reality all right thank you so much uh for being here all the rivi magia marrow peter baker and brendon buck we will be right back thank you and welcome back back to the breaking news tied to the israeli hummus war and the us's involvement we've just learned that the carrier strike group deployed by the u.s military has now arrived in the eastern mediterranean sea as the white house looks to deter a potential escalation in the war the strike group includes the u.s aircraft carrier jereld r4 h squadrons of attack and support aircraft a guided missile cruiser and other assets and it comes as thousands of israelis are lining up to donate blood as hospitals across the country are preparing for further conflict emcee foreign correspondent kelly kobeaya is a hospital in tel Aviv with more well we are in a hospital lobby the largest hospital in all of israel here in central tel Aviv and this has been turned into a blood donation center they were adding beds as we arrive that's how large the outpouring is to donate blood in fact there's a line all the way down the hospital corridor if people waiting to donate one man said he plans to come here on his lunch hour and is told to come back in three and a half hours that's how long the weight is below ground they are turning a multi-story car garage into a hospital the parking bays have been marked out to accommodate hospital beds there are machines and power units on the walls so they can have kidney dialysis machines and life support machines below ground setting up a pediatric unit below ground they say to move patients who may be a little bit more vulnerable and upper floors down below ground just in case there is a missile strike or several missile strikes here in tel Aviv on the ground in israel the israeli defense forces say there are massing troops they are continuing this counter-offensive in the air some 200 strikes on islamic jihad and hamas positions inside gaza they said they hit two mosques one of which they say was a command center the other a place where weapons were being stored but for civilians in gaza the situation is increasingly dire the united nation says 187 000 people are now displaced the vast majority of them are being cared for in shelters there are nearly 800 dead now among them more than 100 children images of children being pulled out of the rubble of buildings by rescue workers and put into ambulances and the u.n. also says that the hospitals are just barely functioning now that they're running very low on medicine and on fuel used to power the generators to keep those hospitals running kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly kelly thank you and thank you for being with us this hour i gave you tears any cnews now coverage continues with hally jacks 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 megawatts 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