Meet the Press NOW – October 23

Foreign. Welcome to MEET THE press. Now I'm GBP reporting in Washington where we have breaking developments in the Israel Hamas war as we learn two more hostages taken by Hamas into Gaza during that deadly October 7th attack have now been released. And these news has confirmed the release of two Israeli hostages from Gaza, according to multiple sources.

The International Red Cross says they transported the two elderly hostages out of Gaza this evening. And this is video broadcast by Israeli TV just moments ago. The hostages being loaded into an ambulance at the Rafah crossing. The military wing of Hamas as they released a pair for, quote, compelling humanitarian reasons.

Reacting to the news, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said Hamas is using the hostages to bite hot as Israel prepares for a ground incursion. The news comes after two American hostages were released by Hamas on Friday. More than 200 hostages are still believed to be held in Gaza, according to the Israeli military. And the White House said today a handful could be Americans.

We have no higher priority than the safety of Americans that are being held around the world. And we're going to continue around the clock to see if we can get them home with their families where they belong. It is literally an hour by hour effort here at the White House and at the State Department to find out where these folks are and to try to make the effort to get them out and get them back. Small group, we still think they're Americans.

And then there are dozens and dozens from other countries and obviously Israel as well. There's just a lot of effort going on, a lot of conversations and discussions with partners in the region. And I think it's just best if we don't detail that. And amid the high stakes efforts to get hostages released, U.S.

officials telling me this news that the Biden administration is now advising Israel to delay a ground invasion of Gaza to allow more time for hostage negotiations as well as for humanitarian aid to reach civilians. Over the weekend, the first trucks of humanitarian aid made their way across the Rafah border with Egypt. But aid groups say it is a mere drop in the ocean compared to what's needed. This afternoon, the White House said any decision on a ground offensive was up to the Israeli military.

It's argued that the Israeli Defense Forces need to decide for themselves how they're going to conduct operations around the business of dictating terms to them. And we're certainly not going to be in the business here from the White House of previewing any future operations one way or the other that will be inappropriate. Meanwhile, Israel has intensified its aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip. The IDF says it hit 320 military targets in Gaza in the last 24 hours.

Some of the most intense strikes since the conflict began. This was the scene in Gaza City earlier today as people fled following a nearby airstrike. The UN says about 60% of Gaza's population has been displaced. And joining me now for the latest and hostage releases, NBC's Taliban and Tel Aviv.

And with the onset is chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell and also with US Ambassador Dennis Ross, former special assistant to President Obama and Middle east coordinator under President Clinton. Thank you all so much for joining us here on meetup Press now. And Hana, what else we know about this hostage release? Well, we know that the two women, elderly women, 85 year old Yocheved Lifchitz and the 79 year old Nurit Yitzhak have been released.

They are now on the other side of the border inside of Egypt. We've seen images broadcast by Egyptian state media of Yoshed Lifchitz in a stretcher inside an ambulance. We understand she's been transferred to a second vehicle. This is obviously a big relief for the families of these two detained women who have spent now two weeks in Hamas captivity.

But there are more than 200 others in inside the Gaza Strip, including we understand, the husband of Yoshaven Lifchit. The icrc, the Red Cross Red Crescent has said that they took custody of the two women and handed them over to officials on the other side of the Rafah border crossing. And this is of course the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. I spoke to a source who was briefed on the talks and confirmed to me a few hours ago that this was the result of negotiations that were led by Qatari and Egyptian officials.

And Qatar here has played once again an important role because it does host the political office of Hamas and therefore has a direct line of communication with the group. So Hala, is the strategy here by Hamas essentially releasing hostages slowly to buy time? Yes, it seems like that could be one of the strategies. And we also know that the president himself has been telling the Israeli leadership and the prime minister, look, if you can delay a ground incursion to give space, to give oxygen, to give time for some of these hostages to be released and for some humanitarian aid to make it into the Gaza Strip.

But that would be a good idea, that would be advisable. We know that a very small amount of humanitarian aid so far has made it inside the Gaza Strip. Only a few dozen trucks before the war, three to 400 vehicles would make the crossing every day. And here we're looking at just 15 or 20 every two or three days.

So it's not enough. And what we're seeing here, by the way, are images. We understand Yoched lifja, she's the 85 year old who was released. We understand that she is frail, that she's in need of oxygen, that she's medical vulnerable.

And the source I spoke to was briefed on these talks mediated by Egypt and Qatar, said that that was one of the reasons that Hamas chose them. But yes, of course, strategically they're using these hostages as negotiating tools, as pawns, as leverage with the Israelis in terms of trying to perhaps delay a ground incursion. And Khalid, these pictures are pretty dramatic, but it's essentially what Hamas wants the world to see at this point, is it not? Yes.

I think what they're trying to do is to say, look, when you, if you would like to see more of this, then a ground incursion is not a good idea. I think if I were to put it any way, I would phrase it that way. And I think this is a way to put pressure on the Israeli leadership and also perhaps to send a message to Israelis, to ordinary Israelis that if you want to see more of your hostages released, perhaps a delay to the ground defense of the military assault that has been promised is a good idea. This is probably a message that is sent to the world but also to the people inside of Israel.

Hologram Tel Aviv Holla. Thank you. Stick with us. I want to turn out our chief foreign affairs respondent, Andrea Mitchell.

Andrea, you know we've been reporting today at the White House is now has been advising, at least for the last several days not to go ahead with this ground agent. But they've been very careful, I mean to point out that they don't want it to seem as they're telling Israel what to do. What's the latest on your reporting and how does this play into it? Yet another, another two hostages released.

Where do we go from here? It's going to keep happening. It could keep happening. And one of the wishes from the US side, the Israeli side, is that it does keep happening more than two at a time.

But the US has been carefully saying and over and over repe, we do not dictate anything to the Israelis. And it's always been on one hand and on the other hand, we are not dictating. They have the right, in fact, the obligation to defend themselves. That is the phrase that Secretary Blinken, the president have used.

But. And the big but is, of course, we are in Conversations with them. The president confirmed that I think he was coming out of church in Rehoboth or in Wilmington this weekend. That yes, I'm talking to the Israelis.

He's been talking to President to Prime Minister Netanyahu and giving him this balancing of yes, you have the right and the obligation you have to defend yourself. We will continually emphasize that globally. But their feeling was according to many officials and all of our reporting, that they should go slow on the ground invasion for a number of reasons that was against their interests because the world opinion was turning against them and people were people who were mass populations in Europe and the United States were not. And certainly in the Arab street.

We're not thinking about the slaughter of Hamas of the Israeli citizens, the invasions of their homes, the kidnapping and all the horror on October 7th that they were seeing what's happening in Gaza, leveling of block after block, the people who were under siege and didn't have food, water, fuel. And so the slowness of the delivery of the humanitarian aid was part of this Blinken and President Biden urging let Egypt, Hamas and Israel get the aid in and get a permanent corridor of aid in. Before you do a ground of action. Andrew, before I get the White House I want to ask you about the significance of the Qatari government here.

We got that released from the White House on Friday where President Biden went out of his way to thank Qatar. We understand, you know, as serving as an intermediary here with mosque. How critical is the role of the Qatari government moving forward and also as we look ahead to the UN General Security Council meeting more. No, absolutely critical because that's why secretary of the gang of Qatar would ever in the region went to Egypt but to talk to all the Gulf partners to Egypt but to Qatar hosts as how I was saying hostless senior political if there's such thing as political non military leaders of Hamas it's a terrible and also credited today in their own statement Hamas credited Qatar and Egypt.

So now they're crediting El Sisi, the president of Egypt. It's been the military, the intelligence agencies in all these countries but principally Qatar and in this instance Egypt who have the most influence over Hamas. Those relationships so critical to get these hostages out. I want to turn on Ali Rafa at the White House and ally John Kirby.

Admiral Kirby this afternoon speaking at the White House briefing room saying you know that there are that the administration is sending advisers to Israel and talking a little bit more about NBC News reporting that the U.S. is trying to walk a fine line Trying to advise the Israelis to delay this round invasion. Where do we go over the next couple days? Yeah, these administration officials, at least publicly are saying that, as you heard Andrea say, Israel has the right to defend itself, that the US Is not giving Israel its military order, simply saying that the US has officials on the ground in Israel offering perspective and advice, answering any questions, asking some hard questions.

Because we know that officials have told the Israelis, advise them not to make the same mistakes that in the President's words that the US made after 9 11, not to act out of rage and frustration in this counter offensive against Gaza, against Hamas in Gaza. But as our team has reported, multiple US Officials are telling us that the Biden administration privately is advising the Israelis to hold off on that ground offensive, to be able to, to allow these hostage recovery talks to continue, to allow the talks about humanitarian aid going into Gaza to continue. Of course, we just saw just a fraction of that aid just start to flow into Gaza over the weekend. And these officials say that this was a top goal that the President had in going to Israel last week to talk to the Israelis, to talk to Prime Minister Netanyahu about these goals, to hold off on that offensive.

Because there were serious concerns, especially over the past few days as Israel's military posture has really escalated over whether that so called diplomatic window of opportunity would continue, the diplomatic window of opportunity that we saw after those two Americans were released by Hamas on Friday. So I think what we have to look out for next is really were there any conditions agreed upon for Hamas to be able to release these hostages, could we potentially see more hostages released and how long that could potentially take? And picking up on that point, I want to turn out to Ambassador Dennis Ross. Ambassador, does the release of these two hostages give you any confidence that we could see a de escalation of violence going forward?

I can see a delay. I don't see a de escalation. I can see a delay based on considerations of trying to get more hostages out. I can see delay in terms of also setting up a much more rigorous and systematic set of corridors to provide humanitarian assistance in.

It is in Israel's interest to demonstrate it is fighting Hamas. It is not trying to punish the Palestinian people. There needs to be a distinction here as a way of, I think, also creating a better climate of opinion for when Israel actually does move. And in the end, the outcome of this from an Israeli standpoint can't be that Hamas can still threaten Israel, that Hamas is in a position to still control Gaza, that an effort to try to Produce what I call a demilitarization in return for reconstruction.

Can't be blocked by Hamas. It has done that multiple times before, especially after 2014. We had a conflict for 52 days, but they were still in control. They still had military capability.

Israel clearly wants to put Hamas in a position where it doesn't have that capability. Can't veto such kinds of assistance. So I do think this process will continue. And I also think that the whole reason for holding hostages is actually to try to prevent Israelis from coming in.

So don't expect, in my mind, a national hostage, because Hamas continues to look at the holding hostages as an asset for themselves and essentially leverage. Ambassador, I want to ask you on that point, if you. If Hamas is releasing sausages two at a time for however long they do, and that's just regulation. But they did two at a time.

But that's acceptable to Israel weeks from now. Let's put it this way. If it's two at a time, it will not work for a long period of time to dissuade these really from coming in. I think that they, you know, suddenly we see a release of 50.

That will create an incentive, say, okay, let's give this more time. But it continues to be, you know, we now see 4 out of 222. So the idea that they can be out that way and that will prevent these residents coming in, I think that's an illusion. And what do you make of what we've been reporting here?

The White House is, you know, advising Israel to delay this ground invasion. Do you think that the Biden administration so far has been handling this the right way? Is it being very careful not to push Israel too much in public? Do you think that this is an effective strategy going forward?

I think actually it is. I think they're striking what is the right balance because they're making it clear these decisions are Israeli decisions. And from the beginning, the president has not only been supportive of the Israelis, but he's also said Israel shouldn't be expected to live with this kind of threat next door. At the same time, there are other considerations.

Can we get the hostages out, or at least can we get a large number of hostages out? By the way, delaying this for some period of time is not only useful from the standpoint of getting more hostages out, it also gives the Israelis more time to acquire intelligence on where hostages might be. Don't assume, by the way, when the Israelis make a decision to win, suddenly they're going in all at once. You should think about the fact that there May be much smaller kinds of incursions, some related to going after hostages or hostages or setting the battle space more effectively, reducing the ability of Hamas to be able to resist, acquire more intelligence, not only about the hostages, but also getting Hamas to reveal itself in terms of how it's defending certain areas.

So there are multiple reasons why these really, from their own standpoint, might decide that they're not in Russia. And even when they do, it may not be a mass invasion. Ambassador, thank you so much. Before we go, I want to turn to Andrew Mitchell since we're so fortunate to have you here.

Andrew, big picture the last couple of days we've seen the relationship between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu change so much to how we were several months ago. Take a step back here. How is the relationship right now for the last couple of days? Are these two countries just so intertwined, more so than they have been for months?

Absolutely, you got that right. And there was a lot of resentment in Jerusalem, highly cabinet by Netanyahu, that he did not get an audience, a meeting here in Washington in the Oval Office as other leaders have two years into the administration, more than two years in. And then he had to settle for a meeting at the UN General assembly in New York. But they really worked very hard during that meeting.

They came together principally on the Saudi, Israeli, US Negotiations, not on all the details, but on the goal of doing that. And they came out in a very unified way. Whatever they said in private, we have some idea, but it's much closer. But as you point out, we are completely integrated in terms of mutual defense and as close as two allies could be other than a NATO ally.

And there's no question that the setting sending the two carrier groups was to deter Hezbollah attack against Israel, but also to be available if the Iran backed Hezbollah did attack Israel, that would engage the US and you brought up Saudi Arabia. Where is that? Is that normalization with Saudi Arabia? Is that dead?

I know that Ziyram was saying it wasn't, but what's your latest reporting on that? Do you think that has any realistic possibility, at least in the near term? Not in the near term, but I think they want to keep it alive. For it to pass here Congress, it has to be early in 2024.

It can't be deep into the primary season. We know already the opposition from many micro Republicans, from Donald Trump. Therefore it has to be done in the next couple of months after the new year, early in the spring or winter. And it depends on the ground invasion, how much the Civilian deaths in Gaza to come when there is a ground invasion, how target it is with those humanitarian quarters remain open, what does the world see?

Because right now, even in the Security Council last week France voted with Russia for a pause and Macron was heading there, you know, this week, heading to the region, to Gaza. Andrew Mitchell, thanks so much for joining us here on set. I really appreciate your insight. And now I'm joined now by Jonathan Kamrika, spokesman for the Israeli Defense Force.

And sir, I want to get to you especially with these new developments that we're hearing about just in the last hour or so. Will Israel still launch its ground invasion even as Hama releasing hostages? Hi, thank you for having me. Hamas is doing what we anticipated they would do.

Very cynical psychological warfare, trying to bide for time, buy time by using the release, the slow drip release of some of the hostages. We have 222 confirmed hostages inside Gaza. All of them must be returned. And our ground forces are ready to commence significant military operations in Gaza and to bring the fight to Hamas on their home turf.

Whenever we will get the directive from the war cabinet that will commence. Jonathan, I asked one of my previous guests the same question, but if Hamas is releasing sausages, say two at a time, is that acceptable for Israel moving forward? Listen, I can't go into what is acceptable and what isn't. It's unacceptable that they took civilians, women, children, babies, people with disabilities, Holocaust survivors, people that are sick and in need of medications.

That is unacceptable. Every minute that these civilians are held and also the militaries and the military men and women and the bodies that are being held, all of that is unacceptable. And all of these hostages must be returned promptly. And we hold Hamas accountable for each and every Israeli held.

So Jonathan, is there any potential for a ceasefire here? I am not aware of any such discussions. The only thing I'm aware of is troops ready on the ground, air force striking Hamas targets from the air, and an elevated sense of understanding within the IDF that there is a tremendous task at hand that needs to be done so that never again in the future will we return to the scenes and the atrocities of October 7, when more than 1,000 Israelis were slaughtered in their homes and at the music festival. Jonathan, these are the first Israeli hostages to be released by Hamas.

Does that give you any hope that there could be additional Israelis freed soon? The early takeaway from this is I think that Hamas are beginning to understand how their highness crimes are reflecting on their image. If there's still people around the world who thought anything positive of this bunch of criminals and murderers and rapists, then Hamas understands that many people around the world who may be sympathetic to Gazans and Palestinians understand Hamas for what they are. They're ISIS like terrorists.

And the fact that they released dual citizens before was also criticized. And they're probably responding to that and trying to signal to Israel that they have other intentions. But we see through their psychological warfare, we understand what they're doing, and we're not going to have it. All of the hostages must be returned, and we are ready to launch our ground operations.

Jonathan, to be clear, did the IDF have any role in negotiating this hostage release? Not as far as I'm aware, no. We've been reporting here at NBC News that the Biden administration has been advising Israel to potentially delay this ground invasion, while US Officials publicly have been very careful to make it clear that they don't dictate what Israel does. What's your reaction to that?

How much of this consideration is any advisement by US Officials regarding that ground invasion? Yeah, that's a relevant topic. So what's happening is that there is very close coordination, both on the military and on the strategic international level, between Israel and the US we are looking at things from sometimes different perspectives, but also shared perspectives. We look at the local and we look at the regional, and we do it together.

We share intelligence assessments, we share planning. And there is very close coordination between us and the US Military happens minute by minute, including face to face and on the ground. And I think that is important because what we do want to prevent is a regional war which would engulf not only Israel, but many of the countries around us or some of the countries around us. We definitely want to avoid that.

We didn't want this war. It was forced upon us. And we're looking to isolate one of the Iranian proxies that we have on our borders for the time being. That is Hamas, and we want to focus on dealing with it.

We are not seeking to escalate the situation here. Jonathan, very briefly before I let you go. Last week, President Biden said that he was in discussions with Prime Minister Netanyahu about potential alternatives to any ground invasion of Gaza. What would those alternatives be?

I wouldn't be able to assess. I mean, what I know very certainly and clearly this war ends with a totally dismantled Hamas. I am not aware of any other scenario, how this will end. And that is what the IDF intends to execute.

Once ordered by the cabinet, the IDF will implement that so that again, we will hear the sound of Israeli kids laughing and playing in their homes in the communities around the Gaza Strip. Thank you. Jonathan Cornicus, thank you so much for your time so soon for the Israeli Defense Force. Really appreciate you hearing me.

The press now. And up next, the threat of a broader regional conflict. We'll get to the latest from the Pentagon and from the Lebanon. The fighting is intensifying.

And later, a leaderless House divided. Tonight, nine House Republican candidates make their pitch in a closed door meeting after rejecting Jim Jordan's bid for speaker. We'll talk to a Republican member of Congress in the thick of the flag. You're watching.

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Price is subject to change. Visit nbcnews.comxfinity for full offer terms and details. Hey, welcome back. Amid the ongoing Israel Hamas war and today's release of two additional hostages, there are growing concerns about what role Iran could play in escalating the conflict into a broader regional war.

In Lebanon, there have been ongoing clashes between Israel and Iranian backed Hezbollah. Last week, the US Navy shot down three missiles and several drones fired by Iranian backed Houthi forces in Yemen. And today the president, the Pentagon rather, confirmed another attempted drone attack against US forces in Syria. Also today, the White House is out with this warning to Iran and its proxies in the region.

Iran continues to support Hamas and Hezbollah and we know that Iran is closely monitoring these events and in some cases actively facilitating these attacks and spurring on others who may want to exploit the conflict for their own good. Well, for that, Iran. We know Iran's goal is to maintain some level of deniability here, but we're not gonna allow them to do that. We also are not gonna allow any threat to our interest in the region to go unchallenged.

And joining me now is Matt Bradley. Laughter. In Lebanon, according Cubi is at the Pentagon. And Matt, I want to start with you.

The U.S. state Department is telling Americans to leave Lebanon. So what's the latest on the clashes in the north? Yeah, we haven't seen our toughest day yet.

I mean, there has been worse clashes so far in the past two weeks. But today we hear from Hezbollah. At least one of their fighters have been killed and at Least two Israelis were injured on the other side. But there has been an increase in the tempo and the ferocity of the fighting back and forth.

So yes, we've been seeing this increasing over the past couple of days. Today doesn't represent a pause, but it's part of a week long escalation. We think it could escalate even more. The question is how far will it escalate before this whole thing breaks out into a full on cross border war?

And Matt, could a delayed ground invasion by Israel prevent that wider war? So would a ground invasion essentially be a tipping point for Hezbollah? The ground invasion as we've heard from various people within or connected to Hezbollah is definitely the tipping point. That's what everybody's waiting here for.

Now your question, whether delaying it will somehow cool tempers and I think that's what you mean. I really don't know because the fact is that Israel is on vengeance mode right now. The Gaza Strip is also on vengeance mode and the rest of the entire region is feeling steeped in emotion. Some of them with what they consider to be the success of this operation Al Aqsa, flood others with anger at what's happening to the people in the Gaza Strip.

I just don't know if waiting or delaying is necessarily going to cool down tempers. It might just be delaying the inevitable. I want you to run out According to the Pentagon, what do you know about the latest attack against US and coalition forces in Syria? We've been reporting on that, right?

Yeah. There were two, what the military calls one way attack drones that were that attempted to attack a US Military garrison in the southern Syria called Atans, straight down by the border with Jordan. Both of them were knocked out of the sky, shot down by some of the base defenses. But this is just following a long line of these kinds of attacks that we've seen happen in Iraq, in Syria and even out in the Red Sea since last Wednesday.

Attacks on Anbar in western Iraq, other time another one on Atamf up in Erbil at Baghdad. And then the one that's really striking to me, Gabe, is the USS Carnia. A USS warship that was in the northern Red Sea had to shoot down a number of drones that the US Military says were fired by the Houthis in Yemen and potentially heading towards Israel. That is at least four land attack cruise missiles and more than a dozen drones that were shot down.

So, so this has been a real uptick in this kind of activity. We haven't really seen this level of activity by these Iranian backed proxy groups in Iraq and in Syria since earlier this year. This uptick, according to U.S. officials, they are not drawing a direct line.

What we heard from John Kirby earlier about Iran maybe actively directing some of these or actively participating in some of these attacks, that's the most stark language that we've heard today. Others have said have pointed the historical ties between Iran and some of these proxy groups with the Iranians training them, arming them, and funding many of these groups. And you mentioned you were listing off all those attacks and you hadn't seen that type of activity since earlier this year. But historically, how unusual is this type of activity?

It really depends on the time. There are times of the year where it really kicks out. Several years ago, we would see these sorts of attacks, one or two in a week. What changed was there was an attack in March in Syria, a deadly attack that the US Military responded to and that really seemed to ratchet down the tensions.

And, and these sorts of attacks on these military bases by rockets, by drones, by indirect fire. We really haven't seen anything like that since March of this year. So I mean, again, the big question here is why did these Iranian back proxy groups? Why did they start these again?

Now everyone that we talked to says, of course there must be some sort of a tie to what's happening in Israel, what's happening in Gaza, that Iran frequently historically tries to exploit these sorts of unstable situations, chaos in the region to create more chaos. That being said, officially spoken to, are still saying that they don't have a direct link back to Iran for getting something like a green light to these sorts of attacks. It's a question that we've been asking, and I know all around town and Courtney, before I let you go, how concerned is Pentagon about potential miscalculation by any of the players in the region and what's being done to mitigate that possibility? So, I mean, that's really the big concern here.

So look at some of these attacks that we've had. One of the drones that attacked last week that was not shot down, it did target the base and attacked it successfully. Several US Personnel were injured. They were minor lacerations.

But think about it, that ended a little differently and ended in a more severe injury. Even the deaths of US Personnel, we could have seen a much more. We would have likely seen some sort of a US Military response to that. So the concern here is nobody really knows what these proxy groups are trying to do.

Are they just trying to take attention away from Israel and Gaza? Are they just trying to sow chaos we don't really know the answer to that. But if one of these attacks is successful, it could have a very different outcome than what we've seen so far. Again, a close call with potentially large implications according to Pentagon Matt Rally in Lebanon.

Thank you both so much. And up next, the speaker flight and the nine new candidates hoping fourth time's a charm. We'll speak with a key player in the last four vote after the break. They're watching MEET THE PRESS now.

And welcome back. It's been 20 days of paralysis in Congress without an elected House speaker and Republicans are back to square one looking for a new nominee. And this time it's a crowded feat with nine House Republicans throwing their hats into the ring ahead of a closed door candidate forum in just a few hours. A Republican conference is planning to vote tomorrow morning until one candidate gets a majority.

Then presumably they'll bring that candidate to House floor to try for a fourth time to elect a Speaker. And joining me now is Arkansas Republican Congressman Steve Womack. And Congressman, thanks so much for coming back to MEET THE PRESS now always good to be with you. Awesome.

Well, Congressman, there are nine declared candidates to be the next Republican speaker nominees. Who are you backing this time around? Well, I'm going to back the person that can get two hundred and seventeen GOP votes in conference because we need this entire process to come to a quick and effective end as soon as possible. And look, I'm going to go like the rest of my colleagues tonight at 6:30 and listen to the nine, you know, we have nine that have announced.

We have easily another nine or maybe 90 that look in the mirror and see the next speaker of the House. So I, I would just tell you that we got, we got to coalesce around somebody. We're going to listen to messages, we're going to hear what they have to say. They will make their best case.

We will vote and then little by little we will come up with a nominee and then we'll go to the floor as we have stuff on two other occasions and see where this thing shakes out. I'm not real sure that any of them can get 217, but we will let it play out too. Congressman, what makes you think this time will be different? Well, a couple of things.

One, first, I'm not, I'm not, you know, in agreement that this time is different, but there's a couple of external factors of bearing down on us. One, as you say, we're in a state of paralysis right now. We're not doing anything the House chamber is effectively empty and nothing is happening that's going to benefit the American people right now. I think there's a lot of pressure from that standpoint.

Then you've got what's going on, as you've reported overseas. And those are issues that have, you know, our relationship to the business that we should be conducting right now. And in order to be able to get past where we are right now, be able to deal with those issues, I mean, and plus, we're on a. We're on the clock November 17th.

We're gonna lapse in appropriations. So very soon we're gonna be in November. And if this thing isn't over, the pressure will continue to mount. But that's not the reason to just say we're elected speaker.

It really needs to be the right person, too, with all the right ideas. Well, Congressman, you back McCarthy against the lease? Why not? Well, I'm not saying I'm not going to support time.

Remember, I haven't thrown my support behind anybody because I think it's premature to do so. To be fair to the other eight into this. I realize that. But to be fair to the other eight, they haven't had the chance, other than Austin Scott, to make their case.

And Austin only had 30 minutes to prepare. So I think it's fair to all of them, given where we are, to hear what they have to say and then do the checking balance on whether their ideas and their vision and their commitment and their skill sets are capable of being able to take this Congress where this Congress needs to go. And Congressman, you mentioned that Emma and George Austin Scott are the only members running who joined you in certifying the 2020 election. Does that matter to you?

Well, you know, whether it matters to me or not is not important. I think that the bigger question is that if we get into a situation where one of them is a nominee and it's very close to the finish line, but just a little bit short, I think it means a lot to the other side that could participate in the final outcome. Because, look, the pressure is mounting on Democrats, too, to come to agreement on something that could end this stalemate. So whether that would be taking a pass on the vote, lowering the threshold for.

For winning the speakership, I don't know what that would look like. It could even involve members on the other side calling out a Republican name. But as the pressure mountain, as the world around us burns, I think there will be an opportunity for maybe some of those issues to surface in this. In this discussion.

And as the world around this Burns, there is a letter circulating among your conference for members to pledge to support the conference's nominee. Have you signed on to that letter? What do you think of it? I have not.

Look, I don't sign on the letters that pledge that I'm going to do something a certain way. I'm not going to cede my voting card. This voting card belongs to me and the 750000 people in the third district of Arkansas. And they have asked me to come up.

They've elected me to come up here and make. Make value based decisions. That's in the best interest of what they represent and in the best interest of the country. And that's how I approach each and every vote that I take in Congress.

And Congressman, are there any serious conversations right now about power and Patrick and Henry? Do you think there are 217 votes to do that? So there are those conversations. You think they're enough?

Well, it's a, it's a card that we still could play. To be determined. I think we need to go through this next series. We got nine really, really good people, very committed people, very strong conservative credentials that are going to go make their presentation and try to win over the majority of our votes and, and they need to have that opportunity.

If in fact we don't do that. I think there will be a ramped up effort to empower Patrick McHenry so that the House floor can open for business once again. And then we can maybe put this in issue of a permanent speaker behind us for the time being. Congressman, if it took Democratic votes to empower McKenzie speaker, would you do that?

You know, to be determined. I mean it's a House vote, the House gets to vote. And I think Patrick is a very capable and qualified person. I'm not really sure Patrick wants us to be able to empower him right now the message I'm getting from Patrick is we need to get this issue behind us and move on to the next thing.

Patrick is a committee chair, financial services. I know he'd like to get back to that work. So we'll just see, let this thing play out. I know that people are frustrated, I'm frustrated.

But at the end of the day this is how this process unfolds and we need to let it work. And then if it can't, then maybe some of these other last resort will be in play. And Congressman, some folks are more than frustrated. I want to play what your colleague Michael McCall.

Michael McCall, excuse me, said over the weekend. Take a list. The world's on fire. And this is so dangerous, what we're doing.

And most importantly, it's embarrassing because it empowers and emboldens our adversaries like Chairman Xi, who says, no, democracy doesn't work. Congressman, do you agree is the conduct of your conference and embarrassment to democracy? I agree with Mike McCall. The world is burning around us and American leadership is necessary and you can't have the full complement of American leadership of the House of Representatives is not functioning.

Whether whether it's an embarrassment or not, I mean, that's in the eyes of the beholder. I will just say it's unfortunate. The world is watching. Our adversaries are paying attention and it does not, you know, cast a good light on the democratic institutions that we all have sworn to defend.

So again, let's hope and pray that this week is it and we can move on to the next stage. Congressman Ken Buck told us last week that he has no regrets about ousting Kevin McCarthy and spurring this fight. In your opinion, should Ken Buck have regrets? Look, I, I try not to, you know, question or criticize or theorize as to why people vote a certain way.

Shouldn't have happened. Eight members of our conference should not have joined 208 Democrats to throw out the duly elected speaker of the house. Kevin McCarthy was doing the very best job he could under the circumstances. And I, I think all that happened against McCarthy maybe foretells what could be in the future for whoever wins this speakership the next time around.

So we have to learn from it. And sometimes that learning process takes a little while and you gotta get burned a couple times. But at the end of the day, I think we'll, we'll get this behind us soon. Congressman Steve Womack, thanks so much for joining us here.

MEET THE PRESS now. And joining me now here on set is Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for USA Today Mo Alithy, Democratic strategist and director of Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service, and Brendan Buck, former advisor to Republican speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan, as well as an NBC News political analyst. Thank you so much for joining me. And Susan, I want to start with you.

You know, they say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. How insane is a Republican conference right now? But that sound like a process that was coming to a conclusion when this congressman, who is a pretty respected voice in the House, isn't backing anybody, won't say if he would support a candidate if he was dependent on Democratic Votes to get where he needed to go if he needed Democratic votes, for instance, to empower Patrick McKinney as like a Speaker. This is a process that it sounds like we may not even this group of nine, the eventual speaker, assuming there is an eventual speaker, may not even be among these nine.

I think we are nowhere in this process. And Brendan, I want to turn to you. You know this conference better than most. What do you make of this?

9. 9 now going for Speaker 4 the fourth time be the charm. Yeah. I don't know if I have any confidence that it is there.

You have seen one, Mike basically saying, I'm also holding back. I'd be willing to block the next person that comes up. If everybody is waiting for their perfect candidate, we will never get there. The one thing I did find interesting, he keeps holding out Patrick McHen Henry, Speaker Pro Tem, as an one thing that may be working to all of our advantage at this end is the idea that the alternative might be Patrick McHenry.

It may ultimately become clear to these members that if we don't coalesce around somebody, it's going to end up being a speaker coach and which they don't like. They want someone permanently on someone that's the Republican speaker of the House. And maybe that will convince people it's just not worth having this fight more. One thing I knew about this conference, they don't learn lessons very easily.

They don't really understand that when we hit rock bottoms, I imagine probably going to keep digging for a little while. So who knows? And while I want to interrupt you, just two of these Republican candidates voted to certify the 2020 election. Are any of these potential partners for Democrats going forward or no?

I mean, look, it depends on what the House Republican Congress does, right? They're going to put forward a candidate or they're not. If they don't, I think there are enough Democrats out there who are willing to work with enough Republicans to actually come up with this empowering McHenry option. But are any Democrats going to cross over and actually vote for any individual Speaker?

No, of course they won't. They did not vote to save Speaker McCarthy's job in part because they lost trust in him for breaking several promises. As they as they see it, none of these guys are going to be seen, especially the seven who voted against certification. None of them are going to be seen as more trustworthy speaker candidates.

And Brendan, your old boss John Boehner said that he agreed with new King Richest time to empower McKenry. Do you agree? Yeah, I do. And I think there's a couple ways they could do it.

You could vote to do it or McHenry could just start trying to bring up bills and allow the Congress to challenge whether he has the authority. And you brought it up in your last week. Right. The rules of the House are effectively whatever a majority says they are, but that's essentially daring them to stop it.

Exactly right. And they could bring up something that would be hard to vote against, like something has to do with Israel, a resolution condemning Hamas. That would be really hard for somebody to object and say they don't want to come up. And once you've done that, you sort of broke the seal and that you now that is not a durable long term.

And if you expect Democrats to rescue Republicans by either voting president or powering Patrick McKinney, they're going to expect something in return for it. They're going to expect a guarantee there won't be a government shutdown, passage of Ukraine aid. And that's what is a poison pill for so many of the House Republicans. That's why they don't want that coalition government for the same reason that Kevin McCarthy didn't try to negotiate with Democrats, to save his own job.

Patrick McHenry knows that it would be poisonous for him in the Republican conference to deal and give something away. That's why he said in that meeting, I will only do this if you all vote for me to do it. That's the only way I'm doing it. He understands how popular now things may look a little bit reversal two weeks from now.

We don't have a speaker. Things may be glamorous. Susan, last week there was all this talk about the urgency of this, that with the Israel Hamas war, with the Biden administration putting forth $105 billion supplemental package was announced. Days of born together.

I think it was Thursday or. But now this still hasn't gone anywhere. Is there any urgency left and what does this chaos on the House mean for that supplemental package? That's a lot of money for Israel, Ukraine, a lot of other priorities that the administration says border security.

Is there any urgency left? Well, that bill cannot go forward unless the House has a speaker or an empowered speaker. Put him. You know, I think there is urgency around Ukraine aid, Israel aid and also the November 17 deadline.

November 17 is not that far away and we're going to have a partial government shutdown if the House doesn't get back together. I want to turn to you. Last week President Biden tried speaking about the supplemental request. The president in his Oval Office address tried to link the wars in Israel and in Ukraine.

How effective was that messaging, do you think that he effectively made that case to the American people? I think he did a very solid job doing so. I think, look, we are people are these images come out of Israel every single day. And I think we've seen even Democrats who are a little bit more split in polling in terms of their sort of unmitigated support for Israel are feeling a lot more supportive of Israel right now, connecting that to Ukraine.

He's got a very strong narrative to tell. The problem is not with the message he's delivering, but it's everything we've been talking about, what we're seeing coming out of the House. I think we are in a very dangerous place right now. I think the longer this mess and it's all connected, the longer this mess goes on in the House, the stronger the president looks on these issues.

But that doesn't mean we're going to actually get there anytime soon. And that's a very dangerous thing for the country. And really quick, this is down a whole lot of time to end the 2024. How do you think is this mess in the house will affect 2024 going forward?

There's already a lot of bickering between Governor Ron Santis, Nikki Haley over the Israel mos war. But in terms of the situation House with the House speaker, how do you see this playing out over the next coming months before Hawkins? You know, I think it may help President Biden look like the grown up in the room, but I don't think it's got a big effect on it. I think it looks, it continues to look pretty likely that Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee.

And mo. I don't think it's going to impact the presidential except that it's going to allow the president to continue to drive the narrative that with Donald Trump as the nominee and these guys in charge of the House, we really want to return to this sort of chaos, which was what he ran against in 2020 to great effect. I think Jeffries is looking pretty good, though, the next actual permanent speaker after the midterms. All right, thank you all so much for joining us.

Susan, hello. And Brendan, thanks so much for joining us here. MEET THE PRESS now. And still ahead, navigating humanitarian aid during hostage crisis.

We'll talk about the efforts to help those in the middle of the Israel Hamas war. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now. Stay with us. Welcome back.

As we've been reporting Hamas released two Israeli hostages today, allowing them out of Gaza. Meanwhile, some humanitarian aid is now moving into Gaza. The Palestinian Red Cross says it received a third shipment of humanitarian aid today. 20 trucks with food and medicine cross into Gaza from Egypt through the Rafa crossing.

State Department spokesman Matt Miller was asked today about US Efforts to secure aid to Gaza. What we will continue to do with respect to this question is focus on getting humanitarian assistance in to Gaza. We've seen deliveries go in for the past three days and our special envoy on the ground, David Saterfield, intensively to establish ongoing mechanisms for the delivery of humanitarian systems. And we're working to establish places where civilians can be safe from arm inside Gaza.

And NBC Mega Fitzgerald has more from Cairo Saturday. We have seen 55 trucks make their way from Egypt through the Rafa border crossing and into Gaza. These trucks loaded with life saving supplies, humanitarian aid, everything from water and food to medical supplies that the more than 2.2 million people in Gaza desperately need. But over the weekend at a summit hosted by Egyptian President Sisi with leaders from all across the world, they spoke with one voice and saying it's not enough.

There needs to be more aid given to Gaza and it needs to happen faster. And you know, unicef, for example, said that at the shipment that we saw the way to Gaza on Saturday, there was enough water for 20,000 people that would last them for one day. And again, there's more than 2 million people in Gaza with this dire need. We heard yesterday from Ambassador Satterfield, he's the special envoy for Middle east humanitarian issues and he said essentially that this is a race against time to try and get this aid to the people that desperately need it in Gaza before that ground operation kicks off from the Israelis.

He says starting today, Monday that we can see a ramp up in aid that comes from Egypt making its way to Gaza. So that most certainly is something that we'll be watching. Back to you. Megan Fitzgerald reporting for us in Cairo.

Megan, thank you and thank you for being with us this hour. I'm Gabe Dearest. NBC News now coverage continues with Hallie Jackson as the day wraps back up the scoop on what's been happening with here's the scoop with a podcast from NBC News with your host Gazine the studio. We'll take a deep dive into today's top stories with NBC News's trusted journals.

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