Meet the Press NOW — September 30

If it's Monday. Communities in crisis, millions without power and hundreds still unaccounted for. State, local and federal officials rush resources to the area's hardest hit by killing. Plus, Israel expands its attacks after the killing of the Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah as special forces cross into Lebanon ahead of possible ground invasion despite President Biden's renewed calls for a ceasefire.

And look at the view from Latino voters in some of the most important presidential battlegrounds as new polling from NBC News shows Democrat support with the key voting blocks slipping compared to past elections. Hi there. Welcome to meet the president now on Ryan Nobles in Washington. And we begin with a widespread devastation and the ongoing disaster response following Hurricane Helene.

Right now, authorities are blaming that SOR for at least 116 deaths across four states. Hundreds remain unaccounted for. Thousands are stuck in shelters. Millions are without power and some areas remain unreachable.

More than a third of the reported deaths are from North Carolina, where more than 2ft of rain fell in the Asheville area. FEMA Administrator Jan Chris well is in Asheville where President Biden says that she'll remain for, quote, the foreseeable future. She and the North Carolina governor, Roy Cooper are expected to brief the president this hour. And we do expect to hear from President Biden in the Oval Office after he receives that briefing.

In neighboring Georgia, at least 25 people have been killed by the storm. Governor Brian Kemp told reporters today that Helene, quote, literally spared no one in Florida where they made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane. Entire communities along the state's big bent region reported just wiped away. Today.

In his first public remarks since the storm hit, President Biden vowed to visit some of the most devastated communities while defending his administration's response. I'm committed to traveling to impacted areas as soon as possible, but I've been told that it'd be disruptive if I did it right now. We will not do that at the risk of diverting or delaying any, any response assets needed to deal with this crisis. Why weren't you and my cousin Harris here in Washington commanding this this weekend?

I was commanded. I was on the phone for at least two hours yesterday and the day before as well. I commenced call telephone. This is all my security.

All this, of course, comes a little more than a month before Election Day with two of the states hardest hit by Helene, North Carolina and Georgia, key battlegrounds for both campaigns. Last night, Vice President Harris posted this image on X saying that she was being briefed by FEMA and spoke with North Carolina's governor about the rescue and recovery efforts. She changed her schedule to be back in D.C. where we're here or where she's expecting to visit the theme headquarters later today.

Former President Trump, meanwhile, is in Georgia right now assessing the damage in Valdosta and continues to criticize the Biden administration's response to the storm. NBC's George Solis has the latest from Asheville, North Carolina. The death toll unfortunately keeps climbing. The number of unaccounted also continues going up.

Officials here at Bunker county saying so far they received about 11,000 calls for wellness checks and they're doing about 150 home searches right now. Really just a staggering number of this reality of what's happening here in Asheville. Right now we're standing in the River Arts District. This time yesterday, all of this was still underwater.

You can see, obviously a lot of it has received it. Now we're hearing from those business owners that are looking at what used to be their business, their livelihoods completely gone. We're talking to some of the owners here and you can see the dispirit on their faces. Many of them not sure what comes next.

A lot of them frustrated with the lack of the federal response here on the ground. The other issue fact that there's a timeline on when crucial utilities will turn on specifically water. Many of them hearing different information and different time points. A lot of that has to do with the cell phone service.

Now, officials say they did put up a temporary tower that's helping with the situation, but it's spotty still on a good day. So that is a huge, huge concern for people. We're hearing reports of people just standing together to listen to radio reports, to share information. That's how critical things have gotten here on the ground in Asheville.

There's still no power in a lot of areas, a lot of regions still cut off from everyone else. We've heard from the White House that President Biden will be here on the ground when he can where it doesn't impact the search and rescue operations which are still ongoing at this time. Again, we've been hearing from those residents here, most of them impacted by the storm one way or the other. All right, George, release in Nashville, North Carolina.

George, thank you for that. Meanwhile, NBC News correspondent Priscilla Thompson is in Irwin, Tennessee. She joins me now for the view of what is happening there. Priscilla, first, what is the latest on the search for those dozens of people still missing?

Yeah, Ryan, so right now there are more than 150 people who are still unaccounted for. That's according to Tennessee emergency management. And at this hour, they have only confirmed three people have died from the storm. So there are a lot of people who are worried that that death toll is going to rise given the amount of people who are still unaccounted for.

And officials today said that this is no longer a search and rescue effort, but that it is a search and recovery effort. And we heard from families earlier today who showed up at that press conference holding pictures of their loved ones, hoping to get answers from officials in any sort of confirmation from officials, many of describing the last time that they heard from their loved ones as those flood waters began to rise because they were working at a plastic factory when all this happened. I want to play a little bit of some of what those folks had to say. He says that the last communication that he had with her, she said, the water, you know, the water's coming up, it's rising.

And we've been trying to call 911, but they already told us that their priority is the hospital. And he says, I don't understand. There's a difference in the platforms, the Trader platform and the hospital. And why was that the priority?

And that hospital they're referencing is one that you see right behind me, where dozens of people were rescued off the roof of that hospital and evacuated as those flood waters began to rise. And officials today said that they simply did not have enough resources to get out to everyone who needed to be rescued. And the owner of the plastic factory says that they dismissed employees when they saw the roads in the parking lot beginning to. But they claim that there were employees who remained on the property, that those employees got into an 18 wheeler and became trapped and it tipped over and five of them went missing.

So lots of unanswered questions here, and families really just looking for some sort of closure as cleanup is underway. Ryan, it does seem, Priscilla, that this community was just caught off guard by just how much damage the storm brought. Do they feel like they were prepared enough for what Helene brought? No.

And that was one of the questions that the families were asking earlier. Why wasn't there more of a warning, like, why didn't anyone tell us that it was going to be like this? And, you know, we have to acknowledge that this does appear to have been a historic event, Something that no one has ever seen and perhaps was not expected. Even the hospital said their original plan was to have folks hunkered down in the hospital.

They did not expect her to be a situation where they would need to evacuate folks. So certainly lots of questions about if More should have or could have been done to prepare. But right now, the focus really on cleanup and finding all of those people who remain unaccounted for. Ryan.

Okay, Priscilla Thompson, thank you. You and your crew, stay safe out there. Moments ago, I spoke with Keith Turi. He was acting Director of Response and Recovery.

And I began by asking him about the biggest logistical challenges the agency is facing right now delivering aid to the impacted communities. Yeah, I think one of the most critical things we're doing right now is making sure we can get to those communities that need help and support them with our state and local partners. We prepossessioned assets throughout the region impacted all the way from Florida to North Carolina before the storm. And now all of those commodities and assets are moving into the areas.

In certain areas, like western North Carolina, obviously there are significant issues with transportation roads that are out. And so far the effort is working with the state and local officials, identify what those areas are for transportation and using air and other means if we need to. And so the positive trends are happening. Over 400 roads closed in North Carolina just a few days ago, and now we're to 180.

So still progress being made, but still a long way to go. One thing I do want to stress for folks is that we do have major restriction decoration declared in Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina. And so you need assistance from team. You can register at 1-860-13362.

And obviously there are enormous logistical challenges. You mentioned the fact that some of these roads have been shut down. There's also communications problems, cell towers. Many of these victims don't even have power.

So what do you say to some of these victims who still haven't received any aid? Do you have any idea what the estimate is of people who still need that support right now? Yeah, well, first I'll just say there's a massive effort of local, state and federal officials across a number of agencies that are working around the FOX to help make sure that everyone that needs assistance gets it. Particularly in some of those areas that without communication, without power, we are working with the providers, whether the cell providers or power providers, to make sure that we can reduce any logistical barriers they have to potential access.

We're actually bringing satellite communication, Starlin Communications into to make sure that they can get access to local officials. And so, yeah, it is. It is a. It's a challenge.

We're working through it and know that it help us on the way for sure. And do you have an anticipation of how long it'll take to reach Every community that's been devastated by the storm. At this point we don't have an estimate of every community. It's going to take some time.

Day by day we're working through every coordinated way what that looks like and that also being helped by the local officials have an understanding of where those people are and how we can make sure that we can get access to them. And you said that FEMA at one point had four search and rescue teams in North Carolina before Helene hit. Should FEMA have had more teams in place? Teams in places like Asheville?

Before Friday, we had over 14 teams. States up and down the east coast. We have 14 North Carolina, that's just the federal team. That's on top of what the state and local governments already have.

And then we have pipeline already determined to bring more teams in. So we have rescues that are ongoing. There have been over 800 rescues that have been occurred across in North Carolina and across the entire impacted area. Those search and rescue teams are still out doing access checks, making sure they can find folks that may need the systems.

And so the pipeline of resources is still moving to support those idea. Obviously there's always so much focus on coastal communities as a hurricane is bearing down on the United States, which makes sense. But we obviously are seeing a tremendous amount of devastation in some of these inland communities, particularly in the mountains. Do you think there's going to be more of a focus on preparing these inland communities when a hurricane comes?

Is that a new challenge of hurricane preparedness? Actually, the rain associated with tropical systems has been a longstanding challenge and we are seeing more significant rain events in both hurricanes and outside of hurricanes, there have been number of storms over the years that have created significant flooding risks and our partners at the weather services helped forecast that in. And that's why we were able to reposition resources in all these inland states that may need some assistance. Even the storms coming up through the big Bang, we knew that Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina really impacted and helped them repair this efforts.

And if you can give us an idea of what your resource allocation efforts are like right now, there are members of Congress suggesting that perhaps Congress wants to return to session before the election to provide more funding for FEMA and these agencies that are helping with the recovery. Is there any way to tell whether or not you're going to have the resources necessary to help the need that's kind of grown out of this storm? Yeah, we have the resources that we need today to make sure that we're handling this response for the weeks ahead. Big disasters like this, they always typically will create a range of requirements across a number of federal agencies.

I know that's something that we'll be working with, with others on moving forward. But for today, we have what we need to handle this response and to make sure that we're helping everyone who needs it. All right. You guys have a tremendous amount of you keep three.

Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate being here. Thank you. Coming up, Israeli forces focus their firepower on Lebanon as the region reels from the death of Hezbollah's powerful leader.

Live reports from northern Israel and the Pentagon are straight ahead. The first former President Trump heads to Georgia to assess some of the damage from Helene and rally political support with just 36 days until the election. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now. Welcome back.

As we mentioned earlier, Donald Trump is on the ground right now in Georgia, where he assessed some of the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene. The former president has been outspoken in his criticism of the Biden administration for its response to this disaster. He continued those attacks today. The government's doing a very good job.

He's having a hard time getting the president on the phone. I guess they're not being responsive. The federal government is not being responsive, but they're having a very hard time getting getting president for the phone. He won't get on it.

Of course, the vice president, she's at some place campaigning, looking for money. Now, we should note that none of that's true. Governor Brian Kemp said today that he'd spoken with President Biden yesterday and that the president had asked what he needed. Kemp also said that he responded, we've got what we need.

We'll work through the federal process. As we noted earlier, Vice President Harris left the trail today to head back to Washington for a briefing at FEMA headquarters later today from where I'm joined by NBC News correspondent Gar Haken of Boston, Georgia. Also with me is NBC News senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez. So, Garrett, let's start with you.

You know, Donald Trump once I'm not saying that this isn't political, that he's just worried about the people of this community being taken care of. But then on the other end of it, he's hammering the Biden administration, looping in his opponent, Kamala Harris, all this by actually saying things that are not true. Why does his campaign think this is a winning strategy? And is it not his campaign?

Maybe this is just Donald Trump being Donald. Yeah, it's always hard to separate the two in these moments, Ryan. But of course, this is political. I think Donald Trump and his campaign realized over the weekend they had a bit of an opportunity because it looked like the administration was out of position.

Kyle Harris on the wrong coast raising money. Joe Biden was his beach house. It's not a good look and I think they thought they could capitalize on that on Saturday and Sunday. But Donald Trump knows as well as anybody the idea of the president or vice president coming to a disaster zone in the immediate wake of that disaster is far more disruptive than helpful.

I think he tried to split the difference today, coming to Valdosta, Georgia where there is some damage. But this is not by any stretch of the imagination one of the hardest hit places and kind of get credit for feeling the feelings, for feeling the pain of whatever. In any case is his voters and pretty Republican leaning areas. He was with Samaritan's Purse an a group with Franklin Graham kind of comes down, looks like he's doing the part to help out.

But the challenge is either to the federal government response or the president being out of touch. None of that stuff withstands scrutiny or fact checking. But for Trump, they may not have to, right. This is probably going to get washed out by the VP debate tomorrow anyway, so they score a few cheap points while they can and then move on.

Trump also accused North Carolina's Democrat Governor Roy Cooper of going out of his way not to help the Republican areas impacting. Bailey, I know that you specifically pressed him on this. Is this something that could backfire in a state that Trump likely needs to win? Or is he betting that people who are hurting are just going to believe something that isn't really that true?

I tried to press him, Ryan, and this was one of those tricky ones where Trump gave a typical kind of non response. He basically asked him what evidence he had was where he was getting this. He said, I'll go take a look. Like that's not an answer and it's not something you can go verifiably prove or disprove.

I'm not sure that we should describe a strategy to this. I mean this feels much more like one of those things where you just kind of muddy the water and hope that at least some people in his coalition or people who wants to be in his coalition who, remember, you know, who largely are disengaged politically, they're men, they're younger men who may not be paying that close attention might see or hear this and at least for a moment feel it in one of those areas and maybe they're more likely to come out and pull a lever for Trump. But you know, this is like a triple bank shot to do anything. That sounds like a real electoral strategy here.

It's more just be on the attack in every conceivable way you can be on the attack, which is the core of Donald Trump's political philosophy. I know you've covered plenty of these disasters before. Garrett, just quickly, what's your sense of how long it would take before the conditions were would be able to sustain a presidential visit? It depends on where you want to go.

I mean, here I am in Valdosta, the roads are open, you can get around. Some places have power, some places don't. I think you could probably have the President on the ground here in a day or two. If you're talking about North Carolina, maybe the end of the week, you need the floodwaters to go down, you need electricity and you need working roads.

I mean, that's the biggest part of this. This is not a one car parade here that comes in, especially with the President when you have a multi car motor, the ability to move quickly. I'm not on the ground in North Carolina, but I think there's still at least a couple days of being able to support that logistically. Okay, Gary, thank you for that.

Gable School to you. Now the President has said that he's planning on visiting his impacted areas later in the week. Has the White House given any indication specifically as to how soon that might happen? Well, Ryan, the President said earlier today that he hopes to make it to North Carolina potentially by Wednesday or Thursday.

But again, he stressed that he would only do so if he could be guaranteed that he wasn't disrupting any of the emergency response there. Now, President Biden is right now in the Oval Office getting a briefing from his Homeland Security advisor and also from the FEMA administrator who's on the ground right now in North Carolina. The White House, during his briefing a short time ago, tried to really emphasize what the federal government was doing to help the people of North Carolina, Georgia and the other effective states, England. 3,600 federal employees were deployed there on ground.

But as you just heard Garrett say, the White House is very quick to point out that the President did speak with Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia yesterday and is really trying to heighten its response or at least the optics of the response. They had President Biden come out and give remorse this morning and we expect to hear from him just in just a short time in the Oval Office. And that's where the President's plan. What about Vice President Harris should we expect tournaments in some of these communities?

Well, that is a question right now. The campaign hasn't said when she might go. Similar to what the White House has been saying about the president, the campaign says she will only go once she is told that she can go there safely and without disrupting emergency operations on the ground. As you said, the vice president was fundraising over the weekend and cut her west coast swing short today.

Rushing back here to D.C. in just a few minutes, she said to get a briefing over at FEMA headquarters. Right. Okay.

Thank you for that. Coming up, what's next for Israel, Hezbollah and the entire region as the Israeli military ramps up its fight against Iran, Iran based militants and prepares for a potential ground invasion of Lebanon. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now. Welcome back.

Israel is expanding its attacks and running back to militant groups across the Middle east today just days after killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike in Beirut. The multiple sources now telling BC News that Israel is planning a limited ground operation into Lebanon that could begin as soon as today, though sources say Israel was playing a larger invasion. But after extensive conversations with U.S. officials over the weekend, Israel decided to scale things back.

The White House, however, does remain concerned that the conflict could expand. Here's what the president said earlier today. Well, it's just the fact that Israel may be now launching a limited operation in Lebanon. Are you aware of that?

Are you comfortable with their plans? I'm more aware than you might know and I'm comfortable with them stopping. We should have a ceasefire now. Joining now is Raf Sanchez.

He's in Hafa, Israel. And in a moment I'll be joined by Courtney Cub. He was at the Pentagon. So, Raf, what more are we learning about Israel's ground incursion into Lebanon?

Ryan, multiple sources tell NBC News that this ground offensive could begin at any time. And I can tell you it feels on this side of the border like things are starting to move very, very quickly. In just the last couple of hours, the Israeli military has declared a closed military zone along the eastern edge of the Israel Lebanon border. At the same time, Lebanese media is reporting intensive Israeli artillery fire in that same area.

So we don't know for sure, but early indications appear to be that Israel is planning to be its ground offensive on that eastern edge of the border. There's been no official confirmation from the Israeli military that a ground assault has begun. And in just the last couple of minutes, the military's chief spokesman has been on social media appealing to the Israeli public not to spread rumors. Now US Officials, other sources are telling us that Israel is planning a limited operation over the border into Lebanon.

The idea would be to push Hezbollah back from the immediate border to create conditions where displaced Israeli civilians could return to their homes and those border communities. Some 60,000 Israelis have been displaced over the last 11 months, Ryan. The problem that history shows us is that ground operations often begin limitants, and then they take on a life of their own once the shooting starts. Israeli forces cross into southern Lebanon.

Back in 1982, that was supposed to be a limited operation to move militants away from Lebanon's border. It turned into a 20 year occup occupation of southern Lebanon. It's all Israeli forces fighting their way to Beirut and laying siege to the capital of Lebanon. So there is a lot of concern in the White House and in other places that a limited operation won't necessarily stay limited.

Now, there are about a million displaced Lebanese civilians, mostly from the south of the country, who have fled north to try to get away from the fighting. So it may very well be that most of these villages that Israeli forces will roll into will already be empty. But of course, the deep, deep concern here is that as Israeli forces move into southern Lebanon, you could see civilian casualties on a much larger scale. Some 1100 Lebanese have been killed in the last two weeks since those pagers started going off.

And then these intensified Israeli airstrikes, we don't know how many of those are Hezbollah fighters. Israel says it is giving warnings to try to get civilians out of harm's way. And we're seeing more of those warnings being issued tonight to residents of southern BE telling them to get away from areas that Israel is planning its target. Right.

And Rafi touched on how the Prime Minister, Netanyahu, vowed to return Israeli residents back to their homes in the north, which is a complicated process. How are people in Israel reacting to that potential second front in the war? It's a really good question, Ryan. There's a lot of fear.

Hezbollah is a much stronger enemy than Hamas. They had well over 100,000 missiles, rocket drones, going into this war. So far, they seem only to be able to fire those weapons at a fairly limited rate. There's been some surprise, actually, that the skies of northern cities like Haifa, where we are now, aren't more full of Hezbollah rockets.

That appears to be a sign that Hezbollah is really on the back foot after these relentless series of Israeli blows. I can tell you, among a lot of people in northern Israel, they feel that this was long overdue, that they've been out of their homes for 11 months that they wanted to see their government take firm action to make the situation safe. But I can also tell you a lot of people are skeptical that this is going to work. We met one father whose paratrooper son was killed on October 7.

He was forced to evacuate with his family from their home in the north the next day. And he told us he's ensure this is going to work and that his family will be able to go home safely. Right. Okay.

Raf Sanchez, thank you for that update. Stay safe where you are. Let's now go to the Pentagon. Recording QB standing by.

According Irish, he has some new reporting on the region. What can you tell us? Yeah, so I mean this is in the region. It's not directly related to Israel.

But we now know, according to three defense officials that the Houthis, which is the Iranian backed militia group in Yemen, have downed a US MQ9 drone. Now this is not the first time, in fact we know of at least a half dozen times that drones like this, MQ9s or US military drones have been downed or have been impacted by the Houthis. In fact, we had some reporting recently that Iran is helping the Houthis to target these drones. This is millions of dollars in US Military assets.

But not just that when the drones are taken out by the Houthis, it also impacts the US ability to gather information, to gather intelligence about them and it can impact potential strikes because remember, these drones are actually capable of connecting your strike as well. Ryan and some experts are saying that Israel likely used an American made 2000 pound bunker buster bomb to take out Nasrallah. What do we know about that? And how's the Pentagon adjusting its posture in the region?

So the US is not saying that's the case, but when you look at the battle damage and you look at the pictures in the video coming out of there, it seems that that's the most likely weapon that was used here and that it would have been provided by the U.S. now the U.S. generally has a hard time because there's rarely end user agreements. It's not like the Israelis have to tell the Americans before they sorts of weapons or equipment in a combat situation.

But the concern here is that if U.S. weapons or when U.S. weapons are used in these sorts of strikes, then it only fuels what is an Iranian belief that the US is complicit or helping Israel in strikes like this. Now the U.S.

the Biden administration for their part has been, has foot stomped time and time again that they were not aware of this operation to kill Hassan Nasrallah last week, the fact that Secretary Defense Floyd Austin was informed as the operation was underway and that the US had no advanced knowledge of it. Ryan, tell me what the thinking now is about the dynamics in the region after the killing of Nasrallah. Are things significantly changed or Iran's proxy groups seriously weakened since October 7th. It was come to the 30,000 foot.

I gotta tell you, Ryan, it is, it's pretty remarkable when you look back to October 7th versus where you are now and how the proxy groups have been impacted. Hamas, much of their leadership. I mean, look at what's happened in Gaza. They have been largely taken out.

Much of their weapons stockpile have been taken out, but Hezbollah. What we have seen happen with Hezbollah over the last two weeks is stunning. The, the Israelis have had a tremendous amount of intelligence information that they have worked with and slowly and strategically acted on over months. Even when you go back, even to the killing of, of Haniyeh back in July in, in, in, in Iran, this has been, these have been long term carried out operations that have taken out Hezbollah and Hamas's leadership, their command and control, they have been severely weakened.

Now we're talking about core Hamas and core Hezbollah here. When you look to some of the groups that are in Iraq and in Syria, even and Yemen, they still have the ability to carry out smaller attacks, more regional attacks within the areas where they operate. Iran has continued to train them to provide money to provide weapons over the course of the last several months. There's no indication that they are weakened, but I think it's very telling that we have not seen them act.

So we have not seen a tremendous uptick in activity in Iraq or Syria since the killing. We've not seen anything yet since Nasrallah, but that's really where we need to be looking to see there's any additional activity from those regional militia groups. Ryan. Okay, Corey qb, thank you for that.

Let's now bring in Bilal Saab, who's the head of the US Middle east practice at Trends Research and Advisory. Bilal, US officials have told NBC News that Israel's operations in Lebanon will be limited in scope. They expect them to last days, not weeks. But given how we've seen this war unfold in Gaza, does the administration really have any means to get Israel to commit to that and eventually choose a diplomatic path forward?

Forward, yeah. Good question, Ryan. Good to be with you. My confidence level probably like yours is not very high, frankly.

And our ability to apply any kind of pressure to issue recommendations to Israelis, all we've been Doing, frankly, over the past few weeks and months is express concerns, which obviously is not that effective. So the ground invasion is now a matter of when, not if, and then how it unfolds. Obviously, nobody knows. The very mission itself of the ground invasion is still unclear, frankly, even in the minds of the Israelis.

Are you there to create a buffer zone? Are you there to further degrade the military infrastructure of Hezbollah? When will you incorporate some diplomacy into this entire equation? We don't have the answers to any of those things.

And all of that is happening in the absence of Yasukons, at least serious. Yasser and I know you said you can't predict what a potential ground invasion might look like, but just give us an idea of what we could expect. Would it look anything like Israel's 2006 invasion? Does that provide us any insight?

In the words of the Israelis, they say, no, this is not going to look like 2006. More like sort of clean up as many areas as possible as close to the borders of Lebanon, probably take out a few more weapons depots, military infrastructure, and then come back in. Right now, what you're seeing, probably as we speak, some preparatory fires, some airstrikes in order to facilitate a ground incursion through Special Forces, first to further clean up those areas and then with something a bit more conventional significance. Look, there's a very high risk of mission creep, as you very well know.

It could start with something limited, but then get either ambitious or actually get bought down with will force the Israelis to come up with something more extensive, more expansive. I want to read a portion of what you wrote today about Hassan Nasrallah. You say, quote, it is no exaggeration to say that he was the brain, the spinal cord and the beating heart of Hezbollah. Without him, it's very hard to see how Hezbollah will think, move and inspire the way it did before an Israeli fighter jet struck Nasrallah's bunker.

So what is next for Hezbollah? Who's in line to succeed Nasrallah? And how diminished is that militant group today? It's always surreal when I look at the words that I actually express myself.

Look here in the midst, obviously, of figuring out who's going to succeed the Secretary general. Obviously, these are impossible shoes to fiddle. This is no ordinary man. As you can imagine, he had influence extended beyond Lebanon's border orders.

There's a technical process for succession in the organization through the Shura Council, which is the sort of decision making body. But then there's obviously the politics of it all, and they're in the Midst of trying to figure out who's the best candidate to lead the organization at a time that is probably the most dangerous throughout the entire history of the organization, they're in an active war right now. The leadership is decimated both politically and militarily speaking. I'm not even sure about the partnership that they have with the Iranians.

There's a huge question mark there. We haven't really seen the Iranians support them that much throughout this conflict. And so whoever's going to step up already had their target. I don't know how much longer, frankly, they will survive as the leader of the organization.

Looks just like the Israelis. They learn a few lessons from 06. So they're not helpless. And Courtney, it's always difficult to go after Courtney because she's very smart and she always has impeccable insights.

She's right. You know, there's stuff still more than 100,000 fighters. Right. Those are the foot soldiers.

Yes. They're not getting the right kind of command and leadership at this point, but they're still there. Right. And so it's an organization that still has some capabilities and we don't know how it's going to react to this entire situation.

Right. But that doesn't mean that they're going to fold. It's not part of their DNA. It's not part of their philosophy.

So we're going to wait and see. They have an advantage on the Turkey because they know the terrain now if there is an invasion. So we'll see that tit for tat when it's going to lead to. Okay.

Thank you so much for your insight for teachers. We appreciate it very much. Coming up, we'll hear directly from Latino voters into critical battleground states and dig into brand new NBC polling on the state of the race for the White House. You're watching with the press now.

Welcome back. Let's turn now back to the presidential election. And that's where we get some new poll numbers. Looking at the key demographics this November, Latino voters.

Vice President Harris does lead former President Trump by 14 points among Latin voters voters and a new poll from NBC News cnbc. And Solomon, while Harris lead is an improvement from President Biden's standing when he was at the top of the ticket. It's also a lot smaller than the margin the Democrats have won Latinos by in past elections. According to historical NBC News exit poll data, Democrats lead with Latinos has been shrinking since 2012.

This new polling also shows just how politically diverse and divided Latino voters are. The results among Latinos mirror many of the trends we're seeing in the country at large, especially when it comes to gender. Harris has a 26 point lead among Latinas, while Harris and Trump are tied among Latino men. NBC News correspondent David Noriaga is talking to Latino voters in Clark County, Nevada, which is the main population center in that state.

And Telemano senior Washington correspondent Christine Ladonia is in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, a town with a growing Latino population. David, let's start with you. You're talking to Latino voters in Las Vegas. What are they teaching telling you?

Yeah, Ryan. So I am specifically on Las Vegas's east side, which is the predominantly Latino part of the city. I've been talking to voters for a couple of days and what I hear really reflects that national polling in a couple of ways. First of all, this community is really torn between the parties and torn between the candidates in a way that they haven't been in several election cycles.

You can see this community really going both ways. Additionally, the one thing that's pretty universally true when I talk to voters about what matters to them is that the first thing they mentioned is the cost of living, the economy. We were at a park very close to where I am now, talking to parents who are watching their kids play in a youth soccer league. That's why she moved to Nevada from California about 20 years ago.

She told me that she's about 60, 40, leaning towards her, but that she is persuadable and that if the Harris campaign reaches her and talks to her in a convincing way about the economy of the possibility, they could still win her vote. I want to tell you a little bit of what she told me. Take a listen. I love what Donald Trump did for, for us as an economy while he was in presidency.

And I don't know what she has to offer us because she's new. So that's kind of like taking a chance on her, you know. So that's what I mean. But I do like how she is doing a lot of things for small businesses and how she has that idea for them.

I do like that about her. What are the most important issues for you? Family. Family income, you know, just the cost of living.

I want to be able to support myself and my children and be able to do things, you know, and that's what's important to me. I know that there's a lot of bigger issues, but those issues don't affect me and my family and, and how I'm living right now. Voters like to send out. Brian are exactly why the campaigns and Particularly the Paris campaign, are spending tremendous amounts of money trying to find and reach these specific voters.

This relatively narrow slice of this one demographic, particularly in southwestern swing states like Arizona and like here in Nev. Okay, thank you for that, David. Let's go to Christina. You're in Hazelnut Pen, which is just south of Luke's bearing.

Luzerne County. Luzerne County. It's a place that's been going through a bit of a shift in demographics and politics. Tell us why you're there.

Well, Ryan, it's part of the Latino belt in northeastern Pennsylvania. Here in Hazleton, the majority of the population is Latino. It was 5% 20 years ago. And now 63 of them are Latino, mostly Dominicans.

And they're not here. The Democrats do not have the advantage. What we have spoken to people. They have told us most of them are planning on voting for Donald Trump.

They voted for him. The majority of them did in the past two elections. He won by 3 points eight years ago and then by 11.4 years ago. And we're still thinking that they may give him greater numbers come November.

And also the divide is like David was talking about about. It's depending on the issues. Those voters that are voting with their pocketbook are leaning towards Trump. The other ones are voting with the heart, with democracy and values issues.

Say that they're on the side of Harris. And we also saw a divide in gender and religion. Let's take a listen. What are the issues that move you towards Trump and move you in your community towards Donald Trump?

Well, mainly as the. The transgender. The transgender and also the abortion party. And you would say most of your community is choosing Donald Trump because of that?

Yes. Yes. The majority, yes. What is it about Kamala Harris's values that entices you?

Why. Why are you with her? I'm with them. All here is because she values what women value.

She values what rights. I feel that we have a safer place with her in terms of body, autonomy, other reasons why as well. Another big issue that is being debated here in the streets of Hazleton are Trump's growing attacks of. Some of the immigrants are crossing the borders.

On Saturday, he said once again, some of them are animals and some of them the criminals break into your kitchen and cut your throat. So the Democrat leaning voters are saying they cannot support a candidate, but that they're worried he's actually poisoning the feel of the country. They don't want that hatred moving forward for their kids and their grandchildren. But the Trump supporters are saying, I'm not an animal.

He's not talking about about me. I am not a criminal. This is not directed at me. Very different reactions.

Right. And we'll see what plays out November 5th. Okay, Christina, we don't think this for sure the Latino vote is going to be so important in this upcoming election. We appreciate that.

Reporting after the break. We're coming down to tomorrow night's vice presidential debate as Governor Walls and Senator J.D. vance prepared Face Off. You're watching Meet THE PRESS now.

Welcome back. We're just over 24 hours until one of the final pre election dates on the 2024 calendar, the vice presidential debate. Tim Walls and J.D. vance representing me on stage tomorrow in New York.

Both candidates are largely off the trail today, putting in some last minute debate prep. Joining me now on set is Betsy Woodruff Swan, who's a national correspondent for Politico. Democrat pollster Cornell Belcher also named BC's political analyst and Republican strategist Garrett Ventri. Betsy, you know, normally I would say a vice presidential debate maybe has 24 hours worth of legs before we move.

But the fact that we don't have another debate coming up, does that put a little bit more stock on what we'll see tomorrow night? I think you could argue that that's the last time we're going to see that. Convince Ryan you're not crazy. Look, it's not exciting as a presidential.

It just isn't. The biggest issue tomorrow night is does anyone theatrically face plant? Is there like a total disaster episode that we see unfold? If it's moderately boring and unexpected, then I think we all kind of move on.

One fun fact about this debate coming up, based on my analysis, I'm 99% sure I'm correct about this. Tim Walls is the first non lawyer in about 20 years to be on a Democratic presidential ticket. And Jamie Vance is the first lawyer in about the same period of time to be on a Republican presidential ticket. And so in the debate context, that's kind of fun because lawyers, of course, are trained very much in this particular mode of arguing and that the tables are going to be sort of reversed than the they have been for I would say at least four years.

Wow. That's a fun fact you bring to the table. I like it. Very good, Cornell.

I want to show you some net favorability numbers from our latest NBC News poll shows that Tim Walls has a pretty good favorability rating. In fact, all the people running for president, his is the best right now. That might have something to do with the fact that a Lot of people know him, but he hasn't really done much media since he was named to the ticket. Not very many interviews.

He's not doing like the local interviews that some of these vice presidential candidates do. It's part of that because they don't want to hurt that favorability number and it's just too risky to do that or what's the strategy? I'll go back to this point. Look, he's not a lawyer.

He's a school teacher, right? You know, next to nurses and firemen, you know who Americans really like. They're really like school teachers. Not Steven Zen.

I like him well enough. But look, he's. He is sort of. He's sort of a regular guy and I think so that regular guy Persona comes across to the voters.

Look, don't underestimate favorables because look, in the end we'll make a lot of conversation about policy and you'll do a lot of reporting about policy and the average American. In the end, this is what George Bush had in oodles. I just like him. He seems like a good man.

Don't underestimate how powerful it is that both of these candidates have above water favorables. Particularly in a time where we're so polarized. I do want to go back to this point about how Walls is largely stuck doing media interviews. And Gary, I'm gonna read part of this piece by Mark Lebovich.

In the new Atlantic article it says it's a bit of a mystery why Wallace has largely stopped doing national media. Especially given how effective he was over the summer. The campaign seems to attract him in the same hyperprotective bubble wrap it placed around Harris and that was placed around Biden before her. This strikes me as a massive waste of Walls's talents.

But what do I know? Are you surprised? Especially given the fact J.D. vance is doing interviews everywhere.

Seems as though he'll take an interview whenever any. What do you make of the strategy of putting Walls on the sideline? I think it's interesting because I think a lot of reason came up. He was raider for the job was because he was doing media every single night when he was campaigning for the Vice President.

So I find that very interesting. Now I think if you take a step back, how does this play out in debate? I think there's two things here. One, it's the most eyeballs that both of these candidates are gonna have.

But two, I mean the essential job of the VP is do no harm, right? So that's it here. And so I think this is Gonna matter as much for the presidential. When you're looking at Vance here, I think he has a slight advantage because he's doing a lot of media.

He's not only just going on Fox News, he's doing NBC, he's doing cnn, abc, cbs. And that gives him an advantage and he's doing press conferences. So I think the bottom line winning this debate is this. Nobody's really voting for the top of the ticket based on the bottom of the ticket.

It's can you tie negatives on the bottom of the ticket to the top of the ticket. So for jd, can he tie immigration and economic issues to Harris that are negative about Waltz and therefore Walls? Can you do healthcare and tying those things on JD to Trump? Whoever does that better Walls.

So do you think that'll be the strategy to get to kind of talk about the tickets fulsome and their policy issues or should we expect J.D. vance to go after Tim Walls military? Right. I think he will.

I mean listen, that's gonna be. Those are the two things JD's gonna have to answer for the Springfield, Ohio comments with Haitian migrants. Right. He's gonna have to answer for that.

And Walt is gonna have to answer on what people feel like that he's missed on his military record. So I think he will attack on that. But it is a. If you're not going after the top of the ticket as the VP candidate, you're really missing an opportunity because that's how people are really learning.

I completely agree with my public colleague. I will say this one thing. If I think Vance has to change the dynamics that's happening right now. If you look at most Napoleon polling and even on average right now it seems to be trending and has been for over a month now trending in favor of F.

Harris Walls. The other part of this, whenever I have a candidate who's in a debate and I know they're trailing, you have to shake up the dynamics of this race. If you don't shake the dynamics of this race and continues trajectory, we're likely to lose. Okay, let's turn now and talk about this Latino poll that NBC News is commissioned this week in Betsy, I'm going to turn to you now.

It shows that Kamala Harris is up but man, this is a much tighter race in terms of Latino vote that we've seen over the two, three past election cycles. What I think we are all coming to learn is that Latino voters are not monolith. In fact, they seem to mirror the rest of the country quite a bit. But how does the Harris campaign target this vote, which is going to be so important to them in being successful?

What's interesting about this poll is that it shows dramatic differences when you break down this massive portion of the electorate. One thing that jumped out to me was a huge discrepancy between how Catholic Latino voters versus how evangelical Latinos vote. Evangelicals are much more favorable to Trump. The Catholics are significantly more favorable to Harris.

One area where Harris team sees room to gain room to improve their standing is with evangelical voters. That's traditionally for Trump. He's very much viewed that in particular white evangelicals as his home turf. But we've seen Harris team invest more in trying sort of explicitly co court, even dial voters.

And that's something where potentially she could see benefits or at least room to marginally move the needle going to November. And Quinno, are you surprised that the gender gap for Latino voters is very similar to the way it is with the rest of the country? No, because that's the way it's been. That's the way it's been moving.

Actually, at some point, at some point, we look, it's battleground by battleground. Look, think of a Latino vote as monolith. I know you said it before, but this huge difference, like Puerto Ricans are very different from Cuban to Cuban than very different Mexicans. And so when you look at a battleground state, let's go to na, let's go to Arizona.

Like, those populations are different than the populations that you see in Florida. So I'm at the point now where I don't even like looking at a Latino poll. Right. I'm much rather look at battleground states, sort of Latino or Hispanic voters in those battleground states because they're so dramatically different from outside the battleground.

What about the Trump campaign where they can write to try and close this gap we're talking about? It's a seismic shift, 20, 30 point shift to Trump. The other problem for real quick I'm going to wrap up is that she is underperforming where Hillary was in the polls in 16 and where Biden was in 2020 in key swing states. That is a current trajectory that is good for Trump, not Paris.

All right, we got Betsy Cry. Thank you all for being here. Back tomorrow with more press. 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 Mankiewicz and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all new podcast from Dayline. Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicion. Now, wherever you get your your podcasts,