We need to. This is not what we want, not what were looking for. We dont want escalation. Is we dont want a second or third front develop. We dont want to see our forces or our personnel come under fire, but if that happens, were ready for it. Secretary of state Antony Blinken making it clear, the United States will respond to any provocation from iran connected to the israelhamas war. It comes as Israels Defense Forces are expanding air strikes in gaza. Well get the latest with a live report from israel straight ahead. Plus, new reporting on how President Biden and other u. S. Officials helped delay the Ground Invasion of the territory. Also ahead, well dig into the republicanled dysfunction on capitol hill. There are now several candidates hoping to become House Speaker after jim jordans failed bid. And well get you expert legal analysis on Donald Trumps violation of the gag order in his Civil Fraud Trial, as well as another new guilty plea deal from one of his codefendants in the georgia case. Good morning. Welcome to morning joe. The news just doesnt stop over the weekend. Its monday, october 23rd. With us, we have the host of way too early, White House Bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. Former aid to the george w. Bush white house and state departments, elise jordan. Columnist and Associate Editor for the Washington Post, David Ignatius joins us this morning. And former Chief Of Staff at the cia and Department Of Defense jeremy bash is here. He is an Nbc News National Security analyst. And well dive right in. Israels Defense Forces launched new air strikes into gaza, the west bank, and lebanon, as israel expands the scope of its offensive against Hamas Terrorists. Residents of north gaza received new warnings from israel to evacuate to the south of the territory, warnings that suggested the residents could be identified as sympathizers with a Terrorist Organization if they stay put. In the west bank, the idf says its air strike on an underground compound at a mosque struck a terror cell. Overnight, israels military says it hit two hezbollah cells in lebanon that it believed were designing a plan to launch missiles and rockets into israel. Meanwhile, a second humanitarian convoy has reached the gaza strip. A total of 14 trucks carrying food, water, and medicine arrived yesterday according to a u. N. Official. The trucks were inspected by Israels Defense Forces prior to entry, and no fuel was allowed in. Yesterdays convoy followed the first round of trucks carrying supplies to be allowed into gaza on saturday. That shipment was packed down to 20 trucks and was described by the u. N. As, quote, a fraction of what is needed after 13 days of complete siege. All right. Lets bring in nbc news chief Foreign CorrespondentRichard Engel, live from northern israel near the lebanese border. Richard, youre following the latest on the potential Ground Invasion. What can you tell us . Reporter so, first, let me set the scene where i am. You just talked about those israeli strikes against hezbollah. We are in the town right on the lebanese border. The hills behind me, on the back side of them, thats lebanon. That territory right behind these hills is where hezbollah has its fighters, it has Rocket Positions. If a war were to expand, that second front that blinken was concerned about that, israel is concerned about, that the United States is concerned about, itd come potentially from this area with rockets and or fighters coming over these hills and then down into israel. The big news here this morning, a lot of talk on Israeli Media, the television and leading newspapers, that the Ground Offensive may be delayed for an indeterminate period of time, after the United States was, not pressuring israel, but encouraging israel to slow things down, to give it a beat. There does seem to be some movement with the negotiations via qatar to free hostages. As youll remember, americanisraeli hostages were freed on saturday. There does seem to be some progress. To allow Military Buildup in the area, to harden american defenses in case there is an escalation, in case there is a war with hezbollah, a war with iran, and to see if diplomacy can have some sort of impact to deescalate this crisis. Over the weekend, there was a summit in cairo. A lot of pieces are in motion. Israel is still carrying out its air strikes. It also carried out a Ground Commando Raid near the border. The Military Activity is not slowing down. In fact, last night was the most intense night of air strikes according to people in gaza that they have seen since the beginning of this conflict to date. The air strikes are more intense than ever. Israeli troops are going in in limited forays, but according to reports that are all over the media here, the Ground Offensive may be delayed. Nbc news chief Foreign CorrespondentRichard Engel, thank you very much for that report. Greatly appreciate it. David ignatius, lets bring you in. There has been a lot of diplomatic efforts undertaken by the United States especially to slow down well, first of all, to stop any Fighting North, but also to slow down the Ground Invasion. If you look at the opinion of people that help shape American Foreign policy in washington, d. C. , and ill start with you, your column last week very wisely said, they should begin this war by thinking about what follows it, what follows the day after. Ill read you what tom friedman wrote this weekend at the New York Times. Said, israel is about to make a terrible mistake. Quote, i believe if israel rushes adlong into gaza now to destroy hamas, and does so without expressing a clear commitment to seek a twostate solution with the Palestinian Authority and end jewish settlements in the west bank, itll be making a grave mistake that will be devastating for israeli interests and american interests. It could trigger a global conflagration and expose the proamerican Alliance Structure that the United States has built in the region since Henry Kissinger engineered yom kippur. It is about the right way, the way that doesnt play into the hands of hamas, iran, and russia. Otherwise, what began as a hamas onslaught against isrl has the potential to trigger a middle east war with every great power and Regional Power having a hand in it, which would also make it very difficult to stop once it is started. Peggy noonan also writing this weekend for the Wall Street Journal, talked about how she, too, said, i fear it may be too late. It looks as if plans for a Ground Invasion of gaza are in place. Decisions have been made. Possible repercussions considered and perhaps accounted for. Thats it, david. The repercussions. Were talking about hamas, but that expands out into iran, which expands out into russia, which expands out into whether china will feel the United States, distracted with two regional wars, can go into taiwan. Suddenly, we have an emergency the likes of which we really havent seen since world war ii. It is an exceedingly dangerous situation. I think what observers like my friend tom friedman, like peggy noonan, like me have been writing, reflects what senior officials at the administration tell me. It is important that israel learn the lessons the United States has from its wars in the middle east. Prime among them, you have to think carefully about the day after the war seems to end and how you govern that area in a way that doesnt just produce more instability. Also, clearly, in this environment, you have to think about the danger that war will expand in ways you cant predict, that this will move from being a onefront war to a two or threefront war. Then what happens to russia . What happens to china . I think there are two fundamentals that people should realize havent been altered in any way in israel. The first, they believe, and they have strong support from the administration, secretary blinken said it yesterday, that political power of hamas must be destroyed. That hamas is simply not prepared to make compromises. It remains committed to the destruction of israel. Israel fights wars every few years, and then it comes back. I think after the horror of the attacks of october 7th, israelis and senior american officials are united in thinking, weve got to stop this. Figuing out how you get a different government in gaza that will work is exceedingly difficult. There are a lot of talks going on with saudi arabia, jordan, egypt, all those countries. The second thing i think people are thinking increasingly about is, how do you deal with the humanitarian problem . Also, how do you keep as many of the hostages as possible alive who are being held . It is over 200 people. People are trying to think carefully, how do we conduct the Military Operation and keep those people alive . Thats one big reason were seeing the delay. Prepare the battlefield. Make sure you know where the hostages are and exactly how youll move in and not get them killed. Of course, Hamas Holding, the terrorist group Hamas Holding those hostages, and qatar negotiating to try to release them. David, im curious here. We are three weeks, a little more than three weeks away from the horrors of october 7th. Many things have been going through all of our minds. So many concerns. So many shocking revelations. Peggy noonan touched on one of those, and i want to know if you have insight into what the hell happened. We have the possibility of netanyahu and a split between the secular professionals who ran israel and protected israel for since 1948, then sort of this new breed of Ultra Orthodox supporters that netanyahu had and, well, quite bluntly, bringing people around him that were not equipped to protect and defend israel. This is what peggy wrote. Israel needs to dig deep and fortify. Whats happening now doesnt feel like the past. When, say, a surprise and underdog israel, a tough and scrappy nation, spiritedly repelled its invaders. Later, when a determined nation came down on the foes with the hardware those foes didnt have. This feels, peggy writes, and has felt from the beginning, like a nation that is not as competent, not as certain. It felt like an israel that had grown less disciplined with a government that was complacent and distracted. Israel more generally removed from its founding ideas and its founders. Peggy concludes by saying, i hope israel digs deep, refortifies, and devotes its focus to making itself stronger than it seemed on october 6th. David, that leads to the question once again, what happened with israel . I dont think it was just what happened leading up to this attack. What happened that the netanyahu government on october 6th revealed israel to be everything we thought it was not leading up to october 6th. You know, we have grown up hearing about the Israeli Armed forces, hearing about how they were next level, a step above. As peggy says, and its really whats frightening because this puts more of the burden on americas shoulders, they did not seem competent on october 6th. A lot of people died because of it. The question is, why were they so incompetent . I think as friends, we have the right to ask that question because the burden passes to us if netanyahus government cant do the job. So, joe, theres no secret that the months before this hamas attack on october 7 were as divisive as any of us have ever seen in israel. Israel seemed almost at war with itself. It was, as you say, a war between the secular folks who dominate the military and Intelligence Services and a more conservative group, many of them Ultra Orthodox, who were part of the netanyahu coalition. That israel was at war with itself, and theres just no question that encouraged hamas to think that israel was weaker. Ive seen the country come together, and i think the things that theyre planning to deal with, hamas political power, to get hamas out without getting too many civilians killed, without getting hostages killed, are at a level of technological expertise that is extraordinary. There will be things that are really the very latest uses of robotics, of technology. I wouldnt worry about the competence of the Israeli Military. I think the central problem that americans need to understand is that israel is haunted after the october 7th attack by the reality that deterrence against hamas failed. Israel thought hamas was deterred, theyd open the borders. More gazans were working in israel. They seemed to be prospering. The thought was, okay, theyre not going to be as militant as theyve been. That was wrong. They were not deterred. They attacked. When israel looks now at hezbollah and lebanon, they think hezbollah is deterred. They think these are a few rocket attacks that hezbollah has to do to keep face in this Axis Of Resistance, but maybe theyre wrong. Maybe hezbollah isnt deterred. Thats whats troubling israel and we should, i think, understand and sympathize with. Speaking of the burden you were talking about, joe, the u. S. Is increasing its Military Presence in the middle east after a series of suspected iranian proxy attacks. Joining us now, Nbc News National Security and military correspondent courtney kube. What are these new moves . Thats right. One of them involves an Aircraft Carrier strike ground, the Uss Eisenhower, that was already planning to head to the mediterranean. We heard that announcement several days ago. Now, over the weekend, Secretary Of Defense lloyd austin decided instead to move it more towards the middle east, what we think of as the fifth fleet area, the centcom area. Think of the red sea, the persian gulf, the gulf of oman. I spoke with a number of officials over the weekend. We dont know exactly where itll go, but itll be closer towards the iraq side of fifth fleet as opposed to the further west side where it would be potentially supporting israel. Thats one thing. In addition to that, Secretary Austin has now authorized a number of Additional AirDefense Systems and capabilities moving into the region. That includes the f. A. D. , a Ballistic Missile system. Thats going somewhere in centcom. The pentagon is being pretty vague about where these systems and these individuals are going to go. Theres also going to be additional patriot battalions going in. There are already systems in the region which are air Defense Systems, but theyre sending additional systems. We dont know exactly the specifics of it. Also, some of the personnel to operate the systems. In addition to that, we learned a week or two ago the Secretary Of Defense also put about 2,000 Service Members on whats called a prepared to deploy order. What that means is, rather, most of these were already individuals what were on a short leash to deploy, about 96 hours. They were switched to 24 hours. That means that from the time you get the call that you have to go until youre on that airfield ready to get on the plane, is 24 hours. Hes added an additional couple hundred people to that list. These are support personnel. The first question i always get when i talk about the prepare to deploy orders is, are these people who will go in and fight in gaza . Officials say that is not the case. These are support personnel, medical support, explosive experts, more air defense experts, so people who will be brought into the region to help out with exactly what you all have been talking about, and that is the threat from some of these regional actors. Last week, we saw a real uptick in attack against bases housing u. S. Forces in iraq and in syria. I cannot underscore how unusual what we saw with the uss carney, where they took out a couple of missiles fired from the houthis up toward israel. That is basically unprecedented. Right. Also new. We did not realize the houthis had the capability to fire missiles that could go from yemen up to israel. These things really have u. S. Officials, Defense Officials concerned, and theyre moving forces in to deter and protect against them, jo