person. >> well, thank you. there is also a lot of things of mistakes i have made in my career, things that scared me that i took the leap on. you have experienced many of those before as well.re we have talked about them. >> i experience them daily, jen. >> me, too. >> i hope the book can come in pocket size so i can carry it iz with me throughout the day.ro >> you'll get the first copy, i promise. >> i love you. thank you. good luck.k. >> have a great show. >> thank you.ea thanks to you at home for joining us. the great rachel maddow is ch obviously not here now. she's healing up after a round of covid, and we hope she will n be back here at her usual time e next monday because we all need you, rachel.he feel better. now, tonight, we start in gaza. where the israeli military is deep into what it is calling the second stage of its war with hamas. israeli soldiers and tanks are slowly advancing deeper into gaza. "the new york times" and "the washington post" are reporting r this evening that the israeli military has now reached the ng outskirts of gaza city. it remains unclear if these movements are the much anticipated ground invasion or a preview of that invasion or t whether israel may yet decide against a full-scale invasion. the biden administration for its part is reportedly urging israel not to invade an occupied gaza.v but in a rare news conference earlier, prime minister e ri netanyahu made clear that his country's operations and military operations will continue. casting the fight against hamas as a battle between good and be evil. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engle is on the israeli/gaza border and n filed this report tonight. >> reporter: israeli prime minister netanyahu under fire for not taking responsibility te for being unprepared for hamas' surprise attack, says there will be no cease-fire, that israel must retaliate for the 1,400 israelis killed.le >> just as the united states t would not agree to a cease-fireg after the bombing of pearl harbor or after the terrorist af attack of 9/11, israel will noto agree to a cessation of es hostilities with hamas after the horrific attacks of october 7th. this is a time for war. >> reporter: in gaza, more than 2 million civilians are suffering because of a war they didn't start, can't escape, and which is escalated by the day. according to the health ministry run by hamas, more than 8,000 as palestinians have been killed so far. hospitals have become refugee ve centers for the newly homeless. they destroyed our house on top of us, this man screams. israel says there's a safe haven in the south. but it's bombing in southern om gaza too. >> from southern gaza, we hear on this show have heard from abud, an american trapped there with his wife and year-old son. they were visiting his wife's if parents in gaza when the war vi broke out. these two photos were taken in h gaza in the days before the october 7th hamas attack on israel. he tells us his family is now sheltering with 40 other people, including ten americans in a small house as israeli bombs drop nearby.us the filtration plant where they have been lining up for water each day has run out of fuel because israel will not allow ra fuel into gaza. hamas reportedly has stockpilesd including fuel, food, and water. they have had no water since yesterday and at this point he doesn't know when or if his family and other americans o trapped in gaza will be able to get out. that is the situation for the millions still trapped in gaza. as to the hostages who remain ig the region, hamas today released a video featuring three female hostages still being held hostage. one woman in the video criticized netanyahu's management of the crisis and the prime minister later called the video cruel propaganda. there was, however, one piece of good news on this front today.on israel announced it had rescued an israeli ori megidish. israel says that still leaves o nearly 240 hostages held in gaza. meanwhile, hanging over all of h this are a lot of uncomfortable questions about the israeli ou government itself and its leader, prime minister benjamin netanyahu. those questions are laid out in a deeply reported piece by "new york times" reporters, titled how years of israeli failures on hamas led to a devastating attack. the most powerful military force in the middle east had not only completely underestimated the magnitude of the attack, it hadd totally failed in its intelligence gathering efforts, mostly due to hubris and the mistaken assumption that hamas was a threat contained. overall, arrogance among israeli political and security officials convinced them that the country's military and technological superiority to hamas would keep the terrorist group in check. and even now, three weeks into this war, it is not clear that israel's leader has figured out how to talk to his country about how and why israel's vaunted sense of invincibility has shattered. at 1:00 a.m. sunday in israel after his office was asked for comment on this article, he posted a message on x, formerly twitter, that repeated remarks he made to "the new york times." and blamed the military and intelligence services for failing to provide him with any warning on hamas. the blowback to the prime minister's blame shifting was so swift and overwhelming that he deleted that post and subsequently apologized. something basically unheard of for the hard-charging prime minister. joining me now is mark mazzetti, a washington investigative correspondent for "the new york times." mark, thank you for being here. i found this account deeply distressing but also riveting. it sounds like there was a cascade of failures that led to october 7th. and i'm sure you have thoughts of which was the most sizable, but one of the ones that stuck out to me was the idea that the israeli defense forces stopped monitoring hamas radio traffic. and that at the outset of this attack, nobody thought it was serious enough to wake the prime minister. can you talk a little bit aboutk the decisions that led to the stoppage effectively of monitoring important methods ofi communications for this attack in particular? >> sure. so what we found is that this is not just a matter of if there was one warning they could havea heeded in the weeks or days before the attack. maybe it could have been headed off. in fact, it was a series of bad decisions over the years that basically came down to the conclusion that hamas was not capable of attacking israel, that hamas was not interested in attacking israel, and therefore, the israeli security resources should be devoted elsewhere. they should be devoted toward particularly iran, hezbollah, but hamas was not considered a serious threat.s when you bring up the fact they were not listening to radio is traffic, that was just one example of well, this was radio communication of low-level hamas fighters. what's the purpose? what good would it do them, the thought, to monitor this traffic. again, this belief was that hamas was deterred and hamas was not interested in attacking. it was all sort of this mosaic of bad decision making that led to the attacks on october 7th. >> it sounds like israel disregarded the good intelligence they did have. i mean, the warnings that were issued internally or even externally from countries like jordan effectively went ignored. is that right? >> yes, that's right. the jordanians were warning, and even israeli generals for months were going to political leaders and making a broader point. they were saying that the political agenda that benjamin netanyahu was pursuing, which was this what they call judicial reform, was in fact seizing ha power from the judiciary, which was creating mass protests in ti israel. the assessment of the intelligence community is this was weakening the country and emboldening israel's enemies.g they were warning there might be an attack coming, and mr. netanyahu ignored and in fact in our story, we pointed out he refused to meet a senior general in july who wanted to deliver that warning. the generals themselves didn't s quite get the exact attack right. they thought something was coming, but they didn't think i was going to be from hamas, from gaza. it really was a case where there was blame all around for not really understanding the big picture. >> and then there is this sort of role that hamas was playing in netanyahu's broader struggles with the palestinian authority. can you talk about that dynamic and how it factored into this attack? >> sure. well, so netanyahu has for years talked tough about hamas, how they're going to wipe out hamas. remember, hamas has been effectively governing the gaza strip for more than a decade. and in that vein, actually netanyahu government over the years in fact pursued a policy of propping up hamas, sort of counterbalancing the palestiniai authority in the west bank with money to hamas. the strategy was in effect to kind of divide and conquer. if you prop up hamas it weakens the palestinian authority and it gave netanyahu this sort of case to say listen, i have no credible partners here. therefore, they sort of slow ar rolled the peace process. so that is now pretty well documented that despite the rhetoric, netanyahu over the years and ministers in israel empowered hamas by giving them a lot of money. that's part of the picture as well. >> i think you're right to call it a mosaic of failures because the errors were omnidirectional. how has netanyahu managed the moment and effectively communicating with the israeli public about this cascade of failures? we mentioned he deleted that tweet that absolved himself of any failures. how is he dealing with it now? what is the domestic political landscape look like for him in the context of these attacks? >> it was quite strange over the weekend when we were finishing up the story. we put questions to his office, the prime minister's office, about what we were going to report. he responded with that response that he then tweeted out. and then the next day, it created this controversy, this really firestorm of people saying he was passing the buck. he deleted the tweet. but we still had his statement. and that was sort of showing that he was not ready to accept blame. several senior israeli intelligence officials, military officials and others, have said effectively, you know, we were to blame. we will resign when this is si over, but we're going to fight this war first. netanyahu hadn't done that. what we saw today with the press conference was a little bit of in essence a move at damage control, but you know, clearly, netanyahu is fighting for his political life as a result of this. >> mark, it's a really, really important story, especially an right now. thank you for joining me tonight. really appreciate it. >> thank you. now let's turn to democratic senator richard blumenthal of connecticut.cht. a member of the armed services committee who recently returned from a trip to the middle east. senator blumenthal, thanks for joining me this evening. i know you were part of a bipartisan delegation of ten el senators who went to israel, saudi arabia, and egypt. could you give us a sense of what regional partners are saying about this conflict as w sit now in day 24?ut >> alex, this trip was really deeply emotional and moving.mo i have family as well as friends in israel. a cousin who is in the idf at the front, and many of us in america have friends and family who are affected, and the message we brought to israel is one of solidarity. israel has a right to defend itself against hamas, a terrorist organization that has as its single-minded goal to destroy israel and annihilate the jewish people. and in the region, there is no love for hamas, just the opposite. the nations of the region know that hamas is a force for instability and conflict. they want stability and peace because they want their st economies to prosper. so i think a glimmer of hope that the saudis see a future here in continuing the talks toward normalizing relations ma with israel, not right away, but once this conflict is concluded, and the egyptians likewise, we p visited there as well, would like to see the conflict contained. i think deterring iran from opening another front through its proxy hezbollah has to be one of the administration's major goals and to his credit, president biden is making it a priority. >> i'm curious about your statement that regional -- arab regional partners have no love for hamas. what have the civilians in gaza, there are varying estimates, but up to 8,000 people killed, a third of them children. is that a concern for regional states near israel? >> absolutely, it is a concern for them. it a concern for anyone with a sense of decency. israel has to defend itself, and we emphasize to israel it has to provide more humanitarian relief in food, fuel, water.ue try to contain the conflict, ta minimize civilian casualties. provide safe corridors for americans to escape. and as a priority, to enable hostages to be freed. that's why the president to his credit is asking for a humanitarian pause so they and our government all have a concern about providing more humanitarian relief, and frankly, the israelis can do it, and they're moving toward doing it. >> "the washington post" has some reporting this evening about the biden administration being very concerned about israel's movements, its ov deployment of soldiers and the bombing campaign in gaza, and that behind the scenes the administration has been urging israel to take more precautionary measures. has that been communicated to you? if not, what do you think about the biden administration's apparent evolution on this conflict in particular? >> i have been in touch with the administration, the white house, diplomats who represent our government abroad, and all believe that the israeli military has to be extremely careful about its tactics here and avoid repeating quite honestly the mistakes we made in afghanistan and iraq, where there were a lot of civilian casualties that in fact fueled the rise of other terrorist groups when innocent civilians are killed, it is likely to simply create more adolescents who tend toward terrorism and create difficulties in the future. so i think the administration is advising as a friend, providing that kind of advice about the options that will minimize civilian casualties, provide more humanitarian relief, and deter iran, which is the reason why we have sent two aircraft carriers and other assets to the region, so that it will not give the green light to hezbollah on the northern front as it did to hamas on the south. >> yeah, there is a lot of concern about this spilling into a regional conflict. senator blumenthal, we would love to have you back. we have to leave it there.ve thanks for your thoughts y tonight. >> thank you. coming up, mike pence drops out of the presidential race. while a ring leader of the effort to overturn the 2020 election now sits in the er speaker's chair. s what it takes to make it in today's gop. but first, after he was given a gag order in his january 6th case, trump today went after the judge and a possible witness and joe biden.de again, that is after the gag order.t the latest on trump's legal o jeopardy is next. ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. on sunday, the federal judge overseeing the case surrounding trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, judge tanya chutkan, she reinstated a gag order on mr. trump. she first issued a limited gag order two weeks ago today on october 16th. but she paused the gag order at the request of trump's lawyers who are in the process of appealing it. and then there was a nine-day pause in which the special counsel's team later argued that trump wasted no time in attacking federal prosecutors and potential key witnesses including his former chief of staff, mark meadows. with yesterday's ruling, the former president is now barred again from making any remarks targeting witnesses, prosecutors, or court staff. to be clear, this gag order is separate and apart from the one imposed in his new york civil fraud case in which trump has been fined $15,000 for violating it not once but twice. maybe it's a pattern. because after judge chutkan imposed the gag order today, trump again went on the attack. going after former attorney general bill barr, a potential key witness in this case. he called the judge a, quote, trump hater, and he threatened president biden with payback. almost all of which might be a violation of said gag order. with gag orders like this, who needs gag orders? joining me now is joyce vance, former district attorney for the northern district of alabama. thank you for being here. please help me understand whether we are barreling towards a stress test of bail conditions. are judges going to have to take up in earnest the question of whether they need to jail a former president ahead of a trial? >> so i think as reluctant as the judges will be to do anything that would like like interference in the election, ultimately, donald trump seems intent on pushing these buttons. he's had a lot of opportunity to walk it back, instead, he continues to advance his conduct. for instance, alex, just leaving some of these earlier posts, the post about mark meadows, which the last time i looked at truth social was still up and had not been taken down. that would be a violation of the gag order at this point. so trump is not going to make life easy for any of the judges here. >> today, the doj announced they were indicting a alabama man for transmitting interstate threats. he had left threatening phone messages for d.a. fani willis. do you think the doj is trying to convey its seriousness in terms of threatening behavior in and around this case, and is that a subtle message to donald trump? >> i don't think that there's anything subtle about it. doj has always taken an aggressive stance about protecting witness safety in every case. this is the sort of issue, and i can tell you on the handful of cases that i was involved in where there were threats to witnesses, people in a u.s. attorney's office drop everything, they put their heads together, they figure out how to protect the witness, whether they need to go back into court. these matters are taken very seriously, so the u.s. attorney in atlanta took a look at this threat, went ahead and indicted the case very quickly. will pursue it very vigorously. donald trump needs to understand that there is a line that you cannot cross over here, and that he has become perilously close to it. >> the other trumps will be talking in court next week. i believe -- sorry, this week, on wednesday, donald trump jr. will be testifying in the new york civil case brought by a.g. letitia james. on thursday, eric trump testifies. next monday, donald trump himself, and next wednesday, ivanka trump, who was originally scheduled for this friday. joyce, what is your expectation with these trumps? are they going to be pleading the fifth as they have in previous depositions or could they actually testify with some material information that would be useful to the a.g.? >> so they'll have an interesting decision point here, because they're being called by letitia james as part of her case in chief. the case the government is putting on to justify the award of damages in essence that it is seeking from trump and the trump organization. if they're not forthcoming in their testimony, you know, when you have a witness on direct, you have to ask them who, what, when, where, why kinds of qu