security as well as that partners. >> secretary of state antony blinken laying out the importance of financial support for both israel and ukraine, that's in response to an israel-only aid package from house republicans that also came with a catch. we'll look at where that fight is headed. plus, the director of the fbi is warning the hamas terror attacks could inspire extremists here at home. calling it the greatest threat to the united states since isis. and we'll have an update on donald trump's civil fraud trial ahead of testimony today from one of his adult children. also ahead, we'll explain the latest labor dispute. this one is being dubbed pharmageddon how it would affect people's prescription drugs, whether or not they get them, will that be a pharmacist there when you go to get your prescriptions. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's wednesday, november 1st, everybody. along with joe, harry and me -- >> yes. >> yes. >> harry. >> you were really good. >> that was fun. >> i was nervous. i always get nervous for you. look at willie, guys. >> that's the real harry. >> that's a cut to -- >> i can't tell the difference. >> there it is. >> he kind of looks like harry. with a touch on who is the down by the river guy on "saturday night live" little farley in there. >> i don't see that. that's really bizarre. >> i was on youtube searching harry styles dance moves. those are all right out of his book. right there. maybe not executed the way he did. >> i'm proud of you. >> that's why we can't separate you from harry. >> what's amazing about that, you get to work with snl wardrobe and wig for a couple of hours a year you're on snl. then they just strip it from you and it's over. >> do you get to keep that? >> no, no. >> they work with lemire every morning. >> nice work. that's hard. scary. >> "today" show team and "snl". >> it's an artistic event. jonathan lemire is here and david ignatius. >> went as himself last night. >> went around washington trick or treating. >> dressed as a journalist, great costume. >> i'll loan you the jump suit. the border between gaza and egypt is now partially open. these are live pictures from the rafah crossing where ambulances are now passing into gaza for the first time, this as the territory's hospital system is on the verge of collapse. the border reopened this morning after qatar helped broker a deal. now hundreds of foreign nationals who have been stuck in gaza are waiting to enter. it's not clear how long the rafah crossing will remain open. meanwhile, in gaza, israeli defense forces are continuing their ground offensive pushing deeper into the territory. there have been reports of israeli troops clashing with hamas. israel has also acknowledged it carried out yesterday's deadly attack at gaza's largest refugee camp. a series of air strikes caused widespread damage in a densely populated neighborhood. israel says it was targeting hamas infrastructure and killed dozens of terrorists, including a commander who they say was an architect of the october 7th attack. palestinian authorities say hundreds of civilians were injured or killed in the air strikes. but israel has yet to confirm the number of casualties. nbc news also cannot independently verify the numbers. and this is the chaos and the confusion that leads to a lot of the fighting around the world about this as to who exactly is doing what to whom. but the understanding is that a lot of hamas terrorists use these people as human shields. >> well, they use gaza, civilians and gazan civilians and hospitals and you name it, refugee camps, they've used it to shield themselves from attacks. and therein lies, david ignatius, of course, the problem for israel, how do you root out hamas? how do you destroy a terrorist organization that has no problems burning your babies alive and raping your children and gunning down kids that are at concerts when they use literally use gazan's as human shields, use hospitals as shields where they can, you know, conduct operations under ground, where this is again how they fight. israeli dies, that's good news for hamas. a palestinian dies, that's good news for hamas. that's how they live. that's how they think. you wrote a column talking about just how horrible the palestinian -- state of palestinians have been for a very long time and how hamas, starting in 2005, was able to hijack palestinian's yearning to be free. >> joe, i tried to describe how this yearning that palestinians have -- and it's been true for many decades. i was going back into the early '80s in this column, the yearning they had for dignity and self respect has really in recent years been hijacked by hamas and turned to purposes we see have horrific consequences. i just wanted in this fees try to suggest a little of the humanity of palestinian civilians who we're seeing in these very painful images from the refugee camp and others, many of these are civilians. they love their kids as much as you and i love ours. watching urban warfare is always so painful. it's just something wherever it happens, it's terrible to watch. israel faced this questions before when they were conducting legitimate campaigns in beirut and lebanon. secretary blinken made the point in his testimony yesterday, the way that israel defends itself matters. in other words, you do have to remember to abide by the essential international laws of warfare in conducting campaign even against the most despicable adversary. >> right. >> i think hamas certainly qualifies as that. but it's a terribly difficult delimb ma for israeli commanders. it's one they faced before. the pressure on them internationally to stop this action before they achieved their goal of really rooting out hamas military leadership, i think is going to grow. the pressure for second front coming from lebanon may grow significantly on friday when the leader of hezbollah speaks in lebanon. that's something we need to keep our eye on. i know the israelis are. >> it is extraordinarily difficult. urban warfare, it is in our time. it was in the past. it was -- you look at fire bombings of dresdon or tokyo, the bombings of tokyo, the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki, and the number of people killed there. civilian fighting has always been -- or fighting wars among civilians in urban centers always just been heinous and it's caused so many moral dilemmas. i do want to ask you, david, we started by talking about the crossing into egypt and making the palestinian cause even more difficult is the fact that arab nations in recent years have been great about putting out press releases about their support for the palestinians. but they don't like the palestinians. let's just say it right here. sisi doesn't want any palestinians in his country. you look in jordan, you look across most sunni arab nations, things have gone from bad to worse for the palestinians over the past 10, 15 years because arab nations said we don't want them. israel is setting up peace deals with the help of jared kushner and the trump administration where they just worked directly with israel and the uae. israel and bahrain, of course, what really may have started all of this is the fact that now the biden administration was getting close to a israel, saudi arabia deal where the palestinians for the first time cut out of the equation. can you please explain to our viewers -- i don't know the answer. i know you do, though. why -- when and why do the arab nations turn on the palestinian people? why is it that sisi in egypt was so hard for us to convince him to open up the border to let palestinian refugees go in with their families and live safely? >> so, part of it, joe, i think is exactly what you said that other arab nations are afraid, that palestinian influx would be destabilizing. certainly that was the case in lebanon wheral palestinian refugees ended up becoming a decisive force in the country and led to civil war. there's also a desire to keep palestinians in the area that they claim is their homeland, not let israel push them out to some other space. i think it goes down to basic domestic security concerns. i do think, as you say, that the abraham accords were really important in changing the dynamic where the arabs finally became genuinely open to dealing with israel. one important thing that we've watched in the last week is the uae warning israel through its statements to the united nations that wonderful accord between the uae and israel may be in danger -- uae has strongly called for a cease fire at the u.n., expressing its concern about continuation of this fight. i just would note one other thing, joe, that our viewers should all keep their eyes on. secretary blinken said yesterday in his senate testimony that he thinks after this war ends, we hope it will end soon, the only way to provide security in gaza is for arabs that care about the palestinians to come in and support new and better palestinian governance so that hamas, a group really of terrorists isn't running the place. it's run by more decent palestinians who can do a better job of running gaza. we'll see if saudi arabia, the uae, egypt, other arab nations are willing to help in that project that secretary blinken described yesterday. if they are, then we can finally maybe see a path out of this. if they refuse, i don't know where this goes. >> and you know, it's interesting about that, willie, i've talked to some people in the region who have said when i suggested this possibility a couple weeks ago. i said, well, what about u.n.-led peace keeping force of arab nations that could go in there. and the response was, not what i expected. we'll do it but the united states has to be all in. we need your hand. we need your leadership. you can't just sit there and let it go back and forth. if the united states is in, i could see sunni, arab states going in as peace keeping voices to protect the palestinians and help them set up a government that's not run by terrorists. >> and it has been since 2005. >> right. >> excuse me, gaza has been run by hamas since 2005. speaking of american leadership on this question, as expected, the white house has come out against the house republican's aid package for isel, the one we were talking abo yesterday. that plan includes $14.3 billion in emergency funding, but scinds that same amount of irs funding from the inflation reduction act. that funding was earmarked for additional irs agents to go after tax delinquents. president biden would veto the republican proposal if it comes to his desk. a statement, the bill fails to meet the urgency of the ment by deepening our divides. the president made clear he wants an aid package that includes funding for israel, ukraine, efforts to contain china and additional support for u.s. border security. senate majority leader chuck schumer and minority leader mitch mcconnell yesterday both highlighted their support for voting on a whole supplemental package. also yesterday, secretary of state antony blinken met with house speaker mike johnson for about 25 minutes to discuss the president's funding request. the secretary called it a, quote, very positive meeting but shared no additional details. mitch mcconnell yesterday said this kind of funding is not subject to offsets. the fact that mike johnson as his first act really, his first major act as speaker, we'll vote for support of ukraine as long as you help us defund irs. >> not going to be offsets, pay fors, meant to act urgently given to a nation, israel, an ally, in need. the politics don't make much sense except when you look at it as speaker johnson nodding to his conservative base in particular those handful of republicans in the house who got him that job by ousting kevin mccarthy. this is a nod to them. most of those in that group oppose aid to ukraine. that's not part of this. this is just israel. and they are all or some of them don't want to see the u.s. spending money for any overseas aid. now, this is not going to go anywhere. the president said he will veto it. they'll jam this up in the senate. it will slow down. it will slow down the ability to get u.s. aid to israel at a time when they need it the most. >> what i don't understand is this, willie, the only people that would like this bill other than mike johnson's small group of people there, a bill that stops funding for israel, stops funding for ukraine, stops funding for the border, stops funding to protect taiwan from china would be anti- semites who hate israel and jews. illegal immigrants and vladimir putin, tax cheat billionaires. how do you put that on the 30-second ad if you're a republican. those are the four categories who would be glad if this bill continued tooling wish and that's his fist move. >> his first move and irs suggested we would lose money on this because you're collecting so much less in tax that you would -- it's not even an offset. you're losing money in the process. doesn't even make sense on that basis other than a sock to donors or the small group of people who gave him the job. it's not going to get through the senate. let's start there because it's not just democrats but mitch mcconnell that oppose this as well. what's your sense of how this will shake out and how it looks frankly to our ally, israel? >> well, willie, i always thought that the bipartisan support for ukraine aid would continue, but i get more and more dubious as i watch behavior like the new speakers. i just was in ukraine three weeks ago before the gaza war is when i left. and i'll tell you, ukrainians say straight up, if the united states doesn't support us, we are in real trouble in continuing this war against russia. here are these brave ukrainians suffering terrible casualties. they're doing the fighting. they're asking for what in terms of our total budget is a relatively modest amount of military support to keep fighting. it is astonishing to me as they head into winter and the difficulty of this battle that they're being in effect nickelled and dimed by the republicans in congress. i just wish those people could see a little of what you see when you visit ukraine and see the bravery of these people. i can't imagine they would continue to resist supporting this aid at a time when ukraine needs it. >> it's also a moment where president biden now is the clear winning politically about being strong on israel. the republicans opposing him. >> everything is upside down. >> the strike at the refugee camp. israel said they ordered that strike. that's a calculation they made and be blow back in the region, but right now this is something the u.s. warned israel about, of course be careful about the response but there's no question that president has been in and will continue to be on israel as the republican are looking at their waffling. >> republicans are waffling. they screwed israel for three weeks by playing games inside their own caucus. while people are burying their dead in israel and jews continue to have to endure a global war against them. you have republicans playing games. and republicans blocking aid to israel, republicans blocking aid to ukraine. i mean, let's face it -- >> not all of them. >> not all of them. we talked a lot about chairman mccall and most republicans wanting to support republican. there's a small wing and apparently the dominant wing of the leadership now that's actually rooting for vladimir putin and want vladimir putin to win if only by blocking aid to ukraine, then of course they don't want to fund the border. they bitch and whine about the border nonstop. they have a chance to stop this flow of illegal immigrants, playing games with that. and they're playing games on china. i hope it's worth it for them. again, i'm not sure who they think they're helping. >> the safety of the world. >> but this is a problem when you're a radical and in a little bubble surrounded by other radicals. >> right. you don't know the consequences of your actions. "the washington post," david ignatius, thank you very much. up next in just 60 seconds, the first member of the trump family will take the stand today in the $250 million civil fraud trial against the trump organization. this is the punishment phase. we'll tell you who is expected to testify and when the former president himself is slated to take the stand. we're back in one minute. the sd we're back in one minute liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. with the money i saved, i started a dog walking business. oh. [dog barks] no it's just a bunny! only pay for what you need. ♪liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ right now get a free footlong at subway. like the new deli heroes. buy one footlong in the app, get one free. it's a pretty big deal. kinda like me. order in the subway app today. new emergen-c crystals pop and fizz when you throw them back. and who doesn't love a good throwback? [sfx: video game] emergen-c crystals. ♪♪ 22 past the hour. today, the first member of the trump family will take the stand in the new york $250 million civil fraud trial. donald trump jr. is scheduled to testify today. >> i don't know if i would want to lead with him. >> eric trump will take the stand tomorrow. ivanka trump and former president trump will testify next week. >> i haven't seen him in a while. >> which one? >> junior, not a whole lot. >> he does like stuff on insta. >> he doesn't do that much anymore. >> it's not good when he does it. something's up. >> something is up. >> he doesn't feel good or something. something is -- >> he is excited. >> no, there's like a hyper activity or something. >> he's up here. >> yeah. >> any who -- >> you read it. >> the former president has continued to -- >> i'm sorry to bring that up. >> i follow. i kind of watch. >> i know you do. >> i can't help it. >> i know. >> continue to rant about the case online, including this truth social post where he called out new york attorney general latitia james and posted her picture in court. now, there's a limited gag order on the case, but it does not cover speaking about the attorney general or the judge. wow. he's immature. let's bring in nbc news legal analyst katherine -- >> can we get a breaking news on that, he's immature. he's a 5-year-old. >> it's just -- wow. >> let's bring in katherine christian, a former assistant da and the manhattan da's office, also with us, the host of msnbc's "politic's nation" reverend al sharpton. >> katherine, what do you think the trump children will be able to add to this or do you expect them to plead the fifth all day long. >> assuming they don't plead the fifth, because if they do, that actually will hurt them. typically in a criminal trial, no comment. but in new york in a civil case, the judge in this case, the judge or the jury, can infer by that taking the fifth that what they would have said would have been harmful to them, that's why they didn't answer the question. >> so you say be harmful. harmful to the outcome of the civil case, right? >> yes, the civil case if they take the fifth. >> the problem -- i was thinking about this coming in here, if you're one of the kids and you know they've been cutting corners and been cheating at their father's behest and their father has been lying about how much he's worth, really you're faced with -- if you want to be safe, and you don't want to commit perjury, you're faced with pleading the fifth or committing perjury, so pleading the fifth may be their only route, right? >> i always say that if you lose a civil trial, you lose money. if you lose a criminal trial, you might lose your liberty. so, that would be the advice that i would give a client. well, you know, you can take the fifth and probably lose because it will be held against you in the civil trial. but at least anything you say won't be used against you because you haven't said anything. >> right. emeka, if you commit perjury in t