we also need to be focused on the day after, and so in conversations that we'll be having through the course of this weekend, i expect you'll see a focus there and particularly how we can get over time to two states for two peoples, which in our judgment remains the best guarantor and maybe the only guarantor of a secure jewish and democratic israel and palestinians with the state that they're entitled to. so these will be the things that we're focused on. these are challenging times. these are intensely difficult issues, but i am convinced that american diplomacy can make a difference in moving everyone to a better place. that's what we'll be working to do. >> thank you, mr. secretary. do you assess that israel has shown restraint up to this point, and what are the concrete steps you'll be pushing them on? and are you confident you'll actually be able to get them to make any movement on this given the maximalist positions we've seen? >> as has been said and it's important, israel has the right and obligation to defend itself, and again, to try to make sure that what happened never happens again. no country, no country, not the united states, not anyone else that i can think of would tolerate the slaughter of civilians, so we stand behind that, and we stand behind the proposition. as democracies, the united states, israel, other democracies have a responsibility to do everything possible to protect civilians who may be caught in harm's way, and this, again s a cross fire quite literally of hamas's making. the fact that it cynically and monstrously, deliberately has people, men, women, and children as human shields puts its command post, puts its leadership, puts its fighters, puts its weapons, puts its munitions underneath its hospitals or even inside them. schools, mosques, makes this incredibly challenging, but we have to rise to that responsibility. we will be talking about concrete steps that can and should be taken to minimize harm to men, women, and children in gaza and this is something that the united states is committed to. i'm not going to get into the details here but it's very much on the agenda. when i see a palestinian child, a boy, a girl, pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building, that hits me in the gut as much as seeing a child in israel or anywhere else. so this is something that we have an obligation to respond to, and we will. >> thank you, i wonder if we could get your assessment of the current risk of the spillover in the conflict. today hezbollah said they've attacked 19 posts on israel's border with lebanon. while you're in the region, how do you expect to be able to get other countries in the region involved in sort of the day after plan that you're talking about when, you know, there's rising opposition, rising protests against israel against bahrain and jordanians put out their ambassadors. >> we are determined to prevent escalation on any of these fronts, whether it's lebanon and northern israel, southern lebanon. whether it's the west bank, whether it's anywhere else in the region. the president's been very clear in what he's said publicly. we've been very clear in what we've shared privately. we've been very clear that we are determined to deter any escalation, so with our partners as well, we're making sure that that message gets through. it's not in anyone's interest, not in anyone's interests for this to escalate, and i think some of the other parties involved recognize that. we're going to work on that every single day. >> happening though, strikes already taking place? >> what we've seen so far are discreet attacks. we've responded as necessary, and including on our forces. our forces who are in the region in syria and iraq to prevent the resurgence of isil, which also should be in everyone's interests. you saw the actions we took in response to that. we're determined to prevent escalation, and we're taking necessary steps to try to make sure that happens. with regard to what comes next, again, i think understandably people are very focused on the day of, not just the day after, but we do have to have conversations now about how we can best set the conditions for a durable sustainable peace, durable sustainable security for israelis and palestinians alike. so i expect that those are conversations that will have an opportunity to pursue over the next couple of days. this is a long-term effort, but we have to make sure we're focused on it now. thanks, thanks, everyone. >> that is secretary of state antony blinken about to board a plane to tel aviv, going into what he perhaps understates as an intensely difficult situation, militarily for israel, obviously, certainly diplomatically, which is where he is the key figure and the humanitarian crisis that counties to escalate. i want to bring in nbc's andrea mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent, and of course my colleague here on msnbc. andrea, that first question which gets to the heart of what is going on in places all around the world, the concern for the ongoing attacks by israel that are killing civilians and he said of course israel has a right to defend itself. but as the president has said in the past, they also have a responsibility to defend civilians. talk about the complexity of the diplomatic situation he is going into over the next several days, andrea. >> it is so complex. remember the last time he was going with the president to israel and jordan, the jordan part of that, the arab summit in jordan got canceled because of the bombing of the hospital, and erroneous reporting not on our network but in newspapers and on wire services and other networks that the hamas claims of 500 people being killed and that it came from israel were disputed later by intelligence both in israel and the u.s., that it was not from israel and it was not 500 people. although any deaths are terrible. but in any case, the balancing act is just excruciating for the white house, for the administration, for israel, and what he is saying today is that the first thing israel has the right to defend itself. there was a new threat from hamas from a spokesman today to wipe israel off the face of the earth, but he said at the same time israel is a democracy like the united states is, and they have to balance that with the need to protect civilian lives, and he will be speaking about that as well as speaking about the need to get humanitarian aid in and to get a better flow of civilians out. it's been a trickle a little bit more today. the president just said it was 74 dual citizens so people with u.s. citizenship as well included in that. but this is so tough. until now the war cabinet and the prime minister have not really been listening according to all my reporting, first of all, not letting the fuel in, and also not targeting their strikes, the air strikes have not at all been targeted. you've seen the size of the craters, and ironically, a ground invasion is actually, according to military experts i've been speaking to and intelligence experts, u.s. here who say that a ground invasion, as tough as it is on both sides because of israeli casualties is better than these air strikes with bunker bombs, enormous craters, wiping out whole parts of refugee camp for a community because at least israel says that there's a command in control of hamas center, a terrorist hub in the tunnels underneath. chris. >> andrea mitchell, thank you so much for that, and we're going to have much more on the situation on the ground in gaza including what we expect to be the release of many americans coming up very shortly. now to a pair of major legal developments underway right now involving donald trump. one with extraordinary personal implications, the other with extraordinary political implications. in the new york civil fraud trial, it's eric trump who's now taken the stand following several hours of testimony from his brother don jr. a lot of that testimony centered on his argument that any exaggerations or errors that appeared on the company's financial documents weren't his fault. here's what trump jr. said just a short time ago outside the courthouse. >> before even having a day in court, i'm apparently guilty of fraud for relying on my accountants to do, wait for it, accounting. i mean, think about that. what does that do for literally any other business? you pay experts millions of dollars to be experts. you sign off on what they give you, and you're liable. we made hundreds of millions of dollars. if this was to become precedent where you could have an overzealous attorney general, this city would be in worse shape than it is today because even would be driven elsewhere. so it's a sad -- it's a sad thing. >> but one potential problem for what he's saying is that in at least one o those annual fincial statements, there was language saying that the trustees -- and that included him, don jr., that they were, quote, responsible for those documents. meantime, halfway across the country, two other court hearings are taking place, both with the potential to undercut trump's bid to return to the white house. in colorado and minnesota, lawsuits are being heard today arguing that trump incited an insurrection triggering a clause in the constitution that should disqualify him from running for president again. trump's legal team pushing back. >> we would say that what happened on january 6th was crimes, some of them serious, was violence, some of them serious, but that it did not reach the scale or scope of what would be regarded as an insurrection. >> msnbc legal analyst lisa rubin just left the court he or she. she joins me now, joyce vance, law professor at the university of alabama and an msnbc legal analyst. tim miller is a writer at large for "the bulwark." lisa, what's latest? what stood out to you today? >>. >> reporter: what stood out to me today, chris s sort of the tale of two brothers because we think of don jr. and eric as a pair, but really both temperamentally and otherwise, boy that you would not be more different in their approaches to testimony today. you noted earlier that don jr. on the stand principally deflected, denied responsibility, and put it all on the accountants and lawyers who guided him. he is a person who over the course of his life has been used to outsourcing things to other people, but the problem is as an officer of the company and particularly as a trustee of his father's trust, there has to be a place where the buck stopped, and when his father was president, the buck stopped with he and allen weisselberg as the co-trustees of the trust in which all the trump organization assets were put. notwithstanding that, his direct examination by the new york attorney general was relatively pleasant and easy. that doesn't mean it wasn't damning. it got a lot of admissions from him that could support an argument that donald trump jr., even if he didn't intentionally deceive others was so reckless as to have intentionally defrauded banks and their accountants and other financial institutions and insurance companies and the like. eric on the other hand, when he took the stand, has been combative from the start. he doesn't want to give an inch. he didn't even want to admit that in 2012 he understood his father even had statements of financial condition, and so the attorney general is really working hard to establish that eric understood that they sent their financial statements to other people outside the company who relied upon them, whether that's members of a golf club in north carolina that the trumps purchased in 2012 or to banks and others. when eric was about to get off the stand, he finally showed a flash of trumpian anger and basically said, of course we have financial statements . we're a major corporation. he's been calm and collected if not particularly generous in his testimony so far, chris. >> that brings me to an old saying, which i don't know if it's always true, but ignorance of the law is no defense. look, so here's what don jr. said. we depended on them. we paid them a lot of money. we counted on them to do thi well. then one of t accountants going back toar october when he testified said the trump organization was notivin us all the documents that we needed, explaining that there were certain app out there for a number of years that we had never seen. he said we didn't screw it up , the trump organization made a mistake, and we didn't catch it. where legally, joyce, does the buck stop? >> right, so the buck the judge has already decided stopped with the trump organization and with the individual defendants because he's already ruled that fraud took place. what's going on now and it's interesting that donald trump jr. tries to couch this in the language of criminal law saying i'm not guilty, you know, i didn't commit a fraud. that's not what this case is about. this is about whether or not the books were cooked. fake numbers were used to obtain insurance or loans or other financial benefits in ways that violate new york's law against corporate fraud. that decision has been made. the question is how much profit the trumps are going to have to discourage because of their misdealing. nothing they've said today does anything to suggest that the judge shouldn't go to the upper edge of what the attorney general is asking for which is $250 million. >> let's say, tim, that all those people who voted for donald trump because they truly believed that he was going to make this country a better place for folks who feel they've been getting the short end of the stick financially, that this has been either the result of some activity that was fraudulent or just outright a lie, does it matter in the end politically? >> i don't know if at this point this civil case in particular matters all that much politically. i do think that it is another piece of evidence that donald trump has perpetrated a fraud throughout his entire life. there are a lot of other instances, he's actually involved in another civil case right now where there are real individuals who are victims who are part of an mlm scheme that donald trump was perpetrating where he got them to sign up for this product that was another fraud basically and the people that signed up lost their savings. i think stories like that are the types of things, assuming he's the republican nominee, that democrats need to be talking about in this campaign to try to peel people off. you know, there are going to be certain people for whom the anti-democracy thing is the top issue or abortion is the top issue. there are other working class folks, i think, that have suffered because of donald trump, and i think that democrats can't forget to carry that message against him. and when they do, being convicted of fraud is certainly a piece of evidence that helps. >> we were expecting to hear from all the key players, right? we were expecting to hear from the two brothers, which we have. donald trump himself, but also ivanka trump, even though she was removed essentially, right, from this suit. now we find out that she filed to not have to testify at all. what do those court documents tell us, and what are the chances she'll get out of it? >> i don't think that she'll -- i don't think she'll get out of it despite the fact that she's appealed judge arthur's decision. she was an employee of the trump skporpgs its component parts during many of the years at issue of this suit. she has firsthand knowledge of representations made to financial institutions, in particular she was involved in the negotiation of the old post office loan. the old post office is of course where the trump international hotel in d.c. was. that was like the unofficial clubhouse of the trump administration when donald trump was president. so i think ivanka will be forced to testify, but, as you note, she is not going to be individually responsible here and that distinguishes her from her brothers, even if functionally she played a similar role at the time she was an employee. >> not a small distinction, however. okay, so joyce, then you have these hearings that could decide whether trump stays on the ballot in colorado and minnesota. colorado's hearing is ongoing in front of a judge who in fact ruled yesterday it should go forward. but in minnesota, it's in front of the state supreme court. what do we need to know about these cases, how quickly do you think we might get an answer on them? >> right, these are two very different proceedings because in minnesota, the chief justice, lori gilday issued an order saying that the court wanted to consider whether there were legal reasons that would prevent the proceedings from going forward. it seems very likely that they will short circuit this effort to keep trump off the minnesota ballot based on questions this morning. in colorado, though, we're in the trial stage, and the judge is taking evidence to try to determine whether under the 14th amendment trump should be prohibited from staying on the ballot because he participated in an insurrection after taking an oath to uphold the constitution. so they've teed up that fact issue there, which turns on a number of different highly technical legal distinctions including whether or not the president is an officer of the united states. questions that might sound benign to us, but that have a lot of legal content that the court is in the process of trying to unpack. ultimately, of course, the legal questions face the larger political context of whether the people should have the opportunity to decide whether or not donald trump should be president again or whether he's legally disqualified by events on january 6th and his conduct during the 2020 election. >> and tim, that's exactly the argument, at least the first part of that that many of his supporters are making, which is this isn't a decision for the courts to make. let the people in those states decide who they want to vote for, and in fact, these are both blue states. they voted for biden in 2020, so what are the political ramifications as you see them? let's say somehow -- and i think most people, the lawyers here can nod if they agree -- think these are long shots potentially, but what are the implications here, do you see? >> yeah, chris, i hate it when you put me in the position to agree with the trump lawyers. i try not to have that happen as much as possible. in this case, i think there was an opportunity to prevent trump from being on the ballot in 2024. and that was the republican senate's obligation, when the house impeached him after january 6th over the insurrection, had two-thirds of the senate voted to convict, he would have been legally barred from running. that required 17 republicans, only 7 did it. i think it is to the shame of every republican that did not vote to convict in what was a very obvious impeachment in my opinion. once that happened, once he was acquitted, whatever term you want to use by the senate, then, you know, i think this now becomes up to the people. we have a supreme court that is 6-3, republican appointees. i find it very hard to believe they're going to disqualify him at this late of date. he's winning the republican in a landslide. i think we're going to have to beat donald trump the old fashioned way. >> tim miller with my apologies, thank you -- go ahead, i'm sorry, did one of you want to make a quick comment on that? no, all right. thank you, both, lisa and joyce, much appreciated. and coming up, a new nbc interview with a senior hamas official. our matt bradley just pressed him on his comments that he wants to launch october 7th again and again and again. you'll hear his response for the first time right here on msnbc. that's next. ge, trust safelite. my customer really relies on his car's advanced safety system. [alarm] >> instructor: veer right. [ringing] >> instructor: and slow down. >> tech: so when he got a cracked wi