including a new threat from the former president. donald trump much like richard nixon openly opining about using the power of the federal government against his political enemies. his efforts to weaponize the justice system if he returns to office already underway. plus, the lawyer defending paul pelosi's attacker in court not denying he did it but arguing that david depape's decision to break into the pelosi house was fueled by conspiracy theories. he believed he was disrupting a corrupt, liberal network of child abusers, and believed it, according to his lawyer, with, quote, every ounce of his being. and the ongoing threats against elections. the latest on the fbi investigation after envelopes containing fentanyl, at least some of them had fentanyl in them, were sent to election workers in five states. one had a note inside that read end elections now. so we're going to cover all those stories this hour. we begin with former president trump insisting that if he's reelected, he'd be justified in using the powers of the presidency to go after his critics and perceived enemies, effectively a deliberate campaign of retribution unlike anything we've seen in 50 years. the former president who continues to claim without evidence that president biden is behind his indictments issuing this warning to anyone who might dare to get in his way. >> they've released the genie out of the box, you understand that. they've done something that nobody thought would happen. they've done indictments in order to win an election. they call it weaponization, and the people aren't going to stand for it, but yeah, they have done something that allows the next party. i mean, if somebody -- if i happen to be president and i see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, i said go down and indict them, mostly thatould be, you know, they would be out of business. they'd be out. they'd be out of the election. >> his comments coming just days after "the washington post" reported that trump told friends he wants to use the justice department to go after former members of his own administration who have been critical of his actions people like his former chief of staff john kelly and attorney general bill barr. president biden telling supporters at a chicago fundraiser last night, quote, the same man who said we should terminate rules and regulations and articles of the constitution is now running to end democracy as we know it. he's not even hiding it. all of it eerily reminiscent of this, richard nixon's infamous enemies list. the white house special counsel at the time noting the plan was to use the machinery of the government to, quote, screw our political enemies. one part of a mass conspiracy that eventually led to nixon's resignation in 1974. nearly 50 years later, it's unclear if donald trump's supporters even care. right now i'm joined by matthew dowd, msnbc political analyst, with me in studio, nbc's vaughn hillyard who's been covering donald trump, and jen palmieri, an msnbc political analyst. welcome all of you, jennifer, why don't at least more people seem to care? what is it about politics today that what was disqualifying 50 years ago in some ways barely registers a blip. >> the problem for trump supporters, and i was in hialeah wednesday night at trump's rally. hialeah is a largely hispanic community. i talked to a lot of hispanic supporters. they think what we fear that having a president who is willing to, you know, end democracy as we know it, by using -- by weaponizing the justice department, they believe that's already happened, and part of -- i talked to somebody who was organizing hispanics for republicans, he felt that his trump support in south florida was growing because people who had left venezuela or cuba because of concerns about authoritarian leaders, this is very familiar to them, for a political -- for a political opponent to go after them and try to, you know, put them in jail or use the judicial system against them as they see biden, they think biden's doing that to trump. they're like we've seen it before. that's what we escaped, we can't let it happen here. so the truly perverse thing isn't that people don't think it's wrong. it's that they think it's already happening. >> so i'm wondering, vaughn, you talked to a lot of voters as well, does it every come up whether what he says is constitutional, legal, ethical? >> jen is absolutely right, i was there with her at that rally and the number of times we looked at each other knowingly throughout an event like this is something because we've having such similar conversations. we saw what happened on january 6th. folks are willing to go to bat for the man, right? and i don't know what comes next, but we know that there are legions of folks out there, millions of them that believe the conspiracies that not only is joe biden but members of his administration, members of the military are out to undermine the maga movement. i want to let you just listen to one man. i can't tell you the number of conversations like this that take part at rallies every time i go. take a listen. >> okay. when you say go after them, what do you mean? >> arrest them, imprison them for violating our constitution. >> how do you do that? >> police are probably witness. >> you mean the police will be on the side of --? >> of the patriots. they sure will. they haven't been corrupted yet as far as i know. >> that's an actual civil war that you're talking about? >> oh, yeah. >> you believe that the election was stolen in 2020? >> absolutely. plain as the nose on your face. >> in their minds, to jen's point, the constitution has already been violated. now it's their turn with donald trump in the white house to take revenge. >> so i want to go back to something that the former president said, matthew, which is the genie is out of the box. i think he meant bottle, but anyway, the is the genie out of the bottle in this case? are you ever going to convince some of those people of the truth, that the justice department has not been weaponized, that there is no proof it has been weaponized? is it too late? >> well, the problem is the ecosystem of information these voters get. they're never hearing anything that's rational, and so i mean, i actually feel sorry for a lot of these voters because they're being told over and over and over again whether it's on breitbart, fox news, whatever the sort of places of information they're gathering it is they're being told that that's what it is and that's a fact, which is why 70% of gop voters believe the election was stolen. they still believe that in spite of all the information in the course of this. i think that's the problem, that's -- i mean, donald trump -- i think the ship of the republican party was already moving towards sort of the ends justify the means, we can do whatever we want in order to achieve our goals in autocracy, it was already moving in that direction for the last 15 years or so. what donald trump is he got on that boat that was already headed in that direction and just speeded it up a bit. the problem is, even if you remove donald trump from the steering wheel, from the ship's wheel in this, it's still heading in that direction, and ultimately the only way it does is all of us can sit here and enunciate facts, say what the situation is, all of that. they're not going to listen to any of us, unfortunately in any of this, and they have to have members of their own tribe correct them, and no member it seems of the republican party or current member of the republican party there have been some that have done and they're gone now, are willing to confront that and tell them the truth and say this is the reality. these are the guardrails. this is what's actually happening, and so over and over and over again, these voters in this group of folks in tribe, that's all they're hearing, and there's no wonder they believe it. >> yeah, and i also wonder if there isn't an element of even people who don't believe what donald trump is saying, they're just so exhausted, frankly, and they also maybe think, well, it's more of his talk. but to that, i want to point back to "the washington post" article that said, quote, to facilitate trump's ability to direct justice department actions, his associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 ar of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations. give us what you know about what's actually happening behind the scenes in trump world. >> right, jen was there on the front lines at the end of 2016 and knows all too well just how ill-prepared donald trump's incoming administration was. they didn't have a transition team, and they were building a government on the spot. >> i was in that white house too. it was not anything like i'd ever seen before. >> that's not the case now. there is an entire part of that administration who are currently working for a group america first policy institute. there's another conservative project, project 2025, are with jeffrey clark, who he is a part of this. in a paper earlier this year e he was very explicit about what a department of justice should look like. he wrote in part, nothing in the constitution provides that the attorney general is some kind of special cabinet member who is more equal than others and whose thoughts must be left independent. the title of the paper was the u.s. justice department is not independent. traditionally, the president has allowed for some separation from his attorney general from political persuasion there, right? but what donald trump is explicitly saying is he wants his attorney general to go after his political enemies come 2025. >> that's more evidence that donald trump can't do this alone, right? there was an article in "the atlantic" that sort of backs that up saying this. trump is to put it mildly, an emotionally disordered man. but such m are usually only a hazard to theiramilies and themselves, especially if they lack money or power. trump has both, but even more important he has people around him willing to use that money and power against american democracy. president biden said last night democracy is on the ballot. does he need to say it longer, louder, stronger? how do they make that case, particularly to the middle that will decide this election? >> i feel pretty optimistic about that. you look at the results on tuesday. people turned out to vote, you know, a lot of times we say everything is about the economy in terms of people at the time of the elections and on tuesday people turned out to vote largely over abortion rights. what it shows me is that voters are on the alert. even in new jersey where abortion was not really an issue in their elections, the democrats picked up five seats in a midterm election with a democratic governor. that does not normally happen. people are paying attention, and biden is, you know, i think they want to continue to make the argument for things they have gotten done, but they know they can do the contrast as well, and i think -- i mean, this is -- we have lost a lot of trump supporters who just believe that the constitution was already being violated, but we saw in '20, we saw in '22, there are more americans who understand what's at stake, and you know, i think they'll be able to do that. it's interesting one thing that trump said, though, that sort of belies how he doesn't actually believe what he's saying, he said if somebody got indicted, if he was president, indicted one of his opponents, that person would be gone. well, apparently not, sir, because you have been indicted four times and you are very much in this race. even he every now and then will like let that cloak fall. >> nevertheless, matthew, is there any question in your mind that donald trump will do exactly what he says he will do if he's reelected. is there any chance this is just talk? >> no, i mean, we've already seen he uses every opportunity and you saw it at the end of the 2020 election and the aftermath, he and the cadre around him does whatever they can to subvert the sort of will of the people and our democracy along the way. i would say to pick up something on what jen said, i think in my view, the mistake that the biden campaign has made and the mistake that the biden white house has made is they think -- they see the polls that say the economy is the number one issue as jen says, but the problem is you can't run on an issue where the voters already thinking negatively, and if you try to change their minds, they're not going to change their minds. what you have to do is run on the issues that are in your favor, like democracy, like freedoms like all these things like all the candidates that won in 2022 ran on. if you go back and look at the democrats that won in 2022, and the ones who lost in 2022, the ones who won ran on democracies. the ones who lost tried to run on the economy, and i was the chief strategist in 2004. the number one issue was the economy, when george bush ran for re-election. we never talked about it. all we talked about was national security, which wasn't the number one issue, but we knew it was the issue that would motivate the voters, and we had the chance to win with. >> well, for sure, the white house thinks they have a good story to tell on the economy, but -- and you guys know better than i do, but i've been covering politics for a long time. it's hard to overcome with facts what people feel in their everyday lives. thanks very much for being with us. it's great to have you, vaughn, back from your wedding. >> i appreciate that. >> great to see you in person, jen palmieri, matt you're going to stay with us. the intense violence reuters says is rocking gaza's largest hospital, and how humanitarian organizations plan to use the daily four-hour pause to help those in need. we're back in 60 seconds. elp those nineed. we're back in 60 seconds knock. number one broker here for the number one hit maker. -thanks for swinging by, carl. -no problem. so what are all those for? 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(vo) it's your vision, it's your verizon. the world health organization says there's intense violence at the largest hospital in gaza. the gaza health ministry run by hamas says the al-shifa hospital has been bombed five times by israel since thursday night killing at least one person, damaging their maternity ward and the outpatient clinic building. several people were wounded as well. a senior israeli security official now telling nbc that the strike at al-shifa resulted from a projectile launched by a military group inside gaza that misfired. the sounds and footage we are about to show you from one activist on the ground, we want to warn you, it's graphic and disturbing. >> that man you saw his hands covered in blood said, quote, we carried them with our hands, our hands. they bombed them, bombed them inside the hospital. oh, god, oh, god, please, god, have mercy on us. i want to bring in nbc's josh lederman from tel aviv. what more are you hearing from the israeli military as they are pushing deeper and deeper into gaza city? >> reporter: well, chris, as hamas and the israeli military are fighting now street by street, alley by alley in gaza's largest city, tens of thousands of those remaining civilians have sought shelter at the hospitals in gaza city hoping it was the only place that might be safe. as we saw today, it is certainly not safe, both hamas and the israeli military are now acknowledging that al-shifa hospital, the largest in the gaza strip was struck. as we've seen so many other incidents before in this war, there are conflicting claims of responsibility. hamas, the palestinian health authorities in the gaza strip, they say it was israeli strikes, but i spoke tonight with an israeli senior national security source who said they have determined that there was a militant group inside the gaza strip that launched a projectile that misfired and hit that hospital. we know there have been other reports at other hospitals, and this has really fueled a mass exodus of those people who were sheltering at those hospitals, now trying to get out through those humanitarian corridors into south gaza. we should also point out, the israeli military in a briefing just a little while ago did not necessarily dispute the fact that there has been fighting going on involving their troops at hospitals. they said, look, we are not targeting hospitals, but when hamas shoots at us from in hospitals, we will do what we have to do. that is the closest that the israeli military has come to acknowledging the likelihood that they have had some shooting involving hospitals in the gaza strip, and it comes as the w.h.o., the various hospital authorities there are really warning about the dire humanitarian crisis at those hospitals, both because of those civilians sheltering there and because of the patients there who keep growing amid all the fighting, now no electricity in many of these hospitals and they're quickly running out of those last remaining supplies, chris. >> josh lederman, thank you. i want to bring in patrick hamilton, the head of the regional delegation for the united states and canada, for the international committee of the red cross. patrick, we're seeing an incredible risk for doctors, nurses, aid workers in gaza right now, and of course the patients. one of your aid convoys was hit earlier this week by a strike, so i wonder what you are hearing from your staff on the ground. >> thanks, chris, this is really a deplorable situation we've seen. escalating over the last four weeks and across those four weeks we at the international committee of the red cross have been continuously the need for the parties of this conflict to respect humanitarian law, the rules of armed conflict, we're clear about the need to protect medical infrastructure, staff, patients as well as then humanitarian organizations such as ourselves, only to be able to save lives in this crisis. and what we're clearly seeing is that the situation is deteriorating. there are more and more impacts of this conflict,on patients, on staff, and this is simply not tenable, not sustainable. it's really a big concern. we ourselves are literally in the last couple of hours put out a statement of our own on this issue as well. much more needs to be done by all the sides participating in this conflict. >> what do you want to see done? what can help? al-shifa isn't alone. at least five hospitals now report being under siege or in close proximity to the fighting in gaza city? >> it's basically the different parties to the conflict needs to ensure that these hospitals are not at the center of their fighting. these hospitals and facilities should be the reserve of civilians, the civilian staff operating the hospitals, the patients in there. they need to take their fight elsewhere, and to ensure that these facilities are able to serve the life saving purpose for which they're intended. >> one u.n. agency is sharing that the director of surgery at al-shifa is warning -- and i'm quoting