released. >> we will not stop working until we get every hostage back home. >> but now pressure is growing for israel to reduce ♪♪ this sunday, truce collapse.0 fighting between israel and hamas resumes after a seven-day pause and more than 100 hostages released. >> we will not stop working until we get every hostage back home. >> but now pressure is growing for israel to reduce civilian deaths. >> the way israel defends itself matters. >> what will change in the next phase of the war? i'll talk to national security spokesperson john kirby. plus, bankening on iowa. ron desantis faces off in a debate against a governor he's not actually running against. >> this country must choose freedom over failure. >> as nikki haley gain ground in the battle for the number two spot behind donald trump. >> i just have one more fella i have to catch up to. >> can desantis really win iowa? i'll talk to the presidential candidate as he completes his 99-county tour and expelled. the u.s. house removes republican congressman george santos of new york in a bipartisan vote. only the sixth member ever to be expel in the body's history. >> if i leave, they win. this is bullying. plus, pregnancy risks. allyson felix, the most decorated u.s. track and field athlete of all time -- >> gets her gold! >> -- speaks out about the black maternal health crisis. >> three of the fittest, healthiest women in the world are facing these complications. i think it shows how dangerous it is to give birth today in america as a black woman. >> joining me for insight and analysis is kimberly atkins stohr, senior opinion writer for "the boston globe," and stephen hayes, editor of the dispatch. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> from nbc news in washington, the longest-running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with kristen welker. good sunday morning. top u.s. officials are toughening their tone, urging israel to do more to spare civilians after the collapse of a fragile truce between israel and hamas. israel is pounding targets in crowded southern gaza and has ordered more neighborhoods designated for attack to evacuate, driving up the death toll. now warnings from the u.s. previously delivered behind closed doors are breaking out into the open. secretary blinken saying the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale we saw in northern gaza must not be repeated in the south. and both the president and secretary of defense lloyd austin on saturday calling for restraint. >> as israel defends itself, it matters how. the united states is unequivocal, international humanitarian law must be respected. too many innocent palestinians have been killed. frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from gaza are devastating. >> i personally pushed leaders to avoid civilian casualties and to shun irresponsible rhetoric and to prevent violence by settlers in the west bank >> secretary austin warning israel risks strategic defeat if it does not protect civilian lives, but in israel, pressure on the government to bring home the nearly 140 hostages who remain in captivity in gaza with thousands protesting in tel aviv on saturday. in an address, israeli prime minister netanyahu promised to do everything possible to bring the remaining hostages home, vowing total victory against hamas. >> translator: at the end of the day, this is our war, and we're the ones who need to decide ultimately. we are the ones who actually decide. >> and joining me now is john kirby, national security council coordinator for strategic communications. john, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you very much, kristen. good to be with you. >> thank you for being here. i want to start with the latest. this cease-fire fell apart early friday. fighting has resumed. israel, of course, has withdrawn from negotiations in qatar. can you give us a sense this morning? what is the status of negotiations to resume a temporary truce? >> there are no official negotiations going on right now and that's because of hamas. hamas failed to come up with another list of women and children they could release, and we know they're holding additional women and children, not combat amounts and female idf. children and inoh sent civilians, women and children, that they don't have and turn that in. unfortunately, the negotiations have stopped. that said, what hasn't stop side our own involvement trying to get those back on track any trying to discuss with those partners and all those interlocutors to get those back in place. >> those discussions have halted and what is the potential time line to get those back on track? >> what i can tell you is we are still working really hard, hour by hour to see if we can't see the sides back to the table and get something moving. we would like that to happen today, but honestly, i just don't know. >> all right. let me ask you about secretary blinken's trip to the region this week. he said the israeli government has agreed to a, quote, clear plan for averting civilian deaths before resuming its assault on southern gaza. can you give us an indication? what is that plan, john, and what assurances specifically have they give on the the u.s.? >> i don't want to speak to military operations and get ahead of what they're doing. they have said that they agreed with our idea here, that the approach they take matters, and the reduction of civilian casualties and, quite frankly, minimizing damage to civilian infrastructure is important to them, that they understand that, they're receptive to that message, and without getting ahead of their tactics, i can tell you that we saw them go in with less force when they went into the north. we're seeing them now conduct and shaping operations, but they have given civilians in gaza a list, a map. it's online, a list of areas where they can go to be more safe. there's not too many modern militaries in advance of conducting operations that would do that, so they are making an effort to at least inform the civilian population about where to go and where to avoid. >> i'm going to ask you about that map momentarily, but what is the united states prepared to do if it feels as though israel is not following a specific plan to mitigate civilian casualties? what's the fallout? >> that's a hypothetical and i don't want to get ahead of where we are right now. secretary blinken has been very clear. we've been very clear from the beginning of this. >> will there be consequences, john, if the united states feels israel is not following a specific plan? >> again, i don't want to speculate one way or the other, kristen. i want to make two things clear. one is we're going to continue to support israel as they go after hamas. the security system continues to flow. that's not going to change. we're also going to do everything we can to make sure that they are properly accounting for the civilian population and minimizing the damage and the casualties as much as possible. the other thing that we're not going to take our foot off the gas on is to see if we can get more hostages out and just as critically more aid in. >> let's talk about this map that you have referenced, the fact that israel has said these specific places are safe zones. obviously, civilians were already told to evacuate from the north. there's a sense that these civilians don't have a place to go. a unicef spokesperson tells the "the washington post," quote, there's nowhere to move to, nowhere is safe in gaza. what is your response to him and others? >> we understand the anxiety and the fear there. not only are there still a lot of civilians in southern gaza. there are more civilians in southern gaza because the israelis accounted for humanitarian corridors to get hundreds of thousands. so we're estimating more than about a million. that's roughly half the population of gaza before the war is now internally displaced. that's a lot of people, and so we understand the concerns by the u.n. and other nongovernmental and humanitarian organizations, and that's why we're working with our counterparts to provide the areas where people can go and feel a sense of safety. and, again, they did put some information out in the last 24, 48 hours to articulate those kinds of areas and that's a step in the right direction. >> all right. as we have discussed, the civilian death toll in gaza has just been staggering, and despite all of this, only one-fifth of hamas' fighters have been killed. is israel's goal of eradicating hamas a realistic one? >> we know from our own experience, kristen, while you can't defeat an ideology necessarily, you can certainly make it much more difficult for a group to operate, resource, train, plan, conduct attacks by going after their leadership, and certainly going after their sources of funding and we've laid additional sanctions on hamas organizations and going after their leaders is a deleterious effect to operate. in fact, in just the last 24 hours taken out yet another leader of hamas, a battalion commander and they'll go after others. we think that that is certainly a useful tactic to pursue. >> let's talk about the hostages. there are still eight americans who are unaccounted for including one woman. has the u.s. been able to obtain information about the whereabouts, the conditions of these hostages? are they still alive? >> we have imperfect information. we do believe that there are still a number of americans that are being held hostage, kristen, and, largely, we're getting that from communication with the family members and, of course, israeli counterparts, but it's difficult for us to know where they all are, and just as critically, kristen, it's difficult to know what the condition is. >> the relatives of the hostages are demanding that red cross get in to be able to assess their condition. >> yes. >> that was a part of the plan, and jake sullivan told me a week ago, he expected the red cross to get in within a day or so of our interview. that still hasn't happened. why not? when is it going to happen? >> that's hamas. hamas agreed to allow the red cross access to these hostages while the pause was in place, and, of course, that didn't happen and still is not happening, and is unacceptable. i want to say one thing and this doesn't get to your question, but even though the pause fell apart, and even though there aren't hostages getting out and even though to your point, the red cross isn't getting in either, what we are doing is working with the israelis to get humanitarian assistance in. the one thing that hasn't stopped besides the humanitarian assistance includes fuel. >> it's lower than during the pause? >> of course not. it needs to be much more. we want to see, the ultimate goal is to get it at least to the level that it was during the pause. we had several hundred trucks going in. sometimes several hundred a day. and so that's what we want to get up to. >> john, i have to ask you about this new york times reporting that found israeli officials received hamas' specific attack plan a year ago. was the united states aware of this intelligence and if not, why not? >> the intelligence community has indicated that they did not have access to this document. there's no indication at this time that they had any access to this document beforehand. >> should they have given how closely u.s. and israeli intelligence officials coordinate or are supposed to coordinate? >> intelligence is a mosaic, and sometimes you can fashion things together and get a pretty good picture. they are no indications that they had any knowledge of this document. >> was this a failure of the part of israeli intelligence and u.s. intelligence? >> i think there will be a time and place for israel to do that sort of forensic work. prime minister netanyahu has spoken pretty candidly about this and calling it a failure on their part. they'll take a look at this at the right time. they need to do that, right now, though, the focus has to be to eliminate this truly genocidal threat to the israeli people. >> john kirby, thank you for your time this morning. we really appreciate it. when we come back, with the iowa caucus six weeks away, ron desantis is completing his 99-county tour. why is desantis so confident he can beat trump in iowa? my conversation with him is next. my conversation with him is next the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. welcome back. with the caucuses just over six weeks away, florida governor ron welcome back. with the caucuses just over six weeks away, florida governor ron desantis and former president donald trump held dueling events in iowa on saturday. desantis announced he had completed the full grassley, an iowa tradition and a nod to senator chuck grassley who does an annual 99-county tour. desantis has held more than four times the number of events in the state, but even with the endorsement of popular governor kim reynolds, he trailed trump by nearly 30 points. i sat down with governor desantis moments after he'd completed that 99th county stop. >> you have now held events in all 99 of iowa's counties, and yet former president trump is still 27 point ahead of you in the state, so, governor, i have to ask you, are you committed to staying in this race through the iowa caucuses? >> i'll tell you what, doing all 99 counties is a tradition here. it's something governor reynolds advised that i do, and it's a way to, one, show that you're earning people's support. two, it's a way to hear from real people outside of the media bubble about what's important to them. and then, i think, three, it reminds you at the end of the day you're a servant, you're not a ruler, and we really believe in serving leadership. we went everywhere. we showed up and took questions and we've been able to build a really incredible organization. we've got over 30,000 people who already committed to caucus for us and routing more every day, and we have the endorsement by the great governor here, kim rends, and by bob van der plat, most recently, from the family leader. i don't think anyone's done an iowa caucus with this amount of institutional and grassroots support and it's only going to build for here and we look forward on being victorious on january 15th? just to be clear, you are committed to staying in the race through the caucuses? >> of course, i am. it's absurd that i wouldn't be. if you look at past iowa caucus winners and compare to what people were saying in november with this poll or that poll, it almost nerve comes out the same way. so we have a great base of support. we have a much wider base of people who are potential caucus goers who believe that i've been a great governor and would be a good president, and we've just got to bring that home when people start to make their decisions, and they will be doing it, but i'll tell you one thing what people in iowa and in the other early states, they do not want the media choosing the republican nominee. they do not want narrative to trump over their decisions and i see a lot of resistance on the ground here to some of the things that were tried to be spun, whether it's through polls or pundits, and i think that's a good thing. i think you will see on caucus night people's voices will be heard. >> let's talk about the stakes on caucus night. if you don't come in at least second, would you then drop out of the race? how critical is iowa? >> we're going to win the caucus. we're doing everything we need to do to build support. >> what if you don't, governor? what if you don't? >> i said from the beginning, we're going to win the caucus. but even apart from that, there have been people that have won iowa and not won the nomination and vice versa. you need to win a majority of the delegates, and so we're committed to doing that through the whole process to win the majority of the delegates. there's a lot of things that happened. even two months ago, the field looked a lot different than it does now. i think the field will look a lot different on caucus night than it does now. so it's a very dynamic situation. fortunately, we're someone who has broad support and well positioned and we'll be able to take it all of the way to the end to win a majority of those delegations. >> bottom line, is iowa do or die for you, governor? >> we're going to win iowa. i think it's going to help propel us to the nomination, but i think we'll have a lot of work that we'll have to do beyond that. i don't think you take anything for granted, and i do recognize that there have been that have not won that have not gone on to win the nomination. i think this year is a little bit different. i think the field has narrowed quicker and i think it's going to narrow more, and ultimately republican voters will have the choice of, i think, donald trump, which i think would make the election a referendum on him and a lot of the issues that he's dealing with or me, and that will be a referendum on biden's failures, on all the issues in the country that are affecting people, and i'll be able to stand for positive vision going forward. we have a much better chance if we're doing it with me as the candidate, and also be able to serve two terms and more likely to get a lot of the stuff done, but those are the choices realistically for republican voters. >> you bring up former president trump. so let me ask you about the gop front-runner. he's campaigning on the idea of retribution. he's promising to jail his political enemies if re-elected and he's also referred to some of his political opponents as vermin, language that people across the spectrum harkins back to nazi germany. do you think that kind of language is presidential? >> i think beyond that, the issue is why are you running? are you running for your personal issues? are you running for the american people's issues? i'm running for the american people's issues. part of that is this government is out of control. we have seen weaponization of agencies like the doj and the fbi and the irs. i'm going to end that weaponization, but that's not because i'm doing it for me. it's because i'm doing it for the people that have been under the thumb of these agencies, and i'm going to restore the rule of law. so i think if donald trump is saying this whole thing is retribution for himself, well, what about all of the other people that have had issues with that? are those people he's going to be standing up with? so i don't think you can say it's about your enemies. i think you've got to say it's about the american people's future and the goal is to end weaponization period and to have a single standard of justice employed not to basically do what we don't like as being done now just in a different direction. >> governor, as you know, doj officials would reject the idea thal it has been weaponized. let me ask you the use of the word vermin. are you comfortable with that term, governor? >> let me just say on the doj -- first of all, i'm responsible for what i say and i say things differently, but on the doj -- >> are you comfortable with that term? >> just answer my question, though, governor. >> excuse me. what i'm not comfortable with is fbi agents going after parents going to school board meetings. i'm not comfortable with doj and fbi working with tech companies to censor dissent. i'm not comfortable with how power has been exercised, and you have an agency that has been very political. people say oh, their career, but it's 99% donations to democrats. you are seeing how that happens. so i don't use the same rhetoric that he does. i co