being here, about the right of smaller nations to exist and not be tormented by larger nations. it will really be understood as the end of american power and influence. >> vice president mike pence says he believes putin will wage war on nato if ukraine loses the war. you think that is hyperbole? >> well, it is what the russians say. it is what putin says. it is what russian propaganda says. they repeat themselves. they periodically threaten poland and the baltic states, and sometimes for fun they threaten the united kingdom or the united states. they say all the time, and so if they are saying it all the time, maybe we should take it seriously. >> believe what people tell you. and applebaum with the atlantic. thank you for your wisdom. really appreciate it. >> thank you. that is our show for tonight. now it is time for the last

word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening. >> good evening. timothy snyder confronted marjorie taylor-greene at a house hearing yesterday, i believe it was. we have the video and professor snyder is going to join us. on exactly what you are just talking about. >> it is such an urgent topic. we have been weapon iced against our own best interest. >> right. thanks, alex. >> have a good show. >> it is ridiculous. it has to stop. that is how the assistant attorney christopher conroy began his description of donald trump's violation of the gag order against him before judge juan merchan continued the jury selection process, which ended the day with a full jury of 12 seated and one of the six alternate jurors chosen. the judge plans to see five more alternate jurors possibly tomorrow and be ready to hear opening statements from both sides of the case, beginning

monday. when the 12th juror was seated today, the judge said, we have our jury. the day started with a new presentation by christopher conroy about donald trump's newest violations of the gag order against him, and as predicted on this program last night, donald trump's attack on the jury that we reported here last night was presented to the judge beginning with these words: this is the most disturbing post. conroy reminded the judge of, quote, the specific direction and order that your honor gave the defendant on tuesday in court related to an outburst he had when the juror was at the real. conroy reported to the judge that last evening, quote, the defendant hosted on his truth

social account the following. they are catching undercover liberal activists trying to lie to the judge in order to get on the trump jury. donald trump's lawyer insisted that that was not a violation of the gag order. in fact, he said, it brings to light some of the ambiguities in the order. the trump lawyers insisted that the gag order did not prevent, quote, reposting statements that are already in public by others. that is, of course, another lie told by a trump lawyer in court directly to a judge. the gag order prevents donald trump from, quote, making or directing others to make public statements about any prospective juror or any juror in this proceeding. here is the live.

jesse watters told this light on fox yesterday. at 5:28 p.m., when donald trump was watching. >> they are trying to break this jury. they are catching undercover liberal activists lying to the judge. >> jesse watters is the newest liar to occupy the 8:00 p.m. slot on fox, the line channel, a network that has been adjudicated to have told 785 million dollars worth of lies in a defamation case. the previous slot had told so many of those lies that even fox decided they had to let him go. and the occupant before that one of the 8:00 p.m. slot lost his job only after being exposed as a grievous serial sexual harasser at fox, who, in just one case, paid $32

million to one woman, bill o'reilly, sexually harassed. jesse watters got his start at fox as bill o'reilly's errand boy, running around with a microphone on the sidewalk following people down the street trying to get them to talk to him. jesse watters is the same person who, last week, said publicly that he believed that the minimum wage produces an income of $100,000 a year in america. that is how stupid you can be. on fox at 8:00 p.m., or in the case of jesse watters, also at 5:00 p.m. jesse watters was taught how to lie on tv by his mentor. they have now banished bill o'reilly and he has paid for it by rupert murdoch. jesse watters said they are trying to rid the jury.

that is a lie. jesse watters said they are catching undercover liberal activists. that is a lie. there has not been a single liberal activist or conservative activist revealed in the jury selection process. not one. and jesse watters said they are lying to the judge and that is a lie. that is a pure bill o'reilly, jesse watters style lie, invented from absolutely nothing. and 18 minutes after jesse watters extemporaneously delivered that lie on the fox line channel, donald trump wrote this lie. they are catching undercover liberal activists lying to the judge in order to get on the trump jury. donald trump assigned that lie, in quotation marks, to jesse watters.

the problem now for donald trump is twofold. one, donald trump rewrote jesse watters' life, so he cannot put it in quotation marks the way he did and ascribe it to jesse watters. jesse watters never said the phrase, in order to get on the trump jury. that is donald trump's original composition. that is his writing. so that is going to become a challenge for donald trump's lawyers when this is subject to hearing on tuesday because today, his lawyer claimed that donald trump was just reposting statements that were already in public by others. that is not what donald trump did. he rewrote that statement. here is the second part of donald trump's problem. it doesn't matter whether he quoted jesse watters accurately or not because the gag order against donald trump prevents donald trump from making statements about any prospective juror or any actual juror in this criminal proceeding. donald trump made a statement

about the jurors in this case i 5:46 p.m. last night. and that is what made this happen. he threw up his hands this morning and said, it's ridiculous. it has to stop. to which judge juan merchan said nothing . other than, quote, after the hearing, i will rule. judge marchant did not warn donald trump today to make numerous statements about the jury. none of the six other violations of the gag order that was brought to the judge's attention this morning prompted the judge to issue an immediate verbal warning to donald trump, sitting right in front of him and his word. the judge did not warn donald trump that this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing that could actually get him thrown in jail. none of that was said.

the judges plan, if he has one, appears to be, let me get my jury seated and i will have the ultimate jurors seated and then on tuesday, we will try to deal with this. when donald trump left the courtroom today he did not talk about the truth. he did not talk about witnesses. he did not violate the gag order in any way. he did, however, tell this lie. >> there was supposed to be in new hampshire. i am supposed to be in georgia. i am supposed to be in north carolina, south carolina. i am supposed to be in a lot of different places but i have been here all day in a trial that really is a very unfair trial. >> new hampshire is half an hour away in donald trump's private plane. the most distant of those states, georgia, is two hours away in donald trump's private plane. south carolina, north carolina,

all easy to get to yesterday, when there is no court session and donald trump stayed home and did absolutely nothing. in fact, most presidential campaigns easily covered for states in one day, especially when three of them are continuous. georgia, south carolina, that is an easy sweep in one day. donald trump could have gone to every one of those states yesterday in his private plane but he didn't. and he is lying about the trial. he lies about it costing him one minute of campaign time. it hasn't done that. he remains the laziest presidential campaign or in history. that same person who has been falling asleep in the courtroom just doesn't seem to have the energy for the campaign trail, certainly not the way joe biden does, who was once again in pennsylvania today. donald trump's lie about not being able to campaign was not his only complaints today.

his other complaint was, i suppose. more understandable. coming from a 77-year-old man from florida. >> i am sitting here for days now, from morning until night in a freezing room. >> joining us now, adam, who was in the courthouse today, and who survived the freezing of the courthouse somehow. he is a fellow. also joining us, former fbi general counsel from new york and co-author of the best-selling book, "the trump indictments." and neil is with us, former acting general who has argued over 50 cases before the supreme court. he is a professor at georgetown law school and a host of a podcast. they are both msnbc legal analysts . adam, let me start with you, since you were there

today. this unfolded so strangely. we are saying that we have 12 jurors seated tonight but we don't know how many we are going to have tomorrow morning. this morning you lost two. >> that is correct. we lost two because we found out very early on that one of the jurors had her identity figured out. and this turned into an exchange between the judge basically directing the news media not to report certain information. such as the physical appearance of the jurors, their occupations. that sure, the first one that we lost, was one of the ones who said that no one is above the law. the second juror that we lost was the one that we talked about the last time we were speaking who had commented on trump being so fascinating. well, it turned out the prosecution had looked into some of his back story and

learned that he had torn down some political advertisements. they did not disclose that to the government and the government had the d.a.s office disclose it dutifully in court and that is why we became two fewer. and one of the most astonishing things was how quickly we went from two steps back to a full panel. it was just at the end of the date in rapid order. >> i thought at 11:00 this morning, like, this is another two weeks of jury selection the way this is going. >> you have to remember that this is the questioning of this pool, but once the questioning is done and you have leaned out of this cause, the people who cannot sit because the judges ultimately agreed they cannot be fair, then it is just the perimeter. you turn and say, lawrence. do you want to strike this person? adam. next.

you go back and forth and then you are done. also, by the end of the day, both sides were out of it so that gets restocked tomorrow for the alternates. but once you have done that initial questioning it is a fast process, so i think everyone thought this would be slower because they watched the initial questioning didn't realize once it is done, it is fast. >> i wonder about your perception of how the judges handled the situation in the courtroom. with donald trump. because clearly a judge in a case like this has the appeal on his mind all the time. he knows if there is a guilty verdict here that donald trump is going to want to appeal this in as many ways in as many angles as he possibly can. is there something that the judge has to worry about in the possible appeals future of this case that inhibits him in policing, right now, donald trump's conduct, for example,

including attacking jurors? >> yes. so the judge is absolutely right to worry about in appeal. trump is going to file an appeal if he is convicted no matter what, and trial judges generally have a lot of discretion over how to run their trials. so the thumb on the scale is going to be in favor of the judge but that doesn't give them an unlimited blank check. i think today generally was a good day. they took eight steps forward and only two back. that is a good day in the trump trial world because they are trying to find 12 people in the world in manhattan who don't have strong feelings about donald trump. that is like trying to find a non-new york jets fan in new york. but it looks like the judge has managed to do it. the problem is, you have got donald trump testing the judge at every turn, basically with the judges issuing a gag order. trump said, i dare you to do

something. there will be a hearing on tuesday and i do suspect at the very least the prosecution will get what they asked for, which is thousand dollars fines for each of these violations. the harder question is, what happens after that? is the judge going to say that next time it is up to 30 days of incarceration? i suspect the judge will do something like that because you cannot run a trial this way. one thing he did today which was interesting, he didn't impose any sanctions today for violating the gag order but at the end something interesting happened. the defense asked who were the three prosecution witnesses that are going to be called tomorrow on the first day of the trial. the prosecutors said, we are not going to tell you who they are because your client is going to tweet about them and attacked them. the judge agreed with them and said, we will not give you the witness names. i do think that is the start, the judge is starting to have a

backbone here on these issues. i think he has well within his rights to have one. we will see what he does on tuesday. >> andrew, that is the last page of the transcript. it is one of the more dramatic things in here, where defense counsel routinely asks for, please tell us your first three witnesses because we may be getting to witnesses as early as monday. he asked for that and the prosecutor says, look. i have got to be honest. that is a courtesy that we would normally extend. mr. trump has been tweeting about the witnesses. we are not telling you who the witnesses are. i'm sorry. the judge says, i can't fault the people for that. trump's defense lawyer says, what if i commit to the court and the people that president trump will not tweet about any witness? i believe there was laughter in the press room on that one when they heard that. and the judge said, he will not tweet about any witness? to which trumps lawyer said, well,

and they couldn't even guarantee that he wouldn't tweet about any witness. the judge said, i don't think you can make that representation. and then trump's lawyer says, what if it is just the attorneys eyes only? we won't share with president trump. to which the judge says, well, i don't think that that is going to work. and the trump lawyer says, well, they are required to give us the witness list for monday if the judge orders it. to which the judge says, well, i am not going to order them to do it. i will see you tomorrow morning. that is as rough and ending as i have seen. >> i want to make sure people understand. when you have everyone operating in good faith and complying with the rules, it is standard procedure to let both sides do that when it is a defense case, the government's case. you give the other side notice.

this is well within the d.a.s discretion because they know what has happened. there like, we are not going to give you the opportunity. the part about counsel i find very interesting and that is where tom planchet has really lost credibility with the court because that is where if the judge sees that there is counsel, and then obviously the judge has lost confidence in todd blanche because that is where he said, i will give it to you, but you have to promise me. and that usually would work. one thing i wanted to notice about your opening about the complicity with fox in terms of how this works, that is the charge here. the charge here is complicity with the national enquirer. the idea that this has just happened here and this is what you are going to hear about,

what the charge in this case is about. the complicity of donald trump and david packer in the national enquirer to do this scheme and smear opponents. this is exactly the same thing that is charged here that you are seeing carried out right now. >> yeah. and, neal, juror number two is the one that came in this morning and said, i can't do it. she was specifically attacked by jesse watters in his program last night, revealing as much biographical information about her as he had. by the way, we all had that information. we held it back. we had a feeling about how much we could identify. we could say someone is a woman, we didn't want to get into too much because it made sense. the judge has no ordered everyone in the media to be as responsible as they possibly can about what they reveal. but there was fox again tonight, doing the same thing. >> absolutely, and then you have this juror saying, look.

i need to be excused. i'm afraid for my safety. lawrence, i have seen this a lot. the only time i have ever seen anything like this is in a mob trial. and to imagine that this is about a trial, not about a mob figure but about our former chopped top official of the entire government, i mean, it is just showing how donald trump doesn't care for civic virtue, the american ideal, the stability of the system. what he is doing with this juror, what he has done before, it is just all the same thing. he will break the system in order to have a chance. if he were a real leader, a real president, he would never put his own ambitions or interests above those of the institution or the system but he is content to break them, to break the entire jury system. it is unfair by google behavior, apart from being a criminal, it is not the way we could ever want anyone in our government

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okay, that's uncalled for. back with neal katyal and andrew weissman. we got our transcripts late tonight before the show. adam, there is a spot that you heard and now have the transcript for that is very interesting about the examples that the district attorney was

giving while talking to potential jurors. >> absolutely. throughout the five-year process, one of the things that one of the assistant district attorney's had been doing all along was giving hypotheticals. can you understand this legal concept through a hypothetical of a hitman? >> i don't believe the hitmen concept was, you are guilty of the crime if you told the person to do it, even if you weren't in the state they are in. and donald trump was somewhere other than where michael cohen is. that's the theory. >> liability. so later he dropped the hypothetical. this was an incredible moment. he said, the point i am trying to get at is, no one is going to get up on the witness stand and testify that mr. trump directly said, hey. let's falsify her business records. hey, let's commit election fraud. let's pull the wool over the eyes of the american voter so i can get elected. no one is going to say that.

and in a rare moment here, trumps lawyer said, judge, we object. the judge overruled. and part of what made that such an incredible moment, of course, the prosecutors are sharing the theory of the case. this was election-influenced. and the other very interesting part of it was that usually during this you don't hear too many objections. they are trying to weed out a jury bias. and this was a moment that was just punctuated by that objection, by that overruled objection. in the prosecution, tipping their hand into what we might be hearing -- >> i was going to say, that sounds like a line from opening statements that very effectively was slipped into this process. >> yes, well, the prosecution wanted to make sure that any

potential juror could understand that you may not have direct evidence. it is very rare that the net case, now by the way, we have an agreement that we are in the gambino family and we are going to conduct this hit as part of the family. nothing is that explicit. it is not a corporate document that has been signed. so this is a standard thing you would ask to make sure the jurors understand. i am a little surprised that susan made the objection because when you make an objection like that if it is overruled you sort of underscore the importance of what just happened. >> we have to interrupt this with breaking news. we are monitoring breaking news in iran. we will do be joined by courtney. what do we have? >> reporter: there has been breaking news this evening that we have been trying to get more detail on. here is what we know so far. according to iran's semi state media, they are saying there

have been a series of explosions in iran, and while a lot of reviewers may have heard of that city, it is because it is where some of iran's critical nuclear infrastructure exists. so far it seems that these explosions are not specifically in isfahan where the nuclear facility is but are nearby. now, u.s. officials are not saying anything about this. neither are israeli officials but, of course, this comes when there has been a back and forth between iran and israel and threats from both sides. on april 1st, the israeli military struck a site in damascus, which was later determined to be some type of site killing a number of senior iranian officials including a senior general in the iranian revolutionary guard. of course we know that last weekend i run retaliated with pretty great force, about 300

projectile missiles and drones, most of which were shot down. but israel again vowed to respond. now, among the possible response options that we have been hearing about this week that israel briefed the u.s. on head of the strikes last week and was the possibility of some sort of response inside of iran but also the possibility of strikes against proxy forces and against iranian facilities outside of iran. there are also some reports tonight of explosions in syria and in iraq but i really have to stress, at this point, we do not have any confirmation who was behind any of these explosions, these possible strikes, other than to say, everyone has really been waiting on edge to see if israel would respond to this massive folly of strikes that they took, that iran took against israel on saturday. >> courtney, this is ahead of where our information is now,

but a few days from now or whatever amount of time it takes, what would we have, when could we have an accurate damage assessment of what my have actually occurred tonight? >> reporter: we are already seeing some social media video of explosions in the skies over isfahan. some things are starting to come out from iraq and syria so we may get a better sense of that in the next day or so. it is about daylight in all three locations right now. friday morning. so we may get a sense of that. the real question, though, is, will he get any attribution to this? keep in mind, there is a widespread knowledge that israel has taken a number of strikes inside syria in recent years, specifically, usually going after lebanese shipments of component parts. advanced missile parts that iran ships in syria. and they very rarely if ever acknowledge any of those strikes. it would not surprise me if we

don't have any statement of attribution for who is behind these except for the fact that israel has been vowing to respond here. again, i have to say, we still don't know who or what caused these explosions in these three locations. we have been working on this feverishly for a matter of hours now and we will continue but at this point, the u.s. and the israelis are not saying anything and even iran, while acknowledging there have been explosions, is not saying who or what is behind them. >> courtney kube, pentagon correspondent, thank you for that. we will come back to you as the story develops. joining us now is been roads who served for president obama. he is a political analyst. ne, on the issue of attribution, will the united states issue a statement of having nothing to do with it possibly?

>> yeah, that is quite possible. in fact, lawrence, in the past, even when israel has taken strikes against iranian targets in certain places like syria, sometimes the united states does put out a statement to clarify that it is not involved itself. that said, i mean, it is not a mystery. if you have this kind of attack , particularly if it is against the proxies in places like iraq and syria. i don't think there will be a ton of mystery around it. i think what we can say with assurance is that the united states itself did not participate in that directive lee. >> what did you expect in terms of the unfolding of this information at this hour? when might we hear something from more clear, or something official, from the pentagon? >> well, i think it is likely that assuming israel carried out the strikes, they would notify the united states, probably shortly beforehand.

if they did carry out strikes inside of iran , that obviously would go against what joe biden had counseled them, which is to not directly retaliated against iranian territory. i think the u.s. has a greater degree of tolerance and understanding how this works. but even in the event in which the israeli government knows that the biden administration might not support this, they notify the united states. i think it is necessary to wait and see whether this is in conclusion of military action. is this a series of one-off strikes in iraq and syria and iran or is it the beginning of several strikes that could take place in different places? i think the u.s., before it comments in any formal way, would obviously want to know and be certain that this has been concluded. so i would expect to happen overnight.

i think the u.s. takes some leads to whether or not israel is publicly commenting, publicly taking responsibility for the strikes. given how much israel has said that it is going to respond, even though they sometimes have been reluctant to claim responsibility for certain reactions, given how far they have been out there, i have to assume we get some confirmation from the israeli site also in the coming hours. >> inside the white house on a night like this, they have had this information, courtney indicates, for a number of hours there. you have been there in the white house where this kind of information comes across. i would say, 8:00 p.m., and you end up spending the rest of the night there. what is happening in the offices you used to be in at this hour? >> i think what you would be doing is you would find out that something like this is happening, potential escalation in the middle east. you are bringing everyone

together in the situation room by secure videoconference to the pentagon. number one, you are trying to ascertain what happened. what were their targets? was there success in hitting those targets? number two, you are taking extra precautions to secure u.s. personnel and military facilities across the region and diplomatic facilities, by the way. we have vulnerable facilities to potential iranian and places like iraq. so job number one of any administration is to make sure we check on the defenses of our personnel in the region. then i think you are undertaking a diplomatic strategy, reaching out to israel because if you did do this, is this it, or is this the beginning of further escalation? reaching out to other countries in the region, the arab states. what are they hearing? trying to send messages to the iranians. de-escalate, avoid this becoming a regional war. those are your main priorities. understanding what is

happening, protecting u.s. personnel and facilities in the region, and trying to avert an escalation that the biden administration does not want. >> and ben, what about the concept of proportional response? when israel is planning a strike like this, do they assess the damage that they suffered, which was minimal in this case, since the defenses were so effective against the iranian drones? today assess the damage they suffered and try to inflict something proportional to that? >> that will be the really interesting thing to watch, lawrence, in the sense that proportional response carries with it a certain military logic. the problem since october 7th is we are in new terrain so it is not the same kind of proxy that has taken place between israel and iran across the region. new lines are being crossed, whether it was the israeli strike across the facility or the iranian attack directly on

israel. however, it will be interesting to watch this and see if israel did strike inside of iran. did they, in the same way that iran signaled, we could have done more, we wanted to launch an attack on your territory but we didn't unleash thousands of rockets. does israel similarly signal, this is a relatively minimalist response compared to what we might have been able to do otherwise? i think this is all very dangerous in any event, if you have exchanges of fire between israel and iran. in a region that is new, this hasn't happened before, so that is dangerous, even if it is meant to be proportional. but the interesting question about the strike is whether it has designs to be somewhat limited in nature in terms of what it does inside of ironic and that puts the owners on alert. do they feel like they need to respond against israel directly or can the river to the proxy,

where they are exchanging fire, they are exchanging conflict in other parts of the middle east? >> please stay with us. joining us now is nbc news white house correspondent, mike . what do we know from the white house tonight? >> frankly, not very much. the white house has not been responding to any questions about these reports of explosions that we are seeing in the middle east. i think that speaks to the posture of the de-escalation and the administration at this point. the cia director spoke tonight at the bush center in dallas and he called this a spectacular failure. i want to read this quote directly. he said, i think the broad hope of the president and policymakers is that we will find a way to de-escalate the situation. i think they're standing back at this point wanting to confirm on their own resources

that have happened tonight, how potentially wider response israel has launched if it has launched one. they are working behind the scenes to coordinate with their allies. it is worth noting, lawrence, that there were a series of conversations between the white house officials, administration officials, and israeli counterparts throughout the day. there was a small meeting that included jake sullivan, the israeli counterpart, to discuss from the white house the iran attack and the collective attacks to further enhance israel's defense. that was then followed by a meeting to discuss the situation in gaza and the u.s. continuing to advise the israelis against that. we also know that the defense secretary austin spoke with his israeli counterparts and there are a series of events throughout the day to speak to the close coordination between these two allies. we know from our own reporting, courtney kube , who you have already heard of, the white

house has had an awareness of the range of options that it could potentially take in response to the efforts over the weekend that included potentially a more limited response. it could include strikes outside of iran, which we have seen reports of tonight, as well as strikes in iran. we know that president biden in a conversation over the weekend said that the u.s. would not join israel in any potential offensive operations. there is a term we have heard quite a bit this week, which is take the win. that is what the government has been communicating to israel to avoid that term escalation. that has been the hope of the white house as well, from bill burns and officials throughout the week. they are standing back at this point to see what the situation is, to see if it has concluded. >> mike, i know the president has been on the campaign trail most of the week.

is the president at the white house tonight? >> yes. i was with the president in scranton for two days this week. he made stops in pittsburgh and philadelphia. he returned to the white house tonight just before about 5:00 p.m. so he has been in the white house for most of the evening. we have no sense of whether he had further meetings but he did return to the west wing when he came back tonight so that spoke to the fact that even though he had a full day, his work wasn't done for the day, surrounded by some of his closest officials. bruce reed walked into the oval office with him. >> what is the standard practice, if we can call it a standard practice, in a situation like this, for the white house press corps? do you expect that the white house press corps will be given some information by the white house tonight about this? >> let's start with a term that you know well.

there was a lit called this evening, meaning that there was not any expectation that at the very least we would see the president tonight. that doesn't rule out potential statements and it doesn't rule out is working the phones as we have been all night, trying to get any information we can. so those conversations are obviously ongoing at this point if we have not gotten any indication that the white house will respond in any formal way, until it has more information, this is certainly something that could change. this is a dynamic situation and any further escalation would warrant a response from the administration but at this point it is not our expectation although we are certainly trying to get more information to the public. >> i want to bring ben rhodes back into this discussion. from the perspective of inside the white house, of all the issues that have to be dealt with inside of the white house, one of them is informing mike

memoli and therefore the country of what is going on. this is a president who knows now that it is 7:45 p.m. on the west coast. this is a country that is mostly wide-awake right now, consuming this news and eager to know what is happening. >> yeah. i mean, lawrence, i've had that responsibility for a lot of years in the white house. i think your considerations in that regard is, when it is a very sensitive international thing like this, speed is actually not your first priority. you want to be heard in the manner that you want to be heard at the right time. in this case, there are other considerations. first of all, what is israel going to say? so if they undertook this military action, before you say anything out of the white house, you need to be clear about what the government is going to say about whether they

want to take responsibility for this, how they want to describe their military action, whether they want to say that this is concluded, that from their perspective this is a reprisal on the attack and not the end of what they're going to do, or whether they will signal something more ambiguous. so you have to understand, diplomatically, what is israel going to say? then you make a determination about whether you are going to confirm events and then how you're going to describe the american view of what took place. the biden administration is in a particularly difficult circumstance here because they canceled -- counseled israel to not engage in a military strike. so they are in a difficult bind here because simultaneously, they have generally cited obviously with israel in these conflicts and yet they have been on the record in saying that israel should not undertake this action against iran in response to the attack.

the statement they draft is going to have to be calibrated. if israel is coming out and saying, this is it, we are done, this is our response to what took place, that makes it easier for the biden administration to pivot to a message of de-escalation, this is over, we are calling everyone to de-escalate. if this is still open-ended, that becomes more tricky and the biden administration may want to say, we urge israel to refrain from further military action and we are urging them to de-escalate. so you want to calibrate your message based on your understanding of what israel is doing great at the same time, obviously, you might, in the interim, confirm some things for people like mike memoli but before your official statement goes out you want to make sure you know what your policy responses. >> mike, you have any information about who else is up the white house at this hour that you are sourcing? do we have any sense of whether there is a situation or a meeting going on? whether national security

advisor's are physically present? possibly the defense secretary? any sense of who might be there? >> no. the one clue, as you know, is we are occasionally taking steps outside the press briefing room to look at the entrance to the west to see if there is that marine signal there which would speak to that presidents involvement. in this situation in this room we have not seen that, but the president is known for working late sometimes. he prefers to do so in the private residence where he has an office and we have seen often where his advisers will visit with him there but this is a situation where he wants to communicate with other world leaders, with the allies. that would certainly speak to the likelihood of him heading into the west wing at this point so we have no indications that that has happened tonight. i think one thing that is also interesting, as we look at this situation, lawrence, is the unusual communication that has occurred between the u.s.

government. just after that april 1st strike by israel of the iranian diplomatic compound in damascus, according to nbc's reporting, there was an effort to communicate by the u.s. government to iran that had no former knowledge of that plan strike. we also know from an interview that was conducted with the iranian former minister today, he said that the iranian government had communicated a message to the united states through its embassy in switzerland to discuss potential ramifications of an israeli retaliation, so there is this effort to communicate which speaks to the u.s.'s goal here and avoiding the postulation of trying to be able to be in that position. the president has made it crystal clear, even with his many deep disagreements with how prime minister netanyahu has engaged in responding to the attack on his country and the counter attack on hamas,

through gaza, that there are serious differences. he will not waver in his support for the state of israel for its right to defend itself but it does speak to him having the role of wanting to avoid further escalation that could put israel at risk of itself. >> ben rhodes, you worked in the white house that had the best and strongest communication channels to iran of any white house since the fall of the shot, possibly, with the obama administration working on the nuclear deal with iran . the trump administration then lost, really, all of those communication channels. they didn't want them. they just kind of wiped them out. how much of that communication has been rebuilt during the biden administration? how much of that communication you think is available tonight? been rebuilt in terms of direct

contact, obviously didn't have formal diplomatic relations re- established in an embassy but we did have the capacity for john kerry to pick up the phone to secretary of state and call the iranian prime minister point we had people down below that, able to be in direct contact on a bilateral basis with iran pick my sense with the biden administration it as kind of reverted back to the way it was in the early stages of those negotiations where a lot of contact comes through third parties. the u.s. has, through the swiss, and kind of interest capacity in tehran to pass messages through the swiss government. but beyond that, there are other governments in the region that have often been a conduit for sensitive diplomatic channels between the u.s. and iran oman has traditionally s played a role in facilitated messages between the u.s. and iran i think there's other regional partners, whether it is turkey or even the gulf arab states, that can be a source of

messages point i think also, in this situation, lawrence, where, let's face it, we step back, there are global ramifications here point a full all-out war between israel and u iran could have enormous ramifications for the global economy, for energy markets. china, i think, is probably a , source of messaging for the united states. the u.s. going to the chinese, obviously a lot of input with iran and saying, look, can you please communicate this is not the time to escalate, this is not the time to have another all-out war in the middle east and so i think the u.s. is probably trying everything they can ironically, in this circumstance, the u.s. advised israel is not always necessarily been heated under prime minister netanyahu and so we are simultaneously trying to de- escalate ryin terms of the israeli action, as well as the iranian response point >> what will you be looking for first thing in the morning at the right house -- white house. >> the first question is will

we see any change in the president's schedule point he has on the public schedule for tomorrow, a union event, he has been doing a lot of those lately, lawrence, he is set to speak at a union conference at here in washington, part of the series of events he has been doing, especially focus on the economy this week when his republican opponent has been, let's say, distracted with other matters. he was schedule, as he often ed does, for the weekend, to travel to wilmington, delaware point we did see, course, the president return from delaware last week, we were aware of the response coming from iran, the attended attack on israel and now, of course, the potential does remain, as well for him to change his schedule point nbc news pentagon and national security correspondent, courtney. do we have anything more? >> yeah, so we can now say, lawrence, that according to a source familiar, israel did carry out an operation inside iran tonight now, we still t don't have a lot of details, including how they carried this out again, as we have been

saying iranian state media has reported that there have been a number of explosions in the isfahan area. now i should say, just because this was an israeli operation, we don't have to assume that that means that israeli warplanes flew into iranian air placed -- airspace. standoff weapons, they have theo ability to fire from far away so they would not put pilot or even some of their unmanned systems in any kind of danger to carry out some sort of a strike or some sort of an operation like this. we are still working on exactly what the israelis used to carry this out. but we can now report that, in fact, the israelis did carry out an operation in iran tonight. in addition to that, we are told that israeli officials i informed the u.s. of their intention to carry out a response in the coming, not

necessarily eminently but today they did tell them they were planning to do that, without putting an exact idea of exactly when it would happen. again, the israelis did inform the u.s. of this in advance. why that is so critical is thats april 1st strike that the israeli military took in damascus, killing the senior iranian officials, there has been, the u.s. has said openly and often that they were not notified of that in advanced, and in fact, the u.s. was told about this one point we don't know about all the details, bo exactly how much fidelity the u.s. had on this but they were told by the israelis in advance. >> ben rhodes, how does that sound to you in terms of the procedure of israel notifying the united states today? in advanced of what happened tonight. >> that doesn't surprise me, lawrence. that sounds right, that they would give some notification that this is taking place. they know that the u.s. is their most important, they know that the u.s. has its own personnel in the region that we

might want to take precautions to secure because of this is really strike so despite the fact that there has been this disagreement, on whether or not u.s. supports the idea of rt israel taking a strike, it stands to reason that they would provide that notification. now, it also puts u.s. in a bit of a challenging spot because, number one, we did counsel them against taking a strike. number two, this means we had foreknowledge pick one of the reasons the u.s. might have been public about saying he didn't know about the strike in damascus is it kind of removes us from that equation. thus far, the iranians have f been very clear in their messaging to the u.s. that they do not want to fight with us. and frankly, the u.s. has been pretty clear, too, that we are not looking to be rectally involved in a military conflict with iran pick one of the objectives of the u.s. is to you to try to stay out of this fight directly. in this instance, i think it is

prudent that israel will give the heads up and america might take precautions. we ignow need to wait and see, number one, is this the o conclusion of this wave of the israeli retaliation? and number two, does iran respond, and do they respond quickly? do they respond either through a direct attack on israel as they did in the past, do they mobilize and activate some of their processes, does has led take action in southern lebanon? i think a worst case for the united states is, we start to see some of the iranian proxy groups that we are attacking u.s. forces a few months ago, do they reactivate in terms of attacks on u.s. diplomatic presence in iraq or troops in syria or do the houthis get involved in the red sea? so everybody is going to be watching to see what the next move is by both israel and iran and all of iran's proxies.

i am sure that that is part of what is happening in the white house tonight is just making sure that we are doing everything we can to avoid this escalating further. but also making sure that we g have our eyes on all the different ways in which this fire could catch in other places. >> courtney, i want to ask you a version of a question, just ask mike about the white house tomorrow on the assumption thatr we are not going to have any united states government officials before a microphone tonight, what will you be looking for at the pentagon en tomorrow morning? please so, keep in mind that in the past, when israel has carried out strikes against this practical, for instance, in syria, when they go after these advanced missile components and parts, that iran is sending to hezbollah and syria, they very rarely, if ever, acknowledge that point i think the biggest question is, will israel acknowledge any part of this tonight because of their threats that they have been s putting out all week to respond to the attacks in israel last weekend.

if and when that happens, that would be when she might see someone in the u.s. talking about it. unless israel acknowledges this, any part in this tonight, i don't know that the u.s. would acknowledge it on the record. and i have to say i completely agree with what ben was wi explaining about the process here the israelis will, the source of strikes and they take in syria, remember the u.s. has terry in southern syria and eastern syria pick when they carry out attacks against some of these proxy groups, israel will give the u.s. a heads up, sometimes it is literally when the planes are in the air to carry out the strikes pick but they do for a deconfliction. they also do it because if there is a potential that u.s. forces have personnel in the region could have some sort of a negative impact from an israeli mission or operation, they have sort of an agreement that they will give the u.s. a heads up so they will know to up their readiness, any kind ofi defenses that need to be shored up, they will be able to do that

in advance. it wouldn't surprise me that ou the israelis would give them some sort of a heads up today we just don't know exactly the level of detail that they provided at this point, lawrence. >> edquickly , running out of times here, what is the united states hoping for from israel on this one? >> or is it, there is a ds here, whether they say it publicly or whether it is something that they signal th privately to the iranians, we are not looking to escalate this further, this doesn't end the conflict, the proxy conflict between israel and iran but this kind of exchange of direct fire, this is over. one of the main u.s. interest since october 7th has been avoiding an all out war between israel and iran or even an escalation of the war that is in gaza to places like lebanon, kind of full-scale point i think that will continue to be the focus of the biden administration tomorrow is just trying to contain this. so that it doesn't continue to