its main commencement ceremony. the news coming after weeks of pro-palestinian protests on their campus. the decision was made that the security risk was just too high. the universitywide commencement ceremony will be replaced by smaller scale school-based celebrations instead. a serious case of deja vu for college seniors who just a few years ago had high school graduations canceled or scaled down because of covid. columbia senior -- excuse me, alexis ismael had this to say about her class of 2024. >> i think we're going to be remembered as a really interesting class at columbia. we came -- >> that's for sure. >> came in at a hard time, leaving in a hard time. hopefully this all has made us, you know, more thoughtful and empathetic and i'm still hopeful that we can all go and do great things in the world after all of this. >> more thoughtful and temperature nettic people doing great things in the world sounds like a good thing to me, miss

alexis. congratulations on your graduation. and on that note, i wish you a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late. i'll see you at the end of tomorrow. really happy to have you here. here we go, ready? the clerk, this is the people of the state of new york against donald j. trump smz 71911/24. appearances, starting with the people, prosecutor joshua steinglass, for the people, susan, becky mangold, christopher conroy, and katherine ellis. good morning. defense council bove, joined by president trump seated to my left and joined by todd blanche, susan and kendra wharton.

the judge, good morning. good morning, mr. trump. so the matter called into the record is the people's motion for contempt, meaning the prosecution's motion for contempt. the judge say, quote, before i hand down my decision, i did want to address the defense and mr. trump. mr. trump, as you know, the prosecution has filed three separate motions asking this court to find you in contempt. in a moment, i'm going to hand down my decision on the third motion, in which i find you in criminal contempt for the tenth time. quote, it appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent. therefore, going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction if recommended. mr. trump, it is important to understand that the last thing i want to do is put you in jail. you are the former president of the united states and possibly the next president as well. there are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last

resort for me. to take that step would be disruptive to these proceedings which i imagine you want to end as quickly as possible. i also worry about the people who would have to execute that sanction. the court officer, the correction officers, the secret service detail among others. i worry about them and about what would go into executing such a sanction. of course, i'm also aware of the broader implications of such a sanction. the magnitude of such a decision is not one-sided, but at the end of the day, i have a job to do, and part of that job is to protect the dignity of the judicial system and compel respect. your continued violations of this court's lawful order threaten to interfere with the administration of justice in constant attacks which constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. i cannot allow that to continue. so as much as i do not want to impose a jail sanction, and i have done everything i can to avoid doing so, i want you to understand that i will if

necessary and appropriate. do the attorneys have any other questions about that? i will now hand down the decision from the court. this is for the defense, this is for the people. transcript then notes, wrp the sergeant gives copies of the court's decision to the parties and the judge say, quote, you can call the trial. the clerk, this is people of the state of new york against donald j. trump, indictment 71543/23, case on trial continued. this is the third week of the trial. this was a momentous thing that happened today, right? this is -- i mean, we knew it was coming, but now that it's happened, this is a momentous thing. this is a lawful order of a lawfully constituted american criminal court. the judge saying, you are repeatedly disobeying this lawful order. if lesser sanctions cannot persuade you to stop violating this court's order and

apparently they cannot, then you will be jailed. even, yes, as a former president of the united states, you too are a citizen and will subject to the law like every citizen is. we're there. we have never been in a place like this before. and that's because of really, you know, specific historical circumstances. when richard nixon resigned in disgrace and his vice president who then ascended to the presidency gave nixon a full pardon. why did he give him a pardon? it says explicitly in the language of the pardon that that happened so nixon would not face arrest and indictment and trial. he had resigned the presidency at least, right? so the threat he posed to the country was over. and so he was allowed to evade

personal punishment. remember, though, that was less than a year after nixon's vice president also resigned, also as part of, effectively, a plea deal with the justice department to avoid, in his case, what would have been his prosecution on 40 felony corruption charges. what happened to spiro agnew was a little bit like what happened to nixon. there was a plea deal to avoid prosecution. so the dynamic was the same, because agnew agreed to leave office, that meant the threat he posed as a deeply corrupt person in high eelected office, that threat was over. and because he left office, he was allowed to evade significant personal punishment. and so neither nixon nor agnew went to jail for even a day. now, though, we are learning the consequences of, you know, in our history letting presidents

evade personal punishment when they have committed crime, because now we've got a former president who isn't leaving office like nixon did, like agnew did. now we've got one who isn't eliminating the ongoing danger to the public by getting out of public life, right, so maybe that could have been what he traded his freedom for. no, for our sins, what we've got now is one of these guys who's staying in public life. and therefore the threat is alive, right? he's running to get back into the presidency with four different criminal trials stacked up like taxiing planes on a runway. and so no, none of us having any idea what it will mean for us as a country for him to be sent to jail as part of these criminal proceedings is part of what is new for us in this moment. today justice juan merchan in new york said jail is what is coming next if trump continues to disobey court orders. and do you think he's going to continue to disobey these court

orders? justice merchan said, quote, i worry about the people who would have to execute that sanction. the court officer, the correction officer, the secret service detail, among others. i worry about them and about what would go into executing such a sanction. of course, i'm also aware of the broader implications of such a sanction, but at the end of the day, i have a job to do. your continued violations of this court's lawful order threaten to interfere with the administration of justice, constant attacks which constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. i cannot allow that to continue. as much as i do not want to impose a jail sanction and i've done everything can to avoid doing so i want you to understand that i will. i will do it if i have to. your direct attack on the rule of law cannot be allowed to continue. just a signal moment in american history today. and it's sort of clearer to me on this day at this moment than it's ever been in my lifetime that the rule of law isn't just

a bumper sticker, right, it isn't an abstract thing. i doesn't float in and infuse the atmosphere. it's specific stuff. in a day-to-day way it means court orders must be obeyed. if you don't obey them, the court will punish you for that. it mean, for another example, that people who are part of the judicial system, judge, court personnel, juries, witnesses, defense lawyers, prosecutor, it means they're also able to do their work without being threatened or intimidated or being harassed or fired by people who are associated with the accused. that's law and order, right? that's the rule of law. that's a nuts and bolts concrete thing. and it is under intense, incredible pressure. it is having trouble right now in our country because as the judge in trump's first criminal trial is trying to stand up for the rule of law today, as he said in this warning to trump, right, this cross the rubicon moment in court today where he

warned trump he is making plans to jail him if he keeps violating the court's order, while that is happening, simultaneously, the rpz-controlled senate in the state of georgia is moving forward on what appears to be their plans to subpoena the prosecutor leading the criminal case against trump in the state of georgia. fani willis is leading that prosecution. as soon as she opened that investigation, the republican-led legislature in georgia started moving to try to curtail her authority, to give themselves the ability to fire her as a prosecutor. that process has been weaving and winding through legal obstacles for months now, but now they are planning to haul the prosecutor, to haul fani willis into the state senate and force her to turn over evidence and testify herself under oath while she continues to try to lead that prosecution. meanwhile, simultaneously on capitol hill we've now got the

republican chair of the house judiciary committee, jim jordan, launching apparently some kind of new investigation into one of the assistant district attorneys who was in court today leading the prosecution of trump and his new york case. meanwhile, simultaneously, this weekend the former president hosted a high dollar fundraiser at his home in florida in which he, uned bien, brought up the prosecutor in florida and his overthrow the government case in washington, d.c. according to a recording of those recordings reviewed by nbc news, trump said at this fundraiser, quote, deranged jack smith, one of the sickest prosecutors in the world -- the sick, evil thug, take a look at the deranged. and he's perfect, because you look at him. he's not attractive both inside and out. i mean, you couldn't get a better guy if you're trying to make the devil that deranged.

yes, this is one unattractive dude. that's why -- and then the former president reportedly said fricking expletive. that was saturday afternoon. that was not long after he had posted this in all caps online on his social media company, quote, arrest deranged jack smith. he is a criminal. again, the rule of law is not an abstract feeling or sense of being. it's not something you just proclaim to be true and then set it and forget it. right? terrorizing judges and juries and witnesses and prosecutors is something that breaks the rule of law. if those people are intimidated and harassed and threatened, the rule of law has been broken. this past friday california man was criminally charged with making death threats against fulton county district attorney fani willis. few weeks ago a man in new york was charged with threatening new york's attorney general general,

tish james, and judge arthur overseeing the civil case brought against trump's business by new york attorney general tish james. a woman from texas was sentenced to three years in prison for threatening the judge overseeing trump's classified documents case in florida. not long before that, a different texas woman was charged with threatening the judge who's overseeing trump's other federal criminal case, the overthrow the government case, in federal court in washington. not long before that, the fbi fatally shot a man who had threatened to kill the new york district attorney alvin bragg who has brought the case that's currently being argued in criminal court in new york. this stuff has consequences and this stuff is consequences. we are not looking at some vague future threat to the rule of law. what you're seeing here is actively and currently damaging the rule of law right now. because people are intimidated and terrorized. people who work in the legal system as these alleged crimes

are adjudicated there are being harassed, threatened with firing, and intimidated and threatened. excite is happening in all the criminal cases that surround trump. you might remember this lead in a recent special report from routers. district judge royce lamberth has been threated by criminals, drug cartels, even al qaeda, but nothing prepared him for the wave of ra hah raszment after he began hearing cases against supporters of former president donald trump who attacked the u.s. capitol in aed by to overturn the 2020 election. lamberth, appointed by republican president ronald reagan, was painted as part of a deep state conspiracy to destroy trump and his followers. calls for his execution cropped up on pro-trump websites. quote, traitors get rope, said one. after he issued a prison sentence to one idaho woman who pled guilty to joining the january 6th riot, lamberth's

chambers voicemail filled with death threats. one man found lamberth's home phone number and called repeatedly with graphic vows to murder him. lamberth told router, quote, i could not believe how many death threats i got. this is, again, not some future potential threat to the rule of law, this is damage to the rule of law. and it is here already. when participating in the adjudication of alleged crimes by a political figure and his followers bring you death threats the rule of law has been bent. the rule of law has been broken. those harms to the rule of law, that damage to the rule of law has been inflicted already. the prospect of jail for the republican party's active presidential nominee, that is here already. he got his face-to-face warning in court today in new york. one more violation of the

court's order banning him from speaking about the jury or witnesses in his case, and he will be put in jail. with secret service detail. that time is now here. which means we are about to find out what it's like to be a country that has a presidential candidate and former president in jail because he refuses to follow court orders. it's not a thought speerments anymore, it's not the future, it is here, are we ready? and the rule of law and the democratic system go together, right? as the rule of law has bent and been broken by trump and his movement, we've also seen the democratic system bend and get broken by trump and his movement. obviously, we did not have a peaceful transfer of power the last time he competed in and lost an election. there is no commitment at all, no expectation at all by anyone that he and his followers will allow for a peaceful transfer of power this next time if he loses

this next election as well. he's not even giving lip service to the idea that they will allow for a peaceful transfer of power. he won't even say it and not mean it. and even more importantly than that just coming out of his face in his republican party accepting that his followers will not abide the results of the next election and neither will the republican party in all of its power and all of its resources. accepting that is now the price of admission to power in that party. in march of this year, the republican national committee hired two new lawyers to oversee the party's election year legal efforts. now just two months after, that of those two lawyer, one of them's been indicted for helping in the effort to keep him in power illegally after he lost the last election and the second one of those two lawyers has just been pushed out of his job at the rnc, reportedly because he's not willing to do the same thing. quote, trump originally approved

of the hiring, one source told cnn, but sources said trump was then angered after his allies pointed to slips of the slaughter criticizing the false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. so two lawyers hired by the rnc to oversee legal efforts around the 2024 election, one of them herself now under indictment, the other one reportedly fired for casting doubt that the last election was stolen. for suggesting that the real election results were a real thing. think about that for a second. the chief counsel of the national republican party just fired, reportedly, because he was insufficiently enthusiastic about falsifying election result, about working to throw out real election results and get trump into power despite them. i know this feels like, you know, like an incremental update on the day's news, but just step back from this for a second. if it is now the de facto

position of the mainstream republican party that we are not going to use the real results of elections to decide who is in power, if in order to be in a position of authority in the republican party now you must now pledge to reject election results, then tell me how are we going to decide who is in power in this country? what's the other mechanism going to use if it's not real election results? the idea that there is an abstract rule of law or an abstract democracy that exists ambiently in the atmosphere and some day, some day distantly in the future we might lose it, it's not how this goes. the rule of law is mortal, right? it can be killed. it is wounded when the people involved in the judicial system and the adjudication of alleged crimes are being threatened and harassed and intimidated and pressured out of their jobs for doing that work. similarly, democracy is mortal. it can be killed. it doesn't go away by someone,

you know, one day proclaiming we are no longer hereby a democracy. it goes away when there stops being an expectation that we are governed by democratic mean, when there stops being an expectation that elections are how we decide who's in power. right? the way you lose your democracy is by losing the expectation that we are participating in an election because all sides in that election plan to accept the result, right? to go home if they lose and go into office if they win. once we no longer expect that, we are no longer in a democratic system of government in many important respects. once one of the two major governing parties no longer believes elections are bientding, then in many important ways, the democracy ship has sailed because they are no longer competing on democratic grounds. right? once one of the two major parties is no longer pledging

that they will abide by the election results whether they win or lose, the democratic system of government is not threatened with harm, it is wounded already. and so what do we do about that? one way to start dealing with that is to stop pretending that it's not happening. threats to the rule of law are not a theoretical prospect looming some time in the future, they are here. prosecutors and judges and jurors and witnesses need defending right now. right now. because they're being threatened right now. who, for example, who is defending fani willis in georgia right now? the republican-led legislature in georgia is trying to destroy her and remove her in order to stop her from prosecuting the alleged crimes of former president donald trump. who is defending her? threats to a democracy are not a

theoretical prospect that loom some time in the future, just like threats to the rule of law. threats to democracy are also here now. poll workers and election workers have been chased out of those jobs by the thousands, by violence and harassment and threats that are already here and that have already done their work. who is going to stand up and say, okay, well, i'm capable, i'm brave, i'm willing to do something hard for my country this year and i can take one of those jobs. i can take one of those seats. i can drive people to the polls and door knock for a campaign that i wasn't planning on working for. i will work at a polling place, right? who's going to stand up and do that? because thousands of experienced poll workers have been chased from their jobs because an anti-democratic movement in this country led by the former president has made such an environment of threat and harassment around those low-level jobs that those jobs are unfilled.

who will fill those jobs? who will do that work? it's not an esoteric thing, sit a practical thing, and the time is now. it's here. and i think the other part of it is recognizing that there is a reason that this is all happening. and this, to me, is the opposite of enervating. to me this is energizing, understanding why it's happening, understand the sort of larger plot this is part of. sheanne applebalm has written this in the atlantic. the title is democracy is losing the propaganda war. autocrats in china, russia, and other places around the world are now colluding with maga republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom everywhere. applebaum writes autocratic regimes have slowly turned their

repressive mechanisms outward into the democratic world. if people are naturally drawn to the image of human right, to the language of democracy, to the dream of freedom, then those concepts have to be poisoned. that requires more than a political system that defends against liberal ideas, it also requires an offensive plan, a narrative that damages the idea of democracy every in the world and the tools to deliver it. she says, quote, here is a difficult truth, a part of the american political spectrum is not merely a passive recipient of the combined authoritarian narratives that come from these authoritarian countries that are working to discredit democracy. but a part of the american political spectrum is an active participant in creating and spreading these narratives. like the leaders of those authoritarian country, the american maga right also wants americans to believe that their democracy is degenerate, their

elections illegitimate, their civilization dying. the maga movement's leaders also have an interest in pumping any hillism and cynicism into the brains of their fellow citizens and in convincing them that nothing they see is true. their goals are so similar it is hard to distinguish between the online american alt-right and its foreign amplifier, who have multiplied since the days this was solely a russian project. one could call this a secret authoritarian plot to spread antidemocratic conspiracy theories, except that it's not a secret. it's all visible right on the surface. awe thiern regimes working with americans to discredit democracy, to undermine the credibility of democratic leader, to mock the rule of law. they do so with the goal of electing trump whose second presidency would damage the image of democracy around the world as well as the stability of democracy in america even further. i'll speak with anne applebaum

in just a moment, but i'll just say there is a reason why the damage to the rule of law in our country, the damage to democracy in our country, which we have already started living with, there's a reason why it is coinciding with a rise in authoritarianism around the world. and it's because we as a country are not immune to the same, you know, pro-authoritarian antidemocratic wins that blow through europe and all over the rest of the world right now too. our democracy is mortal too, just like every other democracy in history has ever been. being real about the harm that has been done to us already, being clear eyed about the fact that we can see some of these same dynamics at work in other countries, tuning into the fact that the right, under donald trump, is admiring of and openly emulating the way other countries have destroyed their democracies, recognizing they are willingly part of this project, that to me is energizing. i feel like that should put some

steel in our spine, because it should tell us the part that we have to play here, right? it should at least give us real grounded, practical expectations of where this is all going to go next and where our efforts are most needed to stand up for who we are. it should give us a clear sense of what we're going to need to defend and protect very soon when the leader of our country's branch of this movement, some time very soon almost inevitably is going to break that court order again and is now, we know today, going to be ordered into a jail cell. he inevitably very soon is going to be ordered into jail. because we are on the precipice of that happening and all the freak out that's going to attend it is something that we should expect. we need to be ready. we are on the precipice of that next step in what has already been a very difficult time for

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torz the pull litser prizes were awarded today. one went to this man, who is a very important person in the world. his name is vladimir karamurtsa. you might recognize him from having been a guest on this show in the past. he's a journalist and political

activist. he is an outspoken critic of russian president vladimir putin, which of course, means he's in prison. all putin's critics are in prison or dead or in exile. he won a pull litser. he was convicted of treason. he's serving a 25-year sentence in russia. the citation for his prize today says it was awarded for his passionate columns written under great personal risk from his prison cell. warning of the consequences of dissent in putin's russia, insisting on a democratic future for his country. tomorrow vladimir putin will be inaugurated for yet another term, marking his 25th year in power and counting. on the eve of that inauguration tonight, there's news that russia is planning military

exercises for russian troops to practice using tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield in their war in ukraine. financial times cites three european intelligence agencies today warning that russia is plotting violent acts of sabotage all across europe, including bombings and arson and attacks on infrastructure. we've also had new news about russian propaganda operations shifting their focus near the united states to try to, among other thing, supercharge and exploit divisions created among americans by arguments over the war in gaza. the russian propaganda operation, though, has taken its mission well beyond the one issue of israel and gaza in a blockbuster piece today for the atlantic magazine, prize winning historian anne applebaum documents the sustained and converging effort by russia and other authoritarian countries, including china, to try and advance authoritarian governance, not just by

controlling their own populations but by directing their efforts externally, trying to spoil the idea of democracy not just in their own countries but everywhere, particularly in the places where it's been particularly successful. quote, the russians, the chinese, the iranians and others all know that the language of transparency, accountability, justice, and democracy appeals to some of their citizens, as it does to many people who live in dictatorships. even the most sophisticated surveillance can't wholly suppress it. the very ideas of democracy and freedom must be discredited, especially in the places where they have historically flourished. places like, say, here in the united states of america. like our democracy. joining us now is anne applebaum, staff writer at the atlantic. miss applebaum, thanks for being here, it's nice to see you. >> thank you. >> i remember thinking about and

writing about russia's panic over democratic wins blowing through ukraine and putin's commitment that there couldn't be a thriving democratic country on russia's borders. what you're writing about today in the atlantic is the idea of both in russia and among other authoritarian countries that there can't be thriving democracy anywhere in the world, no matter where the borders are. why do you think that shift has happened? >> i think that the leaders of russia and china and iran and venezuela and burma and many other countries looked around the world. they saw that inside their own countries among their exiles, among their friends of their exiles there were -- there was an attraction to ideas about the rule of law, as you've just been talking about, ideas about transparency and accountability, the ideas that rulers should work on debehalf of the ruled and not simply act in their own

interests, and they realize that in order to defeat those ideas at home, they were also going to have to seek to undermine them abroad. and so over the last decade, they've been slowly coalescing around a kind of authoritarian narrative that portrays autocracies as stable and safe and democracies like ours as divided, dangerous, degenerate, you know, weak. and whenever they can, whenever there's an opportunity, they promote that narrative. as i say, they do it inside their own countries, and because we now all live in a global information space, they promote it wherever else, inside the u.s., inside europe, inside africa, inside latin america. and my article just gathers together the pieces of evidence of how they've built networks of, you now, china has a network of newspapers and media companies in africa. russia has a whole series of information laundering operations that websites and other, you know, real and fake

news organizations that promote russian propaganda and they use these tools in order to influence us. >> why does the american maga right, the pro-trump right -- not why does, but i guess how does it integrate with that? we learned a lot over the past decade about foreign influence operations and why awe thiern governments might want to install a kind of leader who would radically change who we are and muck things up in the american system, but why would the pro-trump movement more broadly want to integrate and how would they integrate with that larger authoritarian project from those other countries you described? >> so i think it's really important to understand that it's not a conspiracy. there's not a secret room where they meet, you know, and make a decision about what they're going to promote. it's simply that they have interests in common. so there's a part of the

republican party, not all of it but an important part of it, that seeks to portray the united states as divided, as degenerate, as decaying and declining, because if that's the case, then they have a legitimate right to try and change that system, to install a different kind of leadership or a different kind of government. and they, you know, the russian and chinese and other countries amplify them, they pick and choose from russian and chinese narratives and put them in their propaganda. we can see some directly. there have been famous quotations, you know, in the last several weeks of examples of, you know, senators and congressmen saying that, you know, we hear russian narratives being used on the floor of the house and senate. you know, fake narratives about president zelenskyy and ukraine, for example, buying yachts. they take these stories and use them as part of their own

propaganda. so it's simply that they don't have a -- they have similar goals and they're using the same kind of language. >> exit has the same kind of effect here whether or not it's supported by foreign entities. anne applebaum, staff writer at the atlantic, thanks for writing this piece, and thanks for helping us understand it. stay with us. helping us understand it stay with us but instead remade over and over... into the things that keep our food fresher, our families safer, and our planet cleaner. to help us get there, america's plastic makers are investing billions of dollars to create innovative products and new recycling technologies for sustainable change. because when you push for smarter solutions, big things can happen.

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we do have some breaking news tonight from the war in gaza. two important developments to

tell you about. first, tonight israel says it is conducting targeted strikes against what they describe as hamas targets in eastern rafah. this is an area that the idf calls the last significant stronghold for hamas in gaza. one unnamed u.s. official telling nbc news that these strikes in rafah tonight do not appear to be the large scale israeli military operation in rafah that the white house has recently been worried about, worried about especially today after idf forces dropped leaflets over eastern rafah warning civilians they needed to evac wait immediately. thousands of people crowded the streets, families packed up their belongings and fled yet again. the u.n. agency that helps palestinian refugees says 200 people an hour were seen flooding out of eastern rafah today seeking safety. that's one development. second, these new strikes and the mass evacuation are happening amid ongoing

negotiations for a potential ceasefire. there are tonight mixed signals about whether there might finally be some progress on that front. today hamas announced that it did tentatively agree to a proposal put forward by egypt and qatar. an arab official familiar with the proposal told nbc news it would be a three-phase deal. hamas would trade hostages for prisoners held in israel, those releases would take place over six weeks. they would be paired with a halt in military operations. hamas says they agreed to that, but israel says that proposal that hamas is describing is, quote, far from what israel is demanding in a -- in any ceasefire agreement. so mixed signals. israel also said it would send a delegation when talks resume in cairo tomorrow. that means talks at least will resume in cairo tomorrow. another sign of how active the situation is, the cia's director, william verns, is in

the region now. he's been in qatar for talks on the situation and then in israel when the cia director is there and part of things. presumably the u.s. thinks that's something that can get done. meanwhile, more than a million people still displaced, including thousands of people newly displaced today and tonight. joining us now is ben rhodes, former deputy national security advisor under president obama. ben, it's nice to see you, thanks for being with us. >> good to see you. >> so we've been following the competing statements and narratives and descriptions about what's happening in the talks for a potential hostage deal, potential ceasefire deal, potential halt to military operations, what's your take on the likelihood that some agreement can be reached some time soon? >> well, i think this is all connected to the potential looming rafah operation, because one of the principle gaps between hamas and israel in these negotiations is hamas wants a long-term, if not a permanent ceasefire, essentially

an end to the military operation. whereas what israel wants is a short-term pause in operation to get some of those hostages out in exchange for palestinian prisoners and then resume the military operation in rafah. if the mill taur operation in rafah goes forward, essentially i think the window closes for that kind of deal to happen. so that's why you see this flurry of diplomatic activity. if israel goes all the way into rafah, i think this window closes. >> the biden administration has been warning of negative consequences for israel if they do move forward with an assault on rafah. today we did learn about a change in u.s. policy. at least a change in white house actions. we learned that the white house halted a weapon shipment to israel last week. officials are saying this doesn't reflect a policy change, but it is at least some sort of tactical leverage move with our israeli allies. should we be wary of overinterpreting that.

should we see that as a potential sign that the white house might be willing to get more aggressive in terms of the pressure they're putting on netanyahu and the idf. >> i think you should see it that way. rafah's been looming as a potential breaking point substantively between the u.s. and israel for quite some time. biden has been harder on netanyahu rhetorically, but he's hesitant to do things like refrain from using our veto at the u.n. security council to protect israel diplomatically or refrain from providing offensive mill stair assistance, including things like 2,000-pound bombs israel's been using against the population in gaza. now, rafah would be a humanitarian catastrophe. you've got over 1 million people there densely packed in, you've got aid crossings that come across the border. a lot of those people who have been displaced have been displaced once or twice. they don't have anywhere to go where there's food. if think if you see rafah go forward with a full ground invasion, i think it's likely there will be further step business the administration to

restrict certain offensive military capabilities. the question is how significant is that break. and i think that remains to be seen. i think the preferred is to get the ceasefire deal in place. that seems to be hanging by a bit of a thread. but they're going to do everything they can to get it done. >> ben rhodes, ben, i appreciate you joining us on this tonight. thanks. >> thank, rachel. >> we'll be right back, stay with us. ll be right back, stay with us. when i was diagnosed with h-i-v, i didn't know who i would be. but here i am... being me. keep being you... and ask your healthcare provider about the number one prescribed h-i-v treatment, biktarvy.

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