You have a reason to care. You know someone. You've lost someone. You've lived it.
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Show up for CAMH and rise up for mental health. Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca That's sunrisechallenge.ca. I do believe in common-sense restrictions on abortion. That's where America's at.
As Republican presidential hopefuls continue to struggle with the abortion issue post-row, I would literally sign the most conservative pro-life legislation that they can get through Congress. Even if it was six weeks. I'm not going to talk about six or five or seven or ten. And the gun debate after more mass shootings in Tennessee and Kentucky.
The NRA holds its annual meeting and Republicans pledge support. With me at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, no one will lay a finger on your firearms. Can the two parties find common ground on issues that have divided the nation for decades? My guest this morning Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
Also rising tensions. Israel is facing crises at home and criticism abroad. They cannot continue to honor the pro. Mike's exclusive interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
People will see at the end that Israel was a democracy, is a democracy, and will be even a stronger democracy after this democratic reform. Finally, how did a 21-year-old gamer and air national guardsman gain access to the nation's top secrets? Joining me for insight and analysis on NBC News Senior Washington correspondent, former Homeland Security Secretary, Jay Johnson, Leanne Caldwell of the Washington Post, and Stephen Hayes, editor of The Dispatch. Welcome to Sunday.
It's Meet the Press. From NBC News and Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Chuck Carr. Good Sunday morning.
Debates over guns and abortion have roiled this nation for decades. This week, those debates feel a bit more intense than they have in a while. And there are some deepening tensions between activists who will power inside Republican primary circles and the overall electorate. Today marks the 16th anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting.
At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting in US history. 32 people were killed. Now, sadly, it's been surpassed by mass shootings in Las Vegas and Orlando. After five people were killed this week in a mass shooting in Louisville, Kentucky, six more killed two weeks ago at a school in Nashville.
Twenty-four Republican hopefuls gathered at the NRA Convention on Friday and rejected the idea that gun restrictions would somehow limit violence and the NRA continued to demand unlimited political allegiance from the GOP. Gun hating politicians should never go to bed unafraid of what this association and all of our millions of members can do to their political careers. The issue is not too many guns. The issue is too many thugs, hoodlums, and savage criminals on our street.
Little Miss Addie, who is almost too, I want to reassure you, she already has a shotgun and she already has a rifle. And she's got a little pony named Sparkles too, so the girl is set up. A Gallup poll conducted before the Louisville National Shooting showed 63% of Americans are dissatisfied with the nation's gun laws. But a majority of Republicans, 54% are satisfied.
And so far, that overall dissatisfaction number hasn't translated to the ballot box. Not a single pro-gun elected politician has been thrown out over the issue. But that's not true and abortion. Nowhere is the gap between the Republican base and the overall general electorate greater than on this issue, particularly after the overturning of Roe v.
Wade. On Friday, the Supreme Court put a temporary hold on a lower court ruling on the abortion pill while the court considers the Biden administration's request to preserve FDA approval of the drug. The state keeps the abortion pill widely available for now with perhaps another decision expected by Wednesday to try to clear some of this up. Of course, in theory, with the Dobbs decision, the court thought it was sending abortion back to the states.
Clearly, that is not the case. The Dobbs decision is not popular with the public, while 61% of voters disapproved of the court's decision to overturn Roe in a fall NBC News poll, 69% of Republicans approved of it. Republican elected leaders are well aware of the political challenges abortion presents right now. In 2024, presidential hopefuls have struggled to answer simple questions about where they stand on abortion rights and access.
This week, Florida Governor Rhonda Sanchez quickly signed a six-week abortion ban before a speech at Evangelical Liberty University. But he did it behind closed doors, and then he never mentioned what he did in his speech. Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to say whether he would even support a federal law that would restrict abortion. And you'll hear, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, even Mike Pence, all of them, are struggling to define their views on this issue.
Is it encouraging a culture of life, though, to propose the death penalty for women to get abortions? I must tell you that I don't, I'm not familiar with those proposals, and I don't, I don't, I don't have a way of responding to that or confirming it. I would literally sign the most conservative pro-life legislation that they can get through Congress. Even if it was six weeks.
I'm not going to talk about six or five or seven or ten. I don't want unelected justices deciding something this personal. We're not going to let this be a political football. Let's let the states work this out.
If Congress decides to do it, but don't get into that game of them saying how many weeks, how many weeks? No, let's first figure out what we agree on. And joining me now is Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, who announced this week that she plans to run for a third term. Senator Baldwin, welcome back to the press.
It's a delight to join you. Let me start with the Supreme Court's decision to put a temporary hold on the ruling having to do with Miffer Pristone in the future of Medicaid abortion in this country. You think five days is enough time to, for the Supreme Court to get all the information they need in order to make this decision? Well, who knows how long that will take, but I'm certainly glad for the five days.
But look, what we have in Texas is a judge who was not guided by science, but is part of a extreme Republican concerted effort to ban abortion nationwide. And we do not need judges, politicians, or government telling women about what sort of health care they can have. It is an issue that is not only playing out in the court in Texas, but in the state of Florida, with the governor signing on your six-week ban, Idaho forbidding travel out of state for minors, Wisconsin, where we've gone back to literally 1849. That is the date our criminal abortion ban was passed.
And that's 174 years ago. We are fighting back. If the Supreme Court decides to allow the circuits ruling to hold, which would roll back FDA approval of Miffer Pristone, essentially to pre-2016 regulations, if that happens, what do you want the Biden administration to do? For instance, do you think they should resubmit Miffer Pristone to the FDA and get a new approval?
Yeah, so we don't know what the ruling is going to be. We know that this is a drug that was proven safe and effective back in 2000. We know there have been further FDA regulations and the drug has been made available now in a recent ruling over the counter. And I don't think that there should be second guessing of the scientific-based process that FDA goes.
It has such repercussions beyond the drug Miffer Pristone to, you know, we want to be able to rely on a science-driven process that the FDA has. Let me ask you about sort of federal versus state here. In Wisconsin, assuming that the newly configured Supreme Court decides that the 1800 law is essentially null and void, that it's obsolete, it's likely that Wisconsin's abortion law would revert to a law that was passed in the 80s that would essentially make 20 weeks, I believe, the limit on when you can get an abortion. Your bill in the Senate would be Roe v.
Wade, which is essentially 24 weeks. Do you think there's a meaningful difference between 20 and 24 weeks as this debate moves forward? Yeah, so the Women's Health Protection Act codifies Roe versus Wade, but it takes the additional step to tell states that they can't pass laws that unduly limit access to that right. In Wisconsin, you talk about the 1980s law, but there have been laws passed in the 90s, and frankly, quite recently, that further restrict a woman's access to full reproductive health care, whether those are waiting periods, mandatory counseling, invasive ultrasounds.
These are the types of state interference that the Women's Health Protection Act would eliminate. I'm just curious though, how rigid are you on this? In order to get two-thirds of what you're hoping to get, and you can get 60 votes with 20 weeks, would you do it? I certainly would look at that, but here is what the bill does.
The bill talks about pre-viability and viability and relies on medical expertise because that time may change as medicine advances. So we recognize that from the get-go, and I think that's the appropriate way to do it. But I do want to get this measure passed. But you are willing to have some compromise if it was the price of getting more Republicans on board.
You could get them on board at 20 weeks rather than 24. We even heard Senator Tim Scott saying that if 20 weeks is all he could get, looking at it through the other way that perhaps he would support that, is that at all something worth? I understand. Is that all something worth at least looking at?
Certainly, it's worth looking at, but I think the way to go is to have medical science establish what's pre-viable and what's post-viability, and that's what the bill does. I want to ask you a couple of political questions. Over the last two presidential elections, just one U.S. Senator was able to win re-election despite the presidential candidate of the same party winning their, not winning their state.
It was Susan Collins and Maine in 2020. Do you think you can win re-election if Joe Biden can't carry Wisconsin? Well, I think Joe Biden will carry Wisconsin. Obviously, we don't know who the Republican nominee will be.
But despite Republican national efforts to put the spotlight on Wisconsin by hosting their convention there and having the first Republican primary debate in Wisconsin, I think we will prevail. And I think you can look at last week's momentum in our state supreme court race. What people said, resoundingly, is we want our rights and freedoms back, and we're willing to work hard, go to the polls, and win elections in order to do that. That will not diminish in 2024.
And if any Republican thinks that voters have simmered down on the abortion issue, they are wrong. That is going to continue well into the next presidential race. Senator Dianne Feinstein is recovering from a tough out with shingles. There's been some calls for her to resign now.
Where do you stand on this? Well, I certainly wish Senator Feinstein well and pleased that she has made the decision to have a fill in on her seat on the Judiciary Committee. I think that is really an important and responsible thing to do during her absence, because we have President Biden's nominees waiting for hearings and votes, and we want to keep that moving. But I wish her well, and hope she returns to the Senate very soon.
Do you think these calls for her to resign are appropriate? Look, it's up to Dianne Feinstein and her family to decide whether she wants to keep on serving, and she's had a remarkable record. And I respect that. Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat from Wisconsin, running for a third term.
Appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective with us. Thank you so much. And joining me now is Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the top Republican on the Health and Education Committee. Also, by the way, medical doctor.
Senator Cassidy, welcome back to meet the press, sir. Hey, thank you, Joe. I want to start with the dispute over Miffer Christone. You're somebody who you've not wanted for a while.
This drug to be available by mail. So I'm curious, why were you not one of the 11 Republican senators to sign on to a brief supporting the Texas ruling? I'm not quite sure what you're asking there. I mean, I get to sign on pre-sull day.
I'm not sure that has any great importance. I think what is important is that we have a political process by which we resolve these issues. That particular ruling seems to be going through. It was on a process oriented thing.
Among the reasons that they ruled that way, I'm told, is that the FDA did not follow correctly the Administrative Procedures Act. Now, that's a question of fact. It can be resolved by the courts as actively being resolved. I think the broader question is how do you resolve the issues in general?
I think that returning it to the states to allow a state's values to guide is very important. In Massachusetts and New York, California, nothing changes. In my state, a law written by a Democratic female state senator and signed into law by a Democratic governor, established a more pro-life statute. That's the way I think it's going to resolve politically.
I think the way it's going to resolve socially and culturally. On the decision on NIFA-Pristone, do you believe that the scientific community should sort of take precedent here? The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology says that NIFA-Pristone is safe and effective. You have said their word matters when it comes to over-the-counter birth control.
Should their word matter when it comes to the use of NIFA-Pristone? I think we're going back to the kind of assertion that the principal basis of the court case in Texas was about the safety. I think specifically it said that the accelerated pathway was supposed to approve a drug to treat an illness. It is a stretch to call a pregnancy an illness.
Of course, obviously we know what happens to the unborn baby. I'm not quite really sure that you're framing this question accurately. Beyond that, it's also a cultural and social issue. In my state, we're a pro-life state.
We have a legislation which is far more pro-life than it is in say California. But the Californians keep their law and we keep our law and that's the way it's going to work out nationally. I guess, though, on this Texas decision, it does seem like it's going to call into question other FDA approvals on other drugs. Do you worry about the upending a status quo and sort of upending the FDA's authority in a way that will be great sort of chaos in the pharmaceutical industry?
I think that's totally alarmist. It's totally alarmist. And by the way, when do the FDA go above the law? It can ignore the administrative procedure act, which every other agency has to follow theoretically, but they don't have to.
So I think that's alarmist and I also think that the FDA should not be above the law. I want to get you to respond to something Governor Kristin who said about the larger debate about Roe v. Wade and this. Take a listen.
I'm curious what your reaction. Roe v. Wade, whether you agree with her or not, there was a 50-year precedent there. There's a 20-year precedent with this thing.
So now to the American public, it looks like Republicans are coming in and trying to massively change and blow up the system and all of this sort of thing. You think he has a point? If you're speaking about the public's perception, I would say that would be the case. There was a doctor from New Jersey who was testifying before Congress and just grieving about how all of our patients were fearful.
And I'm thinking nothing's going to change in New Jersey. She doesn't understand the law or she understands that she's deliberately mischaracterizing. And so there is a perception issue out there. But what Dobbs does, it returns to states, the decisions to allow the decision to be reflective of the state.
In New Jersey, it doesn't change. In Louisiana, it reflects our values, again, a law written by Democratic female state senators signed into law by a Democratic governor. So I agree with the kind of the premise of what Governor Senu said, but I'm kind of disagreeing with how you're presenting it. Are you still glad that Roe v.
Wade was overturned or do you think in hindsight this was? You know, you've always said that because this is an uncomfortable, it's hard to find a middle ground. It turns, did it turn out Roe v. Wade was the uncomfortable middle ground for America?
I think Dobbs is the uncomfortable middle ground where people will confront that there's a diversity of opinion. And no one group has the ability to impose their will upon the other. And so, you know, Dobbs, I think it was a correct decision. Are you going to vote against any attempt at creating a federal standard considering that you believe this goes back to the states, whether it's any attempt, whether it's a 20-week, at one time, you had supported a 20-week bill.
Would that ever, would you ever be open to that, or do you think at this point always leave it to the states? First, I think that the Dobbs decision is a correct decision. You can give me theoreticals all day long. You surely can't on pro life, by the way, I am pro life.
But the fact that you're going to need 60 votes to get something through the Senate. What Tammy Baldwin was just talking about, there could be no restrictions in the states upon abortion, meaning that a child could be coming through the birth canal and could still be aborted. Is that right? No, it's wrong.
And most Americans think that is wrong. And the fact is Tammy will not get that through the Senate. There's not 60 votes for allowing that. On a bipartisan basis, it's already been rejected.
So, I kind of reject giving me theoretical after theoretical, just because I just, I mean, that's what you do if you want to fill airtime and get people buzzing. But it's not how we actually go. I hear you, but there seems to be a real debate here on this front. But I also want to talk about something that you have decided to touch, which is the third rail of American politics and social security.
And before I ask you about it, I want to play this ad that Donald Trump is running against Ron DeSantis on this issue. Take a look. DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements, like cutting Medicare, slashing Social Security, even raising our retirement age. How much harder is the former president and, frankly, most now Republican elected officials who are suddenly running away from touching anything with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, how much harder is this making your job of trying to convince Republicans to have this conversation?
You know, both Joe Biden and former President Trump have the same plan, which is to do nothing on Social Security and to allow a 24% cut to benefits when the fund goes insolvent in about eight or nine years. They both have the same plan. It does make it harder. When you're leading presidential candidates have made the decision to deceive the American people and to say there isn't a problem, when every actuary who looks at this says that there is a problem and someone who's currently receiving 80 years old, otherwise it will be in poverty, will get a 24% cut in their benefits by current law.
It makes it very hard when they are so irresponsible. It's true for President Biden, it's true for former President Trump. Let me ask you, in this effort to get reform, are you open to tax hikes? I mean, it's going to have to be some combination of tax hikes and probably raising the retirement age.
What we have is a big idea. And in our big idea, we create a fund which is separate from Social Security. We put about $1.5 trillion in it and we allow it to be invested in the nation's economy. There's no risk borne by the beneficiary and there's no Social Security dollars put into this separate fund.
And we allow it to sit there and we allow it to grow. And at the end, it bridges, helps bridge Social Security to sustainability. All the risk is borne by the fund. Now, what you do in the additional 25%, that is 75% of what we need to do.
The additional 25% are dials that politically we have to come together and resolve. If one side proposes something, the other side will demagog it. We see Trump and we see Biden demagog it now. We need honesty with the American people.
But we have a big idea that it solves 75% of the problem. And that's a pretty good idea. Well, Senator Cassidy, it is it is a tough issue for you to try to take a leadership position on. Good luck.
We'll be watching and I look forward to continuing this discussion down the road. Thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective. Thank you, Chuck. When we come back, it's Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rebooting a campaign that has yet to begin analyst next.
Welcome back panelists here in BC News. Senior Washington, of course, one of Hallie Jackson, she's also host an anchor of Hallie Jackson now in NBC News. Former Homeland Security Secretary Johnson, Stephen Hayes, the editor of the dispatching Lee and Caldwell co-author of the Washington Post's early 2 of 2, an anchor of Washington Post's live. Hallie Jackson, I want to focus on Ron DeSantis because it does get us into all of the current pan ringing inside the GOP, whether it's on abortion, whether it's about Donald Trump and everything.
But look at these headlines. It's astonishing to me for a candidate that is not in the race yet. We're talking about trying to stop Florida Republicans from endorsing Trump top Republican donors hours on him over social issues. Down in the polls, Wall Street Journal says he looks to rebound.
He's not announced yet. This has just been an incredibly shrinking candidate. It will not surprise you that there are people close to Ron DeSantis who are downplaying the headlines that you just showed here, Chuck, because they feel like it is still early days yet. Although I do think that I wouldn't be surprised.
He is eluded to, I think, people he's talked to. He doesn't want to announce anything. It's a lack of the state legislative session. I think it'll be my sense.
It's going to be fairly soon after that and not in long time after that because they want to get in this race and start to push back. I think you're already seeing some of that coming out with these ads now going up against Donald Trump from the Super PAC. You're starting to see some of it in the way that they are drawing some of these policy distinctions on issues like abortion because on this, I think they have a sense that what's he going to do? He's not going to not sign.
He's not going to veto a six-week abortion ban in Florida. And they think that while this is maybe in the primary, there is no other good option here. So, of course, he's going to do it, and they're going to talk about it. Steve Hayes, there is a Republican donor community that is desperate for Goldilocks.
They're looking for that person that can somehow bring the Trump wing and the establishment wing up behind. And DeSantis was supposed to be Goldilocks. Is the board too hot? It's difficult, balanced strike.
I think. Look, there's certainly a thirst, I think, among Republican elected officials, some Republican rank-of-file voters to move beyond Donald Trump. We saw this in remarks over the weekend from Governor Brian Kemp. Georgia, you've seen this from top Republican donors.
There's polling that suggests this is the case with Republicans more broadly. I was curious about what Ron DeSantis is doing. Donald Trump has picked a fight with evangelical, white evangelical voters who were the core of his base, blaming them for abortion-related problems after the 2022 midterms. And there's an obvious place for Ron DeSantis to drive a wedge between Trump and his base.
And he's choosing not to do it. Oh, I see. You think he was setting it up on policy, but they're not doing it? As you pointed out, he's not talking about it.
He went to Liberty University. He didn't tout it. He didn't mention it. This seems like an obvious place for Ron DeSantis to split Trump from some of the evangelical voters who are frustrated with his comments after the 2022 midterms.
Watch how DeSantis strikes me in baseball. There's an old term called rabbit ears. Somebody's at bat and they hear all of the critiques behind them. And it seems like he hears every criticism in response to it.
Oh, you're not doing this enough. You're not doing this enough. Oh, I don't like your Ukraine response. And he's almost responding to it all.
Wait, too many abortions are happening in Florida right now. Let me deal with that. Yeah. Well, there's some concern among some Republicans that he's not yet ready for primetime.
That's one of the messages that Nikki Haley is pushing. And that's what you hear from Republican sources as well. He's not tested. He's been in a bubble in Florida, not talking to the press, not engaging.
And he is very popular there. But what happens when he meets a national media? What happens when he meets Donald Trump, who is masterful at taking down his candidates or his opponents? You know, it's interesting, Jay Johnson.
I one note a caution I throw at some people as we're writing off down. I think Ron DeSantis is too quick is about this time Barack Obama in 20 2007 supporters are going, Hey, he hasn't caught Hillary Clinton yet. What's wrong? He doesn't he doesn't have what it takes.
You know, donors were starting to bring their hand and then the debates happened. The campaign happened in things of place. You think there's a little bit of over overreaction? Chuck, as you know, in politics a month is a year and a week is a month.
I agree with Steve. I think DeSantis is making a very concerted effort to be the most aggressively conservative person in this field and is trying to go after Trump's base. I'm puzzled that he did not mention the six week bill at Liberty University. Especially Liberty.
Especially Liberty. Especially the way he did it. Like he flew, he quickly flew from Ohio to Florida to sign the bill so he can get there to the next day. You're like, Oh, I've spoken there and I it's the pro-life stance is the one big unifying thing among the student body of the faculty at Liberty University.
Let me show you something. Tim Scott did his sort of semi roll up. Yeah. Let me show you two versions of Tim Scott and abortion issues.
Watch. With that 20 week ban reached your desk, would you sign it? 20 week ban. Definitely.
I'm not going to talk about six or five or seven or ten. I'm just saying that whatever the most conservative legislation is that can come through Congress is what you just said. It underscores this. They don't know how to what to say.
What'll be what may be interesting to you is that there are people close to Tim Scott who are happy with the headline coming out of our colleague Ali Vitale's interview because they feel like the line is he's going to sign whatever the most conservative policy of Congress. Whatever is going to come through Congress will have some conservative consensus. So that is going to be anything the line that you'll see from him moving forward. What's interesting is I heard from the other side of the aisle because obviously the big issue and why we're talking about this is what does this mean for a general election.
When you look at where the American population is where American voters are at large and one Democrat frees it to me this way. Tim Scott's present essentially could be Ron DeSantis's future. Right. The idea that there is some difficulty in coming and answering some of that abortion question.
I will say doesn't some of this though on DeSantis give you 2015 vibes. All of these other candidates sniping at each other. Not Scott Walker but the idea Donald Trump is still the leader of the pack and there has been a hesitancy so far to go after him in an aggressive and fulsome way. I think because people are seeing where his numbers are post indictment with the Republican primary base.
Steve last week though at the front of him I thought was right. He's like no one's in charge of the party. Right. And that's the problem.
There is no consensus abortion position and without it I think the Democrats can define the Republicans. Yeah you can make an argument that there are many places on many policies where Republicans don't have a consensus position because it's just whatever Donald Trump has won for the last six years. But I think part of this is also how early it is in the process. You have these candidates who are sort of quasi candidates.
Right. They've come out they said they want to be president. They're not really willing to take Donald Trump on because it's early and they're not articulating their own policy position so they're being asked to react and respond to everything else. All right.
When we come back you think it's tumultuous here in the American domestic political scene. The loan democracy in the Middle East maybe even more divided than me. It's rather Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joins me next. Welcome back as tumultuous as the America domestic political is these days the loan democracy in the Middle East maybe even more divided.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to weaken the Supreme Court in Israel has triggered nationwide protests. Meanwhile in just a week Israel has exchanged fire with Palestinians and Palestinian groups in the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip as well as with both Lebanon and Syria. The crises have only deepened the tensions between the United States and Israel that have been simmering a bit for months. I'm joined now by the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mr. Prime Minister. Welcome back to the press. Let me start with your judicial reform package to say that it has gotten a negative reception might be an understatement.
Your own defense minister called for a pause in it. He was concerned about it hurting Israel's security due to so many reservists being upset about it. The Israeli public public approval for you is plummeted. The most recent channel 13 poll has 71% disapproving of the job you are doing.
Even among your own lukut party members more people have a negative view of your job than a positive and late last week the credit agency Moody's downgraded Israel's economic rating due to what it said was what reflects a deterioration of Israel's governance as illustrated by the recent events around the government proposal for overhauling the country's judiciary. Given all of this have you decided to rethink and pull back on some of your reform? Well, you loaded so many things. Many of them incorrect in your questions.
I'll try to unpack that one by one. Okay. The first thing is that I look for a broad consensus on the judiciary. Every democracy, including your own, has a continuous tension between the judiciary and the executive or the legislator.
That's happening in America. It's happening in France. It's happening in Israel. It's the natural tension of trying to keep the balance between the three branches of government and Israel is no different.
In Israel, the last 30 years has been a growing irrigation by the Supreme Court of the powers of the executive and the legislator. We're trying to bring it back into a proper balance. But that obviously has concerns because democracy is based on the will of the majority, the will of the people that reflected in the government that is elected and the legislature that is elected and protecting individual rights, the will of the majority and the rights of the minority. And how to balance that is something that we're working at now.
It's not easy. I want to make sure the pendulum doesn't swing from an all powerful judiciary, always independent, but not always all powerful that overrules the government or the parliament. But at the same time, I don't want the parliament overruling automatically every decision of the Supreme Court. So I've decided to take time out, try to get a balance between the opposing views and there are strongly opposing views in both sides of our society.
And I hope you reached this by consensus. I think that's actually the right thing to do. And I'm doing it. But do you understand why perhaps your opponents in the country just don't take you at face value about the judicial reforms?
Because you yourself would benefit from these reforms due to your corruption trial and the ability perhaps to make this either corruption trial totally go away or be delayed. How can you lead this effort if you yourself may benefit from this effort? How do you make it credible to the public? Here's another fib, another lie.
That's just not true. My own legal proceedings, which by the way are crumbling, all these charges against me have been crumbling. It's interesting that the hostile press stop covering it, stop covering the trial, I mean it began because things are just crumbling one after the other. But be that as it may, it's important to understand the judges in my case have already been chosen.
I've made it absolutely abundantly clear that the reform will not affect any judge who today or tomorrow in the future has to deal with my case. So my case is completely independent from this. And the thing that happened to me- Well, the cadets that did change the capacity law. They changed the incapacity law on the prime minister to make sure that if you're indicted, that that wouldn't be cause for removal.
Or excuse me, if you're convicted, it won't be cause for removal. No, actually that's not true. The important thing is that it actually would be a cause for removal. It's the charges that are not a subject.
Otherwise you can charge anyone. You can have some politically appointed prosecutors, Justice Jackson said, a famous American jurist, he said, the power of a politically motivated prosecution, they can just remove anybody on anything. And therefore in Israel under the unanimous decision of the Israeli Supreme Court, you cannot remove a prime minister based on charges and charges, but that can be politicized. So that hasn't changed.
And that is actually enshrined in law and in Supreme Court decisions. Look, the whole thing is there is an issue. It's a real issue. It affects many democracies sooner or later.
It's affected Israel because of the imbalance of the three branches of government. We're trying to bring it back and balance. But I think trying to bring it back into balance requires, at least for me as prime minister, of a democratic fiercely, a robustly democratic country called Israel to try to do it in as broad an agreement as possible. And I'm definitely giving it a shot.
By the way, do you accept that this has taken a toll on you politically that the public doesn't like this? Do you accept the premise that the public is upset about this? Oh, some of it is upset. You wouldn't know about the other side that wants to have the judiciary form because their demonstrations are not covered.
You want said two terms should be enough for an Israeli prime minister. Why did you backtrack? Yeah, I said, I didn't backtrack. I said if you had a presidential system, you could put term limits on the on the prime minister.
There is no elected parliamentary democracy in which you have limitations on terms of service of the prime minister. I know there's not there, but you yourself said you have that in presidential. You said you yourself said you didn't think state and power that you know that if you can't accomplish your goals in your first term, you might accomplish that in your second, but you don't need any more time than that. I was referring to a question on a presidential system.
But if you want to know, I think I still have and apparently the people of Israel think I still have many things to do. Blockly runs quest for the bomb, expand the circle of peace with other Arab countries, the forj Israel's economy to bring it to much higher levels. I've made it a free market economy, but I think we have incredible potential and all these things, and perhaps arrive at a consensual judicial reform. These are for big tickets.
By the way, I have another eight, but I'm not going to take that. President Biden has weighed in concerned about the judicial reform. Do you believe this is impacting US-Israeli relations? No, I don't.
I think President Biden has been a great friend of Israel. I've known him for 40 years from the time he was a senator through vice president, through president. I know his commitment to Israel's security. Friends can have disagreements on occasion, but I share with him the view that we should act not on share with you.
I'm actually acting on it to try to reach a broad consensus as possible. I want to tell you one thing, Chuck. When I compare the degree of coordination between Israel and America on security matters, on intel, on cyber, economic cooperation, I mean, there's just no comparison to where this was 20, 27 years ago. Today, it's I think Israel, I always say America is Israel's indispensable and by far the best ally.
But I want to tell you, I don't think you have a better ally in the world than Israel because Israel has become a great technological power in a great asset to the United States. And our cooperation, mutual cooperation, saves a lot of American and Israeli lives. Speaking of our relationship, the damaging leaks that came out of the US government and the US military, one of those leaked documents indicated that Assad, the Israeli version of the CIA, advocated for its members to protest the current government. Do you believe Assad opposes your government?
No, God, no. I think that was, first of all, I value American intelligence a little more than that. And I think they probably know the truth. The truth is that the Mossad legal advisor said that under Israeli law, junior members of Mossad can participate in the demonstrations, not senior members.
That's I think what led to this misunderstanding. But no, I think I think the Mossad, the military, the internal security services are working hand in hand with me, it's my ministry to assure the security of the country and they're doing a damn good job of it too. Well, as you probably can tell, there's a lot more to that interview. You can see my full interview with Prime Minister Netanyahu at meetthepress.com.
When we come back, gun violence is completely causing death for children and teens. We're going to break down which communities are getting hit the hardest by the seven. Welcome back to 2020 for the first time since the start of the century, gun violence surpassed car accidents to become the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 18. So let's take a look at how this happened and how it did not affect all kids and teens equally.
I'm going to show you this in 2019 before the pandemic. Over 1700 kids and teens were killed by guns by 2021. That number grew by 50 percent. It's now over 25 months.
And this impacts everyone. But the data shows that it does not impact folks equally. 2021 black kids were about five times more likely to die from gunfire than white or spanish kids. And with a start, 11.8 gun deaths for 100,000 children and teens compared to just 2.3 deaths in white and spanish kids, and less than one death for 100,000 of Asian children and teens, that is a massive racial divide.
And there are also racial disparities in how young people experienced gun violence. In 2021, the overwhelming majority of gun deaths among black kids were homicides, 84 percent, while just 9 percent for suicides. For white kids, that was reversed, which is a quarter being homicides and 66 percent being suicides. And remember in 2021, many schools were still doing remote learning.
So this data gives us a much clearer picture of gun violence in America and how youth experience outside of the mass school shootings that often dominate the headlines. Before we go to break, there perhaps there's been no senator more closely associated with the guns issued the dying funds. And this week, California Democrat asked me temporary replace on the judiciary committee during her health-related absence. She first appeared on this program as the mayor of San Francisco back in 1984.
Presidential candidate Walter Mondale was considering her as his running man. I'm still not seeking the position of vice president. I've had an opportunity now to be the first woman and the first mayor to be asked to go through an interview process. And I view that as a major opening of the door and something that's very important to do.
It is very important that that door be open to a broad selection process and that people, women, minorities, mayors, senators, be considered in a careful way so that the strongest possible ticket can be put together. When we come back, how did a 21-year-old national guardsman who spent in uniform just three and a half years gain access to our nation's top secrets and was back after the break? Welcome back. Jay Johnson, you were before you at DHS, you were at the Pentagon.
Yes. How does a 21-year-old international guardsman end up with all this access to classified documents? Last time I checked her rental car seems to have more scrutiny of our youth when it comes to deciding who gets that car. Then apparently the US military.
That's my question. How does a 21-year-old enlisted member of the Massachusetts Guard get access to TS-level information? It's one of two things. Either it was part of his job to review this stuff and then he took screenshots or hit print and walked out with it, which he shouldn't have done obviously.
Or I read somewhere he was a specialist, a technician. So he may well have had access to that level of classified information and then reached to get something he should not have read in the first place. I mean, you put all these on computer networks, you need some tech support. Do they not think that the IT folks might be a vulnerable?
Hey, don't look for the answer here. I'm stunned by this. And there are all these questions about should have been clamped down, should have been clamped down, should we make it tighter. I tend to be a little philosophical about this.
We have an incident like this, one in 10,000, where somebody steals something. And then you have an incident like another Boston marathon bombing 10 years ago. And everyone says, why didn't you connect the dots? Why didn't you connect the dots?
And we want to make it broader, wider, more access. And so it's like a pendulum. It goes back and forth. And there's a happy medium somewhere.
You know, how like nothing that was leaked was stuff that we didn't largely know. You know, meaning like we knew Egypt had a history with Russia. We knew, you know, look, there were some specifics that were embarrassing in these other countries. So in some ways, you know, there's part of me like going, oh, it's nice to know that the intelligence, you know, that this is what it is.
It's what it looks like. And I think the sense, and it's talking with a couple of folks close to the White House on this, they are they're reporting to what the president Biden said that there's nothing contemporary is not not really talking about the fact of the leak itself, but the underlying information that was released here. The sense is like, hey, they think people in the country largely support with the Biden administration is doing, let's say on Russia and Ukraine, and this is not going to be a game changer there. And politically, the question is how much hay is there?
There's really, although I talked to some Democrats who want to frame it, like Republicans are out there defending this guy, this leaker. It's really not all Republicans. It's really just one elected Republican, and that's Marjorie Taylor Greene. Well, that seemed to be a bizarre thing.
Yeah, yeah, more of a detour than a main event. Yeah, it's a kind of, the Intel committees are, we're going to want some kind of flesh air. Yeah, my sources on the Intel committees in Congress are saying that this is absolutely going to be an issue. There's going to be an all senator classified briefing when they return this week in the middle of the week.
And the intelligence committees have a lot of questions, not only why do so many people have access to classified information, and what sort of fallout is there from this? They want to know not what president Biden says, but what the intelligence committee is saying with a fallout is going to be. So this is going to be an issue, but this has also been an issue and there have been leaks before after this note and issue. And I, you know, Jay, you know better.
I'm not sure how much change there has been in the classified complex since after each one, but Congress is going to focus on this. Look, Steve, this is a challenge because of our ability technology. We have more classified intelligence than ever before because we have so much signals in television. We're able to.
So, you know, I don't know how, you know, we have this issue with so much income. Yeah, that does need to be sorted through it. No, I mean, I think this is downstream from the overclassification problem. There's no question about it.
You know, more than a million people will have access to US government top secret clearances. I mean, that's a problem. I think it needs to be narrowed. I don't buy the argument from Joe Biden that this is of no great consequences.
And the people I talk to in the intelligence community don't buy it either. You think about ways that Joe Biden has downplayed other issues related to national security intelligence. The Afghanistan withdrawal was just fine when according to plan, there was no real intelligence problems with the China balloon collection. You talk about domestic policy, inflation is transitory.
I think Joe Biden has a credibility problem generally, but I think he certainly has a credibility problem with respect to intelligence. I think there are those that are trying to draw the distinction though. Nobody thinks the leak was good. Everybody thinks it was bad, right?
As far as the fact of the matter of the leak itself and then the information that revealed. I agree with you. I think Congress is going to hammer this. I think when you look at it through a political let's say 2024 lens, I think that's it too.
I will get you on the post game. Could have been worse. Could have been much worse. He could have put out stuff that was much more.
Well, we don't know what else hasn't been seen. That's it. That's all I have for today. Thanks for watching.
We'll be back next week with us. If it's on it, it's me.