Meet the Press NOW — December 10

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Welcome to Meet the Press. I'm Kristen Walker in Washington, and we begin with more breaking news. President Trump just moments ago confirming reports that the U.S. seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela amid the growing escalation between the White House and Maduro regime.

Here's what President Trump said in the last hour at the start of a roundtable event with business leaders. As you probably know, we just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized, actually. And other things are happening. So you'll be seeing that later and you'll be talking about that later with some other people.

The president also said the tanker was seized for a, quote, very good reason and that he believes the U.S. will keep the oil that was seized. Seized. Now it comes as the Pentagon continues to target suspected drug trafficking vessels.

And just last night, President Trump again warned that the U.S. could begin land strikes on Venezuela. This afternoon, in a speech to farmers, Venezuelan regime leader Nicolas Maduro referred to the tensions with the U.S., calling these historic times and saying his country is ready for a fight. Joining me now is NBC News senior national security correspondent Courtney Kube.

Courtney, I know this is all just breaking out. The details just coming in. We just heard from President Trump about this for the very first time. But what more can you tell us about this oil tanker that was seized?

So, so far, we believe that at least the Coast Guard was involved. All we've heard is sort of vague, you know, it was U.S. forces, but we don't really know the details of that. Now, that would make sense that the Coast Guard has historically been involved in interdictions in that region.

But the big that is generally interdictions of drugs, not oil like this. So the big question is, under what authority is the U.S. doing this? And if they are actually holding this enormous tanker, as the president has described it, under what authority are they doing that and how long would that happen?

President Trump apparently is taking questions right now still as part of his event and apparently was just asked who was going to keep the oil. And it didn't even seem clear that he had an answer to that. So the next question is also why? Why would the U.S.

do this? Now, there's two likely reasons. Number one would be to try to discourage oil Venezuela from trying to ship oil out of their country. Most of their oil goes to China, ultimately.

So this could discourage commerce and hurt the Venezuelan economy and thereby the Maduro government, of course. Or is this just another way to show an escalation in what has really been this drip, drip, drip of increasing escalation between the U.S. and frankly, from the U.S. towards Venezuela.

Yeah, you're absolutely right, Courtney. You've been tracking every single inch of it. What kind of military assets does the United States have in the region right now? Because you're describing this pressure campaign and the military assets seem to be a piece of it.

We have the U.S. has a ton there. So not only do they have about 10 different ships, including a nuclear powered submarine. They have surface ships there.

They have support. They have aircraft, fighter aircraft, surveillance aircraft, logistics support by air. And then they have about 15000 men and women, both afloat and ashore. So they have everything that they need there if they wanted to escalate this even further, not necessarily a land invasion, a ground invasion of Venezuela, which, you know, that's notable here because the president has been asked about that numerous times lately.

And he will not say all he says is I'm not going to tell you about whether I'm actually considering boots on the ground there. But but short of that, the U.S. could conduct limited strikes there. They could do things like this here today.

The U.S. military, even if this was solely a Coast Guard interdiction, that means stopping and seizing a large oil tanker is not a small mission, by the way. The military would have things that they could have supported with, like overhead surveillance. They could have watched it from overhead and provided that kind of support, too.

You know, you talk about what could be coming next and just to flesh it out a little bit. I mean, the president continues to tease this idea that there is a possibility of land strikes in Venezuela. It's prompted a huge debate on Capitol Hill. Democrats, but Republicans also saying that Congress would need to have oversight, would need to sign off on that before it happens.

Where, based on your reporting, does that stand, Court? Yeah. And I think that there is a concern that the president would do, which maybe what we've seen in the past in other areas, conduct some sort of strikes and then go to Congress afterwards with some sort of an OLC justification for it. There are some on the Hill who are talking about a potential war powers resolution vote.

We could see that. There is no authorization to use the military force. I mean, what's really key here is the administration is talking about what's happening down there with the drugs as a war right now. But there has been no actual declaration of war.

Of course, that's only Congress can do that. So what is this, what we're seeing here today with this oil tanker? There's no war again. The justification and the motivation for this is going to be key here.

Hopefully, we'll get some answers soon. Well, I know you're going to be searching for them and asking for them, Courtney Kuby. If anyone can get those answers, you can. Thank you so much for being here.

Really appreciate it. Turning now to more breaking news. This on the economy as the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates for a third time this year. The Fed announcing a quarter point cut earlier today, as expected, while saying there is notable uncertainty facing the economy and the job market.

It was a highly contentious decision for the Fed, with three of the central bank's 12 voting members dissenting. Wall Street welcoming today's news. The Dow, S&P and NASDAQ all up on the day. The Dow up almost 500 points, in fact.

The Fed's decision coming as the president hit the road last night for his first campaign style event in months as the White House attempts to address voters' dissatisfaction with the economy and the cost of living. The president attempting to focus on affordability, which he's previously called a Democratic hoax. Here's a little bit of what he had to say. And I have no higher priority than making America affordable again.

That's what we're going to do. And again, they caused the high prices and we're bringing them down. It's a simple message. They have a new word.

You know, they always have a hoax. The new word is affordability. So they look at the camera and they say, this election is all about affordability. Lower prices, bigger paychecks.

We're getting inflation. We're crushing it. And you're getting much higher wages. I mean, the only thing that's really going up big, it's called the stock market and your 401Ks.

And I can't say affordability hoax because I agree the prices are too high. So I can't call it a hoax because they'll misconstrue that. But they use the word affordability. And that's the only word.

They say affordability. And everyone says, oh, that must mean Trump has high prices. NBC News senior business correspondent Christine Romans joins me now along with NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba. Thank you both for being here.

Christine, I have to start with you and this rate cut by the Fed. The fact that there were three dissenting members. Very notable. What do you make of that?

What does it say about the Fed's outlook on the economy? So one Trump aligned member wanted to cut 50 basis, wanted a bigger rate cut to juice the economy. And two others didn't want to move rates at all. So it shows you some dissent and decision on the board.

But overall, you've got an economy here that is doing well, is growing, according to the Fed chief. But the job market is what they're worried about. And the Fed chief a couple of times says that we might even be seeing negative job creation right now, meaning negative job growth at this moment. So watching that, that's why they lowered rates to try to juice the job market a little bit.

And is there uncertainty about what might come next? Are you anticipating another rate cut the next time the Fed meets? It looks like the Fed is penciling in another rate cut sometime next year, but it's no guarantee it's earlier in the year. And when you look at the economic projections, every few meetings, they release new economic projections.

They're expecting the unemployment rate to rise to four and a half percent by the end of this year, but then get a little bit better next year. And they're expecting inflation to taper off a little bit next year as well, still above their target. You know, and I asked the Fed, though, about this idea, the Fed chief about this idea of the K-shaped economy where really a lot of the economic activity has been driven by people with money in the stock market, people with home equity, rich people. Everyone else is really concerned about prices.

And he said they are watching that. They've been hearing a lot about this and they're not sure how sustainable that is. Well, all of this going on against the backdrop of President Trump trying to determine who the next Fed chair will be. We understand there's now a short list.

Kevin Hassett, likely one of those on the short list. What are you hearing about who might get this and the timing of it? There is another person, Kevin Worsh, who the But he did say that he was going to be out there, that the fact that in recent elections there were some losses for Republicans, he believes and the White House believes it was because Trump, the name, wasn't on the ballot. So they're going to try to make the case that in the 2026 midterms, he will be as close to being on the ballot as possible by being out and campaigning and stumping for some of these Republican candidates.

Kristen. All right, Monica Alba, great reporting as always. Thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

And if it's Wednesday, we got election results and another potential sign of momentum for Democrats. In Miami's mayoral runoff, Democrat Aileen Higgins defeated Republican Emilio Gonzalez by nearly 20 points. And it's the first time in nearly 30 years the city has elected a Democrat. Higgins ran a campaign focused on exactly what you heard the president talking about affordability and criticism of President Trump, who endorsed Gonzalez.

Joining me now for more on that and what Higgins' victory might mean for the midterms, NBC's Steve Kranacki. Steve, thanks so much for being here. So this comes on the heels of a successful election season for Democrats. How much should folks be reading into what happened in Miami?

Yeah, you know, normally we talk about mayoral elections and not necessarily being a bit separate from national partisan politics. I will say this race in Miami, and we're talking here about, remember, this is the city of Miami, about half a million people. There's also Miami-Dade County that we talk about a lot. That's much larger.

It takes in more area, more people. But this is the actual city of Miami, about 500,000 people in South Florida. And this one took on more of a partisan cast. This race did.

I think it was shaped more by national political attitudes, by the national political atmosphere and by the national parties themselves than we've typically seen in Miami mayoral elections in the past and in mayoral elections across the country in general. So, yes, you have the Democratic candidate winning here in Miami by nearly 20 points, a 19 point margin. One of the reasons I think folks nationally then wanted to look at this when this race became a bit nationalized was the demographics of Miami. You're talking about a city that's nearly three quarters Hispanic, a lot of Cuban Americans, but folks also with backgrounds from Central, South America, a lot of different countries of origin as well.

This was kind of the epicenter of Donald Trump's big gains, big inroads with Hispanic voters starting in the 2020 election. So put in perspective, we have this mayoral election in 19 point Democratic margin here. More recently, that's a big change from last year. This was the city again, not the county, but the city of Miami last year voted for Kamala Harris by a point.

So that's an 18 point shift toward the Democrats from last year's presidential election. We saw as well Ron DeSantis when he got reelected governor in 2022. Again, it was pretty much dead even in the city of Miami. Now again, big Democratic wins.

Put that 19 point margin. That's more in line with 2020. Joe Biden won Miami by 19. That's what we saw last night.

And again, Miami had been much more Democratic still in 2018 and in 2016. Trump had made gains in 2020. He made further gains in 2024. So that result last night kind of seems to turn the clock back politically about five years in Miami.

That 19 points in the mayoral election in 19 points in the 2020 presidential election. The risk for Republicans, obviously, they don't want to slip further than that. And then there's also the tea leaves for next year's midterms. Again, these are special House elections.

These are all the special House elections we've had this year on the screen here. And again, this was how the 2024 election went in those districts. This is how the special elections went. The seats that Republicans won.

They won by a lot smaller margin than Trump did. The seats that Democrats won. They won by a lot bigger margin than Kamala Harris did. So you saw that in the House special elections and in this sort of nationalized mayoral election in Miami.

Again, that was an 18 point shift away from the Republicans toward the Democrats. Totally, Kristen, in line with that. All right, lots of tea leaves to read. Steve Kornacki, thank you so much.

Coming up, finding common ground in the age of heightened political rhetoric. NBC News sits down with a pair of bipartisan governors to discuss the rise in political violence and the importance of working across the aisle. Plus, we've got something new in our NBC News app. You can now sign up for a subscription to get the best of NBC News with fewer ads, including ad-free articles, podcasts and full shows, plus exclusive content from me and behind the scenes access to our reporters on the ground.

Just scan the QR code to learn more. Stay with us. You're watching Meet the Press now. Welcome back.

Turning now to a new conversation in our NBC News Finding Common Ground initiative. Last night at the National Cathedral right here in Washington, D.C., NBC's Savannah Guthrie sat down with two governors who have faced high profile incidents of political violence this year. Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox and Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro to discuss the importance of civil discourse in these turbulent times. Here it is.

So you two have a lot in common. You're both governors. You're both fathers of four. You're both recovering lawyers.

You both have worked across party lines. Most importantly, you're both Gen Xers. I got a shout out for that. Before we get into the meat of it, what made you want to have this conversation with each other and feel that the trust was there to have it?

Well, good evening, everyone. This is incredible, by the way. You look amazing up there. What a beautiful place to have this conversation.

I got to know, we have something with the National Governors Association, we call new governor school. And so when new governors are elected, the very seasoned governors like me, who had two years of experience, step in and we have conversations with our new governors. And that's where we got to know Josh and his amazing wife, Lori. By the way, we have more in common than that.

We married our high school sweethearts. And we both married way up. Way so far up. I hope they don't figure it out, especially tonight.

And so, look, you get to know governors work together. This this grand experiment that we embarked on, part of it was that we would the states would be laboratories of democracy. And we do have to get stuff done and we don't care who gets the credit. If there's a good idea in a blue state, I'm going to steal it.

If there's a good idea in a red state, I know Joshua used that as well. But we've we've had these conversations. And so I could sit up here with almost any governor in this country and have this conversation. But I just need to tell you, when that very dark day happened in my state, the first call I got was from this guy, from Governor Shapiro.

And he gave me some advice that changed what I was going to say when I stepped in front of that camera for the first time. And he told me to speak with moral clarity and to speak from the heart. And so that's that's why I don't I don't care what what color his politics are. In that moment, we were we were two Americans who were deeply saddened and struggling.

And I'm grateful that there's somebody I can trust, even though we disagree on a lot of things. We agree on this thing. I want to begin again by saying just how extraordinary it is for us to be able to have this conversation with all of you in this extraordinary setting. Both men of faith.

I know we respect this cathedral quite a bit. And we're thankful for your willingness to engage in this conversation with us. When my wife and I and our family concluded our Passover Seder in April of this year, and just a few moments after we retired to the living quarters of the governor's residence, an arsonist broke in, fired Molotov cocktails throughout the home and wielding a metal hammer. Later testified that he was there to use it to kill me.

In the immediate moments after that, I was focused only on being a good father, a good husband and a good governor in that order. I felt the need to have a conversation with my family first and with the good people of Pennsylvania second. I never looked to myself to being any sort of expert on political violence or frankly, needing to engage in a national conversation about political violence until I saw Spencer Cox in the wake of the killing of Charlie Kirk handle that manner matter in the way that he did. I saw him lift up not just Utahns, but create an opportunity for a dialogue that I think we sorely need in this country to try and lift everyone up and get us out of the darkness of political violence that has fallen upon us.

And I think it was at that moment to get to the heart of your question where I thought I need to have this conversation and it needs to be with Spencer, not just because I respect the heck out of him as a governor and so I think he does really good work. And even when we disagree on something, we disagree better and find ways to find common ground. But because I think this is a necessary conversation that has to happen in our country if we're going to get out of this, and this is the man I want to have the conversation with, given the strength of his leadership in a really dark moment in his state. I think so many people are interested in this conversation because so many Americans are in despair about what we see.

And we don't really recognize that There was one report in particular by Rachel Kleinfeld. Rachel had studied political violence across all cultures and over time, and she was the one that got me the most interested and the most nervous, quite frankly. And what she said was that we're passing all the checkpoints towards well, ultimately failed states and things like civil war. I hate even using that phrase, but if we don't make a course correction, that's where this leads.

And it also creates this environment where people who aren't stable, who do have mental illness, feel like they need to do something, right? I mean, the person who threatened to shoot me two years ago, somebody who's been unstable for a long time, has had lots of problems. Everybody knows about these problems. But in this environment where it's so toxic, where they're hearing lies about us and our families, now feels like they have to do something.

And so this is where we are. It leads to a moment where Charlie Kirk loses his life in the very act, in the very act of speaking, the most American thing we can do is an act of political speech. And whether you agreed with what he said or you hated what he said, now it's harder for all of us to do that. It's harder for us to come on a stage like this, even though we do have amazing security, and we appreciate that.

It's there. It's always in the back of your mind, right? And so if some people now won't go to a college campus where a rally is happening because of what happened at Utah Valley University, then we've lost the piece of what makes us American, what the founders so believed in. And so to the things that were said earlier, you've all said so eloquently, that's where we have to fight.

We have to fight to protect that for us to be able to engage. Because one of the things that Charlie said that I still believe is he says, when we stop talking, that's when we start shooting. And so we have to fight back against that. We have to put our stake in the ground and say, we're going to have events like this and others where we can disagree, where we can disagree passionately, where we can try to convince others about what we believe in, because that's what it means to be an American.

I feel like you can have this conversation, and I'm just going to go ahead and be blunt, because there is a lot of divisive rhetoric that's out there. And I actually had a beautiful montage prepared to show you. It was completely bipartisan, because you can actually find examples that are deeply disturbing from both sides of the aisle. And my question to you is, who do you blame?

How did we get here? Where is the line? Is it okay to say a political figure is a threat to democracy? Is it okay to say, I hate my political enemy?

Where is the line? Because we have to get very practical about it. It's lovely to have a conversation preaching to the choir, quite literally in a church. And it's another thing to say, this is acceptable and this isn't, in terms of leadership.

And where would you speak to that? Where do you feel that line is? Well, let's be clear. Political violence has hit people on the left and the right.

It's been engaged in by some people on the political left and the political right. Let's remember, when you pick up a gun and try and shoot someone, you are not sane and rational and a linear thinker. And so sometimes your views can be characterized on the political right or the political left. In just the last few months, you've seen Charlie Kirk, a conservative, and Speaker Hortman in Minnesota murdered.

People on the left and right. In my home state, you've seen an assassination attempt on the President of the United States on the right and myself and my family on the political left. We need to begin by saying that all leaders must condemn all political violence, not cherry pick which violence to condemn and which violence to accept. Leaders have a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity and call it out wherever they see it, exactly the way Spencer Cox does.

Here's what we cannot allow. For leaders that don't act with moral clarity, remain silent about certain violence, or give a pass to others. Because that is insidious. That is gasoline on the fire.

And that leads to greater violence. I'm going to say it, and I realize it may not be popular with some in this room. When you're a governor, when you're a president of the United States, you are looked to for that moral clarity. And we have a president of the United States right now that fails that test on a daily basis.

It should not be hard to see the Minnesota Speaker of the House gunned down and mourn her loss. It should not be hard to follow the beautiful eulogy of Erica Kirk with an amen instead of saying, I can't do that. I hate my enemies, as the president did. We have a crisis in this country that requires all of us to do better.

The panel before spoke about citizen engagement and participation. What are we to ask of citizens if their leaders aren't meeting that standard? I understand that there are ways to disagree forcefully on policy, but I think it is critically important that at the same time, we leave no room for anyone to allow for violence and fail to universally condemn it. That is what we need in this country, and I believe it starts at the top.

Governor Cox, it puts you in an awkward position as a Republican, but I think you're familiar with that space. You've spoken and you've been quite candid when you've agreed with President Trump and when you haven't. After the attempt on his life, you wrote a letter to President Trump, and you reached out a hand and you said, I hope that this is a moment in which you can unify our country. You can do that.

How do you feel that he has responded to that? Do you still feel hope that that can happen? Sure, yeah. Look, there are people that admire him and want his bluntness and want that because they feel like the times call for it.

And in fairness to them, they think the time for polite dialogue is over. So how do you respond to all of these varying factors? Sure. Yeah, so this is the thing that always comes up, right?

And there's two things I want to say. So one, I think if President Trump were here right now, he would tell you that this isn't his thing. And he would be very honest about that. I think he was very honest about it at the celebration of Charlie Kirk's life.

And he and I have had this conversation. And it was interesting after the press conference, when I talked, when I shared so passionately how I felt about bringing our country together, he called me and he thanked me. And he said, I appreciate that you said that. And I liked that part.

And he was asked afterwards, he said, do you agree with Governor Cox that we should practice nonviolence? And he said, yes, I agree with him 100%. Now that didn't get as much attention, obviously. And I'm not trying to I'm not trying to play down his divisive rhetoric at all.

I'm not going to do that. But I'm going to say this. If we if we think that a president of the United States or a governor is going to change where we are right now, we're fooling ourselves. I truly believe that the people of our country are the ones who are going to have to change this.

We are elected officials are a reflection on us. They're a reflection on we the people. This idea that we feel it's okay to scream and interrupt now. We've given a pass to this type of boorish behavior for far too long.

And this is what we get. If we want to change what's happening in Washington, D.C., we, the people have to decide that this is not who we are. We have to demand there is a. There is an exhausted majority in this country.

70% of Americans hate what's happening in politics right now. They're desperate for something different. And yes, you can you can point at the president, but I'm just here to tell you that neither party is interested in addressing that market failure right now. And until one of these parties decides that we're going to do something different, that we're going to go back to treating each other with dignity and respect, whether you're whether you're MAGA, whether you're progressive, whatever label we give you, then we're never going to get out of this.

And so I'm hopeful. I do have some optimism in the past couple of months. I've seen Americans come out of the woodwork to say that they're ready, that they're tired. They want something different.

And I keep hearing from you. And please, please keep demanding something different and vote for something different. I mean, since we're in this place and in the spirit of openness and introspection, I mean, we said what you had to say about President Trump. When you look inward and you look at your own party and the rhetoric and some of the things you've heard, where do you see room for improvement?

Where do you feel like a call equally needs to be made? I think all leaders have a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity. As I said a moment ago, it is oftentimes toughest to call it out when it's on your side. When I watched my friend Spencer Cox dealing with the tragedy in Utah and there were people on my side of the aisle or people who thought like me or agreed like me with me politically celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk.

I called that out. When there were people celebrating what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania. Thank God the president wasn't killed but was shot at. I called that out.

When I went to Altoona, Pennsylvania, where we captured Luigi Mangione and there were people saying, sometimes that kind of violence is acceptable because we have to make change in our healthcare system. I called that out. That is not okay. Violence is never That question deserves a applause because I think people do agree.

We live in a very interesting time. If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at the social media companies, okay? These are the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the history of the world. And they're profiting off of destroying our kids and destroying our country.

And they know it. And it's very intentional. We know because we're suing them. And we've seen the whistleblowers who have come forward.

You're right, it's not a fair fight. They've hijacked our brains. They understand these dopamine hits. Outrage sells.

It started with cable news, and then social media figured out how to ratchet it up so it's constantly there. It's constantly in front of you. And they gave your daughter an eating disorder. And they gave your son a pornography addiction.

And they gave all of our kids and grandkids anxiety and depression, and some of them have taken their lives because they want to profit off of this dopamine addiction that they're giving our kids. And it's not just our kids, it's all of us. It's the adults too. So what can we do?

There are certain things we can do. We pass laws in the state of Utah. Sadly, they're suing us. Those laws are on hold right now.

Even though they know it's destroying our kids, they don't care. They're going to hold on to every last night they can, even though they have trillion-dollar market caps, it's still not enough. And fortunately, some places like Australia, just today, they have a ban on social media just under 16. Is that something you'd like to see?

Absolutely. Would you like to see a ban on social media for under 16? Governor Shapiro, is that something you support? What we're seeing in Australia now?

I don't know that I'd support that. I think the approach that we've tried to take in Pennsylvania, led by our first lady, has been ensuring that digital literacy is taught in our classrooms, that our teachers are empowered to understand how to do it, and that our students are in a position to receive that information and understand these powerful phones and computers that they have that can be used for good, but they also have to be used in a way that folks understand fact from fiction, that they understand how addictive these platforms are and how they can learn how to use them in moderation. We are working with our school districts to figure out the best policy on phone usage and what can be used. I think it is important that young people learn about these tools.

They are empowered to use them responsibly, while at the same time, those of us in positions of authority hold these companies accountable. I say this as governor, as a former attorney general that has sued these social media companies. We have to hold them accountable. They've got to change their practices, and they should not be given carte blanche by this federal administration.

There have to be some controls on this. This is a golden opportunity to disagree better. Is it Governor Cox? Because here's an issue where you disagree.

You would like to see a ban like that. Yeah, I would. And look, I understand where Governor Shapiro's coming from. I was there once.

And it's just the damage is just too great on our kids right now. We don't give them driver's licenses when they're 12. We don't do that because it might, you know, it can take their life. This is, by the way, and I want to give Governor Shapiro credit.

These are the opioid companies of the early 2000s. There's no difference. And so it's not enough just to show them, again, it's addictive, and it's addictive by design. All we tried to do was to make them remove the most addictive features on their products for kids.

That's it. And they wouldn't even do that. So they're bad faith actors, and they no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt. And so, again, but this is an important conversation.

We've banned them from our schools. Test scores go up in every school where they've been banned. Behavioral problems go down in every school where phones have been banned. Something magical happens.

One school in particular, they thought there was a fight in the lunchroom because it was so loud in there. The principal runs into the lunchroom and realized there's no fight. Kids were doing something they hadn't done in years. They were talking to each other.

They were looking at each other in the eye. They were having fun again. We have to restore our kids' childhood, and we'll continue to advocate for this. And by the way, that's just a little mini debate, a flavor of how we can have a disagreement and do it civilly.

I didn't say he's an evil person because he doesn't want to ban social media, right? That's the difference. I think this is really important, you guys. Some people think that this idea of disagreeing better means we just have to be nice and we can't have any partisan rhetoric.

That is not true at all. That is not what we're talking about. We have to disagree, and we should disagree passionately. And again, I'm just doing a poor man's impression of Yuval Levine.

The Constitution forces us to disagree within a framework that we have to build a coalition to be able to pass a law that says that you can't have social media under the age of 16. So if I go around saying that everybody who likes social media is an evil person, I'm probably not going to get the bill passed that I want to get passed. I've got to work with people who disagree with me, so I've got to treat them with respect. I've got to listen to what they have to say.

I've got to explain with logic what I'm trying to say and hopefully get enough votes to get this thing passed that I want to pass. The one unfortunate byproduct of this conversation is that, you know, there's this old saying in Washington, you're entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts. Well, now it seems there's so much misinformation that people do seem to have their own facts. We're not at a place where we have an agreed upon set of facts that we then debate.

And what do we do to take that on? I think it starts in our classrooms. And I'll come back to the digital literacy work that the first lady is doing. I'll come back to saying we've got to do a better job of putting more civics education back into our classrooms.

I think we have to challenge our kids, as Lori and I do with our four children, when they come running to us with their opinion because it's something they saw online. The first question we ask them is, how do you know that's true? And force them to check their information before they go and form their opinion. I think so oftentimes young people are incentivized to go and form an opinion and create a fight with someone else, a conflict with someone else.

Conflict and debate is fine, but it's got to be rooted in a basic set of facts. Now, in fairness, our young people see the grown-ups and people in positions of authority having those fights, oftentimes not based on fact, or being incentivized online, get more likes or more love on social media when they have, you know, hotter fights as opposed to finding ways to find common ground. I imagine if we were live streaming this on Twitter, I'm not sure we'd get a whole lot of likes unless we were fighting with each other. Part of that is sort of reoriented people's minds around the idea that having these kinds of conversations, having civil discourse, rooting it in fact, encouraging young people to form opinions based on those facts, not based on the rhetoric or misinformation of others.

I think that's really important. And the final piece I'll say, sorry, Savannah, on this is with more and more misinformation being created through AI, I think there's even greater responsibilities on government to find areas to regulate, to have markings on things that are clearly made with AI as opposed to other sources, and to give young people the tools they need to learn fact from fiction so they can form opinions and debate those opinions in a really thoughtful way. Do you ever think, who even asked for this? Did we ask the electorate anyone to have AI that some people think has the potential to literally destroy humankind and has already degraded our humanity so much in terms of social media and all of these issues that we're talking about?

It's funny because you mentioned this expert and I had written down one of her quotes, Rachel Kleinfeld, and it goes to the point of the radical middle or normal or people that aren't angry and hateful are not the people that are driving the conversation. And she said most partisans hold major disbeliefs about the other party's preferences. This perception is highest among progressive activists, followed closely by extreme conservatives. In other words, the people who are most involved in civic and political life hold the least accurate views of the other side's belief.

So those who understand the least and have the most misinformed opinions about what the other side believes are the ones driving the conversation. Yeah, so we refer to this as the perception gap. And there have been lots of research projects that have confirmed that this exists. So if you interview a thousand Republicans and ask them what they believe on 20 of the most controversial issues, and then you interview a thousand Democrats on what they believe on the most controversial issues, and you kind of plot those out and look at the median Republican and the median Democrat, we're this far apart on most issues.

If you do the opposite, though, if you ask a thousand Republicans what they think Democrats believe, and you ask a thousand Democrats what they think Republicans believe, and then you plot that out, we're this far apart. And that's really dangerous. And it's more dangerous when, as again, I'll quote Yuval, when you put yourself in a cocoon surrounded by people who only agree with you and then talk about other people that you don't really know, then that gap gets even wider, right? So we have