Meet the Press NOW — December 29

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I'm Garrett Hake in Washington. You were just listening to President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to reporters after their meeting at Mar-a-Lago, a lengthy press conference from President Trump that began with him, literally shrugging off the possibility that there might be any differences between the United States and Israel as it relates to Gaza. Many of the other projects that two countries are working on together, the President spoke about the possibility of a horrible outcome. He said, for Hamas, if that group does not disarm and allow the next stage of the peace process to continue.

And on the subject of Iran, he threatened to eradicate the Iranian missile program that may be being reconstituted. The President making some ominous comments about the state of Iran's weapons program. So joining me now from West Palm Beach is NBC, senior White House correspondent Dave Gutierrez. And in Tel Aviv, NBC, international correspondent Matt Bradley, both of these men watching this all developed for us live, Gabe.

Let's start with the meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. What was the White House hoping to get out of this meeting today other than to project the kind of unity that we saw there from these two presidents? Yeah, Garrett, look, that is what we saw from the president trying to project this unity with Prime Minister Netanyahu. After several weeks of behind the scenes of being some concern that Israeli Prime Minister may have been dragging his feet before starting phase two of this fragile ceasefire, of course, several impediments to phase two starting including the release of the by Hamas, of that last remaining hostage, questions about whether that may even be possible.

Prime Minister Netanyahu bringing the family of that last remaining hostage here to Palm Beach County to meet with President Trump. I thought it was interesting, Garrett, that yes, the president hitting that message that Hamas needs to disarm before hitting the phase two. But he would also ask about some thorny issues that have come about when it comes to this entire peace process, including something that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been facing inside Israel from the Israeli far right, urging him to pursue annexation of the Israeli occupied West Bank. That was a one point in this news conference.

When President Trump said that he didn't see eye to eye quite with Prime Minister Netanyahu moved on to another subject quickly. But this is something that the president he wants to see this ceasefire hold. But this is also a president that doesn't quite like the details of these large agreements so much. He got a lot of credit several months ago when the ceasefire was reached.

However, now the devil is in the details. Will it be able to proceed to this phase two? That's a major question that remains unanswered even after this meeting today here in Marlauga. And Dave, on Iran, the president several times seemed to allude to the idea that he was had access to other intelligence or other information about Iran's weapons program suggesting either their missile program or their nuclear program might be getting reconstituted.

He suggested that the U.S. or Israel might strike those programs. The president, as you know, takes great pride in the idea that it was the U.S. that kind of ended this 12-day war, as he calls it.

What did you make of the not so thinly veiled threats to the Iranian regime there? Well, certainly looking at one point where there's smoke, there's fire. He said that Iran quoted maybe behaving badly. And this all comes several days after an embassy news reporting suggested that this was one of the main goals for Prime Prime Minister Netanyahu coming here to Marlauga that he would make the case that Iran was trying to expand its ballistic missile program.

So certainly the president is saying that he believed that could be happening basically warning Iran not to do it earlier. And by the way, the president taking a lot of questions, not just in this press conference, but also earlier in the day he took questions from reporters. And he did say that he would quote, not the hell out of Iran, if Iran were to start this ballistic missile program back up. Now, this all comes into escalating tensions with that country over the weekend, the Iranian president saying that he believed that Iran was essentially in a quote, full-scale war with Israel, US, and Europe, because those countries were trying to keep Iran at its knees and basically squeezing them culturally and politically.

So again, that's another tangent here where the president meeting with Netanyahu, amid these escalate tensions with Iran and warning Iran to back off essentially again. Gabe, if we didn't come on the air an hour ago, we'd probably spend a lot more time talking about Russia and Ukraine. The president had his meeting with Vladimir Zelensky yesterday. Two phone calls with Vladimir Putin.

Have we moved any closer in the White House's view or in your analysis to actual progress on ending that conflict? Actually, the exact opposite. Just in the last several hours, we heard President Trump talk about his conversation with Vladimir Putin earlier today with a Russian leader told President Trump that an accused Ukraine of sending dozens of drones to his state residents in northern Russia to try and attack it. Russia, a foreign minister says that the drones were shot down.

But President Trump coming back and saying that he was very angry to hear about that development. By the way, something that Ukraine denies ever happened. But this comes just 24 hours after Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, was here at Mar-a-Lago, and President Trump was touting a renewed sense of optimism that this potential piece deal between Russia and Ukraine could get over the finish line. However, now with these new developments that we just heard about this morning, this new conversation with President Putin that does seem to be up in the air.

And we'll turn to Matt now in Tel Aviv and Gabe, thank you for that reporting. Matt, you heard Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump, you know, sort of almost tripping over themselves to compliment one another. The president placing really no blame on the Netanyahu government for the failure to move from phase one to phase two of the ceasefire plan for Gaza. What did you make of the lack of pressure, at least publicly from the president on that?

And what's the stance, what's the feeling on the ground in Israel about the status of the ceasefire there in Gaza and the war with Hamas on pause? Yeah, I think that, you know, when it comes to what we saw today, I mean, it really did. As you said, it looked like these two had been close confidants for years. It was a real bear hug.

But this, you know, dynamic duo is back. They haven't always been this close to each other. In fact, Trump had admonished Netanyahu publicly, had disagreed with him on several occasions, had publicly stated that he had to reign Netanyahu in. So this was, it looks like those two back together again in the United States.

Netanyahu is one of President Trump's greatest customers when it comes to visiting him in America. It looks like he's been visiting him maybe far more than anybody else so far. But when it comes to this ceasefire, you know, Israelis, I've been speaking to, I've been asking them, you know, President Trump looks like he's under a lot of pressure or applying a lot of pressure to deliver this second phase, which would show that this ceasefire is more than just a temporary truce. However, there's so much skepticism on both sides of Palestinian side and the Israeli side that anything like phase two will ever come about and part because the definitions of phase two haven't been defined.

And that's going to make it really hard once this last body, who, as Gabe mentioned, I have the family of that last body, that person was there at this meeting today in Morilago. And once that's delivered, we're in uncharted territory. And one of the reasons why, in many ways, all of these sides are kind of happy to remain in this sort of nebulous area is because they don't have a plan for phase two. Now, the idea is that phase two is supposed to include this international stabilization force, which so far, the Trump administration, despite what we've heard, the Trump administration saying they haven't had much success in recruiting countries to actually contribute forces to policing the Gaza Strip.

That's a really dangerous notion. Hamas is still very active there. So it's no wonder that so many Arab and Muslim countries don't want to contribute forces. There are no plans for this board of peace.

The Trump is supposed to head. And no plans for this committee of Palestinian basically technocrats that would actually govern the Gaza Strip. So that's why it doesn't look as though there is going to be much pressure on phase two. But Trump definitely does want to see something delivered.

But here on the ground, there's a lot of skepticism about what that would even look like. And Matt, can you give me a quick gut check, a reality check, a president suggested that it wouldn't necessarily be the US that would have to go in and deal with Hamas if something went south on the ceasefire, that some of these other countries, maybe Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, would be the ones to do that work to the point you just made. Is that likely? Is that even possible?

It just isn't something that's likely. I mean, when you talk about a Qatar or an Iraq or a country like, you know, even Turkey, Jordan providing its own forces, Egypt, and shooting Hamas, you know, a group that is popular throughout the Arab and Muslim world shooting at people who, and it would look like their soldiers were fighting in the service of Israel, a country that is widely considered, despite these normalization efforts around the region, is widely considered a public enemy here in the Middle East. That would be a very bad look, even for the most totalitarian regimes that don't necessarily have to worry about the public opinion or what their constituents think. It just would look very, very bad.

They contribute their own forces to fight and die in what, by all accounts, would look like they're doing that on Israel's behalf. All right, Matt Bradley, Gabe Gutierrez, thank you both for your reporting and your expertise. As we noted, today's meeting between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu comes just a day after President Trump met with Ukraine's President Zelensky in the hopes of moving forward on a path to end the war with Russia, which is showing little sign of progress. As I mentioned earlier, President Trump spoke to Russia President Putin twice in the last two days once before the Zelensky meeting yesterday and then a second time today.

Speaking after their meeting, both President Trump and Zelensky projected optimism about a path to end the war in Ukraine, but major sticking points remain on potential territorial concessions and, of course, whether Moscow would accept any deal negotiated between Washington and Kiev. President Trump said his conversation with Putin today was productive after yesterday suggesting Putin wants peace, despite nearly all the evidence to the contrary. Meanwhile, in an interview with Fox News President Zelensky expressed skepticism that Putin has ever been serious about ending the war. Is there any indication that you see that Vladimir Putin wants peace by what he's doing or saying?

Me not, be honest. And I don't see it because, first of all, I don't hear it publicly. His messages, they go, I mean, he doesn't speak about peace. Now he doesn't speak.

He says that he can go further. It's not a signal of peace. Turning now for more on the future of the war in Ukraine is Bill Taylor, former US ambassador Ukraine and distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center ambassador. We always appreciate your expertise.

This feels a bit like deja vu to me. This is the sixth meeting now between President Zelensky just this year. We've heard this optimism before. What do you think is actually potentially different now after yesterday's meeting than before it?

Okay. They clearly did make some progress between the Americans and the Ukrainians, with input from the Europeans. So that looked very good yesterday and that had to have bothered, upset, spooked Putin. Putin, the other deja vu that we see is every time there is a move by President Trump to put sanctions on Russia or to provide weapons to Ukraine.

Every time there is movement in that direction, Putin finds some way to get involved, to make a phone call, to have a meeting in Anchorage. And that's what he did again yesterday with this allegation, probably a lie that his residence was attacked. It's a way to disrupt and that good relationship between Putin, between Trump and Zelensky had to make Putin nervous and he came up with this idea. I'm so skeptical of even the structure of these talks.

It's like me saying, my wife and I have been having conversations and we're coming close to an agreement about me becoming the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. Without the Cowboys buying, I'm not getting that job. That sort of feels like where we are with Moscow. I mean, can any progress being made in Mar-a-Lago really move things forward without some kind of signal public or otherwise for Moscow that they actually want the deal that President Trump says they want?

And Garrett, they don't want it. It is clear that the Russians do not want that agreement. So the only way that the Dallas Cowboys are going to be input is to put pressure on them. You have to put pressure on Putin.

You can't be meeting on red carpets and shaking hands. You have to put pressure on Putin to come to the table and to agree to things that Putin doesn't want to agree to. The pressure's there, the leverage's there. Trump has the ability to put that pressure on him.

If he wants to end this war, as he says he does, then that's what needs to happen. Is the prospect of security guarantees one of the ways to exact that pressure right now, the conversations around 15 years, Lensky says he wants 50. Either of those is probably longer than a lifespan of President Putin or longer than he'll be in charge. Does a longer timeline make a difference there?

It makes it the security guarantee guarantee is important. There's no doubt about that, whether it's 15 years or 50 years. That's a very important component of this peace agreement because they will ensure a security guarantee will ensure that the Russians don't invade again when they are tempted, as they will be, to violate the ceasefire. So the security agreement is important in that regard.

But no, the pressure that needs to come, the way that this is going to end is when President Trump provides the weapons and puts the economic pressure, the sanctions pressure, on Putin. That's what needs to happen in order to end this war. There are many people around President Trump who say a lot of this should be Europe's job. Is there an opportunity here for Europe to provide more of that pressure?

Absolutely, absolutely. And the Europeans are stepping up. The Europeans are stepping up in what they're providing in terms of weapons, in terms of money for defense. They're stepping up, but even more important and more directly, they're talking about putting troops on the ground in Ukraine after ceasefire, to be sure for that security guarantee we just talked about, to be sure that the Russians don't invade again.

So the Europeans, yes, are standing up, they've got a big role to play. All right, former ambassador Bill Taylor, we got to leave it there. But if the deja vu continues, I suspect we'll talk about this again. I don't want to hear it.

Thank you. As you are coming up, new development into a couple of high profile legal cases here in DC as the suspect accused of shooting two national guard members, just blocks from the White House, appears in federal court for the first time, plus new details about the suspect who allegedly planted pipe bombs near the RNC and DNC's headquarters, and what we're learning about a possible motive. You're watching the press now. We'll go back.

We're following new developments today in a pair of closely watched legal cases here in Washington. The man charged with shooting two national guard members last month made his initial federal court appearance this afternoon. Raman Alot Lachanwal faces both local and federal charges for the shooting, which left one member of the West Virginia National Guard dead and another critically wounded. It comes as the suspect accused of placing pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters back in January 2021.

It's set to be in court tomorrow, and the Justice Department is providing new details about what they say was his motive. The DOJ revealing in a filing late yesterday that Brian Cole Jr. appeared to believe in conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, and then he planned to attend a protest in support of President Trump on the day of the attack. And he's a legal affairs reporter, Gary Grumbock joins me now.

So, Gary, what was the purpose of this lock-in-wall hearing today? So, this was a hearing just to make sure he understood these new charges against him, understood he had a right to his attorney and a right to remain silent. These are all really important for any criminal defendant, but especially this one, because he's English is not his first language. He didn't seem totally with it during today's hearing.

He was hospitalized. He was hospitalized because, remember, he was shot by members of the National Guard when he shot the members of the National Guard on that day before Thanksgiving last month. So, he seemed to not, well, he didn't seem to know how old he was when he was asked by the judge. He said, 27 or 28, something like that.

And so, clearly, there's something going on with him medically. This was a hearing just of a pro-formist situation. He has not made a plea in this case. This is the federal case.

Does the local case just get delayed entirely until that's over? So, federal case certainly takes priority. U.S. Attorney General has made it very clear.

They're actually going to try to potentially seek the death penalty in this case. That's something that hasn't been done in D.C. in more than 60 years, because of the unique relationship D.C. has with the federal government.

Always changing. And now we also have the pipe bomb suspect expected to be in court tomorrow. This is something unusual. Here we have the DOJ, not his own attorneys, talking about what his motive might have been here.

So, this is all to make sure in the D.C. case they want him to stay behind bars for as long as possible while this trial gets underway in the next few months. They are saying a number of things about his motive and about the actions of this man on the day he was arrested and on the day of the before January 6, 2021, when he placed these pipe bombs allegedly. They're saying in his home, he had the same exact items that were in the pipe bombs, some of the materials, some of the end caps in his home and in his vehicle.

They also said he wipes his phone more than 900 times in between December of 2020 and the day he was arrested on December 3 of this month. And he also concealed his identity. He used disinfecting wipes to disinfect the pipe bombs so there would be no fingerprints on the pipe bombs when he placed them. So, a number of things that certainly go towards where he was trying to conceal his identity to make sure he wasn't seen.

The phone thing is fascinating. This suggests a person who spent the last four years looking over his shoulder basically the entire time. What else do we expect to see or learn in this here? So, this is purely a detention hearing.

This is what the DOJ side is. We do expect to hear what Brian coles side of things. He has hired a private attorney. Usually in these types of cases, we see a public defender hired or appointed for him.

This is a private attorney based here in DC that he's going to make the case that perhaps Brian Colle did this but perhaps he shouldn't be charged with the transport of interstate weapons that he was charged with here in DC federally. Interesting day and court for him and for you tomorrow Gary Grumbach. Thank you for that reporting. And after the break, is President Trump's focus on foreign policy creating domestic problems for him with his base?

We've got a new comment from Trump loyalist turned critic Marjorie Taylor Greene as the Republican party gives up for a potentially bruising midterm election cycle. The panel is next. I'll meet the press now. This is where it begins.

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Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is in her last days as a member of Congress after her surprise announcement last month that she would not finish out her term. Instead, choosing to step down. And the Congresswoman's public break with President Trump continued to be on full display today. In a lengthy interview published with The New York Times, Greene talks about going from a fierce fighter for the president to one of his loudest critics, telling the Times quote, our side has been trained by Donald Trump to never apologize and never admit when you're wrong.

You just keep pummeling your enemies, no matter what. And as a Christian, I don't believe in doing that. Joining now is our panel on VC News, senior national politics reporter, Jonathan Allen, Democratic strategist and former Obama campaign advisor, Misha Cross and former Trump White House deputy press secretary and spokesperson for Home of the Brave, Sarah Matthews. John, why don't you make of this story here?

Is this just another sort of singular apostate or do you think this could be the sign of a larger breakup in the MAGA world? Well, I think generally speaking, the MAGA basis still with Trump. The question is, what happens at the edges of that? And I was just in Arizona for the turning point USA conference.

And there are people who are upset there about a variety of things that echo some of the things that Marjorie Taylor Greene is upset about, upset about the Epstein files not having been released. I believe that there's conspiracy there. One of the things in this article about MTG is a scene where President Trump is calling at her and screaming at her about trying to get the Epstein files released. And he said he wants to stop the crusade to do that because it's going to hurt his friends.

And so I think that's been picked up on somebody, folks in the MAGA basis, some of the foreign adventurism, whether you're talking about Venezuela or some of the other strikes that we've seen recently in Nigeria and Australia. There's a frustration that he's focused outside of the country and not inside the country. So I think the argument she's making are basically from the MAGA side of the Trump administration. And that's not necessarily, I mean, look, he's not going to be running for office again.

But when it comes to the midterms, I think there are going to be a lot of Trump voters who are already going to be hard to get to show up who are going to have another obstacle in front of them because they're not exactly excited about some of the decisions he's made. We'll come back more than the midterms in a minute, Sarah. I feel like there was this theory, especially during the first Trump term that for every Trump critic publicly, especially in Congress, there were five to 10 other Republicans who maybe felt the same way, but weren't willing to say so. Do you think what Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying here is emblematic of the way that other Republicans feel, but don't want to get their heads lapped off on the true social post?

Yeah, I think that a lot of Republicans privately agree with everything that she's saying or most of what she's saying. But they're never going to publicly say it. The only time we really see Republicans come out and criticize the president is when they end up retiring or resigning. And that's when you start to get their honest assessment of the president.

And I think with her, these Republicans who are still in office, they saw that after she spoke out against Trump, he withdrew her endorsement of her. And then she faced death threats, not just for herself, but for her family. She cites that in that article with the New York Times, where she talks about her son and how she received a death threat against him. And she flagged it for the president of the United States in his response was that he fired back that it was her fault, essentially.

And so I think that a lot of Republicans see that happen and they don't want that for themselves or their family, whether it be about keeping power or just safety for themselves and their family. Marjorie Taylor Greene may not be with Donald Trump anymore, but she's not lining up to vote for Democratic candidates anytime soon here. If you're a Democrat, how do you either welcome people like that? What she does not like and what several other people don't is this focus on porn policy as she spoke about earlier.

When you have a president who runs as a nativist who runs as a phone at the end of the day, it should not surprise people that the people who voted for him want to see him focus on policies that affect them back home. I think for Democrats, it's still, it's the economy, stupid focus on the economy. We've got thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who are out of work right now, hundreds of thousands more who are under employed. The American dream couldn't be further away from most people in this country.

So for Democrats, it's laying down that messaging, but also looking at the ways in which Trump is very inconsistent. He's somebody who has said that he was going to bring crime down by locking up anybody and everybody who's Latino or speak Spanish. And what we have seen is a certain level of pushback, particularly because you've seen childcare workers, you've seen college students, you've seen people who are not drug runners, who are not rapists, who are not criminals of any kind, also be affected here. And I think that in large part, with the health care subsidies and the rise in the cost of healthcare and healthcare providers, you're going to see an even stronger push against Trump because the policies just cost the American people more.

I'm curious to see if it even picks up on the faith part of it too, because that struck me the opening anecdote about this from Eric Kirk, Charlie Kirk's funeral and the idea of hating your enemies. That feels like an opening for how do you do the character, show Trump's real character again, which a lot of politicians have tried. But John, to me, you mentioned the midterms, but the other person who's going to have to figure out how to solve this whole puzzle is JD Vance. I'm curious what your takeaways were from being down at that turning point conference.

And do you think Vance has what it takes to put the pieces of this argument back together again for the Republicans? He's really starting to. I mean, like, you know, again, this is the turning point USA conference. He's very close to Eric Kirk.

He's very close to Charlie Kirk. It's not shocking that they are the first piece of the America First or Maga movement to get in behind him, but he's also got these contacts with the tech rose, which is kind of the opposite ends of the Trump coalition. I mean, we've got Elon Musk now a trillion right there. I think I read the other day, you know, who was out with a chainsaw earlier this year on a stage, which I imagine we're going to see in some of his midterms.

But Vance has connected to at least parts of both ends of the megabase or at least both ends of the Trump base. Whether he's able to fill it in with everybody else in between, I think remains to be seen. We have a long way to go. And I think the thing that will be most telling about JD Vance's standing going into the 2028 election is what Donald Trump's standing is.

Yeah, sorry to that end. I mean, talking about the different pieces of this is the play for Vance and for Republicans to heal this rift or to essentially either paper over it or blow past it. Like, what does the coalition look like going into the midterms in 2028? Is it the same for Republicans that we've gotten used to seeing or how functionally different you see this being in this sort of like downslope of the Trump era?

I think that they need to try to heal the coalition. I think that you're going to need the coalition to come out in full force if they want to stand a chance in 2026. They need to turn out these low propensity Trump voters who only usually vote when Trump is on the top of the ticket. And so they're going to really need to rely on those folks and get them excited.

And so we know that Susie Wiles has said that Trump is going to be campaigning like it's 2024. But I do think though that just going back to JD Vance and what his prospects look like going further into 2028, I don't think that one, it's a long time before we get there. But if we look back, we thought that in 2015 ahead of that primary, that Jeb Bush was going to be the Republican nominee. So anyone who's out there theorizing, oh, it's probably going to be JD Vance as a Republican nominee.

I think when we let these things play out of each other, thinking about what you said before, the idea that for Democrats is this is an economy focused opportunity here. The president is sort of flirting with actually addressing the issue of affordability. He described it as in an interview, I think the midterms would be about the success of our country. It'll be about pricing.

He's close, what's the difference in view between the way that Democrats have attacked this messaging and the president suggesting it's pricing? That sounds like almost Soviet to me. Well, the president also wants to blame external factors and not one of the key drivers, which is also the tariffs that he himself has imposed. What we have learned time and time again from this president is that he does not want to take responsibility for anything.

He was a guy who said that he could essentially set prices straight on day one. I think everybody around this table who's that wasn't true and several people at home should have as well. But every policy he has enacted since he's got an office has only served to increase prices, up to including the big beautiful bill act, which we know is the largest wealth transfer that the Americans have ever seen. It's frustrating because on the one hand, Democrats have to continue to message this out, say it as loudly and proudly as they can.

But on the other, it's hurtful to watch Americans not be able to pay for their utility bills, not be able to put food on the table, not be able to ensure that their kids have a leg up in this next rung of society. Whether that is higher education, which the Trump administration is also steadily closing the door to or walking into career prospects, where he's currently blocking states from being able to do what they need to do to mitigate some of the AI transitions that have made getting that early job even possible. So I do think there's a lot that Democrats have to message here. But I also think they can take advantage of the risks in large part because there are a couple things that are happening that nobody's talking about yet.

First and foremost, Republicans have to figure out which race isn't they're okay with. It seems like they are okay with a little bit of anti-Semitism. We saw that from the Heritage Foundation. It looks like, you know, with Vivek, I'm gonna step up and say, you know, being anti-Indian is a problem, but being anti-black, that's absolutely okay.

What we've seen on that stage is individuals who are okay with a certain bit of a little something that's salty, but not everything on the edges. And this is a Republican Party that is falling apart. There's some messaging that's going to have to be worked out around all of those issues. And we will have to talk about it at another time.

We got to leave it there, guys. I'm sorry. Look, you know, blame the 20-minute press conference. John, I'm just Sarah.

Thank you all for coming in. And speaking of the midterms, let's turn now to our Meet the Candidates series. Earlier this year, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, announced that he would not seek reelection after almost three decades in the Senate, setting off a competitive primary race to receive him and what has been a reliably blue seat. This is a crowded field to say the least, more than a dozen candidates jumping into the primary, including two current members of Congress and the Illinois Lieutenant Governor, Julianne Stratton.

Since launching her campaign, Lieutenant Governor Stratton has secured the endorsements of Governor Pritzker and Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth. Joining me now is the aforementioned Lieutenant Governor of Illinois and Democratic candidate for Senate, Julianne Stratton. Lieutenant Governor, thank you for joining us. You are facing, as we said, a very crowded primary field with more than a dozen candidates, two members of Congress.

What does your specific path to the nomination and the general election win look like? Well, the path to success in this March 17th primary, for me, looks like continuing to talk to the people of Illinois, listen to the people of Illinois, and then making sure that they are reminded that for the past seven years as Lieutenant Governor, and even as a state representative before then, I've always delivered big things for the people of Illinois. I know how to fight for them, and Illinois really is the blueprint for the kind of leadership we need in Washington, D.C., so whether it's raising the minimum wage, whether it is protecting women's reproductive freedom, creating thousands of jobs and expanding access to opportunity to the middle class, those are things that I have delivered on as Lieutenant Governor, and I look forward to bringing that same exact kind of leadership and fight to Washington. You use word fight twice there.

The Pritzker administration, I feel like the administration you're a part of there in Illinois, has kind of made that their calling card that you guys want to go head to head with the Trump administration every day. Is that the style of leadership or style of Senator we should expect to see you be in Washington? Yes, because that's what people are looking for. You know, look, what I hear when I'm traveling the state of Illinois and talking to voters is that they are tired of the status quo in Washington, D.C.

They do not want their leaders to be sort of let's go along to get along and just give basic talking points. They want authenticity. They want bold, effective leadership. They want people who have new ideas and new perspectives who are going to come to Washington, and kind of really understand the urgency of this moment and meet that moment.

I can tell you that more than anything else, people don't, when I ask them, what are they looking for? They don't always mention a policy. What they say is, I'm looking for someone who will go to the Met fighting for me, and that's the kind of leadership that I will provide. Governor Pritzker and I have shown over these last seven years what happens when you stand up to a one going to be dictator like Donald Trump, and whether it's taking him to court or speaking out, whether it's ICE or National Guard, over and over again, we have demonstrated what happens when you stand up and fight, and that's the kind of leadership I will bring.

Does that mentality preclude working with Republicans on a bipartisan basis? Are there issues in which you could see yourself working with, particularly if there's a Republican majority in the Senate you join on issues? Well, look, my background is not just as an attorney, but for two decades of my career, I was a mediator, and my job was to bring people to the table and solve problems. When I became a state representative in the Illinois General Assembly, I passed 10 bills and got signed into law by Republican governor.

Every single bill was passed on a bipartisan basis, most of them unanimously. So I know how to get things done, but here's the deal. What we are seeing coming out of Washington right now, the chaos of the Trump administration that is harming so many families, we need real fighters, we need somebody who, of course, will do whatever they can to try to get things done for the people we represent, but we also need people who are going to think boldly, and that's what I want to do. I mean, affordability is an issue for so many families.

Donald Trump said that he was going to lower prices on day one. It's only gotten worse for families. I want to raise the minimum wage, and I can tell you we raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour here in Illinois, and I'm very proud of that fact. But when I look at what $15 an hour means for families, as I've been talking to folks, that's about $31,000 a year.

That's not enough to take care of your family and to pay your bills. I would like to see a $25 an hour minimum wage at the federal level, so that everyone can have what they need to thrive. I also want to protect our rights and our democracy and expand access to the middle class. Those are things that I will lead on, and I will work with anyone who has those same values to make sure that we uplift all Americans.

You'll work with anyone, but I've noted that you've said you do not want to work with Chuck Schumer as a leader of the Democratic Party. You said you think it should be someone else who leads the Democrats looking at the roster now. Who should be the next Democratic leader? Well, look, I think the main principle is that what I want to see is somebody who is going to fight.

It's, you know, I go back to that same word we just talked about. We have had so many opportunities as Democrats to demonstrate who we are and the values that we stand for. We've had so many opportunities where we were close to winning, and we just needed to remind people what it is that Democrats ring to the table. You know what Democrats do?

We're the party that is fighting to make sure people have access to health care. We're the party that is making sure we protect voting rights and reproductive rights. We're the party that wants to make sure there is access to people to be able to get affordable housing and so many other things for them to thrive who want to raise the minimum wage or see Medicare for all as I want to see. Those are the things that we are fighting for.

It's not just what we're fighting against. It's what we're fighting for. And I believe that we need real leadership, whoever that is, whoever will step up to the plate, who will say that we're going to make sure that we're going to bring the kind of leadership where people will stand up, fight for what's right, and remind people why Democrats are the party that is standing for working people. All right, Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, thank you very much for being with us.

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