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Plus, Nikki Haley fired back at criticism she's not conservative enough to win the Republican presidential nomination as she plays damage control on the issue of race and slavery. With just 10 days to go until Iowa and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken lands the Middle east in the administration's latest push to diffuse escalating tensions as new details emerge on Israel's war plans. Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Kristen Welker.
We begin with President Biden in his first campaign event of the new year, speaking of historic Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, ahead of the three year anniversary of the January 6th attack on the Capitol. In his remarks, which wrapped up just moments ago, he lashed out at his likely re election opponent in some of the most harsh terms we've heard yet, calling the former president sick a loser, an election denier, and attacking him for echoing rhetoric for Nazi Germany, also painting him and his movement as an existential threat to American democracy. But the democracy is still America's sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. And it's what the 2024 election is all about.
The choice is clear. Donald Trump's campaign is about him, not America, not you. Donald Trump's campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He's willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power.
Our campaign is about preserving and strengthening our American democracy. The remarks today come as President Biden is trying to jumpstart a flagging campaign where he trails the former president in early polls. The speech coming in the shadow of the anniversary of the January 6th attack, with President Biden accusing former President Trump of trying to rewrite history and reveling in political Russia, said that there was a lot of Love on January 6th. The rest of the nation, including law enforcement, saw a lot of hate and violence trying to rewrite the facts of January 6th.
Trump is trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election. Trump and his MAGA supporters not only embrace political violence, but they laugh about it. At his rally, he jokes about an intruder whipped up by the big Trump lie, taking a hammer to Paul Pelosi's skull and echoing the very same words used on January 6th. Where's Nancy?
And he thinks that's funny? He laughed about it. What a sick. The big question now, will this message work with voters, especially as Donald Trump also leans into the events surrounding January 6th and conspiracy theories to animate his own base.
Joining me now from the air where the president just spoke in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, is EMB News White House correspondent Mike Memley. Mike, it is so great to see you. You're going to be on the panel on Sunday as well. Let's talk about what we just heard from President Biden.
What were your key takeaways? Well, Chris said there certainly is a lot to talk about in that speech. My goodness. I think you, as somebody who has covered this president with me since day one of the administration, knows how often he has been trying to get questioned on the key questions of the day, especially relates to the key outrages from Donald Trump on a regular basis.
What have we seen person from President Trump for President Biden on a regular basis, sidestepping those questions, preferring to focus on his own agenda. Well, I think Chris and I heard the words Donald Trump more from President Biden over the last 20 minutes than we've heard perhaps for the entire presidency so far. And this really does speak to what the campaign is calling a sharpening, not a shift in their focus as 2024 begins. They felt like it has been important up till this moment to talk about his economic record, his legislative successes.
But as we're now 10 days away from Iowa, the Republican voters are about to go through the process of selecting and make in the Biden campaign view Trump as the likely nominee. It's an important moment to lay down that contrast that's going to be so important now. President Biden for choosing a place with historical significance, Valley Forge Pen, talking about the sacrifices of the Continental army, talking as well about the man who led them in that fight, George Washington, the first president of the United States and President Biden setting up a key contrast between one of the founders of this country as first president and the 45th president. Let's listen to part of that speech here.
George Washington is the highest power, having just defeated the most powerful empire on earth, could have held on the power as long as he wanted. He could have made himself not a future president, but a future monarch, in effect. And by the way, when he got elected president, he could have stayed for two, three, four, five terms. So he died.
But that wasn't the America he and the American troops of valley forces fought for in America. Genuine leaders, Democratic leaders with a small D, don't hold on to power relentlessly. Now, Kristen, of course, there's the substance of this speech here, but there's also the style of this speech. This was a much sharper, clearer President Biden than some of the speeches we tend to see on a regular basis.
I also have to say, at a time when many Democrats want to see a fiercer campaigner on the part of Joe Biden, there were times when there was palpable anger on the part of the president as he was talking at his remarks. Looking closely from vantage point here, just a few feet away, you can see his clinch, just his clenched in anger as he was talking about some of the things Donald Trump has said, especially condemning our own troops as losers and suckers. And so this is the kind of Joe Biden that I think a lot of Democrats who have been nervous about his campaign hope that they are going to see a lot more of over the next 300 days until election Day. You're absolutely right, Mike.
I mean, I think some of those unscripted moments that we just witnessed there, as they often are, were some of the strongest moments that we saw there during the president's speech. And you take me to my next question, which is about what we're hearing from Democrats. You and I have obviously been talking to our sources and we know that there is some concern that the campaign has been slow to respond to what they are witnessing on the GOP side, which is former President Trump dominating there and appearing to be the likely front runner, potential nominee. What are you hearing about the strategy moving forward to stay on offense to continue to see more of what we saw?
Damn, he always got big exchange coming up on Monday. Yeah, that's right, Chris. There really has been a noticeable change in the way that the campaign has been operating of late. Yes, they did launch last April in a very soft fashion.
This is just the third public campaign event that President Biden has had. But it's more about what's happening or not happening behind the scenes that have been concerning Democrats. They don't see the kind of field of organization, the infrastructure in the states that they perhaps would like to see. That is starting to change.
We saw President Biden just a weeks ago himself personally go to the campaign headquarters to meet with the team. We know obviously there are a lot of staff in the White House who are running a lot of key strategic decisions and they are now, especially as it looks like Donald Trump could be the Republican nominees sooner rather than later to get ready to roll out their general election strategy and consider this person. We also covered the Obama campaign together in 2012 and President Obama at the time didn't hold his first campaign event until late May of 2012. This is representing a much earlier start on the part of the principal candidate himself, president himself, than we saw even in 2012.
It's such a great point, Mike, and it's such important context. Thank you for your great reporting as always. Look forward to seeing you on the panel on Sunday. I now want to bring in Michael Tyler, communications director for the Biden re election campaign.
Michael, thanks so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Let's talk about what we just heard from President Biden. A lot of Democrats viewing this speech as the official kickoff to his campaign. The theme, the messaging, not necessarily different from what we have heard from President Biden in the past, particularly in the midterms. Do you think that this message will be enough to rally and energize voters again in 2024?
Will the third time be a charm effectively? Yeah, well, certainly. I think what you saw today was the president kick off the year with a reminder of the very clear stakes of this election. Telling the American people, what this election is going to be about, and that's whether or not democracy will remain the sacred cause of the United States of America.
We've obviously made tremendous progress under President Biden, but the fact of the matter is that the looming threat of MAGA extremism has only grown stronger since 2020. You now have Donald Trump and other MAGA Republicans who win or not out there promising to ban abortion or put away health care for millions of Americans. He's now running a campaign on, as the President said, revenge and retribution, promising to root out his political enemies like Vernon from within. He's promising to jail his political opponents, members of the free press.
He's out here praising political violence at his rallies. And so he's promising to rule as a dictator on day one. So while we're incredibly proud of the progress that the President has made and we'll continue to campaign and focus on that, we are absolutely taking this opportunity at the beginning of the election year to remind people of the fundamental stakes of this election. It's whether or not we're going to continue to serve as a democracy in the United States of America.
That's absolutely unveiled. Box in 2024. And you just heard my colleague Mike Memley there reference some of our reporting. The jitters within Democratic circles, concerns that there hasn't been enough organization on the ground yet in key states, and concerns, frankly, that there hasn't been a tough enough message coming from the Biden campaign yet.
What do you say? How do you answer Democrats who say that this type of urgency should have started months ago? Yeah, well, I think folks are right to feel sense of urgency because it's gonna be incredibly close election, as all presidential elections are in modern America. The fact of the matter is we have been on the ground working hard since last year.
The president obviously launched the campaign. We've been up running paid advertising, for example, since August. We've been focused particularly on black and Hispanic communities, running targeted ads in communities since August. We've also been running pilot programs and organizing infrastructure in states like Wisconsin and Arizona.
We're not the stage of the race where we're ramping up our organizing efforts, hiring state staff in all of our battleground states, because we're right now at the point where folks are waking up, realizing that we are, in fact, an election year. We want to make sure that we have all the chess pieces in place to make the argument on behalf of Joe Biden to the American people and folks really tuning in. So we feel pretty confident about the state of the campaign as it stands right now in January 2024. And yet, Michael, polls show that you are losing support among black and Hispanic voters.
What's going on? When I talk to Democrats, they say that's their biggest concern. Those are the voters that put Joe Biden in the White House. How worried are you about losing support among those key constituents?
And how do you win them back? What's the president's plan? Yeah, these are key constituencies with the Biden Harris Coalition, and frankly, they're the ones who do have the most at stake. And so this campaign has been laser focused on reengaging core constituencies from the very, very earliest points of this campaign.
Right. We're beginning back in August of 2023. This is a moment where folks still are not generally tuned in to political coverage, but we want to make sure that we're not showing up in September or October of the election year saying, hey, come vote for us. We want to make sure that we have been having ongoing, continuous conversations about the historic record of accomplishment this president and vice president have had for these communities and making sure that we are communicating with our values and clear contrast with our opponents want to roll back all the progress that we've made for black and brown communities across the country.
So we are confident if we keep our heads down, keep communicating, keep organizing across platforms here, but on the ground digitally, otherwise, that we will be able to rebuild the Biden Harris Coalition in 2024. Let me read you something that Dean Phillips, obviously he is posing a challenge to President B primary. He issued this statement today. He says Joe Biden wants to talk about democracy when he thinks it benefits him politically, but he's not too interested when he thinks it doesn't.
How do you respond to that allegation? There's one true threat to democracy in this presidential campaign. That's a mad Republicans led chiefly by Donald Trump. That's where our focus is.
Campaign that's going to be. That's where Joe Biden's focus is as a president, as a candidate. And that's what we will be committed to today. Obviously, as you heard the president reiterate from the stage in Valley Forge and what you will see us focused on, we're not going to be distracted by anything else.
We're going to focus on the task at hand. And that's delivering another four years of Joe Biden, another four years of freedom, of democracy for the American people. That's where our focus is. And let me just paraphrase something that Congressman Ocasio cortez told NBC last month she basically talked about the importance of looking for the future.
She said in any campaign, presidential or otherwise, having an aspirational and strong vision for the future is a major part of what campaigning is all about. And it's not enough for us just to talk about what we're up against. In other words, she is saying you can't just focus on Trump. Does the president run the risk of doing that and not clearly laying out what a second term agenda would look like?
No, I think you heard the president say exactly that today in season 9 44. She said himself, he's never been more authentic about America because he knows what we can accomplish if we work together. That's why we are contrasting not just his record of accomplishment, 14 million jobs, lowering cost for American families, but we're pointing to what we can accomplish over the course of the next four years. But of course, part of that work necessarily has to be contrasting the president's positive vision with the dark vision of Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans who are promising to fundamentally tear down the fabric of American democracy.
And so I think she's right to point out that contrast is necessary and positive vision is a necessary part of that contrast. We're absolutely gonna be focused on both ends of that equation for the remainder of this campaign. All right, Michael Tyler, I get the sense of talking to each other a lot over the course of the next year. Thank you so much for joining us.
I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Good to have you.
Nikki Haley responds to new criticism from her rival Rhonda Santa's that she's too moderate and that she's effectively running for vice president. We're live in Iowa with that wide ranging interview next. Plus, Israeli defense forces responding to growing criticism over the war's civilian death toll and discussing Gaza's post war future with NBC News. We'll bring that to you as well.
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Visit or your local deal for details. Welcome back. As we mentioned, it's just 10 days until the Iowa Republican caucus and all the Front runners are barnstorming across the Hawkeye State and NBC News has sat down with most of them this week as a part of our Closing Argument series in conjunction with the Des Moines Register. Today, with former South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley Stern in the hot seat.
In a wide ranging interview with MBC News colleague Dasha burns and the DMRs Brienne Fenn and Steel, Haley was asked about the current state of her campaign, which has been dogged. My comment she made last week about the Civil War and slavery. Her response to the fallout from that controversy in a moment. But first, here's a response to questions about her campaign's viability as rivals like Ron DeSantis accused her of being too moderate to win over conservative voters.
I am doing fine among conservatives. You're gonna see that. I'm telling you. Just because my opponents say something doesn't make it real.
It's not just the opponents, it's also the polling. Look at my record. I don't care what anybody says. I am a hardcore conservative.
I always have been. I've been a fiscal conservative. You saw, I ran a socially conservative state. I'm trying to get everybody.
The problem is Republicans have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president. That's the problem with politics. We shouldn't be proud of that. We should want to win the majority of Americans.
Am I trying to win the majority? You bet. Because we, the only way we're save our country is if we go after everybody, if we focus on lifting up everybody, not just a select few. And that's what I'm going to do.
And so, yes. Is that conservative? Yes. Is that moderate?
Yes. Is that independent? Yes. I want them all.
And the country should want them all. And that's the problem with the Republican Party is they're picking just a sliver and they're not looking at everybody. And that's why people have left the party. You said you'll be strong in South Carolina, but if you can't win, win your home state, should you drop out of the race?
How can you argue viability long term if you can't win your home state? Why don't we wait and see what happens in South Carolina before we talk about that? I mean, I think we haven't even had Iowa yet. We haven't had New Hampshire yet.
And you want to talk about South Carolina. It is my home state and I'm proud of my home state. My home state's proud of me. You can look at the favorability then it's Good.
Why don't you let and see what Iowa happens and what New Hampshire happens, and we'll show you what happens. South Carolina is Trump country. I spent time there. I talk to voters.
It has changed since when you were governors. Got a lot more red. Trump has brought out new conservative voters that weren't voting when you were governing that state. I mean, look, if you want to say Trump's going to win South Carolina, you can say that.
I'm fighting every day to make sure that doesn't happen. I'm fighting every day to make sure that doesn't happen in Iowa, in New Hampshire and South Carolina. I will survive and win this race. I will finish this race.
And I can't wait to show every person in the media that y' all tried to predict this from the very beginning, and you got it wrong because you didn't listen to normal Americans. Do you think Christie should drop out of the race if he really believes that Donald Trump should not be the nominee? I'll never tell anyone to get out of the race. I mean, it's personal to get into a race.
It's personal to get out of the race. That's for him to decide. I will say that his reason for getting into this was that he wanted to call Trump out, and his reason for getting into this was that he was going to go and follow Trump around the country and try and, you know, make him answer questions. He hasn't done that.
He's not playing in Iowa, he's not playing in South Carolina. If he wants to defeat Trump, I think he can see exactly how you do that. But that's for him to see, and that's for him to decide. I'm not going to tell anybody to get out of the race.
I'm just going to run my own. So you think it's disingenuous of him for him to take so much of his candidacy on defeating Donald Trump and then to continue in this race? I think it's left everybody scratching their heads saying, you know, you say you want to defeat Trump, yet you might be the one person that helps him win. I mean, he's got to answer that question, not me.
I want to ask about something you said last night. You said many of the cases facing Donald Trump are just political, but there are some he'll have to answer for. Which things do you think Donald Trump will have to answer for? I think he's got a lot of court cases.
He's gonna have to answer all of them, but I think we can look at them. Some have been over politicized. We see what's happening in New York and we see what they're doing, and then some are gonna have to be played out. Do you think there's a chance that we found guilty of some of those alleged crimes?
I don't worry about it. Like, for me, I want to be him fair and square. I'm not looking for him to fall in a court case. I'm not looking for him to be thrown off a ballot.
I want to beat him because I don't think he's the right person to go forward. I don't think that you defeat Democrat chaos with Republican chaos. I don't think that we can have someone go in four more years with the chaos that he brings. And so I think that we have to go and make sure that we get stable.
Well, Dasha Brian also asked Haley about those remarks she gave last night trying to clean up an incident last week where she failed to mention slavery when asked about the key cause of the Civil War. You've been asked about your comments on slavery. We don't need to rehash that. But there were some critics that criticized your comments last night about having black friends as sort of using a trope.
What do you say to people who say that you really had challenges when it comes to talking about race and are worried about what that would mean for the general election? We were the only Indian family in our small Southern town. I was teased every day for being brown. So anyone that wants to question it can go back and look at what I've said on how hard it was to grow up in the Deep south as a brown girl.
Anybody can look at my record and see when Walter Scott was shot down by a dirty cop how I made sure that the Walter Scott family didn't suffer because we put the first body camera bill in the country in place. Anybody can look at the fact that we had nine amazing souls. Die, Mother Emmanuel Church. I did something that no Republican or Democrat ever wanted to touch, which was called for the Confederate flag to come down because it would take two thirds of the House and Senate was an impossible feat.
I don't know what you're implying with that, but what I will tell you is saying that I had black friends is a source of pride. Saying that I had white friends is a source of pride. If you want to know what it was like growing up, I was disqualified from a beauty pageant because I wasn't white or black because they didn't know where to put me. So, look, I know the hardships, the pain that come with racism.
It's the reason that I fight bullies every day when it comes to racism, anti Semitism or hate, and I always will. If I didn't mention slavery on that day, it's because that's an automatic. There's always been the Civil War has always been known about slavery. I've misread it.
Thought he was looking for a bigger answer going forward so critics can say whatever they want. I'm very comfortable in my skin. I'm very comfortable with what I believe in. And my job is not to convince them.
Join me now from Iowa, following her interviews this week with the Big Ramaswamy, Rhonda Santis and Nikki Haley, today is ABC's Dasha Burns. Great week for you, Dasha. So let's talk about what we just heard from Haley. She's defending her conservative credentials there.
She is defending herself in really personal terms in the wake of that misstep over answering the question about the Civil War, and then last night saying she had black friends in high school. What were some of your biggest takeaways, Dasha? Well, Kristen, she was really defiant when it came to questions around polling and her path to victory, saying we just don't know what's going to happen. And right now there is this tension between what her opponents are calling her out on, which is them saying basically that she's too moderate, some going so far to say she's too liberal on certain issues to win a Republican primary.
And she's defending herself against that and touting her conservative credentials, as you said. At the same time, though, she's arguing that she's the person that can bring more people back into the Republican Party. The challenge for her, though, when we talked about this is whether or not the Republican Party is there for that, whether or not she's the right candidate for the gop, given where it is, given what primary voters in particular are looking for. She's having that those general election poll numbers, right, that she right now looks to be the best person to be Biden, given some of the polling that we've been seeing out there.
But the reality is the GOP is where it is with what we've been seeing right now, given the massive support, support for former President Trump and the push to the right that we've seen in the Republican Party in recent years. And of course, you did sit down with Ron DeSantis just yesterday. He was equally defiant when you pressed him on his chances of winning Iowa. And I go back to this point that you And I discussed yesterday, you asked him over and over again, what state can you win if you don't win?
Iowa. You never got an answer to that question. How would you compare and contrast these two candidates 10 days out from Iowa? Absolutely.
Quite a contrast, actually, on a number of answers. From how they talk about January 6th, for example, DeSantis dismissing it, Nikki Haley calling it a terrible day for our nation. From how they talk about election integrity, DeSantis really questioning the process. Nikki Haley saying, we need to make sure that it goes well, but feeling confident that she'll be able to accept the results in November.
Nikki Haley also struggling to answer the question when I asked her about whether or not she could win. South Carolina not being able to confidently say that she would be able to win, but both saying, of course, we don't know what's going to happen. One thing that DeSantis has been sort of pushing is Nikki Haley potentially running to be the vice president. Right.
This is a narrative they've tried to put out there to attack her. Well, I asked her about this. Stick. Listen to our conversation yesterday.
In our interview, DeSantis accused you of running to be the vice president, saying in our interview, quote, she's the darling of the never Trump person. Yet when she's asked, okay, will you just categorically put this to bed and say you will not accept the vice presidential nomination? She will not answer the question. When you've been asked this in other interviews, you say you're not playing for second.
I understand that. But if Trump asked, will you say yes or no? The reason I don't answer that question is I don't play my opponent's games. I am running my own race.
They want me to do that. So you guys talk about it for the next few days. I am not running to be vice president. I have said that in every way I know possible.
I don't play for a second. I've never done it in my life. I'm not doing it now. You don't put yourself, your family, and everything that goes into running for president to be second.
And so we are going to be first, and we're not even gonna have to answer that question. I have said I do not want to be vice president. I want to be president. You know why?
Because who's asking it? Rhonda's answer. Because they asked it. I'm not playing my opponent's game and then have you guys make a story of it for two to three days.
No, I want to talk about the economy. I want to talk about education. I want to talk about the board we know. Why can't you do the same?
I've said I don't play for second. I've said I'm not trying to be vice president for anyone. That should be enough. I am running for president.
When? Six months from now. I'm happy to talk to you about who's my vice president. Maybe.
Would you join forces to try to defeat Donald Trump? I'm going to defeat Donald Trump on my own. That's the goal that we have. If he wants to join forces with me, I welcome that.
But right now, we've got a race that we feel good about. We've got to serve. We've got moment. We've had hundreds of people show up at our events.
We're doing well in Iowa. We're doing well in New Hampshire. We're keep on fighting. Well, kudos to you, Dasha, for trying.
She never ruled it out. Fantastic interview. A lot of big headlines there. You have had quite a week.
I hope you can get some rest. Congratulations to you and Brienne on all of your fantastic interviews all week long. Dasha, great work. Thank you.
And you can catch up on RBC News and D Register interviews with Vic Ramaswamy, Rona Sanderson, Nikki Haley online right now. You can also find more coverage of the Closing Arguments Iowa series in the Des Moines Registers print edition. Coming up next, 2024 debuts of the bang for the president and his Republican challengers. It's only going to ramp up from here, folks.
Stay with us. The panel's next. We'll talk about all of it. You're watching Eat THE Press now.
Well, the batch is five days into 2024 and already the presidential campaign is in full swing with President Biden holding his first event of the year near Valley Forge, noting the anniversary of the attack on The Capitol, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Viva Swami and Chris Christie, all on the trail of ages 10 days from the Iowa Republican Caucus. And in just a few moments, former President Trump will be holding his first campaign event of the year in Mason City, Iowa. Joining me now on set is Julia Manchester, national politics reporter for the Hill Fashion senior advisor to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Republican strategist Garrett Ventry. Welcome to all of you and happy New Year.
Thank you all for being here. Julia, let me start with you. So we are just 10 days out from Iowa. You heard Nikki Haley there, defiant, defending her conservative credentials.
What are you going to be watching for? Yes, in Iowa. I'm watching for former President Trump. We've put so much, I think, stock into Governor Ron DeSantis and how he's really built up his organization in Iowa, whether Nikki Haley can trail him or catch up with him.
I think we've seen Trump very quietly building this organization. Now it's really coming to light. I think sometimes we get distracted by the national stories and the court stories, all that. But he really has perfected the operation in Iowa.
And I'm really watching to see what happens to Ron DeSantis because he's put all his eggs in the Iowa basket. So there's a question of where does he go if he doesn't come in first or second? Yeah, it's such a great question, Garrett. I mean, are we at a place where anyone can catch up to Trump?
He has such a commanding lead heading into Iowa. Yeah, I mean, the short answer is no. I mean, we've seen this nationally done 50 points in Iowa's up 30 points. New Hampshire's up 15 points, in South Carolina's up 30 points.
So just really tough to overcome here. And it's not just that, like 2016, we had this plurality lead with the Crowdfield, and Crowdfield is getting 60% of the vote. And so I think it's tough here. I don't think Ron DeSantis, if he loses in Iowa by 20 or 30 points, I don't see a path forward for him.
And Nikki Haley certainly can't afford to lose to New Hampshire. I don't know how. Then you go to South Carolina, suffering 20 or 30 point loss there politically. So Donald Trump is running away with this thing, and it's really no one's been able to catch him at this point.
Hazard Democrats, basically. You heard President Biden today make this case about democracy, about the threat that former President Trump poses to democracy. Are they prepared for any other candidates to break through, or are they basically saying you have to assume it's Trump at this point? Well, you have to prepare for anybody breakthrough.
But it is helpful to Nikhili Hailey. I'm making his argument, you know, and I think it's helpful to have somebody else so disruptive out there. He's so chaotic. Right.
Isn't that what Jabba's making the same argument? So in some sense, I'm sure that they welcome Nikki Haley in the final stretches, trying to make the case of a dysfunctional person you can't trust to put back in the Oval Office. And I think that at some point, I agree with everything you're saying about the numbers that somebody would have to beat if you're going to king. If he beat the king somewhere and it seems like Haley got the best shot, it would have to be in New Hampshire.
In order to win New Hampshire, you have to show some momentum in Iowa. And if you come in third in Iowa, I think this is how it's a highest stakes of her. She's got a second look like you're crusting. Julia, do you think that the folks who don't come in, who don't have a strong showing, a strong second place showing, are they going to take that hard look at their campaign and say time to drop out?
If you're Ron DeSantis, absolutely. If you're Nikki Haley or Chris Christie, not necessarily because they both run more New Hampshire centric campaigns. Now I'm expecting Chris Christie to do well in Iowa. I don't really expect Nikki Haley to necessarily knock it out of the park either.
But there is the question off to what Faz was saying. If Chris Christie were to drop out, theoretically that does put Haley closer to Trump in New Hampshire. It might make them a little nervous. But at the same time it still doesn't put her within striking distance.
And that's really the question who can get within striking distance of Trump? As I said, President Biden was talking about January 6th, really framing that around his race. Republican candidates are talking about January 6th in very different terms. I want to play a little bit of what Nikki Haley and Governor DeSantis had to say in our series of what lessons do you think the country learned from January 6th and what did you personally take away from that day?
It's a terrible day. We can never let that happen again. I don't know anybody that saw what happened that didn't like have their heart fall to their stomach. We just don't want to see that happen again.
And I think that we owe it, all of us, to make sure that doesn't happen again. Now, I will say you had a lot of people show up at the Capitol. Not everybody did something wrong. A lot of them went and were using freedom of speech and their ability to protest to do what they wanted.
But the ones that went in, the ones that broke the law, those are the ones you have to hold them accountable. You have to make sure that they pay the price to show that it will never happen again. What lessons did the country learn from January 6th? What did you also personally take away from that day?
Well, look, I mean, I think it's been politicized by the left. You know, I don't think it was supposed to be that was not supposed to happen. People went to protest and I think it got out of hand. But I think something happened to our nation.
What do you think we can take away from it? I know. I think it's more of a media with the anniversary. This is like Christmas Day for the media.
Like to talk about January 6th. I know it's a big deal. I mean a lot of the, a lot of corporate outlets. I get that.
I don't have a single question in Iowa about January 6th. Garrett, what do you make of those two very different responses on January 6th? Who has the better general election message? Yes, I think you step back and we can look at this obviously primary.
Look at a general too. President Trump's leading the polls right now obviously in the primary. But it's not just the primary. You got to take step back.
Democrats have used January 6th, the last three years against President Trump. They impeached him about January 6th. They did a congressional investigation about January 6th. 50% of the indictments are about January 6th.
Taking him up the ballot is tied to January 6th. So they've done that. What have the results been? Donald Trump's beating Joe Biden, a lot of polls going forward here because the reason is, is although people may think the attack on the Capitol was very they didn't like it.
They thought it was a threat democracy. They didn't like some of President Trump's actions that day. It's not taking as the number one, two or three issues going into 2024. It's immigration, economy, inflation.
And voters don't like Joe Biden on that. So of course Democrats want to make it on January 6th. They don't make it about the threat to democracy. I find it interesting Joe Biden says democracy is on the ballot when they're trying to take down Trump off the ballot in numerous states as well.
How do you respond to that? Well, Nikki Haley's trying to offer a general election message that she thinks would better position her to go talk to a lot of independent voters who have serious concerns about Donald Trump. I will dispute with some of the numbers that he is offering around Biden's great weakness. Gets straight as we get a versus matchup, a rematch and people, those who are staying on the fence, we haven't already decided most of the electoral already know where they're at first say that this general election takes off.
The few who haven't have the serious concern are we going to rerun the four years of chaos of Trump? And she's speaking to that. Obviously there's a reason why Trump calls a burden because she's very upset about like her having this very rational perspective. So I'm happy for them to do down the road.
Do you speak to why their real questions about whether he would actually pick her as his vice presidential nominee. By the way, that's another discussion we'll have. But let's say on the topic of January 6, because President Biden sort of officially launched his re election campaign with this big sweeping, very impassioned speech today. And some Democrats are saying, boy, they wish he had ramped up the rhetoric earlier.
They wish he'd gotten tough like this about six months ago. Absolutely. And it seems like he's been inching towards this. Okay, this is gonna looks like I'm gonna be matched up against Trump again.
He's been telegraphing out a little bit but boom, today he had that very impassioned speech. You know, this strategy sort of reminds me of Pennsylvania in 2022 with Doug Nasriano and Josh Shapiro. It seems like Joe Biden is taking a play out Josh Shapiro's playbook and trying to run on this issue. We know Josh Shapiro did that quite a bit against Doug Naciano.
Feeling just for difference here, I think Donald Trump is in a bit of a stronger position than Doug Mattress Rio was in Pennsylvania. But we saw Democrats do well on but the question is there's so many other factors this time around. How's the President Biden run the risk of over indexing on this issue? I mean, how much does he need to balance talking about these other issues?
Definitely a concern about indexing because when you think like I think a lot of people make their mind adjustments on democracy, I think it's going to be hard to persuade. Whether you reaffirm and remind people that is one thing, but persuade is going to be hard. So you got to work on the areas of persuasion. I do think when you think about prescription drug prices and there's certain things that we don't even worry about.
Trump stands like he campaigned on, let's say taking a big pharma drain swap and all this stuff. Do we know that like okay, Biden put in place Medicare price negotiation. What's Donald Trump's view on that? I think there's a bunch of things that are going to be economic in nature.
Corporate tax rate went up under President Bucky Institute of an increase of the wealthy paying their fair share was an entrepreneurial Think about that Antitrust. Right. Here's a bunch of we're taking on some large corporate monopolies. How's John Trump.
There's a lot of these issues that have not been touched by Donald Trump. And I think that could be a decider of the person. What's your response to that? And also I'm curious because obviously these negotiations going on in Capitol Hill, you raise the issue of the border.
If they get a deal, how much of a gift is that to President Biden, which by the way, a lot of Republicans have a quick break. To me this will be a boon to him in a general election. Right. First of quick response, antitrust, specifically the Google case came under Biden or Trump DOJ going into it.
But I would say that the issue is by now that these things that he sold the American people just not buying. Right. So there might be things that he's had policy accomplishments overall, they're not buying him. If you take a step back too, I think going up, were you better off three or four years ago?
And that's the question that people are going to have to answer going in the election right now. They feel like they're not they feel they're better off under Donald Trump on the border specifically. A lot of Republicans do share that concern, right. Getting a win the Democrats going into a general election.
So I think there's still going to be a lot of details there. You've got the House Freedom Caucus are going to want a very hard line bill that they pass Ho and the Senate seems like they're not even fully flush out with you know, negotiations there and they're threatening to shut down the government over. So we could we'll have you back to talk about shut down. There you go.
What a great Friday conversation. Thank you so much, Julia. As a Garrett, really appreciate it. After the break, a contingent cabinet meeting in Israel ends with a call for the Israeli government to be replaced as the IDF bombards targets in central and southern Gaza.
Do stay with us. You're watching me the PRESS now. Welcome back. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is back in the Middle east arriving in Istanbul, Turkey today where he's kicking off a week long diplomatic effort aimed at rising tensions in the region after a strike in Lebanon kill a senior Hamas official along with Houthi attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea, a deadly explosion in Iran by an ISIS affiliate group and a US Strike on an Iran backed militant leader in Baghdad.
Lincoln strips the region comes a day after Israel's defense minister release new details about the next phase of the war as well as a framework for Israel's role inside Gaza after Hamas is defeated. Joining me Now, News Forum correspondent Raf Sanchez in Tel Aviv, thanks so much for joining us. What is very latest with the domestic global tensions in Israel and the impact that they're having on the broader war? Well, because there's a lot of concern among Israelis here that the politics is spilling over into the war effort.
The system in Israel is the same as in the United States. The democratically elected civilian government makes the big decisions and the Israeli military executes those decisions. But right now you have a security cabinet that is very divided between far right members, some of whom are calling for Palestinians to be expelled from Gaza, more centrist ministers like the Israeli defense minister, and according to some of his ministers here, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kind of just floating above it, not really taking sides. I sat down earlier with the Israeli military's chief spokesman and I asked him about those politics, like, listen, some far right members of the security cabinet have said Israel should try to push Palestinians out of Gaza into other countries.
Is that one of your military objectives? This is not a military objective. When some people see the scale of destruction in Gaza, they wonder whether you're trying to make it so that it's unlivable. People can't go back to destroyed homes.
There is this destruction. The reason to this destruction is Hamas, because Hamas embedded himself in those houses, in those area. He created a tunnel system underneath the houses. So we had to be, we had to take those targets.
But every target that we took was an accurate one based on intelligence, according to the Internet. I asked him about the growing civilian death toll in Gaza. He said Israel's military is acting within the rules of warfare and that they're trying to minimize those casualties. Really fascinating conversation there, Raf.
Of course, Secretary Blinken is in the region, as we have said, and one of his top goals is to try to decrease tensions in the wake of several attacks in various countries throughout this past week. What did the IDF spokesperson tell you about how concerned they are about these rising tensions and what they think they can do? Well, they're very concerned and their most immediate concern is from the north, from Lebanon. Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian backed Lebanese militant group, says it is going to respond to the Israeli assassination of that senior Hamas leader in Beirut earlier this week.
The threats from Hezbollah have been vague, but Israel's military says that they are at peak readiness on the border right now in the event that there is retaliation. And as you said, Secretary Blinken is flying into a region that feels like it is on fire in all areas right now. He is trying to send a message to the Iranians that if the US does carry out its own threat of launching strikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen who have been firing at commercial shipping these last couple of weeks, that that is not an attack on Iran, that the US Is not looking for confrontation with Iran. All right.
Well, I know that tensions are high there. Ralph Sanchez, thank you for your incredible reporting. Please continue to stay safe. We really appreciate it.
Still a com triple threat. I'll talk to the top official in Los Angeles county as flu CO and RSV cases rise in California and all across the US you're watching MEET THE PRESS now. Welcome back. All across the country, people are headed back to work and school after the holidays and they are bringing something back with them.
Respiratory illnesses. According to CDC data, viruses, including Covid and the flu are surging nationwide right now. As you can see on this map, most of the country is facing high or even very high rates. And yes, that is the technical term.
Levels of the coronavirus virus left in wastewater, which many health departments use to predict a rise in cases, have more than tripled nationwide since mid October. California in the LA area has been hit especially hard with data showing a new rise in hospitalizations and increased emergency room wait times. I'm joined now by Barbara Ferrer, director of Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Barbara, thank you so much for joining me.
Director Ferrer, I should say we really appreciate it. So take us inside. What you are seeing right now, Covid and flu cases are on the rise in California, all across the U.S. what's your biggest concern right now?
Yeah, thanks so much, Kristen, for having us. I think like many other communities, we've got lots of illness and lots of respiratory illness. A lot of it is Covid. But we also continue to see a lot of flu, RSV and other respiratory viruses.
I think the most important thing is to not forget that there are some very easy common sense precautions we take take to prevent getting infected and infecting others. You know, here we like to say when there is so much illness around, please do not go to work, do not go to school. If you're sick. It's very easy still in LA county to go ahead and get a test, a free test from us to see if your respiratory symptoms have you with COVID in which case there is some medicine you can take that would help reduce the severity of illness.
We'd like to tell people, you know, always be mindful when you're around other people who are at higher risk. There are still many people, older people, people who are immunocompromised who need our help. So I know for many people this seems like certainly a much milder place than we've been in the past. That's accurate.
But unfortunately about, you know, 45 people still die every day in LA county from COVID So there are steps we can take to keep ourselves safe, to keep other people safe. Safe. They're common sense. Washing your hands frequently, of course, wearing a mask when you're in these crowded, indoor, poorly ventilated places, particularly if you're at higher risk or you're taking care of people at higher risk.
There's no reason to not be sensible here. I know we're talking about COVID but it's still here and so are these other viruses. We've learned a lot. We've got great vaccines.
People can go ahead, get vaccinated for flu. Everyone pretty much six months and older for flu and Covid. We've got vaccines now for RSV for those at highest risk. So just take advantage of the fact that we live in a country with lots of resources and here in LA county, those resources remain free for everybody.
So there really are no barriers to taking those common sense precautions. Well, it's so helpful to hear you tick through how we should be thinking about this moment. Given that you are seeing this rise in Covid and flu and rsv, how much does that compound the threat level for, as you say, people who are immunocompromised? And is that one of the biggest potential threats that you're monitoring?
You know, I think one of the biggest threats is if you've got three viruses that can cause severe illness all circulating at the same time, you can overwhelm your health care system. Not just that people need to get hospitalized. I mean, that's, that's so tragic that they have so much severe illness. But you've got people crowding in the emergency rooms and urgent care centers.
So you can easily overwhelm your healthcare system when you've got three significant respiratory illnesses all circulating at the same time. And you're right, for some people, we are hearing from our providers or healthcare providers that they're seeing people who actually are infected with more than one virus at a time. Certainly that's possible. We don't have enough, you know, sort of hard data on exactly what that rate is.
But anecdotally there are lots of stories that we're hearing from providers, particularly among people who are more vulnerable, that they're coming in and they're infected with both flu and Covid. That seems to be the more common combination that we've heard of. All right. Barbara Ferrer, thank you so much for this important information.
We really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you for having me. And thank you for being with us.
We will be back on Monday with more MEET THE PRESS now. And if it's Sunday, it's MEET THE Press. On your local NBC News station. I'll have exclusive interviews with Congresswoman Lisa Phonic, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, and the Biden campaign's deputy manager Quinton.
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