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If It's Thursday Abortion in America One year after the Supreme Court ruling that took away the rightful abortion in this country, we have brand new NBC poll numbers showing what voters think about that decision and what it means for the future of politics. Put it this way, it's not AG1. Plus, the White House rolls out the red carpet for India, Prime Minister Modi aiming to tighten ties with India in an effort to contain China. Despite deep concerns about Modi's own commitment to basic democratic principles and human rights and catastrophic loss, the Coast Guard says the five people aboard a missing deep sea vessel that's touring the Titanic are now presumed dead after debrief of the submersible was discovered in the search area deep underwater.
Happy Thursday. Welcome to Beat the Press Now. I'm Chuck reporting from Washington. We've got some brand new breaking polling news on one of the most pressing issues facing our country right now, abortion rights.
Ahead of the one year anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court decision that overturned roe v. Wade, 61% of voters say they disapprove of the Dobbs decision last year which ruled there was not a constitutional right to abortion and left the legality of abortion up to individual states. 36% of folks approve of this decision. So who's in that?
61% disapprove of the Dobbs decision. 80% of those folks are female voters from ages 18 49. Two thirds are suburban women, 60% of independents, and even a third of Republican voters. So now we look at this is for all the talk about how divided we are as a country, this issue, we're actually not divided.
There is a level of consensus because it is across the political divide. Anything to get over 60% on anything in this country that's closer to being consensus than divide. Also these brand new poll numbers, 53% of voters say that abortion is too difficult to access across the country, even though a plurality, 43% say that the state they live in has struck the right balance. But it's what they're seeing outside their state's borders.
Since the Supreme Court decision, abortion access in this country has changed dramatically. In the last 12 months, nearly half of US states have enacted some kind of abortion ban. Fourteen states have total abortion bans. Six states, including Florida, North Carolina, caught up in court battles to enact more restrictive regulations.
But new data shows that even in states where Republican legislatures have successfully implemented abortion bans, abortion itself is not going away. It's simply moving across state lines. Take a look at this analysis of where abortions have increased in the past year. Numbers have gone up in states that neighbor those with the most restrictive bans.
It's why Ron DeSantis went back for a second bite at the apple when 15 weeks suddenly made Florida an abortion sanctuary state. That's why he's trying to get down to sex. So some of those states have laws that are more strict than other parts of the country. Numbers have also risen in states like Kansas and Nevada, where the right to an abortion is enshrined in their state constitutions.
But the Dodge decision changed much more than just abortion access. The ruling has impacted all of women's health care across the border as obgyns are feeling forced to leave some states. Just finding women doctors when they need them in some of these places is becoming extraordinarily hard to find. A new study by the Kaiser Family foundation found that 61% OB GYNs practicing in states with abortion bans are concerned about the legal risks now associated with making patient care decisions for army to Press Special this airs tonight right here on NBC News.
Now, my colleague Kristen Delver explored the upheaval in women's medicine. Here's a portion of that report. More than half of the counties in Georgia don't have a single obgyn. There was a shortage before the reversal of Roe v.
Wade. But doctors like Joy Baker worry the state's strict abortion ban is compounding the problem. Anytime we limit access to full scope of care, we are limiting our patients and our practitioners. And when we do that, we may not understand the ripple effects.
State Senator Ed Sesler wrote Georgia's HB 481, which bans abortion with limited exceptions. After a heartbeat is detected around six weeks, often well before pregnant patients can get in to see a doctor. When you think about the telemedicine that's available, you can have a doctor consultation. Those are Those are pretty broadly available across the state, but you couldn't have a scan to see if there were issues with the fetus.
But I'll tell you this, the Life act balances the difficult circumstances. I think that the idea that there's geographic barriers for certain women in certain communities misses the point that there's a living being heart in a child that's disorder protection. Joey Alice Rachel Ravine, reporter covering health and abortion rights on Washington Post with me on Seth Dave, who's covering the fight on the 2024 race through these days, the prison of abortion. Rachel, let me start with you.
I think that's the big fallout one year later is the the unintended consequences or maybe some would argue they were intended consequences, but the fallout effect for women's health, for women that are trying to get pregnant, for women that have pregnancies that don't, that can't come finished to term. This seems to be perhaps what the anti abortion rights side didn't see coming. And Chuck, first, thank you for having me. You know, I think we, we did a big story.
We talked to, you know, roughly 30, 30 people and sort of, we found several sort of big takeaways. You mentioned the study from KFF on obgyns. One of the kind of the big takeaways that we found in our recording is that abortion access has entered a kind of fragile new phase here. And one year after the fall of Roe, you know, the full impact of the ruling is still being explored.
It still remains in flux. About 17.5 million women of reproductive age live in states where abortion is banned or mostly banned. As you mentioned, that is roughly 15 states. So Rachel, so we had the following effect on OBGYNs.
What when it comes to more what's the next are there, are there going to be more in the states that have gotten a band? So we expect more attempts at even curtailing the ability to cross state lines. Or are some lawmakers realizing there's a big backlash against that? Yeah, well, that's a great question.
I mean, I think there's a few things that are looming large right now. One is the 2024 election cycle. There are abortion rights groups that are working to try and get abortion onto the ballot in states like Missouri and Florida. There's of course, the 2024 presidential election and something that we saw this year during state legislative sessions, particularly in Nebraska and North Carolina, among, among some Repub, there was resistance to banning abortion early in pregnancy.
Those two states enacted bans at roughly at 12 weeks in pregnancy. So we did see some backlash within the Republican Party. As you mentioned, that there were some states that still did pass, which is governed by Governor Ron DeSantis, now presidential candidate. Right.
In fact, let me bring vaguely Santa's forces. He's here because Faith and Family is here. A big sort of Republican cattle call of sorts. Candidates, I think it's interesting as an abortion has divided this Republican feeling weren't sure how it was going to do it.
There really hasn't. And the candidate you're covering, he's decided to own the six week ban that is not in effect yet. That's right, Jack. And as you said, Faith and Freedom Kingdom just this afternoon I was there and spoke with several the attendees and they really like what they see from Ron DeSantis.
No surprises. Six weeks abortion ban. And they see it, you know, going to the right of former President Trump. But DeSantis keeps bringing up this issue too, that, you know, he'd do a better job picking Supreme Court justices, which is incredible.
He thinks the Supreme Court is not conservative. Correct? That's exactly what he thinks. And he says that he will pick justices that are long lines with Samuel Leto and Clarence Thomas.
And he actually tries trying to make the case that the justices that former President Trump chose weren't conservative enough. That argument though, and I spoke with several attendees. Look, they think that former President Trump to them did an incredible job as they see it, obviously because, you know, he helped overturn Roe v. Wade.
But it's something he's coming up at this conference and will they're coming. That's what I'm curious about. Are they looking for an absolute position on this or. Yeah.
Tim Scott saying, hey, look, I'm assigned what I can, but he's almost open to a federal band in 50 or 20 weeks. In 20 weeks to some might not seem like a band at all. Look. And the question is how to display in the general election.
Right. But the way this antecedent seems, the conversations I've been having, they are laser focused on the GOP primary. They're laser focused on Iowa and they think that this position is conservative position. They think it's gonna get them there in Iowa and then they'll worry about the general election.
They're not concerned about that at this point. So while some other giant candidates may, you know, maybe staking a different type of position from the DeSantis point of view, he wants to go conservative and he thinks it'll help him, especially among his constituents. All right, let me put it in this. I'll put you Back to work in a minute here.
Gabe, Rachel, I'll let you go. Really appreciate it. Incredible work you guys did at the Post. It was definitely something we consumed very well here.
So thank you for that. Let me bring in the rest of my panel these days are Dane Correspondent for previous NewsHour Jen Saki, the former White House press secretary hosted Inside with Jen Psaki and msnc, and former RC Chairman Michael Steele. He's also at MNC News. Political analyst Michael Steele, I'm going to start with you.
We're not divided in our portion as a country and yet our politics act as if we are right. At what point does the Republican Party admit that there's a consensus here and they need to lean in? Oh, they won't. I mean, to Gabe's reporting, they won't.
I mean, it's very clear they're not going to pivot away from this has been a 50 year long battle that they ostensibly won. All right. In one sense. But now moving from the idea that the states will control this conversation and they will decide individually, as we've showed in the polling that you've done, that's not enough.
And the next piece now is, okay, we're going to broaden the lens out and we're going to narrow the focus. So we're going to broaden it out to the entire country and we're going to narrow it down to six weeks. And you're going to eventually see a situation, I think narratively where they're going to talk about an absolute ban. It is illegal, zero, no weeks allowed.
And that's ostensibly at the end of the day, what they want to know. Lisa, I think it's been remarkable and there's some major stories that happen and you know, political strategies say, oh, this will play one way or another, voters, but the voters don't pay attention. I find it remarkable that voters, they absolutely know what's been happening with abortion rights. They know state by state.
I mean they're very we don't have a lot of don't knows in this. Are there any more political issues that are more firmly woven into our political fabric over the last 20? The stakes are personal. They're for your family, they're for people you know, they're for your church, all of that.
I do think when I look at the polling that you all did, something that popped out to me was that when you ask is your is it too difficult, is it too easy in your state? Almost no one has changed over the past year, except there are more people by double digit to say it's more difficult in my state. That is big for Democrats. It is to me.
It's like you sit there and say, you know, people have this argument, really want to run against Trump and it's like, does it matter? Is abortion Trump Trump? I mean, abortion is such has was such a driver, as we all know, in the midterm elections. He's a bigger driver than that tenants.
I suspect it was a bigger driver than we anticipated and also than people probably gave it credit for. And you know, I think Gabe very accurately portrayed the differences between the candidates. It doesn't matter in terms of how Biden and the Democrats run against the nominee, likely Trump. But though Trump has not said he's for an abortion ban, he has bragged about his role in the Supreme Court and his role in the Dobbs decision.
They will tie that around his neck well. But in weird way, Trump has given so many answers and there's other ways that they run against Trump, but it's any other candidate abortion. Senpai of course it is. And I think it is still a central issue with Trump as well because of his role in the Supreme Court.
We saw the polling that the Supreme Court is at a 30% approval rating, all of these things women. Many Democrats have kind of been awakened by all of this. And so my point is that Democrats, the Biden campaign, the dnc, if it's regardless, they're going to tie this issue to the Republican nominee and the Republican candidate. When you talk to some of these voters, do you get sense any of them going, God, I wish we wash.
It wasn't at the front, sire. No. And I was something that stuck out at me is when I went to some of the early DeSantis events, you know, in many other parts of the country, we talk about, you know, the ongoing feud with Disney. There's huge questions about how that's going to play politically around the country.
But among certain seasonacies and Iowa among those, even Del, it spoke to them on a deep personal level as we were discussing, you know, they really looked at this at their core. This is something that they responded to immediately. Outstanding ovations. When you talk about Disney, you know, it's not a business dispute for them.
So for them, you know, those evangelical voters, they do see, you know, abortion as a key issue. Now the question is, you know, place like Hampshire, you didn't talk about abortion quite so much in New Hampshire. But again, he's focused, laser focused on certain states, Iowa, South Carolina, tailoring his message a little differently in New Hampshire. But for him, Iowa is huge.
I had this rank of power. Republicans aren't as threatening this issue as the activists are. And these politicians are playing the activists. Depends on which rank and file.
I cannot imagine many US Senators who are Republicans who want to go to the right of Ron Kansas. Unfortunately, they don't. And Mr. Colon doesn't want them to either because he wants to get to Senate back.
The House conference is different for Republicans. They are divided. There are some, there are dozens who feel that way. Probably majority does not, but it is divided there.
Yeah, I could not agree more. Here's the X factor in all of this. For Republicans, it's a state called Kansas because at the end of the day, I think the activists and the party leadership and the Ron DeSantis woefully underestimate where Republican women will line up on this thing when they get in the ballot box, when they get in that room and they're thinking about their daughter and they're thinking about their granddaughter and the world they're about to create for them where their access to health decisions. So for a lot of these Republic women that I know that I spoke to, this was less about abortion.
It was more about their autonomy to make a decision for themselves, which the party has always argued. Well, and this is you, Michael and Jen, I'm sure you want to come on this, which is when you look at this by age, obviously you want to talk about waking up an electorate, you know, 18, 30 year old actually go. They show up in Wisconsin. I mean this is a generational.
This would be a generational mistake for the Republican Party if they're not careful. Like all of a sudden things go off a cliff for them in about 10 years when more of these Gen Z voters are actively voted. That's absolutely true. And I also wouldn't underestimate people between 30 and 50 either.
Obviously a stronger voting block historically. But people are thinking about their daughters and the generation that is coming up next, what the impact is going to be in states where they're living. Do I want to raise my daughter in Texas, for example? I mean a lot of Democratic independent Republican women might say no because their rights are going to be restricted.
So I do think unless they wind it back and even the Republican field, I would say Nikki Haley clearly is trying to like skirt the way on this. Chris Christie, I mean they're all. Tim Scott striking as whatever they think the audience wants to hear about. Correct.
They recognize, they recognize the polit. Quick note though. I think that there is a young core of conservatives, young voters overall do not want Roe overturned. However, there is a very fervent, maybe more fervent than we see in a generation corps of young conservatives.
It's a small but very valuable. They're active. Fair enough. All right.
Some of you come back. Some of you have the word looking at the impact of jobs on medicine, politics, culture beyond terrific special portion of America, 10:30 Eastern, right here on NBC News. Now coming up, tonight's dinner July House comes with a heaping side dish of friction as President Biden tries to balance with US Needs for India strategically with India's increasingly troubling record on democracy and human rights. You're watching this Press now.
Welcome back. You are looking live right now. Pictures here. This is India's Prime Minister Modi.
He's addressing a joint meeting of Congress in all concept earlier today. President Biden welcome Modi to the White House where he is hosting him for an official state visit, an honor typically reserved for America's closest allies. White House sees India as a key partner of China's growing influence and today announced a flurry of new deals on semiconductors, space exploration, US Jets. But the relationship between the United States and India is, in a word, complex.
While the US Continues to arm Ukraine, India has yet to condemn Putin's invasion and not only continues to buy Russian oil, but has increased its intake of purchases of Russian oil and are also now concerned about the erosion of key democratic values and human rights in India. Modi's government has tracked down a political opposition and religious minority groups, even denied the ability of some people to run for office. Modi himself was denied a visa to the United States over severe violations of religious freedom when he was in a lower political office after deadly rights in his home state in 2005. All of this raises questions by some about why the White House is literally ruling out the record for voting, especially as Biden is rhetorically has said he wants to make his presidency about the battle between democracy and democracy.
Of course, when you fist bump MBS and Saudi Arabia, yeah, kind of have lowered the bar these days. Joining now from White Houses like Mully and joining young sage, senior advisor to the Asia program at the US Institute of Peace and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for south and Southeast Asia. This has basically been a 21st century bipartisan effort. W frankly, go back to the Clinton administration.
Trying to bring India closer to the west has been a consistent across the last five presidencies. Obama did a state dinner. Biden's doing a state dinner for India. So but are we getting enough in return?
Well, India has a real powerful seat at the table right now, to be sure. And you put your finger on really, as you talked about, the framing of President Biden's foreign policy, autocracies versus democracies. Well, India is on paper the world's largest democracy. And if you look at how President Biden has approached this tension, he has really tried to bolster and expand democracies, democratic alliances to counter both Russia's aggression with Ukraine and China's growing influence.
India is really at the nexus of both of those challenges. And President Biden is trying to do everything he can with diplomacy with some of the deals that are announcing today to keep India in the fold. Now, it's important to note that India is also the host of the G20 summit in September. One of the big decisions facing Indonesia last year was whether Vladimir Putin would be invited to attend as a member of the G20.
That same question will be posed to Modi again very soon as that is another awkward potential moment. And just compare what we saw. Are we asking Modi not to invite Putin? Is that really a good idea?
Well, what we saw last year was essentially Putin just said, I'm not coming because he knew there were such complications to it and we took the heat off of Indonesia in that situation. You can be sure it hasn't really come up even in some of the preview calls, but that's one of the conversations that they're having behind the scenes right now about that. And it was important that when you look at the G7 summit that just happened in Hiroshima, India is now part of the G7, but they were invited to participate. And we know who was the Guest at the G7 President Volunteer Zelensky of Ukraine.
And that face to face meeting at the US Thought it was really important that Modi have that one on one meeting with Zelensky. He did pledge to do more to try to help Ukraine in this fight. So they're hoping that some of these deals, they now say some of the diplomatic flourishes, all continue to move Modi in the right direction, at least as relates to Russia. They don't feel they're in good places.
China as a member of the quad. Look, there's been a lot of theatrics of the day. There was the presser with President Biden and look, I've been in plenty of those pressers. Democrat countries, leaders of democrat countries usually call on their own press score for a question.
Prime Minister Modi did not look. I saw that as a bit Symbolic. That was interesting that President Biden called on all the questioners. Yeah, we don't overlook any of these nuances as it relates to the protocols of the state visit.
Usually it's a 2 and 2. So the white House, up until the last minute, we didn't even know there would be a press conference. Ultimately, the compromise seemed to be to just do a one on one. And one of the addition compromises was that though he himself would not have to call on the reporter, that President Biden would do it for him.
It was notable as well to listen to Bodhi multiple times refer to our friends in the press. So he seems to be acknowledging the uniqueness of this circumstance. But the US does consider it, as they talk about always making human rights at the top of the agenda, no matter who they're meeting with, that they were able to get him to a place where he did this today. They do welcome that.
And the question from the Indian report may not necessarily on the nose about some of the challenges back home that I've been hearing a lot of protests about outside our window here too. Do you get the sense that it was a friendly reporter at the White House that they got a suggestion of who the call on? Well, it's not that they necessarily chose on a friendly reporter, but the topic raised by that reporter, certainly about climate change, did not address the issue. Luckily, Sabrina Sneaki of the Wall Street Journal did pose that question to Prime Minister Modi and he said, democracy runs in our vein.
So he tried to put the best spin. Fair enough. Mike Bundling covered one, of course, today. Mike, thank you for bringing victims thing.
Let me start right there. Look, for me, it's symbolic. You know, you have this question I get asked all the time, how much is India? You know, how democratic is it?
How democratic is it? That is not an example of a leader that feels good about his score, which tells me you'll feel good about your box. So, I mean, India is a thriving democracy at the end of the day. You can't deny you've got this largest democracy in the world.
Somewhere near 70% of people vote. It's way easier to vote in India than it is to vote in the United States. And Prime Minister Modi, however, is not a leader that likes a lot of press conferences. He's not done a press conference basically in nine years.
So this is not Elon Musk, smaller. Yesterday met with Elon Musk, the head of Twitter. He's very active on social media. He engages publicly quite a lot, actually, through speeches, through rallies, Through a radio address that's listened to by hundreds of millions of people, sort of like Fireside Chat.
But he, they do now, is he authoritarian in the mode of an erdogan or something like that in Turkey, you know, probably not quite there. But India's democracy, you know, this is a state visit. And the reason it's a state visit is because it's about the relationship between the two countries. The leaders of all democracies face challenges and all democracies are facing, you know, increasingly challenges.
Poland, Hungary and Brazil. And I think we see that in India, one of the challenges for US Presidents is, well, are you trying to, are you trying to push back against those threats of democracy? Are you more part of the challenge? And this is within the sort of rule of India here it is the world's largest democracy.
Why isn't a closer ally of the United States? And I would argue that 21st century we tried, obviously during the Cold War, India made a decision to be unaligned, I guess, but that usually meant they were kind of winking and nodding with the Soviets, which is why we better relationship with Pakistanis. Yeah, it takes two to tango, right? So from the Indian side, they would say you guys tilted towards the Chinese who had fought.
We fought wars with China Already we see China as a major threat, Pakistan as another threat. You went China, Pakistan, we really didn't have a choice. So they were not aligned. They tilted to Soviets, we tilted to the Chinese, and that went on through pretty much.
So it's this entire war. We're finally at an enemy of our enemies are fine now. They're nervous about China, we're nervous about China. Maybe we can do business again.
I think it's a lot deeper than that. There's a deep. In fact, one of the reasons I think you see so much criticism or concern about Indian democracy in the United States is there's some deep seated desire for the world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy to be these great partners and beacons to the world and sort of a symbol of the future. And honestly, I think we are, I think we still are able to do that.
I think that the thing that changed in the 21st century, starting at the end of the Clinton administration, was the Cold War was behind us. And we realized, oh, we can start to build, but it's rebuilding. Like we did not have this deeper relationship. So when we look at why aren't they tougher on Russia, it's because of that legacy, because of their dependencies on Russia that still continue because of their 60 years of a strategic partnership with Russia that they're not just gonna throw out the window.
So we're not gonna get them like an ally, like a European ally. They're gonna be a friend and a partner. They're gonna generally be on our side of big strategic issues, but we're not gonna approach things the same way. They want permanency on the Security Council.
When you look at certain things, you know, you sit there and say, based on population, how do they don't. Africa doesn't have a single seat. No country. Africa, when it comes to the permanent membership of the UN should that be if the US Was the leader and trying to push for that, how much of a difference would that be in our relationship with you?
It's been a consistent policy in the United States now for over 10 years. Barack Obama made it a formal position that we want India to have a permanency on the UN Security Council as a part of UN Security Council reform and modernization. Look, these are institutions creaking institutions that are built. Were built in the legacy of World War II and they don't include a lot of the world.
You mentioned Africa, South America. So the is not on the UN Security Council. The administration is announcing this week that they're going to have a major push to help India become a part not just of the UN Security Council, but of the oecd, the European focus. You know, there's a lot of talk about it.
Should there be a G8, a G9, a G10, you know, potentially with smaller partners. And notice India was invited as mentioning to the G7 this in Tokyo just now. India's actually been invited regularly. They become basically a fixture at G7 meetings.
And I don't know if we're ready for a permanent expansion of the G7. But the fact that India is there, it's not just the United States. All the other G7 members also want India on their side of the letter. So Molly's last trip to the United States when Trump was president did this huge rally in Houston and how very much the Howdy, Modi.
Modi really got along with Trump. Yeah, I'm not saying they want, but there seemed to be something that Trump really got along with him. What do you make of that? They're more populist parts of populist leaders getting along with populist leaders.
Biden's more of a traditional democratically elected leader. And so that they all get along. They got along with Obama. And if you go back before Modi and Prime Minister Prime Minister Singh got along with Obama and got along with, with George Bush before him and Prime Minister Vajpayee, the prime minister before got along with Clinton and George Bush.
We've 20 plus years now of extremely good personal relationships between leaders and United States. I feel like we're getting closer and closer, having to be a pretty tight notion. This is a type of relationship and it could be the defining partnership that keeps using those words, defining partnership in the 21st century. Why?
Because when you step back and you think about big challenges, China, climate change, security, free and open, Indo Pacific, energy technology, those are going to be things that really we do better if we do them with India we can't afford. We need them. We need them for the long run. Thanks for bringing your expertise.
Thanks. Officials now say debris from that missing submersible has been discovered which shows signs of a deadly implosion deep in the ocean. At the very latest next. George, welcome back.
We're also following the breaking news on the missing submersible vehicle that was carrying tourists to see the wreckage of the Titanic. The five passengers aboard the vessel are believed to be dead after what the Coast Guard is calling a, quote, catastrophic implosion. Earlier today, the Coast Guard said it found debris that they now assess is from the missing submersible. That debris, including the tail cone, was found on the ocean floor about 1600ft from the bow of the Titanic.
In a statement, Oceangate, the company that owns the submersible, said, quote, these men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world's oceans. Joining me now is our correspondent on the story, Kristen Dahlgren, who's in Boston. So, Kristen, this was a multinational international effort. Millions of dollars spent to try to rescue these folks.
Obviously, a tragic ending. What more are we learning about whether this submersible even should have been on the water? Right. I mean, truly a massive rescue operation has been, you know, mobilizing over the past few days, including a vessel from France, from Canada, where it was initially launched from, also from the United States.
There were nine vessels in all that were involved in the search. Two remote operated vehicles. One of those is what found this debris field earlier today. They're learning more about what may have happened.
And it looks like this catastrophic implosion they're gathering happened very early on, before this rescue effort was even launched because the Coast Guard said they've been listening over the past few days with these Zana buoys and there was no sound that would have indicated any type of explosion. So they do believe that when that sub initially lost contact on Sunday was around the time that it may have had this catastrophic failure. They were asked about the investigation into the safety of this submersible. Over the past few days, we've been learning more from people who had been on board or decided not to go on one of these dives.
Also some lawsuits against the company where there were safety questions brought up. The Coast Guard said it's really too early for them to address any type of safety investigation. And that would be handled probably by a different agency anyway. So right now what they're doing is continuing the search for debris so they can try and figure out what happened.
They'll begin to demobilize this massive rescue operation. But you're right, Chuck, there's gonna be a lot of questions about the dollar figure ticket. Yeah. Who's in charge of this rescue operation?
It's been the United States Coast Guard that's been leading this unified command. And so everything has been run out of, you know, right here behind me, on site. The, the company Oceangate has been leading sort of the on site thing because they had the institutional knowledge of their own submersible and what its capabilities were. But, you know, while it's been a joint operation, it's certainly been led by the United States Coast Guard.
And is there any. So is it the Coast Guard that's trying to get the debris or is it Ocean Gate? I mean, is the Coast Guard going to keep the debris for the investigation or not? Right, well, and there's a question of whether or not they can even recover the debris.
You know, we're talking about 13,000ft below. And so there are these remote operated vehicles and they did have sort of winches and the ability to maybe hook to a submersible and pull it out about whether or not they have, you know, the grabbers or the ability to get these smaller pieces of debris. This was a 22 foot vessel, and so there it's in small pieces right now. So unclear whether they'll even be able to recover anything.
Kristen Dahlgren, who's in Boston, where the Coast Guard has been running this rescue operation. Kirsten, thank you. Thank you for all your reporting on our abortion special as well. By the way, after the break, we now have a baker's dozen of Republican candidates running for president.
As former Texas congressman Will Hurt officially throws his hat to the growing ring of Trump rivals. He's lucky 13 to watch a beat president. Welcome back. The House voted this afternoon to table an effort from Colorado Republican Congressman loan.
Bobert, who was aimed at impeaching President Biden now over his handling of the subordinate of the move, now sends the impeachment resolution to the Homeland Security and Judiciary committees, allowing Republicans to avoid a missing intraparty fight right now over impeachment, though it's coming because forces inside the Republican caucus are sure to point towards articles of impeachment making their way to the floor sometime this session. And with former President Donald Trump set to spend time at federal courthouse later this year, an effort to impeach President Biden, DHS Secretary Mayorkas or FI Director Chris Roe could be the best televised counter program Republicans can offer. So back with me now on set. Lisa, of course, I'm pretty busy.
Director for the center for Progress Action Fund and former Archie chair Michael Steele, also NBC News political stainless. Lisa, let's take about the last 48 hours among house Republicans. If she had this attempt at impeachment and then it was moved over, you get this weird fight between Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene. I think I'm leaving a third item out here.
But there's clearly, oh, wait, was the whistleblower. There clearly are a group of House Republicans that really want to see if they can get Biden in some way. It looks like it's some sort of revenge for the Trump era or what it is one of these is going to happen. I'm waiting to see.
There is a lot of calculation by McCarthy's office over what would help them try and keep the House next year and when this timing could matter. When you look at the actual impeachment articles that Representative Ober submitted that were sent to committee that all this whole fight is about, they're centered on immigration policy. So Republicans think that is a winning issue for them. However, if it is really just about getting Biden and not actually making the country better, they're worried that that can expose them.
And I'm not convinced yet that we will see quite the vote you're thinking you'll see. Look, I don't see how this is in politics at all. But just because it doesn't look like it's a good idea doesn't mean it won't happen. But they still need a majority.
Right. And they don't have those votes for this. Right. The question is, are there 25 Republicans comfortable going against the base on this?
Because I love Kelly Armstrong, north coast said this is terrible ideas as my constituents love it. Yeah, your constituents love it. But at the end of the day, it's just bad. It's not just Bad politics.
It's some of the dumbest politics you can come up with. There are a whole other cadre of things you can sort of lay out. And using the committee chairmanships that they have. I gotta get you.
That doesn't make any sense to me. If I were. You know we just had a massive report this week about learning loss from the pandemic. The Republican Party was in the party leading the charge against lockdown.
This is actually fascinating policy argument. That's what I'm talking as Democrats don't know how to do communication. Republicans don't know how to do policy. And that's the space the country finds itself in.
You've got people who are out here not communicating the successes of the current administration. You know, infrastructure inflation bills and things like that where they got bipartisan support and you got Republicans out here wanting to impeach a president that yeah, maybe a 43, 44% but nobody in the country's hanging for that right now. That's not where their interest wise is the public opinion. Thank you.
There are things that the country has said about future policy. Welcome impeachment trial. I mean I know. I just think that they don't.
I mean they would have to deal with it. Yeah. And it would fail spectacularly. Yeah.
I mean I don't know about welcome because I actually think that most of the Democrats want to legislate. They actually love. They was very productive too. As Michael said.
I think two things. One is it keeps reinforcing the president's core message which is sort of MAGA Republicans to take over the party. And that is what's happening. There is a reminder of that.
And they really have become a minoritarian party and they're only governing for at best not even the 35% or whatever it is to have. You know, they've advocated the sense of leadership that you're actually trying to drive your supporters to solutions and are just doing what they think the most rabid base want. I find it so interesting how often I hear Republican member of Congress now say like I answer all my constituents who want. It's their way of saying like the last what do you think this resolution when my constituents are really interested in this, it's their way of saying, yeah, I kind of wish we were focused on this, but I can't get caught saying this is bad idea and using shim of that.
I was asking people recently. I totally agree with you. I'm fascinated by what people think they're hearing from their constituents. And I was asking members of the House Republican Conference, the Trump indictment, what were you hearing?
They were not getting phone calls from their constituents, by and large on that. But so there's a little bit of fomo, I guess, among House Republicans that like, hey, we want to prosecute someone. Lock her up. Lock him up.
Let him down. That's what it feels like, a thing. And I was just going to say, are there enough down vacants to stop it, Michael, Stop the impeachment process? Yeah, I think there are.
I don't think Kevin McCarthy in the main wants this to happen. I agree that he doesn't know how he stops it. I think. I think he stops it the way he got.
He got some things done that no one thought he would get done. On the debt deal, for example, I think he sort of pulled together the right coalition of Republicans in New York State. Exactly. To sort of, sort of buffer this.
I think that goes to the core of the whole. Marjorie Taylor Greene getting up in Boker's grill. Well, they're not. No, it's not so much Maddie who gets credit, but she's a little mini speaker.
So Marge Taylor Greene is doing that. Like, you don't get to make this move unless we give you permission to make this move kind of move. No, absolutely. Actually, that's understood.
Two things. Well, I actually think the problem is Kevin McCarthy would like to this. He would just like it to be a little bit more baked. I actually think there's a part of him, if he thinks he can help him politically.
He's not focused. The problem is he's not focused on solving problems. He's not focused on trying to get the caucus to bring actual legislation to the floor. And there's just a crisis of leadership in that party right now.
All right, I want to bring up this Rick Scott denial that he was really presidential stuff. Look, you don't normally see this at the New York Times. Right. If Daily Beast sort of throws something like this and then you say Rick Scott on.
I don't know where that came from. You'd been like, all right. But it just seemed like either the Times was misled or apparently Times said he was running for president. Rick Scott says, I don't want you to talk about running for re election, but somebody is trying to mess with Ron DeSantis.
Oh, I think that is very, very clear. I will also say Rick Scott is an ambitious person. You know, so was he in a conversation sometime somewhere? He's a U.S.
senator. Of course he thought I'd not run for president. But is he really no, no, I will say this. There had to say the stuff that showed up in the news.
I think everyone started messing with crisis. Thank you all. Silicon the former chief of staff of nation's top cyber defense agency weighs in on the fallout potential ongoing threat posed by last week's global cyber hack. That's right, you might have missed that one.
I've targeted the federal government for 14%. Welcome back. It's now been weeks since we first learned of a massive cyber attack that targeted several federal agencies. The government said the attack which blamed on a well known ransomware group, was widespread and likely impacted private companies as well.
It's the third time at least that we know that hackers have been able to infiltrate federal agencies in as many years. The company growing concerned by security efforts attackers could have their sights set on next year's election. I'm joined now by Kirsten Todd who served until April as chief of staff to cisa, the federal agency that oversees cybersecurity. Also former Secretary, Director.
President Obama's mission on enhancing cyber cyber national cybersecurity, essentially helping one of the architects of the current system we have now. Kirsten, it's good to see you. So let me just start with the ransomware group. Do we think it's an independent group or do we think they have a state sponsor?
It's great to be with you, Chuck. So I think the first one you're referencing is this ransomware group Clop, which is a Russian ransomware group. We don't know if it's state sponsored, but right now there's no evidence of that. What they did, you're talking about the move it application.
It's a managed file server application. And what this means is it transfers data. And so what they did, the ransomware group is they exploited a vulnerability whereby the data that was static in the app was exploited. So if your data was on the file server at the time of the exploitation, that's obviously concerning because that data was exploited.
But what's important is that it's static. This is not something that we see as a systemic risk. This is something that happened. And quite frankly Clock probably didn't even realize how much data it was going to get across government entities and private organizations.
And what we're seeing right now, what do you think their initial motive was? That. I'm sorry, what do you think their motive was? So I think, you know, these ransomware groups are just going after, they're going after data, they're just trying to go say below the radar.
But I do think you know, when we look at this and we're talking about the concern, the actual event that happened last week that's also, it's more concerning is the hack of the Barracuda appliance. And so what you're talking about here is the concerns for what's being exploited. And this is believed to be a China hacker state sponsored group that went after Barracuda appliances. And the challenge here is that we believe it's been done for espionage purposes.
So what we're seeing obviously the Russian hacking effect is really just probably a ransomware event. But this Barracuda which is China sponsored is much more concerning. Well, so what, look, this has been the, you want to talk about the paranoia that some people have the Internet of everything. So the idea that you can hack appliances and use it for surveillance, is that what you're saying?
So Barracuda says email security, an email security gateway. And so what is believed to have happened is that exploited vulnerability Mandiant came out with a support last week. It is very concerning because there's a belief then that this potentially is state sponsored by China and that it is being done for espionage purposes. And so now we have to really look at how do we help remediate.
The Cyber Security infrastructure Security Agency put out an advisory, certainly remove it and they're working on being able to help entities remediate and be able to patch and do these things quickly so that we can mitigate the impact. The espionage of anything that's coming from, from China is certainly a concern. This February the IC put out an annual threat assessment that was very explicit about China having the capability to attack our critical infrastructure if it felt that the United States was gonna get into conflict with the US So while we are concerned about Russia random ruse and what's gon certainly our priority right now is being able to keep our infrastructure safe and secure against any sort of state sponsored activity. Look, bigger picture, how concerned are you on a day to day basis that, that the state sponsored espionage has sort of, you know, has already infiltrated and we don't know it.
What's the likelihood of that? I think we can always assume, we've always had the assumption that we have espionage on our networks. It's a tool that is used globally. The concern right now we always are concerned about vigilance fatigue.
We know that we have heightened tension given the situation with China and Taiwan and cyber, cyber tools are an effective tool for engagement and it's a tool that China will use. So what we need to do right now is Critical infrastructure needs to double down on its resilience, needs to double down on its safety and security. It's challenging because we just came off of Russia's invasion of Ukraine where we asked companies to flee up to what we call at cisa shield up idea that you've got to do more. And we're heading into this other phase where we're very concerned about China.
I want to talk about that as a sort of feather in your cap there because, you know, we never report that another plane lands safely at National. The dog that didn't bite on the Russian invasion of Ukraine was all these cyber hacks that we were all petrified of. What is what should that, should that reassure us that we, we are at least more vigilant than ever? I think it's a great point because, you know, having done this since terrorism, you never see that the attacks that don't happen.
It is very much about resilience. I think this is really a story about industry and government working together, real time information sharing to say you need to do more and industry responding and respecting what government said because government has earned that respect, which has been, you know, a very long journey. But it's there now. And I think when we have something where we're concerned, when the intelligence community comes out to say we should be concerned about China's presence on infrastructure, that industry will respond appropriate and be able to clean up and have that vigilance look, I think it's oh, she never get pat on the back for stopping an attack nobody knew was going to happen.
But I do think it's one of those things we need to remark upon. Kirsten Todd, cybersecurity expert, former government official assistant, thank you for coming out, sharing your producer to see you. Great to see you, Jackson. And thank you all for being with us this hour.
I'll be back tomorrow with more MEET THE Press down. One more reminder to open. Don't miss our MEET THE press special. Abortion one year later.
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