If it's Monday, President Biden sharpens his criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that invasion of southern Gaza is a red line for the US Even as Netanyahu remains defiant that Israeli forces will into the region redline or not. Plus, President Biden, former President Trump hit the trail and each other on key issues from Social Security and Medicare suspending to foreign aid for Ukraine as the 2024 rivals ramp up their attacks in the race for the White House. And the nation's top intelligence officials testify on Capitol Hill that Russia and China remain top security threats as foreign aid to Ukraine sits in legislative limbo House a vote on banning TikTok as soon as this week. Hello there.
Welcome to the press. Now on Ryan Nobles in Washing, where a growing rift between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is on full display. The Israeli leader is now vowing to press ahead with the ground invasion of southern Gaza, despite new warnings from President Biden that doing so would cross a red line. It's all coming as civilians in Gaza mark the start of Ramadan with no sign of a ceasefire in sight.
Over the weekend, in an exclusive interview with msnbc, President Biden ramped up his criticisms of Israel's conduct, saying that Netanyahu is hurting Israel by not doing more to prevent civilian harm in Gaza. The president also issued a new warning. Take a listen. He must, he must, he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the action stake.
He's hurting, in my view, hurting Israel more than helping Israel by making the rest of the world. It's contrary to what Israel stands for. What is your red line with Prime Minister Netanyahu? Do you have a red line?
For instance, would invasion of Rafah, would you have urged him not to do, would that be a red line? There's a red line. I'm not going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical.
So there's no red line. I'm going to cut off all weapons so they don't have the Iron Dome to protect them. They don't have. But there's red lines that if he crosses in the country cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead.
You can certainly get a sense of the tightrope that President Biden is trying to walk on this issue. As he navigates the intense divisions inside his own party for the support of Israel. Netanyahu is firing back at the president's comments, saying that Israeli forces will move into Rafah. Netanyahu told Politico that he has a red line of his own to make sure an attack on October 7th never happens again.
Netanyahu also rejected the idea of a Palestinian state, despite President Biden saying in a State of the Union address just last week that a two state solution was the only path to lasting peace. The public tit for tat comes amid an escalating humanitarian situation in Gaza as the US and its partners work to get more aid in. Earlier today, the US carried out its seventh round of airdrops in Gaza, which included food and water. Meanwhile, the temporary humanitarian port in Gaza, which the president announced just last week, could take up to 60 days to get fully operational, according to officials.
That timeline puts the potential for more military action squarely in the spotlight, putting even more pressure on ceasefire negotiations. CIA Director Bill Burns, who was in the Middle east on Friday for those ongoing negotiations, was on Capitol Hill today for the annual worldwide threats hearing. Here's what he had to say about the status of those talks. We're going to continue to work hard at this.
I don't think anybody can guarantee success. What I think you can guarantee is that the alternatives are worse for innocent civilians in Gaza who are suffering under desperate conditions, for the hostages and their families who are suffering also under very desperate conditions and for all of us. Joining me now is Kelly o' Donnell at the White House and NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel. He is in Cyprus, where the aid for Gaza remains docked.
Kelly, let's start with you. How is the White House reacting to this rebuke by Prime Minister Netanyahu, and how much is the relationship between the two leaders frayed? Well, certainly the White House is trying to defend that relationship in the big picture sweep of history and of this moment. But as you've already indicated, there is such a careful calibration going on from the president and from the administration trying to show the support for Israel while also trying to lean heav into influence.
That they've done so behind the scenes and now making more of that public about the ways in which they would like Israel to conduct certain aspects of its operation. So today officials are telling us the relationship is good, it has not been frayed. At the same time, they acknowledge that Benjamin Netanyahu and the president have not spoken in a period of weeks. However, they have spoken more than a dozen times since October 7th.
So the President is trying to make clear that he is unwavering in the US's ultimate commitment to Israel. But tactically and strategically, he would like to see different steps taken. That, of course, is playing out on the world stage, it has its own domestic political concerns for both President Biden and the prime minister. And at this point, the vulnerabilities that appear on the surface of the relationship are something that are coming into view that we haven't always seen.
And they are trying to reinforce the underpinnings of the US Israel relationship to try to get through this difficult time. Right. It's interesting because the president has drawn this new red line. He didn't really put many specifics behind it or even say what the consequences would be for crossing a red line.
But he also said he wouldn't stop sending weapons to Israel. So what could the consequences be if Israel does eventually launch this roundabout operation into Rafah? Well, that is where the president is playing as very close to his best. He does not want to signal a sort of, you do this and I withdraw that kind of approach.
At the same time, he wants to try to use his public displeasure as a means of leverage. And can't he be persuasive? For Netanyahu, that remains to be seen. And also trying to speak to the concerns that have been growing within his own party on the world stage about the catastrophic effects of this military conflict for ordinary citizens of Gaza, people who are not directly involved in the conflict.
And of course, Israel has always maintained that Hamas works within the domestic population of Gaza, within the communities there, making it much harder to try to eradicate the fighters from the population. But what we have seen with starvation and concerns. So the president is trying alternatives, which is emphasizing humanitarian aid is one of the big things the US can do. Right.
Okay. Kelly o' Donnell out of the White House, thank you for that, Kelly. Let's go you. Now, Richard, you've also spent quite a bit time in that region.
And as Palestinians begin to mark Ramadan, talk to us a little bit about the stark differences that they're experiencing this year. And how soon could we see Israel moving to Rafah? Well, I'm told from sources in the region and in the United States that it is a matter of timing, that it is not a question of if but when, that Israel will move in, will move in force against Hamas in Rafah, and that it be devastating for the people. There are roughly 2.3 million people in Gaza by now.
I think most of us become familiar with the map. It is a sort of long, thin area. Generally, it was the north that was most heavily populated around Gaza City. Now almost everyone in the north has moved south, south of an area in the middle of Wadi, Gaza.
There are about 300,000 people or so left in the north. The rest, about 2 million, are south of that midpoint, and many of them are in Rafah. The issue is, if Israel goes in, which I'm told they will do perhaps over the next couple of weeks, month or so, that not only will they be going into a densely populated area because people can't leave Gaza, the entire territory is sealed off, has been sealed off for a long time, that if they are suddenly forced to go north, there's nothing left to go back to. There has been such massive destruction in northern Gaza because of the Israeli military assault that you could see a huge population shift, a million million and a half people or so being forced to move north to what is now a wasteland, a wasteland where there is starvation.
Most of the acute starvation that we're seeing in Gaza, and the UN says it is borderline famine, which is a designation that they take very seriously, is in the north. That population there, 300,000 or so, are facing the worst conditions. So that is where these aid drops have primarily been focused on, the north. And that is where the pier they're talking about building eventually might end up being.
That is where this aid ship that is in Cyprus is trying to go, but it is delayed. And a agencies around the world say that it is because Israel is imposing draconian restrictions on what can go into Gaza, who can come out of Gaza as Israel continues its mission to root out Hamas. And this ship, as an example, has already been inspected. It is already loaded.
The contents are already covered in a tarp. It was inspected by Cypriot customs officials, a process that was overseen by Israeli officials. Yet it remains here. And you also talk about those aid drops, those drops from aircraft.
They are largely symbolic. A lot of them are largely photo ops. They do some good. But each plane, each C130 carries the equivalent of a truck.
It is an enormously expensive way, at times a lethal way, because some of the palace dropped down people last week, killing five Palestinians, according to witnesses and health officials. So not only is it inefficient and expensive, it is not nearly making the difference. Nor is this one ship going to make much of a difference when it eventually gets clearance, if it gets clearance. Aid agencies say the only real solution is loosening the controls, letting more of that inspected aid get in by road into the Gaza Strip.
Okay, Richard Engel, Lafarus Inside Perspective. Thank you so much for that report. Let me now bring in Michael Oren for Israeli Ambassador to the United States. So, Michael, just a reaction to this rift that we're seeing between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Biden, how concerned should Netanyahu be about what appears to be Biden's growing frustration?
I think Netanyahu is concerned. All the people of Israel is concerned. The United States is our ultimate ally. The United States under the Biden administration has cast three vetoes against attempt at the Security Council to impose a ceasefire.
And ceasefire from Israel's perspective is Hamas gets away with mass murder and Israel can't restore its internal security. Large swaths of Israel simply remain uninhabitable. And Hamas will emerge from those tunnels, rearm, reorganize and launch another deadly attack. So the ceasefire, the vetoing of ceasefire is crucial.
The supply of ammunition is also crucial. So those two ammo and veto are lifelines for Israel. But having said that, seeing that the United States is getting increasingly frustrated and may try itself to demand a ceasefire or red line, as the President intimated in his most recent interview, is a source of concern. I think the Israelis are rather confused, frankly, because these policies aren't Netanyahu's policies.
The Prime Minister of Israel is not the manager of the idf, the government. This government is a national unit government. These policies are Israeli national policies. If Israel goes into Rafah, and I believe I agree with Richard Engel that Israel will go into Rafah, it's a matter of not, not if, but when.
But that will be the decision of the Prime Minister to now, the decision of the Israeli government, which includes people from the century and the center left. And those policies will be supported by the vast majority of Israelis. Interestingly enough, if we talk about the delays and the aid, aid to the policies are not very popular in the State of Israel because Israelis feel that Hamas will not let us know anything about the hostages, not their names, not whether they receive the medicines that have been sent to them. And this is the only leverage that Israelis have over Hamas.
Israeli government has gone against public opinion in letting it in. And the major issue is not the delays caused by Israel. Our officials tell us that the delays are caused by untake the eight in. So you can have that ship sail from Cyprus.
It's going to get to site, it's going to get to Gaz, going to dock. But who's going to take the aid in? Right now, the only forces taking aid into Gaza, as you heard from that convoy last week, that had this tragic outcome, are forces. And even now, I think the administration is saying that if they built here the dock, American troops going to take the aid in, Israel's going to have to take the aid in.
Yeah. So let's talk more specifically about this red line. You mentioned that it is a government decision. Are the government officials there, not just Netanyahu, the entire war cabinet, are they taking it seriously and do they feel that the red line has any teeth?
Are they worried at all that the support the United States has provided them could wane if they continue down this trajectory? I think, of course, they take it very seriously. It should be a source of concern. Again, I'm going back to the president's issue.
Yesterday we said I'm not going to cut off eight Israel. I'm going to continue to give Israel Iron Dome. Iron Dome is a defensive weapon. It's not an offensive weapon.
Iron Dome doesn't have much wood to use it in eradicating, uprooting how Hamas in Gaza, it's defending against rockets. And Israel has limited most of Hamas's rocket firing capacity. So maybe there was, there was a bit of a hint there about how it could be a change in the policy of supplying conditions. But at the end of the day, right at the end of the day, Israel has no choice.
Israel has no choice but to eradicate Hamas. Because without eradicate Hamas, basically, Israel, well, could even literally cease to exist. We'd lose our reason for existing to protect our people, protect our land. Yeah.
You mentioned about how these are decisions made by a government, but there does appear to be some cracks. I mean, we saw Ben Gantz, he drew some criticism from Prime Minister Netanyahu's allies for his visit to the US earlier this month. Is there any sense that the wartime unity government is starting to crack or fall apart? We certainly see some cracks we have, and that's the unity government.
I don't see major cracks in the Israeli population itself. We've been in battle now in very intensive combat for more than five months, 250 soldiers. Still. We haven't seen any major anti war movement in Israel, no major protests against the war.
You see hostage family protests and their divisions even within that camp. But then you're going to have, you always going to have that demonstration against Netanyahu when they are escalating now, but not against the war itself. I think it's very close to a national consensus that we have no choice but to finish the job of uprooting Hamas Other without that Israel life, Israel simply can't go on. All right, Ambassador Michael Oren, thank you so much for your perspective, sir.
We appreciate it. Thank you very much. And coming up, we are on the road with President Biden as He hits battleground New Hampshire on the heels of dueling rallies with Donald Trump in battleground Georgia. Plus, on this day four years ago, think back.
The World Health Organization declares a pandemic. The president addresses the nation. The NBA suspended season and a Hollywood megastar tests positive for COVID 19. We'll look back on the day that changed everything.
You're watching to the press now. Welcome back. Right now, President Biden is hitting the campaign trail and hitting the airwaves. Moments ago, he spoke at an event in Manchester, New Hampshire, as he plans to head to the battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Michigan later this week.
It comes as the campaign is going on the offensive, seeking to capitalize on last week's State of the Union. This weekend releasing a new ad tackling the issue of the president's age head on. Look, I'm not a young guy. That's no secret.
But here's the deal. I understand how to get things done for the American people. I led the country through the COVID crisis. Today we have the strongest economy in the world.
I passed a law that lowers prescription drug prices, caps center $35 a month for seniors for four years. Donald Trump tried to pass an infrastructure law and he failed. I got it done. Meanwhile, former President Trump also turning his attention to the general election, attacking the president and mocking his battle to overcome a childhood stutter.
During a rally in Georgia on Saturday, we all heard Crooked Joe's angry, dark, hate filled rant of a State of the Union address. Wasn't it, didn't it bring us together, emergency, bring the country together. Joe Biden should not be shouting angrily at America. America should be shouting angrily at Joe Biden.
Everything Joe Biden touches turns to everything. And that's just a sample of what was out there. And joining me now in New Hampshire is NBC White House fight Aaron Gilchrist. And with me on the set as NBC who has been covering all things Donald Trump.
So, Aaron, let's start with you. The Granite State, as you mentioned, the president there in New Hampshire. What are we here today? Well, the president came in, Ryan said that he was here to present his budget proposal for 2025.
That's how he opened. They talked a lot about what he wants to do around health care costs and lowering health care cost for Americans. You know, he referenced that in the State of the Union address and today said that in particular that he was looking to Congress to approve a plan as a part of his budget, his 7 trillion dollar budget proposal that would reduce the cost for prescription drugs for all Americans, not just People who receive benefits through Medicare. That was a core part of what he had to say today.
And this was not a campaign event. This was actually an official event, sort of something more typical of what you'd see coming after the State of the Union address. But there was a campaign tone to what the president had to say. He did address his predecessor as he described Donald Trump in the past, and he did use his name as well today.
I want you to hear a little bit what he said about former President Trump and Republicans. If anyone tries to cut Social Security, Medicare or raise retirement age again, I will stop them. Republicans will cut Social Security, Medicare to give us more taxpayers for the wealthy. Even this morning, Donald Trump said cuts to Social Security, Medicare are on the table again.
The bottom line is he's still at it. I'm never going to allow that to happen. The president was a bit more muted today at this event than he has been at some of the other events he held over the weekend in Atlanta and the Philadelphia area. On Friday, the event here is wrapped up in Dotstown, New Hampshire.
The president is on his way back to Washington right now. The guys are breaking down the room, Ryan. But those messages, those things that we heard from the president today, you can expect to hear that much more coming now, November 5th. Yeah, let me expand on that, Aaron.
It does seem like he is officially on the campaign trail now. And it's this blitz that we're seeing this week. Is that his new campaign permanent posture? Are we going to see him more visible as the general election continues?
Yeah, you're absolutely right. The campaign has said that they're declaring this month, this month of March, a month of action, and that we will see that the prince of principles that the president, vice president for today, second gentlemen. Will all be crisscrossing the country delivering the president's campaign message. We know the vice president was out west in Arizona and Nevada over the weekend while the president was here on the East Coast.
He's got stops in Michigan and Wisconsin coming up this week as well. And this is just the beginning, obviously, of what we're going to see from the president, particularly in this month, but certainly in the months to come as the campaign continues to roll out and they got a huge war chest with which to work. $140 million, I believe, was what they told us last week, not to mention the $30 billion ad buy you ran that commercial that started running this weekend across the country. And so they've got the manpower, if you will, as well as the air power over the air Power that they're going to be using to go up against Donald Trump.
Aaron Gilchrist live in New Hampshire. I thank you for that, Aaron. I guarantee you now Donald Trump can actually officially clinch the Republican nomination during tomorrow's primary resource. Ko already brought it out, so it's essentially already there.
I mean, what does the campaign look like from here for the former president? Well, in short term, they got to scale up. They do not have a huge war chest like President Biden doesn't need to address that. So I think you're gonna see a focus on fundraising, you're gonna see a focus on getting the party organized again.
We just saw the installation of the new RNC chair and co chair last week, including the former president's daughter in law, Chris Lac, who's the campaign operative who's sort of bridging the Trump campaign in the rnc, clearly trying to staff up and build out that organization. Because right now the Trump campaign is not a full scale presidential operation. They very much have to expand and very much have to build out the structure of the campaign or they're gonna get swamped by the field organizing the Brown game, the apparatus of the White House right now, which they just can't match. Let's talk a little bit about the message that he's delivering.
It's interesting accusing Joe Biden of being dark and divisive of the union, but that was essentially kind of got from the speech he gave over the weekend, isn't it? Yeah, look, this is a rally in northwest Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene's district. He was playing hits basically for a very red corner of the state. An audience that I think expects of thing.
The message with Trump is consistent. It's inconsistency. Right. He can be all over the place kind of from one event to the next, but he's going to keep going back to the core issues.
Lately it's been immigration, heavily focused on this concept of migrant crime. He has made Lake and Riley, the nursing student in Georgia who was murdered I guess last month now, into a cause celebr on the right. He met with her family before this last event on sort of that big picture message. He's much clearer.
He's going to hammer the president on the border. He's going to try to talk about some of these economic issues. But it's stuff like the clips you play that get all the attention, the personal insults, the divisive stuff, the attacks on the prosecutors and the people investigating him. There's no clean pivot here.
There's no general election Trump, this is what you get. And I think it's been the problem that he's had to the problem going back to 2015 where he can never fully get out of his own way. He's always going to be doing a little bit of policy and a little bit of his personal grievance. And of course, there's illegal issues that are still blocking him.
Even if maybe none of these cases actually go to trial, he's still repeatedly attacking Eugene Carroll and he's appealing these penalties at the defamation case. Is there concern for Trump world that he could basically get even more legal trouble if he can't stop talking about this? Broadly speaking, Trump rule feels like they pulled him inside straight here a little bit given the delays and the bigger cases because of the Supreme Court giving the problems in Georgia with final Willis potentially getting disqualified from that case, getting completely bogged down. This New York Stormy Daniels case going first, which the Trump world largely feels like the negatives have kind of baked in.
They feel reasonably good about the legal issues. I think the bigger question is the cost, right? This has become a money black hole for the Trump Organization. The Trump I said not the company.
Trump Organization. Trump World writ large. All of this is expensive, potentially getting more expensive all the time if Donald Trump keeps talking about it. In the case of Eugene Carroll, other lawyers seem to be not interested in pursuing any further claims against him.
I think that's going to be a bigger monetary drag on the Trump campaign than it is a focus or sort of editorial drag going forward. But we'll see. Okay, thanks. Appreciate it.
Now next, as President Biden informal President Trump's bar over aid to Ukraine. I'll talk to a Democratic lawmaker on the House Armed Services Committee about where the feud over foreign funding stands on Capitol Hill. You're watching Meet the President. Welcome back.
As President Biden hits the campaign trail today, he's also sending Congress his budget for the 2025 fiscal year. It's chock full of Democratic priorities and it's almost certain to be opposed by Republicans. It will most likely serve to show the president's policy vision as he runs for reelection. It also comes as Congress's get results spending for this fiscal year while it also struggles to find a way forward on a to Ukraine.
Join me now to talk about all this and more onset. Virginia Democratic Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan. Congressman, thank you so much for being here. You and I go way back from my time in Richmond.
I appreciate you being here. Let's talk first about the budget situation. US still haven't finished the 2024 appropriations package. Are you confident that the remaining bills that need to be passed will be done by March 22nd?
Well, I say I'm hopeful. The House Republicans have found a way to turn even simple must pass legislation into a chaotic game of brinksmanship. But I am hopeful that we do have a deal going forward and that we will pass that bill on time. It seems that the speaker doesn't want to deal with a supplemental aid package for Ukraine and Israel and others until after you clear the operations process.
Are you optimistic about that package as well, or if you have some concerns? I'm cautiously optimistic, but I am very concerned that with the increasing rhetoric we're hearing from Republican Party about not wanting to stand firm with our allies in Ukraine today, I heard they're talking about a loan program instead of direct aid. And we have got to get aid to Ukraine as quickly as possible so that they can defend themselves against Putin. And hopefully we will do that.
Let me ask you about that idea of trying to package this, at least as a loan, as a way to bring over some of these skeptical conservative Republicans. Do you think that's practical? If a bill like that were on the table, would we at least consider it? I would consider it.
You know, the devil's always in the details, as we have seen with these bills. But I think we need to act as quickly as possible to get aid to Ukraine. Okay. So let's talk about Speaker Mike Johnson, and you've already alluded to the fact that he has somewhat an unruly caucus to keep in line.
I want to play for you what your leader, Hakeem Jefferson, said this weekend about Democrats potentially protecting Johnson to help get a vote on Ukraine. Take a listen. Will you prevent him from being ousted? We haven't had that conversation as a caucus, but I have made the observation that I believe there are a reasonable number of members, if the speaker were to do the right thing, that don't believe that he should fall as a result of it, that sounds like a yes.
So you missed the initial Kevin McCarthy drama. You've been in Congress now for a year. You were there for the second round of it. Is there any part of you, just as an individual member, not speaking broadly for the caucus, that would like to prevent seeing that sort of chaos again?
If a motion of vacate were brought from my Johnson, would you be a part of a group potentially that could protect him if he did the things that you were hoping in terms of the creating a preparation process? You know, I'm going To have to look at that at that moment. I think the difference is with Kevin McCarthy. He proved from day one that he was untrustworthy.
And I think Speaker Johnson has proved from day one of his speakership that he can't control his caucus, but I'm not sure anybody can. And so when push comes to shove, he has put legislation on the table of Democrats, have provided the votes necessary to get it passed. And I think we will be the adults in the room and look at what we need to do to govern and we'll see what happens. But it's not something you rule out right out of hand.
If the scenario will occur, there's a possibility that something like that could happen. I don't rule anything out of hand. I take a look at the circumstances as they present themselves. Great.
So I want to talk to you a little bit about the tick tock legislation now that you're set to vote on as soon as Wednesday. I could ban the app, depending on what happens in terms of how Byted's response to it. The legislation calls for Biden's to divest its interest. President Biden says that he'll sign it into law.
Do you support the bill? You vote for it? You know, I'm looking at it very carefully, waiting through the two different bills. I think the one from Representative Colon that focuses on making sure that we protect consumer information, I definitely will vote for.
I'm looking at the other one. Look, I think the issue here is not TikTok per se. It's the fact the Chinese government owns a company that is collecting very sensitive information from American citizens that it can use to create an algorithm that will provide very addictive information to provide messages and videos that could mislead the American people and manipulate our elections. And we should be very concerned about that and focus on how to keep that from happening.
Is that a broader social media question or is it a TikTok specific question? This is a Chinese government situation. It is the fact that the Chinese government owns a company that is collecting this data and that we need to make sure that we protect the private sensitive information of American citizens. The Biden campaign is using TikTok right now.
Some of your Democratic colleagues use TikTok on a regular basis to reach their constituents. Do you think that's hypocritical at all or do you think there's a way to use it in a safe man? Well, they don't use it on their private phones. They don't use it on a government phones, I think.
And that's Part of what we need to look at is what information is TikTok gathering? And I think when the president's campaign or something my colleagues use, I don't use it. But when they use it, I think they're very careful what they have on that phone other than TikTok, so that the information gathered is not as sensitive. The average user.
TikTok doesn't do that. You know, most of my friends, I kind of look at them and say, do you really want the Chinese government getting access to everything on your phone? Because they are. And then they kind of pause.
So that's the real issue. Yeah. Let's turn the campaign trail now. President Biden in New Hampshire, today's Wisconsin mission later, a very busy campaign schedule.
Do you think that the combination of him getting out on the road, his strong speech on Thursday, do you think that'll help quell some of these concerns about his age and fitness for office? I do. Look, I saw he's being in the room for the State of the Union. What I saw was a man who is feisty and ready to lead, and from day one has led.
He. He inherited a country that was in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a financial crisis, and he got things done. Regardless of his age, he will continue to get things done and fight for the American people while the former president fights for himself. Yeah.
Let's. Let's talk now a little bit about your first year in office. And you're a veteran legislator. I don't mean that.
You're still very young. You were renounced a delegate from the state Senate in Virginia. Now you're here in Congress. Just reflect on that first year.
Has it been frustrating? Is it hopeful? I mean, how do you. Is this what you envisioned when you took the job?
Yes and no. Ollie, above it. You know, the joke I use is, feels like I graduated high school and went to college. Although there are some days, you know, in the middle of the speaker fight, I wondered if I regressed to middle school.
But it's, you know, it's an honor of a lifetime to be able to not only help people, but to do so. Making history as the first black woman elected to Congress from Virginia. And even despite the Republican chaos, I've been able to get things done. Just last week, getting $15 million in community project funding, you know, to help with the Richmond combined sewage overflow system.
And the survivors of domestic violence have been able to get provisions in the NDAA to help with mental health services for our service members. So and then you get nights like the State of the Union that are pretty well, you want to go way back. It's like we pick where we left off. So, Congressman, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you. And after the break, TikTok blowback and ramped up rhetoric. The panel is next. You're watching me, the Press now.
Welcome back. The House could vote as early as Wednesday on legislation that might pave the way for TikTok to be banned in the United States. The House energy and congressman voted unanimously last week to approve a bill that would ban TikTok if its Chinese owned parent company did not essentially sell it. That was, of course, before Donald Trump weighed in.
The former president appeared to come out against the ban in a social media post last Thursday, which came curiously after he reportedly spoken with a billionaire TikTok investor. But this morning, Donald Trump told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin that the social media company was a national security threat. There are a lot of users, there's, you know, a lot of good and there's a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don't like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger.
And I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people along with a lot of the media. But do you believe that TikTok is a national security threat or not? Because if it is, and I believe that your emergency powers order that you had put in place at the time suggested that it was, was that not true? I do believe that.
I do believe that we have to very much go into privacy and make sure that we are protecting the American people's privacy and data rights. For more now, I'm joined by my panel. Ian Caldwell, Washington Post live anchor and co Author of the Early 202 Fashion, Democratic strategist and advisor to Bernie Sanders. And Mark Short, who served as vice president Mike Pence's chief of staff when he was vice president.
He's now Meet the Press contributor. So, Mark, let's start with. You were in the administration when there was this initial attempt to try and ban TikTok. It never actually took.
Now Donald Trump kind of all over the place, initially saying he was against the TikTok band, now saying again that it's a national security threat. What can you interpret the former president for you? What is he trying to say? Well, he seems to be wavering.
I certainly hope it's not because TikTok investors have come to him and offered resources that perhaps the campaign needs, because I think his position four years ago was the right position. I certainly hope the Congress moves forward with the ban. I think it was a remarkable 50 to nothing vote, an energy and Commerce Committee. And I think that that was the precedent if that was laid by Executive Warrior newscast mentioned four years ago when we put forward that place to allow people to ban, we thought it was a ban against.
The mission really is to try to get to divest. Right. So let's talk about its chances on Capitol Hill. It's going to probably vote in the House on Wednesday.
It seems as though it's moving in the direction of being passed, but it could have a tougher go in the Senate. What's your sense? Yeah. So in the House, the fact that it was 50, 0 vote coming out of committee is quite significant.
Not many things happen on a unanimous conversation. So it looks like it's moving. There was some question today that perhaps Donald Trump's, you know, criticism of TikTok could derail that a little bit. It doesn't seem that that's going to be the case in the Senate.
It is a little bit more challenging. There's been efforts to ban TikTok much more broadly. They have successfully passed bills to ban it on government devices. So this has been a very difficult political issue, especially for Democrats.
This is no one wants to upset millions and millions of young voters, which could be the repercussion. Even though the plan, the goal is to try to divest and not, you know, dismantle TikTok. But, but it's very difficult politically. Yeah, we'll talk about that.
I mean, a lot of people you're connected with, young progressives, use TikTok a lot. These are not just for silly dance videos. They use it to send out a message. How politically, how liable could politicians be held if a game like this goes?
All politicians, I think be worried about, should be worried about banning a platform that generally has a sense of delivery of speech. That's what I, you know, firmly believe is that generally if you're going to stop the platform from being able to advocate and engage in speech, you should have a pretty damn good reason for it. The national security reasons are the ones that have been promulgated as the ones that we should compel US Ownership for and allow at least US ownership to work in compliance with the federal government to ensure security reasons. I feel like personally there's never been an adequate public job of telling people what are the security harms when you're using this device.
If you're talking to millions of millions of Americans, rather using this device right now and the government has told you don't use your own device. Right. If you're going to do TikTok shouldn't regular people also know what the heck. As a user somebody as you said has an organization that uses TikTok.
I never felt like I've gotten sufficient information. Tell me what am I doing that is going to even make me susceptible from the national security perspective I think that today on the news we're concerned about the Chinese potentially putting surveillance inside cranes get to put in everybody's phone. That's not national security concern. They're definitely collecting data on all Americans who use the app and there's no doubt the algorithms they use are intended to push things that are more divisive than what they actually have in their own home country of China where they don't allow some algorithms for people to use it and they basically use it to promote pro China videos inside their own country.
So I think again it is a matter of trying to divest. Let's keep in mind in China what they do is they simply steal intellectual property. Just take it. But we're trying to advocate to say divested have an American investor is it possible to divest?
It's that simple. I feel like it could be and it should be. Obviously government hasn't really compelled that action in recent memory. I'm for those kinds of things.
We'll progress a government that says we stand for the people and not just because a company makes billions of dozen profits they can do whatever the hell they want. But I mean my perspective Mark hearing everything they said I agree with this is saying well I have this same concern Facebook or Elon Musk you know it's not Chinese autocrat who's running it but they are. When you put big data in a huge in the hands of and you always say Elon Musk the desire to use a platform for personal aims and objectives when you're that powerful I do believe it compels government actions. I'm not against their action.
I just want to make a hear good publication. I don't view Musk or Zuckerberg as adversaries in the United States of America. I think that is essential difference but our talks bar talks about social media in general the impact it's having on the country and Congress trying to wrestle with that Congress of course social media changes in 15 minutes. Congress will take 20 years to pass something as we know.
Let's move to different year and this is followed from Alabama Senator Katie Britt's State of the Union Response on Thursday night. Leanne, what's your sense talking to Republicans and Democrats about her performance and of course SNL skewing her this weekend? I don't think that anyone has said that she had a really good performance. Talking about banning some things.
Can we ban the State of the Union response, please? No one has ever done a good job. It always, you know, at best it's forgettable. So, you know, so Katie Britt is a rising star in the Republican Party.
This is her first term in the Senate. She is well liked across the aisle. She has many friends in the Senate. She has many ambitions in the Senate as well.
But this was not necessarily representative of what Katie Britt normally is. But this is what she did. And so now there's a lot of head scratching about where she goes and how she recovers from this. She's young, she can totally recover.
But it's, you know, there are unforced errors especially with the false claim about the migrants and let's talk about that, Mark. You know, she it's beyond her performance which you know, that's subjective. She did is facing scrutiny because she referenced a woman who had been sex trafficked but actually didn't happen in the United States. Didn't happen during the Biden administration.
I mean should she be called into question for bringing this into the speech at this time? Sure, I think she has. I think it was a mistake to use that reference. But at the same time, Ryan, the reality is that we do know more than half the young women who are transported by the cartels are sexual raped.
And so the instance she uses a mistake of using one from that happened during the George Bush administration. Having said that, she is a rising star. I think people don't appreciate that for Alabama Republicans, probably nothing helps you more than being mocked by Saturday Night Live and being criticized in your times at the probe page. And so she's gonna be totally fine for this politically.
She's have a great career. I think that that was one incident where she should have not used that specific incident. But it is true the vast majority of women coming up from through the cartels are sexually molested or raped. And I think it's a serious issue for American people and board is a serious issue.
You see a desire when Biden took the issue away from Republicans the natural course would have been for her instead of promulgating false stories about migrants who would be suggesting solutions. And some of the core solutions that inserted signed up for have been taken off the table because Biden happens to agree with a fair number of them. And now we're left with what are the sticks? I'm not trying to rock what are the sticks.
Maybe just build a wall, I guess. I'm not sure exactly where Republicans are now. I've not heard the Biden administration go back and advocate again for remaining Mexico policy. I think there's a lot of parts of this board that were of his own creation and he could have gone back to these things that he wore this now, Trump had placed.
Well, I did hear them say, though, that they would be happy to engage in program in which migrants before they enter the United States go through the asylum process there on the other side. Okay. All right. We're happy with it there, guys.
You keep talking about it. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate it. Silicon preparing for the next pandemic.
We're looking back on that day that Fazna and I spent together that changed everything. I'm looking ahead to the next global health emergency. You're watching me to press now we have the formid the assessment that COVID 19 can be characterized as a pandemic. This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history.
I am confident that by counting and continuing to take these tough measures, we will significantly reduce the threat to our citizens and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this virus. The NBA has now announced the suspension of their season. I'm just going to read you their press release. The NBA announced a player on the Utah Jazz has preliminarily tested positive for COVID 19.
Actor Tom Hanks, also making headlines after he posted on social media that he and his wife, Rhea Wilson, have tested positive for the virus, saying, quote, we will be tested, observed and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires. Do you remember that, believe it or not, all that happened on a single day. And believe it or not, that single day, which ushered in a hellish stretch of lockdowns, quarantines and overwhelmed hospitals, was four years ago. Two.
Four years later, doctors and scientists are already racing for the next big one, the next pandemic. Dr. Pauloff is among them. He's a member of the FDA's vaccine advisory committee and the director of the Vaccine Education center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
He's also the author of the new book Tell Me When. It's An Insider's Guide to Deciphering Covid Myths and Navigating Our Post Pandemic World. Doctor, thank you for joining me. And I think many of us were asking that question Repeatedly over the year 2020.
Tell me when it's over. But let's start with a question that we often ask each other. Where were you on March 11, 2020, and what do you remember most about that day? Well, so I work at the Children's Hospital, Philadelphia.
I had rounded on patients that were in our hospital with COVID and it was overwhelming. We had three floors of trouble with COVID We had, you know, suspended elective surgeries. We were overwhelmed. And it was surprising in many ways.
I think we were fooled by the first two COR coronavirus pandemic, the SARS1 pandemic in 2002, which killed hundreds of people, but not hundreds of thousands. And then the worst pandemic, which was in 2012, which killed hundreds of people, not hundreds of thousands. Here was a virus that only would kill 7 million people worldwide and more than a million people in this country because it was spread asymptomatically. That was a surprise.
That's what we hadn't anticipated. And I think that's why it was so overwhelming. And when you look back on it now, how did misinformation contribute to the length and the severity of the pandemic? No, it's remarkable, actually.
We isolated this virus in January 2020. Eleven months later, due to, as former President Trump alluded to, due to Operation Warsby, we had two large clinical trials with a technology messenger we had never used to make a vaccine before. And these vaccines were remarkably effective and safe. And then within the next seven months, we vaccinated 70% of the U.S.
population. I think that was the greatest scientific and medical confidence in my lifetime. And I will not remember the polio vacc yet. In mid-2021, you had about 30% of the US population simply refused to be vaccinated because of the misinformation.
Disinformation was out there. And as a result, about 300,000 people lost their lives unnecessarily. We, at some level, lost trust in the American public, and we're gonna have to figure out a way how to get it back. And you write about this about the anti vaccination movement and how it became more of a political movement than a medical movement in the years before the pandemic.
And this is what you write. No longer were activists focusing on false claims about vaccine safety. Rather, the focus was now on medical freedoms, which activists believe would resonate better with legislators. How much harder is it to combat medical freedoms than medical efficacy?
Right. Very hard. Because it sounds good. Right.
It's a matter of personal freedom. Bodily autonomy. But the fact is this is a contagious disease, so it's really not a personal choice. When you choose not to get a vaccine like COVID vaccine, you're also making choice for other people.
And remember, there's about nine people in the United States who simply can't be vaccinated because they're getting immunosuppressive therapies for their cancers or their autoimmune diseases. They depend on those around them to protect them. I think this was sort of a real example of how people really were focused on themselves and not on the society that offered them many benefits. Probably people don't want me to ask this question, but I feel like it's necessary.
Is another global pandemic like the one we just emerged from, is it inedible? Yes. You had three pandemic coronaviruses in the last 20 years. I think you can assume there's going to be another one.
And part of it is because bats are often the original source of these viruses in which we have more and more deforestation and the bat population becomes more and more involved with other mammalian populations, you can assume there's going to be another pandemic. I worry that with all the pushback we've had in the name of better freedoms, pushback on mandates, like vaccine mandates, in some ways, we may be less prepared for the next pandemic. We'll talk about that. I mean, how concerned are you about how prepared or not prepared we may be the next pandemic?
Very concerned. You've had hundreds and hundreds of pieces of legislation that have successfully pushed back on vaccines, and not just Covid vaccines. I mean, what you're seeing now is an erosion in vaccine rates among kindergartens. And so you're saying exactly what you expect to see, an increase in measles.
Because measles is the most contagious of the vaccine. Preventable diseases. It's always a canary in the coal mine. Well, Dr.
Pauloff, during the pandemic, you're on television about six times a day. You're very good at it. But don't take this the wrong way. I just prefer you being off our television as much as possible because usually it's because we're dealing with something pretty difficult and your expertise is necessary.
But thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate it. And we're back tomorrow with more Meet the Press now. But NBC News now coverage continues with Hallie Jackson right now.
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