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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. If it's Friday, President Biden, with a little help from some famous friends, rakes in tens of millions of dollars, but not without interruptions from pro-Palestinian protesters. Plus, the president says he's heading to Baltimore next week to view the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge as officials prepare for a massive and daunting operation to clear the critical waterway. And American journalist Evan Gershkovich marks one year in Russian prison as Washington renews calls for his release, including a rare bipartisan statement from the top four congressional leaders.
Welcome to Meet the Press. Now I'm Kristen Welker in Washington. We begin today with the 2024 race for the White House and both campaigners' efforts to build momentum and build up their campaign war chests. The Biden campaign is celebrating what it says is a massive $26 million fundraising haul last night from the celebrity-filled event with former Presidents Clinton and Obama.
The campaign hopes to leverage their cash advantage to overcome their polling gap with former President Trump. The Biden team did not allow reporters to record video inside the event, which featured the three leaders taking part in nearly an hour-long conversation moderated by late-night host Stephen Colbert. But this morning, the campaign releasing edited clips from the event, seeming to signal what they hope the big takeaway from last night will be. When those folks came out of the fields carrying torches and Nazi flags and accompanied by white supremacists, and the young woman was killed, a bystander, and when the president was asked, the former president was asked what he thought of it, he said, they're very fine people on both sides.
We had a real inflection point in history. Things are changing. This guy denies there is global warming. This guy wants to get rid of not only Roe v.
Wade, which he brags about having done, he wants to get rid of the ability of anyone anywhere in America to ever touch shoes. All the things he's doing are so old. Speaking of old. But as President Biden focused on former President Trump, he was also forced to grapple with tensions within his own party over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
Protesters interrupted the conversation between the presidents at least four times, saying the president has, quote, blood on his hands. Shame on you, Joe Biden! Shame on you! Shame on you!
You have blood on your hands! Now, responding to a question about the war from Mr. Colbert, Mr. Biden said more needs to be done to get relief for the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, while noting that Israel's existence was at stake.
But it was former President Obama's defense of President Biden on the Gaza issue that drew the most attention, at one point sternly addressing the protesters himself. According to the press pool in the room, Mr. Obama saying, quote, you can't just talk and not listen. That's what the other side does.
And it is possible for us to understand that it is possible to have moral clarity and have deeply held beliefs, but still recognize that the world is complicated and it is hard to solve these problems. Meanwhile, a third former president was in New York yesterday. We're talking about Donald Trump, who attended the wake of an NYPD officer killed in the line of duty. Mr.
Trump was subdued as he briefly addressed reporters late yesterday afternoon as he left the wake, but this morning used the tragedy to attack President Biden on the issue of crime. I think that politically he can't support the police. I think he's also making a mistake, but I think politically his base won't let him support the police. They didn't even call the family.
They could have called. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know even a call would be perhaps nice. I'm not sure they'd take his call. And the former president is also upping the ante on the cash clash between the two candidates.
As first reported by the Financial Times, the Trump campaign is aiming to take in $33 million at an upcoming Mar-a-Lago fundraiser in April and surpass the single event record by Mr. Biden that was set last night. Joining me now is our resident Biden expert, Mike Memoli, and NBC's Vaughn Hilliard, who's covering the Trump campaign. Thanks to both of you for starting us off.
So, Mike, let me start with you. The campaign, as we just showed, did release some clips from the three presidents' fundraiser, but you were there at this extraordinary and, quite frankly, historic event. Take us inside the room. What were your biggest takeaways?
Well, Kristen, Lizzo and Queen Latifah, for instance, got them fired up. You had Mindy Kaling. She got the crowd laughing. You had that dramatic entrance, those three presidents rising from under the stage, putting those aviator sunglasses on in solidarity with Joe Biden at the end.
It was really quite a moment. We do have to step back and remember, only 45 men have served as the president of the United States, and this was a unique opportunity for this audience and for myself to hear them talk about that. And it was really through the lens of the presidency and the weight of that job that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both tried in their own different and unique ways to address some of the vulnerabilities President Biden is facing as he runs for re-election. For Bill Clinton, he was the explainer-in-chief, the secretary of explain and stuff.
He was trying to take these complex economic data trends and really explain what the disconnect is between what voters feel and what the data really does show us. We also saw Barack Obama, he, I'm told, felt that his mission at this moment, at least in the campaign, is to talk about Joe Biden, the man, talk about his character, and talk about the unique skills and personal traits that he's bringing into this very difficult, fraught moment in our politics, and to try to send him on to continue what the campaign really feels has been a streak of momentum since the State of the Union address. Yeah, absolutely. And the optics of the event last night certainly worth their weight in gold from a political perspective if you were the Biden campaign.
But, Mike, as we also noted, there were a number of interruptions at that event last night. It speaks to the fact that this issue, the protests within the Democratic Party, are going to loom large over this entire re-election campaign by the president. How did the president respond to those protesters, Mike? Well, you see what it looked like outside, Kristen, but in the room as well, they paid that ticket price to be able to speak truth to power, in their view, to the president in that moment.
I thought it was so fascinating, Kristen, the way in which the campaign clearly had a plan for when this happened. They were addressing an innocuous question that Stephen Colbert had asked when one of the first protests began. And Colbert immediately took it back. He gave a little bit of a monologue and then posed a question to President Biden about how he is grappling with this issue.
But it was really, and you showed the quote, Barack Obama, who I think provided a little bit of a cathartic release for the rest of that audience, which became very frustrated with those interruptions. He was very stern. You remember it from his second term when he often got interrupted at some of his events by some protesters to say, that's not what we do. That's what the other side does.
It's not enough to talk. You need to be able to listen. And I think a lot of Democrats who, yes, are worried about this Gaza issue, but also don't want to see Democrats focused on an internal battle when they should be focused on the general election. That's a message.
Maybe the campaign is going to release yet another clip from before too long. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised about that. And Mike, just one more for you. Obviously, they raised this historic amount, more than $25 million.
We are now learning they're going to open up 30 campaign offices in Michigan. So there's certainly a practical use to all of this money. What are you hearing about the strategy to put these funds to good use? Because obviously money doesn't translate into a win.
We saw that in 2016 when Hillary Clinton certainly had more money in her war chest, but still wound up losing. Well, Kristen, you've been reporting, as has our team, about the frustration some Democrats have had about the slow start to Biden's campaign. They had wondered, for instance, where's the ground game in Michigan? Well, it's not a coincidence that today they who might be a little bit anxious about the president's lagging poll numbers or where he is in this race, hey, look, it's time to get on board.
Look at everything we have behind us. Look at now the resources that we're going to be able to put forward with this kind of money. And they had set expectations way lower, something like, maybe we'll get $10 million out of this. Then it was up to a little bit.
And then when they came out with this blockbuster number of $26 million all told, they really are now trying to show what they can use, and they're trying to have this be kind of an exclamation point on this month of action. They wanted March, since the State of the Union, for there to be all this momentum ending in this, and now being able to say, here's how we can build upon that in the coming weeks and months. Well, and I pick up on that point, because that's the question. How are they going to build upon this?
We talked about the new campaign offices that are going to be opening up in Michigan. I mean, what needs to happen to keep the momentum going? How present do former presidents Obama and Clinton need to be on the campaign trail? It's going to take a team effort, Kristen, of everybody and anybody.
I think Biden's got some wind at his back, so you see the public polling starting to rise for him. Eight states he visited in 18 days. He's got a three times cash advantage on Trump. Those matter.
I think when you're looking at Trump's own problems right now, he's not traveling as much. And one of the things that people don't realize why you're not traveling and doing big rallies is it costs money. And when you're in a cash crunch, you know, Trump has kind of moderated his campaign to not do much right now because he's losing money. And it's weird to say that, that he's a paper billionaire this week, right?
We learned that you got him selling Trump media and getting on paper at least a billion dollars, which he can't seemingly spend right now. He's locked up a bit on it. And what I think is happening is he's getting more and more indebted to billionaires and large investors, who he's going to court at this major event that we're seeing. He needs them for his Trump acquisition.
And I think that can posit a dynamic in which helps Biden as he tries to move through these next few months about what is the clear distinction and who fights for you, particularly when you think about economic matters. Yeah, Danny, I mean, the clear message of last night was this is all hands on deck now. We have seen past presidents have an impact before. We saw former President Clinton actually help then-President Obama when he was in the fight of his political life.
But here you have Trump saying, hey, I'm going to have an even bigger fundraiser. What do you think the impact and the takeaway is? Look, you know, if you look at this from the perspective of money, as you rightly say, this is a great haul. This is really important for the Democratic Party, showing that solidarity.
Biden needs all the help he can get just from his status within the party, from doubts about him. So showing everybody together. On the other hand, you know, you're not exactly speaking to disgruntled voters worrying about the gas tank or the price of milk or the price of eggs when you've got, you know, the editor of Vogue and Lizzo and Stephen Colbert. You know, it wasn't really an of the people type event.
They were talking to the core. They were. And you know what? When you need to raise money, that's who you talk to.
I don't fault them for that any more than I fault Donald Trump for going to billionaires. I think that that'll be an interesting place for an argument because, of course, both sides are very dependent upon very rich people who will get the most small donations will be a great question. It should certainly have discussions, too. And we're seeing, you know, with Trump's position on TikTok, how it moves, how his positions on carried interest loopholes might move, how his positions on a lot of economic matters might move.
He's flexible. Yeah, you talk about reaching beyond the base, which I think is obviously is in every election going to be where the battle lines are drawn. I want to play this piece from a new ad from the Biden campaign, which is really going after those Nikki Haley voters. Take a look.
Nikki Haley has made an unholy alliance with rhinos, never Trumpers, Americans for no prosperity. She's gone crazy. She's a very angry person. She is not presidential timber.
I don't need the votes. We have all the votes we need. She's gone haywire. I don't have many never Trumpers anymore.
How do you bring these Nikki Haley voters back in the tent? I'm not sure we need too many. Monica, talk about this strategy. I'm not sure we need too many.
Former President Trump said of the Nikki Haley voters using the former president's own words in this ad. The Biden campaign feels is the best strategy to try to make this kind of argument. But they were the ones extending, opening the door the day that Nikki Haley dropped out of the race. Remember, the president put out this statement saying there's room for you in my campaign if you want to consider it.
They have known from day one that this is possibly a group of voters that they can at least make overtures to. Now how many of those actually want to be persuaded enough to do it? They claim that when they have looked at some of these contests and primaries in recent weeks and months, even after Nikki Haley dropped out, there have been people who have supported her instead of Donald Trump. And they say, look, there could be people there who voted earlier, voted by mail or who could be Democrats in some of those open primaries.
But in other cases, there are people there, Republicans and independents, who might just be persuadable. And they know that if there is a small enough slice of that that they could convince before November, that could make all the difference in some of the key states. So expect that continued strategy, I think. And they believe that that really does show that they are more willing to do that when the former president has been very clearly dismissive.
He hasn't. And in fact, this is what Laura Trump, who's one of the new top people at the RNC, had to say when asked by our own Vaughn Hilliard about courting those Nikki Haley voters. Let's take a look at that sound. These people, I don't think they don't want to vote for Joe Biden.
That's for sure. The option is Joe Biden or Donald Trump. And so whether you like his personality or not, it should not have any bearing on anything. They are welcome to come back.
We are here to work as a party. And in order to elect Donald Trump and Republicans all the way down the ticket, we would love to have them come back. This is, of course, an interview with Garrett Haake. My apologies.
We just were talking to Vaughn and I confused them. But Danny, what do you make of that? And is the Trump campaign missing an opportunity here? Sure.
The Trump campaign is missing an opportunity. We just talked about playing to your base. Everybody loves to play to your base. Your base loves you.
Right. You know, it's so warm and fuzzy and nice. But at the same time, that's not who you need. They're going to turn out for you no matter what.
So it is about those margins. It is about outreach. This is how Donald Trump lost the election in 2020. And if he is unwilling to reach out to those people, Nikki Haley wants to denigrate her, wants to denigrate her voters, wants to denigrate people like me, who I'm a Nikki Haley voter, then that's a mistake.
But part two of that, though, Kristen, is that for Biden, this is just, you know, that's nice. That's cute. That's underscoring how wrong Donald Trump is about this. But just speaking as a Nikki Haley voter and a Republican and most of my friends, many of my friends are, yeah, we're not voting for Joe Biden.
What do you make of that? This is the question, right? And that's the point. If part of the effort and part of what Donald Trump, what they're reminding people about Donald Trump, who he referred to as bird brain Nikki Haley, is that you don't really like this guy.
And we're not gonna make you forget it. In the primary, you had certain views and he dismissed you. And if you look at Laura Trump's quote, man, that's pretty awful. That's not the way you court people whose votes you need.
You say they're welcome to come back. What pitch are you going to make them? Why would they want to come back? And so Biden, I think, is doing the right move, which is just reminding people.
That's all right. People like, they know, we'll have to make their decision. Do they want to vote? Do they not want to vote?
And if the two people choose to stay home and say, I don't want to vote for Donald Trump, it's still a win for Biden. All right. Great conversation. Happy Easter to everyone.
Who's going to celebrate. Appreciate your being here on a holiday Friday, Monica Fazz and Danielle. Great stuff coming up. The largest crane on the Eastern seaboard has arrived on site of the Baltimore bridge collapse.
We're on the ground with the very latest on the recovery and cleanup efforts. Plus NBC news sits down with the parents of detained U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich. Their message on the one year anniversary of their son's imprisonment.
You are watching meet the press. Now stay with us. Last summer, the coolest place in the house was in your freezer Here, Gershkovich is being held at a notorious Russian prison, and this week a Russian judge extended his detention for another three months. The Kremlin claims he was caught receiving secret information but has yet to provide any evidence.
The White House calls the charges ridiculous. My colleague Andrea Mitchell spoke with Evan's parents, who say they remain hopeful. Evan is not here. It's been a year.
He's done all four seasons there. He's spent his birthday and all the holidays. No pessimism. Pessimism will kill all the hope.
So powerful to hear from them. NBC News chief international correspondent Keir Simmons joins me now. Keir, thank you so much for joining me. You just heard there from Evan Gershkovich's family.
What are U.S. officials saying about his detention right now, Keir, and the prospects for getting him out? Well, I think that, frankly, the quickest, perhaps most likely, prospect is that there might be some kind of a swap, a prisoner swap, if you like. Now, even that is going to be extremely challenging, because the person that it appears the Kremlin would like to see swapped, released, if you like, is a FSB officer who is in jail in Germany for murder.
So it's in Germany because it's not something that the U.S. has immediate kind of control over, if you like. That being said, the Biden administration releasing a statement, I'll read some of it for you. As I have told Evan's parents, I will never give up hope either.
We will continue working every day to secure his release. We will continue to denounce and impose costs for Russia's appalling attempts to use Americans as bargaining chips. And we will continue to stand strong against all those who seek to attack the press or target journalists, the pillars of free society. So that message from President Biden.
But of course, the president faces some real challenges here, not least, and we've talked about it before, the ethical issue that when you agree to negotiate like this, do you encourage a country like Russia to try to arrest more Americans to be able to negotiate, come back and negotiate again? Yeah, that is an ongoing challenge for this administration, so many administrations past. Keir, it's just devastating when you read the fact that a Russian judge has now extended his detention. What can you tell us about the actual status of his case?
Well, he's in pretrial detention, so he's not on trial. We don't even actually know beyond espionage what the details of the allegations are. Allegations, of course, as you say, that the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. government and his friends and family absolutely, utterly deny.
So he's being held in the Fortress Prison, which is a chilling place. Frankly, it was a KGB prison. Now that in the FSB, which is the modern version of the KGB. So we know that much.
We know that the U.S. ambassador has got some access to him. And I can tell you too that NBC News, as you know, continues to report from Russia. We have an incredible team in Moscow.
And they did try to get access to the latest hearing, but were not given access and no media were. So the truth is that he could be held almost indefinitely in pretrial detention while the Russians give the impression that they are continuing to investigate. Devastating from the perspective of his family and the journalism community who is holding out hope that he will come home soon. Let me just zoom out a little bit here and ask you about Vladimir Putin.
You were just in Moscow for the quote-unquote elections there. Talk about his grip on power right now. Has it expanded at this moment? How would you assess that?
Well, I think, look, it's a country of 11 time zones. So inevitably, incredibly difficult, even if you travel to Moscow, to know the truth. In some ways, we've kind of gone back, haven't we, to Soviet times where, you know, it's almost, it's very hard to read what's really going on. And consistently now Russia seems to be surprising us in terms of the events there.
So there's that. But I can tell you that when you go to Moscow, as I do, there are, there's a lot of military slogans around. The country is increasingly economically geared towards the military industry. President Putin's revisionist history, which he clearly believes, is also, as far as I can tell, believed by a lot of Russians, or at least ostensibly that is what they will tell you.
Clearly there are also Russians opposed to President Putin. And then there are Russians who kind of just say nothing. Very difficult to judge as there's very little independent polling at all. But the reason why I mention all that, and I think it's important, as you say, with a wider lens, is that President Putin likely now has another 12 years ahead.
We don't know. He just got elected in that so-called election for six more years. But beneath him are officials who will repeat what he says and seem, some of them at least, to be vehemently agreeing with the kinds of things he talks about. And then the Russian people appear to, many of them do appear to be very supportive of him and to believe that, for example, America is trying to crush Russia and that Russia has to fight back.
Well, your work in Moscow is just extraordinary. And so we so appreciate your perspective, Keir, this Good Friday. Thank you so much. Good to see you, Keir, as always.
Thank you. Meanwhile, Ukraine's leader is ramping up his efforts to secure more U.S. funding in his war with Russia. President Zelensky says he spoke with House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday and that he briefed the Speaker on the current state of the war, emphasizing what he said was a, quote, dramatic increase in Russia's air terror.
It is unclear how the House will address the issue of Ukraine aid when members return from recess. Johnson has thus far refused to put the Senate bill for an aid on the House floor. Joining me now to discuss all of this is NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale. Ali, great to see you.
So President Zelensky and Speaker Johnson, we know they spoke yesterday. What was President Zelensky's message to Speaker Johnson? That they need more aid from the United States. Of course, this message hasn't changed, Kristen, as Zelensky has continued the conversation with top officials in Washington at times visiting here, making addresses in front of elected officials in the United States, and of course, just continuing to impress the need that Ukraine needs American support to continue its defensive against the Russian incursion that's still ongoing there in that country.
Of course, that need for aid comes in direct conflict with the dynamics within this very rowdy House Republican conference, many of whom say they don't want to continue giving aid to Ukraine and leaving the House Speaker in a precarious position on one of myriad number of issues that he's in a precarious position on. And it leads to the current stalemate that we see now in this Congress with a demand for more aid, not just for Ukraine, but also for Israel, for Taiwan and a supplemental aid package that is just pretty much sitting there waiting for something to happen to it. Yeah, they certainly will have a lot on their plates when they return from recess. Ali, let me ask you about this idea of getting the aid passed in the form of a loan.
We know that former President Trump, who basically has made it very clear he's opposed to just writing a blank check to Ukraine, has backed this idea of a loan. We know that, for example, I was able to interview Senator Lindsey Graham just a few weeks ago. He indicated he would support that and that there was momentum for that. Is there momentum?
Is that real? Maybe. I asked the top Democrat on the House side here, Hakeem Jeffries, about this because it had seemed in our conversations with other top Democrats here in the House that there could be an openness to that as a pathway. But what Jeffries told me is that the ideal way of doing it remains doing it in the form of the supplemental package that not only takes care of aid to Ukraine, but also takes care of aid to Israel and Taiwan.
But there's an interesting piece of Zelensky's readout of his meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson. I'm going to read to you a part of it because it really caught our attention on the front of, is a loan plausible? Zelensky says that in his conversation with Johnson, quote, we also discussed the importance of cutting off Russia's sources for funding for its war as soon as possible and using frozen Russian assets for Ukraine's benefit. That's one of the mechanisms, Kristen, that's being talked about by those who are pushing the idea of a loan to Ukraine.
That's one of the mechanisms that they're talking about. The fact that Zelensky's bringing it up and that he's talking about it with Johnson gives us more questions to ask when they get back here from their recess. It certainly does. Ali Vitale, fantastic.
As always, have a happy Easter. Ali, thank you so much. Great to see you. After the break, a rare look inside the territory of Haiti's top gang leader, the man known as Barbecue, who is now saying he may be open to peace talks on the future of the country.
You're watching Meet the Press Now. Welcome back. Gang leader Jimmy Cherche has become the face of Haiti's descent into chaos. The man known as Barbecue and his gangs have taken over parts of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, and sparked some of the worst violence in the country that it's seen since the early 90s.
Now the gang leader is saying he would consider calling a ceasefire, but only if his alliance of armed gangs is included in international talks on the country's future. Stuart Ramsey, the chief correspondent of NBC's partner Sky News, redistricting Dave Wasserman. He's a senior editor and elections analyst at the Cook Political Report. Dave, thanks so much for joining me.
I really appreciate it. For sure. So let's talk about what is happening in South Carolina. How does something like this happen and what are the implications for November?
Well, oftentimes when these redistricting lawsuits are brought along racial lines, the strategy of the defendants, in this case, South Carolina Republicans, is simply to run out the clock. And the South Carolina case was a bit unique in that the plaintiffs, civil rights groups and Democrats, they didn't lump this in with the Alabama and Louisiana cases, which were voting rights act claims that the Supreme Court interpreted in their ruling last summer to lead to additional black majority seats. This was brought under a 14th Amendment equal protection claim that moving 30,000 black voters out of Nancy Mace's first congressional district into a black majority district violated the equal protection of those voters. And these court cases move slowly.
And so the Supreme Court has not adjudicated this yet. And what happened here is the same federal panel that struck this down ruled that there wasn't an ideal recourse other than to let the elections for this year play out under this current map. I can understand why plaintiffs are outraged not only here, but also in Florida and Georgia, where there are similar diminishing opportunities for minority voters to elect candidates of choice. But there was no remedy in the map for this fall's election.
And just to be clear for our viewers who say, well, hey, wait a minute, it's only March. There's plenty of time to redraw these lines. Why isn't there? Why is this in March something that's not feasible by November?
Well, keep in mind that the Supreme Court has not ruled in this case yet, which makes it difficult for the plaintiffs to try and press for more, at least temporary relief. And the filing period for the primary, which is in June, already opened in the middle of March. And so you would have to push back the entire election calendar, which is not unprecedented, but oftentimes the courts invoke something called the Purcell principle, which is that it's too close to an election to really make broad changes to the rules. Now, Democrats did score victories in Alabama and Louisiana, which offsets some of what North Carolina Republicans did.
However, there is a widespread frustration on the part of these groups that Republicans are standing in the way of additional opportunity seats for minority voters. Let's talk big picture for a minute, Dave. Now that the lines are drawn, now that you can see the maps in all the different states, who do you think has the edge here, Democrats or Republicans? The House is so interesting.
And we are looking at a re-redistricting wash, practically, because Republicans, they gerrymandered North Carolina to wipe three to four Democratic seats off the map. Democrats benefit from Alabama, Louisiana, and also modestly from a new map in the state of New York. Overall, look at the House. Democrats do have, I think, their best opportunity to hold a lever of power in 2025 in the House.
They're still slight underdogs in the chamber, but they only need to pick up four seats. And keep in mind that there are 17 Republicans in Biden districts, only five Democrats sitting in districts Trump carried in 2020. And so there are enough seats on the table, particularly in California and New York, for Democrats to get there. And Republicans, they're suffering a mass exodus right now.
Their majority is essentially a majority of one seat or one vote that they can afford to lose at the moment. So it's very tight. Yeah, it's going to be just extraordinary. It is so tight, Dave Wasserman.
Thank you for breaking all of that down for us. We really appreciate it. Have a good holiday weekend. Appreciate it.
All right. Before we go, this week I sat down with the Republican governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, and the Democratic governor of neighboring Massachusetts, Maura Healey, for a fireside chat at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. Our wide-ranging conversation touched on governing in times of crisis, grappling with political division, and working across the aisle.
Take a listen to what they had to say. Sometimes it feels like we are most unified as a country when there is a crisis. And we are facing a moment where we are dealing with a country that is very divided. Is it as divided as we perceive it to be?
And Governor Sununu, I'll start with you. How do you think about the divisions in this country? It's not as divided as people think. It's really not.
Because of how we consume information, because of how, whether it's social media or just, you know, regular media, because of how, you know, the politicians have become almost celebrities, which is really wrong, by the way. So the spectrum within our parties has always been there. But unfortunately, some of the constructs today allow those voices to control the microphone, even though they're a minority within our parties. I agree with so much of that and just want to underscore, there is far more that unites us than divides us as a country.
It's also the case that 87% of Americans are sick and tired of the polarization. And 82% have real questions about democracy and the threat to democracy in this country. Now, we also discussed the 2024 election and the issues that they believe will be at the forefront of voters' minds. Both governors agreed that abortion will once again be a key issue.
Conventional wisdom has always been that with elections, it's the economy, stupid. But in the midterms, we saw that reproductive rights played a very large role. Governor Healy, what forces do you think, what issues, we're talking about policies, what issues do you think will be at the forefront? Certainly abortion.
This is Donald Trump's Supreme Court. And, you know, it's very clear. I mean, Donald Trump had his way. He appointed his Supreme Court.
We saw Dobbs. We saw the overturning of Roe. And we have seen in election after election that this is an area where actually Republicans and Democrats have a lot of agreement, that women should have access and an ability to make that decision for themselves. Governor Sununu, what issues do you think are going to be driving forces?
What are you watching for? It's those two issues. And all the polls say it's inflation, it's the border, and then it's the abortion issue. The abortion issue, the issue of abortion will drive.
I don't think it's going to be like 22. It's a states issue now, right? Some states do it well, and some states don't. Our thanks to both governors for a great conversation at the Edward M.
Kennedy Institute for a really fantastic evening. That does it for us this hour. We will be back Monday with more Meet the Press Now. And if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press on your local NBC news station.
I'll have exclusive interviews with Congressman Jim Clyburn and Don Bacon. Don't miss that. I'll also be talking to Savannah Guthrie about her new book. You'll hear that as well as her Easter message.
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