Meet the Press NOW – March 29

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Visit Manulife Ca Health. Yeah, if it's Wednesday President Biden warns the world he is very concerned about the state of Israel's democracy as he urges Prime Minister Netanyahu to walk away from a judicial overhaul plan that has sparked weeks of massive protests. Plus the ongoing search for answers and motive in Nashville as investigators com through new evidence including the shooter's writings and personal history. And two former credit Swiss bankers turned to whistleblowers speak to CNBC exclusively about evidence they hand over to the United States that the alien banking giant has been running a years long scheme to help wealthy Americans use the Swiss bank to dodge U.S.

taxes. Happy hump day and welcome to the press. Now I'm Chuck Todd reporting from Washington where a rare clash between US and Israeli leaders is spilled into public view, raising some foreign questions about the intertwined fates of two of the world's most important democracies. Late yesterday, President Biden delivered his sharpest rebuke yet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government's attempts to overall Israel's judiciary.

Netanyahu was forced to pause that effort after weeks of intensifying demonstrations crippled the country with protesters decrying the move as an undemocratic power grab by BB's far right government. Here's President Biden speaking to reporters on two occasions yesterday airing his grievances and concerns about Netanyahu stated pause while also suggesting that Netanyahu won't be invited to Washington anytime soon if he doesn't walk back. How concerned are you about that? How the democracy like many st words Israel I'm very concerned and I'm concerned that they get this straight.

They cannot continue down this road and I would have made that clear. I hopeful hopefully the prime minister will act in a way that he can try to work out some genuine compromise. What do you hope the prime minister will do on that Particular long hope we walk. Netanyahu and his allies are firing back today, directly hit back and by his comments saying, quote, israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.

And then speaking remotely at a US led democracy summit, Netanyahu made it clear he had not abandoned his goal of judicial reform, even though a senior white official told him he was yesterday that they believed Israel's far right government was going to abandon the plan. How do we ensure that the judiciary remains independent and that we balance the need to strengthen the executive and the legislative and at the same time protect individual rights? I think that balance can be achieved and that's why I've promoted a pause that now enables both the opposition and the coalition to sit down and try to achieve a broad national consensus to achieve both goals. And I believe this is possible.

Now comes the question of what comes next for the US Israel relationship, for democracy in Israel and for the future democracy here. Because the crisis facing Israel right now is being driven by political divisions and far right forces that are frankly, eerily familiar to those of us here in the United States. Think about you have a conservative leader fighting for his political survival, facing intense legal scrutiny and charges of corruption, accusing courts of bias beholden who far right allies in a deeply divided nation. It comes back to the question I've been asking for a while now.

Is Israel's crisis an echo of what has already happened here in the United States or a preview of what's to come in the United States? Germany. Ralph Sanchez, who was on the ground force in Tel Aviv. Kayla Chaucer, cbc, YS Corpond is on the beat force there.

Raf, let me start with you. I assume Israel was open for business today. Is that fair to say? It is, Chuck.

That general strike that absolutely paralyzed the country on Monday, called off. The airport is open, banks are open. I'd say there's a kind of wary calm here in Tel Aviv especially, which has been kind of the epicenter of the protests. The protesters say they don't see this as over by any stretch.

A delay as Netanyahu has agreed to this legislation is not enough as far as they're concerned. They want to know this legislation is dead, buried and not going to be resurrected. But as you said, Netanyahu is under a lot of pressure from the far right of his own government to push this through, judicial overhaul through in some form. So everybody, including the White House, is waiting to see if this political crisis is truly over.

Or if it's just been delayed by a couple of weeks. That's what I'm curious about. You know, in his coalition that he put together, and it was a tricky coalition, it's as far right as any coalition, successful coalition that he ever put together before. Does he, if he doesn't push this through, if he does walk away, does his government collapse?

Well, it's kind of a game of chicken, right, between him and his far right allies. They are threatening to walk out. They say that this judicial reform is of absolute priority for them. But of course, if they walk out, you go to an election and you're a far right Israeli politician, there's a real risk that the centrist and the liberals might come back again.

Chuck, A senior Israeli official called us in for briefing earlier today to kind of give his really government's perspective on this. And one of the questions I asked them is how did Netanyahu, this master politician, Israel's longest serving prime minister and someone who says that his top priorities are one, stopping Iran, getting a nuclear weapon, two, making peace deal with Saudi Arabia, how did he end up in this unprecedented political crisis with over the Supreme Court? And the answer from this official is this issue really, really matters to Netanyahu's conservative base. And the prime minister really felt that he has to deliver for them as well as managing his right wing coalition partners.

No mention of his own legal issues. No mention of his own legal issues, which is something the prime minister says over and over again. He's of course, on trial as we speak for criminal corruption. He points out that the judges who are presiding over his trial are already appointed.

That this reform overhaul that would affect the government more control over how politicians over how judges are appointed. Excuse me. Would not impact directly on his trial. Yeah, I think that is why so many people though, are taking it as some sort of political decision and not necessarily something larger than that.

Ralph Sanchez on the ground force in Israel. Ralph, thank you. We move over. Kayla Fauci.

So, Caleb, why do I ask you to speak up as aggressively as he did? Well, I think the White House would say that it's been consistent. Certainly President Biden spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu by phone last week. They have been back channeling between the two governments at all levels for many weeks over this very issue.

And certainly conveyed the fact that they believe that this proposal would have undercut democracy if they saw it as lying in the face of checks and balances. And certainly the president has conveyed that message directly to his counterpart as well as to other levels of governments. But certainly, you know, at this point, the government here is more concerned with results than rhetoric. And I think that perhaps the president thought that he had a little bit more political cover yesterday once this was in fact delayed to speak out about it.

What's been interesting here, and I'm curious what the White House thinks of the fact that I think Prime Minister Netanyahu pushed back gently, he didn't push back harshly. He didn't try to do what he's done in the past, which is take advantage of our political divide to help himself there. What does the White House make of that? Do they see that as a green shoot, if you will?

I think, I think the White House is cautiously optimistic about that response. But certainly it might also speak to the fact that Netanyahu himself has to cobble together support for such a compromise deal. And perhaps he does not have that yet. And the White House is optimistic that could come in the coming weeks.

I spoke to official just a few moments ago who suggested that it could be 60, 40, that there is some sort of compromise, this reach that the White House feels comfortable with, but it still remains to be seen. Now in theory, Kayla, we have ton of leverage over Israel if we chose to use it. But usually on these issues we never touch the defense stuff, we never touch the intelligence stuff because it matters too much to us. It's not to support Israel.

It's important to us. So what leverage are we really putting are we using here? Well, it's hard to know exactly how the US could pull that lever because we're defense spending is concerned. Check the US and Israel in the middle of a 10 year memorandum of understanding for $38 billion.

And ultimately it's up to Congress to appropriate a certain amount of money every single year. Logistically, politically, it would be nearly impossible for the US to cut those strings. And especially when Republicans are looking to seize on this moment. To try to strike a contrast, branding the Republican Party as the party that is the friend of the Jewish state and the Democratic Party as the opposite of that, you have Governor Ron DeSantis who's visiting Israel next month and describing relations between the US And Israel as unnecessarily strained and seeking to be the bridge there.

So it's unlikely that you would find many Republic would want to cut that out at this moment. Right now. Kayla Tabck on the White House beat for us on CBC today. Kayla, good to see you.

Thank you. Let me bring, let me bring in now Martin Indic, he's a former US Ambassador Israel distinguished fellow at the Council on Formulations and frankly, perhaps the best person from US Perspective to understand this relationship between the United States and Israel. Ambassador Indic it's always good to see you, Chuck. Pleasure to be with you.

Let me start with the bigger picture here and why I want to make this our lead story, because I think there's a ton of parallels between sort of where we are in our democracy and where Israel is in theirs. And the question that I pose to you that I've been posing to others is, is this our past or our future? Well, it's both. There is a reflection, as you said, an echo of what we've seen in the United States, although I have to say that we have not seen here the vast number of people going out the streets to save our democracy.

It's been the MAGA supporters that have been out there in the streets. I was in the demonstrations in Israel last week and it was really quite stunning the broad and deep support there is among secular Israelis. And notice, like the MAGA Republicans, they've taken the flag as their symbol, which I think a pretty impatriotic way of doing things. So in some sense it's an echo.

But it's also a preview of the kind of divisions that both our Democratic societies facing as the far right that tries to push an anti democratic agenda. In our case, it's challenging elections and the results of elections and suppressing votes on it. In Israel's case, it's the judiciary and protecting the independence of the judiciary. One of the things that I found mildly surprising so far is that Prime Minister Netanyahu in the past has, has used our political divide to help himself at times.

Right. He has not done that yet, and maybe he won't in this case. Does that surprise you? You give him too much credit, I'm afraid.

I think he's been trying and I think he's been failing. In fact, I'm quite surprised. Maybe Governor Sanders has said something, but we don't hear it from the Republican leaders. In fact, Romney, Lindsey Graham and even Marco Rubio came out expressing concerns about the judicial reform.

And you know, Joe Biden has put himself out on the line now coming up publicly saying that Netanyahu is not welcome in Washington until he cleans this up. You would expect a hail of criticism from the Republicans. And I can't believe that Bibi and Ron Derma haven't been on the phone calling them up. We'll probably see an editorial in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow, but other than that, it's been surprisingly quiet.

Is that because you think the nature that this is. There's a personal element to it, right. The fact that if he didn't directly benefit from this judicial review for his own corruption case, there might be more political support for him here for it. Look, I can't pretend to know the minds of Republican politicians, but I do think that it affects the way people generally look at this judicial reform, the fact that Netanyahu could benefit from it personally and avoid going to jail as a result of stacking the court, which is the one piece of legislation that he was pushing so hard for.

And so there is that question mark that I think undermines his argument about how he's just trying to do the right thing for democracy. I'm just curious, do you think. I know you're probably somebody that would never claim to have any regrets, but do you think he regrets dabbling so much in our politics in 2011 and 2012? Because I do think that left a mark on the Democratic Party.

It left a mark on Biden. It left a mark on Washington that is. That's not going away. No, I'm not aware of any sense of regret on his part about that.

I think the sense of regret he probably does have is the way in which he let this issue get away from him. As your correspondent was saying, he's a master politician and he's a master of the narrative. And he lost control of his coalition and he lost control of the narrative. He's trying to grab it back now, but I think it's too late.

And I think that that's his regret, his focus. He wanted his focus to be on Iran and Saudi Arabia. He can't achieve his objectives there without the help of Joe Biden. And now he's got a big problem with Joe Biden and he can't even get to Washington to talk to him or his Republican friends about it.

So I think that he has plenty of reason to regret that he let this issue dominate his agenda. What's your sense of whether he'd keep this coalition together if he walks away from this judicial reform? I don't think he can afford to call their bluff and walk away from it. I think he's captive of them and I'm quite pessimistic about the chances for consensus being achieved in these circumstances.

The opposition is more likely to collapse and that you think it more likely to collapse or they're able to ran something for it. Well, I think they'll try to ram something through. There'll be massive protests and then things will start to come apart. It always takes longer than you think.

But I don't see how his balancing act can continue at this point. He's going to have to choose. And if I know Netanyahu, he'll choose political survival, try to keep his right wing coalition together and religious coalition. They've all got big stakes in the traditional reform.

They're not about to give up and the opposition is about to give up. And now President Biden's weighing with the opposition. So he's got a problem with the United States on top of that. So he's really caught in a very difficult situation.

So he's buying some time. We have to pass over holiday. He's going to make another attempt soon, by the end of the month, end of April. Well, I think if enough, although he's not acting the way he used to, he will try to put something on the table that looks reasonable and get the other side to reject it so he can blame them when it falls apart.

But I don't think that he has the room to reach a compromise agreement. Martin Nick, former U.S. ambassador to Israel. Like I said, in many ways probably America's foremost expert on US Israeli relations.

Good to see you. Thanks for your perspective. Coming up, the latest on what we're learning in the national school shooting investigation where the question of motive still remains for himself. That's next.

Plus a culture war consensus in Republican Party that can't agree on much of anything. Fighting the culture war might be the most unifying issue inside today's gop. We'll dive into that and talk to someone. The White House is hoping we'll help them talk back.

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Visit hyundaicanda.com or your local dealer for details. Welcome back to White Houses vs. Lady Joe Biden will travel to national tonight for a vigil in honorable killed in Monday's school shooting. Police just said a little today about their investigation into the tragedy which left three children and three staffers dead.

Investigators have said the shooter, Andre Hale, purchased seven weapons and that Hale was under a doctor's care for an undisclosed emotional disorder that didn't get in the way of purchasing the weapons. Police also say that Hale's parents say they didn't know the firearms were even in their house. Katie Back joins me now from Nashville Forest. Also with me is our news, our justice and intelligence correspondent Kindlevanian.

So Katie, let me start with the the lack of a lot of new information today. I guess the biggest thing is are we gonna how much are we gonna learn about the so called manifesto? Well, at this point, Jack, they put out a lot of information early and there has sort of been that's plateau today. We've not really heard from police.

There's not been a press conference today and we've been told there won't be. Now that we know that manifesto is in the hands of the FBI, I think the odds of actually seeing his content go down a bit. I know that they initially said they found that along with other writings, maps of the schools, details on how she planned to make entry into the school and where the surve points were. So there was a lot of information there to sift through.

But at this point I feel like if there was going to be a release, we would have seen it. I think now that the FBI's got a hold of it, the likelihood again of it being released is probably going down. I think the police saying yesterday, you know, their conversations with Hale's parents indicating that they did not know Hale had a gun. They thought that the one gun hail had had been sold, that in fact there was, you know, many more firearms that were hidden in their home that they'd seen her leave that morning with a bag but had not questioned whether or not there were guns inside of it because they didn't think that she owned Any.

And she was, they said, being treated for an emotional disorder under a doctor's care. And I don't think that they had any expectation that she had the weapons or was capable of this. We did speak to a teacher of hers just a short while ago from art school who said the same, who said that this was among students she's had and taught. This was not one that red flagged her in any way that she was a soft spoken individual.

And she said no, it's not a popular opinion to feel, to feel sadness for someone who's done something so despicable. But in my heart it's really hard to just sort of reconcile that she could be this evil. So it's an interesting sort of point investigation. I do think it would certainly show a lot of light on motive if we were to find out what's in those writings.

Did. Did Hale have a job? Does Hale actively employed? I don't think so.

I think that she was living at home with her parents at the time and as we said, being treated. One thing that this teacher did say about, about her was that she was incredibly fragile. On the very first day of class, she actually broke down and cried. She couldn't get a password to work on her computer.

This was a graphic design course that she was taking and she burst into tears. So it does seem like, you know, she was an emotional person. She said she was a very talented artist and that she had a lot of gifts. But, you know, as far as a career path, none that we know of.

Gotcha. Candelani, I know you've been tracking this from how the government and law enforcement officials and the investigation part, it sounds like suddenly they decided to really tighten up what they're releasing to the public. Any reason? Yeah, my spidey senses are tingling on this one, Chuck.

After the police chief disclosed in an interview with Lesser Hole that Audrey Hill had expressed resentment towards the school in those writings, spent two days, we haven't heard a word about what is in those writings. Even though the FBI and the police have been poring over them, it feels like there's something that they are not ready to release to the public about all this. And to answer your previous question, I don't know if Audrey Hill had a job either, but I did see evidence that she was earning money from being an artist. She was actually a very accomplished artist.

You can see some of that art online, circulating around and it looks like she's awesome. It's sort of cartoon sketches and it looks like she has some commercial commissions that she actually was doing some art for brochures and children's books and things like that. And interestingly, in terms of the gender issue here, which is still a matter of some confusion in the art portfolio that I saw, she had a self portrait of. I'm saying she.

Hale had a self portrait of themselves as both a woman Audrey and a male Aiden. And Aiden is the name that Hale used in her LinkedIn profile. All the profile was the name of. So.

But again, back to the law enforcement thing. I haven't gotten anything out of the FBI or police sources today about what they've learned about motive. I spoke some yesterday said sound accurate. So we know the motive.

What you should say is we haven't reached a definitive conclusion about it. It really feels like they're things that for whatever reason maybe just sensitivities to the grieving folks at the school. They are not racially. Is it possible they never do.

There's not going to be a court filing, is there? That's great. Yes, it is very possible. There ultimately could be some freedom of information when this case is closed.

But that's an open question. I mean, it would be a shame because why we care about this? We care because people who study mass shootings want to know what the behaviors are that lead up to them to prevent the next one. And you know, the sort of planning and the meticulous planning that went into this attack suggests that she was in communication with other people.

There's a whole online world out there. People who glorify mass shootings, unfortunately, and they talk to one another and that feeds on itself and, you know, public deserves to know the details of that show. Katie back in Nashville at the Justice Department, thank you both for that reporting. And before we go to break, we have another developing story that we've been following Capitol H.

It's a pretty significant development, though it is not final. My vote is 66 to 30. The Senate on a bipartisan basis passed a bill that would repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of military force which essentially sanctioned the wars the US waves in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill now goes to the House, where its fate is uncertain as Republican House Speaker Kevin Carty is upset if he would bring it up for a vote.

But remember, he said he would not bring up legislation that a majority of his conference does not support. In 2021, 49 House Republicans joined most Democrats in votes repeal the 2002 AUMFF back when Democrats controlled that chain. If the bill does make it to President Biden's death. The White House says he will sign it up next Culture Wars Primary Politics since it's a red meat rhetoric while Republican presidential hopes are simply doubling down on the war on Wokness, what It means for 2024 panel's next welco the first presidential primary ballots, of course, won't be cast for months, but we already got a pretty good idea of what candidates think most potential Republican voters want to hear.

Culture War Posturing Check out this new app from Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. We're in the middle of a national identity crisis. Faith, patriotism and hard work have disappeared. Wokeness, gender, ideology and the climate cult have taken their place.

We spend so much time celebrating our diversity that we forget the values that bind us together. And I believe deep in my bones those values still exist. The Republican base may be divided on America's role in the world and domestic priorities like compound spending by this moment. Sure looks like culture is the last unifying link inside of the gop.

Quick programming note. We're going to have Udaikar Ramaswamy here on the show on the set tomorrow. Joining me now as Team Mitchell Washington Corsona for the Lennon General Constitution, former New York Democrat Compton Joe Crawley and American Enterprise Institute senior Fellow Danielle Plecka. With the right side of the aisle, Danny, I will give you the first shot at this, and that is the famous three legs of the school that Ronald Reagan talked about.

The Republicans had to sort of balance. Two legs are gone, right? The school conservatism and sort of a unifying national security view. We don't have it right now.

There's only one leg and that's quite a balancing act that they have to do. It is a balancing act and that's why you're seeing a lot of disagreement Even among nominal 2024 candidates and actual 2024 candidates about things like Ukraine and defense spending. And so culture wars are the things that unite a lot of Republicans because actually when you look at not just the Republican base but also a lot of suburban women, they're concerned about education, they're concerned about schools, they are concerned about these gender wars, about sports and who's playing against their kids. So those things are truly bread and butter issues for a lot of Americans in the way that unfortunately, perspective Ukraine is not.

Joe, you buy that? You've seen your sheriff, the suburban urban split. You think the Democrats ought to be wary here of just assuming these culture issues won't play with them? I think Daniel's right that it does Unite Republicans, at least certain sectors within the Republican Party divides everyone else.

That folks is the problem. And it just exacerbates, I think what many people believe is wrong in America these days. And it's tired, it's exhausting. At some point time you have the shooting yesterday, the other day in Nashville.

And again what Republicans are focusing on is gender or transgender as opposed to really what's killing our children are guns, you know, and the all ever access to them here. This woman had seven guns illegally purchased and what we're focused on but she was mentally not purchased them. No. Right.

And that is. I agree on that 100% but that's not being really. That's someone talked about. There's more to it than the mental health issue.

It does feel as if the Republicans spend the entire time on this in the same way when Democrats were talking about open borders, talking about defund the police. Right. It put the worst version of the left to in front of mainstream voters. How does the GOP avoid having the worst version of their right get put in front of mainstream voters?

Well, I think that's the risk if they don't shift the conversation in ways that are a little bit more practical. And for example on guns, when you poll even Republicans, there are gun control measures that have widespread support. Banning assault weapons has widespread support even among the right. But it's how you frame the conversation.

And if you frame it that Democrats want to take away all your guns because they hate the Constitution, then you're not going to be able to have, you know, any type of conversation that could really result in anything good happen happening. And that's where Republicans run a risk because they are framing it as a very us versus them combative politics on virtually every issue that does get people enraged and might help you raise a lot of money, but it's terrible for governing and it might not be great during a general election. They do fear a moment on the right because look, I do think the Democratic Party is still paying a price for that, for that for those early debates with the 20 candidates where they were all trying to out progress at one another. Right.

Except when Joe Biden was like standing alone in some of these questions and everybody's beating him up and it turned out, oh, he might have been closer to where Democrats were. Everybody else why have a feeling we could see that in debate stage with Republicans. So you know, look, I think that to a large extent the Republican Party is still playing Donald Trump's game and that really is the risk. And of course there is A vast group of other people who are delighted to see them playing Donald Trump's game.

Not just Donald Trump, but the Democratic Party that backed all those MAGA candidates in the midterms. And the media, which enjoys very much this Donald Trump conversation, because everybody loves to hate Donald Trump, me included. So, you know, I think that's part of the problem for the gop. And if they are not able to walk that tightrope, as I would say, Governor Youngkin did very well, as Brian Camp in Georgia has managed to do.

If they can't figure that out, then guess what 2024 is gonna look like 2022 and 2020 and 2018. And you can't outrun Trump. But I do think it opens up a lane for someone who's completely different from, you know, out trumping Trump and being less open. That's why I think, don't ignore people like Bdick Ramaswamy.

I said Darian's like. I mean, I do think people are hungry for. They don't like the current crop of people. See, I want to pivot because Danny is guilting me a little bit, but I also think Joe and Danny together actually can tackle some Israel politics as it impacts domestic America a little bit.

The White House, how nervous are they that they're going to lose leverage over? I think the White House is trying to toe the line of sending a message that they don't want Israel to, you know, run into decreasing its democracy, diminishing its democracy, and becoming more authoritarian. But I think the White House also has the risk of going too far and angering an ally, you know, an old friend, you know, and I think that's the line that Biden is trying to kind of toll. Sending a strong message, but not, you know, burning bridges with an ally.

Are you surprised, Danny, that. That the American right hasn't taken up baby's vows? No. This is really an Israeli domestic issue.

This is. This is an outgrowth, not simply of the need for judicial reform in Israel. Not to be too nerdy about this, there is a need for reform. The question is, is there a need to rock the baby in the bathwater and, you know, every single justice they have, or is there debate inside the country?

But I think, honestly, this is an Israeli domestic issue. And as you see, when there are tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of Israelis lining the highway as they have been, this is something that Israelis themselves are working through. I could see a Republican taking up the mantle for not interfering with the decision making of Israel's sovereign government. After all remember Barack Obama sent his own campaign advisor to try to defeat Bibi in elections that got involved in the Republican president.

Exactly. And that whole game was really, was really ugly. So I think it was a mistake by Bibi, although that has had long term consequences for his. But the truth is that Bibi's problems right now have nothing to do with America.

They are his own making. Yeah. A majority of Democrats sided with Palestinians, had more sympathetic Palestinians than Israel for the first time in Gallup. What do you make of that?

That's be bad politics for any Democrat in New York City. Well, I do think the barrage of media and what's coming out of the Middle east right now, especially when it comes to Israel, is, you know, there's a lot of killing going on over there and people I think are generally concerned about that. But I do think that Daniel. Right.

That is right in that I think this is an internal issue within Israel. But I do think that Netanyahu chose sides in American politics. Well, I think this is what's driven this Democratic Congress. Despite his relationship, despite his relationship with President Biden, which is different than Obama, I do think he chose his side in the Republican.

Why do you think that? Because the Democratic Party has been drifting away from support for Israel for many, many years just by the way as the Republican Party has been drifting towards support politics. It was the Republicans wanted nothing to do with this trip and it was Papuanity was not isolated view. Right.

And I also think it's too. I'm relatively new to national politics, but I speak a lot in not wanting to be anti Semitic, wanting those long term ties of the Democratic Party. But also I think younger Americans in particular have heard about the plight of the Palestinian people and are I guess concerned about what they see. The violence, the human rights violations and again the sensitivity of of course wanting to keep those ties to Israel aren't strong.

But also there's still sensitivities of anti Semitism as well. Yeah, I think that there is a little bit of that generational divide, but there's still a strong vein of pro Israel politics within the elected Democratic Party. You guys are terrific. Thank you for pivoting with me on the panel.

You're welcome, Dan. We have updated to a story been following for weeks. We just got word that Penn Senator John Fetterman will be returning to work next month. A spokesperson for the freshman Democrat says he'll be back at work the week of April 17th.

I believe that's when Senate comes back into session after the Passover holidays. Fermanman has been treated clinical depression at Walter Read since last month. His communications director says he's been visiting Fetterman and that he is excited to get back to the Senate. And I have more update for you now on a new politician whose name you probably haven't thought of for years.

Ilian Gonzales. The now 29 year old was just elected office in his native Cuba and he says he wants to use his new position to improve relations between the United States and Cuba. Gonzalez was just one international assembly this week. If you don't know who Elaine Gonzalez is or just need a refresher.

He was just six years old when he was rescued floating on an inner tube off the coast of South Florida on Thanksgiving Day in 1999. His mother and several other Cubans died trying to get to the United States. The situation surrounding Gonzales start a diplomat by crisis with his Miami relatives trying to keep a state of him while the Cuban government city along with his father who was back in Cuba. The US government eventually agreed and the six month long saga came to a head in April 2000 with armed federal relations rating his relatives Miami home to extract the aliens of Dallas and return to Cuba.

This Pulitzer Prize winning photo of that raid made newspaper magazine covers around the world. That's what viral was before social media kids and it came to symbolize the strange relationship between the two countries as well as a new era of the politics of many Cuban Americans. After the break the politicalization of America's education system knocked by the head one of the nation's most powerful teachers unions about how she became the center of the cultural war over the classroom. That's amazing.

Welcome back. Florida has become the epicenter of a cultural war fight that's been encompassing and eclipsing all other cultural war fights. Education federal round of scientists made education key political and tissue rampant up legislation running education across the state as he wages his own potential 2024 presidential run. A new bill introduced earlier this month would bar students from going by preferred pronouns in school even if their parents say it's okay.

Another bill introduced earlier this week would block degree programs and diversity at state colleges, building on legislation that already limits how teachers across lower levels can teach diversity in classrooms. And earlier this week a charter school principal was forced to resign if their parents complained that sixth graders were shown quote inappropriate content as they studied Michelangelo's sculpture David. The school's parents didn't like the quote woke indoctrination of their kids. I'm joined now by someone pushing against these efforts.

The backing of the blind Houses president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randy Winegarden. Good to see you. Thank you. First, I want to start with you have been name checked.

You have been attack and weaponize. You're not an elected official. I'm still sort of startled by what my compeho said about you. How's that changed your life?

You know, it's. I mean, I'm also married to a rabbi and so thankful. Oh, that's nice. I mean, but you know, we're, you know, we're a gay couple.

And so when you get at home a big email that says that has your apartment and has you in there and says be careful for your family and, you know, all the anti Semitism that's going on, look, it's just chilling, you know, it's chilling and it changes your life because you know that people are out to get you because of who you are and what you represent. But this is the thing, what it does for me, it makes me want to do more to actually help public schools be the best they can be. It makes me want to do more to practice my religion. When we see anti Semitic events, it makes me want to do more to see kids who are vulnerable.

What I care about are the people who are anonymous and isolated, who don't have years of experience in this, in this work. But the point of all the bullying is to make you try to shut up. And as a history teacher, I know Tim Schneider and Applebaum, they all tell you that, that, that apathy is the tool of the autocrat. So, you know, so it's, you know, the page that DeSantis is using, it's autocracy.

What Trump did was to try to create so much chaos and fear that you want the autocrat and what America is about. And again, I'm sorry that I'm going back to my AP History Day is teaching. What America is about is about both the unity and the diversity. And we have to be a country that actually lifts all up, believes in all, and that's what the American dream has been about.

And that's what public schools are supposed to be about. So I feel like we've lost the debate on we're sort of, how should a public school curriculum. You think people expect a public school curriculum to reflect the local values of a community or public school curriculum to reflect the national identity of the country? So a public school curriculum has to actually reflect both.

And it's not as if these are the first times we've had these wars. Think about the Scopes trial. They did it in the 50s. Segregation.

Exactly. But what happens is the point is because the only institution in the United States of America that is for all, that creates opportunity for all are public schools. So of course every social issue is going to walk through the doors of public schools. Not just our kids, but every social issue.

And the teachers are the first responders to all of it. So how is it really done? There's 50 states, there's 13,000 school districts. That's why you have lay boards of education, but that's why you also have a process in states of building curriculum that includes parents and teachers.

One of the things that that Youngkin did was he. He seized on a mistake that and, and he's a dear friend Tamara Kohlfe made. Of course parents have to be involved in kids education. That's what teachers have wanted for years.

We need parents as our partners. And, and, but the exploitation now is both with Governor Junkin, Governor DeSantis, think about what's happening. We have a mental health crisis. We have real economic issues.

We just went through Covid and all of that. So there's gun, all the gun, all the shootings. There's an anxiety that people feel that the culture wars exacerbate and deepen. And what we in public schools have to do is we gotta do reading, writing, arithmetic, but we also have to overcome all of this.

And the culture wars have made it harder to do that. And then on top of it, what DeSantis is doing, making $4 billion out of public schools in Florida, how are they going to actually respond to do the work like CTE and experiential learning and overcome learning loss and overcome the mental health crisis if we don't have the teachers or the money to do that. So Florida's gonna turn to a future system. It's already has this way in the county where you have those with money can do private, those who will take money and want to shop for a charter and that's a 50 50.

Some are great, some don't do so well. And then those that for whatever reason the parents doesn't. They don't know how to maybe they don't know how to navigate the system. They're stuck.

They're going to go to school and. But Chop, is that successful school? No, of course not. But guess what?

Even in Florida still right now, after all of the voucher work, all of the vouchers, all of the charters, the vast majority of kids in Florida still go to public schools and want to go to public schools and their parents want to send them to public schools. The vast majority United States America go to public schools. But what Desantis has done with this new voucher system is it's not about what the old ones were. This is now just taking money from public schools and giving it to wealthy parents so that they can send their kids to private schools.

Well, this is the debate that is going to end today. And I got like 17,000 more questions but I'm running out of time. Thank you. Silicon A damning new center finance report confuses Credit Suisse of violating a federal plea agreement by hiding massive fortunes from U.S.

tax authorities. Hear from the whistleblowers next to you. Watch me press now. Welcome back.

We got an exclusive report from our friends at CNBC's Finance Committee released a new report detailing whistleblower allegations against global banking giant Chris Swiss alleging that it's been helping American clients hide hundreds of millions of dollars from the article despite an agreement to cooperate with US tax authorities a decade ago. The allegations are surfacing the wake of the bank's recent collapse and rescue. Right now this appears to be unrelated cnbc, Zen and Chambers spoke to the Los Angeles exclusively and filed this report. So what secrets did you turn over to the Americans?

One specific about an American family that over years, years and years and years and made their money in Switzerland and did not comply with their taxes. And you knew the name of the family? Correct. And you knew how much money they had?

I knew money they had. I knew the accounts were all numbered secret accounts that were made by Italian cities. Code words were Italian cities. In 2014, Credit Suisse pled guilty to aiding and assisting U.S.

taxpayers in filing false tax returns and agreed to pay a $2.6 billion penalty. At the time, the bank pledged to comply with American tax authorities in the future. But the Senate Finance Committee today says the Swiss bank didn't do that. Instead the committee alleges the bank engaged in a long running scheme to hide American assets by switching the nationalities of some US taxpayers to other countries.

Back in 2014, Credit Swiss executives told senators on Capitol Hill that they had cleaned up their act. We're proactively taking steps to require that only those U.S. clients who establish compliance with U.S. tax laws can declines of our bank.

Why do you say that? Well, they testified that they were 100% compliant. They testified that they've gone through all the accounts and they no longer had a property problem. Not only do they have a problem, they have a very big problem on their hands.

How do you know that? I know that because I'VE seen first time what they did. One of the whistleblowers told me how the scheme allegedly worked by making sure wealthy American clients got second passports so the bank could justify counting them as foreign and not American accounts. So you're talking about Americans who hold two passports.

They open the Swiss account in the foreign passport and they just put their American passport in the pocket and their IRS obligations in their pocket. Senate Finance Committee investigators obtained emails from inside the bank. In one, an American client who was the heir to a $200 million fortune hidden inside Credit Swiss writes to a Swiss banker. The subject line of the email reads, US Citizenship renounced.

And the American says, attached is a confirmation letter. I got in the embassy. I just tried to reach you. Congratulations.

The banker replies, this is a big step for you and I know it was not easy at all. Hear you soon. The heir fortune replies. Thanks.

Hopefully this should also make CS now more relaxed. He closes with a smiley face. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden told me it's not clear how much, if any secret American money remains in the bank as UBS takes over. But he said he wants the U.S.

department of justice to take another look at the bank's 2014 plea deal, which he says gave the bank a penalty discount for future cooperation. It is still going on as of just the last couple of days. Even more money has been found. They have been concealed and there are very substantial issues here.

So I'm not taking anything off the table. But clearly it's time to prosecute and ensure that there are penalties that send a strong message. And CNBC Washington correspondent Amy Jeremy joins me now. Eamon, is someone going, can we put send somebody from another country to jail here?

You can. I mean, we've indicted. The US Government has indicted Swiss bankers in the past in this case. I think what's likely to happen is there's going to be an additional set of conversations between Credit Suisse and the Department of Justice.

Remember, Credit Suisse settled all this and pled guilty back in 2014, said they would never do it again. There's evidence here now from these whistleblowers that they were doing it again, at least for some period of years after that. So now the question is, can the DOJ impose additional penalties on them and will that mess up the deal with UBS to rescue the bank? Why would somebody open a Swiss bank account as American citizen if they didn't want hide the money from heiress?

One of the Swiss bankers I talked to for the story said the only reason to have a Swiss bank account is if you're hiding something because they charge higher fees, they have poorer performance in general in terms of determining to stash money. Right. It's a place to stash money. Now.

So specifically, we offer all sorts of bespoke services. We have great client relationships. We have access to European markets, all sorts of reasons to be here. But traditionally, you know, if you had money and you're a wealthy person, you put it in bank, bank of America or something in New York.

To go to Switzerland was to find that Swiss secrecy whistleblower cut. How much money are they going to get for this? Well, depends. Their lawyer is asking for a payout, $1.3 billion from the Department of Justice.

They would get 15 to 30% of that and the lawyer would check that. I don't think it's going to go that high. It's going to be in the millions, I would imagine, but it's very hard. This is a big collection here for the American treasury.

You would think this is a big question mark right now. NBC News now coverage will continue with Hallie Jackson right now. Because I am so late and so out of time, we'll see you with warming the press now tomorrow. Ally, the show is yours.

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Catch.