If it's Monday. Prime Minister Netanyahu says Israel's war against Hamas has reached a turning point as Israeli forces ratchet up ground operations inside Gaza, freeing the hostage while a humanitarian crisis rages. Plus, a win, win Field of Dreams. A new NBC poll shows former President Trump running away with the Republican primary contest in Iowa despite a litany of legal problems as his former vice president Mike Pence drops out of the race.
And it looks like the end of the road for his stork autoworker strike as President Biden this afternoon announces that the UAW has now reached agreements with gm, Ford and Stellantis after more than six weeks of targeted strikes. Welcome to Media Press. Now. I'm Garrett Hake in Washington, and we begin the day with the escalating war between Israel and Hamas.
As the assault on Gaz intensifies, security concerns escalate both here and abroad. And as the Israeli government announced today that it had freed a female soldier who was being held hostage by Hamas. Releasing this photo of Private Ori Megiddish and her family, the IDF says she's in good condition and has been reunited with her family. That announcement came just hours after Hamas released a second hostage video appearing to show three women who were captured during the Oct.
7 attacks, all urging the Yahoo government to secure their release. Now we should know, and we assume that the woman in this video is speaking under duress. And it's unclear if the message was directly scripted by Hamas. This afternoon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed reporters in English justifying his military's actions in Gaza while urging the immediate release of the remaining hostages and arguing that his nation and the world had reached an inflection point.
This is a turning point, a turning point for leaders and nations. It is time for all of us to decide if we are willing to fight for a future of hope and promise or surrender to tyranny and terror. Now, rest assured, Israel will fight. Since October 7, Israel has been at war.
Israel did not start this war. Israel did not want this war, but Israel will win this war. Meanwhile, Israeli ground operations inside Gaza have entered their fourth day. You can see here Gaza under a shrouded haze after a weekend of heavy bombardments.
As civilians there lack basic necessities like food, water and medicine. In a news conference today, an IDF spokesperson said their ground operations inside Gaza will continue and will intensify as military operations ramp up. So too are calls for humanitarian pause, with the death toll in Gaza worsening there. While speaking with reporters this afternoon and now was defiant just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl harbor or after the terrorist attack of 9 11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7th.
Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism. Meanwhile, wartime tensions aren't just confined in the Middle East. This shocking video shows the number where hundreds of rioters in the predominantly Muslim region of Russia stormed an airport, even making their way out on the tarmac. Russian stones.
The mob was searching, looking for Israeli passengers on an arriving flight from Tel Aviv. And here at home, the Biden administration is unveiling new actions to combat an alarming uptick in anti Semitic activity on college campuses. Joining me now, I am Aziz Del Subarbara at the Israel Gaza border. And NBC News White House reporter Peter Nichols joins me on set.
So, else, and I'll start with you. We played some of this from Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking to reporters earlier today. What else did we learn from the prime minister? Yeah, in air for the skyline, you can see some of the blowing in Gaza.
That's northern Gaza just behind us. But look, that speech from Prime Minister Netanyahu tonight, it was very much geared towards the international audience. He invited members of the foreign press. He spoke in English.
And he really tried to paint this picture of this being, in his view, a war about morals, a war between right and wrong, and a war that everyone in the world who is a moral standing, in his view, should be supporting Israel in their fight. You heard him in those clips he played saying, Hamas started this war, we intend to finish it. Essentially, that's an argument he and his allies and the rest of the Israeli cabinet, Israeli military leaders have made consistently for weeks now. At one point after he flatly refused and he calls for a ceasefire, saying that is not something Israel plans to do.
Here he talked about some of the global criticism of all of this and the civilian toll that is happening in this war inside of Gaza, saying that there has to be a moral difference. He believes in what Hamas did targeting civilians and what is happening inside of Gaza. At one point making a reference to things that happened in World War II, saying there were efforts in World War II to strike legitimate targets. And in the course of those efforts, sometimes civilians were killed.
And no one said the allies were committing war crimes. No one said that the allies should change course, implying that that's what's happening here. But the question in terms of the civilian toll of this has always been not does it happen in Wartime. But is there more Israel could be doing here to limit the civilian toll?
According to Gaza's Ministry of health, at least 8,000 civilians have died since this war began. A large portion of those children because remember, in Gaza, about half of the population is under the age of 18. And there's also been this question of how is going about airstrikes inside Gaza. They have told people to move to the south past the Gaza or Wadi River.
They have also designated an area, Al Mawasi along the sea as a humanitarian zone. But there has still been Israeli airstrikes in those areas. We saw another in the sun and say of Condenas just this weekend. So that's where these questions have been coming from the international world saying, hey, could you be doing more here?
Netanyahu maintaining this argument that they say Hamas is responsible for any civilian casualties inside of Gaza and claiming that it is Hamas who will not allow people to get to safer areas. And it is Hamas who will not allow foreign nationals to leave. A lot of international allies, though, they have been questioning that of late. And we see that increase those questions since Israel launched its full round invasion, or at least the ground invasion that we've seen the last four days.
The longest round incursion since the start of this war. Garrett, Elsa, let's step back a little bit. You started talking about those lights behind you, talking a little about what you're seeing, what you're witnessing. There been a noticeable escalation tonight near the border.
Yeah, I mean, we've seen since Friday evening when Israel acknowledged that they had ground forces inside of Gaza and the hours after when they said they had not left. And we realized it was a much more significant round incursion than the limited rates as Israel had described it in the past. As we watch the skyline and this has been the case for the last couple of days. You've probably seen the corner there, something starting to glow a little bit.
We have seen even just tonight, a number of rockets headed into Gaza. A number of rockets headed out towards some of the Israeli cities in this area for four days now. Every night that we have been here along this section of the border, we're along a section of the northern Gaza border. We have seen constant bombardments into Gaza.
At times we heard what sound like borders headed in the direction of Israeli forces. We see tank movements along the ridges and we constantly hear the sound of military aircrafts above us circling overhead. That has been dramatically different than what we had seen in three weeks prior. This is where we have spent all of our time the last three weeks reporting from what we've seen in the last four days has been an undeniable escalation in bombardments, in rocket fires, all of it, and far more sustained than anything we had seen up until now.
Garrett, Alison, Barbara, thank you so much for that reporting and please stay safe. I want to turn now to some of the domestic sides. My colleague here, Nicholas Jersey. Now.
So the White House has been supportive of Israel of the way that Prime Minister Netanyahu has handled this till now. They believe that the Israeli government is listening to their concerns about human rights and protecting civilians as this ground invasion continues. Yeah, I do think that President Biden is under some pressure. I mean, the Muslim community wants him to use his leverage, his influence with Netanyahu in Israel to ease up on some of the strikes and make sure that there's some restraint shown for the civilian population in Gaza.
Biden met with a handful of Muslim leaders last week where they asked him to press for a ceasefire. Now, that's something that Israel cannot accept. I mean, Israel is determined to wipe out him loss and ceasefire now is not going to help achieve that end. So Biden is kind of getting it from both directions.
I mean, he's an ally, strong partner of Israel, and the Netanyahu government now wants him to succeed in this conflict. At the same time, progressives within the Democratic Party and also the Muslim community wants him to use his clout to get Israel to minimize casualties. And while the president's been dealing with all this publicly behind the scenes administration's been working to try to secure the lease of more hostages. Obviously, the Israeli military freed hostage today.
But what's the latest re reporting on these efforts to negotiate with Qataris and other regional players here on the release of hostages? Well, one thing that issue sort of ties into your first question, where it would be easier, I think, to release hostages to create a climate where more hostages could be released. The census among the Qataris and others. If, if the Netanyahu government were to ease up, if the Israeli military forces were to show some more restraint, that maybe there was some sort of pause in the bombardment, that that would create a climate or an atmosphere where it's easier to get Hamas to show some leniency and mercy towards these hostages.
Military imperatives clashing with diplomatic efforts. And he also covered a little bit of the domestic response here. The White House has been very concerned about this troubling and uptake of anti Semitic incidents on college campuses. What's the administration to address that issue?
Well, the administration released a new plan where they're going to work very closely with campus authorities. They're going to monitor online posts and they do recognize the top tip in anti Semitic acts. And they're going to try to help cause campuses try to mitigate this subgroup and we'll see if it's successful. But they're determined to work with law enforcement agencies on campus and do what they can to see any online threats in advance.
And so that's stepping up of a response to anti Semitic incidents which the administration is very concerned about. Dear Nicklaust, our senior White House reporter for Abbas News, thank you for your time on that. And I want to bring now, Elon Levy's a spokesperson for the Israeli government. And I want to start with this breaking news right before we came on the air, this news of this freed Israeli soldier.
What, if anything, can you tell us about that operation? What can you tell us about her condition? And what's that tell us about the efforts to go after and retrieve more of these hostages in the coming days? Finally, a little glimmer of hope.
Three weeks after Hamas brutally abducted, more than 240 is raised into the Gaza Strip, including children, including babies. Our forces have gone into the Gaza Strip and rescued a young soldier, bringing her back home to her family. I can say everyone in Israel was deeply moved and excited and hopeful. But now, as the campaign continues in response to the October 7th massacre, we're going to bring more of our hostages home.
Hamas already released four hostages. Indeed, under pressure is raining military pressure and international diplomatic pressure. And we're hopeful that as our forces progress into the Gaza Strip in response to the October 7th massacre, we're going to create conditions to put more pressure on the terrorists who perpetrate the October 7th massacre to release the rest of the hostages. No excuse, not at all, for abducting babies from their beds, literally orphaning them by shooting their parents in front of them, taking them into captivity in the Gaza Strip, putting more pressure on us.
We're calling on our allies to put more pressure on us and on the fortress. We're doing everything we can to get all of those hostages home safe to their families, the Israeli intelligence community, to a lot of heat for what happened on October 7th. Can you talk at all about the information that led you to find this soldier? I know you wanted to get into the specifics of an operation here, but should people take some comfort in the fact that you were able to find this one individual in a very, very challenging environment in Gaza?
I'm afraid I can't get into the specifics. But as our troops go in, they're finding more evidence of the atrocities than Hamas perpetrated. Many people will remember the story of shani Luke, a 22 year old German Israeli woman who was abducted from the Nova Music festival. Her mutilated body was seen on the back of a pickup truck as Hamas terrorists sat asstride her with an rpg.
Now, President Hersook said in an interview with Jimin Media that sold a signed fragment of her skull showing that she had been partially beheaded after that video of Hamas terrorists berating her through the streets of Gaza. So we're hopeful as our soldiers go in, we've got to bring back hostages alive. But unfortunately our soldiers have been going in and recovering bodies as well. We've been clear every single Hamas terrorist involved in the Polestan massacre is going to pain and going to people to justice.
So expand on that a little bit as we talk about this incursion now into Gaza. What's the goal at this stage of the offensive? Are you looking for hostages? Are you exacting vengeance against Hamas?
What's the sort of layout to meet strategic imperatives here? What you're trying to do in Gaza right now? The goal is total victory, total victory against the terror organization that on October 7th invaded and burned, beheaded, butchered, raped, tortured, mutilated our people abducting 240 into Gaza. We will topple Hamas from power.
We will dismantle its terrorists and military infrastructure and we'll do everything we can to bring our hostages home. That is the goal of the campaign. Hamas declared war on us on October 7th, and we're defending ourselves by making sure that the terror group, the jihadi group that perpetrated October 7th can even do this again. This isn't about retribution.
This isn't about vengeance. This is about Hamas declaring war on Israel with the worst terror attack in world history since 9 11. The worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. A world, by the way, Hamas has continued with 8,000 rockets fly down cities in the last three weeks.
Just as I was setting to prepare for this interview, I heard explosions overhead from interception. So we're currently still under attack, attack from Hamas. And we want to defend ourselves by toppling Hamas so they can never again hurt our civilians like it did in that massacre that has shocked the world that your network has been covering so well. And in bringing to the world the atrocities of October 7th, as I got to tell you, Hamas isn't just a terrorist network.
It tells the government in Gaza what happens on day two after that organization is Toppled. How much has the IDF has Israeli government planned for what happens in a power vacuum after what you call total victory? We're exploring several options. There is only one thing I can tell you.
When this war is over, the Gaza Strip will no longer be governed by Hamas and it will be one of Gaza will. Remember what we did to Hamas. Look, obviously it would be nice if we went into a war with a perfectly worked out plan about what happens after. But we're in this war because we came under attack in a brutal act of aggression by Hamas, are now fighting to repel actual violence against our people.
If you compare it to World War II, the US was attacked at Pearl harbor and it didn't wait to decide what it was going to do with Japan. After defeating its wartime government, it returned war to Japan in order to defend the American people. The Marshall Plan came two years after the end of the Second World War. So I hope that when we defeat Hamas, and we will, this war will end with an Israeli victory.
There's no other way that can happen. We're going to create a spaceport together with the international community to rebuild the Gaza Strip in a way that it will no longer be governed by a parasitic jihadi group that subjugates the needs of the civilians in Gaza towards their genocidal goal of murdering all the Jews and will be able to build something more sustainable. But for now, we're focusing on one thing literally removing terror organisations, the perpetrator atrocities, multiple assembly. Because that is a reality he can simply no longer live with.
All right, I love Nev. Thank you. Sports reviews, appreciation. Make it time for us tonight.
And coming up, it's a race for second place in Iowa as former President Trump dominates. In our latest ABC News to One Register poll, we're on the ground in Iowa with what voters in that key early stage are saying about Trump and everyone else. Plus, there's now one less person in the Republican field taking on Trump, but one more taking on Joe Biden. We'll talk campaign shakeups ahead.
You're watching Meet the Press now. Welcome back. It's getting late early as the Republican field is to head the Iowa caucuses in the official start of the 2024 election. According to new NBC news from unregistered media compole.
Former President Trump maintains a commanding leader among likely Iowa Republican caucus votes. As you can see, Nikki Haley has evolved into a tie for second place with Ron DeSantis, whose campaign just continues to lose momentum. The big question facing the field is the former President's lead Insurmountable. Nearly two thirds of Trump supporters say their minds are made up.
Overall, just 41% of Republican caucus goers and a third of DeSantis and Haley supporters say the same thing. I'm joined now by MCU's National Political Correspondent Steve Kornacki has been both of these numbers since the weekend. So, Steve, take us beyond the top line numbers here. What does this poll tell us about the state of the race here?
Yeah, I guess a couple things. Number one, you got it with Donald Trump there. It's not just the size of the league, it's the depth of the support. That 63% number you just showed there, 63% of his supporters saying their minds are made up.
They're definitely voting for him. Just as a matter of historical context, the last time we saw a candidate on the Republican side with a lead this big in Iowa, nationally, like we see for Trump right now, that was George W. Bush in the 2000 cycle, the fall of 1999. He had leads comparable to Trump's now, but the definitely voting for Bush number at that time was about half of what it is for Trump right now.
So this is a depth of support coupled with a commanding lead that we really haven't seen in modern times in Republican race. The other thing I think is interesting here is, you know, you see Haley moving up now. You got two Trump opponents in double digits, DeSantis falling three points. So you've got that tie there at 16%.
I think it raises two questions. Number one is, you know, first of all, there's this tendency, I think, of people to think of this race as Trump and non Trump. And if only the non Trump side could condense, they all coalesce behind one candidate, and that would give Trump a real run for his money. I think one thing worth keeping in mind here, the 16% of DeSantis supporters we have here, we asked in this poll, if DeSantis is in a race, who would your second choice be?
And actually, by a 14 point margin, they chose Trump over Nikki Haley. So if a deceitus were to drop out, that 16 is not just getting tacked onto Haley's number. Actually, more of it would go to Trump than would go to Haley. And that's true to varying degrees with other candidates, too.
So that consolidation idea here, some Trump opponents spout, not sure. The numbers we're seeing in this poll back that up. The other question is Nikki Haley, can she keep this going? She's risen 10 points since August.
Can she keep rising? And could she actually get Trump run for his money. Where's Haley support coming from? Where's that 60% coming from?
Independents, suburbanites, Republicans who have a negative view of Trump. She's getting a lot of traction with those groups. Those groups alone are not enough to get you into a real one on one race with Donald Trump with any success. What she needs to do, she's got a good foundation for.
What she needs to do is expand her support to core Republicans, the Republicans who like Donald Trump. In fact, Republicans right now, some Republicans who say they would rather vote for Trump than for Nikki Haley. She's making room on that side of the party. She's making the other side of the party right now.
A couple other interesting things here. You look at a favorable, unfavorable score with Iowa Republicans. I think this is very notable. It's actually not Trump who's the most popular.
He's popular, but Ron DeSantis actually has a higher favorable and a lower unfavorable number than Donald Trump. DeSantis has not been angering, has not been turning off Trump supporters. They actually quite like him, but he's not converting them into voters. That continues to be the theme here.
And you see here two candidates underwater, Christy Hutchinson, just massively unpopular Republicans, no surprise, like Mike Pence who dropped out over the weekend. They have gone after Trump. Trump had going after them hard. And you see what that does.
You know, Republican primary, Republican caucus. Yeah, look, we see no Pence on that board. It doesn't really change things. You know, you're describing the Haley coalition.
I started thinking that sounds a little bit more like who votes in New Hampshire. But we don't have the New Hampshire data in front of us. We'll look for that soon, I hope. Steve Kornacki, thank you for breaking all that down.
I want to turn now to MC News correspondent Shaq Brucer, who's been winning. So, Shaq, you've been out talking to likely caucus goers in Iowa. How does what Steve and our poll just laid out track with what you're hearing about the state of the race on the ground? Well, Garrett, our conversations really have been mirroring what you see in that poll.
And we've just not been talking to likely caucus goers, but we've been talking to the actual people who were responding, who participated in that poll to get a bigger sense, a deeper sense of the numbers that we saw there. And one top line that we saw that was consistent with our conversations is that, yes, Donald Trump's lead is a commanding lead here, but that lead is in his support is softer than what you see in some of the national polling out there. I want you to listen to some of the conversations and you get a hint of a little bit of why that is, and it's important. State of Iowa.
As much as I hate to say this, I really think Trump will win it. I think his, his base is eroding. You know, the Trump supporters are never going away, but the on the fence people are eroding. And I think that will start to show up as time goes on.
I'm going to say Nikki Haley. I'm just going to be positive here and just hope for change. So I'm going to just, yeah, I'm still with Trump. Rising tide, and he brought up all ships when he was in office.
I felt like I was winning. I had more money in my pocket. My parents are farmers that help them immensely with all the farm bills that he put through. It's the first president where I've actually felt a financial difference.
I'm going to vote for Trump again. Thank you for asking. Who's going to win Iowa caucuses? I think, I think an outside candidate like Ron Santis or Mika Haley definitely has a chance.
I mean, we've seen in the past, but, you know, it's what's going to happen after Iowa and when we go on to other states. And so I honestly, I probably think Trump's got a pretty good upper hand, but like I said, I'm rooting for Ron Santos. You know, another thing that was mirrored in those conversations is the enthusiasm and the certainty. Those who say that they're with former President Trump say that they're stuck with him.
There's not much that can shift, that can make them move away and look at another candidate. But those who say, oh, I'm looking at Nikki Haley, I'm looking at Ron DeSantis or Tim Scott are still open to some of the other options out there. They say they're still going to go and show up to the events. They still want to hear the candidates.
They want to go and listen to the debates that will be taking place. So there is a little bit of movement there. You're even seeing that being reflected in the behavior of the candidates. We know that Ron DeSantis today has stepped up his attacks against former President Trump.
Now, while we don't know if that's a true pattern and whether that's a fundamental shift in his campaign, it gives you an example that there is some opportunity there. When you look and see that the majority of respondents in that Poll conservative folks who are saying that they are going to caucus, most likely caucus goers, majority of them chose a candidate that wasn't Donald Trump. So there's some opportunity there, but there's no clear sign yet that they will coalesce against or coalesce around one candidate in response. And to have that one on one battle with the former president.
Garrett. All right. On a 75 degree day degree here in Washington. I'm glad to continue our tradition of sending shackers to the coldest possible poll place on the planet too.
At least one of us. All right, Jack, thank you for your reporting. I want to turn out front of the show. Andy Walter is here to say reports these Trump members, I mean, to me, I look at it, I think it doesn't show dissatisfaction with Trump, it shows dissatisfaction with the Trump alternatives.
I mean, what do you see when you start digging into these numbers? Well, Steve highlighted a lot of the ones that I would have highlighted too, especially the fact that DeSantis's supporters, so many of them see Donald Trump as a second choice. I think this has been the challenge all along, Garrett, that to build a coalition to beat Donald Trump, you need to bring together two groups of Republican voters that don't have a ton in common. The Never Trump coalition, which it looks like Nikki Haley is picking off, a lot of those folks don't have a lot in common with the sometimes Trump or the maybe I'm curious for another candidate Trump, whether that's on foreign policy, even on abortion and certainly how they feel about Donald Trump, the person.
So trying to bring those two groups together has been very challenging. Ron DeSantis looked like he was going to be the one king to do that with a message that did connect them both, which was I'm the electable candidate. I'm the Trump without the baggage candidate. And it worked for a little bit until it did for like two months.
And now it really isn't, in part because the numbers, the polling numbers suggest Trump looks pretty much like, well, he did going into 2020 where the race is tied and so he doesn't look like he's unelectable. And Desantis himself, every time he tries to appeal to the Trump, we like Trump, but we like an alternative. He turns off the Never Trumps. And when we try to appeal to the Never Trumps, you're losing the suntime.
The other challenge we see in the poll and some of the people who are kind of flaming out near the bottom is we talked about this in other polls that attacking Trump is one of the least popular things you can do from a Republican voter standpoint. So if you're Chris Christian and you're trying to do the work in shit away that it really hurts you, if nobody's chipping away and he just gets stronger, how does anyone reverse that cycle? Like Nikki Haley can take all the support in the world from Chris Christie, another theoretical never Trump candidate. Well, that's 23%.
That's right. You need to find those folks. And we heard that one of those voters saying something about that the folks who are sitting on the fence so 43% or so are sticking with Donald Trump. Where are the rest of those 60% going?
And what's going to push them off the fence? Is it that as we get closer to the election, all of the legal troubles for Donald Trump are going to start to weigh on them? Will something happen in one of those cases that's going to take a. Well, I've been with Trump all along and I think he's getting railroaded and I think they're after him for, you know, political purposes, too.
Maybe there's something here. I don't think it's going to happen. Like I will say, my Trump campaign correspondent has. He has seemed more distracted of late, but the New York trial, I think more so than other things, has drawn more of his attention away from the other things he wants to be talking about.
He wasn't as much of a presence in the speaker's race, for example, when you feel like he might have been otherwise. The other big thing on the counter next week, you may have heard here on this network, we are having a debate next week in this context, what do you see as the stakes for that? I mean, is this just like Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are going to start attacking each other as what happens? This is really all about Nikki Haley now being in the spotlight.
And we already saw Tim Scott knew that he had to make an impact and try to blunt her momentum. In the last debate that didn't go particularly well. DeSantis have been ignoring the rest of the field, hoping that he could put himself up. As you know, look, I'm the only alternative that can bring these two parts of the party together.
That hasn't worked very well. Raswagi is another one. He hasn't really moved into polls. He was the flavor of the month for a little while.
I'm curious to see if he gets back in, into the middle of this fight, trying to raise his profile. And the fact that Mike Pence is not in the debate not in the race at all. He was the one who spent so much time going after Ramaswamy, there was something for him that made him crazy. Nobody remembers now who took out Herman Cain.
Right. I mean, that's kind of what it felt like with Ramaswamy as the candidate who was rising up. Somebody had to kind of stomp him back down. That was Mike Pence.
What do you make of Pence's absence? How do you think that affects the field going forward? And was his campaign really just over on January 6th? Probably, yeah.
I don't know that his moving out of this race is doing anything other than taking a Ramaswamy critic off the Trump critic. And Chris Christie can stay in, I guess, as long as he wants. Although after New Hampshire, if there's no they're there, there's, it's really hard for me to see why he would stick around taking that role. But again, the number of candidate of Republican primary voters who would like an anti Trump has not changed.
That is still a small percentage of the electorate. So Chris Christie can keep talking about it, but it's not going to do much more. I like your point, though, about New Hampshire. And this is where I think you're right for Haley to do well in New Hampshire and then, I'm sorry, in Iowa, use that momentum in New Hampshire station like independent candidates.
You can see if you swing hard enough, you can see how it would work. Thank you for your analysis. And up next, one of the first moves by the new House speaker may set him up for a standoff with the Senate and the White House. Good.
As he moves to put a standalone bill for AD Israel the floor this week. You're WATCHING ME the Press now. Welcome back. Turning now to latest from Capitol Hill, where newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson begins his first full week on the job and he has a very full plate.
The speaker confirmed over the weekend. NBC News is reporting that he is breaking with the White House and the Senate by having the House take up aid to Israel as a standalone measure, not tying it to additional aid for Ukraine. We believe that that is a pressing and urgent need. There are lots of things going on around the world that we have to address and we will.
But right now, what's happening in Israel takes the immediate attention and I think we got to separate that and get it through. As he navigates wartime legislation, Speaker Johnson is also navigating efforts to rebuke two sitting House members, including a resolution to expel Republican Congressman George Santos of New York and essential resolution brought by Republican Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene against Democrat Rashida's over her recent criticism of Israel. I'm joined now by my colleague on Kapil Hill, Sahil Kapoor. So is there any honeymoon period for Mike Johnson or is it just like straight in the deep end of the pool today?
Oh, there certainly will be a honeymoon period among Republicans. Garrett. I think you see this from various different wings of the Republican Conference. The centrist and politically vulnerable members are exhausted by the paralysis.
They're happy to get back to work. They're willing to give them a shot. And the Republican hardliners who overthrew Kevin McCarthy really seem to see Mike Johnson as closer to their vision. He doesn't have the baggage that McCarthy built up over more than decade in leadership.
Mike Johnson's only been in Congress for less than seven years and he's been remarkably good at not making enemies some of the way, you know, the way some of them talk about Mike Johnson, it's night and day from the way they saw Kevin McCarthy just a few days ago. I spoke to Congressman Matt Gates who of course pulled the trigger on the motion that they gave. He had nothing to praise for. Mike Johnson even says he's willing to go along with short term funding bill, which was one of the reasons he removed, you know, made the motion to overthrow Kevin McCarthy.
He said he's been potentially okay with Ukraine aid as long as it comes up as a standalone measure. So there seems to be a real desire to give Mike Johnson room to operate for now. We will see how long it lasts once the going gets tough because he will have to deal with Democratic Senate and Democratic White House and that's going to be a big test for him. Of course, once you start doing stuff legislatively, you're more likely to make those enemies, which may be where he finds himself now.
And it may start with his Israel bill. And I know the text just dropped. So what are we learning about what's in the Israel bill and the challenge? He will put Democrats and some of his Republican friends on the Senate side when they bring this to the floor.
So a couple of notable things about this Israel aid bill. The first is, as you just pointed out, he's doing it as a standalone Israel aid bill, breaking off from the other elements of the administration sweeping funding requests. There won't be Ukraine a part of this. There won't be other measures involving, you know, contain China and border security.
That's all for another day. The most notable thing about, about this bill is that Johnson is funding the 14.3 billion in aid to Israel with cuts to the Inflation Reduction act, which is President Biden's signature legislative achievement over his first two years. Specifically cuts to IRS enforcement that the administration says it'll use to beef up your tax collection against wealthy tax cheats. That is not going to fly in the Democratic Senate if it does pass the House.
That is not something that Joe Biden is going to sign into law. And you already have Democrats blasting newly minted Speaker Johnson for politicizing a bipartisan cause. So what happens when it does hit that wall with Democrats Senate in the White House, Judge Johnson find a way to cut a deal? Does he hold firm?
These are the big open questions we don't really know how you know, we don't really know an answer to because he's brand new in this job and it's going to be difficult for Hinda to answer this as well. I suspect that Democrats are not going to support offsetting this with IRS funding. That follows all the votes for. Yeah, it seems unlikely.
Sahil didn't even get time to get into the HR department that he's got to deal with here with Santos and others later this week. That's how busy Speaker Johnson schedule will be. But thank you for your reporting. And up next, President Biden's response to the escalating war between Israel and Hamas and to an uptick in anti Semitic incidents at college campuses here at home.
You're WATCHING ME THE PRESS now. Welcome back. President Biden has offered his full support for Israel during his war with Hamas, but some members of his own party are not concerned that it could come with a political comment. Here's Democratic Congressman Pramil Jai Bali, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and an outspoken critic of Israel's response with her warning to the White House when she spoke to Chris Smoker yesterday on the press.
The American people are actually quite far away from where the president and even Congress, the majority of Congress has been on Israel and Gaza. They support the right for Israel to defend itself to exist, but they do not support a war crime exchange for another war crime. And I think the president has to be careful about that. I'm joined now by my panel, senior political correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Molly Ball, former Democratic congressman from New York, Joe Crowley and Republican strategist Derek Ventri.
So, Joe, I've also reviewed you. I mean, the president's obviously feeling political impacts here. How do you think he has handled the relationship with Israel, trying to navigate this moment in the early stages of what could be a very long war. So far, I Think it's a very well I think empathizing with the entity that doesn't want to cause harm to innocent people.
That being these really cop. It's not their focus on their goal to kill innocent people. That's not the goal of Hamas. They want to kill innocent people.
They did 1400 people slaughtered in Israel recognizing that and they have a duty response to that. Another thing that Nyaufan what we said today about would anyone stop America from robbing Nazi Germany, killing civilians that would meant or even in Japan will be nothing we did. So I think we have to look at this and say look the things that can be done and should be done to protect as many Islamic as possible can. But Israel needs to respond.
The president has basically clued himself to Yahoo. Has not left a lot of room for Republican criticism here. How does the right view the way that the president's handled this in this moment? Well, I think it's very correct here that you're looking at Hamas and Israel.
These are two very distinct situations where you're talking about Barbara, terrorists who are babies, who are kidnapping women, kidnapping the elderly here and just a ruthless terrorist attack. And Israel has every right to respond. I think that there's agreement here. You're seeing House Republicans put forward a $14 billion package that was just unveiled.
Obviously there's some difference in how it actually paid for, but Israel there is bipartisan support. Last week the vast majority of members, except for essentially 10 members, voted for a resolution condemning Moss and supporting Israel. I think if you take a step back here though, Republicans have a problem with I think in the American public as your CNBC poll, 31% of voters approve Joe Biden's foreign policy. 60% disapproved.
So you've seen a weakness on the foreign stage here in the world stage, whether that's with Russia invading Ukraine, Afghanistan, the Taliban releasing money to Iran in September and now with this attack here said something Biden's gonna have to address longer term going to 2024. You're talking about this response than those. But I wonder why is there a long term risk for the White House that they are so closely associated with with Israel's response, whatever that might become in the future. Yeah, I mean I've been reporting on this for the last few days and there is a major split emerging on the left and in the Democratic coalition.
You have a lot of particularly younger voters, activists, people of color who are much more focused on the plight of the Palestinians and who do not like the administration. And the bulk of The Democratic establishment siding so strongly with Israel and with the right wing Israeli government. And so we have seen most Democrats on Capitol Hill united, but with some prominent exceptions, mostly the members of the so called squad that are far left of the Democratic Party. Fifteen members did not vote for that resolution last week and they're all drawn from that group.
And so, and when you see protests in the streets and on college campuses and some of the, the rhetoric that's going around, you know, there was a Gallup poll last week that showed that in just the last month, Biden has lost a net 7 points of support with voters under 35. So this is potentially a lasting split. I think. You know, it's also not just a matter of sort of ideological difference of opinion.
People really feel this sort of pain on the level of identity with this conflict and that has caused a lot of incriminations and potentially a lasting divide too, because that resolution was pretty simple, you know, very straightforward. Condemn terrorism, condemn the killing, the mass killing of fortune, innocent people, condemn beheadings, condemn taking hostages wasn't that hard. And that's what I think is more than disappointing in terms of those Democrats that didn't support that. It's unconscionable, quite frankly.
You have to have, oh, wait a minute, before we can vote for this, we have to at least mention this. And that wasn't necessary on the long term risk part of this because there are places in this country where American voters, Muslim American voters are very important parts of the Democratic coalition. And if they don't feel the much vaunted Biden empathy on these issues, I mean, is that a longer term risk for the President to feel like he's essentially turned their back on what I think the president has to do? We have to recognize up for a two state solution that I have for quite some time, for as long as I remember.
We have to recognize that the plight of the Palestinian people, that they want that statehood, that they have human rights, but at the same time recognize that there's a state of war that exists right now and it's partly the Palestinian people and they should get that people out of harm's way. This war is between Hamas and Israel. It's not Israel and the Palestinian people. That's what has to be more clear for the American people.
I want to change subject here and talk about a little bit of electoral politics. We tease at the top of the stone. The President now has a challenger for the Democratic primary. Dean Phillips jumped in the race last week.
Week, over the weekend, one of my Colleagues got this quote from a Democratic lawmaker about this race will put on the screen so I can understand what he's hoping to accomplish here. I'm not just saying as rhetorical statement. I really don't understand what the point is. This unnamed lawmaker said a phone interview.
I don't know if he's hoping to come out in favor of a certain cause, elevate an issue that's not receiving attention, or whether he has some other goal, but I haven't heard it clearly articulated. Molly, I'll ask you, do you have any idea what the Phillips strategy is here? What do you make of the White House response to basically say who? Well, I think a lot of voters have the same reaction, and that's kind of the point of the campaign, is to be almost a generic Democrat, right?
To serve as an alternative and a placeholder for the large number of Democrats who have doubts about the president for, you know, God forbid, if something were to happen to him or if there were to be some kind of a worsening in his political or personal process, at least there's someone there who can be on the ballot and serve as an alternative. Because we've seen in polls that most Democrats, or at least a lot of Democrats, would like to see someone else be the nominee next year and do have a lot of qualms about the president, his age, his unpopularity, his standing with voters. So I think it's very clear what King Phillips is trying to accomplish. And it's not any particular ideological crusade.
It's just to be someone else. I don't want to like to ask Republicans for strategists, Democratic candidates, if I am the reason you make of this. Phillips is working with Republican strategists. What do you make of this campaign?
As someone who's thought a lot about Joe Biden's vulnerabilities from the right. Is Phillips somebody who can exploit them? Is he a useful foil for a useful person having this race for Republicans? And what do you make of his supervision?
If only time will tell. I think it's clear that he wants to position himself as a younger, more energetic kind of generic Democrat in this race. Now, he's jumped in pretty late here. You're talking about, you know, voting's gonna start in a few months here in Iowa, a couple of first states here.
I would say a step back. Joe Biden's gonna be the Democrats nominee. I believe that 100%. I don't know if it can speak Kamal Harris.
I would say, though, this speaks to his vulnerabilities and if you look at the same gal poll poll the recently Kim Meyer, he's only a 75% approval rating with Democrats. That means about 25%. That means about 25% of Democrats are unsure of him. You've seen poll after poll where the majority of Democrats don't want to run again.
Majority of Democrats think his age is concerned and then he's de popularity with the general electorate. Right now it's unpopular. Excuse me talking about he's in the high 30s, low 40s. A lot of these polls, you can't find a poll really anyone approves of anything he's done.
So I think speaks to his larger issue with the American electorate and obviously Democrats right now too, that he needs to shut up. Joey. I mean as the only person that stable doesn't mean I remember Eugene McCarthy does, is Joe Biden in a uniquely dangerous position in New Hampshire not being on the ballot. Who got this guy who's gonna go camp out there and try to appeal to independence.
I mean how do you sort of rate the Phillips Sanger system where I'm not talking about it like 36. I think the notion that I talked to about in terms of having a placeholder in case something happens, it would necessarily be the guy that no one knows is untested in terms of running for national office before. But having said that, I agree that we have to stop bellyaching as a party. Joe Biden is going to be the nominee.
Everybody take a deep breath. He has a great record to run on the bills that they passed is a great positive record. It stopped the bellyaching, by the way. His numbers would improve if Democrats started talking about positively about it as well.
I think that's part of the problem here. While we're waiting for the other person to come along. It's not going to happen. Joe Biden is our president.
He will be a Democratic nominee and hopefully we'll be the next president. Thanks again. All right. I'm getting the flat bill hooked here, guys.
We got to end this panel here, but thank you for coming. Balder adventure, Joe Crowley, I appreciate all of your expertise. And up next, six weeks of strikes may be about to come to an end as the United Auto Worker union has now struck tentative deals with all of the big three automakers. We'll get the details next.
You're watching THE PRESS now. Welcome back. After six weeks of strikes, the United Auto Workers union has reached tenant agreements with all three of the major auto manufacturers. The union confirmed the news first reported by CNBC in a statement earlier this hour saying that the UAW and General Motors reached an agreement this morning after the union struck deals with Ford last week and Stellantis on Saturday.
This afternoon President Biden commented on the news applauding the agreements. I just spoken with President Fain of the United Auto Work and let me say a few words about UAW and the big three automakers, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. They have reached a historic agreement and hard fought faith agreement that was really battled for a while. UAW brothers and sisters can go back to work immediately even before the vote is taken.
Ultimately, the final word on this contract will be for the UAW membership themselves in the days and coming weeks as they vote. NBC News correspondent Jesse Kirsch joins me with WAR now from Streetborough, Ohio. So Jesse, what else can you tell us about these tentative agreements over the last few days? What are we learning from the UIW statement?
Yeah, so here are some of the headlines out of this, Garrett. The union is saying that with all three of these tentative agreements that workers would see a 25% base wage bump that would be going across the terms of a contract which would go into April of 2028. The union's also counting cost of living allowances and retirement benefits as well, increased retirement benefits. That was also in some language and at least a couple of the deals talking about electric vehicle futures and job security and that space.
That's something that has been a, you know, attention underpinning these negotiations from the beginning. But it's important to emphasize we're talking about tentative agreements. They still need to be ratified by the memberships before the final like workers are getting back on the job. Now what got these negotiations across the finish line?
I feel like they were kind of weeks of no movement and then a sudden burst of momentum here. Yeah. So here's what happened. We were looking at more than six weeks of this.
Today is day 46 of this UAW strike. What happened was late last week there was a tent agreement announced with Ford. And this appears to be something like the dominoes you will. So then you have the Stellantis deal, which is modeled, seems to be patterned off of the Ford deal and now the GM deal which appears to be patterned off of that Ford and Stellantis deal.
So it's something that once you got one, it appears you get the other two pretty quickly. A little bit of momentum goes a long way. Jesse Kersh, thank you for that reporting. NBC News now coverage continues with Hallie Jackson right now.
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