Hello there. I'm Kristen Welker. I just wrapped up this week's broadcast of we the Press, where I interviewed National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Congressman Mike Turner, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, as well as actor and disability rights advocate Selma Blair. We covered this week's hostage release and temporary ceasefire in Gaza.
Coming after weeks of secret negotiations and personal pressure from President Biden himself, administration officially even told my NBC News colleagues that the deal was, quote, a Biden deal, not a Netanyahu deal. Still back at home, President Biden faces enormous challenges as he loses support from key voting groups and is so far unable to convince a significant enough number of Americans to buy into his vision of Biden nomics. To break it all down, I'm sitting here with Leanne Caldwell, co author of The Washington Post early 202 newsletter and anchor of Washington Post Live. Leanne, welcome to Post Game.
Thanks for having me. Kristen, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. It's great to see you.
I want start with this hostage release, this deal, Obviously, I spoke with Jake Sullivan about it. He said it is the expectation that at least one American will be on the list of those released. Politically speaking, what does this, not just this temporary pause in hostage deal mean for the White House, but overall the test that the president is facing when he deals with the war in the Middle East. Yeah, the president has had a lot of challenges confronting him regarding foreign policy throughout his term.
I mean, just take a step back. You had Afghanistan and the Afghanistan withdrawal. You have the war in Ukraine, you have China, which is always just kind of over there. Not that that's a direct conflict, but then.
Then you have what's happening in Israel. And this is something that has really evoked so much passion and so much tension on this issue politically as well. And taking, um. It's interesting, as you noted, how the administration is calling this the Biden deal, not the Israeli deal or the Netanyahu deal, to try to frame this as some.
President Biden as someone who is intimately involved, who is getting things done, who is advancing progress in this horrible, horrible situation. But President Biden gets, you know, as my sources say, very little credit for anything. And this war is completely dividing the Democratic Party and Democratic voters, especially on a generational divide, which is challenging for the president. It's a really good point.
It is dividing voters because you have protests all across this country, globally, different in nature, but a lot of them are expressing concern over one thing, which is the civilian death toll that continues to grow, that continues to mount. And so with that, we have seen calls for a ceasefire continu to grow as well. And that's where it becomes very difficult, I think for the President, politically speaking, because he has had this very full throated embrace of Israel and some of his constituents, some Democrats want the President to be focused on how to get more humanitarian aided, how to make sure that he is limiting civilian deaths and the message that he's sending to Israel. And yeah, I mean he put it so perfectly.
And how to end this. Yes, yes. And there is no end in sight or in a pause right now. But it doesn't seem like this is the end.
And it is just really fascinating when you see what is happening on the ground. You see the polling numbers where something like, you know, over 60%, I think almost 70% of young people disapprove of the President's handling of this war. And you're seeing that start to infect members of Congress, Congress too. You had a Senator, Senator Merkley of Oregon last week come out in support of a ceasefire.
Some members of Congress in the House are too. And so the President's not willing to go there and he doesn't think that that's, that's appropriate at this time. So it is, he's going to continue to work. And the administration is saying that they are working privately behind the scenes with Israel and that's a very difficult thing to message.
It really is. And the other fine line to walk, I think is on this issue of Israel aid. I discussed this with Jake Sullivan as well. And the fact you have growing calls for eight Israel to be conditioned on a plan to limit civilian deaths.
Senator Sanders has an entire op ed about this. Jake Sullivan notably, he didn't lean into it. He didn't say, yes, the President supports this wholeheartedly, but he didn't back away from the possibility that the President could support and a deal to Israel that comes with conditions. That's right.
And then you also interviewed Mike Turner, the Republican on this chair of the Intelligence top of the Intelligence Committee. And, and he didn't rule it out either. Israel aid is being, is a very complicated issue on Capitol Hill right now. So at the beginning there was no speaker of the House.
Everyone said this is a problem because we need to pass Israel aid now. Well, there's been a Speaker of the House for several weeks and there's still no aid Israel that is onto the President's death. And now it is, it is tied up with aid to Ukraine, it is tied up with border security. Republicans are insisting that there's no aid to Ukraine unless there's border security.
Talks about over border security are not going well, I'm told. And so it is just becoming this massive package that has, that is really in jeopardy. Well, I'm glad you brought up the issue of border security because perhaps no other issue has been more challenging to find common ground, because what border security means to one lawmaker is totally different to another lawmaker. Democrats and Republicans have a lot of differences, and it's my understanding that's part of why this is so challenging.
Turner said yeah, he's not confident this is done by the end of the year. Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of pessimism on Capitol Hill. And President Biden tried to throw money at the border to appease all the lawmakers, like, I'll give you money for the border, but let's get Ukraine and Israel done.
And Republicans are saying, no, we're not going to keep funding a broken system. And so they are hesitant there. And so it is just really challenging. And I will say, even if you said there's no, there's no likelihood, there's very little likelihood that they would just separate the Israel package.
I know the House did that, but just do Israel alone. And the reason is, is because the Ukraine money, Ukraine money, many think, except for some Republicans, is so crucial, they want to tie it to Israel, which is much easier to pass. And so everyone is looking for that. Right.
That right. Formula to get everyone's priority through. Yeah, it's a great point. And I think that it's notable to hear you say you think ultimately they're going to have to find a way to tie all these things together.
Of course, Democrats are saying if you don't include Ukraine aid in this package, it's not going to get done. Yeah, absolutely. Because you know what this is. There's a wide acknowledgment on Capitol Hill that this is the last chance for Ukraine, maybe ever, especially if there's a change of administration after the 2024 election.
That's why Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is really wanting this package to pass. They're asking for $60 billion, and Ukraine is saying that they will run out of bullets by the end of the year and they really need it. And so Israel, even though there is a lot of politically, it's politically important to pass this $14 billion for Israeli aid, but Israel already gets almost $4 billion in military aid from the United States every year. And so it's, even though it's a necessity, they think it's more of a necessity politically to show that they are supporting Israel.
Yeah, but we will continue to watch that for sure. We're also watching what happens on the campaign trail. Former President Trump was in South Carolina last night, the home state of former UN Ambassador, his former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is arguably the GOP candidate, his rival, who has the most momentum right now. But there's always this question looming over everything.
Is she challenging Trump or is she in a race for second place? Yeah, and I think that that question is unanswerable right now. She's continuing to run. The Ron DeSantis campaign is just plagued with infighting, starting to have money challenges.
They're betting everything on Iowa, but Nikki Haley is really challenging him in Iowa. So, you know, but that's in the normal campaign when you don't have Donald Trump out there ahead. And so it is just such a fascinatingly non campaigning type of campaign election cycle. You know, the Nikki Haley camp thinks that they have the momentum.
They think that they also are getting more momentum with donors as well. But I've covered the donors in previous campaigns and they are much different beast than the grassroots. And if they don't, the donors don't convince the voters on how to vote. Yes, it funds the campaign.
But Waniki Haley is getting a lot of momentum with donors and even voters. I mean, is it going to overtake Trump? Yeah, Trump's legal challenges and that's probably maybe his biggest liability and it's not Nikki Haley right now. Yeah, it's a great point.
And yet he continues to just surge in the polls on the Democratic side. We talked a little bit about this on the panel on the show. But one of the things that I know we're all watching for is the Joe Manchin effect. And I had the opportunity to interview Senator Manchin.
He said he's not ruling out running for president. And yet he's acknowledging now in recent days this is a real uphill battle. This is going to be very difficult. What do you make and what does your reporting tell you about Joe Manchin and just about, broadly speaking, how concerned Democrats are about a third party influence in this race.
So about Joe Manchin, he's not taking any concrete steps to make that move. He hasn't ruled anything out. And there was lots of talk about him doing a listening campaign, going to key states, but that hasn't happened yet. I know the Thanksgiving break is always a time traditionally for Joe Manchin to make political decisions.
That was actually when he was supposed to decide if he was going to run for reelection or not in the Senate. And so maybe he'll come back from Thanksgiving with, with a plan. We don't know that yet. His team is not intimating that at this point.
But you know, if Democrats are extremely concerned about a third party, they think that any sort of third party challenge will only hurt President Biden. You have I interviewed Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican of Alaska, last week or two ago, about a week ago. And she said we should she is not a Trump supporter. She will not support Trump.
She doesn't want Joe Biden to win. But she said why do we always think it's only going to hurt Biden? Why can't a third, we think that a third party will actually hurt Trump. So there are people out there who don't believe that it's going to be a spoiler for Biden.
But what does Joe Manchin want to do? Does he want to be a spoiler spoiler for one of the candidates or does he want to be a player who can actually win? And if he runs on this third party, no labels platform, they're not even on the ballot in all the states. So there's a lot of complicating factors here for Joe Manchin.
Well, one of the things that's so interesting is of course you have Robert F. Kennedy, you have Dean Phillips running as a Democrat challenging President Biden in New Hampshire where of course it's not expected that their, their delegates are going to be counted. Do you think that Dean Phillips could potentially undercut President Biden? I mean, even if because of the optics right.
Of him challenging him? Well, that's what a lot of Democrats are afraid of. And that's why so many Democrats are furious with Dean Phillips. Because these are official Democrats, I should say, because it's Democrats know Joe Biden is weak.
And when you have someone challenging him, the incumbent, the president, it makes him look even weaker. You have someone from his own party who is challenging Biden omics. He has nothing good to good to say about Bidenomics and challenging his policies. Even though Dean Phillips supported all of Joe Biden's policies.
It makes for a perception, a weak, a perceived weak candidate to look even weaker. And that's what Democrats do not want when he heads into a general election, most likely against Donald Trump. Most important question, did you have good Thanksgiving? Oh, Kristen had a great Thanksgiving.
Had family in town and it was wonderful. How was yours? It was wonderful. My biggest challenge now is we have too many leftovers.
So I have to avoid that multiple pies all throughout the house. I know. I am, too. I am too.
Well, thank you for being with us after this holiday. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me to see you.