i will save democracy. >> what would a second trump term look like? top trump ally j.d. vance of ohio is ahead. plus on the line. a split over foreign aid divides congress as world pressure grows over the civilian death toll in gaza. >> there's more that has to happen. does the biden administration have any conditions in its support for israel in the war? secretary of state antony blinken is next. and survival, world leaders meet to confront the climate crisis and consider phasing out fossil fuel, but will they go far enough? >> if there is an agreement to phase out fossil fuels, it will be a success. if there's not, it will be a failure. >> former vice president al gore joins me exclusively. ♪ ♪ hello. i'm jake tapper in washington where the state of our union is preparing for what looks to be a quite ugly 2024. we are closing in on a presidential election year in america already feels irreparably divided. late last night we saw former president donald trump leaning into his new argument that despite his and his allies' efforts to overturn the 2020 election it is he who will save democracy days after he told hannity that if re-elected he would be a dictator on day one. though just on day one, a line that many republican officials laughed off. democrats of course, face their own divisions. the president of the university of pennsylvania resigned yesterday after ham handed comments on anti-semitism saying any calls to commit crimes against jews would only violate policy depending on context. over foreign aid on ukraine and israel the pressure over the biden administration over policies are growing this weekend after the u.s. vetoed a u.n. security council ceasefire resolution that was backed by allies and the state department said it would bypass congress to send israel more ammunition for tanks as israel pursues its offensive against hamas and gaza. hamas hides among the civilian population, of course, but the u.s. continues to say it wants israel to do more to stop the bloodshed of innocents. aid officials are now warning that the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in gaza is only growing and the president's support for israel is continuing to divide the democratic party. joining me now is secretary of state antony blinken. thanks for ginning us. the u.s. stood alone at the u.n. security council to block the ceasefire and the administration is sidestepping congress to rush more weapons to israel. you said this week there is, quote, a gap between the intent to protect palestinian civilians and the actual results that we're seeing on the ground in gaza. can you describe that gap? what is israel doing right now that you think does not demonstrate enough care or protection of palestinian civilians? >>. >> jake, we think there needs to be a premium put on protecting civilians and making sure humanitarian assistance to get to everyone who needs it. as i said, i think the intent is there, but the results are not always manifesting themselves and we see that both in terms of civilian protection and humanitarian assistance. we want to make sure that as israel continues this campaign because remember they're dealing with a terrorist organization that engaged in the most vicious possible brutality, and has made clear that would do it again and again if given the opportunity so israel needs to deal with this, to protect itself from keeping september 7th from happening again and it's imperative that civilians be protected and here the critical thing are designed around civilian protection and to focus on that, when it comes to humanitarian assistance that we, as you know made the argument to get humanitarian assistance in, and we got it doubled for the humanitarian pause to negotiate and now what's critical is this, even as israel has taken additional steps, for example, to designate safe areas in the south, to focus on neighborhoods, not entire cities in terms of evacuating them. what we're not seeing sufficiently is a couple of things. one, making sure that the humanitarian operators who were there starting with the united nations performing heroically that there are decon ffliction, times, places and routes to the people who need it. similarly, we need to see the same kind of deconfliction, times, pauses, designated routes and plural, not just one and clarity of communication so people know when it is safe and where it is safe to move to get out of harm's way before they go back home. these are the things they're working on every single day to make sure the gap between intent and result is as narrow as possible. >> the idf told cnn's alex marquardt that they estimate they've killed 7,000 hamas fighters. when do you anticipate this phase of israel's military campaign is going to end. obviously, they can't kill every member of hamas and even if they did, 150,000 new ones would show up the next day. are the israelis telling you when this phase will wrap up because the civilian death toll is mounting and it's unimaginable. secretary austin suggested that israel might ultimately be facing a strategic defeat by chasing so many palestinians into the arms of hamas. >> jake, we have these discussions with israel including about the duration as well as how it's prosecuting against hamas and these are decisions for israel to make, but hamas has decisions to make, too. it could get out from hiding behind civilians tomorrow. >> right. >> it could put down its arms tomorrow and it could surrender tomorrow and this will be over. >> right. obviously, but will the u.s. continue to back israel the way it's backing israel right now if this continues for months and months as opposed to days or weeks? >> again, israel has to make these decisions. of course, everyone wants to see this campaign come to a close as quickly as possible, but any country faced with what israel is facing a terrorist organization that attacked it not most horrific way possible has said repeatedly that it would do it again and again and again. it has to get to the point where it is confident that that can't be repeated, but you make another point that's very important. when the major military operation is over, this is not over because we have to have a durable, sustainable peace and we have to make sure that we're on the path to a durable and sustainable peace. from our perspective, from the perspective of many around the world that has to lead to a palestinian state. this is -- we're not going to have durable peace and durable security for israel unless and until palestinian and political aspirations are met and of course, what happens the day after gaza itself once military -- major military operations are over and that's usually important and urgent to make sure that governance, security, reconstruction, all of that is in place so that there's no vacuum. >> the committee to protect journalists says at least 63 journalists and members of the news media have been killed. 56 of them palestinian in this war presumably mostly if not entirely by idf strikes. is that acceptable to you? you've made a press freedom, a hallmark of your term. how do you explain all these deaths of journalists? how do the israelis explain that? >> jake, as i see journalists including some of your colleagues and also from many other news organizations, putting their lives on the line to just bring the news, bring the facts, bring information to the world i have extraordinary admiration for what they do, for the courage that they show and for the vital importance of their mission and we want to make sure that just as every civilian is protected to the greatest extent possible, of course, journalists are, too, and when it comes to instances where journalists have been killed we want to make sure that that's investigated and we understand what's happened, and there's accountability. >> congress is scrambling to reach a deal to pass foreign aid to ukraine and israel. republicans are insisting on more border funding and new asylum restrictions that that be added to the bill. what would it mean for ukraine and israel. congress does not pass any additional support by the end of the year and why not agree to tougher border protections which is an issue of national security, as well? >> well, jake, the border is out of my purview, but i can say on day one of this administration or day two, the president put before congress the first bill on immigration reform and congress hasn't acted on that. in this request for additional funds there are $6 billion to enhance border security including having more people, more agents on the border. so i know that's very much part of the discussion and something the president's fully prepared to engage on, but in terms of what it would mean for ukraine and what it would mean for israel, what it would mean for our efforts to be competitive in the indo-pacific. i think the only people who would be happy to make the supplemental budget request are sitting in moscow, sitting in tehran, sitting in beijing. for ukraine, this is absolutely vital. they've made remarkable progress over the last year in pushing back russian aggression, taking back more than 50% of the territory that was seized since february 2022, but they're in a ferocious battle now in the south and east and we're running out of funding for them. by the way, 90% of the security assistance that we provided for ukraine is actually invested here in the united states to our companies, to our manufacturers. similarly, we've had extraordinary burden sharing with our allies and partners. we've provided very significant assistance about $70 billion over the last two years. our european frebs and partners beyond europe, more than $110 billion for ukraine so we have the burden sharing that we need. this is a time to really step up because if we don't we know what happens. putin will be able to move forward with impunity and we know he won't stop in ukraine and he may well end up going after a nato country and that will bring us in given obligations to our nato allies. so here an ounce of prevention is really worth ten pounds secure. >> antony, as you know, cnn has led the coverage when it comes to the evidence mounting in israel of rapes and sex crimes committed by hamas against women and girls and maybe even against men on october 7th. why do you think the united nations and the international community has been so slow to condemn these atrocities. i can't think of a real reason -- well, let me put it this way. i've heard anti-semitism hypothesized as a reason yet u.n. and the international community might be so slow to acknowledge this. what do you think? >> jake, first, i really mrappld the work of cnn in bringing this to light and to the world and as to your question, i don't have an answer. i don't know why countries, leaders, international organizations were so slow to focus on this, to bring it to people's attention. i'm glad it's finally happened. the atrocities that we saw on october 7th are almost beyond human description or beyond our capacity to digest and we've talked about them before, but the sexual violence that we saw on october 7th is beyond anything that i've seen either. so thank you for doing that and, look, i don't have a good answer to that question. i think it's a question that these organizations, these countries need to ask themselves. >> secretary of state antony blinken, thanks for joining us today. appreciate it. >> thanks, jake. good to be with you. >> have republicans who opposed more aid to ukraine already won the fight in congress. j.d. vance of ohio, and the vice presidential short list and could leaders agree to phase out fossil fuels? former vice president al gore will join me ahead. stay with us. welcome back to "state of the union." i'm jake tapper. much of the dialogue centered around what a trump term might look like particularly after comments by the former aides and trump called concerns about what he might do in office, quote, the threat to democracy hoax and key trump ally and republican senator j.d. vance of ohio joins me live in studio. thank you very much for being here. >> you heard secretary blinken and you and senate erepublicans among the reasons more support for a border package to protect those southern border. senate republican mitch mcconnell said that threats from china, russia, china hamas are all interconnected and i want you to take a listen to what he had to say. >> sure. >> the challenges facing america and our allies today are not on a la carte menu of projects we can address at our leisure. america couldn't have the luxury of facing these threats individually. our ability to contend with complex, simultaneous threats is exactly what our adversaries are testing. >> you disagree with that, and you oppose aid to ukraine. explain your position. ? first of all, jake, i think it's possible to have separate debates and congressional republicans tried to force israel alone aid package that democrats blocked in the senate. so i think we need to have separate debates, but on the ukraine question in particular, everybody knows, anybody with a brain in their head said that this was going to end in n negotiation, it was preposterous and nobody actually believed it. so what we're saying to the president and to the entire world is you need to articulate what the ambition is. what does $61 billion going to accomplish than $100 billion hasn't. just remember, jake, ukraine has functionally destroyed as a country the average age of a soldier in the ukrainian army is 43 and that's tragic. that's older than me and i'm 39 and if this thing goes on a bit longer and the average age is older than you and it would be wolf blitzer. that is a tragedy. what does this look like? >> yoi don't like this age thin. i'm 54 for those wonder snoorg it will be functionally on the hook for pensioners to regain the entire country and we need to bring the killing to a stop and that's what america should be doing and not writing more blank checks, not more. >> what do you make of the argument that if the u.s., the nato and the eu cede part of ukraine to putin or even all of ukraine to putin that really all we're doing is for them to invade a country that is in the nato alliance such as poland? >> there are two reasons i don't buy this. putin has shown he's much weaker than a lot of people feared and they've stalled putin in a very small amount relative to the entire country and the idea that he can march to poland or berlin is preposterous. our nato allies with the exception of a few eastern europeans are not carrying their fair share of the burden. most of them don't spend 2% of the gdp on defense, if putin is a threat to berlin, that means the germans should be changing something about their defense policy and it doesn't mean we can write indefinite checks to ukraine. >> russia has proven much like a paper tiger because the u.s. is helping ukraine. that's the reason. >> it's also because the ukrainians have fought very bravely and also because, look, you cannot occupy the entire territory the size of ukraine with the amount of troops that russia has. the idea that you can go further and control multiple european nations is, i think, a scare tactic to get people distracted from the fact that our ukraine policy just doesn't make a ton of sense. i listen to secretary of state blinken, what are we trying to do, jake? what is the end goal here? how long does this go until the president can articulate the answer to those questions and i don't know why we would write another blank check. >> the argument might be and i'm not secretary blinken and russia invaded a sovereign nation that is an ally and this is a pretty stark morality tale and putin's goals as he has stated them time and time again to rebuild the former ussr. >> it is a stark morality tale, jake, but you can't make decisions built on stark morality tales and we have to figure out what's in america's best interest, we have an energy crisis that has multiple allied governments in western europe. it's to accept, ukraine will have to cede some territory to the russians and we need to bring this war to a close. when i think about the great human tragedy here, hundreds of thousands of eastern europeans, and the thing that's in our interest and theirs is to stop the killing. >> let's turn to some domestic issues especially in your doorstep and ohio's constitutional amendment went into e feshl thursday. you said we have to recognize how much voters mistrust us on this issue of us meeting republicans. this week the texas supreme court is blocking a woman in texas from obtaining abortion each though her fetus has a rare jen theic condition that is almost always fatal and her doctors want her to be able to get this so that she's able to have babies in the future and for her health. isn't that situation an example of why many voters might not trust republicans? >> well, i don't know the details of that story, jake, but i will say that we have to accept that people do not want blanket abortion bans. i just don't. i say this as a person who wants to protect as many unborn babies as possible, and we want to protect the life of the mother and when i say that people don't really trust us, jake, what i'm getting at is i am luckily a person of means, but i have been shocked and you go to the hospital and you have a baby and get a $20,000 unexpected bill, what does it look like for a middle class family trying to figure out how to pay a mortgage. wooe made it too hard to have children in this country in that environment that's trying to make it easier to have babies and trying to take people's rights away. i want to protect as many unborn babies as possible and i also think we have to win the trust back of the american people and one of the ways to do that is to be the true family party and enact policy to that effect. >> is birth control part of that approximat policy empowering women to be able to make those decisions. i don't think that i know any republican at least not any republican with a brand trying to take those rights away from people. >> could provide a list for you if you knowed. >> not anybody i talk to, jake, but i think the more important question is i talked to a lot of people, a lot of young families who want to have babies. they can't afford mortgages and terrified about health care expenses and we have to answer those questions for people ask have a role to play because we have a problem in this country. not enough american families who want children are able to do it and that's how you destroy a nation. >> let's turn to trump. there are concerns about president trump a second term and gentlemen democracy if he's elected and take a listen to what former congresswoman cheney told me this week. >> he tried to seize power once. it's not hard to imagine he would do it again. once a president decides he's above the law as donald trump has everything unravels nearly immediately. >> do you have really no concerns that donald trump might try to abuse his power if re-elected. >> no, jake, i don't. the guy was president for four years, we had peace, prosperity and joe biden has been president for three years and the average ohio family pays 10,000 more to afford the same standard of living. the idea that trump is going to be radically different than what he was four years ago is just preposterous. he was an effective, successful president. i think he will be an effective, successful president again and that's why i endorsed him and i think this desire to make the election all about the past is indicative of the fact that the president doesn't have much to run on and republicans do. >> he's out there talking about how the 2020 election was stolen from him and using all sorts of bogus evidence, lies and assertions that were disputed and overruled by court after court, judge after judge, election board after election board, judges in election boards that were republicans and judges that were appointed by him. he's really the one focused on 2020. >> so, you just showed me a clip of liz cheney and that's someone who is clearly obsessed by 2020 and talks about no other than january 6, 2021. the president is out there campaigning on peace and prosperity for the american people. if you want to talk about the 2020 election we can have that conversation and i think president trump wants to talk about the future and that's what the election will be decided on and that's what i am fek used on. >> he wouldn't stock them with j.d. vances of the world and he would stock them with individuals people who tell him no. cash patel was on the nsc and served briefly as chief of staff of the pentagon and here's what he had to say on steve bannon's podcast earlier this week. >> we will go out and find the conspirators and we would go after the people in the media who lied american citizens and helped president biden rig presidential elections and we'll come after you. >> i know cash very well. let me talk about what i think he was talking about -- >> you talk like the university of pennsylvania president. [ laughter ] we know in 2020 that there were massive pieces of evidence that were suppressed by collusion between the national security state in this country -- >> you're talking about the hunter biden laptop story. the reason that it was suppressed on social media, for a day or two on twitter. >> millions of americans and there have been studies on this and didn't see that story if there hadn't been that collision between the technology companies and members of the media who had security clearances and these people were using the trust acquired over a lifetime of public service and -- >> so you agree with cash patel. >> i agree that we need to look at seriously how there was collusion between members of the press and big technology companies and members of the national security stake. that is not journalism to take your security clearance, lie to the american people and then persuade the big technology companies to censor anti-joe biden stories. that's not journalism and that's cooperation between the government and journalism and it's the opposite. >> donald trump was president of the time censorship was going on, so nobody in government and biden people that were asking that were not in the government at the time. but i will just say as somebody that tried to see the laptop, rudy giuliani wouldn't let us see the laptop. he wouldn't let us. we weren't to report on it because he wanted us to go on his word. >> i am much less what you were reporting on and much more concerned about millions of americans get their news from social media and we know the fbi was working with the social media companies to censor a troubling story. think about the threats to democracy. that's crazy. the fbi encouraging private companies to censor journalists? that should really piss a lot of people off. you included. >> axios is reporting that you are on donald trump's short list, possibly for 2024 to be v.p. >> any interest? >> i was elected for the people of ohio and i will help trump however i can because i think he was a good president and the american people would benefit from having him be president again. >> j.d. vance, thanks for being here. does al gore think they're doing enough to heal our planet? he's here next. dear moms and dads, what you have achieved here today is going to help us and our futures. it is why we're coming up on stage to collect your diplomas. mom, love you always. vo: when you graduate, they graduate. visit finishyourdiploma.org to find free and supportive adult education centers near you. ♪ ♪ waek to "state of the union "". i'm jake tapper. as the climate nears a breaking point, world leaders are at the uae hammering out an agreement to, experts exi insist you can' that without phasing out fossil fuels and including the host of the climate conference. >> and joining me now is former vice president al gore. vice president gore, thanks so much for joining us. you were just with world leaders at the cop 28 global climate summit being hosted by the uae, one of the biggest oil-producing countries in the world. the president of the summit is the ceo of a state-run oil company who recently said that there's no science to support phasing out fossil fuels. that's obviously not true. this all feels like having an arsonist host a fire prevention seminar. do you have any hope that something substancive can actually come out of this? >> well, jake, they've overreached. the fossil fuel industry has sought to control and manipulate this process for a long time. they're way better tat capturin politicians than emissions, but they've gone too far and i think it could possibly end up as a kind of blessing in disguise because it has awakened a lot of people to how absurd this situation is. the climate crisis a fossil fuel crisis and they try to pretend that they can separate fossil fuel emissions from the fossil fuels and catch the emissions on the way into the air is kind of ridiculous and maybe one day in the future that might be possible, but it's nowhere feasible. it's nowhere close to being feasible. now, anyway, i think there's a chance that we could see a surprisingly good outcome here if the majority of the country's there and hold their own to their convictions and demand to phase out of fossil fuels? i'm hoping. >> for people who are not familiar with this conference, can you explain why on earth the climate conference would be held in a major oil producing country to begin with? >> well, it's kind of ridiculous. it should not be. although it's not so much in a country that produces oil and it's the appointment of the ceo of one of the biggest and least responsible on the planet to be the head of the conference. here's the reason there's a direct conflict of interest, jake. he's charged by the u.n. with the responsibility of guiding the world toward a sharp phasedown of these greenhouse gas emissions which mainly come from burning fossil fuels, but he's charged by his sovereign and the company that he hits with a massive expansion of fossil fuels. they've got a plan to expand production of both oil and gas by an enormous amount starting the minute the gavel bangs to end this conference and that's a direct conflict of interest and it's not a nitpicking thing to point that out. it's -- the people of our world deserve to have some confidence that this process has integrity and we've been seeing the fossil fuel polluters try to manipulate this process for a long time and the world's running out of patience because this is so serious now we are in the hottest year ever measured. we're seeing these extreme climate-related weather events just causing havoc all over the world and the scientists who have been spot on and dead right in their past predictions we've seen it play out, we need to give them careful attention to what they're saying what happened if we don't phase out fossil fuels. so we've got to do it, and i'm hopeful that this time we will really finally see some meaningful action. >> it does look like the 2024 election will come down to president biden versus former president trump, and i'm wondering what you think the world would look like under president trump being re-elected which is certainly a possibility, not only when it comes to the climate, but also when it comes to democracy. >> well, i saw the other day when he pledged to be a dictator on day one, and you kind of wonder what it will take for people to believe him when he tells you who he is. you know, the solution, the political despair is political action and for those in the republican party and the democratic party and independents who love american democracy and who want to preserve our capacity to govern ourselves and solve our problems, now is the time to get active. you know, there's a mental health crisis around the world, jake, that we hear people talking about. i think that one of the main reasons for that is that young people look at the fact that we are not yet solving the climate crisis or dealing with some of these other challenges and we hear this word thrown around, poly crisis. solving the climate crisis is a poly solution. we know what to do. we have the means to do it and we have to make sure that we make the right political choices in our democracy to enable ourselves to make the right choices. >> i also have to ask you, sir, because you are a harvard alum. the president of harvard, penn and m.i.t. were before congress this past week and they were asked whether or not it explicitly calling for the genocide of jews on their campus would constitute harassment and they seem to struggle with that, although the presidents of penn and harvard issued clarifying statements and i was wondering what your reaction to it as somebody who has been a strong supporter of the jewish community and a strong supporter of israel and also as i noted a proud harvard alum. >> well, i was shocked by the tone deafness of those comments, and i think they got bad legal advice in putting together what they were going to say and they sure -- they certainly do need to clarify that. we need to respect one another in our country and when statements of the kind that they were asked about come out, we need to stand against them and stand firm as americans for respect, for all of the communities that make america, e pluribus unum, we need to be one country. >> lastly, obviously, for eight years the clinton-gore white house grappled with the issue of the israeli-palestinian crisis. your former boss a few years ago saying he killed himself to try to settle the issue once and for all. obviously, was there a deal on the table when he had the leaders of israel and the palestinian people in the united states trying to offer a deal given all that history and given the blood, sweat and tears of the clinton/gore administration to try to bring peace to the region. what goes through your mind when you see the crisis unfolding as it is right now. >> well, it's heartbreaking and beginning, of course, with the hitler-level atrocities of october 7th just unbelievably horrific and of course, as our secretary of defense has said, it's important not to make the same kind of mistakes that our country made after 9/11 that ended up making things worse. so the suffering of civilians in gaza has to be attended to and the response to the atrocities of october 7th are what israel has a right to pursue, but it needs to do it in a way that doesn't end up making the situation worse, and i think probably or a majority in israel that agree with that, we have to go back to the two-state solution, jake. sometimes a solution appears to be so hard that people quit talking about it and hamas doesn't want a two-state solution and some, even cabinet members of netanyahu don't want a two-state solution, but the majority understand that is where this needs to -- that's where this needs to go in order to solve it for the long term. >> vice president al gore, always a pleasure. thank you very much for your time today, sir. >> thank you, jake. a new poll has nikki haley up double digits in a hypothetical matchup with joe biden and we'll dig behind those numbers with my panel next. you bring a lot back to civilian life. leadership skills. technical ability. and a drive to serve in new ways. syracuse university's d'aniello institute for veterans and military families has empowered more than 200,000 veterans to serve their communities and their careers. from professional certifications, to job training, to help navigating programs and services, we give veterans access to support from anywhere in the world. ♪ ♪ under no circumstances you are promising america tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody. >> except for day one. he says you're not going to be a dictator, are you? i said no, no, no other than day one. >> he said that i want to be a dictator. i didn't say that. i said i want to be a dictator for one day, and you know why i wanted to be a dictator? because i want a wall! >> welcome back to "state of the union." donald trump says he wants to be a dictator, but don't worry, it will only be for one day. my panel joins me now. boy, sean hannity was really trying to help him there. >> he was, like, listen. this is -- i'm giving it to say absolutely not. i've been trying so hard to help just giving it to him and he wouldn't take. he couldn't do it. >> he got too by half and he want pod make this point. look, let's first stipulate donald trump doesn't believe in rules laws, norms or institutions and he thinks they're for suckers and part of the message is we're not going to let that stuff get in the way. we're just going to drill, build the wall and take care of the border and he intermingled this with this word and by the way, he's given us enough evidence that he does have these autocratic designs -- >> right. >> -- that everybody lit their hair on fire. >> so that's the thing because it's not really about the wall and it's not really about energy and it's about the other things he said that suggest autocratic impulses. let's take a listen. >> i will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the united states of america, joe biden. >> if i happen to be president and i see someone who is doing well and beating me very badly i say go down and indict them. >> and if you're president again will you lock people up? >> the answer is you have no choice because they're doing it to us. >> that's just a little pastiche, a little sampling of it, and he's not going to have them around him should there be a next time, the john kellys and the bill barrs and the mark espers and he'll have a lot of people who say yeah, that's a great idea. >> there are a lot of people who came out of the first administration who i do not think would be very interested in going back for a second time. so i think you're right. you will see a very different cast in season 2 of trump as president and i see this on both sides a little bit that people feel like their own side in politics has been losing, that they have been on the losing end and it is the other side that doesn't care about rules, that is willing to break norms and is willing to do what it takes to take power and you find trump is the potent vehicle for the way of thinking on the right and he talks about republicans being weak far more than he ever talks about democrats being weak. this has been a key part of his message from day one that has been core to his arc peel to republican voters. >> i think it's time for the democratic party to turn the election not in a referendum on joe biden, but to vividly point out what a donald trump presidency will mean a muslim ban on day one. it's going to mean that you have the politicization of the justice department to have prosecutions against people he calls vermin and it will mean cuts for people struggling today. cuts in education and cuts in housing assistance and cuts in possible social security and medicare with the debt commission. the way we win this campaign is to vividly describe what a donald trump presidency is going to mean. >> if he becomes the nominee, we should note because with five weeks of the iowa caucuses and it shows president biden ties with ron desantis in a hypothetical matchup and he trails donald trump by four points and trails nikki haley by a whopping 17 points. 17 points and that suggests a whole lot of democrats and independents that look at the choice of biden and haley and think oh, that's a no-brainer and yet kirsten, she's still not likely to get the nomination. >> i think nikki haley would be an enormously formidable force in november 2024. i would not put money on her winning the presidential election by 17 points. >> of course not. that's every happened. >> i think there's plenty of data that's very clear that she is the most electable option, the problem she's facing is to use a star wars analogy. >> please. >> the death star on the trench run, to first of all, win in new hampshire and the empire will strike back in south carolina and the gauntlet that she has to run to be nominee is enormous. >> we saw it last year in the midterm elections and the thing that it takes to get nominated in that party make you a bad general election candidate. the things that make you good is objectable to the base. it's hard to be center and do well in this process. >> think she's threading that very well, though. i think she's doing a better job than anybody else, and threading that line and making sure she shows her conservative policies and also she can be mainstream. >> but she's not. i mean, donald trump is still far and away the leader for the nomination and it's not even close. >> it's not even close. i do think that there is a pathway for nikki haley. i do. think about this, even republicans are saying i've had enough. i can't do another four years of this. >> it's going to be abortion as david pointed out and as j.d. vance. they are on the extreme right. you have donald trump who appointed three justices who took away women's rights and you have so much of the party saying no exceptions for rape or in texas where the health of the mother is at stake and nikki haley at least to say some exceptions and that's probably why she's not going to win. it's donald trump who is upholding the extreme policies that ronald reagan and george bush didn't have and that's another reason the democrats would win. >> first of all, she's a tremendously skilled politician and i think she's done very well in this process and the nature of the process is the better you do and the better you have to do and the more scrutiny you get and so trying to walk the line and please everyone in that party becomes harder and harder and you get challenged and right now desantis is running and one of the pacs supporting him and nikki haley conflicting statement ad and like a flip-flop ad, tricky nikki they call her and this is a vulnerability and if she becomes competitive with trump my guess is he's not going to wave her through. >> it was when the koch brothers came out. >> i want to disagree, the fact that she takes a more nuanced stance on abortion is not the reason or a really contributing factor to why she's not first in the primary and the reality is that republican voters is still kind of like donald trump and a lot of the candidates running against him have not tried to lay a glove on him. >> including her. >> there hasn't been a sustained assault with donald trump -- >> that's a big, yes, and in the last debate she certainly had the candidates turn toward her. republican voters they may likic in i nikki haley and they think donald trump did a good job in his first term and until republican votes are believe otherwise that will it hard to overcome. >> what about the threat of democracy that so many people including liz cheney feel he poses? >> i think someone like liz cheney and she's made noise of is she going to run for president, a lot of people that have those concerns have left the party and they could be open to a third-party candidate and that would hurt joe biden more than donald trump in a general election. >> thanks for -- >> the other thing i wanted to say, a comment about going and saying this is what's going to help the democrat party is by pointing out what a trump presidency looks like. >> if they can potentially make that argument. >> but there's also an argument that's also working against joe biden in terms of what he's doing today and how it affects the american people. they'll just keep going. we're still suffering from inflation. >> tune in this week to two cnn town halls with republican presidential candidates in iowa. i'm going to host governor ron desantis at 9:00 p.m. and wednesday abby philip will host with vivek ramaswamy. she is a barrier breaker on and off the tennis. tune in to "being billie jean king" right after cnn heros and thank you for spending your sunday morning with us. fareed zakaria joins us next. this is gps, the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria coming to you live from new york