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MSNBCW Meet July 2, 2024



widening war as the u.s. strikes back at iranian-linked targets after u.s. forces in the mideast come under multiple attacks. plus mr. speaker. the house finally elects a speaker. louisiana's mike johnson ending weeks of chaos. >> the people's house is back in business. and just hours later, the deadliest mass shooting this year where 18 were killed in lewiston, maine. the speaker's response, guns are not to blame. >> the problem is the human heart. it's not guns. it's not the weapon. and trail mix. president biden has a new primary challenger, minnesota congressman dean philips. >> i'm running because america's demanding it. >> while former vice president mike pence drops out of the 2024 race. >> it's become clear to me, this is not my time. >> my guest this morning, florida governor and 2024 republican presidential candidate ron desantis. democratic congresswoman pramila jayapal of washington state, and former california governor arnold schwarzenegger. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news senior white house correspondent kelly o'donnell. toluse olorunnipa, bureau chief for "the washington post." former white house press secretary jen psaki, and stephen hayes, editor of "the dispatch." welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> from nbc news in washington the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with kristen welker. good sunday morning. the nation is reeling after a week, which saw the tenth deadliest mass shooting in modern american history with 18 people between 14 and 76 years old gunned down at a bowling alley and a bar in lewiston, maine. the election finally of a new speaker of the house. louisiana congressman mike johnson after weeks of republican infighting, the end of former vice president's pence's campaign for the white house former solidifying donald trump's hold on the republican party. but we begin this morning with the war between israel and hamas, which has entered its second stage. on saturday, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu said israeli forces had entered the gaza strip on friday beginning the second stage of the war, but he avoided calling the campaign an invasion. the escalation has intensified domestic pressure on israel's government to secure the release of the 230 hostages seized in the october 7th attack. netanyahu met with family members on saturday. for its part, the u.s. carried out air strikes on a weapons and ammunitions storage area on friday in retaliation for recent rocket and drone attacks on american forces in iraq and syria. here's prime minister netanyahu. >> translator: our fight inside the gaza strip will be long and difficult, but we are prepared for that. this is our second war of independence. people fight for the protection of our homeland. >> joining me now is florida governor ron desantis, a republican candidate for president. governor desantis, welcome to "meet the press." >> good morning. thanks for having me. >> thank you for being here. i want to dive right in and start with israel, what israel is calling this next phase of the war. if you were president right now, governor, would you urge israel to allow for the release of more hostages and for more humanitarian aid to get into gaza? >> i would support israel's right to end this problem once and for all. obviously, we have an interest in the hostages being rescued. i would work with them and look at the intelligence to see when our options are and of course, we have a strong interest there, but israel is facing an enemy that wants nothing less than another holocaust. they would eliminate israel from the map if they could. hamas would drive every jew into the sea. so i think it's important for the united states and one of our strongest allies that we stand with them publicly and privately in word and in deed because i e think if they do anything else but eliminate hamas even about tirely, they will face these types of attacks again in the future. >> governor, if you were president, though, what would your message be to israel in terms of defending itself, but also trying to mitigate civilian deaths which are already estimated to be in the thousands? >> well, on the humanitarian aid, i've not been supportive of sending that to the gaza strip simply because hamas will commandeer that money. if you look at what israel is facing now in dealing with hamas, there's been a lot of money that's gone to the gaza strip for humanitarian purposes since hamas took power. did they use that money to make life better for the people in the gaza strip? no, they used it to build a massive infrastructure, and they have elaborate tunnels, and they've used this place to launch rocket attacks for many, many years and launched the barbaric attack on october 7th. so hamas is the problem here and israel has taken great pains to warn people to get out if you're a civilian casualty and hamas has tried to get them to stay so they can use them as human shields. >> understood that hamas is hoarding some of that aid material, but aid organizations say that some of the aid that has been sent in has made its way to civilians. my question to you, though, is how much a priority would it be if you were president to try limit civilian deaths, governor? >> well, any time you're involved in military conflict, you want to be able to achieve decisively the military objective with minimizing damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure as much as possible, so that goes without saying, but i think it's a double standard when hamas can go in and massacre babies, and massacre elderly people, rape and mute late, and you have people in the united states that are siding with hamas in the streets and cheering that. you don't hear much there, but now all of a sudden israel is under the microscope for everything they do. hamas can end this by releasing the hostages and unconditionally surrendering. so they are choosing to put people through this. there is no way that they can do what they did and not expect to have a very, very severe response. >> let me ask you about some of the statements that you've made about those protesters. this week you called for the banning of pro-palestinian students from state colleges. vivek ramaswamy says that violates the first amendment right. he writes it's a shameful political ploy, its unconstitutional, and utter high pock kracy for someone who railed against left-wing cancel culture. what is your response to mr. ramaswamy? >> this is not cancel culture. this group, they themselves said in the aftermath of the hamas attack that they don't just stand in solidarity. that they are part of this hamas movement. yeah, you have the right to go out and demonstrate, but you can't provide support to terrorism. they've linked themselves to hamas and we absolutely decertify them. they should not get one red cent of taxpayer dollars, and we have strong laws in florida against fund-raising for groups like hamas and we are enforcing that vigorously. that's a support to terrorism issue. >> just to be clear, you are citing the florida law saying one cannot give aid to a terrorist organization. do you have support that they're actually doing that? >> their own words are saying they're part of this organization, that they don't just stand in solidarity, that they don't just support what they did, but that this is their movement too. so once you hitch your wagon to a group like hamas, that takes you out of the realm of normal activity, and that's something that we'll take action against. so we believe we're totally justified within the law and things like this have been litigated time and again, but here's the broader point. are we just going to commit suicide as a country and let groups metastasize who are openly siding with brutal terrorist organizations? i don't think that's a recipe for a successful country. i want to have a country where we're protected from that stuff, so i think we made the right decision. i stand by it 100%. >> you take me to my next question. the only jewish representative in florida, randy fine, recently broke from you in an op-ed in "the washington times" saying you have not been nearly as vocal in attacking the neo-nazi attacks in your state in opposing what you believe is support for hamas, which you just laid out. what's your response to that when he's accusing you of this hypocrisy, effectively? >> he's just talking to get his 15 minutes of fame. he was singing my praises and he has his reasons for doing that. we have acted very, very swiftly and decisively. for example, after this attack, we dispatched state law enforcement working in conjunction with locals to protect our jewish institutions, jewish day schools and synagogues. there have been arrests made with people who threatened to do harm to our community, from anti-bds to financial support for security anywhere in the country. we are one of the states who have probably had the most in migration of jewish residents and we have the second highest population in the entire country. people vote with their feet. they see the type of environment we've created here that's been very strong and positive, and name me, kristen, another governor who scrambled planes to israel to bring them back -- bring americans back from the war zone. we did that. we got that job done. almost 700 people we've rescued and we're proud of stepping up and leading on that. >> governor, let me ask you because as you know, words also matter. you are a governor and a presidential candidate. your state has both from marco rubio and scott condemning the neo-nazi protests. why didn't you speak out? why didn't you use your voice to say you're not going to stand for that? >> of course, we condemn that. i mean, you just look at everything that we've done. >> you didn't at the time, governor. you didn't at the time, according to randy fine at the time. >> he's just trying to create a name for himself. that's nonsense. everybody knows that's nonsense and don't give someone their 15 minutes of fame just because they're letting you try to do a preferred narrative just to hit me. it's nonsense. our record is second to none, and we'll continue to lead on these issues. >> let's turn to another domestic issue, the horrific mass shooting in maine, and i want to get your reaction to what the newly elected house speaker mike johnson had to say this week, quote, at the end of the day the problem is the human heart. it's not guns. do you agree with him? >> well, first of all, i think this was a tragic thing and my heart goes out to all of the victims in this, truly horrific. i think in this case there was a medical intervention, health intervention. he clearly had problems. he was involuntarily committed. he would not have been -- he would have been a prohibited possessor based on that adjudication. so this is an example where clearly this is a guy very well trained, had a lot of skills, and then went off his rocker. there was an intervention, but it wasn't enough, so i'd like to know why wasn't there more done. we've seen instances throughout the country where there have been a lot of signs where people have maybe been referred, but then they don't go through with everything, and i think that's going to be probably what we end up finding out here. i am somebody that's said publicly, we've had a major push over the last 40, 50 years for deinstitutionalization of people, and i'm not saying you have to go all of the way back, but i do think we tend to pass the buck with some of these people and just kind of hope that they don't do anything wrong when there are a lot of signs. so i would be more aggressive on some of those fringe people who clearly are demonstrating signs that they're a major danger to society. >> let me ask you about your call to institutionalize people though. we are learning details about what did and did not happen. this is overnight. law enforcement chiefs said they received a statewide alert in mid-september to be on the lookout for card after he made threats against his base, against his fellow soldiers. they searched for him, they could not find him, and yet he was able to in the days before the attack walk into a store and buy guns. so if you can't find someone to institutionalize them as you have called for, why shouldn't there be a final line of defense in the form of a red flag law or some other blaring red sign that says to gun sellers, don't allow this person to have a gun? >> well, i don't think you would even need a red flag. if somebody has a mental involuntary commitment and adjudication of that nature, that usually would go into the system, and that would be on a traditional background check. i mean, i believe in due process, so i don't believe in this idea that government can just take someone's property and then go through due process later, but what i do believe is convicted felons and people that are mentally incompetent or mentally ill, i think that's been the law in pretty much every state and federally for quite some time, and i believe in strong, strong constitutional rights, but with that comes responsibility, and if you're somebody that is not -- can't conduct themselves in society because of mental illness, then that absolutely should be taken into account. >> but if you can't conduct yourself in terms of mental illness, shouldn't there be a law in this case? officials in maine are saying a red flag law would have empowered authorities to raise that red light to gun sellers all across the state and say this is someone who should not be able to own a gun, that that final line of defense never kicked in because it didn't exist, governor. >> well, no, when you do background checks, if someone has a criminal conviction, for example, that goes into the system. >> maine doesn't have strong -- maine doesn't have strong background checks. >> no. >> are you arguing for that? >> every federal -- every federal -- this is a federal firearm licenses when you have to do, everyone has to go through where they scrubbed this. the question is what are you putting into the system? if someone has a mental health involuntary commitment, that can simply be put into the existing system. you don't need additional things, and here's a problem i have with some of the proposals that have been done and particularly in some of the more blue states is that will be weaponized against people that the government doesn't like. i mean, you have a situation where someone can just make an anonymous call into a police station, let's say -- say something bad about someone and then -- >> that call have could helped -- couldn't an anonymous call have helped in this moment to block this shooter from getting a gun and going into these establishments and shooting up 18 of his fellow citizens? >> and he could have had that involuntary commitment just put into the normal system. that is something that would have been able to pop on a background check. >> how can you commit someone you can't find, governor? how can you commit someone you can't find? >> when you have an involuntary commitment, that triggers things to go into a background check system. so that should have been enough if that information was put into it. that's what i would do. i would focus on those individuals who've actually gone and either been involuntaily committed and been adjudicated and mentally ill. i think you can look, in florida, our crime rate's at a 50-year low and our violent crime rate is down 30% since i've been governor, so we're handling it strong. >> actually, governor, statistically speaking, the cdc says the firearm mortality rate is higher under your administration than it was under your predecessor's administration, and i do want to move on to the campaign. >> the what mortality rate? >> the firearm mortality rate was actually higher on than your predecessor's according to the cdc. >> well, because you had covid and all that stuff. excess mortality? that went up everywhere in the country from 2020 on. >> the firearm mortality rate, governor. the firearm mortality rate. >> let me move on to the campaign because i want you to let you respond to the state of the race right now, governor. as you know, you are trailing double digits behind former president trump. he is facing 91 felony counts. do you believe that the former president's legal troubles are the reason that you're still in this race? >> no. i mean, i think had alvin bragg not politicized this back in april, i think probably the primary would be looking different. i think that gave the former president more support. i think people felt that he was being treated unfairly which he was in that circumstance. that, i think, has been a very important inflexion point in this because it highlights the weaponization of justice by some of these left-wing prosecutors, but here's the thing ultimately. it's not about the past. it's not about all these other issues. it's ultimately about how do you get in and reverse the country's decline, and how do you get the country back on a strong plai so that we get the border secured and lead strong cities, and we need someone that can win and stwun that can actually bring this in. that's the message we're bringing to people in iowa and new hampshire and when you're on the ground you see the support building. we're doing what we need to do to be able to get the job done. >> all right. thank you so much, governor desantis, we will see you on the debate stage in miami. we'll continue the conversation. very much appreciated. >> thank you. when we come back the chair of the progressive caucus, pramila jayapal of washington state joins me next. me next. ca pramila jayapal of washingtn you want to be able to provide your child with the tools or resources they need. with reliable internet at home, through the internet essentials program, the world opened up. fellas, fellas. that's how my son was able to find the hidden genius project. we wanted to give y'all the necessary skills to compete with the future. kevin's now part of this next generation of young people who feel they can thrive. ♪ ♪ welcome back. as israel expands its ground operation in gaza over the weekend in las vegas, republican presidential candidates declared their support for israel, but the party's divide between isolationism and intervention was also on display. >> if israel wants to at long last abandon the myth of a two-state solution, israel should go ahead and abandon a two-state solution. >> the world is on fire, but here in america we are acting like it's september 10th when we were blind to the world's dangers. we need to remember what it felt like on september 12th. america has to get this right. >> i believe it's closer than ever to world war iii, and i will stop world war iii. you will not have world war iii. >> on friday, hundreds of protesters filled grand central station in new york, calling for a cease-fire in the war, and on saturday, protesters marched across the brooklyn bridge, the latest in a string of protests. joining me now is democratic congresswoman pramila jayapal of washington state who chairs the progressive caucus. congresswoman jayapal, welcome to "meet the press". >> thank you very much, kristen. it is great to be with you. >> it is great to have you on a very busy sunday. let's begin with israel. you have called for a ceasefire in gaza. do you believe there is a non-military solution to the crisis that would neutralize the terror threat from hamas and also bring home the hostages? >> well, kristen, i called for a ceasefire or at minimum a cessation of hostilities about 12 days ago and in that time since the beginning of this horrific, horrific war what we have seen is now in addition to the 1,400 israelis who were killed, in addition to the hostages that have been taken, hundreds of hostages that have been taken by hamas, what we are now seeing is 8,000 palestinia

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