i'm seth doane. from all of us, thank you for sharing this sunday morning, and please join us when our trumpet sounds again. ♪ . i'm margaret brennan in washington and this week on "face the nation" -- we'll take a closer look at the challenges facing the country, inflation, immigration at the border, foreign policy, and more. as washington prepares for the holidays, congress is at yet another impasse. president biden is stepping up his battle cry for. >> trump just talks the talk.

we walk the walk. >> but that walk is a tough call so far for the president. despite inflation being at its lowest level in two years, six out of ten americans say the economy is bad. democrats say biden is still better than the leading alternative. >> in the end, when people are -- they're mad at joe biden and they're going to be more mad at donald trump. even if they have to hold their nose, they're going to support joe biden. >> former resident trump is also making a pitch to the voters. >> 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, right, i want a wall, and i want to drill, drill, drill. >> republican voters like what trump says, but some aren't convinced he can win. >> trump's policies are good. i think with him, you know, he's so divisive as a leader.

>> the it's all just ahead on "cbs mornings." -- it's all just ahead on "face the nation." good morning. welcome to "face the nation." we'll get to what americans are focused on as we wind up 2023 in just a moment. but we want to go first to our charlie d'agata reporting from israel. >> reporter: the southern city of khan yunis in flames from a bombardment israel says is aimed at hunting down hamas leaders and with the u.s. alone in vetoing a u.n. security council

cease-fire proposal, anti-american sentiment is higher than ever. these weapons and rockets are made in america, says resident abu yousef. they support israel to kill the can youth, children and women. even as israel's military chief tells forces we need to press even harder,

s. >> next big question, who is governs the territory next? and the answer may lie here in the west bank. we're told postwar plans are drawn up with the west bank's palestinian authority. >> can i just confirm that you are in conversations with the united states about the future of gaza? >> yes. >> that concern. >> yes. there are discussions. they have idea. >> okay. >> we have idea. >> but those ideas may not be the same according to minister and social affairs ahmed delani. their plan would include an element of hamas as a junior partner despite benjamin netanyahu's insistence hamas must be must be destroyed.

>> we cannot destroy hamas as an organization. >> an organization accused of mass murder and still holding more than 130 hostages. and families are still no closer to knowing their fate as the season of hanukkah began. instead of joy, nightly vigils like this one in tel aviv. there's not much to celebrate until their loved ones come home. with our colleagues inside of gaza reporting heavy fighting overnight, the u.n. says it's impossible to get aid into southern gaza. an israeli official insisted there is a safe corridor leading from the rafah crossing to so-called safe zones but the u.n. isn't using it. >> charlie d'agata, thank you. we turn now to independent senator bernie sanders who joins

us this morning from burrell burlington, vermont. good morning to you senator. >> good morning. >> i think we have your audio now, sir. secretary of state antony blinken said that he sees a gap between israel's stated intent of limiting civilian casualties and the reality, and the secretary of defense says they could face a strategic defeat given civilian casualties. is this vocal enough criticism from the administration in your point of view? >> well, it's a start. i think lincoln and austin are right. what the president is trying to do is trying to make clear to netanyahu and his right wing extremist government, is yes, you can go to war against hamas, but you cannot go to war against the palestinian people and cause the horrific damage to human life that we are seeing right

now. margaret, there have been 16,000 people killed so far, palestinians, two-thirds of whom are women and children. you're talking about 1.9 million people displaced, going around without any water, food, without any medical supplies. it is a humanitarian disaster and the united states has got to put all of the pressure that it can to tell netanyahu to stop this disastrous military approach. >> just to be clear, israel says it killed 7,000 militants. they haven't explained how many civilians they estimate they killed. the u.s. says they can't tally it. the number you cited there is from the gaza ministry of health. but the bottom line here is i know you have been very clear to your colleagues, the u.s. should not provide more aid to israel to the netanyahu government with no strings attached, you wrote, because it would make the u.s. complicit, you said, quote, in an all-out war against innocent

men, women and children, who have nothing to do with hamas. what do you believe the netanyahu government's intent is here? >> hard to say. it really is hard to say. it may be that they're responding in rage against the horrific and terrible hamas attacks that killed 1200 innocent israelis. maybe in some of the right wing extremist minds there is the goal to drive the palestinian people off of gaza completely. but they have now destroyed about half of the housing units in gaza so it's hard to predict. i think when general austin said you can win the battle, but lose the war, israel is losing the war in terms of how the world is looking at this situation. and i think that it would be irresponsible for the united states to give netanyahu another $10 billion to continue to wage

this awful war. >> so progressives like alexandria ocasio-cortez, rashida tlaib have been clear in calling for a cease-fire. you have taken flack because you have not. the united states government is posing a cease-fire as well. they're isolated at the u.n. on that point. why is it you oppose a cease-fire? >> well, first of all, i strongly support and wish and hope that the united states will support the united nations resolution that was vetoed, that we vetoed the other day. that was a humanitarian pause, a humanitarian cease-fire, that would call for the release of all of the hostages held by hamas and would have allowed the u.n. and other agencies to begin to supply the enormous amount of humanitarian aid to the palestinian people. in terms of a permanent cease-fire, i don't know how you can have a permanent cease-fire when hamas said before october

7th and after october 7th, they want to destroy israel, they want a permanent war. i don't know how you have a permanent cease-fire with an attitude like that. >> okay. so the war you're saying against hamas is justified in that way? >> i think israel has the right to defend itself. >> yes. >> and go after hamas, not the palestinian people. >> okay. would you vote against a version of the supplemental bill that president biden is asking congress for if it lacked the conditions on israel aid you're calling for? you know, there's other things that may be attached to like ukraine aid? >> i voted against the motion to proceed on that. i support strongly support aid to ukraine to stand up to putin's aggression, but i think what congress has got to do is make it clear to netanyahu that we're not going to simply give

him a blank check to kill women and children in palestine. >> okay. white house officials say privately they don't think that the blowback from this war will impact them negatively with democratic voters by the time we get to the presidential election. do you think they're miscalculating? >> i think this war has been -- i don't know the answer to that, but i think the war clearly has been very harmful, not just among progressives or democrats. the american people were outraged by the hamas attack against israel. rightfully so. what they are equally outraged now by what israel is doing, so you're seeing all over this country people say why are we giving money to an israeli government that is doing such awful things? will it hurt politically? it might. at the end of the day, i think, you know, biden is going to win this election but what's going on now is not helpful. >> i want to ask you about hate

in this country and concerns around it. as you know, strong concern about anti-semitism right now. congresswoman elise stefanik had a pointed question and answer with university presidents this week. one of those presidents has since resigned as a result of the fallout. i wonder your thoughts of how far free speech should be protected when it is calling for genocide? >> well, i agree. look, we believe strongly in free speech and academic where you will hear debate about issues that may make us uncomfortable, but at the end of the day, when somebody is saying they believe in genocide of the jewish people or racist attacks against black americans, et cetera, that is not acceptable. i think on a college campus where all of the students, black, jewish, whatever, islamic, have to feel cmfortable on campus. >> well, do you -- okay.

senator, we're going to have to leave it there. because we are running out of time. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> for weighing in today and dealing with us through those audio problems. we turn now to what americans are seeing as the biggest problems facing the country as we head into a consequential election year. our new cbs news poll says the most important challenge facing the country is inflation, with 7 in 10 americans disapproving of president biden's handling of it. next, immigration at the border and that issue is keeping a foreign aid package with badly needed support for crukraine an israel tied up in congress. the state of democracy is the third biggest problem in the eyes of americans and rounding out the top four, gun violence. another problem for which there seems to be little solution or political appetite for legislation that might help fix it. the executive director of our elections and surveys unit is

anthony salvanto. why is there a disconnect between data and perception? >> i think it starts with the larger sense of lost opportunity beyond the immediate where more people say that they feel worse off than their parents were at their age than better. that runs counter to what we typically think of as the american dream, right. it's especialy true for millennials, gen-xors, people in that range in the prime of their working and earning years. look, for context, this is new. this inflationary period is new for the bulk of them. you have to go back 40 years to find a period in u.s. where people face these kinds of inflationary pressures at this kind of a rate. we asked people, okay, put this in context. the u.s. has been through ups and downs before. what's been the most difficult? the most immediate is right now, is coming out of the pandemic

and the economic impact of that and then this post-pandemic inflationary period. yes, there's some recentlisy to that, but it underlines the point of how much people process the economy right now by comparing their lives pre and post-pandemic, and it's that framing that i think is essential to understanding how they process all of this. >> the white house would argue inflation is headed in the right direction. it is going lower. they look at that strong jobs number, just like we saw on friday. so what is it that people need to experience on a personal level? >> yeah. so i asked people directly, what do you take into account when you evaluate these things? the personal outweighs what we call the macro numbers, the large numbers. don't discount them, but it's personal experience, experience of the people you know and your friends, even the businesses around your local community. so that's number one. number two is, look, the rate is slowing, but prices are still high. so when you ask people, okay,

the jobs market is strong, yes, they acknowledge that, but their income isn't keeping up with inflation and that's that immediate pocketbook impact you see such big numbers say that. >> because prices are still not back at those prepandemic levels? >> right. and when you look at what can be done from there, people say okay, well, number one, there's no appetite for more rate hikes. that's important. that's affecting a lot of especially a lot of young people as well. there's a large sense that they think the president can control inflation, and look, objectively, that may or may not be the case, but it kind of comes with the job, right. they're not certain, in fact many aren't sure, what exactly the white house has done about all of this, and so his handling of inflation in particular, remains low. >> the president has a lot of foreign policy, national security crises on his desk right now. the israel-hamas war is one of

them. what is perception of that? >> so his handling of the war is negative and it's gone a little lo lower, in part because people aren't sure that steps his administration is taking are bringing the war or helping bring the war to a peaceful resolution. number one. number two, we've talked a lot about some of the splits within his own party on this, which is always important for a president on foreign policy. there's an increasing number of democrats who now say they think the president is giving too much support to israel so that's important. having said all of that, his overall job approval is still both stable and hinges so muc more back to the top of this on the economy. >> anthony salvanto, good to have you here. >> thanks, margaret. >> "face the nation" will be back in one minute. stay with us. only $41 on dealdash. dealdash.com, online auctions since 2009. this playstation 5 sold for only 50 cents. this

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the u.s. from mexico is once again nearing an all-time high. last week, customs and border protection reported nearly 19,000 apprehensions in its tucson sector alone, and that is where we find our adam yamaguchi. >> reporter: every day last week hundreds of migrants gathered to turn themselves over to border agents at the lukeville crossing in arizona near port of entry officially closed monday due to the massive number of arrivals. >> back in line. >> it's daybreak and so after a long, cold night of sleeping around camp fires, trying to sleep throughout camp fires, processing may begin momentarily. >> reporter: this mother of four tells us she's escaping the violence of mexican cartels. >> translator: i'm fighting as much as i can so my children can have something better. >> reporter: this is one of the border's most remote stretches,

now one of the busiest. in the last year there's been a 140% spike of migrant apprehensions in this area. our cameras captured the moments smugglers helped dozens of people cross illegally. >> and there the smugglers go. >> reporter: this is the breach in the wall that the smugglers have cut through and this is what the border patrol is up against. this is not an anomaly by any means. here's another rod that was just cut and repaired today. agents are really sort of playing a game of whack a mole. they see a breach, they respond to it, they try to seal it up, and then somewhere else, along the very long corridor of the wall, another breach occurs and this is all by design. the smugglers realize this particular area is vulnerable because there's so few resources and agents and they stand a much better chance of being able to funnel as many migrants as they

can illegally into the u.s. >> we're joined now by senator james lankford, the lead republican negotiator as the senate tries to come up with a deal to shore up the u.s. border. he joins us from oklahoma city. good morning to you, senator. >> good morning, margaret. this morning on another network chris murphy said it is tragic republicans are tying the border aid package to the issue of ukraine aid. he said, republican demands right now are unreasonable and must become reasonable in the next 24 to 48 hours. that doesn't sound like you're on the cusp of an agreement. >> so let me just try to make a couple things clear on this. this started with the biden administration saying that we need to do a national security package that has israel, ukraine, taiwan, and the border and they immediately came out and said we need more than funding. the word they used is funding percent border as a tourniquet, a change in policy. we've responded back to that and say we 100% agree on it and have

to have a change in policy on this. the push and pull is a political push and pull. if i talk to anyone in the country outside of washington, d.c., they would say the border is chaotic right now. we have the highest number of crossings of any september ever last september. the highest october ever. the highest november ever. we had the highest single day this last week. it is spiraling out of control. all we're trying to do is say what tools are needed to be able to get this back in control so we don't have the chaos on our southern border. >> well, the president is asking for that $14 billion as you said but they separate funding from policy changes. but the president did say he's -- he's willing to make significant compromises on policy to fix a broken immigration system. he's signaling flexibility. what is the problem? >> so the problem is, the administration is trying to be able to figure out how to be able to slow down a little bit of the flow. we had 12,000 people, for

instance, on tuesday of this last week that crossed the border illegally. they're trying to figure out some way to say we'll do a few thousand thousand less but not stop the flow. >> what would stop the flow? >> i would tell you a lot would. a context piece on this, though, during -- you take any year during the obama administration we've had more people cross illegally october, november, december this year than in any year in the obama administration. so this is not a matter of let's turn it down a little bit. we have to figure out how to manage this. asylum. right now, people come in and say i want to request asylum. there's so many people and the cartels know it and the smugglers know it they can throw thousands a day, there's no way to process that, and it's years before they're processed and released in the country. >> i thought the white house was winning on asylum to tighten those regulations? >> we're screening about 500 people a day for asylum. a typical day in the last week was 10,000 people a day. even if you double or triple, as

the administration would say let's just double the number of screenings we're doing, now we're screening 1,000 a day and releasing 9,000 into the country. that doesn't manage the issue. we have to figure out how to manage capacity and what does it look like? as long as we're saying we'll screen 1,000 and then release everyone else into the country, the cartels know that and everyone coming will just pay the cartels and know they will be released. >> i know you don't want to negotiate in public, but i want to talk about what you are proposing to fix the problem you're describing. let's take a break and we'll come back and continue that conversation. stay with us.

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