captioning sponsored by cbs >> brennan: i'm margaret brennan in washington. today on "face the nation," we'll check in on the challenges facing america as we prepare to count our blessings this thanksgiving. president biden used the time-honored tradition of the turkey pardon to celebrate the house approving his roughly $2 trillion social and environmental spending package, and the signing of his $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. this year's winners, named after one of america's favorite lunches, may have escaped the thanksgiving dinner table, but not the presidential wisecracks. >> turkey is infrastructure. peanut butter and jelly are going to help build back the butterball. instead of getting basted, these two turkeys are getting boosted. >> brennan: up on capitol hill, house democrats celebrated

their victory on "build back better," or b.b.b. with progressives and moderates finally coming together for the win. the bill is now off to the senate where it faces a much-tougher test. will growing concerns on inflation put pressure on the party to act quickly. new york democratic senator kirsten gillibrand pushing to keep paid leave in the bill will be with us. we'll also talk to texas republican senator ted cruz about the mysterious case of chinese tennis player peng shuai. and the likely u.s. diplomatic boycott of the baig winter olympics. >> kyle h. rittenhouse, not guilty. >> brennan: then protests across the country as 18-year-old kyle rittenhouse is acquitted of all charges in the shootings of three men during the unrest following black lives matter demonstrations in kenosha, wisconsin, last year. we'll ask the president of the n.a.a.c.p., derrick johnson, what this case and two other ongoing trials say about race and justice in america.

finally, after months of mixed signals on covid booster shots, the c.d.c. aproves them for all adults. former f.d.a. commissioner dr. scott gottlieb will be with us. it's all just ahead on "face the nation." >> brennan: good morning, and welcome to "face the nation." we have a lot to get to today, and we begin with a brand-new cbs news poll. it doesn't have a lot of good news politically for president biden. his approval rating is at 44%, his lowest in our polling since he took office. and it's the economy that is taking a toll on the president's standing as prices for food, gas, and other items continue to rise. 67% of americans now disapprove of the president's handling of inflation. joining us now to discuss it is cbs news director of surveys and

elections anthony salvanto. anthony, want economy is in recovery, but many americans, apparently, don't feel that way. >> reporter: good morning, margaret. that's right. because to many americans, when they rate the economy, it's what's right in front of them, the prices they're paying, in this case at the gas pump or the cash register. let me tell you a story about vulz on the economy over the course of this year. back in the winter, views were low, but then, as people thought the pandemic was easing and optimism was on the upswing as we headed into the summer, views of the economy started to rise. then, as we headed into the fall in our poll, well, people started feeling the effects of inflation and vulz of the economy started to dip again back down to the lower level, where they are today. now, how does this relate to president biden? well, when you look apt how people evaluate how people evaluate him in handling a range of issues, on handling the economy specifically, on handling inflation specifically,

he's under water at 39% on the economy, at 33% good on handling inflation. and then the kicker here, margaret, is that when you ask people how they're evaluating joe biden, which criteria, they say top answers, the economy and inflation. >> brennan: anthony, just how significantly is inflation impacting americans' lives? >> so, first of all, people say that they notice the things they usually buy are costing more. they notice that some things are hard to get on store shelfs will. and then, you say, what impact does that have on people? and for a majority, they tell us that that's either a difficulty or even a hardship. that's particularly the case for people in middle and low incomes. so what do they say they're doing about it? well air, lot of folks say that they're cutting back, cutting back on spending, maybe holding off buying one of those big-ticket items, maybe even cur tailing their holiday spending a little bit. and the other thing here, margaret, is people know why

there is inflation. they tell us they know that there are supply chain issues, that there's pent-up demand after the pandemic. so those are market forces. but as we often see in the polling and opinion, even if it's market forces, people sometimes want some relief from those forces, and that's where they turn to political leaders and say they want them to do something about it. margaret. >> brennan: you didn't cause it, but i want you to fix it. anthony, democrats know they have a problem with these economic headwinds, but the argument is the trillions of dollars in spending packages will offset that. how do democrats feel about the strategy? how do they feel about the president himself? >> so, let me start here. democrats, like most americans, say they're feeling the effects of inflation, things costing more than they did, things often not in stock. now, democrats don't say that to the same extent republicans do because, frankly, there's always a little bit of partisanship that creeps into some of these responses. but when you look at the way

democrats then rate the president on handling inflation specifically, yes, a majority approve, but he's at 38% disapprove, which for the president's base i& not exactly a great number in context. and then when you look at his approval rating among democrats, well, it's 80%, that's good. but in this modern political era where the base is so important to a politician, well, 20% disapproval, that's among the lowest that you'll see. so that's a place where they think they probably want to shore up the base. the infighting maybe in congress hasn't helped. certainly democrats feeling the effects of inflation. and those are the numbers i think to watch going forward, margaret. >> brennan: anthony salvanto, thank you. and joining us now is senator kirsten gillibrand. good morning to you, senator, thank you for being here. >> good morning. >> brennan: so i want to get to some of the agenda items. the treasury secretary, janet yellin was with us next week and

said she said it doesn't look like paid family leave will make it in the "build back better" bill. that's due to joe manchin's opposition. >> joe manchin has come a long way on paid leave. i've been talking to him now for about three weeks on the topic. and in the beginning of our conversations, he didn't know a lot about paid leave, and he's come forward with a lot of really smart questions about how would you build it? what would it look like? he really wants it to be an earned benefit, something that is self-sustaining, and so do i. and he really wants something that will last for generations. so i'm optimistic that senator manchin and i can continue to talk about ways to put paid leave in this bill because long term, he wants it to be something that's biopsy. but i've looked, and i've talked to all the republicans who are interested in paid leave, and none of them have an interest in what he wants to do, which is this earned benefit idea. so i think senator manchin and i can come together, hopefully in the next couple of weeks, on something that can be included in this package that would be a

democratic-only proposal that we could start with, something-- something modest, perhaps, that we can start paid leave with. and then work long term with those republicans on a bigger idea to get to the grand idea of pull 12-week paid leave for all life events, for all people when they need to meet with family need, whether it's a new baby or an ill loved one or a dying parent. >> brennan: so, modest, you mean four weeks. >> i'd be grateful if we could meet the house proposal. i think that would be a great start to have universal paid leave for all people, all workers. and we know paid leave helps people get back to work. we know if it's parental leave, parents, mothers, are 40% more likely to get back to work if they have paid leave, which goes to senator manchin's concern that he wants to strengthen our social safety nets. he wants to strengthen social security. that's what paid leave does. it gets people back to work. it allows people to stay in the workforce, even when there's a family emergency.

if you don't have paid leave and there's a family emergency, sometimes your only recourse is quitting. if you have to quit your job, getting rehired is very difficult. so if your main concern is strengthening social safety nets, like social security, paid leave is one of the solutions. so i'm hopeful that if i can use the next three weeks to really impress upon senator manchin that some things can only be done with democrats only, that now is the only time to do that, perhaps in the next decade. >> brennan: so the proposal as it stands now, it would cost $200 billion over 10 years. senator manchin has also said he's worried about social security. when you say "earned benefit" how would you actually make this happen? >> so i want to work with senator manchin on some ideas he has. he likes employer-employee contribution systems. a lot of states around the country already have that through unemployment insurance, through disability insurance. there's ways we might be able to create this program. >> brennan: like the state of new york. >> correct.

and what senator manchin is doing right now is he's approving every aspect of the "build back better" proposal about how to pay for it. so he's in the driver's seat on how to pay for these proposals. and so i'm just hopeful that he can rb remain open minded to include some provisions for paid leave, because this is the only moment to get paid leave done. the bipartisan ideas he has, they will not come to fruition with the republican senators that are interested in paid leave today because they don't-- they aren't interested in today in a universal plan that's an earned benefit because i've spoken to them. >> brennan: for you-- >> so that's why i think for senator manchin now is the time. if he has a vision for what he wants to do, putting it in the proposal is the only opportunity, in my opinion. >> brennan: and would love to have him come on and answer some of the questions you're raising right now about how to do that. one of the other sticking points is the reduction in taxes for high earners, and that would definitely be of interest to your voters in new york, raising

the cap on the so-called salt deductions, state and local taxes. is that something for you that needs to stay in this? >> for senator schumer and i and the senators from these states that have very high local and state taxes, like new jersey, "new york, california, when president trump put forward his $1.5 trillion tax cuts, he really did it in a way that disproportionately harmed these large states. >> brennan: he brought the cap down to 10,000. >> he did. that hurt middle-class families in new york, particularly in places like westchester, long island, where a firefighter and a teacher would have been harmed by that deduction being reduced to such a low cap. and so what we're trying to do is restore that cap to covering all middle-class wage earners, and the house came up with a compromise to have that cap be at $80,000. we hope to retain that in the senate. >> brennan: i want to ask you

about some of the numbers we showed viewers at the beginning of this program, regarding concerns about the economy and the president. the majority of the infrastructure bill doesn't go into effect until 2023, 2024. "build back better," is not a done deal. what is the message you have for how to fix the economy now and how to tell voters that if they stake with democrats, if they stick with unified government, that you can actually deliver on this? because you don't have much time before those midterm races. >> we are doing everything to lower costs for everyday families. because people's costs are going up. you have these macroforces because of the pandemic that are very difficult to address. so what these bildz do is, the bills do is the frurpt bill will fix some of the supply-chain problems. >> brennan: not immediately. >> it invests in ports, it invests in ways to fix the supply chain problems we have. second, in the "build back better" bill, it can lower k069s for prescription drugs.

it's one of the biggest costs people have, particularly for our family. it can lower cost for child care. you know how expensive child care is. affordable day care, universal pre-k., that will make it more affordable for families. >> brennan: do you really think democrats have been able to explain this to voters yet? >> we are. >> brennan: we're still talking about a bill we don't know what's in and out of it? >> the push and the pull of what's in the bill, cha is not in the bill will be resolved in the next few weeks. once we sign the law, we can go around to our districts and discuss why affordable day care matters. if families have to put 30, 40,% of their% into child care, sometimes they don't have a second child or don't have a third child. sometimes they have to quit their job because it's more cost effect tive to stay home. it means less money going into the economy. it means they can't grow in

their careers and earn money. it stifles economic growth. it's very bad. affordable day care is one of the basic measures in infrastructure we need. that's how we lower k069 for people in things like housing, in, and prescription drugs. >> brennan: that takes time. i want to make sure i ask you about military sexual assault. you've been confident that you can get this passed. are you confident this stays in this must-pass defense bill? >> so we have a military justice reform that takes all serious crimes out of the chain of command and gives a decision about whether to prosecute these crimes to trained military prosecutors who are unbiased and will give justice to survivors of sexual assault and other serious crimes. right now that's in the senate bill. the only way this does not become law is if four men behind closed doors take it out in conference. and that would be an outage because this bill is supported by 66 senators -- >> brennan: you're worried it will. >> including josh hawley, ted cruz, who will be on your show, liz warren and bernie sanders.

how many bills in america are supported by those four individuals, not many? on the house side it's supported by 220 house members. democracy should not be shunned. this is something that should not be done behind closed doors in the dead of night. it should be allowed to pass and everyone should make sure that their voices are heard on this issue. if we want justice for service members, justice for sexual assault survivors and justice for every female service member, you need this reform. >> brennan: all right, senator, thank you for coming in. >> thank you. >> brennan: all right. >> thank you, margaret. >> thank you, margaret. >> brennan: we'll be back in a minute. ♪ now listen to the beat ♪ ♪ kinda pat your feet ♪ ♪ it's all right ♪ ♪ have a good time 'cause it's all right ♪ ♪ oh, it's all right ♪

your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire republican senator ted cruz of texas who joins us from houston. good morning to you, senator. .>> good morning, margaret. good to be with you. >> brennan: over night you did see chinese state-run media release images of tennis player peng shuai in baig. it's the first time she's been seen in two weeks since she mysteriously disappeared after criticizing and claiming that one of the former leaders of china committed sexual assault

against her. do you have any idea what is going on here? >> well, we don't know for sure, but there are reasons to be deeply, deeply skeptical. peng shuai is one of the best tennis players in the world. she's the first chinese player ever to be ranked number one in the world in doubles for women or men. she posted on social media a serious allegation of sexual assault, sexual assault by the former vice premiere of china, a former member of the politburo standing committee. and within 30 minutes the diear.t f ult lolygove d oint, peng shuai has not been seen. now-- >> brennan: this the u.s. be doing more. >> there was criticism after everyone noticed that she disappeared. they put out-- there was an email that claimed to be from her, that, frankly, read like a bad "saturday night live" like a hostage email, and the latest

images the chinese government is putting out, they're trying to pretend everything is okay. i have to say, the women's tennis association has been extraordinary standing up to china. they have been defending this athlete. they've been calling on china to have full and complete transparency. and the chinese communist government is flabbergasted because they're not used to seeing sports leagues or big corporate interests stand up to them. i really commend the women's tennis association for putting their players first. >> brennan: right, and i know you and i have talked about that in the past, when sports leagues don't do that. so despite concern right now that china is carrying out actively a genocide against muslims in that country, it is still set to hold the olympics in three months. president biden has said he's considering a diplomatic boycott. do you think he should go further? other 2024 from thial candidates -- and i know you are considered to be likely one of them-- are really competing to be as hard line as you be possibly can on

china. nikki hayley, tom cot an, say this should be a full boycott. do you support one? >> i have been saying we should move the olympics out of china. the i.o.c. has refused to do that. i think it's a mistake to have the full boycott of the olympics. jimmy karpter tried that in the 1970s. all it did was punish a generation of athletes-- we have young men, young women, americans who spent their whole lives practicing for this moment. i don't want to punish those young athletes. i do agree with the notion of a so-called comic boycott. don't send high-ranking cab net officials over there. we don't send-- we try to min miles the attention. but i also think it's important we do two things at the olympics in china. number one, that we actually show the courage the women's tennis association is showing to call out the murder, the genocide, the torture, the lies, the complicity on covid-19 of chinese communist government, to

speak the truth. and, number two, i really hope our young men and women that they go over there and kick their commie asses. we need to win in the olympics. >> brennan: okay. putting that aside, there are on a practical level, corporations who spend a ton of money on sponsorships around the olympics. coca-cola, google, procter & gamble. they're all olympic sponsors. should they still go ahead with those activities? >> look, i think it makes sense for corporations to cut off their ads. i'd love to see corporations show a tiny bit of courage. when china engages in horrific slave labor, companies like nike turn a blind eye. when you look at the n.b.a.-- i'm a diehard hoops fan-- the n.b.a.'s reaction to china is terrible. they're terrified of upsetting the chinese communist dictators. they value the money so much that in fact, you know, you and i both remember when daryl mori,

the general manager of the rockets, sent one little innocuous tweet about hong kong, and the n.b.a. bent over backwards groveling to the chinese communists. i was in hong kong at the time-- in fact, you and i did a show at that time dressed in all black in solidarity with the hong kong. protesters. i understand why the n.b.a. did it. they're looking at hundreds fmillions of dollars, if not billions of dollars. i understand why nike does it. but, you know, what is really impressive about the women's tennis association is they've said they will cancel their matches in china, they will give up tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars if peng shuai is not released, if there isn't transparency. that's the kind of courage we need other players to have. >> brennan: understand. and they are standing alone on that. i want to ask you about-- you're block a number of president biden's nominees to national security posts. the white house said it's an unprecedented effort of

obstruction. senator murphy said talking with you is like dealing with a terrorist. aren't you playing politics with national security? >> well, actually, quite the opposite. i'm trying to get president biden to stop acquiescing and surrendering to our enemies. in china, i introduced an amendment to say we should not purchase any green vehicles or solar panels made with slave labor in communist china, in concentration camps. every democrat but joe manchin voted against it. on russia, one of the first things joe biden did was surrender to vladimir putin on nord stream two. he gave putin a multibillion-dollar pipeline that we had stopped. i offered bipartisan sanctions legislation. democrats and republicans overwhelmingly supported my legislation and we killed that pipeline dead. joe biden came in and surrounded. it is, margaret, i believe, a generational geopolitical mistake if this pipeline is allowed to go online, it will give billions of dollars to

russia. they will use it for military aggression against america and our allies. it will undermine european security, american security, and enriches russia. and biden simply surrendered to putin. that was a mistake. and so i placed a hold on these nominees in order to try to pressure biden to follow the law, to follow the law. >> brennan: when will you lift it? >> i'll lift it when he follows the law. in fact, i've suggested a simple, reasonable compromise. which is i have said i will lift many of the holds if he simply triggers, under a law called katsa, i russian sanctions law passed with overwhelmingly bipartisan support, under katsa, he could list it and delift it. that would solve his political objective of surrendering to putin. but it would trigger an automatic congressional override veto. i said if they trigger the override veto, the vote, then i'll lift the hold. but the reason biden doesn't want to do that is he knows-- he fears he will lose the vote in

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♪ ♪ >> week 11 in the league. >> all right, there is ryan tannehill, as the titans hose the texans, they won 6, two without dck