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>> now -- >> then -- eastern -- that hopefully will keep this from being a year's long battle. terrorist organizations die hard. that's just a fact. >> and, you've had the defense secretary basically say, this could create more radicalization because of what's happening there, but also the impressions and what the world is watching in terms of this use of american force. >> win the battle but lose the war. >> exactly. >> eliminate hamas but become less secure because of your tactics which are losing you international support and creating a whole new generation of young people that want nothing but to see the destruction of israel.

that's the deadly game that israel is playing here, but they sure don't show any signs of backing off their original intention to eliminate hamas. >> no. and that's spilling out publicly now in these differences between prime minister netanyahu and president biden. in the vision for what happens next, and how this plays out, but in the middle east as well, david, the administration likes to say, while they may not be able to persuade the israeli prime minister to do what they want, they think they've largely contained this from become the worse case scenario they imagined about wider regional war. but there's still a lot of dangerous activity happening. >> well, you've had over 100 attacks by iranian-backed militias against american troop locations in iraq and syria. the houthis, most people had never heard of before the start

of this war, these rebels in yemen who are backed by iran, have come in on the side of hamas and have fired more than 100 missiles and drones either at israel or at any ship passing by they think may be coming either to or from israel. and the u.s. is trying very hard not to let either of those situations get out of hand. after 100 attacks on american troops you have to retaliate some. you can't let the other guys just get free shots, and they have taken some retaliatory strikes, but they're very limited. i think that will stay the same unless and until one of these mortars, one of these rockets, one of these drones, gets through and kills or seriously injures americans and then the whole calculus changes. >> catherine, you have this extraordinary job of covering

the president's own son and his legal issues. hunter biden, with these indictments, three related to a firearm, felony counts, nine related to tax issues, where does this go? >> 2024 is going to be a year of incredible legal exposure for the president's son, and these criminal prosecutions are going to unfold at the same time that his father is running for re-election. in january, he will be arraigned in a california court on the tax charges and i would pay special attention to the california case. i had two lawyers look at the 56-page indictment and they reached the same conclusion, that it is a shot across the bough by the special counsel. he identifies hunter biden as a lawyer, a consultant and a lobbyist and then goes into considerable detail about his business transactions with ukraine, with china, romania, and others. they see this as an indicator that special counsel at the very least is investigating potential

violations of foreign lobbying laws, maybe even a superseding indictment. >> donald trump spend a lot of time talking about the president's son and these legal issues. as this plays out in a courtroom, you know, how important are the facts to voters and how important is the perception and how do you make sense of this? >> until democrats believe there is evidence presented, if ever, that tice president biden directly to his son's business endeavors in terms of being a lobbyist or being someone who is influencing policy coordinated with his son, they're going to continue from the rank and file to the leadership be behind president biden. you haven't seen any democrat of note come out about president biden's connection with his son as anything more than familial and presents a problem. >> jen, bigger picture, you watched the supreme court for so long, a court that donald trump says he takes credit for shaping in terms of its conservative direction.

is there still faith in it, and how it functions, now that they are directly inserted right into our politics? >> yeah. i mean president trump's nominees changed the court in a much more conservative direction, and we've seen that very clearly. this is a supreme court that overturned rover sus raid. i mean, that and we've seen the political fallout from that. so i think what's going to be interesting for the court right now is they're getting these cases, as bob laid out, that involve the president on any number of levels, and it's a real opportunity for this supreme court and particularly the chief justice to show that they are above politics. the court has had all of these contentious issues, abortion, affirmative action, taken a hit in polling, some of their kind of the faith and confidence in the court right now among polls is at the lowest ever, higher than the other two branches and the media, by the way, and i think that that is what you're going to see. i think trump is going to win

some and he's going to lose some. >> david, one of the institutions that still has some faith in it is the military when you look at public polling. the year we are about to start feels very consequential on the national security front, not only because of the middle east, because of the war that is playing out in europe, at a decisive point, as we debate this ukraine aid package, you look at asia, the rise in china, the upcoming january election in taiwan that will be consequential as well. what's happening inside the pentagon right now as they gear up for 2024? >> well, they're going in all sorts of different directions, but there's sort of two pentagons. there's the one pentagon that develops systems and plans for future wars. they're now focused on china. and, you know, that is a totally different ball game than ukraine or what's going on in the middle east, and then they still have

to worry about terrorist organizations. so they're going in all these different directions, but look, during the biden administration, we've had the withdraw from afghanistan. we've had the start of the war in ukraine and we've had the start of the war between israel and hamas. they're kind of on emergency standby. >> yeah. >> all day every day. >> exactly. >> as it is. >> you know, i was reading, china's top military official warned china will show no mercy to anyone who supports independent taiwan. is the american military and the chinese military in contact yet, so that this doesn't escalate? >> well, they're trying. what they're called is talks at the working level to do the high-level contacts. but with everything having to do with china, it's complicated. even if they get these contacts going, i mean, china's behavior is not going to change

overnight. they're still going to harass american surveillance planes in the south china sea. they're still going to keep building up these disputed islands in the south china sea. it's just another mechanism for managing a very difficult relationship. >> at least in 2023, they started talking at the diplomatic level. all right. we have to take a break here. "face the nation" will be back in one print. -- one minute. 's easy to thinkl money managers are pretty much the same, but at fisher investments we're clearly different. (other money manager) different how? you sell high commission investment products, right? (fisher investments) nope. fisher avoids them. (other money manager) well, you must earn commissions on trades. (fisher investments) never at fisher investments. (other money manager) ok, then you probably sneak in some hidden and layered fees. (fisher investments) no. we structure our fees so we do better when clients do better. that might be why most of our clients come from other money managers. at fisher investments, we're clearly different. meet mixtiles. they stick, and re-stick. choose from

dozens of sizes, frames, and styles. go to mixtiles.com, upload pictures, pick a fancy frame, and voilà. use code "tv" and get up to 50% off. we're back with our panel of washington correspondents. here's where you get to predict, jeff pegues, the future. >> too much pressure, margaret. >> what's your big prediction for the year ahead? >> let me rub this thing. >> your informed prediction. >> all right. my informed prediction. that's a little easier, right. crime is going down across the country. you wouldn't think that based on

what you hear in terms of some of the crime out there, but violent crime is down 13%. our final numbers come out early next year. police officers across the country are under staffed and have managed to essentially get their arms around this problem. i predict that this trend will continue. however, there are some, you know, bad areas, carjackings continue to sky rocket. >> yes. why? >> well, it's a good question. some people think some of it is fueled by these pictures on social media giving people ideas. then it's hard to catch people who are breaking into cars and theft, especially when you don't have enough cops on the street. you don't have cops walking the beats. so that's still a challenge for law enforcement, but in terms of violent crime, it is going down.

>> catherine? >> well, mine is a little dark. i just feel a lot of concern that 2024 may be the year of a black swan event. this is a national security event with high impact that's very hard to predict. there are a number of concerns i have that factor into that, not only this sort of enduring heightened threat level, that we're facing, the wars in israel, also ukraine, and we're so divided in this country in ways that we haven't seen before and i think that just creates fertile ground for our adversaries like north korea, china, and iran and that's what concerns me most. >> a lot of people up at night with that concern, catherine, at least in this town. bob? >> talking to my top republican sources for months, i've been trying to get an answer to the question of what happens if former president trump is convicted in a federal trial or in georgia, but more likely a federal trial, before the republican convention? is there a plan b? elect the officials and campaign

strategists they say almost a refrained no. so if trump is the nominee, we're looking at a republican convention this coming summer where there really is no plan to move to another candidate in the republican party because of the way that trump has his fingerprints on everything, the state parties and delegates are in his image politically, he could hold on to the nomination even if he's convicted of a federal crime. my prediction you might have a crisis inside the gop come summer if trump is a convicted felon but no real plan how to handle that in a general election campaign. >> i predict that supreme court is not going to save donald trump from a criminal trial. they are to the going to rule that he is immune from criminal prosecution, and i don't think it's even going to be close. it could be 9-0 with the chief justice writing the opinion a former president does not have absolute immunity from criminal prosecutions for actions they took while in office, and i think that the supreme court is also, my other prediction, they

are not going to say donald trump is disqualified from running for president to that colorado decision, so i think he's going to stand trial. the supreme court is not going to save him. he will be on the ballot. >> 91 different indictments, is that the tally? >> if you include what's going on with the hush money payments in new york he's also facing the ongoing civil fraud trial, georgia, the e. jean carroll case, you have to have another hour to dig into all of that. >> right. so if your prediction plays out, this could be a really interesting year. get your rest in now. david, you correctly predicted last year the next chairman of the joint chiefs. >> i got one right. >> what's your prediction this year? >> so this year i would have to predict the discovery of alien life to compete. >> what? i'm sorry. >> excuse me. i said i would have to.

i'm not. >> okay. >> but in order to compete with the shockers. >> okay. >> david, when you speak, everyone listens and i believe it's absolutely 100% true fact so you really threw me. >> also scares us all every year. oh, no. >> i'll take it from the top. >> okay. >> in order to compete with the shockers that we've got coming up in this he election year, i would have to predict something like the discovery of alien life, but i'm not going to go there. instead, i am going to predict that north korea's kim jong-un will reap the rewards of having provided putin with artillery for his war in ukraine, and those rewards will take the form of technical aid to his nuclear weapons programs and we won't know it until we see north korea testing new and improved weapons. >> and perhaps seven nuclear tests everyone has been waiting for. >> everyone is waiting for that.

>> so i -- you have all set the table beautifully for my conclusion, which is that the only certainty is uncertainty and anyone who tells you what is going to happen with this election and how it's going to play out over the next year is selling you something because there are just so many different variables that all of us are tracking and all of us are weighing. which is why you need to watch cbs. it's also why none of us will sleep very much in the next few months. we'll be right back with a lot more "face the nation." stay with us. ed me find the strength to go further than i ever thought possible. - [narrator] i was able to come outta my shell and really connect with others. - [narrator] so i can feel like part of a team, part of the community again. - [narrator] it's possible to live better. - [narrator] it's possible to have a voice and to be heard. - [narrator] to feel understood. - [narrator] to find peace. - because i've experienced firsthand that anything is possible. (inspirational music)

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as we wind up 2023 we want to take a look at the positives this year. anthony salvanto and his team surveyed americans to see if they're happy and the results are actually good. more than three quarters, 76%, in fact, say they're very or fairly happy. when asked what's going well in their lives, 7 in 10 cite

family. mental health and hobbies and leisure are other top responses. we when we asked about the prospects of 2024 almost half, 47%, of americans say they're hopeful. more so hopeful than discouraged although some are mixed. we'll be right back. every day, more dog people, and more vets are deciding it's time for a fresh approach to pet food. they're quitting the kibble. and kicking the cans. and feeding their dogs dog food that's actually well, food. developed with vets. made from real meat and veggies. portioned for your dog. and delivered right to your door. it's smarter, healthier pet food. get 50% off your first box at thefarmersdog.com/realfood hi, i'm jason. i've lost 228 pounds on golo. get 50% off ♪our first box i don't ever want to go back to wearing a 4xl shirt or not being able to climb up stairs without taking a break. so i'm committed to golo for life.

politics isn't a game. >> why don't you hold yourself to that standar. >> politics is about snpolicy. >> i'm a consumer of information, and i'm impatient and tonight like to be spun. to be moderator of "face the nation" is not as anchor or actress. you are up here to moderate the conversation, that means bringing the most powerful stakeholders to the table to become better informed. we'll be right back with a lot more "face the nation." stay with us.

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