automatically appealed. as for the families of his victims, they felt the hardest part had been over. >> like a weight lifted off his shoulders. there is not that constant cloud hanging over them. >> everybody wants to talk about things like that. >> this war opened better spirits. >> when they read it -- had taken him away and allison motta was trying to convince the deputy in letting him speak to the parents because, you, know we've never got to speak to them again. what about all the other victims here? they can speak to shirlee or thomas or roger or mary. ♪ this sunday, this sunday, defending democracy. one year after russia invaded ukraine, president biden promises to stand strong against the threat from vladimir putin.

>> ukraine will never be a victory for russia. >> what does victory look like and are we give them enough to win the war or just surviving? >> if you want victory, we have to do more. plus, rising tensions. >> you are approaching chinese airspace. >> as the u.s. continues to warn china about sending weapons to ukraine, tensions are rising in the south china sea. is the pentagon preparing to move more troops to taiwan? my guests this morning, if national security adviser to president biden jake sullivan and dan sullivan of alaska. and off the rails. >> i sincerely hope that when all of the politicians get here including biden to get back from touring ukraine that he's got some money left over. >> donald trump travels to the site of the toxic train derailment in ohio to bash the biden administration for

focusing more overseas, creating the first real split screen moment of the 2024 campaign. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news chief white house correspondent kristen welker and npr correspondent tamara keith and al cardin and journalist and author onthan alt ter. 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 chuck todd. good sunday morning. as the war in ukraine enters its second year, the question is what will victory look like? it is pretty clear no one involved, not the united states or our european allies, ukraine or russia can afford for this war to be in the same place it is today, going into year three, a year from now. yet both sides, president biden in a surprise visit to kyiv and vladimir putin this week in moscow prepared the war for a drawn out conflict. >> one year into this war putin no longer doubts the strength of

our coalition, but he still doubts our conviction. he doubts our staying power, but there should be no doubt. our support for ukraine will not waver. nato will not be divided, and we will not tire. >> translator: we decided to conduct a special military operation. step by step we will continue to resolve the objectives that are before us. they started the war, and we used the force in order to stop it. >> biden's visit to ukraine was the first time in modern history that a sitting u.s. president has visited an active war zone without a u.s. military presence, and biden has hitched his legacy to the success of this war. can he afford for it to drag on into year 2024 and the inevitable presidential campaign. the american public is divided in providing ongoing support to ukraine, split 49/47 over whether biden should provide more weapons and funding.

with the leading presidential hopefuls right now trying to show some distance from the ukraine war. on friday, despite ukraine's request and a growing bipartisan course in congress, president biden has made it clear he is ruling out providing f-16s for now. 200,000 casualties, eight times higher than the u.s. casualties in the two decades of war we waged in afghanistan. moscow's winter offensive has so far delivered just minor territorial gains. the only potential beneficiary of a protracted conflict may be china, which offered a peace plan, by the way, which ukraine did not reject out of hand. the u.s. did, and it is still leveling accusations that china is considering providing legal aid to russia. u.s. officials tell nbc news that intelligence suggests that aid includes artillery and ammunition, but as u.s. officials sound the alarm, on friday president biden downplayed the threat from china. >> i don't anticipate -- we haven't seen it yet, but i

don't anticipate a major initiative on the part of china providing weaponry to -- to russia. >> and joining me now is the president's national security adviser jake sullivan. jake, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks for having me, chuck. >> i want to start right there. secretary blinken and you throughout the week have been very serious -- seriously concerned over what china could be doing. president biden seemed to downplay that risk there. is that -- is that his gut or do you have new intelligence suggesting the chinese are backing off? >> we have the same intelligence that we've had that has been behind the comments secretary blinken has made and what you just heard from president biden, which is we have not seen china yet provide military equipment to russia for purposes of fighting in the war in ukraine. we haven't seen it yet. we are continuing to watch. we'll stay vigilant as president biden said, but so far we haven't seen it. >> do you have a sense of why

they would make a decision to do this? what would be their strategic reason for doing it if they did it? >> it's a great question, chuck, because i don't think it is in china's interest to do this. i think it would alienate them from a number of countries in the world including our european allies, and it would put them foursquare into the center of responsibility for the kinds of war crimes and bombardment of civilians and atrocities. their weapons would, in effect, be used for the slaughter of people in ukraine. so i think it would be ill-advised for china to move forward, but, of course, that's a decision beijing would have to make for itself. >> other than saying there would be consequences for getting involved, you or anybody else has not laid out any specific consequences. why not? why not go public with what could be the consequences, whether it's on sanctions or weapons or troops to taiwan. why not lay it out in public?

>> well, we believe that this is better done directly with chinese counterparts in private and, in fact, secretary blinken had the opportunity to meet with china's top diplomat at the munich security conference just a few days ago. so we have channels to be able to make sure that china fully understands the u.s. position and what would happen were they to move forward with this step and we don't see as much profit in microphone diplomacy on this. >> i understand. do you have western allies onboard with the immediate response that you want to do with china, or is that going to be a slog? >> we've actually had intense and very positive consultations with our nato allies, with other members of the coalition supporting ukraine, and, in fact, chuck, they're taking steps themselves to communicate to beijing.

senior officials from europe are directly talking to senior officials in china expressing their own strong warnings about china moving forward in this regard. >> so you believe that the severe consequences the u.s. would level that our european and nato allies would go along with them? >> well, in staying away from microphone diplomacy, i will stay away from hypotheticals. all i will say is we have had extremely effective constructive discussions with our european allies about this contingency. i think we're all on the same page about our concern, our alarm, were this to happen. we all see the same thing right now, which is china has not moved forward, and we will deal with the circumstance should it come to pass. >> is the peace plan that china put out many united states administration officials if they essentially dismissed it out of hand, but president zelenskyy didn't. what do you make of his decision, and is that a smart move by him?

>> well, what president zelenskyy said there were parts of the plan he didn't like and parts of the plan that he thought could be okay. one part of the plan that i particularly liked was point one of the plan. point one of the plan was respect the sovereignty of all nations. the plan could just stop there because russia could end this war by respecting ukraine's sovereignty and pulling out, but what president zelenskyy also said -- and this is critical, chuck -- is that he would like to speak to president xi. china put forward this plan without having had a single conversation since the war began between president xi and president zelenskyy. the chinese have talked to the russians a lot, but at the most senior levels they've not talked to ukrainians. it's very difficult to advance any peace initiative when there is that one-sided diplomacy going on. from our perspective, the critical thing is any peace plan offered by anybody has to involve the input of ukraine as president biden has constantly said nothing about ukraine

without ukraine, and that goes for this initiative as well as any other initiative under the sun. >> let's talk about some of the -- some of the, i'll call it criticism, if you will, from some democrats who believe that, a, there is more aid that needs to be sent to ukraine and it needs to happen faster, including the f-16s. i want to play an array of folks, jason crow, mike mcfaul, former ambassador of russia, and jared golan. take a listen. >> they need more aircraft, more advanced aircraft and that's why we've been pressing the administration on a bipartisan basis to give them what they need to fight and when. >> if they want victory, we have to do more. we're not giving them the weapons they need for the counter offensive that they're

planning in the sprung, and time is running out. >> people are concerned about training and many of us called on the administration on start training in f-16 or first-generation aircraft and that hasn't begun. the time to start this process is right now. >> it's the last comment i want you to respond to directly. i understand you say the f-16s are not something they need right now, but to congressman golden's point, why not start training ukrainians on this right now so when they're likely to do it they're ready to use it. >> it's important for people to understand that ukrainian pilots are flying day in and day out. they're fighting soviet-era fighters and the coalition is providing spare parts to those planes to ensure that they can stay in the sky. first of all, we are providing a substantial amount of support to the ukrainian air force for the limited kinds of missions that the current war calls for them to undertake. secondly, the central focus of all of our efforts right now is to help them take back what russia occupies and the

assessment of commanders and those giving advice to president biden are that what they need right now are tanks and armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles are air defenses on the front line. that's what we're giving them and we're giving it to them fast and giving it to them in large quantities the question of f-16s is a question for another day, for another phase. this phase is about ground combat and being able to have the tools in the hands of the ukrainians. >> why not take the f-16 off the table and say you're right, we will provide them with that help down the road because you've said we're committed to ukraine's security in perpetuity? >> you know, it's really, at the end of the day not our job to focus on the talking points question, you know, what the right thing to say on a sunday show or in some other public forum. it's our job to figure out

morning, noon, and night, what does the ukrainian army need on those front lines and how to get it to them as rapidly as possible, and we have moved with unprecedented speed at an unprecedented scale to get them a massive amount of military assistance so that they have been able to defend effectively and to take back half of the territory so far that russia previously occupied during this war. >> simple question, and i know it's got a complicated answer. what does victory look like for ukraine? >> that's up to ukraine to define. it has been critical to us, and i said it earlier in this interview, that there be nothing without ukraine -- about ukraine without ukraine, and so it's not for the united states to define victory for ukraine. it's for the united states to support ukraine on the

battlefield so that they can achieve the victory that they define. that's what we are determined to do. we believe they can achieve that, and we are going to give them the implements and the tools that they need to be able to achieve that. >> if that's the case, ukrainian president zelenskyy did define victory, what he thought victory looked like in august of last year. he said crimea is ukrainian and we will never give it up. this russian war against ukraine and against the entire free europe began with crimea and must end with crimea with its liberation. there's always been a hesitance among u.s. officials, jake -- and i know you're included here -- about crimea specifically, and it's also been, well, it's up to ukraine. president zelenskyy said it. victory is all of the territory back. why don't we say the same thing now? >> well, we have repeatedly talked about ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. the question for us is how do we put ukraine in the best position on the battlefield so they are ultimately in the best position at the negotiating table, and

president zelenskyy as early as this week has said we'll ultimately have to get to a diplomatic phase of this conflict. from our perspective, our goal is to strengthen the hand of ukrainians on the battlefield so that they're in the strongest position with the most leverage when they get to the negotiating table to ultimately achieve an outcome that restores ukraine's full sovereignty and territorial integrity. >> if they want to take crimea militarily, will the united states help ukraine do that? >> chuck, the critical thing right now is that they need to take back the territory in the south and the east that they are currently focused on, and we need to give them the tools to be able to do that. the question of crimea and the question of what happens down the road is something that we will come to. where we are right now is that we need to be focused on the immediate term because it is critical that we move fast and we move decisively to help them take back the territory across

that line of contact that russian troops are currently occupying. >> it sounds like you think the ideal outcome is ukraine is able to take more territory back and putin fears that he could lose crimea and he coming to the negotiating table to see if he can keep crimea. is that the ultimate scenario you're envisioning? >> again, i understand why you're asking the question, but you have to understand that from the united states' perspective, we are not going to negotiate over the destiny and sovereignty of another country. that is for their democratically elected president to decide. what we are going to do is give ukraine the tools that it needs as i said before to be in the strongest possible position, to ultimately be able to convert battlefield gains into diplomatic leverage. that is the goal here, and that requires us to achieve those battlefield gains through the provision of military assistance to ukraine. >> in the open of our show, people are seeing footage of a chinese fighter jet warning an

american fighter jet over the south china sea earlier this week. we happen to have a reporter on board of that. it only underscores all the tension we have had with china just in the last couple of weeks. we've had a seven-hour meeting with taiwanese officials, and we've had calls. secretary blinken had to cancel his trip and the president wants to have a conference with xi and no sign that anything has been schedule. this lack of communication, how dangerous is this situation with china right now? >> well, we have said repeatedly that we have to have military communications channels to avoid escalation, to avoid surprise and to avoid mistake. it is unfortunate that the chinese defense ministry has declined to take calls from the u.s. secretary of defense. that's on china because from the u.s. perspective and the rest of the world, we are acting responsibly. we are prepared to have those lines of crisis communication.

we had them during the cold war, the height of the cold war when the u.s. and the soviet union were squaring off, but, chuck, we do have the ability to speak to china at high levels, and as i mentioned, secretary blinken spoke with his counterpart, the top diplomat of china wang yi at munich just a few days ago. so it is not just that all lines of communication are shut off, but rather, we do not have the military-to-military exchanges that we think are necessary to ensure stability. >> do we have anything scheduled with xi in a phone call in the near term? >> nothing scheduled at the moment, though, i anticipate the two leaders will speak at some point in the not too distant future. jake sullivan, president biden's national security adviser. as always, sir, thank you for coming on and sharing the administration's perspective. when we come back, there is a growing republican divide over aiding ukraine as we approach the one-year mark. are will those skeptics including some 2024 presidential

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no issue illustrates the shift in the republican party better than the war in ukraine right now where traditional hawkishness on russia has been replaced by a deep skepticism of u.s. involvement overseas particularly when the policy is led by a democratic president named joe biden. in a "washington post" poll this month, 50% of republicans said the u.s. was doing too much to support ukraine, and that's up from 18% who said the same thing in april last year. this was on display this week as a handful of congressional republicans who are supportive of the biden policy in ukraine met with president zelenskyy in kyiv while back here at home most of the declared and likely presidential hopefuls were striking a more skeptical tone about ukraine with really one notable exception. >> world war iii has never been closer than it is right now. we need to clean house of all of the warmongers and america last loveless and the deep state. >> they have effectively a blank

check policy with no clear, strategic objective identified, and i don't think it's in our interest to getting into a proxy war with china getting involved over things like the border lands or over crimea. >> i don't think we need to write them blank checks, but they have the passion to fight for their own freedom. give them the ammunition to do it. >> there can be no room in the leadership of the republican party for apologists for putin. >> needless to say there will be a robust debate on the presidential debate stage there. but joining me now is dan sullivan, republican from alaska and also a colonel in the marine corps reserve and the only senator who currently serves in the military. welcome back to "meet the press". >> good morning, chuck. good to be on the show. >> let me start with the basics. you heard from the national security adviser there. what does -- what do you think victory looks like for ukraine?

>> well, you know, i think just to begin with, looking at the past year, we need to recognize how we got here, what mistakes were made, and what we can do going forward. i think one element that the national security adviser doesn't talk about, i think it was clearly some of the biden administration's weakness on the issues like energy, national defense, and clearly the botched withdrawal from afghanistan that emboldened putin to undertake the brutal invasion of ukraine. i think, though, now that we are in this battle, it's strongly in our interest to continue to support ukrainians to restore the territorial integrity and their sovereignty without committing u.s. forces. but, you know, chuck, your interview actually highlighted one of the problems. jake sullivan said, well, we're not going to do f-16s today, not

right now. that has been a pattern from the administration from the beginning where they have slow rolled critical military weapons systems. you know it's a long list. himars and tanks and knew it's f-16s. it's a real blunder. we need to get them what they need now and listen to the ukrainians not as he said, the policymakers. they've proven their ability to fight bravely, and i think we need to do a much better job. it took nine months to get them to patriots, and i feel the same thing is happening right now with the f-16s. you saw it with the national security adviser. >> do you want them looking into restoring the entire territorial ukraine 2014, which, of course, means crimea? >> i think you saw the unease

that jake sullivan demonstrated when you were pressing him on that. i do agree that this is going to be up to the ukrainians and zelenskyy. we need to give them, like i said, the weapons systems to undertake that, but i think it should be more clear. i think it should be all of the territorial integrity of the entire country, which includes crimea. and so, yes, i think they need more clarity on that, and the national security adviser didn't demonstrate it in his interview with you today. >> let's talk about more support for ukraine going forward, and in the introduction i highlighted, there is a growing divide in your party. do you think you're in the minority now among the russia hawks and your party these days? >> no, i don't think so. i mean, you look at the u.s. senate, the members who are on committee like intel and armed services like myself and foreign affairs. i think there's still a strong contingent of republicans supporting the ukrainians. now i do think that there are

legitimate criticisms of this administration's conduct supporting ukrainians. let me give you one that in particular being home in alaska really matters. you know, from the beginning of this administration, this administration's been focused on shutting down the production of american energy. as you know, chuck, xi jinping and putin fear american energy dominance, and so to have an administration to shut down energy and making it hard to move energy and pushing back on the ability to finance energy for america, this actually directly related to our efforts to push back against xi jinping, putin, and in many ways their energy policies have been national security suicide, and this is what frustrates

republicans where we see that other policies of this administration aren't at all helping pushing back on what i refer to as the new authoritarian aggression led by putin and xi jinping and it's a frustration that you're seeing among republicans and it's also frustration among democrats. >> i'm curious about your take on -- the isolationist wing of the gop used to be ron and rand paul. it's bigger than that now. how much of it do you think is sort of genuine, sort of leeriness of interventions because of iraq and afghanistan on the right, and how much of it do you think is simply because biden is a democrat? >> i think you've always had on both sides kind of the wings on each party an isolationist tendency, and i think that this war in particular, you're right. the polling is starting to show a lack of support, and i think that there are ways that you can address this. a lot of republicans say, hey, we should be doing more on our own border and not the ukraine backslash/border. my response to that is great

powers can do both things, but it is important to address our own border, to secure the border. that would take away one of the arguments and something else, and i hear from alaskans on this. we need to do a better job, the administration needs to do a better job of getting our european allies to put their weight. as you know, chuck, they've had a commitment to spend at a minimum, and it should be a floor and not a ceiling, 2% of the gdp, and the vast majority don't do that. and i think that frustrates americans where we see this huge conflict in the heart of europe and the europeans aren't stepping up enough the way in which they need to, and i think pressing them to do more and having them do more can help push back against some of the doubts that are starting to spread across the country on ukrainian support. >> what do you think the best way is to deter china from helping the russians right now and what should the consequences be?

>> look, they're already helping the russians. i mean, every time you hear the chinese officials talk about this, they're blaming us, they're blaming nato for the ukrainian war. i agree there should be a serious redline with regard to them supplying military equipment to the russians, and i believe that should be in the form of sanctions. but, you know, there is a broader issue here, chuck, and this is another one where republicans are actually more united, and the war in ukraine really revealed that we are in this new era of authoritarian aggression led by xi jinping and putin. as you know, they're working together, and they're increasingly isolated. they view their democratic neighbors in a very paranoid way, and i think that this challenge where they are looking to take aggressive actions against their neighbors, whether it's in ukraine, whether it's in

taiwan, i think it's going to be with us for decades. we need to face it with strategic resolve and confidence, there's a number of things to our advantage over these dictaors that we should promote if we're wise enough to use them, our military and allies and our natural resources and energy and, i think, our commitment to democracy. in many ways that was what helped us win the cold war. xi jinping and putin their biggest vulnerability is they fear their own people and we need to exploit that. >> i think that can unify republicans and democrats. >> i want to follow up on one more thing on china. there's a report today that another intelligence arm of the u.s. government -- this is inside our energy department -- has joined the fbi including that covid began with a lab leak in china. if we end up determining -- if our intelligence community over time determines this is the

majority vancouver and it's the u.s. government's view that this was a lab leak in china and that government covered it up, what should be the consequences? >> well, i think we need to have public hearings on this and dig into it. think about what just happened over the last three years. one of the biggest pandemics in a century and a lot of evidence coming from the chinese and other countries raised it like australia that chinese used their course of economic activities to shut people up. so i think we need to do extensive hearings. i hope our democratic colleagues in the congress can support that. i know the republicans in the house are certainly supportive of that, but i think if that happens, we need to make sure every country in the world knows this, but this is a country that has no problem coming out and lying the world. we just saw that with this chinese spy balloon. it's the nature of a communist dictatorship to lie to their own people and to lie to the world, but i think we need to make sure every country knows that and

then look at what the consequences could be. obviously, millions of deaths, a huge economic impact, and it would once again show that the chinese communist party is not only a menace, but the nature of these regimes is to lie to the world, and we need to make that clear to people. >> i think you're definitely right on those public hearings. alt a minimum we need to know what we know, and the world needs to know what we know. dan sullivan, republican from the great state of alaska. thank for getting up very early out there and sharing your perspective with us. >> thanks. before we go to break, i want to show you our "meet the press" minute. it shows you the legacy of president jimmy carter who's receiving hospice care in georgia. in the course over the years, he's appeared on this show 11 times ashlgd he joined us the week he announced his bid to the white house to talk about why he

wanted the nation's top job. >> i think we -- we have a nation that is truly great, not that it used to be great or some day will be great again and it's not adequate to recognize. the stability and a pride in its past and economic strength that is presently not recognized adequately by the people of this country and around the world. also, i think there's a lack of purpose in our country's government now, which is much more vulnerable than the people deserve. it's hard to detect what are our goals, what common purpose we work toward, and what sort of sacrifices might be expected from the american people. and if i could exemplify the correction of some of the defects of our government that have been brought by the politicians and not by the meme and helped to restore the great ens in this country, then i

would like to do it. >> when we come back. donald trump turned the site of the ohio train derailment to highlight biden absent when he was overseas in ukraine. our panel is here as we look into what may be the first split screen moment of the 2024 campaign.

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welcome back to the panelists here. nbc chief white house correspondent kristen welcome back to the panelists here. nbc chief white house correspondent kristen welker and jonathan alter, author of "his very best: jimmy carter." and republican strategist al cardin. all right. we had our first split screen moment, and i'm curious, kristen. i'm going to play it here. essentially it was donald trump -- what i thought was a risky move holding a campaign event in east palestine. here he is. >> we will stand with you. let us move forward with faith and conviction on the biding commitment to the allies. >> i sincerely hope that when your representatives get here including biden from touring u crepe that he's got some money left over. >> the president in an interview

on friday was pretty defensive of the response. they were saying we were there from the beginning. the epa was there from the beginning and all those things. behind the scenes, any regret at the optic problems for them? >> they're pretty defiant, chuck, but i have to tell you some allies of the president are concerned he hasn't been there yet, and they're saying he needs to go, and i've pressed them over and over, are there plans for the president to go, there are no conversations about that. they were on the ground within two hours of the crisis happening and we've gotten the resources there that are needed, and i do think big picture there is a question. optics are important when you're dealing with a crisis like this. there's no doubt about that. we learned that during hurricane katrina, for example. will this backfire on president biden and could it backfire on former president trump? because his visit his put in the spotlight that he rolled back 100 environmental regulations

and so that's become a part of this conversation as well, and so i think there are risks involved for both of them, and the question becomes will we see president biden on the ground? at this point in time no plans for that. >> they don't want to look like they've been forced into anything from fox news and donald trump. are they being stubborn about this? >> and this white house doesn't want to feel like they're being pushed into thithings, that he' got to be there. so this weekend they've told us that the cdc, the epa, and fema are going door to door checking on people. the government is here to help kind of a thing. pushing back on the idea that these people are forgotten. i don't know if everyone is going to want to knock on their door from three federal agencies, but that's what they're going to get. >> president biden has the habit of showing up late to just about everything we think significant.

in florida during the campaign, the florida democrats were saying, hey, these guys are here every week, you're not showing up, and they're calling us socialists, and he finally showed up three weeks after the election. on the border, he just showed up at the border. why shouldn't he had been there long before and now this incident, he has a good reason for not being there and he has a reputation of being places too late. >> i don't think the split screen hurts biden at all. he's on a very successful trip, and his messages were the arsenal of democracy, the fdr message. he's backing the modern winston churchill, zelenskyy. what is trump saying? he's saying to people of palestine, have a good time. he's handing out maga caps. that's not a very good impression for him. >> i was in poland with president biden, just to add to that point.

he was making this broader case that this war is not just about the war in ukraine and it's about democracy and about upholding american ideals and his surprise trip to ukraine and if you talk to republicans and democrats, they say it may be one of the strongest counterpoints yet to this narrative that he's too old for a second term. >> that was a big moment for him, vibrancy. >> it was not an easy trip. no president has done what he did, which was spend 25 hours in a country at war, a country where the u.s. doesn't have a base of operations. that is -- a ten-hour train ride each direction is a remarkable feat for this white house to have pulled off, and they are quite happy that they pulled that off. >> but i want to talk about the fact that i was thinking about, we've had three one-term presidents in our lifex, and two of them lost arguably due to foreign policy issues. you profiled one of them, carter, and that was the iran

hostage crisis and george w. bush and he used the message that trump was using. he's so concerned overseas, the economy, stupid here. this war can't drag on into '24. >> it very well might. >> yeah. >> the question is whether it will swamp joe biden the way events overseas ended up swamping jimmy carter in the first half of his term, carter was very successful, but these events really burdened him. the difference is inflation. >> speaking of a thing that could hurt both of them. >> events overseas with the iranian revolution in 1979 kicked off a whole new round of invasion. so carter was running for re-election with double-digit inflation and double-digit interest rates, and these

overwhelmed many of his quite big achievements which people do remember now. so if biden can manage to keep inflation in check in the next couple of years, even if there is a stalemate in ukraine i think it will be okay. >> i want you to address the authoritarianism, what's going on with desantis here? >> yeah. that's a great question. here's someone who served in the military after going to harvard and yale. i mean, we had the world in front of him with those records, and yet he went into the military. you would think like dan sullivan that he'd be on dan sullivan's track and not the track of the dissenter. that's one i can't figure out. maybe he's concerned about the base that follows donald trump, and maybe that's a reason, but that one i can't figure out. i did want to say that of all of the comments we've made about presidents losing elections, the one that didn't participate in an election but whose circumstances are more similar to biden was lyndon johnson.

he was in the middle of a war with russian-backed people, and his numbers kept falling and then he said, you know what? i'm stepping down. >> 500,000 troops -- >> my point is i think biden may be facing the lyndon johnson predicament before you consider his running for re-election. >> i'm going to have to leave that there. fascinating conversation. if this gets to '24, we don't know how it will play with the american people. up next, the ohio train disaster was 100% preventible according to federal investigators. trains are still some of the safest options for transporting hazardous chemicals. i'm going to show you why after the break. i'm going to show you why after the break.

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♪♪ ♪♪ welcome back. data download time. the east welcome back. "data download" time. the east palestine train derailment and the chemical spill it caused raised renewed questions about the safety of rail travel and using it to transport toxic chemicals. just how safe is shipping toxic cargo by train? the answer, it's somewhat complicated. let me show you. train derailments have gone down over the last ten years, just over 1,300 in 2013, over a thousand in 2022, about three a day. good news is not all these train derailments are trained carrying hazardous material. now, though, let's compare hazmat spills on railway incidents. we have 667 hazmat spills in 2013 on the tracks, railroad tracks. down to 355 in 2022. you can see, it's actually been getting safer by rail. contrast that by hazmat spills

on the highway. look at this, in 2013, we had nearly 14,000. it's actually been going up. we had over 23,000 hazmat spills by highway and 355 by train. clearly, safer to do this and better to do this by train, right? well, you start to look at it financially, it's a different story. let's take 2022 as an example. there were the over 23,000 incidents that happened on highways. the cost of those cleanups? $21 million. the 255 incidents by rail the cost was double that, $45 million. why is that? it's due it one large rail spill in may. it was a train carrying petroleum products that derailed in pennsylvania. it spilled over 3,000 gallons into a creek that cost over $30 million in damages. by the way, the operator of that trarngs none other than norfolk southern, the same one behind this incident in east palestine.

when you have these derailments, they can be gigantic accidents. when we come back, more americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, becoming a major political problem for the gop. l.

welcome back. the republican party has been abortion problem. that is the unmistakable conclusion of the new survey from the public religion institute, up 20,000 americans, and it is easily the most comprehensive survey since the dobbs decision. this was able to do both national polling and 50 separate state polls. two-thirds of americans, 64% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. this is an increase from 2010 from 55%, and republicans right now look like they're more out of step just 36% favor legal abortion and there were 86% of democrats and look at this number, 68% of independents and the republican number has not moved since 2010 and support among democrats and independence has grown by double digits. state by state, solid majority

favors legal abortion. in the six historically closest election in the battleground states, all of them but one over 60%, and the one democratically held senate seat and montana, ohio, and west virginia also with very high percentages on legal abortion. al cardenas, what does the gop do here? they seem to be in a box on abortion. >> well, look, everybody was thankful for roe versus wade. republicans and democrats didn't want to touch it for 60 years for obvious reasons. now donald trump decided he wanted to do evangelicals a favor and name three supreme court justices who made it to looking at this issue, and now, you know, we've got the explosion, political explosion will having made that tough decision, and in my opinion that's not the only one they're going to make.

the supreme court of the united states has become the democrats best when it comes to what's going on in spite of the fact that republicans were rejoicing that they had a 6-3 majority. >> they don't know what their position is now. >> that's right, because they don't actually agree. there are some people like former vice president mike pence, very likely presidential candidate, who says we need to stand strong, stand firm on abortion, we need to take a strong position here, and then you have someone like trump who said, you know, republicans could be in real trouble here with this issue. so it's one of the many things that probably won't be settled by 2024, but in terms of the identity of the republican party it is a challenge because when you start talking about specifics, when something has been taken away and you start talking about specifics, people actually care about this issue, and that's what showdown up in this poll, is just a spike in support. >> and the white house, i saw

vice president harris did an event earlier this week. >> oh, yeah. >> i'm going to look back on 2022 and start to think that we are overrating the impact of the trump candidates and underrating the impact of the abortionists. >> that's right. we saw the power of dobbs in the midterm elections and i am told the president will be out front on this issue, and you can expect that over the next two years. in terms of the strategy of the republican party moving forward, one person said something so interesting to me which was that roe was overturned and the focus became on banning abortion in the states instead of talking about maternal health, talking about adoption, talking about what happens to these families. another person said we'll focus the economy. well, that's a risky strategy. what is the economy going to look like in the next year and a half, and it will be a test. is the economy as motivating as the abortion issue? >> and the abortion pill is going to be a huge issue. >> my goodness, if that goes away, yeah. >> right now, 55% of all abortions are medical abortions with the abortion pill up from 45 just a couple of years ago, and if this decision comes down

the way people are expecting, and then it's upheld at the u.s. supreme court as people expect, a lot of women who want to use the abortion pill are not going to be able to, and they're going to be awfully upset about that. >> i want to bring this back, and you're my floridian pal here, al. i'll bet governor desantis is uncomfortable on what to say about abortion and the 15 week, that i noticed he doesn't want this legislature to touch abortion, does he? >> no, he doesn't. he's shied away from this issue. he's acknowledged from the outset it's not a winning issue. he hasn't mentioned the issue and he's acting like, hey, i'm governor from florida, i don't need to get involved with this and let it be a national issue and so far it's working for him. the democratic party has imploded in florida, but if i was him, i would certainly try to put him in a corner, but they

haven't. >> with jon tester -- and you see those abortion numbers. look, i'm pretty pessimistic about this for the democrats, and suddenly you see the abortion numbers, and you see the path for tester and the path for brown. >> they can talk about this issue and make it about people's rights and not just about -- >> libertarian argument. >> yeah. >> chuck, i think it's interesting to your first point about the divisions within the republican party, one of the biggest ones is about the 15-week national abortion ban. a lot of republicans are saying senator lindsay graham should have never introduced this because the whole point of dobbs was to send this back to the state. >> except he was looking for a compromising number here. >> right. >> i don't know if democrats will ever get to even 20. >> every republican candidate will have to weigh on that. >> before we go on the chuck toddcast, i spoke to washington post's dan fall and we'll have a postgame discussion with jonathan alter, talk a little

bit about jimmy carter. and scan the qr code on the screen right now or go to the chuck toddcast. that's all for today. thank for watching. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." if it's sunday, it's "meet the press. be back next week becaus if it's sunday it's "meet the press." think about what just happened ore the last three years. one of the biggest pandemics in a century, a lot of evidence that it's coming from the chinese, and when other countries even raise it, like australia, the chinese use their course of economic activities to shut people up. look, this