♪ ♪ all in. with two months until voters weigh in, a new iowa rivalry heats up. >> i deliver on 100% of my promises. >> all this vendetta stuff, we can't go down that. >> florida's governor is all in on iowa. will it pay off? >> we have to send a great signal and then maybe these people say okay, it's over now. >> republican presidential candidate ron desantis is here for an exclusive interview next. plus, choose your opponent. facing political headwinds. >> come on, man. >> president biden ramps up his attacks on former president donald trump. will that be enough to sway swing voters? our panel is here to discuss and under pressure, amid outcry over gaza deaths. >> free palestine! >> president biden rejects calls for a ceasefire while his administration says they're working on a deal to bring back the hostages held by hamas. are they close? deputy national security adviser jon finer is here and mare landes democratic congressman jamie rask in joins me exclusively. ♪ ♪ hello. i'm jake tapper in washington, d.c., where the state of our union is praying for peace and for an end to this conflict as soon as possible. pro-palestinian protesters took to the streets all over the united states this weekend as president biden tried to defend his support for israel amid a growing divide in this party over israel's war against hamas which has led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of palestinians and the death of thousand of gaza. the world health organization says the al shifa hospital targeted by israel as a hamas headquarters is now, quote, a death zone and hours ago, 31 neonatal babies were finally evacuated from the hospital. also in northern gaza, and i want to warn you, this footage that i'm about to show you, it's very disturbing. a horrifying new video showed dozens offed a bodies includingn and children lying in wreckage and covered in dust after a blast rocked a u.n. school being used as a shelter. the unsaid it did not know who is responsible for the incident. the israeli military said it is reviewing what happened. on saturday, president biden rejected calls for a ceasefire in the war. president biden writing in "the washington post" that, quote, a ceasefire is not peace. he underlied a support for a two-state solution in the long term as his administration is working hard to strike a deal between hamas and israel to release the hundreds of hostages still being held in gaza in exchange for some form of pause in the hostilities. >> and joining me now is the u.s. deputy national security adviser jon finer. thanks for joining us. so what is the state of negotiations as of this morning? is there a deal imminent? >> thanks, jake. so i think you heard probably the prime minister of qatar speak to this earlier today. they have been extremely close, obviously, to these negotiations as we have. the united states has been following this minute by minute, hour by hour up to the level of the president for whom this is a major overriding priority obviously in part because there are a number of americans who are in this horrific situation. what i can say about this at this time is that we think we are closer than we have been perhaps at any point since these negotiations began weeks ago, that there are areas of disagreement that have been narrowed, if not closed out in entirely, but the mantra that nothing is agreed until everything agreed applies here in such sensitive negotiation and there is no deal currently in place. we'll keep at this intensively over the coming hours and days. we believe it is imperative given how the situation is in gaza to get these people home and we will stay on top of it. >> i assume from the remark you just made that it is a requirement for president biden that any americans being held by hamas must be included in any deal, must be released? >> so i'm not going to get into any of the substance of the conversations in part because we only have really one imperative here which is to get the deal done. there will be a time and a place to lay out more detail about what was agreeded if we get to an agreement and exactly how this came about, but that time isn't now when we are still in the throes of lot of back and forth to get this deal. what i will say is president biden feels no higher obligation and no higher priority than the safety americans, americans here in the homeland and overseas and certainly americans who are held in such horrific and dangerous conditions those being held hostage in gaza right now. >> we know at least three of the hostages kidnapped on october 7th have been killed. the remains of one and the bodies of two have been found. how many hostages, do you believe, are still alive? >> so, jake, we don't have exact numbers. one of the challenges associated with this is we are not on the ground in gaza in the united states and we are not in direct contact with hamas and we do that only through intermeadiaries and we don't have perfect fidelity about the exact numbers hostages including those who are still alive, but we do believe that there are a significant number of americans still being held and americans are the highest priority and they include, by the way, a 3-year-old girl who is an orphan because her parents were murdered by hamas on october 7th and i think you can see and understand exactly why this is such an acute children and laying out detailed information because first and foremost, we just want to get this deal done. >> meanwhile, the devastation in gaza continues as the idf targets hamas. the u.n. says one of its schools in northern gaza was struck yard yesterday. the school was being used as a shelter and video from skeeven does show dozens of dead bodies including the bodies of women and children. what do you know about this strike? does the administration believe this was the result of an israeli strike? >> so we are still gathering information about this incident that just happened yesterday. we've been in direct contact with unra, the u.n. agency on the ground in gaza which, by the way, has lost more than a hundred members of its own staff. people who are going around distributing assistance inside gaza. i met virtually with the head of unra just a couple of days ago and we are in touch with israelis to find out what they know about what happened. if harm was done to innocent civilians sheltering at a u.n. site that would be totally unacceptable and so we will continue to try to look into what happened in this incident. when we know more we will share. >> president biden when he traveled to israel after hamas attacked on october 7th and killed 1200 israeles. president biden warned israel not to make the same mistakes after 9/11 and not to allow rage to consume them, and not to allow rage to guide their response. you, more than those of us watching the show right now and more than me, know how much the israeli military is actually targeting hamas, whether israelis are actually doing everything they possibly can to avoid civilian casualties. how bad the civilian death toll actually is as opposed to what the hamas-run palestinian health ministry claims and how wide the destruction actually is in gaza. do you think the israelis took biden's advice about not allowing retaliation to be driven by rage? >> what i can say about this is it's not an assessment that can be made based on a snapshot at a particular moment. this is an ongoing conversation for the united states and the government of israel. when there is an incident that takes place that raised concerns that suggest possibly that there has not been enough care taken about innocent palestinian lives which in our view are equal to innocent lives anywhere that should go without saying. we raise those concerns directly with the government of israel. the president has raised those concerns directly with the prime minister and for us it's less about a real time assessment and much more to steer things in the best possible direction including for whatever combat remains during the course of this conflict. we believe the government of israel can draw, should draw lessons based on how the operations in the north have gone and apply those lessons to wherever it takes this conflict going forward. >> a growing number of house and senate democrats are putting conditions on the aid that continues to go to israel. senator bernie sanders, for example, says any u.s. aid must be contingent on indiscriminate bombing in gaza committed to not reoccupy gaza and re-entering peace ney gosgotiations on a two-state solution. what do you think about future aid? >> i think what i would say about this, jake, is no assistance that the united states provides to any country is unconditional. it comes with a requirement that it be used consistent with international law and armed conflict. the u.s. president has said that israel has every right to defend itself against the horrific attacks that took place on october 7thing and that is every country's right and certainly israel's right and we are not only supporting that rhetorically and we are providing assistance to israel so it can do that in the most effective, pol way, but to the points we were talking about just earlier in this same conversation. those rights come with obligations and that obligation includes conducting this conflict in a way that distinguishes civilians from non-combatants in a way that's proportional. all of the requirements with humanitarian law are applicable here and it's important to bear in mind is that israel is fighting an adversary that not only does not hold itself to the same standardses and it openly boasts about flouting them and flagrant violations of international law. that does not diminish israel's obligations and it is a facet that makes it extremely daunting. jonathan finer, thanks so much for your time today. >> thank you. president biden is asking iowans to give him a decisive victory in january at the caucus. my next guest says he is the best chance to stop that if he's going to win the iowa caucus. republican candidate ron desantis of florida is here exclusively next. plus, a big birthday for president biden. my panel breaks down his new campaign strategy. thatat's coming g up. ♪ ♪ welcome back to "state of the union." i'm jake tapper. we are less than two months out from the iowa caucuses, believe it or not. former president trump asked them to seal up the nomination. with the fierce battle under way between two of his rivals, ron desantis says he is still the one that has the best chance to challenge and defeat donald trump and he said trump's attacks against him prove. joining us now from iowa is republican presidential candidate ron desantis, the governor of florida. thanks so much, governor. i want to start on israel. president biden is out now with a new op-ed and called for a two-state solution and even before the attacks you have cast doubt on president biden's two-state solution. how do you think this should end then for the palestinians? do you think israel should occupy the gaza strip? what's your view of what comes after hamas is defeated? >> well, i think the fatal flaw with the push for a so-called two-state solution is that the palestinian arabs have never embraced israel's right to exist as a jewish state. that, ultimately, when israel's made offers in the past that was the sticking point and so you don't want a two-state that ends up just being a stepping-stone to the destruction of israel. i don't think that that should be contingent on any aid that they pursue that, and i would also note, jake, that for many, many decades, people in d.c. said you're never going to be able to have relations in the middle east between israel and any other country unless you have that and yet we saw under the trump administration the abraham accords where they were able to make peace with many countries in the middle east and probably would have ended up been able on do it with saudi arabia had we not had the october 7th attack. going forward, i think israel has to do what's best to defend themselves. i would note gaza was not under israeli occupation. they pulled out in 2006. they uprooted thousands of their own israeli citizens and forced them to leave the gaza strip and the idea was give the arabs down there an opportunity to make something of it and unfortunately, they turned to hamas and hamas used money to build a big, terrorist infrastructure and ultimately wage attacks for many years and then the devastating october 7th attack. israel cannot allow history to repeat itself? >> right, but what comes next? i think you would agree probably that israel occupying gaza is not going to result in peace in the region. do you think that there should be a palestinian state where gaza is? >> oh, i mean -- i think that that would end up becoming a hotbed of terrorism. i think we need to let israel win this war. we should support them publicly and privately to actually finish the job because if you just do some glancing blows, hamas reconstitute itself we will end up in this same cycle going forward and israel is in a situation where they suffered the biggest attack on jews since the holocaust. you have an organization in hamas that wants to wipe israel totally off the map. this is not just some minor dispute. this is an existential threat to the survival of the world's only jewish state. so i think they have to do whatever they can to protect their people and to make sure that this never happens again. >> something happened the other day, that i wondered what you thought about because you launched your campaign on twit are now known as x and right now major companies such as apple and disney are pulling their ads from x because elon musk openly endorsed this antisemitic conspiracy theory that jews are conspireing to replace white americans with minority immigrants. i wondered if you saw the e comment, and if you condemn it? >> i did not see the comment, , and so i know that elon has had a target on his back ever since he purchased twitter because i think he's taking it in a direction that a lot of people who are used to controlling the narrative don't like. i was a big supporter of him purchasing twitter. they're obviously still working some stuff out, but i did not see those comments. >> let me show you. here is a post that jews are pushing the dialectical whites and they'r're pushing minoritie and you have said the actual truth. he goes on to say that the adl and other jewish groups are pushing replacements of whites, it's a lot of condemnation for singling out a specific religious group during a time e rapidly rising antisemitism. you've been very out front with antisemitism on the left. is antisemitism on the right concerns you as well? >> across the board. actually, in the advent of these attacks, the amount of antisemitism surprised me and i'm someone who lined major legislation in florida to combat antisemitism on college campuses and what you've seen come out since then and you have seen it on both sides, but i will say this, the difference is that on the left that tends to be a attached to some institutional power like some of our universities where on the right it's more fringe voices that are doing it, but it's wrong no matter what, and i don't think that we've seen antisemitism this bad in the world probably since the second world war. >> i don't know how fringe the voices are, to be frank. elon musk is the wealthiest man in the world and we've seen major conservative media figureures, charlie kirk, candace owens and others pushing hateful stuff pushing the nonsensical theories of white genocide and white replacement theory, and i would ask that major republican figures like you use your voices, as well, to stand against it. but let's turn on -- turn to another topic. >> jake, with all due respect, with -- with all due respect on that to have someone that's blogging and doing stuff like that, okay, that's an issue, but to compare that for how some of these most powerful universities in the country have responded to this? we have jewish students fleeing for theieir lives because you he angry mobs and yet they have not done what they need to do to protect the safety and well-being of their students and i have constituents in florida whose kids do not want to go to campus in the advent of this because it's a hostile environment. i do think on the institutional side you've seen this become part of a left-wing movement, a very significant pro-hamas movement and it is backed by institutional power. >> yeah. absolutely. jewish students just like muslim students, gay student, all students should feel safe on campuses and the concerns jewish students have right now is very serious. i'm just saying elon musk is a pretty powerful guy and he's out there endorsing some pretty hideous antisemitic con pir see theories and i still haven't heard you condemn it. >> i have not seen it. i know you tried to read. i ha i have no idea what the context is. he's a guy who believes in america and i've never seen him indulge in that, so it's surprising and i've not seen it and i don't want to pass judgment on the fly. >> let's talk about president biden and the summit, the pacific summit. he referred to xi jinping as a dictator. yesterday you agreeded with th and you criticized personal diplomacy and you're not going to win these guys with personal charms and they're killers. just to be clear, you're calling xi jinping a killer? >> well, look, what's been happening to the uyghurs? what's been happening in so many places in china? of course he's an authoritarian, of course, he's a domestic tart and rule the country with an iron fist and the summit was a win for xi in terms of propaganda. you had american business leaders paying $40,000 to be able to sit with him at dinner and he got a lot of rousing ovation from american ceos. i know that's being played in china as an example of china being basically america's equal on the world stage. i don't think joe biden got anything of note out of this. they talk about cooperating for fentanyl as if china doesn't know the fentanyl is being sent to mexico and the united states. of course they know. this is part of the national strategy to hurt this country. i think it was a bust from biden's perspective and i think it was a win for xi. >> you also attacked governor nikki haley this week over her response to the death of george floyd. take a listen. >> she was tweeting that it needed to be personal and painful for every single person and i'm thinking to myself, why does that need to be personal or painful for you or me? we had nothing to do with it. >> so the officer who knelt on george floyd's back for almost ten agonizing minutes which we saw because the young girl filmed it was ultimately convicted of murder. i think you saw the video. >> yeah, look, that's fine, jake and he should be held accountable. >> let me just ask my question. >> i think what governor haley was going for and i don't speak for her, but i think what she was going for is watching the video is painful for americans to see, and do you not think that empathy is an important quality for a u.s. president? >> of course, it is, but to say the actions of one police officer means that americans in iowa or texas or florida that it should be painful for them when they had nothing to do with it, that does not make any sense. and so that individual was arrested. he went through a criminal process and that is not emblematic of police officers in general much less the american public in general, and i would note, you know, that was said at the time when we started to see the unrest in this country and you had massive riots that have destroyed cities like minneapolis. it will take decades from minneapolis to be able to recover. so the response to that was totally out of bounds. we didn't let that happen in florida? >> i called out the national guard and that rioting was an absolute disgrace and that hurt this country. >> your campaign keeps a running list and keeps tweeting a running list of donald trump's fumbles and accidents and confused moments, saying this is why his handlers won't let them debate, and times that trump has confused obama and biden. times he's confused nikki haley and christie noem and on and on. what does it say about donald trump's fitness? do you think he's fit to be president? >> i have said publicly the presidency is not a job for an 80-year-old. donald trump would be older ini 2025 than biden was in january 2021, but i think it's part of a larger issue that this is not the same guy as the trump in 2015 and '16. that trump would show up on the debate stage. he's barnstorm. yes, he was off-color and he was edgy and it was part of the idea that he was going to shake things up. now he's wedded to the teleprompter and not willing to debate and running on the same things he promised to do in 2016 and didn't deliver, for example, he said he was going to build a wall and have mexico pay for it. jake, he didn't build the wall and mexico sure didn't build for it because you wouldn't have been able to have 8 million people illegally if we had a fully constructed wall. he also said he would drain the swamp and yet the swamp is more powerful than ever. so he didn't do it the first time and i don't know what he thinks that he'll do it this time. he should come to the debate, and defend his record and defend his decisions and tell people why he should be the choice going forward. what i've made the point, going simple. donald trump is a high-risk proposition as a nominee because i think the chance of him getting elect side small, but it's a low reward because he's going to be a lame duck on day one and even if he being get elected he would not be able to attack the type of talent to work in his administration and he'd be saddled with these distractions that would be virtually impossible to get the job done. >> are you and your campaign saying that he's has lost his sharpness and mental a cuity and are you saying he'll lose to joe biden? >> well, i wouldn't be running unless i thought that the democrats would beat trump if he were the nominee. they're going very easy on him right now. they're not saying much. the minute, if he were to be the nominee you're going to see scorched earth. you will see all of the stuff f brought up from the past and the whole election will end up being a referendum on donald trump and biden will be able to hang out in the basement and i think he'll be able to get away with it again. look, when you get to this point, the presidency is not a job for someone that's pushing 80 years old and that's something that's been shown with joe biden. father time is undefeated and donald trump is not exempt from any of that. for someone like me, i'm in the prime of my life, i go in day one, serve two terms and get the country moving again and that's what republicans want to see. >> you also note id in an interview in iowa that instead of focusing on his first day in office on building the wall that donald trump was obsessed with crowd sizes at his inaugural. he was distracted with that. why do you think he gets distracted with things like that? what is it about him that gets him distracted with things like that, do you think? >> you know, i don't know, but if you go back to that when he took office we had just come off of eight years of obama. republican his a lot of pent-up demand to see some change and he was the vehicle for that and he made some big promises and it just seemed like every little controversy little bubble up and he would get distracted by going down the rabbit holes. i just think it's important to focus on true north, why are you there? every single day the narrative, the chatter will try to divert you off course and you just need to have focus and you need to have discipline that you will be able to get the job done and wade through all of the choppy seas. why he cared about the crowd size, i don't know. i can tell you this, if i had been in his shoes i would have declared the border to be a national emergency on day one and i would have begun the mobilization to make sure that we secured it and build the wall.. that does not happen under his administration and now the situation is as worse as it's ever been. >> governor ron desantis, thank you very much for being here today. >> thank you. >> a growing split in the democratic party. i'll ask jamie raskin about the latest flash point. a judge saying trump e engaged insurrecection. ththat's next.t. in order for small businesses to thrive, they need to be smart, efficient, savvy. making the most of every opportunity. that's why comcast business is introducing the small business bonus. for a limited time you can get up to a $1000 prepaid card with qualifying internet. yep, $1000. so switch to business internet from the company with the largest fastest reliable network and that powers more businesses than anyone else. learn how you can get $1000 back for your business today. comcast business. powering possibilities. welcome back to "state of the union." i remain jake tapper. donald trump celebrated last night after a colorado judge rejected an attempt to remove him from the state's primary ballot, but the judge's ruling also offered a searing condemnation of trump's actions saying he, quote, engaged in an insurrection on january 6, 2021. joining me now democratic congressman jamie raskin was the lead manager of trump's second impeachment and congressman. i'll get to that ruling in a moment. i want to talk about israel. but you wanted to weigh in on the interview i just did with governor desantis about elon musk. >> the guy was running for president and elon musk did that on wednesday. this is four days later and he's not had the chance to say what elon musk wrote. that is very hard for me to believe. in any event, you showed it to him and he still refused to condemn it. so if you are serious about about condemning and confronting antisemitism and racism and these bigotries which are the gateway to destruction of liberal democracy, you've got to be explicit and open and full-throated about it and you have to denounce antisemitism and racism across the board. >> what was your reaction to elon musk? i thought it was outrageous and dangerous and you know, we'll be taking action with colleagues this week to write to him and to ask him to renounce those comments and to clean up his act. >> the thing about the white replacement theory and i've got a lot of other topics i want to talk about, white replacement theory is white genocide and all of that nonsense. that stuff gets people killed at the tree of life synagogue, shoot being, the el paso shooting and buffalo -- anyway, moving on. let's start with israel. you called for the immediate release of all hostages and immediate cessation of hostilities against targets and a mutually agreed upon ceasefire. israel denies they're targeting any civilian targets and they're going after hamas and within the civilian populous. when you call for the immediate cessation of hostilities are you saying the civilians are not telling the truth? what do you suggest then? >> we know that there have been more than 11,000 casualties on the palestinian side. >> so you believe the palestinian ministry of health figures? >> i mean, if it were half of that it is still an absolute tragedy. >> absolutely. >> so i'm not interested in the game of playing with numbers. i mean, if you just open your eyes you can see there are terrible casualties taking place. the hostages must be released. that is a humanitarian crisis in itself. there is a humanitarian crisis within gaza. the world is demanding that there be action so that there be humanitarian relief and i'm glad that israel, the administration and people negotiating on the other side appear to be on the precipice of release of dozens of hostages, probably women and children and also a break in the fighting for five or six days is what we've been hearing. so that -- >> do you want to see a ceasefire? >> another point that i made is we need to have the removal of the terrorist death cult hamas. >> right. >> from operational control in gaza. >> who does that? if israel doesn't do that, who does that? >> well, we are in a place where we need every actor and everybody in the world to be concentrated on that. hamas has got to go. >> but they've been there since 2006 and 2007. egypt is there and they set up a blockade. jordan's there. syria's there. lebanon's there and the uae's there and bahrain's there and nobody has done anything to get rid of hamas. >> including prime minister netanyahu who thought that they could lean towards hamas and use that as part of a divide and conquer strategy and the world has got to get beyond that kind of absurd power of politics. it is a terrorist medieval deaths cult with just assassinated more than 1200 israelis. >> so you think there should be a ceasefire, an exchange for ceasefire for israelis to get back the hostages and hamas goes. >> yes. >> of course. >> that is part of it, but the underlying political dynamic is that there must be a recognition of the interest of the people in gaza to democracy, to freedom and their rights. so there's got to be a democratic palestinian state that emerges from this might mare that is safe and secure and we have a safe and secure israel to go with it, otherwise we'll keep reenacting this cycle of bloody violence and revenge forever. so this is an opportunity, and i think that president biden and secretary blinken and people all over the world see it to get beyond this kind of madness. i saw the tape that was made of this flashing, homicidal terrorist attacks that took place in israel and it's like, we have 21st century technology, but 14th century brains and we've got to be a lot smarter about where we are now. >> let me tell you, there's worse stuff than that. that stuff is awful, but there is actual worse stuff than that. the video this week of the pro-palestinian violence outside of the dnc that turned violent outside of the democratic headquarters and there were members in there and not all of them, but they were with the new york branch which celebrated on october 7th saying that it was legitimate resistance. another ral just down the street saying from the river to the sea and long live the intifada. what do you make of this as a jewish-american, a proud progressive, a democrat. there's anti-semitism in the democratic party these days. >> there's anti-semitism these days as we were discussing with elon musk and i mean, we're talking about a problem that goes back thousands of years, obviously. i was very disappointed to see what happened over at the dnc the other day. i mean, i'm glad that there are young people who are taking an interest in peace and social justice and those people i encourage, but for those who are somehow tempted to engage in pushing and shoving like kevin mccarthy in congress and doing it outside. i'm totally opposed to that and they should study the history of non-violent movements like the women's movement, the civil rights movement, the lgbtq movement and the environmental movement and there have been great civilized movements in our time that have transformed things and that does work better. >> yeah. >> -- than violence. a judge elected to leave trump off the 2024 ballot using the 14th amendment. the court concludes trump acted with a specific intents to incite political violence with the purpose of disrupting the certification. trump engaged in an insurrection on january 6, 2021. is that legally significant in. >> of course, it is, and they found exactly what the house of representatives found when we impeached donald trump for inciting insurrection against the constitution and against the union and it's 57 of 100 senators found that voted to convict trump on those same charges and that is the paradigm act of domestic violence of our time which republicans like desantis will never reject or renounce or denounce or anything else that they say about it is phony because that goes right to the heart of our union. the colorado court's decision was amazing because it said there's no doubt that donald trump incited insurrection against the movement within the mea meaning of the 14th amendment 3 and the court said it doubted whether or not the president has covered by that language whether the president is a civil or military officer of the united states. i mean, that, to me, is preposterous. the judge herself said that is preposterous and that's the issue we'll zero in on, does the 14th amendment apply to everyone who holds office in america or does it apply to everyone except the president of the united states, the one person who would be best positioned to try it overthrow the government as we saw in january of 2021? >> congressman raskin, thank you very much for being here. for anyone watching at home i just asked him and his canses is in remission. have a great thanksgiving with your family. >> thanks for having me, jake. >> is there a repupublican thah could run?n? our panenel will brereak it dow next.. ♪ donald trump's a high-risk proposition as a nominee because i think the chance of him getting elect sideed is small, it's a le reward because he'll be a lame duck on day one. each if he got elected he would not be able to attract the type of talent to work in his administration and he'd be saddled with distractions to get the job done. >> ron desantis there, florida governor, taking some shots at the republican front-runner. is it enough? >> let's talk about it with my panel. what did you think about governor desantis on the show this morning? >> some of the tougher comments with the former president, where i do think that i take issue is he would be a lame duck president, no, he wouldn't be constrained by the players that come with the election. he would be a very dangerous president. he would be willing to do things and stretch the executive branch in a way that would test american democrat see in a great way. i disagree with him on that. ron desantis has an iowa or bust drive, that being said, i don't think it's enough to pull through mp my eyes are on new hampshire where nikki haley is moving up and i think we should look at where governor chris sununu ends up going and could he back up nikki haley because that could end up going the distance. >> what did you find about what he said? >> i think it's interesting that he didn't call out elon musk for his anti-semitic comments? >> you don't believe he saw the tweet? >> no. he launched on his platform and he's friends with elon, so there's no place for anti-semitism anywhere and i would hope that someone who wants to be president he would have been more steadfast on it. >> what about you think? >> he was pretty good on most of the questions that trump is the most likely one of us to lose, but problem with that argument is you have all of this national polling coming out showing trump beating joe biden, and maybe by not as much as nikki haley and others, but he's still winning and even nbc this morn has him ahead and the strategic argument whether you're desantis or haley or anyone else, and the steam -- all of the polls consistently show haley over biden over and over and over. >> he calls her a bird brain. >> how much money has been run on ron desantis and how much has press put him through the grinder. haley hasn't, so when she receives that scrutiny there will be normalization of that. van der plats looks like he's headed to desantis. he has kim reynolds and haley has a big endorsement from the right to life former director the other day. this has always been about iowa. can anyone get within spiting distance of trump? they're not there yet, but the they're furiously trying. >> until there is a grappling with that, and -- >> that was my fault. i didn't ask him about it. i had questions about it. >> well, right. exactly. as long as we're discussing these other issues which, of course, are significant. what we've seen time and again at the ballot box is that the republican position, the embrace of a national ban in florida, a six-week ban is not palatable to voters. so until he grapples with that, until they all grapple with that, i think they are going continue to run into a buzz saw at the ballot box. >> how much do you think that that's going to be a factor for whoever is the republican nominee? >> i think that could be one of the top five most important issues, and there are some candidates who have set out a nuanced, thoughtful take on what the vast majority of the conference. 15 week, that models most of europe and it's 69% of americans right, left and center support with epg anies at all times. i think it is much harder to make the case of something like six weeks and that's radioactive in a general election, but what is interesting to me is the donald trump factor. no living person is more responsible for roe coming down than donald trump, but for some reason there seems to be a cognitive disconnect with voters that they don't equate it to him and they don't associate it much with him and yes, he does well with evangelicals and his numbers with independents are quite good at this point based on the -- >> nikki halle has not always been where she is now and that will come back to bite her later and democrats will have to hold her feet to the fire and sure, you can change her position and this has been very clear and this is very clear i want to win the republican nominee. >> this week she would sign a six-week ban. >> she said that this week. >> this is all -- yes, it's going to be a big issue because it's all they have. look at biden's numbers on the economy and look at the concerns about his mental acuity and look at the concerns all voters including democrat voters have about his handling of foreign policy. it's literally all they have. >> speaking of biden's numbers. tomorrow biden turns 81. happy birthday joe biden, if you're watching, happy birthday, joe biden, for turning 81, although you heard ron desantais talk about donald trump's age this morning had is interesting. americans say age is just a number and obama adviser said they need to face reality. quote, i think he has a 50/50 shot here and no better than that and maybe worse, he says, he told maureen dowd. he thinks he can cheat nature and it's risky and they have a problem if they're counting on trump to win it for them. i remember hillary doing that, too. >> well, donald trump's birthday is june 14th and he will turn 78, so i do think at the end of the day once this campaign has started in earnest, this discussion of age is going to sort of move to the side. 2 doesn't mean that voters aren't concerned. of course, they are. we see that in the polling and the president has acknowledged that and the president's team has acknowledged that, but at the end of the day people vote based on what the person is going to do for them, for their lives and so when the conversation is what is joe biden's agenda on protecting freedoms of expanding power on the middle class and raising wages and how does that compare to donald trump's consistent effort to take away your freedom to vote and take away your right to abortion and that conversation would be different than the one we're having right now. >> it doesn't mean that the campaign is ignoring age and the at end of the day, let's go to the ballot box based on what the democrats will do for them. >> democrats aris -- when you look at the numbers where young progressives are for anyone young or left of center, it's not where joe biden is. i'm close to where joe biden is on the issue and that could be something that could leave young voters home or it could rally against him. >> my last job in the biden campaign was to engage with voters, black voters and building the coalition. this time, four years ago joe biden was almost at the exact same position. northwest people in the democratic party did not want him to be the democratic nominee. the job of the campaign and now he is governing and to go out and meet vote wrerrs where they and a lot of young progressives are not happy and they're talking about how they're woing with, to one, get the hostages back and to pause the atrocities, not just that that are happening on october 7th and palestine right now. >> listening to its base, and it might not get all of the way there, but that is what you're supposed to do. >> what's more likely that donald trump could hold his core base together or that jsh with his problems with african-american voters and with his problems with young voters and with his problems with people who think he hasn't kept his promises can hold his base together? i think it's far more likely that trump can hold his base. >> trump can't speak to the middle the way joe biden can. so the numbers under your scenarios don't have trump. >> have a wonderful thanksgiving to all of you. i hope you have a wonderful and loving and delicious thanksgiving to all of you. thank you for spinning your sunday morning with us. same to you on thanksgiving. farereed zakaria " "gps" startr right nonow.