Meet the Press - March 10, 2024 Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Eugene Daniels, Sara Fagen, Marc Morial and Kelly O'Donnell

Interview

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Good morning. Happy Sunday morning to you.

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Well, sadly, if I were to ask you, "Are you surprised, is anybody surprised by what we heard coming out of the mouth of the former president," the answer is no. This is who Donald Trump is. And I have to tell you, as the father of a five-year-old and a seven-year-old, it's terrible when you have to bleep the words from a former president. But Joe Biden is tried, tested, and true. He's seen this nonsense before. He saw it and experienced it the other night with the other side heckling in the middle of the president's speech. And he pressed on because he's not focused on himself. Unlike his challenger, he's not focused on what this election means for him, as Donald Trump runs from the jailhouse. He's focused on what this election means for the American people, the people of Georgia. And he spoke with power the other night about the future.

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I say, "Soldier on." As someone who has had his name on the ballot in Georgia five times in three years, I know a little bit about what it means to run in Georgia. And the road to the White House leads straight through Georgia. He won by 12,00 votes or less than 12,000 votes. Votes, by the way, the ex-president tried to steal. But he's president of the United States, and Georgia's going to show up in a strong way for Joe Biden.

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Listen, it's still relatively early in the campaign season. And I think that the more we hear from the Donald Trump that we just heard from a little while ago, the clearer it's going to be to people that, at the end of the day, this is a binary choice. And the question is, "Do you want the America of January 5th that sent its first Black senator from Georgia, its first Jewish senator from Georgia to the United States Senate? Or do you want the America of January 6th, pushed forward by a president who continues to advance the big lie about the election, and behind that lie is the lie that this new multiracial democracy does not get to determine the future of the country?” He's looking backward. Joe Biden is looking forward. And I think, at the end of the day, the people of Georgia will see that choice, that binary choice very clearly, and they'll do the right thing for Joe Biden, as they did for me.

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Listen, I – I think that the people of Georgia are, at the end of the day, asking, "Who's in the fight for them?" And as I sat the other night and listened to the president's speech, I'll tell you, I said to my colleagues, "I don't know if that was Joe Biden or Joe Lewis," because the man came out fighting, and he never let up, and he's not going to let up between now and November. I think the people of Georgia will recognize that when it came time to forgive the student debt of people who'd just been mired in debt, young people who have had a mortgage just trying to deal with their future, that Joe Biden, with one hand behind his back, with the Republicans suing him, did $138 billion of student debt relief, that's closing the racial wealth gap. The man's got receipts.

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And the people of Georgia will show up for him in November.

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Oh, listen, I think the debate is already underway. And, again, this is a binary choice.

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The president is tried, tested, and true –

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I support debates, but I'm not a part of the president's campaign. I represent the people of Georgia in the United States Senate, and I think we're going to hear a fierce argument in the months ahead, and the contrast couldn't be clearer.

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Listen, we have got to find our way quickly to the path that leads to peace. That's why the other night on the floor of the United States Senate, I pushed for a ceasefire. I think the president – I know the president is working hard to get to a ceasefire. Mr. Netanyahu has got to recognize that we've already seen the deaths of some 30,000 Palestinians, many of them innocent women, men, and children. You know, I think about this not just as a senator, and even not just as a pastor, but as a father. Last night, as I was putting my own children to bed and dealing with my son as he was dealing with an incessant cough, I thought about parents in Gaza. It's a terrible thing, as a parent, when your kid is sick. And there I was, just dealing with a cold, and I thought about the fact that there are parents in Gaza right now who are dealing with the ordinary challenges that children deal with, who have seen amputations of children without anesthesia. There are children who are wounded with no living weapons – with no living relatives. And so, we've got to find our way to peace quickly –

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– all while, at the same time, trying to get humanitarian aid in there as quickly as possible.

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Well, I think that we've got to continue to lean on Mr. Netanyahu. We've got to insist that – that this cannot continue in this way. The way a war is carried out is important.

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And I can tell you that the –

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Well -

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I stated that very clearly the other night on the floor of the United States Senate, that I think that to go into Rafah – the humanitarian experts, the folks who are trying to get aid in, the folks who have no political dog in this fight, have said that if they go into Rafah, you could lose up to 85,000 more Palestinians in six months. I think that that is morally unjustifiable and unconscionable.

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And as we make our way to the holy season of Ramadan and Passover, thereafter, I hope people will dig deep into the moral cisterns dug by ancestors, that they will reach toward the highest ideals in our humanity, center the children, and find our way to that path that leads to peace.

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Listen, we are watching our judicial process play out. And I know that there are folks, unfortunately, in the state of Georgia, politicians, who are trying to put their hand on the scale. I'm not going to pile on. I'm not going to add to that. I – I – I will watch this process play out, and we will see where the chips fall. But at the end of the day, here's what Donald Trump deserves: he deserves to have a fair trial before a jury of his peers, and in this case, it's voters of Georgia. And we need to see that play out.

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Well, listen, I think this case is being played out before a judge, and that judge will have to make a decision not based on optics but based on the law. That's the wonderful thing about America: We believe that no one is above the law, including Donald Trump.

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