ending. >> before she left the d.a.'s office, pam bozanich took something with her. a picture of kitty. not this one, no. she took one from the crime scene. >> she had blue eyes and one little, blue eye is open. and the other one's gone. you probably think i'm a little crazy to keep that picture. but it's a reminder of what those horrible children did to her. can you imagine giving birth, and then giving everything you have to this sunday. abortion backlash. >> i can't believe it. i cannot believe it. >> republican concerns grow as democrats show election strength after the supreme court's decision on abortion. >> there are five now special elections since the roe v. wade decision and they've all come our way. >> they have awakened the powerful force of america. the women of this nation. how abortion is hurting republican chances in a big red wave in november. 184 classified documents found at mar-a-lago in january

and the justice department believes the trump team attempted to obstruct justice. >> i'm not commenting on it because i don't know the details. >> i'll talk to adam kinzinger of the january 6th committee. the war in ukraine. >> we are fighting for the future of our children, the future of our country. >> a stalemate at the front. a nuclear reactor in jeopardy. a mystery murder of a putin ally. six months into the war i'll talk to former nato allied supreme commander and a former u.s. ambassador to russia. return to the moon. >> this time we are going back. we are going to live there, we're going to learn there. >> my conversation with bill nelson about u.s. explosion. about u.s. space exploration. join me for analysis. peter alexander will join me.

kimberly atkins stohr of "the boston globe." and rich lawrie and amna nawaz. >> welcome to sun. it's "meet the press." good sunday morning. when the supreme court released its dobbs abortion decision, republicans cheered the culmination of a nearly 50-year effort to overturn roe v. wade and return the issue to the states. since then, states under republican control have moved to severely limit access to abortion. four more just in the past few days. it has sparked a surge of democratic anger and enthusiasm at the polls and is suggesting that the predicted red wave in this year's midterm elections is being blunted by a strong blue undertow. since the dobbs decision, democrats have topped joe

biden's 2020 election in four special house elections, it's a sharp turn-around from the special elections that were held prior to the dobbs decision where republicans were overperforming. and a shocking defeat in kansas. of the anti-abortion ballot measure at the start of this month. in short, republicans have an abortion problem and you can see now why how some are backing off more extreme positions. >> i'm in favor of laws that protect human life! i did not believe the dignity and worth of human life is tied to the circumstances of their conception but i recognize that that is not a majority position and i have always said i support bills that have exceptions. >> i support a ban on late term and special birth abortion and many most americans agree with that. >> >> democrats are working hard to pivot and make abortion rights the issue of the midterm like pat ryan did. >> how can we be a free country when government tries to control women's bodies?

>> that's not the country i fought to defend. >> he didn't just ban abortion. he criminalized it. and forced pregnancies for rape and incest. >> we will do something different and start this morning with the politics of abortion and our expert panel which includes the following. including peter alexander. rich lowrie. the editor of jashl national review. rich, i keep coming back to a moment you and i were on the air. i think it was after the leaked pre-dobbs decision. you were like, look. the midterms are going on. a trajectory in favor of the republicans but abortion could change everything. are we at the change everything moment? >> i don't know if it changes everything but clearly an important change and i think republicans have to realize they can't run and hide from this issue. you try to do that, it's not going to work and you'll get defined in way you wouldn't like.

you can't adopt a maximalist position and like rubio did say i want to protect every unborn child eventually, i have a lot of work to do, public persuasion on that, in the meantime, here is a limit i support that i support that is defensible and has public support and point at the other side for being extremist for supporting abortion in every circumstance with federal funding. >> that is what blake masters in arizona attempted to do. when he debuted this ad he tried to scrub his website. we can show before his website on the abortion issue was i'm 100% pro life and put it up and he was a supporter of the federal personhood law. he got rid of that. his spokesperson said he believes everything that was on there before, but it feels like you know, they hit it on it slightly differently than marco rubio. >> what he is saying he supports in the ad was what was allowed

under roe was overturned. i think they realize where their rhetoric needs consequences whether a 10-year-old a victim of a crime forced into a pregnancy or a 19-year-old woman in south carolina whose fertility may be threatened due to the fact she can't get the medical care she needs after a miscarriage. how are republicans realize they are not physicians and didn't realize the consequences of what they were supporting. >> i want to play that lawmaker he talked about this person you're talking about, her water broke at week 15 and basically it was against south carolina law for them to do anything about it. here is his description. >> she is going to pass this fetus in the toilet. she is going to have to deal with that on her own. there is a greater than 50% chance she will lose her uterus and 10% chance that she will

develop sepsis and herself die. that weighs on me. i voted on that bill. these are affecting people. >> we talked to every metaphor. it goes to something rich said, republicans weren't prepared for every aspect of what they needed to talk about when it came to this issue. >> not nearly. i think abundantly clear. i've talked to so many folks on the ground reporting on the potential reversal of roe so many months leading up to the decision. you saw even the groups on the ground who were advocating under this very broad pro life umbrella were not prepared to answer very detailed questions about what does that mean? when do you make exceptions? how do you view ivf. if a child is raped in your state how do you view that? you saw divisions in the republican party showing up in exactly those cases. the child who was raped and impregnated in ohio and people on the ground disagreed how to handle that. >> peter, glen youngkin,

governor of virginia, was in michigan, our reporters caught up with him, and he said the only people i'm talking to are worried about the cost of living and worried about kids in school. he was on the pay no attention to the issue of abortion here. i don't know if that will hold. >> i was speaking to republican strategists yesterday and they say they're watching, and the big marquis at every intersection is the price of goes now and it has gone down for 70 plus consecutive days. i was speaking to abigail spanberger. she launched her campaign yesterday the first political ad on is on the issues of abortion rights. beto o'rourke the first issue on abortion rights. from pat ryan, from pennsylvania, co opting a line from the republicans, the tea batter in the past like the democrats, or the libertarians here in some way. the uncertainty she says is really benefiting those independents that will you now

begin leading toward democrats. the way economic uncertainty helps, this uncertainty and what is at stake here helps democrats. >> i was going to say on these terrible cases with miscarriages. this is another aspect republicans need to know the case. they need to know what the laws say. every one of these laws has a broad health exception. not just life of the mother but also physical impairment including loses a uterus is a physical impairment and this woman in south carolina did get her miscarriage case. they need to make it clear to the attorneys and hospitals at medical facilities what the law says because a lot of bad advice being given. >> also important to point out miscarriages are much more common than we talked about in this country, and these are things that we have long known, right? miscarriages can result in sepsis and for black women three times more likely to die because of pregnancy related issues --

>> catholic hospitals who refuse on high moral principles to perform abortions will care for miscarriage. this is a misunderstanding. >> some of those miscarriage cases have been to litigated on a case-by-case basis. >> it's women like nancy davis, a black woman in louisiana we heard from this week who learned that her baby, the fetus in her belly has -- is not having a skull and died days after its born. i think one of the most powerful sound bites we heard the course of the last several weeks. she said i have to carry my baby to bury my baby and that messaging is being heard across the country as real examples are demonstrated even when there may be exceptions in those states. >> there aren't exceptions in all of these cases. the problem. the lawmakers don't know what is in these laws which is why you see the d.o.j. stepping in to try to enforce federal law that requires health-saving care for federally-funded hospitals. and sort of battling in places

like idaho -- is >> every single one of these laws, there is a health exception in every single of these laws, literally. >> i think merrick garland would sigh different -- say differently in ohio. >> i've said this before. he is like saying, 15 weeks like kevin bacon in "animal house," remain calm. 15 weeks didn't have a majority against. it's not to say the most popular position but not the majority against. if they actually let roberts get the compromise, it would be democrats having a political problem. that's the irony here. >> the court's rule -- >> no, it's not. >> it doesn't matter whether it creates a blue wave or a red wave and it doesn't mean that republicans are in a strange position because they refuse to talk about it. that's not the course.

>> well, they have certainly launched what is a massive political change that we are watching here. you guys were great. we are going to pause. i want to thank the panel. we turn to what we learned of friday's release of the mar-a-lago affidavit. revealed that there were 184 classified documents in 15 boxes that were recovered in january. those documented including 67 that were marked confidential, 92 marked secret, and 25 marked top secret. the heavily redacted affidavit revealed that the justice department feared there was, quote probably cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found in the search. joining me now is a member of the january 6th committee, republican congressman adam kinzinger of illinois. welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you. good to be with you. >> let me start with the affidavit with you. it seems as if justice wanted to charge the former president with a crime, doesn't it appear they already have enough evidence just simply on the mishandling of these classified documents?

yeah, i mean, look. i'm no expert in, you know, what it takes to indict somebody, you know? i'm a pilot. that's about it. but knowing what i know, i look at this and i go, my goodness. i mean, chuck, if any of us in the house of representatives who by our election we have, you know, in essence the highest level of security clearance, if any of us walked out intentionally with even one document from the skif, which is where we can go see classified documents, and our organization came to us, the house came to us, and said you have to give this document back, and we refused to do it for years, we would be in real trouble. not just one document in this case. we know 180 plus then what was gotten after this search. i mean, the hypocrisy are out there, with lock her up for

emails in a deleting server are very clearly defending a man who did not take the national security of the united states to heart and it will be up to the d.o.j. whether that reaches the level of indictment. this is disgusting in my mind and, look. no president should act this way, obviously. >> look. you're pursuing a different investigation whether these documents that were withheld are documents that are helpful to your investigation. how are you able to find that out? is there a broad subpoena that your committee issues to get a look at what he was hoarding mar-a-lago? >> yeah. it's not -- it's not an answer we have at this moment. i think we have to figure out where does this fall? we are not going to get access to documents that are specifically on national security and nothing as january 6th as an example, we will never be able to know that, but i think it's important for us to look at the broad areas and if it seems like there may be something that is in a broad area, potentially.

again, this is stuff, from what we understand, may even be beyond what congress, short of being on a specific committee, would have access to. >> when it comes to what justice may be looking at, i mean, i go back to if this were simply about him mishandling classified information and the fact they are not pursuing that charge, is it fair to assume they are looking at something that would be even more serious than this? >> that's my perception. i mean, look. mishandling classified information is one thing. particularly if it was unintentional. if you accidentally did take something home, there may be consequences, but i think you'd look into the intentionality of that. when you have what we appear to know, just through some of what we have seen, you know, they approached the former president with things that he had. he claimed he either didn't have them or claimed he gave them up. any of those kind of stuff. we know he didn't.

there is intentionality there. this seems big. when you look at some of the president's biggest kind of cheerleaders, marjorie taylor greene and jim jordan have kind of gone silent. they are basically sitting here saying we didn't start this fire and walking away, but, you know, they, obviously, ignited it. they are the ones who have sat there and told this president everything he did was right, everything he could do would be okay and they defended him at the beginning of this. >> when it comes to what you guys are getting ready to lay out to the public in september, can you give us a sense of what are the missing pieces that you didn't have that you feel like the public is going to understand better come

september? >> well, i think the -- i think there is going to be the a lot of depth we are able to build whether through the hearings or the final report. if you think about, for instance, the last hearing, the one we did. what was the president doing during the 187 minutes? we did an hour and a half hearing and could have done one four or five and some more depth to some of that and some of the leaks. i think one of the more intriguing thing is going to be some of the financing, right? some of the fund-raising. the fact that, you know, a vast majority of this money was raised and under, quote, unquote, stop the steal with no intention of doing anything to so-called stop a steal. it was all about just raising money. and people were abused that way. this will be a lot more of that. i think we have a lot more to find out still about the secret service incident. there is a whole lot of -- we are still sitting around like why don't we have some of these text messages? why was some of this stuff hidden? i think we will get answers to that by the time we can present that to the american people. >> i want to get you to respond to something rich lowry wrote in

an op-ed in "the new york times." he was talking about the january 6th committee and sort of the difficulty you may be having in proving a crime. he writes this. quote. trump engaged in a political offense against our constitutional system that criminal statutes are ill-suited to address, no matter how infamous the conduct. do you agree with that? >> no, not at all. look. i had a lot of respect for rich lowry. i still read him on occasion. it's been amazing to watch his pivot from kind of intellectual conservative to like this anti/anti-trumper. he's against people who are against trump. he's not necessarily for him. he constantly says there may not be precedence. of course not. we have never an american president attempt a coup against the united states of america. so there's no precedence. if we need a new law, get a new law. but i'm quite sure some of the laws can cover this.

the doj seems convinced of it. our job is not to prosecute trump. our job is to present information to the american people to talk about recommendations. here is what i recommend. i'm going to say this before the report. i recommend we never again elect somebody who does not respect the constitution of the united states, who does not respect the voters, and who abuses people by lying to them. that is donald trump. people can be anti-those who are against donald trump. we are not against donald trump except we love the united states of america and he is tearing it down daily. >> i want to ask you a quick political question. this week, we saw the primaries in florida and new york. that special election in new york. i want to read you something matthew continetti wrote. he noted the journal's ed page says the gop has an abortion problem. and the problem? republicans have no idea what to say about abortion. do you agree essentially with that sentiment? and that this may have changed the political complexion of the

midterms? >> i think it's definitely changed the complexion of the midterm some. i don't know how big. look. i've always taken the position of rape, incest, life of the mother, and certain weeks up to 15 weeks and whatever. that was a fairly common thing in the republican party. even donald trump said rape, incest, life of the mother exceptions. and now you're seeing these republicans go there is absolutely no exception. because somehow in the republican party, the crueller you are, the more likely you are to win a primary. so blake masters, for instance, can erase his website all he wants and now pretend like he is some soft on this but he didn't because he used it to win a primary. so, yeah, i think republicans are in real trouble because we have no leadership. this is the problem, chuck. kevin mccarthy isn't leading. he is asking what is marjorie taylor greene want me to do? mitch mcconnell is trying to save the senate.

he is proct sh -- probably not going to do that. we have no leaders and no wonder our base believes everything donald trump says. >> i'm curious. liz cheney said in some cases she may have to lep a democrat win against an anti-democracy republican. do you feel that is what you will be doing the next couple of years or so? >> yes. the biggest issue, not everybody agrees with me and certainly in my party and even democrats like so say but you're still a conservative. yeah, i'm a conservative. but the bottom line is the biggest threat to our country is democracy. if you have republicans that are running against even left wing democrats that believe in democracy and believe in voting, that person should be elected over somebody who would overthrow the will of the people and, ultimately, destroy this country. this country cannot survive outside of democracy. it will turn into a power struggle between groups of different races, ethnicities and different religion. the thing that holds us to together is the belief that we

can self-govern. take that away, this country is a mess. so republicans that are for that have no place in office. i don't care what their policy position on taxes are. >> adam kinzinger, republican from central illinois, thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective with us, sir. >> you bet. when we come back, how secure is that threatened nuclear plant in ukraine? who is responsible for the car bombing death of a putin ally in russia? former nato supreme allied commander and former u.s. ambassador to russia join me next. . ambassador to russia join me next

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a team from the international atomic energy agency is set to visit that endangered nuclear power plant in ukraine this week, fighting a round of fears sparking flames of a nuclear catastrophe and people in the region are given iodine pills to prevent radiation-induced cancer in case of a nuclear disaster.

what was supposed to be a fast military victory has turned took a bloody stalemate on the front lines after six months of war. joining knee now former allied commander, james, and former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfaul, gentlemen, who are experts in this area. i appreciate having you both. jim, let me start with you and zaporizhzhia and the nuclear plant. we talked about this before. at what point is there no longer hope that russia and ukraine work this out, but the united states or nato needs to step in and protect this plant? >> we are getting closer by the day, chuck. unfortunately, what really concerns me here is the fact that we don't have to imagine how bad this can be. it happened in 1986 in chernobyl and a decade ago in fukushima, japan.

we are looking at billions and billions of dollars, potentially thousands of lives, if this core is breached, due to in this case an act of war. so the good news here, chuck, is that the iaea you mentioned a moment ago appears close to getting a mission, potentially led by the head of the iaea this scientist into the plant. so far, the russians are dug in here and they have got three things they want. they want to use this nuclear plant as a sanctuary to conduct attacks. they want to cut off 20% of ukraine's electricity and, above all, they want to scare the europeans. they want a cloud to hang over european thinking on this, pun intended. >> right. mike, i want to talk about putin's decision this week to expand the size of his military

but not launch a draft. he continues to walk this line it seems for fear of upsetting his own population but what does that say that he felt the need to find more troops? >> i think first and foremost it says he has not won the war. the strategic objectives that he outlined six months ago he has failed on all of them. six months ago he said he would unite ukrainians and russians because ukrainians are russians with accents. he failed at de-nazi fication. he failed to take the capital of kyiv and now he is just fighting in ukraine and needing new troops to fight in that stalemated situation. on the strategic level, i think he has failed in this war. i don't see him recovering, but he still wants to focus on taking donbas, his new objective and he needs new soldiers to do

that. >> mike, i want to stay with you a minute here and putin's political situation. the car bombing of a political ally. there is all sorts of speculation from false flag to authorized or unauthorized ukrainian operation. but isn't the simplest explanation maybe it's russians unhappy and if that is the case, how lethal is that to the future of vladimir putin? >> first, back to your earlier question. that is why he can't do a draft across the board because that would make russians unhappy. second, we don't know who killed darya dugina. i want to be clear. there is lots of speculation about it. immediately after she was attacked, a russian group, the national republic army, i never heard of them, and i know all

obscure groups in russia, came out with a manifesto to overthrow putin. then a parliamentary office, an mp, the only russian to vote against annexation of crimea in 2014 sitting in kyiv, published their manifesto. i can't say or conclude it's true or not but the idea that it exists is something a new development in this war. >> yeah. domestic problems. this is being brought to moscow, that has got to be troubling to putin. jim, let me go from the ukrainian side of things. winter is coming. i'm not just doing that to promote tonight's next episode of "house of dragon." what does the ukrainian military need to accomplish before winter sets in? >> i think a dragon and documentary flame overthrow the russians i don't think is going to help.

i don't think that will happen. take the weapons not dragons but long-range cruise missiles can reach out and touch the black sea fleet and continue the behind enemy lines operations that are starting to look like slots out of "mick impossible", the ukrainian offensive i think is going to kick off in earnest after labor day, chuck. they are aware that the world wakes up after labor day. they want to show they have got the ability to go on the offense and look for that next. >> are we -- this is a final question of both of you. mike, it seems as if the russians are preparing for a year's long conflict. and, jim, it seems as if ukraine knows they can't do year's long conflict. so, mike, how do you view this? how do you see this ending? then, jim, finally to you. mike, you first. >> that's right, chuck. the ukrainians don't want to be a year's long conflict. it costs a lot. $5 billion a year they are

getting from the west. they will eventually run out of resources, military, these hi-mars that the admiral is just talking about, and that's why they want to go on the offensive in the south. they want to take city of kherson. with respect to the russians they think time on their side and they think the longer the war goes, it will play to their advantage. and putin, right now, is focusing on trying to take donbas. what is striking to me, he has been focused on trying to take donbas for six months and still hasn't achieved that objective. that says to me that maybe putin is wrong about time being on his side. >> jim? >> i'll pick up ambassador mcfaul's points. i think the ambassador is right on. above my head is the game of risk. both sides are playing it. putin, i think, has got a burn

rate in people and equipment that is, frankly, higher than the ukrainians. ukrainians will count on patience from the west and i'll take that side a game of risk, the one the ukrainians hold. >> quite the signage you have behind your head there. old-school looking version for that game that some of us was a staple. between that and stratego. jim and mike, thank you both. i appreciate both of you being on here and sharing your expertise. president biden's decision to give up $20,000 in student debt. if it's such good politics, why are so many democrats unhappy about it? we will be right back. it's time for the biggest sale of the year, on the sleep number 360® smart bed. it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. our smart sleepers get 28 minutes more restful sleep per night. don't miss our labor day weekend special. save 50% on sleep number 360® limited edition smart bed. ends labor day.

welcome back. part two of the panel, if you will. we start, peter, with the decision of president biden to cancel the student debt. i say decision. what is interesting it was months to get him to this. >> yeah. >> here we are and it is democrats that are divided amongst themselves to be a good idea.

>> some progressives wanted to be $50,000. tim ryan up for the senate seat in ohio saying this is the wrong decision. >> let me put up the names. a who's who on the ballot right now. you mentioned ryan, it sends the wrong mention. michael bennet, doesn't address the underlying problem. catherine cortez mast i don't remember, doesn't address the root problems. here is what they say. anybody in a swing district or a swing state didn't seem to love this. >> exactly right. this will cost 250 billion to 550 billion depending who you talk to right now. goldman sachs it won't be inflationary but a challenging topic for the democrats to defend. in front of a lot of people, working class americans. new ads in the country. >> let's play the ad. >> good. >> i'm breaking my back out here for one reason.

>> i want to pay off some other guy's debt! >> biden is planning to play other people's college loans using my tax dollars is a great idea! >> biden is right. you should take my tax dollars to pay off your debts. my family will figure out how to get by with less! >> the white house pushed back on this as, oh, yeah, pp loans, right? >> it's clear this issue has brought out the snark on both sides and unusual trolling for the white house to do that and i asked senator john thune about this. he said it doesn't seem fair at all. apples and oranges. it does not bring down the soaring costs of college but make a difference in millions of americans' lives, and if the college debt is around $30,000, and it is making a huge dent and

proportionately impact low income families and black and brown americans in america. but does it bring them out to vote? >> my political question i think this plays out as following. if you benefit from this, you'll never forget. if you're upset about it, you'll probably move on to something else in a week. >> i think that is absolutely right. i think both on the political and the policy side it's important. first of all, this is something joe biden promised to be on the campaign trail. he said a year plus in is not immediately but he is doing it. this doesn't get to the bottom of the issue. soaring costs of education. i think people get the idea that people should not be saddled with debt the rest of their lives based on trying to better themselves and you have to get to the affordability and the racial wealth gap this exacerbates and move beyond that. i don't think people would say why is the fire department putting that guy's house fire out when my house isn't on fire?

that is a terrible way to -- >> the courts may say, sorry, you can't do this and throw it back at the congress. >> i was going there. i think the first order of business on this for me is for the president of the united states unilaterally spend that much money on his own with no clear congressional authority whatsoever is a grotesque abuse of power. i don't care the politics or the policy are. the question can someone get standing against it demonstrating direct harm? if somebody gets standing this thing will be slammed in the supreme court. yes biden wanted to it and wanted congress to do it until everybody thought was necessary until the day before yesterday. >> i think biden and speaker pelosi hinted at that. >> i want to shift, speaking of the white house getting aggressive on this, president biden has used the f word before

but he used another "f" word. >> let's clarify. >> the "f" word is fascism. >> that is aggressive. >> it is. especially something we heard within democrat ranks before. i think he is being responsive to some degree because we have seen concerns over threats to democracy go up in terms of voter concern and what people are paying attention to and after the public hearings of the january 6th committee. i think the more we get information about some of these classified documents from mar-a-lago, this continues to kind of rise on people's radars and this is the president reacting to that and meeting his voters where they are. >> what is interesting about in this, as you described, semi-fascism to describe it this week. in march he was in poland saying of vladimir putin he couldn't stay in power and that became controversial. there was back pedaling on that. the white house, you know, back-pedaled that back and

walked it back. no back pedaling on this. we talked about the way they were handling the debate over student loans. >> do you think someone said you should say fascism? >> this was not a teleprompter speech, they said he said it out loud and not done on camera. it fires up democrats and juices up the base. they want him to be more aggressive on that but becomes problematic because this is a guy who said he wanted to be a unifier. >> here is my issue as a political geek. anybody know what these words mean? any way it's tossed out there. is the anti-democracy message helping democrats? >> i think the anti-trump message helps. to the extent they can make trump front and center it helps two entities in the united states of america. the democratic party and donald trump. this is true of the fbi search in mar-a-lago. maybe it will wear off over time. but it is bonded republican

voters to donald trump when they had slowly falling away from him. it's in part because -- i'm very kprefbl pro-law enforcement. a radical doubt about any sort of investigation of this sort. i will not believe anything about these documents myself until i basically get a top secret clearance, get to go into a skiff and look at them myself. with russia, so many leaks spun up with -- >> part of your point about whether it's anti-fascism or anti-trump. i don't think you can separate the two. i think for a lot of republicans particularly after the january 6th committee, they have been feeling that. there has been an idea this is not helping anyone and there is a push to move away from that. >> i have to end it here because i have to go to the moon. when we come back, first, we will talk about the midterms are a referendum on the party in power. what if it's the party out of power that gets punished for the supreme court? that is next.

welcome back. dhait data download time. midterms usually a referendum on the power on the party in washington and tends to mean the white and congress. this summer has brought a lot of attention to the judiciary the third branch in government. the judiciary. a latest nbc news poll shows a lot of faith in the supreme

court following its decision to overturn roe v. wade. at the new start of this court the public was giving them the benefit of the doubt. now you can see the negative number in particular has more than doubled and supreme court is like every other institution here in washington, under water and it's really across the board, as you can see. look, across the democratic groups, the court had net positive ratings before the dobbs decision. now if you look at this, men under water by a point. women by double digits. younger folks by double digits. really only older gen-x and younger boomers are positive on this court, and even their numbers have dropped by quite a bit. if you look at it by party. 60-point swing among democrats to the negative and even republicans dropped a little bit. there is really only one part of the republican coalition that is happy about this court. it won't surprise you. evangelical christians.

in many ways this decision was one that this voting group cared about more than any other part of the republican party. plus 35 points. the problem for republicans it's not a big enough group to overcome all of the negative with swing voters. when we come back, look who is going back to the moon. nelson about our goals to fly to the moon and beyond. y to the moon and beyond.

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welcome back. america is getting back in the moon business. nasa's artemis 1 is expected to lift off tomorrow morning in florida from the kennedy space center. unmanned flight to orbit the moon for landing on the moon and orbit over a month. this past week, i spoke with former senator and current nasa administrator bill nelson who is a member of the house in the yates flew on the space shuttle "columbia."

i asked why is it taking on long to get back on the money. >> we need to focus we need than we used to stay on the moon a couple of days and leave. this time, we're going back. we're going to live there, we're going to learn there, we're going to develop new technologies, all of this so we can go to mars with humans. >> reporter: when you say we are going to live on the moon, are we living there as scientists or is the goal we are going to end up living there? >> i don't think in the short run we are going to live there. i think all of this is to develop where we may be living on other worlds. they may be floating worlds, they may be the surface of mars. but this is just part of our push outward, our quest to explore, to find out what is out there in this universe. >> reporter: this artemis 1, it's been a big project in the making.

it's taken years. the usual delays that you have. if this doesn't work, what does that mean for nasa? >> well, it's going to work. this first flight is a test. we test it. we stress it. we make this rocket and the spacecraft do things that we would never do with a human crew. the main purpose of the flight is to test the heat shield because you can't test that in a lab. >> reporter: right. >> so if the heat shield survives and does what it's expected to do, it's a successful test. so then we are ready in two years. >> reporter: you made it clear, you're stress testing meaning you may push this to the limit where it looks like an accident, but if it is, that is not necessarily a failure. >> you can expect in a test flight that everything is not going to go as you expect it to. that is part of a test flight.

that is part, for example, developing aircraft. that is why you have a test pilot. but we are pretty confident about this. >> reporter: nasa, for the last 30 years, has had a pretty successful partnership with russia. obviously, it seems to look like it's going to split up. you have been mr. optimism. it seems as if you're ignoring the rhetoric and assuming as soon as the war is over, things will go back to normal. why you are so optimistic? >> let me say at the outset what putin has done in ukraine is inexcusable and it's a slaughter and it's awful. but we were squared off against each other with the soviet union in the cold war. yet, we had american astronauts and soviet cosmonauts rendezvous

and dock and live together in the midst of the cold war in 1975. that cooperative civilian space program relationship has continued all the way to this day. and despite the horrors that are going on in ukraine the professionalism, the relationship between the astronauts and the cosmonauts on board the international space station, as well as our two mission controls, one in houston, one in moscow, it doesn't miss a beat. >> china has an aggressive space program and yet seem want nothing to do with anybody. why is that? >> because they are very secretive. they don't want any kind of cooperation. they are nontransparent. they send their rockets to blast their -- they put all of this space junk that -- >> are they rushing things? like when you watch them from

afar, does it like they are so insistent to try to catch up to us that they are rushing it and cutting corners? >> they are not cutting corners and they are very good. they have gotten a lot of the technology from everybody else. and as a result, they're very good. but we have offered, come on, and start cooperating with us. they just don't want to do that. and you see that as evidence in our government relations with the chinese. you see that, for example, they go out and they take the spratly islands. and say this is our territory. >> i was thinking about it. is the moon going to turn into the south china sea, where when china gets up there, we're up there, is it going to be a land grab? >> well, we have to be careful about that. and that is what i've said all along, that we are in a space race and we want to get to the

south pole of the moon where the resources are, where we think water is. if there's water, there's rocket fuel, and we don't want china suddenly getting there and saying, well, this is our exclusive territory. that is what they did with the spratly islands. >> one last question on the space force. there has always been a military component. first, the army. then the air force. now space force. how has things changed? does space force do launches that we are probably not aware of all the time? >> for the defense of the country, both defensive and offensive, space has become the next battleground. it's the high ground. and what you've seen is not only satellites that give us early warning of any attack on earth, including a nuclear attack, but you've seen the eyes and ears

for us to have some certainty of what our adversaries are doing. those assets now, because of the development of technology, are being challenged, and, therefore, there are other assets that are developed in order to prevent those challenges. so space is the high ground that you want to retain and that is why you're seeing, as you suggest, the space force becoming a major part of our national defense system. >> now we said that tomorrow's flight is unmanned. that is still technically true. on the voyage will be a snoopy stuffy, if you will, which will indicate zero gravity when astronaut snoopy starts to float and there will be mannequins as well. think of them as crash test dummies or what nasa calls moonekins. good luck, nasa.

if it's not tomorrow, a couple of weather windows next friday and next monday. that's all we have for today. thank you for watching. we will be back next week, because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." it' s "meet th ." i mean the hypocrisy of folks in my party that spent years chanting lock her up, about hillary clinton, because of some deleted emails, or quote-unquote wiping a server, are now out there defending a man who very clearly did not take the national security of the united states to heart and it will be up to d.o.j. whether or not that reaches the level of indictment. but this is disgusting in my mind. >> illinois congressman adam kinzinger calling out republicans who are defending the former president's hands ling of highly