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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Few more minutes with North Jersey Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill just back from the Middle East and the Munich Security Conference. Congresswoman, listener question via text message, "I understand the difficulty in doing so, but when will officials like Representative Sherrill call for Netanyahu to step down? He's never acted in good faith and is likely lying about supporting a two-state solution."

Mikie Sherrill: I've been really critical of Netanyahu. I might hope for a different leader in Israel, but I don't vote in Israel. This is not my decision. He is the leader that is in power right now, who we have to work with. People can wish there was different leadership, but we have to deal with who the people in Israel have chosen to lead or who has formed the coalition, even if he's popular there.

Brian Lehrer: Prominent Americans can speak more loudly or more softly about that. Right?

Mikie Sherrill: I've said that he's not the leader that Israel needs right now. Again, he is the leader Israel has right now. You can hold two thoughts that, "Gosh, I wish there was someone a little more thoughtful in this space," but continue to work with the leadership to get him in the space you want him. Again, I'm in a never-say-die moment here of continuing to fight for, I think, a different outcome for Israelis and Palestinians in the future, and I think continuing to push Netanyahu into a better space. While he is not where I want him to be right now, he certainly is even sounding different on discussing a two-state solution than he was a couple of weeks ago. I think that Israelis themselves are maybe not in a space to be ready to move forward. It seemed to me when I was there, Netanyahu might not be popular there.

I don't think Benny Gantz, for example, is very far off. What he thinks about the prosecution of this war, very far off from Netanyahu and what he might think the future is. I think Israelis are fairly aligned. They are very concerned about the hostages, the hostage families are communicating very strongly with the Israeli population.

I think people are still processing the horrors of October 7th, and very much, somebody said to me every day is October 7th to me. If you are in that mindset, it's very hard to say, "Okay, we've been attacked by Hamas." Horrible atrocities have been committed, the likes of which I think we rarely hear about, they're so hard to even believe. You want me now to worry about humanitarian aid? All I care about is making sure they can never attack Israel again and getting the hostages free. I think that's also something that maybe we don't quite take into account here, but the reason to keep pushing--

Brian Lehrer: Did you find, because I've heard a lot of reports of this in the news, that the hostage families are pressuring Netanyahu for some kind of ceasefire more quickly because they think that's the key to getting the hostages released and they don't support the war the way it's being fought.

Mikie Sherrill: Yes. It was very interesting, too. Speaking to some of the Jordanians who've worked closely with Israelis for many, many years. Some of them said on a couple of occasions, "I don't even recognize the people I've worked with for years." For example, the militaries have tons of mill-to-mill contact, have eaten with each other, have worked together and they say, "I don't even recognize people I've known for decades now because of the trauma of October 7th." To your point, yes, I was hearing that.

In fact, I was hearing that there was some disagreement at times between the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, their military, and the hostage families because the only time we've seen a substantial release of the hostages was during the last negotiated ceasefire. That is what the hostage families believe and I believe will lead to the best chances of release of the hostages.

Brian Lehrer: I want to get one more listener comment in for you, Gary in Little Ferry, I think, is on the other side from the other commenter who we took. Gary, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Gary: Thank you for taking my call. The problem with a two-state solution is security for Israel. If Palestine has an army, they will certainly attack Israel very, very quickly. Remember this, Israel could win a thousand wars, but if it loses one war, it's finished. I have a degree about the leadership in Israel. I think it's not very good. I think they should take responsibility for October the 7th and Ben Netanyahu should resign. He's no Ben-Gurion, I'll tell you that.

Brian Lehrer: Gary, thank you very much. Well, I don't know how many Israelis he speaks for, but there is pushback on even a two-state solution for Israeli security purposes as he describes it. Then in that scenario, they would be occupying Palestinians, especially in the West Bank because they want to get out of Gaza. They did get out of Gaza, but they continued the blockade, but they would be occupying Palestinians forever.

Mikie Sherrill: I think that the idea of the two-state solution would be an understanding that there would not be a standing military. Certainly, we had restrictions in the aftermath of World War II on what type of security forces Japan and Germany could have. Certainly, it would be very restricted in Palestine with a two-state solution. However, I think the idea that Israel would have full responsibility for the security is probably one of the larger disagreements between Israel and the vision that the United States has.

I don't think it is the Palestinians that would have security forces at the outset. I think Israel would have to have some hand in that to understand how they're being kept secure. I do think this is where the Arab nations really come into play along with the United States, and how are we going to ensure the security of Israel in a two-state solution? This is where these negotiations are going. This is probably one of the areas that these negotiations are going to be really difficult. That said, I still think there is a path forward for a two-state solution, but I think Gary's right. In the outset, it won't be with a military.

Brian Lehrer: That's always been one of the sticking points from the Israeli side, is can they trust either Palestinian moderates in power or Arab countries participating to actually police groups like Hamas, which would want to continue the fighting effectively.

Before we run out of time, just briefly on Russia, you were a Russia policy expert in the US Attorney's Office in New Jersey. President Biden, we know what happened to Navalny. I think you heard Navalny's widow and Vice President Harris on this at the Munich Security Conference last night. Now, just today, President Biden announced 500 new sanctions against Russia. Many listeners may think, what's the point? We already sanctioned them like crazy, and their economy doesn't seem to get hurt very much. What can be done most effectively with respect to Russia?

Mikie Sherrill: I think the most effective thing we could do is pass the security settlement up for Ukraine. Yes, it was incredibly moving. We had a large bipartisan delegation to the Munich Security Conference, one of the preeminent security conferences across the world. Many of our NATO allies were there. There was a lot of discussion of our new NATO allies, Finland and Sweden. A longtime ally, Norway, was talking about the exercises that would be done in the security that would present in the high north.

I think coming into the Munich Security Conference and getting the news almost immediately, it was within hours of arriving on the ground. in Munich, we heard that Navalny had died in a Russian prison under questionable circumstances. His wife was there, she had talked to him the night before. He sounded healthy, and I think she was there at the security conference to advocate for more rights for the Russian people and to then have her come on the stage within hours of receiving the news. To see the devastation, it brought a very personal aspect to, I think, the fight that the Ukrainians have and why, to them, the domination of Russian, of Putin, is completely unacceptable.

To live under the aspect that you can't speak against the government, and if you really advocate for change or for human rights or for civil rights, you have to do so at the expense of your life. It just put a very fine point on what the Ukrainian fight is about, what the fight for democracy means, and I think the understanding that the US and our NATO allies have about democracy and why it's so critically important at home. It was really emotional to hear her speak-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Last question for you as for you as a member of Congress. Last question, is Speaker Mike Johnson leading a pro-Putin wing of the Republican Party at this point in history?

Mikie Sherrill: It seems as if the extremists in the Republican party have a pro-Putin bent. We've heard it from former President Trump. We've certainly have seen Tucker Carlson go oddly interview Putin. Even at the outset of the Ukrainian conflict, we heard Mike Pompeo suggest more support for Russia than the Ukrainians at the very outset. He, I think, changed his opinion there, but it does seem as if there is a far-right that has grown increasingly supportive of strong men. Orbán, I think Trump admired him when he became president for life.

I think when you see that movement in the far right, it becomes very difficult. I think when you look at Speaker Johnson, I've said earlier, when we were in the military, there was a phrase when you wanted to get something done, you had to lead, you had to follow, or you had to get out of the way, and that's exactly what Mike Johnson has to do right now. He has to lead the Congress, the House, into passing the bipartisan security supplemental, overwhelming numbers, over 70 members of the Senate passed it.

He has to lead the passage of that in the House. He has to, if he can't do that, I think, just follow Democrats as we work to pass it, or he just has to get out of the way and we'll all find a bipartisan path forward. Right now, he is just not presenting a plan to get that across the finish line, and we know that, traditionally, Ukraine has had about 300 votes in the House, so we should have the votes to pass it. We just need to get it on the floor.

Brian Lehrer: North Jersey Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, thank you very, very much for coming on today.

Mikie Sherrill: Thanks so much for having me.

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