[ Anchor
Lead] The floor leaders of the ruling and opposition parties met over whether or not to investigate the Itaewon disaster, but only confirmed differences in their positions.
In the midst of this, during the government budget review for next year, the remarks of Lee Jin-bok, senior secretary for political affairs in the presidential office, became controversial.
Reporter Kang Min-woo will give you more details.
<Reporter>
Even at the meeting of the ruling and opposition party floor leaders that lasted for nearly an hour, the people's strength that the police investigation comes first and the Democratic Party that the National Assembly should fulfill their responsibilities ran parallel.
[Ho-Young Joo/President of People's Power: Because we are conducting a swift and compulsory investigation, the current state investigation only causes political strife and interferes with the investigation.]
[Park Hong-geun/President of the Democratic Party: No matter what excuse you give, you are not going to investigate state affairs. For that purpose, we have no choice but to accept it.]
The Democratic Party, which is in the process of a nationwide signature campaign, argued that the testimony and data released during the state affairs investigation could rather help the investigation, and pressed them to accept the special prosecutor as well as the state affairs investigation.
The power of the people targeted the signature movement, attacking that the majority party, the Democratic Party, went out of the hall to prevent the judicial process of Lee Jae-myeong, and held a meeting of middle-ranking and re-elected lawmakers one after another to clarify the policy of 'unacceptable to government investigation'.
The confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties also led to the National Assembly Preliminary Committee, where the budget bill is reviewed.
In particular, the response of Lee Jin-bok, senior presidential secretary for political affairs, to the refusal to board MBC reporters on a private plane during President Yoon Seok-yeol's Southeast Asian tour was controversial.
[Koh Young-in/Democratic Party member: Isn't excluding MBC taming other media?
Aren't you trying to gag it?]
[Lee Jin-bok/President's Office Chief of Political Affairs: Don't keep attacking with such a frame, let's think positively together.
(What?) It's better if you think in a good way together.]
Protests from Democratic Party lawmakers continued, saying, "Do you admonish?"