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This Sunday, the special counsel election. It's not just Donald Trump's campaign that may go through a courtroom. Attorney General Mayor Garland appoints a special counsel to investigate President Biden's son. I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel.
While former Vice President Mike Pence asked Republican primary voters to shift their support away from his former boss, there's almost no idea more un American than the notion that any one person could pick the American president. How much will Mike Pence January 6th central to his campaign against his former running in Alaska this morning? Plus challenging Biden, the new special counsel appointment fuels more criticism from Republicans. If he were a Republican, he would have been in jail a long time ago.
Biden is also facing critics from within his own party on his capacity to serve. I'll talk to Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who is actively calling for more primary challengers to bike and red alert. That vote in Ohio was pretty, pretty sobering. Ohio voters to deliver a victory to supporters of abortion rights and offer another warning sign for Republicans.
If Republicans are just focused on one issue, they're gonna have a bit of change. Support for legal access to abortion is winning. Inside red and blue states from Kansas to Kentucky to Michigan will be a motivating factor for voters in 2024. Joining me for insight and analysis are Politico Playbook co author Eugene Daniels, Republican strategist Brendan Buck, Simone Sanders Townsend, former chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris, and Politico national correspondent Betsy Woodard Swan.
Welcome to Sunday. It's Meet the Press from NBC News in Washington, the longest running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. And a good Sunday morning in case you needed another sign that the 2024 campaign will be shaped by legal dramas in courtrooms in Washington, Delaware, Miami, New York and Atlanta rather than door to door in the state of Iowa.
We got a reminder again. On Friday, Attorney General Eric Garland announced that Trump appointed U.S. attorney David Weiss, who's been investigating Hunter Biden for alleged acts and gun crimes for five years now, had now requested special counsel status. And he's going to get it after a plea deal collapsed in court a few weeks ago when A federal judge balked at granting Hunter Biden expansive immunity.
The appointment of Mr. Weiss reinforces for the American people the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters. Now, President Biden's son could face a trial at a time when Democrats are hoping to keep the campaigns focused on Donald Trump's legal problems. Now, the two cases, they're hardly comparable.
Donald Trump is now in federally done and for attempting to overturn the 2020 election and for missingly classified documents that included a US military plan of attack on Iran. President Biden has not been charged with any wrongdoing and at least so far, Hunter Biden's alleged crimes for two years of not paying taxes, which he, his attorneys say he has since pay, and lying about his drug use at the time of a gun purchase. And clearly, Hunter Biden is not a candidate for president. But President Biden's handling of the case has raised questions at a time when voters already have doubts about his age and political standing.
Biden brought his son to a safe dinner just two days after the plea deal that has since collapsed was announced, and he has repeatedly defended him, denying wrongdoing altogether, even though Hunter Biden himself has pled guilty. First of all, my son's done nothing wrong. I trust him. I have faith in him.
In total, there are now three special counsels actively at work involved in this presidential campaign. Jack Smith named a November oversee the ongoing criminal investigations into Trump's handling of classified documents and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Robert her he was named in January to investigate the handling of classified documents, founded President Biden's former office in his home and now, of course, David Weiss. The decision to delay the appointment of Weiss's special counsel is also a bit hard to understand.
Even the language Garland used announcing his appointment Friday, emphasizing independence, accountability in particularly sensitive matters, are almost the exact same phrases that he used when appointing Jack Smith nine months ago to oversee the Trump cases. The legal calendar will continue to overshadow this political calendar. Trump's lawyers were actually in court on Friday, hashing out the details of what he is allowed to say publicly about the January 6 case in an effort to protect witnesses and the sensitive documents he's about to receive from the Justice Department to discover. And prosecutors in Georgia, where Trump is likely to be indicted a fourth time in the last year, have indicated they plan to present their case to a grand jury later this week.
Still, Donald Trump's rivals are going through the motions of a political campaign even as he leads then nationally by more than 30 points. And the legal dramas just blot out the sun. And they're trying to catch up in Iowa, where he has a dominant lean despite visiting his ages six times since nasty his campaign November. This weekend they posed with the famous father cow and food on a stick at the Iowa State Fair.
And despite going through the motions of the campaign against him, Trump's rivals have passed up numerous opportunities to criticize him for his at current count, 78 felony caps. But they jumped at a chance to comment on Hunter Biden. It just seems to me that they're going to find a way to give him some type of soft blood treatment. I don't understand why you would point this guy to be the special counsel.
Why did it take two years to do this? Why did they say Hunter Biden, not the Biden family? You know, why did this suddenly come up when it was all of a sudden the Biden pay to play conversation? I don't trust it that the American people don't trust the Department of Justice.
And joining me now unpack all of this is former FS senior official, former U.S. attorney Chuck Rosenberg, who is an NBC News legal analyst. Jeff, you're a regular guy on the show. At this point we have to call you co host.
So explain this to me. Why now did the attorney general choose to make David Weiss a special counsel when again, I go back, the same rationale he used for Donald Trump's special counsel clearly applies to here. And by the way, Mr. Garland had described David Weiss's running room as sort of plenary right, that he had the independence he needed to make his own decisions in the case.
So why give him this extra title? It seems somewhat cosmetic to me, Chuck. So is there additional tools that he has now that he didn't have before? What are those tools at the edges?
Yes, it means he can bring charges in other districts on his own signature. But frankly, he could have done that if he needed to previously. So again, I think the right word here is cosmetic. It doesn't really change the tilt of the earth.
So then what's so then the motivation here for the attorney general is simply to is he worried that the cases against Trump were going to look biased if he didn't do this? Well, there seemed to be a drum beat to appoint a special counsel to investigate at least Hunter Biden, if not the Biden family. Mr. Weiss, the special counsel now has the authority to take the investigation where everything's about to go.
There's a problem I think generally with the special counsel regulations and there's another problem that worries me even more. It's this. I don't think Mr. Biden, or Mr.
Trump for that matter, should be treated any better or any worse than any other person under investigation. They both deserve to be treated fairly. Whatever you may think of them, they deserve to be treated fairly. Special counsels, though, bring an intense focus on just one or two people, and that can be corrosive.
And so then what you're saying is someone's unfair, they're not getting treated the way others would be treated by Justice Department. Right. And so that worries me. And to appoint a special counsel, an attorney general has to find extraordinary circumstances.
He keeps finding extraordinary circumstances, quite a few, which makes me think it's becoming rather ordinary. We've had five special counsel in the last six years. And I don't mean this in any way against those individuals, the principled people. They were doing the jobs they were asked to do.
Rather, I worry institutionally whether having so many special counsel under so many quote, unquote sets of extraordinary circumstances corrodes the Department, it seems undermined whole rationale in a form of federal judge. The whole point was to try to take profit out of this. And he is essentially conceding he is to proceed to be too biased overseas cases. I mean, that's what it looks like.
I know that's not what he's saying. That's not what he's saying, but I think it's a great point and it goes to a larger issue. So the design of the Department of Justice, Chuck, the design is that it be staffed by career people, that the political layer is extraordinarily thin. FBI has almost 40,000 men and women.
One is a political appointee. Every U.S. attorney's office in the country has at most, at most, one political appointee. Very quickly, on Donald Trump's attorneys arguing for what he can and can't say, the judge, everyone's wondering, what is this stick?
How is she going to try to enforce any penalties? Moving up the trial date seemed to be an interesting stick that she chose to use. Do you think that's probably effective enforcement? Well, you might be able to say that the shorter the period between now and the trial date, the less damage she can do by speaking publicly about the case.
She's in a tough spot because he absolutely has a right to campaign and he has First Amendment rights. On the other hand, Right. You can't interfere with the fair administration of justice or tamper with witnesses. So she's going to have to watch this very closely.
But it's not an easy thing for her to do. All right, Chuck Rosenberg getting started this morning again in the courtrooms. And joining now is former Vice President Mike Pence. Mr.
Vice President, welcome back to the press. Thank you, Chuck. Let me start with your reaction to the Attorney General's decision to appoint U.S. attorney David Weiss, who was an appointee of the Trump Pence administration, his decision to make him a special counsel in a Hunter Biden probe.
You approve that decision? Well, first let me say, Chuck, I'm running for president because I think this country's in a lot of trouble. I think Joe Biden has a weakened America at home and abroad. But frankly, the pattern of the Justice Department during our four years in the White House and Census undermine public confidence in equal treatment under the law.
And while I welcome the appointment of special counsel, which is of course appropriate and is a minimum where the Attorney General has a potential conflict of interest, I'm also comforted by the fact that Congress is going to continue to do its work. I'm confident the House Republican are going to continue to bring forward the facts in this case. The American people have a right to know whether or not President Biden's family benefited or that himself benefited when he was serving in the job that I had as Vice President of the United States in a financial way from foreign nationals. These are, these are facts the American people have a right to get to the bottom of.
I am hopeful that Special Counsel Weiss will do his job without fear or favor. But. But I have confidence that Jim Jordan, Congressman Comer and others will continue to do their job for the American people. Look, I couldn't help but notice you had said that the Justice Department, even in the four years that you guys oversaw it, you thought also didn't seem to conduct investigations fairly.
Why do you think this is? How is it that this is a bipartisan problem that you're identifying? Well, look, I mean, it started in 2016 when James Comer gave Hillary Clinton a pass. Right, that no other American would have gotten.
But then what we, you know, what we found out since is the truth about what was going on during the Mueller investigation. You know, I lived through that for two and a half years when we were busy rebuilding our military, cutting taxes, unleashing American energy, securing our border. All the while, we actually had FBI agents that were falsifying documents and pushing a political agenda within the Justice Department. Some of the reasons why I tell people that if I have the privilege of being President of the United States, we're not just having a new Attorney general, a new FBI director, Chuck, without a clean house on the whole top floor of the Justice Department and.
And demand that we have men and women who are respected on both sides of the aisle as. As people of integrity who will apply the rule of law in this country equally to every American. Look, I want to get to the indictment on the former president here and a specific point here having to do with the elector scheme, because earlier this month you told a colleague of mine here that you didn't know a lot about the efforts to secure fake electors until after the fact. But it was interesting.
In your book, you. You brought up the fake slate electors and meeting with Sen. Parliamentarian January 3rd. In your book, you said this.
I asked her a direct question, referred to Senate parliamentarian. Are there any alternate electors from any state? She told me there were not. I mentioned that I had heard that some alternate electors had been sent from several of the disputed states.
So this was on January 3rd. What can you tell us about what you knew about this elector scheme on January 3rd that prompted you to ask this question? I just heard what was being talked about in the press at the time, but I thought it was important. Look, in January 2017, I took an oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States.
Under the constitution, states certify elections. And while there were regularities in states, maybe half a dozen states around the country that changed the rules in the name of COVID we challenged those in 60 court cases. Once the courts had reviewed those and the state certified them, I wanted to make sure that we were operating on January 6th in a way that was consistent with the constitution, consistent with the laws of the country. And that's the reason that I sat down with parliamentarian.
I looked through the process. I was determined to hear the objections that Republicans were planning to bring, Chuck. And many did bring. You remember Democrats brought objections to electoral college votes in three of the last four elections that Republicans prevailed.
Nothing unusual about. I did ask the parliamentarian very directly, check. I asked her because I was hearing rumors, I was reading the newspaper that there were alternate electors. I just.
I asked her pointers from any state and she said there was not. I don't recall that. I just remember hearing it in the public. And I wanted the defendant answer whether or not the parliamentarian had received any additional electoral vote.
She had not. So as you know, we actually changed the language as those electoral college votes were recorded. But look, you know, Chuck, I've told you many times, I said again at the Iowa State Fair, I had no right to Overturn the election. The Constitution is quite clear.
As Vice President, my job was to preside over a joint session of Congress where the Constitution says the Electoral College votes shall be open and shall be counted. And I don't think I asked you. I did my duty that day. Donald Trump and said this week that he never asked you to disregard the Constitution and that he never said that you were too honest.
Either of those things. True. Well, look, you can check his tweets. I think on the day of, the day before, I mean, the President was quite clear and quite public that he thought that I had the authority to either reject or return votes to the state.
You stand by the suhart that he said you're too honest? No basis. I do, Chuck. I mean, it's, it's part of a.
Part of a dialogue that happened between the President and me and, and that was related, I think, to a bogus a lawsuit that was brought to try and force my hand to have a federal judge say that I had the right to throw out both. So there's almost no idea more un American than the idea that any one person could choose which votes to count for President of the United States. The American people know, as I heard from dozens of people at the Iowa State Bear check, the American people know the presidency belongs to the. To them, to them alone.
And no one person has ever had that authority or ever should have our system. Were you surprised that Mark Meadows was not listed as a co conspirator? Because you had told me and you mentioned in your book you thought he was leading the former president down this path on election interference and all the different things and all the people he was bringing into the room. Did it surprise you he wasn't on this indictment?
Well, Chuck, I don't remember saying anybody was leading it. I remember saying there was a group of crackpot lawyers that the Chief of staff allowed to be in the Oval Office that frankly should have never been allowed on the ground. Yeah. You had said in Chuck, I'm happy to repeat it.
Look, the chief staff, supposed to be a gatekeeper. You're supposed to make sure that people are getting into the Oval Office, have the credibility to be there. And frankly, this group of lawyers that were allowed to counsel the President, tell him what his itching ears longed to hear, is that I had, I had some right to reject votes or return votes to the state. There's no basis in that in history.
But, you know, look, you know, I think our Constitution is more important than any one man or any one man's career, including mine. I took the stand I took that day because of that oath that I took. And I couldn't be more encouraged, Chuck, as a, as one person after another, not just in Iowa this last week, but in New Hampshire the week before. More and more Americans are coming up to me and expressing their appreciation for the stand they took.
You know, I chose, I chose to keep my oath of the Constitution that day. And I'm President of the United States. I always will. I want to ask you, though, you keep, you're very careful in what you talk about, whether Donald Trump's a nominee, whether you can support him again.
If he, if you thought he violated the Constitution, how can you support Donald Trump again for president? Well, Chuck, what I've said is I'm happy to meet the criteria for the upcoming Republican presidential debates. I'm incredibly proud that more than 40,000Americans in just nine weeks have supported our campaign, made it possible for us to qualify for the debate stage. And in fact, I think I'm actually qualified for the second debate before we get to the first one, because more Americans are saying that my consistent conservative record, my years as vice president, my years as a governor here in Indiana, my years as a House Conservative leader for 12 years are, are really just what the nation needs.
This is no time to get the job training. This is no time for distractions. We need leadership on day one. You consider yourself to be able to provide the team and the vision to turn this country around.
And I can. Do you consider yourself a MAGA Republican? I'm incredibly proud of what we did in the Trump Pence administration for four years, and you better believe it. In those four years after, after eight years of the slowest recovery since the Great Depression, eight years under Barack Obama and Joe Biden that saw military cuts that hollowed out our military, eight years of liberals on our courts under Trump Pence administration, with the support of MAGA Americans, we literally did make America great.
That pandemic struck. And look, I'm a Christian, a conservative, and Republican, in that order. I've always said that people who know me know those are my values, those are my ideals. And I really believe that the agenda that I've always been about, that I'm looking forward to making that, to make stage, is the agenda that'll bring this country all the way back, believe it or not.
I do want to try to ask you one question about something you did this week. You rolled out an energy plan. The Wall Street Journal, I think, was complimenting you by characterizing it as drill Baby drill. A, you accept that as a compliment and B, yes.
Do you think the government though should play a role in trying to find renewable energy to replace fossil fuels at some point? It doesn't sound like you think the government should play that role. Well, look, gasoline prices jump back up this week. Remember?
$2 a gallon, Chuck? I sure do. That happened under our administration. We unleashed American energy was all of the above energy strategy.
We achieved American energy independence in three short years. Joe Biden launched a war on energy. On day one. He shut down the Keystone in Dakota pipelines.
Energy prices, gas prices are still up 60. Electricity prices are up 25%. We lay out a vision following on my plan to tackle inflation, we lay out a vision this last week not just to achieve energy independence. It's one of the things your, your colleagues over at the Wall Street Journal neglected to mention.
I also believe not only can we achieve American energy independence again, but I believe with the right policies going forward, we can reclaim our role as a leading producer of energy in the world by 2040. It'll take leadership, it'll take a commitment to American energy independence. And on day one of the presidency that I'd be privileged to serve in, we'll fight to restore that American energy strength and leadership and dominance in the world. Former Vice President Mike Pence.
Sounds like you got a night at home, which is rare on the campaign trail. I'm glad you did. Be safe on the trail and we'll see you on the debate stage. Thanks so much and Chuck, I appreciate you having me on.
You got it. When we come back, he wants President Biden to have more competition to win his party's nomination in 2024. Meet Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota. Welcome back.
President Biden currently faces just two minor Democratic challenges. Robert Kennedy Jr. He has a famous name, but he's a lawyer and vaccine skeptic whose candidacy has been boosted by people like Steve, banned and financed in part by megadonors, believe it or not. Then there's Marian Williamson.
You may remember her from 2020. She's a self help author and was on the debate stage briefly in 2020. Academic Cornell west is vying for the Green Party nomination and quote, votes on the left. And West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is flirting with an independent run and may leave the party to do that.
And now Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips is calling for a more competitive Democratic primer, saying voters don't want to coordination. They won a competition. Phillips, who is in his third term representing suburban Minneapolis. We tell you a little bit about him lost his father in Vietnam.
After business school at the University of Minnesota Mr. Phillips joined the family of business Phillips Desill. He went on to help build Talenti Gelato into a top selling gelato brand and also opened Penny's Coffee a small business in the Twin Cities. And he is like I said in this third term Philipson announced by the way with no labels attempt to kill a third party ticket.
But he has called for serious Democratic primary challengers to President Biden. And last week he met with Democratic governors in Europe about the race potentially entering it himself if no one else does. You are not interested in being a candidate for president technically yourself right now or are you? That's a fair statement.
What I'm technically and legitimately doing is representing I'm representative and I'm representing what I believe to be the majority of the country that wants to turn the page. Tired of the meanness and the fear mongering of Donald Trump would like to see Joe Biden, a wonderful and remarkable man pass the torch. Cement this extraordinary. You don't want to run the re election.
I believe it's in the best interest of the country. By the way this is not how everybody thinks but I do believe majority wants to move on. I hear from way too many people now. This is the news was I was meeting with donors.
The fact is I listen to normal Americans every day and my own feelings and the self. This is no, no this is about how people feel by the way. It's not about what's real all the time, it's about how people feel. People want to turn the page.
I think that's fair to say. As a Democrat I adore Joe Biden. He saved this country. He can cement his legacy.
My real call to action right now is not about me. The call to action is to ask the president to pass the torch. There's an extraordinary bench, extraordinary bench of people ready to go proximate Louisville area. I would like to see moderate governor hopefully from the heartland from one of the four states that Democrats will need.
So Lacey, Gretchen Whitmer, you like to say her or is it Tim Walls, your home state Governor Johnny Evers. I'm a attic. You said a few names I think would be great. Joshua Bureau.
There are a number of people. Jamie Pritzker. Some people ask me that I not use their names because of this institutional fear that it might impact you down the road. This is the time to meet the moment and I'm doing something.
I know it's unpopular but I'm speaking true that's my job. My duty is to the people I represent but also to represent the mass majority. And I just want to say this about Democrats. It's really important.
Joe Biden right now is down seven points in four swing states to lose side in the next election. He has historically low approval numbers. Chuck aid that they're about 55% of Democrats. Would like to see an alternative.
I can keep going down. No, I think everything you're saying we all heard in private as well. Why do you think it's all private? Why do you think this, this hand wringing hasn't is only really gone public for you?
It's very simple. People are focused on self preservation and that principle. There is no political reward in the United States right now for simply speaking the truth. What would happen to my Republican colleagues who dared do the right thing and support the Constitution?
Support the Constitution. The only thing to which we're duty bound. Look what happened to them. It is not good to get out of line.
It's not good to raise your hand, stand up, shout a little bit at a time. We need more than ever and I'm afraid that that's the culture in this institution here in Washington D.C. and I say you believe the Hunter Biden news actually reinforces this even more, don't you? I don't think the President is corrupt.
I think the investigation will show that. But this is the important part. It's the image. It's what the news will do.
We know what arrow we live in partisanship. It is the attachment to the President. Most people aren't watching be the press. It probably will and it saddens me.
And these are the people I'm trying to represent right now. People who are sick and tired of this nonsense. We have a duopoly. We have a political industrial complex that if they agree on anything, it's the status quo.
And by the way, now I have trouble with Donald Trump. I do not have trouble with Trumpers who are trying to find somebody. Dude, change the system. The hardware is fine.
The software is a problem. The people with whom are populating the system and I understand they need for transparency. We need to restore faith in government. We should do that in a thoughtful, mean, legitimate and bipartisan manner and can be done.
We need leaders in the next generation to do so. And I'm just simply expressing that point of view that I think is shared by the majority of Americans. What can President Biden do to reassure you he is up to a section? I'm not saying he's not up To a section.
What I'm saying is, look at the data. I listen. My job is to listen. I do it every single day back in Minnesota.
Right. Can you change the data? That's the challenge. I come from the marketing world.
You just explain my background. Sometimes you got a product that is extraordinary, meets the moment, you think it'll be the next big thing, and it just doesn't happen. And in business, you got to recognize it, because the data speaks the truth. The data is speaking the truth right now, and nobody's wanting to talk about it before it's too late.
That's the key. The case, what you're talking about is basically the history of our lifetimes. Okay? You go back the last four sitting presidents who had serious primary challengers.
That party lost the White House, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronaldo. But why were they primaries? Because people recognized they were weakened. The country was ready to turn the page.
Now we can have our debate on this subject. I understand that. I don't want to be. I ran for Congress in 2016.
After the 2016 election, I woke up that next morning, my teenage daughters were in tears. I promised them I would do something. I'm not gonna be quiet now, five years later, when the same trauma to be afflicting the country if Donald Trump was reelected. So I will do nothing to ensure that Donald Trump is elected.
But, Chuck, it's really important people know this. I'm doing just the opposite. And people are willing right now to have that conversation, to have the discussion, and most important, to present some alternatives. How in the world are we gonna look at these numbers and say everything's okay, but hopes and dreams and prayers.
I love them. They don't solve gun violence. They don't give health insurance to Americans. Right.
And they sure as heck won't change the numbers I'm seeing right now. You want him to run a Democratic primary instead of an independent, familial. I want anybody who wants to run. Joe Manchin, Cornell west, any of the guns in the primary.
In the primary. That's why we are primaries. Because that doesn't undermine the likelihood of returning, in this case of Democrat to the White House. So that is the key.
Enter the primary, my friends. Everybody who's on the bench, meet the motel, Wait five years. We need you now. When are you gonna make a decision?
You're waiting for somebody who you set with waiting prayers. I am actively inviting, encouraging, to some degree, imploring that people who are ready and know it's probably time to do so don't get the chance, do you know, are they directly going to some of these candidates and pleading with them to get or not? Well, Chuck, if donors and average, everyday, wonderful, normal Americans are coming to me, of all people, you don't think they're approaching most people in much higher numbers with gender frequency? And I'll make the decision once I do my darndest in the next month or so to encourage others to do so.
Please. This is an appeal to everybody of good conscience and good character. Let's turn the page and imagine how fun, hopeful and exciting it would be. We're gonna do it.
DEAN phillips, DEMOCRAT FROM Suburban and so they should come out and we will see you hopefully at this table and make your decision. I look forward to it. Before we get a break, at least 93 people as of this point have died in that devastating wildfire on Maui this week, making it now the deadliest natural disaster in Hawaii's history. And it's now the nation's deadliest wildfire in more than a century.
If you want help, please consider giving to these organizations that we have vetted, the Maui Food bank, the American Red Cross or the Hawaii Community Foundation. For more information, you can go wherever you follow me, the press on social media. We have those links when we come back. The 2024 campaign is now clouded by not one, not two, but three special counsels investigating sitting president, former and the sitting president's side.
Will legal drama overshadow everything else? Welcome back, panelists. Here, Betsy Woodard Swan, national correspondent for Politico, Politico playbook co author Eugene Daniels. So Politico owes us a lot this week.
Brennan Buff, the former advisor, House speakers Paul Ryan and John Bain, som Sanders towns and post office. Among the former chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamal Myers, also part of the Biden campaign. Betsy, you were in the courtroom and the Hunter Biden plea deal fell apart. You were covering, covering that story live.
Did you think two weeks later you were covering a special counsel in the courtroom that day? It was clear that things were going totally sideways. And it was clear that one of the most basic things Justice Department prosecutors and defense attorneys are always supposed to do before rolling out a plea deal that they had not done. What they had not agreed on, according to this court hearing, was just how much protection Hunter Biden would receive from other future crim criminal charges from doj.
And at the same time, in that totally wacky bizarro world hearing, justice or prosecutors also said they were still investigating Hunter Biden and they refused to give any elaboration on what they meant by that. So it's not surprising at all that two weeks later, when DOJ and those defense lawyers went back to the drawing board, they couldn't change where they were at on just how much the plea deal would limit the Justice Department. That was the key issue. How much continued criminal exposure to Hunter face.
They couldn't agree on it. And it's not a surprise that now DOJ says they're headed to trial. Eugene, I can't help but bring up what Chuck Rosenberg said. He thought that this appointment was cosmetic, which makes you think that Garland is almost so worried about perception.
We're not. Are we focused on reality? Yeah. One of the things about Garland from the very beginning, anybody you talk to who was a part of the actual choosing of Mer Garland is that they were always worried that he was someone who was going to stay way too far back.
He was gonna be someone who was gonna be doing special counsels because he was so concerned with the perception. I thought the whole point of the circuit court judge was to avoid a special. That's the idea. You're bringing in somebody that's.
That's been bipartisan confirmation here. Exactly. But there's something about the way that Mary island sees the world. One of the four years of Donald Trump and the DOJ and those sites.
But he just wanted to make sure that there was not even people could even sniff it out, that there was something going on wrong. And that's what we're seeing. Special counsel. Special counsel.
Special counsel. Simone, Is this gonna harm the campaign more personally? Because President Biden, you can't talk to him about this than it does practically, or do you think this is pretty harmful to campaign? I think that this is something that President Biden is being talked about.
The question is it a big group roundtable conversation? I would argue to say no. If you look at the IPSIS poll right after the plea deal that then fell apart, but the plea deal that was announced, 400 Biden Americans who were polled who asked, they view this as a personal issue for Hunter and not an issue for President Biden. And so right now, it is not actually affecting the way that people are considering voting in 2024.
You know, though, you cannot watch all this play out. And it's like Donald Trump has been trying to bring Biden's RAM down to him. Goes back to 2018. He sent rejuvenated out of Ukraine.
He's been desperate and he did it. And joint just announced it. Investigation. Yeah.
I mean, the basic politics, trying to turn your opponent's strength into weakness. And one of the things I think Joe Biden was elected to do was to clear out the, you know, the mess in the White House, bring ethics and decency back. And this is clearly an effort to do that. Now I think the White House and the president's reelection takes a bit more seriously than what they're doing.
It was very easy for a long time for Democrats to say, well, that's stuff on the crazy stuff, right? And now it's going to be in trial. It's going to be front page news everywhere. I think they need to appreciate that this could damage.
I want to bring something up, though, about the whole legal. Let me show you this excerpt from an Axios focus group about the indictments Michigan swing voters from our friend Richtower. Here it is. Who can tell me what this latest indictment is related to?
In other words, what event? Who can tell me what this is related to without blurting it out? Five of you, what is it about? I'm torn on the Georgia or the documents.
It's one of those two. I thought it was about the whole Stormy Daniels scandal. This is something that you wonder, is it all mud? And it's hard how many voters are like then that they're like, they're just seeing the mud.
They're not seeing the details. There's a real question as to how much the details that continue to emerge in court related to Trump are going to move where voters are at on these things because there's already been so much action in relation to the former president. When it comes to the Biden side of the issue, though, there's actually a huge potential political landmine for President Biden, that is Hunter Biden's lawyers have told DOJ that if they bring charges against him of being a drug user in possession of a gun, which is a felony. Hunter's lawyers have said that they will argue that statute is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
That would mean that if Biden is running for president as someone arguing to constrain gun rights, Hunter's lawyers would be defending him by saying, no, those rights need to be broader. Lots of other criminal defense lawyers have made that case. But talk about a massive political hit for the White House. One of the things that the reason that it's probably worse for the Biden folks because it's counter to what Biden has the narrative is that I'm a family man who doesn't have a lot of drama.
That's why he chose me. I'm here to put my hands on exactly What Brennan's talking about and most voters are not going to understand the differences about the things that are happen and that is the concern of folk and the Biden folks. They have already resigned themselves that Hunter Biden was going to be used as a blend against them during the campaign. They will see this as that different.
The confusion there is exactly what I'm talking about. The Democrats need realize if you don't define this, Republicans are going to get in there and jump in and explain what happened. They're going to tie it to the president and they can be very clear that no evidence has been found to tie it to get your dink. Phillips, what about the infill do you think by the end of this do you think that between Hunter Biden and this handwriting about him in general, his whole number, do you think something more serious?
Chuck, I wrote down what Congressman Phillips said. He said as a call to action to ask the president to pass the torch. My question is where were these conversations when there were all of these articles from Polito to the Wall Street Journal to Axios about the president not having announced a re election campaign yet wondering if he's going to get in and do it. That I think would have been the time where folks should you these concerns and these grievances.
I do not think there's a legitimate appetite for another Democratic candidate. All right, you're gonna get in. And again, again. So all of you will come back.
But when we come back, Ohio voters deliberate this week for supporters abortion rights from red states to blue states. Abortion politics is actually less partisan than you might think in valley sense. Welcome back to the download time. And yet another win for reproductive rights this week.
Ohio voters to be in a plan that would have made it more difficult to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. The Ohio voters just the latest example of how in state after state voters are coming down on the side of abortion rights. And they're not just Democrats. Let me just show you here in Ohio.
This was the Overall number here, 5743 double digit win for essentially the abortion right side. Again this was a one off. This wasn't about abortion directly. Yet that referendum will now take place in November in Ohio.
Look as you can see here, Donald Trump won Ohio by sing J. Vance won by single digits. Michael Line won it by 25 points. There's a distinction here between these Republicans.
Maga. Maga. Michael line non maga. Why am I bringing this up?
Because it's important to understanding the issue of abortion. When you look at the approval of the overturned early weight, two thirds of Republicans approved of it. When you break it up between those that are part of the Trump movement and those that are, you see the divide inside the party. MAGA Republicans approved of it at 80%.
The non MAGA win weighing 50, only 51% approved of that. And this is how you see it on the map. These are your suburban Republicans. These are these voters that have been going back and forth on Trump for some time.
Here's the 2020 vote. You only saw there seven counties that Joe Biden won. When you look at the 2023 ballot measure here at abortion rights, at each one of those urban areas of Biden won, there was spread more of these suburban Republican leaning counties ended up voting on the abortion rights side. Be it around Cleveland, around Columbus, Toledo even and around guess what?
We saw the same pattern in Kansas. Joe Biden only won five counties there. But when it was about abortion rights, you saw suburban counties around Wichita, suburban counties around Topeka, the suburban counties around Kansas City. Those counties which narrowly went Republican in the presidential ended up voting on the abortion rights side.
Michigan saw the same thing again. In each of these cases, the metro area spread, if you will, of suburban counties. They are not Trump fans in general. They're certainly not fans of the overturning of Roe v.
Wade. Five Americans imprisoned in Iran are now one step closer to home. After the US and Iranian governments reaching great breakthrough this week, they've moved into house arrest. It's the first step of a planned prisoner exchange in which the US will also release $6 billion of frozen Iranian assets.
That's from South Korea More than four years ago. President Jimmy Carter struggled to navigate the unfolding Iran hostage crisis at that time. And Joe Biden, then a senator on the Foreign Relations Committee joined our broadcast to offer his perspective. I think the most important thing both for the American public and for the Iranians, the I understand is that the President is cool, calm and deliberate and logical about the step he's going to take, showing absolute resolve and not to go in in a sense of bravado at this point and do what everyone from Ezra Weizman to the man in the street knows would result in the immediate death of the hostages by some use of major military force.
I think it's a logical progression and I think it will result in the release of the hostages. But I know Cristobal gotta win the Joe Biden was just in his second term. In a sec. When we come back, the 2024 lessons for both parties on the issue of abortion one with panel next.
Welcome back. It's been seven states post jobs that we've seen and anything related to abortion rights end up falling in favor of the abortion rights side. Brendan Buck, a lot of Republicans and conservatives are starting to rethink their stand on this issue here. Sean Kennedy earlier this week.
I believe in the sanctity of life. I think politically that there is. Republicans have got to say, as Bill Clinton once said, I never thought I'd quote him rare, legal and I'd add the word very early in a pregnancy. That seems to be politically where the country is.
Maybe I'm wrong, but we'll see. That vote in Ohio was pretty, pretty. So over how many elected Republicans share Sean Hannity's concern? Probably more than a few.
But I'm not holding my breath that the party's gonna change position. There's a large infrastructure in place getting people like in Republican primaries where you basically have to assume certain position that's much further to the right than I think a lot of people are. It's clearly a loser for us, but I think we're a long ways off being able to recognize that and making any meaningful change. That's interesting.
This is everybody hang rings by Biden and Trump. No kind of attempt. This is a Trump car for Democrats. Yeah.
I mean I think every appealing 2022, everywhere that abortion was on the ballot, voters went and voted in support of codifying those rights into their state's constitution. This Ohio vote I think is in fact a precursor of what we'll see this November where I expect they're out. They're gonna say, look, we want these rights enshrined in our constitution because people see what is happening. And I think that because the vice president has been buried by President Harris and very vocal on this issue, rallying folks across the country, people that this is about freedom and about being able to make decisions between the health care professionals and you and your family and not politicians.
That's something that resonates with, you know, Eugene, Karl Rove in 03 saw same sex marriage propositions again. Anti same sex proposition insulin states is way to drive up turnout. Democrats are looking at protecting abortion rights. Places like Arizona, maybe Florida.
No, absolutely. They know that the voters were scared after Dobbs and the one thing that they have [email protected] is actually channeling that fear and anger. And this is one of the ways to do that. Right.
You look at Ohio as is this way that we can make sure that voters come out to vote in November, this November or next November. Michigan, one of those. Florida is another one. At Republican debate stage, when abortion comes up, I'm, I'm going to be fascinated at how they all try to, to tiptoe around at all.
That's right. No question. It's one of the biggest challenges, one of the hottest potatoes, shall we say, for this tranche Republican primary voters. It also raises a really interesting issue for Republican governors and state legislatures as they try to play defense against these ballot initiatives.
Arkansas just passed a law making it harder to get ballot initiatives on the ballot. Instead of needing signatures of people from 15 counties, now you need 15. If you're changing the rules rather than changing your position, you're still going to lose to the voters. It fascinates people.
I think it was really structured the way the debate played out. If you watch some of the ads in Ohio, he hasn't even necessarily ad abortion. They were worried this is about transgender rights. You better watch out what's coming in here.
They want to take on it. If the issue had harder than. No, it's a mistake. August slow newspaper.
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