This Sunday, the art of the deal. The bill is passed. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden strike a bipartisan budget deal, averting a catastrophic death default. Both sides operating in good faith.
Both sides kept their word. I think we did pretty damn good for the American public. Getting both parties, claim victory. I'll talk to Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota.
Plus, a crowded field, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and North Dakota's Governor Doug Berg, all are set to officially launch their 2024 bids. This week, meanwhile, the 2024 GOP partners Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump begin to attack each other. He used to say how great Florida wasn't held. His whole family moved to Florida under my governor's ship.
Are you kidding me? Will a crowded field do more to help Donald Trump win the nomination? And Trump on tape. The special counsel has an audio recording of the former President admitting to taking a classified document after leaving office.
Well, I know this. Everything I did was right. We have the presidential records act which I invited by a hundred percent. With the grand jury set to meet again this week, will the former President face more criminal charges?
I'll talk to former Trump attorney Tim Politore, who recently quit Trump's legal team. Joining me for insight and analysis on NBC News Chief Washington correspondent, Andrew Mitchell, political playbook co-author, Eugene Daniels, Democratic strategist, Stephanie Shria, and Republican strategist, Brad Todd. Welcome to Sunday. It's Meet the Press.
From NBC News and Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. Good Sunday morning. Something rare happened in Washington this week.
Both Democrats and Republicans declared victory after voting for the same exact bill. Of course, not every Democrat or Republican is happy about that bill. And that's kind of the point. Both sides had to make concessions.
It's called compromise. It's what politics is supposed to be the art of the possible. President Biden, who is constantly underestimated politically, did what he promised he would do when he came into office to be secured a bipartisan agreement when gridlock and dysfunction have ruled the day. As a candidate in 2019, Biden predicted Republicans would have a post-Trump epiphany.
The thing will fundamentally change things as with Donald Trump by the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republicans' friends. And while epiphany may be a strong word, Republicans haven't exactly stopped embracing former President Donald Trump.
But Biden does seem aware of the deal he cut with swing voters, trying to bridge their divide when it was possible, and his bipartisan list of accomplishments are starting to sack up from the infrastructure bill to the Chips and Science Act to even gun safety legislation, protecting same-sex marriage. It is also notable that President Biden praised House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who emerged stronger this week after also being constantly underestimated politically. McCarthy managed to use the threat of a debt default and the leverage of his razor-thin majority to force the White House to negotiate a deal, and more than two-thirds of House Republicans agreed to it. He didn't lose his speakership, even though 71 Republicans didn't sign on to the deal, and at least one Republican, Congressman Chip Roy, who of course was a skeptic of McCarthyist speaker, called it a turd sandwich.
In the end, more Democrats than Republicans voted to pass the bill in both chambers. In fact, because of the defense cuts that were proposed, and only 17 Republicans voted in favor of the bill in the Senate. To my House colleagues, I can't believe he did this. To the speaker, I know you got a tough job.
I like you, but the party of Ronald Reagan is dying. But what didn't happen is also worth noting. Republicans didn't destroy the economy. Progressive Democrats didn't tank this deal.
Republicans didn't destroy the Biden agenda, and House Republicans didn't get rid of Kevin McCarthy. They walked away with a pretty modest 1.5 trillion in projected savings, and that's on the most optimistic end of the spectrum. So with the threat of default now gone until the next election, President Biden believes he has an accomplishment he can now run on in 2024. I know bipartisan chip is hard, and unity is hard.
But we can never stop trying, because in moments like this one, the ones we just faced were the American economy and the world economies at risk of collapsing. There's no other way. And joining me now, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, he voted in favor of the debt ceiling bill. He was a big part of the behind-the-scenes negotiations.
Senator Manchin, welcome back to the press. Hey, Joe, good to be with you. So let me start. How much credit do you get President Biden for making this happen?
I give everybody credit. I think you said it well. I've been listening to what you've been saying. And I think you just nailed it.
Both sides had to come together. I think that I give Kevin a McCarthy and his team a tremendous amount of credit for doing what people thought he couldn't do. He got a bill out of the house, sent it over to the Senate, got things started. President Biden did what he must do and what he does and can do best is bring people together, use this bipartisanship.
But you know, 90 days ago, we could have started this. But you know, the extremes on both sides are pushing you further away than basically giving you encouragement to come together. That's what we've got to basically eliminate Chuck. But I was proud of both of them.
I was proud of the House Democrats that, like King Jeffers leading, came in working with Kevin McCarthy and his team to basically get it out of rules when the rules went to the floor with the Democrats to move the bill. And then together, they voted and passed it on the Senate side. We had House Republicans and Democrats working together knowing that we had to avert this crisis. But why do we always come down to this relationship at the end?
It's just not right. You're asking me a question that I was going to sort of put to you. But let me ask it this way or realistically is bipartisanship probably dead till November, 2024 now? You know, are we going to be entering a period where everybody has to put on the jerseys?
Well, I sure hope not. We've been able to show that we can do something when we have to. We have to have a permitting process now that basically encumbers everything. We've touched on that in this bill.
We have some permitting reforms that were done, but we need an awful lot more. If you're going to have the energy security our country needs, you're going to have to be able to build the infrastructure, whether it's the pipelines or whether it's the transmission lines. We have to have an all-in policy, but we've got to be energy independent to be secure, Chuck. Look, the big thing you got out of this.
That could be a big win for all of us. Look, the big thing you got out of this is this mountain valley pipeline provision and a lot of Democrats not happy with it. The timely completion, let me just read from the text of the bill, the timely completion of construction and operation of the mountain valley pipeline is required in the national interest. I found something interesting that you said to Politico.
You said being undecided about running for re-election helped make this happen. That somehow, if you were already a candidate for re-election, you seemed to think that this wouldn't have happened. Why is that? Well, Chuck, I think that basically this system is so toxic anymore that whenever you are an announced candidate for anything, you're absolutely basically a cannon fighter for the other side.
I mean, everybody wants 51. Politics have basically taken over the control versus the policies and basically the responsiveness that we should have. My purpose is to have progressive movements to where we're doing something that helps the economy, that helps the people, helps security. I don't put politics in front.
A lot of people do. It's about politics. Mine's about policy and basically performing for my country and my state. So I'm not going to be worried about polls and all this other stuff when I have a purpose to perform.
I've got to perform. Does this getting this pipeline? Does this make you feel as if you now have a case for re-election that you can make that might be able to win? Well, what it does, it basically gives West Virginia tremendous opportunity to provide the energy security our nation needs.
West Virginia is an energy juggernaut. We've got fossil fuels. We do it cleaner and better than anywhere in the world. We have, in a Carolina's, we have people paying 10 times more.
Whenever there's any weather interruptions, they're paying 10 times more than we do in West Virginia. And they're right next door. You've got to be able to deliver that energy Chuck. And that's what we're doing.
So this has been a tremendous win for the West Virginia. I've been spearheading this thing from day one. I've taken all the bullets. You know that.
I've taken all the spears on this. And the bottom line is we got it accomplished. You know, it's interesting to me that in many of these bills that you've been in the middle of, right, you've actually been working with Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. Are you surprised Mitch McConnell spending so much of his political activity trying to convince you not to run for re-election?
Does that make it harder to work with Republicans? It doesn't make it harder for me. I understand this is not the most honorable profession. It's a shame to say that and it's supposed to be the most honorable profession when you can provide services to the people that you represent, but when you have to fight your own colleagues to try to do your job, it makes it pretty tough.
When I said people put sometimes they put politics, I think that Mitch is in the position where it's all about, I've observed politics first, protecting his caucus, 51 votes is what his determination is. And with that, sometimes policy doesn't get the benefit. Mine's about the policy end of it. If we can do something good, I don't care who takes credit because I can't do it by myself.
There's no way we could pass any of this without the help of the other side. So I look at it differently and also my oath to the Constitution. So my performance from our state and my oath to the Constitution more than takes care of everything I'm supposed to do versus the politics before I let you go 51 on either side before I let you go. I know you've been flirting with the no labels movement there on the air right now with an ad trying to get on the ballot in Maine.
I want to play a clip of it and ask about it on the other side. Wine loyalty is the opposite of choice and choice is what real democracy is all about. No labels was formed to unite Democrats, Republicans and independents to solve our country's biggest problems bringing more choices to voters and more voices to the national conversation. I understand the message there and this idea of trying to bring folks together.
But let me ask you this, didn't President Biden just sort of perform as no labels wanted him to by bringing people together and Oh, I think the results. Yeah, check the results that you saw there was Joe Biden working with Kevin McCarthy, Kevin McCarthy taking the lead and pushing it over. So, okay, let's sit down and get serious should have come to the bring some shift the last day or the last few days. No, what the movement of no labels is done, which I think has been admirable is basically saying there is a middle.
There's more people in the silent majority of the middle that have no voice whatsoever. So they're forced to their respective corners far left and far right. They're not comfortable there. They're showing that now there's a place in the middle and the middle can basically show you can't go to the left.
You're not going to get elected. You're not going to govern from there. Decisions are made to the middle. What I'm curious for in Joe Lieberman right on that.
Well, I'm curious though, does it make you less interested in running for President of Joe Biden's move into the middle like this? Chuck, the bottom line is let me just talk about what's going on right now with what happened on the debt ceiling. Don't you think that we should have a risk evaluation of where we are as a country on finances? Don't you think we should have a risk management team the same as banks are supposed to have risk managers?
Can't we do something to prevent this on a daily basis versus a crisis with the last minute? So on that being said, how are we governed? You can't continue to be pushed to the left and push the right. Stay in that middle and pull people back to the middle.
It's notable that you're not ready to sign off that Joe Biden's been moving to the middle. You don't buy it? Well, this here, I think Joe Biden, that's his inherent who he is. He's been pushed to the far left and that far left is not basically where the country is and the far right is not where the country is.
Coming back to the middle, then we can continue to bring people to middle and do our job. All right. That's where it's going to be. The decisions will be made.
Sounds like I got a few more months before I'll get you to answer a straightforward political question. So I'll let you go. We're still working Chuck. All right.
That's why I like coming on with you. Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia is going to see you. Thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective. So let's get the perspective from the other side of the out of the House, joining me now is Republican Senator Mike Brown of South Dakota.
He was one of only 17 Republicans to support the debt deal in the Senate. It was a bit surprising that per capita, more House Republicans supported this deal than Senate Republicans. Senator Brown's welcome back to me. Hey, thanks.
You worked Joe over pretty hard there. Well, let me ask you this. Why do you think fewer Senate Republicans supported this deal? The defense issues clearly the concern we have is that if under certain circumstances, the defense would actually go down in terms of the funding at a time in which we've got major challenges, not only from Russia, but from China as well, and the fact that we know that we're going to have to have a supplemental when it comes to Ukraine at some point, again, in the future, and those were a real challenge.
And one of the reasons that you heard Senator Graham and others talk very clearly about the concern was that we're all pretty clear that we're going to have an increase in defense spending, not a decrease. And under certain circumstances, if we don't do all 12 appropriation bills under this proposal, then defense would end up with less money than what they do today or under what the Biden McCarthy deal originally proposals in their caps. There's some grumbling. That's the reason.
Right. There's some grumbling from some Senate Republicans that they wish Mitch McConnell hadn't walked away, hadn't said hadn't let Kevin McCarthy be the proxy, essentially, in the words of the Washington Post, did Senate Republicans regret outsourcing the negotiations to McCarthy considering House Republicans and Senate Republicans are seeing less eye to eye these days on defense spending? There really was not another path forward. Speaker McCarthy is the leader of the majority in the House.
We don't control the Senate. We don't control the presidency. Clearly when Senator McConnell suggested that Speaker McCarthy should take the lead for the Republicans, it basically made a one on one then with the president rather than having not just the minority leader in the House, the majority leader in the Senate, both whom are Democrats, both participating in it. I think I think Leader McConnell absolutely hit it on the head and I think he's probably as responsible as anybody is for actually getting this deal done in this bipartisan way.
Even though we knew we were taking a risk and that's one of the reasons why on the floor of the Senate you heard a lot of us going to both leadership camps saying we want commitments that we're going to get all 12 appropriation bills on the floor. That's the next major hurdle in terms of the appropriate defense spending after we get the NDA completed this year. Do you think we should change the way we handle the debt ceiling or considering that Republicans got a way to at least slow down spending a bit that this only reinforces the idea that it should be used as a wedge? Yeah, it's looking to become a tool to point out the fact that we're spending more than we're taking in every single year.
And there is no real other location to go except the appropriations process, which seems to only work part of the time. We really need to overhaul the appropriations process so we can do all 12 of the appropriation bills on a regular basis. You know, we end up with omnibuses and we end up with continuing resolutions. That is not good for defense.
It's not good for the country. It's really not good for growing the economy in the United States, but this is the one opportunity for folks that look at this to bring it up for everybody to see that we're not so not meeting our budget needs on a regular basis until we find another alternative. Okay, let me ask about the Republican primary. You're one of the few senators supporting Senator Tim Scott.
There are three more candidates getting in this race that arguably are sort of running in the same lane. If you want to call it that that Tim Scott is running in more mainstream Republicans and stuff like that. Are you concerned this field is getting too crowded? We suspected that it would get crowded, but at the same time, there's a weeding out process that gives American people a chance to look at all the alternatives.
A lot of us think that it's time for somebody with a positive message. And I go back and check and hear me talk about this before. I really think that Ronald Reagan was here today. I think Ronald Reagan would run the Republican nomination for the presidency.
I think Tim Scott says a lot of the same things. He has the same focus. I think when people hear him speak, they're going to hear that same ability to convince people that there really is a brighter time ahead for our country and then he can bring people together. And that's the reason why a lot of us are going to end up supporting Tim and that we believe that he would make a very, very good president a lot of people at this stage of the game in a president.
And remember, it's really, really right now. I think you're going to find that Tim's got a real good shot at it. And yeah, the front runners are out there and a lot of people pay attention because they say, well, they're that far ahead. What are you going to do?
But with Tim, once they hear him and they meet him and they see him, I think they're going to find out that he is the guy behind door number three. Are you are you resigned to support whoever the Republicans nominate, even if it's the former president? Well, right now I'm hoping it's going to be Tim Scott. And if it's not, then I'm going to have to reassess because I've always supported the Republican nominee in the past.
I hope Tim is the nominee. There are going to be some other good people as well. But I'm going to hold that back until until we find out how Tim does. I was just going to say that I think he's got a good shot.
You know, your lack of the fact that you're not ready to automatically pledge it says a lot. Are you waiting to see what the legal what the legal issues are not so much that I just don't think that there are some very good Republican nominees out there. And I'm going to wait and see which one comes out ahead. But I've supported the Republican nominee in the past.
I hope I can support the Republican nominee in the future. But it's Tim Scott. I know I can report the nominee. I think there's a whole lot of Republicans out there and independents who would like to see Tim win this as well.
You are borrowing some of the tactics of Mr. Manchin before me. Not quite answering, but you're giving me a hint. People will be reading between those lines centered around appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective with us.
Thank you, sir. When we come back, he resigned from the Trump legal team after internal conflicts over how best to defend the former president and whether to conduct additional searches at Marlogue. Timothy Politore joins us next. Welcome back this week.
We learned special counsel Jackson investigation of whether Donald Trump has handled classified documents. Apparently includes an audio tape that some consider could be a smoking gun on that recording. The former president apparently admits he knew he was taking with him documents that had remained classified when he left the White House, but what will his defense do now? He's attorney Timothy Politore.
He just resigned from the former president's defense team two weeks ago over what he called irreconcilable conflicts with other members of the legal team is probably working to be threatened. Thank you for having me. Let me start with there. I mean, you just you left two weeks ago.
You said it was with us. Is it is it advice not being followed? How else would you incorporate it? It's something that I yeah, I discussed it on CNN at the time I had a difficulty being able to do the job that I know how to do.
It's I discussed it for specific reasons at the time, but it's not something I really want to expand on too much. I understand it was conflict with the lead sort of the lead council there. Do you feel like the president himself was taking a bus or could you just not get to one? You know, I'm not going to be able to get into the conversation communications directly with him, but certainly, you know, we would come up with strategies.
We presented and we would do what we could. Let me start with your your understanding of where the special council is you have the report this morning here at NBC News that says that Granger is convening this week. What does that tell you? Well, that's the first thing that I've heard about any action by the grand jury in several weeks.
And you know, what does that mean? Well, when the grand jury went quiet several weeks back, you know, I kind of looked at it and said, okay, this indicates that either they're coming to a charging decision or maybe they are moving to the stage where investigation is complete and now Jackson is going to start writing up the report because ultimately, if there are no charges, he's still going to have to write a report just like we recently saw from the other special councils. And so the lack of action certainly would indicate the transition, but now that he's convening that in your mind is more likely to be a charging potential charging decision. Not necessarily.
I mean, certainly, you know, it could be that they're continuing an investigation into other things. It could be that the reason for the break is that the last grand jury simply expired and they either conveyed a new one. I'm not sure specifically. I mean, I certainly haven't heard of anything, you know, knew that would, you know, require a new testimony.
I can't imagine that there's anybody else in Marlago. Do you testify? You've dealt with the feds quite a bit. You've done the reason why you were hired.
Would you be surprised that the former president isn't charged with something here? No, not at all. Not at all. I think that this is a case where, you know, you have to evaluate every case based on, you know, what are the facts in the law and is it something that's provable?
But then there's also all of the other atmospherics of, is this something that, you know, from a discretion point of view? Is this something where a prosecution makes sense? You know, is it something where it is a slam dunk case where some of these things, you know, could be interpreted a few different ways? And also when it comes to a specific issue like this, where we are talking about potentially national defense information, is it the type of thing where they want to declassify these things if they haven't already been declassified and put them out publicly?
You know, there are a lot of additional problems or procedures that you have to go through with that type of case, especially when it's, you know, politically sensitive. And I know a lot of people are going to agree with this parallel. But to me, even if he did a lot of the things that they're saying that he did, prosecuting him, they're the same reasons why you wouldn't want to prosecute him as to why back in 2016, I was of the opinion that Hillary Clinton should be prosecuted because they're all of these other problems. You have to, classification is not binding on the jury.
You have to actually take these documents, show them to the jury and then prove to them that it constitutes national defense information. In doing so, you're putting on five things. I see where you're going there. We shall see.
I'm asking about these voice memos of Evan Corcoran, a former co-counsel of yours to turn over to the special counsel. I mean, I was surprised here these were recordings. It wasn't just other stuff. How damn it, do you think these voice memos could be?
Not at all. Why is that? Not at all. It's, I have, obviously I'm not going to go to these specific content, but there's nothing that I saw that indicates any difference from any other communication with the client.
You know, anytime that a client who's not a lawyer who's not experiencing these things receives a grand jury subpoena, they're going to ask the standard questions. You know, I sit down with them hundreds of times and they say, you know, do I have to do this? You know, are they, do they really have the power to do this? Do we have to give them everything?
Don't they have to get a warrant? Don't they have to tell us why? Is there any way to, uh, any way to stop this? Is there a way to do a motion to, to quash or they usually say it's a motion to squash.
Right. And so that is the ordinary attorney-client conversation that you want to have with every client that you would expect to have with somebody who's not experienced. And it's the reason why you have to do you think he misled him where these documents were? And do you feel as if the lawyers were misled that Mr.
Corcoran in particular was misled about where these documents would be hiding? Based on everything I've seen, no. He was told where all of the documents were brought from the White House. He searched there.
He was not given a much longer period of time. DOJ came back to us and through a whole series of events, we went back to expand the search. Right. But that was not something that was in play.
But the fact that maybe it's omission, I mean, you know, one judge, apparently in a sealed document, let me read this from what the judge said here. Notably, no excuses provided as to how the former president could miss the classified mark documents found in his own bedroom in Mar-a-Lago with the judge. How? I mean, so I mean, it does seem there is a, he seemed to know he had documents he wasn't supposed to have.
So actually that's an interesting quote that you pulled out because there were no classified documents in his bedroom. Yeah. What she's talking about there was this folder that there's been some discussion where the folder said, you know, classified evening summary or evening briefing on it, which is in and of itself, not even a classification level. It doesn't mean anything.
And here's an important piece. Not only did he know it was there, but the FBI knew it was there. When the FBI conducted the rate of Mar-a-Lago, that folder was there, they saw it, they recognized that it's not classified. It's not something that's subject to any of these and the FBI left it there.
So, you know, there were no classified documents in his bedroom. That's, it's one of those things where, you know, things get kind of missed in the weeds. Let me ask you though, the former president at that time home, he was asked about it. He again talked about, Hey, we were negotiating with the archives.
What are you negotiating? I mean, there is, I don't understand what the negotiation was. Sure. It was a financial.
No, no, no, the negotiation is over the next two years after any president leaves office, they're supposed to go through all of the records and they're supposed to separate out what is personal, what is presidential, right? Personal. They get to keep all presidential records end up at the National Archives headquarters in DC. This ordinarily happens where Nara gets a facility in the town where the president has moved to.
So in Chicago, for Obama, down in Texas for the bushes, and all of them are held in that facility here. What Nara did instead is they chose not to get a facility like that. They had GSA move everything to his house and then we're asking to immediately send everything from his house back up to DC where he wouldn't be able to go through them as convenient. Well, I mean, again, what did he think the negotiation was about, which he was going to keep?
Because again, I know he's obsessed with the fact that Nixon got paid for his archive. Well, the negotiation was over them wanting all the documents back right now, him saying, well, I'm going through them and they went through the first 15 boxes. They sent those back and, you know, quite frankly, and there I come back and said, I have an idea. Why don't we just get a facility in Palm Beach move in there?
That would have solved everything right there. Had you attempted to try to get the president to settle with the Justice Department and did he not want to or did justice not want to? That's the first time I've ever heard anything like that. There was never any thought of trying to settle when I was when I was on the team, communications with the Justice Department were minimal.
You know, it's not it's not something where everybody talks about whether we're being cooperative or and everything. But the Justice Department team that I dealt with was very oppositional and very, you know, not not open to any conversations, even about, you know, simple things. So it's it's this team and it's primarily made up of national security division people. They're not ordinarily criminal prosecutors.
It's so different than working with any professional US attorney's office. Okay, let me ask you about January six. You have you seem to play down the possibility that the former president we had charged with any January 6th, January 6th, January 6th committee had four criminal referrals that they thought could be used to charge the president obstruction of an official proceeding conspiracy for the United States conspiracy to make a false statement and then the incitement assisting or aiding comfort of an insurrection. So you really believe none of those four are going to be charges that this the former president has to do.
Correct. You know, that committee it's that was a political committee. When it comes to actually looking into the statute, all of those require them to prove that at the time he knew that all of these allegations of fraud and the election were false. I mean, the fact that every single person that worked for him told him that it was false that all of those judicial rulings told him that there was no there.
I mean, how many how many more times was he had to be told before that is seen as he knew if that's what the evidence is, but that's not what the evidence is. He had some people telling him that there was fraud. He has some people telling them that there was no fraud. All the judicial rulings, some of them reached a partial ruling based on the merits based on not a complete thing.
Yeah, a lot of them said, you know, it was threshold issues of standing and so yes, there were a lot of judicial rulings against them, but none that said, okay, you have done you you you parties have conducted complete discovery. You've actually gone through everything and based on the merits, this is what the decision is. And in fact, a lot of those lawsuits at the time, they were seeking these injunctions without discovery. And I think that, you know, in retrospect, had some of those people said, you know, look, we're not seeking injunction now, we're seeking expedited discovery.
We're saying it was badly. He had a bad legal team. Is that what you think? I think that the the way that some of these things were conducted, certainly some of the Sidney Powell, you know, losses were conducted or, you know, things that can be criticized after the fact.
I think that if they had gone to ask for expedited discovery and said, look, we have an indication of smoke. We don't know whether there's a fire. There's a fire that's in the box right there. Tell them to open the box.
Let me take a look. All right. If there's a fire, I'm going to come back and ask for an injunction. If there's no fire, I'm going to come back in this most of the case.
If they've done that from the beginning, that be a different story. But instead, I have smoke. Can you overturn the election? The judge said, no.
Depository. I had a lot more questions, but, you know, we only have so much more time. Thanks for coming in. All right.
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. When we come back, for a governor, Rhonda Santas and the man who takes credit for him winning that office went head to head in Iowa this week, jockeying for position on the right. But can Rhonda Santas gain ground on Donald Trump with more candidates joining the race?
Panelists. Welcome back. Panelists here on DC News chief, Washington correspondent Andrew Mitchell, White House correspondent for Politico and the co-author of political political political team, Daniel's partner on message strategies, Brad Todd and the former president of Emily's list, Stephanie Shriok. Welcome.
Well, let me just kick off the conversation by kicking off Trump v. Santas this week. Point counterpoints. Here we go.
We will fight the Woke in the schools. We will fight the Woke in the corporations. We will fight the Woke in the Hot Halls of Congress. I don't like to turn well because I hear Woke, Woke, you know, it's like just a term that use half the people can't even define it.
They don't know what it is. Let's just be clear. It really does take two terms as president to be able to finish this job. But when I heard DeSantis go out and say and talk about eight years, we need eight years.
You don't need eight years. You need six months. We can turn this thing around so quickly. Brad, I got to ask you this is your side of the aisle.
I was the party going to look at the six months of that. Well, I think only the party is paying attention to it for the most part. And, you know, I also think you look at your NBC poll most recently when you look at the presidential primary, Donald Trump has about 45 percent. Everybody else together has about 45 percent.
So there's still plenty of people in the shopping mode and I think that Donald Trump has a ceiling. So you're going to see more of this. Andrea, next week for more candidates are getting in. Is this a reflection of Trump or DeSantis?
Well, it's a reflection of Trump really and DeSantis because DeSantis has not put himself. He stumbled out of the gate. I think he still is the strongest challenger to Donald Trump. But the fact that a lot of people believe that there needs to be an alternative to DeSantis, that somebody has to challenge Trump and that nobody has stepped up to that.
And what you're mostly seeing is the new newer candidates Chris Christie willing to take on. Is there a constituency for him? I think it's hard to see. Yes.
That's not taken already. It's hard to see, right? There are kind of three lanes. A lot of Republicans are just thinking about this primary.
Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and kind of everyone else, right? And Chris Christie should really be in one of the first two races, right? His personality is more of a DeSantis in a Donald Trump. But he doesn't have a base at this point, right?
That could change a lot, could change the lead that open at the same time. This is a party that is fully on board with Donald Trump. So, Stephanie, when you look, if you're the Biden reelection campaign and you see Trump and DeSantis going after each other, it's almost playing out exactly as you want. The next six months play out.
Is it not? Messy Republican primary is the best thing for President Biden, absolutely. And I think you get Chris Christie on. Do I think he has a consistency?
No. Do I think he'll say anything about DeSantis and Trump? Yes. Yes, I do because he's going to fight like he's from New Jersey.
And so you're going to see it's just going to get muddier and messier and messier with louder voices coming in. What's your say? Can Christie get on that debate stage? 40,000 donors seems like a big heel to climb.
I think it is. I mean, that costs about $4 a person to obtain on email. And so that's going to be a big focus. So they're going to use every dollar.
They get it hard money to try to raise it. I do think he's going to fill up Eugene's playbook every day. It's just great quoteable on that front. How about a do a tweet?
You know, it's interesting. You sent it to me. Other Republican operatives sent it to me. It's this Brian Kemp tweet.
Taking our country back from Joe Biden does not start with congratulating North Korea's murderous dictator Andrew Mitchell. And that brings you to Trump's praise. Yeah. Kim Jong-un getting on the dough.
And he nearly jumped on that also. And so I think that that is a bridge too far. You know, almost everything else that he says that sounds that I think was a bridge too far. Well, probably Putin as well, but he's backed off a little bit, maybe a little bit, but Kim Jong-un is, you know, a killer in, well, Putin's killer too.
But the fact is that he loves wrong men and Republican voters seem to really love fighters. That's what they want, but not someone who is relying himself there. I was really fascinated by what Mike Brown said to you. Not willing to commit to the pledge.
So that tells me, you know, there are a lot of people who really like Tim Scott. He's got that Reagan, you know, optimism. He's positive, but other people inside the party say he's got to get specific. Is he selling dog food to cats?
Yeah, like people want optimism. It feels like a completely different party, right? This is not a Republican party that is happy that is looking for a Reagan person. If it was, Donald Trump wouldn't be getting 45% of the NBC poll, right?
That is that is a completely different party. You know, we talked to folks who are in that Scott world. They try to compare it to Obama in 2007. We had a Democratic party that was angry and that you bring in someone who's talking about hope and changing it works.
I don't know that it works as well, but this current Republican party. It's not gotten specific on policies. He had to stand up. Go ahead.
Under resume, Tim Scott is your own peril. He's going to have real appeal in Iowa. He's the best grassroots campaign that we have. He's the most connected to evangelicals.
He's going to do well in Iowa, which is give him time. I agree. The question is, does that matter? Yeah.
Let me put a reminder here. Here are Republicans winners of Iowa in the last three open races, all three of them lost a nomination. More importantly, let me show you how well they did in New Hampshire. They all ended up 20 or 30 points winning Iowa is a guarantee to basically make it to the convention.
That's about it. Yeah, so it's a very different situation than the Democratic side of the aisle. But I think I think what we're dealing with here is Donald Trump is really hard to beat. And as I believe, more and more Republicans jump in because yes, they're upset with like DeSantis is moving so far to the right, the Republicans that are starting to jump in are not the ones you think are super far, right?
You think they're the ones that are more of the business Republicans. There is a huge problem with the, I don't even know if I want to call them moderate Republicans anymore, the old Republican Party. They're looking for solution, but the base is not. They want Donald Trump and somebody like him.
But getting back to your original question about Ryan Kent, I think that was a real tale. Why is it that he's warming up? And he doesn't have the advantage that perhaps young can have to get away because he can sell fun. But Brian Cap is very popular.
He's done very well and he stood up against Trump. I want to play Mark Leopold from Joe Biden because I'm wondering if this was a meaningful or a troll? Take a listen. I want to commend Senator Speaker McCarthy.
You know, he and I and our teams are able to get along, get things done. Brad was, Kevin McCarthy. Happy or sad. I mean, I've had a lot of Republicans say that's going to be a problem.
Kevin McCarthy had the best week of a speaker shift this week. You can't make him unhappy. This is the best weekend he's had. And so I don't think he cares if Joe Biden says that about him.
Joe Biden's using him as a prop because Biden's not been bipartisan for three years. So nice trying to lean on Kevin McCarthy gets some bipartisan credit that he promised. It's not so far as the left going to stay quiet or they're going to start to get cranky about Biden here. The left has already been cranky for two and a half years and they'll continue to be a little cranky.
But the truth is Biden knows the Biden organization knows that this is about running through the middle and getting things done. And folks are looking for that once they can advertise that out. All right. I got a positive this week's episode of Meet the Press reports.
Our magazine show with a deep dive on one subject takes a look at the art of the con and how successful it is and not just business but politics. Here's a sneak peek. Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of blood testing startup Theranos was once worth four and a half billion dollars and celebrate it as a woman who could own the future. You get the same results that you get through Theranos if in fact you went to a doctor and had him take a vial of blood from your veins.
We do but in 2015 the Wall Street Journal began unraveling the con questioning whether Theranos's technology worked. This is what happens when you work to change things and first they think you're crazy then they fight you and then all the sudden you change the world at the end of May homes reported to prison after being sentenced to more than 11 years for defrauding investors including media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Oracle's Larry Ellison and the Walton family founders of Walmart. It kind of throws into question like the success of some successful people who we might resent for being successful. Hey, famous people are just like us.
I can get scammed so can they're great. You can catch the whole episode later this morning on News now at 11 30 anytime I meet the press website and of course Peacock and YouTube when we come back America's population is aging. They've got no distance. They download time.
The United States is getting older but the differences across regions and demographic groups could have big policy impacts as the nation faces questions around program funding and cuts. Let me show you here as you can see over the last decade the 65 and older population has been growing at a pretty fast rate here nearly 4% points since 2010 are under 18 population is actually shrinking per capita down to 22% of the population a 2% point drop and when you look at it across regions you can see it's the Northeast and the Midwest that is aging faster here nearly at 4% at a 4% clip to South and the West a bit younger that has to do with the fact that there are more Hispanics in the South and West and I'm going to show you that in a minute you look at it by state Maine and Florida are 1 2 amongst the oldest states or the oldest 65 plus population and it's Utah and Texas that are among the youngest there you saw being the youngest a Texas with his Hispanic population also skewing younger and check this out because it's high ethnicity that shows you the dramatic differences here on age among whites the white population is aging at the fastest rate 5% of all by Asians and African Americans and then look at Hispanics the 65 plus population only aging by less than 3% points so we are a country that is aging overall but certain population centers and certain regions are aging faster than others this week former first lady Rosalyn Carter's family revealed she's been diagnosed with dementia 3 months after Jimmy Carter had to enter hospice care family said Mrs. Carter continues to live happily with her husband at their home in Plains George in 1976 the longtime mental health advocate join me the press and talk about the special community of planes and her experience getting the campaign trail what appeals to you other than the life you're living well I I've always enjoyed doing things with my family I enjoy playing Georgia just being at home in a small plan everybody knows everybody's feeling no matter what happens in our community if there's a illness or some kind of sentence everybody cares and I think that gives you a stability that to me is so important and I enjoy that I enjoy the public life I've had a chance to travel in the whole country and it is just it's just a great experience and I go into countless homes nursing homes golden age clubs homes for the elderly every single day saying we vote for my husband the problems of the elderly have my mother 70 she just retired from hospital it was traumatic but I'd have to give up her work Jimmy's mother is 78 she takes care of Amy for me we know their problems first him but still when you go in the country and see things I think that this last year and I have traveling in the country has been probably the greatest experience of my life welcome back I have a personal announcement well today is not my final show this is going to be my final summer here at the press it's been an amazing nearly decade long run I'm pretty really proud of what this team and I built over the last decade frankly the last 15 plus years that I've been here to see which also includes my time as political director I love so much of this job helping to explain America Washington and explain Washington to America when I took over meet the press of Sunday show that had a lot of people questioning whether it could still have a place in the modern media space I think we've answered that question and it's we've taken the press from a single Sunday show to a distinct and important political franchise from our daily show me the press now our magazine show me the press reports door newsletters and podcasts we've successfully expanded what makes me the press special on Sundays to make it special no matter the topic or where it airs or that includes our annual meet the press film festival as well which is somehow become one of the most important festivals for Oscar buzz and nominations for news driven documentaries but the key to survival of any of these incredible media entities including here in the press is for leaders not to overstate or welcome I'd rather leave a little bit too soon than stay a tad bit too long I've had two amazing professional chapters and I already have plans for my next chapter including some projects right here in NBC News that I've been very focused on among them docu series and some docu dramas focused on trying to educate the public better bridge our divides and peers or political bubbles so while I may be leaving this chair I'm still going to help NBC navigate and coach colleagues in this 2024 campaign season and beyond but this is also an important time for me personally I've let work consume me for nearly 30 years I can't remember the last time I didn't wake up before five or six a.m. and as I've watched too many friends and family let work consume them before it was too late I promise my family I wouldn't do that and just as important and this is what really makes me happy I'm also ready to take a step back because I have so much confidence in the person who I'm going to pass the baton to she's somebody who's been ready for this for a long time Kristen Walker I've had the privilege of working with her from essentially her first day here in Washington and let me just say she's the right person in the right moment and for what it's worth this is always how I hoped this would inform me that I'd be passing the baton to her and I'll officially do that in September I'll be honest though I leave feeling concerned about this moment in history but reassured by the standards we've said here we didn't tolerate propagandists and this network and program never will but it doesn't mean sticking your head in the same either if you ignore reality you'll miss the big story being a real political journalist isn't about building a brand it's about reporting what's happening and explaining why it's happening and letting the public absorb the facts if you do this job seeking popularity you are doing this job incorrectly I take the attacks from partisans as compliments and I take the compliments from partisans with a great assault the goal of this and every need to press episode is to do all of the following in one informative hour make a mat make you think shake your head a disapproval and not your head in approval if you do all of that in one hour of this show we've done our job so again this isn't goodbye but know this no matter who sits in this chair it's Sunday it's me to press so I hope you'll join each week who knows you might just come away with your own glass out for search class out for with Craig Nelson from today on YouTube wherever you get your podcast