This Sunday Legal showdown. The thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited and totally disgraced. Donald Trump warns of potential death and destruction if he's charged in the hush money probe in Manhattan. It's dangerous and if he keeps it up, he's going to get someone killed.
He's ratcheting up the attacks, rallying his supporters to his defense as yet another legal probe, the special counsel criminal investigation intensifies. I'll talk to Trump attorney Joe Jacobina and former U.S. attorney Creek Bharara. Plus too big to ban.
Your platform should be banned. TikTok CEO faces bipartisan skepticism that the app may be used for spying by the Chinese government has I can't spy on American citizens. I don't think that spying is the right way to describe it. Can the Biden administration ban the most downloaded app on the planet and parental permission?
As Washington debates TikTok, Utah decides to target all of social media and becomes the first state in the nation to restrict how children use it. We have responsibility to protect our young people. I'll talk to Republican Governor Spencer Cox, who signed this new law requiring parental consent for minors using social media apps. Joining me for insight and analysis are NBC News Washington correspondent Mishael Sindel, Jake Sherman, co founder of Punchbowl News, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Nunit and Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher.
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. Good Sunday morning.
This week left no doubt Donald Trump is still in charge of the Republican Party just a few hours after Trump's false claim he was going to be arrested in the Manhattan hush money case. Last Tuesday, the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy announced the House Republicans were launching investigations into Manhattan. BRAGG Three committee chairman, claiming an unprecedented use of prosecutorial authority, demanded that Bragg testify in terms of documents. And let me remind you, it's not a case where we don't even know what the charges are or whether any will even be brought.
So we're not even sure what documents they want. The rest of the party, even including Trump's 2024 opponents, race to fall in line. I think in your heart of hearts you know too that you think this is just political, this is a political stunt. I think it's disgusting.
It just kind of reeks of political revenge. We know that that's just political revenge. What I call the criminalization of politics. A politically motivated effort to me, by literally a Soros funded da, the Manhattan District Attorney is a Soros funded prosecutor.
Again, all of those are what I would call pre reactions because there is no indictment and that one hasn't happened yet. Trump's biggest obstacles to the local condemnation though, are not his political rivals. His version of Iowa, Hampshire and South Carolina are the legal probes that face him in Washington, Atlanta and New York. And as we've seen time and time again, when Trump is in legal jeopardy, his rhetoric intensifies, and it did.
This week, Trump attacked Bragg personally, who was the first black district attorney in Manhattan, viciously colony of a Soros backed animal. And he also added, he's doing the work of anarchists and the devil. And then an overnight social media post. On Friday, Trump escalated.
He threatened potential death and destruction if he's charged. And later in the day, Bragg did receive a letter containing death threat, including some white powder in the envelope. White powder tested negative. There was one of several hundred threats to the DA's office Bragg and others have received in recent weeks.
And last night at his first formal rally, the 2024 campaign in Waco, Texas, of all places, Trump focused the bulk of his speech on his legal jeopardy, in fact, really leaned into it. His campaign even made witch hunt signs in order for them to be featured prominently behind him. While he was speaking, the District Attorney of New York, under the auspices and direction of the Department of injustice in Washington D.C. was investigating me for something that is not a crime, not a misdemeanor, not an affair.
I never liked horse face. Prosecutorial misconduct is their new tool and they are willing to use it at levels never seen before. When they go after me, they're going after you. Just reminder, Manhattan DA does not work for the Department of Justice.
Now is Donald Trump's turn. Jo Takapena, who represents him in the New York case. Mr. Tacapepa, welcome to the press.
Thanks for the morning. Good morning. Let me start with a simple question. Why did your client, Mr.
Trump, make that claim that turned out not to be true? Did he make it up? No, he didn't make it up. He was reacting towards a lot of leaks coming out of the District Attorney's office.
There had been a leak, Chuck, that Monday, the day before that Tuesday, there was a law enforcement, including Secret Service and NYPD that was going to go through the logistics of the arraignment. And then there was of course a lot of rumors regarding the next day. So he just think, he just assumed based on those leaks that that was gonna happen. Has anybody in the troubles about making it up and so he doesn't want to be arrested.
Has anybody in the DA's office contacted you or told you about special arrangements? Did he have any of this knowledge through you? No, not through us. I mean, we've been in touch with, with the district attorney's office regarding potential logistics of an arraignment if it gets to that point.
But certainly think from Musk Kim leaks. We all read the newspaper that Monday or the Friday proceeding. Mr. Trump has described Alvin Bragg this week as a Soros backed animal, saying he was doing the work of anarchists and the devil called him a degenerate psychopath and he called him the Soros racist in reverse, saying this is the Gestapo.
And his lawyer, do you stand by those comments? So, Chuck, as his lawyer, I want to dissect this case because it's a case that shouldn't be brought and wouldn't be brought for anyone other than Donald Trump. Let's be clear about that. Does anyone actually think left, right or in the middle that anyone else would be prosecuted for making a civil settlement in a hush money case with personal funds?
Of course not. No one had ever been prosecuted for that. You know, the closest we've come was John Edwards back in the day where a donor paid $900,000 for his mistress and the child to be housed somewhere. That case was ultimately dismissed by a part of justice after they couldn't get a conviction and that was with the donor.
The distinction here is so vast and it's clear to anyone whether you are again, if you're support of Donald Trump or detractor, don't like anything about Donald Trump. We should all be concerned as citizens in this country about the weaponization of the prosecutor's office. And that is what this is. I swear to you, in my 32 years as both the prosecutor and the defense where I've never seen an abusive discretion like this.
Well, you say that we don't know what the charges are yet. We have no idea what the charges are. But I'll go back to is it, would you advise a client, would you advise a client to personally attack a prosecutor like it's dehumanizing? Mr.
Jackpot. You know, Chuck, I know again, I'm not his social media consultant. I, I don't. I think that was an IL advised post that one of his social media people put up and he quickly took down one.
He realized the rhetoric in the fourth was attached to it. But that baseball Batman, he didn't shake down the other rhetoric. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. He Referred to the baseball bat thing, which, of course, was featured in the New York Post cover.
New York Post thought it was a pretty, a pretty rough hit, and it was a tabby. Here's the thing. We went through January 6th. So this is not like a possibility that Trump's rhetoric creates violence.
It's already happened once. Are you not concerned this could happen? Well, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not accepting that proposition that his rhetoric created violence. I think violence was, was on the way that day.
But I'm not here to discuss that, Chuck. I'm not going to defend or, or condemn anything regarding social media. That's not what I do. I don't have anything to do.
I'm not a Trump PR person. I'm a litigator and a lawyer. And I'm talking about this case, Manhattan, which is a case that would not be brought for anyone other than Donald Trump. When we seek to use the prosecutors to politicize and weaponize a campaign, that's what troubled me.
And if you look at the facts here, just look at the facts for a second, you have two crucial distinctions. One, this was personal funds. Can you imagine the amount of people that would be paying for Donald Trump's scalp had he used campaign funds to pay for what they would call personal expense? They would be going ballistic, and they would have a right to be going ballistic.
Because the standard. The law, Chuck, this is really important. The law is this, that if you use personal funds and you're involved in the campaign, the bright line test is, would you have expended that money? Would you have made that payment irrespective of the candidacy, irrespective of the campaign?
And the answer that question is simply yes. This was a personal civil settlement that's done every day in New York City. This had nothing to do with campaign finance. Members of the sec.
No, no. You have your game court to make this case, but you keep saying it's personal funds. That is not what Michael Cohen pled guilty to. This was funds where he was repaid by the Trump Organization.
Trump signed the checks, one of them that was there. So you call it personal funds. It is. It is a court largely proven that it was Trump Organization funds.
It's personal funds. It was not funded to the campaign. That's the Trump Organization campaign finance. Love.
But, Chuck, that's personal. That's personal has no. Everything with the truck organization is down. I mean, you realize the door you're opening there.
Chuck, Chuck, you're absolutely conflating issues, and they don't go together. They just don't. This is a case that is being investigated because allegedly Donald Trump had an obligation to notify the fec, okay, the Federal Election Committee. He did not.
The FEC come forth and said that this has nothing to do with whether he paid it through his organization or corporation or his personal funds. These were personal funds. By all accounts. These were personal funds, not campaign funds.
It's personal campaign. Whether the Trump Organization, Donald Trump, the person, you know, Mar? A Lago, corporation, whatever it is, they're personal and not campaign funds. And that's the key distinction here.
If they were campaign funds, we'd be having a different discussion. We'd be talking about how he used campaign funds to pay personal expenses. And they'd be paid for indictment, necessarily. But again, what this investigation may end up being is about the, essentially the falsifying business records, which, by the way, this Prosecutor's brought over 60, this one in, the priest brought over 60 times over the last four years.
This is not an unusual crime to charge somebody in the Manhattan district. You couldn't be more wrong. When we make that statement. This first one will be a case of first impression.
Never in the history of this country has this been done before. And never in the Manhattan District Attorney's office has someone been charged with a crime for falsifying business directions to pay hush money, as they call it, or confidential settlement, in a legal jargon regarding a personal matter. Never in the history of the hand of parental obligation. If he had taken a tax deduction, which he did not, that would be crime.
If he had used campaign funds. We have an argument here. This was a personal matter and they called it legal funds. They called it legal fees.
Legal care. It was legal fees that was invoiced by Michael Cohen, who arranged this on his own with his own money, initially resolved this without the present knowing, came back and then sent a billing for four times the amount, of course of the year was paid off as legal fees, as was the invoice. But what was he supposed to put in his personal ledger? Seriously, what he put in his first letter, Payment for hush money to quiet an affair that I claim I never had so my family doesn't get embarrassed.
Is that what you put his letter? There's no nothing wrong with having a true letter. Chuck, would you ever put a four paragraph sentence to a ledger? Chuck, you're being honestly a little petty when you look at this now.
Because there is no filing obligation to put whatever you want in your own personal ledger. If there were tax Obligations that would be one thing had taken campaign funds, but that would be something else. This neither of these things happened here. So you have a situation where you're looking at either was it a tax deduction and they pulled it out of the grand jury because they thought initially it was mistaken deduction.
He did not. And secondly, did he take campaign funds? If he did not, he used personal funds. And the test again is, would he have made that payment regardless of the campaign?
And the answer to that question is a resounding yes, by all accounts. All right, I do want to get you to respond to somebody who had a different point of view on this and it was you a few years ago. Let me play this down and get your response. No, frankly, you know, Michael Cohen again has made statements that would give rise to suspicion for any prosecutor to say that doesn't make sense that a lawyer took a home equity loan with his own money, paid somebody that he didn't even know on behalf of a client, by the way, had the wherewithal money to afford $130,000 and by the way, didn't tell the client about the selling agreement.
It's an illegal agreement. It's defraud. If that's in fact the case. And I look, we put in the if in fact that's the case.
And I do. Did you hear that last line? I understand that. No, no, I understand that.
So what is it that you've learned about this case that changes your point of view? The facts. The facts that what I just said. I'll repeat it again, that this was personal expenditure, not campaign money.
The hypothetical question posed me five years ago 48 facts. As a legal expert, as so many legal experts wants to be discussed and they don't know is I was asked hypothetical question. I responded with this twice and I'm reading the transcript. If that is in fact the case.
I started with it, although I didn't hear in your clip, but you did play at the end where I ended with it with which is if that is in fact the case. So when I'm answering the hypothetical question without knowing the facts, but I'm going to respond to that hypothetical question, I will respond to how I think appropriate. Now, what I since learned is that there were no campaign funds used, that there was an illegal invoice sent by a lawyer over the course of a year to cover these payments and more and more importantly that the campaign finance law is clear. Bradley Smith of the foreign chairman of the FEC's corner said clearly that there's no Campaign finance law involved here because these personal funds and the expenditure were made irrespective of the campaign that notified for me five years ago as a hypothetical question was posed to a legal experiment.
All right, it sounds like you have a defense ready to go. But everything you've described is probable. I mean, if you're a prosecutor, you know you're making these claims. Great.
Show us your proof of it. It seems like there's enough at dispute here that actually this belongs in a court of law to resolve this. Of course it doesn't belong to the court of law, Chuck. Listen, again, you can't bring a case cobble two misleading felony meets actual limitations when not one misdemeanor exists.
There is no crime here. It's not even a bad act. Okay, again, the tractor of voultruck or not. There's a.
There is a gay that he has pled guilty to that involves the former president. At the core of this issue. A million different crimes the guy was committing. Tax and dying frauds, other frauds, other perjury.
Listen you, if you wanted to say it's fine, but if you let me answer, which is when Michael Cohen pled guilty, he said something that was so crucial to campaign finest law. And it's where every expert is used. Even if you accept the word of a convicted perjurer or a liar. A guy who's lied in every form he's ever been in.
He said when he pled guilty that this was done for the benefit of the campaign and for personal embarrassment of the vine and his family, including Johnson Barron. Once he said the end part, it takes it out of campaign finance votes, personal funds. It had to be used exclusively for the campaign. It's like me buying a suit to go on the campaign so I could look better than if I had an old ready suit on.
That's a personal expenditure, it's not a campaign expenditure. Even though it benefits the campaign, it's not a campaign expenditure. So when Michael Cohen said it was both for personal and campaign uses or reasons that kicks it out of exclusive campaign finance form. There is no crime, I'm telling you.
Trust me, that's the law on campaign finance. We're find out. It is a very murky law on campaign finance. But like I said, it sounds like this is why you might need a court of law to figure this out.
Mr. Jackpin, I really appreciate you coming out and sharing your perspective and obviously the perspective of the president in this case. Thank you, sir. Thank you, John.
All right. The Manhattan case, it's just one of four criminal investigations against the former president where we've seen some major developments over the last week. In Washington, Trump's executive privilege claims were rejected. Former Trump officials, including chief former chief of staff Mark Meadows, will be compelled to testify on January 6th.
Vice President Mike Pence's testimony on January 6th is also still in question. For its word arguments for this week, Trump also lost an attorney client privilege argument. His lawyer in the morale classified documents case had to talk to a grand jury on Friday. And then there's the case on election affairs in the state of Georgia where the DA is likely to decide soon whether to bring charges there.
Join me now is the formula from this other district, New York. Great. Welcome back. Thanks for having me.
Nice to see you. Let me start with what we just heard from Mr. Tacopina. At the end of the day, would this be an easier case of better court?
I don't know. Obviously the subjection here, my former office, Iran chose not to bring the case. But what was interesting to me about your exchange with Jose Capitina, I've seen this on many occasions. We had, you know, a melange of Republicans saying no crime here.
Nobody would ever charge this case. It's unseemly, it's irrational. It's never happened before. But it did.
It happened with respect to Michael, Michael Cohen, who was now only charged with this type of crime, this particular crime. And he thought it was a crime guy guilty to it. His lawyer thought it was a crime, allowed to plead guilty to it. The prosecutors in the district of New York thought it was a crime.
The judge accepted the guilty plea, thought it was a crime. So you can argue about whether or not it's appropriate to bring such a case to argue about the object of it. But the idea that this is unprecedented is just false. It's just wrong.
Look, you've heard his case. He feels as if there's not. And look, the campaign finance cases have just not been easily prosecuted. Look, we know that Virginia John Edwards, he brought the John Edwards case.
I'm sorry, I have to. These are very difficult to win because the laws is not clear. Is that fair? And you're out of brightness.
You know how hard are cases. So I don't know the facts, I don't know what evidence they have in documents. I don't know what the testimony of reentry has been. I don't think anybody saying it's a slam dunk case.
I don't think anybody's saying that it's an open shut matter. I think we need to look, I think you're exactly right that it's a provable case. You have challenges like any case. You have issues of credibility with respect to Michael Collins in the case.
Maybe you'll be able to persuade a jury, notwithstanding the instruction of the judge, that insofar as even a little bit of a motive was related to personal embarrassment, that can't be a campaign finance. That's not a law. I understand that's not the instruction that the judge is going to give. But nobody's saying it's an easy, easy case.
I will make another point though as people attack Alan Bragg and say he's doing some political reason. This is a person who has been attacked for a year in one instance in book length form for not rushing to judgment, for not finding the easiest and quickest case to bring against the former president. Even though we have respected prosecutors in his office basically begging him to bring that case, he didn't do it. So this is the mark of somebody who's careful and deliberate.
We can have an argument about the merits and strengths of the case once we see him indictment with respect to the campaign finance part of it. But you can't say about Alan Bragg that he's rushing to the court to indict a former president of flimsy charges. And look, I'm not asking you for sort of the political look, but as a former law enforcement official, I mean, look, the former president did, however you look at it here, Alvin Bride, if he brings the indictment, it'll look like he can't back down. He doesn't bring the indictment.
He looks like he's been bullied. I mean, in that sense we're really seeing the legal, the law enforcement community get challenged here by the former presidents. How would you handle this here? But I'm retired from that business now by virtue of trouble.
Are you sure? I'm retired now. Look, I think the only way we can handle these cases and you get a prison whether you win a case or you don't bring a case, is you settle the law of the facts and the evidence is. I said a second ago, that's Robert Bragg.
You can disagree with him alt and see what the allegations are, but he's not just willingly going forward bringing cases. And I know some people say that the president have been a case against the former president, but it's also the case that there should be one standard of law enforcement equal before the law and other people have been charged with the crime. And as I said, Michael Cohen charged in this case. He's the less culpable person to believe the crimes committed.
Some might argue that this mischief justice Donald Trump is not highly accountable for it. He actually has no more game. No, he's already paid papers crime very quickly. The federal case where a judge decided Trent county protest doesn't I mean that is not doesn't happen very often significance of that and what do you think this would be leading to?
Look, I mean as we've been discussing as you ticked off a couple minutes ago, Donald Trump faces jeopardy from, you know, a number of sources. The Alvin Bragg case is just one of them. He has legal jeopardy in Fulton County, Georgia. And the federal matter being overseen by the special counsel is proceeding the pace.
And I think some people speculate that there wouldn't be a case there either Mar a Lago or January 6. But this shows you that they're being aggressive and this is now a second judge. In different contexts it's found maybe there's a crime fraud exception and that attorneys and Donald Trump were conspiring together to commit a crime. Is there ever an instance where all these prosecutors should should work together any grand jury sharing agreements or anything like that?
You can have that. There's no overlap as I understand it between where Alvin bragging the hymn DA and what the Justice Department is doing. There may be some overlap between with the Fulham County DA's doings. It relates to election interference and absence generations about the big line election interference.
My guess is they're not really sharing too much because it's a local prosecutor want to keep those lines separate. But that would not be unusual. Former U.S. attorney for Southern District of New York who's going to get your respect on Donald Trump may indeed become the first American president to be indicted.
But others have come close. In 1974, a grand jury named Richard Nixon an undictable conspirator who was ruled in the Watergate scale. Nixon was part of my four after investigation and never formally was charged with any crimes. He joined the Press in 1988 and talked about the impact Watergate had on his legacy.
And he also had a warning for future presidents. Winston Churchill once wrote that strong leaders usually do the big things well, but they follow up on small things and then the small things become big. I should have read that before Watergate happened in 1972. We went to China, we went to Russia.
We ended the Vietnam War effectively by the end of that year. Those were the big things. And then here was a small thing and we followed it up beyond belief. It was a great mistake.
It was wrong as I pointed out over and over again. But under the circumstances now, people, as they judge that period, have to see what we accomplished and what we did wrong. And for the future, I would advise all those who follow me in the position of president do the big things as well as you can. But when a small thing is there, deal with it, Deal with it fast, get it out of the way, because if you don't, it's going to become big and then it may destroy you.
Just to remind you, that small thing was an attempt to hijack the Democratic primary process and in this case, perhaps successfully pick the candidate they wanted to run against in 1972. When we come back, Republicans rallied the defense of Donald Trump, anticipated he'd be charged with the grind while ignoring his dangerous attacks and calls for political violence. Panel is next. Welcome back.
Panelist here, NBC News watching for funky chefs and board chairman, co founder of Punk Poll News, Democratic pollster, corner of Belgium and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan. I want to start with sort of this issue of violence. I mean, the former president, Peggy, you know, he is doing it again. However you want to look at it again, he's doing it again and it's really kind of ugly.
Let me play some of the stuff that he said, particularly this first fight. All right. We've heard him and the social media posts and all that. Forget the legal debate here.
Why is it a moral operation? I wonder lately if people have become a little desensitized in this area with Donald Trump because they're so used to it. There's also, I think there's been a sense this week that you look at what he's doing, posing with a baseball bat, saying there may be violence. All this stuff you look and you think is this strategy for a public nervous breakdown, you actually are not sure.
I'm not sure of which. Look, I think speaking in terms of tacky politics, he's trying to nail down and excite his base. Looks like he succeeded. Waco looked last night like he succeeded.
There's a part, a significant part, but only a part of the Republican base that is all about Trump. It seems to be there, there. The big question in the coming years, can anybody else coalesce what is not Trump? But yeah, it looks like they're all excited.
I'm actually picking on this. I'm not sure if he's having a nervous breakdown or if he thinks this is good politics or if this is his campaign strategist going, let's make lemonade. Well, either way, it's a Dangerous place. And I do have the quote talking about the district attorney.
He's a Soros backed animal. Right. And so that's a classic anti Semitism racist trope. And look, I think it's my job part time here to call out dog whistles.
Trump has a brace's bullhorn and it's inciting violence. And you already see district attorney is under tremendous threats of violence right now. It's dangerous in that we don't have more Republicans calling out. It's really, really troublesome.
Go ahead. I think part of this also is that former President Trump hasn't had to face consequences and in fact has actually benefited from a Republican Party that has backed him after something like January 6th. I mean, he was playing music from the January 6th Men's Choir, which I learned about yesterday, which is made up of men who were in prison because of January 6th. That tells you where we are.
Footage of the attack on the Capitol. They played footage of the attack on the Capitol to the crowd. And that to me really underscores that Trump is doubling down on this because he has not had to face political consequences or legal consequences. And he remains the most popular figure right now for the GOP nomination to tell him that he feels like this is working for him and he's doing this as a political strategy.
I'll fact check on the political consequences. There have been political consequences, Jake, but apparently not enough to get Republicans to soar up here. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result. Right.
Donald Trump lost them, minimized their gains in the House, lost them in the Senate, lost the presidency. He's been a political disaster for the Republican Party. Just from a pure statistical point of view. It is amazing to me, having been there on January 6th and we all know as sane people what happened on January 6 was insurrection.
They tried to stop the election. The people who are in Congress who were being guarded by Capitol police officers and federal agents with machine guns also know what happened, but they're pretending they don't can, I should say, political causes within Republicans. I was fact checking you just as much as I learned about Donald Trump from the UK we also learned a lot about this week. We've got a pretty interesting story here.
Republican strategist who didn't want to be named told our reporters here, NBC News that this last week with the Santos has not been going so hot. DeSantis is doing a book tour. This anonymous Republican strategist says he's barnstorming. The country's poles going down Meanwhile, Trump's potentially under indictment and Trump's going up.
It's just not a good look for Desantis. There's been a lot of, like, questioning of DeSantis this week, Peggy, to use. Are you questioning him? Well, look, the past week showed you all of the worst and most objectionable, upsetting, and just horrifying of Donald Trump, who Desantis, we assume will be running against.
And Trump's numbers went up with the base and Desantis went down. Look, we'll see where it goes. It's early, you know, all this, that stuff people say. But let me throw this in.
You look at DeSantis, you see his record. You sort of have one question. You have a few questions, but one is, why is he running? Does he know?
If he knows, maybe he could let everybody else know and maybe that will help him at a difficult time. I'm just not sure I'm seeing why he's running. And, you know, he's sort of getting the worst of both worlds by kind of being a candidate, but not actually being a candidate. The Ukraine, I don't know what to call it, if it's a flip flop or not.
It's up to you what you want to call it. While the US has 25 national interests becoming further entangled in the territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them. Now take a look at what he said. Appears more than like literally like 40 days later.
Take a listen. If I could snap my fingers, I'd give it back to Ukraine 100%. But the reality is, what is America's involvement in terms of escalating with more weapons and certainly ground troops? I think would be a mistake.
That was the point I was trying to make. But Russia was wrong to invade. They were wrong to take Crimea. I think he is a war criminal.
Is this Jake, somebody was trying to play too cute with Tucker Carlson, or does he just not quite know what his position is? I think both. I think he. I don't know.
If he doesn't know what his position is, he sees on Capitol Hill what I see, which is the Republican Party turning against the effort of Ukraine or a big chunk of the popular party fighting against the effort of Ukraine. You can't think it's a territorial dispute at the same time. Think Putin's a war criminal, only should be there. He's coming across right now as somebody who learned how to sail, meaning he's always looking to see which way to move the sails.
He's also looking weak. I mean, it does look Weak. It's been a bit rough for him. All right, when we come back, kids in Utah will soon need their parents permission to use social media.
Let's speak with Republican daughter Utah, Spencer Cox. You just signed those new laws. Welcome back. While Washington continues to talk about TikTok, this week, Utah Active.
It became the first state in the nation to dramatically limit how kids and teens can use all social media apps, not just TikTok. Ask teenagers. This is one of my favorite things to do. I asked them, are you seeing an increase in your own life, amongst your friends, in your school, in depression, anxiety and self harm?
And every one of them will say yes. And then I ask the question, what do you think is causing it? And every one of them tell me it's social media. All right.
The two bills that Governor Cox sign into law require parental consent before kids can sign up for platforms like TikTok and Instagram. They give parents access to their children's accounts, and it will prohibit kids and rating from using social media between 10:30pm and 6:30am unless a parent or guardian modifies the default setting. Already a handful of states are considering similar bills, though they may be difficult to enforce and the courts may have a say on this. You talk.
It's gonna be with you again, Chad. Thanks for having me back. All right, so let me start. I know why you sign this.
And as a parent of two teenagers myself, you know, all of us are looking for more tools to figure this out. But I'm curious, before you sign it into law, what kind of legal scrutiny did you put this under? Because there's a lot of constitutional questions about this. Sure, sure, there are.
And I'm gonna turn myself. We look very closely at this. We work with our attorney general, my general counsel, we work with experts across the nation, researchers as well, and all of the, all of the law that is in question here around the First Amendment really was established in the, in the late, in the late 90s, early 2000s, before social media even existed. And so we feel very confident that we have, we have a good case here.
We expect that there will be lawsuits, and we feel confident we're going to prevail. And enforcement seems also to be a huge task here. Which department in the, in the state is going to be monitoring these social media companies? And are you going to have to essentially hire more people to do this?
So the Department of Commerce will be handling this, and we understand that there are definitely going to be enforcement issues. Anytime you wade into this type of an industry, it's going to be tough. And we don't expect that we're going to be able to prevent every, you know, every young person from getting around. The kids are really smart.
That's one of the problems. But here's what I would prefer. Obviously, I would prefer the Congress Act. That's where this should happen, and I think it will.
It's amazing. We have very conservative members of Congress. Congressman Chris Stewart is running a bill right now, broad bipartisan support. The president in his State of the Union said, we need to do this.
And so I, President Biden, I have very conservative members of Congress working on this together. But the states have to lead out and that's what we're doing. And I expect other states to follow, as you mentioned. And then that helps Congress kind of coalesce and come to an agreement on how we prevent these, these terrible harm from happening.
Let me get you, though. Again, the specifics of the law is where there's going to be some pushback. Evan Greer, the director for Fight for the Future, said this. These bills radically undermine the constitutional and human rights of young people in Utah.
What about in situations where there is a custody battle or allegations of abuse and abusive parent is attempting to attain access to a child's social media messages? This is where, I mean, I get it. Top down, this looks like a great idea. Governor, when you get into the details, things like this, you're like, okay, what do you do?
This seems to be a legitimate concern. Sure, sure. And there are legitimate concerns. We'll be working through those.
So one of the provisions in the bill, actually, both bills, these bills don't go into effect for a little over a year, which gives us time to work through all of those questions, making sure that we're protecting the data privacy of the citizens of Utah. Again, making sure that we're figuring out how these will work in any custody battle you have surrounding kids and their, you know, their online activity and what they're doing. So those things are already being worked through in lots of contexts and we'll continue working. But this is about empowering families, it's about empowering parents, and it's about holding these social media companies accountable for what we know.
Now, this is a data driven approach. We've been working with Professor Jonathan Haidt, nyu, who's been looking at this for many years, collecting research from around the world. And we know this is killing our kids. We have to start there.
The harm being done to our children far outweighs it. And again, this started well before COVID since 2012, especially among young women, the rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, self harm has skyrocketed. And every research institution has looked at this is pointing to social media as a cause. You know, I guess the other question I have about this though is if you, if you go down the street, did you work with the social media companies and say what would it take for them to do real age verification?
Because let's be frank, you know, it's illegal for people under age to look at pornographic material or have access to it. It's been impossible to keep that off the Internet and keep kids from being able to look at it. Why do you think your law is going to be able to work? Well, we think it's.
Again, we don't think it's going to be foolproof, there's no question about that. But we are working with social media companies again over the course of the year we will be going through a rulemaking process to figure out what that's going to look like. Again, how do we protect data privacy? I suspect as we look at this, there will be third party age verification companies that we will utilize to make this happen.
We also don't want to be seen the leaks that happen with some of these social media companies. We want them having copies of driver's licenses on hand. That's not what we're trying to do here. We believe that there are technical, logical fixes that we can work around this and that will be working on the course of the next year.
How are you going to prove addiction? We don't have to prove prediction. We'll be working again to look at these. One of the things that the law does that is very interesting now.
I think Congress is considering a ban under the age of 16. I think many Texas is considering abandoned under the age of 16. We actually did something a little different and that is that we give a private right of action to parents and families to prove to be able to sue these companies if there's harm done to their child and harm is presumed. So we'll be up to social media companies to prove otherwise.
And you don't think that the section 230 doesn't identify these social media companies from your lawsuit? No, I don't. Because this is real harm. And we think that this will remove those types of protection.
And ultimately what that means is social media companies are going to have to be very careful in giving access to these platforms to kids under the age of 16 where again, brains are developing. It's crazy. Listen, there is no other industry where we allow 14 year olds to contract with major corporations to use their data for anything they want. We just don't do this.
We're gonna look back 10 years from now and think what did we do? We destroyed a generation of kids with this stuff. We're allowing, we're allowing the tech world to do a giant experiment on the human brain, frankly, that's what we're doing. Yeah.
Governor Spencer Cox. No, no, it's about adults too. We gotta figure this out for us as well. Trust me, I'd love that.
Ban of 10:30 to 6:30am to apply everybody. I'm half gig but only half governor too. Thanks very much. Up next, the Biden administration is trying to ban the most popular social media app on the planet.
But is it too big to ban? Welcome back. Data down in time as Washington debates weather to ban TikTok or national security concerns. The app CEO testified the Capitol this week to defend the social media platform and one of his biggest talking points that the app is too big to ban.
So how big is he and what kind of impact would have been? Half. Let's take a look at the size of TikTok. TikTok like they have already over 150 million users here in the United States.
That's nearly half the US population. We can't verify that number specifically but we can tell you it has been the most downloaded app of 2021 and 2022 and it still seems to be that way. 2023. You want to see how much of a financial juggernaut it's become.
2020 ad revenue, 3/4 of a billion dollars. 2023 According to Insider Intelligence, their ad revenue could get near $7 billion. This is a fast growing hat and of course people on the app also are able to make money directly from the company that owns TikTok, but from a creator fund you can make 20 or $40 million. 2020, $40 per million views or you can get sponsored posts.
Some people get deals that gives them as One of the TikTok influencers made nearly $20 million in income last year. So what about the politics of a TikTok ban? Look, as people know more Democrats and Rep, it's about a 10 point advantage according to a recent Washington Post poll. But as for whether a ban is a good idea or not, there's not a ton of a political divide.
There's majorities in both parties are concerned that it is based in China. Obviously Republicans a little bit more concerned than Democrats. And then when you look at the idea of a ban overall it's Kind of a mixed bag, right? You see, Democrats are a little bit more in the middle on it, Republicans a bit more supportive of a ban.
But there's a lot of not sure here, which means let's take a look at this in a couple weeks and see how all of this debate has impacted public opinion. So when we come back from banning TikTok to Utah's new social media laws, is the tech industry finally meeting its regulatory moment? Our panel returns to discuss that next. Welcome back.
TikTok, is it a political problem for Democrats to ban this or not? I think, first of all, I think there's bipartisan disdain for it. If you watch that committee hearing, you saw Republicans and Democrats on the Hill actually agree on something. But 150 million people or plus who are on TikTok, they're going to be on TikTok.
It's gonna be. People are gonna be very, very angry. And you have. Young people are making hundreds of thousands of dollars on this, apart from the people who are just addicted to it because they love to watch cat videos and dancing.
So I think it's gonna be a possibility political problem that's gonna be. Make a lot of people angry. Come on, you've got a political problem. 150 million people.
You know, Chuck, there was 150 million people voted last midterm. Talk about an energizing thing to do. Look, we don't do very good at historically banning things either that are really popular. This is a billion dollar industry.
You've got people in the gig economy, young people making a lot of money on this. It is a problem. Adiel, banning it. I gotta say, I think underlying the TikTok story and the Utah governor's story, mostly TikTok, is the fact that increasingly, I think the world has come to see the United States as a nation of addicts.
China sees us, 150 million of us, addicted to this thing. They make the most of it. Cartels find out, oh, they're addicted to all the drugs, Fentanyl, they make the most of it. So we don't have a border anymore.
When you are starting to be known in the world as a nation of addicts, maybe we ought to have a hearing about that. Something's wrong about privacy because, look, I'm not compiled on the Chinese right now, but you have no privacy with this, right. And people, there are data brokers out here who China doesn't have to say it from, they can buy from data brokers. Jake, Utah.
I mean, I think the most compelling thing about why you don't target TikTok, you should target all of them. Is the fact that all of them are doing this. Why is it the Hill focused? Well, a few reasons.
Number one, the big theme of this Congress is anti China. Every single committee is looking to China. It's a priority of Kevin Carthy's. And by the way, as Mish said, there is bipartisan support for cracking down on TikTok.
I can tell you that I've watched untold number of congressional hearings that was among the bloodiest brawls I've ever seen when the CEO of TikTok came to Capital or did they blow it? And they had been working the community for the last two months and then they came in this week done to place and seemed like a bad PR strategy. I mean the fact that there were simple questions like can China buy all this data? Can China take over this application?
They couldn't answer those questions. The TikTok representative couldn't answer those questions. That's the type of stuff that just makes it seem as though even if it's not happening, as if TikTok to is run by China. I will say the other thing.
I think it's fascinating that China's version of TikTok is completely different. That they're about civilization and exercise and that they have time limits for children. That to me ultimately striking. Yeah, I know.
It's fascinating what they don't allow their own people to do. Before we go, I'd like to take a moment to remember a really good friend of mine and a beloved long time political journalist, NBC Swan Berbers, who died last Sunday night. Juan was the top digital editor here at the NC Washington bureau more than a dozen years. But he also worked at Politico CBS twice and was the editor of a hotline where he and I both got our start one week apart over 30 years ago.
Vaughn was with me almost on every ride I've been on as a journalist. Vaughn was a mentor to a lot of younger journalists. He was a steady compass on any political story and he had a wry optimistic presence in every newsroom he was the part of and he also never forgot where he came from. He loved his collar of uploads in separating in Alaska and he never judged anybody without knowing the whole story because he didn't like it when people judged him just based on one fact.
Our thoughts are with Vaughn's wife Lisa, Miss kids Victoria Cameron and Vaughn Henry in this extraordinarily difficult time. That's all we have for today. Thanks for watching. We'll be back next week.
Because if it's Sunday, just meet the press. Hey, everyone. I'm Dylan Dryer, co host of the third hour of Stay and mom to three wild boys. I've learned a lot in my years as a parent, mostly that I don't have it all figured out yet.
And I'm not the only one. This is my new podcast, the Parent Chat. Each week, I sit down with someone new for honest conversation and real world advice about parenting. I am over here just, like, winging it.
Hey, I'm trying not to screw my own kid up. I'm not giving you advice on how to screw yourself. Search parent chat on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast.