Meet the Press — August 20

This Sunday defending Trump, the Republican presidential hopefuls are getting ready to take the debate stage for the first time, as Donald Trump prepares to be arrested for the fourth time. It's a witch hunt, it's just a continuation of a witch hunt. Republicans can't get let him get away with the Republicans have to be tough. Trump plans to skip the debate, but why are most of his Republican rivals still planning to defend it?

Alas, go to Governor Doug Burgum, whether he's ready to confront the front runner and is growing list of legal liability. Plus, silent strategy. President Biden stays silent on the appointment of a special counsel investigating a son. I have no comment on any investigation that's going on, except for the Justice Department and the United States.

But as public distress grows in the legal system, will President Biden rise to the challenge for this critical moment for the American democracy? Alas, Minnesota's Democratic Governor Tim Walts, the top surrogate for the Biden 2024 relay. And law and order. The defendants engaged in a criminal, racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia's presidential election result.

Donald Trump was charged with 13 felony counsel, along with 18 other co-conspirators, and is now facing 91 criminal charges in four separate criminal cases. How dare a low-life prosecutor deranged Jacksonville? That's right, he's deranged. How will Trump's threats against prosecutor, judges, and potential witnesses impact all of these cases?

And will any of these trials begin before the November election? I'll talk to three former prosecutors about what to expect. Joining me for Inside and Analysis are USA Today, Washington Bureau Chief Susan Pei, Jonathan Martin of Politico, Lonnie Chan, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Kimberly Yackenstor, senior opinion writer for the Boston Globe. 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 Tyler. A good Sunday morning, this week marks the unofficial kickoff of the next days of the 2024 campaign, as at least eight Republicans competing to take on Donald Trump will meet in Milwaukee for the first Republican debate. Trump plans to skip the debate and instead is reportedly counter-programming in an interview already taped with former Fox host Tucker Carlson.

Of course, it used to be that extra marital affairs, campaign trail tears, for getting a cabinet agency, even a weird screen, could end a presidential campaign. Now, Donald Trump has been criminally indicted four times in as many months, faces 91 felony counts, and he still leads the Republican field nationally by nearly 40 points, and outside of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was falling at 3% in a new Quinnipiac hole, and to a degree as former Vice President Mike Pence. Trump's Republican opponents, for the most part, are declining to take him on directly. We've done over 80 town halls in New Hampshire and Iowa, and Eric, not one of them are asking me about Trump, not one of them are asking me why I'm running against him or anything else.

I think that these indictments are a disaster for the country, and I say this to somebody who just looked at the polls that have come out in the last 24 hours. I'm holding second in many of these national polls. It would be easier for me if Trump were eliminated from competition. Instead, in a pre-debate memo from Ron DeSantis's Super PAC, advises him to take a sledgehammer to Vivek Ramaswami and to defend Trump when Christie inevitably attacks him.

Of course, Republican candidates are terrified of alienating the Trump supporting voters that they'll need to win by criticizing Trump. Show us the campaign where an underdog beat a dominant front runner by not taking on said front under directly. In an interview with the Florida Standard, DeSantis took a swipe at Trump's cult of personality inside the Republican Party, and a swipe immediately got Trump and his allies to lash out. You could be the most conservative person since sliced bread, unless you're kissing his rear end, they will somehow call you a rhino.

If all we are is listless vessels that just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens to come down the pike on truth social every morning, that's not going to be a durable movement. Already this morning, the Trump campaign is trying to weaponize that phrase listless vessels trying to compare it to the famous basket of deplables comment from Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump is systematically right now attacking the prosecutors and judges in his cases, and there are new threats of violence. A Texas woman was charged with threatening to kill the federal judge overseeing the 2020 election case here in Washington, D.C.

And Trump's supporters posted the names and addresses of the members of the Georgia Grand Jury who brought back that indictment against Trump. And after promising a major news conference on Monday to release what he called would be an irrefutable report proving the 2020 election fraud, which of course has been debunked in dozens of court cases. On Thursday, Trump canceled the event. He cited the advice of lawyers.

This is a reminder that anything he says in public could be used against him in a court of law. And a Quinnipiac will this week, an overwhelming majority of Americans, 83 percent. So they are worried about the system of democracy being able to function here in the United States. President Biden was elected to restore the soul of the nation, in his words.

A vote for Biden was said to be a vote to get rid of Trump, but Trump has made it clear he's not going anywhere, and he's still here. Now just 24 percent of Americans say they want Biden to run again and just 30 percent want Trump to run again. And as Trump has been indicted again and again and again and again, Biden has chosen against taking him on in any meaningful way right now. That choice and the choice of top Republicans to stay silent has left a massive moral vacuum in our frank democracy, who is defending the guardrails.

This morning, the Biden campaign is defending the president's record in a new $25 million ad campaign, which will run across battleground states. There are some who say America is failing, not Joe Biden. He believes our best days are ahead because he believes in the American people. Those who bet against America learning how wrong they are.

And joining me now is one of the Republican candidates who will definitely be on that debate stage in Milwaukee. And Wednesday night, it's North Dakota Governor Doug Bergum. Governor, welcome back to me to press. Chuck, great to be with you and thanks for having us on this morning.

You got it. Since you and I last vote about a month ago, a couple more indictments have come down on the former president. And I know you want to get to other topics, but I'm curious on the former president. You think he did try to overturn the election results in 2020 that he made a concerted effort to do that?

Well, Chuck, this is one of these things. I think there's an entire cable news industry. There's a entire social media industry built around trying to answer that question. And when we're coming from, we're excited to be on the debate stage, the least known candidate on there.

If you want to fill this gap where you mentioned 83% of Americans don't trust our institutions, the way that starts is leadership at the top. Any organization I've been involved with, it starts with a leader that you can trust that's got the character and the integrity, the proven track record of being able to do that. And that's what I've done my whole life and every organization I've been, but people don't know that yet. So we absolutely are going to leave that to this whole industry.

We've got to focus on telling our story and telling the story of what we've been able to get done in North Dakota. You know, you are running for president. You don't think people need to know where you stand on these issues. You're asking to be the next guardrail of the American democracy.

At the end of the day, this is the biggest stress test our country has faced in over 100 years. Yes, and I think part of a stress test, whether it's for Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, everybody's innocent, they're proven guilty in this country and lots of acquisitions that are being tossed around. But I think that if we're focused on January is when the first caucuses and primary are, that's when the voters get to side. I do trust the voters.

I trust that if we can show that we're a credible alternative, that we can deliver the things that Americans are looking for, because Americans do want this country to move forward. They want presidential elections to be about the future, a vision for the future. Then we have to offer that. If I'm just one word pun and criticizing everything that's gone on in 2020, no one's going to see that there's leadership there.

So again, presidential campaigns are about the future and we're going to paint that picture of how we can improve the economy, energy and national security, how that's going to improve every American life, how it's going to bring out the best of America. That's what we have. This country's got to move forward, not backwards. If Donald Trump is convicted of a crime and you're a president and you have the ability to keep him out of prison, would you pardon him?

Well, I've been asked this question a bunch. Of course, as a sitting governor, I have to, you know, almost smile because as governors, we've got some limited pardonability for people in our own states. But if somebody came up and said, Hey, this person's been accused. There hasn't been evidence.

There hasn't been one day of a trial in 2025. Would you pardon them? Those kind of hypothetical questions, you know, any governor that understands his role would never speculate on that because it hasn't played out. It's like trying to jump, jump ahead of the entire court system.

And I respect the judicial branch has got their job in the executive branch. One thing I know about the executive branch is we work for everybody. When there's a blizzard in North Dakota, we're plowing the roads for Republicans, independents, Democrats for everybody. That's the job of the executive branch.

That's the job I'm running for. I want to play something that one of your primary rivals, Governor Ron DeSantis, said about the mag of movement. Take a listen. A movement can't be about the personality of one individual.

The movement has got to be about what are you trying to achieve on behalf of the American people? And that's got to be based in principle, because if you're not rooted in principle, if all we are is listless vessels that just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens to come down the pike on truth social every morning, that's not going to be a durable movement. Do you share his frustration? Our poll numbers are going up, not down.

As people get to know us, they understand we've got a great message again about how we can tackle inflation that's choking every American family, how we can start selling energy to our friends and allies, stop buying it from our adversaries, you know, and how we can win the Cold War with China. These are the important topics the President has to focus on. And when we're talking to people, we're excited. Our name recognition goes up.

Our poll numbers are going up. And so we're very positive. And we're absolutely working to create an alternative, an option for American voters to understand who can lead this country forward. You know, it's been interesting to be in a couple of interviews plus than the one we've just had now.

You've been quite comfortable bringing up Hunter Biden on Joe Biden. But it's remarkable to me how uncomfortable you and you're not alone here. You are bringing up the legal problems and the charges against Donald Trump. And I get it.

It's fear of alienating a majority of where the party is. But it's sort of odd. Wouldn't somebody being charged with 91 criminal count be somebody that you'd want to see drop out of the race? I mean, should they even be running for office?

Well, again, Chuck, this is the voters get to decide who runs for office in America. And whether it's a local election or whether it's a state or federal, the voters are the ones that ultimately get to decide. And again, if we're going to live in a democracy, at some point, we've got to trust the voters. I hear you on that, but it is interesting that you don't want to share your opinion on this.

I think some voters will be frustrated by that. Well, Chuck, again, everybody's at a different place. If I had 100% national name recognition, if I'd run for President before, if I was living in a major media market and everybody in the country knew me, that'd be a different spot. But when I know from the private sector, when we were launching our little company that we've then built over a period of time into a billion dollar company, you don't start out by attacking the market share leader.

You start by telling people what you've got to offer. You don't have a basis to launch that. And like I said, there'll be segment after segment on every channel this morning, all the pundits lined up, and I'm not running for pun and I'm running for President. Let me ask you this.

Do you feel as if you should be adding your voice to defending citizens who essentially are part of the law enforcement community, whether it's a threat against a federal judge that we heard from a woman in Texas or the doxing of members of the Georgia grand jury? I mean, this is stuff that is trying to essentially shake the foundations of our legal system. Do you think you should be adding your name to denouncing those efforts? Well, I think one thing we are adding our name to the list, a very small list of people in our giant country.

The people that are running for President, because one thing I know is that if we're going to move back and move away from name calling and threats and loosing, that's not leadership. Leadership is about solving problems. Leadership is about character and integrity. Leadership is about bringing out the best of people.

And it's about, it's about respect for others that have views different than you. That's why we're running. And absolutely, when I'm President, we're going to lead with respecting everybody. We work for everybody.

That's what we'll do. Again, right now, our job is to, again, not to be, you know, it's not to create the accounts. Theodore Roosevelt said it's the man in the arena. We're in the arena right now, and we're working hard to get to that spot.

Alright, tell me what success is for you then after this debate on Wednesday night. How will you know it worked? Well, it will work if we get a chance to explain who we are, what we're about, and why we're running. And we're running to improve every American life.

We're running to bring out the best of America. And we're going to do that by focusing on economy, energy, and national security. And these are things that matter to every American. You had a sign of pledge saying you'd support the nominee.

You call those clubhouse rules. Donald Trump doesn't seem to take that rule seriously. Should we take that pledge you sign seriously? Well, you can take my pledge seriously.

When I say I'm going to do something, I do it. But, you know, for me, I'll be voting for Republican in November of 2024. But we're going to do everything we can every minute of the day to make sure that person is me. Because I know when I'm President of the United States, we can take this country in a positive direction.

We can have an election where people are actually voting for someone as opposed to against the other party. Governor Doug Burger, Republican for North Dakota. We'll watch on Wednesday night, and please stay safe on the trail. Thank you.

Thank you, Chuck. Earlier this summer, I traveled to Fargo, North Dakota. By the way, I sit down with it for an extensive interview with Governor Burger. When we talk about a lot of issues under the sun, and if you want to know his stance on many of those issues, check out our interview in full on meethepress.com.

And by the way, it got an unusual endorsement that the Iowa State Fair lasted. From a Democrat. Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. Walz said, I'm not a Republican.

He told the New York Times. I'm not going to vote in the Republican primary. But if I did, I'd vote for him. Well, Walz was an Iowa as a surrogate for President Biden, and he joins us now representing the Biden campaign.

Governor Walz didn't mean to stand back either with your Doug Burgum endorsement endorsement. But you guys are neighboring governors. Quickly explain your working relationship with him. Yeah, well, Doug is a friend, and it's kind of sad to me to hear that interview did, which was a good one asking all the hard questions.

We've worked together on really important things that governors do, whether that's a flood diversion around Fargo to make sure that the seasonal floods of the Red River don't hit. And then agricultural issues. But look, Doug wouldn't answer the questions that need to be answered, and you were asking what's going to come out of this debate. The minute they all stepped on the stage, the American people have lost.

Are they going to debate who can ban the most books? You know, Doug, he didn't tell you this, but he signed a six-week abortion ban, which is hugely unpopular and simply wrong in America. So, yeah, we're friends, but I hate to see it go down this road. Those are very simple questions about you asking about the President about the indictments.

And so, I was a little bit tongue-in-cheek, and the sad part is I do believe that Doug is probably the most normal of these. That's a pretty weird group of folks going to be on the debate stage. Doug's a pretty good guy, but he's trapped in a Republican party with no ideas. Let me ask you something about your party.

Here's what Congressman Dean Phillips, who's also part of the Minnesota Congressional delegation, had to say to me last week. Who would you like to see in this race? I would like to see a moderate governor, hopefully from the heartland, from one of the four states that Democrats will need. So, let's see.

You'd like to say her, or is it Tim Walz, your home state governor, Tony Evers? Tell me how to. You just said a few names, I think would be great. Later in the interview, you also said many of these people don't want me to mention their name on the record, according to Dean Phillips.

But look, I know what you've said about this effort that he's embarking upon, and you've said you support the President. Do you really believe Joe Biden is the best candidate the Democrats can nominate, or is this a political expediency answer? Well, absolutely. First of all, he's been one of the most highly affected presidents we've ever seen.

I said in Congress for 12 years waiting for Infrastructure Week, he actually delivered on this. And look, Dean is a friend of mine, I love him. But I spent last weekend on Macon Island with Tony Evers and Gretchen Whitmer talking about how we're going to make sure that we win this for Joe Biden, because this is not a debate about Joe Biden's age or experience. It's about a debate about protecting the democracy.

You just heard probably the most reasonable of the Republican candidates not give you a single answer on things. It's about recruiting jobs back into Minnesota. It's about being able to feed our children. So, yes, I do believe President is the best one.

I believe he has delivered in his record shows that, and anything other than that is simply distraction. Then what do you make of so many? What is it? Fewer people want Biden to run again than even Trump to run again?

And obviously, what do you make of that that Joe Biden seems to not have this groundswell of support right now? Do you think it's all age? No, I think it's our system. I think Donald Trump and the Republican Party have poisoned it to people.

No one trusts our institutions, no one trusts Congress, no one trusts any of us, because all they do is attack our families, do those types of things. Look, at the end of the day, Democrats understand if you want to have reproductive freedoms, if you want to move towards a climate change agenda that actually works, if you want decency in the White House, you've got one choice, and that's to vote for Joe Biden. So, I can tell you, we're going to do it. We're going to deliver these swing states up in the upper Midwest.

That's what Governor Evers and Whitmer and I were talking about. I think folks are just tired of it all. But the fact of the matter is, this isn't about Joe Biden's age. This is about the democracy.

As we get closer to the election, they'll see that. I'm telling you, after Wednesday and whatever transpires, the craziness on that stage, people will start to understand this as we get closer. I'm curious of where you think this race is going to be about. You've brought up democracy, brought up abortion.

You haven't brought up the economy. And I say that because the economy, look, it's on one hand, it's statistically healing. On the other hand, a lot of people don't feel good about it, even in your state, waning housing, affordability, and perils economic growth in Minnesota. These high interest rates, you know, people don't think they have purchasing power right now.

They may be able to get by. They don't have the purchasing power they thought they did just a year ago. How do you navigate that? Well, first of all, it's a global phenomenon.

Here in Minneapolis, we have the lowest inflation rates of 1%. We're starting to see folks start to recover from this. But the Biden agenda has actually done more to tame inflation, to start to bring back manufacturing, to focus on high-tech chip industry and to focus on climate change and infrastructure than any other country in the world. So I think folks, yeah, there's angst in this.

We went through a global pandemic. We saw an economy that lurched almost to a stop globally, but we're recovering as fast as any other country. And so I think it's telling the story, it's getting out there. I do think this will be about the economy.

But look, you just heard an entire interview with a presidential candidate that didn't tell you one single idea what they would do to do anything about it. Joe Biden has chipsack. The investments we're seeing, IRA, it's working. Look, at Ferris, I was asking him a lot about Donald Trump and less about his economic proposals, in fairness to him on there.

But I take your point there. On the Hunter Biden situation, just 26% of Democrats have a great deal of confidence in the Justice Department these days. As you pointed out, nobody is happy with our current systems, whether you're a Democrat or Republican or an independent. What do you think the president could do to signal to the country that, hey, I'm out of the way here.

Their Hunter Biden is getting treated the way anybody else would get treated. Is there something he could do differently than he's doing now? Well, I hope the Justice Department makes that case. And look, I'm a parent of a 16 and a 22 year old.

The Bidens love their son. But they also know that he's got his struggles. And he's not on the ballot. Joe Biden isn't Joe Biden's record is.

And I think what he needs to do is let the system work. And again, you know, I'm sure he wants the best for his son. But if the justice system says, look, these laws were violated. And here's the penalty for it.

That needs to happen. And I think Republicans again, saying they support law enforcement, why they allow. And you asked very specifically in that last interview about these attacks on the judges, the checks on our legal system, it's a responsibility to stand up with that. If I thought Joe Biden or had seen any proof that he were trying to influence that, I would certainly speak up.

He hasn't done that. So I think we still need to continue to focus on it. Look, it's pretty clear, you know, while we debate whether Hunter Biden broke the law or not, the influence peddling part with his last name was perfectly legal. What Jared Kushner has done may have been legal.

The question is, should there be an ethics code for presidential family members here? Should we do something? Would you like to see that? What would that look like?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a broader, that's a broader issue. When I was in Congress, I was the chief author of the Stock Act, not trading on congressional knowledge.

My colleagues hated it because they said I was poor. I was a school teacher. It wasn't about that. It was about restoring faith in the system.

Not supporting me or not believing that, you know, we were getting over on something. So yeah, I think that's probably, and I think that's a great question, Chuck, because it doesn't get at the tip for town. When you ask about Donald Trump, they talk about Hunter Biden. Now, there's a big difference there.

One's running for president. One's not on the ballot. But yes, I think something, we had the congressional ethics office that sets up. I just think this idea that Donald Trump violated where you disengage yourself from all financial interests, that didn't happen.

And then putting his family in the White House totally opposed to it. So yeah, I agree with you. Something should happen there. Governor Tim Walts, the Democratic governor from Minnesota also, I see pointed out a former member of Congress as well.

Appreciate you coming up. Share your perspective with us. Good to see you. Thanks, Chuck.

Yeah. When we come back, former president Trump's multiple criminal trials in the middle of our presidential campaign are testing the limits of our own justices. We're going to go, well, any of these trials take place before the election. We've got a panel of experts here from the federal and state prosecutors that will explain this campaign.

Welcome back. Donald Trump now faces four indictments in just over four months in four different jurisdictions, and there are 91 total criminal counts. Some pack of men in Trump added 13 of those 91 criminal counts to his total this week in Georgia. It was a sweeping racketeering case in which Trump and allies are charged with allegedly attempting to overturn the state's election results.

18 Trump allies, including a former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows face additional charges. Prosecutors have proposed a March trial date in the federal case charging Trump and attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Trump's legal team rejected the special counsel Jackson's proposed trial date of January 2nd, which would have been just 13 days before the Iowa caucuses. Instead, they proposed an extraordinary delay until April 2026, a year and a half after the 2020 election, clearly a negotiated tactic.

So joining me now to make sense of all of this, former DeKalb County, Georgia district attorney, Glen Keyes Fleming, former Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, partner, Baker Mackenzie. And I'm using legal analyst and former FBI senior official, Chuck Rose, welcome to you all. When you're the newest to my table here, so I'm going to ask you and you're also probably the most familiar with Georgia's racketeering law. Explain why you think she felt that was the best way to try this case.

Sure. So the Georgia Rico statute is one of the best tools that a prosecutor can use when he or she is trying to tell a complex story that involves multiple defendants who did various acts towards a common goal. And that's exactly what you see here in terms of the conspiracy to overturn the results of the Georgia election. You have 19 defendants, all of whom had a part or alleged to have a part in effectuating the fraud.

So, Chuck, on one hand, I've read if it gets to trial, it's almost an easier guilty verdict than what Jack Smith's trying to do, but is it harder to get this case to trial? If it remains that 19 co-defendants, sure, that's cumbersome, but we all know as prosecutors that that number often narrows. And many people who are indicted are better off if they plead guilty and cooperate because their incentive is built into all of our systems to do that. So, A, if they go to trial with 19, that's a big complex, cumbersome case.

But B, I don't expect that will happen. I expect it to narrow. There's a lot of overlap here, Si, between federal and between her case and obviously what Jack Smith is doing. You've had some interactions with federal government.

You chose to stand down and let the feds go first here. What's the dangers of her having stood down and not going forward, and what's the danger of her going forward to the federal case? Well, I think the federal case logically, from my viewpoint as a former Manhattan D.A., who had to address the Southern District of New York investigating the same side effects that we ultimately tried. We ultimately charged the Trump Organization and the CFO on.

I think the January 6 case just kind of makes sense to me. Alvin Bragg, the D.A. in Manhattan now, has already indicated that he would stand down or indicated he might stand down. You expect that?

We have this trial. You expect that trial that he would stand up. So, he'd follow a motion to say, hey, we'll wait to ask for a trial until after this or something. Well, ultimately, I think the folks who have to make the decisions here are the judges because they're the ones.

We can see how important it's going to be for these judges to main control over their docket and their courtroom. And I believe on the issue of how disruptive is the Trump indictment. I think the judges can control what's going on in their courtroom and security. But outside, it's a different matter.

All right. Let's meet up. We have the proposed calendar as it stands right now. Two of these are technically in already scheduled.

But you have a proposed January 2nd trial for the federal 2020 case, proposed March 4th for Georgia, March 25th for the New York case, and then May 20th for the classified documents case. Of these four, the likelihood that any of them are tried before November 2024. I think it's likely that a case can be tried before November election. I think it's highly unlikely that multiple cases can be tried.

You think what? Perhaps again, to a size point, this is going to turn on the judges and their ability to manage their dockets, the motions, the discovery, and all the other things that could crop up in cases like this. So can it be done theoretically? Absolutely.

Will it be done? It's really truly up to the judges. And Chuck, to that point, though, it's also the judges managing Trump. And obviously they are being very careful in terms of how they're managing his statements and I think some of the statements are outrageous.

But that's difficult to managing the docket. It's managing the external chaos. Well, and I think that's important too, as prosecutors, we all know part of our job is to maintain the integrity of the case and make sure that due process is filed, so that if there is a conviction that it will stand, and you're not risking anything on appeal. Let me put up a couple examples of what Trump has said on his social media platform and ask you guys whether this would normally be used as a way.

Here's what he said about the judge. Judge Chuck can angrily censor in January 6th or in October 22. She obviously wants to be behind bars, very biased and unfair, and then witnessed. Chuck Duncan, the former lieutenant governor, he's going to be testifying before their grand jury.

He shouldn't. If he weren't Donald Trump, Gwen, would you expect there had been actual action against him for those comments or not? So I think we still need to wait and see. One of the rules as a prosecutor is the case will continue to be investigated until there's a verdict.

And so anything that is said that could help support charges going forward, the DA could investigate and bring additional charges. Or in a situation where a defendant has been granted bond, you could risk a bond revocation if witnesses or others feel that they're in jeopardy. You expect a judge to be that aggressive, or do you think it's going to be more with Judge Chuck? All right, and we'll start the trial and I'm off.

Yeah, no, I like the way she's been handling it so far. I'll say this. I think of them in two separate buckets. The tax on judges and prosecutors did be unfortunate.

I had it when I was a prosecutor. People attacked me. It's okay. We deal with it.

A tax on witnesses are a very different thing. A tax on witnesses undermine the integrity of the judicial process. In theory, if they are too scared to testify, if they're intimidated, if they're harassed, worst case scenario, if they're killed. So it's a very different thing to attack a witness than a prosecutor.

Very quickly, could Mark Meadows be taken off of this prosecution list if, because of the property. There's no big cooperation agreement with feds. I think that's going to be within the DA's discretion. We're all waiting to see what happens with the removal.

And we'll see. And could Trump be dropped from the case if there's a guilty verdict in the federal court and then suddenly could you see a decision to say, all right, we'll drop him. He's already killed. In the Manhattan case, for example?

Or in the Georgia case? Well, I can't speak for Georgia, but I think in Manhattan, there is a question of what would be the necessity. However, my own view on that is that you cannot look to the federal government to pay attention to and to protect state interests necessarily. That was certainly my experience in the Southern District case.

And I think after September 11th, New York said New York has to look after New York. All right. This was great. I hope you guys did it too.

Before we go to break, the extent to which debates actually sway the minds of voters remains unclear. And without the $100 up on the stage, when tonight's debate, may matter less. In 1999, Vice President Al Gore and former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley vying for the Democratic nomination at the time. Face off at a debate right here on Meet the Press, where the front runner at the time Al Gore called for even more debates.

Let's debate twice a week from now until the nomination is decided. And just go face to face about the issues and get rid of all these television and radio commercials. Why not do that? You know something?

For ten months that I was running for president, you ignored me. You pretended I didn't exist. Suddenly I started to do better and you wanted to debate every day. It's ridiculous.

The point is Al, and I don't know if you get this, but a political campaign is not just a performance for people, which is what this is. But it is rather a dialogue with people. Amazing. A front runner proposes more debates in the challenges.

All right. When we come back, we won't see former president from the state to say, but we will see him arrested and charged for a fourth time. Our Trump's liability for dealing with the panelists. Welcome back panelists here.

Susan Payne, Washington Bureau Chief of USA Today. Jonathan Martin, the senior political columnist for Politico Lonnie Chen, fellow at the Hoover Institution at future ACC Power Stanford. And she really, I can store the senior opinion writer for the Boston Globe. Hello, everybody.

We're talking debate politics here, not legal shenanigans. I kind of think we're all over raiding the fact that a front runner decided not to go to the first debate. I keep trying to remind you, George, how people should go to the first debate in 1999. Yeah, but this is different because this is the metaphor for this race, right?

You have Donald Trump doing an interview with Tucker Carlson right before turning himself in to get bailed out of this indictment in Georgia. And then you've got seven or eight or maybe nine people scrambling to figure out some way to get traction against him in Milwaukee. You heard Governor Berg, I'm there and look, Jonathan, I'm not surprised by the answers he gave me on this. This is what he's been sticking to his hands.

Is that a viable path? Well, speaking of an illustration about the larger theme, what a great example of a missed opportunity this morning. You're on national television and you don't take an opportunity to say something about the biggest question, not only in this race, but in American politics and global politics, which is the possible return of the former president. And you don't say a word about it.

And I think Chuck, that really captures this very, very weak field. Where's the creativity? Where's the imagination? Where's the enterprise?

Where's the initiative? Give us something, try something, take a risk. These candidates out there wonder why their numbers aren't moving, why this race is static basically. Well, you're not doing anything outside the box.

The person with the biggest talent in the field is Chris Christie. And obviously he's frontally attacking Donald Trump, which yes, hurts his numbers. But at least he's got something to say about the biggest question in the race. These other guys are basically walking on eggshells or saying nothing at all and just buying time, hoping against him.

Chuck, we've seen that movie. He's called the last seven years in the party. Yeah. What do you call it?

And it's going to get weaponized because it did sound like he attacked the voters and not Trump. Well, this is why the sort of memo, the leaked memo that talks about defending Trump. That I found confusing because this is really an opportunity for Ron DeSantis to do more of that. No, you're supposed to take out the big one.

I mean, that is just like, that was just consulting consultants. No practice. But it's somewhat bizarre in the sense that this is going to be the biggest opportunity for any of these candidates. You put that memo up by the way where you're talking about it.

The three pieces of advice you got attacked by them in the media. Hammer of the big Ramaswamy defend Trump from Christie. Yeah. But the notion that you would go after somebody who is probably going to be an afterthought in this race.

He might be the first prime time host. Well, yeah, but I mean, he's interested. But to Jonathan's point, he's actually doing interesting stuff. He's talking about the one candidate.

It's funny you say that he's the one candidate that's not like the others in different ways he's doing. But fundamentally then, the challenge becomes if you actually want to take out the king, you have to take out the king. Right. And so this will be the opportunity for Ron DeSantis and for anybody else who wants to sit in that chair to do that.

What was interesting is that Ron DeSantis, I think if he weren't such a bad candidate, what he was kind of breaking on there could have worked. He could have said, look, I am envisioning a future of the Republican party. That is not just about someone. It's about something and laid out what that future is no matter what happens in this race.

He's still a young guy. He still would have a big future ahead of him. But he's just so bad at it that he flubbed that message so terribly that it turned into another deplorable moment. It's more of an incumbent race than it is an open seat campaign.

That's why you say I don't understand why they don't treat it. I completely agree. You got to treat him like incumbent. Yeah.

And frankly, I think some of these candidates actually are further from Trump than the fact of incumbent. Then a Democrat would be against nobody. The actual incumbent race of a Democrat. Well, as you can tell, donors don't like what they're seeing, Susan.

The Glenn Yunken, to a lesser extent, Ryan Kemp sort of wish list whether to promote a lot of coverage this week. If a reporter claiming he wants somebody, other donors are disappointed in DeSantis giving Yunken money. First of all, they better hope Yunken has success in the Virginia midterms, which if abortion is the main issue, good luck. But is it room?

Oh, please. Glenn Yunken, he ran a good race. He ran against the competitive candidate once. He signed an abortion ban as a governor who didn't talk about him.

He says he won't get until November. Two of the four early states will have passed their filing. He can't get out. Yeah.

He's going to skip two of the first four contests. I'm sorry. This seems like a fantasy to me and a sign of desperate straits. Some people don't do that.

We'll go through this in every Republican nominating contest. Actually, they'll do it too. It's like Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie will come rescue the Republican party from Romney. I mean, this is the same discussion we had every time.

The reality is it takes time to build this infrastructure in Iowa. It takes time to raise money. And it's very hard to jump in regardless of who you aren't with profilers and expect to run a competitive race. You know the last candidate who had this nomination handed to him?

I think it was probably Dwight Eisenhower. You got to get in there and fight for each other. You don't think it was Joe Biden? No, I don't think it was Joe Biden.

I was just going to say I was going to be in it at the end on that. But I take your point on there. But it's interesting. Brian Kemp, as much as I'm not sure what you're looking for.

Brian Kemp showed up yesterday in the Eric Eric. He was the one not running for president. Right. Listen, I think this is a bad look for everybody who's going to be on that debate stage Wednesday night.

That people are still looking. They're looking at all these people. And they don't see a single person in that Republican party can coalesce around. And they're still looking around.

That shows the terrible state. Right. We are going to come back and discuss the other side of the aisle before we go to break. 114 people have now been confirmed dead in the Western Maui wildfires.

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Go wherever you follow me to press on social media. When we come back, there is a growing gender gap in college education. Women outnumber men when it comes to getting a bachelor's degree. And it's going to have a profound impact on our political system.

Welcome back data download time. And also back to school time while the classes are starting tomorrow. As college students start flowing back to campus, there are going to be a lot more women than men in the lecture halls. And it is a trend that is also reshaping this country and our politics.

Let me show you here the trend data overall of those getting a bachelor's degree. As you can see, pretty steady increase from 19, 70, 11% of the population. Nearly 40% of the population now has a bachelor's degree or more. As you can see with millennials, you're starting to see a bit of a faster clip there, a faster growth rate.

What's interesting is the gender gap. In the last decade, women overtook men in who has more bachelor's degrees. And this matters in our politics. Let me just show you overall, currently a role in college.

There's nearly a 3 million gap between women and men. 56% of those enrolled are women. 44% are men. How does this play out in our politics?

But we already know there's a gender gap in our politics, mostly due to single women, more so than married women. And when you look at it that way. But overall, men favor Trump by eight points. Women are favored by double digits.

The degree gap is also a place that we've watched a lot. No college degree. That has favored Donald Trump. In the 2020, I suppose by two points, bachelor's degree more and more.

That favored by 12 points. The point is this. You're starting to see this. These gaps could even grow more as more of this gender gap shows itself on college campuses.

When we come back, President Biden stays silent on the Trump indictments and the special counsel investigating his son. Is it a strategy that could work in such a high stakes campaign? Welcome back. So President Biden was asked a hundred Biden question at Camp David at the start of a summit that frankly is probably going to age quite well for his presidency.

Getting Japan and South Korea and the United States into a defense back. But I should play what he had to say about Hunter. What is your reaction to the special counsel appointment last weekend? I have no comment on any investigation that's going on.

That's up to the Justice Department and that's all I have to say. Kimberly, this was an opportunity to defend the justice system. And he could not have to say anything on one thing and defend the justice. Obviously, he's not there on doing that.

Or they didn't want him to do that. It's leaving the vacuum. It's leaving a massive vacuum. And look, it's not just that he can talk about the justice system as President.

I know the people around him are very skittish about him doing that. It's that he must. He's also a candidate for President. And he has to make one of the starkest differences between the Republicans and him is the fact that he defends the rule of law, that he defends the justice system.

And with his son in the middle of it, that's a perfect opportunity to say, look, I love my son. But I also trust the justice system. And I know in the end the right result will come about in all Americans should have that same faith in that system. He keeps missing that opportunity.

Look, on the one hand, they would argue, hey, he's President. And frankly, look, no voter will vote on this. But it's hugely important what he's pulled off with Japan and South Korea. Yeah, I mean, listen, there are things you can run on.

I'm a little confused by the whole binomics thing. Because you're trying to convince people of something. You're trying to convince them they're own impressions about the economy are wrong. And so if you look, for example, at how Hispanic and black voters feel about the economy, they'll tell you it's next.

Now, they can keep saying, but we have the chips act. But we have the IRA. At the end of the day, you can't convince someone that they're feeling how they're feeling about the economy is wrong. And that's what this election is going to come down to.

And I get that they're trying to present a proactive message. But at the end of the day, it's very difficult, I think, to do that when people feel. They simply feel differently. You know, I know that the charges against Hunter are very different than the charges against Trump, and we shouldn't make them equivalent.

But it gives Republicans this huge, great talking point to kind of muddy the waters about the legal troubles that former President Trump is in. And the current position that President Biden is taking on this, his public position is not sustainable. His son will probably be on trial. There's every possibility he'll be on trial doing this campaign.

We all understand that Joe Biden loves his son very much. But he needs to say something like what Governor Walts said, who was vitally very effective. I thought in saying, if Hunter by the way that the law needs to be held accountable, that's what an American President should be saying. Well, Biden's staff can't even get to the President about the issue because they don't want to address a sensitive topic with the President.

They've got a challenge. I think Biden has basically got three issues where he's not figured out what to say. Okay, one is obviously the question is about Hunter Biden and his son. The other is what to say about the investigation to Donald Trump.

And the third is about his age. Those are three massive issues that are sort of clouding his reelection campaign. And he's not figured out what to say about it. And the one thing I want to point out here is I want to show you this stuff has taken a huge toll on him.

You know, Biden right before the 2020 election, he was right side out, which in our politics is quite astonishing. But look, Trump and Rudy Giuliani began this campaign to try to turn his body, to try to turn him into the Clinton name, you know, with the obsession over the Ukraine businesses with Hunter. And it's worked. His numbers now look more like Hillary Clinton, 16 than Biden, 20.

Kimberly, maybe abortion is the difference there that will bail him out. But that doesn't look good for him. Well, it won't bail him out on its own. To the point about focusing on the economy, yes, the economy is important.

The two biggest issues is democracy. And offshoot of that is the abortion issue. That is something that should be front and center of a message. Yes, you have to talk about the economy.

And through that, he can tell the achievements that he made and sort of boost that incumbency value. But he seems to be campaigning in a bygone era that he feels more comfortable in that he wants to, which is the world war. But that's not where we are right now. We have the former president about to go on trial for attacking the nation's election.

I mean, this is two people who are well-known commodities. At the end of the day, Joe Biden's going to run against Donald Trump. That's what this campaign is going to be about. So you might as well make it about Donald Trump now.

If that's your goal, that's where you have to go to win this election. People who are way underwater, like, this is going to be about one another. And so just get on with it. But the Democratic Party likes him walls.

They're rallying around Joe Biden, in part because they believe that that's the safe blood. That's the three yards on the cloud of dust to use a seasonal metaphor. But one of that actually is the risk to your option. You show those numbers right there.

The Democratic Party thinks that Biden is the safe blood. Just hope for the best. We'll get through the next 14 months. I'm not so sure that that that's it.

I think that's, that's what the Dean Phillips is a little more concerned about. Look, that's how we have terrific panels, terrific show. Thanks for watching. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, get to meet the president.