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Former President Donald Trump faces additional criminal charges in the Mar A Lago classified documents case. Engaging in a cover up. When you start talking about erasing security cameras and that's a thing, it's pretty clear you know that something was wrong. These are ridiculous indictments.
As Trump's lawyers meet with the special counsel about a third indictment related to his efforts overturn the 2020 election. Every time people bring charges or indictments against him, he gets stronger. I'll break down the legal balance with former FBI senior official Chuck Rosenberg and talk to one of the Republicans challenging Trump for the nomination, former Texas congressman Bill Hurd. Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.
Plus, impeachment troubled him. As Hunter Biden's plea deal unravels in court. House Republicans threaten to impeach President Biden if they do not provide the information we need. Then we would go to an impeachment inquiry.
This is impeachment theater. Setting up a potential impeachment investigation coinciding with the threat of a government shutdown. All in the fall. I'll talk to Biden campaign national co chair Senator Chris Coons of Delaware and his age.
Just a number. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell freezes mid sentence at a news conference, putting a spotlight once again on the advancing age of many of our nation's leaders. How old is too old to serve? Joining me for insight and analysis are Leanne Caldwell of the Washington Post, Amy Walter, editor in chief of the Cook Local Report.
Faz Shakir, chief political adviser To Senator Bernie Sanders and Stephen AES, editor of the Dispatch. Welcome to Sunday. It's MEET the Press from NBC News in Washington, running show in television history. This is MEET THE PRESS with Chuck Codd.
Good Sunday morning. So our democracy faces yet another stress test, one arguably that it hasn't faced since reconstruction. In 2020, the country did face sort of an early pretest, if you will, whether an authoritarian minded leader with an extremely devoted base of supporters would leave office voluntarily, allowing for a peaceful transfer of power. Well, the answer on that test was we barely passed it.
Now criminal charges against Donald Trump have again put the nation on a collision course between partisan politics and the rule of law In a new 16 page superseded indictment unsealed this week in the classified documents case, Special counsel Jackson had accused the former president of a cover up after Trump allegedly tried to get his staff to delete Mark Elago security footage which had been subpoenaed by the FBI. The indictment also charges Trump with an additional counter possessing classified documents, specifically a battle plan related to attacking Iran, which Trump allegedly showed to two people helping former chief of staff Mark Meadows write a book that took place during a meeting at his Bedminster golf club. So in total, Trump now faces 74 felony counts overall between state and federal indictments so far. And a new federal indictment is likely this coming week stemming from the special counsel investigation into his efforts to stay in power after 2020 election.
And an additional indictment of the state of Georgia is expected later in August related to tampering with those election results. So over the next year, we're going to see the legal calendar for Mr. Trump collide with the political calendar for America. And October is when it begins.
Trump faces a New York state trial on civil fraud charges. Now, Trump personally is not required to appear for civil trials in this case. On January 15th, it's another civil trial that just happens to coincide with the day of the Iowa caucuses. That civil trial is involving writer E.
Jean Carroll. It's an additional defamation case against him. On January 29, a week, a week before the contest in Nevada, yet another civil trial begins. This one is a federal class action suit that accuses Trump and the Trump Organization of duping vulnerable investors into buying into a pyramid scheme.
And then three weeks after Super Tuesday, when a dozen states vote on March 25, the criminal case is supposed to kick off in New York, where Trump is charged with falsifying business records to cover up an affair shortly before the 2016 election. And then two months before the Republican convention begins on May 20, the special counsel's criminal trial into Trump's handling of classified documents is scheduled to begin now. I say schedule because the additional charges announced this week is likely to delay the start of that. So the potential trials into election affairs federally and in Georgia, they're not even on the books.
And here's what we already know so far. Five trials, 74 felony counts, and opposes this question. Is Republican Party really going to go through this and nominate Donald Trump? With all of this going on, we're staring at a Republican nominee who is desperate to postpone these trials until after the election because if he wins, they go away.
And a Democratic nominee who's over the age of 80 and ask yourself, do we really think the status quo is going to hold when all of this collides in the spring of 24? It is pretty clear from voters that they don't want this rematch. 70% of voters don't want Biden run again. 6% of voters didn't want Trump to run again.
And the last time we asked this question was before this latest round of nightmares. And yet a Trump Biden rematch appears to be what the voters are going to get. It's not clear that the general public fully appreciates that the two parties are going down this road. Last night campaign in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump escalated things.
He threatened Republicans who do not pursue investigations by an impeachment of President Biden. They sit back and they say they have other priorities. We have to look at other things. Any Republican that doesn't act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out.
They've broken the veil by indicting me with this ridiculous. These are ridiculous indictments. All right, we want to unpack the legal situation here. So we've got former FBI senior official formula, Chuck Roseberg.
Chuck, I appreciate you coming in. So superseding indictments are not something prosecutors like to have to do because it means they didn't have their full case. The fact that we saw this this week, is this more a reflection that justice is scrambling or more of a reflection that they're getting more cooperators? Well, it could also be shocked that they're learning new information, perhaps from cooperators, other sources, documents, text messages, security camera footage.
I think you're right. Ideally, prosecutors like to bring one set of charges against one set of defendants at one time. But sometimes you learn additional information or something becomes more clear that had been opaque previously. And so superseding indictments, while not preferred, are not all that unusual.
And by the way, they're perfectly permissible. How much? How serious Are these additional counts or two more counts? The security footage specifically.
There's some evidence in this proceeding that they have. It's pretty circumstantial. Should we assume that's all they have, or do we assume there's more? Well, first, circumstantial evidence is every bit as weighty and as compelling as direct evidence.
The law makes no distinction between the two. But the new counts, I believe are compelling in and of themselves. Obstruction in a case like this helps to prove intent. Intent is something that the government has to prove.
In these sorts of cases, it can be hard to do because you have to get into the mind of some other person. But when that other person tries to impede the investigation, obstruct the investigation, thwart investigators by counseling attorneys to lie, by trying to destroy security camera footage that helps illuminate that person's intent. So I think those are strong counts. Basically, at this point, he would have to turn against his employees and hang his employees out to drive, if you want to get out of this, Right?
Possibly, but I don't think he's going to get out of it. Even if he does that, and more likely those employees, lower level defendants, lower level in the organization, if passed his prologue, would turn against him. Let's move to the January 6th investigation. Obviously, there's all these delays that something is imminent.
Perhaps it's this coming week. We assume the Granger is going to meet again. They've actually outlined what they're. We kind of, we know what he's been targeted to do.
It's interesting that they're. What they're not hitting him for the insurrection itself. Explain that. Right.
So first we do think something else is coming in with good reason. Mr. Trump received a target letter. When I was a federal prosecutor, Chuck, I would occasionally send out target letters to, well, targets.
It's not a bluff, it's not a faint, it's not a game. If a federal prosecutor sends a target, let that means he or she intends to indict. You're seeking an indictment. You may not get it, but you're gonna seek it.
You're going to seek it. And by the way, when we seek it, we tend to get it. So why is insurrection off the table? Well, first of all, we don't know conclusively that it is.
There's no requirement that you list all of the statutes that you intend to charge in a target letter. But let's assume it's off the table. It's probably with good reason because there's no need for the government to try and prove that Mr. Trump desired violence, although that's certainly what happened.
The other statutes that were mentioned in the target letter are all compelling cases. In other words, he tried to thwart the peaceful transition of presidential power. That in and of itself is as compelling a criminal case as I can imagine without getting into the state courts, because that's a type of situation. But any federal charges in your experience, the likelihood these get delayed to the lap of the election.
Right. So I come from the Eastern District of Virginia. The rocket docket 10 months away, May of 2024, when this Mar A Lago case is scheduled to go on trial. Seems like an eternity to me.
Right. Whether or not that trial has to slide, we shall see. But I don't think it has to. However, if more charges, new charges, additional charges are brought in the District of Columbia related to the events of January 6th, I think it's going to be hard to squeeze that in between a May federal trial in Florida and the November election.
Let's, I want to get your understanding what happened in that courtroom with 100 Biden plea agreement, it fell apart under some basic questioning. Should, should, does that mean this is a pretty weak agreement? No, it doesn't mean that. It does mean that attorneys on both sides perhaps didn't do a good enough job of being very clear with each other and with the judge about what that clearly that contract was drawn up to do is that just this is just bad execution here.
This feels kind of basic. It's kind of basic, but it happens. Most plea agreements go through without a hitch. This one had a hitch.
It had a snag. It's remediable. It's relatively easy to fix if Mr. Biden still wants to plead guilty.
And by the way, Chuck, I think it's in his best interest to do so. The two sides are going to hammer this out. All right. Chuck Roseberg, thanks for trying to provide some clarity to what is I think going to be a confusing situation for lack of the American elector.
Thank you very much. All right. Join me now is the national co chair of Biden campaign, Senator Chris Prince of Delaware. Senator Coons going back to the press.
Great. To be honest again, let me start with the Hunter Biden situation. And I understand that, you know, you believe this is all being emphasized due to politics the Republican House Republicans are doing. Let me ask you this.
Do you think it would be who the president were going to come out and say, hey, I had no business dealings with my son. My son's issues are my son's issues. Do you think he needs to say that more directly? Because there's a lot of people that believe something, something else will happen.
Let's be clear about that point, Chuck. There's been a five year investigation, five years by a Trump appointed U.S. attorney. This investigation started during the Trump administration and they've come forward with not one shred of evidence tying President Biden to any of this.
I am encouraged that in sharp contrast to President Trump, you've just detailed his mountain of legal problems where President Trump is fighting and pushing back and obstructing Hunter Biden's come forward, taking responsibility, paid his late taxes. As you just discussed with Chad Rosenberg. I think the hiccup in the Delaware district Courthouse will get ironed out pretty quickly and I don't think President Biden needs to say anything more than he has. How are you they're going to make the accusation.
The question they may have an eco information ecosystem that helps amplify it to a point where you don't think he needs to just hey, despite what you hear, just so you know, I didn't, I don't do business with my son or my brother. I think he's been perfectly clear. And I think frankly what makes the American people turn towards President Biden in the re election campaign is that he has spent his time focusing on what they're concerned about not really getting the 2020 election, not focused on grievance politics. As I showed in Erie last night, President Biden has delivered on an astonishing array of things that Trump promised to do, but Biden has actually done.
Impeachment was actually on the president's mind while he was in Maine talking about the economy. Take a listen what he had to say. Republicans may have to find something else to criticize me for. Now that inflation is coming down.
Maybe they decide to impeach me because it's coming down. Do you think politically impeachment would help Biden? I don't know. If you look back at Bill Clinton and the experience of the impeachment, ultimately it did.
Frankly, I think President Biden has incredibly strong record to run on. And there was great economic news last night last week that reinforced that the ground is shifting in his direction in terms of economic growth, unemployment, 3/4 of Americans shown a recent poll, they feel better about their economic condition. Consumer confidence is the highest it's been in years. So the ground is moving in his direction.
But if the Republicans want a sharp contrast that Joe Biden's delivering on infrastructure, on high quality manufacturing and making it stronger, the World stage. And they want to engage in political fear that impeachment increase probably the best thing they could do to hurt their chances next fall. You know, what's legal in this town is sometimes very frustrating. You have Hunter Biden that clearly was profiting off his last name.
Yeah, Jared Kushner. You've had members of Trump's family profiting off of their access to federal should be a code of conduct. Chicago, look, you got controversy with the Supreme Court. It's time for a code of conduct for Supreme Court justices and throwing presidential family members, you know, sons and daughters of sitting president.
Should they have their own code of conduct? Should Congress try to address this? It's an interesting question that I haven't engaged with before. We have been engaging on trying to get the Supreme Court to adopt a code of ethics, as you referenced.
They are the only members of the entire federal judiciary not covered by a code of ethics. Members of Congress have to fully disclose their assets, their stock holdings, their dealings, and those of their presidential assailant members. Be a separate, you know, perhaps come under a little additional sort of thing that may be worth looking at because frankly, as you reference, Jared Kushner wasn't just a private citizen. He worked in the White House and engaged in economic outrage by Jared Kushner.
To me, it's not like you can, you know, pick a choose congressman. Defense Democrat. Vanessa is openly now out there saying he thinks there should be Democratic contest. By the way, he's against the no labels idea.
He thinks the president should be running that. And he thinks this needs to be an active debate inside the Democratic Party. What's that? Just look at the endorsements President Biden is getting earlier in the cycle more broadly than ever before.
Look, we've had contested primaries with sitting presidents. You've never seen a sitting president have as weak a field of potential opponents, Marian Williams and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As he has now.
And the endorsements President Biden has earned from the building trades, from climate activists, from reproductive rights activists, from the base of the Democratic Party as broadly as I've ever seen in my life is endorsing President Biden because of what he's gotten done you at all the rfk and you're kind of a kind of a clown show. I think a lot of people sort of see that. I don't think it's a real threat. But Dean Phillips is a pretty serious member of Congress, maybe unknown.
He's sitting down at Alan New Hampshire. That doesn't have any nerves. It doesn't have any nerves, frankly. President Biden has the strongest record of legislative accomplishment since LBJ.
And you're beginning to see the impact. 13 million jobs created by the private sector, 800,000 good manufacturing jobs, 35,000 infrastructure projects out there in the country. Team Phillips can't cite anything like that. President Biden has made a stronger on the world stage.
The Vilnius summit showed his agility, his capabilities, the strength with which he's helped rally NATO to the defense of Ukraine and the strength with which he's delivered on things Trump promised like rebuilding infrastructure, cutting prescription drug prices. Where Biden has delivered gives an incredible record to run. I talked to a lot of our NBC affiliates in preparing for the Sunday show every week. Number one question they asked me was that age, how old was Jewel Surf and was very, was was very hard to watch.
I think we're all hopeful that that's something that's not gonna happen again for him. But it's time to consider we have age minimums in the Constitution that frankly look kind of absurd. And hindsight, should there be a constitutional amendment for an age maximum, whether 75 or 80, to apply to the entire federal government for political points? I think the best test of whether or not someone is really capable of fulfilling their constitutional duty is an election having six years.
Six years. A lot can happen when you're in six year period in your health, especially when you're in your 70 surrogates. That's right. I mean, I don't disagree.
Look, I talked to Minority Leader McConnell after the incident this week where he froze in a TV interview. He seemed fine. You confident in him and you feel like he's run, he's going to be running the show here. I feel like he's going to continue to be the Republican leader through the rest of this Congress.
And what happens after that, I don't know. Senator Christiansen from Delaware, D.C. thank you. Thanks for not sharing your perspective.
When we come back, one of Donald Trump's only opponents who is actually taking him on directly over his legal issues. Donald Trump is not running for president. Make America great again. Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.
Former Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate Will Hurt joins me next. Welcome back. Former Texas Congressman Will Hurt, one of 13 Republicans who made their case to Iowa voters on Friday night at their annual Lincoln Day dinner. Ken Dumo.
He was the only one of 13 to pointedly criticize Donald Trump for the charges against him to audible gasps and booze in the room. Donald Trump is not running for president. Make America great again. Donald Trump is Not running for president to represent the people that voted for him in 2016 and 2020.
Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison. And if we elect. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Well, former Republican Congressman Will Hurt of Texas joins me now.
Hey, thanks for having me on. All right. You know what you were doing when you went into that room, that was a prepared thing. You did that off the cuff, the reaction you got, was it as expected?
Of course it was as expected. I knew there would be people that didn't like it. But what I didn't expect was there were a lot of people that actually clapped and then more. There were more people that just sat there politely and probably understand and knew what I was saying was the truth.
My goal was not to go in there and talk to the people that, you know, have been frustrated when they're told that the person that they respect has been lying to them. I was there to talk to the people that believe in personal responsibility, that believe character matters, that believe service matters, that believes that the United States has a role in the world and it's important to us back here at home. Those are the people that I was going to speak to and also to prove to the rest of the field that we're running for an election. If you're afraid to talk about Donald Trump or talk about his baggage, then you're not ready to be president of the United States.
And that's why I need some help. I need folks go to hurtforamerica.com and at least help me with giving $1 so I can be on the debate stage. You know, the last time you were here was before you were. You were still trying to decide whether to do this or not.
It happened in the week the defamation suit where it was ruled that Donald Trump would indeed not only defame her, but the judge seemed to think that yes, he did rape her. We now have 74 additional criminal charges, plus that civil defamation statement from another court. None of this matter to a public voter fly well, I don't know why the part of the population that supports Donald Trump, I will say this race will tighten when we get closer to an election. That's what always happens in elections.
The place that it is mattering is with independents and conservative Democrats that are frustrated with Joe Biden. If the Republican Party puts Donald Trump forward as our nominee, we will give four more years to Joe Biden. On purpose. You said in the lean in.
Nobody wants to see this rematch. People are looking for something different. And here's what I'm seeing on the ground, I get asked the question, you know, when I'm in places like New Hampshire and Iowa, are my kids going to be able to have good access to, access to good paying jobs? Is a robot going to replace my job?
Are we going to win this new cold war with the Chinese government? These are the kinds of issues that people on the ground want to talk about. And Donald Trump, all he's doing is litigating the past elections. When people start learning when you give money to Donald Trump, it's going to pay his lawyers.
Three out of four dollars that Donald Trump raises is going to pay for his legal fees. And people are starting, even folks Republicans that voted for Donald Trump twice recognize that his baggage is hurting him. This consensus among most of your colleagues running for president, most of your former colleagues on the House, is that a Justice Department that, led by a former federal judge, an FBI that is led by a registered Republican, Chris Christie's former attorney, Christopher Wray, has been weaponized against the right. Is there any evidence?
Well, look, can I make some arguments about some of the things that DOJ and FBI has done over history? Absolutely. But that doesn't change the facts on the ground. Donald Trump is a liar.
Donald Trump is a national security threat. Donald Trump willingly knew that he had this country's secrets and he was trying to tamper with evidence to hide that he had that information. All of those things are true. And that doesn't matter who the head of DOJ or where FBI is.
And that's what we have to be honest about. And if we want to change the how the DOJ operates or the FBI operates, then we have to win elections. And we're not going to win in November if we nominate Donald Trump. How about her administration?
Restore confidence among voters left and right in the Justice Party. How do you do it? You change the way we appoint an interview. Well, it starts with appointing people that have immediate respect.
Right. Who that person or who that. Joe Biden. That's the way he was thinking.
He had Democrat Paul's criticizing him. Hey, you need more of a defender there. Don't put a federal judge there. Well, but did the population know who Merrick Garland was?
No. All they knew about him was he was a dude that was elected to be Supreme Court justice and had to get pulled. Right. So having someone that people trust, and it also requires the DOJ to start making decisions properly and not making mistakes.
And the only way you can be to rebuild trust is to do the right thing and then also making sure People trust the broader government as well too and how you make it more efficient and deliver better services. You know, there was a history for a while when parties wanted to send when presidents want to send a message to national security should be bipartisan, you appointed somebody else the opposite party insurance. Is that the solution here? Republican president should have one Democrats Attorney general, Democratic president.
Well I don't think a do I believe in that concept that makes sense. But if the problem is the conservative base is distrustful in leaders, appointing a Democrat is probably not going to be the one that build that trust. But we can't forget the fact that making sure the government and our elected officials are actually doing what they say and reflective in their actions. I want to talk about another candidate running for president and his Royal Santa debate about curriculum in the state of Florida and he is doubling down and defending the idea that slaves develop skills which in some instances could be applied for their personal benefit.
That is exactly what the curriculum said in Florida. Senator Tim Scott took issue with it and Ron DeSantis responded, Take a listen. Slavery was, was really about separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping the rights. This is devastating.
So I would hope that every person in our country and certainly running for president would appreciate that. You know, I think part of the reason our country has struggled is because D.C. republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left and to accept the lie that Kamala Harris has been perpetrating even when that has been debunked. Where are you on this?
Well, I'm glad since Scotts following my lead, I was the first Republican to come out and say that slavery is not a jobs program. And anybody that is implying that there was an upslide side to slavery is insane. And what is even more shocking to me is that everybody has come out. Ron DeSantis, Department of Education doubled down on this.
Ron DeSantis has doubled down on this multiple times and he hasn't said guess what? You know, he wants to blame the people that wrote this and say I wasn't the one that wrote this. Real leadership would have stepped up and said hey there is no upside to slavery. Slavery was not a jobs program.
Anything nobody should have implied that's what we did and we're going to change language and this would have been done. But this is one more part of a back pattern of Ron DeSantis being mean and hateful. Did he just qualify himself? Well, it'd be hard to make the case if Ron DeSantis was the Republican nominee that folks in black and brown communities should support him.
Folks in the LGBTQ community won't support him because of his hateful rhetoric towards my friends in the LGBTQ community. And then he hired a guy who had known cases of being anti Semitic and then wrote it and created a video that they tried to propagate on their systems and he had to be fired. So this is a, this is a trend. One is an exception, A three is a trend.
And this is, this is a big problem. Very quickly, the no labels movement, are you supportive of them in general, what they're doing? So when I was in Congress, I was part of the problem solving this caucus that had a relationship with no labels. Can a third party candidate win in the United States?
I think that's the case. I think the French President Macron as an example, and the Mexican President Lopez Berdor is another example. But I'm focused on if we want to get rid of Donald Trump, we gotta do in the primary. And if Republicans want to get rid of Joe Biden, it's not by impeaching him.
It's about nominating someone who can win in the general election. Well, if it's Trump versus Biden, would you participate in an illegal state? My focus right now, listen, you know, I'm take time to liberate. I wouldn't want something that would potentially lead to Donald Trump winning.
My focus right now is crisscrossing the country and talking about how we live. We need common sense in complicated times and that the best way we solve our problems is by recognizing we're better together. And that's why I need folks to go to her for america.com and help me get on the big stage. So I was wrapping up and you got one more pitching more on Trump.
And why is Ron DeSantis still trying to defend for slavery curriculum in the face of criticism from all sides of the political spectrum. Welcome back, panelists here, any wall for the editor and chief of Public Report Fashion here, the chief political advisor of Stephen Hayes, editor of this batch, the author of the Washington Post early 202 newsletter, and of course, anchor for Washington Post Live. All right, Donald Trump, if it's possible to escalate things, he has really escalated things in this confrontation between politics and the rule of law. Listening last night.
The others are dirty, sick players. And the Republicans are very high class. They've got to be a little bit lower class. I suspect they sit back and they say they have other priorities.
We have to look at other things. Any Republican that doesn't act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out. Out. Amy Walter, he is, look, he is, he announced when he announced in order to have this illusion that somehow the indictments were a response to his candidacy.
And now he's putting his party on notice and Kevin's putting Kevin McCarthy on notice. You better be, you better do this. And that. Any attempt to make the case against Donald Trump is met with, well, how could this possibly be true?
Because everything's corrupt, right? The DOJ is corrupt in the way that they've handled the Hunter Biden case. It no longer becomes just about Donald Trump. They have now other pieces to bring in to even bring those who are skeptical about Donald Trump into this process.
And this is the reality too, is the more oxygen that Donald Trump sucks up, the harder it is for any of these Republicans to break. They can't have a message that goes against what he's been bringing. Leon, you provost court orders and Congress a lot. We know the appetite isn't fully there, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.
No, the fact that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy even opens the door to an impeachment inquiry this week, it means that it is very likely that it's going to happen. Is this his way of negotiating spending bills, by the way? Does he think shining a logic on impeachment, give these guys a vote for spending bills? There's a couple things going on here.
First, when you open that door, you can't walk it back. You can't do an impeachment inquiry and not do an impeachment. So most people who, most Republicans and Democrats think this is going to happen on Capitol Hill. The timing is interesting.
He's having another internal battle with the far right faction of his party overspending bills. This is the fourth internal battle he's had. Meanwhile, he's getting a lot of pressure from Donald Trump to do something to defend him. And so this has been his reaction.
And it is absolutely political. You talk to Senate Republicans, most of them are like, what are you going to impeach Joe Biden on? So there's a huge gap within the party. Fast.
If you're the Biden campaign struggling to get younger voters or more progressive to rally around you, is there any better idea than impeaching them? Well, that and Trump is a gift every day. I think we've become accustomed to the idea that Trump evades legal counsellors entire life, right? Bankruptcies, nonprofits, Trump University, sexual assault, you name it.
He has generally avoided legal accountability for those and you can see that setting into the mindset of the public. Oh, yeah, they always go after oh, and all the way. They're always political. And that attitude, the public, I think can be engineered by Democrats to say this time it changes.
We've got an opportunity to assert public accountability and we've got administration who understands the rule of law and it doesn't evade some of the richest society. Steve, you and I were discussing this collision that's happening and you've to plug what you guys have done in the Dispatch. You've decided to create a whole new beat. This sort of what's happening here between the Republican primary and this legal situation here are Republican elected officials don't wake up and June 1st and go, what have we done?
I think so. I mean, if you watch Donald Trump's speech in Erie yesterday, he made a campaign speech making arguments about hearing. He was also laying the ground, I think, for something a lot darker. He's talking to people who are believing a totally different reality than he's putting out there, where Joe Biden's most corrupt president in the United States, where the DOJ is only coming after him, where he's a sort of innocent victim.
And his supporters believe it because they're not seeing it covered in conservative media. They're seeing his arguments amplified and echoed. And I think that's really worrisome. You look at the kinds of arguments he's making.
You know, a third of the Republican Party who believe that he hasn't done anything wrong. It was a Marquette University pull up this week. 50% of Republicans think Donald Trump didn't even keep classified documents. We have video of this.
We have Trump doesn't even believe this. I think we're watching these sort of steps to this collision where Trump is not going to go quietly and he's calling on Republicans to fight. The clip that you play, by the way, that was one of his biggest applause lines in his speech yesterday. I'm going to pivot to his chief challenger, Amy Rosensis.
I keep thinking about Haley Barber, quote, one of my favorite quotes of his, good gets better and bad gets worse. And we've been watching Desantis. And I just want to put up this week from Congressman John James, African American Republican from Michigan, where he points to this out and he says, first of all, slavery isn't cte something he pointed out. And he said there are only five black Republicans.
Congress, you're attacking two of them. My brother in Christ, if you find yourself in a deep hole, put the shovel down. At what point do we start to say ask, is it even recoverable for desantis? Well, he's got the money, so that always helps.
For how long? We don't know. Nobody's certainly the super pack of the great deal money to help him. To me, this debate is going to be fascinating.
Fascinating. August, there's an actual interesting contrast, Scott versus DeSantis. Well, and the fact that you see the pylon right now on Ron DeSantis suggests that those people who are going to be standing on the Stage with Ron DeSantis know exactly what they need to do, which is he's already this, he's lowering, lowering, lowering. If they can just get one more punch in, he's no longer number two.
Somebody else gets to be elevated. This is a very, very dangerous debate for Ron DeSantis. You know the main thing that's happening here if you don't believe this style campaign is they reveal people and he is being revealed as a swarmy irritant. This campaign born Americans.
It decided early on when Trump was in the builder election that we're going to get in, we're going to have a Trump based argument. We're going to sit, watch him sit on our hands while Trump is out there announcing his campaign. It didn't seize that moment and we does come out. He presumes I'm the front runner.
No, you can't assume that there's a Republican head who's got the boatlock of you gotta have an argument. And to this day he can't seem to find it. Steve, do you think DeSantis or Trump is the better nominee for Republicans? DeSantis putting himself in a less electable position?
Yeah, he's clearly the better nominee for Republicans. I don't think I'm fucking with totally. Look, I think Ron Santos has gotten a bad rap on this. This was not a whitewash.
The curriculum that Florida put forward for was not whitewashed. There 191 items that tell a detailed and harrowing story about American slavery in his, in his plan. And some of the language reflects what's in the ap. The problem I think Ron Santis is having as he fights this, he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt anymore.
We had this past week. He had to let go of staff Rontis campaign who had created video with Nazi iconography whom he hired after the staffer had defended Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist. I mean you're not going to win people's benefit of that if you're doing that. When we come back, there's growing evidence that a person's political leanings were a Covid respecter.
The real consequences of Vaccine Skepticism in Trump Counties versus Biden Counties, stated adults welcome back. Dated Outlets time the official COVID 19 health emergency may be open, but this week a scientific study published in the Journal of the American Medical association revealed what many had suspected. Republicans who lagged behind in accepting the efficacy of the COVID vaccine paid a secret price. Researchers from Yale examined 538,000 deaths of people 25 and older in Florida and Ohio from April 2020 to December 2021, and they found that the excess death rate deaths beyond what would normally be expected was 15% higher for registered Republicans than for Democrats.
But after the vaccine became available in April of 2021 to the majority of the population, the death rate among Republicans was 40% higher. So what about the nation as a whole? To test the theory further, we look at deaths over the same time periods and use County Level 2020 presidential election results as a proxy for whether county Democratic or Republican. So here's what we found.
The post vaccine period in the study was harder on counties that voted for Donald Trump than those that voted for Joe Biden. In 2020, Biden counties experienced more deaths from COVID before the vaccine became widely available than Trump counties that had 325,000 versus 218,000 respectively. More people live in Biden counties and they're more densely populated. But after the vaccine became widely available, look at the numbers now.
In spread of 2021 numbers flip were about 104,000 COVID deaths in Biden counties by 24% of the total COVID deaths through December 21st 35,000 COVID deaths deaths in Trump counties after the vaccine 38% of the total COVID deaths in that time. These numbers could actually matter in the 2024 election. Remember, here are the three closest states. Arizona decided by just over 10,000 votes Georgia just under 12,000 votes Wisconsin just over 20,000 votes and the COVID post vaccine patterns in these three states look very similar to what the Journal of American Medical association found in the Trump towns.
35% higher than the Biden counties. In Arizona, same story in Georgia 50% to 41% same story in Wisconsin, 30% to 25%. In a close election, a lot of factors didn't impact the outcome. Everything went along lines of polling places.
This data suggests correlation that can impact turnout. 2024 Every vote counts well. There was one story this week that did bring both parties together. It was a congressional hearing that was out of this world.
Speaking of house over site subject, former military intelligence officer said that the government knows more than it is letting eye on UFOs and they said this under oath votes. In fact, one former intelligence official testified that quote non human biologics had been recovered at crash sites. That's another way of saying aliens. Well, astronaut Buzzalt, the second person ever set foot on the moon.
He joined this very broadcast 20 years ago. He was asked whether he agreed with his former Apollo 11 crewmate on the potential for life beyond planet earth. I asked McCown about life somewhere else in the universe and he said absolutely. Do you agree with that?
I agree. You do? I agree that I don't know that we can make it absolutely intelligent life. You know, we're a unique species here on Earth.
There's a lot of life here, but we're the intelligent ones. He thought this would be above earthlings. Well, it could be. If we find out they exist, then it's because of their communication to us.
But they're going to be a long ways away. Space is enormous. Even the closest star could take a lifetime for a crew going from here to there or vice versa. He said he's fine.
I take him to face value. You heard him respond to questions yesterday. He was very crisp in his answers. Obviously what happened was disturbing.
Everyone watch that was concerned. But listen, Mitch is strong. He's stubborn as a mule. Obviously his first responsibility is to the borders of Kentucky.
But once you become a leader, your responsibilities obviously are with other. So that probably does call for a little more, I should say more call for more transparency than would for somebody else. Leader McConnell's office put out a statement on Friday morning. Leanne Lee McConnell appreciates the continued support of his colleagues and plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly liked him to do.
You know what was notable in the statement is that that was the pledge they made. Did not pledge to finish his entire term, which would be 3,25. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And they didn't also say that he was going to run for reelection either.
Something that McConnell for the past couple years hasn't said. But I will say on Capitol Hill, I think that the, the sound bites that you just played are pretty representative before this incident happened. Remember, he had the fall where he had the serious concussion several months ago and then he came back and there was literally zero discussion about McConnell's health among Republican senators. I would periodically ask sources.
No one would talk about it. Shut it down, huh? No one would talk about it. Now there's There's a lot of discussion, but people do make the point.
Physically he's challenged, mentally he is all there. And they say that's a difference. But it does raise a lot of questions. See between what Christina Fein, Feinstein.
We have two presidential, presidential nominees that will be, you know, that people one was gonna serve the presidency of their 80s. We have the McConnell incident here. Voters, when you ask them if age matters, they say yes. They only vote on it if they see a moment.
Yeah. And I think we're gonna see we're like to see moments as we go through this campaign process. I think we're in crisis of trust right now as a country. We talked a lot about that.
This is part of that because inevitably after you see something like this, you get stories. Actually Mitch McConnell's fallen, a couple of others. The Joe Biden question, we've seen a lot of what he's done on video. But then there are stories about what's happening behind the scenes that raise further questions and raise further trust.
I think it's a big problem to have this happen. What's interesting to me is Democrats right now on Capitol Hill in the context of the FAA authorization are arguing against raising the mandatory retirement age for pilots to 67. They're opposing that and the Biden administration is too campaign with a candidate whose age was Bernie Sanders is a year older. My observations about this though is that age is a class issue in America because I said increasingly with variance as you get older, if you're rich, you have better access to health care, you have more information about how to preserve your health and you're seeing that.
You're actually seeing the divergence. If you have wealth and you're having a Sen. President yet before Vice President Cheney, you're probably going to outlive People at 92. Terrific health care.
So my view is that we're talking about different classes, elite classes of peace centers. They're probably going to be better off, quite frankly, than a normal human being similarly situated. Amy we have age minimums which frankly look ridiculous. Right.
And the only way they're B and age maximums is you have to make a constitutional amount. There's no doubt. I'm thinking any legal powers in mind here, think there people, men for that you put an 80, you apply to the federal judiciary. I think there would be support for that.
But yet all of us know somebody who has everything clicking at age 80. But they may, yes, they may be slower, but that's different for flying an airplane. I absolutely want somebody who's flying an airplane to have everything clicking, somebody who is sitting as a member of Congress, that's a different category. When you're thinking about you're what your, you know, response rate is.
It is also possibly an issue. We'll come back to some. Yeah, sure. The job.
I understand why you want to. Yeah. And he loves his job. The Senate is his life.
You know who never criticizes Joe Biden and their age? Mitch McConnell. Well, that's all we have for today. Thank you for watching.
We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's me. I'm Craig Nol. Cheers. Cheers.
Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way, too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their tryouts, their challenges, their stories are funny. And so I hope you'll join me each week.
Who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half Full search class Apple with Craig Elvin From Today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast.