Meet the Press NOW — April 18

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Plus, all eyes are on the Supreme Court as the justices could rule it any time on the faith of a widely used abortion pill and where the legal fight over abortion access goes next. And NBC News speaks exclusively with Republican 2024 hopeful Asa Hutchinson in Iowa. As he becomes the first GOP candidate to take on Trump, accusing the former president of wanting to quote get even rather than lead the country. Welcome to me the press now.

I'm Kristen Welker in Washington where Congress is back in session and trying to overcome partisanship toxic politics, domestic instability and inter-party fighting as lawmakers face disputes over two of the most essential roles of the government to pay its bills and to keep our nation's secrets secret today behind closed doors. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried to sell his Republican caucus on a proposal aimed at essentially trying to force the White House to negotiating table on the issue of the debt ceiling. The White House vehemently opposes McCarthy's plan and some Republicans say they still aren't on board with it yet. I think we've got a lot of specifics still to work out but directionally, I think we're getting closer as a team to a proposal to the Senate and I'm encouraged by the discussions we've had today.

I'm not there yet. Again, I want to know what the details are and what their plan is. Now McCarthy outlined that plan yesterday in New York, it calls for among other things new spending caps, a 1% limit on budget growth, no student loan forgiveness and tougher work requirements for government aid. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffery's panned the Republican approach to this crisis earlier today.

Right now all we have is a speech and talking point but we haven't seen a legislative proposal. The first thing that we need to do is to make sure that we cleanly raise the debt ceiling to avoid a default on our nation's debt for the first time in our history. We have catastrophic consequences. Even the flirtation with the default is going to hurt every day Americans.

Now even if McCarthy is able to get his caucus on board, he's facing a likely dead end road with Democrats in the White House who are accusing Republicans of playing a game of quote hostage taking with the full faith and credit of the government. Now keep in mind analysts warn the US will reach its borrowing limit at some point between July and September if Congress does not act, the debate over the debt limit has become the latest example of dysfunctional politics in America at a moment when Congress and the country are facing a staggering amount of fallout from war abroad in stability at home and the worst leak of US intelligence since Edward Snowden. Joining me now is Ryan Nobles on Capitol Hill. So Ryan, break this down for me.

How is McCarthy's debt ceiling plan being received on the Hill right now? Well, Kristen, if I was sending you a text message, I might send like the shrug emoji. Might be the best way to describe it. You know, I think that members right now are still trying to figure out exactly what the details are in this plan.

But I do think it's going to be an uphill climb for Kevin McCarthy. You know, there are a lot of skeptical Republicans who view this debt limit negotiation as their best opportunity at leverage over some of these big ticket issues that they really promise their constituents when they won back the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms. So they're not just going to go along Willie Nilly with a plan that comes from the top down. What Republicans in McCarthy in particular promised when he became Speaker is that they would do it for more of a bottom up approach.

So what you see McCarthy doing here is essentially setting out some guidelines and then trying to get some feedback from his caucus as to what they want to see specifically in this plan. The big problem he's going to run into, though, is that with a four vote slim majority, even one member could derail this process. And that makes it really hard to put together a plan that will ultimately get over the finish line. Let me follow up with you on that because McCarthy can essentially only afford to lose four GOP votes.

Can you break down for us who some of those undecided Republicans are, who we should be watching, who I know you're going to be chasing after in the hallways? Yeah, well, the first place to start would be that group of Breakaway Republicans that took a while to vote for him to become the next Speaker of the House. And many of them members of the Freedom Caucus and many of them were with McCarthy today behind closed doors trying to hash out these differences. They're the ones that have a very specific set of goals that they would like to see come out of these negotiations.

But Kristin, we shouldn't focus all of our effort on the Freedom Caucus because as what happens in these negotiations is if you pull too far to the right, then you have the opportunity or the risk, I should say, of losing some of the more moderate members. And those clips that you played before you came to me, one from Matt Gates, who's on the far right and then of Nancy Mase, who's closer to the middle, you see them both being skeptical, which is why I said that we should kind of look at this with a collective shrug. It's going to be difficult for him to kind of marshal all these different perspectives and come up with a plan that can pass through the House. And Ryan, just quickly, before I let you go, I mean, this is very unlikely to pass in the Senate.

So what's the broader strategy here? I mean, McCarthy hasn't even been back to the White House in months since he first met with the president about this. It doesn't seem like there's any real movement to get this done. Well, this is the attempt to get that movement headed in that direction.

You know, Kristin, you covered Joe Biden. You've heard him say to Kevin McCarthy over and over again, show me your plan. This is McCarthy putting pen to paper coming up with a plan and then demonstrating that he has enough Republican votes to get it through the House of Representatives. Yes, whatever emerges the first time around probably has no chance of passing a Democratic Senate and being signed into law by Joe Biden.

But what it can do is begin a real substantive negotiation between both sides. They claim this is what they want. This is McCarthy doing his part to get to the negotiating table. We'll have to see how the president and Senate Democrats respond.

Ryan Nobles, great reporting. As always, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. And joining me now on said is Republican from Illinois, Congressman Darren LaHood and Democrat also from Illinois, Congressman Mike Quigley.

Thank you so much for being here for this bipartisan discussion. We are really looking forward to it. I want to start off by asking you both about that very fact. A lot of people look at Washington, they look at this process over the debt ceiling and they feel like things were broken here.

Congressman Quigley, start us off. What do you say to people who feel like Congress is broken? Yeah, look, there are exceptions. I was the sponsor of two bills, Act for ALS and the Big Cat Safety Bill, which had the most bipartisan support of any bills in their term.

They both passed. So if you have the same mindset and you're willing to put aside the toxicity, you can get anything done if folks are willing to compromise. Congressman LaHood, your take? Well, Mike, I am here today to talk about a bill we're working on in a bipartisan way.

The majority of stuff that we pass in the Congress has done in a bipartisan way. These big issues that you talked about at the beginning, of course, we're going to have differences on that. We're going to have to work through them in a divided government. We are going to delve into the details of the bill that you both are proposing in just one moment.

I do want to get your reaction, though, to the news of the day. And this proposal by Speaker McCarthy, Congressman LaHood, what do you make of it? Do you support his approach and do you think it can pass? Well, I have a lot of faith in Speaker McCarthy and the team he's put together.

There's been a lot about reaching our conference from all sections, getting their feedback on what we need to do. The other part is we have to recognize we have divided government. So for President Biden to say that he doesn't want to sit down with Kevin McCarthy, I think it's just wrong. Every president has negotiated when it's come to the debt ceiling.

Now, I'm not someone that said we ought to default on our debt. We shouldn't do that. But we can chew gum and walk at the same time. We ought to have a conversation about reducing spending, particularly when we're $31 trillion in debt.

And that's what Speaker McCarthy is talking about, having a conversation with Joe Biden on how we have spending cuts. So do you support Speaker McCarthy's plan this one year raising the debt limit coupled with spending cuts? I support the bill that he talked about today. I think it's the right approach to take.

Congressman Quigley, respond to that. The idea that President Biden has not invited Speaker McCarthy back to the White House, he says he's not going to until he sees his budget. Should he be meeting with Speaker McCarthy? I think there's always room to meet.

But I have to quote for the first time my career president Trump, when he said, I can't even imagine using raising the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge. Something very close to what President Reagan said. In my lifetime, we've raised the debt ceiling 78 times, 49 times under Republican leadership. Well, let me ask you about that, because you have said that raising the debt limit shouldn't be a it should be a bipartisan issue.

So would you support Speaker McCarthy's plan? I support something like we tried to do under a Simpson Bowles agreement. What 13 years ago, I was one of only 38 members of the House that ended up voting for it. It was big balanced bipartisan.

And it covered the issue of a long period of time. It was a serious way to address it. And I support that. So I hear some similarities in what you both are saying.

And I guess if you're sitting at home watching this, the big question is, is the nation going to go over the cliff? How confident are you that a crisis will be averted here? Well, the nation shouldn't go over a cliff. I don't think that's going to happen.

We will avert that. But there's going to have to be negotiation. There's going to have to be compromise. But to think that we can't talk about spending cuts on reducing deficits, particularly when we spent $6 trillion through COVID, we have to reduce spending.

I think that's a conversation that's easy to have with the American people. They do it every single day with their family budgets and in businesses. We ought to be able to do it here in DC. Congressman Quigley, your take on this.

And again, do you want to see President Biden meet with Speaker McCarthy at this point in time? I think there's always from negotiations that's important. So you should. I think they should always have these discussions.

I just don't think you risk this default saying we're going to do this unless you do that. I think both minds understand. We have to raise the debt ceiling, but we have to have, again, some symbols like long-term comprehensive solutions. Okay, let's talk about the other major news we have been tracking.

The massive leak of intelligence and the two of you have put forward a bipartisan bill to address this. Among the penalties, $500,000, this would be civil penalties for anyone who misused or didn't carefully store classified material. Congressman Lohan, your confidence that this is going to get passed in. Is this enough?

Well, first of all, it's a bipartisan bill. Congressman Quigley and I are working on this, came up with this together. It's simply unacceptable to see what's happened over the last several months with classified documents by former President Trump, President Biden, Vice President Pence, and others to have that happen. So what we did in a bipartisan way is let's figure out how we can prevent this from happening in the future.

This current statute really focuses on intent and knowledge. It doesn't focus on carelessness, negligence, mistakes that were made. So what we've done in this bill, we want to make sure this never happens again in the future. So we're adding to the statute, civil penalties up to $500,000 for each document that's not secured or done through the same process, but also other penalties where your pension can be taken from you.

You can have your security clearance taken. We want to give more tools in the toolbox to federal prosecutors when this comes up again. Does this bill go far enough though? I believe it does.

And I think if you look at the bipartisan support we have already on our side and the Democrat side, I think it's a step in the right direction. Congressman Quigley, let me get your take on this. How competent are you that this bill is going to pass? Have you gotten assurances from your fellow lawmakers that they are going to support this?

Do you think you have the votes? Yeah, well, look, we're in D.C. There are no assurances, right? But this is too big.

It's a bipartisan problem. So it requires a bipartisan solution. Early take from leadership on the committees that are of note and from leadership on both sides are there needs, there is and there will be support. And do you think that this will pass?

Do you have a sense of the timeline? I think there's broad bipartisan support. We're going to go through the committee process on this. But when people look at the inexcusable, unacceptable behavior that's gone on with classified secured documents, something has to be done.

We know that the Senate is going to be briefed tomorrow. Do you have any sense of when the house might be briefed on the classified documents? There's a briefing that'll take place this week. This week.

You know when that's going to be? It'll be later this week. And do you have confidence that you'll get the full information, the full answers to the multitude of questions that you're going to have? Well, I don't think the investigation is thoroughly complete.

Let me say expressive frustration. This is a slightly different bit than the former president and vice president's misdeeds. This was someone doing this with the evil criminal intent, even if it's just for their ego. So it's a slightly different bit.

I am concerned. I was on the committee until just me eight years. And we were told time and time again, yes, this is bad. We're going to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I'm concerned, especially the Department of Defense does not do enough to screen people. Congressmen will pick up on that. What is the crux of the problem here? I mean, as we point out, obviously, this leak is in its own unique category, the biggest leaks since Edward Snowden.

And yet, we are also talking about the current president, the former president, the former vice president, who have not carefully enough stored classified documents. What is the problem? Well, I think that's what we're addressing in our legislation. This is completely unacceptable.

They are two separate issues. But essentially what it jeopardizes, it jeopardizes our national security. It jeopardizes our troops overseas, sometimes our nuclear codes, other security mechanisms that we have in our country. And to have people engaged at the highest level with improper storage of secure documents, having them where they shouldn't be unacceptable.

And that's what we're doing with our legislation. Senator Lindsey Graham says that people should be fired over this head should roll so far. No indication that's going to happen. But do you agree with him?

I think the Department of Defense has to start over recognizing they're not doing nearly enough to make sure these documents are kept safe. And that they have people properly screened and they limit who has access to this. This person is a textbook example, someone who should not have. But do you think people should be fired over this?

Absolutely. Do you think people should be fired over this? Okay, let me move on to politics quickly. Congress and the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is in DC today.

As you know, I know you're going to be joining him at an event tonight, and you're going to be hosting him in Illinois in a few weeks. Do you think he's the strongest standard bearer right now for the Republican Party? Well, I served with Governor DeSantis when he was a member of Congress from 2015 to 2018, got to know him a little bit then. I think he is one of the strongest conservative leaders we have in this country.

I frankly look at what he's done in Florida. One of the best economies in the country, low crime rate. I'm impressed what he's done there. So stronger than Trump who endorsed you by the way.

Well, what I would say is I look at Illinois. I wish we had a governor like Governor Ron DeSantis in Illinois. We keep hemorrhaging people out of our state because of high taxes, high crime the way we handled COVID. I love what he's done in Florida.

Speaking of the governor of Illinois, the New York Times says that some Democrats see Governor Pritzker as the break glass candidate in case President Biden doesn't run, President Biden has said he's going to run. We anticipate he'll be announcing it relatively soon. Do you think President Biden is the strongest person until the Democrats in 2024? I think President Biden is remarkably underrated.

Look, he unified the West and for the war in Ukraine. Yes, he has normalized the body politic here, brought us back to the rule of law, passed a first infrastructure bill, first gun control bill, has a long strong legislative record. A lot of presidents would have envied. I thank you both so much for being here for this spirited discussion and for giving us so much information.

Really appreciate it. Congressman, thank you. And we are following some breaking news and Dominion's defamation lawsuit against Fox News. The judge in the case just announced the two sides have reached a settlement.

That announcement came on the same opening statements were set, same day opening statements were set to begin in the $1.6 billion suit. NBC's Emily Ketta is in Wilmington, Delaware live where that trial was supposed to begin. Emily, dramatic developments bring us up to speed here. What's the latest?

Yeah, absolutely. Some 11 hour drama here, opening statements for this high stakes trial was supposed to begin at 1.30 p.m. Hour by hour, as we were left with unanswered questions around what was the laying the process. There was speculation around, okay, could this be the result of a settlement?

Well, just before the judge and the jurors re-entered the courtroom and we got our answer, the judge announcing that the parties involved have settled the manner. He profusely thanked the jurors, 12 jurors, 12 alternate jurors that had just been seated earlier today, saying they had done their duty and it was because of them that these parties were able to set to settle, reach a settlement before the actual trial got underway. We had already seen one delay in this process. It was supposed to get underway yesterday morning, and we got a formal announcement from the judge pushing it to today.

And so what you can see happening behind me just out of you, you may have to watch people walking behind me and that is because Dominion's lawyers are addressing the press at this hour. And just moments ago, I'm going to pull it up on my phone because I just got this statement in from Fox Corporation, our NBC News team, sharing this with me. We are pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion voting systems. It goes on to say we acknowledge the courts rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.

The settlement reflects Fox's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably instead of the acrimony of the divisive trial allows the country to move forward from these issues. Kristin, as soon as we're done here, I'll be popping over there to hear exactly what Dominion has to say on this. And Emily, really, the crux of this was this battle between press freedom, which is what Fox was arguing, freedom of the press.

And this argument by Dominion, which said that you cannot knowingly disseminate misinformation, it was anticipated that this is the type of case that would have gone all the way to the Supreme Court. Talk about the stakes of this case. Well, I think one of the interesting things that we saw play out here, but during the pre-trial hearings, and there was an initial ruling before the trial even got underway from the judge that actually declared the statements, the conspiracy theories swirling around Dominion voting systems, suggesting they had some kind of role in breaking the 2020 presidential election, the judge ruled those who'd be false ahead of time. He said it was crystal clear that statements were not true.

And so Dominion's job throughout the rest of this, throughout the trial was merely to prove defamation and that they acted with actual malice, which is a difficult standard to reach. And it's why a lot of defamation cases frequently don't reach trial. They are settled outside or that they are settled before they even reach trial. And actual malice means that Dominion had to prove that Fox knowingly aired false claims are at least acted with reckless disregard for the truth.

But again, so many eyes have been on this case, especially when you consider there are other similar suits coming down the pipeline for Fox, Kristin. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. And we're going to take this press conference, Emily, great reporting, Dominion's lawyer speaking right now. Let's listen our employees, our people, our partners are grateful to the court for allowing us the process for the truth to come out.

I cannot thank the election of we need that we serve enough without them. There is no democracy and the work they tirelessly do to that end, and they deserve much better. We are grateful for all the support we have received, grateful to our legal team, and one who acknowledged Staple Street Capitol, who have been unconditional in their support of Dominion and our customers. I want to introduce who's on your goozie day principal and founder of Staple Street Capitol.

So can we just also check for a good vote on a apologize to you person? Hi, I mean, co-founder of Staple Street Capitol, which is investment firm that owns Dominion Voting Systems in partnership with John Polis and the rest of the management team. It's not every day that an investment fund finds itself at the center of this type of dispute. For us, this case has always been about exposing the truth and holding those who knowingly spread lies accountable.

We are proud to play whatever part we could in helping Dominion achieve these important goals. I would also like to thank all the Dominion employees who have been through so much and stuck with the company through all this. We're all very proud of that. I also want to thank our attorneys about Sussman Godfrey and Clarelock for all their hard work.

Without their efforts and resolve, the truth that has been exposed over the course of the last several months may have never seen the light of that. Thank you. With that, I'd like to hand it over to Stephen Shackleford. Hi, Stephen Shackleford with Sussman Godfrey.

I am so proud to be here today representing Dominion. It's a great day for the company, although a bittersweet day for the company. As I was preparing today to give the opening that we never got to give, I was reminded of the hell that the Dominion employees went through and continue to go through to this day. Money is accountability.

And we got that today from Fox. But we're not done yet. We got some other people who have some accountability coming towards them. And I'm very proud of the team from Sussman Godfrey that has worked tirelessly for this case.

And we'll move right on to the next one. Thank you. Did you get anything else in this settlement besides money? To be a Black Sussman Godfrey.

One last thank you, which is really to all of you for being with us on this journey. We appreciate what you've done to help us and to help expose what we were able to discover over the course of this process. And so thank you and we'll see you at the next one. And you were just listening to representatives for Dominion voting system, essentially praising this massive settlement that was just reached.

You just heard that one person saying money is accountability. And we got that today from Fox again. It's very big breaking news in this Dominion suit against Fox News settling with Fox News for more than $787 million. And also you heard some of the representatives there thanking the employees of Dominion and saying that the truth that has been exposed may not have seen the light of day if not for them.

Emily Kettle, let me go back to you and get your thoughts on what we just heard. Yeah, I mean, you pointed out the settlement number $787 million. We're talking about roughly half of what was initially, initially demanded in that lawsuit started out as $1.6 billion lawsuit. We're just learning that from Dominion lawyers who are now exiting the property behind me.

You know, when you consider one of the other developments earlier today that the there was going to be an investigation, the judge earlier today announced a formal announce that he would be testing a special master into investigating Fox and whether it actually fulfilled all of its evidence obligations. And actually one of our, one of our colleagues reached down to that special master because this leaves a lot of unanswered questions still at this point, asking him, you know, what happens to that investigation? He responded, frankly, I don't know. So that's the best answer that I can give you.

So still a lot of moving pieces at this hour, but already just from the pretrial filings that we've seen, we've gotten this rare window, this rare glimpse into the inner workings of this top rated cable news network, whether it be some of the texts and emails communications between Fox's executives, some of their hosts really revealing some of the skepticism that was happening among those hosts and executives while they were airing false claims. So substantial amounts of evidence that would have been discussed over the next five to six weeks had this trial actually played out. Even just overnight, we looked at some of the level of exhibits, the amount, the amount of evidence that was submitting from both sides, more than 7,000 different exhibits filed into the score, into the court, ahead of the trial, playing out, I think, broadcast emails, communications and from Fox's side, more than 5,000. So it would have been a lengthy detail trial that would have played out, not to mention some of the people that were anticipated to take the stand.

You think Chairman Chairman of Fox Corporation Rupert Murdoch was a possibility we could have heard from some of Fox's top hosts, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo. But no more, this case has settled as the judge announced just a matter of moments ago for some. Emily, I think you raised such an important point, which is that throughout the course of these legal proceedings, we have gotten glimpses behind the scenes glimpses, as you say, of these communications between Fox executives expressing skepticism about what was being reported, and that is undoubtedly among the concerns behind the scenes about this case. Emily, standby for me, if you would, I do want to bring in Danny Sibalos, who has been tracking these developments as well.

Danny, I think we have you on the phone. Let me just get your reaction to this settlement. 787 billion dollars, Dominion was asking for 1.6 billion, but this is still a substantial figure. It's a massive number.

And this was a foregone conclusion. This case was always going to settle. First, most civil cases do settle. The best majority of them are resolved either before trial or on the courthouse, and it's not that unusual to resolve a case during jury selection or after.

It's really in many ways a big game of chicken. And in this case, it is a $1 billion game of chicken. And I suspect, although I do not know, that Fox probably blinked early. And Dominion probably smelled the blood and the water and thought, well, if we hold out and simply refuse to settle, even a day.

And we heard there were settlement discussions yesterday. Dominion hikes respect, and we may never know, by simply holding firm and planning to go to trial, that alone can boost your settlement value. I mean, the fascinating thing is we rarely get to be the ear workings of negotiation prior to trial with an eye towards settlement, but it is some of the most dramatic, fascinating stuff I've been involved in plenty of time. And it is really a game, a chess game of negotiation, and finding the number at which both sides feel they can walk away with their, you know, with their ego impact and their bank account for the defendant able to survive.

And you heard Emily talk about and highlight the fact that throughout this process, of course, there was so much focus on those communications between Fox executives, between some of their top anchors, really airing what they thought of the election. And some of them expressing skepticism about what was being reported on air, casting doubt on the election results. How much of that led to this settlement and where we are today and the facts that, as you say, Danny, Fox blinked. I think from an evident standpoint, the behind theme people, the producers, the people high up on the chain of command, their statements were more compelling for the millions case than say just the stars, like Dr.

Carlson, far more important that higher up in the chain of command with, you know, who's involved in producing the shows where those statements were made far more important that they may have had doubts, serious doubts about the truth of these statements than say, Dr. Carlson, who's really just the face of the show. But either way, this was an avalanche of really bad statements that damaged Fox. And in addition to that, of course, it had already determined that the statements were in fact false.

That was a major element of defamation that was just already decided before Trump. Dominion had no burden to prove that anymore. They won on that issue. So as this case crawled along the trial, this was something Fox had to settle.

And I expect towards the end, the only thing that held it up is Dominion realized that Fox had to settle. And they had that leverage where they could basically reject most of what Fox was offering. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Fox went to Dominion yesterday to settle this case, offered them a very large number, maybe 500 million. And Dominion said, no, we want the full amount and we're going to trial back.

That one day of holdout probably added several million, if not dozens of millions of dollars to the settled in value. Again, we'll never know because it's the kind of thing that doesn't usually emerge. But this negotiation is high stakes in any case. In this case, this was the highest stakes negotiation, arguably ever.

Danny, thank you for that analysis. Stand by for me, if you would. Let me now go to NBC News Business and Data reporter Brian Chung, who's been tracking this trial as well. Brian, your reaction?

Yeah, well, when we talk about the financial impact here, there are a lot of questions about what the 787.5 million with an M settlement would do to Fox News, would that impact the business forced them to sell anything? And what we have to understand is that this company had about $4 billion in cash as of the end of December 2022. So because of that, they can take this on the chin. They could have taken the $1.6 billion quite fine as well without having to substantially sell any sort of their assets.

Now, nonetheless, that's still a large amount of money. But when you settle for half of what Dominion was asking for, maybe you consider yourself having gotten out on the easier side of things, perhaps the reason why they decided to settle. For what it's worth, what would that do to the company from a stock standpoint? There's been a lot of Wall Street notes and analysts that have been watching the progression of this lawsuit since it was filed in 2021.

Bank of America securities estimated at the end of March that for every $500 million in damages, shares of Fox Corporation will lose about $1 per share. So if you do a little bit of the back of the napkin map, a 787.5 million dollar settlement would equate to roughly about a buck and a half per share, which last I saw I was trading at about $34. So maybe that takes it down just a notch. It's not going to bankrupt.

It's not going to cause this company to go under. And when you do look at some of the aftermarket moves, again, the stock market is closed as of 33 minutes ago, shares are down by about a percent and a half. So not necessarily notable movement, but certainly something that says that, well, shareholders clearly aren't happy about this deal. Well, and you take me to my next question, Brian, because this is the day of the settlement.

And to your point in the broader context, and that's why it's so important to have your perspective, when you think about 1.6 billion, this is something that Fox can clearly afford. At the same time, the optics of this are clearly problematic for the company. What are you going to be watching for in the coming days, in the coming weeks as it relates to Fox's bottom line, to their stock, to get a better sense of what the impact of this long term might be? Yeah.

And Chris, the story of this actually kind of goes back to even prior to the 2020 election. You consider the business model of this company. This used to be a much larger media conglomerate that had the assets of 21st Century Fox, those movie studios and TV production studios that effectively subsidized the news business as well. And in 2019, they divested those assets to Disney.

So they became essentially a company that relied much more heavily on the revenues coming from their TV news. And that relies a lot on the advertising dollars, as well as the carrier fees that cable companies pay Fox News to carry Fox News content onto their platforms. And that's perhaps one reason why they have leaned into the particular approach that they had with the way that they were messaging about Dominion to keep those ratings high. Now, for what it's worth, whether or not that changes as a result of this settlement might be shaded by the fact that the statement from Fox News does seem to admit that they made false claims about Dominion.

But whether or not that changes the way that they operate going forward is very much a business question that the Wall Street community is actually paying attention to as well. Thank you, America, noting that Adam Miniman, the constant barrage of negative headlines should be an overhang on near term investment. Again, that was put out prior to the settlement, but worth noting that as well. Definitely worth noting.

Brian Chung, thank you so much and Emily and Danny as well for helping us out with that breaking news. Really appreciate it. Coming up new developments in the abortion pill legal saga as the Supreme Court weighs whether to allow restrictions on a widely used medication to go into effect. That's next.

Plus taking on Trump, GOP rivals spar with the former president as the Republican primary heats up will have the latest from the campaign trail ahead. You're watching, meet the press now. Watch, read, and listen throughout your day. And now unlock even more with a subscription.

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Welcome back. With the fate of a key abortion pill in limbo, the Supreme Court can now rule at any time. Anti-abortion groups today filed their response to the High Court's initial decision. Decided with the Biden administration, urging it to lift its temporary pause of a lower court ruling that would have significantly restricted access to the pill.

With that pause slated to expire tomorrow night, doctors, patients, and providers are facing a scenario where regulatory rules around access to the drug could be rolled back to the year 2000, making it harder to obtain and take. Mythopristone is part of a two-step regimen used in half of abortion nationwide. To break down what the courts next steps might be, I'm joined by senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett. Laura, thanks so much for being here.

Really appreciate it. Of course. So just start off by breaking down both sides' latest arguments because they've evolved a bit. They have.

And the key for the plaintiffs, the anti-abortion advocates and doctors that brought this case, they continue to try to convince the court that this drug simply isn't safe and that the FDA should not have approved it. That's obviously something that the government and the pill manufacturer strongly contest. But one of the new arguments that the anti-abortion groups are making this time is that as it relates to the original of Mythopristone that happens in the year 2000, they say, look, for 16 years, this drug was on the market with a number of restrictions. So how can the Justice Department argue now that those restrictions are invalid when for 16 years, no one complained?

However, the Justice Department now points out that because the pill has been updated with all of these new regulations and this sort of morass of entanglements, because we are where we are now in obviously the year 2023, if you actually try to go back to the year 2000 regime, if you will, Kristin, that would cause a regulatory chaos that says the Justice Department because the label wouldn't actually match what the court is saying you have to do. And so it's sort of a disaster to, again, make the Biden administration point here if you went actually back to the year 2000. But we'll see what the Supreme Court does with this. They may not decide that issue at all.

Well, and that brings me to my next question, how quickly could the Supreme Court take this up? And what are the various scenarios that we're looking at and what would that mean in terms of acts? They could take this up at any time. They could issue a decision as we speak right now that the plaintiffs have put in their last legal brief.

They could decide at any time what to do here. And there's basically three different paths they could take. The first scenario would be to grant the state request that the Justice Department wants the pill would remain on the market. That's the big thing to note here.

If the state request is granted, the pill stays on the market. The case goes back down to the Fifth Circuit. So that's a, you know, it's not on the Supreme Court's document. It goes back down to the circuit, but the bill would remain on the market.

The second path potentially here is to deny the Justice Department's request for a stay, in which case you could see significant confusion because of course, remember, there's still that Washington decision which tells the FDA you have to keep the pill on the market. And so you need to see exactly how does the Supreme Court decide to square those two. That's a little bit unclear. Option number three, the court could just grab the case for itself, Chris, and the Justice could decide, you know whether important issues here, this is sort of a regulatory mess.

We want to hear the case ourselves, in which case, again, pill stays on the market and it's just a matter of when the Justice is want to hear it. Do they want to fast track it and hear it before summer recess or do they decide, you know what, let's keep everything on ice and we'll hear it next fall. Laura, very quickly, if it does go back to the Fifth Circuit, would they be considering the entire case or would they be considering a narrower question? They would be hearing the narrower issue because remember they decided the pill was, it's able to actually be approved and that these plaintiffs didn't bring in enough time.

Essentially, these plaintiffs, it was an untimely suit, but they are looking at a narrow question of what happens to those regulations after 2015 that they're about. So they'd be looking at that narrow issue. All right, Laura, thank you so much. Really appreciate it as always.

Of course. Yeah. Turning now to the 2024 presidential campaign trail where Republican presidential candidate is doing something no one else in the field really has. He's going after former President Trump, former Arkansas Governor, Asa Hutchinson, gotten to the race earlier this month, calling for the party to move on from their former standard there.

Our von Hillier spent some time with Hutchinson recently, exclusively during his first trip to Iowa. Here's a look at his reporting. This man. How are we doing?

He's a Republican. I might be spending as much time up here as I do at Arkansas. Taking on Donald Trump. I'm running for president because we need a course correction in our country.

I'll just tell you very frankly, we need a course correction in the Republican party as well. This is Asa Hutchinson, a former congressman, a former Bush administration official, and most recently, the two-term governor of Arkansas. How are you going to do this? Well, it's going to take a lot of shoe leather.

We're going to have to be going to small venues. We're going to be visiting with people about the issue. We spent the day in Iowa with Hutchinson, his first trip to the caucus state, since formally filing his paperwork to win the Republican nomination for president. He intends to make this campaign very different than Mr.

Trump's. How are we doing? Good. Good.

One focused on traveling town to town. I'd like to have one of those mushrooms there. And then that New York strip. This guy looks like a Brussels sprouts guy.

You're the one candidate so far who's really taking Donald Trump on directly. Not really going around the edges of this. Why? Because he's a defining person in this campaign.

And if you don't say, I'm different from Donald Trump, then I'm going to provide a different leadership than he does, then why are you in the race? Why does he need to move on from Donald Trump? Because Donald Trump has taken us back to bitterness. He's taken us back to what's a personal vendetta.

Whenever you look at what he wants to do as president, it's more about getting even with his political enemies than leaving our country. That concerns me. Oh, listen, we are cooking that. Yeah, I like what I see.

What evidence would data have you seen that would suggest that you can win this nomination? Well, history. Whenever you look at the history of front runners, it's not too good. This front runner, though, still here in Iowa, this month has 80% favorability among Iowa Republicans.

How do you make that not reality? Well, you get in there and you make your case. And sure, I will concede that this is a challenge. All right.

Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump have really played to these ideas of cultural fights. And in the Republican Party, we've seen it galvanize a primary electorate. But to what extent do you fear that it alienates a part of the general electorate that you would need to win the presidency? Well, I think you have to be careful about using the same tools the left use.

Do we want the conservative government to tell businesses what you can't and can't do, or what you can't speak out on and not speak out on? You also vetoed a ban on gender affirming care for minors in Arkansas. What went into your thought process when you did that? I think whether you're talking about the government telling parents about vaccines or parents telling how you raise your children on some very sensitive issues like gender identity, I think you have to be careful about getting the government right in the middle of that.

Great conversation there by Arvon Hilliard. Our thanks to Vaughn for that great reporting. We have got a lot of news to break down now with my panel. Joining me now on set is NBC News senior congressional reporter Scott Wong, former Michigan Democratic Congressman Andy Levin.

He's now a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. And Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bulwark. Thanks so much to all of you for being here. I want to delve into 2024 and the Republican primary field.

But I have to ask you all about this breaking news. And Scott, let me just start with you. The fact that Fox has settled with Dominion, $787 million, half of what they were asking for, but still a significant amount of money. Yeah, that's going to hurt a lot.

And I think that the takeaway is that there are consequences to these things. Consequences when you lie and float conspiracy theories on a broadcast, consequences to attacking the Capitol during January 6. We are seeing dozens and dozens of these cases in prosecutions come to fruition right now in consequences when it comes to lying about the election. Sarah, what is your take and do you think there will be adjustments, not necessarily at Fox, but more broadly ahead of 2024?

I'm not sure there'll be big adjustments. I think that they might know now not to run afoul of the law and that people will actually sue them. And it does look like for accountability purposes, the courts might be one of the last places to go. But I am not the least bit surprised that Fox settled because this was really bad for them.

And if this big court case had taken place, their viewers were going to actually start to learn about it. It's one of the things that's interesting. I do focus groups every week talking to Republican voters. And they didn't really know about the Dominion case.

So they would have started to hear about it. They wanted to avoid that. Andy, what's your take on that and the decision to settle broadly? Well, Chris, and I'm really sorry to miss the show.

It would have really been something. And that's why Fox settled. As a lawyer, you learn in law school how hard it is to bring a defamation lawsuit. But Fox was caught literally lying, putting out these lies, host after host, show after show.

And I hope that things will change. I'm worried that they won't change much at Fox because they haven't been reporting on this at all. Sarah's point is fascinating, though, that there are a whole host of people who just aren't really paying attention. Because they watch Fox News and other right wing outlets that have not been reporting on this vital case.

But it's a big, big deal that they settled. And I think it shows that there's some health in our democracy that we can hold news outlets accountable to telling the truth. Did you have one more point? Okay.

Let's move on to, of course, this is the backdrop against which we are talking about, the GOP primary, which is coming into sharper focus every single day. Scott, you have Ron DeSantis, who is here in DC. He's meeting with Republicans. He is positioning himself as someone who is poised to run.

He has not officially done so yet. It's notable when you see the Ace of Hutchinson piece with Vaughn that Hutchinson is really carving out his own path. Ron DeSantis is not doing that. Yeah, but he is reaching out to Republican lawmakers quietly behind the scenes building support like this event today.

He has just blocks from where we are, in fact, right now with Mike Lee, the Senator from Utah, and some others. Now we are starting to see just a handful of these Republican lawmakers jump in and endorse Ron DeSantis for president, Laurel Lee from Florida today, who served as Secretary of State and Intel has he with Ron DeSantis. Obviously, they're very close, but a handful of these folks are jumping in and endorsing him, even though he hasn't announced for the presidency yet. So what do you make of that?

And do you get the sense that if you look at the polls, and I know it's so early to be talking about polls, but still, Trump seems to be expanding his lead over Ron DeSantis. When Donald Trump jumped in the race right after the midterms, I thought it was crazy to get in that early, but what he's been able to do is start consolidating support. He's getting big endorsements, and Ron DeSantis is still trying to be governor of Florida. And so even though there's a couple of people here and there coming out endorsing him, Ron DeSantis isn't officially in the race while Donald Trump is sucking up endorsements yet.

So to that point, I mean, does he need to take a page out of Ace of Hutchinson's playbook, which is, yes, I'm going to distinguish myself from him. Obviously, the risk is you wind up alienating the Trump base. Yeah, although here's the thing. Ron DeSantis has pitched himself as a fighter.

He even made that crazy act. God made a fighter. He's got to fight. He's got to go right at Trump.

If he can't be an author against Trump, like to be the man, you've got to beat the man. You cannot go around Trump. You have to go through him. And DeSantis right now feels very much on the sidelines.

And he could get to the point where by the time he gets in, Trump already feels inevitable. These Republicans have got to start making contrast cases against Trump. It's not, it's going to be too late very soon. Andy, what does your take as Democrats watch the Republican field take shape?

Do you have a sense of who Democrats are more nervous about Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump? Well, I'll tell you this. Ron DeSantis is as much of a MAGA extremist as Donald Trump. And this whole thing of trying to go after kids, trying to restrict education in K-12 in our schools, he was for a 30% sales tax.

He was privatizing social security. I mean, there is a lot Democrats can run on against Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump. And the real question for the Republican Party is will they shake this anti-democratic with a small d whole era moving into authoritarianism and go back to just being a party of ideas that I make disagree with, but are perfectly respectable ideas. Let me answer that for him.

Definitely no. They are definitely not going back. And I think the fact that that Ron DeSantis is sort of the only viable challenger against Trump right now and is running kind of as a Trump light version, sort of tells you all you need to know about where the Republican party is. And these candidates who are from the before times, like Nikki Haley, like Mike Pence, voters have very little interest in candidates like that.

Yeah, it's got, our NBC colleagues have a piece out. Donald Trump hasn't commented once on the six-week abortion ban in Florida that Ron DeSantis just signed. What does that, it's so fascinating. And obviously Republicans are grappling with the issue of abortion and how to deal with it in 2024.

But what does that tell you? Well, they have a recent memory looking back at the 2022 midterms and how poorly they performed after the Supreme Court abortion ruling, how that galvanized the Democratic base and really carried them through that election, even though the majority did flip in the house. They only won by a tiny margin. And so they are looking back at that election results and are fearful for what could lie ahead for 2024.

We haven't, Ron DeSantis signed that bill, very, very late, didn't advertise that he had signed that bill into law. And Donald Trump is staying out of the fray entirely. So they have a more recent memory, Wisconsin, where the Supreme Court flipped because of this Republican extremism on abortion. I mean, this mythopristone thing, people want these decisions to be made by their doctors, by their families, and in terms of the drugs, by the FDA, by the scientists.

Sir, I'm going to give you the final word. What do you make of this and how big of a liability are Republicans concerned? The issue of abortion may be, is that part of why we're not hearing from the former president on this? Yeah, I actually think the former president is probably going to run to Santa's left on abortion.

I think that he understands that where the American people are is much closer to 15 weeks with exceptions for rape and incest and life of the mother. And Donald Trump has like that lizard sense of where voters are and knows how to go there. Ron DeSantis got cornered by the base of deciding that six-week bill, and he is going to come to regret it if he makes it to a general election. Looking at the primary things that could help him, but there's no doubt a lot of jitters about what that could mean in a general.

Great conversation. Thanks for responding to the breaking news. We really appreciate it. Scott, Andy, and Sarah.

Silicon, the Missouri man who shot 16-year-old Ralph Yarl after the teenager mistakenly rang his doorbell, is now facing felony charges as Yarl recovers at home, the latest from Kansas City next. You're watching at the press now. Welcome back. The white homeowner who shot a Black Kansas City teen who knocked on his door Friday is now in police custody.

Andrew Lester, an 84-year-old white man, was charged with first-degree assault and criminal action on Monday, three days after he shot Ralph Yarl, a Black 16-year-old. Yarl's lawyers say he was shot after going to the wrong address, while trying to pick up his twin brothers from a friend's house. After he knocked on the door, Lester told him, quote, don't come back around here and then fired on the teen, hitting him in the head and the arm. Yarl's lawyers say the shooting was racially motivated.

Yarl was now recovering from his injuries at home, where he received a phone call from President Biden last night. M.C.'s Maggie Vespa has the latest on the story from Kansas City. Maggie, thank you so much for joining us. So, I just want to ask you about the arrest warrant that was issued for the shooter yesterday on charges of assault in the first-degree and armed criminal action.

And he was taken into custody this afternoon. A lot of people are wondering why this happened this afternoon. Why not sooner? That's a great question.

Frankly, Chris and police aren't answering that question at this point. We were asking them all day today. Frankly, where is Andrew Lester? Where is the person who you've known, according to his own admission, made in that probable cause statement that this is the shooter.

In this case, admitted shooter who gave his story as to why he says he felt in his words scared to death on Thursday night. So, given all that information, we've been asking, where's the arrest? You know, these charges were lodged late yesterday, basically around 5 p.m. Central time, local time.

And it wasn't until about 3 o'clock central today that we found out that Andrew Lester, that 84-year-old white homeowner, had indeed turned himself in. We kept asking police what's the deal. They basically just kept saying we're working on it. So, we will keep working on getting details as to why there was that lag there.

At the same time, as he said, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl at home right now, out of the hospital, after being shot in the head and in the arm, having undergone brain surgery in the hospital, and walking away, basically, with a traumatic brain injury at this point. His family telling us that that means that it's very possible that he will have some sort of permanent damage moving forward. They say, for the most part, his speech is back and he's able to communicate with everybody, but he does have some impediments there at this point. They're hoping for a full recovery, Kristen.

But basically, they tell us they're not exactly sure how this is going to go. At the very least, it will be in law, road to recovery. So, everybody's just hoping and praying for that, but that goes well. It moves forward.

Everyone hoping that he has a full recovery. Maggie, there's such complicated legal issues surrounding this case. We only have less than a minute, but just very quickly. Where are they?

Yeah, essentially, there are two conflicting stories. Ralph Yarl says that he, as family, said that he just rang doorbells, sat there, waited, the homeowner opens and fires. Andrew Lester basically says that Yarl was trying to jiggle the door handle, and he was afraid that Yarl was going to break in. That, as you know, Kristen, could be key if Lester, if the homeowner were to pursue some kind of self-defense argument, sort of a standard round S, or if we're in your own home in Missouri, that's called the Castle Doctrine.

So, basically, he would have to prove that he felt threatened in that situation, and he had no duty to retreat under Missouri law. Again, Britain is information right now from that probable cause statement. We haven't been able to reach Lester. He doesn't have an attorney that we've been able to find to talk about potential defense strategies moving forward, but we'll say all it.

Maggie Vesta, thank you so much, and thank you for being with us this hour. NBC News now coverage continues with Hallie Jackson right now.