Meet the Press NOW — April 25

Welcome to Meet the Press Now, I'm Kristen Welker on an historic day in Washington as the United States Supreme Court weighs the limits of presidential power at the same time as the former president sits in a criminal courtroom in New York for day three of testimony in his hush money trial. And as he faces new legal peril in Arizona after being named an unindicted co-conspirator in an indictment tied to his team's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. We will get to the developments in New York and Arizona in just a moment, but we do have to begin right here in Washington. That's where the Supreme Court appears likely to reject former President Trump's broad interpretation of presidential immunity.

But the court may send the question of presidential immunity back to the lower court, delaying his trial on charges he tried to overturn the last election until after the next election. As lawyers for Mr. Trump argued that he had near total immunity to act as president. They were pressed by some of the court's liberal justices about the potentially alarming implications of that argument.

If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity? It would depend on the hypothetical we can see that could well be an official act. It could. How about if a president orders the military to stage a coup?

I think that, as the Chief Justice pointed out earlier, where there is a whole series of sort of guidelines against that. But he ordered the military to stage a coup, and you're saying that's an official act. I think it would depend on the circumstances whether it was an official act. Again, it's a fact specific context to a determination.

That answer sounds to me as though it's like, yeah, under my test, it's an official act, but that sure sounds bad, doesn't it? Well, it certainly sounds very bad. Now, lawyers representing the Justice Department were pressed by the court's conservative justices about their view of criminal liability surrounding the actions of a sitting president, raising concerns that it could open a Pandora's box of litigation, impairing the president's ability to do his or her job. Do I understand you to say, well, you know, if he makes a mistake, he makes a mistake.

He's subject to the criminal laws just like anybody else. You know, he's in a special, precariously precarious position. He's in a special position for a number of reasons. One is that he has access to legal advice about everything that he does.

He's under a constitutional obligation to be faithful to the laws of the United States and the Constitution of the United States. And making a mistake is not what lands you in a criminal prosecution. Now, several of the justices today seemed acutely aware of the historic weight of this case and the precedent they could set for the powers of the presidency itself. There seemed to be widespread agreement among the justices that no president is above the law.

Now, as he arrived in court in New York this morning, Mr. Trump addressed the case before the high court. But the argument on immunity is very important. The president has to have immunity.

This has nothing to do with me. This has to do with a president in the future for 100 years from now. If you don't have immunity, you're not going to do anything. You're going to become a ceremonial president.

You're just going to be doing nothing. You're not going to take any of the risks, both good and bad. Joining me now from outside the Supreme Court, NBC's Ken Delanian. Also with me, Supreme Court expert and co-founder of Sotusblog, Amy Howe, former attorney for former President Trump, Tim Parlatore, and Barbara McQuaid, a former U.S.

attorney and NBC News legal analyst. I want to thank you all for starting us off on this hugely significant and historic day. As we said, Ken Delanian, let me start with you. You are outside the courthouse.

Take us through the key takeaways today. Was the questioning more or less what you were expecting it to be? Yeah, because I have to say, I fully expected that a number of conservative justices would find some reason to see some level of presidential immunity for official acts. And that's what I think they signaled today.

On the other hand, they are not buying the notion that Mr. Trump has absolute immunity, and therefore this case must go away. To the contrary, in fact, Mr. Trump's own lawyer acknowledged that some of the allegations in the indictment went to acts that were purely private acts, not official acts.

That was an interesting moment during the hearing. Apologies, we have a heckler here. But clearly, a potential majority of conservative justices were very concerned about the idea that a president would have no immunity whatsoever, which would be a position of the D.C. Circuit Court.

So that's where this looks like it's heading. And if, in fact, they decide that there is some level of limited immunity for official acts, but the case can still go forward, they may have to throw it back down to Judge Chutkin and have her decide which of the allegations in the indictment are official acts and which are private acts. And the result of that is going to be the case isn't derailed, but it's significantly delayed, Kristen. Ken, incredible job reporting and powering through that heckler behind you.

I'm going to give you a few seconds and hopefully that person will settle down a little bit. Let me turn now to you, Amy. What were your takeaways today? And kind of pick up where Ken left off.

This disparity that Mr. Trump's lawyers were making between official acts that are done in the capacity of the president in the name of the executive branch and actions that are done in a personal manner. Yes, and he conceded that some of the allegations in the complaint, he disputed the sort of the underlying facts, but he conceded that some of them were private conduct. Some of them, he said, were official acts.

And, you know, as Ken said, some of the justices seemed to be ready to maybe just draw that distinction and maybe kick it back to the lower courts. But other justices were concerned, the Supreme Court only hears about 65 cases a year. So in almost every case, they're concerned that they're not just deciding that particular case before them, but they're deciding cases that will set rules for years to come. And that was sort of true to the 10th degree in this case.

Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch said, you know, these are this is a ruling for the ages. And so they may want to set some broader rules to govern future cases involving presidential immunity. And so the question is sort of if they're going to if they're going to reject the D.C. Circuit's decision that says that presidents never have immunity, but they're going to say that they reject at the same time Trump's sweeping view of presidential immunity.

What is the rule going to be that they arrive on in the middle? And that's what really wasn't clear to me coming out of the arguments today. What do you make of that? And there does seem to be broad agreement that the justices were very skeptical of former President Trump's argument that presidents should be entitled to broad immunity.

However, even if they come up with a narrower interpretation of the law, that could still be a win for Mr. Trump. Oh, sure. I mean, I've always looked at this as you have one side saying no immunity, the other side saying total immunity.

The reality is going to be somewhere in the middle. It's going to be some type of qualified immunity. And, you know, whatever they are going to rule on, if they if they cut it up and they say, OK, this is the test, they're going to send it back down to the district court to have further proceedings and potentially even evidentiary hearings to decide what parts of this indictment can stay and what parts get excised out. And I thought it was interesting that the special counsel actually kind of telegraphed that, that Jack Smith may, in the interest of speed, decide to cut the indictment himself and avoid the trial, avoid that hearing so he can get faster to the trial.

It's such a fantastic point. Barbara McQuaid, pick up on that point, if you would, the suggestion by one of the justices that why not make this a narrower case so that Jack Smith can move forward more quickly? And if this does get kicked back to the lower courts, I mean, that's a real victory for Mr. Trump in the sense that this may not go to trial before November.

Yes, and that is an option that Jack Smith has. You know, I think that as a prosecutor, you always want to go to trial with all of your evidence. You don't want to try a case with one hand tied behind your back. And so I think in the first instance, he's going to try to have all of it, to have his cake and eat it too.

But if he sees that there is some evidentiary hearing and it's held that some of these allegations in the indictment are clearly private acts and some others are clearly official acts, if he can eliminate the official acts and have a clean case, that may be one option. You know, for example, today there was a question about a conversation with Vice President Pence. If that is an official act, you know, how do you decide when it's a private act versus when it's an official act? But I think there's still an argument for Jack Smith to argue that even those things which might under some circumstances be seen as official acts are not always official acts.

For example, one of the lines that was suggested today by Michael Dreeben, who was arguing for the special counsel, is one way to think about this is acts that are done by the office holder versus acts that are done by the office seeker. And so even in those conversations between Donald Trump and Mike Pence as the vice There would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. I'm trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country. Amy, what do you make of that line of questioning?

She was really trying to push back against one of the former president's main arguments, which is that if you do not have blanket immunity for an official act, that everything a president does will be affected by this idea that he or she could be prosecuted after they leave office, and in particular, that it could be this sort of cycle in which there could be political retaliation by the next president. And she said, doesn't it work the other way around? What about that argument, as you were thinking about this case, how much did you grapple with that idea, the implications of the opposite, being sure that you can give someone broad immunity, but the implications of that are potentially a very slippery slope. I agree with that completely, because you want to have a certain level of immunity.

You don't want the successor to say I disagree with the drones that you ordered overseas, and therefore I'm going to prosecute you. But at the same time, there has to be some level of deterrence. And it was interesting, the hypotheticals that they were placing today to the advocates, I thought it would have been kind of interesting had they instead gone to Mr. Sauer and given him hypotheticals that closely relate to allegations that the Trump campaign has made against Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.

And see, watch John Sauer try and defend, oh, no, it'd be perfectly fine for Joe Biden to take money from Hunter and then do all this stuff overseas. And I think that because ultimately that's what the justices are really trying to do, is not just figure out what should be the rule for Donald Trump, but what should be the rule for all presidents. Barbara, pick up on this, and I know you can't see into the future, but if you had to infer from what we heard from the justices today, there is a lot of suggestion that it seems like they may be poised to find a very narrower interpretation of immunity, but also that it could get kicked back to the lower courts. What would the implications of that be?

And do you anticipate that's what happens? I don't know. You know, the court is supposed to decide only the case that is before them. And so when Justice Kavanaugh says things like, I'm fine with this case, I'm thinking about other cases that we're writing for the ages, for history here.

I mean, certainly they want to draw the line in the right place in this case, but they don't really need to decide cases that are not before them. And so if they look just at this case and the charges in this case about Trump acting as a candidate, I don't think it's really a difficult question at all. But I do agree that if they decide they need to draw these lines about what is and is not an official act and which of these allegations falls on which side of that line, I'm confident that Judge Tanya Chutkin can probably do that pretty quickly and get the case back on track. The concern I would have is if Trump decides to appeal that decision and the court allows that, that is what would derail this case till after the election.

Ken, let me go back to you. What are the potential implications for the other cases that former President Trump is facing, including, of course, the classified documents case, which is also being brought by special counsel Jack Smith? I mean, it does have implications for the classified documents case, but I think those are limited because a lot of the conduct in that case, Kristen, is alleged to have happened after Mr. Trump left office.

I think it would really have implications for the Georgia case, which alleges a lot of the same conduct that is alleged in the Jack Smith case. And so many of those things will be construed by Donald Trump's lawyers as official acts. And depending on how the Supreme Court rules, that could impinge on those charges. But the biggest impact, I think, is just to delay this seminal election case that Jack Smith has brought against Donald Trump related to January 6th.

It seems very remote at this point that that case can get to trial before the election. Very quickly to both of you, Amy and then Tim, what will you be watching for moving forward as we wait for this decision by the Supreme Court? I'm going to be looking at exactly what the court says in its opinion and then when they issue it. The justices have not shown an inclination to move particularly quickly on this one compared, for example, to the election case that they heard oral argument in February and then issued a decision a month later.

I don't expect them to move that quickly in this case. Tim, how about you? Do you think they'll move quickly in this case? You know, I think because of the gravity of the situation, they probably will take their time.

I don't think that the Supreme Court is moved by Jack Smith's schedule. They're going to do it in their schedule. And then I do think it is going to end up with more hearings. And as Barbara just said, probably an appeal.

But here's another thing is that if they end up severing a good piece of this out and saying that's official acts, that's immunity. Do they then file a follow on motion saying, well, that negatively impacted the grand jury proceedings because you presented a whole bunch of immune conduct to the grand jury. So it definitely opens up a lot of things where even if he loses the argument of the absolute immunity, which he almost certainly will, he's going to win the clock. All right.

Well, thank you for a fantastic opening segment on a very big and complicated day. We really appreciate it. Amy and Ken, thank you both. Tim and Barbara, stick around for us because we have more historical developments to get to coming up.

New testimony, new revelations and new allegations in the former president's criminal hush money trial as he escalates his attacks on the court. Plus, all the president's men. Arizona grand jury has criminally charged more than a dozen Trump allies for attempting to overturn the 2020 election while also naming the former president himself as an unindicted co-conspirator. Stay with us.

You're watching The Press Now. Welcome back. As some of the former president's attorneys were arguing before the Supreme Court, Mr. Trump and other members of his legal team were back in the courtroom in New York City.

As David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, resumed his testimony for a third day. Pecker acknowledged the catch and kill scheme surrounding a former Playboy model's relationship with Mr. Trump was intended to help Trump's candidacy in 2016, saying, quote, We didn't want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign.

Now, just last hour, Trump's legal team began their cross-examination of Pecker. Joining me now is Rahama Ellis outside of the courthouse. Rahama, thank you so much for joining us. So what were some of the other big takeaways from David Pecker's testimony today?

One of the things that David Pecker was asked, it was about paying McDougall, Karen McDougall, for her story and this catch and kill kind of scheme that seemed to be so regular that was just so ordinary. And he was asked the question of whether or not he was aware that expenditures to influence the election of a campaign were illegal. He said yes. And that seems to cut to the heart of what this is all about.

Donald Trump is, even though this Karen McDougall is not the one who's mentioned in this particular indictment, it's Stormy Daniels who is. What David Pecker did was he seemed to establish that Donald Trump was very much involved in how his money was spent and that Michael Cohen was an intermediary in all of that. David Pecker made mentioned that when he and Michael Cohen went to lunch, Cohen couldn't even pay for lunch because it wasn't authorized by Donald Trump. And they both knew it.

Michael Cohen knew it. David Pecker knew it. And the earlier in his testimony, he had mentioned that David that Donald Trump was something of a micromanager, if you will. He was very much involved in his finances.

So this might cut to the heart of a lot of what the prosecution is trying to present in this case about Donald Trump. Falsifying his business records to cover up an adult film star's payoff, if you will. That's where they're alleging there's a crime, not the payoff itself, but the falsifying of the business records. The first of a number of critical witnesses that we anticipate we will hear from.

Let's talk about the defense a little bit. Raheema, what has the defense been focusing on in their cross-examination so far? One of the things that we noticed from the documents that our reporters are sharing with us of what's going on in the courthouse is the word that it seems to be kind of rapid fire questions of yes or no. And one of the things that David Pecker was establishing was that this was not something unusual for them to take a story that was unflattering about a celebrity, buy it and then not run it.

They talked about doing it with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He said he did it with Tiger Woods, if you will. And so basically, I guess the defense is trying to say that this was sort of standard operating procedure with David Pecker. And it's not to be considered something extraordinary that also happened to Donald Trump.

We are waiting for Judge Merchan to decide if Trump violated his gag order. And prosecutors laid out more potential violations today. What did they say? And Raheema, when are we expecting the judge to rule on that gag order?

Well, they started talking about this this morning, and that was outside of the jurors being present in the courtroom. And the prosecution brought up four more instances of where You can't speak. You can't put two sentences together and he doesn't know what to do. This is not a president.

This is somebody that shouldn't be doing what he's doing because he can't do it. He can't do it well. We're having protests all over. He was talking about Charlottesville.

Charlottesville was a little peanut and it was nothing compared to the hate wasn't the kind of hate that you have here. This is tremendous hate and we have a man that can't talk about it because he doesn't understand that he doesn't understand what's going on with our country. He doesn't understand that all over the world where they laughed at as a country because of him and his administration. And today we had a hearing because I was forced to be here.

I'm glad I was because it was a very interesting day in a certain way. But the U.S. Supreme Court had a. Monumental hearing on immunity and the immunity having to do with presidential immunity.

And I think it was made clear. I hope it was made clear that a president has to have immunity. You don't have a president or most you can say it would be a ceremonial president. That's not what the founders had in mind.

They're not talking about ceremonial. We want presidents that can get things done and bring people together. So I heard the meeting was quite amazing, quite amazing. And the justices were on the game.

So let's see how that all turns out. But again, I say presidential immunity, very powerful. Presidential immunity is a barrier or you practically won't have a country anymore. Thank you very much.

Thank you. That's Donald Trump speaking after yet another day of court in his hush money trial. And again, we listen to the testimony or I should say jurors listen to the testimony of David Pecker today. Donald Trump saying that the case never should have happened.

He then pivoted to attacking Biden over what we are seeing, the unrest in college campuses, attacked the economy, new economic numbers that came out today. The gross domestic product. U.S. growth did slow in the first quarter, but inflation did remain a concern.

We should say in terms of whether this case should have ever been brought, we should remind our viewers it was brought by a grand jury. Trump now being judged by a jury of his peers. Let me turn to NBC's Sasha Burns very quickly. Dasha, what was your takeaway?

He also weighed in on the arguments before the Supreme Court today saying it was made clear that a president has to have immunity. He was basically saying that's what his lawyers were arguing. He said the justices were on their game. But again, we don't know what they are going to decide.

And by all accounts, they are not seem poised to give him the broad immunity that he is seeking. No, I mean, it was a pretty robust question and answer exchange between the justices and lawyers, both for the Justice Department and for former President Trump. Not clear at all where this is ultimately going to land. There was a lot of skepticism of the arguments on the part of Trump's lawyers.

And again, just a robust discussion, like so many of these Supreme Court hearings are really fascinating. I also want to just fact check one other piece of information. He said there, Kristen, he said that gas is $7.50 in California. I just did a quick search according to the AAA average of California.

It's actually $5.04. And I did not see it at $7 in any of California's counties. So still a lot of high price for gas in that state, but not quite as high as the former president was talking about. But yeah, he did call the Supreme Court arguments amazing, saying the justices were on their game.

And otherwise, he is really sticking to the message that we hear over and over again. And he talks to reporters outside of the court just saying that this is unfair, that this should have never been brought. One thing we didn't hear from him today, at least in the remarks just now, is any attack on the witnesses themselves, which, as we know, has been a subject of controversy and is a subject of an attempt on the part of the prosecution to hold Trump in contempt for violating those gag orders. We are still waiting to hear from Judge Roshon on the motions that they brought up.

Dasha Burns, thank you for racing to a camera and for that great fact check and analysis. We appreciate it. Barbara McQuade, let me go back to you. Get your take on what we heard.

Again, I thought it was notable that in addition to all of the rhetoric that we are used to hearing from former President Trump, he said it was made quite clear today that a president has to have immunity. What we don't know if that was made clear to the justices, what we know is that his attorneys were making that argument before the Supreme Court. What was your takeaway from what you heard from Mr. Trump?

This is a rhetorical trick that Donald Trump uses frequently, and that is to suggest that something is true when it is not. He suggests that what Special Counsel Jack Smith wants to do is to take away presidential immunity, to change the status quo. And this was a line of questioning by a number of the justices, especially Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said, what was the Ford Nixon pardon all about if there was no ability to hold the president criminally accountable after he left office? Wouldn't it be a terrible place if a president didn't have to worry about the potential of being charged with a crime and thought he could use all of his powers with impunity without worrying about criminal responsibility?

And so this idea where he says that we can't change the president's power, we can't take away his immunity, otherwise he would just be a ceremonial president, is not the way I think every president has thought about their job until now. And so it's a trick that suggests that this is an effort to undermine the power of the presidency as opposed to holding this president accountable. Tim, what is your takeaway from what we heard? And again, Barbara underscores the enormity of the decision, the weight of this decision before the high court, the fact that what they decide will have implications for presidents to come.

I think it is that important. You know, I don't necessarily think that when he says that was made clear, yeah, it was probably made clear by his attorney. But I think it is it is going to end up being something where they're going to give a lot more guidance to future presidents as to what their left and right limits are. I mean, I do I do disagree with the idea that Jack Smith is trying to take away an immunity that's existed.

I mean, it's one of those things that's kind of been it's never been tested. And so it's never really been something that they've had to deal with. And so now, you know, now for the first time, they're going to do something that probably would have been easier if the framers had done, as several states have done in their constitutions, of actually codifying it. But now we're at least going to have good guidance for every president going forward.

I think it's it's something that some of the other rulings in this case, the pretrial rulings, I think, are also going to come up later on as to what are the limits of executive privilege. Because, you know, some of those rulings on grand jury matters essentially take that away to, you know, to tell future presidents, hey, your successor can bring in the White House counsel to have them testify against you. And so I think that that is something that is going to have to be decided by a higher court at some point in time as well. All right.

Well, thank you for helping us understand those breaking developments. We really appreciate it. Tim and Barbara, great analysis. We will have to have you back because these legal battles are ongoing.

So thank you both so much. Meanwhile, we want to turn now to another of former President Trump's legal issues. Last night, Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays announced charges for a host of Trump allies, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani for the so-called fake electors scheme in 2020. Mr.

Trump himself is identified in the indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator. Now, the indictment includes charges of conspiracy, fraud and forgery for individuals who aided the illegitimate election certifications that were sent to Washington, claiming Trump won Arizona. President Biden carried that state by about 11,000 votes. Joining me now is NBC's Vaughn Hilliard, who is covering this story for us.

So Vaughn, break this down. Yet another legal angle that we are following on this extraordinary day. These charges from the Arizona Attorney General. What are they?

Who do they impact and could they ultimately ensnare the president? Right. This all has to do with that alternate slate of electors scheme. And notably, Chris Mays didn't come into office until last year, January of 2023.

She won a close race in November of 2022. A Republican who did not investigate this scheme and served in the two years after the 2020 election. But what Chris Mays investigation led to was a sprawling indictment, not only against the 11 actual electors in Arizona that included the likes of former GOP chairwoman Kelly Ward in the state, but also current RNC committee man Tyler Boyer, who is also the chief operating officer of that Charlie Kirk group called Turning Point USA. But also the likes of Boris Epstein.

Right. Boris Epstein continues to have a prominent role in this 2024 campaign. He is somebody who has been the legal advisor to Donald Trump. We've also got Christina Bob named in this indictment.

She was just brought on last month in a former role as a legal counsel for election integrity for the RNC. And so these are folks that are still very much a key and active part of Trump's current political operation. Yet for the The Supreme Court have not been called upon to decide this kind of thing in the past year, not even Nixon's crew tested the system to this extent. And so you really see them, even the liberal justices saying, we need to set a precedent here that gives some guardrails, that says where the limits are in the law.

So all of them asking these probing hypothetical questions clearly aimed not just at deciding whether this particular indictment can go forward, but where the lines will be drawn in the future as future presidents perhaps also seek to test the system in this way. And if you pick up on that point, because it seems like the justices are poised to, if they rule on this case, to find a much narrower ruling than a president is entitled to immunity across the board. But they also could kick it to the lower court. And quite frankly, either could be a win for former President Trump because it means that this case is not going to go to court likely.

Yeah, I think it's pretty disheartening if you're, you know, one of the many millions of Americans who do think that no one is above the law and that we should be holding everyone to the same standard and there should be a level of accountability. It was the argument that was made during impeachment proceedings that the courts will hold them accountable. This was a clear signal that actually the courts are not going to hold Trump accountable and that he will evade any sense of accountability, it seems. Brendan, what do you make of this?

Because there's that piece of it, which is that voters might not have an answer to these court cases. There's another piece of this, though, which is that Trump has been in court four days a week. He's not on the campaign trail. He has been holding events on the weekends.

But last weekend, his big campaign event got rained out, which was a reminder, this is real time that we are talking about. What do you make of that? Yeah, I mean, we'll leave it to the lawyers to talk about the legal precedents. And there are real consequential decisions.

So I think the Supreme Court should take this very seriously. What powers does the president have? Absolutely. But as a political matter, whether or not this goes to court is extremely important.

Donald Trump, obviously being stuck in court is not good for him. He can't do rallies and things. But that being the context in which we see Donald Trump for months on end is not good for him. Really, I think, really any context in which Donald Trump is the story versus Joe Biden is probably not good for him.

And then probably on the flip side, if it's all about Joe Biden, it's probably not good for Joe Biden. But if Donald Trump is able to avoid that and he's able to now turn the page, get through the New York case, whatever the outcome may be, and get back to doing what he did after he came out of there, which is hammer Joe Biden over and over again, he'll be in a much better place. But that that to me could sway the election, frankly, whether or not this court case actually goes forward. Can I say I thought it was so interesting.

This is the first time I've seen Trump come out of court and actually talk about issues. Normally he comes out and he just rails on the court. This time, you know, he talked about foreign policy. He talked about gas prices.

Clearly someone has gotten to him and said, you know, voters don't like to hear you just whining all the time, but you are winning on a lot of these issues because he is winning on a lot of these issues when he can talk, bring himself to talk about them and not just his personal grievances. It's a really great point. Look, I had the opportunity to sit down with leader Mitch McConnell earlier today. I asked him about this because if you'll recall during Trump's second impeachment, McConnell voted to acquit him.

And he said, ultimately, it's going to be up to the courts to decide what happens to Donald Trump. I want to play the exchange and get everyone's reaction on the other side. Let's talk about what's going on at the Supreme Court this week. In 2021, you voted to acquit Donald Trump in his second impeachment, saying on the Senate floor, quote, we have a criminal justice system in this country.

We have civil litigation and former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one. As we sit here, Donald Trump's attorneys are arguing before the Supreme Court that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for actions that they take while they are in office. Do you agree with that argument? We're going to find out, aren't we?

I mean, the Supreme Court is going to deal with that direct issue that I was referring to on February 13th of 2021. And I think we'll find out sometime soon. What do you think, Leader McConnell? Do you think that presidents should be immune from criminal prosecution for actions while they're in office?

Obviously, I don't think that. But it's not up to me to make that decision. The president clearly needs some kind of immunity or we'd be in court all the time. So we'll see how the Supreme Court deals with it.

Just to be very clear, you said former presidents are not immune from being held accountable. You stand by those comments? That was my view, but I don't make that decision. But you stand by those comments?

That's my view. But my view is only my view. I mean, the court is going to decide this. But just to be clear, you stand by those comments.

Former presidents are not immune from being held accountable. I do. But many times I have to say I'm not on the Supreme Court. I don't get to make the final decision on that.

Molly, he ultimately said, I do. I stand by those comments that presidents do not have immunity, although he did say they should have some kind of immunity. So it seems like he would support a narrower finding. But he was very clear that this is for the courts to deal with.

Well, and for Mitch McConnell, right? You keep saying things that don't seem controversial at the time. And then it turns out they become that. You did a very good job pinning him down on that.

But, you know, it's been very interesting to see Leader McConnell become sort of liberated now that he's announced his upcoming retirement. He clearly feels that he has the ability to say what he really thinks, even if he's hedging it quite a bit, having also, you know, endorsed Donald Trump for president. So we'll see if the Supreme Court agrees with Leader McConnell or not. But he stands by what he said after January 6th.

And he had some very harsh words for Donald Trump after January 6th. Yeah, I thought it was really a significant moment, Brendan. What did you make of this? And you, of course, have worked with Leader McConnell in your capacity of working with the former Speaker of the House.

As somebody who's retiring, of course. So to me, it felt like somebody who was sort of saying tired of defending Donald Trump. Like, here's my view. This is not my problem anymore.

And that's kind of how I read it. He does have, as a conservative, he has an expansive view of powers that the executive should have and should not be challenged. That's not surprising that he says there should be some immunity. But he also is the ultimate political animal.

And he knows that if Donald Trump has a really bad day, his goal of taking back the Senate is in jeopardy. So he's not going to throw Donald Trump under the bus as much as he probably wants to. We know he doesn't like Donald Trump, but he also has other priorities. Naveen, what did you make of what we heard from Leader McConnell?

I mean, I think it was really heartening because that was his statement during the impeachment. So he at least stood by it and didn't switch. I think it is to me a sort of a reminder of the rift in the party. Right.

And we saw earlier this week with Ukraine, there is a real divide going on in the Republican Party. And for the most part, McConnell's winning. Maybe this week he had a better week. Well, you're fantastic.

You take me to my next point perfectly, which is about the rift in the Republican Party to some extent, because I asked Leader McConnell about the fact that Ukraine aid after six months was passed. Of course, Leader McConnell, one of the people who led the charge, arguing to his party that it needs to be passed, not just for Ukraine, but for the national security of Europe and ultimately of the United States as well. So it has been viewed as a big victory for President Biden, for Leader McConnell, for Speaker Johnson. He had a chance to talk to President Zelensky of Ukraine today.

I asked him about that conversation. Look. I see you have your tie on with the Ukraine colors. I understand that you were able to speak with President Zelensky today.

What was his message to you? Well, he was grateful because he knew that the big challenge was on my party. And I think he was nice of him to mention that we had a bigger vote than we did a couple of months ago. I think there's a growing feeling in the Republican Conference in the Senate that the isolationist path is not a good idea.

Molly, ultimately, we have a robust exchange about the isolationist path and whether it's dwindling or whether it's just becoming stronger within the Republican Party. But it speaks to Naveen's point that there is this real divide in the Republican Party. It's a generational divide. And you see it playing out in the Senate.

And when I spoke to Leader McConnell after that first vote, when when less than half of the Republicans supported this foreign aid package, he said the same thing. He said that he did not believe that this was something