Meet the Press NOW — April 30

If it's Tuesday, the White House denounced its violence and hate speech on college campuses, House Speaker Johnson vows action in Congress to combat anti-Semitism, and propallistinian demonstrators occupy a building at Columbia University. Plus, the judge, presiding over former President Trump's historic hush money trial, holds an incremental contempt and threatens him with jail time for violating a gaggoner as four witnesses take the stand. And Florida's six-week abortion ban is set to take effect just hours from now, forcing patients to travel hundreds of miles for the procedure. As former President Trump tries to deflect questions on the abortion issue in a new interview.

And welcome to Beat the Press Now, I'm Aaron Gilchrist in Washington, where congressional leaders and President Biden are condemning hate speech from the propallistinian protesters at Columbia University. That as demonstrations spurred by the Israel-Hamas War are royal and college campuses across the country. The protests at Columbia University escalated last night with students storming and occupying a building on the main campus. Protesters can be seen in video here smashing windows as they entered the building and flying banners from the windows unfurling one banner with what the White House is calling, quote, dangerous hate speech.

President Biden rebuked the demonstrators, saying protests must be, quote, peaceful and lawful. And by occupying on Capitol Hill today, education secretary Miguel Cardona, he called the hateful rhetoric from some of the protests unacceptable. I think what's happening on our campuses is abhorrent. Hate has no place on our campuses.

And I'm very concerned with the reports of anti-Semitism. I've spoken to Jewish students who have feared going to class as a result of some of the harassment that they're facing on campuses. It's unacceptable and we're committed as a Department of Education to adhering to Title 6 enforcement. Now, this comes as, across the country, protesters at roughly four dozen colleges and universities have sub-encantments on their campuses.

More than 1,200 people have been arrested since protests began, including at least 200 just since yesterday. At Columbia, the New York City Police saying the university has not asked for officers to enter the campus. And even as university officials threaten students with expulsion, protesters say they will not leave the building until their demands are met. Meanwhile, the politics of the campus protests are reverberating throughout Washington.

This afternoon, the Speaker of the House tried to accuse college officials and the Biden administration of not protecting Jewish students. Columbia's choice to ignore the safety of their Jewish students and appease anti-Semites has inspired even more hate-filled protests to pop up across the country. These semitism is a virus. And because the administration and Woke University presidents aren't stepping in, we're seeing it spread.

And that's why today we're here to announce a house-wide effort to crack down on anti-Semitism on college campuses. Now, Republicans appear to have keyed in on the protests as a way to distract from divisions within their own party and focus on an issue, the Israel Hamas War, that highlights divisions among Democrats as more than half of Democrats and three-quarters of Americans overall disapprove of President Biden's handling of the war. Joining me now are our team of reporters, George Solis, outside the Columbia campus, Guavanegas at UT Austin in Texas and Ryan Nobles on Capitol Hill. George, I'll start with you in New York City, the protests at Columbia really seem to escalate overnight.

Talk to us about the scene there now, the mood on campus today. Yeah, Aaron, it's very tense out here. What you've seen over the last several hours is more protesters, more demonstrators outside of the gates of Columbia here. Mind you, this is now the only entry point and exit point.

Since those demonstrators took over a historic Hamilton Hall, not long ago, we actually saw one of those pro-Palestinian demonstrators on the roof of Hamilton Hall here waving up Palestinian flag, rallying more people here to the scene. So what you've also seen is more NYPD presence outside of Columbia, which trust because really in short, as he touched on, the NYPD is going to not interfere unless Columbia picks up the phone and says come in here, which is obviously making things a lot more tense here because many are wondering whether or not the NYPD will make their presence known at this point, especially since you do have those students that are holed up inside of Hamilton Hall. So what does this all mean when we've been talking to a lot of students here on campus, many of them have been due as faith, who of course say they feel unsafe there. So wondering if commencement will happen here at Columbia, I spoke with one student from Barnard College, a liberal college here who really just put it up in this manner.

Take a listen. I was really, really shocked to see things escalate this way. I mean the encampments themselves, I was surprised to see and the amount of time that they've stayed on campus also surprised me. But to see administration not really do anything as everything escalates to get to this point is shocking and a bit disappointing.

Yeah, Aaron, we can't forget the historical context in all of this. This is the same building that was occupied by student protesters during the Vietnam era. Many of the organizers issuing a statement, if you will, of sorts earlier this morning, warning really, novietous morning to university officials in law enforcement saying that if you bring police officers or soldiers into this hall right now and anything happens, any blood spilled will be on your hand. So they're using some very certain language.

Meanwhile, everyone wondering how will this all unfold in the next several hours, Aaron? Well, George, given that warning, we know the university now has an encampment outside, it's got an occupied building as well. What's the reaction? Does the university have a next move we know about?

So really, as you mentioned, right now they're just threatening that disciplinary action. They've already suspended those students who did not flee that encampment yesterday under that 2 p.m. saying those students here at Hamilton face expulsion. But really, it's a question of whether or not their campus security or their own internal teams will be able to convince these students to leave this hall and to try to find a resolution to this to be all amicable.

But at this point, again, many are wondering if it's going to take a much stronger presence. I mean, we've seen some of these protests across the country from coast to coast where they have called in police to take down some of these encampments. The University of Florida, another example who used really strong language today saying that this is really simple. This is they're not babysitting these encampments.

So again, right now things very tense here as more people to send outside of the gates here. You hear those chants, it seems to be growing just larger by the minute, Erin. All right, George, the police force in New York City, George. Thank you.

Let's turn to Texas now and Guat Vannegas on the ground there for us. Why do you do Austin is taking a bit of a different approach to these protests compared to what we're seeing in New York City? Set the scene for us there today and talk about next steps. Erin, the protests here started last week when organizers called for a walkout in support of Palestine.

That day, the university called in local police and state troopers. Now the university has released statements indicating that they saw clear patterns that those organizers were following what has happened in other parts of the country, that they were attempting to interrupt the functions of the university. And that's why they called it the state troopers. They were highly criticized.

The following day, members of the faculty joined more protesters in the same place, arguing that there was no clear explanation as to why the officials had called in the state troopers. There were also protesters at the local jail where dozens of individuals had been taken after they were arrested during that first walkout. What we saw for the next two days were protests in this area without police intervention. Then on Monday, yesterday, we saw another group of protesters, a large group that arrived right here.

Now the difference is that this time they brought tents. They set up the tents. They also set up a bear with the people. And it seems like that's what triggered police and state troopers to return into the area and to go into this grass part where they had those tents.

They picked them up. They detained about 79 individuals and they pushed some of the remaining protesters out of the area. So it seems like it was that trigger authorities here. But we have had protesters every day.

What we have today is another group returning for what they call is a teaching where they're just having conversations about how they should be protesting. So every day has been slightly different. And we've seen the authorities step in whenever they see an indication that an encampment is going to be set up. Aaron?

I do want to ask you very quickly about Governor Abbott there in Texas. How much of this response, this tougher response is being directed from the top, from Governor Abbott's office? So I've been speaking to students and members of the faculty and almost all of them have that question. They would like to know if the governor has been involved in the decisions made by university officials.

Now Austin is a state capital. In fact, the governor's mansion is not too far from here. And when the first walkout happened on Wednesday, the governor shared a message on X saying that he wanted students to be expelled if they were protesting. And then yesterday, once again, the governor shared another message saying encampments will not be allowed instead students will be arrested.

So it seems like he's been paying close attention to what's happened here. And every time we see the state troopers come in, the governor shares a message. Aaron. All right, Guabanegas for us in Austin, Texas today.

God thank you. Let's turn to Capitol Hill now here in Washington. Ryan Nobles at his post for us now. So Ryan Speaker Johnson, we know is sort of taking advantage of this moment to put anti-Semitism at the top of the legislative agenda this week.

I know he just spoke about some moves he's going to be taking. There's this vote that we think could be happening later this week as well as some legislation. Set the table for us. Yeah, that's right, Aaron.

There's no doubt that Speaker Johnson views this as an opening for House Republicans to take a stand as to what they see as a virus that is spreading across college campuses specifically as it relates to anti-Semitism and that sort of rhetoric. And he's using the bully pulpit as Speaker of the House to try and make that case today. He held a press conference with 10 different Republican chairs of different House committees. And he's just as tasked each one of those committee chairs with working on specific aspects, specific planks, if you will, of trying to deal with anti-Semitism on college campuses.

There's a long list of things that they want to do. But as an example, in their oversight capacity, they want the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to investigate the visa status of some of these protesters on these campuses and even suggested that if they are on foreign student visas, those visas be called into question, which would be a pretty dramatic move if the administration were to fall in line behind it. But for the most part, Aaron, you have to really recognize that a lot of this is just a public pressure campaign. The chances that they actually pass legislation that goes to both the House and Senate that has a tangible consequence for these college campuses and their presidents is very unlikely.

Aaron. I do want to ask you, I mean, there's some lawmakers who've raised the idea of cutting off federal funding that goes to some universities around this country. Where does that stand? What sort of impact could that even have?

Yeah, so there's a process that's connected to that, Aaron, and it's not a process that Congress has direct control over. They are working this week toward passing a new bill that would redefine anti-Semitic practices according to the federal government. Essentially, it would include a definition of anyone who denies Jewish people to the rights of their own independent state, which is somewhat controversial. There are progressive Democrats that oppose that legislation.

But if you redefine what it means to be anti-Semitic at the federal level, then that would give the administration more power to enact some sort of effort to prevent funding from going to these college campuses. But the Secretary of Education, today Miguel Cardona, he testified before a Senate committee and he said the process is simply a Title VI investigation as it's called and he's willing to open those up if it's warranted and look into whether or not these college campuses are doing enough. The issue though, Aaron, is that there's not one specific magic bullet that can be fired by Congress to eliminate all these problems. Each individual campus is dealing with unique and specific circumstances.

Each one of these students may or may not venture into that area of anti-Semitism, which is by its definition a very subjective definition. So it's not an easy process. So what you see here from Congress is a public pressure campaign to try and see change. All right, we're all learning about the complexities involved in these issues.

Ryan Noble source on the Hill. Ryan, thank you. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken now in Israel as part of the latest diplomatic push for a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Blinken met earlier today with Jordanian King Abdullah and the State Department says he once again emphasized that Hamas should accept the latest proposal on the table.

Joining Blinken's efforts though are new comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said today that the Israeli military will go into Rafa with or without a deal on hostages. NBC News International correspondent, Raff Sanchez has more now from Tel Aviv. Secretary Blinken today, criss-crossing the Middle East trying to secure an agreement that would pause the fighting in Gaza and bring the hostages home. As they started in Saudi Arabia from there, he went to Jordan and on here to Israel.

Now this is a delicate diplomatic task and was made more complicated today by Israeli threats to move ahead with an offensive on the city of Rafa with or without a hostage deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israel has no choice but to go into that city because Hamas's remaining battalions are hiding there. Secretary Blinken speaking in Jordan earlier says the United States opposes any Israeli attack without a credible plan to get those million-plus Palestinian civilians out of harm's way. But he did also say that Israel has shown flexibility in these negotiations to try to get a deal and that right now the ball is in Hamas's court, but there could be an immediate ceasefire if Hamas would agree to the offer on the table.

That offer calls for Hamas to release 33 hostages that is women, children, the elderly, people with severe medical conditions. In return, Israel would agree to a ceasefire around 40 days and the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners potentially. Now, Hamas says its leaders are studying that proposal. Their mediators were in Cairo yesterday.

It can sometimes take a few days for Hamas as an organization to respond because it needs to get messages to its ultimate leader, Yakhyasin War, who is in Gaza, believed to be in the tunnels underneath of Rafa right now. It can take a couple of days to get messages to him to get messages back. But there are many, many families both in Israel and in Gaza who are hoping that diplomacy will work and that this ceasefire agreement will come into effect. Back to you.

That reporting from Tel Aviv. I want to turn to one of my teammates from the White House team here, Mike, and Emily joining us to talk a little bit more about a couple of different things here, Mike. As you're traveling today with the president making his way to Wilmington, we know for campaign event, talk a little bit about how the Biden administration is reacting to these latest comments by the prime minister about Rafa. Well, I don't know reacting to a prime minister Netanyahu's comments.

When we heard from John Kirby of the National Security Council today, he said he's not going to speak for Netanyahu or comment on what he had to say. But he also did note that this ceasefire deal on the table is one that has the support at the moment of the Israeli government. The ball is in Hamas's court at this point. What Kirby is hinting at here is that what the highest priority for the Biden administration is getting the ceasefire, not just because they of course want to see those hostages released, especially those American hostages, but they believe that once a ceasefire is in place, despite what Netanyahu is saying is that they're prepared to go into Rafa deal or no deal, it's incredibly hard to break a ceasefire to do that.

We know that the White House has made it clear both in the most formal setting, the conversation that took place a couple of weeks ago in a formal setting between the US and the Israeli delegation, the call between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu this weekend. They've been as clear as they can be that they don't think a ground invasion is in Israel's best interest here. They continue to press that privately and publicly as well. But this is also something where they hope that they get to that ceasefire.

It'll hold and box out the Israeli options here. So Mike, let's talk about the protest we've been seeing here at home. The White House put out another statement today after the building at Columbia University was taken over in the overnight hours. We've heard it from the administration, right?

Demonstrations speaking out publicly, that's a good thing. But violence and hate speech, that's a bad thing. Is there actual action the administration is considering or even has the authority to physically take on these issues? Well, one of those authorities might be bringing in the National Guard and that was another thing that the White House ruled out clearly today saying that's a prerogative for the governors, but also it's not clear that there is a violation of civil law here.

It's the campus rules in most of these situations. But the White House is obviously walking a very fine line, especially as we are seeing the president here holding a campaign event in a campaign year. Youth support is so important. This is obviously an issue that is animating some people on college campuses.

The White House is pointing out it's the minority. It's not even the highest priority of young voters in every poll that we've seen here. But the White House is really making it clear as they did four years ago when we were seeing protests across the country in the wake of the murder of George Floyd that yes, we support some of the aims of these protests, in this case, ceasefire, but not the means in which some of these demonstrators are trying to show that. So they specifically called out in the most recent White House statement, the use of the term in Tofada, but also the taking of that building saying it's just flat out wrong.

All right, Mike, mentally forced today, traveling with the president. Mike, thank you. Oh, coming up, we are headed to the courthouse after Donald Trump is held in criminal contempt and threatened with jail time for violating a gag order. Plus house Democratic leadership publicly vowing to protect Republican speaker Mike Johnson as he faces a motion to oust him potentially any minute now.

You're watching Meet the Press Now. And welcome back. It's been another historic day in an already historic hush money trial of Donald Trump. Today, Judge Wamershan held the former president and presumptive Republican nominee in contempt of court for violating a gag order nine times.

The judge imposed a $9,000 fine and issued a stern warning continue to violate the gag order and wind up in jail as ruling came just before jurors heard additional testimony from four witnesses today. Among them, Keith Davidson, the former attorney for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, testified about negotiating with the national inquirer for the women's stories of alleged affairs with Mr. Trump in the lead up to the 2016 election. I'm joined now by NBC's Rahima Ellis outside the courthouse in Manhattan, also with us Catherine Christian, former assistant district attorney in Manhattan and now an NBC News legal analyst.

Rahima, I'll start with you here. Talk to us about who testified today and their relevance to this case that the prosecution is building. There are a lot of witnesses on the San today versus what happened last week in the days before when we heard mostly from David Packard. Today we started out finishing up a testimony of a banker, a person who testified that he was the one who set up the account that Michael Cohen wanted to have together and the prosecution is alleging that Michael Cohen used the money in that bank account to pay Stormy Daniels.

Also who testified today was the archivist for C-SPAN and he testified about the fact that everything he was seeing on the C-SPAN is exactly the way that it transpired. There was no doctrine of the tapes, et cetera. That testimony seems to be important because it was pointed out that during one of the campaign rallies, Donald Trump said he didn't know who Karen McDougal and who Stormy Davis was. He didn't know these women.

As was mentioned last week, his former executive assistant was testifying that she was in the room, if you will, when Stormy Daniels was invited to his Trump Tower office on the 27th floor of Fifth Avenue and she went into a meeting with Donald Trump and it was because there was a belief that Stormy Daniels might need help to the apprentice. So these were three or four people who got on the stand, including Keith David who was testifying right now. He was the talent agent and attorney for Karen McDougal and also a attorney for Stormy Daniels. Aaron?

I understand too that Eric Trump was in the courtroom for at least part of the proceedings today, or Hayma. Can you talk to us about his role, why he was there today if we know? We don't know exactly, but you can only presume that there's been a lot of talk about Donald Trump being in the courtroom alone without any family members. Well, today one of his sons showed up and it spent the day in the courtroom with his father.

We can only presume that it is a show of support to show not only the people in the courtroom, but people everywhere that his father does not stand alone. Aaron? All right, Rahimah, Alice Forris in New York. Rahimah, thank you.

And Catherine, I want to turn to you now to analyze what we've seen today. Rahimah just went through what we saw on the stand as far as witnesses go. What's the end game for prosecutors at this point in what they're trying to do? What's today all about?

Well, they're connecting all the dots. So the banker, Michael Cohen's banker, corroborates Michael Cohen when he said he took out $130,000 line of credit from the bank. The banker confirmed that, that he opened up a shell company and that he wired that $130,000 from that bank to a Stormy Daniels lawyer, Mr. Davidson.

So when the prosecutors give their summation, they'll probably say, members of the jury, Michael Cohen told you X, Y, and Z. And that was corroborated by the testimony of Mr. Farrow by Mr. Hecker.

So that's very important. The bringing people to authenticate the C-Span tape and the transcript. Any type of prosecutor or a defense attorney for that matter wants to put in an audio or a video recording, they have to prove that it hasn't been altered with, it hasn't been tampered with. It's authentic.

That also shows me that the jury is going to hear from Donald Trump, not maybe from him sitting at the witness stand, but the prosecutors intend to put audio and videotape of him talking. And so it was just a lie out. So they are going to hear from him that way. And Mr.

Davidson was very important. He represented Stormy Daniels and Carimah and Diggle. So we have the doorman getting $30,000 from AMI. You have Carimah and Diggle getting $150,000.

And then of course the payment, which is why we're here on trials, $130,000 to Stormy again. So they're all interconnected as part of what the prosecutors hope to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. This conspiracy to promote Donald Trump's election by unlawful needs. So let's talk about this gag order now.

Obviously that's been something at the center of attention for several days now. We got a decision from the judge on this violation of the gag order. How unprecedented is it for a defendant to be held accountable for violating a gag order nine times, at least? It's unprecedented.

As with everything that's going on in this trial and everything involving Donald Trump in his criminal cases. So this was a very strong order by the judge. Under New York State law, the maximum amount of fine that the judge could give is $1,000 for each. So people think $9,000 is too little.

That's the most the judge could do for each violation. And the judge even explained that. He said if he could have the law, he would have in light of how wealthy Mr. Trump is, given $150,000 fine.

But he couldn't do that. He also threatened, he gave himself some real room to judge. He said if it's necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, if there's a willful violation of the gag order, again, there may be incarceration. So that's something that's over Mr.

Trump said. I'm sure his lawyers are taking that very seriously. I don't know whether Mr. Trump is.

So and according to this judge reposting isn't endorsement. You always see people say retweeting doesn't mean I'm endorsing it. The judge said in this case, yes, Donald Trump reposting other people's attacking witnesses or jurors is his way of attacking witnesses or jurors. Just one more question for you.

You talk about this jail time and the size of the fine with law says Judge Washington acknowledged that the small fine would probably not do much to silence President Trump. You've got, he said, while $1,000 may suffice in most instances to protect the dignity of the judicial system, to compel respect for its mandates and to punish the offender for disobeying a court order, it unfortunately will not achieve the desired result in those instances where the, where the contemptor can easily afford such a fine. So as you mentioned, the law says that's the ceiling that $1,000, right? Does a New York judge have any other devices that they can use to compel compliance short of jail and how much teeth does that threat really have in this instance?

It's a reprimand or it's the $1,000 fine or it's 30 days of incarceration. And I don't see that happening the 30 days of incarceration. And the judge, as I said, gave himself a wiggle room. If it's necessary, if it's appropriate under the circumstances, it might happen.

And it's because, you know, the elephant in the room is a former president of the United States, secret service. Right. So that it'll logistical nightmare. But we'll see how Donald Trump behaves.

Will he say, I don't care and just willfully violate it? And I think the judge is going to have to, you know, put up or shut up if that happens. All right. It is that simple.

We'll have to put up or shut up. I'll be watching to see exactly what goes down here. Catherine Christian, we appreciate your time today. Thank you.

Well, just ahead, I'll speak to the Republican congressman, Kelly Armstrong, about what's next for an unruly House Republican conference and why he is among the long list of Republicans choosing not to come back to Congress. You're watching Meet the Press Now. Welcome back as we turn to Capitol Hill, where later today we could see movement on the motion to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Georgia Republican Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is critical of Johnson for work with the Democratic minority, threatened again today to bring her motion to vacate the chair to the floor. Her latest threat came after House Democratic leadership said they would table any motion to House Johnson, a virtual guarantee that Johnson's job is safe.

And joining me now is North Dakota Republican congressman, Kelly Armstrong, Congressman Armstrong. We appreciate you making some time today. I do want to ask you first about Marjorie Taylor Greene. She posted today and we'll put it up on the screen for our viewers.

Mike Johnson is officially the Democrat Speaker of the House. If Democrats want to elect him Speaker and some Republicans want to support the Democrats chosen Speaker, I'll give the chance to it. I'll give them the chance to do it. She appears to still be threatening a motion to vacate here, Congressman.

Even as Democrats say that they would table such a motion. Where do you stand on this? What's your reaction? Well, I think the overwhelming number of Republicans support Mike Johnson disagreeing on a particular policy issue with him is no reason to vacate the speakership.

I've had a great relationship with him and a personal friendship with him since I served on judiciary with him. He's got the toughest job in politics. And I think he's doing it admirably and deserves to keep his job. Given the support that you just talked about, there's still this cloud hanging over his head, the threat of potentially this motion being made.

If Representative Greene goes forward with a motion to vacate, should there be some consequences there inside the conference? Well, I just think when you're down to a two-vote majority and possibly a one-vote majority, the idea that one person can trigger the motion to vacate particularly in this time where people are very much more interested in getting media attention and solving problems. I think it's just a math issue. It's a silly math issue.

And yeah, we should figure something out. So you advocate for changing the rule for getting rid of the one-person ability to call for this motion? Yeah, I just don't know if we need a majority on the floor. I just think when you have a one-vote majority and one member can do it, I mean, it's the definition of the tyranny of the absolute minority of the majority.

It doesn't make any sense in most people don't agree with it. It's not good for our members running for reelection. It's not good for President Trump running for reelection. It's not good for anybody who understands that even as dysfunctional as Congress is, it still has to be able to function at its basic core.

Well, you talk about functionality here. I mean, the speaker may have to rely on votes from the other party to stay in power. Do Republicans really have a functioning majority at this point? Well, I think it's more than that.

I mean, I think our last rule vote prior to last week, we lost with 18. I think we had 55 members vote against the rule. There's nobody that controls my voting card, and I don't expect anybody in Congress to vote how leadership tells them to do at least not on our side of the aisle. But when you're not, if you can't pass procedural votes, then you take the way of the ability to amend bills and all those things.

So that has been frustrating for me. You were also part of the majority of House Republicans who voted against the Ukraine aid bill that was run up by your conference. What's your explanation? Why that vote?

Yeah, and I think this is a perfect example. I mean, there's $20 billion in non-lethal aid out of the $60 billion that goes to things as administrative function diplomacy with absolutely no real oversight in it. There's a lot of members I think that would have liked to have seen a lethal aid bill that gives them exactly what they need and deal with that. But there's already been a history of that non-lethal aid having severe problems with oversight.

And when a full third of the bill is going to that, it is just impossible for me to go to support it after the history of that. But there was oversight. I mean, this package had $26 million earmarked for oversight, right? That was enough for Speaker Johnson.

Why was that not enough for you? Because I think the history of it, well, one, I think the $20 billion wasn't necessary. I think if you're talking about the fight and the war effort and all of those things going on, fighting the lethal aid is what you create needs. We have plenty of allies to do all of that.

So it's not just the oversight. Although we went through that bill and the oversight of that bill is not nearly sufficient for what I think is needed for that amount of money. So you couldn't support what the Speaker wanted to do there. You do support the Speaker staying in the job that he's in currently.

Help me to understand, given your vote on Ukraine, for example, how you still support Speaker Johnson? Because I'm a grown up. And because policy disagreements don't warrant vacating the Speaker. If I only voted for a Speaker, I agree with 100% of the time.

I'm not even sure I could support myself. This is silly. It's the hardest job in politics. He got thrown into it in the middle of the Congress.

He's doing an admirable job working forward on these issues when he had a divided conference on the issue of Ukraine. I don't support that piece of the legislation for Ukraine, but I support Mike Johnson. And I think he's doing a good job. So you're going to be leaving Congress at the end of this term.

We know as you run for governor of your state of North Dakota, there are two dozen of your House Republican colleagues, including some pretty powerful committee chairs who are also opting to retire while you're in the majority. Help me swear that. Do you think that there's just this growing frustration about serving in the House of Representatives right now? I think there are a lot of people frustrated here for me.

I thought I had the best job in politics. Turns out the best job in politics opened when you're a large member and you get to go be governor. I would have loved to continue serving here. I actually really enjoyed.

I think it's important work. But when you have the opportunity to be the governor of the greatest state in the country, you just have to take that opportunity. But yeah, I mean, there are a lot of people frustrated schedules, all of those things. There are people here that really want to get work done.

And particularly people who've been around a long time. And the other answer though is you have to deal with what's coming in front of you. And I think for the most part, people are working hard to do what they do best. And that's how they're constituents.

Well, let me ask you about what a governor Armstrong would do. There's an EPA directive that came down this month that would force coal-fired power plants to capture smoke stack emissions, or they would have to shut down, right? You're running for governor of North Dakota. If you were in office, what would your response to that be?

Would you be looking to sue the government to stop this? Not only sue, but try and get an immediate injunction. We've dealt with these issues for my entire time. And it's actually uniquely existential for North Dakota because it goes after Mercury, which is particularly prevalent in Lignite.

We don't blend our Lignite. But it's more than just an EPA-regulated mandate. My home town sucks temperatures are 70 degrees below wind chill in February of this year. And if you don't have the ability to have your heat come on, this is a real, real problem for places like us.

We do it better and cleaner than everybody else, and we should allow North Dakota to regulate that as much as possible in the EPA. Because without coal-fired electricity in North Dakota, we have real, real problems. Before I let you go, Congressman, I do want to ask you, last month you told my colleague Kristen Walker that you did not have enough votes to impeach President Biden in the House and that there was no smoking gun in the investigation that's been going on there. It's been a few weeks now without really any real action by this committee.

What's your understanding of why this inquiry is still open? Well, first of all, I think we should be pushing the DOJ as hard as we can to get the audio tapes of the president's interview with his ghostwriter. Long before I got into politics, I practiced in federal court. And the last thing I'm ever going to do is listen to a prosecutor tell me what is the best evidence.

By any stretch of the imagination, if those things exist, we should go get them. But I mean, eventually Chairman Jordan, Chairman Comer, are going to have to make a decision whether it makes sense to continue down the investigative road, our direct or the report, because we do have the election timeline that you don't typically have in these investigations. All right, we will leave it there for now. Congressman Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, sir.

We appreciate your time today. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And after the break, we are live in Florida where patients are racing to receive last minute care before the state's new six week abortion ban takes effect tomorrow.

You're watching Beat the Press Now. Welcome back with Florida's six week abortion ban set to take effect tomorrow. Clinics are rushing to provide services before time runs out. Florida's current law allows the procedure up to 15 weeks.

The stricter ban will not just cut off access for Floridians, but also access for millions of women across the South and the Caribbean. Florida resident and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, which paved the way for Florida's laws that we're seeing now. In a newly published interview, Mr.

Trump repeated his position that the issue is now left to the states, saying even if some states want to monitor women's pregnancies or prosecute women for having abortions, that's up to them. President Biden slammed the former president's comments calling them, quote, reprehensible. Joining me now from Jacksonville, Florida, NBC's Marissa Para, Marissa, how are clinics there in Florida now preparing for this new law to take effect tomorrow? Well, in short, they've been working double time, Erin.

And we have seen abortion clinics showing us exactly that and talking about exactly that. And so what's interesting and the people outside of the state of Florida may not realize is that abortion care clinics today already begin the process of turning patients away. And that is simply because the way the law stands as it is today, where there's a current 15 week abortion ban, it requires two visits minimums. You have a consultation one day and then you have to wait 24 hours minimum before you either get the medication or have that procedure.

So what that means is if somebody came in today, who was six weeks, even if it was five weeks, even if it was just one day short of six weeks, if they came in today for that consultation, they would have been turned away simply because that six week ban with a couple of exceptions goes into effect tomorrow. And so we had a chance to speak to a variety of people, whether they were volunteers, employees, or like the clinic director we spoke to in Fort Pierce, Florida just yesterday. We've warned everybody's calls that it's changing and that nobody knew our law girls don't know that this is happening. You were getting phone calls from people that had no idea.

No idea. No idea. What did they say when you told them? Are you kidding me?

That's what I'm saying. Are you kidding me? And patients who are already 10 or 12 weeks and couldn't get them in on Saturday for the first part to come back today, they have to go out of state. So something I thought was striking Erin is she mentions the people who had no idea that this ban was going into effect tomorrow, something else that we've also found that people don't know about, particularly women seeking abortion care before they go to have their consultation, they often don't know how far along they are.

They will think that they're four weeks along and it isn't until they get that ultrasound, that first consultation they find out that they are in fact six weeks or further. And so this is part of that last minute rush here, that abortion clinics across the state are telling you they've seen. We're talking about double, even triple sometimes the amount of appointments they would normally have trying to get every person they possibly could in before this effect, this law goes into effect tomorrow. Erin.

Yeah, we're just a second ago, we showed a map that shows Florida and other southern states that have different restrictions. It's on the screen there again now on abortion access. What is what we're seeing in Florida now mean for the rest of the region and the question of where people can go if they're seeking this sort of reproductive healthcare? And that's such a great point.

It's something I hear often and I want to keep that map on the screen because you can see just how strict the laws are in the surrounding states. We're seeing either a full or near total ban in those states surrounding the state of Florida. And so up until tomorrow, we had people coming in from out of state to seek abortion care. We have clinic directors calling this now soon to be in abortion care desert.

And I'll point one thing out, the reason we chose Jacksonville, Erin, is because we're close to state border. When we spoke to the clinic director, she said one in three women who come to this clinic are from out of state. They're preparing to tell everyone to go to other states to seek abortion care. Erin.

Marissa Parra for us in Jacksonville, Florida. Marissa, thank you. We'll still become how far would Donald Trump go if reelected? The former president talks about his future plans for migrants, January 6th, the writers, women seeking abortion and more.

The panel's next. You're watching with the press now. And welcome back. Let's get right to our panel now.

Betsy Woodrisswan, national correspondent for Politico, Fash Jekir, senior advisor to Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders and Mark Short, former chief of staff, Vice President Mike Pence and NBC News contributor Betsy. I'll start with you. I'm not sure if you're watching the former president Trump. His trial, wrapping up for the day today so far.

We know that there were efforts by the campaign to start fundraising on this gag order almost immediately after we learned what the judges ruling was here. It almost seems as though this was a part of the strategy. Like that email was waiting to go out. He's definitely going to recoup the nine grand that he had to pay to take care of that content problem.

It's going to be the best nine grand he's spent in a long time. Trump and his team have been incredibly effective at taking any possible legal issue that ever arises in relation to him and using it for his political advantage. And it's just this very strange dance that Trump and the Trump campaign have to deal with. We're on the one hand, there's extraordinary legal jeopardy.

But at the same time, the politics overall in a way that's truly mind-bending have been really helpful to him back way back when the Mar-a-Lago raid happened. And Mark would probably know this with extreme level of detail. That was a key political moment for Trump and the Republican primary and very much made it much harder for anyone who wanted to run against him as a Republican to get any sort of leverage. Mark, you know, say what you will about the charges, right?

This was a violation of a judge's order regardless of where you stand on politically. So how does something like this sit with the law and order of voters that were supporters of President Trump and our supporters of the Republican Party? And I think it can be a law and order conservative and still have concerns about these first two trials and have brought against the former president. I think for many people, they believe they are politically charged prosecutions.

I do think as well, at the Betsy's point, there's no doubt that the president does an amazing job of playing victim and rallying in support. I do think it certainly benefited him a lot more in the primary than potentially will in the general election. But he's masterful at finding ways to benefit perhaps on the fundraising side of the meantime. Yes, he's maybe feels they're politicized, Mark, but you're running for president and your executive of the nation's laws.

That's really the job. Literally, President United States executed the nation's laws. And there's a disregard for laws. It's a disregard for the system of checks and balances.

That's his attitude. That's his belief. He just doesn't believe in the rule of law. At the same time, we have now this threat, if you want to call it that, of jail time, that the judge has included in his order today, saying that he didn't think that the $9,000 was going to have much of an impact.

And so there's the potential for jail time. How do you think that plays into the general election and the potential for a former president and a nominee for president potentially being put in jail? For a normal person, I think we all fear jail time. You don't want to go there.

That's not a place that would be conducive to running for office. I think Donald Trump likes it and enjoys it's a different ethos, not one that I can relate to, but I think he thinks that would be beneficial in his worked world. I want to talk a little bit too about the Time magazine piece that we've been looking at over the last several hours since it came out. There was a piece of this that sort of begs the question, how much should we take Trump's comments to Time magazine as campaign promises and how much should we look at it as campaign talk?

I think it's safe to take it seriously as campaign promises. He's been consistent about wanting to erode any sort of separation between the White House and the Justice Department. That was something he tried really hard to do when he was president. And the only reason it wasn't successful was because he was surrounded by quote unquote team normal, as his former campaign manager called it, lawyers at the Justice Department and in the White House who said, we're not doing this, no, no, no.

If he gets reelected, none of those people will be back, zero. And instead, he'll be surrounded by folks like Jeff Clark who's under indictment for his role in trying to help Trump reverse the results of the 2020 election. So it'll be much easier for him to take steps to just obliterate those norms than it would have been last time he was president. Mark, is that the plan?

I mean, is the plan to surround yourself with Yes Men and that is the platform? That's the policy of a next Trump administration? Well, I concur with Betsy, but I think my concern is actually the way that me is framed as he feels like he didn't go far enough and he wants to go farther. In my sense, it's the exact reverse.

In many ways, he's retreating back from the conservative principles of the four years he governed with, whether or not it's on international affairs, whether or not it's walked away from his commitment to life, whether or not it's backtracking on TikTok where he once proposed a ban and now opposes the ban. I think for many conservatives, it's actually the rhetoric might be sounding stronger, but the reality is the policies advancing are not in line with the conservative principles of four years he governed. And he mainly is retreating from those. In a interview with the Time Magazine today, he's indicated to me at least he said he was comfortable with monitoring women's pregnancies.

He would not be for medical abortion. He was very anti-choice from my perspective. Mark Zachman, at least on that square, I thought he was very clear about white wing views on choice. I also seemed to indicate that he was like, wait and see on how he might react to losing a presidential election, this is a person who I've used on Fit For Office.

One thing that's a lot of conservative liberal spectrum though. One thing people should absolutely take seriously is his comment about pardoning the January 6th defendants. That's something that he's spoken about for months now, if not longer. The fact that he reiterated it in this very formal setting to a reporter who's asking about what he was doing, people should certainly bank on him issuing lots of pardons that he's elected.

So, Mark, how do you see that? If that is the case, you would have come in the office and started pardoning people who've been convicted of these crimes that were essentially against your former boss? Well, I think it was broader than against former boss. I think that there were a lot of police who were injured in these events.

I think that would be a far bigger concern to law and order conservatives than prosecuting somebody for paying off all the loans in the first trial here in New York. So, I think from a law and order perspective, I'd have a lot more concerns about providing full absolution to those who I think hurt injured police than these trials go on in New York. Would you serve in another Trump administration? Oh, I don't think he'd ask him to serve another Trump administration, Aaron.

He'd try to. I don't believe that he would have any interest in that. But thanks, Bob. Mark's not standing individual.

He'd need more people like him. Well, I believe it there. I won't put you on this by too much with that. But, I do want to ask you, the Biden campaign has really leaned into the former president's response about abortion.

As you just noted there, is that something that you think is the right tact for the campaign, the Biden campaign to take? We've seen several emails come from them already today. They're prepping additional response specifically to what the former president said. Is that a winning track or should there be another direction that the campaign should be pursuing more?

Very winning track. So, yes, see if they should continue to make this. And in fact, in the time interview, the president was asked about his position on the pro-stone and indicated, I don't know what my position is. I'll have to tell you later.

So, there's going to be many more chapters of this to come because the president is seemingly putting his finger in the win and trying to figure out where he stands on a fundamental moral choice. I think the Biden campaign is right to make a very clear campaign argument that Roe v. Wade served this nation quite well for a long period of time. We should return to it.

And then the Republicans, Betsy, have a response. Don't have a response. How does President Trump stand up against that coming from the Biden campaign? It's very uncomfortable for Trump because so much of the party is still staunchly opposed to abortion, to abortion being morally accessible.

That's a definitional part of what it meant to be Republican for decades. And now the fact that the party's standard bear is to your point, putting his finger in the win to figure out where he should come down now, that creates significant discomfort on Capitol Hill. Alright, we will leave it there for now. Betsy, Mark, as we appreciate you being here today.

I'm back tomorrow with more Meet the Press Now. The news continues with Hallie Jackson right now.