You have a reason to care. You know someone. You've lost someone. You've lived it.
The darkest times are no match for what we can do together. Join us for the CAMH Sunrise challenge. From May 25th to 29th, Canadians are waking up with the sun to raise funds for a future where everyone can access the mental health care they need the moment they need it. Get up with the sun.
Show up for CAMH and rise up for mental health. Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. Beatboxing actually has hidden health benefits.
It can help strengthen and protect your voice from injury. See healthy living differently with manual life. Visit manualife.ca/health. If it's Monday, the Maui wildfires are now the deadliest in modern U.S.
history. Officials facing growing criticism about whether enough was done to warn residents as the disaster unfolded. I'll talk to Hawaii's governor about the road to recovery and whether his state was properly prepared. Plus, former President Trump lashes out at prosecutors, judges and witnesses as a potential fourth indictment looms in Georgia, where charging decisions in a years-long election interference case could come at any time.
And Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips urges President Biden not to run, and for Democrats to wage a competitive primary for president amid new legal and political problems facing the White House. Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington. We begin today with the heartbreaking scene on the Hawaiian island of Maui, where the death toll from last week's devastating wildfires is now 96, making it the deadliest wildfire in modern United States history.
And sadly, officials expect that number to rise. As of this morning, only 3% of the affected area had been searched. Recovery efforts, including those in the historic town of Lahaina, have been hampered because local law enforcement can't safely enter the destroyed buildings. More personnel, including FEMA and the National Guard, as well as specialist teams, are now deployed to search through the burnt-out ruins and rubble for those still unaccounted for.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell spoke at the White House briefing this afternoon. As we have learned what the extent of this search and recovery mission is going to look like, we have sent more personnel as well as more cadaver dogs to come into the area, and they are working in conjunction with the Maui Fire Department and the Sheriff's Office to make sure that we are doing this in a very methodical way, but one that is also very respectful of the community to make sure that we find everybody that is unaccounted for. Hawaii's Governor Josh Green toured the scene this weekend. He described the total devastation he saw in a video message last night.
I see destruction, having been to Ground Zero twice. There is very little left there. Now, what does that mean? That means that over 2,700 structures were destroyed in Lahaina, and an estimated value of $5.6 billion has gone away.
But mostly there are people that are suffering. I will talk to the governor about what he's seen and what his constituents need later this hour. And I'll also speak to him about why the state's warning sirens weren't activated. Meanwhile, some residents of Lahaina have been able to return in a limited capacity as they begin the long road toward rebuilding.
Many residents remain in shelters relying on community support and government for necessities. In the midst of the tragedy, we've also seen heartwarming scenes like this one. Locals coming together to deliver crucial food and supplies to their neighbors by boat. I'm joined now by ABC's correspondent Dana Griffin, who is in Maui.
So, Dana, what is the very latest on the ground there and the latest on the search and recovery efforts? Kristen, we're seeing a lot of donations still being brought to shelters like this one behind me. As far as the recovery effort, as you mentioned, the FEMA administrator said this is going to take some time because although they are bringing in those extra cadaver dogs, they have a strict work and rest kind of regimen because these dogs have to make sure that they are safe. And also, there's some concerns about the structures of the buildings.
Some of them are partially standing, so they've got to bring in some engineers to make sure that they are safe for the dogs and the search and rescue teams to go in. This is likely going to take weeks, if not months, to get through. It is unclear how many bodies will likely be found, but it is estimated to be in the hundreds. Kristen.
It is just devastating to think of the scope of the loss there. Dana, you're talking to community members there. What are they saying to you about what they need most urgently right now? We know that there are a lot of agencies there helping with food and resources.
But what's the most urgent need? I would say the most urgent need right now is housing. They are moving a lot of the evacuees into hotel rooms today. There's about 500 that have been reserved for them.
But those hotel rooms are only going to be available for 30 days. So the big need right now is permanent housing because it's not like, you know, they were displaced because of a fire and they get to return home. They have lost everything. And you're talking about 2700 buildings, most of those homes.
So you've got hundreds, if not thousands of people who are going to need a place to live. The governor has even appealed for people across Hawaii to open up their homes to those residents. I've also spoken to people who have been very frustrated, some even at local tourists, because they say that they've seen people in the water snorkeling and swimming as bodies were still being pulled out of the water. And we actually heard from a company here, Maui Snorkeling, that actually issued an apology because on the morning of the 11th, they did take a tour out to go snorkel.
And they said that was because they wanted to use 100 percent of the proceeds from that trip to go to the Maui Food Bank. But they realized that it caused so much distress because, as the FEMA administrator mentioned, this is about also preserving the sanctity of these bodies and showing respect to these bodies. And that is a really big thing here on Maui. It is a very important thing to the people here to make sure that respect is first and foremost given.
That snorkeling company has since suspended its operations until further notice. Kristen. Well, it underscores just how much pain and suffering there is there. Dana Griffin, thank you for being on the ground there for us.
We really appreciate it. And again, I will speak with Hawaii's governor, Josh Green, later this hour. We want to turn now to Georgia, where developments today suggest former President Trump could face a fourth indictment at any minute. The pace has picked up inside the Fulton County Courthouse, where District Attorney Fannie Willis appears to be presenting her case on election interference to a grand jury.
That's happening as we speak. At least half of the 10 witnesses expected to take the stand and testify, according to sources speaking to our reporting team on the ground. Journalist George Chitty, who was supposed to testify tomorrow, confirmed that he was asked to come in today instead. And former Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan's testimony was also moved up to today.
That's according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. Two additional witnesses in the case were also spotted at the courthouse earlier today. Now, it comes as the former president is lashing out at the DA's office and publicly urging the former lieutenant governor not to testify, raising questions about potential witness tampering. This weekend while campaigning in Iowa, Mr.
Trump remained defiant as my colleague Vaughn Hilliard asked him about the case. Is there any chance you take a plea deal in Georgia? Yes, sir. Well, the former president this weekend also lashed out at Judge Tanya Chutkin, who's presiding over his election interference case in Washington.
Even after being warned by the judge not to take any actions that could compromise the integrity of the proceeding on social media, the former president reposted a picture of the judge while also posting, quote, she obviously wants me behind bars. Very biased, very unfair. For more now, I'm joined by NBC's Garrett Haake in Atlanta and also with me is Carol Lamb, former U.S. attorney and current NBC News legal analyst.
So Garrett, let me start with you there on the ground in Georgia. The urgency of this. Do you have a sense of the timing of when we might get a decision and a vote on whether they will indict? Well, Kristen, the first three Trump indictments all happened later than we thought they would.
This one seems like it's on track to possibly happen sooner. You mentioned George Chitty, the journalist who was supposed to testify tomorrow. We just watched him walk up the courthouse steps behind me to go in and begin his testimony a few minutes ago. Furthermore, the judge who's presiding over this case just told reporters in his courtroom that we should basically make some early dinner plans and stick around, that it doesn't seem as though this courthouse will be closing up at five today.
And the indication, and it's just tea leaf reading at this point, is that this grand jury does intend to kind of keep working much later than they would otherwise. So we do seem to be barreling towards a conclusion of some kind, whether that comes in the form of an indictment today, tomorrow, or not at all. It's still too early to say. Whenever you get the stick around for dinner, that is undoubtedly one of the strongest tea leaves you can read, Garrett.
There's no doubt about that. Garrett, talk to me about this confusion earlier regarding the court docket in Fulton County. This is potentially significant. I'm going to ask Carol about it, too, but explain what happened here.
Yeah, this was a confusing moment that turned more than a few reporters' hair gray today when Reuters, the wire service, briefly posted something that they said was from the docket here in this case really saying something that may intimidate a witness or a potential juror or somebody on the court or a member of the opposite party. It's a judgment call here, and I think she's going to be careful. On the other hand, the former president has to be aware that whatever Judge Chutkin does, if she does take measures, and even if he decides to appeal it or take a writ of mandate or something up to a higher court, her actions are going to be judged by other judges, and other judges care a lot about keeping control of their courtrooms. So I think that you can see the way she's been proceeding.
It's been very measured, and I think if she continues on that road, she will be upheld if she decides to take stronger measures. Carol, let me go back to you. Take us inside Trump world. I know you spend a lot of time talking to your sources there.
How are they bracing for this potential fourth indictment? And you also have some new reporting on his thinking about the first debate. Yeah, that's right, Kristen. So we're in a little bit of a holding pattern right now, like the rest of us.
They don't know exactly when this indictment will come down, when he might be arraigned, or how they would schedule around that, and they're left waiting just as we are. We try to plan the campaign around that. Remember, there is that first debate scheduled for next week, which I was able to report out today. Donald Trump still has not decided whether he's going to attend.
His whole senior campaign staff is telling him, don't do it. You don't need to show up. It's not in your best interest. But he's tempted by it, and he's been bouncing ideas off people who he's been talking to about the prospect of going, perhaps deciding, and more or less the last minute to make a splashy entrance.
In the meantime, his campaign is raising money off the expectation game and the question of will he or won't he. But for now, they're in the same boat we are. The former president hosted a golf tournament at his club in New Jersey this weekend, which he apparently very much enjoyed and was very active at. But right now, there's nothing on his political calendar but to wait, basically, through this next week and see what happens.
Fascinating stuff. And of course, he has that double-digit lead over Ron DeSantis, his nearest rival. That will undoubtedly factor into his ultimate decision about whether to attend. Great conversation, Garrett Haake, Carol Lam.
Thank you both so much. And coming up, we'll talk about that. Candidates, caucusgoers, and butter cows will have key takeaways from the all-important Iowa state fair where Donald Trump skipped some of the main events but still stole the spotlight. That's next.
And as I mentioned, my one-on-one interview with the governor of Hawaii is ahead as questions swirl around the wildfire response, including why a statewide emergency alert system was silent. You're watching Meet the Press Now. Stay with us. Welcome back.
Top Republican presidential candidates converged at the Iowa state fair this weekend to make their pitch to potential caucusgoers while sampling the fried food and flipping a few pork chops. But despite the carnival atmosphere, the stakes in Iowa could not be higher. If former President Trump wins the caucuses, it's hard to see how any other candidate gets enough momentum to keep him from the nomination, even as we'll likely be in the midst of multiple criminal trials. Mr.
Trump's Republican rivals tried to both directly and indirectly contrast themselves with him this weekend at the fair. Here's Nikki Haley with my NBC colleague, Ali Vitale. He's going to spend a lot of time in courts and with judges and with lawyers and we'll let him do that. But we have a country to save and I'm focused on talking about the issues that really matter to Americans.
NBC's Ali Vitale joins me now from Des Moines, Iowa. Ali, thank you and great interview. Give me big picture. What are you hearing from Republicans who you're talking to at the fair this weekend?
Are a lot of the winds blowing toward former President Trump? Well, yeah, if you look at the polls, Kristen, but you know as well as I do that the Iowa state fair the year before the caucus is really one of the big kickoff moments of the presidential primary calendar. It's why we saw so many presidential contenders, including the former president come here and flock to the fair. Most of them on Saturday, but certainly over the course of the last few days and into tomorrow, you'll see most of the field having made an appearance here.
But Trump really is the man to watch continuously, not just in the polls, but also in terms of the attention that he was able to leverage on the ground. He really was the person who was setting the tone both in the events that he had, but then also the ways in which he was trying to troll his chief rival Ron DeSantis, bringing lawmakers from the Florida delegation who have endorsed Trump, not their sitting governor, also flying a plane overhead that said, be likable, Ron. And Ron was in the font of Jeb Bush's 2016 campaign complete with that exclamation point at the end. It's clear that he was trying to get a rise out of Ron DeSantis, who really is trying to get his feet back under him and gain some traction here in this important state after stumbles and shakeups within his own campaign.
But I think the indictments are the right thing to focus on, Kristen. Certainly that's where we're looking and where the rest of the calendar is going to be looking for the former president. But for voters that I talked to, there are some who are squarely behind him and some who wish in light of the indictments and everything else, that the party could just move past them. Here are some of those conversations.
Watch. There's some stuff that he was doing that I, you know, I think was going in the right direction. But because of who he is, I think if another candidate would have done it, you know, it would have succeeded. Does Trump have any share of that blame for the six?
Oh, he was president. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I mean, the buck stops there. You'd still vote for him again.
For Trump? Yeah, absolutely. He was a good president. I mean, unfortunately, a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck right now and it's getting worse.
And it was times were a little bit better back then. Well, that last voter, Kristen, was so striking to me because even in the course of our conversation, you see him say that Trump had a part to play in January 6th. And then in the next breath, I make sure to say, are you still gonna vote for him? And he says, yes, he was a good president.
I think that's the dynamic that we're watching play out on the ground in the polls. Just fascinating interviews all around, Ali. Let me ask you quickly before I let you go. There were, of course, a couple of fringe candidates there, challengers to President Joe Biden.
And you talked to one of them. You talked to anti-vaccine candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. What did you hear from him?
Yeah, look, a controversial candidate, a long shot for the presidency on the Democratic side, but certainly still running. And one of the key issues that we've seen time and time again since the Dobbs decision last year in the Supreme Court was the ways that abortion is kind of in real time reshaping the presidential map and reshaping politics. Clearly a key motivator for voters. And look, in D.C., you and I have watched from our respective beats at the White House and in Congress, the ways that Democrats have sought to enshrine abortion protections at the federal level.
They have not been able to do it. But one of the big pushes has been around enshrining the protections that were previously provided by the Roe versus Wade president into the federal law. That's not something they've been able to do. But one of the big pushes has been around enshrining the protections that were previously provided by the Roe versus Wade president into the federal law.
That's not something they've been able to do. But one of the big pushes has been around enshrining the protections that were previously provided by the Roe versus Wade president into the federal law. That's not something they've been able to do. But one of the big pushes has been around enshrining the protections that were previously provided by the Roe versus Wade president into the federal law.
That's not something they've been able to do. But one of the big pushes has been around enshrining the protections that were previously provided by the Roe versus Wade president into the federal law. That's not something they've been able to do. But one of the big pushes has been around enshrining the protections that were previously provided by the Roe versus Wade president into the federal law.
That's not something they've been able to do. But one of the big pushes has been around enshrining the protections that were previously provided by the Roe versus Wade president into the federal law. That's not something they've been able to do. But one of the big pushes has been around enshrining the protections that were previously provided by the Roe versus Wade president into the federal law.
That's not something they've been able to do. But one of the big pushes has been around enshrining the protections that were previously provided by the Roe versus Wade president into the federal law. That's not something they've been able to do. But one of the big pushes has been around enshrining the protections that were previously provided by the Roe versus Wade president into the federal law.
That's not something they've been able to do. But one of the big pushes has been around enshrining the protections that were previously provided by the Roe versus Wade president into the federal law. That's not something they've been able to do. But one of the big pushes has been around en And Stephen Hayes, editor and CEO of The Dispatch and also an NBC News political analyst.
Thanks to all of you for being here, Dan. Welcome to the panel. Let me start with you. What do you make of these comments by Dean Phillips?
Do you think he or he's going to encourage someone else to get in? I mean, your polling shows he's saying something that a lot of Democratic voters think. The problem is he is, this is the analogy I'm going to make, he is a relay runner running the first leg of the relay hoping to hand the baton to somebody else and nobody is there, so he's just kind of running in circles. The people who he would be handing the baton to, the Newsom's of the world, the Whitmer's, the Pete Buttigieg's, either work for Joe Biden or on his advisory board and basically are helping out his campaign as much as they can.
So there's not a lot of appetite from the actual people who could challenge Joe Biden to do so. And part of that is because Joe Biden has proven that he can beat Donald Trump. And I think more than anything, Democrats want to defeat Donald Trump. And if they were betting right now, they would say Donald Trump is going to be the nominee.
So why risk it with somebody who may be unproven? Wannita, pick up on that analogy because I think it really sets the scene nicely, which is that he's trying to pass the baton. You have Senator Manchin who's kind of set mo... should he get in the third-party run?
But there's not really that Democrat standing in the wings waiting to catch the baton. And yet the polling is not good. 39% approval rating for the President with half of the voters say they don't think he should run again in 2024. Well, I'm thinking also about that initial poll you mentioned.
It said someone didn't name anyone, didn't have anything explicit there to offer. So without that reclaiming, there is no one to pass the baton to. And so I keep thinking about all the people that you named who are linked to the President and his re-election campaign. And he was very strategic in that.
He said, let me get you on my side. Let me get you committed for 2024. You can do what you want in 28. But this next cycle, let's understand the stakes here and let's understand the evidence of I can beat Trump.
I've beaten him before. I do have a strong legislative agenda and I can go and do that again. Stephen, you have this Hunter Biden news that now there is a special counsel investigating Hunter Biden. So by all accounts, there's a good chance this could go to trial right in the middle of this re-election campaign.
Obviously, a political cloud for the President. Do Republicans run the risk of over-indexing on Hunter Biden as you see it? They're definitely doing that. Look, we face this challenge as reporters, right?
I mean, usually you get a couple of sources, get three sources. You can trust it, you can run with the story. I don't feel like we can send our reporters to Capitol Hill and take what we're getting from some of these Republicans as the truth, as something that we can run with. Because in some cases, we've seen they'll go out and represent a transcribed interview and three hours later we'll get the transcribed interview and it bears no resemblance.
Having said all that, these were conversations about Joe Biden and his viability that were taking place before the midterms. The midterms gave him a bump, but those were questions about age. Those questions haven't gone anywhere. And I think there are real serious questions about what happened with this plea deal and Hunter Biden that are going to continue to dog Joe Biden because we don't have answers to so many of these questions.
We know that Hunter Biden was involved in shady activity up and down and for years. We don't know how much it involves Joe Biden, if at all, but people will want to know and those are real questions to be asking, even if Republicans are overplaying their hand. Dan, take us inside the President's world and inner circle. How much concern is there?
This was a plea deal. It seemed like this was all going to go away. And now they're in a whole new phase with the legal proceedings here. How concerned are they about this and that the President is going to get asked about this over and over again?
Yeah, I think there's some concern that it will kind of gum up a message they might want to make about Donald Trump's own legal exposure. They're not making that now, clearly. President Biden won't touch it with a 10-foot pole. But I think during a campaign, you'd have a different message from the President.
You know, if Hunter Biden is in the middle of a trial, if there's a drip, drip, drip of news coming from his camp and the special counsel, that might complicate things. And there's some concerns from Democrats there. I think the frustration is they felt like this was going to be over. They felt like Hunter Biden was walking into that room, he was going to get whatever he got, and that was going to be mostly the end of it.
Now that seems to be not only not the truth, it seems to be there is a high likelihood this is going to continue throughout the campaign. Let me play a little bit more from Dean Phillips. He actually came up with some names for who he thinks could potentially be better candidates than Joe Biden. Let me play them, get your reaction on the other side.
Would you like to see a condition? I would like to see a moderate governor, hopefully from the heartland, from one of the four states that Democrats will need. Gretchen Whitmer? You'd like to see her?
Or is it Tim Walz, your home state governor? Tony Evers? Help me out here. You just said a few names I think would be great.
Josh Shapiro? There are a number of people. J.B. Pritzker?
Some people have asked me that I not use their names because of this institutional fear that it might impact you down the road. Juanita, pick up on the institutional fear. Are those any of the names that are being floated in Democratic circles? And just to pick up on this point, I mean, Democrats thought they were at the finish line with the Biden issue.
Right. I think those are names that absolutely have prospects in the future, not right now. And I think even in focus groups that I've seen, Gretchen Whitmer's name has come up repeatedly because of the work she's done on the ground in Michigan, whether that's infrastructure or protecting access to abortion rights. She is a rising star.
Again, she is fully in alignment with supporting President Biden in 2024. And I think she's only going to stay there for now. We'll talk about closing ranks. We are only seeing former President Trump's support get solidified, even though he's facing a potential fourth indictment, Stephen.
I mean, having watched what happened in Iowa this weekend, have any sense that anyone can compete with him in the primaries? Yeah, this is the one that will be his unraveling for sure. No, I mean, of course not. Look, I think this sounds like it could be different in a couple different ways based on reporting that we've seen over the weekend with some of the details about the potential involvement of senior Trump campaign officials or senior people in Trump world in trying to get into the voting systems.
I mean, this is serious. This is all serious. It remains to be seen how the Trump base will take this information, process it, whether they believe it or not. But those are serious claims if they bear out, if that's what we see in an indictment.
You could have some elected Republicans raise some eyebrows. Dan? You know, we were talking about this before. Donald Trump seems to have a hold on the Republican base that is almost unbreakable.
I'm not sure whether a fourth, I don't think it's a fourth time's the charm for Donald Trump. And it seems like maybe he has a very high floor, but very low ceiling in some cases. And that might be the determinate factor in the general election. What I'm curious about, Dan, I've spoken to some Democrats who say, oh, Trump is President Biden's best chance of winning.
But I'm starting to hear that narrative shift a little bit right now. What are you hearing? I actually think, to get back to the age point, I think it helps Joe Biden that Donald Trump is not exactly a young, vivacious governor and isn't challenging him on that age point. I mean, it's very difficult for Donald Trump to make that case for only about four years, four years apart, something like that.
You know, I think maybe that's what you're seeing is it has less to do with the indictments and more to do with it takes away a huge argument Republicans can make against the sitting president. And that tracks with 2020. Remember, a lot of voters turned out to reject Trump, not necessarily because they were over the moon about Biden. And I think that's what we're going to see again in 2024.
Biden is the one who was actually trying to protect our democracy, protect our basic rights, whereas we have Trump, who is facing multiple federal criminal indictments and multiple potentially state indictments. So, well, Trump says he only needs one more indictment to win basically the whole thing, Stephen. I mean, you know, it seems like he's just increasingly emboldened. And yet you do have other candidates like Senator Scott, like Nikki Haley, gaining a little ground around the edges.
Would it make a difference if they all started to sing from the same book and say a candidate who has this much legal baggage can't win a general election? First, we have to say, I think some of that is bravado from Donald Trump. There's been credible reporting that he's actually very nervous about this in private. We should acknowledge that Governor, I want to ask you about the emergency alert system that residents there say didn't deploy ahead of the wildfires.
I know that there has been an investigation launched into specifically what happened there. What can you tell us? What information do you have at this point about what happened there, why those alarms didn't go off? So, yes, I called for that investigation personally in Hawaii.
We appointed our Attorney General. So that's my responsibility to ask in this case, and Lopez, our Attorney General, to do this full review. What normally we use, normally, historically, we use this alarm system for is we use it for hurricanes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. In my 23 years in Hawaii, it hasn't historically been used for wildfires.
I myself wrote out many wildfires on the Big Island, and the siren wasn't used. We communicated. In this case, what appears to have happened was that the infrastructure was destroyed at such a great pace that we couldn't have any communications up whatsoever. And when I say you're seeing the ferocity right now in the story of the fire, when it rolled through a fire truck, it essentially incinerated fire trucks.
So you can imagine what it did to power lines, telecom lines, everything. So that was one of the problems. I will never make an excuse for not having a siren go off. I'm just trying to explain better that in an era where you've got these climate change storms that go at this pace, we may all across the globe have to assess, number one, how we're going to alert and warn our people because of the ferocity of storms.
And two, are we actually going to get serious about our approach to weather and protection? We'd probably have to change everything unless the world wants to experience these kind of storms. Let me follow up with you on that first point. I mean, was this a failure of preparedness in the sense that something that there needs to be a new system in place moving forward?
Well, there will be lots of change for sure. There will be change probably as the world sees what happened to one Hawaii community. Thank God it wasn't our whole island. Can you imagine if it was the entirety of Maui where there are 140,000 people who live here?
You could easily see a super storm consume whole islands or whole cities on the mainland if we don't prepare. So there will have to be changes in our ways that we prepare for these fire hurricanes, of course. Was it a failure? Look, I have to leave that to the comprehensive review because for me to say any one person or group of people failed would be just, it would be unfair for me to say that right now because everyone did all that they could in that moment.
One of the challenges, if I may, was that there were like three or four major fires all going at the same time. This fire was believed to be extinguished earlier, and then the other fire started to rage. And even now, some of this fire is going. We're about 85% contained in Lahaina, 60% contained, although the fire has not been as vicious without the winds in Kula.
But we, you know, we are a small state far away from everything. We're the most isolated landmass on the planet. So to all of the viewers internationally right now, this is the most isolated landmass in the world. Imagine what can happen if you are in an adjacent state that's dry.
If you haven't dealt with all the needs that you might have as, as the planet dries even further. Speaking of which people all around the country in the world want to help. Very quickly, what is the best way that they can help the people of your state? They should go to the Hawaii community foundation and donate resources if they feel they have those resources.
The people of Hawaii will be here for you forever. You should still support our state and we will support you. Of course, Hawaii community foundation. There's making those donations will enable us to purchase the needed food and supplies.
Right now we have so much physical supply. It's difficult for us to even manage it, though we are grateful for it. So that's how I would begin the approach. I will be happy to update you as often as you need.
And I can update those needs also. Also, if you have a house in Hawaii and you could add it to our program where we're allowing people to rent and stay in place so they don't have to leave Maui or the other islands. That would be extraordinary. We will be compensating people through a federal relief for that.
So we know many people have that situation. And finally, just please pray for our loved ones and our firefighters and our police because what they're doing is extraordinary. Governor, thank you so much. We are sending all of those prayers with you and everyone in Hawaii right now.
Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. And still to come, we have new legal developments in the federal investigation of the president's son following Friday's surprise move by the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel. That's next.
You're watching Meet the Press Now. Welcome back. Turning now to developments in the investigation into Hunter Biden. Just days after Attorney General Merrick Garland and U.S.
Attorney David Weiss, special counsel, in a court filing late last night, lawyers for the president's son claimed several prosecutors reneged on the plea agreement that collapsed in court late last month. This afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre addressed the appointment of the special counsel for the first time. This case was handled independently by the Justice Department under leadership of a Trump appointed U.S. Attorney.
As you all know, this is consistent with what the president has been saying for a long while now, going way back to his campaign days that he would restore the Department of Justice independence from political interference from the White House. Joining me now is NBC News investigative correspondent Tom Winter. Tom, thanks for joining me. So what is the very latest with the special counsel and the plea agreement that fell apart?
Sure, Kristen. In the near term, prosecutors are going to have until noon tomorrow to respond to this idea that the pretrial diversion agreement tied to those gun charges that Hunter Biden could face is actually already in effect because both sides signed it. I expect to be a little bit of back and forth there about what was the agreement actually finalized. That may clear up that portion of the proceedings that fell apart on July 26.
The other portion of it, those tax charges that we've spoken about before, that still has to be resolved and it appears it's not gonna be resolved through a plea agreement, as we know from some filings on Friday. So what we expect is in the coming days or perhaps weeks, even months for charges rather to be filed in that case. That could come in California in the central district. It could also be filed in DC where you are.
So we'll just have to wait and see what happens. But certainly some long-term legal questions for the president's son, even though near term, it appears that there's going to be a back and forth about those gun charges. Okay. And obviously all of this happening as 2024 fast approaches and we are in the thick of the presidential campaign.
Tom Winter, thank you so much for being with us this hour. We'll be back with more Meet the Press Now tomorrow. NBC News now coverage continues with Hallie Jackson right now. Beatboxing actually has hidden health benefits.
It can help strengthen and protect your voice from injury. See healthy living differently with Manulife. Visit Manulife.ca slash health.