Meet the Press NOW — August 4

Hey everyone, I'm Dylan Dreyer, co-host of the third hour of today and mom to three wild boys. I've learned a lot of my years as a parent, mostly that I don't have it all figured out yet. And I'm not the only one. This is my new podcast, The Parent Chat.

Each week I sit down with someone new, run a conversation, and real-world advice about parenting. I am over here just like winging it. Hey, I'm trying not to screw my own feet up. I'm not going to do it like some time I'm going to screw yours up.

Search Parent Chat on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy.

And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges, their stories, their funny, and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. Who knows?

You might just come away with your own glass half full. Search Glass Half Full with Craig Melvin from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. It's Friday. Former President Trump lashing out and digging in as America plunges into the unknown.

With a criminal defendant and a presidential candidate putting the rule of law and the fate of our democracy, both on trial and on your ballot. Plus, running for president and running out of time. I'll speak with presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson as he fights to make the first debate stage and warn his party that it faces a defining moment. And Ukrainian sea drones appear to strike a critical Russian warship.

The latest strike on a target inside of Russia. As a Republican presidential candidate, he makes a surprise visit of his own to Kiev. Welcome to Meet the Press. Now I'm Chuck Todd reporting from Washington.

It's truly been an unprecedented week in American politics. And yes, we're using that word again, unprecedented, because what else are you going to use? We begin today with what, in any other era, would seem unthinkable. Voters in next year's presidential election could end up deciding whether former President Trump goes to the White House or to prison.

I'm not being hyperbolic on this one. We really have a calendar that could put us on that path. Right now, 2024 is shaping up to be the biggest test that our democracy and the rule of law has ever seen in this country. Not just since the Civil War, but perhaps ever.

The former president is likely facing at least three trials in the coming year. In the midst of the 2024 campaign, and those are just criminal trials. There's a whole bunch of civil trials he's dealing with, too. Yesterday, in his third arraignment in less than five months, Trump pled not guilty to four counts related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election that he lost.

And he continued to claim the charges are designed to damage his 2024 campaign. When you look at what's happening, this is a persecution of a political opponent. This was never supposed to happen in America. This is the persecution of the person that's leading by very, very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot.

So if you can't beat him, you persecute him or you prosecute him. We can't let this happen in America. And a reminder of how politically fraught this case is, the judge warned Trump against speaking with potential trial witnesses. Well, guess what?

Those trial witnesses include members of his own 2024 campaign staff, in particular Jason Miller, who has that beamed from the mothership line in the indictment, as well as one of his primary comments, former Vice President Mike Pence. And perhaps one of the co-conspirators, though we don't know. We know all Republican leaders who chose not to disqualify Trump from holding office after his second impeachment continue to defend him. With House Speaker Kevin McCarthy yesterday growing visibly angry with reporters as he echoed Trump's claims that the Justice Department has been weaponized against Republicans.

Yeah, and I can say the same thing that Hillary Clinton says about her election that she lost. I can say the same thing about the DNC who said it about the 2016 race. I can say the same thing about those in the Democratic Party from the leadership on down about George Bush not winning, that Al Gore did. And the difference here is, when Hillary Clinton said it, nothing happened to her.

When they said it in George's election, nothing happened to them either. You know what? When the DNC said it, nothing happened to them either. So stop using government to go after people who politically disagree with you.

That is wrong, and that should stop now. Kevin McCarthy also just doesn't understand how the rule of law works. None of those candidates broke the law to try to challenge the results of those elections. We are witnessing one of the greatest challenges to the rule of law in our history.

And amid Donald Trump's grip over the Republican Party is also one of the greatest challenges to our political system and our democracy. So, what do they stand? How does Trump campaign plan to go forward? I've got Garrett Haake with me.

He covers the Trump campaign. Also with me is our NBC News legal analyst criminal defense attorney, Danny Savalas, and former U.S. attorney, Carol Lamb. Garrett, let me start with you.

Look, they love how they're covered. I mean, we see this. We can have a debate about how TV cameras chose to cover the motorcade. These are decisions that are above our pay grade.

But we know the Trump campaign loved it and wanted that type of coverage. But you know, the last argument, they didn't get the fundraising list that they got with the first one. How are they feeling about how the party is rallying or not as rallying around him as much as they did for the first two are right now? Well, look, they take very close stock of who says what and when in the party.

Whether they make your figures speak out quickly, whether they take their time to do so, that is noted. And a lot of times those people are pressured either behind the scenes or publicly by the former president to do so. You're also right that they didn't raise as much money after Miami as they raised after New York. And we haven't seen any of the kind of blustery statements from the Trump campaign about the money they've raised now.

That becomes a problem given how expensive a proposition this has been for him. But right now, they've got a pretty significant wallop. I mean, everybody is using the same basic language and basic structure to talk about what's going on with Donald Trump within the Republican Party, with very few exceptions. Doug McCarthy's doing it.

Tim Scott's doing it. Even Ron DeSantis has been very careful not to break out of the general structure. Although for him, he's like, you know, a tiny bit. But for him, it was interesting.

Yeah, he's going to really squint to see any criticism here. But the basic structure still exists. It is a weaponized DOJ. It's going after the president, the former president.

And until somebody breaks out of that basic structure, they're not concerned about it. How about the logistics of complying with the judge's orders and campaigning for president? Okay. You know, I was asking yesterday this question about, okay, Mike Pence is going to be on a debate stage.

Donald Trump is going to be on a debate stage. But let's say they're on a debate stage together. This issue comes up. Look, I don't think anything that's going to come up between them would necessarily violate a judge's order.

Except what Danny said is, let's say Trump just says, you're a traitor. You're a snitch. That's what this intimidation prosecutor might take back to a judge. I mean, these are not unrealistic things that he could say.

No, but look, I don't think the Trump campaign is particularly worried about that at this juncture because when has any of those consequences ever been enforced on Donald Trump ever in his career in public life? It's not like the idea that he would go after a judge or a witness or a prosecutor is somehow new. But there's never been a penalty for him when he's done it in New York, when he's done it in Georgia, when he's done it in these cases, when he's been going after judges when he was a presidential candidate and as president. There was no penalty.

So I don't think they're game-planning around the possibility of this year. Are they confident that there's not a co-conspirator that is on their campaign trail the whole time? And I say this because, look, we have not been able to confirm other news organizations. I want to be careful not to name this person because we don't know.

And this person doesn't. Claims doesn't know, right? But it seems that puts him in a precarious position where he's unknowingly colluding with a co-conspirator. I don't think they're, to be as careful as you are here, I don't think they are confident that there is not a co-conspirator still working closely with the former president.

But I think the viewpoint is even if that were the case, you're going to proceed as planned. You certainly wouldn't want to publicly break from a person. That might be more dangerous than to keep a person in their close orbit. I think, from my conversations with people in Trump's orbit, one of the things they're more interested in is the question of who in the Trump orbit is working with the government now.

Look, and that's my question. Look, they're going to find out soon enough. That's what discovery is, right? That's right.

And about, you know, maybe it's in three weeks, maybe it's in a month. Trump's going to want it out. He is not going to keep the secret. No.

I mean, and what happens when he finds out his former chief of staff, which it certainly looks like in Mark Meadows, is turned against him. Yeah, look, that's a great question. Obviously, Mark Meadows' name is not appearing in a 45-page indictment. No, he's titled it.

Is that the president's cheapest job? No, no, he makes one of your own a sign. Once, right? Like, that, you know, it certainly screams cooperator to me with a lot of grief from absolutely nowhere.

But, look, I mean, that's the way I read it. And I do think you're going to see the former president, this will be a huge test, I think, of how seriously prosecutors and this judge who will ever see this case want to handle these questions. And last question about this. The Jason Miller line is one of the quotes that will live.

Beam down from the mothership. Beam down from the mothership. Look, any of us have to deal with the Trump campaign. He is the happy warrior for Donald Trump.

How's that plan? It seems to be fine. I mean, he is in the interim circle as he ever was. He was traveling with the former president yesterday.

I've had other people tell me they think he has a particularly good touch to give bad news or truthful news to the former president in a way that other people can't necessarily get away with. All right, Garrett, stick with me here as we talk about the legal calendar and the political calendar. And I'm going to get to the legal calendar with you, Carol Lamb, and Danny Cimbalos. Because that seems to be, that to me is the most important question.

When is this trial? And when is as soon as this trial could be? And when do you think, and let me start with you, Carol, when's the latest you think this trial is going to start? The latest?

Well, Chuck, I've been trying to, from the prosecutor's perspective, look at what the possibilities are here. I would be very surprised if Jack Smith's team wasn't prepared right now to start turning over Discovery, all of it. They should have been prepared right from the get-go to give over all the Discovery because they don't want to give Donald Trump's defense team any excuse to say we need to delay this trial. So let's say that Discovery is going out the door today, which it should.

Then I think the earliest, given the trial schedule that has already been set, I think there's a possibility that she could set the trial for March. But he's got another trial set for March. So there's going to have to be a little coordination among the various judges here. I don't see any other way to do this.

But I think going to trial and Danny will have to give his perspective as a defense attorney. But I think any earlier than March, I think it's going to put a lot of pressure on the judge and even the prosecution that the defense hasn't had enough time. All right, Danny, how much past March do you think the defense could delay the start of this trial? You know, it's interesting.

I mean, the way to do it is a flurry of motions. Motions to dismiss, motions for change of venue, volume, quality takes a backseat to quantity. Because a lot of these issues are novel issues. The judges' clerks are going to have to spend a lot of time researching it.

But another thing that folks aren't really talking about when it comes to Trump being able to delay is that Trump will not be treated like any other defendant. I know we all talk about Trump should be treated like any other defendant. But let's be real. On this judge's docket, this case will be a priority.

There's no way that they are going to take a motion from Joe Schmo in another case and prioritize that over motions from the most important criminal defendant in American federal criminal history. They're going to look at the Trump motions first. So that works against the defense. They can file their flurry of motions.

But I promise you, I don't know it. I just believe it to be true that they're going to take those motions and put them at the top of the file, get to them right away. So in that sense, yes, not all defendants are equal. Trump is not an equal defendant.

He will be treated differently. That's why they shut down the entire New York courthouse for one defendant. And that's why when he files motions, his team files motions, they're going to get looked at right away, faster. More clerks are going to be assigned to it.

They're going to decide them as quickly as they can. So that works against the whole delay plan. But file lots of motions, volume, volume, volume. You can affect a lot of delay.

You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to double down. I'm just going to say every time I'm going to bet black or red, if you're ever at the roulette table. And my bet is this.

I'm always betting on delay. My case in point is the Mar-a-Lago documents case. The government wanted that to go to trial in December. I had to take them to test a little bit because they must have known they were going to supersede that indictment.

They still wanted a December date. That was unreasonable. But again, a no trial date indefinite, that's against, I don't think that's even statutorily allowed. So the defense here, realistically, let's say next summer for a trial date.

But again, I'm doubling down. It could change. You'll go somewhere. Yeah, I will.

I'm always in the Senate delay. All right. Now let me get to the length of trial, Carol. How long do you think the prosecution needs?

So I went through the indictment and I tried to figure out how many witnesses Jack Smith has to call in this trial. And I came up with between 30 and 40 because he's got all these different factual scenarios going on. He's got stuff going on in seven different states. He has a whole bunch of senators and congressmen.

He's got the White House staff. He has DOJ officials. And even if they're on the witness stand for only a few minutes, he still has to call them and then they have to be cross-examined by Trump's attorney. So I say between 30 and 40 witnesses, I see this as being between a two to three month trial and that's if everything goes well.

All right. So you guys are playing right into my hand here of what I'm trying to set up. So we've got a trial that starts July 15th. Now it ends sometime mid to late September based on our timelines here.

So Danny, assuming there's a guilty verdict, sentencing then is how long after that? We delay that till after the election? Usually it's about two to three months. It's not a hard rule.

It can be delayed. I've had a delay that's taking a while right now in my federal cases. It normally is tied up with whether probation can do the pretrial or the present investigation report. It can take some time.

But generally speaking, you're looking at a few months after to schedule sentencing. And that to me, by the way, Chuck, is the real date. Everybody's talking about the election date and the trial date. To me, it's about sentencing and inauguration.

That is where you get into some wacky hypotheticals. Like, do you go inaugurate a president at a federal detention center? How does that work? So I don't know.

To me, the wackier situation is some different dates. Carol, how much this timeline I just showed you, and you guys helped me. I mean, this is why I can't get past here, that we really could not know what his sentence is, essentially letting the country be the jury here in deciding whether he truly goes to jail or not. Does the federal judge take that into account and say, you know what, it's not good for the country to have this trial before the election?

It's a possibility, Chuck. But the problem is that our system is not set up for this kind of scenario. And by the way, I'll add to the timeline, you've got jury deliberations. I mean, I've had cases where the jury has deliberated for five months.

So that's a big unknown. Look at this expression of the conduct error here. Five months. I don't like being on trial.

That sounds like a nightmare. It was a bad year. But my point is that the system isn't set up for this. And what is happening here is that politics and the criminal law system are bashing into each other, and they shouldn't be.

It's going to be virtually impossible to hold this trial in a way that's not so infected with politics that it's going to be a clean situation at the end. And just think about the possibilities, Chuck. I mean, even if you had it finished by inauguration, and then he says, then what about appeal? And can this president instruct his Department of Justice to drop the case?

I mean, it's just an impossible situation. And Garrett, I bring it back here to the political calendar. I mean, you just heard that. I didn't bring up the win the convention.

It's in August. I didn't bring up the presidential debate. Hi, if it's going to happen. Well, look, here's the other possibility.

While we're doing fan fiction on this, what if it gets acquitted in October? And a rocket fuel? That would be Donald Trump saying, I'm vindicated. To the left for the right.

Oh, I mean, it's... Right? Yes. All right.

We'll run these talk experiments over and over and over again for the next six months. Good luck to every other Republican candidate running to read through this noise. Danny Savalas, Carol Lamb, you guys have been terrific law school teachers for Garrett and I. Appreciate it.

And Garrett, good luck out there. Thanks. Up next, how could this 2024 presidential race be about anything other than about Trump? Well, I'm going to talk to a Republican presidential candidate who's still hoping to beat the former president, but first elected to make the debate stage.

Former Arkansas governor, Aza Hutchinson, 20 minutes. Plus, the same to dismissal the Florida governor, the president's hopeful, goes farther than he ever has before in trying to distance himself from Donald Trump's stolen election claims. We'll have that and more. Ahead on the Press now.

Let's kickstart your wellness journey with the Talk Today app. Workouts, meal plans, it's your fast track to a healthier you. And now during the Xfinity member celebration, members can get an exclusive 50% off an annual subscription. Head to Xfinity.com slash membership to learn more.

Xfinity, imagine that. Subscription automatically reduced each year at $65.99, plus taxes and fees until canceled. All for ends May 20th, 2026. Prices subject to change.

Visit today.com slash Xfinity for full offers and details. Stay informed with the NBC News app. Breaking news just coming in moments ago. Watch, read, and listen throughout your day.

And now, unlock even more with a subscription. It's the best of NBC News with fewer ad interruption, including ad-free articles, podcasts, and full NBC News shows, plus deeper access and exclusive content. Let's just take a step back. It's more context and click.

from the reporters you trust. Download the NBC News app now and subscribe for more. Hey guys, Willie Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit-Down Podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with red-hot stand-up comedian Nikki Glaser to talk about the long career grind that has brought her to this starring moment, hosting the Golden Globes, tailing at the Tom Brady roast, and now with another hit special on Hulu.

You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts. Like most Americans, I'm tired of commenting on every Trump drama. I've lost track of whether this indictment is the third, fourth, or the fifth. We should be focusing on how to stop China.

We should be focusing on how to close the board. We need to be reversing dynamics. Putting a 77-year-old former president and president doesn't do any of that. We've got to move on already.

Question, of course, does putting a 77-year-old former president as a Republican nominee do anything about that? That, of course, was Republican presidential candidate and Trump rival Nikki Haley weighing in on the latest indictment while taking issue with how his legal problems had dominated coverage of the Republican primary. Haley also stood up for the former president saying that he should not be prosecuted for disputing the 2020 election even though the indictment lays out a scheme that goes well beyond merely disputing the results. This is not a First Amendment case.

Haley and a lot of other 2024 candidates find themselves in a strange position. They don't want to talk about Trump's legal jeopardy, but by defending him, they are making his hold on the party and the eventual challenger changes in this even stronger. So join me now. From Iowa, he's former Arkansas governor and current Republican presidential candidate, Asa Hutchinson.

Governor Hutchinson, good to see you. Chuck, it's always good to be with you. So I want to get your sense of look, I know the correct answer. Of course you want to be talking about China on the border and all this, but is this the fault of the Justice Department or is this the fault of Donald Trump running for president again?

Well, it's because Donald Trump has brought these challenges on himself, whether it's the document case in Florida or whether it is the January 6th allegations. Nobody did this to him except himself. Clearly, the Justice Department has not done well under the Durham report. They were found to have the FBI not followed the best traditions of the law.

But every case rises and falls on its own facts, and Donald Trump is no exception to this. His case is going to be tried just like any other case, and that's our system of justice. I don't know if you caught my first segment where I had two of our legal experts sort of outlined the probable timeline of this trial. And you see the calendar here.

You've got a trial that begins maybe as early as the spring, after many of the primaries, perhaps about a month before the convention at the latest. We'll have a verdict sometime in October. Maybe sentencing takes place after the election. What are we doing?

What's the Republican Party doing here? At some point, I know you have stood up and said this is a terrible idea, that Trump should get out of the race, but elected Republicans aren't fighting this. Every candidate for president on the Republican side needs to be very clear as to their view of what Donald Trump did on January 6th. They need to be clear as to whether they're going to support the rule of law in our justice system, or whether they're going to support chaos.

And I've made my position clear. Right now, it's certainly the minority position, but it'll make the debate interesting whether Donald Trump participates in it or not. We need a voice such as mine on that debate stage that will raise these issues and not coronate Donald Trump, but hold him accountable. I think that's what the American public expects from our justice system is to hold those responsible.

Do you think that Republican senators made a mistake in not convicting Trump? Because if they had convicted him, we wouldn't be here. Now, that's retracing history. First of all, if you would have had the case after the hearings in which all the evidence was presented, then it might have been a different trial in the Senate.

But here, they jump-started it. They rushed it through. There wasn't a foundation laid, and I did not think it was justified even at that time. Of course, now we know so many more facts they're laid out there.

I've always said that he's morally responsible. The question now is whether he's criminally responsible. The Justice Department has done his job. It's presented the case.

Now the jury will have to do it. I'm curious, you're a former. You've worked at the Justice Department. You've been a U.S.

attorney. What did you make of the indictment? Is it strong? Well, it's strong.

Absolutely it's strong. Whenever you're looking at an attack on our democracy, a conspiracy to disrupt a government proceeding, which is a lawful transfer of power, it doesn't get any more serious to our democracy or to an individual who's charged with it. Whenever you mentioned, as a former federal prosecutor, I looked at the timeline as well, and I think those federal judges will be speaking to each other about making sure that they coordinate the multiple trials and hearings that are going to have to take place. So it's going to add some dimension to it, but it all depends upon the judges as to when this comes to trial.

I want to play you something that Governor DeSantis said today and get your reaction to it. It's the closest he's come to sounding critical of the former president's 2020 election rhetoric. Take a listen. Yes or no question, do you think the 2020 election was stolen?

I've said many times, the election is what it is. All those theories that were put out did not prove to be true. So it was not an election that was conducted the way I think we'd want to, but that's different than saying Maduro stole votes or something like that, and I think those theories prove to be unsubstantiated. Is that enough?

And you think he needs to get stronger? Well, I think he's weak. Whenever that teenager in New Hampshire at a town hall meeting asked him his view on January 6th, he couldn't answer it, and he dismissed it. This is a fundamental question that candidates and those that care about our justice system need to answer and need to be clear on, and it has to be unambiguous.

We're leaders, and people right now only hear one voice out there, which is Donald Trump conducting his public relations campaign, and we don't need to fall in line with that. Let's uphold our justice system more than an individual who claims he's a victim. All right, you need to get on that debate stage. You have been pretty transparent that you're having a tough time.

You're almost halfway there, but that means you've got a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks. If you don't make this threshold, it gets harder. Is your campaign on the line this month? Well, obviously, getting on that debate stage is critical, and your audience will determine whether someone that will speak out and speak the truth about Donald Trump will be on there.

You know, Chuck, it's ASA2024.com, and every contribution helps me to get on that debate stage. If you don't care whether there are people that may not support you, that they just want you on the debate stage, that's all your... You don't mind if it's a Democrat giving you money, a progressive, something like that? People want me on that debate stage.

We need to hear the candidates, so I'll take any donation, absolutely. Now, we've had 10,000 voters just in the last two weeks, so we've got a lot of momentum here. We're going to get there. We're pulling out every stop, but we always take advantage of every opportunity to ask for support.

Former Governor Chris Christie made a visit to Ukraine. He's I think they're now may have just left. President Zelensky has said he welcomes candidates coming to visit him in Kiev. Do you plan on doing that?

I would love to. Actually, we looked at doing that earlier, and we will very likely do that as time allows coming up. I'm supportive, of course, of our efforts in Ukraine. It's critical for us.

I've talked to the ambassador from Ukraine and shared my support for them. I would like to be there in person on the ground at some point. Are you concerned that your party is less supportive right now, and how much of that do you think is the shift that Trump has pushed, and how much of it do you think is just sort of a reactionary view because Biden's for it? No, I think there's a division in the party, and it's coming about because our leaders are being uncertain in their opposition to Putin and Russia.

Whenever you look at the appeasement language of Donald Trump, whenever you look at weak responses by Ron DeSantis and Vivek, clearly there's a difference of opinion on it, and that's why we have to be strong. We have to make sure that we continue our support there because the world is watching, and it's just such a miscalculation to say Europe's not doing anything because they are. They've done more than ever before, and we want to continue to support that. Europe is bearing a big burden on this.

Ask Poland what it's like with all those refugees, that's for sure. Governor, happy anniversary to you and your wife. Fifty years, and you're celebrating in Iowa. Where else did you want to celebrate your 50th anniversary?

Absolutely. I'm going to owe my wife a big trip to Scotland coming up, but today is Iowa. Well, congratulations to the both of you. Fifty years.

That's a true accomplishment. Good luck. Stay safe on the track. Still ahead, the panel will be here to break down how Donald Trump's legal challenges actually made him stronger with some GOP voters.

Plus, why the NBA Players Association is weighing in on a donation to Ron DeSantis. You're watching The Press now. Welcome back. As we mentioned earlier, this week's indictment sets up a 2024 calendar unlike anything we have ever seen with the potential of her three criminal trials smack in the middle of the Republican primary.

And as we showed you earlier, as much as candidates like Haley Say don't want to be talking about Donald Trump's legal drama, she and others in the field have also chosen to give him political cover for this. It's not fine to say that you think an election was stolen. He should not be prosecuted for that. I think the Justice Department has become way too political.

I think the 2020 election was stolen. I've said it many times. The election is what it is. I've also said it's the way you conduct a good election that people have confidence in.

You don't change the rules in the middle of the game. You don't ballot harvest. You don't do Zuckerbots. And clearly, having the agencies work with Facebook to censor things like Hunter Biden, that's unfair.

My perspective is that the OJ continues to weaponize their power against political opponents. It seems like they've spent a lot of time protecting Hunter Biden and Democrats and a lot of time hunting Republicans. What's fascinating is none of them criticized the specifics of the charges against Donald Trump. I mean, as our panel, Daniel Diaz, congressional reporter of Politico, Jen Psaki, posted inside with Jen Psaki on MSNBC, of course, a former Biden White House secretary, Rick Tyler, Republican strategist, NBC News political analyst, and was a pretty prominent in the 2016 campaign and worked for a candidate against Donald Trump.

You know, let me start with this. Should we all see the stances for what he did today as a change, as a shift, as a... I will say this. While I can't say that Republican candidates are criticizing him, there's less rallying around him this week than there was for the first two minutes.

We're also seeing them, you know, even though they're not rallying around him or defending him as much, it's not like they're going outright and saying, you know, he's did something wrong. They won't do that either. And that's notable as well. You know, sometimes you pay attention to what they're not doing on the campaign trail.

And the thing is, you know, I cover predominantly Capitol Hill, and I have seen, that's always a reflection of what's going on in the campaign, with what House Republicans are saying. And even they are still defending former President Donald Trump and threatening to use the Holman rule and defund Jackson's investigation. That's one thing we're seeing. It's indictment fatigue, is what I sense.

And even though voters are asking about this on the campaign trail, it seems like, you know, these prominent candidates like DeSantis are not really going too far against Donald Trump. All right, but what would you be doing right now, you're a candidate? It's not about anything else. This is about Trump and his indictments.

I don't know how you get around it. I'm going to think, hey, I'd love to see the debate about China. I'd love to see the debate about the board. Let me not happen.

No, it's not going to happen. But let me pretend I'm a strategist for a minute. This might be novel. I would tell DeSantis to run against Donald Trump.

You mean if you want to beat Donald Trump? Yes, you should probably. Governor, if you want to win against Donald Trump, you should run against him. Ted Cruz did run a campaign against Donald Trump.

He did run a campaign against Donald Trump. Right, and he keeps being his defense lawyer. He backs his position. He says, Well, Trump can pardon himself.

We don't need you to do that, Governor. Unless he's convicted of a state crime, then you should stay in Florida. You could exonerate him or pardon him as the governor. But none of these things they're offering.

They're saying, well, I'll do all Trump's policies. Well, Trump can do his policies. Like, there's nothing there. Campaigns are run about the future and the difference.

And none of them have articulated, say for Chris Christie. Right, but it's sort of, yeah. Or even Asa Hutchinson. Asa Hutchinson was for also.

Well, I guess we were having this debate in our meeting, Jen. Are they at 1% because they're critics of Donald Trump? Or is it easy to be a critic of Donald Trump because they're at 1%? Maybe a little bit of both.

I mean, look, I think there's a reality of the Republican primary base, right? They're obviously all making this calculation, or they have. I mean, you've been in this strategic meetings where it's like, Okay, guys, we're not going to attack Donald Trump. We're going to say, we're going to wrap our arms around him so that when people realize how crazy this all is, they'll pick us, right?

Which is clearly part of the strategy. That was the strategy by Jen Bush. That was the strategy by Jen Bush. And it's been a version of the defense strategy.

Now, the fact is, we're kind of near the 25-mile mark. I'm not sure what mile mark we are here. It's no longer early. It's no longer early.

And so at this point, if you don't change your strategy, you're just going to lose with the current strategy that you have. But there's a new element. And the new element is Donald Trump has a presidential record. And from a Republican or conservative's perspective, it is not a good record.

The border is not secure. He increased the deficit with China. He increased the size of the government. The debt is larger, not smaller.

He lost 3 million jobs, which Biden seems to have gained back and more. The stock market is better than it was when Donald Trump left. I mean, what is it the Republicans and the conservatives will get? I mean, one might be tempted to vote for a criminal if you've got all the policies you want, but you won't even get those because there's no record of it.

Yeah, they've also embraced, to your point, his record, too. Like, we love, even once we're attacking him, we like his record. We just don't like his criminal. The tax is terrible.

It's assault taxes. I get where House Republicans are, but Senate Republicans know this is a coming disaster. Well, that's always the case when it comes to both chambers. Senators always just do what they want to do.

McConnell hasn't even commented on this indictment. Let's remember that. Super telling. I've been reaching out to his team every day, asking for him to talk about that.

And they're staying silent. And that's for a reason. And that's what we see from Senate Republicans. Even the number two Senate Republicans hasn't even endorsed Trump.

He's supporting his spot. They just do their own thing over there. The House Republicans are still riding behind him. And that's prominent.

Speaker McCarthy is defending him. He was in California defending him yesterday. That's a sign of a growing base that still supports former President Donald Trump. Let me flip the script here, which is this.

A thrice indicted former president is neck and neck with Joe Biden. Is that a Donald Trump problem or a Joe Biden problem? Probably a little bit of both. You know, I think there's challenges from the people I still talk to, of course, in the Biden White House, which is many of them they're well aware of.

I mean, they've known for a long time that one of their biggest challenges is this perception that the president is old and this perception that's been driven by a lot on the right wing that he is senile or not up to the job. That's still probably what they have to deal with. Also, despite the fact that economic data and numbers are good, it's not translating in terms of how people are digesting it. They're very sober and aware of the challenges, right?

It's also a divided country. It also is going to be a very close election and race as it was in 2020. They know that. They've always known that.

I feel like this is the biggest problem to sink us in everybody else's house, which is while we can look at 18 and 20 and 22 and say, you know, Donald Trump's not electable. Every poll shows it's a close election. It's hard to make the case with the data that people are staring at that Donald Trump's not electable. We can use the data from the past.

Donald Trump has made nothing since 2016. He lost the Senate twice, woefully. He lost the House, and he lost the White House. 2022 was a disaster.

That should have been a layup election for Republicans. We barely broke even. Why isn't that resonating? It's like what Christie says, loser, loser, loser.

I mean, it's like he just brings losing. He was political losses. If he is the nominee, I think that they will lose the middle, they will lose suburban women in massive numbers, and McCarthy will lose the House and they won't be in the Senate. Like, there's nothing in it for them.

You know, it is interesting, but many of them have made the choice. I've talked to a few members who don't want him as a nominee, who say, but if I don't endorse him, I might lose primary. And it's a lot easier. In fact, I'm worried if he's not on the general election ballot I'm not that crazy.

Now, can I share one of my favorite quotes from Thomas Massey, who is not supporting Donald Trump and supporting DeSantis? He actually told me two weeks ago, now, if DeSantis were indicted, he would be winning right now. That's how some of these guys see it. They think these indictments are making Donald Trump stronger and that the Department of Justice is against him.

Rick, why do you think Rupert Murdoch hasn't turned off the spigot for Trump in some ways? It looks like he's opening it back up. No. brings huge ratings.

You know, he may have a bigger microphone than the president of the United States and that actually will advantage the Biden team for some of the negative reasons that we've talked about is that the press is not going to be focused on it. They're going to be focused on one thing, whether the American people are going to allow Donald Trump to turn on us or turn in jail. They're fine with that. Can Joe Biden re-elect if there's a referendum on Joe Biden?

Maybe, yeah. It's harder for any sitting president if it is entirely a referendum on them, regardless of the party because you know what? People are like, I didn't do all the things I wanted to do. Well, that's what it is currently set up to be and for the Biden team, they're like, you know what?

You go over there and defend. As those of us trying to book him all the time, it's pretty clear the strategy is we're staying out of the way. It's the old ad issue. Well, right, because it is blocking out the sun of everything right now in the political debate discussion and for them, just by association, he is looking like the more competent, steady leader compared with Trump.

Trump is going to relivate the election and that's what they're going to talk about the whole time. As you said, past versus future. Thank you. Happy Friday.

Up next, the Pentagon faces new questions on China's espionage after 280 sailors were arrested for allegedly selling U.S. military secrets to Beijing. By the way, are we vetting our soldiers very well? Third incident this year with a soldier under the age of 27.

You're watching the Press now. Welcome back. The Pentagon is dealing with another breach of sensitive military information. Yesterday, federal prosecutors in the southern and central districts of California unsealed separate indictments against two U.S.

Navy sailors charging them of sharing military secrets with China in exchange for thousands of dollars. Here's what U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman had to say about the charges. When a soldier or sailor chooses cash over country and hands over national defense information in an ultimate act of betrayal, we have to be ready to act.

And that's exactly what we have done here. In a statement of the Wall Street Journal, China's embassy here in Washington accused the U.S. of frequently hyping up cases of espionage related to China and called the charges groundless slander and a quote smear of China. Joining me now from the Pentagon is our global security reporter, Dan DeLuce.

So Dan, I think about the Jack Teixeira incident in Massachusetts. These were young sailors here. I got to first ask, do we have a vetting problem in the U.S. military?

The Pentagon would say no, but it does beg the question, right? Certainly, there seems to be a security clearance problem because these two young sailors both in their 20s are accused of handing over some really sensitive information to a Chinese intelligence officer. So should they have had that clearance? Were they not vetted?

I think you're right. It does raise questions about vetting. Now, of course, in the previous case with the Air National Guardsmen, he went beyond what he was supposed to be doing. But nevertheless, that also raised questions.

You don't assume this is going to happen with your very young people in uniform. And by the way, the information handed over here appears to be gold dust. This is what every spy is going after, right? These are technical blueprints, very detailed information about warships and exercises.

Do we have a sense of how they became, how they became, I guess, espionage targets? Did they have, you know, money problems and they exploited that? Or was this part of a, you know, or did they infiltrate? Do they have an idea?

Well, we don't know. Those are key questions, right? And they weren't given that much money. If this is true, those aren't massive bribes.

We're talking, you know, big money for a lot of us, but not big money in terms of spy bribes, $5,000, $15,000. It is true that China will often target people of Chinese heritage because there's a language there. There's an in. So that is the case previously.

Also, China will try to manipulate people who have family in China and try to coerce them. But these are the classic questions that are always asked in counterintelligence. Was this person financially vulnerable? Did they have a drug habit?

Were they somehow ideologically sympathetic? We just don't know. And we also don't know, Chuck, when exactly they caught on to this. When did the FBI figure out that these two sailors were possibly spying?

Were they following them for months or the full two years? It seems hard to believe they would let this go for that long. It may have been fairly recently discovered. Well, I was just going to say, it sounds to me, Dan, we got so little information.

What explains that? Are they just hiding behind the classification aspects of things? Or do they have more here that they're about to release maybe in the next couple of days? Two young sailors could be handing over information about radar systems in Okinawa and the rest.

I never like to hear a ringing phone, especially in one of our reporter suites because you may be missing breaking news. Go figure out how to call Dan DeLuce. Appreciate the reporting. Up next, Ukraine's former ambassador joins me.

Our former ambassador, Ukraine, excuse me, joins me fresh off of his own trip to Key. You're watching the press now. Welcome back. Former New Jersey governor and current candidate for President Chris Christie made a surprise visit to Key today, making him the second 2024 Republican to visit the country.

Christie met with President Zelensky, reiterated support for Ukraine. Obviously, that's in contrast with some others in his party who've been skeptical about continued support to the country amid its war against Russia. Otherwise, Zelensky had actually invited all candidates for President to come for what it's worth. But despite that, and an attempt to lobby Congress to pass more aid, the group Freedom at Home and Abroad, has a new ad that's about to hit the airwaves here in Washington that is trying to convince skeptical Republicans that Ukraine and America share values.

Take a look at this ad. In Ukraine, families are fighting for life, liberty, and to pursue happiness. They're fighting for the freedom. Tell Congress, we're not weak or scared.

We stand for American values. And when we stand up to bullies, we show that America's strong enough to take on the media. We stand with Ukraine. And if you're wondering, yes, the tone of that ad is designed to be talking to Republican House members during the onset.

Bill Taylor, he's the former US ambassador, Ukraine's the vice president for Russian Europe at the U.S. Institute of Peace. I played that ad, Bill, because there's clearly some nervousness in the community in Washington that's very supportive of Ukraine that Congress is getting tired in the American public. There's a new CNN poll, not a well-conducted poll.

This is a CNN poll that was conducted for an entire month, the 1st through the 31st, a terrible way to conduct polling, period. But they had a shocking result. And because of the poor methodology, I really think you take it with a grain of salt. But the headline is scary here, Bill, because it claims the majority don't want to see more aid to Ukraine.

Again, I don't think we're there yet, but we know that this is directionally where we've been heading. We have been heading there, Chuck. No, there's no doubt about that. But it's also true.

It has been shown over and over that the American people, by large majority, oppose what the Russians are doing. They are horrified by the atrocities, by the war crimes, and they are amazed at the strength and the values of the Ukrainians. This is an ad point now. We do share values.

They share our values. And when the American people find out here that for 5% of the defense budget, 5% that we're giving to the Ukrainians, they are knocking out the Russian army. The Ukrainians are knocking out the Russian army for 5% of the defense budget. That's a deal.

Obviously, Keith pays a lot of attention to Washington. We are their defense agency, right? We're their funding agency for their defense. How concerned are they about our current political situation and the fact that this is, you know, do they feel as if they have to speed up their counteroffice?

Chuck, you mentioned that I was there last week. I heard this exact question many times from people on the front lines. A friend of mine is fighting on the front line. He had that question.

The minister of defense has the same concern. They have decisions to make about when they attack and where they attack. One of the factors is support, continued support. Sure, they want to be sure that they can move before this trend that you've identified gets to be in trouble.

What is the chances we can get this rain deal back on? You know, the Russians have been pressured before and have succumbed to that pressure. There's a mounting pressure on them right now from a lot of the people that they're trying to get on their side. I think it can get back on mine.

It's interesting. You know, they get out of it and they get pressure and put back into it. What are they looking for? What kind of leverage do they think they gain?

They clearly see this as one of the few places of leverage in the international community that they have? I think they're wrong, though. When they drive out prices for all nations around the world and in particular, it hurts poor nations and those are the nations that are trying to get support for what they're doing. This is negative leverage.

What they're after, they say, is they're able to export some of their ammonia or that kind of thing. It's just not purchased for them. All right. China's attempt here to create some sort of conference when they're going to by Turkey.

So it is interesting. So the Saudis have invited all these nations, including the Chinese, and we heard today that the Chinese may show up. Now, this has got to be a worry to President Putin. President Putin thinks he's got the Chinese with him.

He thinks he's got the Saudis at least neutral, right? And he thinks he's got the Saudis neutral and here the Saudis are inviting all these nations, being sponsored really by the Ukraine. The Europeans are going to be there to pitch their plan. To make it.

South Africa, let's see all the skeptics who are there, right? South Africa, India, Turkey. Exactly, exactly. No, this is a great thing and the President will be there.

So is this a victory? How did they, is this Ukraine, is this Zelensky's personal relationship with MBS? I think there may be something to that. He is their best asset.

Zelensky is clearly their best asset and he can get things done and this is maybe one of them. So if the Saudis and the Chinese sign some sort of statement that says that, that's a pretty powerful moment. Pretty powerful. All right, we can hope.

That's really good to see you. Happy Friday and thank you all for being with us this hour. We'll be back Monday. We'll have more Meet the Press now and if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press on your local NBC News station.

Yeah, it's probably almost a one-topic show. We'll have Trump lawyer John Loro and Democratic Congressman and January 6th committee member Jamie Raskin. NBC News Now coverage continues right now. Hi, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor, host of the podcast The Drink.

This month, I'm grabbing a matcha latte with comedian Taylor Tomlinson. The Drink is always about someone's journey to the top and Taylor's story is remarkable. She tells us all about her unlikely path from performing in churches all the way to headlining her own Netflix specials like her latest prodigal daughter. And she opens up about her religious upbringing, what drew her to stand up and how she feels when she gets on that stage.

Hope you'll listen and follow The Drink wherever you get your podcasts.