If it's Wednesday. An abortion rights proxy fight. Voters in battleground Ohio reject the GOP backed ballot measure. A red alert for Republicans nationwide yet again as reproductive rights continues to prove it will be a key issue at the end of 2024.
Plus Trump defiance ever in the face of three criminal indictments with more charges potentially coming. Georgia's district attorney prepares to present her years long investigation into the former president and others as soon as next week. And America's announcing migrant crisis pushes US States and cities to the brink. Massachusetts has declared a state of emergency with asylum seekers overwhelming state funded shelters while New York City shelters are surpassing 100,000 with more buses of migrants arriving this week.
Happy. Hey, welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Chuck Todd reporting from Washington. This week, voters and yet another Republican leaning state resoundingly rejected efforts that could be put into place that would eventually limit abortion access.
Last night, Ohio voters rejected a ballot initiative that if it had passed would have made it more difficult to change the state's constitution. It would have raised the number of votes necessary to enact a change from a simple majority plus 1 to 60%. Republican lawmakers created the initiative known as Issue One in an attempt to make it harder for another referendum to pass in November, one that would enshrine abortion protections into the state's constitution. Now she wants backers framed it as an effort to keep outside influences out of local politics, trying to paint it as broader than abortion rights, talking about minimum wage, other things like that.
But then in fact would have changed the odds against the abortion amendment before it made it to an actual vote of the people. So here are the results. 99% of all the vote has been counted. The voters rejected this effort.
5743. It is interesting, in order to get to a 60% threshold, the yes had to get to 50% plus one. But it wasn't just Democratic. Democratic leaning voters that were governed by this issue.
Voters showed up across the political spectrum. Just look at the official results from Delaware County. This is a Republican lean suburb that is not very Trumpy and we've been following it for years since the rise of Trump. It's an Irish suburb of Columbus, which of course is the capital city of Ohio.
Delaware county voted against issue one, power of 15 points. The same county broke for J.D. banks last year by just over six points. And for Trump in 2020, he carried that state by seven points.
Now back in the old Romney era of the Republican Party, Delaware county was in double digit. This is the home of a lot of College educated Republicans and despite claims the vote was to protect the state from outside interests, outside donors pumped over $26 million in the race. Anti issue one backers did outspend their opponents on ads by $5 million. The anti abortion organization Susan Anthony's List called the result sad day for Ohio and a warning for pro life states across the nation.
The organization is right. Republicans should hear warning belts from last night's vote. They've been ringing for months ever since the Dobbs decision. This isn't really an Ohio story, folks.
Ohio is just the latest place that's reporting the same election story on abortion post Dobbs. We've seen referendum votes to secure abortion rights win in Kansas. We've seen it in Michigan. A referendum do not protect the right to abortion failed in Kentucky.
Voters even turn out front off the Supreme Court election of Wisconsin in huge numbers because that race would that individual justice would be the deciding vote for future abortion issues in front of the court in that state. So if we're paying attention, voters have already shown us how they will vote. If abortion is the main issue on the ballot, it doesn't matter whether it's a purple state, whether it's a Ruby red state, whether it's a former swing state like Ohio. Join me from Columbus, Ohio.
Alan, Alex, she's been covering those Vote Force also with Chloe Atkins who covers the issue of abortion of abortion for NBC News. And Chloe, look I want to Ohio is just the latest setting but we're likely to see more of this. I know Arizona's coming. There's some possibility for the state that allows citizen initiatives.
Where else should we be looking for? And there's the actual citizen initiative this November coming in Ohio. What more should we expect? Well, I can tell you in phone calls with abortion rights sources and advocates today and over the past week are telling me they're not slowing down on this element that allows them to expand and ensure abortion access in in state constitutions throughout the country.
They're calling this an incredibly significant tactic and that's for two reasons. First, it allows people to directly or voters to directly weigh in on issues that matter to them the most. And it allows the will of the people, the will of the voters to really be brought to life and really be mirrored in the state's constitution or the state's laws. The second reason is because, you know, it's somewhat symbolic and that's because, you know, these outcomes that we were seeing in Ruby R State.
So there's Ohio, Kansas versus my home state of Kentucky. It really embodies and showcases this resounding support for abortion rights in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and that stripping of that federal protection. And so that is what we were seeing right this moment.
And they're not going to slow down. You mentioned Florida and Arizona. Arizona is seeking to enshrine abortion rights up until 22 weeks in pregnancy. Also in Florida we're seeing them hoping to enshrine abortion rights up until viability.
So there this as a winning issue moving forward. Chuck, let me ask you this. When you've talked to the pro life community, including folks at Susan B. Anthony and others in the sort of the tactical part here, are they at all, do they believe they have a tactics issue or they believe they have a substance issue?
At this moment they're telling me in conversations they're keeping it a very winning message that they want to protect human life. And that is something that they're going to hammer home. And in the 2024 election cycle they are keeping steadfast, you know, focusing on a presidential candidate that will continue to put their pro life message forward. You know, the overturning Roe v.
Wade really came to have, you know, their years long work, you know, since 1972 of, you know, guarding the state by state support of, you know, stripping away access to abortion. And in many ways they were successful state by state even before the overturn of Roe v. Wade. You know, they viewed the overturn of Roe v.
Wade as that final nail in the coffin for abort abortion rights. And while they, you know, do acknowledge these setbacks, they're rem steadfast in finding that presidential candidate that embodies a pro life movement. All right, let's go back to Brennan, Ohio. And we have a bit of a technical hit there with you Ali, on that front.
That happens. We're going to be attempting a Skype interview with Franklin LaRose here in a couple of minutes. So we're hopeful there on the tech front. But let me ask you this.
When you talk to voters, I'm curious, did you find some fans, voters who voted no on this? I think that's going to be one of the interesting things here too because this issue, reproductive access is certainly not monolithic in terms of all Republicans vote the way the anti abortion advocates want them to vote and all Democrats vote for choice. That's not the breakdown. In fact, when you look at the ways that Republicans I was talking to were concerned about this, each abortion referendum only hearkens more concern about suburban women.
That's a group that they didn't do well with in places like Georgia and places like Arizona. Certainly Michigan is a place that was able to leverage those kinds of voters to the pro abortion cause. This is now something that you're seeing when you talk about places like outside of Columbus, where I am. These are places where women are going to continue to be pivotal.
And it's not just that, but it's making people who might otherwise be casual political viewers into consistent political doers, if you will. I talked to people who were with me yesterday at the polls and I asked a couple as they were walking out, do you vote in every single election that comes up locally or at the federal level? They said no, we're not people who vote every time. But this special election felt important because of the media coverage that we were seeing and because of the issues that were at play here.
I'm interested, Chuck. I spoke with Secretary of State Franco Rose yesterday at the polls and he continued this message of doubling down. He told me he didn't have any regrets about the strategy that he employed here, but he's the person who directly linked abortion access and this issue one measure, by saying that for him it was in his words, 100% about making it harder to inshy abortion protection than the Constitution. That's a bad move for Republicans.
And I heard from Republicans a bad move for him. So I'm interested to see how he defends it nowadays. Yeah, no, I, you know, Chloe, this was the question. If everybody in the pro life side of things continues to say, well, we don't have enough money, we don't have enough this, is it possible that just that there is consensus and they're just on the wrong side of it?
Yeah, I mean, I think the huge messaging, I mean Democrats are really going to galvanize behind this coming in the 2024 election to really seize on the vulnerability of, you know, Republicans and the pro life movement. Because time and time again, you know, we are seeing, you know, polls, whether it's NBC News or other outlet, those polls come out that, you know, there is this support for access to abortion rights. And you know, we are just seeing, you know, a year after the R, we are just now seeing, you know, the impact of what it means without the dots decision or, you know, with the dos decision in place. And that means, you know, people are being turned around from being able to access this, you know, crucial care and they're having to travel hundreds of miles and it's often putting people in harm.
Chuck, are you running into any elected Republicans who Maybe don't want to say on camera. They're like, how do we get out of this? I think we got a. She is frozen in my screen.
We got a tech hit there. Well, as I promised, we are, we are, we are going to gamble with the tech gods again as we speak with our next guest. And joining me now on the road is one of the louder voices that was in favor of the failed Ohio issue. One Ohio Republican Secretary State Franklin Rose.
He's also a kid for the US Senate in 2024. Mr. Secretary of State, as I said, at least you're not, you're writing, not driving right now. Thanks for joining.
That's correct. Checking in with our hard working elections officials that delivered another smooth, free and fair election for Ohio yesterday. All right, let me start with. Look what your primary opponent Moreno wants to make, wants to blame you, says you messed up the messaging when you said absolutely this referendum is about the issue of abortion.
Do you regret how directly you said that? You know, I don't regret what I said because I was speaking the truth. And of course my political opponents are going to cherry pick things out of context just like that really dishonest commercial did. I gave a 15 minute speech where I talked about all of the concerns that we have with keeping Ohio's constitution so susceptible to outside special interest money.
One of them is this really radical abortion amendment that's set for the ballot this November. Another one is a massive increase in minimum wage, diminishing our second amendment right. I made that clear that it was never exclusively about one thing. This is just one of the many things it's about.
Look, I think one of the hardest things you had, you were trying to convince people to take power away from themselves, right? You were trying to tell people, hey, we want to make your vote count less instead of raising that threshold. It feels like a near impossible task when that's what you're asking voters to do. That was certainly the message of the no campaign.
But as I viewed it, it was about making sure that things were done the right way going forward. Listen, a 50% plus one simple majority is great for policy making. The day to day controversial issues about what people can smoke or not smoke or where they can gamble or not. Those are the kind of things that are great for a simple majority.
Issue one, pass Ohio. We've continued to have those through our legislature, of course, also to the citizen initiated law change process that we have in Ohio. But a constitutional amendment could have the moderating influence of bringing together a larger coalition. That's why the US Constitution requires it.
And I thought it would have been a really good thing for Ohio to have that as well. So if you're going to do something as permanent as changing our Constitution, you had to get that moderating influence of bringing a much larger coalition together. You think the problem was the idea of this referendum sort of percolated after it appeared that abortion was going to be on the ballot, right? It was.
I mean, voters are paying a lot of attention to the abortion issue. Sometimes voters don't pay attention to the details of all issues, but they are in this one. The timing of trying to put this referendum, I mean, it felt shoehorned in there always would have been the next thing next year. It's a minimum wage increase.
People would have said, oh, you're just trying to block that. To be clear, it takes a coalition to bring an issue to the ballot like this. It included people that are concerned, concerned about this abortion amendment. So the timing was, you know, a result of once we could get enough people together in our General assembly to put this on the ballot.
That's when it came to the voters. And you saw a large, large portion of Iowans voted upon this. Over 3,000 3 million people, rather, participating. But my saying was that there's never a bad time to do a good thing.
And doing this as an army special election makes sense to me. And by the way, I would prove that they are engaged in the process. As we had, as I predicted, a large turnout election. We did.
The folks over at Susan D. Anthony was. They're upset at the business community. They feel as if, while they were supportive of what you were trying to do, they.
It was only rhetorical support. You didn't get financial support from the business community. Do you concur with those remarks? Yeah, I think their concerns are not unfounded.
Listen, the coalition on the right that when it holds, we can get things done on the conservative side involves both social and cultural conservatives as well as business conservatives. I consider my one of both of those. But when the business community started to think, oh, this is about abortion, they walked off the battlefield, even though this was something that had been a priority for the business community Ohio for more than a decade. They've been saying for years, you should do something about how easy it is to amend the Constitution.
But as soon as the left started yelling, oh, it's just about abortion, then a lot of business leaders said, hey, I don't want to be involved in this. And that's unfortunate. Well, where are you on the issue? And does the Fact that you have 57% of Ohioans, all right, basically saying, hey, we want, we want to check.
They don't like what the legislature has done on abortion. That seems to be pretty clear. We'll find out for sure in November. Do you think the party needs to moderate its position a bit?
This to me is a question of where people are morally. This is one of those issues that for a lot of people there's not a lot of room for negotiation. I'm pro life, but I also want to make sure that we're compassionate about this because a person who's facing an unplanned pregnancy, a woman who's facing an unplanned pregnancy is having a crisis in her life. And so we need to not just be pro birth, but also be pro life.
And that means including support for women after they give birth to maybe cheaters, adoption, if that's the option they want, or contraceptive options that are non abortion related that give people other choices. So yeah, I think that there's a broader conversation to be had. And, and I think that, you know, when it comes to the state saying that they, they want to put a check on the legislature that's always existed, the right way to do that is through the citizen initiated law change process. But if people don't think our legislature is working properly, there's a simple solution to that.
Every two years we have an opportunity to replace the members of the legislature. People should get more involved in looking at how their state reps and state senators vote. If they don't agree with them, then maybe they should run for office and replace them. You're running for the usa.
You're gonna be asked this question about federal standards on the access to abortion. Do you think there should be a federal minimum put into place or not? You know, I think that the Supreme Court decision pushing this down to the states is, is a reasonable approach for now. But as I told you, I'm pro life and if a pro life major comes before the Senate, that I would vote as a pro life.
What does that mean? A lot of people have to say they're pro life, but they're for 15 weeks. Some people say pro life there for eight weeks. The heartbeat bill, things like that.
Can you give me some specifics? What's your definition of pro life? Yeah, as you know, any legislative body got to be a product of people working together to find where they can reach a majority on that. And Senate sometimes that's a 60% majority.
Back to super majorities by the way. But you know, I voted for the Harpy bill in Ohio, for example, which I think is a good standard. I personally believe that life begins at conservancy. But I understand that, you know, there's a pressure to negotiate on that.
Pain capable is one standard that some people look at. We have a bill like that in Ohio. And again, I think that this is a, it's an important conversation to have. But there's no black or whites on these for, you know, for most people.
One of the litmus tests that may come across in your Senate primary, it's the Mike Pence question. Did Mike Pence do the right thing when he certified the elections and did not? Listen to the former president? Listen, I'm a supporter of President Trump.
I've endorsed him. I was the only Secretary of state, the country to hear his endorsement last year. But I think that, you know, any leader needs to do what they think is the best thing under the circumstances that they're doing. And I believe the Vice President believes that he was following the Constitution.
I'm not in his shoes. I can tell you that Ohio ran honest elections, but there were things that happened in other states that shouldn't have happened. Do those rise to the level of action to negate those? I don't know.
I wasn't in the states and I don't have the facts in front of me that the Vice President have had. But I can tell you this, we learn from those things going forward, and it's important that we don't allow those kind of mistakes like other states made to happen in the future. Let me just try to get it clear. You respect what Vice President Pence did.
You're not. Do you think he did the right thing? I don't have all the information to make that decision. He was, he was dealing with information that I don't have.
I'm an expert on Ohio's elections. I can tell you again, Ohio, President Trump won the landslide. We had noticed not this, but there were things that happened in other states that shouldn't have happened. In some cases, they're activist lawsuits at the last minute or interference by tech billionaires that were allowed to pour money into elections administration a way that had an impact on the result.
And so, again, I think that he made the best decision he could with the information in front of him. But I don't have all that information to pass that judgment. All right, Secretary Frankel Rose, Republican from Ohio, appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective. Few elected officials do this, even after a tough day at the poll.
So thank you. Appreciate it and be safe. Thank you. So how we're going diver into what House vote means for the country as politics in 2024.
Panel weigh in the first of your times reporting the most in depth details yet about the Trump chains fake elector scheme. More details happen right Watch me press now we are back. We are following several developments of Donald Trump's several legal situations in the past few hours. NBC News has learned that the special counsel Jack Smith did obtain a search warrant for Trump's Twitter account.
We will try to get details on why they needed a search warrant for this. In an opinion release day, this particular court says had found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of crimes, perhaps tweets that weren't sent direct messages. That's the type of things that could get in there. NBC News has reached out to the company formerly known as Twitter called X but has not yet received a response.
This news broke less than 24 hours after the New York Times reported that they had obtained the entire memos Previously a secret memo that was included in the Jack Smith indictment which laid out Donald Trump's strategy over the 2020 election results using fake electors. According to the Times, the attorney and Trump ally, one of the unindictive co conspirators, Kenneth Cheeseborough, admitted that the plot involving fake electors in six states was a quote, bold, controversial strategy that would likely get rejected by the Supreme Court. MC News has not yet obtained the full memo. Meanwhile, the judge overseeing the election interference case of scheduled hearing for Friday to discuss the special counsel's request for a protective order limiting what Trump can say publicly about evidence disclosed during discovery.
Former president, Republican frontrunner was defiant when discussing whether that order would somehow keep inside Crooked Joe now wants the thug prosecutor, this deranged guy to file a court order taking away my first Amendment right so that I can't speak. I will talk about it. I will not take away my first Amendment. So let's get into both parts of this.
The details of the investigations, the politics around it, justice intelligence course by Kalania as well as NBC corresponding care. Hey, who is basically covering all things Trump force politically. So can we start with you? Donald Trump never did his own tweet.
Donald Trump dictated tweets at his Twitter camp. Dan Savino, we know, obviously did. Some others would do it for him. So explain the subpoena.
Right. Is it the specifics of anything typed on the platform of Twitter? It was a warrant actually. And so they had to show a judge there was probable cause to believe there was evidence of A crime there, which is fascinating because you're right, it's a limited amount of stuff that is publicly available.
Right. So as you said, drafts potential. That's intriguing. Draft tweets.
What could, you know, what could they want in terms of a draft tweet that would be consequential for the election suppression investigation and also direct messages, but it's not, I'm not aware of, you guys know that Trump is a big direct messenger on Twitter. So it does raise a lot of intriguing questions, and we may never know. The only thing we can think of is drafts that somehow may be of. That may have been.
May lead to more questions. Exactly. And it was also interesting that Twitter resisted to the extent that they were fined $350,000 for doing that. Ultimately, Jack Smith got material.
Let's go to this order that's coming on Friday. That's realistic. We know obviously he's got to follow these rules and he obviously won't. What are they planning on doing?
What is the penalty going to be? Well, now you're raising an issue that goes beyond just the protect order. It's really easy to imagine Judge Chuck imposing a protective order because these are standard for these kinds of cases. You know, you're not supposed to make public sensitive discovery material you get from the prosecution.
But this question of what are the penalties, it isn't just about this. It's about other things that he may say, what he crosses the line into threats the way Roger Stone did in his case. In 2019, a judge in D.C. imposed a gag order on Roger Stone.
I've been talking to illegal experts today who say that is really hard to imagine a gag order of a presidential candidate, even the most limited structured kind of order. And so. And if there is one, you know, the penalty for filing ethics normally is fines or jail. So what are they gonna do?
Send the federal marshals to arrest Donald Trump? You know, talk to the Secret Service? How does it work? We're in uncharted territory, which we always are with Donald Trump.
And so, Garrett, I mean, Trump would like nothing more than to make this debate about what he can say. I mean, and the more they can be debating that and not upending the Constitution, I think that better they are politically. I mean, I almost feel like he's almost baiting them into having this. That's exactly what I'm feeling about it.
And he is testing the fences here a little bit to see what he can get away with. I think also gag order would be almost an in kind contribution to his campaign. From his judge. I mean, Donald Trump would have nothing to fundraise his email like that.
Yeah, send him $7 now to help Donald Trump for speaking out against this case. I mean. Right. The emails write themselves.
And if they can fight this thing all the way to the Supreme Court, conservatively Supreme Court, that the Trump campaign or these allies of the Trump campaign thing is always kind of in their back pocket, which is not true on these regular rule of law. Probably not. But if you, you know, if you're sort of thinking, you know, unitary executive theory, if anything comes to save you in the end, they would love to have this fight. All right, right now, what are they pregame for?
Is it all things Georgia right now? Is that what they're preparing for? They're a little bit bogged down. Right.
I mean, it's all things Georgia. But also this is the problem that they have where if you try to actually run what looks like a normal campaign, you really can't do it under these circumstances. I mean, look at the events that they've been able to put together over the last couple weeks. They've had events on weekends or state party dinners that were pre scheduled.
They put this New Hampshire event together yesterday pretty quickly. They still made up this Des Moines event that they had to cancel because of storms. I mean, they're having a very hard time kind of operating within the scheduling confines of all these various recordings. They were funded by advertising in Atlanta.
Unable to. This seems that everything to do with the coming potential impact, we have to fundamentally rethink how this campaign is being fought. Right. This campaign is not going to be decided by policy speeches or at the Iowa State Fair.
Who does a better appearance on the soapbox? It's just we are in a totally different realm here where these court appearances in particular have so, so dominated television coverage and the political conversation. That kind of mastering that battlefield, if you will, is the whole ball game for the primary election. Let's talk about this Cheeseboro memo here a minute.
Look, the strongest part of this indictment, Ken has felt like the elector scheme. And I'm convinced maybe I'm being Pollyannish. I'm convinced that Jamie Raskin had this election truly new, the elector scheme, in time for the impeachment drop. Maybe that makes a difference.
Everybody can say, yeah, yeah, I'm just saying one would wonder. I'd like to warn it. Okay, run the fans, give the chat GPT. How, you know, how important is Cheesborough to tying all this together?
It's not clear. I mean, he's considered the architect of the scheme. And then John Eastman really ran with it. So this memo looks like it could be the blueprint.
And it has some extraordinary paragraphs in it, you know, where we have to convince Mike Pence that he has the ultimate arbiter of counting. They knew everything they were doing was perhaps to be generous to them, pushing the limits of that. He said right there, he said, this is likely. It's a bold.
That's likely to be overturned by the Supreme Court. But he also covered himself by saying we should only do this if there's a likelihood that we have lawsuits that will show fraud, which ultimately did not happen. Right. So that's his joke in his mind.
In terms of that, do you think he's cooperating? Well, he's an undycoman spirit. Unclear if he's cooperating. Right.
They're all liable for charter. Have you seen this guy in the orbit since? No, I haven't. I haven't.
I mean, this feels like kind of a freelance, you know, no theory was too crazy to be entertained, at least for a short period of time by a certain circle of people. I have you here. An alarming story out in Utah. FBI went to serve a search warrant to somebody.
A search warrant or subpoena. It was a rest warrant to somebody that had been making some threats and clearly shot and killed this man in Provo, Utah. And this was a guy that. I'm going to just pull up the note here that had posted on social media.
The time is right for presidential assassination or two. First Joe, then Kamala. So of course that's gonna merit a visit from the authorities. And we're not exactly sure what happened, but he was killed.
And this comes at a time when public threats against public officials have spiked, particularly in the last year and particularly federal cases involving those threats. This is the political beat. Yep. Sorry, guys.
Everybody else, this quickly now is the 2024 political beat. Thank you. Still had warn Republicans feeling the weight of Donald Trump and the Dobbs decision. Watch me press now.
Welcome back. Last night's rebuke of Republican efforts to restrict abortion in Ohio's latest loss of the GOP on a big issue for 2024. So far, Republicans have been unwilling to change their tune on multiple defining issues out of next year's election, including both abortion born president Donald Trump, Trump, even this evidence builds that both have been detrimental to the party's success among swing voters. Joining now is our pen senior advisor for Senator Bern, strategist Jim Jordan.
Betsy, it's a same. Same story, different State, I mean, it hasn't mattered whether it's Kansas, a double digit Trump state, Kentucky, a really double digit Trump state, a high single digit state in Ohio, a swing state of Michigan. I mean, I keep it. We're so desperate for consensus in this country.
I want to raise my. There is an issue. We have consensus. I think it's the same story every state.
Right. Every statewide election on this issue has gone on the side of Supreme Court and they haven't been nail buyers. This is something that is deeply concerning to Trump as he's gearing up and preparing to go into, you know, likely a head to head with Biden in 2024. Because if there's one person who's responsible for the overruling of Roe v.
Wade, it's Trump. And it's also an issue that very much not his first language, not something he's comfortable talking about. So as time moves forward and essentially the failures and defeats of abortion continue to pile up, it's only going to increase distress around this campaign. Jim, I keep hearing this is a messaging problem for folks on the right.
They're not yet ready to say it. They just had the wrong position. Well, there are two things that turn out Democrats more than anything, Trump and abortion. And I think it's been demonstrated there, the pro lifers now over seven I think is a number since Dobbs on these votes.
And until they understand Republican leaders understand that it's also an anti government issue. I think as well there's a libertarian strain, the Republican Party. Obviously this is more government. You know, I mean if you're like making the case you have government involved in your life, this is the end.
Exactly. And so it looks hypocritical political. So I, I think they ought to just drop out of the issue and just stay away from it. You know, polling a Schoenkeyser is one.
About one in eight Republicans are willing to cross party lines on this issue. Well, as Democrat, I'm happy to open the door to allow their extremism to come in and invade the American public and go ahead and let's vote on it. I mean, whether it's in a wage, whether it's medication, whether it's abortion rights, if you expose them more to do you really want this? Voters are not with them, then the question is for Democrats now you gotta move that around an individual.
Right. So partisan elections in which you put a D next to their name hopefully needs to carry the same number. But that's gonna be funny. If I were a Florida elected Republican, I'D welcome a referendum.
Take this. I don't want to be the referendum. And I'm wondering if Sherrod Brown. Actually, actually, oh man, I can't.
It's gonna be hard for me to convince Ohio voters that abortion doesn't matter. I think that Republicans were thinking that way to move it up and then move it into this year rather than next year. Of course. But I do think that, you know, if you're Cher Brown, you also need to think about the fact that most voters are gonna vote on abortion.
They're also gonna vote on I think a number of other issues. If you're gonna be a Democrat, you know, on abortion issues, that's nailed that people know that's a clear choice. And you know where I stand this which is continue to persuade people on issues beyond that as well. Well, and again you brought up the fact that both Trump and abortion really helped suburban women don't like Trump and suburban women.
So I mean this is. And you look Delaware County's been our little canary in the coal mine and Delaware County, 6% and this is the college educated Republicans that have been slipping away from God. So my daughter lives. I experience it every day.
I know what you're saying. I, I don't understand the unreasonable lack of attention they're paying to what seems to be very consultant think either stay away or move away from that position. And it's pretty self explanatory to me. It's amazing.
It really does feel like the Republican party is so tied to whatever the base wants that they do. They don't really pay attention to anybody. They swing voters anymore. It's hard when there's such a difference between where your base is at and where swing voters are at on this issue.
And just to amplify what you're talking about, the big question for Democrats here is do we have a situation where pro choice Republican voters, of which there are many, feel that they can have their cake and eat it too by voting in favor of constitutional amendments referenda that ensconce abortion rights while also voting for politicians. Now, black salt tried this. It didn't work. Right.
He said hey, it's in shrine to Nevada abortions off the table here. Now maybe he didn't run a good campaign or you got to wrong. Yeah, sure. No question.
And going into these primaries in the 2024, I think it's gonna be one of those interesting political questions that we'll get answered. I keep coming back to this though Jim, is that nobody in the party seems to want to Say maybe our position's wrong. Well, they also don't want to say Trump's not gonna win either. So I mean I don't, I mean I wish our leadership had a little bit more sense of that's what's the debate the Republican Party was trying to address upon the things exist.
That's where they're trapped now they caught a car. Yeah. Okay. Now what are you gonna do?
What are we trying to fix? What solution were you offering? What did you want to address this? I don't know.
Okay. We're stuck. All right. And yet Joe Biden has a higher unfavorable rating the Donald Trump than the gal polls.
Betsy, there's a consistency here that Trump is no worse than Biden, which I think is a problem for Biden. It's a huge problem. The specialty given about 100% of the news about Donald Trump over the last year has been dominated by the fact that he's facing multiple criminal indictments. It's hard to imagine a more punitive series of news cycles than what Trump has been facing.
And the fact that his public opinion numbers are as resilient as they are is something that without a doubt what we're saying. His numbers are resilient. They're the exact same as Biden. Some are saying Biden's numbers are bad.
Biden's president, he has the biggest bully pulpit in the world. Trump is a guy who currently is facing a lot of conversation related classified documents, sex with toilet and their numbers are the same. My professional analysis of this is that's bad. This is something I've been noticing.
Biden's numbers are only a little bit worse than they weren't. But the problem is he looks more like Hillary Clinton 16 than he does to Biden 20. And we know that's the difference between winning and losing. Yes.
And he's an incumbent which makes it harder because people are anti institutional. They're worried about the guy theory, hopefully. However I do think you think one of these two candidates doesn't have a cap on them. And I think Donald Trump does have a cap on them.
And when you look at that 43 check I say okay, that ain't I really strongly believe they ain't go much higher so that Biden's worry about other factors. Are there other parties that are there other ways in which book is diluted depressed but otherwise in a normal election I think his number is obviously going up now as you know I think he tends undercount progressive do support when we don't get one express favorability. Oh, it's when you look at our numbers, the biggest negative Democratic. The Democrats that are disapprove of Biden Shop are all progressive because they're pushing him.
You want to yield the white flags. I want to keep pushing up. Jim, do you believe if Trump were losing consistently by 5 to 10 points in general election polls, Republican primary voters would be acting differently? Yeah, I do, actually.
I think the fact that he's been so close motivates them and it makes, it makes the hardcore saying, well, this is all we got. You know, if the conservatives like my type of conservative saying, okay, Tina, Biden and Trump, I mean, Republicans are gonna go out there and gonna vote for Trump. You know, Betsy, I had Republicans a year ago now say, I have an easier time when we realize what Trump's about. Yeah, I'll be with Trump.
Even though I know that's not good for everybody. The fact that there hasn't been this domino effect away from Trump and that hasn't happened yet, I think speaks to the sense with which congressional Republicans and other Republican leaders see Trump as increasingly. Oh, wait, that's coming. I don't think we've seen anywhere near here.
Yep, I do. I understand what happens, what has to happen. So this memo on Twitter today about his Twitter account, I think speak volumes. We are only seeing the base level every time we get new information.
It doesn't. I know, I know. I have faith in our judicial system. Anyway.
All right, Betsy Fast and Jim, thank you very much. That's stuff that I have a feeling. Play the state back at 80:12. But people say I appreciate the optimism.
Come up. New York. New York City's growing humanitarian crisis. The shelter system slammed by an influx of migrants.
New calls for federal help. Yes, Greg Abbott was right. He said once he got blue cities to deal with this that they would be very upset that federal government. Welcome back.
Pressure is manning the Biden administration for multiple Democratic mayors and governors now as they seek additional assistance from the federal government in response to the influx of migrants coming to their communities. Massachusetts Governor More. He became a la Democratic governor to declare a state of urgency due to the surge of migrants state. According to the governor, nearly 5, 600 families or more than 20,000 individuals are currently in safe shelters, including children and pregnant women.
In a letter, Tomlin Spear Secretary Alejandro he slammed the administration for, quote, a federal crisis of an action. Meanwhile, last week in New York City, scores of migrants are seen sleeping on the street outside the Roosevelt Hotel, which has been serving as a migrant revival center. As they wait to get processed through the intake center. They were the main ASY officials in both New Yorker, Massachusetts is for the administration of fast track work permits for asylum seekers now from New York and run.
You know, look, there's a lot of background to this story and you know, the governor of Texas had been complaining about the administration not helping for months and he said, well I'm start sending these migrants to blue states, maybe they'll get some action. He's turned out to be right about this, that he knew that other governors didn't matter, Democrat or Republican would also feel burdened by this. And sure enough, here we are. Yeah, the mayor here in New York City says that they have passed the brink, that they are out of room, that they are, that is a huge crisis and there seems to be no end in sight because hundreds if not thousands of migrants still arriving here and many of them are being bused or sent here from Texas and other border states.
And when you ask the administration about that, they say that there's no sign that's going to ease up. There's no communication going on. It's not like they're going to stop that. So there's a never ending search for more places to put migrants.
Like this place behind me, which is a parking lot of a state psychiatric hospital. That's state owned land and an example of how the state of New York is stepping up. They're going for the construction of this and the operation of this place which holds about a thousand migrants, single men. So yes, there's a scramble on by the city, the state of New York, to try and find places for people because there's no end in sight to the, to the arrivals.
And you point out, yes, the thing that everybody really talks about, that they really want to see is this expedited process to get these people to work so they can get jobs, so they can earn money and start contributing. And they say there's a lot of work to do in a lot of different industries and that might be one way to help ease the burden on cities and states here. Well, I saw that the governor of Massachusetts sent a letter to dhs, but in the, in the sort of confusion sometimes of who's in charge of what, isn't it HHS that's supposed to handle the where to house migrants? Right.
DHS deals with the processing of them coming into the country and it's HHS that's supposed to be handling, you know, the humanitarian part of this. Yeah, I think there's some, believe me, there seems to be a lot enough to go around a lot of places in the federal government. Here in New York City, it is dhs, as I understand it, Homeland Security that is sending a team of experts in response to the mayor's criticisms, the mayor's pleas for more help to come and assess how the resources that the federal government is being used are being used here in New York City in that regard. Yes, there are obviously some health concerns and that's that will get the health department and Human services will probably be better suited to deal with.
Bottom line, Chuck, as you know, this is a hugely complex and complicated situation that starts with the border now popping up in these cities here and that the root of it of course is the human tragedy that each so many of these people arriving, it represents a story that they bring with them. They're only here because there's failed governance all up and down Central America in particular, that's for sure. Anyway, Ron island on this tough before swan. Thank you.
Meanwhile, massive wildfires are prompting evacuations across Hawaii's Big island as well as the island of Maui. And we just learned within the hour these fires have become deadly safe for safely. Six people have died. Several are remaining uncomfortable.
In fact, the flames and smoke are so intense that some people have been jumping into the ocean to escape. Hospitals are being inundated with burn patients, with others suffering from smoke inhalation. 911 services have now been down since early this morning and nearly 13,000 people remain without power. The fires are being fueled in part by wind gusts from Hurricane Dora, which is passing a few hundred miles south of the islands.
Course, National Weather Service says that high winds aren't expected to die down today, but should slowly subside by Thursday. But if you just need another reminder that you're not going to escape climate change, whether you go to Hawaii, whether you go to the middle of this country, whether you move to Vermont, wherever you go, the effects of climate change are here. Silicon Democrats in their hopes of turning a governor seat loot in 2023 on Mississippi. Good money.
Brandon Presley. Yes, he's a Presley, that Presley. You're watching me press now, but we'll see. And, and that scenario has played out before, I think in 2019.
Jim Hood ended up getting, getting a pretty good chunk of change. But it came really late and it never was what he really needed. The Brett Farr, Phil Bryant stuff doesn't seem to stick to Reeves. It's simply because he went there when happen.
I guess so far that appears to be the case now. Now Wes is hard. Brandon Presley's doing his best to try and make it sick to him, Right. Including with a new ad, Jeff Pender at Mississippi Today, which is the the sort of paper of record these days, the news organization record for all things Mississippi politics.
Mr. Pender, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you all for being with us this hour.
I'll be back. More news press now. DC News coverage continues with Aaron Gilchrist, who is sitting in for Hallie Jackson. He was a young Marine.
She didn't care about convention. They made a life together. Then one night, the Marine died. And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected and utterly bizarre turn.
I'm Josh Makowitz, and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all new podcast from Daylight. Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicion. Now, wherever you get your PODC guests.