Meet the Press NOW — December 20

Drive off in a new Hyundai Launcher today with $0 down during the Hyundai Advantage sales event. Take advantage of the $1,000 spring drive bonus and lease the 2026 luxury essential for just $73 a weekly at 4.99% for 60 months. And you're covered by Elantra's best in class five year new car warranty. Now that's the Hyundai Advantage.

Conditions apply. Offer includes 1% loyalty rate reduction for qualifying customers. Visit hyundaicanda.com or your local deal for details. If it's Wednesday, Colorado's highest court disqualifies former President Trump from appearing on the state's presidential primary ballot for engaging the January 6th insurrection.

Plus, NBC News exclusive reporting on Chinese President Xi Jinping's blunt and private warning of President Biden last month that he's planning to retake Taiwan without a military confrontation. And a record surge of migrant crossings at the southern border shows no signs of slowing down. I'll speak with the leader of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. With lawmakers now aiming to an immigration deal in the new year, Welcome to be the press now.

I'm Derek Hake in Washington, where the Supreme Court is now poised to play an even greater role in the 2024 election after Colorado's highest court barred Donald Trump from appearing on that state's presidential primary ballot. In an explosive 4 to 3 decision late yesterday, the state Supreme Court ruled that the former president and current Republican frontrunner violated the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause and was therefore disqualified from holding the office of president. The court's Democratic majority found that, quote, President Trump did not merely incite the January 6th insurrection. Even when the siege on the Capitol was fully underway, he continued to support it.

These actions constituted overt, voluntary and direct participation in the insurrection. The court put its own ruling on pause to allow for an appeal to the Supreme Court, which the Trump team says it plans to do. President Biden addressed the court's decision today on his way to an event in Wisconsin. Applies about to coordinate that decision.

But he's certainly supporting the insurrection. No question about it. None. Zero.

And he seems to be doubling down on former President Trump. Didn't mention the ruling during our rally last night in Iowa, although his campaign is already fundraising off the news, Republicans are rallying behind their primary front runner, including the ones running against him. I expect that to be reversed by the US Supreme Court. I think the precedent that a court could just take somebody off the ballot without even any type of criminal conviction or anything like that, I think that is not the way that the law is intended to be enforced.

We don't need to have judges making these decisions. We need voters to have to make these decisions. So I want to say this in the hands of the voters. And so actually on the way out of the bus right over here, I said that I would, from Colorado's GOP primary, withdraw from that name and require every other Republican in this race to do the same thing, at least until every candidate actually gets to run.

I do not believe Donald Trump should be prevented from being pressed United States by any court. I think he should be prevented from being pressed United States by the voters of this country. So brace yourself, folks, because an unprecedented web of legal and constitutional questions facing a criminally indicted presidential frontrunner who's accused of engaging in an insurrection has now gotten somehow even more unprecedented as we headed to an election year in which the courtroom may matter just as much, if not more, than what happens on the campaign trail. Joining me as McSwan Hillary, covering the Trump campaign.

And he's senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett and Nate Persley, professor at Stanford Law School, focusing on election law, and a former senior research director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. So, Laura, for those of us who started with the high school history part of this, walk us through exactly what the 14th amendment says and why it may apply in this case. Okay, I feel like I'm being put on the spot here with a Stanford law professor, but let me do my. Let me do my best.

Basic principle here is that The Constitution, Section 3, 14th Amendment, says, if you are an officer of the United States, Gary, you take an oath to protect that Constitution. You cannot then engage in an insurrection or give comfort to our enemies and then actually be able to hold public office. Again. The basic idea was you don't get the privilege of holding office if you have engaged in an insurrection.

And in this case, the court in Colorado, as you said by, voted for the three, decided, yes, he engaged in an insurrection on January 6th, and yes, he actually counts as an officer of the United States, even though the text of that clause that you just put up doesn't actually say in spell out in plain English, it applies to the president. They're reading that into it. They're deciding that it should fill the gaps there. But that's the debate that's been raging.

Is he an officer of the United States? It's a very technical legal debate. That is the kind of debate you have in law school. But now the courts are going to be the ones that have to weigh in on this.

All right, let's turn to our law professor then. Professor, do you believe that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does apply to the office of the presidency? And what about the idea of enforcement authority? No court has found Trump guilty of this.

Can the Supreme Court of Colorado on their own say yes, in fact, you know, we think he's guilty of this and we're going to enforce that clause. Well, interesting. That lawyer gets an A. That I think is a very good assessment of the constitutional issues in this case.

Let's be clear. We're kind of walking in new snow here. This is not something that the Supreme Court has had to deal with before. But the contrary argument is that a president could, you know, basically support revolution and then appear on the ballot in the next election.

And so you're right that there is a fundamental question here as to whether he needs to be convicted by court of, you know, of insurrection before he could be removed from the ballot. But what this court says that, look, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is executing that. We are going to determine whether he participated in the insurrection. Here are the facts of January 6th.

He engaged in it, and so therefore he should be taken off the ballot. All right. So, Vaughn, we saw a very coordinated response from Trump World in the aftermath of this. They sure sound mad.

Are they? Well, they'll be mad at the Supreme Court ultimately kicks him off the ballot here. But Garrett, you well know that they make a legal battle a political battle. And the pressure, this is what we saw after the search warrant execution by the FBI of Mar A Lago in August of last year, and we saw this after each of the four criminal indictments this year, was that the pressure was on the likes of his Republican political rivals, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis or Vikramaswamy to coalesce and come to his defense.

And that is what you have seen, each of them, even including Chris Christie, Duke, suggesting it should be the voters who choose whether Donald Trump is back in the White House or not, not the court system. We should note there is one presidential candidate, Ace Hutchinson, who is down the front lines, including at that first debate, suggesting that, in fact that Donald Trump was part of an insurrection and should be removed from the ballot. But Ace Hutchinson is not the most popular party for that stance, sitting about 1%. The Trump campaign.

Garrett just sent out fundraising email earlier this afternoon which made it clear saying, quote, crooked Joe, the Democrats know they can't be. That's the ballot box. The real plan is to nullify every single Trump ballot in the nation to keep Biden in the White House. The great irony of the voters choose defense is exactly what Donald Trump is accused of not doing here by trying to overturn election results in 2020.

But that seems lost on some of this debate. So, Laura, the grinding sound we could hear just down the street from the Supreme Court was probably John Roberts gnashing his teeth over this. Right. I mean, how do you expect the Supreme Court's going to view taking this up by January 4th, which is the point to which this ruling is stayed.

They don't want to have to wait into this, but how can they not know? So part of the problem here is the context of sort of, I think of shrapnel, if you will, of Bush v. Gore. Right.

Sort of the lessons of that and how the court's integrity was tested like never before. And now, once again, they're going to be forced in one way or another. It's not this Colorado case. It's another case that we saw before, President weighing in about whether or not he should be able to be protected by some sort of presidential immunity from any prosecution.

That's another one that's being teed up for the Supreme Court's review any time really, now that all the briefs are in. And so one way or another, Chief Justice John Roberts is going to have to make a call on one of these Trump related cases. And it's going to be anybody's guess about which one goes first. The one as it relates to Colorado.

If they want to, they could really sit on it in a way because that one, at least right now, has a pause. It has a stay because the court recognized it was doing something bold. So it put its own ruling on hold to give him the opportunity to appeal the presidential immunity 1. Jack Smith, the special counsel, has teed that up for their review.

Right now he's saying, we are so interested in getting a resolution, a firm answer to the question about whether he should be protected from prosecution. We want the Supreme Court to rule on that one right away. But guys, if it's not any one of those two, it's gonna be something else. Something is going to be on their doorstep whether they like it or not, for the Republican frontrunner of this election.

And they're gonna be in the driver's seat here in a way that they may be uncomfortable with, but not able to avoid. Map back up on screen. Because this is not the last of one of these challenges that we might see at a state level to Donald Trump's ballot access. So, professor, if a court decides to sit on this as or suggest they could in Colorado.

What happens when it comes up in Nevada or in Texas or some other state whose electoral votes might matter a great deal to this contest? Well, I think the Supreme Court really does need to take this case and it really should answer this question before January 4th. We need to know what the rules are of this election. This applies beyond this particular case, but any of these election controversies.

We're not in a political system right now that can take all that much ambiguity. And so I think with respect to your specific question, at least all our Republican Party has now said that if this, if this decision holds that they will go and have a caucus to take it out of the state approved mechanisms of the primary election. And so I think that ultimately the court is going to have to answer one of these cases, but it's better to do it sooner because you don't want the ballots to be cast in the primary and then to have the answer to the question after the fact to remove someone who's been duly nominated by the party. My understanding is that caucus question Colorado is still a little bit of a live ball.

But Vaughn, I want to turn to you and ask you about one of the other cases here that Laura Lou, to his idea that Trump has until today, as I understand it, to respond to the special counsel's request, the Supreme Court rule whether he has immunity in the D.C. election interference case, the big Jack Smith January 6th case. Has the former president responded there yet? What do we expect to see from him there?

Actually, just this afternoon, Gary, we now have that filing. It's a 34 page filing from Trump's legal team to the US Supreme Court laying out why they believe the appeal, that the decision made by Judge Chutkan, who is overseeing his federal election interference case, should, in terms of the grounds which he's protected by executive privilege, whether the Trump campaign's appeal should go directly to the U.S. circuit Court of Appeals, or should it bypass them and go to the Supreme Court, which is what Jack Smith's team wants to do. They fear having this trouble beyond March 4th.

And what in this filing the Trump lawyers lay out is the argument that it is not in the public interest, as Jack Smith team lays out, to have this expedited directly to the Supreme Court to be heard. And that instead, if in fact the public interest is in mind, then the justice system and legal system should be able to play out through each of its normal steps. And we now should be able to hear from the US Supreme Court in the coming days whether they will accept this and bypass the U.S. report of appeals or whether January 9th is the first day of oral arguments that the court of Appeals would hear it.

And again, March 4th is the first day of that election. Interference trial in the question mark will begin March 4th. Because of the last three months, that trial, it hurts the heart of the summer. Looking at July Republican National Convention right around the bed.

Nate, on the insurrection question, I was there on January 6th. I written I don't even know how many scripts about what happened that day. Every time there's sort of debate about the question of insurrection, if it's a politically loaded term, who decides what's an insurrection or who's not? I mean, it sounds like semantics, but how much of that case comes down to that question?

Insurrection? Is it. Is that what happened to January 6th and did Trump do it right? Like, have we ever sort of definitively answered that question?

And who gets to, from a legal standpoint? Well, that's what the Supreme Court is going to answer. Not only what is an insurrection, but who gets to decide. Because it's quite possible that the Supreme Court's gonna say that Congress needs to define what an insurrection is.

And then there has to be a prosecution of a potential candidate under that statute and a conviction before that person can be disqualified by office. And so, you know, what the Colorado was saying, which, by the way, you know, is consistent with what the district court that tried the case said, is that, yes, he participated in action, he tried to disrupt official proceeding, would have led the peaceful transfer of power. And that is enough. Under Section 3, the 14th Amendment, we don't need to have a criminal convention in order to prevent him from running for office.

So, Laura, as I'm trying to get my head around this, if you can't convict a former president for something that he did because he was immune or. But you can't kick him off a ballot because he hasn't been convicted, and if he can't be impeached because he's not the president anymore, is there any mechanism left to hold a exiting or former president responsible for something like this? Or did Donald Trump find a loophole here to make himself basically like a politically bulletproof figure? I think it's a great sort of encapsulation of the trick box that we find ourselves in.

But I think it is important to sort of tease out the issues right there, because Jack Smith, the special counsel in D.C. hasn't charged the former president with inciting an insurrection. He's charging the president something very distinct about trying to obstruct the vote count by putting forth a false slave electors. So the whole question about whether or not or he's immune or anything like that doesn't actually hinge.

And he's in that case on whether or not he incited an insurrection. It's helpful color in telling that story to the jury, but it's actually very different than what the Colorado case is looking at. And so I think obviously there's a lot of overlap and a lot of confusion here, but the court, I think, does have the opportunities, if we're thinking about accountability and who should decide to sort of take these in slow, meaningful pieces to sort of give people a little bit of guidance about what the rules of the road should be going for. All right, we gotta leave it there.

We'll end our legal seminar. VON and I'm good. Copy Laura's notes. Professor, thank you also for your time and expertise on this.

I wanna turn on some other breaking news on another topic where the White House announced late today they did reach a deal with the Venezuelan government to free 10Americans jailed in Venezuela, some designated as wrongfully detained. Those Americans are now on their way home. The Biden administration says Venezuela also extradited Leonard Francis, also known as Fat Leonard, the fugitive defense contractor who's at the center of one of the worst bribery scandals in U.S. navy history.

The White House says that Venezuela has also agreed to release 20 Venezuelan political prisoners. Now, in return, the US has released Alex Saab. He's a Colombian businessman and close Maduro ally who's been in US custody since 2020 facing money laundering charges. A senior administration official says Biden had to make an extremely difficult decision here, but decided to grant clemency to Saab, who was still awaiting trial.

Now already this prisoner swap is drawing some criticism from both Democrats and from Republicans, including Senator Marco Rubio, the ranking member of the Senate Intel Committee and a staunch critic of the Maduro regime, who called the move shameless. Coming up, how the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling is played on the campaign trail and what it means for the former president's political future. But first, how House Republicans are grappling with the politics of a presidential as their own presidential frontrunner faces unprecedented legal liabilities of his own. My one on one interview with Republican Congressman Don Bacon is next.

You're watching me hit the press now. Drive off in a new Hyundai Launcher today with $0 down during the Hyundai Advantage sales event, take advantage of the $1,000 spring drive bonus and lease the 2026 luxury extension for just $73. A weekly at 4.99% for 60 months. And you're covered by Elantra's best in class five year new car warranty.

Now that's the Hyundai Advantage. Conditions apply offer includes 1% loyalty rate reduction for qualifying customers. Visit hyundaicand.com or your local deal for details. Welcome back.

Republicans are once again rallying around Donald Trump in the face of legal trouble. But with 2024 just around the corner now, that support could have political consequences. Both on the campaign trail and on Capitol faces a jam packed January of its own. Journey now is Nebraska Republican Congressman Don Bacon.

Congressman, thank you for being here. I want to start with reaction to yesterday's Colorado Supreme Court ruling last year. I mean, the press, you criticized the president for his actions on January 6th. What do you make of this ruling in the fact that it concludes that Trump engaged in insurrection on the 6th?

You know, I'm not a lawyer. First of all, thanks for having me on. I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect the Supreme Court will likely overturn this. I think the number one concern I hear, and I would agree, the president has not been found guilty yet.

What, through the impeachment process or through the special prosecutor. And so you would think you'd have to at least be found guilty in court or previously impeachment before Colorado could rule this way. So I suspect the Supreme Court will take this on and likely will be overturned. Are you confident that there is a mechanism to find him guilty, though?

I mean, the House wouldn't, the Republican wouldn't vote for his conviction on impeachment or on impeaching him because he was out office. Now he's arguing he's immune because these are actions that he took while he was president. If none of that works and he can't be kicked off a ballot here by judges, how do you hold something like him accountable? There's four different sets of indictments that are going on right now.

One of them is over January 6th and the events leading up to it. And I really think that is a legitimate area where the president could be scrutinized. You know, for us, the impeachment occurred after he left. We weren't even sure at the time if that was the right way to go.

So I do think it's through, you know, the courts right now that if a prosecutor wants to come forward that this is the proper form to have that happen. So it's a possibility could be found guilty. And in that case, there could be no grounds for Colorado or other states that do this. The Tellers are guilty finding by a jury or judge.

I don't see how states can do this. What do you make of the way, the manner in which so much of the party has rallied around Donald Trump? Every time we've seen some of these new legal challenges, does that tell us more about the challenges themselves? Does it tell us more about the party?

And what does that tell you about, you know, his chances going forward, both in the primary end of November? Well, there's two probably different perspectives. There is roughly half or 50% of the poll, you would say that they think a lot of these charges are political. And like here with Kyle Rally, he's saying he found guilty yet, and yet he's being taken off the ballot.

I think others are concerned. We're looking at 90 different indictments as well. And I want to get a Republican in the White House and I want someone that can carry our message strongly, whether it's the border, strengthening our alliances, getting our spending under control. And I think I it's more important for we make sure we have someone, the most competitive person we can get in there to actually take the White House back because it's hard to overcome a president that's liberal, love to Senate.

We see it with Joe Biden as executive orders are hurting us at the border, they're hurting at the military. And so I'm sure we're trying to get the best candidate we can take it back in. And so I think the indictments hurt him in winning a year from now or next November, when you guys come back to Washington next year, the impeachment inquiry is going to be one of the issues on the front burner ahead of last week's vote. You said that the inquiry doesn't necessarily mean you have high crimes or misdemeanors.

You said at the time that you might not ever know that. I wonder what you make of the possibility that this inquiry is something that just stays open through the election? Or would you be prepared to acquit President Biden if you never see evidence that meets your standards here? But we should go where the evidence lies?

Frankly, I was supposed to inquiry three or four months ago because the president was providing all the information that's being subpoenaed. But three weeks ago, we put a letter that since we didn't have a formal inquiry vote, they didn't have to provide the information that's being requested. So I felt like he forced her hand in doing the inquiring. I suspect, or I think most Americans look at what's going on here $24 million in foreign money.

20 LLCs to move the money around. We like to stick to the truth of that. And my view of it is there may not be a high primer misdemeanor. But sure, it looks bad.

And I think it's corruption using the family name. And I think the voters just know the truth. And if they. If it bothers them, okay, they're going to vote.

If it does, they'll vote other way. But I think our job is to find the truth. They'll let the voters decide. Do you have any sense of how long this inquiry is expected to last?

Is that something y' all talked about behind closed doors here? Not a lot of pressure on your congressman. You get a lot of real work to get done in January when you get back. But we do have 20 committees.

And you're right, there's two committees that are focused on us. I'm on the Armed Socialist Committee, the Ag Committee. We put no focus on the impeachments. We're getting a lot of other things done.

But I don't want to make this political. And obviously Peachtime is going to have some political aspects to it. I don't think Peaches are good for our country. And it should be a very clear, high, primal misdemeanor.

And we should do this by the book, methodical. I think we should do this more Watergate style. I think the Democrats in the last Congress or Speaker Pelosi anyway cut corners on both impeachments. And we should do this by the book, methodical.

But once we realize there's not a high prior misdemeanor, we should move on. We should treat the American people right on us and play by the book. I mean, I would argue that impeachment is almost entirely a political exercise, but I take your point. Do you worry at all that the voters, the American public broadly, just kind of isn't where Washington is anymore on impeachment?

The last two impeachments did not appear to have much of an impact on Donald Trump. The second one, but certainly not the first one. Do you think the Republic cares about this issue in any substantive way more? I think they do, but I prefer voters both ways on this.

I prefer some. They don't like the inquiry. I prefer from others. Thank me for voting that way.

Let's be honest, though. If this is perceived as being a revenge impeachment or a politicized impeachment, and you say all impeachments have political classifieds, but it's seen as being as a political weapon it will hurt the Republicans. So we should be very careful to do this right now. I think the impeachments hurt the Democrats.

They went backwards and you know the, in both elections, I think the impeachment under Brooklyn hurt the Republicans. If you know, if history is right on that difficult handle this right and if it looks like we're using it as a political weapon, I will come back to bite us all. I encourage our team to be very, very cautious and prudent and I'll go forward. Congressman, last question.

This Congress that just concluded this year, Congress concluded in history is one of the least productive Congresses in modern history. Can you tell the American people that Republican controlled House is going to get more done next year than you were able to in your first year in the majority? I would say yes. But what we've seen this past year's divided government and here we will.

We have a two seat majority in the House of 4, 3, 5 members, a 2C majority in the Senate, different parties. I think the biggest thing we have to get done is solving the border crisis. It's the worst it's ever been. We have 14,000 people coming one day this week.

You notice President Obama, the metric was 1,000. It was over a thousand as soon as an emergency. So I think we're close to getting agreement with the Senate with Republicans and Democrats. That's been the challenge.

We could pass things out of the House but this will take that same legislation to the Senate. We gotta work together and find areas of consensus. And I appreciate Senator Sinema, Senator Langford, Senator Murphy. By the way, I'm out with them in the Senate.

I think they're about 90, 95% and that could be a great one for America. But we also need to get a budget line number early so that we can do appropriations in a much more decent way. It's not right to our military, all the other parts of our government, they have four or five months of CRSolutions like we're doing now. Can we get a tough flag early?

Go ahead. Well, I was gonna say we gotta leave it there. That's a Christmas wish list for this next Congress that even Santa would blush at. But we gotta sat there.

I appreciate that Don. Megan, thank you for being with us. You have teased our next segment quite well because up next we've got rising concerns among some of the President's closest allies after he offers significant compromises to Republicans on the issue of border security. Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair and Democratic congressman joins me next.

You're watching me. The press now welcome back. It's official there will be no deal made on border policies in 2023 as the Senate headed home for the holidays today. This morning, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he remains committed to passing a national security supplemental which includes border policies, as well as aids, Ukraine, and Israel in the new year.

I'm joined now by the chair of the Congressionally Spanish Caucus, Democratic Congressman from California. So, Congressman, I don't know if you've heard that from Don Bacon. He seems to think these negotiations are quite close to concluding that. We know the Senate has punted at least any vote till 2024.

What do you know about the current state of these negotiations? Well, thanks for having me, Garrett. The state of the negotiations is that they're continuing to do everything they can to get a deal done, but that continues to be a concern for me and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. You're talking about significant changes to immigration policy.

Not with. Without a single CHC member at the table, whether it's a senator or a House member. That's just acceptable. That would be like a deal on civil rights and voting rights.

Without a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, it would just be unheard of. So what are you asking for here? I mean, are you trying to get CHC members in the room? Do you want to be more involved through the White House?

What's the solution to the process problem here, for your perspective? Well, first of all, we need to be in the room. Somebody needs to be in the room to represent our communities and our voice. That's the first thing.

But the other thing, Garrett, is that I don't think you should be talking about aboriginal immigration policy changes in the same foreign aid package. And I think that's a mistake because it's not a negotiation. It really is a hostage taking. Republicans have taken critical foreign aid, paid dollars that are needed, and saying, we're not gonna give it unless you give us all these things.

And some of these things, we know there's no way they can pass the regular order, and we're not getting anything in exchange. You know, Americans want border security. They want pathways to citizenship. Things are going to uplift immigrants.

And this is not that. This is more deportations. This is more going into different parts of the country and having folks deported. This is calling for mass incarceration, which is going to mean we have to build massive private prisons along the southern border.

This is trying to put an end to things like parole, which is a tool to actually have orderly, humane migration. So what Republicans are talking about here are not gonna fix the problem set of border and I would argue it's things worse. So a couple things. It was the White House that linked border policies or at least the border issue with, you know, the 48 when they said this settlement mail down.

That wasn't just Republicans, although I take your point. That has become the overwhelming force of discussion here. You've outlined some of the things you don't like. At least what we know is being discussed in these immigration negotiations.

But did you set the premise and just start making that if a thousand people a day was a crisis under Obama, the 12,000 people a day is a major crisis now that something has to be done quite quickly on the southern border, there is no disagreement that something has to be done. And this is where we are on agreement. By the way, Republicans are the ones that are saying no to millions of dollars in more border patrol agents. They're saying no to millions of dollars dollars and more CDP officers.

They're saying no to $1 billion in ICE detention beds. They of dollars to fight fennel crossing the border. So we need to put money into things like more capacity, more infrastructure to process people, more legal pathways. These are things that we know work.

If you take a look at what happened in October of last year when you saw title 42 in place, Border crossings were higher. Well, there was more apprehensions in October of last year than there was October of this year when you had no title 42. And that's one of the things on the table. Sometime a trigger like a title 42 that basically is going to allow no due processes to send people back.

Those people continue to come across and make efforts to come through the within the courts of entry. And so that's why I don't think this is going to solve the problem. And you're talking about massive changes to immigration for one time aid, a foreign aid that's critically needed, but this is not the way to do it. So we do agree something needs to be done, but this needs to be a different conversation with a real negotiation.

We talked about the idea that safety members are near the table. I've kind of brought that question out a little. Do you think President Biden is doing enough to reach out to Hispanic Democrats more broadly right now? Well, you know, the caucus has had an initiative called CT on the road this year and we partnered with the Biden administration to go across the country to talk about a lot of the things that we have been able to do in the last Congress, whether it's lowering prescription drug prices, whether it's making sure we're investing in jobs for things like construction jobs through the infrastructure bill, which we did when we went to New Mexico with Secretary we were just in Houston, Texas with Vice President Harris talking about a lot of different things, whether it was mental health investments, women's reproductive rights.

So we are doing outreach mornings to be dying. You're talking about your outreach. I'm asking about the president's outreach. Well, this has been in combination with the White House.

So the CNC partnered with the Biden Harris administration to do this. But there's no doubt that the president and all of us need to do a better job to reach out to Latino communities early and often all the time, not just in the campaign year, but in an off year to make sure that people know their voices are heard, that they know what we're doing and what we're fighting for, but also to have the ability to be, to be heard. And so I think this is an ongoing effort and we know that the largest growing population are Latinos across the country. Congressman, that's all time I have for today, but something tells me we'll be talking about this well in the new year.

Thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. And after the break, inside China's blunt warning for the White House that it plans to retake Taiwan, our own Kristen Welker joins me next with her exclusive reporting. You're WATCHING ME THE PRESS now.

Welcome back. We've got some NBC exclusive new reporting today from on what happened inside a recent high stakes meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. According to three current and former US Officials, she delivered a blunt and candid message that he will reunify Taiwan with mainland China. But the timing of such an action had happened to sign.

Xi noted it was his preference to take Taiwan peacefully and not by force. Following that four hour marathon meeting last month, President Biden was asked by reporters specifically about a potential invasion of Taiwan by China. Here's what he said. The cheating thing outlined conditions under which China would attack Taiwan.

Look, I reiterate what I've said since I become president, what every previous president late has said, that we, we maintain the agreement that there is a one China policy and that I'm not going to change that. That's not going to change. And so that's about the extent to which we discussed it. Journey now on says moderator of the press, Kristen Welker, who broke that story and also with me as Bonnie Lin, director of the China Power Project at the center for Strategic and International Studies.

So it sounds like that was not about all that was discussed about this. What do you know about what the administration's reaction has been? Poly policymakers reaction. This happened a little while ago.

What's going on behind the scenes since then? Well so we know that President Xi was very blunt, he was candid, he was not conversational and he basically said that he plans to reunify, that China plans to reunify Taiwan with the mainland. Look, this fits into what he has consistently said publicly. But there it lands differently when he is speaking directly to the President and against the backdrop of these tensions between the US and China in the wake of that Spiral Inc.

The whole purpose of this meeting was to try to bring down the temperature on what we're mounting tensions. We are getting some reaction. The White House not responding with Senator Lindsey Graham saying this. I will be working with Democratic and Republican senators to do two things quickly.

First, create a robust defense supplemental for Taiwan and second, draft pre invasion sanctions from hell to impose on China if they take action to seize Taiwan. I believe there is strong bipartisan support to stand up to Chinese communist aggression. When you listen to what President Biden said thereafter, the meeting kind of reiterated the US position as it relates to China and Taiwan. But of course we know that the President has been asked about this and he has said that yes, he would be prepared to use the US military if China were to make a move to try to take Taiwan.

The White House has walked those comments back as you know. But again this was a comment here that really got the that was noticed by officials in the room because of this, this fraught backdrop against which President Xi made that statement. When I listened to this reporting with my congressional reporter hat and I was thinking about the sanctions in the context of the Russia Ukraine war too where sanctions have not been as effective as everybody in Washington thought they would be. A changing Putin's task.

I wonder if it would be different machine. But I also wondered about this meeting in particular because as you point out this is all about lowering the temperature. And the other big takeaway from this is they're going to reestablish military to military communications which also seems not to have happened. So how is the administration, how should we evaluate the success of that meeting based on your reporting and what we already know?

I think the big success of that meeting was it happened at all because the two leaders hadn't met in a year. They did agree to re establish military to military communications. As you rightfully point out, that has not happened yet. They also reached an agreement to try to tackle the issue of fentanyl.

And remember, President Biden said trust but verify. So the United States very much in a posture of looking at China with skepticism as it relates to some of those commitments. But again, Gary, what's significant is that these two leaders got into the same room and talked and tried to reach an agreement on some of these. Really, I would rather have them talking than not talking.

Chris Miller, excellent reporting. I return to Bonnie Lin for some analysis here. So what's your reaction to this ominous warning by President Xi, the fact that they're having this conversation face to face in the same room about reuniting Taiwan with mainland China? Well, thank you, Gary.

And it's also always great to be with Kristen, too. So in terms of Xi's warning, I don't think that's anything new. I don't view it as more ominous than before. We know for some time that China has been investing in its capabilities to be able to take the island by force if needed.

I do think it's important to think about the larger context in which she is providing that warning. The first I will point out is China is very worried about the upcoming Taiwan election, as Kristen pointed out. And from their perspective, the current DPP presidential candidate and his running mate are viewed from China as more problematic than the current DPP president. So part of Xi's comments was signal to the United States that we're very worried about the election and we have deep distrust of one of the political candidates.

And I think two other layers found out. One is also from the Chinese perspective, they believe that the United States could intervene and shoot the election. Right. So obviously that is not the position of the Biden administration, but part of Xi communicating that to the United States is hope.

Put their hope on their part that the United States will intervene and shape the election outcomes. And the third factor I will add into this is when we look at Taiwan's current different political campaigns in Taiwan in that presidential election, there is one campaign that is running off of the narrative that a vote for one of the other candidates is a vote for war and a vote for their candidate is a vote for peace. So I think China amplifying the narrative of potential use of force against Taiwan is helping some of their some of the candidates they do prefer more and taking down some of the candidates they prefer less. It's a good reminder that all politics are local, even when you're talking about China and Taiwan.

But speaking of context, how does the context of the wars that are happening right now, the hot wars in Ukraine and Israel and America's stutter step in, let's say support for our allies in those wars affect the calculus for Xi and for the Chinese Communist Party. I think they are looking at US Support and US Involvement in those conflicts and trying to make their own assessments about what does that mean in terms of US Bandwidth, what does that mean in terms of how long the United States can support one of our allies and partners. But at the end of the day, when, for example, looks at Taiwan, what he bases his calculus on, if we're talking about the use of force, is dynamics within Taiwan. And right now, I don't think China has assessed that the prospects of peaceful unification with Taiwan have been exhausted.

We reported yesterday on this intelligence community assessment that China tried to intervene and play around in some specific races in the 2022 mid term elections here in the US based on what you're describing, what are their influence operations like in Taiw right now for those elections there? There's a lot of reporting on different types of Chinese involvement at the highest level. Some of the reporting include, for example, doing investigation on one of the fourth highland president of Canada has now dropped out of the race due to investigation on his business in mainland China. And because of that and the potential fines that he would have received, we've seen the end result is he dropped out of the race.

China would prefer him to not be in the race because he would have taken away from some of the tickets, some of the voters that would have supported a ticket that Beijing would prefer more versus some of the other candidates. And there were, of course, also seeing extensive cognitive warfare, social media campaigns. And we're seeing even reporting of people from China calling Taiwan voters, urging them to think in particular ways about the election, investigating the foreign business dealings of a presidential candidate. There is nothing new under the sun.

And Bonnie Lynn, thank you both. And up next, the political ramifications of that major Colorado Supreme Court ruling disqualifying former President Trump from being on the 2024 primary ballot. Your panel's next. What a lot to talk about.

You're watching EAT THE Press now. Welcome back. As we turn to the biggest political story of the day, that Colorado Supreme Court decision that Donald Trump should be disqualified from the ballot for engaging in the January 6th insurrection. Joining now is T.M.

mitchell, Washington correspondent at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Simone Sanders Townsend hosted MSNBC. Simone. And starting soon, January 13th, the co host of the weekend and Republican strategist Garrett Ventry.

So Tia, I'll start with you how much do you think this Colorado really changes the 2024 landscape? Or does it? I think it's still too early to tell because I really do think this is something that the Supreme Court is going to have to iron out. And quite frankly, the Colorado Supreme Court is many other courts have asked to answer this question or similar questions about Trump or other Republicans and have basically kept those lawmakers names on the ballot.

So I think it's first of all, we got to wait for the Supreme Court. Who knows how quickly they'll work. But the odds are that the Supreme Court might overturn what the Colorado Supreme Court. In the meantime, you might see other states act on this, too.

So Garrett, if you're the Trump campaign and they are, to me it appears performatively upset about this, but it's not the best case scenario for them. They've got Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie all out defending the former president on the campaign trail a month before Iowa. Absolutely. I think there's two things here.

I think legally they think that this is an unprecedented action here and they the Supreme Court will weigh in in their favor. Here you're talking about we've seen, you know, continued law fair against President Trump. You had four indictments to impeachments in the last couple years against him. The issue is you look at this politically, this has not only helped him in the primary, was up 50 to 60 points against his next closest challenger.

You're talking about these his opponents having defend him. Even folks like Chip Roy, who's in a bracket for this, defending him now we're talking about it hasn't hurt him in the general election. Your CNBC polling has him up four points. Fox hasn't up five points.

New York Times has him up two points. So clearly I think this has backfired continually every time they don't have the President Trump so much at that point. I mean, if the goal of the people who brought this suit was to see Donald Trump not be president, is this the best way to do it? Or does something like this backfire in the minds of the voters who ultimately have to make this decision?

Well, I think the goal of the six individuals who on behalf of crew brought the lawsuit was to say that Donald Trump should be disqualified from the Colorado being on the Colorado ballot because of his role in the insurrection that occurred on January 6th. So if that was their goal, they were in fact successful. I don't believe that these six people in Colorado were thinking this is gonna stop Trump for being president to Tia's Point they are. Colorado's only litigation has been successful where Donald Trump has been disqualified.

It's been dismissed. A number of other places where the suit has been brought various people for various other rounds. There's pending legislation in at least seven states right now. Some of them really matter, like for the general election, like Arizona or Wisconsin.

Right. So I do think that this is the place where the Supreme Court needs to will weigh in. And frankly, if it's still, it's still a contest when it comes to the primary, the Republican primary. As a former strategist, it just blows my mind that time and time again these candidates just refuse to even just get a little bit in the ring with Donald Trump.

Even Chris Christie, who has been very, I would argue, critical to be kind of Donald Trump throughout this race. He could have even said, hey, you know what? I think the Supreme Court and he needs to weigh in here. And when he let the court decide, instead, even he left to what it felt like.

Donald Trump's been there at that point. I mean, the merits of this case are what they are. But the other candidates missed their opportunity here to make more of the legal vulnerabilities that Donald Trump does have in this race. I think one thing real quick here, the chart.

They're saying he committed insurrection. None of the indictments is charged with insurrection. He's actually cleared in the United States. Sign on that same period of anything like that.

There's nothing about criminality associated in it. It just said, would you participate our constitutional lecture this morning described this afternoon. This morning. It feels so long ago.

Describe this as being a new snow. I won't let you finish that point. Yeah, absolutely. So wonder.

I think the issue is this, that Donald Trump has such a strange hold on the Republican Party. We've seen this since, you know, we saw January 6th, right at 2021. Ken McCarthy calling for century. Donald Trump ten days later is at Marlon Tiff for a photo op.

So you've seen this over and over again where people in the Republican Party think there's only to defeat Donald Trump. And there simply is. I think it'll be the autopsy of every single Republican challenge around the Santa Sniki Haley. So I think they could take that path.

But the path for criticizing Donald Trump is the 1 to 3% path right now. Raise a Hutchinson. Chris Christie. When you're eating up 60% of the vote here, it's just very tough.

See, I want to get back in this conversation. I think a lot of how we talk about this and I write all these Scripts for things I'm using today show. Are we shorthanded by Donald Trump's legal troubles? Every time you add a case like this, the relative strengths, weaknesses we'll find out over time.

Does it cheapen the impact of something like the Georgia case, where that's a huge RICO prosecution, or the Jackson case here in Washington? These things are not all equal, but the tonnage increases and the distinctions decrease. Well, I think they're not all equal because all these cases kind of have pretty distinct, either on their origins or what they're charging him with or what they relate to. You know, we've got New York's case much different than the case down in South Florida, which is much different than the case in Georgia.

And then there's a federal case regarding the 2020 election. I think a lot of the people who want Trump held accountable are not necessarily taking long term political calculations, even though that's what he says and he's playing the victim. I think in a lot of these cases, there are prosecutors, there are grand juries who have said, we've looked at the evidence and we think that there's crimes that have been committed that he should be held accountable for, and that's what these cases should symbolize and then let it play out. But unfortunately, they're being held in a political bubble where Trump is able to use them to his advantage.

One of the things that unites all these issues is many of them, if not put it up in front of the Supreme Court. And so that ends the moment. How important is this moment or what we're going to experience over the next six months or so, to the credibility of the Court, which is already so strained by, you know, what scandals involving where justices are getting money from to people's views over the Dobbs decision. And the Court is in a spot like now, like I've never seen in my political lifetime, a precarious position, to say the least.

And to that end, in an arena where the facts of the case should be the only thing of which the justices are considering when they're making decisions, what the law says, what the Constitution says, whether we would like to, whether people want to admit it or not out loud, I do think the political populations have had previously and will in these upcoming cases make their way into the conversations, at least that the justices have amongst themselves when deliberating about these cases. Because the credibility of the Court is on the line in a way that never before in our history. The United States Supreme Court is being challenged by members of Congress. We have Members of Congress of the Senate who are weighing petitioning, I mean the chief justice to come before them to speak because of ethics issues that bring compared to the journalism.

I think this is entirely Terrano, because you're former Senate Judiciary guy. What do you make is the court up to this moment? I mean they do not want to be in a political spotlight as hot as the one they're about to be in over the next couple months. I think personally a couple of justices, I think you better take a step back here.

Most of the cases the Supreme Court rules on, about 50% of them are nano decisions, 70 something percent of them are 72 decision. There's a lot of agreement there. The ones that get the most coverage obviously are the certificate 463 I do think all the justices, whether a Republican appointed justice or Democratic kind of justice take their job very seriously. They try to.

Neil Gorsuch says very famously a judges wear robes, not capes and something when judges step in the courtroom there they take it very seriously. And I don't actually think most of these justices take politics into consideration. It is becoming my working theory that what happens down the street here in Northeast Washington is going to be as important of this race as anything we see on the campaign. But guys, we've got to leave it there for now.

CSMO Garrett, thank you all for coming in and thank you all for watching. I'll be back tomorrow with more Meet the Press now NBC News now coverage continues with Sam Brock in for Hallie Jackson right now. 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 Magewitz 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 podcasts.