Welcome to MEET THE press. Now I'm Chris Welker in Washington on a major day of breaking news and legal cases tied to President Biden and his likely challenger, former President Donald Trump. Now we will get to the development surrounding former President Trump in just a moment as the Supreme Court today signaled his willingness to overturn Colorado's decision to bargain from the ballot. But we begin with that bombshell report for President Biden whose findings could have major political ramifications for his re election campaign.
This afternoon, Robert heard a special counsel investigating President Biden's handling classified documents released his final report and recommended no criminal charges against the president. But in it he says President Biden, quote, willfully retain classified documents after his vice presidency, adding that the president's practices, quote, present serious risks to national security. The report also includes a scathing Analysis of Mr. Biden's mental capacity, saying that one of the reasons they declined to bring charges was because, quote, at trial Mr.
Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him as a sympathetic, well meaning elderly man with a poor memory. Now the report goes even further, saying that in his interview with the special counsel, the president struggled to remember key details, including when he was vice president, when his son Beau died. They also note in a separate recorded conversation his communication was painfully slow, that he struggled to remember events, straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries. Now the White House forcefully pushed back in a letter included in the report letting me be part of the two you quote.
We do not believe that the report's treatment of President Biden's memory is accurate or appropriate. The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses, a lack of recall of years old events. Joining me now to break down these developments, NBC Candelani at The Justice Department, NBC, Sally Rafa the White House. Also back with us is NBC News legal analyst Chuck Rosenberg and our chief legal analyst, Chuck Todd with me on set.
Thank you to all of you for being here. Kendallane, break down this report. What stood out to you? What were the key takeaways here?
Kristen? I was frankly stunned that the special counsel found that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified information. That's a felony, as you aptly described. The report wanted to explain why they didn't think they could make that case and prove that case.
A variety of reasons. Insufficient evidence, President Biden's memory lapses. But there was a time in our history when any hint of criminal behavior require president would be fatal. Obviously Former President Trump has really changed the calculus in that regard.
But this is a very serious finding with regard to Mr. Biden. And let's get the details. This report says that he was tape recorded speaking to a ghostwriter in 2017, saying, I found all the classified materials downstairs.
He was referencing some documents that he had retained to talk to this ghostwriter about a memoir. They were related to Afghanistan. Some of them are classified tssci, that's the highest level classification of government. And the special counsel says that these are likely the same documents that were found in Mr.
Biden's home in Delaware in 2022, but he knew about them in 2017. Now, the question is, it's an open question, did he quickly forget? Did he ever. Was he.
How cognizant was he of the fact that these were there? Because obviously he should have reported that at the time and gotten them back. It undercuts the whole narrative of this thing all along, which has been as soon as we learn the documents, we notify the FBI, we turn them over. That's not true.
And in another case, the report describes Mr. Biden's retention of notebooks, personal notebooks that included diary like observations, innocuous daily observations, but also highly classified material. And the reports says he knew was classified and he took it home anyway. Again, for a variety of reasons.
Rob her concluded that even if he could bring a charge against the city president, he wouldn't do so in this matter. It doesn't warrant charges. And he also, you know, in a mitigating way, tried to put it in context. First of all, it's much different from President Trump's case.
No obstruction of justice, you know, no allegation that he withheld intentionally the documents for investigators. And also that there is a history of presidents taking home classified material. That reports cites Ronald Reagan having some diaries at his residence that had classified material in them. So, you know, those are big factors.
But President Biden was dealing with classified information almost his whole career in Congress. He was senior Foreign Relations Committee. He knew better. And this report says that he willfully retain classified information, and that's fine.
Ken, let me follow up with you on the point about the distinction between the way former President Trump handled classified documents and President Biden did. The report says, most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents to avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump did the opposite. Allegedly, according to the indictment, he not only refused to return documents for months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it in contrast, Mr.
Biden alerted authorities, turned to classified documents in the National Archives and the Department of justice in 2022 and 2023. It goes on. It is almost like he's pre budding any criticism that might be coming of this decision to ultimately not find Mr. Biden guilty or to indict him.
Absolutely. But he's also doing a public service. And after all, this is a Republican, a longtime Republican who served in the Trump Justice Department. Robert.
And he made a point in this report of distinguishing the Biden case from the much more egregious Trump case. And that I think is deeply significant. It's a way to educate the public. They're not even in the same universe.
I mean, President Trump is accused of ordering subordinates to destroy evidence and lie about it. There's nothing in the Biden record here that even comes close to that, as serious as it is. So this report, I think, is very even handed and nuanced. And a lot of people are criticizing the references to Mr.
Biden's memory. But Robert had no choice but to include that because it was so crucial to the issue of is this a prosecutable case? Mr. Biden's memory lapses were one of the reasons it's not.
And, you know, saying point blank that he would be a very sympathetic figure before the jury, an elderly, forgetful man, that's really politically damaging. But it's also really important for Robert to communicate because it's a key fact for why he was prosecutors. And one last thing, Kristen, I just, you know, normally at the Justice Department, prosecutors are not allowed to comment on the conduct of people they don't charge with crimes. That's been a policy of long standing.
But the special counsel law creates was essentially a loophole by requiring a report about charging decisions. And Merrick Garland decided to make all these reports public. And so that's why we're seeing we don't normally see this a prosecutor, you know, characterizing the behavior of someone they investigated but did not charge criminal. It is just fascinating.
Chuck Rosenberg, let me turn to you now. How surprised were you that the special counsel said that, yes, this was willful? How significant is that word? And then to the point that Candelanian is making ultimately said, we're not going to indict him because we don't think that he would effectively be found guilty by a jury?
Yeah. So willful has a lot of importance, Kristen, in my old world. Right. We have to prove intent.
We have to prove lawfulness. Being able to establish that and demonstrate it to A jury by proof beyond a reasonable doubt is both hard and a big deal. Mr. Biden's conduct here, to Ken's point, deeply, deeply disappointing.
I mean, I have a security clearance for decades. It's a privilege, not a right. And the rules about handling classified information, your responsibilities with respect to it are clear. I mean, we wouldn't even have conversations in the hallway about classified information.
And so, you know, this is not the type of thing that you make mistakes about. The stakes are too high and so deeply disappointing. But to your other question, why wouldn't you charge him? So let's say, Kristen, you and I did the exact same thing in the exact same way.
We both committed crimes and you were prosecuted and I was not. That would be a double standard, right? We're being treated differently for no apparent reason. The reason for treating Mr.
Biden differently for Mr. Trump, has Ken outlined, is that Mr. Trump obstructed justice. Again, to a prosecutor trying to establish wilfulness, trying to prove intent, evidence of obstruction of justice is a godsend.
It's music to our prosecutorial ears, and that is what distinguishes the two cases. So the behavior is disappointing, the behavior is reckless. It's sort of unfathomable. That said, I agree that it's not criminal because you don't have the same aggravating factors.
Therefore, no double standard. And very quickly, Chuck, before I turn to Chuck Todd, could this have any implications for the Trump case? Of course. Just to remind everyone, he has been indicted for obstruction for assembling classified documents.
Quickly, Kristen. Politically, yes. Legally, no. Okay, well, then that takes me to Chuck Todd then.
Perfectly. Chuck, let's talk about the politics of this. Some of the language in this report is just damning. You can't get around an elderly man with a poor memory.
He's in the fight of his. Well, and it's also when it's coming, right, it's coming on the heels of just like more of these. And he's accumulating. This is sort of a narrative that is the classic death by a thousand bucks, right?
You know, with the coal and the Helmut Cole and the Francois Mehran and it's these, these tiny little things. And every moment, of course, gets amplified by the right wing noise machine. And it certainly doesn't. You're seeing with this, in this, in this report.
There's an easy way, though, for the White House to basically make this report pointless about his memory, which is the easiest way to get rid of the storyline is to get him out there. But, you know, it's been Discussed. He's not informed the nation about why we've struck so many military sites in the Middle East. Right.
We've had paper statements, an occasional comment here or there. We had a daytime one so far about the border. Bill not very engaged on that. He's engaged in these fundraisers which we get behind their show cameras.
But, you know, I don't know how many different ways people can be yelling into the vacuum to this White House. You gotta get them out there more. Because the public is drawing their own conclusion. And then this report feeds a narrative.
They may be angry about it. They may think, oh, this Trump appointee put that in there. You know, scared us in the same way Clinton people were upset about the words James Comey used when he made the statement after deciding to bring charges against her. And so, you know, sort of say that.
Why are you worried about it? Because there's some, you know, there's some truth to it, you know, that the voters are seeing this. You've got to fix this. Is it fixable?
We're going to find out. To your point, we're just a few days away from the super bowl. The traditional presidential interview he has declined to do. It's one.
We're back. Okay. I'm not saying there wouldn't be tough questions about that. Look, in isolation, I agree.
I don't know if I want to see president during my super bowl again. Okay, So I accept that. But like, I don't, you know, so on one hand, I get it, but it's a, it is a softer version of an interview than you're ever going to get because the interviewer is aware that maybe the public wants. All right, I have a couple of tough questions, but let's, let's not go overboard here.
And you don't feel like you can handle that. And it's a lot of eyeballs to this point that we're discussing. Now let me turn to you about Republicans seizing on the narrative. They will argue that this is a double standard.
I want to read the statement by former President Trump. He says this has now proven to be a two tiered system of justice and unconstitutional selective prosecution. The Biden documents case is 100 times different and more severe than mine. I did nothing wrong.
Of course, we've laid out all the reasons why the cases are very different. I did nothing wrong and I cooperated far more. What Biden did is outrageously criminal. Again, this is quote by former President Trump.
Ali Rafa, pick up on where Chuck left off, which is the way to deal with this is to get him out there, to get him in front of people, to control the narrative. Based on your conversations with your sources, do you have any indication that they're going to change strategy and make him more available for interviews, for press conferences? Yeah. First of all, it seems like that would be the knee jerk reaction to a report as negative as this one is for the President.
And we have seen this age, this mental competency topic, be a very awkward topic for White House officials to talk about, to try to spin for the American people. Actually came up in today's White House press briefing. It was very seemingly difficult for the press secretary to be able to defend these mishaps that we have seen by the President. And as you heard Chuck mentioned, this is pretty much a political gift to former President Trump and his campaign.
These mentions in this nearly 400 page report about his memory lapses by President Biden, how he didn't remember when his term as Vice president began and when he didn't remember when it ended, details about the death of his son Beau. I remember advisors close to the President were worried that this report may publicly paint the president as careless or potentially sloppy in his handling of these classified documents. What I'm sure they weren't worried about because they didn't expect it, was this. Just a seemingly damning language by the special counsel as it relates to these memory lapses.
The big question now is obviously we've seen immediate reaction from the president, from the White House counsel's office saying they're pleased with this report. But the question I was long term, what are the next steps by the White House but more importantly by the Biden campaign, what efforts are they going to make to try to spin this? Possibly the President's. I'm so sorry, talking about.
No problem, let's listen. So as an exhaustive investigation going back literally more than 40 years, 40 years. When I became a United States senator as a kid, I was a kid, 29 years old. Special counsel acknowledged I cooperated completely.
I did not throw up any roadblocks. I sought no delays. In fact, I was so determined to give special counsel what they needed, I went Forward with a five hour in person interview over the two days of October 9th, 8th and 9th last year. Even though Israel just been attacked by Hamas on the 7th, I was in the middle of handling an international crisis.
But I was especially pleased to see the special counsel make clear the stark differences between this case and Donald Trump. As the special counsel wrote, and I quote, several material distinctions between Mr. Trump's case and Mr. Biden's are clear, by the way, this is Republican counsel.
Most notably after given multiple chances. This is the continuation of the quote, he returned classified documents and avoided to avoid and avoided prosecution. Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite.
This is continuing to quote, according to the indictment, he has not only refused to return documents for many months, he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then lie about it. In contrast, Mr. Biden turned into classified documents to the National Archives. The Department of Justice consented to search for multiple locations, including his homes, and sat for a voluntary interview and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.
That's the distinction. Among others. Bottom line is the special counsel in my case decided against moving forward on any charges. This matter is now closed.
I'll continue to do what I've always done, stay focused on my job like you do my job of being president. That means going to work with all of you every single day. I can thank you for being great partners. Just this week, House Democrats showed how united you are.
You defeated my Orcas and peace resolution. President Biden, reacting to the special counsel's decision not to indict him for his handling of classified documents and stressing he cooperated completely with the investigation, also saying, Ali Rafa, that he spoke to investigators just as he was dealing with, of course, a horrific attack from October 7th by Hamas against Israel, effectively trying to answer. You could argue some of the questions about his memory lapses which are laid out in this report. But I interrupted you because we had to listen to President Biden.
Please continue what you were saying in your reaction to what we just heard from the president. Sure, Kristen. Much of what we just heard the president speak about as he is in Leesburg, Virginia at the House Democrats Issues Conference, echoes what we saw him say in his statement about an hour ago echoing these claims that there was no wrongdoing. He is glad that this probe is now completely over and pleased with the results, trying to shift the attention away from these mentions, as you stated earlier by the special counsel, about his memory and drawing attention to conclusively what this probe and this report found, which was that there were no criminal charges suggested for his handling of these classified documents that were found at his home as well as his personal office.
And you heard him mention there, drawing a contrast between his case and the case of former President Trump as it relates to the classified documents found at his Mar a Lago home. We've listed a many times the difference between this case, but the president going over those again that he was fully cooperative with the special counsel during this interview process. As we know that former President Trump has attempted to restrict the government's ability to get those classified documents back from Mar a Lago. So the president, again drawing that contrast, trying to really talk about how much effort and work he put in to this special counsel.
Pro KRISTEN yeah, you're absolutely right, Ally. Thank you for that chapter. Let me go back to you. This has given me flashbacks to 2016, when then FBI Director James Comey said we're not going to indict Hillary Clinton for handling classified documents.
But that report was quite damning to her politically and that issue hung over her campaign. Do you expect the same thing in this case or does this feel different to you? Not the specifics. What's hanging over everything for Joe Biden is this assessment by the public and concerned by the public that he's not, that he's not able to do a second term.
That's what's hanging over everything. That's what will live from this report, not what he did. What he did here. This is a very long report to say the president, Vice President Biden at the time basically was caught speeding.
Right. And there's two types of speeding. There's a felony if you're driving recklessly and going 50 or 60 miles an hour to speed limit, to kill somebody. That's the type of speeding in this case that Donald Trump is why he's dealing with something far more serious.
And then there was the fact that, oh, by like a lot of other people, the stuff he wrote in his hand, his own hand was his property, too. And you know, reasonable people could disagree. So on that score, the specifics, I think in the comparison really actually paint Trump in a worse light. But what's going to live out of this is what the special counsel said about the president's memory.
And this is again, it's they, they had a big problem and they're trying to ignore them. Yeah. And again, the question is, will the president shift? Easiest way to answer this.
Put them out there more. Yeah. Let Biden be Biden. Let everybody get used to this.
Right. Everybody changes over time. People get new haircuts, people gain weight, people lose weight, people get taller. People.
Right. Let people get used to it. Trying to hide it only makes it look like you're trying to hide something. Chuck Rosenberg, let me turn back to you because the White House said this of the report I read at the top, I want to read one more time.
Do not believe the reports treatment present binds memory is accurate or Appropriate. The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses, a lack of recall of years old events. You and I have actually talked about this when we've discussed complex cases and past cases. Without weighing on this specifically, how common is it for someone to sit for an interview and to confuse facts?
I mean, is this a key, important point? Well, look, it happens, Kristen. I mean, witnesses forget facts. But I don't credit the White House statement that because Mr.
Biden sat for an interview after the October 7 attacks that he was distracted and couldn't remember if. No, if you're distracted and you can't remember something happened the day before or the morning of, then postpone the interview. Once you sit down with prosecutors and with FBI special agents, you tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And if for some reason you're having a bad day or you don't feel well, you're up late the night before, then postpone it.
But yes, to your point, Kristen, do people forget facts? All the time. And you'd really have to see a transcript of that interview to judge for yourself how forgetful he was. I mean, just seeing Mr.
Herr's characterization of it doesn't quite cut it for me. It's interesting, but it doesn't really answer the mail. I would want to see a transcript. All right.
Well, that is fascinating perspective, Kendall. Laney, let me give you the final word. Take us inside what your sources are saying. To what extent has this renewed discussion about being more vigilant about how our elected officials handle classified documents and classified materials?
Well, that's really the takeaway from all of these various cases. And let's not forget that Mike Pence also had a classified document problem. And it's interesting when you think about the two situations. Mike Pence did not have a special counsel appointed in his case, and so we didn't hear anything about how the classified documents got to his home.
All we knew is that a prosecutor looked at it and found no crime had been committed. That is the benefit of not having a special counsel. None of this dirty laundry gets aired in public to the extent it was. It may not have been.
But if there was anything unflattering in the Mike Pence situation, we don't have any idea about it. In the case of a special counsel, it all gets made public. But you're absolutely right, Kristen. What this underscores is a long standing problem with over classification, with a failure to counter classified information with senior officials who view this as their own documents.
And feel like they can take it anywhere, take it home, take it out of breathing rooms where people like Chuck Rosenberg were absolutely meticulous and scrupulous about how they handle classified information. People who are vice president, president don't seem to adhere to the same standard. We would expect nothing less of our Chuck Rosenberg and nothing less than the fantastic analysis and reporting by all of you. Thank you, Ken Ally, Chuck Rosenberg and Chuck Todd.
Really appreciate you getting us started on this breaking news today. Coming up next, the other major legal story of the data Supreme Court signaling skepticism as the justices questioned Colorado's decision to bar former president and current Republican front runner Donald Trump from the ballot over his actions tied to the January 6th insurrection. Stay with us. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now.
Welcome back now to the other major story we're following. The Supreme Court today heard arguments in a case to determine if Donald Trump's actions around the January 6th insurrection should bar him from the presidential ballot. Now, in today's hearing, nearly every justice signaled their skepticism over Colorado's Supreme Court's ruling to remove the former president from the state's Republican primary ballot. That ruling was based on a determination that the former president's actions on and around January 6amounted to an insurrection and violated the 14th amendment, which bars an officer of the United States from holding office if they've engaged in an insurrection or rebellion.
Now, two of the justices Trump himself appointed, Amy Cody Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, questioned the validity of calling Mr. Trump's actions and insurrection. Take a listen. If we review the facts essentially to know you want to sell us, just watch the video of the ellipse and then make a decision without any deference to our guidance from lower court fact finding.
That's unusual. If the concern you have, which I understand is that insurrectionists should not be able to hold federal office, there is a tool to ensure that that does not happen, namely federal prosecution of insurrectionists. And if convicted, Congress made clear you are automatically barred from holding a federal office. But it wasn't just the Trump appointed judges voicing skepticism.
Justice Elena Kagan and Obama appointee expressed concerns that a ruling in one state could potentially decide a national election. I think that the question that you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States. In other words, you know, this question of whether a former president is disqualified for insurrection to be president again is, you know, just say it. It sounds awful to me.
And Chief Justice John Roberts signaled his discomfort with the potential political fallout of removing one party's front runner from the ballot, echoing Trump's warning of chaos and bedlam if Colorado's position is upheld, surely there will be disqualification proceedings on the other side. And some of those will succeed. Some of them will have different standards of proof. Some of them will have different rules about evidence in very quick order, I would expect.
Although my predictions have never been correct, I would expect that a goodly number of states will say whoever the Democratic candidate is, you're off the ballot, and others for the Republican candidate year off the ballot, it'll come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election. That's a pretty daunting consequence. Well, we've got another incredible team covering all the angles of today's historic arguments. Joining now from the Supreme Court is NBC News Washington correspondent Amy Shal Senor on set with me is NBC's Garrett Hake, who's covering the Trump campaign, and Ben Ginsburg, who served as national counsel for multiple Republican presidential campaigns, including during the contested 2000 election, which I remember well.
I think I booked you for NBC News at the time. Thank you for being here. But before I get to I do want to get to Yamiche. She's out in front of the Supreme Court.
Yamiche, what were your takeaways today? And skepticism seems to be the word of the day, frankly, from all the justices. That's right, Kristen. The big headline out of this historic Supreme Court or arguments really is that the majority of justices sounded very skeptical that that Colorado as a single state could decide whether or not former President Trump could appear on that Republican primary ballot.
It was over and over again, you heard these questions that were really tough to Colorado's lawyers. And the other thing that really stuck out to me there was this moment where Brett Kavanaugh, of course, was appointed by former President Trump. He said, well, wouldn't it be disenfranchising voters if you took away former President Trump's name from the ballot? And the lawyer for the residents that are bringing this legal challenge.
And actually, former President Trump was the one who was trying to disenfranchise millions of voters because of what he was doing, trying to overturn the 2020 election. The other thing that was really interesting here, they spent a lot of time on the details of Section 3 of the Constitution of the 14th Amendment, talking specifically about whether or not an officer of the United States and whether or not that was that something that President Trump could be tied to. It wasn't until an hour into this that you heard the word Insurrection. And you really started getting into whether or not January 6th could possibly have an insurrection with a number of the justices saying possibly this could have been insurrection.
But that doesn't mean that Donald Trump, one single state in Colorado could be taken out of the ballot. So very interesting. They were talking about the impact of this. One other thing, when you play that down of Chief Justice Robert's talking about what if red blue states decided to take people's names off.
A big consequences of this could be not only for Donald Trump, but there have already been some conservative officials in red state who say if Donald Trump loses this case, they will move to have President Biden's name removed from ballot. So you already see that sort of happening, Kristen. Yeah. To your point, and I know this is one of the things you've been drilling down on.
What could the implications be for President Biden, for other candidates? Yamiche, fantastic reporting from the Supreme Court. Thank you so much for that. Garrett, let me turn to you.
We heard from former President Trump. He liked what he heard at the Supreme Court today. He struck a very defiant tone. What are you hearing from inside the campaign?
Yeah, the Trump team struggled with how things went today. They think they'll get a very powerful ruling in their favor, an 8 to 1 or 90 ruling eventually for Trump. You cannot separate the political from the legal right. He looks at this through a political lens.
Replace some of what he had to say today about this hearing and the results and why he thinks he's in this position to Allison, I just finished watching the Supreme Court. It's a beautiful thing to watch in many respects. It's unfortunate that we have to go through a thing like that. I consider it to be more election interference by the Democrats.
That's what they're doing. The good news is we're leading virtually every poll. This wasn't a case brought by Democrats. This is not, you know, the idea that election interference here is so baked in every one of these legal cases.
He wants to lump all these things together. He was fundraising off this hearing today with minutes of it concluding. And he also in that same news conference started working the race a little bit, talking about how, you know, how thoughtful the judges were, what great job the Supreme Court is doing. Remember, his lawyers are going to be potentially backing from the Supreme Court very soon on the immunity case.
So today, when they seem to be looking in his favor. Best of friends. Yeah. And I think your point is such an important one, Garrett, which is that today, and we have seen throughout this campaign for President Trump has really capitalized on these legal battles in a way that has energized his supporters.
Ben, let me turn to you because one of the things that you were discussing that has stood out to you is the uniformity that we saw amongst the justices today. Talk a little bit about what you mean, what your takeaways were. Well, it's really true in many a case you'll see some blowback and contradictions between the liberal wing and the conservative wing. You didn't see much of that at all today, which was pretty remarkable for the high stakes political case that this, that this is.
But there was just none of that usual objection to knocking candidates off the ballot. The dysfunction that could be caused. It was quite striking. And it's why I think when Garrett says nine zero or eight ones, it's the way it felt.
That's what your tea leafs are telling you. Based on what we heard today, one of the interesting questions and Yanich talked about this was whether this was an insurrection and whether Trump was an officer of the country. I mean, can you talk a little bit about why those two things are significant and why there was so much focus on them? Sure.
Well, the main argument that the Trump team made in their briefs was that Donald Trump, the President of the United States is not covered in the language of the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. So that in fact he could not be found to have been in the insurrection because he's not an officer of the United States. Now that feels like sort of a two cute by half argument. How can the Constitution exempt the president, the highest office in the land, from being an officer?
So it's a very textualist, originalist word sort of argument that doesn't ring true as a matter of common sense to people. And actually I want to play a little bit of this exchange with Conti Brown Jackson in which she questions the Trump lawyer about that very question. Take at a look. The framers were concerned about charismatic rebels who might rise through the ranks up to including the presidency of the United States.
Then why didn't they put the word president in the very enumerated list in section three? The thing that really is troubling to me is I totally understand your argument, but they were listing people that were barred and president is not there. And so I guess that just makes me worry that maybe they weren't focusing on the president. And for example, the fact that electors of vice president and president are there suggests that really what they thought was if we're worried about the charismatic person, we're going to bar insurrectionist electors, and therefore that person is never going to rise.
And I should just clarify, actually, that was a lawyer for Colorado. But what did you make of that exchange? Well, I think the, the reason that Justice Jackson might want to concentrate on the officer argument the way she is, that it has a certain elegance because if the court doesn't want to rule on the merits of whether Donald Trump committed an insurrection, that's an objection that could be raised in Congress on January 6th when they open up the electoral, the electoral count ballots. We've already seen what can happen on January 6.
However, if the court were to rule that Donald Trump is not an officer of the United states, then insurrection, 14th amendment section three couldn't apply to him. And that is not a well founded objection to his election. And Garrett, take us inside what you are watching for as the Trump campaign as the former president awaits this final ruling. Strategically, is this something we're going to be hearing about every day or is he going to be talking about Biden and what he said today in his response to the special counsel declining to indict President Biden on his handling classified documents and his argument that this just feeds into his narrative that their own systems, why not both?
Right. Is working hand in hand. Now, Donald Trump also gets a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court here. I think you'll hear him talk about it quite loudly.
And the idea that he's somehow been exonerated, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him conflate this issue and say, see, I've been exonerated on the question of whether there was an insurrection at all. This is the kind of thing that he loves to sort of build off of. If he gets a little bit of clearance on the Supreme Court, yes, you could be on a ballot. I think he'll take it that much further.
But to the degree that he can link all of these things together, we've been talking about over the course of this hour, look how I've been treated by the justices and I've been charged in this case. I get dragged before the Supreme Court. Joe Biden just gets a report put out. It's not the same.
That message is something that his campaign has been amplified over the course of the last year. And I think it'll continue to use every available data point, no matter how blurrily it fits into the bigger picture, to try to advance that message going into the spring and summer. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right about that. Then let me ask you big picture and just take us back to 2000.
And then how it relates to right now is the court, because of what happened in the 2000 election, do you think that they are hesitant to get engaged in electoral cases at all and does that give us any indication will this be very narrowly decided? Well, the Supreme Court historically has been very reluctant to jump into the political thicket. In 2000, that was an unanticipated event. It was chaos that occurred post election in a way none of us involved in it or anybody else saw coming.
What's true today about this case is that you can see the red flashing warning lights from 10 months out. So that puts the court in a very different position. So if they can find a way to deal with the issue now, I suspect they'll do it. And that's why I think you heard a lack of disagreement among the justices in the way they were questioning today.
And so you think they are going to decide this in a matter of days? Well, I don't know if it'll be a matter of days. The court being very aware of its political positioning, as you mentioned, and reluctant to be labeled as a political entity, might well pair this decision with an immunity decision whenever that's due to come out. Right.
That's an old political trick that even a non political entity might, might grasp onto. Okay. Well, we will watch for those. Thank you so much.
Great conversation. Garrett and Ben really appreciate it. And you meet beforehand. Fantastic discussion.
Coming up next year live on Capitol Hill. After all of the back and forth over border security, the Senate voted to consider a security aid package that does not include the border will break down the status of negotiations. You're watching the PRESSURE now. Welcome back.
After months of debate and negotiations on border reform demanded by Republicans in exchange for a foreign aid bill for Ukraine and Israel, the Senate just advanced a foreign aid bill without any border provisions in a 6,732 vote. It comes after the bipartisan border deal collapsed under the weights of opposition from House Republicans and former President Donald Trump. But even with the key procedural hurdle cleared, the borderless bill still faces days, if not weeks before a final vote. Joining me now to break down what comes next is NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil the poor.
So, Sahil, let's just discuss where we are right now. This is a bill that no longer has the provisions to help secure the border in it, right. What Republicans have said they wanted. So it includes aid to Israel, aid to Ukraine, Ukraine, aid to Taiwan.
What are the next steps towards getting us to President Biden's desk? Well, Kristen, it's not a long way ago. This bill just cleared its first hurdle in the Senate, the 6732 vote. As you mentioned, the next step is Republicans are trying to figure out what amendments they want as part of this process in order to pass that 60 bill threshold on the back end to end debate and move to a final vote.
Once they figure that out, that this could go one of two ways. Either the Senate gets unanimous consent to hold all the votes on amendments quickly and then do final passes right after that, or they're gonna have to jump through all these hoops and drag it out. And that vote would happen Tuesday or Wednesday. It's looking like the latter option because Senator Rand Paul has insisted he's going to block every.
He's gonna use every tool he has to block this and not grant consent. So it's likely to be just a matter of time. The other possibility is that Republicans don't come to an agreement amongst themselves on which amendments offer or a Democrats don't accept that, then this process could still collapse. So there's still a way to go before this gets to the Senate.
But between yester today, this is looking good. The prospect of this getting through, at least in the Senate for earlier today, saying that it's a good first step, that the bill is essential for US national security, and that only Putin and Xi would be happy if it didn't pass, we'll see if that pressure works. Let's talk about the House. Speaker Johnson has said that he wants to see individual bills passed, talk about what that would look like.
And could that complicate getting this broader aid package through the House? It absolutely could. The House has been the single biggest hurdle to passing this national security and foreign aid supplemental throughout, and that continues to be the case. Now, Speaker Johnson has not explicitly ruled out supporting or allowing a vote on what the Senate does because he said he's going to wait to see what the Senate passes before definitively making that conclusion.
But he did say he wants to tackle these things individually. The House has struggled to pass a standalone Israel aid bill and he's not allowed to vote at all on Ukraine aid bill. In fact, some of his hardliner say they will motion to overthrow him and force a vote to oust if he allows Ukraine to come up in any form or fashion. So the Speaker's facing a lot of pressure not to allow the Senate package to get a vote in the House.
And I just spoke a few moments ago to Senator Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican, who said even if the Senate passes The foreign aid package, it's going nowhere in the House. His solution, include border security measures in it. So respect this endless doom, Lucrin, because this is exactly what Republicans demanded at the outset. Democrats agreed.
They cave and said, okay, we'll start to build your designated negotiator. The Republicans said it's not good enough. And now the back is saying maybe add border security on the, on the front end. So it's hard to know how this resolves.
It's an endless cycle, that's for sure. Look, let's talk about the politics of this because obviously Democrats wanted what they think would have been a political gift to President Biden if he'd gotten a deal on the border. Are they concerned that border politics will now overshadow an issue like abortion, which would help them energize their base? Yes, to a point.
I mean, Democrats have a major advantage on the issue of abortion, obviously, and Republicans have a major advantage on the issue of immigration. And it's hard to make voters not think of these things when they are top of mind issues for voters that show up in our poll. That shows up and every poll. Obviously, Republicans want to focus on immigration, Democrats want to focus on something like abortion.
What's different about this debate, what we've seen lately in the Senate is that Democrats finally feel like they have an argument to make on the border security front. They've been very squeamish about this issue for a long time now with the polls are turned against and they finally feel like they can make the point that they were willing to compromise, that they struck a deal with Republicans and the Republicans torched that deal, in their view, because Donald Trump told them to, because he wants to keep the border chaos. Going to run as an election issue is going to mitigate the problem for Democratic. Democratic?
No, of course not. But it could help them finally talk about this issue. All right, Sahil, thank you. It's always so great to see you.
Appreciate your great reporting. After the break, DC Discord and amped up partisanship. We're digging deeper into the state of America's polarized politics and what it all means for an election year. The panel's next.
You're watching THE PRESS now. Welcome back. Joining me now to break down all of the breaking news of the day is my panel, Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Divine Nayak, president and executive director of the center for American Progress and Republican strategist Garrett Ventre. Thank you to all of you for being here on a really busy day.
Molly, let's get off with you. Let's talk about the special counsel's findings. Basically saying we're not going to indict President Biden for his hand handling classified documents, but he willfully mishandled them. And also saying that there were some significant memory lapses.
Here they call him an elderly man with a poor memory. It's kind of damning. It's quite damning. I think it's worse than certainly the White House expected.
We broadly expected this result. We've known for a while now that this report was coming out and the president probably was not going to face any kind of prosecution or penalty. But the language that was used and the memory lapses that were documented by the special counsel, we already hear and you know, the president's lawyer pushing back, saying that they felt that this was unfair, that these were sort of normal memory lapses. But politically and obviously underscores a lot of the concerns that voters already have about the president and his age and his ability to keep track of things and do his job.
This is one of his biggest political liabilities. We already know this. And so to the extent that this underscores that and gives it a sort of, you know, official stamp, that's a tough break for the White House. It sure is.
Molly Navy, let me just read a little bit of this report. It says at trial Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well meaning elderly man with a poor memory. Chuck Todd was here and he said the only way to combat this is for President Biden to get out there to flood the airwaves and to basically say, hey, I'm here, I can do this.
Yeah. On the one hand, I mean, again, I don't think anyone wanted this on the Democratic side or the White House, but I do think it's not news to the American people. The notion that Joe Biden is old or his age is not going to be that is baked in. And yes, I think we have a long campaign ahead of us.
I give this White House a lot of credit for not being too reactionary. They have been displaying. They know that they have a state of union and the campaign is going to pick up dramatically. And obviously President Biden will get there a lot more and make his case.
I don't think they're going to overreact to anything that happened in this. Interesting. Garrett, let me get your take, because when President Trump came out with this strong statement, it said what we would anticipate, that this just confirms that There are two systems of justice. We have to reiterate, these are two very different cases because President Biden cooperated with the special counsel and cooperated with the request to turn over the documents.
Former President Trump did not and is accused of obstructing justice. Having said that, how do you expect this narrative to play out on the campaign trail? How much do you expect from President Trump to focus on this? Yeah, I think what you're saying is it's expecting the average voter to understand the nuances in both cases.
Right. I think President Trump's been very effective appointing this out and saying it is a two tiered system. I had documents, I was the president, I had the right to be classified documents under Presidential Records act, store those documents. Joe Biden as a sender and as the Vice president, that didn't apply to him.
And I'm here getting prosecuted in South Florida. He gets up, you know, he gets the pass from his own doj. So that's going to continue to play out that way. I will say that obviously there were some national security implications here that were damning for Joe Biden.
But the most damning part is that factor where his own DOJ is essentially saying that he suffers memory loss. He couldn't remember, you know, when his term started and ended when his son passed away. So that is a deep question where everything's facing the economy, immigration, the recent NBC polling. He's trailing Donald Trump by five there.
This is a lingering question. It's not going to go away, Molly. I guess the question is, is there a canceling effect of the fact that, as Garrett's saying, a lot of voters are going to keep all of this straight. We can say there are big differences repeatedly.
And yet in voters minds, they start to tune this out. Are other issues like the border, like the economy, more front and center? I think we've already seen that. Yeah.
And I think, you know, from the time that this, that these revelations came out, I was hearing from Trump and his advisors that they saw this as muddying the waters in a useful way. Now he actually hopes that it's not just a neutral, that it's not just neutralized. He sees it as a net plus because he's making this argument about the unfairness of the system, system being rigged against him. And you certainly hear, at least from those who already support him, that they are powerfully galvanized by this argument.
You know, I think a normal political candidate, usually when you're getting prosecuted for something, you prefer not to talk about it and hope voters Forget about it. But he's actually amplified. He spends, you know, 10, 20 minutes on it in every one of those rallies because he knows that this sense of injustice and this feeling that the system is right against you is a powerful sense of grievance. That is that taps into something a lot of voters feel as well.
And another moment that he has to focus on that. Naveen, we saw today in the Supreme Court the oral arguments, Colorado Supreme Court basically said that he cannot be on the ballot because he incited an insurrection today. Obviously his attorney argued that that's not the case. What did you make of what we all heard today at the Supreme Court and how do you think it'll play politically?
I think the legal experts and the tea people have read from the question was really clear that the justices crossed the board seemed to really see, I think from a longer term political perspective, just they weren't questioning whether necessarily an insurrection happened, whether Trump was involved in it. And this is the only case that touches on that. We have many more cases that will get into whether Donald Trump was involved in an insurrection, which the American people probably know the answer to because we watched it happen on TV and he summoned the crowd. So I think every day that that is the conversation that we're having is really about the end.
One other quick point is that a lot of news this week and you know, trying to keep track. I bet that when we step back a few months from now, one of the most damning things was Republicans and Trump killing immigration security. A border security bill. Right.
Because it speaks to a core thing which is they don't care about actually solving problems. They just want to rule. They don't actually want to govern. What's your response to that?
And the fact that this bill that Republicans have said they wanted border security measures to be in any funding bill for Ukraine and Israel, they want to pay killing the bill. Yeah. So I would just say first off, the president has been convicted of insurrection in any way. A lot of this has been premature.
And that's why I think you're seeing the justices say this here and you're seeing cold water across the board from kag again from a number of liberal justices as well on the immigration piece. And you guys, NBC polling gives President Trump a whopping about 30 point lead on immigration. I do think that voters just trust him more on this issue. When you're talking about $74 billion going to foreign wars in foreign countries, $20 billion going towards border security, it's hard to convince the American people that that is a border security bill when all that money is going to other governments and not our own.
Yeah. And while we were just talking to Sahil about what comes next, Senate's trying to advance this bill that does not include provisions on the border, just aid to Israel and Ukraine. Do you think it gets to President Biden's desk? I think that's a really good question right now because we've seen the House be not very receptive and also not very functional.
Right. I mean, even if the House Republican caucus were thoroughly united and had every intention of passing this, it's not clear they could because there's a lot of things that are relatively united still can't get through. And we've seen some real questions about leadership in the House and our ability to just do anything. All right.
Great conversation, guys, on a very busy day. Thank you so much. Molly, Navine and Garrett really appreciate it. I am back tomorrow with more Me, the press.
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