Meet the Press NOW – January 11

Welcome to Meath Press now, I'm Peter Alexander, and with just four days until the Iowa Caucus is the biggest political developments today may very well be playing out, not on the campaign trail, but in courtrooms in Manhattan and Los Angeles where as we speak, Hunter Biden, President Biden's son is being arraigned on federal tax charges, as closing arguments are wrapping up in former President Donald Trump's New York civil fraud trial. This was the scene only a short time ago. This is LA, Hunter Biden inside that SUV, entering a federal courthouse, he's expected to plead not guilty to nine felony and misdemeanor counts that were brought by the special counsel. In that case, David Weiss, federal prosecutors say that Biden failed to pay more than a million dollars in taxes between 2016 and 2019, opting instead to use that money they say to pay for a lavish lifestyle fueled by his addiction to drugs and alcohol.

Biden's visit to the courthouse comes a day after his surprise appearance on Capitol Hill, where House Republicans there were meeting to recommend that he beheld in contempt of Congress for defying a congressional subpoena. Hunter Biden is the central figure in the House's impeachment inquiry into President Biden, as the former President and Republicans in Congress, try to tie Hunter Biden's alleged misconduct and business practices to his father. For more now, we are joined by NBC News White House correspondent Mike Memley, who is in Los Angeles. In just a moment, as NBC News, Lionel is Danny Cephalos, former U.S.

Attorney Carol Lam. She is also an NBC News legal analyst. Mike, let's get to you on the ground in Los Angeles if we can very quickly. First, what exactly is Hunter Biden accused of doing?

And if you can, walk us through what's taking place now in the courtroom behind us, behind you there. Obviously, there's a lot of moving parts here. I want to make sure everyone's caught up. Yeah, that's right, Peter.

This is one of those situations where I'll apologize as I occasionally look down at my phone. We have a team trying to bring the latest information from inside that courtroom where this hearing is expected to begin any moment now. And what this is, is we expect, and I underlined expect a fairly brief and a fairly routine hearing, the President's son Hunter Biden is facing nine counts related to failure to pay his taxes. And there are, including those felony charges of tax evasion and filing a false report.

This all has to do with a period of very dark period in his life when he was suffering from severe addiction from 2016 to 2019 and did not accurately report and pay his taxes. There was this charging documents to get into quite some detail about how he was pointing his accountants at the time to charges that should have been in his view business expenses, which very clearly were not. And so we got to the situation is important to remind you, Peter, because of that failed plea agreement that happened last July, right? This was originally part of a package of charges that included gun charges, which Hunter Biden was going to plead guilty to in return for the potential for future charges not being brought.

And he would enter what was known as a diversion program related to those gun charges. That plea, of course, fell apart under some tough questioning from a federal judge. And now this is the second of two different indictments that represent that plea agreement being split up and brought about in different courthouses. It should be noted one in Wilmington, Delaware, and one here in California.

So we do expect Hunter Biden to plead not guilty to these charges. And as part of the hearing today, there may be some opportunities for some pretrial motions to be offered and potential discussion of when a trial could occur. Then the question, Peter, is will we see the kind of bold gesture, the kind of provocative even gesture that we saw yesterday in the halls of Capitol Hill, will Hunter Biden come out and make the kind of statement he did outside, for instance, the US Capitol on December 13th? That I think it's fair to say was much more in the court of politics as he was sparring with House Republicans in that case.

This is obviously a different situation involving the Justice Department, of course, which there's a reminder inside his father as the head of the executive branch is presiding over that. Well, in a lot of ways, Mike, as you and I have talked about in the past legal and political all sort of blends together as it relates to Hunter Biden relates to a lot of these cases right now. So what is the sort of timeline in terms of what happens next? A lot of people trying to get better understanding if we're going to be looking at a trial here, given the fact that we're going to be very soon, if not already, in the heart of a very heated political campaign.

Yeah. The best indication for that is what is happening with those gun charges that a diamond was brought in the late summer months, he appeared in a Wilmington courthouse in October. And we are still now in the period of pretrial motions being submitted by either side. In the case of Hunter Biden, his attorney's arguing, for instance, that those gun charges should not have even been brought because there is an appeals court that has found part of those charges.

The fact that he lied on a form that he should have certified that he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol is ruled unconstitutional. So this is a process that we have seen can take months to just to get to a point of a trial. And so certainly as this campaign year unfolds, a lot of attention going to be on if and when both of these potential cases move forward. And just for clarity, we're still waiting for Hunter Biden to enter the courtroom there.

Danny, I want to ask you, what kind of penalties or prison time could Hunter Biden be looking at right now? Well, ordinarily we report the statutory maximum, which is correct, but it usually results in a stratospheric number because you take the statutory maximum penalty and if there are multiple counts, you add them all up end to end because it's theoretically possible that the judge could second it consecutively. So you usually arrive at a really scary number for most defendants when you're hearing it for the first time. But more likely than not, once you apply what are called the sentencing guidelines, which are a totally different thing than the statutory maximum, these are a rather Byzantine complex formula that the courts have to calculate, but it gets even stranger, they're no longer even mandatory after a Supreme Court decision that dates back to, I believe, 2004.

So I tried to do a rough calculation of Hunter sentencing guidelines and this is really a back of the napkin guidelines calculation. But if you look at the dollar amounts and I believe the government's alleging about 1.4 million, that's over 5,500,000, that gets you into roughly level 20. I know these numbers don't mean anything, but that yields a number of about 33 to 41 months. Now, how meaningless is that number?

The judge doesn't even need to follow it. And ultimately, the real calculation will involve a bunch of other factors, like even pleading guilty can reduce it by two levels. So even that makes it a not accurate number. Dana, let me interrupt quickly.

I want to get right back to my friend Mike Manley with some breaking news from inside the courtroom. What are you learning? Yeah. Indeed, Peter.

Hunter Biden has officially entered that not guilty, please. So what is undergirding that? Of course, Hunter Biden's attorney's pointing out that he has paid those $1.4 million in taxes that he should have paid during those four years in which he failed to properly file those returns. They're arguing as they did in the gun case that this is a selective and vindictive prosecution being brought by prosecutors, federal prosecutors who are acting under pressure from House Republicans.

Remember that plea agreement had been in place? When that was originally announced last June, Republicans immediately pounced on to saying that he was only getting this kind of deal because of his last name? Well, Abilow, who is leading the legal defense here for Hunter Biden, has made a similar argument in the other direction saying that these kinds of charges would typically be the subject of a plea deal. In some cases would not even be brought.

They are being brought as Abilow is also arguing only because of what his last name is. So we'll be getting additional details of some of the discussion back and forth on this hearing as it continues inside here. Not sure what that man is saying on the bullhorn, but please give him our regards here as you got through that report for us. Carol, if I can ask you very quickly, you know, as Mike was just indicating Hunter Biden trying to broker that plea deal when he faced federal charges last year, where do we stand in terms of your view of the likelihood that any deal could be brought back up again or that he does stand trial here?

Yeah, unfortunately, when you have a plea that breaks down in open court and particularly one that breaks down in this sort of highly publicized arena, as it did, it's very hard to go back to where the party started out and we're sort of past the point where we're looking at what should happen or what should have happened because when you embark on getting a plea deal done, there's always an or else that's attended to that. And when the plea broke down in court that day, they maybe had one shot to try to reach an agreement again. They failed to do that. And now they're at the or else stage and you can't say you either take this plea deal or we'll offer you something better.

That's not the way you negotiate. And so they're now at the point where they've been dited on many felonies and he's looking at a lot of potential time. I think this judge has in the past imposed about two years to Danny's point. It's very flexible, but about two years in a tax case of a little over a million dollars tax through and owing.

So that's kind of where we are now. Now, I wouldn't take off the table the possibility of the party's reaching up the agreement, but it's going to be so difficult because you have these accusations being thrown around that he's either being treated too nicely or being treated too harshly. And I think there's going to be a lot of pressure on the special counsel to just take this case to trial. Yeah, the special counsel, David Weiss, in this case, but specifically about the timeline, if there is to be a trial here, obviously, that has a lot of political ramifications depending when it would take place, perhaps in the heart of this campaign, as we anticipate the summer political events that will take place with the Dems and the Republicans, they have their big conventions.

So when would you anticipate a trial could begin? The Los Angeles is not a so-called rocket doc that they don't take things to trial in just a few weeks. And I'll tell you, tax cases are really, really complicated, very tough to try. If you actually look at the indictment, it's got a lot of very specific numbers in there.

This involved international income. They're going to have to call witnesses to testify about exactly how much of what he got was actually income, maybe as opposed to other types of money, so they can get very, very technical. And it can be a long time before trial and the trial itself can take a very long time. So I would not expect this trial to be moving very fast at all.

Yeah, Carol, there's a lot to juggle here, obviously, the other issue that we've been discussing. For Hunter Biden is what played out here in Washington, D.C., over the course of the last 24 hours, whether the full house will ultimately refer him to the Justice Department for potential contempt charges. Talk about the DOJ's view at that point. How likely would the Department of Justice be to act on that if they received a referral?

I think this is Hunter Biden's play here. This is why he showed up in the congressional hearing room the way he did yesterday. He was saying, I am here. I'm willing to testify.

All you got to do is call me to the witness stand right now and I'll testify openly and in public. So I think it's the point that he's not dodging. He just doesn't trust the Republicans and what they're going to say or leak if he testifies privately behind closed doors. And so in situations like that, I think the Department of Justice is in a tough place if they really want to bring a criminal charge.

They have the discretion, as they did in the January 6 committee, not to charge Mark Meadows with contempt because he did turn over a lot of documents. He did try to negotiate an alternative. And I think they concluded that's not a really good scenario for bringing a criminal charge. So I think that's what Hunter Biden is counting on now, that the DOJ is going to say, look, the parties weren't negotiating in good faith here, perhaps on either side.

And I think that's where we are. But the tougher question for Merrick Garland is going to be, what about the fact that he is the president's son and the president owns the executive branch and therefore the DOJ and does Merrick Garland now have to appoint yet another special counsel? And Danny, that raises a question I was going to ask you, which is, is this all complicated for the DOJ by its agreeing to charge the ban with contempt, by opting not to do so with Mark Meadows or Dan Scovino, former Trump aides? There are a lot of layers to this consideration.

Well, sure. I mean, the entire Hunter Biden prosecution is rife with different layers. It's been complicated since the very beginning. And the choice, whether or not to charge them for contempt, you know, it's interesting when it comes to congressional contempt.

One thing we've learned over the last few years is that there's a difference between judicial contempt and congressional contempt, but not on paper. On paper, Congress has the power to hold people in contempt and even have them prosecuted. But in practice, it doesn't happen that often. And the other thing to keep in mind is the DOJ even if the statute says that the DOJ shall prosecute when Congress makes a recommendation, DOJ has interpreted that to mean that that statute does not divest us of our discretion.

And that makes sense because ultimately, prosecution must be by the DOJ's choice, not Congress's choice. They would then be interfering with the executive branch of which the DOJ is included within, and Congress is in, of course, another branch. So DOJ has to make that decision. It is, of course, a difficult and political one, but it's already engaged in prosecuting Hunter Biden in relation to these tax cases.

So, I mean, then again, though, every congressional referral for prosecution is, in my view, at least by definition, political because it's Congress making that referral and Congress is a much more political body than DOJ. So I fully sympathize with DOJ's position that just because Congress makes a referral to us, we still get to make the choice because we are DOJ. Danny Svalos, Carol Lamb, Mike Manley on the ground in Los Angeles, our all-star team kicking us off this hour. Thank you guys very much.

We are going to be keeping a close eye on the courthouse in LA as developments work. We will update you coming up right here, the former president addressing a different court and going off, teeing off inside that courtroom. We are live in New York. We're closing arguments are wrapping up there in the former president's civil fraud trial.

That is next. Plus, Chris Christie dropping out of the Republican race for president and getting caught on a hot mic, trashing his former rivals with just four days to go until the first in the nation contest there in Iowa. In Iowa, with the very latest fallout, you're watching Meet the Press Now. Welcome back to Meet the Press Now.

I'm Peter Alexander. As we just mentioned, four days to go until the Iowa caucuses and the Republican front-runner is at trial rather than on the trail one day after participating in an Iowa town hall event, a bit of counter-programming to his 2024 rivals debate. Mr. Trump was back in New York City for closing arguments in his multi-million dollar civil fraud trial.

Mr. Trump was given five minutes to address the court during today's proceedings that he used to attack the judge personally and pay himself as the victim. This has been, of course, a commonly used tactic as the former president tries to leverage his legal woes for political gain among his conservative supporters. Here he is speaking to reporters this afternoon.

I don't have any evidence against us. Millions and millions of pages, years of litigation, and all politically motivated the campaign doing it. I will get Trump. He's got serious Trump derangement syndrome.

There's no question about Leticia James, the corrupt attorney general of New York. So I just want to let you know that we have our best poll numbers, we have the best everything despite this. And maybe because of this, every single, just about case that I'm involved in, is set up by Biden. They're doing it for election interference.

And in a way, I guess you consider it part of the campaign. We should know, we have also just learned that the New York State Attorney General is expected to speak. That's Leticia James. We will hear from her in just a few minutes after the closing arguments are finished.

We will bring that to you as soon as it happens. And joining me now is Rahema Ellis, my colleague outside of that. New York City Courthouse and Von Hilliard, who is on the trail for us again today in Iowa. Rahema, I want to get to you very quickly.

And first, take us inside the courtroom to this moment. This was clearly dramatic for those who witnessed it. You have the former president spending his time speaking in court, again, attacking the attorney general, attacking the judge. This seems to be exactly what the judge had tried to avoid, had wanted to avoid when he initially denied the request for Mr.

Trump to speak. You're absolutely right, Peter. He had told when he went into court today, the judge should give Trump an opportunity to speak, telling him, limit yourself to five minutes and remember what those guardrails are. The former presidents, people are telling us in a very rushed pace, perhaps in an effort to try and get everything in.

And saying the very kind of thing that you just heard him say in this press conference that he had a little while ago, that he said, I am an innocent man persecuted by someone running for office. And he was referring to the attorney general, Leticia James, he said that this has all been election interference, and he made references to all the people that the judge told him not to make references to. At some point, the judge said to his attorney, control your client shortly afterwards that the judge made it clear that this had to stop, and Trump had to leave the stamp. When it came time at that point, shortly afterwards, the Trump team basically rested their argument after lunch, the prosecution came on, and they basically were saying the claim by the former president that there has been no harm, he says, that there does not have to be evidence of harm in order for there to be fraud to have been committed.

And he said, when quote is, were they acting with intent when they manipulated their annual financial statements as part of a conspiracy? Did they know it? The answer is yes, according to the prosecution. And they say that all of this was happening because the Trump team needed more money, and it was in their best interest to make these false claims about the amount of money they had in order to get more favorable loans.

So it's been going only on like that, almost at the end, it appears to the prosecution's closing statements. And then as you say, we expect to hear something from the attorney general, Leticia James, for so fear. And then Rahima, you know, just to be clear about this, the judge here, his home had a bomb threat this morning. What more have we learned about that?

He may have been behind it. And what do we expect in terms of increased security for everybody involved in the former president's legal cases like this? Yeah, with that bomb threaded, it seems in some ways that sort of set the tone for the kind of drama that we saw on court today that occurred early this morning. There was a bomb threat on the judge's home.

They have said this afternoon that they are still investigating this. We don't know what the judge was in his residence at the time. We do know that the doors to the courthouse this morning, there was a delay opening because they wanted to check and make certain there was nothing credible. There was no threat here, but they wanted to make certain that everything was the way it should be.

So the investigation into that bomb threat we told is still continuing. Yeah, that on top of what's called swatting where a lot of different prominent members of the political and legal communities have been receiving these calls, sending 911 saying law enforcement to their homes when there's nothing there, just really to troll the individuals at the center of it. Hey, Malice, thanks for your reporting from outside the courthouse. I want to get the bomb really quickly right now.

If on we're just a matter of days away and remarkably, the candidate you cover is in New York City and not in Iowa, but his dominance still sort of defines this race. The campaign sees Trump in court as a net positive when it comes to messaging. Does the fact that today was a civil case versus one of these four criminal cases matter for his purposes? It's all him versus everyone, so to speak.

Right here. I asked a senior advisor about the decision to be inside of that courtroom here today versus here on the campaign trail just four days after the Iowa caucus. And a senior advisor told me, look, we're not going to let any of these prosecutors have a free shot on gold. If Donald Trump wants to be there for each of these trials, several or criminal in order to go and make his case or the least point to go and hear his attorneys make his case on his behalf, but also let's be clear about this Peter.

There is a lot on the line for Donald Trump and Laura Manhattan here today for Donald Trump. He's not only fighting his first political future here through the Iowa caucus and the after primary ahead, but he's also fighting for the business of the future of his business. And so Donald Trump here in 2024 is increasingly in a corner where he is not only looking at the legal potential ramifications in front of him, but also the business ones. So for him in the company that he has helped build over the course of his entire career and the potential that he would no longer be able to operate a business in the state of New York, that is severely consequential, especially if he were to lose his presidential one this year, Peter.

Well, let me ask you if I can, the biggest headline that came out of the trail just yesterday was of course, Christie dropping out of the race, that announcement, his suspension of his candidacy coming about this hour, 24 hours ago. How is the Trump campaign reacting to that? Obviously, those are, at least as they relate to New Hampshire about 12% of the likely votes that could go to somebody else, most likely that somebody else right now appears to be Nikki Haley. He only has a single digit lead in New Hampshire court in some polls.

I'm not concerned. Is the Trump campaign. They tell me not very concerned. I was talking to Trump campaign senior advisor, Chris Lasavita, who diminished the prominence of Christie in this Republican race as a whole in the state of New Hampshire, polling has showed Christie without 12%.

And in one reason, if you combine that 12% with what Nikki Haley has, Nikki Haley would eclipse Donald Trump here. So there's a potential real threat, but they make the case, the Trump campaign, that New Hampshire is sort of an odd state because of the number of independents that are able to participate in the New Hampshire primary as many as 40% of the New Hampshire GOP primary turnout is expected to be independent voters. And so they feel that that is not representative of Donald Trump's primary success from the rest of the country. Of course, here in the state of Iowa, he has about a 30% point lead in a number of polls here.

We will come to find out what that actually is a Monday. But if you're looking at Nevada and South Carolina head, the Trump campaign feels good about where they are. And they feel like Chris Christie support in New Hampshire and any other state is not enough to make up the difference in Nikki Haley would need anywhere. Yeah, it's that independent streak, though, that helped candidates like John Kasich in the past, even if it short-lived, it could be a potential difference maker, depending on what happens in places like New Hampshire will be watching Bonn on the ground.

For us again, in Iowa today, Bonn, we appreciate your reporting. As we did mention, we are monitoring that New York courthouse for those remarks from the Attorney General, Leticia James. We will bring them to live just as soon as they happen. But next right here, what exactly is it stake for the Trump family and its business empire in the New York civil fraud trial?

We're going to dig into that, the potential financial, personal, and legal fallout next. You're watching Meet the Press now. Welcome back. We're live coverage right here on Meet the Press now.

We want to show you more of those pictures from the New York City court room or the courthouse. That's where we expect to hear any moments from the New York Attorney General, Leticia James, after closing arguments are completed there. As we have mentioned, former President Donald Trump was inside that courthouse today for part of those closing arguments of his civil fraud trial that could threaten to upend his business empire. The state's Attorney General is calling for $370 million in fines against the former president and his companies, as well as a lifetime ban on conducting any real estate business in the state of New York.

Her office is also seeking a similar five-year ban for both Don Jr. and Eric Trump. Judge Engeron is expected to issue a decision sometime this month, where told though Mr. Trump, his legal team would likely appeal any ruling, and joining us now is Jeremy Salant.

He's the former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan DA's office. Jeremy, I'm glad you're here to help us get a better understanding of this. Let's start with what we've heard in the case, and you understand these details better than a lot of us may. Based on what you've heard, did the Attorney General and her team prove their case here?

I think there's some really glaring issues for Donald Trump, that really favor the Attorney General, and he's heard these repeatedly. For example, you have the rent-stable-life departments that go lack of a term unnoticed. We have a unit where Donald Trump lived, a penthouse that was roughly 11,000 feet, but yet it was 30,000 feet. We have the assessment evaluation of Mar-a-Lago.

Is it a property that's a club property or is it a single-family property? There's a lot of things that went really poorly for Team Trump, and you had a groan who said on multiple occasions, challenging the credibility of Trump's experts, and really saying they didn't hold any water. So I would generally concern for Trump, and last but not least, we also know that there was already a decision pre-trial that there was liability, so some of it was just initial damages. Help me understand today that the big dramatic moment inside the courtroom, of course, was after all the back and forth between the legal team and the judge that Mr.

Trump was allowed to speak in court briefly. Today, that seems so based on everyone I've been speaking to, so unprecedented, so unheard of that you would have allowed a defendant in a situation like this to speak like that in an attack, not only the Attorney General, but the judge himself. What do you make of that and how rare, how bizarre is that to be occurring? You use some decent terms of rare and bizarre, but there's a lot about all these cases that are somewhat rare, if not unique.

Maybe one of the thoughts that Judge and Goron might have been thinking was this case unquestionably going to be appealed. And this is going to be another avenue or angle where Trump's team can say, I didn't have an opportunity to be heard. I didn't have an opportunity to share what I wanted to share who limited me. So it is very atypical to be generous.

And Goron said, if you can stick to the facts and stick to the allegations and stick to the four corners of this action against you, you'll have an opportunity. But we know Donald Trump, and we know that he cannot do that, and that's when it went so off in his own direction. But you make interesting points, obviously, right? Because a lot of the argument around the country has been that he's being treated differently than any other defendant.

In fact, he's been treated differently in that he was allowed to speak out in a courtroom the way that he did today. Obviously, having a former president involved, as you noted, is unprecedented. But what about this fraud case itself? Is this a case that we're not Donald Trump in your experience, would have reached this place?

To say, you hear this in criminal and civil, where someone says that person did it and nothing happened. This is commonplace and nothing happened. But for lack of a better term, if you were caught, although the burden is not yours to prove you are not. If you got caught, there's a case where the criminal is civil, here it's civil.

There's a civil argument that someone can make and say, for example, well, it's not necessarily that Donald Trump case, we look at Hunter Biden, so we've paid back his taxes, but then alone, he's still had an issue where he's fighting his case. I want to play for you if I can't break quickly some of what Mr. Trump said at his news conference this afternoon as we wait to hear from Leticia James, take a quick listen. This is a statute that's a consumer fraud statute, never been used for anything like this before.

And it's a shame. It's really a, it's a witch hunt in the truest sense of the word. It's election interference. So it'd be our fact checker.

Is that true? Is this, as a consumer fraud statute that he's referring to here, never been used like this before? There's always a spin here. This is not, you know, the allegations and the charges are not unique to Donald Trump.

And it's not the truth. This is the constant, I'm a victim, I'm being wrong, and I'm here to say I'm defending and protecting all of you. But that's not what's going on here. I mean, you can certainly argue that there's a political component to this.

I think it'd be foolish to say we should absolutely ignore that. But what he is saying is not a fair statement. And based on listening to what's been going on in the courtroom hearing from the judge in recent days, we know that the judge has already ruled the Trump committed fraud. What's the sense of how you think the judge would rule in this case?

I think ultimately what's going to happen is there's going to be a finding against Trump. Again, there already has been a determination. There already has been an assessment of liability. So that's not the issue here.

There is still to be clear, there's their insurance fraud, they're still falsifying business records. There's still outstanding things that Trump has to deal with. But there's going to be real ramifications. Does that mean it's five years for his son?

Does that mean it's a lifelong ban? Does that mean he can't deal with banks in the state of New York anymore? That's yet to be seen. But Donald Trump's in serious trouble financially, and that goes to the heart of who he is.

Jeremy Soland, we really appreciate your expertise and your speaking to us. Thank you so much. For the New York Attorney General right now, we will keep you posted as soon as that happens. We will bring it to you after the break.

Back to Iowa, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley going head ahead in the final debate before the first votes are cast there as both campaigns scramble for second. You are watching Meet the Press Now. We are back as we mentioned. We are now just four days out from the Iowa Republican caucuses with plenty of action on the trail and beyond.

Last night, you may have seen the Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley hitting the debate stage, spending much of the evening attacking each other, not the field's front runner, Donald Trump. We don't need another mealy-mouthed politician who just tells you what she thinks you want to hear just to try to get your vote, then to get an office and to do her donor's bidding. You're going to see the fact that he has switched his policies multiple times, and we'll call that out tonight. But every time he lies, Drake University don't turn this into a drinking game, because you will be over served by the end of the night.

So we need to deliver and get this stuff done. And I think the difference between Nikki Haley and me, and I listened to all that litany of stuff, I debated that Governor California, Gavin Newsom, I thought he lied a lot. And Nikki Haley may give him a run for his money, and she may even be more liberal than Gavin Newsom is. The best way to tell about a candidate is to see how they've run their campaign.

He has blown through $150 million, I don't even know how you do that. If you can't manage a campaign, how are you going to manage a country? Not exactly the positive vision that a lot of people are looking for, right, to be sure Haley and the Santas did take a few calculated shots at the former president too. Donald Trump basically said that the election was stolen.

He went on and on talking about the election being stolen. He said that January 6 was a beautiful day, I think January 6 was a terrible day, and we should never want to see that happen again. As Republicans, in terms of who we nominate for president, if Trump is the nominee, it's going to be about January 6, legal issues, criminal trials, the Democrats and the media would love to run with that. That election, Trump lost it, Biden won that election, and the idea that he's gone and carried this out forever to the point that he's going to continue to say these things to scare the American people are wrong.

All this comes as the former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, announced that he was suspending his long shot anti-Trump campaign, a move that could help Haley consolidate support in New Hampshire, where Christie had been performing best. But before his speech, Christie was caught on a hot mic. Did you hear about this? He predicted that Haley was going to get smoked by Trump.

We'll have more on that in a moment. Still, during his remarks, Christie, he didn't hold back when it comes to his criticism of the Republican front-runner. I am going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again. And that's more important than my own personal ambition.

It isn't easy to look at someone who we know is unfit and unable to represent what the heart of this country really is and tell them, thank you for your service. It's time for you to go home. But that's what we need to do in the next 10 months if we are going to keep in concert with the spirit of this country. But what history does tell us is that the stuff that's happening in this room and out on the street right now really does matter, especially as we get into crunch time here.

Right now, the staffers and volunteers here are making phone calls, they're phone-making, trying to get those caucus goers out, making sure that they are actually going to show up. It's one thing to say, you're going to vote for DeSantis. It's another thing to actually go out and potentially negative 30 degree windshield and actually go to a caucus center and caucus for a candidate, right? So they're calling, making sure that people are going to go do that.

Earlier we were in this room today. It was actually a lot more full, but a bunch of those volunteers went out to the streets and they are right now knocking doors and I'll tell you it's pretty cold out there right now too, but they're out there trying to make sure, again, that they can get people committed to showing up. This is, according to some of the operators that I've been talking to, this ground game that they have, this field operation is pretty much the closest that we've seen from a Republican campaign to Obama's legendary field operation and he's going to really, really need it because as you said, it's so important that he has a strong showing here because DeSantis has invested so, so much in this state and it's invested early. He was starting this door knocking effort.

We were in this office back in June, so he started early, he invested a lot and if he doesn't show up and really he needs a second place finish here because if not, it's going to be really tough for him to continue on here. And Dasha, it's nice to talk to you, but we better get to our friend who's freezing outside right now. Ali Vitale is out there. Ali has been noting the weather, it really is the wild card this time around, right?

Monday, the high is three degrees below zero, so at the end of the day, this comes down to who can get people to show up, a lot of seniors are invested in this primary, in this caucus to take place there. Do they have the infrastructure and frankly, what is the campaign saying about Chris Christie's departure? Can they capitalize? Yeah, look, I'm not taking that three degrees and a low of negative 27, personally, or anything, but when Dasha says it's cold out here, yeah, I can confirm for you, it is really cold out here.

And right now, we're lucky that the weather is in the teens and twenties, as opposed to the snow and ice and negative temperatures that we're supposed to get as caucus day gets closer. All of the campaigns are aware that weather is now a clear factor in this competition for second place. Dasha is right. The DeSantis is playing the Iowa game the more traditional way, which is having a massive ground game and trying to use it.

For Nikki Haley, though, she's really trying to use some of her national momentum to supplement the fact that her campaign, at least the campaign proper, has not overly invested or overly indexed in Iowa the way that they have in terms of the way she spent more time in states like New Hampshire. That being said, Haley benefits from the fact that the Americans for prosperity that coke backed group with a large grassroots organization is also fanning out across the early states, trying to give her a better grassroots operation to operate from within. All of that helps. And that's why they're hoping for a second place finish in Iowa to springboard them into New Hampshire with not just the national momentum that she feels she's had over the course of the last few weeks and months, but with the departure of Chris Christie, hoping that they can pull some of those Christie voters, however, reluctantly to the Haley cause.

I have to tell you, in my conversations with Haley allies yesterday, they were very enthusiastic about the fact that even though Chris Christie had some jabs for her on his way out the door that was on that hot mic, but then also while he was on the stage making some quip about the role of slavery in the Civil War, of course, that harkening back to the gaff that he had just a few weeks ago where she did not list slavery as the cause of the Civil War. Christie, even though he's jabbing her, his departure means more to the Haley campaign than some of the petty politics that you're often seeing between these candidates. They're focused on what it means from the data and numbers perspective, less about what it means from the juicy gossip perspective that of course we're all very interested in as well. And Ali quickly, I want to play for our audience right now.

We'll be heard from Nikki Haley responding to that hot mic moment with Chris Christie. Take a quick listen. I don't have to convince people he's wrong because nobody in that crowd asking me about that. I mean, they see politics is not personal for me.

It is for the fellows. Not for me. We have a country that's safe. My focus is making sure we get every voter possible in Iowa.

We go and we continue to get voters in New Hampshire and then on to South Carolina and continue it. Ali right there. You see Nikki Haley sort of trying to dismiss the thought from Chris Christie that she was going to get smoked. Yeah.

And I'm so glad you played that clip of an interview that our colleague Garrett hate got here because it's the first time we're hearing Haley really talk about Chris Christie's comments at length. Of course, him saying she's going to get smoked. She's not up for the task. That is not something that she wants voters to be hearing, but there's always something interesting that she does when she talks about the other rivals in this race and she calls them the fellas.

It's a way for her to emphasize the fact that she's the only woman running as if anyone looking at the stage realizes that anything different, but it's also a way for her to dismiss them and try to say she's flying above the fray, even as they're attacking her. Very strong scarf game from Ali Vitale outside, Dr. Burns, for those of you, I hope you all get yourselves a good steak at 801 before the end of your Des Moines visit. You both have earned it only four days to go.

Speaking of Iowa, my colleague, Tali Jackson, Tom Janus, Chris and Welker will have live coverage of analysis of the Iowa caucuses all night long on Monday, starting at seven o'clock Eastern, right here on NBC News now. Still to come. Hot Mike's freezing temps and a whole lot of legal uncertainty. We are diving deeper into the state of the race for the Republican nomination and the race for the White House.

The panel is next. You're watching Meet the Press Now. Welcome back at this point. You probably know we're just four days away until the first of those of the 2024 presidential election.

That's when they're cast and we've got plenty of action in Iowa, in courts and beyond. So let's have a conversation about it with today's panel, White House Reporter for Bloomberg News, a Kayla Gardner, Democratic strategist and NBC News political analyst, Juanita Tolliver, and Brendan Buck, former advisor to House Speaker John Boehner, and Paul Ryan. He is also an NBC News political analyst at Kayla at the start with you. So we got Nikki Haley.

We got Ron DeSantis. They're both banking on a second place finish here. The stakes are pretty high. This race goes down very quickly if neither one of them has a strong showing in Iowa to say nothing to New Hampshire.

I think you're absolutely right. I think we heard that hot my moment from Chris Christie yesterday, essentially pointing out what we all know to be true so which is that Donald Trump is still the person to be. He still has a huge lead in Iowa and New Hampshire. But I think Chris Christie dropping out yesterday does change the New Hampshire calculus just a little bit because if he can bank on all of those voters going to Haley, I think Haley has a real chance to play in that state.

But even then, I still think we all know that Donald Trump has a pretty clear path to nomination. So for clarity, Brendan, if Nikki Haley, is Nikki Haley the one who takes the Chris Christie votes here if this thing moves on to New Hampshire is that pretty obvious. And also if DeSantis doesn't move on to New Hampshire all of a sudden, those votes go to Trump. I mean, there's so many variables in the way this thing plays out.

How do you view the next several games? Yeah, I think there's a real question of whether Ron DeSantis is still running when we get to New Hampshire, which is not hard. I mean, polling shows that Christie voters, their second choice is largely Nikki Haley, which is obviously good for him. I think the one thing, there's very small chance that Donald Trump has not been this nomination.

But the one thing that could potentially change the dynamic is if it becomes a one-on-one race. And that's what we've been missing this entire time. When Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis have been fighting with each other, it just lets Donald Trump skate. And we can fully clear the field.

You can say it's an alternative versus Donald Trump. Maybe there's an interesting conversation when we get into South Carolina, her home state. I think she's still a big long shot. But potentially if DeSantis doesn't have a good night in Iowa, drops out, it may feel a little different.

I want to ask you if I can really quickly about all of this, Juanita, because as we watch what's been going on right now, Chris Christie yesterday kind of put it as bluntly as anybody has at this point, right? The Hot Mike moment really gave us a real pullback to curtain moment, not just the way he feels, but frankly the way a lot of those who are keeping a close eye on this race feel right now. He said that she would get smoked and said that he, referring to DeSantis, was petrified right now. Absolutely.

He was trying to take every shot he could because his campaign is fighting for his life. Remember DeSantis is only able to spin in Iowa. The coffers are close to empty. He has nothing on the air in New Hampshire, so this is it for DeSantis.

Now thinking about Christie and his tone, I think it is a stark reminder that Trump has got this pretty much in the bag, but I do wonder what role he intends to play next, because he did say I will work very hard to make sure Trump does not get back to the office. I'm like, what role does he play now? Because he couldn't really prevent anything from being in the election as we saw. But when it comes to Nikki Haley, I do think for the Republican party, she is primed to make some history by picking up delegates as a presidential contender in their prime memory.

But I don't see her gaining much grounders overtaking Trump in New Hampshire or self-care. Taylor, what makes a good point there, what happens to Christie I think is interesting right now. He's made it clear he wants to do nothing that supports Donald Trump in his effort to be the president of the United States. Again, right now, but he does have some capitals and reporting that no labels even was reaching out to him about something possible.

It's hard to see him doing that because that would seem that it would be supporting Donald Trump's effort, right? If he were to pull some votes away perhaps from the alternative, what does Christie do with his capital? The limited amount of capital he has, but enough and New Hampshire make a difference? I think that's interesting.

You read the potential of him possibly running third-party or no labels. I think that's a huge concern of the Biden campaign pulling continues to be very unlikely that Christie runs for him. Right. And I agree with you, but I do think him dropping out shows he has a little bit less political capital than he did just even 24 hours ago.

And I think for Biden, his rhetoric specifically about Trump, this anti-Trump rhetoric, talking about democracy, it has helped him in some ways. He has been one of the few Republicans who have been so critical Donald Trump. We have seen so many Republicans take that position and have been hurt. They haven't been reelected.

And he sort of helped Biden in that way by able to talk about the soul of the nation, talk about this fight for democracy. And he has one less voice, frankly, with some credibility, of course, because he endorsed Donald Trump in 2016 and was considered for this chief of staff job, so he no longer has his voice on the airways. Brendan Paganoon was at this desk on Sunday at the press, and she said something that kind of struck me. She said there is sort of like a smallness to this campaign right now.

Right in 2020, I felt like everybody was on board, it was in the middle of COVID, and ballots got sent to people's homes in a lot of states. Mind you, so the numbers were huge, but here the real concern, frankly, I think, certainly for Democrats is the potential for erosion, but even on the Republican side, you can see the potential for erosion as well. Donald Trump's your guy. It's hard to see those Christie voters showing up for Donald Trump, but even some of these Haley voters conceivably.

Yeah, it certainly feels small during the primary. That's absolutely true. I don't think the state is going to be enormous, and I think the country is going to turn out in the fall, and I think we will have a very elevated debate. It will be a weird election, to be sure.

I don't know if it will have any debates. The court cases with Donald Trump, it's going to be like an election we've never seen before, but we're all going to be tuned in. Everybody is going to be watching. But as we're watching right now, this is never, we keep flinting pretending this is a real primary.

I mean, Ron DeSantis is petrified, as Christie said, not because he doesn't think he's going to win, because maybe he's sinking his whole future. You know, he's banking on being a viable presidential candidate down the road. He may have lost that here by getting smoked so badly in this primary. Well, that's what's been so interesting, right?

It's where there seems like these folks in some way, DeSantis is trying to be a Trump light to salvage whatever 20, 28 might look like, if it doesn't work, you're hard to see how that would be viable. I was struck, Juanita, as we were listening just yesterday to former President Trump doing his town hall with the folks at Fox. They asked him specifically about how he has said in the past that I will be your retribution. He tried to dial that back up and suggest that he was going to be too busy.

He wouldn't have time to be retribution because he'll be so busy helping Americans as he described it. Sort of the effort and moderation in a way. Does any of this stuff stick to people view it that way? I think we take Donald Trump out his words and his actions.

Remember, he knew that crowd was armed when he told them to go attack the Capitol building on January 6th. I think that's sufficient. So when he says he wants to be dictator on day one, I think that is also what's sticking with voters. And President Biden has smart to reiterate that on the campaign trial.

I hope he continues the drumbeat, not only of expanding on the threat that Trump presents to democracy, but our most basic rights, whether that's voting rights, a right to fair chance in this economy, like basic things that people actually care about because it can't just be only democracy. And then of course, another issue is reproductive rights abortion rights as well. Donald Trump is really trying to distance himself from the right wing of his party on the issue of abortion. Of course, it was the three seats.

The three justices he put on the court that helped overturning of Roe v. Wade, but he did get Democrats the sort of sound bite that they may try to capitalize on for November. Here's part of what he said. For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v.

Wade terminated, and I did it, and I'm proud to have done it. They wanted to get it back, right? You wouldn't be happy. There would be no question.

Nobody else was going to get that done by me. And we did it. And we did something that was a miracle. Okay.

Well, the Biden campaign president Biden quickly put a got a statement saying, yeah, he's right. He did it. How big of a deal is the abortion issue as we look forward? It's a huge deal.

And I think something that has been interesting to see with Trump is he really hasn't sort of of drilled down a week that he would be comfortable with. He's been very vague. Sort of flip-flopping. I think he's aware of the rooms and the audiences that he's in.

And I think DeSantis is probably the most pro-life of the candidates, and many people attribute his downfall to that issue specifically. We've seen Nikki Haley also sort of toe this line on the issue as well. Both of them have been quite vague. But they know that it's an issue that's very poor to conservative Republicans.

But at the same time, they have to be careful. I think that's why we've seen such big statements for both of them. Very quick question to our house guy Brendan Buck here. I just want to ask you about Speaker Mike Johnson.

He's running into the same brick wall that all these predecessors have, the conservative right is rebelling yet again on any effort at a spending deal right now. Just your reaction to that. Yeah. I don't realize at this point it's not the speaker.

It's not the speaker. It's not who the speaker is. That's the problem. It's a bunch of members in the house who won't accept the reality of a divided government.

What is it possible? It doesn't matter. You can make sure. You can make sure.

You can make sure. Pick a pick a name. Pick a speaker. They're all going to get up in the same place.

And so we're going to keep going for the cycle until they realize it. They may never realize it's a politics. Probably work for them to just beat up on the speaker. Yeah, no doubt.

Certainly Mike Johnson thought he might have a different experience than anybody else. But as Yogi Baras said, it's Deja Vu all over again. Thanks for being with us this hour. I'm Dylan Dryer, co-host of The Third Hour of Today, and Mom to Three Wild Boys.

I've learned a lot in my years as a parent, mostly that I don't have it all figured out yet. And I'm not the only one. This is my new podcast, The Parent Chat. Each week I sit down with someone new.

We're on this conversation. And real-world advice about parenting. I am over here just like winging it. Hey, I'm just trying not to screw my own kid up.

I'm not giving you advice on how I screw yours up. Search Parent Chat on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.