Meet the Press NOW — July 19

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Events visit your Ontario Ford store or Ford CA if it's Wednesday. We have new details on the Target letter Donald Trump received from special counsel Jack Smith, including the potential criminal charges he could be facing tied to the investigation into the 2020 election interference and January 6th. Plus, Trump's allies zero in on testimony this afternoon from a pair of IRS whistleblowers who alleged misconduct and preferential treatment for the government's investigation into the president's son, Hunter Biden. And a severe summer heat wave breaking records and threatening lives worldwide as US And Chinese officials meet in Beijing to talk climate cooperation.

And welcome to MEET THE PRESS Now. I'm Ryan Nobles in for Chuck Todd here in Washington. And that's the House Oversight Committee is hearing right now from two IRS whistleblowers who alleged political interference in the Justice Department's investigation of Hunter Biden. Those allegations have been a focus of House Republicans continued investigations of the current president.

And it comes as we learn more about the latest possible indictment facing former President Donald Trump and his efforts to rally Republicans to his defense. NBC has confirmed that the special counsel's target letter to Trump in its investigation into January 6th and interference in the 2020 election specifically cited three federal statutes, deprivation of rights under color of law, conspiracy to defraud the US and tampering with a witness, those statutes suggest a potential roadmap for what the president could be charged with and what charges he may not face. Today on social media, the former president continued to attack the special counsel's investigation, claiming it was a form of, quote, election interference to derail his candidacy. This is what he told supporters in Iowa last night.

If you say something about an election, they want to put you in jail for the rest of your life. It's a disgrace. So they can cheat on an election. But if somebody wants to question the cheating, they want to call you a conspiracy theorist and all these other things.

These people are sick. NBC has also confirmed that Mr. Trump specifically called House Republican leaders, urging them to rally support from Republican lawmakers. And as Republicans amplified Mr.

Trump's claims that the Justice Department has been weaponized against him. They're also seizing on allegations of interference and the DOJ's investigation into President Biden's son, Hunter Biden. A pair of IRS whistleblowers testifying this afternoon alleging the probe has been mishandled and that the public has been misled. It appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that the U.S.

attorney in Delaware in our investigation was constantly hamstrung, limited and marginalized by DOJ officials as well as other US Attorneys. There should not be a two track justice system depending on who you are and who you're connected to. Yeah, in this case there was. Based on my experience.

I'm here to tell you that Delaware U.S. attorney's office and Department of Justice help handling the Hunter Biden tax investigation was very different from any other case, my 14 years at the IRS. Now, the Trump appointed U.S. attorney in charge of this case is pushed back against their claims, assuring that his decisions were made without reference to political considerations.

And in a statement today, the White House dismissed the hearing as politically motivated, although they did not address the substance of the whistleblower's allegations. Joining me now to talk about all this, NBC News justice and intelligence Correspondent Ken Khan, NBC's on Capitol Hill, Von Hilliard has the latest on the Trump campaign. And our go to legal expert Chuck Rosenberg, former U.S. attorney and a former senior FBI official.

He is, of course, also an NBC News contributor. Ken, let's start with you. And we're getting more information on what was in this target letter. What have we learned?

Right. So we've learned that one of the charges that we've been talking about a long time, a conspiracy to defraud the United States, is part of the mix here. And as I understand it, the theory behind that would be that Donald Trump and some of the people around him knew that he lost the election, but nonetheless went to great lengths to spread these false allegations of election fraud and not only to talk about it, but to use the levers of power to do things like create slates of false electors and try to foist them on the Congress to try to raise money based on false claims and ultimately to try to get Mike Pence to, to send the election back to the states that he didn't have the power to do on January 6th. And so that's one of the charges.

The witness tampering statute also covers obstruction of an official proceeding, which is another charge that we think of is under consideration here, which again, same theory of the case, the conspiracy to obstruct Congress from counting those votes on January 6, the deprivation of civil rights charges, an interesting one. It would appear to require some victims. But we know that the grand jury has been hearing testimony about, for example, election officials who've been threatened. We know that they subpoenaed footage from Fulton county where that for that mother and daughter who testified so poignantly before the January 6 May, and talked about how their lives had been ruined by false allegations by Rudy Giuliani.

You know, they were ones counting votes, and they were in that footage that has been subpoenaed. So that's a possibility there. So that's what we're learning about the target letter. And it doesn't mean, I don't think Chuck will correct me if I'm wrong, that this is the sum total and all of the charges that special counsel Jack Smith is bringing in this case.

But it's a strong indication of what Donald Trump might be facing. And it could also mean that the investigation isn't even over. Right. There's a former Trump aid that's set to testify to the grand jury tomorrow.

Yeah, that's correct. And I wouldn't read too much into that, though. The target letter suggests that an indictment is coming fairly soon. Not tomorrow, but perhaps in the coming weeks.

But what I learned yesterday and covered that hearing about that other case, the Mar A Lago classified documents case, is that they are still interviewing witnesses in that case. So they're continuing to investigate, even post indictment. That's normal, because they want to button up witness accounts and they may augment the body of evidence. But even though this witness is finding this witness, by the way, the White House, a who has been at the green jury before, it still suggests that this case is wrapping up and moving towards indictment.

All right, Ken Lennon, thank you for that. Let's turn out Ali Battalion, Capitol Hill. So, Ali, we've learned that Trump is directly strategizing with House GOP leaders, directly rally support in the wake of this target letter. That seems to be the process when something like this happens.

When can we know more about this collie of the speaker, McCarthy also at least a phonic. Are there other Republican leaders he's been in touch with? Look, I think it's really stunning that you say that we kind of know the process on this because, again, we have done this before. There is now playbook for when a former president and the effective standard bearer of one of the two major parties has legal troubles like indictments from the Department of Justice or looming indictments in the case that we're talking about.

Right now regarding January 6th. So that is something that lawmakers here have almost gotten practiced at. The fact that Trump is reaching out to some of his closest allies who are also some of the most powerful Republicans within the House conference, specifically House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Congressman Elise Stefanik, both in leadership, both people who have come out, at least in Stefanik's case, and endorsed the former president, both of them defending him forcefully, as we've seen them do before when situations like this have arisen. I also think it's notable though, the way we've watched McCarthy not just lend lip service to defense of Trump, saying things like this is yet another example of weaponization and politicization of the Department of Justice against a political foe.

But we're also seeing McCarthy continue to support the chairman of powerful committees here, using the powerful, the power of the gavel to really leverage that as a defense from a congressional perspective for the former president. Yeah, it's such a great point, Al, because, you know, we've seen how Republicans respond to this. The fact that we can now tie direct conversations between McCarthy and other leaders directly to their actions shows that there's a game blame. Right?

It's either defend or deflect. And we see them doing both. Yeah, certainly. And of course, you have to also look at who some of these chairmen are.

Someone like Congressman Jim Jordan, the chair of the Weaponization Committee and the Judiciary Committee is someone who's been so centrally involved in the conversations with McCarthy and you have to imagine because of his long time proximated Trump, that there's likely some conversations happening there about what can be done here to bolster defense for the former president from the House majority that frankly is more reflective of him and his brand of politics than it's ever been before. Watching the ways that after the Manhattan district attorney, for example, that first indictment, Ryan, we watched the way that the Judiciary Committee tried to haul in front of them first Alvin Bragg, when that didn't work, they got other people who were close to that probe to come and testify. We also watched Jim Jordan and others ask the Department of Justice for more information about the scope of the special counsel, what this probe is going to look like. Of course, the DOJ can always come back, as they do often, and say that they're not willing to talk about ongoing investigations.

But nevertheless, Republicans are continuing to push for that and effectively trying to muddy the waters. I think we even look at something like what we watched today out of the Oversight Committee, which was technically oversight hearing that had powerful chairman from Intelligence from Judiciary and from Ways and Means all sitting in on it, talking about Hunter Biden and the way that they think the DOJ went softer on Hunter Bide Biden, because there are two tiers to the system of justice. Of course, Democrats were quick to point out that the attorney, the prosecutor in the Hunter Biden IRS case said that he was not hamstrung, unlike Republicans were saying that he says he was. And that's another example, I think, of the ways that they're trying to say, well, what about in this case, Hunter, while also money in the water is on what's going on with former President Donald Trump.

Sometimes the absence of information is to the benefit of their argument. Thank you so much. Let's go on now in the wake of yesterday's news, the former president on the road and on the airwaves, how's he defending himself? Is he going on the offensive as he traditionally does?

Yes. And he's done this before. Let's just go back to last year, Ryan. He went and campaigned around the country, not because his name was on the ballot, but the names of Republicans who voted to impeach him in the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the ballot.

And he had primary challengers to those Republicans who voted to impeach him. He was endorsing challengers to them. And by and large, he was successful in helping boost their candidacies and their bids, taking on the likes of Liz Cheney, for example, in Wyoming, or Tom Rice in South Carolina. And much of the focus was about the defense or lack of defense around him regarding the 2020 election.

And when you look at the numbers, 67%, according to a major poll back in May, 67% of the Republican electorate views Donald or Joe Biden as an illegitimate president. And that is where you see the Republican candidates running against him outside of Chris Christie and Asa Hodgson walking a fine line in their criticisms of Donald Trump in the events around January 6th. If you look at where Chris Christie and Asa Hodson find themselves in the polls, they have single digit support. And why is that?

It's largely due in part to their persistent condemnation of Donald Trump and the lack of loud, unanimous Republican voices there to defend them. And you have the question, though, going through the minds of the Trump legal team right now, let's get to this political team. Of course, you know well, but we've got all these aides and officials testifying to the grand jury, another one this week. Are they concerned that somebody may flip?

And that might be part of what we see when the indictment comes out. Right. I mean, we're talking about William Russell, who is the aide from the White House, but is also still working for his 2024 presidential campaign, going tomorrow before the D.C. grand jury to provide his testimony.

I think that this is the difficulty where Kevin McCarthy, but also other allies of his own presidential campaign find themselves, because Donald Trump doesn't deny his actions in the weeks after the 2020 election or even deny his actions on the day of the attack. He does not deny that he put pressure on Vice President Pence. He does not deny that he and allies put pressure on state officials and key battleground states. He does not deny that he did not call the Pentagon on the day of the attack on the Capitol.

Instead, he and his legal defense are looking at ways to challenge, potentially, if he is, in fact charged, the merits of the charges against him, not necessarily his actual actions from that day, which you see his Republican allies, that's a really tough, tough challenge for them to put up their own defense in a man that could very well be their party's nominee anywhere from six or seven months from now. Okay, 100. Thank you for that, Chuck. We need your expertise here to walk us through this.

Let's first talk about those statues that Ken artfully put into the record for us this morning. Force talk us through each one of these statutes and what they could potentially mean in terms of charges. Sure. And I'll take them in the order that they're on the screen.

So deprivation of rights under color of law really means an official, in this case, A federal official, Mr. Trump, acting in some way to deprive another person or class of persons rights guaranteed by the Constitution. So there's various ways, Ryan, of violating the statute. We don't know yet who the victims are for purposes of the indictment, and we don't know specifically what rights they were deprived of, although there is a section under the statute that speaks to voting rights, and I think that would be a good guess.

The conspiracy to defraud the United States, as Ken Delaney so ably laid out earlier, was an attempt by Mr. Trump and others, his co conspirators, allegedly to thwart the peaceful transfer of power and to overturn a fair and free election. And then tampering with a witness is a bit of a misnomer in the following way. The statute is entitled witness tampering, but there are many sections to it and many different ways of violating this particular statute.

And one of the ways in which it can be violated would be to essentially obstruct an official proceeding in this case, the counting of the electoral votes. And by the way, Ryan, a lot of the January 6th riders, certainly the ones who are higher placed or more culpable, were charged precisely with that piece of the witness tampering statute. Right. An attempt to essentially impede the lawful function of the government.

Well, that's interesting because, you know, there's a conversation over whether or not the special counsel was going to focus on the overturning of the election versus inciting the mob at the Capitol. So there's a potential that both of those incidents could fall under these potential charges. But I have to ask you, you know, are there other potential statutes that could be involved? Like, for instance, we don't see the potential of a seditious conspiracy charge, at least in this target letter.

Does that not necessarily mean that that could come up once the indictment is handed down? Well, it could come up for a couple of reasons, Ryan. One is there's no obligation that prosecutors even send the target letter, let alone that they enumerate every possible statute with which a target might be charged. And second, and Ken also alluded to this, there are ongoing grand jury investigations.

There may be additional charges. By the way, there may also be other defendants. We always talk about this as if Mr. Trump is the only target and therefore the only potential defendant.

But we saw in Mar a Lago that one of his aides, Walt Nada, was also charged. So there's a number of ways in which other statutes might be invoked and might be charged. Right now, that would entail a good deal of speculation, but it's possible. Certainly possible.

And does it necessarily mean this could be the end in terms of federal indictments for President Trump? For President Trump. Could there be more in the future? Is there any reason to think the investigation is ongoing?

Well, there's a reason to think that it is ongoing. I mean, Ken mentioned that other witnesses were peering in connection with the Southern District of Florida federal investigation. We know there's more work still being done in the federal investigation in the District of Columbia. So it's always possible.

Again, there might be other defendants, there might be other charges. There could be superseding indictments, meaning you could indict Ryan Noble and Chuck Rosenberg for conspiring to rob a bank and then learn that we conspired to rob a bunch of other banks and supersede the indictment with those additional charges. There is a problem, though, from the government's perspective with these ongoing investigations, should they lead to superseding indictments, and that is it would inevitably slow the case. Down.

Government doesn't want that. They want to speed to trial. Jack Smith has been clear that he wants to move these cases to trial as expeditiously as possible. And so I think there would be some concern if the government continue to investigate, continue to, to supersede its indictments.

Hopefully what we see next would be. And when I say hopefully, I mean my hope is that if the government's going to bring charges, they do it singularly, thoughtfully, comprehensively, and that this doesn't continue to just sort of turn on and on and on. Okay, and then quickly, before we wrap up, how important will jurisdiction matter here? Will this come down in D.C.

or could they bring it out of place like Arizona or Georgia, where we know that the officials penis officials in those states. So, Ryan, you're referring to venue, the place where the crime occurred. And typically in large, sprawling, complex cases, you got a venue in any number of places. If the concern is the jury pool, I have a view that you can assemble a fair jury anywhere, that Mr.

Trump and the government can get a fair trial in the Southern District of Florida and Mr. Trump and the government can get a fair trial in the District of Columbia. That relies in large part on the judge and the lawyer, the lawyers in the case screening jurors and asking the proper questions. But I'm not overly concerned about venue.

I think both parties, as they should, can get a fair trial wherever the case is venued. Venue, not jurisdiction. I learned from every single day. Check.

Rosenberg, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for being here. You really helped us to understand what the target letter means. All right, coming up, record breaking heat across three continents.

Tens of millions of Americans are still under dangerous heat alerts and millions in Europe and Asia are facing life threatening high temperatures as well. You're watching Be the Press now. Welcome back. U.S.

climate envoy John Kerry tried to turn up the heat on China to address climate concerns as he met officials in Beijing yesterday to push cooperation on global climate goals. The states are high and so are the temperatures. China and the United States are the world's two largest producers of greenhouse gases and both countries have been experiencing dangerous record heat waves. Temperatures in the northwest part of China reached a record of almost 126 degrees on Monday and temperatures remain above 100 degrees in much of the southwestern U.S.

politically, Carrie Struck comes as the U.S. is attempting to repair its relationship with China. China's President Xi indicated he is not interested in US Intervention on the issue, saying China's environmental policy, quote, will never be influenced by others. I'm Joined now by NBC News correspondent Blaine Alexander.

She is in Georgia covering the stifling heat wave hitting the US And NBC News Mirage's Bill Karen's. So, Blaine, it really is hot everywhere. And while Kerry is dealing with climate policy abroad, what are people in the US Dealing with right now at home? Well, right, you're right.

This heat does not discriminate no matter where you are, really, especially here in the United States. We're talking about almost the entire southern half of the country from coast to coast, California, Florida, dealing with almost record breaking temperatures. So what we're talking about is especially out west, we're seeing temperatures repeatedly hitting the triple digits. We're seeing records falling so fast now that it's hard to keep track.

But the other thing that we're watching is a kind of dangerous one. Too much. Of course, we're talking about the unbearable heat, but we're also talking about poor air quality. That's something else that other Americans have been dealing with this week.

Now, while it is starting to get better, especially here in places like Atlanta, it does pose a specific risk because when you talk about the record highs like the ones that you're seeing on your screen topping 110 degrees in some places, when you get that type of heat, your body has to work harder, you can become hydrated, heart starts to eat faster, religious to compensate, you get higher blood pressure. Then you set unhealthy air quality on top of that. And that reads a whole different set of health problems. So that's why take this seriously.

Don't just say, hey, it's summer, we're fine, we'll be outside. No, you can be inside all. Make sure that you do that. The other thing I learned about this today, Ryan, is that fans, fans, a lot of people try and stay cool in fans.

That doesn't provide as much relief as you might think. In fact, you get a kind of false sense of security because it doesn't actually cool your body temperature. So certainly poor patient there, too. Sometimes the fans just blowing hot air on you, which doesn't really help all that much.

All right, thank you. So, Bill, let's break down these record temperatures in the US and abroad. What are we seeing in the western United States and then in western Europe and even China? How long is this going to last?

We're stuck in this rut right now. We're at the peak of the heat summer season and we have these heat domes that are across the globe. Heat domes are nothing new. We get them every summer, but simply they move a little Bit.

And they've been sitting one over the southwest with one in the Middle Atlantic, one over southern portions of the Europe, northern Africa. And then we have one sitting over here heading towards areas of Pakistan and Iran and also the one there in China. So the one that we've been dealing with in the southwest continues. And there's no sign of any of these other ones really breaking up either.

And last night was an all time record for Phoenix. Now, not the highest temperature, but the morning low. So like when you wake up in the morning and you roll the windows down, you get the paper or you walk the dog. It was 97 degrees.

That's as low as the temperature got in Phoenix. That's never happened before. The previous record was 96. This isn't just climate change.

It's also because of urban development. All that pavement does help hold in the heat. And look at Phoenix. Just 1 17.

118. 118. Continuing their streak above 110. Typically this can be about 107 to 108.

And as far as what we're looking at right now, the humidity and the heat is brutal in Little Rock. 112, Dallas, it's not fun. 108, you get the picture. New Orleans, Montgomery, These are the areas that have been hot and they're continuing to roast.

Numerous records will be broken today from Texas and areas of Arizona, including Phoenix. And we've already hit the highs for today in Europe. Southern portions of Italy did hit all time record highs. Rome cools off a little bit.

97, 96 the next few days. But southern Italy, still a very hot day. Mark 103 in Athens, no relief in sight for you either. 104 the next two days in a row.

You know, we often talk, Bill, about these individual record breaking temperature days, but what does it mean that the average temperature is so high across some of these places for the entire month? What does that mean for our viewers in a place like Phoenix? It means for Phoenix, you just have to be more prepared for these long duration heat waves. I don't have a graphic for this, but I looked this up just a little bit ago.

Phoenix is on pace for their warmest month ever. That's not a big surprise. I've been in a short heat wave ever since the beginning of July, but it's 2 degrees hotter than the previous record July. So it's not like it's breaking the record by a little bit.

2 degrees is a lot in the climate world. And you can see there those are the daily high temperatures that they've had. Ever since the beginning of this excessive heat wave. And it's going to continue through this weekend into the beginning of next week easily.

So, yeah, this will be all time stuff, not just for Phoenix, but even New Orleans, by the way, has their hottest summer on record. That's happening right now. And we haven't even mentioned them. Right.

And also in the Southeast, too. Right. Kentucky, North Carolina, they're also dealing with a tree heat. It has been the heat and also the storms.

And this was the breaking news about four hours ago, a tornado, a lone tornado, one thunderstorm, one tornado. It was a pretty strong tornado. It damaged the Pfizer plant here. There's about 50,000 pallets of medicine and supplies that have been damaged that they say they won't be able to ship out.

So that'll be a big concern for wherever they were heading, hospitals or pharmacies. And so that's one of the stories. We know that injuries are reported, no fatalities. I95 was shut down for a while, too.

So there's a nightmare situation there. And then in Kentucky, this was a horrific scene. Mayfield, by the way, about a year and a half ago, was hit by an EF4 tornado. 57 people died.

This morning they woke up and the downtown was flooded, houses had water. And it looks like they broke the Kentucky state record for the most rain in 24 hours. Last night. They picked up 11.2 inches of rain in Mayfield.

So a lot of prayers and thoughts for them. I mean, just a brutal they're just starting to rebuild after that horrific tornado and now they're dealing with a horrific flood at some point. Bill, when running, ask you is there an end in sight? And your answer will be yes.

We're not there yet, but I'm feeling confident that you'll be able to say yes to that. Unfortunately, the end we're going to hurricane season stuff, but we'll deal with that later. All right, Bill, Karen, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Up next, back to Capitol Hill, a pair of whistleblowers testified before Congress alleging political interference in the government's criminal probe tied to Hunter Biden. I'll talk to a lawmaker who was in the room for today's testimony and what it means for both parties. That's next. You're watching Beat THE PRESS now.

Welcome back. And as we mentioned, two IRS whistleblowers are testifying as we speak before the House Oversight Committee alleging political interference in the investigation into Hunter Biden. One of those whistleblowers speaking out publicly for the first time is Joseph Ziegler, he said he believed there was, quote, gross mismanagement throughout the investigation. He also called for the appointment of a special counsel to take over the investigation.

Take a listen. I still think that a special counsel is necessary for this investigation to further handle ancillary investigations that are spun off and relate to Hunter Biden but may not have venue in Delaware. Lastly, I would like to conclude again by encouraging Congress and the administration to consider establishing an official channel for federal investigators to pull the emergency court and raise the issue of the appointment or of the appointment of a special counsel for consideration by senior officials. Join me now to talk about this is the House Overseas Committee member, Democratic Congressman Roger Christian Murthy.

Congressman, thank you for being here. I mean, you were in the room. You asked these witnesses questions. They are career public servants.

Their political ties are in somewhat in question, but for the most part they describe themselves as being apolitical. Do you think that they're credible witnesses and are they making credible allegations? I think that they're honest witnesses. They're public servants.

I don't question their integrity. I think that they have basically questions. They're basically second guessing what other investigators and prosecutors and attorneys on their team made in terms of judgment calls. And interestingly, a lot of their concerns as they laid out in their previous testimony and transcript and statements concern time periods when Donald Trump was president.

Bill Barr was attorney general, of course, appointed by Donald Trump. And Mr. Weiss was the U.S. attorney for Delaware.

And of course, he was also appointed by Donald Trump. So doesn't seem like political bias necessarily played a significant role in the decisions that they're questioning. Well, it's interesting that you make a point about the U.S. attorney in this case, David Weissen.

And that leads me to my next question because it does appear to be the one issue here where there appears to be a he said, he said when it comes to this, these whistleblowers are saying that David Weiss told them that he did not have the final approval to make a decision on prosecuting Hunter Biden. White has sent two letters to your committee to the contrary. Does he need to come before your committee or to another congressional committee and answer these questions under. I'm not sure.

But I think that, you know, Mr. Weiss has made it very clear that, you know, as recently as just a couple weeks ago that he had the authority that he needed to do his job. And again, this is somebody who was appointed by Donald Trump who was selected by Bill Barr to consolidate the cases under one jurisdiction to do what needed to be done. And I think to kind of question his decision making based on politics.

It just doesn't seem to make sense to me. Okay, so let's talk about some of the other committees on Capitol Hill and how politics seems to be painting everything right now. Historically, the national. I can't believe you bring that up.

Hard to believe, right? Historically though, the National Defense Authorization act has been a largely bipartisan effort. And this time around now Democrats are suggesting that that is even being caught up in the culture wars. We had a number amendments that were added to the version of the NDAA that your House of Representatives passed and you didn't vote for it, but it was passed largely along Republican lines.

Can we get to a point where all, where not every single thing is brought into the culture wars? How can we turn the page in that respect? And what do you think it means for the future of the ndaa? Well, I think that hopefully the Senate does what it needs to do to clean out a lot of the junk in terms of the amendments that have no place in the ndaa, whether it's restricting people's health care choices or preventing women from being able to exercise their reproductive freedom.

But I think that in terms of the path forward, I would just respectfully submit that what we're doing on the special slot committee with regard to the Chinese Communist Party might be one model for how to move forward. I think there you're seeing know, real thoughtful and a bipartisan approach to a very complex problem which could easily be politicized, but thankfully it's not. And I think that it offers a, a glimpse into, you know, how we might be able to run other committees if we can kind of create some space for kind of non political or apolitical discussion to, to occur. I want to talk to you now about the address from Israel's President.

Herzog today addressed a joint meeting of Congress. It did come though after some controversial remarks by colleague Congressman Primala Jayapal. She did walk those back. But we've seen it back and forth within the Democratic Party as to how to approach the situation in Israel.

It does appear to at least divide your party on some level. From your perspective, what should the US policy towards Israel be? I think that we have to always remember that Israel has a special relationship with us, that it is the, you know, practically the only robust democracy in the Middle east right now. You know, it's a place that, as President Herzog mentioned in his address, you know, you have Muslim members of the Knesset, you have Christian members and Druid members of the Knesset, of course, you have Jewish members in the Knesset.

I think that this type of multicultural democracy doesn't exist elsewhere. All that being said, when Israel is secure, we are secure, we have to continue to maintain a strong bond and we have to do everything we can to help their democracy flourish and ours as well. And does that mean that the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was the one who actually has the most power within the Israeli government, should be afforded the same invitation to address the transition Congress, much like you saw from the president today? Well, you're asking a question that is going to get a lot of different answers on Capitol Hill.

I personally think that, you know, right now they're going through a lot in the Knesset. I personally have grave concerns about trying to water down the independence of the judiciary there. But on the other hand, as President Herzog also mentioned today, the fact that they're able to have this robust discussion and disagreement is again testament and tribute to their democracy. I think they'll come through it.

And I hope that we are able to continue to remember that this special relationship transcends individuals who might be in each government. It's between our peoples and our countries and we'll always have to stand by it. Thoughtful conversation. I appreciate you coming out.

I appreciate it so much. Have a have a good one. You, too. Thanks, Ryan.

And after the break, the political consequences of indicting the former president and current candidate not once, not twice, but potentially three times, maybe even more. The panel's next. You're watching me, the press. Now, it's hard to see what it would be that would knock him out of the front runner position because I'm pretty certain that indictments aren't the thing that will do that.

I mean, you know, if in fact, you're of the opinion that he's a perpetrator, doing these kinds of things with weaponization of the Department of Justice and the FBI only makes him a victim. And I think quite honestly this elevates the likelihood that he'll be an omni just adding to the pile. Welcome back. That was North Dakota public Senator Kevin Kramer placing Donald Trump in two of his favorite political roles, front runner and victim.

While the former president faces a potential third wave of indictments, we're seeing more and more Republicans kind of shrug their shoulders over the charges and say it would either help Trump clinch their party's nomination or more. Joining me on set now top office is Jeff Mason, a White House correspondent for Reuters. Amisha CROs is a Democratic strategist and serious ex political analyst, and Brendan Bach, former advisor to Republican House Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner, as well as an NBC News political analyst. So, Jeff, it seems as though the collective shrug of the shoulders is the condom refrain I get on my Capitol Hill right now.

I mean, is Senator Kramer right? Is there nothing that can break the Trump bond with the base of the Republican Party? And these indictments just adding to a pile of people have already made up their mind? Well, history would show that he's right.

Certainly, looking back at when this has happened before, whether it's the previous indictments that we've seen or the previous scandals that we've seen during President Trump's political career, it almost always happens helps him. That said, it's not a record that he likes. It's certainly something that he appears to be upset about, and it's something that gives fodder to the Democrats and to the other Republicans that are running against him. But in general, there's truth and logic to the fact that these types of things have buoyed him in the past.

And when we're seeing Republicans on Capitol Hill find ways to either defend or deflect from this, they're attacking the weaponization of the Justice Department. Is that a winning strategy? Is that helping Donald Trump, at least in the short term? Well, certainly helping Donald Trump, and it's well shot there.

You know, they've been talking about the FBI and DOJ being part of the DC for years. There's been a lot of groundwork laid on this. It's easy talking points if you're a Republican. Just the FBI once again out to get Donald Trump.

But what makes it so much harder for this to break through is that the first time, the second time he was indicted, they all backed him up, and it's insulated him. At this point, we just sort of shrugged at it. If the response had been different, perhaps the first couple times, I think maybe we'd be looking at this differently. But the fact that they've taken a passive times, I don't know why we expect to be any different than this.

I'm also kind of interested in the way that Republicans are also kind of defining these charges against the president, you know, almost messaging it to a certain extent to his supporters to try and maybe calm it down, make it not seem as bad as what it actually is. I talked to J.D. vance, who's obviously a very strong supporter of the president, yesterday. I want you to listen to how he responded to the latest indictment.

Agree or disagree with Trump's claims that the election in 2020 was stolen. I didn't think it had some very serious problems. The president has a First Amendment right to express an opinion on the legitimacy of election. Criticizing the election is as American as apple pie.

Both parties have done it going back centuries, in the century. Yeah, you can be prosecuted for it. Is a huge assault not just on Donald Trump or the political opposition of Joe Biden. Is a huge song for criticizing the election.

Is as American as apple pie. Is that all he was doing was criticizing it and isn't as American as apple pie? I mean, if all he was doing was criticizing it, then we wouldn't be having the conversation around the table today. I think that what Republicans are trying to do, JV Vance being one.

We've also heard similar commentary from Mike Pence, the former vice president under Donald Trump, around trying to not only confuse this that make it seem like less of a big deal, but also totally ignoring all the actions that led to January 6th. Totally ignoring that the president made. The former president made a phone call to Georgia to try to get the election over, to try to find an amount of folks that would help him. Ignoring the fact that he literally tried to in all ways make sure that he was able to put votes in the very states where particularly the black vote wasn't vote that really turned out and showed up for Joe Biden made the difference.

And it gets frustrating because it showcases that throughout American history, maybe there could be a president, another president like Donald Trump who could decide. I just don't like the results of this election. So you know what? I'm going to make sure that I have better electors in place, that I ensure that the states are the people who are able to make this decision instead of the voters themselves.

And that is the type of orchestration that he did the entire time he ran a campaign against the dual election of President Joe Biden. And I think that having Republicans now come out and basically like fire to try to rephrase, reframe, trying to take away the truth of this is extremely problematic because it shows us what the Republican Party is. You can decide to support Donald Trump without being totally ignorant on purpose to the facts of why he is facing the legal issues he is right now. Well, to your point, and whether or not it helps him in the primary, but then could potentially penalize him in the general, I want to show you a poll to that effect.

This is the question that was asked is would you vote for a candidate who says Trump won in 2020? Look at what GOP primary voters say. 11% more than say they would vote for him. All voters negative.

33% supports pardoning the January 6th riders. That's popular with Republican primary voters by five points. The general electorate minus 39 percentage points. Could this come back upon any Republican candidate that emerges from their primary?

Absolutely, because this is the one thing that many would assume that Republicans would try to run away from. It was, we're not going to talk about this because we also how bad January 6th was. We all fully recognize that in the midterms. One of the key reasons that, you know, Republicans lost in addition to their fight against abortion rights was because there were so many that were still staunchly trying to stand by former President Trump's allegations of election fraud that showed absolutely no levels of credibility.

So I do think that on a national scale, you're not going to be able to win elections if you continue to stand by Trump in the ridiculousness around him, consistently denying that he lost the previous presidential election. But these Republican candidates outside of Trump, Jeff, think they might have found a formula. I want to play mashup of how their response responding to kind of the controversy surrounding him. The rest of this primary election is going to be in reference to Trump.

It's going to be about lawsuits, it's going to be about legal fees, it's going to be about judges, and it's just going to continue to be a further and further distraction. And that's why I'm running, is because we need a new generational leader. We can't keep dealing with this drama. We can't keep dealing with the negativity.

We can't keep dealing with all this. I don't think it serves us good to have a presidential election focus on what happened four years ago in January. And so I want to focus on looking forward. I don't want to look back.

So check this out. Winning strategy, not to criticize anything that Trump's done, but just want to deal with this. I was going to say, I mean, they're not. They're not saying he messed up.

They're not saying he should have done this. They're saying there's drama. We want to move on from drama. Well, those polls that you just showed illustrate that a lot of others want move on from drama, too, but not base.

So it's a pretty tough needle to thread, and we'll see if it works in primary. We saw yesterday the Trump campaign pounced on DeSantis, mildly criticizing Donald Trump's actions on January 6th. And the DeSantis campaign then had to come back and say, well, you took this out of context. I mean, how is there any way to get out underneath this there's plain defense.

Donald Trump found out he might be indicted a third time and was able to go on offense against his opponent because none of his opponents saw that as an opportunity to go after him. If you're just sitting there, you don't know which direction to go. I mean, they see that, they see that your stuff, they see that you're being wishy washy, you're taking both sides. That shows weakness.

Republican Party voters don't want weakness, they want strength. And when Ron Sanders can't figure out which side of the issue he's on, he's just, he's a sitting duck. That's what happened again. So, yes, there's a million ways to go on offense here.

I go back to the Genesis sixth hearings. One of Donald Trump's polling low points over the last couple years was during those hearings when people had to recount what happened on that terrible day. Mar A Lago is important, but it's not as searing as what happened on that day. And if it's a coming indictment does come and we have to go back through a long media cycle reliving that, I think it's in series of danger.

It's an opportunity for your opponents to go after them if they're willing to take it, if they're willing to. Ruffles and others so far they've been unwilling. So maybe the solution, at least for some that support DeSantis is RBC News teams reporting is, well, let's get rid of the staff of the candidate, but maybe we need to shake it up and get rid of the campaign manager. General Pack, who actually covered when I was a local reporter in Richmond, who's running the Santa's campaign right now is supposedly hanging by a threat, we're told.

I mean, would that make a difference if he gets to a campaign manager that solves problems? No, because the problem isn't his campaign staff. The problem is the candidate himself. They think that what Monte Santos did was try to become mini Trump.

You can't be a mini Trump or out Trump Trump when Trump is stealing race. There is absolutely no reason people to buy into the to maximize culture wars because he's laying on policy. But he allowed a lot of cultural war Russian he's trying to spread across the country. But he's also taking cues from former President Trump's campaign when he was running four years ago.

And he's running quite frankly, at least oddly, quite a similar one. But again, Donald Trump is still double his double digit dig over everybody, but he still likes ahead of Ron Desantis as well. He hasn't been able to echo himself in terms of, you know, breaking away from Donald Trump or bringing Donald Trump's voters to him because Donald Trump's still there. Why would you take a lesser version of Trump when Trump is still really a vague right before real quickly unknown Brian Campus at time or would that not even solve her?

Well, if some of those people are actually willing to get in a mud and take on Donald Trump directly, I mean, the idea that there's somebody who's going to be so appealing that everyone is going to run away from Donald Trump doesn't make sense. You're going to have to take him on if you're going to beat him. And I don't know if anybody's willing to leave it there. Jeff Brennan, great conversation.

Appreciate it very much. Silicon Disturbing new allegations of inhumane treatment of MiG southern border including children and babies. The details next. You're watching the press now.

And welcome back to Texas border officers making some disturbing allegations about the treatment of migrants by state border officials. According to an email from state trooper sent to his superior, first reported by the Houston Chronic and then confirmed by NBC News, officers were told to push a group of migrants, which includes small children and babies, back into the Rio Grande River. Migrants were also denied water despite extreme heat. The email also alleges the state used razor wire traps to hold migrants.

Those caught in the wire include a pregnant woman experiencing a miscarriage and a four year old girl suffering heat exhaustion. The Texas Department of Public Safety has pushed back against these allegations. One spokesperson, spokesperson I should say, called them outrageous. Another told our colleague to tell London that there is no directive or policy that instructs troopers to withhold water from migrants or push them back into the river.

NBC News homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley joins me on breakdown. These allegations and the administration's response. Julia, these are awful, first of all, and they're obviously very serious. Now take us through the allegations and how are the officials responding?

I think what this does is it makes Americans aware of how much immigration policy is actually falling to the states right now because even though Border Patrol under this administration has some softer policies compared to Trump, we're not separating babies from their mothers at the border because of Texas Governor Gavin's Operation Lone Star. There's a lot of discretion left in the hands of these Texas state troopers where they're told you should only have to give them Water. If you can tell they're medically dehydrated. So they're not offering water to everyone.

In fact, this state trooper who raised these concerns in an email around July 4th and didn't get a response until much later said that he was told not to give water. He was told to push a group back into the rear brand and included. He had babies that still nursing, I mean this very young children. He talks about a father who got lacerations from the concertina wire after pulling his son off of a barrel in the middle of the river that Texas had wrapped in that barbed wire.

And it's not the first time that we've heard about these injuries, especially from that immense amount of wire that Abbott had the troopers there hang. But I think it just really brings home the real consequences it's having on people down there. So you're describing a gap between the federal and state response. How's the Biden administration responding to this?

Well, we have heard from some Border Patrol officials, senior officials, saying, look, this wire is actually a real issue because it's impeding the work of the Border Patrol. They have to stop and respond to injured people. Then that's a problem. But they also say that what is happening down there deserves an investigation.

In fact, it is under investigation now and they were very troubled by these reports. And I think in a way the Biden administration is glad that this state trooper raised these allegations because when they do so, it turns into a political fight between Biden and Abbott. And if they're determine that what these allegations are raised in the email are true, what are the potential consequences? Is it a state issue?

Could there be charges? I imagine this could be a messy fight between the feds and the Texas state government. I do. I think what complicates this case is that it wasn't a memo or order that went out.

Texas CPS is right about that in their statement. In fact, it seems that this was really left to the discretion of these troopers. And so this individual person says he was ordered to push them back to the river. So we have to be able to identify those officers and then bring them to justice.

So it's not as easy as going after the whole policy. Although maybe they do need to look widely at how the state is empowering troopers to act in response to this border crisis, which by the way, the numbers at the border are almost half of what they were and may they're really going way down while these extreme measures are being ramped up. Excellent. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it. And thank you for being with us this hour. I'll be back tomorrow for more Meet the Press. Now, as the day wraps up, get this scoop on what's been happen with here's the Scoop, a new podcast for NBC News, with me, your host, Gazzy Basugi.

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