Meet the Press NOW — March 22

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Conditions apply. Offer includes 1% loyalty rate reduction for qualifying customers. Visit hyundaicanda.com or your local deal for details. If It's Wednesday, the primary politics of pending indictments, why the former president has turned his campaign for the Republican nomination into a campaign against the Manhattan district attorney.

Plus, the Federal Reserve raises interest rates yet again while warning of the potential for economic fallout as it battles a two head monster of rising inflation and recent bank failures. And the Biden administration's rare public rebuke of Israel as it calls the Israeli ambassador to the State Department over settlements and their expansion in the west bank. And the growing frustration with Prime Minister Netanyahu's far right government. Happy Wednesday.

Welcome to the press. Now, Chuck side reporting from Washington. We're going to be the day with the biggest obstacle Donald Trump is facing right now to secure his third consecutive Republican presidential nomination. I'm not talking about his Republican rivals.

Potential are announced like Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence or Tim Scott, because they all now rally around you, at least in a moment. Instead, for Donald Trump's standing point right now, the biggest obstacle facing his path to nomination? Criminal investigations. Three of them, to be specific, in New York City, in Georgia and in the special counsel's office.

Those probes might just effectively wind up being his versions of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina survive them all and the nomination is his. The party has all but reacted that way as a Manhattan grand jury raised potential charges against Mr. Trump. Tie dash night payments made to adult film actors Stormy Daniels.

Two sources tell NBC that the VA told grand jury to stay home today but to be on standby for a possible convening tomorrow in the special counsel criminal investigation to Trump's dissembling of classified material and the January 6th instruction. Remember, he's looking at both. NBC News can confirm that a federal judges determined that prosecutors have presented sufficient evidence to establish that Trump committed a crime from his attorneys and that one of his lawyers now has to testify before the grand jury. He cannot hide behind attorney client privilege.

The former president is facing a criminal investigation in Georgia as well. That is a look into his effort to return the 2020 election in the Peach State his lawyers are looking to quash the special grand jury report and try to bar the full county DA from continuing its case. It's kind of a long shot maneuver for its worth. And despite all that, every single one of Trump's so called rivals inside the GOP who have spoken out are not attacking, they're defending and instead attacking the Manhattan District Attorney.

Take a listen. He's a guy that wants no jails. The only thing he wants to do is weaponize the law against his political enemies. President Trump is a victim of that.

From everything I've seen from this New York District Attorney is that this would be something he'd be doing for political points. The fact that the Manhattan DA thinks indicting President Trump is his top priority, I think is just tells everything you know about the radical left in this country. It just feels like a politically charged prosecution. Here you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments.

You know, that's an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office. It's hard to call that group of Republicans challengers to Trump given those kinds of comments. All of them seem to give a passage and actually breaking the law. None of them condemned him for breaking the law, for putting himself in a position for a district attorney in any jurisdiction to have enough evidence to indict him for a crime.

Remember Donald Trump's behavior. Put in the situation. Not one of them can be, not one. That perhaps explains why Trump's campaign has looked less like a traditional campaign and more like an operation designed to protect him from legal scrutiny.

His early campaign announcement let it deflect any legal action against him as campaign interference. My wiki and allies are calling partisan prosecutors. And by preemptively proclaiming that indictment was coming in Manhattan, he got the entire Republican Party apparatus to fall into a familiar pattern of defending them before they even know what the exact charges are. Folks, at the moment, there is no force inside the GOP that appears to have a will or ability to deny the 2024 presidential nomination to Donald Trump.

There's none. The only thing that's going to keep him off the ballot is going to be the legal system. And ironically, every one of those Republican potential foes of his in the primary are all rooting for the legal system to work. In effect, Gary Hank is following the grandeur proceeds in Manhattan force.

And Elaine, as new developments on the special counsel investigation and joining us at least on this show for the first time as a former presidential candidate and governor of Ohio, John Kasich, he's also newly made into NBC newslet. Glenn, I know the thing or two about running against Donald Trump in a primary. Let me start with Garrett, who's outside that Manhattan courthouse. So, Garrett, let's start with the non news of today.

You know, we're only on, I guess, this watch in some ways because Donald Trump thought something was gonna happen this week. Well, that's partially true, Chuck. We had some reporting late last week that the grand jury was getting close to making a decision. But yes, it was Donald Trump over the weekend who pointed at Tuesday, circled it on his calendar, and then all of ours is the day that he thought he would be indicted.

That never made quite a lot of sense given what we know about grand jury schedule. Today, Wednesday, their second meeting of the week, when we know of any witnesses scheduled to appear, did seem like it had potential to be the day, but not so. As you pointed out, the prosecutors told the grand jury, go home today or not. Come in.

They're on standby for tomorrow. No one knows exactly why, although Robert Costello, the witness put forward by Donald Trump's attorneys on Monday before the grand jury, has a theory. His theory is Robert Costello. He thinks his testimony was so compelling and so effective at undermining Michael Cohen's credibility that the grand jury had to take a break.

The DA had to take a break and kind of figure out how to proceed with their case. Whether that involves calling another witness or coming up with additional evidence to bolster Cohen is unknown. But apparently the DA doesn't think Cohen is the answer to this. He was on standby himself on Monday to rebut Costello, but wasn't used.

So now we're in this holding pattern here to see whether the grand jury does indeed convene tomorrow and whether it might take more evidence, another witness to convince them to provide the indictment that the prosecutor seems to be pursuing here. Do we know how long, Garrett, this grand jury has been a panel for? Sir, what is their expiration date? I do not know what the expiration date is, Chuck.

Again, based on everything we know about how they've been operating, we've been under the assumption there at the end of the pro. The most important data point on that is the idea that Costello, a witness brought forward by Trump's attorneys, was allowed to testify at all. And it's not the same in every state, but in New York, you know, the target of the grander investigation has the opportunity either to testify himself, himself or herself, or provide another witness. That tends to come through the end of these processes.

Curious, have you seen any evidence of protesters or enhanced security? Enhanced security, yes, Chuck, but a protest, Not a peep today. Even the ones that were sort of scheduled and planned, announced and promoted on social media the last two days fizzled pretty quickly. Doesn't appear there's any juice behind the idea of some kind of massive turnout in Donald Trump's defense.

At least not until there's something to defend him. From Garrett Hake on the Brown Forest outside the Manhattan courthouse. Garrett, thank you. Let me move over to Candelinian.

He's got an update. Again, you got to keep track of all your investigations of Donald Trump. This is one part of the special counsel's investigation. He's doing both the January 6 investigation and the classified documents.

And this is an update. Classified documents, part of this. So, Ken, a win for the Justice Department. And what does it mean going forward for this lawyer having to testify?

It's a big deal, Chuck. This goes to the obstruction of justice issue in this classified documents probe, the question of whether Donald Trump obstructed justice misled the Justice Department. On Friday night, we learned a federal judge ruled that the Justice Department had established that there was evidence to believe that Donald Trump committed a crime through his attorneys and that therefore the crime fraud exemption in the attorney client privilege could be invoked. And she ordered that Trump attorney Evan Corcoran testify for grand jury and provide documents.

Now, the Trump team appealed that ruling. And in the docket that we believe corresponds to this, now, again, this is all sealed, it's all secret. So we're not seeing the names on the docket. But in the docket we've been tracking, it appears to show that the appeals court ruled in the Justice Department's favor.

Now, we can't say that for shit. Pretty quick. Indeed, they were on an accelerated schedule. They had asked the Justice Department to file a response by 6am today.

So I'm not here saying this for sure because no one has pointed us. This document said this is the one, but it's widely perceived to be corresponding to this case. We're doing some more reporting to try to confirm that. But either way, this ruling by Judge Burl Howell is deeply significant because it shows that she believes.

She ruled that the Justice Department showed that Donald Trump, through his attorneys, committed crimes. Now, let me tell you what I think that means. This goes to the issue of this assertion that a lawyer for Trump named Christina Bob made to the Justice Department back in June that they had looked for all the classified documents in Mar a Lago and that they had found none. They turned over everything they had.

Three months later, the FBI searches the place, learns that no, in fact, there were a hundred additional classified documents, including some in Donald Trump's office. The question always has been, did Donald Trump's lawyers lie to the Justice Department or did Donald Trump lie to his lawyers? Or is there a third possibility that somehow didn't know the documents were there? Well, this appears to suggest that the Justice Department believes that Trump and can prove that Trump lied to his lawyers.

And now it's one thing to establish this before a federal judge in a preponderance of the evidence standard. This is not beyond reasonable doubt that they're going to need a court of law, but it's a significant step in their efforts to show that not only did Donald Trump have improperly hold classified documents, but that he misled the Justice Department appear to have obstructed justice. So who's got more legal exposure here, the two lawyers or Donald Trump? And on this specific issue of lying about the return of classified documents, if the lawyers are the ones that signed it on Donald Trump's behalf, are they?

Which is sort of like welcome to Michael Cohen's world, right, where the lawyers get prosecuted for Donald Trump's intended mis misconduct. But this suggests that they are trying to get Evan Corcoran's testimony because they believe that he's going to testify, that he just was asserting what he was told by his client. And I just added that Evan Corcoran. It's been reported that Evan Corcoran instructed Christina Bob to draft this affidavit.

And what we believe, what we are told, the judges rule is that is that the evidence that Donald Trump committed crimes through his attorneys and that they need the testimony of the attorneys to further establish that. Kendallane with the latest, which is a complicated thing sometimes it's a lot of explanation. We don't have a lot of the sourcing that we can show you because of the way the justice system works. Ken, terrific reporting.

Thank you, sir. Thanks, John. So to try to understand why Donald Trump's political opponents are supporting him in this moment, rather than maybe either staying silent or moving aside or maybe even helping to powwow, is John. I'm bringing John Jasik.

He's a new NBC News political analyst, but he's a longtime friend that I've known and covered a long time to this program. And so it's good to see you. Welcome to the welcome to the NBC. Thanks, Chuck.

I used to say if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press. Now it's every day, correct, the day ends and why it's Meet the Press, brother. So let me start with trying to explain that mashup of candidates that I played earlier where every one of them, some of them are off the record, will be very critical of the president. When cameras aren't on, we'll be very critical with the president, are standing by him on this explain which I imagine that they all kind of gathered with their political people to say, what do we do?

And look, we cannot dismiss the fact that Trump received 70 million votes in the last presidential election. And his people are, you know, they're, in many respects, they're really, really rabid. And, you know, I saw when he went to East Palestine in Ohio, you know, he was greeted enthusiastically. You all covered his trip to Iowa.

You saw that there was a lot of passion for him. Chuck. I'm not so sure it's for him, though. I think it's that he represents a voice of many Americans who think, you know, that they haven't been played with fair, the system's been rigged or whatever.

And I think he represents a voice, but yet, nevertheless, they're there. So I think these candidates, what they're trying to do is really kind of have it both ways at some point, be independent of Trump, but at this point, they don't want to aggravate his fervent supporters. And I, you know, Chuck, life short, how long need the press has been on, how many people have been on there who are no longer alive? And yet at the moment, they thought everything was critical.

The only critical thing, in my opinion, in frankly, in life and in politics, is what principles are you going to stand on? So, you know, I don't know why they're saying anything, to be honest with you. And no one should ever, you know, like, be excited that somebody else is in trouble. Just let it play out.

Here they are kind of attacking this prosecutor. What bothers me about that shock is where does it stop? Does that mean now that the Democrats can attack the Republican prosecutor in the future or attack some member of the U.S. supreme Court?

I mean, why don't everybody just be quiet and start talking about your policies, your policies of hope, not your policies of division. This is what I, you know, you're sort of saying what I thought at least one person might say in this field, which is, no matter what you think, you may not have wanted to vote for Alvin Bragg as the Manhattan prosecutor that may have. But at the end of the day, there are a lot of. Most prosecutors are elected officials in this country.

We've made that decision. We can have a debate about whether that should be the case, but we've made that decision. If you decide to discredit one you're discrediting, if you're saying that because they got elected, therefore everything they do is through a political prison. If we go down that road, as you said, where does it end?

On what we turn into. Look, I mean, the judiciary. Look, we see what's happening in Israel, right, with the fact that Netanyahu is trying to figure out a way to limit the power of the judiciary. And you can see the outrage being expressed in Israel.

And also what you're seeing from Joe Biden with his call with Netanyahu saying, you'd better not do this. Politicizing the judiciary or shortening or shortcutting their ability to make decisions is. I think it's a really serious problem for our country. I don't think anybody's happy with the way in which we pick the Supreme Court now.

And we kind of. Kind of know the results of both of these cases before they even let. What's dangerous about you and I and television is we can go off on tangents and we can go off in places that the producers. Producers can't go.

But I'm glad you brought up the Supreme Court because I'm watching this nonsense in Wisconsin where they pretend where they elect their Supreme Court. They basically cut out the middleman. No, let the voters do it. I never thought our system could get worse at picking Supreme Court justices.

Wisconsin says hold by beer because their system's in horse. Yeah, I like the current system. We just have to figure out in which we can have a more. A more effective way of selecting people who the American people are going to say they're fair minded.

By the way. You're right. You and I can go all kinds of directions. But here's the thing that's, that's troubling when you see this Republican retreat that's going on in.

I guess it's still going on in Florida. You know, I used to go to those chalk and those were like, it's like going and getting a root canal. Because I was budget chairman trying to put something together. And instead of them down there trying to deliver a message of what they believe in, whether it's prescription drugs, what they're gonna do about the budget, any of these issues, what they're doing about immigration, they're all caught up in this thing about Donald Trump and bashing the prosecutor.

So they're stepping on their own ability to deliver a message that might make sense to the American people. Instead, they look like they're just fumbling around down there and it's just not a good thing that they're doing. You know, it seems like the trap is there, Gunner, which is, I understand what you were saying about each candidate has to. If you alienate Trump's face, you kick it down a nation.

But the more you rally around Trump, the more you alienate the middle. It's a. You can't do both, can you? Well, I think you gotta stand on principle, Chuck.

I mean, look, you know, one of the things that bothered me about running for president is how many of you guys counted me out before we even got to New Hampshire. With a little bit more money and a couple breaks, I could have been the nominee. You know, one Michigan. I won Ohio.

I won Michigan, one Ohio. You know, what happens is the media to a large degree tries to decide who's going to be the nominee. And they're not always right. And always something can come out of the blue that you never expect that can set somebody on fire where all of a sudden the media says, well, wait a minute, look at that person.

It is a long way from the nomin for Trump, Desantis or any of these other people. It's a long road and it is a tough road. And you've got to be, you've got to be a weather person, you've got to be in good spirits, you've got to have money, you got to have a message, you got to connect, you got to have some magic. And I'm not yet willing to say that Trump's the nominee or whoever is.

But what I am willing to say is why isn't somebody standing out saying, I'm not going to comment on that. I want to talk about the things I care about, you know, that any sense. John Kasich, our newly minted NBC News, publicly. Good to see you.

Like I said, welcome to this side of stream and we'll stay in the boundaries the next time. That's why we have you on. Thank you. All right, Chuck, you got it.

See you. Come up. Basic turmoil in the banking industry and trying to fight inflation. If I just announced it's raising interest rates again.

Did they meet the Goldilocks moment? It means now the market's reacting next. Plus, as Republican leaders are mostly rallying the Trump defense, the fight between Trump and his potential 2024. Top rival R Santas is starting to heat up a bit.

We'll explain it. You're watching me Press now drive off in a new Hyundai launcher today with $0 down during the Hyundai Advantage sales event. Take advantage of the $1,000 spring drive bonus and lease the 202060 luxury essential for just $73 a week at 4.99% for 60 months. And you're covered by Elantra's best in class five year new car warranty.

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Com or your local dealer for details. Welcome back. For the ninth time since last March, Federal Reserves raised interest rates and effort to fight inflation. The central bank announced an increase of a quarter percentage point a short time ago with a statement that acknowledged uncertainty due to recent banking turmoil.

In a press conference following the announcement, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, trying to reassure the public that all deposits in the banking system are quote, safe. Markets, though, took a breach shard turn downward the final hour trading as the Dow fell more than 500 points following the Fed's move after pretty much treading water all day. Steve Leisman is CBC senior analyst reporter who joins me from the Fed. Also with me, David Duckworth, a former international economist for the Treasury Department.

He's now a senior research fellow with the Mercatus center and host of the macro usings podcast. Mr. Leesman, though, let me start with you. It seemed to me that Powell was trying to find the Goldilocks here, trying not to rattle the system and at the same time trying to give banks some breathing room.

Did he do it with this rhetoric or not? I think so, Chuck, you're right. He's trying to thread the needle here between he's got inflation problem on one hand that requires him to raise rates and he has a banking problem on the other hand and that's probably going to result in less inflation down the road. But how much and when?

He doesn't know. So we took another stab at fighting inflation raising by a quarter and then kind of played around with the language in the statement that said, you know what, we have maybe a little bit less to do than we told you last time in terms of raising rates here. So the market didn't like it. At the end of the day, they kind of like it.

The time when he was talking, he's probably not going to start raising rates before he had this calendar year. Well, people wanted a hard stop. They wanted a definitive hard stop. It was going to raise by 25 basis points or a quarter of a point, and then we're going to be done.

That's not what he said. He said we might be done, we might not be done. And frankly he can't say because he doesn't know. What's your take on this?

And did he find a sweet spot? It's hard to know where to go. I would note though, that Benedict Yellen's statement today that the treasury has not looked at fully ensuring all deposits may have contributed some of this action in the markets. But do you think Powell has a tough job ahead?

I mean, if you look at their forecast going forward, they're projecting by the end of this year unemployment will go up to four and a half percent. We're currently at three and a half. It's hard to see how we get there without a recession. They also have inflation dropping to 3.3%.

We're close to five and a half of PCE. So the Fed is sending a very strong signal to its projections that we may go through some pain. But it's also trying to balance itself against the prospects of creating a more severe banking crisis. Is an unemployment rate.

It's under 5%. Recession. I think to get there, it would be fairly painful. Historically speaking, though, that's a relatively low number.

We're at three and a half. And to get to four and a half, how do you get there without shedding lots of jobs? No, it's a fair point. And I guess, Steve, that's been a question.

I mean, I was happy. There's still two job openings for every one person looking for a job. Is it even possible to raise the unemployment rate that, that much in this short period of time? Well, it's been a real surprise.

This whole post Covid period has been an amazing surprise. How strong the job market has been. The idea that we've been able to bring down the unemployment rate to 3.4%, now it's at 3.6. And really the inability of Fed policy to affect unemployment and that I think, Chuck, is because we're still in this post Covid adjustment period.

There's still leisure and hospitality. There's still, you know, stadiums and rock concerts and restaurants that are out there looking for workers because they're just not. It's. It may be the Goldilocks scenario which you talked about at the top of the segment is this.

We get inflation down and we have a modest but not really big increase in the unemployment rate. Powell said, you know, it's going to be A little bit tougher now with this banking problem we have, but you can blew it out entirely. David, what do you expect? What is Powell need to see in the next month to decide whether to keep raising rates or not?

I think the obvious answer would be inflation continue to trend down. We were, we've been coming down since middle last year but since then we've had, we've gone sideways. I think it's important for us to continue progress on that front. Also we need to see the economy, you know, remain fairly stable but at a minimum you want to see lower inflation trending down.

So would you be expecting another quarter point or do you think he skipped a month to see how that works in April? I think he's keeping it open. It's on the table. I also think the data he noted that the tighter credit conditions effectively serve as a rate hike.

He noted that, you know, they didn't go to the basis points that they have talked only 125. But he noted in his speeches in the presser afterwards that tight credit conditions effectively doing some of the heavy lifting for them. And if that continues, that may be enough. It's funny, I'm glad you brought that up, David.

Steve Liesman, late last week I had a former member of the Fed, a former governor there, a member of the Fed board who said that's how he would have communicated this. He didn't want to see any increase and he would have said look, we would have increased. But what we're trying to do tighten the, tighten the money, tighten lending is going to happen anyway. Yeah, I mean Powell definitely took a risk here.

Look, I mean small regional banks, they are responsible for a good part of lending into the economy when they tighten their credit standards. What does that mean? It means they give you a little more scrutiny about like how much of those assets worth at your collateral. They're going to charge you more for the loan.

They're going to create more conditions in the loans. And so think about that small business dream you may have had. All of a sudden you don't get over the bar that's needed to get that loan. You don't form that business, you don't hire that people are going to work there.

Or maybe you don't get that loan to expand because the bank's going to be a little tighter. So there's a risk here that he just made things more expensive, make things in fact a little tougher for the banks for which the situation is already tough. So there's a risk that he did too much here today. We're just have to wait and see what happens with the banking system.

And David, very quickly on the, on the international front, given what happened with Credit Suisse, any international contagion we should be worried about? I don't think so. The Fed has facilities to deal with them. The last week they announced they're reopening the hours or turning the hours of their dollar swap lines.

The Fed's been through this in 28, 2020, I think prepare to handle any international contagion. All right. Steve Leesman and David Beckworth appreciate having you both giving us some economic expertise. It is normally a very political hour.

So thank you both. Next, Donald Trump's grip on the GOP, what it means for the potential prosecution of the former president. And let's next meet President. Welcome back to the mantra.

Former President Trump's biggest obstacles to the GOP nomination may not be any primaries or caucuses, but three criminal investigations in cases because despite attention for scandal and conference, Republican voters so broadly hold a favorable view of the former president. Who am on the poll, just 71% still have a favorable opinion of Trump. The numbers are down from maybe their peak, but they're not collapsing. The mail also helps explain why his opponents have been moved to attack him.

Those of the same voters they still need to win the nomination if it's not him. Join me now on set. And he's watching for fun. Michigan Democratic Congressman distinguishing the Senate progress and president CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership, Sarah Chamberlain.

It makes I feel like I said the one thing about Donald Trump is like, like the Apprentice. We're always in reruns. And in some ways I feel like we're in reruns here. It was just a different year.

And you're like the cast may have changed kind of, but it's sort of the same thing. He's getting everybody to get fired up about his personal legal problems. And as soon as you said sort of what the thing that we see with Donald Trump, I was thinking of more consistent because if you see as someone who is consistently making himself a victim and consistently holding party and forcing them to defend him, I think it's really interesting. We see even someone like Ron DeSantis who is wanting to repeat these salacious allegations at length but also still wants to say, well, this could still be politically motivated.

You have Mike Pence doing that. You have Tim Scott doing that. These are not people who want to spend their time defending former President Trump. But you also have the former president doing something else, which I think is really interesting.

And that is making this out only himself, but also saying, I'm standing in the way between you and your political enemies. They're not just coming for me, they're coming for you. Republican voter. That, to me, is interesting because he's already sort of shifting this into a political argument for the people that he wants to back on.

You know, Sarah, it's interesting DeSantis got bullied into defending him. He sure did. That's not fascinating. I mean, the Trump campaign wanted all of us to know.

I heard from them. I see every little thing. Where's Ron DeSantis? He doesn't set a word.

And so he's like, all right, I'll defend you. I'm gonna do what you said, repeat the allegations, snicker, snicker. But you're like, he defended and he believed you in doing it. He did.

He believes everybody in the doing. It's really fascinating to watch. I mean, it's a part of. I mean, is that a fair way to describe a little bit?

I mean, our members of the partnership, we are majority makers, so we support him, but we also want to move on and start talking about policy and solve some of the problems facing this country, like the bank crisis. There's a lot of problems. China, and we're focused on Donald Trump, and he's fine, but we need to focus on what the American people want us to. Yeah.

And it almost feels as if the Republicans both want the legal system to take care of their Trump problem, but they're not going to give the legal system state debris to take care of their problem. Right. You got to look out for tearing down district attorneys, of tearing down officers of the law. I mean, we should just let the law follow the law.

Donald Trump and no, anybody else is not above the law. These are allegations. We're following this grand jury every second. You know, if it's this kind of.

That's not the way the legal system is supposed to work. Let's see if this district attorney has a case not only about the hush money, but that, you know, it was. It implicated election law. And if that's the case, that's very serious business.

But have we shifted off of that with your breaking news today? Is that why New York did not move forward? Isn't this the problem, Sarah? And I say this, I'm not trying to pick on.

It's the fact that because of what he's introduced, the idea that, well, if I'm being prosecuted, must be political, and then it enters up, must be coordinating. Oh, Mary, Carla must be picking up the phone. That'd be insane, right? Yeah.

But okay, if we have, I understand where the, where the logic goes because he's introduced it in the system, but my God, if they actually work that way, wouldn't that be a problem? It would be a problem, but it would also, it's also a reasonable. I mean, we're really going to prosecute a former president for Stormy Daniels actually sitting president for sex. We did, but he stayed and he became even more popular after that.

And that's going to be an issue here. So. But the breaking news today, is that really an issue? I mean, do these lawyers, I mean, if he make them lie for him, that's going to be a big problem.

Stormy Daniels, people know about Stormy Daniels. They still, they still support him. Well, the interesting thing to me about all this is you even have Democrats who are looking at this. Democrats aren't talking to him.

It's Stormy Daniels. Where we want to sort of have this argument, is it not going to be the full team counting DAA and the fact that he was trying to steal an election, alleging steal election in Georgia? Is it going to be that he was, that he had this insurrection where people were physically killed at the Capitol? Why are not.

Those are things that people are focusing on. That's the question I'm not hearing from Democrats. That being said, because as you said, the DA can't coordinate and say, well, you know, because this crime isn't as big as your crime, I'm going to make, I'm going to slow up my case a little bit so that Georgia gets done first. That's not happening.

But it's problematic on political front because you have Democrats who obviously don't like Donald Trump who are saying this case could money waters make a lot. But here's at least one Democrat who's going to stand up and say, not only isn't the coordination happening, it shouldn't happen, it mustn't happen. He has these cases against him for what he did wrong in New York and Georgia and Florida, and they're all barreling forward. This judge in the D.C.

circuit who until just now was the chief judge, she's unimpeachable. And now I guess the appeals court has backed her up so that, you know this, you know, this case about Georgia and this case about what he did wrong, it's not about having sex with Stormy Daniels. It's about the hush money and the election. I'm not interested in picking which case goes when.

I'm interested in respecting the law and saying this is America and what America is about is that no one's above the law. But I think this is a tough one because Edwards got off and it was a million dollars. Every campaign finance one. And I will say that we learn this about McDonald with John Edwards and yeah, these can't be finance because they're tough.

We've returned terrible laws, let's be honest. And the American people don't care. If they even understand that. They don't care.

Yeah, in that sense, that's been difficult. But I go back to the rush. The Republican Party has to basically follow Trump's leave here and the unintended consequences, yada, yada, yada. We've destroyed trust in all legal systems.

That's me. This is the crisis. That's the, that's me at the. That is the crisis.

Because you have every Republican now having go on record to say, do you back this and what do you think? What's politically motivated prosecution. And they're falling in line maybe now on the Senate side, I've heard from her reporters, there are some Republican senators, many are not running to the defense of Donald Trump, but they were going to run to the defense of Donald Trump. A number of things.

But if you're a political candidate in the Republican Party and the like, you're sort of seeing it like this is the deliberate. Are you for this group of people, Are you on this team or not? Should we discredit every elected attorney general in this country, sir? Absolutely not.

Right, but isn't that where we're headed? Dangerously close to that. I mean, what is it about Alec Bragg that's different than the other, you know, than his peers across the country? They're all elected.

He seems to be highly qualified. He doesn't seem Donald Trump's go after anybody that comes out. Exactly. That's the thing.

I mean, I think that we know this, this is his M.O. i guess the question is it's fair. It looks like the party's. The candidates running against him are following the same trap they are around the Stormy Daniels Brown because for what we just talked about, the Democrats have done it and they've lost.

So that's why they're supporting him in this particular case. We'll wait and see what happens with January 6th. And then suddenly when we heard more of the story. Exactly.

People claim. That's my point. Stormy Daniels, they're going to, they're going to support him. I don't know what happens down the road.

You could also say that with January 6th and the questions around the election, I mean, you have a number of Republicans on January 6th standing on the White House running for the heels for Donald Trump. And then they fell back in line and said, actually, well, maybe he wasn't doing exactly what he said he was doing and maybe it's okay to demand votes from Georgia officials. I mean, it's not just for McDaniels. And I think that that to me is a remarkable thing.

And the problem, I think that the Republican Party has on its hands is whether or not they can, they can continue to do this or they're going to continue to be forced to do this or if they turn a corner. Here's the thing, the base may like this, but the middle hates the chaos, the major hate the chaos. And if it looks like you're part of the chaos, you're in trouble, no matter whose side of the anyway. So true.

Thank you, guys. Thank you, Michelle Senor for Congressman Sir Chamberlain. Thank you all. We'll have more discussion and I have more analysis of Trump's legal and political future.

Plus the legacy of the Iraq war in the Bush presidency. That was right now on today's episode of the Chuck Todd Cassidy Pace. Charlie Sykes were my guests on that one. Use the QR code bottom of your screen.

You can get it to do it. Coming up, we're going to be talking about going checking in on Israel and the role the United States is trying to play and trying to get Netanyahu to back down on his judicial review. Live in Israel with the letters. You're watching the president.

Welcome back. The Biden administration. This ramp up diplomatic pressure on Israel over moves by the country's far right government. The State Department did a rare thing.

They called in Israel's ambassador of the United States yesterday to officially protest changes to Israeli law that would allow new settlements in West Bank. This was a formal diplomatic silence, but it was a clear sign of Washington's growing frustration because think about what we've had over the last few weeks. This meeting followed a phone call between President Biden, Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday where Biden expressed his concern on Israel's plan overall its judicial system. Since that call, Netanyahu has stopped his stance a bit on some of the changes, but remains steadfast and giving politicians more control over appointing judges.

But that call came after direct contact from Tony Blanket, Lloyd Austin, you name it. With visits to Israel over the last few weeks, Raf Sanchez is in Jerusalem for us with the latest. So, Raf, how did the Netanyahu government handle this? Like I said not a formal diplomatic review, but basically one step from it.

One step from it. Chuck, you've interviewed Netanyahu before. You know he's a candy politician. He today has been trying to tread a pretty fine line between a very frustrated Biden administration and his own far right base.

So the line he took in response to this law passed by these changes, to a law passed by the Israeli parliament which allows once again for settlement building in the northern west bank is he has said that he approves of this change in the law. He's happy that his supporters did it in parliament, but at the same time he's actually not committing to building new settlements in that area. That is unlikely to be enough. The Biden administration, they are very frustrated that Israel's parliament is partly chopped because of something that happened 20 years ago.

Ariel Sharon, the right wing prime minister of Israel in the early 2000s, he was the one who pulled settlements out of this area in the northern west bank and he promised the Bush administration that settlements would not go back. And today you have the Biden administration basically accusing Israel of going back on its word. And on top of that, Chuck, we are heading into the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. This is a joyous time for Muslims around the world, including Palestinians here in Jerusalem's Old City.

But it historically has also been a time of tension and a time of heightened violence in Israel in the occupied West Bank. As we talked about before, we are right now seeing some of the worst violence in 20 years and US officials are concerned that this will only exacerbate the situation. All right Russian shez on the ground for us in Jerusalem while off as always thank you. Still to come tick tock CEO prepares to testify on the Hill tomorrow as well Men in Washington bill to ban the massively popular app on the doctor Top center up until you charge to put a ban in place with legislation that's been back by the White House.

You're watching the press now. Welcome back TikTok CEO such testify line from Congress tomorrow he's going to defend his company's data collection practices as long as a total ban on Chinese owned out over national security concerns. NBC News has learned that shows each the CEO of TikTok is claimed to argue this company is simply too big and too economically viable in this country to ban after he took the app yesterday to speak directly to the platform's 150 million American users. White House is push TikTok's currently by dancing from the app in the United States this backed effort by Bipartisan group of lawmakers to pass legislation to give the administration the power to ban it in the United States if it doesn't join now by one of the Democratic senators backing as bipartisan bill, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin.

Senator Baldwin, welcome back to press. It's lovely to join you. Thank you. Let me start with the defense that TikTok CEO makes.

Do you think it's a good enough reason to keep TikTok afloat simply because it's too big to ban? Look, I think that users of TikTok, and we'll speak in a moment about the bill that we've introduced, which deals with far more technologies than just TikTok. But I think users need to know who has access to their data, their whereabouts, where it's stored. Is this going to be shared with competitors and adversaries in the in China?

And I think people really need to know the risk of these technologies. And so the Restrict act, which we introduced recently on a bipartisan basis in the Senate, sets up a framework in the Department of Commerce, but tapping into other agencies to really understand the threats and risks posed, not just by TikTok. That's today's concern. Tomorrow it'll be a new technology.

Next week it'll be another one. And we need to be able to assess and then mitigate the risk and harm that could happen to Americans, especially when we don't know, because there's not transparency about where our data is going, whether people can engage in identity theft or surveillance. These should be concerns shared by every American. Is your concern greater with TikTok on the data collection front or the fact that it might be an extraordinary effective influence operation?

Yeah, I think I can see concerns on both sides. And, you know, again, with future technology, it might be a greater concern about surveillance versus identity theft versus malign influence. So I think we need to be concerned on all fronts and that individual consumers need to have information about the risks that these technologies pose, if any. But that's why we need to have a framework to evaluate that.

Yeah. You know, I've always, I wondered if you simply put a warning label when I went to the App Store and If I put TikTok on my phone, would you be satisfied with the warning label that said the Chinese government owns a piece of this company. Keep that in mind when you decide to download this. But this is America, and we'll let you make your decisions.

Yeah. So as you know, Congress is looking at a variety of pieces of legislation, one that's been offered or not associated with, with outright ban. TikTok this really provides information, but also tools to mitigate up to and including banning a technology. But we're not there yet.

And I think that, yeah, a warning label might not be sufficient. But I think if there was a widespread understanding that certain technology was being used to spy on you, there might be a great concern about installing that in your home or using it in day to day activity. Because the question I have is, does government ownership, a foreign government ownership enough to make it a ban? So for instance, you go down this line, the Saudi sovereign fund is a huge investor in Twitter.

Would that, should that, should that be allowed? Telegram, I believe the Russian sovereign fund is a big investor in Telegram. Right. How would, what's the difference?

Yeah, so I think you got to break this down. Let me start just by focusing on the Chinese government because I represent a state that makes things and I know that we have had our manufacturers and our workers on an unlevel playing field because the Chinese government can invest in their firms and manufacturers and industry and make it possible to produce products for far less. They can dump them and drive Wisconsin businesses out of business. So I look at Chinese investment in, in certain businesses as creating risk well beyond the ones that we've just been talking about actually driving, you know, driving companies out of business and putting workers out of work.

So I've looked at the involvement of the Chinese government as an investor in private business for a long, long time. And I've had various concerns over time. We have allies that may invest in certain businesses that don't cause me to be concerned about Wisconsin workers losing their jobs, et cetera. So I do think that's why the Restrict act is so sensible, because it sets up a framework that you and I are making these snap judgments.

They are being carefully, first of all, the transparency of where data is stored, who has access to it, are they potentially using our private information for identity theft or surveillance? Do they know our movements? All these sort of things that average Americans and consumers should know when they make a decision about downloading an app, purchasing a technology to keep us safe. You know, the thing that, the thing that's most concerning when I watch this situation, the more I've learned I've spent time with TikTok executives, is everything they're doing to try to make the case that they're protecting data of American users is actually more expensive than divesting.

And the fact that they won't divest feels like they keep, like they want to go the more expensive route. What would be better for their business would be divested than the fact that they won't do it. Does that not concern you? It doesn't.

I would hope when we pass the Restrict act and set up this framework in the Commerce Department, that we're going to be scrutinizing all of these decisions and getting answers so that we're not in the dark when we purchase technologies, download apps, and subject our personal data to potential malign use. Let me ask you this, because this is something say glad we're glad you're worried about the Chinese with my data, but what bill are you gonna pass that make sure Instagram doesn't abuse my data? Yeah, it's a very fair question. And frankly, one of the interests I've had over a long haul is making sure that we, even the US Government has a lot of our data.

What about hacks and breaches where that's gotten out? We need to be careful to safeguard our data, even when it's in US Hands or, you know, whether it's private sector or government. These are critical issues in the 21st century. They sure are.

Well, we all want our privacy bill rights. We've got to figure out what's up. Senator David Baldwin, Democrat from Wisconsin, appreciate you coming on Chair and Perspective. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right, before we go, I'd like to take a moment to remember in honor of beloved longtime political journalist and friend of mine. Vaughn Rivers here at NBC News died this weekend. Vaughn was the top digital editor here at the NBC News Washington bureau for more than a dozen years.

He helped guide our digital politics coverage, worked with our political unit on First Read and Meet the Press blog, and he made a few appearances on the Daily Rundown back in the day. Vaughn got his start in politics as a deputy press secretary for Pat McKinnon shortly for the presidential campaign in 1992. He's worked at Politico, CBS, and was editor of the Hotline before coming to hear NBC News. On a personal note, Vaughn and I weren't just colleagues.

We've been friends for 30 years. We worked at the Hotline together back in the 90s. We started the same week at the Hotline. We go so far back that here we are on c span 15 years ago talking then about how far back we go together.

15, 16 years. 16 years in April. We first started working out in 2001 during your hotline days and you spent over a decade there. When Chuck and I started the hotline, there wasn't even an Internet.

We were sort of an Internet. We were the Internet as our friends about today's version of Hotline wrote Vaughn's decades long career has a tremendous impact on how we report and analyze the news today. For those of us who knew and love Vaughn, it was about a lot more than just his top notch journalism chops or scheme political insight. Vaughn was a mentor to a slew of young journalists folks that I didn't realize.

He was a mentor too. He's been a sounding board for colleagues. He was quick with a one liner and equally quick with a kind word. But most of all, he was a husband was wife Lisa and a loving father to three incredible kids, Victoria, Cameron and Von Henry.

Our thoughts are with them in what has been a very tough time. I'll be honest, this has been very hard. I'll be back tomorrow with more news press on these C News now comes to continue with Hallie Jackson. Right now as the day wraps up in the scoop on what's been happening with here's the Scoop, a new podcast for NBC News with your host dazzyoubian.

We'll take a deep dive into today's top stories with NBC News's trusted journalists. It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful and informant, bringing you closer to the headlines and conversations that are shaping our world. From the front page to the zeitgeist, here's the scoop from NBC News. Listen daily on Spotify.