Meet the Press NOW — March 27

If it's Wednesday, federal investigators are searching for what caused that cargo ship to slam into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, including looking into a report of contaminated fuel as this tragic incident puts the spotlight back on the country's aging roads and bridges. Plus, new RNC co chair Laura Trump meets the press, telling NBC News that the Republican Party and her father in law's presidential campaign is moving on from 2020 and focusing on beating President Biden even as Mr. Trump faces two trials for his efforts to overturn the election. And Democrats win an Alabama special election, flipping a state House seat with a campaign focused on protecting abortion rights and access to ivf, the latest sign that the abortion issue could be a serious problem for Republicans in November.

Hi, welcome to Nobles in Washington. A recovery mission is underway right now at the scene of the wreckage of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore as investigators piece together what led to the accident and as authorities map out how to reopen one of the most vital ports in the country. Divers have not been able to enter the water today to search the Patatsko river, where the six people believed to have died in the collapse. Remotely operated vehicles are doing an underwater survey now, but weather conditions are making the search difficulty.

Tom Yama spoke to one of the leaders of the FBI's dive team about the challenges his divers are facing. How dark is it down there? So for a human like you're going to see, it's going to be straight up bottom. It's really punching black water.

So you're not going to see any lights. Lights actually aren't going to help you because of all the particulates in the water. They're going to be just kind of reflected back at you. Sunrise is going to come up with a clear image, though, so the diver is.

You can't see anything diverse. They're going to work by Phil with your hand to be on its target. A team of investigators board the cargo ship today to gather evidence about what caused the crash. We're told the crew remains on board and is cooperating.

The NTSB is also looking into a report by the Wall Street Journal that suggested the contaminated fuel may have played a role in the tragedy. Investigators have also recovered the ship's data recorder, a device similar to the black box found on an airplane. The head of the NTSB spoke to my colleague Tom Costello. Everything from, you know, positioning the ship, speed of the ship, what might have been occurring at the time with respect to power operation is quite a bit of information.

Throttle position, you name it, and that will help us Enable us to begin to put together a timeline of events that occurred prior to the striking of the bridge. And that is what we're looking for right now. As for the Port of Baltimore, one of the largest in the country, it remains closed indefinitely. And the White House today, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters that it is too soon to be certain how long it will take to rebuild the bridge and reopen the port.

In the case of the bridge is that the original bridge took five years to construct. That does not necessarily mean it will take five years to replace, but that tells you what went into that original structure. Going up again. We need to get a sense of the conditions of the parts located in the Nagai, but we just don't know yet, especially in terms of their foundational infrastructure.

As far as the port, again, too soon to venture an estimate. The vast majority of the port is inside of that bridge, which means most of it cannot operate. Now, in addition to the video of the bridge collapse, we're also now hearing radio transmission from Maryland Transportation Authority police from the moments before the accident as officials work to clear traffic from the bridge as the ship approached. Hold all traffic on the Key Bridge.

There's a ship approaching. Has just lost their steering. So they tell you, get under control. We got stopped all traffic.

I'm holding traffic now. I was driving when we stopped prior to the bridge, so I'll have a little traffic stopped. 10, 4, 0. Can we work on the bridge right now?

There's a crew out there. See if we can get them off the bridge. Once you get here, I'll go grab the workers on the Key Bridge and then stop. The hourly senior thing just left.

The whole bridge just fell down. Start. Start whoever, everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed.

That is chilling. NBC News correspondent George Solis is on the ground in Baltimore. He joins me now. George, what's the latest on the search for those six missing people?

Good afternoon. Ride. It is still ongoing, as you heard from that interview with one of the FBI officials with Tom Yamas there. They can't go into the water right now.

Fortunately, the rain has let up somewhat, but still these conditions are just too dangerous for them to get in there and really start looking for those bodies. They mentioned their points of interest. This is murky. Water is also very cold.

It's been cold out here for these last 24 hours now. And so the hope is that they'll be able to go down there very soon. But obviously for the families, the heartbreak is just waiting on any kind of closure on whether or not Their loved ones are going to be found. Still though, we have seen those boats in the water, not helicopters today again because of that rain.

But that was the scene yesterday when we saw those helicopters doing that search. Hoping. Everyone was hoping of course that there would be some positive news in this. But as the mission is now turned to recovery, it is now just a waiting game to see how soon those divers can get into that water for any indication of where these bodies might be.

And George, you did speak with the family of one of those six. What did the family tell you? Yeah, so I just moments ago wrapped up an interview with the brother of Mayor Swazo. I'll tell you the interview was in Spanish, but in any language you can understand the frustration and the heartbreak, the not knowing.

I'm told that all these family members are now reunited in a facility here in Baltimore. Just awaiting word when any update on whether or not their loved one will be found. In Maynard's case, this family is hoping that they find the body so they can return him back to his native Honduras where he will be buried. He leaves behind an 18 year old son and a 6 year old daughter.

So for them this is a very, very emotional moment. His brother, who you see there on camera telling me his last moment with his brother was a hug, a hug before he went off to work, not knowing that that would be the last time that he would see him, that he would speak with him. They are definitely had a loss for words. Ryan, George just got a text from the governor's office that he's gonna hold another press briefing at 5:30 today.

So we'll probably get an update as to exactly what's happening here. But in addition to the Governor speaking later this evening, what's the status of the investigation and what caused the cargo ship to lose power? Yeah, we're also waiting a later press conference today from the ntsb. As we mentioned at the top of the show, that one of the most key components of this investigation, that's so called black box, they have downloaded information from it on the vessel.

So obviously that play by play really getting that timeline to know what may have gone wrong, at what point it may have gone wrong, to see if any of this could have been prevented. Of course the NSP does not speculate, so at this point it really is just guessing on what may have happened. What are the theories as you mentioned as well, the theory of that contaminated fuel. But right now it is really just a matter of when or how soon we can get this port reopened, when traffic can start Moving again.

I've been using this example. If someone remembers that bridge collaps, Philadelphia, the 95 bridge class where it happened in 12 days, obviously this is going to take some time and all the officials that we have seen heard from saying, yeah, this is going to be a very costly endeavor and it will take time to get all of this back up and running. Ryan okay, George, release. Thank you for that.

Let's turn now to Baltimore County Executive John Chesky who is going to give us more about the recovery and how his community is responding to all this. Mr. County Executive and we've been through a lot. We appreciate you being here.

Just talk to me about how the community's doing right now. I imagine it's still sense of shock. I was there for the last few days so I saw it firsthand. But from your perspective, I'm sure you've talked to a lot of your constituents.

What are they dealing with right now? Yeah, thanks Ryan. I'd say a lot of shock and awe. People are still reeling from not only the impact of the actual incident but also the unknowns of what comes next.

So we're doing our best to be sure that now at all levels of government, local, state, federal, you're here. I had the opportunity to visit with members of impacted families and they are hardworking and as you mentioned earlier, to look for answers just as members of our poor community and surrounding neighborhoods are looking for answers about when we might get back to some sense of normalcy. And this is going to be a long road recovery. People are hurting, so our hearts go out to those who've been impacted.

We are so thankful for the incredible first responders who've seen, including those who took action to save untold number of lives by closing that bridge. This is the hard time that we are resilient here in the Baltimore area and really proud of the ways which we're coming together in what is really unfortunate, terrible tragedy. Yeah. You know Ms.

Grand Executive, I've heard a lot of breaking news events and having been there for two days, you know, maybe having to go back to 911 or something along those lines. I can't think of another breaking news event where a community, almost everyone living in your community is going to be impacted by this in some way, shape or form. We obviously have the direct impact on those lives lost, but also the people that whose jobs are gonna be impacted by, but then the commuters, you know, our affiliate involved more this morning. People that only had a 10 minute commute that it might be an hour in your Time, as an elected leader, have you ever dealt with something that had such a widespread impact among the people you represent?

I mean, look, when I became county executive, I never expected to be dealing with a global pandemic that caused untold lives and disrupted our way of living. So, you know, unfortunately, we learned to expect the unexpected. And when you're local leader, you feel the impact of these things very profound and personal ways. This is the bridge and it's the part you watch videos.

We're watching it now. This is the bridge that I crossed and others across untold numbers of time. We take it for granted to be part of our skyline. We take for granted that it'd be a shipping channel for commerce.

So it really, as you said, it's one of those disruptive moments that really takes us completely by surprise, takes the wind out of our sails. But as we've done both locally here at Greater Baltimore as well as across country, and we have to rally behind each other at these moments and that's why we're providing the resources. I want to thank the President for reaching out to me personally. Sec, Transportation, Secretary, Admiral, the Coast Guard.

There's so many individuals who've been part of the conversations. But to have a president, for example, who's out there saying we're going to provide the resource, we're going to be there. He, along with our federal delegation, is going to be huge as we think about all the needs coming ahead, whether it's clearing the shipping channels and rebuilding our bridge. Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit because this is obviously a Washington, Washington, D.C.

based show which a lot of elected leaders, particularly members of Congress watch. What is your plea to members of Congress that maybe think that they live in a far off state or a district that isn't directly impacted by this? And now you're going to come asking for the funding. The complete funding is President Biden has pledged to rebuild your bridge.

What's your pitch to those lawmakers? I mean, unfortunately, this can happen to any community. Pick a city or small town across the country. So this isn't or shouldn't be a partisan issue.

I just want to again thank the President whose call and commitment to find the funding that's necessary to restore Baltimore in the Baltimore region. I just ask that all members of Congress of people of goodwill and good conscience to support the President and his efforts to provide the resources that we know that we will need. This is going to be a very expensive proposition. It's going to be a very long row.

But we're talking about 15,000 jobs directly at the board. We're talking about billions of dollars of Congress for our country. So we need members of Congress to step forward, do the right thing for not just Baltimore, but for our country. And you know, I'll be there doing whatever I can to support those efforts in the days we suppose to end.

Okay, Congress Executive Genloski, thank you so much. You and your community have a long road ahead. You obviously your thoughts, our thoughts and pursuit with you and the people that you represent. We appreciate you being.

Thanks, Ron. Appreciate it. And experts say the structure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge was sound, but the collapse is putting the state of the country's aging roads and bridges in the spotlight. It happened in an instant.

A massive bridge built nearly 50 years ago, gone in seconds. What happened in Baltimore was shocking, but it was a freak accident. And according to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, not a sign of a bigger problem. How concerned should Americans be about the bridges that they are traversing every single day in this country?

This is a unique circumstance. I do not know of a bridge that has been constructed to withstand a direct impact from a vessel of this size. The bridge really did not stand a chance because of the size or the load that he felt. Maryland's governor says the bridge was fully up to code.

In 2021, a Federal Highway Administration inspection found the bridge was in fair condition. Still, experts say it was built at a time when shipping vessels were much smaller and engineers could not imagine an accident like the one that happened this week. In 2021, the CEO of Synergy Marine Group, the company that manages the ship that caused a Baltimore collapse, told Bloomberg, quote, traffic on the seas is different from what it was 10 years ago. We need to look at how the port infrastructure needs to change how ships transit.

Some bridges already have barriers to protect their support structures. Experts telling NBC News these protection systems should be installed at every bridge. But America's infrastructure is getting more and more attention. In 2007, the collapse of the i35 bridge in Minnesota killed 13 people.

Unlike Baltimore, federal investigators said a design error led to its collapse. And just last year, major fires caused a partial collapse of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia. In 2023, the Federal Highway Administration found 42,000 bridges were in poor condition. And experts believe the tragedy, while incredibly unique, offers an opportunity.

I think that this is a call to action. And join me now is Ken Harries. He's a civil engineer and professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson School of Engineering. Thank you so much for being Here this may seem like an obvious question, but I think it is one that needs an explanation.

When any bridge had collapsed, if it had been struck by a cargo ship this size, and if so, how do we avoid something like this from happening again? Yeah, I think rationally most bridges on the face of the planet would have certainly been severely damaged or collapsed, taking a direct hit from, what is it, a 95,000 gross ton vessel or something like that? Obviously the islands, the protection is really the only way you can deal with the physical protection. Having the piers in shallows and things like that.

So a ship this size would ground long before it hits it. Those are rational means of protection. So is that something that engineers should consider when they rebuild this bridge, to have those type of barriers in the way to prevent a ship from getting to the point where it would ram into the base of a bridge? Absolutely.

But they've also got a look at the geometry and whether they have the room for that. You need certain channel widths, I don't know, the depths of the river and whatnot of that location that will need a longer bridge, a longer span bridge, which will drive the cost, possibly drive the construction time, the design and the construction time as well. And so there's a lot of things to consider. And every river crossing, especially a port crossing like this, would be relatively unique.

And so it's not easy to come up with one size fits all. Yeah, I mean, is this something we should be worried about happening a lot in the future or maybe not even a happening again? I mean, when this bridge was built 50 years ago, there weren't a thousand foot ships with that level of cargo coming in and out of the Baltimore harbor. Do these ships are these bridges need to be adjusted for the way we move cargo around the world now?

I mean, that's an interesting question. We have adjusted some bridges. The Bayon Bridge comes to mind where it was lifted, I don't remember how much it was lifted, but in order to accommodate taller structures, that's certainly possible. It's an expensive prospect.

It is probably less resource intensive than replacing bridges, but you've got such a massive infrastructure, you don't have the option to go around to every bridge. That might be restricting a port a little bit and changing things. Both sides have to give a little bit, you know, in the same way, ships are very much limited by what can go through the Panama Canal, ports are limited by what they can rationally handle and so on. Other potential response to this is also limiting the size of vessels that can enter certain ports.

And to cargo ships like this, I do have large anchors that can be dropped on command. Is it possible the ship was unable to drop its anchor because it lost power? I don't know how ships operate. I would assume drop an anchor is a dead man, which is a pretty easy thing to do.

Basically, if you have no power, you can, but it's there's the proverbially if you can't stop a battleship quickly, you can't turn it quickly. Even if you can't drop the anchor, it's going to drag. It's going to take time. It's going to take some of the inertia away.

I had read that they had attempted to drop the anchor, in fact, but I don't know if that's true. Okay. Professor Ken Harry's we appreciate your perspective. Thank you so much.

Coming up, Laura Trump speaks out on whether the RNC will flip the bill for her father in law's mounting legal woes and more. We'll have the new RNC co chairs wide ranging interview with our own Garrett Hake after the break. Plus, inside President Biden battle to win back North Carolina in November after losing the swing state to former President Trump by just one point in 2020. You're watching be THE PRESS now.

Welcome back. The RNC is ready to turn the page on the 2020 election, at least according to the group's newly minted co chair and Donald Trump's daughter in law, Laura Trump. Despite Donald Trump's frequent mentions of a rigged 2020 election, despite Laura Trump previously publicly backing those baseless claims, casting doubt on the 2020 election, Laura Trump told Michael Garrett Hate that 2020 was in the past. Is it to be the position of the RNC in 2024 that the 2020 election was not fairly decided or they were stolen somehow?

Well, I think we were past that. I think that's in the past. We learned a lot. Certainly we took a lot of notes.

Right now we have 23 states that have 78 lawsuit suits in these states to ensure that it is harder to cheat and easier to vote. And every single person, whether you're a Republican or Democrat, should want that. We want fairness and transparency in our elections. The past is the past.

And unfortunately, we had to learn a couple of hard lessons in 2020. But come to NBC confirmed reporting by the Washington Post that the RNC asked prospective employees if they believe the 2020 election was stolen. A source familiar with conversations told NBC that interviewers were asked about it to gauge their knowledge of current voting laws and procedures McGarrett also spoke to Trump about how the RNC plans to handle the issue of abortion, an issue where the Republican Party and the Republican nominee have struggled to find a consensus as Democrats the opportunity to motivate voters ahead of November. Take a listen.

Should we expect rnc, Republican Party to take a position on a federal abortion ban before November? I do not believe that that is our responsibility. I think actually most democratic thing has happened which it's go the states and every state can decide for themselves what their position is on abortion. So no, I would not expect anything from their insane.

And joining me now on set for more of his interview is NBC's Garrett Hake. That is a fascinating answer by Laura Trump because we've seen national Republicans be all over the map when it comes to a national abortion ban, including her father in law. The candidate. What should we take?

Because she was pretty emphatic with you about this. She didn't mince words at all. No, she's very clear on this point. I think the open question is to what degree does she really speak for the party or for her father in law?

Because she went on to say that she doesn't think, you know, all the positions that Donald Trump has taken on this issue, he's basically gonna end up in the same place she is. I'll play with what she tend to say. I asked about where he would land on this. Donald Trump has talked about the idea of maybe a 15 or 16 week ban recently.

He seems to be kind of kicking around the idea. Would you advise him to stay out of this issue from a federal perspective? I think if you ask him now, I think he would say he agrees with allowing the states to decide. No, I'd love to ask him now about that because recently a week and a half ago, he was a radio interview that thought 15 or 16 weeks was pretty reasonable and it seemed like that was where he was going to land on this.

And so, you know, this has been a very active conversation in Trump world about how they handle this issue, probably the issue on which Joe Biden polls the best. When you look at kind of the national spectrum of things that this election will be decided on, I think it's very fraught. But here you have one voice in that conversation, perhaps one person pulling Trump one direction, saying this is the way we ought to go. An interestingly abundant woman.

That's right in that conversation. So what were some of your other takeaways from here? Anything else? Surprise.

The one thing I found interesting was the messaging around, like how they're going to target different groups of individuals. We talked a little bit about black voters, for example, which is an area of focus of the Trump campaign. We also talked about the UK Haley voters and how they will go after them and whether she thinks the campaign of the RNC needs to do that in some focused way. And the answer to both of those was the same, that basically Joe Biden's going to push those people back into our camp rather than us going out and finding them.

Her answers essentially suggested that the Biden policies will be enough, that those folks will be forced back into the MAGA fold here. She said it's a binary choice. So who do you want to be with and who do you want to be against? They're not going to go chase down wayward Republicans here.

I mean, you could essentially end up in a situation where we really just see these two candidates laying waste to each other without affirmatively going to try to sort of solve these problems that they have in their own base laying waste to these Republicans. Many of those type of Republicans are elected members of Congress. The reason the Republicans have a slim majority in the House, this is now RNC that is built by Trump is basically the MAGA RNC right now. What does that say to these moderate Republicans?

I think Don Bacon in Nebraska, Mike Lawler and New York. Do they still fit in? Will they still get to support the rnc? Well, the clergy says they're going to and she says that she understands the reality of governing here, that you're not going to do anything, you're not going to get any gun if you lose the House, if you don't take the Senate.

You know, having Donald Trump as president is nice, but it makes you for pretty ineffective, you know, control of Washington to just control the White House. But the way that RNC is set up, the way they have structured the big dollar donations they're going to get does not bode well for a lot of those down candidates. I also think, I know based on the contents of this interview that Donald Trump's going to drive the bus on what their priorities are on an issue basis. We talked about this as well as Ukraine, Russia.

She basically said we're going to follow Donald Trump's lead on that. So if you're one of those Republican candidates who is not in lockstep with the former president, I would expect not a ton of help or attention is going to come your way from the national party. Best appreciate it. Thanks for being here.

Turning now to the Democratic side of the race, where we noted Yesterday on this show, President Biden is eyeing North Carolina as his campaign's next battleground. Biden narrowly lost the target state to Donald Trump in 2020, but this year, Democrats are optimistic the president could flip it blue. And BC's chap Brewster has more. Hello, hello, hello.

Rolling a Biden campaign show of force in North Carolina. It is good to be back in this beautiful state. The president and vice president on the trail together working to buck a losing streak for Democratic presidential candidates here. While Democrats haven't won a presidential race here in North Carolina since 2008, in 2020, President Biden came within striking distance, losing by just 1.3%.

But this year, with state polls showing a tight battle, North Carolina's Democrats hold down ballot races will drive energy up the party ticket. Josh Stein. Starting with the race for governor, where Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein is facing the outspoken Lt. Gov.

Martin Robinson, who's earned headlines for making controversial and incendiary comments. Now is not the time for this party to have weaklings who are unwilling to stand up and face the horde. Stein campaigning with Biden, but keeping the focus on state issues like expansion and public education at its individual stops in a state where voters have elected a Democrat for governor in seven of the last eight cycles. The thing about North Carolina is voters will go one way in federal races and another way in state races.

It's just a dynamic. There's a sort of an inherent sense of balance. A balance the Biden campaign is bound to tilt in 2024. This week, unveiling their strategy in the south policy focus visits to North Carolina and Georgia, tens of millions spent on early television ads.

And Joe Biden gets that. And the focus on key suburban areas where Nikki Haley showed strength in the Republican primary. Yeah, and I'm saying why not? Like, why not North Carolina?

Why not every state in the south right now? Do we not see that type of investment? The 26 year old chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Anderson Clayton, says the efforts will need to continue for Biden to overcome the political headwinds from courting rural voters to breaking voter apathy. Yes, he can win the state.

Is that going to be an easy thing to do? No, because it's going to be a fight. And it takes early investment. It takes boots on the ground everywhere.

It takes people getting out into these communities and building the coalitions that he needs to say, this is how they fought for us. NBC's Shack Brewster joins us now from Raleigh. So Shaq present. Biden lost North Carolina by a narrow margin in 2020.

Are voters in state responding to his message this time around? Hi there. Seems as if they still have some work to do. When you look at the head to head match up, yes, it's still within the margin of error, but you're seeing former President Trump consistently with a slight lead in some of those polls.

When you talk to Republicans, they're frankly saying they're not too concerned about Democrats right now. At least that's what they're signaling. They say beyond head to head, when you look down to the issues, you see Donald Trump leading on issues that voters here in the state say they care more about, talking immigration, talking about the economy. So it's going to take a lot of work.

And that's what Democrats admit. That's going to take more events like the ones we saw yesterday providing to really have a chance at flipping the state of Donald Trump twice. Is the campaign playing something similar across other Southern swing states? I think of one, just two states out of where you are in Georgia.

Should we see this all over the South? Yeah. I mean, in that campaign memo that came out earlier this week, they called these two states North Carolina and Georgia, they called them Southern battleground. So one of the states that one of the first states I should say that we saw President Biden visit after his State of the Union address was Georgia.

He visited it on a Saturday. You saw Vice President Harris also in Georgia just earlier this month. So these are two states that they know and expect will be close come November. And they believe we talked Democrats here at a low level when you listen to what the Biden campaign is saying.

And also signaling they believe that it will take a lot of investment, a lot of early investment. And that's a sign of what we saw again, not just yesterday, but really over the past month or so in the weeks after the State of the Union. Right. All right.

Checkers are great. Up next, a possible warning sign for Republicans after a loss at a special election in Alabama where IVF access and abortion rights were at the center of the Democratic win. The panel is next. You're watching.

Be THE PRESS now. Welcome back. Democrats. Not just a special election victory last night in a race where reproductive rights were front and center and they're hoping the trend continues in November.

Democrat candidate Marilyn Lance won a state House seat in Alabama after making abortion rights and IVF access central to her campaign. Lance defeated her Republican opponent Teddy Powell by 26 points in a district that Donald Trump narrowly carried in 2020. Remember, this is Alabama. This victory comes after Republican Governor K.

Ivey signed a bill giving some legal protections to IVF following immense backlash to a state Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that threatened the procedure. It also comes as portion may be explicitly on the ballot in several states this November, including battlegrounds like Arizona, Florida and Nevada. Join me now. I talk about all this on Saturday.

Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief for USA Today, Democratic strategist Amisha Cross and Republican strategist Matt Gorman, of course, has recently worked on Tim Scott's presidential campaign. And so, Susan, this is just one special election album and I do feel it's turning a trend where we say this is just one election where abortion was on the ballot. The Democrats have tend to do very well. In fact, I believe they've almost swept most of these contests where abortion is central to all this.

What does this tell us about what happened in November? Well, it probably doesn't tell us that Alabama's in play, but the fact that this district swung in Alabama says that maybe Georgia is in play, maybe North Carolina is more in play because you can have these suburban voters with whom this issue really resonates. And what the Republican candidate tried to do, which was to talk about other things, talk about education and talk about crime, didn't work. Clearly, Republicans need to find some better way to address the issue of abortion than they have so far.

Susan brings up a good point, Matt, and it's what Gary Hate tried to press Laura Trump on. You may care about all these other issues and being common with Republicans, but if you're not a clear answer on abortion, it seems as though voters are penalizing you. What do Republicans need to do in this post Roe world to define where they stand on the issue? I think they're trying to figure it out since Roe fell.

I mean, look, I think you saw a lot of headbulling recently. Trump win by two to four points in educated kind of guess who be okay if the election held today, you know he would win. However, I have shades of 2022 where Republicans are doing very well in the polls, yet Democratic voters, suburban Democrats, women, younger women came out even though abortion was maybe not the number one issue. It would have been like the third or fourth in terms of most popular people's dragging people.

The people that were voting for it were crawling over on glass to vote essentially. And that's what we saw here. So this is what worries me. It worried me before this after let alone Alabama results.

And what Trump told Garrett is that this is interesting to take care of. Now. Is that enough? Right.

So you're right, taking pressure off Trump. But you're going to put pressure on voting for House and Senate. And you see House candidates, I mean, earlier this year the Wall Street Journal got their hands on NRCC campaign mama. That's the group that runs the congressional candidates.

I think Matt at one point. Matt did not write this one. The GU tells candidates that they must confidently articulate their stance and that being unwilling to stake out a clear position with voters is the worst possible solution. Maybe methods.

The guidance also recommended that members express empathy for women, discuss common sense solutions and push back on what it calls Democrats extremism on the issue. So your strategist on the other side, is that an effective way to rebut the message Democrats are going to put out there? No, because Republican messaging isn't unclear. It is very clear.

And women are showing up at the polls to showcase the understanding message they've been given. It is that women screwed up, the rights still matter, that we do not control our own bodies, that pregnancy is something that should be controlled by the state. And quite frankly, tossing it back to the states created an overwhelming patchwork of decisions that were made by people who are not healthcare providers, which often put women at great risk or health concerns up to and including death. Republicans have been very clear for quite some time of how they feel about women and how they feel that they should be able to control women's bodies.

And I think that at this point, particularly as we see a nation that has more women voting we've ever had historically, a lot of young women were having their voices heard, the polls and strategic movement to suburban areas by people who used to live a lot of liberal centers. And that's not only in northern cities, that's also many southern cities and towns as well. We're seeing that reflected in what's happening at the polls. Okay, so Susan, I want a little bit more of Garrett's interview with RNC co chair Laura Trump.

Garrett asked her about getting Haley voters back on board in November. This is what she had to say. These people, I don't think are. They don't wanna vote for Joe Biden, that's for sure.

The option is Joe Biden or Donald Trump. And so whether you like his personality or not should not have any bearing on anything. They are welcome to come back. We are here to work as a party and in order to elect Donald Trump and Republicans all the way down the ticket, we would love to have them come back.

You know, keep hearing this idea of a binary choice. I mean, Democrats make that argument a lot too, with progressive voters Aren't enthused about Joe Biden. At some point you gotta convince people to vote for you. I'm gonna just ask them.

He hasn't done the traditional outreach to Nikki Haley herself to persuade her to support him. I mean, in the most, in the most traditional political world, Nikki Haley would be his running mate because she represents, she'd go in the primary. She represents another part of the party that would be uniform. By the way, no chance that Donald Trump is going to go down that route.

You know, the fact is voters have other choices. They can vote for third party candidate, they can stay home. And that's something you might see with some of these Nikki Haley voters. So this is a product of the party becoming too much about Donald Trump's identity and not about a certain set of issues or trying to message this something to these voters.

Absolutely. I don't think the party has absolutely lost his identity. Just a few years ago, you know, pre Trump era, a candidate like Mikki Haley would have sailed through to a nomination. Today's world, in one that the party is more reflection of Trump than it is as a Republican ideology and arguing Republican values, it has really turned off a lot more traditional Republican voters to the point we just heard.

I do think some of them will probably stay at home, others will decide on whatever third party can emerge. But Donald Trump isn't even trying to reach out to those candidates, which is something we have never really seen before. He has abjectly said he does not want Mickey Keeley boomers. And to see that there are so many of them in various parts of the country where the mama single fans are the only people who are going to be in a general election.

He has to try to reach more if he wants to actually be really competitive come November. I don't think that he really cares. So. But is there a Democrat problem here too, in terms of binary choice argument?

And there's a lot of Democrats, a lot of conversations have deja vu for, you know, early 2016, April 2016. Republicans, a couple things. Some of the Haley voters, you're never going to touch them. They're either Democrats who didn't vote for Trump last time.

Lynn, you're never going to get them again. They want to be their voice in Republican primary. I think the other way is a lot of these folks, whether it's Democrats who are in Michigan per se, or Republicans, it's easy to make these sorts of calls and votes in March and in April. Look me in the eye in October and early November and tell me when There is, I do believe, a binary choice.

People put their jerseys on that you're not going to do it. I think it's a lot easier to make now, no matter what side we're talking about, then it is later the fault. You're somebody that has been responsible for organizing campaigns, getting people to the whole staffing people. And I'm interested in your take about what's happening now that Trump is officially taking over the rnc.

More layoffs, right? This is at a time where the DNC and the Biden campaign are staffing up their opening battleground offices all over the place. Is there a problem with the Republican Party right now in terms of their organization? Because the RNC isn't as well funded right now.

Hasn't been done organizing outreach, separating a little bit. I'm not surprised how Trump's put his input on the rnc. That's been done that way since Maureen Reagan ran, helped run it back in the mid-80s. So not surprising that in the, quote, takeover.

I am concerned though, the lack of funds is something that is going to have ramifications down the road. Right? You always have the president and the DNC member controls that to have a lot of money, but you need a robust rnc, need a robust infrastructure. He needs to be able to raise the money because that'll have effects down ballot, not just on his opportunity, but on housing Senate candidates too.

And I mean quickly. The RNC is shutting down and minority outreach centers as part of their cost cutting measures here. Larry Trump suggested to Garrett the solution going to do this big rally. Is that enough to reach out to black voters?

Absolutely not. I would argue their minority outreach centers more successfully reaching out to black voters when they were sapped. Their goal was largely to expand Latino voters more than anything else. So we did see some gains there.

Black voters were never really in the pocket for Republicans. Even though that strategy was put out. It was put out more as a social media impressive and it was actionable in black communities. And then finally, Susan, obviously Biden has the money advantage right now.

What does he have to take advantage of? That it's not just enough to have the dolls, you got to use them the right way. He has twice as much money raised in cash on hand than Donald Trump. That's a big advantage and he's campaigning a much more robust way.

Since Super Tuesday, President Biden has campaigned in eight battleground states. And Donald Trump, has he gone to one? I don't think so. He went to Ohio.

But that's a big difference that in the end could really, could really count. You see the president out there in a bigger way than he was before. Okay, great conversation, guys. Appreciate being here.

Susan Paige, Misha Cross and Matt Gorman, thank you all for being here. But up next, Capitol Hill's next challenge. I'll talk to a Democratic lawmaker leading the effort to force a vote on Ukraine. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now.

Welcome back to Congress is on recess after their 11th hour passage of a key government funding bills last week. But when lawmakers return, a different funding fight still awaits them. The Senate passed foreign aid bill which contains funding for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan remains stuck before the House of Representatives after speaker of the House Mike Johnson said that he wouldn't bring it to the floor. Now House Democrats are eyeing a rare procedural tool that could force Johnson to bring it to a vote if they can get the signatures needed to make it happen.

And join me now is a lawmaker driving that effort, Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern. Congress, thank you for being here. We're obviously talking about discharge petition, which probably makes a lot of people's eyes water when we talk about congressional procedures. But just a simple explanation of it.

If you get enough signatures to the floor, you can force any bill to get voted on. At this point, you need, you have 191 signatures, but you need to get to 218. What's the prospect of that happening when you return from recess? Well, I think it all depends on whether Speaker Johnson announces that he will schedule a vote on Ukraine.

That is the issue is Ukraine. And we know that Ukraine will be out of ammunition, out of military equipment at the end of April. We've been trying to get the speaker to commit to scheduling a vote so we can help aid Ukraine as fight against Vladimir Putin. Up to this point, you know, we've gotten maybe some signals that he might, but then it appears he's not.

So we don't know what's happening. But this is about putting pressure on the speaker to do what he should do. I schedule a vote up or down in Ukraine. Let's have that debate.

Let everybody be able to cast a vote. If you're for helping Ukraine against Putin, you can vote yes. If you're not, you can. If you're on the side of Putin, you can vote no.

But it is important that we have this vote. Well, based on our reporting, seems pretty unlikely that he just puts that bill on the floor without any changes to it. So that means your district petition, if you want that piece of legislation to pass, is perhaps the best way to get it there. But at this point, if you're 191, you only have one Republican section that's outgoing Congressman Ken Blocks.

So that gets you back down to 190. Talk to me a little bit about the outreach that you've made to your colleagues across the aisle. Who are you talking to? Are you getting any kind of sense that there may be Republicans that are willing to join you in this effort?

Yeah, I think a lot of Republicans I talked to that believe we should help Ukraine out. And the question is whether or not they have the courage to be able to sign a discharge tradition to basically force the Speaker's hand. And I think the pressure on them will be increasingly come back. We don't come back until April 9th.

Again, we're told that, you know, that Ukraine is out of equipment by the end of April. So, I mean, there's not a lot of time here. So I think the pressure on those Republicans who say they want to stand up to Putin now will be even greater. And maybe the speaker will do the right thing, maybe he will schedule a vote, but he doesn't.

You know, this is kind of the only option we have, we have available to us. And even, even this option, you know, there are, you know, there are ways the speaker could try to derail it. So, you know, again, I don't know what the controversy, what's so controversial about scheduling a vote, vote elect people vote up or down. And I believe the House would overwhelmingly pass a package to aid Ukraine.

So I'll tell you what's so controversial about Congressman, which is kind of the big elephant in the room, and that is there's a group of concern of House Republicans who never want to see this measure voted on, probably because you're right that it'll pass and that could lead to a motion to vacate for the speaker of the House. That's probably the biggest reason that he's not moving ahead with him. So to that end, if he's willing to put that Senate bill on the floor with no changes, would you be willing to protect him in the event that a motion to vacate were brought up in your force of vote on? Well, that's something we talked about to talk to Hakeem Jeffries and have that conversation.

And again, I think it's clear that he's not going to bring the Senate bill up. He's already said that he wants to make some changes. So let's see what the changes he wants to make. And, you know, if it's something administration can live with, then, you know, if that's the case, we gotta bring that up.

And if you just wanna bring that up, we bring it up under discharge tradition. So there ought to be a vote. This issue is important enough where the entire House ought to be able to have a chance to say yes or no. And they need to, basically, they need to break with the MACA wing of their party, which is ridiculous.

It is a minority of the Republican conference that is causing all this trouble. The speaker of the House has to have the spine to stand up to the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world and do what's right for the country and for the world. This is, this is embarrassing, quite frankly. So tell me what you'd be open to when it comes to changes to this bill or he slowed the idea of potentially loaning the money to Ukraine in a very kind of soft way, even perhaps giving him the opportunity to default on it.

That'd be enough if it was separated from Israel funding or what if it was tied to some sort of border security measure? What, if any, those things are you open to? We'll have to see what it is that he's proposing and actually read the bill. But look, I'm going to rely on the administration to tell me whether or not whatever they're proposing in Ukraine means that Ukraine will get the money, whether this is workable.

If it is, then I think we'd be open to it. But either way, he has to schedule something. We have to put something on the floor. We're running out of time.

And, you know, and the longer he waits, quite frankly, the harder it's going to be for him. Look, I, you know, I understand the Speaker's anxiety. I mean, he comes to work every day wondering whether it's going to be his last day as speaker. But you know, Democrats, we bail them out on, you know, our provocation bills, you know, and you know, we're happy to work with him if he's going to do the right thing.

And the right thing here is to bring a bill on Ukraine. We need to help Ukraine stand up against Vladimir Putin. All right, finally, let's talk about the 2024 election. There's new CNBC poll that shows President Biden's job approval is on the rise compared to late last year.

But he trailing former President Trump. How can he close that gap? What kind of case should he be making for a second term? Look, I think he made an incredible case in the State of the Union address.

I thought it was a terrific speech and I think it laid out what's at stake, not just on the issues like the economy and the foreign policy and on the environment, but also protecting our democracy. I personally believe when I look at these polls that the Trump numbers, the Trump voters are being overcounted and the Biden voters are being undercounted. I think at the end of the day, people love this country. They don't want to see it.

They don't want to see us lose our democracy. They're frightened. The death of Donald Trump, I mean, he's a bigot. He praises dictators.

I mean, this is the president who even, you know, said nice things about Hillary. He does not belong anywhere near the White House. And I think not only amongst Democrats and independents, but even amongst Republicans that, you know, they've had enough of this. So I think, I think Biden's doing comfortably.

All right. Congressman Jim McGovern. Now, we appreciate your time. Enjoy the rest of your recess.

We'll see when you get back here to Washington. All the best. Thank you. Still to come, lawyers for the president's son are in court right now looking at nine tax charges, three of them felonies dismissed.

We'll have the latest next. You're watching MEET the President now. Welcome back. Attorneys for President Biden's son Hunter are asking a federal judge in Los Angeles today to toss out tax related charges filed against him.

Hunter Biden's lawyers argue the charges are politically motivated, an argument that prosecutors have vehemently denied. If the case goes forward, the trial is set to take place in June, just months before the presidential election. Joining me now is NBC News justice reporter Ryan Reilly. So talk to us about what this hearing was all about.

What was Hunter Biden's team asking the judge to do? Essentially, they're arguing on the case of Smithson. They're arguing these cases that the case would never have been brought against a similarly situated other figure. That is only really because he's the president's son, because the special council is appointed and ultimately because they're caving to pressure from House Republicans.

It's been a major issue going on. We have House Republicans repeatedly pointing to Andrew Biden. That's obviously been a major topic on Capitol Hill in recent months and even in years. So they basically are saying that this case would have never brought against somebody else.

It's only because he's the president's son that these cases are really being brought forward. Essentially, it's one of those things where when your hammer, everything looks like a nail, right. And like in a special counsel situation, it's very rare for them not to indict someone. And that's what happened here.

They went after someone. That's usually the outcome when you point one of these special counsels. Except of course in the case of the President of the United States. I would imagine though a judge leans unprecedented in a situation like this.

And this is a pretty unprecedented situation. Right. So the judge going to have to rule based on just his view of the law, not based on prior case law. Yeah, I mean I think it's an uphill battle battle for them to get these cases thoughts because you have to have perfectly comparable situations and that's unlikely.

On the gun charges, the separate case out of Delaware, that is a little bit different because I mean I cover a lot of those cases and those cases really are really rare, those gun charges because typically when you see those it's like because someone was a white supremacist and had a gun and that's the way they went after them because they were also a user of an illegal drug. So that actually is a very rare charge. But the tax charges, it's a bit more in the weeds and really complicated. But it is not extremely common for those charges to be brought, especially if someone had already paid back the death of the owed.

And we didn't hear from Judge Starse earlier, in what sense did you get from his land question? We don't expect an answer necessarily today, but you know, he's definitely hearing arguments from everyone here. We'll feel here probably pretty soon down the line. Okay, Brian Riley, thanks for being here.

Appreciate it. And we're back tomorrow with more Read the Press. Now the news continues with Hallie Jackson. Right now, everyone, I'm Dylan Dryer, co host of the third hour of today and mom to three wild boys.

I've learned a lot my years as a parent mostly that I don't have all figured out yet. And I'm not the only one. This is my new podcast, the Parent Chat. Each week I sit down with someone new for honest conversation and real world advice about parenting.

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