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If it's Wednesday. Uncharted territory for Congress after a historic vote. Palsy Speaker Kevin McCarthy. These House Republicans scrambling to find a new leader, the government's ability to function and desperately needed aid to Ukraine hanging in the balance.
Plus the former president back in court for the first time after being hit with a gag order in his fraud trial in New York as he ramps up his inflammatory and at times violent rhetoric against his perceived political enemies. And we're live on the data lines of the largest health care workers strike in US history as more than 75,000 union employees walk off the job over disagreements in staffing, pay and benefits. Welcome to MEET the PRESS Now. I'm Gabe Gutierrez reporting in Washington, where the biggest question hanging over everything is what now?
For the first time in American history, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are facing the fallout of a House Speaker's House instigated by members of his own party, leaving an entire branch of government effectively paralyzed. For how long, we have no idea because right now it is unclear who can lead this House or what that leadership would even look like. Speaker pro tem Patrick McHenry, who is effectively serving as the acting House speaker right now, has told a Republican conference that they will hold a behind closed doors vote to choose their candidate to be the new speaker one week from today. The top candidates so far, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan both formally announced that they will run, sending letters to their colleagues asking for support.
Scalise, Jordan or anyone who puts their hat in the ring will have their workout for them. The ousting of Kevin McCarthy made it clear that House Republicans do not have a functioning majority and there is plenty of animosity with a group of eight Republicans who will lit the fuse on yesterday's vote. I think before we have a single discussion about speaker, we've got to discuss the functionality of the exhibition. If we're going to continue to have clowns like Matt Gates as part of the Republican conference as part of this Congress, then you're going to have to have rules in place that prevent him from doing his charade every single week, every single month.
The reality is that Josh Mandy could be in this. They don't get to say they're conservative because they're angry and they're chaotic. That's not the party I belong to. The party of Reagan was.
If you believed in your principles that you could govern in a conservative way. They are not conservatives and they do not have the right to have the title. It is hard to see how this chaos in the House gets better before it gets worse. Having just flexed their muscles, Republican hardliners will surely want to back a Speaker who gives them more power, not less.
Mitch doesn't vote well for picking a speaker or government with another government shutdown approaching and the White House trying to get Congress to fast track much needed aid for Ukraine. In fact, Jim Jordan already has said that if he's speaker, reining in government spending will be his priority, not Ukraine. And all these Congress are federal government and our democracy in uncharted territory. Joining me now with the latest on Capitol Hill is NCC's Alley Bali ally.
The biggest question for the House is What happens now? McCarthy warm up for speaker again, And Jim Jordan. Steve's colleagues have officially tossed their hat into the ring. But what does the timeline look like and could it shift?
It feels like this question is the one that we've been asking for about two weeks now. What happens next? Because at each turn of this, it brings us deeper into uncharted territory. And certainly that's where we are now with the ousting of Speaker McCarthy.
The idea that last night he pulled himself out of contention for future speaker votes. And now we're watching the rest of the field emerge in an official capacity. We know that there are at least two men vying for the top spot atop the Republican conference. That's Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise.
I caught up with both of them this morning. They're both trying to make their pitch to their colleagues, at least those that are still in town. Both of them, for example, stopped by the Texas delegation's lunch this morning, tried to make their pitch there. Someone else was clearly mulling a bid is Kevin Hearn, the head of the Republican Study Committee.
It's a name that we heard one or two times during the 15 balloting rounds that ultimately elected McCarthy earlier this year. He's someone, though, who is not yet officially in. I asked him if he would be filing a letter and making it official at this conference. He really dodged on that One just making clear that he's listening and talking to other members.
But this is what it looks like right now. This is the jockeying behind the scenes. It's a lot of meetings, a lot of phone calls, a lot of trying to get an unofficial whip count and test the waters of who might be able to actually get to that Magic Number of 218 or however many people are actually in the chamber. That's going to be a tall order, frankly, for almost anybody.
Each of these people we've already talked about have their own problems on a numbers game. If I'm looking within different parts of this conference, and that's nothing to say of what got us in this situation in the first place, which is the rules package that McCarthy agreed to way back in January, specifically the one person threshold on a motion to vacate. I've heard from members on both the Democratic and Republican Republican sidescape who tell me that they desperately want to see a change to that rule so that this place can get back to governing without the constant threat of someone shutting down the speaker if he or she does something that they don't like. So, Ally, in the meantime, how long can you remain in that position and what are the limitations of this role?
You really can't do much. You can just preside over the vote, right? Well, yes and no, because when we talk about uncharted territory, what we're talking about is things that have never been tested before. And so if you listen to some allies of McHenry, specifically people like Derek Graves, they're going to see how they stretch or don't stretch the power of a temporary speakership here.
Yes, McHenry's top job is to preside over the floor. He's going to have to play that role. You see him there walking in and out of the Speaker's office. He can do things like open the floor.
All of those are the basic procedural and traditional motions of what you would do as Speaker. But because this has never been tested before, we'll have to see the ways in which he has leverage and power over bringing bills to the floor, how the floor functions. All of this is very untested. And so we'll see if McHenry makes history by doing anything in this role that no one has ever done before.
And no one can say, hey, that's not how it works, because we don't actually know. And have there been any discussions about possible repercussions for Matt Gates? Is there a lot of anger in the Republican Conference, a lot of frustration at Matt Gates and frankly, the others who voted along with him and the Democrats to oust McCarthy from his speakership. As far as Gates goes, I asked him about the possibility of expulsion yesterday, and we're talking about when we say expulsion is not expulsion from Congress, but expulsion from the House Republican Conference, basically saying, hey, mates, you can't sit with us at lunch anymore.
I'm not gonna help you get onto your committees. That's something, that's an active discussion. You need two thirds of the conference to actually do that. I have to tell you, for my text messages and conversations yesterday with Republican lawmakers, seems pretty clear that we probably have the two thirds of people to do that.
Gates was well aware when I talked to him yesterday about this, he basically said, yeah. Al Batali, a long couple days for you on Capitol Hill. Ally, thank you. And joining me now is Arkansas Republican Congressman Steve Womack, who presided over the House yesterday during that historic motion to vacate the speakership.
And Congressman, take me back to that moment when that gavel came down. What was going through your head? Well, first of all, I spent some time with the parliamentarian before I ever took the chair, just to kind of go over the in war game, if you will, the potential options that could come out of yesterday's unprecedented, very highly charged emotional gathering. So I was prepared for that.
And frankly, I wasn't thinking about outcomes at the time. I was just making sure that the integrity of the House of Representatives was preserved. And I think we did that yesterday. We managed the floor in such a way that it didn't get terribly emotional.
There were no other outbursts that were totally out of the, out of the picture. And we were able to execute the process in such a way, the outcome being what it was, that the integrity of that chamber was protected yesterday. That was job one for me. I think we passed that test.
And, Congressman, speaking about that answer, picking up on that answer, you were speaking about the responsibility of the Wall Street Journal yesterday, and you said, quote, I didn't want anything to happen that would put a stain on the institution. From a strictly processed standpoint, which you just alluded to, you previously called yourself an institution guy. Do you still have faith in the institution? I do.
I do. I'll never give up on the institution. Look, we've been through a lot of things as a country down through the years, the events of yesterday, certainly unprecedented. But remember, we've been through periods of time when we fought a civil war.
I mean, an actual civil war, you know, and we've been through all kinds of Other fits and starts as a country, that's what happens to young democracies. And ours is still, you know, pretty relatively young. You're gonna have experiences like this. But let me tell you, the bedrock foundation of what we're able to do as a country rests with what happens right across the street here at that Capitol and in that institution, in that House chamber and at the other end, on the north end of the Capitol, in the Senate chamber, There's some really important work that takes place there.
And whether you're a Republican or Democrat or you lean left, lean right, it doesn't make any difference. That process has to be able to be carried out with the highest level of integrity possible. And I thought we did that. Congressman, take me behind the scenes, if you could.
What was the level of outreach behind the scenes to try and save Speaker's job? Well, first of all, Kevin had a lot of support in our conference. You saw that back during. In January, during the Speaker's vote.
Not enough, but it's a thin majority. And there were some, you know, some of it was substantive, some of it was personal, I think that's fair to say. But he enjoyed widespread support. That's why Kevin stayed in the.
In the hunt, if you will, back in January for those 15 rounds. There was still a significant amount of support for Kevin yesterday, and I think think that it didn't meet with the vast majority of our conference when he basically said he wasn't gonna pursue the Speaker's race any longer after yesterday's vote. But look, now, I think it's important that Republicans, the governing majority, have a moment of introspection, try to figure out what is it that we did yesterday and why did we do it, and what can we do in the future to prevent that from happening? And if we can't get the answers to those questions, the threat of not being able to possess the gavel is real in 2024.
So I think that's where we need to be. Congressman, look ahead to the new speaker, looking towards the future. And Jordan, Steve and Steve Scalise have already thrown their hats into the ring. Who is your top choice for speaker, and can they lead such a divided conference?
Well, that's a great question in terms of who can lead, and we're gonna find out pretty quickly. Congressman, I'm a Scalise guy, you know, I think Steve, he's a majority leader. He's an X in charge. He's got an operation already built.
He's been tried and he's been tested. He continues to be tested. And I told Steve last night, a phone call that if his doctors are in, if Jennifer's in, his wife, if Jennifer's in, I'm in. And I think we need the kind of leadership that Steve can bring us.
There's no question about his conservative bona fides. He is an absolutely thoughtful conservative and I think he has the potential to get McCarthy style support within our conference and look forward to seeing what happens on Tuesday. What should happen to Matt Gates? Well, first of all, let's just remember how it was possible that an individual like Matt Gates could pull off what he did yesterday.
Speaker McCarthy made a deal with a lot of those individuals back in January when he got elected. I guess in exchange for those people voting president, there were six that voting president that allowed him to get the requisite number without being 218. And so he agreed to that motion of vacate. So you gotta be careful what you agree to.
I think that rule is an awful rule. And I think that there's a reason why this country has never gone through this before, because it's absurd. And so hopefully we'll figure this out. And Congressman, you call yourself an institutionalist.
It's Matt Gates. Bad for the institution. Well, look, you can only get into the mind in the heart of the Matt Gates to figure out just what were the principal differences. Was it all about promises?
Was it all. Look, we had a lot of victories. HR2, moving appropriation bills. We were there.
Your colleague Don Bacon has said he wants to see Gates expelled from the Republican Conference. Do you agree? We need to think about that. We need to take a deep breath right now.
As I said, a period of introspection. And when we come back next week, you know, let the temperature go down in the building, let the rhetoric subside a little bit, then I think we can figure out what's next to do with or without Matt Gates, radio member for that matter. Remember, he's not the only one that voted against Speaker McCarthy yesterday. Yeah, but he led the charge.
McCarthy didn't reach out to Democrats to save his sneakership. When you make that decision, you know, Speaker McCarthy made that decision. He told us he wasn't going to cut any deals with Democrats. And I pretty well know what some of those deals might have looked like.
They would have been good for the conservative movement and would have probably made the situation a lot worse. But you know, if you got five or six or eight or 10 members on your side that they'll just dug in and just will not support you for whatever reason, kind of litmus test sort of issues, then I think you gotta figure out a way to go find votes elsewhere. And maybe there was an opportunity. But look, the Biden impeachment inquiry, you know, some of the rhetoric that has been flying around the Capitol about who's responsible for this, who's responsible for that.
I mean, I think all of that kind of fed into this notion that he wasn't gonna get any Democratic support. And Congressman, before I let you go, since you brought up, I do want to ask you about the impeachment inquiry. The last time we had you on this program, you said impeachment, quote, requires high crimes and misdemeanors. And that has not been proven as we hold this conversation.
That was last time you were on the program. And now that we've seen the first oversight hearing on this, what do you make of the evidence? Well, I haven't seen high crimes and misdemeanors. I know there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of theories going around the country right now.
But look, as I said back in impeachment are a tool, should be the last tool in the toolbox you ever reach for because it's a serious matter. So I don't have a problem with looking at issues, you know, trying to chase down certain accusations and looking at all of the things possible that we can get evidence on. But if it's not there, it's not there. And we need to move on.
Congressman Wahma, who presided over that historic moment yesterday. Thanks so much for joining me. Press. Now, we really appreciate, you, Honor to be with you.
And joining me now is someone who needs no introduction on this program and he's chief political analyst Chuck Dot. And Chuck, it is really good to see you. We just heard from Congressman right there, one of the last institutionalists in the House. You heard his response here.
Do you think Republicans will fill the speaker's chair next week? And how do they even get there? Well, it's one of these things. This is going to sound both obvious, but you'll understand the point in a minute.
This either gets done Wednesday or may not get done until the end of this calendar year or honestly all the way through. And what do I mean by that? I absolutely take what the congressman just said, let everybody go away for the weekend, take a look in the mirror, ask yourself, what do you want out of this and what happens? And if they come back and they sound a lot more like Congressman Womack does, then Steve Solis is going to be the guy.
He's Going to be speaker. Maybe they move up the motion to vacate to five votes instead of one, something like that. Two votes instead of one. Maybe, you know, something, something just with a little more teeth into it and we move on.
But if Gates has issues are really truly with leadership and not McCarthy personally, and all this does is electrify him and others, I, I don't know how they come up with a speaker that gets to 18 votes anytime soon. And if they can find a way to allow this no man's land, where you sort of have a semi speaker here with the pandemic. I think some of the people like Matt Gates would love that because it's a powerless speaker, which is kind of what they want right now. And because you're so good at this, I want you to take us through the historical context here.
Are Gates and his allies essentially fighting the same fight that took down John Boehner? Well, obviously this feels like it's related. You know, this was all building. This was Tea Party.
You could go back to then and say sort of. That was sort of the beginning of where this splinter happened. Right. This took Boehner out.
You know, that was the group that took all pre Trump, don't forget. Then Trump comes in and sort of creates a. It's a similar group of people, not all the same, but a similar group. And so in that sense, you know, they're first cousins or even siblings if we're doing these comparisons, what Banner went through, what Ryan went through, and of course where we are now.
But I also think we cannot overestimate Kevin Carthy here. I don't want to underplay his unique ability to mess this up. Right. You know, he didn't.
He bragged about the fact that he decided to lead. Every day is today, and whatever is tomorrow is tomorrow. He was such an ends justify the means. He actually doesn't.
I mean, the problem McCarthy had, I think, in having any credibility with either a handful of Democrats to save him or even with some inside his own conference is one of the core critiques Gates has made of McCarthy is, hey, he tells everybody what they want to hear in that moment. Right? He cuts the deal with Biden, he cuts the deal with Gates. He cuts the deal.
He was going to have to let somebody down, Right. He couldn't keep every promise. And he obviously thought he could marginalize that far right win that if he got enough wins that it would be able to marginalize. And it didn't work.
I don't know how this works. I don't know who else can do this? That's the other aspect of this. On that point, Chuck, what do you think McCarthy's legacy is going to be?
It's not a great legacy. I think it'll, it will age well in the short term because he'll look like a statesman compared to perhaps the chaos that might follow him. But long term, I mean, you know, he created this mass Congressman hinted at be careful with the deals you cut, right? McCarthy's the one that cut the deal to get it down to one vote to essentially hand Gates a lightsaber to kill him at any point in time.
And that's exactly what happened. So you know, what I don't get with McCarthy is that he didn't have a plan to figure out how. You know, here's a guy, Womack, he's being honest here. You're going to have to find votes somewhere if you have such a slim majority.
So you're going to have to figure out he's somebody that can count and he knows that the Democrats control the Senate, the Democrats control the White House. The House Republicans only have so much power, right? They don't have as much power as some of these far right folks think they have. And so, but that doesn't mean just because it's rational and logical doesn't mean it'll happen.
That's the biggest takeaway, I think that you got to remember about this far right faction. The Chaos is the feature. Chuck Todd, NBC's chief politic violence. Chuck, great to see you.
Thank you. Thanks. Coming up, consequences and collateral damage. President Biden and senators are sounding the alarm about the war in Ukraine as desperately needed aid is held up amid the chaos and dysfunction on Capitol Hill.
My one on one interview with the Senate Democrat is next. You're watching. Read the press now. And welcome back.
President Biden is today expressing new concern about the future of aid to Ukraine in the wake of yesterday's historic ousting of Speaker McCarthy. Ukraine aid was already stripped from the stopgap bill to avert a government shutdown. And now the White House is worried that aid will become collateral damage. Amid the chaos on Capitol Hill, here's President Biden this afternoon in an exchange with NCC Speaker Alexander.
Mr. Conversation with allies yesterday worry you that you won't be able to deliver the aid of the US's promise to Ukraine? It doesn't worry me and, but I know there are majority members of the House and Senate in both parties who have said that they support funding Ukraine with your. I'm going to be Announcing very shortly a major speech I'm going to make on this issue and why it's critically important for the United States and our allies that we keep our commitment.
Meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill, the future of the aid to Ukraine potentially contingent on who the next speaker is. A group of eight Democratic senators sent a letter to House and Senate leadership urging immediate legislative action on Ukraine, writing, quote, now their government shutdown has been averted. We must provide Ukraine the resources necessary to defend themselves. And joining me now is Senator Michael Bennett, Democrat from Colorado, who temporarily delayed last week's stopgap funding bill after aid to Ukraine was omitted from that legislation.
Senator, what's your reaction to what happened yesterday in the House? Now, President Biden just heard. He says he's worried about Ukraine aid given disarray. How much harder did it just become to get Congress to appropriate more money?
It just became a billion times harder. But we can't. We can't fail. And the reason I held things up over the weekend was I was deeply worried that this was where we were going to.
We were going to be. And in the end, we were able to get a commitment from McConnell and Chuck Schumer that they were going to work together to fund, to fund Ukraine aid. Obviously, there was nothing I could do about McCarthy. And now we got people running for speaker of the House that are saying they're not going to fund a single dollar of Ukraine.
A. How these people could be for, you know, 20 more years of war in Afghanistan and not fund, you know, the Ukrainian people at this moment, when democracy truly is on the line, I don't understand. And I hope over the next 45 days, we're gonna get to a place where broad bipartisan votes are happening in both the Senate and the House to fund Ukraine. Senator, I know you're in the Senate, but Chuck Schumer, just wondering what the next speaker is about.
Calling the hard right. So how concerned are you that the next speaker will be so much more difficult to work with? I think that it would be a disaster if the next speaker will play uses McCarthy's playbook. You know, it's so obvious to everybody who's looking at this that he sowed the seeds of his own destruction when he made the deals that he did with the hard right part of his caucus, going back to those 15 votes when he couldn't even get the votes to become Speaker.
And then we would go up to the well and get one, you know, make one more concession and one more concession after that and one more concession after that. We now know, but unfortunately, this isn't a tragedy just for Speaker McCarthy. It's a tragedy for the American people because we need a functional government. The world needs a functional government.
And I think whoever is elected speaker next, I hope they promise the American people they're going to govern by bringing the parties together rather than making empty promises to their right flank, which they're not going to be able to keep. And, Senator, I want to ask you a tactical question here. Democrats in the House are all united in House McCarthy, but was that the right move? Should they have tried to get concessions out of him before that, though?
I'm not going to second guess that. I do think that it is really important when you think about things like funding for Ukraine, that this can't be done just with a hope or a prayer. You know, you have to make sure that we have commitments that are actually worth something. And I tried to do that in the Senate.
We're going have to try to figure out how to do that in the House. As I said earlier, we can't fail. This decision is beyond politics. Zelensky was here.
He told us if we don't fund them, they're going to lose this war. The Russians are about to start a counteroffensive. And after all of the successes that the Ukrainians have had over the last 18 months, eclipsing what anybody would have ever predicted about how Putin's army would have been exposed for its weakness, the way the data would come together, the question Xi Jinping would now have about what he's going to do with Taiwan. With all of that facing us, the idea that we would walk away is, I think that, I mean, unacceptable, obviously, would be an abdication of American leadership unlike anything we've seen for generations.
You know, Senator, one idea that's been floated by some members of the House is the possibility of a discharge position to force a vote on worry for Ukraine. Is that a viable strategy? I don't know. I honestly, if I tried to become a House parliamentarian, I'd sound like all the people that become economists around here.
When the Fed raises, you know, interest rates by quarter point or cuts them by quarter point, I just don't know. I know that we've got to find a way to get people on record sooner rather than later that they're going to support Ukraine, and also that they're going to be out talking to the American people, including the President of the United States, including the President from the Oval Office, about why this is so important and why it's in the national security interest, the United States to do it. On that point, Senator, a top NATO official said today that Ukraine is, quote, nearing the bottom of the barrel when it comes to ammunition. What are you hearing?
How much time is there until Ukraine runs out of the munitions it needs? I think that we have the time for Congress to act in a responsible way, and we need to act in a responsible way because of that Russian counter offensive that I was mentioning earlier. So time is of the essence. I think that if we get our act together over the next 45 days, we'll be able to do what's necessary.
But that's a big if. And we got to put our political instincts aside and do the right thing for the country and the right thing for the world. That's what this moment calls for. And Senator, you temporarily held up the Senate because the cr.
Because the CR didnt. Ukraine just talked about that. But would you force a shutdown if it is not included in the government funding bill? I hope it doesn't come to that.
I don't want it to come to that. But, you know, I think my mom was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1938, which is about the worst place on planet Earth that, you know, a Polish Jew could have been born, which is where she was and when she was born, she's lived long enough to see another land war in Europe. And if that's what's going to be necessary to make sure that we get people's attention on this and we do what only the United States can do, I hope it doesn't come to that. But if it does, I certainly will be willing to shut the government down over this issue.
So that's a yes. Senator, you said, I hope it doesn't come to that. But you would be willing to shut down the government? I hope it doesn't come to that.
I think the stakes are high enough that. That maybe, you know, if that's what's required, we'll have to. We'll have to do what's required. Well, that's significant, Senator.
And I want to now move on to just a big picture question. All this dysfunction in the Hill in recent weeks. What message does that send to our adversaries who argue that democracy does not work? I think it sends a terrible message.
A terrible message. And the message I would send back is we. We, until our own dysfunction was getting the way things were actually starting to look pretty good. Putin had made terrible miscalculations about the strength of his army, about the resilience and bravery of the Ukrainian people about the way democracies all over the world would come together with the US's leadership to fight this war.
Xi Jinping is having to think twice and three times about what he would do in Taiwan because of the way that we've come together. And before this craziness started right now, you know, we had passed the first bipartisan infrastructure bill since Eisenhower was president. We passed the first bill since Reagan was president to bring an industry back here instead of exporting everything to China and Southeast Asia. And we passed the most significant climate bill of any country in the world.
And on top of that, finally overcome pharma to require Medicare to negotiate drug prices on behalf of the American people. That is not nothing. And for those of us that believe in democracy, and I certainly do, you know, this is a moment where we should be encouraging our elected officials to move beyond this dysfunction, to build on the significant successes that we've had legislatively over the last couple of years, build on the significant successes that the Ukrainian people have had, and turn something over. Our kids and our grandkids we can actually be proud of.
Senator Michael Bennet gives us a preview of the high stakes in the showdown in Capitol Hill in the coming weeks, especially over Ukraine funding. Senator Michael Bennett, thanks so much for your time. Thanks for having me. And up next, trumped up rhetoric and reviewed from the court.
One of the latest from day three of the former president's fraud trial in New York is the atmosphere between Mr. Trump's team and the presiding judge grows increasingly confrontational. You're watching Meet the President. And welcome back.
Donald Trump once again inside a Manhattan courtroom Four, day three of a civil fraud draw brought by New York Attorney General Leticia James against him, two of his sons and his company. This comes the day after judge presiding over the trial imposed a limited gag order against the former president after he attacked a member of the judge's staff. Despite that order, Mr. Trump has continued to lash out at New York Attorney General Leticia James, calling the $250 million lawsuit politically motivated.
I'm leading Joe Biden by a lot, which is probably why this is all happening. Not probably indefinitely. They're dating with Washington 100%. But without that, none of these cases would be going on.
They've weaponized justice in our country. This trial is a disgrace. And join me now as NBC Lindsay rising outside the courthouse in Lorman. Happening Lindsay, that gamble replied only to the judge of staff, but not Attorney General Letitia James, who spoke out for the first time since the trial began.
What did she say today? Well, the former president has called James deranged. He's called her derogatory term today. He called her a political animal.
And today the attorney general stepped inside of cameras, in front of cameras. This is what she said. Mr. Trump's comments were offensive.
They were baseless. They were avoiding any facts and or any evidence and comments, unfortunately, that appeals to the bottom of our humanity. This case was brought simply because it was a case where individuals have engaged in a patent practice of fraud. And I will not sit idly by and allow anyone to subvert the law.
And lastly, I will not be bullied. So Mr. Trump is no longer here. The Donald Trump show is over.
This was nothing more than a political stunt and she made those comments. After the former president had left, he flew back home to Florida. The attorney general just left because court adjourned for the day. She's been here all week.
Unclear. She'll change the courtroom tomorrow. Gabe. And then we just heard those comments back and forth outside the courtroom.
But there's some heated exchanges inside the courtroom today. What happened? Yeah, things about battery gave the judge getting frustrated over the repetitive nature of the cross examination of the accountant, Dong Bender, who was on the stand, the Transformer account, essentially saying can we love all this together? Talking about going year after year, property after property of these financial statements that he signed.
The judge at one point getting very frustrated and even yelling something like this is yelling, this is ridiculous and pounding the bench. But Chris Heist, the former president's attorney, saying this was a cpa, he didn't meet those standards. He only seems to recall what the government seems to recall and saying this is the time to defend ourselves. Now, Trump during that whole time was shaking his head.
The video they were just watching actually before proceedings began with a report producer inside tell us he was shaking his hand at one point, lifting his arms up in the air and saying he couldn't hear Bender. And then Bender appeared to speak a little bit more loudly into the mic. But also interestingly, Gabe, before things adjourned for the day, the witness who was on the scene was actually the second witness. He had testified for the first time about Eric and Donald Jr.
During this trial that they had signed off into these financial statements in 2021 introducing them. Of course, they are defendants in this case as well. And then it's a little confusing that we went back to Bender for more cross examination which gave is expected to continue into tomorrow. Not every day, Lindsay, that you hear a judge family to pinch like that.
Lindsay Reiser, live for us in Laura Manhattan. Lindsay, thank you. And after the break, dysfunction in D.C. conflicts in the courtroom, in the House at a standstill.
We're digging deeper into the perilous state of U.S. politics. The panel is next. You're watching Meet the Press.
Now stay with. And welcome back to come back to the BIG QUESTION in Washington. What now? One week before House Republicans try to select their new leader and a little more than five weeks before we face another deadline to avoid the government shutdown.
I'm joined now by the panel, Julie Manchester, national political reporter for the Hill, president and CEO of Volta Latino and an NBC News contributor and Stephen Hayes, editor and CEO of the Dispatch and also an NBC News contributor. Thank you so much for joining us here on the PRESS now. All right, Andrew, I want to start with you. How do Republicans get anything done without a working majority here?
What is next here? Yeah, what is next is obviously figuring out who the next speaker is. And we know that Jim Jordan and Cecilise have both thrown their hats in the ring. I think the issue there, though, is that with Jim Jordan, you have a really good fundraiser, but he puts in a way or could put the moderates that are up for re election next year at risk because we know that he's very much a hardline conservative for Steve Solis, very popular among the conference, but we know that he's been dealing with his own health problems, blood cancer and such.
So there's a lot of questions about what this looks like going forward and what unifying the conference looks. I'm curious, five years ago, did you ever think that Jim Jordan would be entertained as a possible House speaker? Absolutely not. And five years ago, I would never think that Matt Gates would have gotten the power.
He's. Yes. And to take down someone like Kevin McCarthy, that was pretty incredible. Watch.
Maria Teresa, how big of a risk was it for Democrats to let Kevin McCarthy be ousted? I know he didn't do himself any favors by going on Sunday shows instead of trashing Democrats. That would be very awkward to then ask for their help. But should Democrats have tried to get some concessions out of him or at least, you know, try to get something in exchange for keeping him his job?
I think one of the biggest challenges that Democrats had with McCarthy is the fact that when it was to be on the right side of history, when it was actually coming in to talk about what happened on January 6th, what happened with, with Trump and his impeachment, the fact that he was okay with the dysfunction government there, that I think is where people are saying the erosion of his trust in his leadership and his understanding of what little de Moncy means. That's what happens to Democrats at the end of the day. But what happens if they got even more of a hardliner? I think if anything, there's gonna be able to demonstrate to the American people that the chaos right now in Congress is coming from one party and it's coming from a dysfunctional government that's run by the Republicans.
And I think we have to also remember that you had Speaker Pelosi, she only had four votes, yet she knew how to govern, she knew how to bring defeats together. And so I think it's recognizing the contrast of do we believe in the institutions and how do we respect them? The White House is, you know, has been taken a hands off approach here and trying not to get involved. They're trying to establish a split screen, right.
Trying to show what President Biden is doing for the country. Should they have gotten more involved in any way? How does the White House play for this? I think it's one of the biggest challenges because they want a functioning government.
And I think what he's been able to do is go around the country explaining what his policies are and his one of them. Today he was able to announce that he's giving another $9 billion in student loan forgiveness. He has that. The other partisan.
Get your party, get your party GOP in line so that we can be functioning. Nancy Pelosi didn't have this whole motion vacate issue. You know, going forward, is it possible, Stephen, that the Congress of the House still has this ability for one member to basically throw a firebomb into the whole institution? You know, you're certainly gonna see the hardliners push to retain it.
I think what happened yesterday was predictable. I mean, when, remember during the speaker fight, during those 15 votes, people raised this issue of the motion of vacation, what a problem it potentially would be. So we knew it was coming. I think the people who are sort of in this to, you know, metaphorically burn the place down, they don't care.
This is, this is valuable to them. President Biden today talked about bipartisanship. It's one of his favorite topics. He talked about it last week at the speech I attended in Phoenix, you know, talking about announcing a new library for John McCain or funding for it.
But with these events, is bipartisanship officially dead? I'm not sure it was very much alive before these events. If you look back at the last three years, and look, I have to say nobody deserves to blame for that. And he came in return, this place to normal.
And he gave speeches suggesting that people who disagreed with him on voting rights were akin to 1960s era racist. He has fueled this a number of times. I've seen the passes of legislation, even good faith Republicans went to work with him. He sort of showed them the back of the hand on things like Covid relief, on things like the original infrastructure bills.
But having said that, I don't want, I can't stop there. No, I mean Republicans, Republicans have. I would actually part that and actually say that one of the things that makes Joe Biden so unique for the moment is that he understands how government works. He understands how to pick up the phone.
He knows how to actually bridge by partnership. And while he may be having his rhetoric, you look at his policies and the reason that you have an infrastructure win, the reason we've been able to stave off an economic demise is because he brought by partnership in some of his signature legislation. And now Republicans are only that signature legislation. As if all of them inside for in some cases many of them.
But does he understand how politics work? You know, 20, 30 years ago is this, they're this nostalgia for the way things used to be, this more bipartisan era, the good old days. But you know, Matt Gates, Joe, and again, he's from Scranton, Pennsylvania. He knows how to get into the mud, he knows how to do bare model politics.
But he also recognizes that he doesn't need all the GOP's, he just needs a few of them. So they especially ones that are vulnerable districts because they need to have something to show back at the end of their constituencies. Julia, do you think that's where the electorate is now? You know, look, in terms of the electorate, I think what we saw yesterday is very much a direct result of polarization, particularly in the House.
We talk about Joe Biden's experience in Washington. Joe Biden is of the Senate. Mitch McConnell obviously served with Joe Biden. But when it comes to the House, we've seen the House just grow increasingly, increasingly polarized in these districts due to redistricting, a number of different factors.
And I don't think Joe Biden or really even Senate Republicans, for example, are necessarily prepared to understand how to handle this. You know, it's not just the vote for speaker coming up next week, a couple weeks after that, we have this whole funding debate, another potential government shutdown. Just today, earlier in this program, we spoke to Senator Michael Bennett who said that he is willing to force a government shutdown over the issue of Ukraine funding. How troubling Is it that we have all these weighty issues coming up?
And look, it's one thing for the Republicans for government shut down, but for Senator Brennan and potential leaders and Democrats, they view the issue of Ukraine funding as worth it to shut down the government. It's that important to them. Yeah. And I would say I don't think Republicans in the Senate would go that far.
But Republicans in the Sen. McConnell have been very vocal about how they want funding for Ukraine and how they're united with Democrats on it. This once again goes back to the GOP House conference and the divide there when it comes to support for Ukraine. Stephen, I want to turn to some sound from former President Trump.
He just weighed in on a speaker fight this morning. Let's play some of that. All I can say is we'll do whatever is best for the country and the Republican Party. My focus is totally on that.
If I can help them during the process, I would do it. But we have some great people in the Republican Party that can do a great job as speaker. Stephen, former president did not step in and save Kevin McCarthy. Will the next speaker need his seal proof?
I mean, look, he's not going to be the person to save anything. And it's ironic to hear him talking about how much he loves the Republican Party when several times within the past few days he's trashed the Republican Party and it's, it's prominent leaders. Look, Donald Trump, I think, bears a lot of responsibility for what we saw here over the past few days because he has elevated kind of candidates, along with Kevin McCarthy, these kind of members of Congress who have done the kinds of things that they did over the last 48 hours, responding to the incentives that Donald Trump helped create. So I don't think he's gonna be a solution to much.
Returning last question, I wanted to turn to 2024 really quickly. You know, where are we right now with, you know, Ron DeSantis sliding down poles? Nikki Haley seems to be having a moment. Another debate.
The next debate is quite a bit ways off. There's now talk about DeSantis and Haley going for, for donors, losing donors. What are we doing next on this does matter in 2024 race? I think one of the things is that most Americans are so turned off by what the antics that they're witnessing when they do turn on the debates that I think everybody's waiting for something to settle.
And even though Haley is now surpassing Santa this, it's not enough to also say that she is the terror parent after Donald Trump. So I would say that we pace ourselves and see what happens. We've never been here before and I think that most people who are political animals, we love to watch these political tapes. But I have to tell you, watching it with my two kids, I had explained things to him and apologized in a way that made me uncomfortable as a parent showing this spectacle for them.
Difficult topics to talk about with your kids these days. Stephen Hayes and Julian Manchester, thank you so much for doing us here on the panel. Instead of the largest healthcare workers strike in history is now underway. We're live on the picket lines with the latest next.
You're watching MEET THE PRESS now. Welcome back. More than 75,000 workers at healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente walked off the job today, launching a strike at more than 40 locations across five states. It is the largest strike of healthcare workers in history.
Kaiser workers are expected to walk picket lines for three days to protest the state negotiations on wages and hospital staffing. The union says that an internal poll found that two thirds of workers say they have seen care delayed or denied because of short staffing. Kaiser has disputed those results. Even a three day strike has potential implications for many currently seeking care.
Kaiser is the largest healthcare nonprofit in the United States responsible for coverage of more than 13 million Americans. NBC's David Noriega is reporting from one of those picket lines in Los Angeles. And David, what are you seeing hearing from the workers on the picket line behind you? Okay.
As you said, by far the top grievances workers have around staffing levels. There is a serious labor shortage across the healthcare industry and Kaiser is no exception. These workers say that they've been burned, burnt out for years, particularly since the pandemic. We spoke to one who's also a negotiator for the union.
Here's what you have to say in the negotiations for the last few weeks, we haven't had a great day at 9, 1 o' clock in the morning, 3 o' clock in the morning. And we are asking the Kaiser executives come to the table. I'm physically mentally tired. I'm tired of seeing a short stuffing hospital.
I'm sick and tired of coming to the table and Kaiser not showing up. My son was born here 19 years ago. My mother is has diabetes. And I'm just terrified that, you know, they would have an emergency, would have to come to the hospital and not get the care that they need and that they deserve.
It's not just the staffing. The workers say that Kaiser is not negotiating in good faith. The object of this three day strike is to Bring Patrick back to the table with a serious proposal to solve this issue. Have you heard anything from Kaiser permanent?
We have what they say they recognize this happening is a serious problem, but they say they're already doing everything they can to resolve it. They already pay off the market. Compare their competitors are still not good enough in industry that's doing as poorly as healthcare. Okay.
And David Kaiser healthcare workers over the latest group on strike, the UAW strike. Also, the TV writers only recently returned. Did this moment influence their choice to strike? The short answer is yes.
You know, every negotiation is different. But I have to several Kaiser workers who said that they felt inspired and empowered seeing all these other unions. Right. Not only that, these unions talk to each other, right?
They collaborate, they share tips, they. They see the way that something like. And they aspire to something similar. So this is all happening together.
We should think about these options that's directly and explicitly connected. Okay. David, Nora live for us in la. Thank you so much.
And that does it for us today. Kristen is back tomorrow with more Meet the Press. Now the news continues with Hallie Jackson. Right now, I'm Craig.
Mel. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.
I've always been a glass half full kind of guy and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are fun and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week.
Who knows, you might just come away with your own glass Apple search class. Apple with Craig Hilton From Today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast.