Meet the Press NOW – September 12

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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy directs House Republicans to launch a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden as the speaker struggles to navigate a raucous caucus, a potential government shutdown and a threat to remove him from leadership. Plus, I'll talk to Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville, one of the lawmakers adding fuel to the fires on Capitol Hill on why he's holding up hundreds of military promotions. Despite backlash from the Pentagon and his own party. And an NBC News exclusive, the White House responds after the President Iran tells NBC Lester Holt that his country will spend billions in unfrozen assets tied to a potential prisoner exchange with the US However Iran wants to spend it.

Hello, and welcome to me, the Press. Now, I'm Ryan Nobles reporting in Washington where we are officially entering a brutal stretch of partisan political warfare. After this morning, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, facing intensifying pressure from former President Trump and threats from his far right flank, formally endorsed an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Today.

I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. This logical next step will give our committees the full power to gather all the facts and answers for the American public. It's exactly what we want to know the answers. I believe the president would want to answer these questions and allegations as well.

Democracy's decision to essentially unilaterally open an impeachment inquiry comes less than two weeks after he explicitly said he wouldn't. He said this on the record. To open an impeachment inquiry is a serious matter, and House Republicans would not take it lightly or use it for political purposes. If we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People's House and not through a declaration by one person.

As we noted on the show yesterday, a number of House Republicans have privately and publicly warned against impeachment, in part due to the political risks and the current lack of evidence tying the president to his son's business dealings. And we also noted yesterday that House Democrats have been bracing for an impeachment inquiry and have been huddling to plan their defense of the President. Needless to say, the reaction on Capitol Hill came quickly today and from all sides. With combination from Democrats and some mixed reaction from some Republicans.

I think it's absurd. We have a Republican Senator who's holding up all our military appointments and now we have a group of Republicans and McCarthy seems to let them go along that want to go through the absurdity of impeaching a President when we have so many other things we have to get done. I don't. Thank you, Leader McCarthy.

Speaker McCarthy, do you need any advice from the Senate on how to run the House? I assume that the House investigations have been so thorough that they have adequate support for this and that this is not in any way a knee jerk decision. It's dangerous. That's why I said it's important to get the process right because it's becoming more of a vote of no confidence.

I think the American people are demanding that there be an impeachment inquiry, that there's enough evidence out there, there's enough smoke, there may be a fire there. I'm just wondering if the threshold bar for impeachment seems to get lower and lower every day. I still want the evidence. I'm going get a briefing later in the week on what evidence links President at the time, Vice President Joe Biden to Hunter Biden's activities.

I haven't seen that link yet. And so I'm reluctant to agree with, with Speaker McCarthy. I think the impeachment inquiry is long overdue, personally on the Oversight Committee. And I think that any other citizen that had stacked up against him, but the President had stacked up against him right now would already be in court.

A White House spokesperson to hold McCarthy's move. Extreme politics at its worst. And that was red meat for the extreme right wing. So McCarthy's now about to dive head first into an impeachment inquiry, cheered by conservatives ahead of a potential government shutdown, which actually also may be chaired by some conservatives.

This says members of his caucus seem to remind him daily that they have the power to call a vote to try and oust him anytime they like. I rise today to serve notice. Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreements that allowed you to assume this role.

The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate total compliance or remove you pursuant to a motion to vacate the chair. Let me see. Senior Capitol Hill correspondent Gary Hake is at the Capitol, NBC's Monica Alba. He's outside the White House.

Garrett, why breaking this impeachment inquiry now? Is it potentially more about the funding deadline than impeachment? What's McCarthy's game here? Well, look, Ryan, they're certainly related.

I'm one of the people who believe that when House Republicans took control of this chamber after the last election, an impeachment of Joe Biden was probably inevitable. It was just a question of when. The pressure got too great for McCarthy and moderates who don't want to go down this road to hold it back. And it seems like that moment is now.

I think after the debt ceiling deal, McCarthy had used up some of the chips and some of the trust that he had with those far right members striking a deal that they ultimately were satisfied with. Now he's got to escalate to keep things moving along. I'm not certain that it will work, but part of this sort of mess here is we're not having a vote to launch or something, in part because McCarthy doesn't have the votes to do it right now. I pressed him on this at some length a few minutes ago.

I want to play a little bit of what he said and talk about why it's relevant on the other side. Why are you not holding a vote on this if you're going to go down? 11 days ago, you said you would. Well, Nancy Pelosi on September 24 changed the president for the House.

So she changed the course of what we could do it, doesn't she, on the first of this month? I said today that Nancy Pelosi on 924, Change the President of the House. We don't have to have a vote. You have no intention of doing that?

I didn't say that. You're confused. Were you confused with Nancy Pelosi here? Were you confused?

When antipolicists, they don't be confused. You've been very clear that you would. I guess the big difference here, Ryan, I've been on the phone with legal experts all day trying to pin this down and going back through the history of it. In 2019 and Donald Trump's first impeachment, there was no official impeachment inquiry vote to get the process started.

But then there was this deluge of evidence, including the transcript of the phone call that undergirded that whole impeachment that ultimately did lead to a vote. I think McCarthy hoping for something similar to happen here, that by starting this process, by shining a bigger spotlight on these ongoing investigations, if something shakes out the politics will improve for him down the line to have the vote that he has promised on the record time again. Yeah, especially because he was so emphatic about doing the exact opposite a little more than a week ago. It seems to be a little more flip about it now.

So. So, Derek, if this move was to buy goodwill with the right wing of his caucus, didn't work. I mean, from your conversations with folks today, are these Freedom Caucus folks like Michelle McKaye's on the floor warning him the motion to vacate is on the table. Have they calmed down now, or is he maybe still going to need Democratic votes to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open by the end of the month?

Yeah, look, there's a wide spectrum of answers to that question. I mean, that gates is never going to come around on Kevin McCarthy. He's never been a fan. I don't think he's going to start now.

But someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, who's been supportive of McCarthy and his battle for the speakership but sometimes critically doesn't go far enough on going after Joe Biden or supporting Donald Trump. This is a move that she has praised quite publicly today and might be the kind of thing that brings her along a little bit on the spending bills. But remember, Ryan, I mean, you cover this every day like I do. McCarthy has kind of, if you give us a cooking problem with the Freedom Caucus, he can never go quite far enough on a lot of these issues.

When he starts to give a little bit, there's more to be asked. And so, you know, look, did he buy himself perhaps some time, perhaps some goodwill today? Yes, but the bar goes higher and higher. The challenge gets bigger and bigger every time, and there's only so many cards he has available to play as we start to approach the end of this month.

And of course, there's the concerns he has with the far right of the party, which Marjorie Taylor Green is part of, MacGates is part of. But there's also a sizable moderate group, I think 18 House Republicans that won districts that President Biden also won. Are we getting any sense from them where they stand on this move by Kevin McCarthy? They have been as a group fairly quiet so far, Ryan.

I mean, I think part of what McCarthy did for them today was by not holding a vote, he lets them keep their power dry a little bit longer. They could be generally supportive or generally critical, but they don't have to go fully on the record until they see if they're colleagues on some of these investigative committees or able to produce any more evidence. Part of being a moderate in today's age in the House is you're very reliant, however, on leadership. To get you reelected, you need Kevin McCarthy, you need his super PAC, you need the money that gets spent.

So there's a tension for the moderates between their desire to, you know, not ally themselves at the far right of their conference, but also not make enemies of the leadership. So if McCarthy and House leadership says, this is the path we're going down, those moderates have a very fine line to walk where they want to, you know, irritate some of their constituents who don't want them to be like the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the conference, but also not only make their own leadership by coming straight out and saying they think this is a bad idea. It's gonna be a tough couple weeks to be like a New York Republican, I think about that. So, Michael, we report from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue how Democrats plan to go on the offensive with this looming impeachment threat.

What is the White House doing so far? Well, they really are saying, hey, we prepared for this. We thought this was likely going to happen. Since earlier this year, they've been getting this war room together that in August, really ramped up because they were, again, expecting this as a real possibility.

But they're pointing out a lot of these issues that the two of you who do this day in and day out have just spent a lot of time talking about, which is the fact that Speaker McCarthy announced this inquiry without a vote. They're going to try to make a big deal of what they are calling this hypocrisy, given his comments Back in 2019, when then Speaker Pelosi did the same thing. And so I think you can expect them to also just continue to have this rapid response effort that's basically this megalist of every Republican who in the last couple of weeks expressed a little bit of doubt and skepticism. Some of them privately, but a lot of them now more publicly saying, I don't know that the evidence is there.

I'm not sure where this could go. I'm not sure this is the best use of time. So expect the White House to be consistently pointing that out. And then, of course, they have these lawyers, they have aids, and everybody going through this and mounting this response.

But overall, they're using a roadmap from 1998, when then President Bill Clinton was impeached. And they like to point out that presidents who were impeached in the last couple of decades actually sometimes saw their poll numbers go up. So they're by no means saying that this is what they would definitely like to see happen, but they're pointing out that there might be a slight political upside here potentially. And they're also underscoring that they would like to see the evidence that these Republicans are talking about because so far it's not clear that there has been any specifically and that they would even point to the IRS whistleblower and those under oath who said they couldn't provide any linkage between what Hunter Biden was doing in his business dealings and directly tying that to the president, who was then Vice President Joe Biden.

So all of those questions the White House is going to continue to raise. And again, they have their own sort of arm of the White House counsel office doing this. I think on the daily, you're going to see the president want to engage on this very much. He's going to try to dismiss it as they try to focus on some of the other agenda items here.

Right. And just quickly, we have the idea how the president himself is taking in this news. Well, I think, again, this is something that they did prepare for. So it didn't come as any kind of a shock.

I think the bigger question, what they're watching really closely, is how this is going to become even more complicated by a potential government shutdown just days away now on the horizon. Ryan. All right, Garrett and Monica, thank you both. Let's turn now to Capitol Hill.

And joining me live is Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Topperville. Senator, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it. And let's start with this big news of the day.

First, of course, Speaker McCarthy said that he's directing the House to launch impeachment inquiry to President Biden. I want to go back to what you told Axios last week. You said you were all for the investigation, but you don't think there's enough time before the election to get the trial done. You also said, I quote, I'll do it.

But like I told them when they went after Trump, you better have an ironclad case. Now, there's some questions about whether or not there really is evidence linking the president himself to his son's business dealing, whether or not any of that is actually illegal. Do you think that House Republicans have an ironclad case right now? Well, what I've heard, there's a lot of fire and there's a lot of smoke, but we don't know whether there's any truth to it.

And so they need probably continue their investigation. I'M not for impeachment unless it is ironclad. As I said about President Trump, if you're gonna come after a former president or president, let's not waste time. Let's know the truth.

Let's be able to bring it out. Let the American people know. We got enough problems up here right now without going through an impeachment process, but they'll do the right thing. Hopefully we just find out what's going on and American people get the truth.

Well, to that end, you think that it's necessary for the speaker to actually hold a vote on the House floor to launch an inquiry like this? Well, that's up to them. I don't know much about that in terms of where they're at. I'm sure if he's gonna do it, he'll have the votes.

You don't vote to the floor unless you're pretty sure that you can get the amount of votes that you need. I know they wouldn't make it to the, anywhere over here in the Senate. They probably wouldn't let it make it to the floor. But again, this is all up to the House.

We got enough problems going on right now, but there is a lot of smoke right now with what's going on with the president. So what you're saying, Senators, you think that there is enough evidence right now to convict the president, which would require, you know, a majority threshold of a certain. I should say, you don't think there's a vote for that in the Senate right now? Well, no, we can, we can get the votes in the Senate, but of course, I know a lot more about it.

We do in the House because they've been doing all these inquiries. But let's just wait and see what happens again. Hopefully they know what they're doing. But we need the truth.

American people need to know the truth. Well, you said you were concerned there's fire there. And if doing business off your father's name while he's in the White House is an impeachable offense, didn't Republicans try that move to impeach Trump and his family? Isn't that along the same lines?

Yeah, as I said, it wasn't ironclad. They didn't have anything really substantial. And you'll have to ask the House if they have anything substantial here. I've read some of the, some of the evidence, some of the so called evidence, but it has to be brought out, has to be brought out.

In a trial situation, if it comes to the Senate, I'm sure everybody's read the information in the House. That's gonna be up to them. First, let's see what they, what they want to do. They want to send it over here.

They'll be fine. Okay, But Senator Schumer not gonna let it come to floor over here. Okay. So, Senator, let's move on now to the issue that you are certainly at the center of.

And that's the holds that you have on military nominees and promotions over Pentagon policy, funding travel for service members who want to travel to receive abortion care. I want to play for you with the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said about that over the weekend. Take a listen. I think that is a national security problem and a national security issue.

And I really wish you would reconsider this because we're working this issue out in the National Defense authorization to hold up the top brass from being promoted and lower brass, I think is paralyzing our Department of Defense. You said the past that you don't think it's a national security issue. This is the Republican conservative chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Doesn't he know he's talking about on issues like this?

Well, he's got his facts wrong and he doesn't know the rules of the Senate. We could, we could do all the top brass in less, probably, probably less than two weeks. You know, I'm not holding up all the nominations. I'm just holding up a group at a time.

We could do one this afternoon in two hours, but Schumer won't bring it to the floor. So they're drawing all the darts at me. That's fine. I don't care.

But people just need to know the process here. The process is they cannot bring them up at one time and have them all confirmed at one time, but they can bring them up one at a time. Takes about two hours to do each one. We should be doing them, but they're just trying to play games on the left.

All right. Well, as you say that, I talked to Senator Schumer today about your desire to put nominees on the floor one by one, and this is what he said. His point to you has been just bring these nominations to the floor one by one. Is that practical?

He created the problem. Don't put it on us. He's got to solve it. Everyone knows he's created the problem for the good of America's security.

You gotta back off. He's telling you to back off. Also, Your leader, Mitch McConnell, is expressed concern about the holds. What's your reaction to that?

Well, I didn't create the problem. The problem was created from White House and Pentagon, you know, when they sent a memo over and changed the policy that was voted on in 1984 by the Democrats and Joe Biden himself. So if we're gonna do this and change it, just send it over here, we'll vote on it. I mean, that's what I'm asking.

We do not need to turn into a third world country and start delegating laws from the White House and the Pentagon. That's what most of this is about. Now, obviously it's about abortion. It's about paying taxpayers money for abortion, which is illegal.

We don't want to do that. But it's also about ruling from the White House. We don't need to start doing that. To be clear, it's not about paying for abortions, about paying for travel.

2 States in states where abortion has been currently legal. So those are two different things. But I want to get back to this point in terms of the timing of all this. And it would be an inordinate amount of time on the Senate floor in order to get all these nominations to.

Especially because they continue to pile up. You're on the verge of the government running out of money. That's going to happen in less than three weeks. You're the only senator right now that doesn't believe these nominations or promotions should go through.

Are you slowing down all the other business of government, especially during a time where there's a possibility of a government shutdown? No, no. Again, we can do these later on in the night. I know the importance of a government shutdown.

We don't need to do that. I'm not for that. I think we'll do a cr. But the bottom line is this is a two way street.

Senator Schumer can do his job and let me do my job, but all the blame for some reason is going on me. We've got plenty of people doing the jobs right now in the military. There's no job unfilled. If they want to move up some of these higher echelon generals, I'm fine with that.

Let's bring them to the floor and confirm them. I'll probably vote for all of them. Okay. But I do want to appreciate that because you did not seem to understand yesterday the way that these promotions work.

You were caught up the Senate floor yesterday by my colleagues. And you are under the impression that Chairman could just stay in his position, that that was something he could do indefinitely. But that's not necessarily how the process works. A Lot of these generals can't just stay in these positions indefinitely.

They need Senate confirmation or the people that are replacing them need that confirmation. Does that take into account at all your calculations that relates to this, that many of these positions, even potentially the Joint Chiefs chairman could be vacant for some time because of this? Well, the Joint Chiefs are like that. I was mistaken.

You're exactly right. I got my facts wrong. I admit that. But Admiral Grady, who's the back chief, will move up.

He's well qualified of red qualifications. I went back and looked at everything he's done. He's well qualified and he'll move up and hand it until we have somebody confirmed. Maybe he should do it, you know, but you know, at the end of the day, I'm not holding up readiness.

I'm not holding up these nominations. Just bring General CQ Brown to the floor. Who they want to be the, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He'll be nominated within two hours and he will be confirmed.

They do not want to do that. Okay. And then, Senator, before you go, I do want to get your take on the situation with Senator Mitch McConnell. He said two episodes where he is frozen during press conferences.

His health seems to be a growing concern. What is your confidence in his ability to continue to lead the Republican caucus? Yeah, I talked to him today. He's doing fine.

He just. Hey, it is what it is. He failed. He hit his head.

I've been around kids all my life with concussion. It takes a while to get over him. It was a hard hit for him when he fell. He just held on a very hard floor.

He was in rehab for a while. Unfortunately, he's had two of those freezing moments that people have seen on television. He knows that he's got to get better. He will use the right, his right message to us and to the people across the country if he can.

If he can do it. Right now he looks pretty good. I talked him day good shape, talked a lot upbeat. But again, he knows that, you know, we don't need to have any more of these freezing situations to where people have doubt.

Doubt is the biggest fear up here of people doing their job. Okay, well, Alabama Senator Tom Tuberville still at the center of this controversy with military promotions. We're going to have a lot more to talk with you about in the coming weeks. So appreciate you being on this.

Thank you so much. And coming up, NBC's exclusive interview with the President of Iran as the US clears the way for a controversial prisoner swap by lifting a freeze on billions in Iranian Funds that exclusive and the latest fallout In Washington next. Plus, dual disasters in Africa. As many as 10,000 people are feared dead in Libya from devastating floods as the death toll from that historic Moroccan earthquake surpasses 2900.

You're watching me the press now. Welcome back. The US is now one step closer to securing the release of five Americans detained in Iran. In an exclusive interview with NBC's lesser hold in Tehran, Iranian President Ricey said those Americans are, quote, very healthy and a prisoner swap should be finalized in due time.

As part of that deal, the Biden administration has approved the transfer of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds via Qatar's central Bank. The White House says all transactions via Iran will be closely monitored by the US Treasury Department and that the money is for humanitarian purposes only. Lester Holt asks Iran's president if he'd abide by those terms. Here's what he had to say through a government translator.

What is your expectation of its use? We're told that it's for humanitarian purposes. Food and medicine. Do you believe you have the right to use that money in any way that you see fit?

This money belongs to the Islamic Republic of Iran. And naturally we will decide Islamic Republic of Iran will decide to spend it wherever we need it. How to spend our money, of course, it is under the authority of the Saudi Republic of Iran. So if I hear you clearly that it will be used for more than humanitarian purposes, in your view.

Humanitarian means whatever the Iranian people needs. So this money will be budgeted for those needs and the needs of the Iranian people will be decided and determined by the Iranian government. The five American prisoners were placed on house arrest last month as the first step in this agreement. The news that the deal is moving forward is drawing criticism from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill.

Take a listen. The way to avoid having hostages taken by Iran is to be strong, firm and resolute and to not use carrots in the form of $6 billion, but to use sticks in the form of of threats to banks that Iran holds dear. So how they use this money? They're going to use it to destabilize the area.

They're going to use it to continue proxies against Israel. So it's, I don't understand why the Biden administration doesn't understand the $6 billion they want to release and they're going to shorts that they use it for humanitarian aid. There's no guarantees of that. So I'm very much concerned about this.

They're looking into too much people. But I'm very concerned. A lot of people concerned dig into all this. I'm joined now by NBC News as chief Washington correspondent, Chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell.

So this is probably not what the White House wanted to hear, especially before the deals officially closed because those prisoners have yet to return to American soil. Is there really a mechanism for them to make sure how this money is spent? The White House, the Treasury, the State Department all say yes, there is, that the money will be doled out by the Central bank of Qatar and with the US Monitoring every single receipt. So they spend money on X, they'll see that item before they approve it.

That said, it seems very clear to the critics on both sides on the Hill, money is fungible. That's the criticism. And now President Bhesi has added fuel to the fire that already existed of criticism by saying we're going to do anything we want with it, not just humanitarian aid. Now, what they're saying the White House is that was probably for domestic consumption because leaders like President Mike Raisi doesn't want to say that he is listening to rules that are established by the US or anyone else, especially not the US and there's been a gradual warming with Iran just leading to this point to try to get these Americans out.

But that said, this is a problem and it's certainly a political problem. I mean, there's always a cost for bringing home American citizens that are captive in other places. But politically, is this a risky move for the president, especially as he is on the verge of what is expected to be a very, very competitive re election then? Absolutely.

But the other cost that has to be evaluated against is the cost of these people staying. They've been there for years. This didn't begin under him. Their families, you know, desperate to get them out.

Evan, prison is one of the worst prisons in the world. And bringing them home will clearly have some benefit. But you know, we traded Victor Booty Grayer and he was one of the worst arms dealers in the world. And now he's running for the Duma for their parliament, running for election.

I want to get to another very important news item that letter was able to elicit from President Reese. And this was about the death of Mashamini. She was, of course, arrested by Iran's morality police following her death. They had massive protests, a government crackdown.

This is what the president said about that outcome. Adverse. Ridiculous. There are reports that the government's taking actions to quiet activists ahead of that day.

Can you comment on that? You should be assured that Islamic Republic of Iran has always been ready to listen to words of protest on any issue. We are all yes. And those who intend to abuse Madame Amini's name under this protest to be an agent of foreigners to create this instability in the country, we know what will happen to them.

And they know that endangering the security of people and security of society will create a big cost. So two things here. First is accusing foreign agents, and there's no evidence of that. But the second part is this could be a real problem for the women of Iran.

Right. As they get closer to this ambush. And this was started with women, but it was so widespread. We've never seen such widespread protests.

It went to the labor unions. It was in all sectors. And it's quieted down now and there's less attention on it. The anniversary is Saturday.

They have threatened the regime, has threatened a very harsh crackdown on any protesters. And so we have to see just how they handle this. But it does not bode well, especially the hard lines of Leicester. An incredible amount of news delivered from this great interview from Lester.

Andrew, thank you for breaking it down force. We appreciate it. And you can catch more of Lester World's interview with Iran's president tonight on NBC Nightly News on your local NBC news station. And turning now to Morocco, where hopes of finding more survivors is fading.

Four days after that massive earthquake. According to Morocco's Interior Ministry, the death toll is now just over 2900 and at least 5500 others have been injured. Search team from the UK Spain and Qatar are now on the ground assisting with operations. And USAID announced it would send a small team of disaster experts to Morocco to assess the situation.

This new drone footage near the epicenter of that 6.8 magnitude quake shows the massive scope of the devastation. You can see mud brick houses reduced to piles of rubble. The UN estimates 300,000 people were affected by the earthquake. Also in that same region, Libya is reeling after a storm caused two dams to collapse, unleashing devastating flooding across the country's coast.

Libya officials estimate more than 10,000 people are missing after entire neighborhoods were swept away in the flood. In one coastal city alone, more than 2,000 people were killed. That number is expected to rise. You can see here the aftermath of that flooding, with cars and debris left scattered along the streets and entire buildings swept away.

Libya's health minister described the storm as catastrophic. And if you're looking for ways to help those affected by these disasters, here are several organizations in the region that are coordinating aid, including food, medical and help providing shelter. Up next collision course. What happens when Biden impeachment inquiry, a potential government shutdown and Trump's alleged criminal conduct all intersect amid an intensifying race for the White Houses?

Your head spinning. Our panel's going to break it down for you next. But first, you got to be quick with a comeback sometimes when you're on the campaign trail. Here's former Vice President Mike Pence earlier today after encountering and countering an angry voter while campaigning in Iowa.

Welcome back. The chaotic political year just got busier with Speaker McCarthy's announcement that the House will launch an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. It comes amid a presidential race where Biden is almost certain to be the Democratic Party's, not me. And his likely opponent's campaign will be punctuated by a slew of criminal trials.

It's really unprecedented territory. And the question remains if our political system can handle it. We're just dealing with very simple topics here today. Joining me now on set is Eugene Scott, a national political reporter for Washington Post.

I'm sorry, you work at the AX at Axios now. I know that Eugene. Steph Shirock is a Democratic strategist and senior advisor for the Strategic Victory still working, right, Stephanie? Yes.

And Daniel Platkow is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and NBC News contributor. I can joke with you about that because we've known each other for long. So, Eugene, we got criminal Charles for Donald Trump, impeachment inquiry for Joe Biden. Now a president presidential race where all the front runners for each party are dealing with some sort of controversy.

How is our system going to handle this over the next couple of months? It's going to be difficult. At Axios, I oversee our focus groups. And one of the things that these voters have talked about, I'm talking to them again tonight in Pennsylvania is they are very frustrated with the lack of policy being discussed on the campaign trail.

They want to know where candidates stand on the economy, on foreign policy, on abortion issues, on higher education. And they feel like these narratives right now that parties on each party is focused on is keeping them from figuring out the answers to the questions they have. And so how does these candidates that are running for these offices right now, how do they handle all this controversy here? Ron Pence, you just ignore it or do you have to lean into it because it's what everybody's talking about?

I think candidates typically on the, on the road also do all the same thing. I don't care side of the aisle you're on, you're going to talk about the issues. The problem is you got to pivot when the question comes. And I think most of these folks are trying to pivot out.

Whether It's Pence or DeSantis, they want to talk about what they're going to do, and that is probably what's ultimately getting through in a room of 5 or 10. The problem is, what's the press asking when you walk out the door, and what the national community is saying, and that's that, I think, is a little bit challenge for us. Daniel, I want to get back to Kevin McCarthy's role in all of this. You know, as speaker, just a week ago, he very emphatically said that he would not take this step without bringing a full vote to the floor of the House of Representatives in about seven days.

He did a complete backflip on this. Is this a signal that he did a test of his caucus and found out that there were no votes there, so he had to call an audible at the last second? I suspect that Kevin McCarthy is caught between a rock and hard place. That's also where the news coverage has been.

Basically, he locked himself into this trap when he was elected speaker on what, the 16th vote, the 85th vote. I don't remember which it was, but I bet he does. And it only takes one person to knock him out of the Speaker's role. And so it doesn't matter what Kevin McCarthy thinks about anything.

He is an absolute victim of his caucus. And if he can't talk them around and they want to see impeachment, even if he knows it's going nowhere, even if he knows he'll fail in the Senate, has no future. Oh, and by the way, the public doesn't like it. It doesn't matter what Kevin McCarthy thinks.

That's what it's like to be speaker. Kevin McCarthy. So if you're a Democrats now, how do you handle this situation? They're gonna go ahead and do it, and I don't think anybody's surprised.

Nobody thought that Speaker McCarthy was gonna control this faction of the caucus. And we kind of expected that at some point in time, he was gonna have to give it, whether he wanted to or not. He knows it's a bad idea. The country knows it's a bad idea.

But this faction, this mega Republican faction in the House, they cannot be controlled. And he's got to try to move a budget forward at some point. So he's gonna have to get a deal. We'll see if this one holds.

Yeah. So, Eugene, that takes respect to these conversations. You're having with and focus groups with actual voters. Believe it or not, their opinions are important about these things.

I have to imagine it makes it difficult for moderate establishment candidates to try and find a lane and also to try and convince those middle rhythm people that are sick of all this noise to get a buy in. And if this is what all news coverage is swept up and this is, you know, what their elected leaders are talking about, listen to what Mike Pence said about this on the trial yesterday. I'm grateful that Speaker McCarthy's made it clear that if there's to be an impeachment inquiry, he would submit that to a vote on the floor of the Congress. I don't think we ever want to see an impeachment initiated the way N.

Pelosi started an impeachment unilaterally over a phone call by the President of the United States. Well, that's exactly what Kevin MC did today, what Pence was warning against. I mean, what's the play here when you're trying to balance all these things and trying to appeal to those voters that are looking for policy answers? Well, I don't know if McCarthy is trying to appeal to those voters.

He's trying to appeal to the base. The question is, can he deliver for his candidate without the support of those voters, those male voters? And we know in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Arizona, he cannot. And the reality is they're going to have to find a way, these Republicans in these Biden districts, to remind these voters that what they are focused on is what the voters want, even if their leadership is not.

And I think right now McCarthy's making that really important point here. It's not just that every day he's fighting for his speakership, he's also supposed to be trying to hold on to the majority. And the districts he has to fight in, they're not going to like this at all. So he's put his candidates in a really bad spot here.

But you also have a really good question, which is, you know what normal people. Now we obviously have to keep ourselves and the capital out of this. But what do normal people in America think about this? And that's why I don't understand.

I think what Pence said is right, but I don't understand why more of the candidates just don't. You know what? Why are you wasting our time? Why aren't you dealing with inflation?

Why aren't you dealing with crime? Why aren't you dealing with child care, education, immigration? What is Congress doing having this three ring circus again? Well, it's interesting to say that, because I want to show you how Senator John Fetterman reacted to the news today.

And watch this circle here. Lizard Kaiser collected this earlier, asking about this news that Speaker McCarthy has formally launched an impeachment in her head. Oh, my God. Really?

Oh, my gosh. You know. Oh, it's devastating. Oh, don't do it.

Please don't do it. Oh, no. Oh, no. First of all, good to see the senator.

Senator Thurman seems to be getting back to his old self. But is this a tick? Is this type of question respond? This isn't even really a thing, and we shouldn't worry about it.

It's not going to go anywhere. And particularly for those in the Senate, they know it's not going to go anywhere, and it'll be nice even where it goes in the House. So, yeah, there's a little bit of, like, let's focus on what we need to get done. And the Senate realizes we can't get a budget done yet.

But one thing Democrats are going to have to do is make sure they try as best as possible to control their own narrative. Because we do know the conservative media is going to run with this and put forward narratives and ideas that have not yet been proven, that Republicans even admit haven't been proven. And Democrats cannot just trust that voters will know what actually is happening and what isn't happening without them clearly saying that. But, Eugene, it's not just.

It's not just conservative media or whatever, whatever you want to call it, fringy media. I mean, the New York Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, this network has all reported on the Hunter Biden scandal. What's been going on with that. There are real issues here.

And when I see John Fetterman going like that, you know what? Impeachment might not be the right course. There may be a better way forward. I don't think the country enjoys these impeachment spectacles.

But at the same time, this is a risk for Joe Biden if he's seen as not only old, but also dishonest, and that narrative takes hold. They gotta be serious about this. Yeah. Is that a calculation that the Democrats are not taking seriously enough, that the issues with the President's son are serious and that there are at least allegations that perhaps that he was treated, you know, with.

Given special treatment by the irs, the FBI, and others, and that they haven't done enough to explain exactly the distance that the President had from his son? Well, I think we've got this. You know, it's still in the justice system. And we all recognize that this is, this is a serious situation.

And nobody is, I think taking the Hunter Biden situation like that, it doesn't matter. It is very, very serious. What we also want to remember is he's the son and the president, Joe Biden is the father. And we believe that there is, you know, that is the relationship period.

And when it comes to this impeachment process and everything else that's going to go on, we can joke about it. The truth is the White House is going to take this very seriously for the points that Eugene just made because we do know how things are going to get spun up very, very quickly. And this is a constant fight about battling what the president is doing every day, which is actually working on the economy and dealing with the everyday needs of the country. I don't know if you Speaker McCarthy statement this morning when he announced that he said Hunter Biden did all these things, they use the word resulted in all these benefits for President Biden.

It's that resulted word. I don't think they prove it yet, but they put it out there as fact. And that's part of what they're trying to the White House and House Democrats are going to try and combat. And they have to because we've seen quoting that says a significant percentage of Americans think something happened regarding Hunter Biden and privilege due to his relationship with his father that was unfair or unjust or concerning.

And so this isn't something the White House can afford to ignore. And I think they know that. Figuring out how to make it clear to people when you've got your opponents making things muddy, it's not easy. And I think they're going to try to focus on that going forward.

We're going to have to leave it there. Jean, Stephen Daniel, thank you for being here. We appreciate it. And after the break, seeking justice for Ty Nichols, five former Memphis police officers have now been indicted for their alleged involvement in the beating Death of the 29 year old earlier this year.

You're watching BEAT THE PRESS now. Welcome back. We are following breaking news out of Memphis, where the Justice Department just indicted five former police officers for alleged federal rights violations in connection with the death of Tyree Nichols. All five of those officers were already facing state murder charges for the death of Nichols, who died in January, three days after being brutally beaten after he ran following a traffic stop.

Here's Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clark at press conference that wrapped up just moments ago. Tyree Nichols should be alive today no one in this country should have to bury a loved one because of police violence. The Justice Department will never stop working to fulfill our duty to protect the American people from excessive and unlawful use of force by officials acting under color of law. ABB's justice and Intelligence correspondent Ken Delaney joins me now.

So Ken, what charges are these officers now facing? Daniel Ryan, Attorney General Narcolen also issued a statement which he said the country watched in horror while Tyree Nichols was punched Tase and pepper spray. And these five officers are facing a four count indictment accusing them of willfully violating Mr. Nichols civil rights by beating him to death and also by withholding medical care.

And the Devon also accuses them of obstruction and witness tampering. They face up to life in prison on these federal charges. And of course, that's on top of state attempted murder charges that carry a penalty of up to 25 years. So both of these cases going forward, is it typical for federal investigations like this to take up to eight or nine months?

Yeah. Civil rights investigation is complicated and this indictment is very detailed and it shows that these officers not only allegedly beat Mr. Nichols death, but took elaborate and painstaking steps to avoid accountability, to cover it up by doing by playing games with their body worn cameras and by talking among themselves and allegedly tampering with witnesses and all that had to be investigated. And so it makes sense that it took this long.

And is it going to complicate in any way the state cases against them? It shouldn't. It's pretty common for the feds to come in with a civil rights case when officers violate a law in this egregious manner on top of a state case. And they'll sort out the various prosperities, will sort out who gets to go first.

What it does do is offer a fail safe for the prosecution if something goes wrong in state case, you have the federal case and vice versa. All right, Kendall from the Justice Department, thank you so much. Still to come, a major anti monopoly suit heads to trial as the Department of Justice takes on Google and the biggest antitrust case in more than 20 years. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now.

Welcome back. We are following developments in the largest antitrust case against a tech company in decades. The Justice Department is accusing Google of making illegal agreements with phone makers to ensure that you, the consumer, uses Google in your searches. The DOJ began making its case in a federal courthouse today.

It's the first antitrust trial against the tech company since an antitrust case was brought against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. And While Google may be the focus of this specific case, the ramifications could have a widespread effect on big tech. NBC News technology correspondent Jacob Ward joins me now to talk more about this in. Jacob, what is the Justice Department accusing Google of doing here?

Well, what they are specifically alleging here is exactly as you laid out, the idea that somehow by striking deals with handset makers and people who make browsers to be the default search engine the first time you pick them up, that somehow the company has violated antitrust law. The question here is basically, you and I, you know, we use, Ryan, the verb Google all the time. I'm gonna Google this, Google that. And Google says that's because people like our product.

Our product does a great job, has risen to the top as a result. But the Justice Department AT coalition for 49 states is not so fast. In fact, if you look deeply across the landscape of tech, every time that Google pops up as something that you just happen to bump into, it's not by coincidence. It's because deals worth billions of dollars put them there.

The Justice Department says that's not fair. Google says, we're just aggressively distributing our platform. This is what we do, and our product is the one that people prefer. It's this question that's going to go back and forth over the course of this trial, right?

I mean, this, what maybe what Google just argued here, that this is just capitalism and this is part of doing business in this sector. Well, this is sort of the big thing, right? I mean, this is a free product. And Google says there's a hugely competitive landscape out there.

If you don't like our product, you don't have to use it. It's not like old cases like the Microsoft antitrust case, in which actually you were prohibited from using certain products on their hardware and instead you had to use their software. Google says this is not like that at all. You can just click away from us if you want to, but the Justice Department points out that that is not the world we're living in right now.

And just because the product is free doesn't mean that they're not getting something from us. They're getting our time, but they're also getting our data. And what they call the Justice Department calls a flywheel of data has created a market dominance here. I mean, Google has estimated to dominate about 90% of the ad market, the search market here.

Does that mean that they have been bullying other smaller players out of the competition? And quickly, does this lawsuit have implications for other tech companies space? Oh, yes, yes. I mean, this whole region is looking at this very closely because they're trying to figure out is this going to be the kind of thing that sets up a precedent in which we rewrite antitrust laws to the AI world.

Right. As we become a more and more competitive landscape here in Silicon Valley across AI and everything else that's happening, is the Justice Department going to be getting more and more involved? Or if they lose this one, will it be just an open season on any kind of tactic you can go with? And certainly Google has shown that it can be quite dominant using the tactics.

It does rhyme. Okay. Excellent analysis on all this. Jake Worth, thank you so much.

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