If it's Wednesday, the Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell takes questions amid rising concerns about the physical and political health of leadership in Washington as Capitol Hill is bracing for potential government shutdown and impeachment inquiry. Plus four months, 150 witnesses and 19 defendants. Georgia prosecutors lay out their plan to try former President Trump and his allies on racketeering charges amid some pushback from the judge in the first televised hearing of the sprawling and historic criminal case and a surprise wartime visit to Key by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken as he meets with President Zelensky amid new deadly Russian airstrikes and new questions about Ukraine's counteroffensive. And welcome to MEET THE press.
Rein Nobles in for Chuck Tie. And we begin today with questions of both physical health and political health of Republican leaders on Capitol Hill as both chambers prepare for a bruising month ahead. We start in the Senate, where the minority leader, Mitch McConnell spoke to reporters for the first time since suffering another scary health episode where he appeared to freeze at an event in Kentucky last week. It's the second time that happened on camera this summer.
McConnell attended the weekly Senate lunch today, speaking to his colleagues behind closed doors after yesterday, his office released a letter from the capital physician saying that there was, quote, no evidence that McConnell suffered a stroke or has a seizure disorder. McConnell referenced that letter today and pledged to carry on as minority leader. I think, Dr. Monster, I don't have anything to add to it, and I think it should answer any reasonable question.
Look, Dr. Monahan' those concerns people might have. It's the thing that happened to me. Yeah.
Really did. And it's really. I have nothing to add to that. I think it's pretty well covered.
So I have no announcements to make offense of you. Kentucky colleague Senator Rand Paul told reporters that he doesn't trust the capital physician's diagnosis. So most McLell's colleagues told reporters that they are standing behind him. Are you Concerned about your McConnell's health?
Not in the least. I met with him yesterday. He was on point. I talked to him several times over recess.
He was on point. That man had a more aggressive schedule than anybody in the US in the month of August. He asked the doctor, look at him and I'm okay with where we are. I'm okay with Mitch Bingle here.
And I'm hoping that medically, you know, better days are hit. I don't know that anyone has a responsibility to lay out all of their medical documents, but we do look at the leader and how he's able to manage our caucus and it's very clear he's been able to raise money, get people elected, direct us on important policy issues. He's a fine leader. The questions of McConnell Health come amid a looming threat of government shut down at the end of the month if Congress can't pass a funding bill.
And while Senate Republicans are eyeing a bipartisan path through appropriations. How's Republicans? Well, they have other ideas AS Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces growing pressure from far right members of his caucus who want him to use the threat of a shutdown as leverage for conservative demands, including potentially funding the Justice Department's criminal cases against the former president. Now amid all that, Speaker McCarthy is also facing a growing push to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Biden as members of his caucus, like right wing firebrand Matt Gaetz, dangle the threat of a vote to oust him as speaker if he doesn't deliver.
Joining me now some of my favorite colleagues from Capitol Hill, NBC News is Sahil Kapoor and John Bresnahan, the co founder of Punchbowl News, chronicler of all things Congress. Sahil, let's start with you. We heard Senator McConnell answer questions for the first time since he froze last week. You and I were both in that press conference today.
It was odd to say the very least. Do you get the sense that his colleagues were satisfied with the answers about his health at today's luncheon? It seems that way for now. Ryan, we have no indication that Republican senators are pulling their support for McConnell to be minority leader as a result of health issues.
There are some who can vote for him to be leader in the first place in their holding opposition, but nobody is saying that because of his health he should not be a leader. Even Rand Paul, who questions the validity of that diagnosis that he doesn't doubt, call the moment he appears to be safe. The only people who can strip him away from any of his duties at the moment are the 48 other Republican senators. His term does not come up before the vote of the Kentucky until November 2026.
And he told us at that press conference that he intends to serve out his full term as senator, which ends January of 2027, and the rest of his term as Senate Republican leader, which ends January of 2025. So unless any of them stop him, unless anything, you know, unforeseen stops him. That appears to be the case for the moment. And several Republicans have just played in the intro are standing behind him.
Yeah, no doubt there has been a circling of the wagons there. So let's talk about the funding fight style two big questions. Can it get done before the 30th and if it can get done, how is it going to get done? Appropriations in full can definitely not get done by the 30th.
There's not enough time. A short term cr, short term government funding bill might be able to happen by the 30th, although that is not guaranteed at all. One way you know, you know that Congress is going to need a short term funding bill. Ryan is that Patty Murray, the top appropriator just said appropriators hates the ERs more than anybody else and she said it's gonna be necessary, which means that's the direction things are moving in.
Now Speaker Mc also in favor of a short term funding bill to buy more time for the Republicans the House to complete their appropriations process. But he's facing a whole host of demands from those far right members you just mentioned who are not in favor of a short term funding bill unless they get a whole host of demands onto that. So how he resolves that puzzle, you know, whether he finds a way to quell their concerns or gets overrun by them next week when the House returns, that's gonna be the most important question over the coming weeks time. So that opens the door to our McCarthy whisperer, John Bresnahan, known affectionately to many of us as Braz.
So Braz, tell us, I mean, how much pressure is McCarthy facing from the right and how does that factor into dispending fights? Are these threats for his job from the Freedom Caucus? Could they actually manifest themselves when they come back next week? Yeah, I don't think there'll be anything right away.
I don't think you'll see a motion to vacate, which is an attempt to motion to vacate the Speaker's chair as a technical term for vote of no confidence on McCarthy. I don't think you'll see that right away. I do think going to the impeachment inquiry, McCarthy, you have to pay attention. Him saying I'm ready to have a vote on an impeachment inquiry kind of is his attempt to put pressure on those who want to impeach Biden to say you have to get 218 votes in the House to open this inquiry.
So he's kind of saying to you know, any of the, any of the anti Biden forces in his own conference and he's, and he's probably among them to say you have to get 218 votes. That means he wants to put the pressure on them to deliver. You just can't say I want to impeach the president or I want to start inquiry. You have to show there's enough support because there are 18 House Republicans sitting in districts that Biden won in 2020.
And some of them are not interested to get into this, think it's a waste of time. The Biden's not going to be removed from office. The Democratic Senate is never going to move Biden from office. So let's get on with it.
The other factor here though is we haven't talked about is under pressure for former President Donald Trump. He was upping the pressure on House Republicans to impeach Biden. You know, Trump, of course, was impeached twice when he was in office. He wants to see the same thing happen to Biden.
He thinks it'll help him in a presidential race if he's a nominee. So the pressure is not only coming from inside the Congress, is coming from outside the Congress. And we saw the former president go to social media feed True Social today and allude to that, that it's time for this investigation to get off the ground, which is a not so subtle message that he's sending to the Speaker. But talk to me, is there any connection between the hopes of impeachment inquiry and the votes that McCarthy needs to get the budget over the finish line?
Did he horse trade these two things in order to get what he needs in terms of budget negotiations? Where did the Freedom Caucus folks view these? In two separate silos. And they're purists in both respects and they're not gonna take everything and not do any kind of negotiating.
Well, you guys are like either these guys always press for more. I do think the danger of McCarthy is, though, is if you say, if he tries to get, if he tries to trade votes on government funding to avoid a shutdown, which I think is, I think we all believe would be disastrous politically for House Republicans if they force a shutdown. If he tries to trade votes on that bill for, okay, I'll open an impeachment inquiry on Biden over here with not sure he's ever gonna go through with impeachment. I don't think he can, you know, I don't think he can dabble in impeachment.
If you, if he opens an impeachment inquiry, there's 218 votes to open an imprisonment inquiry or majority, whatever the number is. I think he's going to have to impeach Biden or he's gonna have to move forward to impeach him Biden. So I think that's a Dangerous thing for him to go to. I do think he will challenge the freedom cause I think he'll see the leadership, challenge the freedom ca and say, okay, if you guys want to have a showdown with this, with the, with the Senate over government funding and the White House, okay, a united Senate, Republicans and Democrats and the White House, show me your end game.
How do we win this fight? And this is the problem with the shutdown strategy. It is, it's a losing hand. Every shutdown is a losing hand.
Every time from, you know, 2013 on, it's been a losing hand. When we could serve as force these shutdowns. It wasn't the 90s. It's always a losing hand.
And his, you know, his already McArthur's been through this. The whole, has been through this. You can never win it. So anyway, I think, I think he's, he, I think it's hard to trade one for the other though.
He mentioned that the shutdown isn't good for anyone. There is one person that might be good for though, is that Donald Trump. Is that play into this at all? I mean could Donald Trump be convincing Freedom Caucus folks that hold the ground for that reason?
Yeah, I mean maybe it is. Again, there were shutdowns under Trump. There was a longest shutdown in history under Trump, partial shutdown. You know, he allowed the government to shut down because he, you know, he, I mean there wasn't able to force the hand of some.
He allowed it happen recently. I just don't think this is a good hand. You know, remember Republicans only have a four seat majority in the House right now. They're going to lose a member on September 15th.
When a member, Christopher Utah leaves. There's questions about other members, whether they'll be in attendance in the coming weeks. There's some health challenges for several members, Republican members, You know, I'm not sure they have the folks to even do a shutdown strategy. I definitely don't think they have the votes to vacate the chair.
So we'll see. We'll see McCarthy though, he's gonna have a very difficult couple weeks and months and I guess a backup drop of all this ahil is whether or not they can push Ukraine supplementals through. Weird. Both Republicans and Democrats supportive of that during the press conferences today.
You know, what's the game plan there? How do they get something like that through the House? Right. We've been hearing that from McConnell all day in his Senate floor speech at his press conference, he opened by calling for additional US support to Ukraine, urged his colleagues to support that.
The problem is that Republican Party is very divided on this sense to not have much of a problem getting Ukraine funding through like the rest of the government funding measures. They're in very good shape, shockingly good shape to actually get their preparations process done as it was designed. But House Republicans, the same conservatives who are breathing down McCarthy's neck on all these other issues, are not in favor of continuing Ukraine funding the way has. And they're using the language of no blank checks.
But the reality is they're non client continues funding, many of them at least. So again, this is the puzzle for McCarthy to solve. There are many things that are being demanded of him. He's going to have to try to quell, you know, to try to find some release valve here or there.
Whether it is this impeachment inquiry, whether it's something like Ukraine funding, whether he can attack on some of these conservative policy writers, most if not all, which are going to have a very difficult time passing the Senate. Something is about to give because these members are angry, these regular members are angry and they want, they want something out of this fight. All right, great conversations. I hope RES will continue tomorrow in the halls of Congress.
Appreciate you guys both for being here. Thank you. And join me now to talk more about this is Colorado Republican Congressman Ken Buck. A congressman, thank you so much for being here.
We appreciate it. So let's dive right in. Give me your sense about the approach that Speaker McCarthy is taking to this government spending fight. Do you know any discussions inside the House Republican Caucus on a consensus heading into these spending bill fights?
Will there be a short term continuing resolution to keep the government open while negotiations go on? Well, it has to be a short term CR to keep the government open. We are not going to get 12 appropriations bills or 11 more appropriations bills done in the next three weeks. So I think that there have been conversations, I've been privy to phone calls that have gone on between members and those conversations really amount to what the top line number is going to be.
Are we going to have the 2019 top line number, the 2022 top line number, or is this CR going to be a continued resolution on the amount that was designated last year that almost all Republicans voted against? So I don't see a lot of willpower to vote for something that almost everybody voted against last year. So let's find a way through that then. If you are not opposed or you're opposed, I should say that the level of funding that appears the Senate is willing to go to, how do you reconcile that.
How do you pass something that can get through both chambers? Well, that's the challenge that the speaker has. And in my view, he's only going to pass something with Democrat votes, and that's what's going to put him at risk for the motion to vacate. I don't see him.
I don't see the speaker getting enough Republican votes for a continuing resolution in the next few weeks to be able to pass that continuing resolution. Would you vote for continuing resolution at this point to continue the conversation? Yeah, I haven't seen one. So it's very difficult to answer that question.
If it's at the 2019 levels, yes, I would vote for continuing resolution. If it's at 22 or 23 levels, I will not vote for it. Okay, so let's talk then about the potential ramifications of a shutdown. You've been through these before.
It appears as though no political party benefits from a shutdown. Do you think that your colleagues in the Freedom Caucus understand that, that they're risking the potential political consequences of a shutdown as these negotiations go on? I don't think anybody wants to shut down. I don't think anybody in Freedom Caucus is calling for a shutdown.
The shutdown only happens as a result of not being able to come together on the bottom line number that would be used for the continuing resolution. So talk to me about the Speaker's interactions with Union Freedom Caucus colleagues. Has he made promises to you about where, you know, where he's going to hold the line when it comes to the spending fight? Well, the speaker has been really pushing appropriations bills and particular policy language on appropriations bills that are very helpful and very conservative.
The thought is that when those bills go over to the Senate, that policy language will come off and whatever number we have agreed to at that point becomes the baseline for negotiation. The Senate will come in with a higher number and we'll take the policy riders off. So the game now, the challenge now is to produce bills that have dollar figures in them as well as strong policy writers to give the Speaker a better negotiating position with the Senate when they start talking about the compromises that are inevitable for these kinds of bills. Let's talk now about the other lingering issue that you guys are gonna deal with when you come back next week, and that is the possibility of an impeachment inquiry.
The Republican College McKay says that if Speaker McCarthy doesn't pursue impeachment, he could be out of a job. Do you agree with him there? Where does impeachment stand from your Perspective. Well, we have three committees right now that are investigating Hunter Biden as well as Joe Biden's actions.
And those three committees are raising means Committee, the Judiciary Committee, Oversight Committee, and they're doing a great job. They have issued hundreds of subpoenas. They have interviewed hundreds of witnesses, reviewed thousands and thousands of documents. I don't see any reason to start an impeachment inquiry at this point in time, when all the power, all the resources that we can muster being used to investigate whether Joe Biden received money from Hunter Biden or Hunter Biden's activities or whether he in some way knew about Hunter Biden's activities.
I have a feeling he didn't know about Hunter Biden's activities. I received direct evidence of it, but then performed certain government acts, firing a prosecutor in Ukraine or some other government act and knew that his son was gonna get more money as a result of that. If we see that kind of connection, then I think impeachment inquiry is appropriate, and we can develop the evidence to move on to impeachment if it's there. So, but to be clear, sir, at this point, you don't think that evidence has been presented.
You're still waiting to see that evidence? I do not think that evidence has been presented. And I don't think there's a need to have an impeachment inquiry when we have three committees that are doing great work developing the kind of evidence that would lead to an impeachment inquiry. Okay, very good.
So let me ask you about this. You wrote a letter this week rebuking a letter circulated by the Colorado Republican Party about the treatment of January 6th defendants, saying that they were spreading unsubstantiated rumors, including that they were being mistreated for their political views. Why do you think they sent that letter in the first place? And where do these ideas come from?
You know, Marjorie Taylor Greene has spread a lot of these ideas on her social media account and in other places, other forms. It's, I guess, popular to try to create this victimhood idea among people, and I disagree with them. And the facts are that she alleges, and others allege that there are 200 or more defendants who are incarcerated pending charges. That's a gross mistake, that nobody has been incarcerated pending charges.
They've all been charged and neither surrendered or have been arrested in connection with January 6th. So I have great misgivings about the Republican Party, a time when we have strong issues that we need to run on and we need to hold present Biden accountable for the border inflation. Crime to be to be distracted by this kind of idea rhetoric is just a bad strategy. And I want to make sure that I do everything I can to put the right facts out there so that people can make a good judgment.
We can move on. And what can you do beyond just a letter? And you were once the chair of the Colorado Republican Party. Is there something else that you can do to try and prevent them from spreading this type of misinformation?
Well, I don't get me wrong, I think dialogue is valuable in the Republican Party. I think we have healthy dialogue. What I want to make sure is that we don't have two sets of facts. There is one set of facts, and the facts are that these defendants have been treated like other defendants in a jail.
That is not a resort. It is a difficult place for every defendant to be while they are waiting trial. So I want to get the facts out. Then we can have a difference of opinion on whether some people should have been charged or sentenced the way they were or whatever the case is.
But we can't have two sets of facts. And that's what I want to deal with in the Republican Party in Colorado. But really, this goes beyond Colorado sports. Yeah.
All right. Always a thoughtful conversation. Dollars McKenna Buckle, see you when you get back here to Washington next week. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you. Coming up, new developments in the Trump trials will take you inside the Fulton county courtroom as cameras roll and two of the former president's co defendants trying to thwart the district attorney's plan to try Trump and his 18 co defendants together. Plus the Republican race for president. Mike Pence says it's time for choosing warns the party could cease to exist.
The voters continue their allegiance to Donald Trump and those like him. You're watching Beat THE PRESS now. Welcome back. We turn now to new developments in the sprawling election interference and racketeering case against a former president and his 18 co defendants down in Georgia.
Today we got our first substantive look inside the courtroom with the case's first live and on camera to address motions filed by two of the former president's co defendants requesting that their cases be severed from each other. The judge denied that request, but during Today's argument, the DA's office revealed how long they believe the trial will take in this massive case against the former president and his allies. We will contend that a trial of these 19 CO defendants will take four months and that does not include jury selection. And it's also predicated upon whether or not, of course, the defendants elect to testify or not.
But four months is our, is our time estimate in terms of the number of witnesses. There are in excess of 150 witnesses that the state intends to call. The DA's office wants the trial to begin next month on October 23rd. But Judge McAfee pressed prosecutors on that expedited timeline while raising unresolved questions currently before a different judge about whether some defendants could have their cases moved to federal court.
If, let's say, he says that some aspects of the case stay behind with us here in Fulton county and the 11th Circuit changes their mind and reverses that entirely and says no, the entire case has to get removed to federal court. Where does that lead us in the middle of a jury trial? So the other things to think in mind is this is going to be a case with a lot of pre trial motions and again, I don't know how many hearings we're going to have to sort through all those. But if we compress our timeline to 40 something days, our ability to even be able to really weigh those and think through these issues again, it just seems a bit unrealistic to think that we can handle all 19 and 40 something days.
And all of this comes after all 19 defendants pleaded not guilty and waived their arraignments from war. Now I'm joined by my colleague Garage, who usually have on Capitol H with me, but he's also been covered down from serious legal and political issues. I'm also joined by Darrell Cohen, who's a former Fulton county assistant District attorney. So, Darrell, let's start with you.
You understand that courtroom as well as anybody. Those of us who watched today confused about what, about what came from it. So just explain as you can explain in terms what Judge McAfee decided today. Well, what we know is more than we did before and less than we need to know.
Judge McAfee at this point said that the two defendants, Cheesborough and Powell, will not have their cases severed or tried at a different time. They're going to be together. Whether or not they're going to be together with the other 17 defendants, that's another story that really didn't come out today. So it's confusing.
And piece by piece, this puzzle is being put together. But we don't know how big the puzzle is. We don't know how many pieces that are in this puzzle. And it's very confusing.
Judge McAfee is doing the best he can to make something simple that's not simple. And this is a case that we've said before, it's never happened before, and it may never happen again. So piece by piece, and Chesbrough in particular, said that he wants to sustain trial in a little more than a month from now. Based on what you saw in the courtroom today, is there any way that this trial could happen that soon?
Life is always possible, but I don't see it happening. As Judge McAfee said, there are too many pretrial motions. Now, is the DA's office going to insist that all 19 people be tried together because the two defendants had a speedy trial in demand, or will those two be severed from the other 17 and the four months. This is a dream.
It may be four months for the prosecution, but keep in mind, there's another RICO case going on right now in the same county, in the same courthouse, the same Fulton County Superior Court, where young slime is being tried on rico. And they have been trying to select a jury for over eight months. As of today, not one juror has been selected. And so what does that tell you?
And the prosecutor today said four months of the trial didn't even get into the top of jury selection. So, Garrett, the hearing today, though, interesting. Live streamed for the world to see. Unlike any of the other Trump legal issues that we've seen up until this point, is this a preview of what this trial could ultimately look like if it ever does start?
Well, Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's gonna mix of substance and a lot of legal minutia, but I think you're gonna see a ton of people tuning in to watch it. I've been in those Fulton county courtrooms for some of the previous hearings related to Donald Trump that have had cameras in them and seen how this goes, it looks a lot like what I've seen in these other hearings. I think we have to prepare ourselves with the possibility that this trial, whenever it starts, and I don't think it will be soon, based on what the judge had to say today in the timeline we were just discussing, it's probably gonna be the most watched trial of the 21st century.
Yeah. OJ on steroids. They're the most famous person on the planet on trial. Someone who says, by the way, that he wants to testify in his own defense.
So, yeah, I think this is the first peek under the hood. But remember, this was a hearing today which is two sets of defense attorneys present of the 19. This is going to be a logistical and legal challenge of a gargantuan nature. And what Trump's aides say about his perception of it being unintelligent he loves being on television and respected, even if he's facing this kind of legal trouble.
Does he want to be? I mean, look, he's been a little bit hard to read on this. I mean, on the one hand, he has used his arraignments and surrenders so successfully, politically speaking, thus far over the last year to raise money for his campaign. It's really the first one in April, helped him shake off Ron DeSantis.
It kind of set the race into the static position that it's been in since then with Trump as the outside front runner here. Everybody else just kind of beating his duck. He's been raising millions of dollars off his appearances. We also declined to appear for a random today.
He could have gone back down if you wanted to try to soak up that spotlight a little bit more. So I think they're trying to achieve some kind of balance here where he still looks like a normal candidate, but can also use the fact that he is being targeted, in his view, as a way to draw attention to himself and squash out these other candidates. Look, I mean, if he is going to be on trial, I'm going to have to be there day after day, particularly if this case happens during the campaign, and I don't think it will. I think there's an argument to be made, and probably is being made in his circle, that, you know, having all eyes focused on you, regardless of the topic, is probably still a net positive for them, especially for someone like Donald Trump, maybe not for someone else.
For someone like Donald Trump. Exactly right. I want to go back to one of the moments that we showed from the court earlier, and it was this question of the whether or not two of the defendants could have their cases move to federal court. Mark Mills being the main one.
How much of the timing of all this really depends on that decision, whether or not the cases move to federal court. I think depending on what the federal judge, and I believe it's Steve Jones, has to say, if he rules immediately, it's not gonna make any difference in the timing. If, on the other hand, he rules later rather than sooner, it could very easily delay this trial even further. So it's really a legal circus and we know little.
We know more than we did, but we don't know as much as we need to know, and we never will, at least until it's over. If it is ever over. It may not ever be over. Yeah, Garrett, finally.
I mentioned this earlier, but gilded a bit more. Donald Trump had an interview today saying that he wants to testify at These trials. Yeah, that's right. He was interviewed by QQ on the radio today and he would press him several times about the idea of would he testify his own defense.
And finally Trump's said, yeah, it wouldn't impact. I really like to, I want to get out there. He was talking later in the interview specifically about the obstruction elements of the documents case. I think that's the thing where he personally believes he's got the strongest legal case.
Donald Trump is not a lawyer. This is the thing where he believes he's got the strongest case. But I do think, you know, to our point earlier about the fact that he kind of relishes the opportunity to have this fight and to try to make the political argument that he's been making all along, that's the way to do it. That said, he has often suggested he would do more legally than he ends up doing.
Remember, he was going to sit down for interview with Robert Mueller. That never happened. Now, that said, once again, we're wearing out the word unprecedented. We are in the unprecedented situation after actually being on trial.
And so we now get to see it. Okay, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you for being here.
And up next, breaking news from another special counsel investigation. We just learned that the president son, Hunter Biden, will be indicted and soon. We'll tell you what we know next. You're watching.
Be the President. Welcome back. We are following developments in the investigation into President Biden's son, Hunter Biden. Special counsel David Weiss has indicated in a court filing that he plans on using a grand jury to indict hunter Biden by September 29th.
The announcement comes six weeks after a planned plea deal for Biden to resolve tax and weapons charges fell apart. NBC's Tom Winter joins me with more on this now. So, Tom, explain this to us. Do you have any sense of what the potential charges against Hunter Biden could be?
Sure. I think it's gonna be a lot of what we've spoken about before, what you and I were both talking about outside the courthouse before that plea agreement dissolved. Right. I think you're looking at a case here that's gonna be based primarily on tax charges.
They're gonna surround the years 2017 excuse me, 2017 and 2018. And I think the question now is whether or not Special Counsel Weiss will indict using misdemeanor charges or whether there'll be felony charges. And I think based on what they've telegraphed, it's possible the felony charges could be the offing here. And then we have to figure out where those charges will be filed.
He could file them now to the special counsel that he chooses to, that has venue. That's the first thing he has to prove. And so the most likely scenario here that these charges are gonna be filed in the central district of California in the Los Angeles area, because that's where he will likely allege that this conduct primarily took place. So that's what we should expect between now and September.
There's still a little bit of a lingering question as to this pretrial diversion agreement on the gun charge, being in possession of a gun while using narcotics. Now, that's where it gets a little bit tricky, Ryan, because Hunter Biden's attorneys have argued that that agreement is still in place because both sides signed it. Federal prosecutors say, well, not so fast. It didn't get the final signature that it needs from probation.
Now you might say, all right, TOM well, like the tax charges in that plea deal, does that just all go away and they'll include that in future charges? But there raises a bit of a legal question, because that specific, specific charge in statute has been challenged quite significantly in the federal courts and in the appellate courts of this country, and it has been beaten down. So the question is whether or not prosecutors in good faith could bring that charge against him remains very much an open question as to the terms of that agreement, whether it's in place as well, because there's clearly a dispute between both parties. So that's something that we're going to continue to have to watch.
And then obviously, any indictment itself, but it's now a foregone conclusion, according to prosecutors, that the son of the president of the United States will, in fact, be indicted, will be in court, and will be arraigned at some point. So we should start looking for hotels in central California, as we're telling you. Tom so the other part of this, of course, is whether or not it remains an ongoing investigation, right? David White has been very specific in saying that the investigation was ongoing.
Could this be the end, you know, once the indictment goes down, or could there be subsequent indictments even after this indictment is fine? So, Ryan, I'm not omniscient, and if I was, I probably wouldn't be working here and talking to you. But we have no sense from our reporting, myself and my colleagues, that there is anything that has happened from an ongoing investigation standpoint that has moved beyond the central component of this, the tax charges. We haven't heard about any additional subpoenas.
We haven't heard about any additional search warrants anybody else being questioned in this case is quite possible that's occurring. We're unaware of it. But neither this organization or any other has reported that that has occurred. So that's what we know.
So far, folks have brought up the idea of Farah, you know, whether or not Hunter Biden was acting as an agent of a foreign government or correctly filed in that we haven't seen any indication of that either. And we're rapidly approaching some statute limitations issue. So we're just to going to see. Okay.
Tom Witcher, thanks for being out of the breaking newser. We appreciate it. And after the break, Mike Pence makes his case in New Hampshire, denouncing Republican populism and Donald Trump. Our panel's next.
You're WATCHING ME the PRESS now. Welcome back. On the campaign trail. Today, former Vice President Mike Pence delivered what his campaign touted as a major speech in New Hampshire challenging Republicans to choose new leadership and in his words, choose between conservatism and populism.
Take a listen. Today I asked my fellow Republicans this in the days to come, will we be the party of conservatism or will we follow the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles? The future of this movement in this party belongs to one or the other, not both. Pence called out populists, Republicans like former President Trump for their stance on abortion, national defense and more.
Joining me now on set is Dan America, a national political reporter at the messenger, former Maryland Democratic Congresswoman John Edwards and Brendan Buck Buck, former advisor to Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Paul Ryan. He's also an NBC News political analyst. So, Dan, you said as we were coming out here today that Mike Pence was running in the Ronald Reagan lane of the Republican Party. Does that exist anymore?
What's the game plan? It's like a bike lane at the moment, not a road anymore. You know, I think he has the right idea. I think he is challenging the front runner in this race.
The problem is that the voters are already decided. I mean, polls show that populism right now is very popular in the Republican Party and that there is really no lane for Mike Pence right now. If you look at his approval ratings when he started the campaign, they're going the opposite direction than you would like them to go. And it's frankly very difficult to see a world where he is the nominee for a party where there are people in the base who are willing to overlook the fact that there are people who want to hang him on January 6th.
I just don't see a world. Even if he's at least making the case against the front runner where he can supplant the farmer. I'm going to play more of a pensen. When Donald Trump ran for President in 2016, he promised to govern as a conservative.
And together we did. But it's important for Republicans to know that he and his imitators in this Republican primary make no such promise today. They forget that we succeeded because of a conservative dent, not in spite of it. I mean, the truth is, Donald Trump, along with his imitators, often sound like an echo of the progressives they seek to replace.
So, Brendan, we've talked a lot on this program about how most of the Republican feel is not separating itself from Donald Trump. At least White Pence is trying to do that. But is it in any way going to help him with Republican primary voters? Yeah, we're talking about things that are narrow, the balancing game that he's walking on there, going after Donald Trump for being a populist, but also things really proud of the administration.
They work together. That's pretty tough. I think this is a great conversation to have. It feels a bit academic at this point, though.
I mean, as you said, parties decided what direction they're going to go in first. I think he's love Carter Billy, in terms of his long track record of being a true conservative, that's fine, but that's not really answering the question the voters are asking right now. In some ways, they don't care about policy. We're much more of a post policy party at this point.
It's all about how you make people feel. How can you entertain people and get people going? I don't know if that does that. I appreciate the conversation.
And it is notable that he is going more directly at that president. We're not quite there yet, but I think that's progress. But there's something else that Pence said in that point that was interesting. He said Donald Trump and his imposters or people that are trying to be like Donald Trump.
Was this also about him not only separating himself from Trump, but also Vivek Ramaswamy and some of these other Republicans in the field are basically just trying to draft behind Trump. Yeah. I often think that Mike Pence's candidacy is really about rewriting the history books for Mike Pence. You know, in some ways, he's kind of looking back to redefine the difference between populism and conservatism.
But the brand of populism that Donald Trump Elicited was present in 2016 when Mike Pence joined that ticket and it didn't change. And so I'm really not sure what he's getting at. And there's just no pathway for Pence. But he is trying to, I think create a history that's about himself and his own legacy.
All right, let's talk about some new polling. Now. Even with Donald Trump's legal struggles and this new head to head poll of President Biden from the Wall Street Journal, they say they prefer his record, Donald Trump's record to the record of the current President Biden. You can see the head matchup right now is 46% apiece.
But yeah, let's talk about that. I mean, because one of the things that President Biden is really touting on the campaign trail, he says Biden nox when he talks about the infrastructure plan, he's really trying to convince voters that they've accomplished a lot in his short time as president. But right now these numbers say that there's a better pressure than Donald Trump. Is this problem provided in his reaction hopes 100%.
I mean, I think part of the problem is that his trustworthy numbers have fallen since the last maybe year or so. So even if he's selling something, voters aren't really ready to buy it because they don't believe him yet. Now Biden, if you know there's an ethos for president and for Clinton it was the economy stupid for Trump was alone can fix it. For Biden it's probably don't compare me to the Almighty, comparing me to the alternative.
And that's what Democrats are banking their hopes on. That once this is a one on one race, once he is compared to Donald Trump who's a or some other Republican who's running in the lane of Donald Trump, that these numbers will shift and you'll see more of an even rates where voters are buying what he is selling more because of the alternative. That remains to be seen. And that probably won't happen for what, months, you know, well into next year.
Yeah. So John, let's dig into the crosstabs of this poll. It says the share of Republicans who say Trump has a strong record of accomplishments, 91% most Republicans believe he did a good job. That's higher than the share of Democrats who believe the same with President Biden.
That's only 81%. Still a pretty good number. But there are 12% of Democrats who say that Trump has a strong record of accomplishment versus only 5% of Republicans who say the same thing. About Biden.
What do those numbers tell you about the president's re election helps? Well, I think one of the things that we know is that Democrats writ large need to get on board with the fact that Joe Biden is our nominee, he's the President of the United States, he's leading the ticket and they need to get on board. And I think that what you're saying here is a reflection in some ways of some ambivalence that surrounded his reelection. But if Democrats really want to win this presidency and the re election, they need to come on board and they have to do it understanding that President Biden is a leader and he does have a strong record of accomplishment.
I just wish they'd start talking about it. He's a pretty uninspiring figure right now. His age is a real thing. When he goes out and he gives speeches and he has halting speech, it shows.
His age really shows. We talk about that a lot. Joe Biden has lived up to his promise to be a president. You don't have to think about it, but when you run a campaign for re election, you're going to be front center a lot and people are going to start noticing these things.
You know, when people talk about why I saw Joe Biden speak about it, it was tough. They haven't noticed in a while and I think that'll be a real problem. It's hard to not only the age itself, but your ability to communicate things when you just don't communicate well at this point makes it even harder to sell the agenda. Well, Jo Biden has always had a difficult time as they're communicating in his speech.
And I think that what they're banking on is one his strong record of accomplishment. They're going to embrace that already they're starting to go after Donald Trump at him because they recognize that he's going to be the nominee. I think that that's important to draw a distinction and Biden has to do that in order to show a contrast for voters because they don't want to go backwards, they want to go forward. They're also going to see more surrogates.
I think that's why Newsom is taking the step. He's going to play a bigger role. You're going to see more kind of the governors around Biden be more on the forefront, whether that matters as much of the candidate. We don't have much of it.
I need to get the expert Brent in here who's been through many government shutdowns. We're going to see A government shutdown. At the end of this month, I think we see government shutdown, but probably a in the year, I think they'll be able to do some type of short term punt until November or December. But at some point they've made up their mind they want to shut the government down and teach them to wait around that.
So you think they can do a short term. I think there's going to be a bipartisan effort to buy themselves a little more time. Usually you can do one short term punt before people get too antsy, but at that point, everybody's basically gonna say this is all we have and we're over it. And I feel like at least the House of Freedom Caucus feel like a shutdown is a necessary ingredient to whatever it is they want to.
Well, they feel burned by what happened with the debt ceiling. And I think that they're gonna draw a line of sand in the sand. It didn't make their voice heard in the front. And nobody ever wins in the stand.
But who would benefit the least if a shutdown would occur? I mean, no one truly wins. I do think the Biden campaign thinks that there is some upside to them selling the House Freedom Caucus, shutting down the government because they can pin it on people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and these, you know, anymore. But he pinned it on people in Congress and not on Biden, which kind of separates them from it.
But I think you're all right. I mean, nobody wins in this. And the repercussions of the blowback on, you know, X, Y and Z political candidate are immense. And the people that benefit the least are the fellow dads and my son's little league team.
I won't have you to help set up the games when I'm at the Capitol. They'll be crushed. They'll be crushed. Yeah.
All right, Dan. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate it. Silicon War and diplomacy in Ukraine.
A deadly strike in the east and a surprise visit from America's top diplomat in Kiev. We're on the ground with the links. You're watching. Meet the President.
Welcome back. Secretary St. Anthony Blinken is in Kiev, Ukraine, today, where he met with President Vlad Rosalinski and announced more than $1 billion in additional aid to bolster Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russia. Take a listen.
The United States committed to empowering Ukraine to write its own future. In the crucible of President Putin's brutal ongoing war, United States and Ukraine forged a partnership that is stronger than ever and growing every day. We will continue to stand by Ukraine's side. And today we're announcing new assistance totaling more than $1 billion.
And Blinken arrived in Kyiv just hours after the city came under attack from Russian missiles. And shortly before Russia hit Ukraine with its deadliest attack in months. Sixteen people, including one child, were killed and 28 were injured early this morning as a Russian missile struck a town in eastern Ukraine. NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel joins me now from Kyiv.
So, Richard, why did Lincoln take this trip now? And why go all the way to Ukraine just to announce this aid battle package? So I think the aid package was so that he would have a deliverable. So that he didn't show up here empty handed.
A billion dollars is a lot, but it is not that much compared to the over $66 billion that the United States has committed so far. And the administration is asking for an additional $20 billion. So this was not a visit so he could come all the way here to say, yes, here's another billion dollars. It was about lining up with Ukraine, showing support for Ukraine and really trying to bring this, this war and reattention this back to the American people because opinion polls have been suggesting that support among many Americans is waning for the war.
It has become a talking point for certain Republican candidates that the US Is spending too much on the war. So Secretary Clinton, the administration, President Biden wanted this trip to happen to show how important this is, how committed the United States is to this, to this war. Which Secretary said tonight is not just a war about Ukraine. It is about standing up for democracy and standing up against tyranny.
And you mentioned the symbolism of all this. We saw that blinking stopped at McDonald's with a foreign minister today. Why did they make a point to do that specific stuff? Yeah, so that got some people scratching their heads here.
Why, you know, come all the way to a war zone and then go get a McDonald's? It was not, as far as I know, for the. For the McNuggets. It was about showing their commitment to.
To business. And that was something that Secretary Clifford, the foreign minister, Foreign Minister Calaba, wanted to do because he wanted to thank Secretary Blinken for encouraging American businesses to come back. And McDonald's was a symbol of that, a symbol of business that closed up here during the worst days of the invasion. If you remember where we were about a year, a year and a half ago, when Russian troops were racing toward this capital and it looked like Kyiv would fall, not only did the embassy leave, pretty much all businesses that were here, foreign businesses, American businesses, in particular, decided that was too dangerous to stay here.
We're evacuating the personnel and trying to figure out how to save lives, not sell hamburgers and fries. So today Kuleba said, let's go to this business. I want to thank you that we're basically back and open business. And they did eat.
Glimmer had a cherry pie and Secretary Blinken had fries. Yeah, yeah. So we saw the video. It was very exciting.
Richard Engel, thank you. Thank you for your reporting as always. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.
And tomorrow, Richard will actually have an exclusive interview with Secretary Blinken as a part of that trip. So make sure you tune in for that on DC Nightly News. That does it for us this hour, though. Chuck is back tomorrow with more MEET the Press.
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