Meet the Press NOW – September 7

If it's Thursday. Wartime worries in Ukraine. And NBC News exclusive. The secretary of State Anthony Blinket responds to concerns abroad about the sustainability of the conflict and the political pushback against more aid here at home as President Biden prepares to meet with U.S.

allies overseas. Plus, new developments in a pair of legal cases that could impact the 2024 race as former President Trump looks at moving his Georgia election interference case to federal court. And prosecutors for the Justice Department announced they plan to indict the current president's son, Hunter Biden. And a federal judge signs with the Biden administration in an escalating dispute at the board ordering Texas Governor Greg Abbott to remove floating berry from the real grant by next week as Abbott vows to take the case all the way to the suprem.

Welcome to Media Press. Now I'm Chuck Todd reporting from Washington as President Biden is about to leave the White House on his way to a major gathering of world leaders of the G20 summit in India, which both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are not attending. Real opportunity here. The president of abroad comments that the administration is facing now in question about the sustainability of the war in Ukraine, both militarily and of course, here in the United States.

Politically, Ukraine's highly anticipated counter offensive has struggled to make gains. The Defense Ministry has ousted into concerns over corruption in military strategy. And there are new signs here at home that public support for more US Aid is in the waning stage. And just yesterday, Ukraine suffered its deadliest attack from Russia in months.

And there is growing dissatisfaction inside the Republican Party over the conflict and the administration's latest request for more billions more in aid, an issue that could get wrapped up in this month's fight to avoid government shutdown. So it's perhaps no surprise that administration officials are being dispatched right now in public and private on this issue. In fact, at the capital today, the national security advisor, Big Sullivan, briefed out members of the Senate in a classified session to update them on the state of the war. Again, Ukraine funding is on the line here.

And in Ukraine, Secretary San Antonio Lincoln is on day two of his visit where he met face with President Valencia, vowing to give Ukraine what means to defeat Russia and rebuild its economy. And while in Ukraine, Lincoln sat down with my colleague Richard Nank to a wide ranging exclusive interview about the future of war, the USS Commitment and the current state of Ukraine's counteroffensive. Fundamentally, this is Ukraine's land, Ukraine's future, Ukraine's freedom. That's what its soldiers are fighting for.

That's what its people are fighting for. Have you seen anything on this trip or heard anything on this trip that gives you specifically confidence that the counteroffensive that's going on right now will prevail? Well, let's put this in perspective. Last time I was here in Ukraine, it was almost exactly a year ago.

In that time, over the last year, the Ukrainians have taken back more than 50% of the territory was seized by the Russians starting in February of 2022. So far in the last three months, progress has been very, very slow. You talked about how they've regained 50% of the territory taken by the Russians in the last year. Almost all of that was about a year ago.

The recent events have the gains have been little villages, a little area here. You think we're starting to see more? It's step by step. We do.

They knew this is going to be a hard fight. But I think especially over the last couple of weeks, we are seeing tangible progress. I've heard of VT report from President Zelensky, from his military advisors, and I think we are seeing forward movement now that we're in more of this slow, incremental, very costly turn of lives phase of this war. Do you think it's harder to keep the American public at war?

It's always challenging to keep people's attention on any one issue for any period of time because so much is happening around the world. It will end at some point with diplomacy. But the Russians have to get to a point where they acknowledge that they failed. They're not going to see the war.

They failed at what they were trying to do, which is to erase Ukraine from the map, to end its identity as an independent country, to assume it's Russia that's failed. So would you say that it's up to Russia right now to come to the table? What about Ukraine? If Ukraine needs to make some concessions, there's no one to go to the table with in the case of Ukraine because Putin right now shows no evidence that he's interested in meaningful diplomacy.

Now from key is Richard Engle just conduct that interview with the secretary I just conducted? It's obvious ignite faults. It was a few hours ago. Richard, let me start with this question.

Was his visit with Zelensky in this trip, how much of this was a little tough love? I don't think it was that much tough love. I think it was more of getting aligned before the UNGA summit in New York, which is coming up quite soon. Getting aligned before the G20.

The summer is obviously very slow and there hasn't been much focus on Ukraine for the last several months. But I can tell you right now there's a lot of enthusiasm. You can just feel it. There are a lot of journalists here, there are a lot of military advisors here, former generals, some of them American, buzzing around this city.

There are a lot of VIPs, a lot of delegations moving here and there. So it does feel like they trying to reinvigorate not just diplomacy, but reinvigorate international engagement as they are going into an important fall when they know they're going to need billions more dollars from the United States and other countries. The reason I asked it that way is I know you feel this way too. You and I don't believe in coincidences.

Right. And here Blinken's trip comes and the day before, essentially Zelensky asked this defense chief how much was this, our discovery of corruption that forced their hand. So the question earlier, how much of this was tough love? I don't get the impression I wasn't in the private meeting between Zelenskyy and the secretary, but I don't get the impression that this was the secretary Blinken coming here with a message saying hey guys, it's not going so well.

You need to consider negotiations. You might have to give up territory. I don't think that was what this was, nor do I think they were hold over the coals. About corruption.

The corruption is. Has been, I wouldn't say serious. There have been a few serious incidents and it is something that has annoyed the Ukrainians primarily because the corruption scandals that have been here have been about overcharging within the military. They found that uniforms or food eggs was one of the scandals that were being supplied to soldiers.

I think this was. Yeah. Do you think the defense minister, you think corruption was more of a. This was more of a strategic decision that they didn't trust his military strategy?

I think it has to do with one, with military strategy and two, with corruption. Because going back to what I was saying, this is all about getting your house in order, making sure that there's no way that you can pick apart the strategy, making sure that you look as impeccable as possible as you are now going to look for a new round of funding in the and are trying to get more international support as you're going through this delicate phase of the counter offensive. If there's any hint that there's corruption, that the money being spent here is suddenly being used to line officials pockets, then it would be that much more difficult for President Biden to go to Congress or for any member of his administration to go to Congress and ask for billions more. So I think it was not so much tough love, but I think it was, hey, we've got to be on the same page.

We have to make sure that we have the best case possible. And in order to keep this going for Ukraine, because Ukrainians don't want the rug to be pulled out from under them. I think when speaking with Zelensky numerous times, I've spoken with many officials here over the past year and a half, the consistent worry is that the United States more concerned about European countries, that they're going to give up on them. They're going to say, oh, you're not getting anywhere.

This offensive isn't making any progress. It's too hard. Oh, there's corruption scandals. Let's just pack it in.

Get the best deal that you can with Russia. You're gonna have to give away some territory. They don't want to do that. They think that if they keep pressing and keep pressing that Putin's Russia is a paper tiger.

They think it's not as impressive, as weak as it has proven itself to be numerous times in this war. And they don't want the west to give up on them before they give up on themselves. Let me get you out here on this, which is we're in a, we're in a phase right now where there's a lot of diplomacy going on in order to keep the funds coming, keep the resources coming to Ukraine on the ground. What do we got?

Two more months of fighting until the winter frees. Is there a, is there a goal for progress that is identifiable from your perspective right now before the winter sort of paused? You know. Yeah, it's funny because I've been covering this war since it began and I expected more of a stoppage during the winter, but it's not really sort of Napoleon's march on Moscow.

They keep fighting during the winter, they keep fighting. When it's wet, it slows down to a degree. It's less pleasant. Not that it's very pleasant at all, but it's really quite miserable in the freezing cold, in the freezing mud, but it keeps going on.

And what they're up against right now is a 600 mile long front line that is longer, by the way, than US Troops had to fight from Kuwait to Baghdad. It is all militarized and it is wide. It is not just a 300, 600 mile long front line. It is protected with millions of landmines.

There are three layers of trenches and they're fortified, dug in Russian positions there. So that's what they're trying to push through in the snow, in the rain and now in the beautiful late summer weather. Richard Engel in Kyiv right now. Richard, thank you.

And as Richard pointed out, Kiev is buzzing. There are a lot of visitors. There are a lot of pretty important people. There are a lot of military advisors.

And I'm joined by somebody who's a familiar face to some here who's also in Ukraine by Kurt Volker. He served, of course, as the special representative for Ukraine negotiations 2017 until 2019. He's also a former U.S. ambassador to NATO.

Ambassador Volkers, good to you. Appreciate you coming on. I know you didn't get to hear everything that Richard did with Secretary Lincoln today and with what he was describing, but I'm curious if you can. He said there's a real buzz in Kiev today and this week and it looks like we might have lost you there for a second.

Hopefully he can still hear me. Okay, well, why don't we, why don't we do this? I'm going to, I'm going to pause that conversation as soon as we get him back. We will get to Ambassador Volker here.

But I do have some breaking news that we were going to put in after at the end of this segment, we just learned that a jury has reached a burden colonel trial. Trump's former trade advisor, Peter Navarro. Navarro was charged with two counsel criminal consent to Congress after refusing to comply with subpoena from the House January 6th Committee during their investigation in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Gary Brumbach is the reporter that we have outside the district court with Lauren.

Gary, you know, this is something people may like have to go. Wait a minute. I know I can't keep all my Trump related trials in order here. This goes all the way back to the Liz Cheney committee and his refusal to participate there.

Tell us more. Yeah, this has nothing to do with the Special Counsel Station Act. We do have the verdict now here in the borrow. The former Trump trade advisor in the Trump White House and found guilty of both counts of contempt of Congress, one for the documents and one for the deposition pulse that he did not provide or show up for.

And this was a very short trial. This started yesterday with opening statements. The jury selection was on Tuesday. The closing arguments were this morning.

They deliberated for four hours and they have come to a unanimous verdict with a jury of 12 people, nine men, five women, a jury of the peers here in Washington, D.C. and this is the third member of the Trump administration now to be convicted of something related to January 6th. We have Steve Bannon who was convicted of these very same charges. And we have a State Department employee who's actually somebody who was at the Capitol on January 6th, one of the riders on January 6th.

Peterborough now makes number three. We also have a sentencing date. It is going to be January 12, 2024. But something, Chuck, that Peter Bars Harry told me yesterday, was that they fully plan to appeal this yesterday before they even had a verdict.

So that's very clear. It's going to stock up appeals just like Steve Bannon. So what is the potential punishment here? And I say this because there's no committee left for him to finally comply with.

And, and, and ultimately we're not getting the information into the public record, which is the real sin here. So are we talking, what, months in jail, Max? What are we looking at here? So the maximum here is a year.

Steve Bannon, who again was committed to the same charges, was facing four months at a fine. I imagine it would be a similar situation because Steve Bannon is not currently in suck up an appeals there on that situation. So I imagine the same thing will happen here with Peter Navarro. As he mentioned, there is no January 6th committee anymore that has been dissolved.

So the information that he had, whether it be about some of his conspiracy theories related to election fraud, like the Green Bay sweep, he call it, with a whole scheme he had with the fake electors, none of that really come to light here. But it doesn't have to come to light because of this guilty verdict. Gary Brumbach from the district courthouse, which is becoming one of the more famous stand up locations in Washington these days. Gary, nice work.

Thank you. And that little bit of breaking news, we got that business in order there. And one point, I got Ambassador Volker back with us. Now we have a bit of a power outage in Kyiv.

It's in the middle of a war, folks, and it's remarkable at times how well Keith runs. Ambassador Volker. Zoe, it's good to see you. Richard Angelo, I'm meeting a chance to be here.

He's telling me there's a lot of visiting dignitaries this week that he feels like there's a real attempt here to almost reinvigorate the coalition, reinvigorate Kyiv. Do you get that sense? Is that part of the reason why you're there? Well, it's many things all at the same time.

First off, you know, it is the restart of the work year, the academic year. This is just after Labor Day. So people are coming through. I'm really delighted to see that Toby Blinken was here because he's going to have some tough arguments to make on Capitol Hill about continuing to fund Ukraine's war or Ukraine's defense against Russia's war in Ukraine.

And I think having his personal engagement and expertise is really important to that. You have the annual Yalta European Strategy meeting. It's a major international conference that brings people here. And then for my part, I'm here for the annual board meeting of the American University Kyiv, which we founded a few years ago.

We opened our doors during the conflict. We have over 350 students. And it's important that we have this American Ukrainian co investment in higher education. Talk about making the case for continued funding, because I imagine you may be, you may have already been helping.

You may be asked by Tony Blinken and others to help. A lawmaker may say to you, ambassador, look, I'm sympathetic. My, my constituents, they're, they're not sure, you know, but I only got one more vote in this left in me. All right, I'll go one more time.

But is this going to go on for another two or three years? Can you answer that question any other way than probably? You can't, you can't disassemble. You got to be honest.

We don't know how long this will take. Ukraine will win the war because you can't take the Ukrainian ness out of Ukrainians. They will be Ukraine. This is their country.

They will fight for it. They will die for it. So this is not going to go away. And Vladimir Putin's Russia, as much as they want to attack and kill Ukrainians, will never succeed.

You can't kill that fast. And so we know how this will come. Now the question really is, what do we do to end it faster? Will we give Ukraine the equipment that we possess that would help them end the war faster?

And from an American voter, American budgetary perspective, is the amount we're spending on this worth it? Let's just look at it. We're spending, you know, we've given Ukraine about $28 billion in military aid so far, and that is US equipment transferred to them. And we count down the dollar value.

It's not money, it's equipment. And that has resulted in Ukraine surviving, taking back territories, substantial amounts. If you think back to last year and Russia tearing itself apart, and that's about three and a half percent of the US Annual defense budget, I would say that's a bargain. And I think with the Stakes of free people helping other free people are enormous.

So, look, there's obviously, there's a bit of diplomatic push in the next six weeks because you got a lot of gatherings that are happening. Yavanga. Coming up, the UN General Assembly. My apologies for using colloquial language there.

Obviously, the D20 is another opportunity. What's realistic of progress Ukraine, the Ukraine military can make by the end of this calendar year? I was asking that, Richard, and one thing he pointed out is that there isn't a winner, that fighting doesn't stop in the winner the way maybe some people thought it would, that the fighting will continue, but it slows down. But what's realistic and how much progress I can make that would make the case that, hey, support is worth doing.

Yes, it takes time, but what progress? Yes, I would encourage everybody watching to pull out a map and look at Crimea. Crimea is a dry, rocky peninsula attached to Ukraine. And Russia has claimed Crimea as its own, but it is not connected to Russia in any meaningful way.

They built a bridge with a rail line and a road line to get there. And now they've taken over parts of southern Ukraine to create a land bridge so they can supply Crimea from there. What Ukraine can realistically do is break the land bridge, prohibit Russia from supplying its troops in Crimea from Russia directly across southern Ukraine, and break the Kurch Strait bridge so that they can supply their. If they do that, Crimea is cut off.

The Russian forces there cannot be. Is that realistic before the end of the year? Yes, it is. Ukrainians are making in the south right now.

They're heading toward Tokmak, and they are getting within range of those key rail and road lines that go across southern Ukraine. All they have to do is disrupt it. They don't need to occupy all of this themselves. They just need to disrupt it.

Are you concerned that the presidential rates will turn into a uk that even though Ukraine won't be the central issue, that the two nominees, one will be decidedly pro funding Ukraine and the other one won't. How concerned are you at that moment? Well, I think it's something we should try to avoid because it's not. It's not in either party's interest to make Ukraine a domestic US Political issue.

We have national security interest at stake and we'll be able to come together on that. And Americans are going to vote on domestic issues anyway. So what I would really love to see is a bigger supplemental package for Ukraine this year, big enough to carry us through a presidential election. You don't have to have multiple votes.

It's, it's a logical thing to do, Ambassador. But as I joke off around here, we banned logic in Washington a long time ago. Ambassador Volker, pleasure to get a few minutes with you. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, John. Appreciate it. Coming up, we have some other legal news to get to. The latest fallout into other major investigations is the special counsel moves to indict Hunter Biden while former President Donald Trump looks to potentially move his Fulton county case in the federal court.

Plus, President Biden's political problems risk piling up. This new poll that's out shows voters growing increasingly concerned of his age and ability to do the job. They're watching the press now. Welcome back.

There have been a few legal developments that are tied to the former president. And you probably have some questions. And that's what this segment's about. So we just reported the news months ago.

This former trade advisor, Peter Marlow has found guilty of two criminal counts of contempt of Congress. That has to do with the old January 6th committee. It has no impact whatsoever in any of these other investigations. But Peter McNavo may actually be in the fending a few months ago.

But let's start, George. That's where former President Donald Trump is following this, indicating he may try to move his case out of Georgia into federal court. Of course, some of Trump's co defendants in the Georgia case with Mark have already filed to move their cases federal court. Contement a new back and forth between Republican Congressman Jim George and the Fulton County, Va.

Who brought the case against Trump and associates. Finally, Willis, last month, the Ohio congressman and big time Trump supporter wrote a long letter that accused her of bringing a blinking vetted case against the former president. And he demanded that Willis turned with documents and communications with the Department of Justice. That's how Jordan's trying to justify why he could do this.

Today, Willis pushed back strongly and she wrote in a letter to Jordan this your letter makes clear that you lack a basic understanding of law. It's practiced in the ethical obligations of attorneys generally and prosecutors specifically. Some pretty tough language. Join me now.

Andrew Weissman is a former FBI General council, former senior member of the MullerProduct and of course name is legal analyst. So Andrew, let me start there. I'll be honest. There's a lot of times that I want to say certain things.

And you, and you don't press. You don't press send, right? You might write it. You'll leave it in drafts.

Finally, Willis, would you press send on that? It was strong. It was strong. But you know, she did have precedent for this, which is that Jim Jordan did the exact same thing with the Alvin Bragg Manhattan case.

And that letter was also quite strong and listed a whole series of arguments with supporting case law for why he was overstepping his bounds. And if you really step back and think about it, they have every right to be angry and upset with the politicization of this process because they are interfering, in their view, with an independent sovereign, Georgia and New York in conducting criminal cases that normally Republicans are all about states rights. So, you know, was the language exactly what you or I would have put there? Maybe not.

But cutting to the substance, I think that the substance of that letter was very strong and it really tracked the same arguments that Al and Brad made, which I thought were the thought of the right ones. I mean, Jordan, he has. He could make a claim of oversight over the Justice Department. He can't.

Right. He could go to the Justice Department and try to find out if he thinks something was hairy with. But he'd have to go that way. He can't do it through the stage.

Right. The only sliver that he has would be congressional funding. Right. And if you note, both Alvin Bragg and Bonnie Willis addressed that and talked about how the funding was properly used and had nothing to do with whether this case was brought, not brought, and how it was brought.

But they did address that because that is one, one sliver of jurisdiction. But it's clearly not justifying what it is that Jim Jordan was looking for. It's possible that the letter was the point for Jim Jordan, that it was a fundraising vehicle, things like that. I mean, obviously that's the only way because it doesn't seem to pop back up.

We didn't see that on the bike. Let me move to another question. This has to do with the special counsel investigate Hunter Biden, where we have the notation that an indictment could come at a date certain at the end of the month in September. And I guess it feels like there's a missing or if.

Or something else if a settlement is reached. Like, is there something here? Like why. Why file that in the future?

Why not, if you're going to indict, then indict yesterday? Well, I have to say I think that the special Counsel, the sitting U.S. attorney and his team really messed this up to a fairly well. The judge overseeing this asked extremely cogent and normal questions with respect to a proposed agreement that had all sorts of abnormalities.

And the assigned prosecutor, when asked, admitted to the judge that there was no precedent, no legal precedent for the manner in which this was being constructed. That's not to deal with the sort of the substance. And so the court said, I'm sending it back to you. It is really a mess.

Now, with respect to the two types of charges, there's tax charges, and then there's this potential gun charge. But Hunter Biden's lawyers have a really good argument that the gun charge has been resolved, that there is a separate standalone agreement that the prosecutors made to defer that case. And so if there are charges that are brought by the special counsel, I think you're gonna see Hunter Biden making a motion saying that's precluded by the agreement that we reached. And they're asked for specific performance of that agreement.

I have to say, this is. It's not the Department of Justice's best and finest day in court, but to my mind, it's a sign that Merrick Garland really was not involved in this, because this is just not the caliber of work that comes out of the Attorney General's office. I guess my question is, do by putting. By giving notice, that indictment could come.

I guess the question I have is this. Is this also a message to Abby Lowell going, hey, that last deal, the doors closed on September 29th. Are we. Is that how we should interpret.

Could there be some deal on the table that we don't know about? So I do think this came up in the context of the currently assigned judge wanting to know more information. And so I think that's the reason you saw the prosecutors reporting. It is possible that.

And we all thought that there might be, that this deal would get put back together. This is like Hunty Dumpty sort of piecing itself together again. That is possible. I also think it's possible that Hunter Biden is saying there's no deal right now because that sort of forces the issue of the prosecutors needing to bring this in a different venue.

This is a little in the weeds, but the Constitution requires that a case be brought only when the crimes occurred. In this case, it's D.C. or California. And the only reason that this was happening in the location it was happening is because Hunter Biden agreed.

Well, Hunter Biden has now withdrawn that agreement. So we may see this. We filed in a different district that may be a better venue for Hunter Biden, and then the deal might get put back together in that court, not in the current one. All right, I want to move to the.

The attempts by now former President Trump Mark Mellows are trying to move the Georgia case in federal court. What's the best argument Donald Trump's team can make to get his case moved in federal court. And what's the likelihood he wins? Well, so what's fascinating about the filing that he made is he said I may be asking him to go, which is like, you know, if I were the judge, I would basically be like, you know what, not really interested in what you may do.

Tell me when you made a decision about whether you're moving or not moving. So it was just a bizarre thing to file. He would have to show that at least some part of the Georgia charges was based on not sort of campaign activity or personal activity, but some part related to his duties as the president. I think that is going to be a tough road to hoe.

Meadows has a better shot than Trump does on that, doesn't he? I think Meadows does. But, you know, there is an out here because the judge asked that question, which is I think there's some part that relates to his chief of staff responsibility is what do I do? And one answer to that is that Georgia can simply say we'll cut that out of the indictment.

We will leave that aside and only go with the stuff that relates to what he's doing for the campaign. So that, you know, obviously we're all awaiting a decision on that. That change of venue would change the judge. It would change cameras in the courtroom and it would change the potential jury pool.

So those are the things that are sort of at issue here and why someone should care about where it gets tried. Andrew Weissman, I feel like like the National Law Journal now they have a daily update. I'm trying to figure this out. Anyway, thank you, sir.

Appreciate your expertise. Good to see you. You're welcome. Biden's biggest political problems on this White House face is growing anxiety among others and yes, Democrats, not his future in the White House.

Those numbers and why they matter. Put the panel next. Welcome back to incumbency advantage in presidential elections is what it used to be. Although pretty much nothing about politics is what used to be.

Check out these numbers from a new CNN SSRS poll. And yes, it does look like CNN changes its methodologies regularly. So this is a I do throw a little bit of salt on this, on the methodology here, but these numbers are tracking with other numbers. Look at these head matches.

Every single one of Joe Biden's top potential Republican rivals is within the margin of error against him, including leading former soccer daily as it is leading These match of 6.43. Trump is up by a point tied to the Santa Pence Scott Christie. All are up two points over Bide Biden supporters. American president essentially getting hit by billion dollars of Republican campaigning before their own generation gets going.

There's truth to that. But if you dig deeper into these poll numbers, they're less than solid for the president. Among Democrats, just a third must see the party nominate the president for another term. Let me repeat that just a third.

The case should be nominated. Again, that's among Democrats and it's not about anything else other than this. It's his age. Democrats are skeptical he can handle another round.

Join me now and Caldwell Washington plus live anchor author daily 202 fashion tear the senior advisor, independent Senator Ernie Sanders and Republican strategist Jim Dornan. Look, whatever you think, again, I, you know, I'm a, I'm a whole snobs. I got my own things. They do a few weird things here.

But at the end of the day, these numbers aren't outliers. These are strikingly bad numbers for president at this point in time. When you consider the mess that's on the other side. Yeah, there's no other way to put it that it's horrible.

And this is what some Democrats privately have been worried about and some Democrats publicly, including Dean Phillips, who almost launched a bid against him. Not out of the question yet. But there's some concern among Democrats that perhaps that this age thing and that his numbers are just not strong enough at this point. But everyone's thinking let's hope that the nominee is Donald Trump because that is how President Biden can win it.

In fact, that to me is the is the standing on the high wire here. I get the confidence that many Democrats have. I've talked to a bunch of them who are nervous about it like, well, Trump's anonymity, Biden, there won't be a problem. And if Trump isn't obvious, I still think it's 3050.

So just put it there. You think he's the strongest Democrat that you could vote against? Donald Trump candidate They could vote now, I would assume there's other Democrats could be and a lot of them quite frankly. So no, I think he's the only one.

He does. Yeah. If we get to a stage where if he feels like he can't, he's be honest with the public. But if he feels like he can, he's got the right and he's well positioned to do it.

Is there one more rest stop on the calendar that you think Thanksgiving, Christmas at the last rest stop. First of all, you know my feelings on Biden was that he's never been the person within the Democratic Party ranks whoever had like oh the rah rah cra behind him. So what are you shocked by? No, like theory number one here is that Biden's gonna win on the space solely on himself.

It's going to be a cause. That cause cannot just be Trump. And three, they haven't yet identified what that cause is. You gotta build it.

You gotta get people excited. We work through a task forces where we help build an agenda for. He's gotta think about what is the case for 22nd Jim, I assume this poll and weirdly is bad news because for you because you like make a case Trump can't win and this poll keeps showing the Trump campaign. I know.

I do think those numbers change if he is actually the nominee. I think the Democrat turnout goes through the ceiling when Trump is on the ballot. I think you throw abortion and it's a double whammy on Trump because he's responsible for both. So what do you see in these numbers?

Do you see like geez, anybody else to be except Trump in your mind? Yeah. I think the Trump is the only Republican binding need to be perfectly honest with you according to this round I'm sworn. Well yeah, that's true.

I like Peace Trump Jr. So to speak. I mean I think Nikki, I think Tim Scott, I think they're all looking good. I don't think Desantis is going to be there at the end to be honest with you.

I think it's going to be what they're looking at is the second tier right now. That's who I think core nominees can be. You think someone named Haley Scott? I do.

That's interesting. That's interesting. And Nikki Haley petrifies the body champion. That's what Nikki Haley says.

And they got fully admit they just believe she can get the nomination. They're probably right. Right. Because the primary is a lot different than the general electorate.

But look, Nikki Haley had a great performance at the debate. She said month she has and they're trying to build on that momentum and but the challenge is, is that the electability issue in the Republican PR it doesn't for Donald Trump doesn't seem to be a concern for Republican primary voters. And so they're not gonna look elsewhere unless. Unless Trump takes himself out of the race or there's some way for him to not be nominated.

One of the reasons you know why Nikhil is over performing as opposed to is that mostly the Republicans in the party have a problem with women. Right. And here's a version of Republican women who love to find a woman. Yeah.

And so. So first of all, I think she's a little bit higher just because she's got that. Yeah. Secondly, we haven't had the debate on women's choice, and I think that would change in the general election if you had that debate.

Right. Let me ask you this fast. Let me show this full screen here. And like I said, it's not even a close call.

It's just one thing. It's not about Hunter Biden progressive enough. It's simply a fact about, can he do this? How do you fix that?

Because you're looking for a fight. Ultimately, what age is telling you is, do you have stamina to. To engage in power fights against powerful Bernie Sanders? People don't think he's too old because he comes across, and yet he is older than me.

But what is that, though, is the perception of, this person's got bigger stamina, he's ready, he's itching for fights. And I think we have largely not seen Biden in that kind of arena. You started to say the union, but I think we need more of those venues. And I don't think they're oblivious.

You just gotta put them in settings where the ice come out. I think they gotta roll the dice and let it be. When you protect them too much, then you make every encounter matter. If you had told them he's gonna go off the script at the top of the teleprompter and say, union Wilson would have like us ad lib in Russia.

It was about, he thinks, my God, who should go. Nobody disagrees with that. It's because he was right. They should have defended his ad lib.

Don't treat him like a kid. They've done this. Why do you think. Do you think Republican voters would change their mind at all about Trump if he were sent points down?

Absolutely. I think a lot of those poll members are showing, oh, he's gonna be a winner. I'm gonna go ahead and support him. But I also think there are underlying numbers on the court stuff that we.

That are just kind of simmering right now, and they're gonna kind of rise up. I mean, if they film a video, that Georgia trial that is a campaign commercial for Democrats against Trump. Absolutely. Can I suggest one thing?

Interesting reaction. So I've seen Mike Pence comes out this week and says there's an ideological problem, this standard party, and Trump is on the wrong side. He's the populist. We need to be conservatives.

And my Argument back is one of the reasons that Trump is so successful is you're on the wrong side of that and most of the Republicans are on the wrong side of that. That the populism is in fact what is surging Donald Trump and why a lot of people support it. I don't disagree with that at all. And I agree with Pence, to be perfectly honest with you.

I mean, we, our party is abandoning conservatism, but it's not possible that to sort of piggyback in this question. Is it possible that Pence and Paul Ryan and that win the party, lost the area? I don't think it's over yet. I think if Trump loses, it's over on the right side.

Right. I think if Trump wins, it's going to be hard to argue against it. Man. The issue of one of the things I think hangs over this handwriting of Biden is the lack of confidence in vice president.

Yeah. I mean it's. If the vice president were seen as more, I don't know what it is, more likable, more this whatever word you want to choose, do you think Democrats would be this, this sort of concern? No, absolutely not.

I think that every single Democrat I talk to, not every, many Democrats I talk to, do say that a lot of the concern with President Biden and his age is a recognition that if something happens to Biden, which the chances statistically based on age is relatively high. He has great health care. Yes and no. But by the way, it isn't like once you hit certain ages, then actually his likelihood of living to 90 is greater right now than the three of us.

Okay. Because he's already made it to 80. So look, I do think in his defense, I've heard all this in his defense, he's actually more likely to live to 90 than he is not to make it through a second chart. In fairness to this.

Well, that would be great for Democrats who I'm speaking like insurance agent. I know we hate facts sometimes because it screws up with the narrative, but anyway, anyway, yes, Vice President Kamala Harris has had a rough time as vice president as far as her perception among people of being a good president. She is trying to change that. She has a new team.

She's had a relatively. She has a good last several months. But does that change perception of voters? Takes a while.

But also don't. Do you think the Democrats tell me this. Do you get kind of cringy when Biden starts talking and he's just at a speech and whether he's going to go off the deep end or something. What I've always felt about him is he talks like a normal person and I think it's understated and undercounted and undervalued.

The most politicians have a kind of a speak and when Joe Biden about talks basically everybody can understand. I mean you might have like he's a little weird different. I gotta go come out order battles. We'll have a fight actually yeah we're talking about the anti migrant buoyant that's headed to the Supreme Court but also we have a Mexican presidential election that's gonna take place in the summer of 24.

How's that going to be impacted by our election and vice versa. You're watching this present. Welcome back. A federal judge has ordered the same taxes to remove the controversial floating barrier that placed in the Rio Grande river to block migrants from reaching the United States.

And the ruling the judge says that buoys obstructed the flow of the river and likely required federal authorization. The barrier placed at the direction of governor grand isn't heavily criticized for humanitarian reasons and fears could cause people to drop reacting to the news add a pledge to quote this fight ain't over. It's only just begun. This is NBC.

Julia, I don't understand why the state of Texas has not lost its lawsuit for the I'm being a little but the federal courts have said including the Supreme Court states do not have any say whatsoever immigration policy. How many different ways the state of Texas need to be pulled. Oftentimes I have the 5th Circuit backing up and so at least if they do get that told to them it's not to the Supreme Court level. This happened at the district level judge who said I'm only going to look at this from an apolitical standpoint.

And at this point this wasn't federal versus state it was actually international trees that were coming up again the state of Texas has no value. No this is part of international trees that govern our water and our barriers between us. Hi by the way the Texas has said that to you need for what it's worth because it wasn't independent country report but that's the only way they could get around this. Right.

And then they would have a major problem with their first rival being the government of Mexico. They know Mexico really pushed back and said look this could actually really harm U.S. mexico relations. They saw that they were really building this relationship with the Biden administration over issues like immigration, fentanyl gun trafficking and then you had this major border barrier and that really caused an issue.

I wanted to point to what this judge said about the federal law. He said the court finds the barriers threat to human life and its impairment to free and safe navigation and it's contraindication to the balance of priorities. Sorry about that one. But.

But basically saying that this is in violation and it just totally outweighs Texas authority here. It was so obvious like you don't have to be a lawyer again. I go back to is there a point where the federal the federal courts will just not even take these cases anymore? Well that is a good point but I also want to go back to where we might see this come up again.

And this idea of a border barrier was a Trump idea. In fact it's one who left Trump. CPP well, I'm saying we could see this come up again. So if this continues they took the exact specifications agreed upon by the Trump administration.

It's the same person who designed it under the Trump administration went to add its office. This meaning Mike Banks. And they built to this exact specification so that if Trump came back in office he could build on so even if this ends up being struck down we know that they've appealed to the circuit could likely go to the Supreme Court. You could still see this come up again.

That then it's going to become a country versus country issue hit the US Takes it again. The federal government has oversight over immigration policy. So under that scenario now maybe by this tree. Right, right.

So this could come up again is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. In that case we have to be the governor of Mexico. Governor of Mexico.

Right. Yeah. But if we got to that point but the idea here is that they have found that even if it's inhumane and violates all these streets it was effective as a deterrent. What it did it's forced all these Microsoft's incredibly dangerous pass through the river.

We saw two Dads come. That's the result and perhaps something we see in a future administration. Johanneson I can keep going. I'm going to the final thank you debate over the border and US Tax policy be a point of contention in next year's general election.

And I'm not just talking about our election but still already Republican presidential candidates at zero in on the issue when primarily hit the by administration for security. The issue of the cartels in Mexico taking center stage the past month's first Republican primary debate. We will partner with the Mexican military and we will hunt down and destroy the cartels that are claiming lives in the United States. We cannot be successful going against the cartel unless we bring in Mexico as a partner.

We have to use economic pressure to accomplish that. President Obrador has not been helpful. Would you support sending U.S. special Forces over the border into Mexico to take out fentanyl labs, to take out drug cartel operations?

Yes, and I will do it. On day one, you have the cartels controlling a lot of part of your southern border. We have to re establish the rule of law and we have to defend our people. Well, join me now is Mexico's former foreign minister in front of the show, Jorge Casanea.

Let me start with on day one, President DeSantis. If he launches that, is the Mexican government going to think there's a declaration of war against it? Well, maybe not that much that far, but certainly it would create a major crisis in relations between the two countries and put cast a shadow on cooperation between the two countries in many areas, in all areas, not just on drugs. I think that there are some Republican candidates who are speaking reasonably about the need for perhaps for more cooperation between Mexico and the United States in fighting fentanyl.

But Desantis is really taking this to another level and it would just bring an enormous amount of conflict and tension between the two countries. What is. Let me ask you this. Look, Amlo is just not there on inviting the United States.

He doesn't want to have this confrontational process with the cartels. Can you imagine the successor to Amlo having a different position on this? Well, there could be a different position where we're going to have a woman president next year in Mexico. That's now a fact because both of the main candidates are women.

And it's not inconceivable that either one of them might want to cooperate perhaps more deeply with the United States. But if Desantis or anyone else were to do what Desantis said, any president of Mexico, man or woman, left or right, young or old, would have to to immediately put all forms of cooperation on hold. A clear violation of international law, a clear violation of the UN Charter. You can't do this sort of stuff.

Let's talk about the impact that our presidential election is going to have on Mexico's presidential election. This takes place essentially, it's about six, five months before our election. How, how do you expect the US to be to divide? What do you expect the division on relations of the US to be between Claudia Shanghai, who sort of the heir apparent to amlo on that, and in some cases probably the front runner here.

And I apologize, I just. The new candidate from the Coalition that I guess it's multiple parties there. Yeah. Thank you.

I think the US will not necessarily be a major campaign issue, but there are differences between the two candidates. Claudia Shangbang will obviously pursue Lopez policy towards the us, which a lot of people in the United States have liked. For example, that Mexico is doing the US's dirty work in keeping Central American and Caribbean and African migrants far away from the US border and keeping them in Mexico, sometimes in abominable conditions would probably try to change that policy on drugs. Probably Sochi would want to have more cooperation with the US and be more aware of how important this fentanyl crisis has become for the United States, for American society.

Where Ashamba would again continue with Lopez policy of not being as cooperative as he might like. Where the big difference between the two is, and that's already been public made public job, is that Sochi does not want to be friends with dictatorships like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, whereas Claudia will be in the cahoots with them, very close friends with them like has been. What do you expect the US Mexican diaspora to do? Well, most of the time, at least until now, the US Mexican diaspora or the Mexican diaspora in the United States has not voted much in Mexico.

It's allowed, it's legal, but turnout has always been very feeble. What's more important is whether they call home and have their mothers or their daughters, their brothers or their sons hear what they think firstly, and secondly, they send money for the different campaigns. My sense would be that the social galaxy has a good chance of courting them because she's gone to the States and following Houston a little while ago. Yeah, or I guess, and I could have done a lot more with you on this.

Lalia Schengbaun would be the first, not just woman president, but the first Jewish president of Mexico as well. Fascinating little factoid there. Jorge. Terrific to see you.

Thank you for your time. Thank you all for being with me this hour. I'll be back tomorrow one more time with Beat the Press. Now the news continues with Hallie Jackson.

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