Meet the Press NOW – September 8

Wow. Has it been quite the show, folks, get ready for one heck of a finale. Hello, Cleveland. Welcome to Meet the Press.

Now I'm Chuck don't, reporting from Washington. And yes, I'm at the helm for my last daily Meet the Press. Now before I pass the Meet the Press baton to my friend and colleague Kristen Walker. Look, I've got a busy hour ahead.

We got some new development inside the sweeping election in Fair and station Georgia. We got new reaction from a rising star Democratic Party on growing anxieties by present by Zayan ability to serve. Oh, and we're tracking a monster storm in the Atlantic called Hurricane Lee as we wait for it to turn north or even turn north, please, and avoid hitting any parts of the East Coast. But I want to get it at my last daily show with the single biggest story in American politics, and that is the state of our politics.

Look, there's nothing I revere more than our democracy and the history of this country. It's why I stumbled into doing this. I just devour political history. And I love our political system, all of its nuts and crannies, because the beauty of politics at its best is it's anyone's game.

Anybody can get into it, but it only works when everyone agrees to the rules. And that means accepting defeats at the ballot box and moving on to the next election. And that's sadly not good in our politics these days. Take, for example, what's happening in the state of Wisconsin.

It's the latest example of this disturbing trend of delegitimizing political defeats. Republicans in Wisconsin are discussing impeaching the newly seated little state Supreme Court justice Janet Hurt a sandwich even before she's heard her first case. This is because she hasn't recused herself of redistricting case and she received financial support from Wisconsin Democratic Party during her campaign. It's worth noting that so did her opponent.

And nearly every Wisconsin Supreme Court justice sitting in the bench right now has received financial support from the state party with which they were representing in their campaign. I know this is Wisconsin. This is just how they roll. It ain't being back in Wisconsin.

Democrats try to recall Governor Walker. Political retribution isn't unheard of. You should take a look at all the quotes from Republicans during the Walker recall and ask yourself if there's any principles left here. But this kind of effort to remove any elected official who won a race by 11 points before term action begins would be unheard of.

And not accepting the election results is becoming an unexpected pattern. And as we know, Wisconsin is not happening in a vacuum. Far from it, folks. Things have gotten so toxic that I think we've forgotten what good politicking looks like and why, frankly, we when I say we, civilization came up the idea of politics in the first place.

It was to resolve disputes without a sword, without violence. That's why we have politics. Good politicking is hard. It takes work.

It's messy, it ain't perfect, but it certainly beats the alternative. And we are seeing the consequences of the alternative play out. Multiple criminal cases tied to the January 6th insurrection and former President Trump's lies about the election. The breaking political story of today reminds us of the problem we faced as we learn new information about the investigation into attempts to overturn the presidential results in Georgia.

As a newly released Fulton county special grand jury report shows, they initially recommended charges for additional 21 people in that massive racketeering case, including three US senators. Joining me now for more on the Georgia developments is Karen Hick, right here at the table with me. We also got Vaughn Hillier on the road with the Trump campaign in Rapid City, South Dakota. That's where Donald Trump will be later tonight.

Let me start with you first. Let's learn, let's explore why we have this. And I know why we have this. Media organizations filed, same thing.

But the judge didn't have to disclose this. But he did. This is surprising, though. Yeah.

Look, I think what we've seen in Georgia is erring on the side of transparency throughout this process, whether it's televising basically everything that can be televised in these various hearings to trying to release a lot of the background paperwork. And that probably starts at the top. I mean, when you've got a Republican governor aligned with a Democratic DA saying, you know, we believe Georgia's elections were properly held, we're going to show our work. I mean, whether it took a filing to get this out or not, I think the public benefits from seeing under the hood here.

Look, I think we have a debate about grand jury secrecy. And one of the hallmarks of this is sometimes you don't want to, you know, hey, somebody was going to be indicted, but we didn't have the goods to get prosecution. That's why we have grand jury secrecy. Sure, you cannot ring the bell on Lindsey Graham.

However, does this at all reinforce the notion that maybe Fani Willis is acting with precaution here? She's not going to indict somebody. She thinks she doesn't care. Her partisans will argue that.

And I'm not a lawyer, and I suspect other lawyers will show that we'll argue that, look, when you go into support, which doesn't have a lot of detail, and it does have the vote breakdowns of all these various charges. And for Graham and former Senators Loffler and Perdue, you see a significant minority of the grand jurors voting against the idea of indictment, with even a footnote in this report saying some of them felt like what those people were practicing was politics, not a crime. If you're Willis and you look at that and say, this is not the Hill I want to die on, we want to have sort of safer set of charges, that would certainly make sense. I would point this out.

Gets to me, it was almost rebutting the criticism that Lindsey Graham is already leveling when I'm like, no, no, no. If you had been indicted, I think your criticism would be legitimate and not being indicted to be legitimate. It also points out how funky this Georgia system is. Here.

We have these two grand juries in the first place. I sort of like, why do this? Is my question. I think it's unfair to Lindsey Graham and these two, and everybody wasn't indicted.

Well, now it's out there. Famous line from somebody who was indicted and cleared of charges back in the 80s. No, and I think that's a totally fair point. I think Graham's response today, which we can play.

Yeah, Graham's response to that. Basically, I'm doing my job here as a senator. Here's what we report in South Carolina. This is troubling for the country.

We can't criminalize senators doing their job when they have a constitutional requirement to fulfill. It would be irresponsible for me, in my opinion, as chairman of the committee, not to try to find out why. But we're open up Pandora's box here. Fulton county is one of the most liberal jurisdictions in the country.

I fear this will spread at the next election. Democrats may be on the other side of this. And just to close that threat or an observation. Well, somewhere between it, he's been fairly consistent on that point.

Actually going back. And I know because I pulled the tick today of the interview I did with him in November of 2020, right after he made this phone call to Red Ravensburg. And he was making the same points then, basically said, look, I need to look at the hood here, needed to see what happened. And so we're pointing out he didn't call a hearing on this.

He voted to certify Joe Biden's election. So. So granted, kind of check the box that he says he did his due diligence in the name of John. But yeah, look, this is the road we're going to go down now.

I mean, I do think his whether it's a threat or something else, it's certainly a astute prediction. What did your legal lecture say that we learned about Fawney Willis case based on what you didn't do here? Well, they certainly looked broader at the fake electors plot here. There was a number of other fake electors who were named in this who weren't charged.

I think they also look closer at the folks who were closer to Donald Trump, whether it's Michael Flynn who was named in this and not indicted, and Boris Epstein, who's again still a member of Trump's legal inner circle who wasn't charged despite a pre overwhelming vote by this first grand jury. We're still trying to figure out if he is at all a part of the federal case or not. She and Mark Meadows are the two people who folks I talk to inside Trump World and other folks who kind of follow these cases more broadly are like, what are these guys saying and to whom. Fascinating, Garrett.

Good stuff. Thank you, sir. Let me move over to Vaughn Hilliard, who is in Rapid City, South Dakota. This is look, we've been talking about how the former president doesn't do a lot of campaign events these days and this is unique and that he's also getting an endorsement.

Are we seeing a preview of the Republican ticket if Donald Trump's now mayday night? You know, one thing shock, I think over our last 10 years of working and covering the Trump campaign, the Trump administration and that you and I have engaged over is the voters really tell us where this thing is heading. And to answer your question, you know, our great embed, Jake Traylor and I were just asking some folks here waiting outside of this eventually this evening in South Dakota who they wanted to be BP and we came in with the assumption that they would want their governor, Christine Ohm to be the VP pick. We expect her to endorse Donald Trump here later tonight.

But interestingly, just one of the first 10 people we talked to said Christine Ohm and he had some criticisms. One guy questioned whether she would be a loyal servant to Donald Trump. Seven people know they brought up the name without any prompting. Carrie Lake.

This is the Republican Party that has changed for last year 10 years, Chuck. Carrie Lake is somebody who lost the paper governor in Arizona is mullingweather run for the US And Arizona. And yet despite the election denialism, despite her own loss in Arizona, named by 7 out of 10 people, the very first time we talked to you unprompted here, despite their own counter being a top runner to his vp. That's interesting.

Look, there's a couple of ways I could go here. I mean, she's had her own sort of political issues in the state. You wonder has that actually stuck to her? Right.

She had some issues with her daughter and this idea of an inside sort of helping out with I think a real estate license or something like that, that whole thing has there is it, is it clear to you that that is what stuck to her a little bit? There was one woman who told me that she promised to lower taxes here and that she did not fulfill her promise. She said that she is somebody who believes that she would be more outspoken. She is not carrying like she is not Marjorie Taylor Greene.

I don't think there' anybody that questions the conservative credentials of her eight years in the US House or here in South Dakota. At the same time, it's not just about conservative credentials. It's not about opening your state during COVID It's not about even just taxation. It's so much more than that.

And to what extent does somebody stand up there on the front lines to Donald Trump? She has not endorsed it yet. Tonight she has the opportunity to do just that very quickly. We know the former president's obsessed with Mount Rushmore.

What role is the, is the national park they're playing in this campaign stop today? That's a good question. We anticipated heading down to Mount Rushmore, but instead the campaign has this event in downtown Rapid City. I went myself about 35 minutes down the road.

The Trump campaign has not suggested that they're gonna head that way. Of course, he made a stop there during his own presidency. And for anybody that has been to Mount Rushmore, there are plenty of stone be carved into and it's just a matter of who would give the approval for that and whether Donald Trump could get the helm of the White House when that opportunity would potentially present itself. Chuck, finally you're on the ground in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Good time to actually be visiting. Better than September than in January, my friend. Pretty good right now. All right, sir, thank you.

Appreciate it. I'm joining now. I want to get deeper into this Georgia business here because I got J. Tom Morgan with the C course for former district attorney to Cap County, Georgia.

And J. Tom, I want to start with. Look, it's us in the media. I want to stipulate this.

We filed the, we filed the motion here to get this grand jury report released. The question I have for you is should the judge have done this? Judge, first, let me say I and many others we're going to Mitch your insightful comments on me the press thank you for saying. But it should not have been released.

Check. I have been a Georgia lawyer for more than 40 years, 25 years as a prosecutor. I have special grand juries under my watch as district attorney. I have never seen a report release accusing people of crimes where they were not indicted.

And in fact, we got some Georgia law right on this point that a grand jury cannot accuse someone of a crime unless it is in an indictment. As you mentioned earlier, you know, whether or not these persons are not guilty of a crime, we'll never know. Because they were not indicted, they don't have a chance to defend themselves in the court of law. I'm sure they're glad they're not indicted.

But those who are indicted, how is this not illegal? I think it is illegal. At least I think that the those persons who were not indicted by their names who were released should immediately file a motion to have their names redacted from that document. You expect somebody to do that and it sounds like you would recommend somebody do that.

I would and I'll do that as a former prosecutor, that the role of the prosecutor, justice is served, not only just to serve who accuse people of crimes in a document such as this where they cannot defend themselves. All right, the two faces out of the two, does this weaken or strengthen case? I think it puts her in an awkward situation. People are going to be questioning why these were not indicted.

Were there some under the table deals made with these that were not united? That we'll find out about later. What is there selected prosecution? Why summon out the others?

As you know, there's great prosecutorial discretion. Now when you've got a case like this where there may be similarly situated people with the same set of facts as you choose to summon out the others. This could be a big question. Choosing not to indict these folks to me and one end should at least potentially show she wasn't looking at this through a purely political prism.

But then the judge released him. Do you think this undermines the judge's credibility? I do believe Judge McBurney, I have great respect for him, but he should have given notice to all the persons we're not aware that he did, that their name is on this document and that they will have the opportunity to file a motion to have it redacted before it is released. Bigger picture now, you've watched this week go what do you expect?

Do you expect any of these indicted folks to successfully get their case moved to federal courts? That is waited to be seen, Chuck. We're waiting for Judge Jones to release a decision, hopefully very soon. Though he did tell Mark Meadows to be prepared to go to the arraignment in case this decision has not been released.

That is a game changer. We never had anything like this. Do all the cases go up? What about the two, Powell and Chesbro who filed speedy trial demands?

If I was finding Willis right now, I would be preparing to try that case. Since she's already told us there's going to be 150 witnesses, is there a possibility that her trying this first case against Chesbrough, if he's the first one, is an asset to her more than it's a lie? I understand the downsides of showing her cards, but it's always the evidence. It's stronger specifically against this single individual.

Well, you know, Powell and Chesbro are going to be trying together and they're very two different defendants. It's going to be very interesting to watch because one, as she said, she will have a chance to put her witnesses up and see how they do under oath. If she gets a conviction on either one or both, she's going to have a strong hand with those others who are thinking about whether or not they should leave before they go to trial. If some of this gets moved into federal court, if some of these folks are successful, and I'm not a lawyer, I feel like Mark Meadows has the strongest case to make.

Whether he succeeds, we'll find out. Does that at all impact the timing of the. Of the trial itself for the. For Chesbrough and Powell?

Well, Chiefs Rowan Powell will have to make a motion to join the others if the case gets moved to federal court. Right now their attorneys have said that they want to trial, they're ready for trial and that they want to be tried on October 23rd. Unless something extraordinary happens. We can bet those two will be on trial, Chuck, and that we will have a camera in courtroom and watch how it goes.

Well, that to me is one of the wild cards there. Sort of that's a Trump adjacent trial that'll be televised in perhaps the start of the actual voting season. Check time More informed De Cab County District Attorney Appreciate you coming on, sharing your expertise. Thanks, sir.

Thank you, Chuck. Give you a little tease of my exclusive interview with California's Democratic governor Gavin. What he told me about what he's planning to run for President 2024 plus what he has to say about vice president and his relationship with RFK Jr. Plus we're tracking her keenly after the powerful storm intensified from category one to category five in less than 24 hours.

Man. Hurry up and turn north and avoid all this police. You're watching me Personal welcome back. There is no sugar coating the White House Democrats.

President Biden's political standing is vulnerable hard stop even inside his own party. According to reasonable from seeing nearly 7 in 10 Democrats the party should not make some miles from 2024 larger it seems over one issue, concerns about his age. For this Sunday's press I sat down with Governor Gavin News in California. He's of course a rising national figure in his party.

He's got his own political ambitions. He's not shy about that. We talked about the future of Democratic Party whether Democrats have a plan B if Biden decides during the holidays not to seek the second term. Here's a quick part of that conversation.

Final deadlines haven't passed. President Biden doesn't run. Why should we consider you like this? I think the vice president is naturally long lined up and the final deadlines are quickly coming to pass.

And I think we need to move past this notion that he's not going to run. President Biden is going to run and looking forward to getting reelected. I think there's been so much wallowing in the last few months in Henry in this respect but we're gearing up for the campaign. We're looking forward to it.

But you hear these calls privately. What do you tell these donors who are wallowing? Time to move on. Let's go.

Am I supposed to interpret that comment about the vice president that if for some reason the president chose not to run at this point let's never. It's the Biden Harris administration. Maybe I'm a little old fashioned about president's vice president. I was a lieutenant governor so I'm a little subjective to your relationship with the vice president.

We knew each other before we were both in politics. The guy got sworn in as mayor, walked across the street. She got sworn in as district attorney. Extraordinarily close working relationship including your time in the Senate.

I can't imagine never heard of running against each other. Of course not. By definition it won't happen but we've side said that a thousand times. We privately continue to maintain a very good relationship interpersonal.

Just how you doing? Checking in. It's been a challenging few years with COVID and we've had the opportunity to sit down have Lunch together in the White House, spend time talking about important. She's not upset that you're gonna debate Ron DeSantis.

Maybe. Apparently someone in her office is because I read some off the record quotes. I wish I knew that was. But I don't hear from her, so.

And I'm certainly not here for the White House. That's just a small part of my conversation. I spoke to Governor Newsom about the challenge by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

To Biden. I want to get there in a moment because that was ended up being very personal and it surprised me. And join me now on this panel, some long time friends of the show. Susan Page, Rad Todd.

No, we're not related for the last time, I'll say. But so what? We've been brothers in arms at times. Susan, let me start with that.

Look, I did the interview. I have my own questions. What are your questions? That is a man who is accepting the political reality that even if they don't, even if they're concerned about Biden, they need Biden to run because of the message that will ensue if Biden doesn't run.

Because he's not the only guy in the Democratic Party who would be interested in getting the presidential nomination. And Kamala Harris is maybe kind of teed up for that, as he said. But that is not a done deal. The party can avoid that by Biden saying race.

And by the way, there's no sign. No. It was interesting to me though. I had somebody posit this to me.

You know, sometimes your best time is not the most convenient type of the party. Right. A lot of people come down in Illinois and we'll see in 2012, 2016. Right.

People told Clinton. Right. HB Bushes. Unbelievable.

Well, they're radically good advice. And you know, they never got to White House evidence. It's so much for him in the 28 that actually it might be. This would be his best shot.

Well, it's not his best shot against a sitting in Congress. And by the way, I mean, I understand our infatuation with the story, but President Biden's gonna run for real act. You know, he's geared up to do it. All sides are gonna.

He's gonna do it. And look, all this, the mourning from the left. Look, as someone who's lived their entire life on the left, it's like herding cats. Right.

I heard the same conversation about Barack Obama before his real like, oh, Barack Obama's weak. He 2010, he's gonna lose us more. Their op ed said Barack Obama Literally should not run for reelection. Coming from the left, some kind of sort of use of this from the left.

But he'll be fine. You know, it's interesting. He really is embracing this idea that he and descendants are doing what his political hero can have seen here. I'll get to that minute.

And Ronald Reagan did back in the day. They debated each other like this natural. That moment could change things for sure. You know, Joe Biden's running as long as he's physically able to run, but he might not be physically able to run.

And I, I still. They're having a family conversation around the holidays. It's inevitable. Lots of families do that.

So who knows? And you can't also expect Gavin Newsom, who's the governor of the largest state, one of the brightest stars in his party, to look at polls like this week where we saw in CNN polls and most Democrats don't even think Obama should run for reelection. So he can't not be watching that. There is somebody obviously running against Joe Biden right now.

It's Bobby Kennedy Jr. And I knew that he had someone. I was very curious what he thought about Kennedy Jr. In this race.

And he was pretty candid about his relationship with him. Take a listen. You have a relationship with his son. We have a very close one for decades.

And then obviously points of view that have diverged pretty, pretty significantly and concentrate on version after run. No, I would never do that. Look, I revere his family broadly. Got to know a lot of family members, Bobby Jr.

And I. He was fully candid. He was really one of my great inspirations on the environment. Junior.

No one better on the stump. In fact, he comes back, he's the old stump. He uses it. I see it exactly what he was saying 20 years ago.

And it's evocative. It's a spiritual frame. It's beautiful, it's profound. It's consequential in terms of reaching out to the other side.

So there's other aspects I hold on to. And then he loses me on many others, including some personal shots he took around vaccines and suggesting somehow that I got ill. There was a lot of very curious things where I knew the spectrum. That he was sort of veering off on the spectrum personally just bothers you.

It disappointed a friend, right? Yeah. I mean, and there's a reverential aspect to it. Of course, we disagree on Sir Hunter, onto Elise as well.

Many different things. So, look, I wish him only the best. I mean that I have great respect for him, his kids and his wife. But boy, his politics has shifted and I just don't buy it when I'm seeing her watching him on Tucker and watching him on all these Bannon and everything used.

He's smart enough not to be used, but he knows what he's doing and he's being used. Both hands, both and of course. But I think utility's wearing off a little bit. He'd only show up on the same shows so many times.

And I think he needs a second act if he's gonna take on the President. And I have no worry about the president's success in this primary. I've been waiting to hear from the Kennedy acolytes about how this has to just personally and that was the most candid I've heard from anybody talking about there's pain in the Democratic circle over this. You're not going to be perfectly candid with you, Chuck.

Obviously the Kennedy family has a special position in American politics, especially for Democrats. But you know what's worse for Democrats than Biden's age? It's third party candidates. It's challengers.

It's no labels. It's Cornell west that really has the potential to take a close race and tip it. And that is a dangerous thing. What do you make of why the band and tights have just been like they seem to be almost gaming thing.

Well Republican coalition has changed. A lot of blue collar folks who were Democrats and group Democrat households their whole life were Kennedy Democrats and now they're a little of that. There's a little of that. And I also take the through Covid and he was on the right side of skepticism of public health even for weird reasons, for different reasons.

But I think that that alone is enough and a critic of Biden's an allied to win the Republican. Interesting. What do you make of. That's one of the nicest things that any Democrats say about rfk by the way.

At some point when it's probably conducive, I've got feeling some of the Canadians are going to come out and strongly and say something but it's not going to be right now. Look, but this is absolutely right. This is how. This is 2016.

This is how 2016 happens again. Right. We have backpack performance. We know what Donald Trump's ceiling is.

We do. We've seen it in several performances. This is how 2016 happens again. But if you look at those voters that are hanging out there for Wes and hanging out there for RFK Jr.

They are a lot more in line with Biden than they are With Trump big news today surprised all of us, including you have Nancy Pelosi's biographer with us, Susan Page. And you confessed you would not if you would ask what she know today, you would assume announcing retirement Pelosi's retiring. We better get up on our, you know, appreciation of her career and what happened here. What is sticking around.

You know, obviously she loves the House. She loves politics. She's a crucial part. She raises more money than anybody.

She gives advice to Hawking Jeffries and others when they but only when they ask for it. And I think she's not quite ready to go. Does this just put the I mean with the Feinstein situation, Cornell I've just seen I'll be honest, I was shocked. I was in the middle of my Philly promotions.

I have a lot of California Pilates. I'm like, I just didn't think she would I think it sends an awkward message. I will say this. I don't think anyone and there's been a lot of conversations about age with Minority Leader McConnell and Feinstein.

I don't think anyone questions that. As sharp as a sharp as a way. And by the way, we're very thankful that she was in fact leader during Trump time because she stood up to him ways. I don't think anyone on our Democrat I love our Democrat could have stood up.

Which is the whole point of a successful democracy is no one is irreplaceable. And I say this to somebody who's look, it's always hard to select. I understand it. But if we ever operate in a situation where someone's not replaceable, that's no longer a democracy.

Well and Pelosi here, I think a lot of swing voters look at this, look at Washington right now and say how come there's so Many people with an 8 in their age up there and but as I will tell you as Republican maker who's leaked a lot of Democrats in very grateful she's going to stick around. You want to continue. Correct. As long as she's more relevant for the next two years.

That's even better for and that's why I like our chances. By the way, this wasn't an accident, but I had preview on here. There's a good smart group of people watching. We've all also grown up together hotline all those days.

So the joy of my life for doing this panel. Good sailing. All right. Good sailing.

All right. Thank you. Fair wins. Thank you all for being here.

And I'll see you soon. Meanwhile, you get more my exclusive interview with Thunder Avenues this Sunday station. Up next, New York City's mayor warns the influx of migrants will, quote, destroy New York City. Democrats not doing enough to help.

You're watching me. Welcome back. New York City Mayor Adams once again criticizing fellow Democrats and calling on the Biden administration to do more to address an influx of migrants into the city. New York City circles will come out.

More than 100,000 people who have arrived there need a food, housing and education. And sharply as cleared as public warning about the situation this week while also placing blame on Texas federal Greg Abbott for busing migrants from the border to New York. We're getting no support on this national crisis and we're receiving no support. And let me tell you something, New Yorkers.

Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don't see an ending to this. I don't see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City.

Destroy New York city. We're getting 10,000 migrants a month. In addition to New York City status, a sanctuary city, the state of these current laws require its government to provide shelter to anyone who wants it. Come on this.

I'm joined by Politico New York's Joe Anita, who covers City Hall. Joe, I'm going to start, let's go back in time here. This law, when did New York City pass this law and what was the motivation at the time? So at the time there were some homeless individuals who were represented by lawyers.

This is during the half years. So we're talking late 70s. They basically sued and said, hey, look, the New York State constitution has this clause in it that says basically shelter is more or less a public right. And so they sued and they said, you know, according to the state constitution, the city has to provide shelter.

And after years of litigation, Koch settled essentially and entered into a consent decree, which is kind of an interesting arrangement. It basically means the courts are very much involved in what's going on in New York and sort of, you know, looking over to make sure these laws are being followed. Obviously, the mayor is frustrated by this. One of the things he's brought up is that the migrants are sort of like even those that want to work, they can't explain.

Yeah. So when you come here and seek asylum, first you have to fill out an asylum application, which we're learning not a lot of the folks who have arrived here are filling these out. Some kind of criticism from the Biden administration towards the city is they need to do better. Because once you fill out your application, then there's essentially like 150 day waiting period.

And so basically it takes months. You have to sit around and you're sort of in these shelters and you can't get work. And I think, you know, the mayor's pointing out that the Biden administration could do more. They could grant more temporary protective status to some of the folks who are coming here.

At the same time, these people are not being enrolled and they're not getting the legal services they need en masse to sort of get the role of paperwork. There's a lot of bureaucracy involved in. We're not really seeing them movement through that. Look, there's a lot of city groups involved.

Have you seen evidence of HHS or dhs? Oh, yeah. I mean, this. I mean, Chuck, this is really subsuming city government in a way, honestly.

But I'm talking about Feds. Those do big Fed agencies. Oh, I think as far as on the ground, sort of in a practical way, no, this is really being handled by the city. So you're seeing a bunch of city agencies, they're opening the emergency shelters, these intake centers, they're coordinating education services.

That's all being done on the local level. And I think one of the mayor's points is it's very expensive. They predicted this could be a $12 billion problem by the summer of 2025. Could they get the governor to ask to declare a state of emergency?

It's been on the table, but, you know, we really haven't seen an appetite from Governor Hopeful to do that. I think from her perspective, they put a billion dollars in the budget and they feel like they're helping financially, but really there's been no appetite for a state of emergency whatsoever. But if the state of emergency is a way to get federal dollars in and a fast track potentially. Right?

Yeah. But I think, you know, at this point, from my perspective, the federal money question is really landing on folks like Senator Schumer and talking Jeffries in the House. They're the ones who've really been doing the negotiating behind the scenes. They have been getting fema.

You know, when they've been doing these large grants to cities across the country, they've sort of been running point on trying to get as much resources for New York as possible, but it's really going to drop in the bucket. I mean, I think the city has earmarked less than $150 million, which sounds like a lot, but when you put that up against a $12 billion problem, not so much. Jonah, it's a complicated issue to cover and it has been fascinating to watch. The mayor feels like he's the one on an island on this compared to where the rest of his party is.

I'm surprised it's going to stay that way for too long but we shall see. I appreciate it. Thank you. We're also following a potentially catastrophic development in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Searching Lee right now is a Category 4 storm actually got downgraded earlier today but it is on the cusp of circling back into category five. You know how warm the waters are. But leaf path remains uncertain as does the timing of when it could make landfall if at all. But meteorologists have been stunned at the speed at which it intensified this week.

Let's bring in Bill Karens to join me now Bill last week we talked about what was happening in that little incubator near the Yucatan. This is the old fashioned way we're used to hurricanes and this, I mean category 5 this far out of the Atlantic is unusual right? It is in the water temperatures are about 5 degrees warmer now than a 20 years ago in the same location. It doesn't sound like a lot but when you consider that you have to have 80 to get development of these storms.

Anything over 80 is like you get really strong storms. It makes a big difference and that's one of the reasons why this thing just exploded. So let's show you what actually happened because it doesn't. It's pretty rare.

Let's look at the history books. It only happened a couple times in the past. Mom was one of the ones that did something close to this. So 80 miles per hour this was Wednesday evening.

80 mile per hour hurricane category one we get them all the time. And then in 24 hours this thing just blew up. Beautiful looking eye. It had a stadium effect to it.

The aircraft recon running there looks like it's inside a football stadium. It went up to 160 mile per hour winds in 24 hours. To be considered rapid intensification it only had to go up 35 mile per hour wind. I mean we doubled the intensity so fast now has weakened since then.

Wind shearer and it probably has already hit its maximum that will ever hit in its lifetime. So 150 mile per hour wind I got a little obscured here. So now it's going to be slowly weakening. I say slowly because even five days from the hurricane center still has it as a major hurricane.

It avoids the Puerto Rico Virgin Islands, the Haiti Dominic Republic, it avoids the Bahamas. That's all fantastic. But then it's going to take a turn to the north. And the question is, does it bend to the northeast and miss us all and we can say thank you, goodbye, or are we going to have to deal with this this time next week?

So our European model, these little blue lines, you know, Nova Scotia, you have to be ready just in case. About a week from now, maybe not so much in eastern New England. Yeah, main possibility. You gotta keep an eye on it.

Nothing is really sending us directly into the mid Atlantic by any means. And our red lines are the America model. So we actually have some pretty excellent agreement here for once. And the thing is gonna determine what happens next week.

There's a storm that will come through the Great Lakes. If that storm is stronger, it'll bounce Lee out off the coast and maybe miss everyone. If that storm trends a little weaker and this high pressure is stronger, that's how we may have to watch out, kid. COD getting brushed.

Possibly up here in the Main or Nova Scotia, but at this point, it would likely be a Category 1 or Category 2 hurricane. Still big impacts for heavily forested areas, but it wouldn't be the beast that is now chalking up. So going back in all of our memories covering all these storms, I was thinking about how we went through three national Republican conventions. All that got delayed because of Gustav, Laura and Isaac.

And your reaction to all those were like, come on, what are we doing? You're right. By the way, I did notice that single Getty strand to New York City. It's almost like the Europeans are taunting us on that one.

Let's just say it's football season. I'm rooting for that low. Get stronger low. Let's get rid of Lee anyway.

Bill. Terrific, my friend. Thank you. I promise this my best.

All right, after the break. Don't call the comeback, but COVID 19 is making researchers want to talk to the infectious disease expert we trust around here about what's next this season as the FDA prepares to bring out a new COVID vaccine. Don't know if we're supposed to call it a booster now as soon as today. You're watching the press now.

Welcome back. Labor Day has come and gone, the school years begun, and Covid numbers are rising once again as we head into the fall. Covid hospitalizations, which have been slowing since the beginning of the year, have started to climb a bit once again. But ICUs aren't overrun.

CO related deaths, while thankfully remaining overall, have also ticked up the virus again this week when first lady tested positive. We should know that while this data provides a trend for the virus, it still paints a complete picture. US is no longer in public health. Emergency states aren't required report routine Covid data and updated hospitals protocols means that only patients who are symptomatic are even tested for Covid.

And it's Covid risk. Clinic fire from Dr. Citiconem is not moving fast enough to get some new booster shots out to the public. We're watching the FDA approval for a new Covid shot, perhaps as early as the next 13 minutes or 5pm that's right.

Michael Ostrom. I told you. He's the epidemiologist, director of the university Misos Sanford, Texas Disease Research and Policy. He's joining me now to preview what we can expect.

But more importantly, and he was my partner for those two long years of pandemic. You know, we're both their own homes, but constantly. And I thought, if I'm doing this one more time, I want to get the best back here one more time. Michael, good to see you.

Thank you very much. Good to be with you. So let's talk about this. I want to start with the COVID First of all.

Is this a booster shot or a separate and new vaccine? Well, it is a booster shot in the sense that it's basic. Still with SARS COV 2, it's just a different variant type. And the good news is, Chuck, that right now the data from the last 24 to 36 hours that have been released supports that.

In fact, it will cover the variants we're seeing right now. So that this is something that we all should want to get when it becomes available. What I mean, I say this as a patient and as, you know, watching my mom run around for different shots here. Are we at a point where we can put the flu shot in the COVID shot and maybe RSV into one shot?

Or is that a bit beyond our technological capabilities right now? Well, I think it's very important to emphasize that despite the fact that some, like the fda, want to make this a seasonal infection, meaning like influenza, when you can count on to occur between, say, November and January, we haven't seen that yet with this virus. The only other thing I see about this virus that makes a season, it occurs in all four seasons. And I think that one of the things that's really important to emphasize here is what we're seeing right now is major activity.

We have states out there, over a quarter of all the nursing homes in the middle of large Covid outbreaks. We're seeing large school outbreaks. What's different, however, is that this virus and with the immunity that we do have isn't causing a big increase in severe illness. You mentioned that already.

And when you think about hospitalizations, we're at 17,000 right now. In the last week we were at 160,000 a week. Back in January 2022. If you look at deaths today, we're talking about 700 deaths this week.

But we were talking about 26,000 deaths back in January 2021. So it's a different situation in terms of seriousness, but it still is widespread. Look, you got on my radar over a decade ago, you know, when you first sort of like what keeps, what keeps you up at night type of thing. And you know, you really sort of tried to sound the alarm about our inability to be prepared for something like this.

Well, we just went through it. You think this country can handle another pandemic in the next 10 years? I do not. And I say I don't think they can.

We will of course obviously survive. At the same time, I think the trust that we have right now in our institutions, our governments clearly is at an all time low when it comes to public health, vaccines the same way. And so I think the next pandemic and there will be another one, there will be potentially ones that are much larger than this one. And I worry that we're not ready for that.

And we have not had yet as a government a really systematic review of what went right, what went wrong and how can we improve on it. I was just going to say because when I think of people that want to see on the committee, you'd be at the top of the list. Do you want to see President Biden and Congress essentially green lighting 9, 11 type style commission? You know, let's, we need to do this after action report.

I think it's pretty clear. I don't know whether the public accept it, but would you like to see this ordered up? Absolutely. You know, I think at this point we need to learn from what happened to prepare for the future.

This is not a situation where we might have a pandemic again someday. We will have one and there are many, many lessons to be learned. And if there's anything that we need to do to address this, take great humility and acknowledge what did we really do well, what did we not do well and how do we change that? And so I think that this is a very important issue and I very much support such an activity.

Well, I mean, I mean, let's look, we got two, we got a minute left here. What's the one thing we did really well. And what's the one thing right now that you would say we were terrible at? And that's what we got improved.

First, I think the most important thing we did was get vaccine out in a time that most people thought would never allow us to get a vaccine out. And clearly at least 3 million lives were saved in this country alone from having the vaccine. Now, the challenge is, of course, as you know, is many people won't take it. And these boosters right now, most of the deaths we're seeing are in people 65 years of age and older, yet only 42% of that population got the previous booster.

So we need to continue to work on that. But that's a good thing. I would say. The bad thing is, is that communication and this is a joint issue.

This is not just public health. This is government. This is the media. You know, some of the very best stories that ever appeared regarding the pandemic appeared in the New York Times.

Some of the very worst stories that ever appeared regarding the pandemic occurred in the New York Times. And so I think that we have an obligation to go back and understand how can we communicate better. I want to close with the cdc. I fear that.

That they're in retreat mode. What's your level of concern that the CDC have the resources to do the job we're asking them to do right now? They do not, but I don't think any agency in the world does. I think that's why this After Action Report is so important.

What is it going to take for us to basically be better prepared? And, you know, I think that we just don't have it. Michael O'Strto, like I said, it's been a pleasure to get to know you through these years. You made us smarter.

Thank you. On behalf of so many viewers out here, thank you. You have been a gift to getting information out. Thank you.

Well, and it's because of people like yourself. So appreciate it. We'll be right back with a look at where we've been and where we're going. I'm not by myself because this is a carpool.

So John Hickenlooper's back there? Yeah, somewhat. There he is. We have a caucus.

All right. We have a caucus of two. Caucus loose center Hickenlooper from weekly and daily. Welcome to our first show.

I busy day national international politics live from border Colorado here. Manchester, New Hampshire. We are here in the debate spin room coming live from the University of Nevada in New York City. Our election headquarters here in Cleveland and historical locus And Mobile Islands in Des Moines island in Phoenix, Arizona.

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If it's Friday, it's Meet the Press. Well, follow the hairline on that one. When we first came up with the idea of the daily version of Meet the Press, we made our gold TikTok notch political news and analysis that has been the hallmark of me press since the beginning of the television era. I want to bring into an audience every day over eight years more than 2,000 shows.

I'm proud to say that we've done that and I'm equally proud to say I may be living but this show continues. So it's kind of nice to build something and see it, see someone else take it over. So this is my last show the game for me to press now. But this show and the Sunday show is going to continue to build a legacy of meat press that stood for more than 75 years.

I'd always like to say I just didn't want to be the last moderator of a long running television show in American history. Excuse me, world history. And I've succeeded at that. Our politics have changed a lot since our first day in the airs Meet the Press daily and they'll continue to change.

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The number one reason why folks decided to tune into any Sunday show. The number one reason to get educated. It wasn't to find out if their sub was on your listen. It just wanted to know.

It's an education piece that I'm hanging my head on the rest of my professional life. Because one thing we all meant lately is the lack of knowledge and nuance in our politics. That's a vacuum I hope to continue to fill whether in a traditional news platform or via other vendors, documentaries, document dramas or even too close to the truth fiction. I couldn't have done the show and the Sunday show for nearly a decade without an incredible team of people behind the camera producers, editors, directors, camera operators, the tech folks of every stripe.

There are too many people to name. Television is the ultimate team sport and I've been a proud member of this team. I'm going to continue to be a member of it just in a different position. So I'll be back for Sunday one more time underneath press.

Then I'll hand the time to my friend Chris Walker. You're going to see her here too as an eth press now because it helps. It helps you do the Sunday show to better Sunday show to do the stable show. And you'll see some of the top notch MC political talent in this year as well.

I'll continue to be a big part of NC political coverage because no one is distance covers politics as well as NBC. Thanks for watching. I'll see you down the road and I'll see you Sunday on your local NBC news station. I have exclusive interviews with two people I intentionally want to put for the last show because they accept the premise and they'll answer to questions even though they don't like it.

Governor Gavinissen, Senator Bill Cassidy. Don't miss it. Emmy Scene News now coverage continues with Hallie Jackson in a few seconds. I'll give her a little I'm going to take up a little time of hers because I usually take up too much time of hers.

But I'm going to hand the show to and I'm going to see on her show in a few minutes. But thank you for tuning in to me and giving me a chance to be in your favor. I'll see you down the road. I'm Craig Melf.

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too.

Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges, their stories are fun and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week and who knows, you might just come along with your own glass apple. Search Glass Apple with Craig Elvin From Today on YouTube. Wherever you get your podcast.