It's here. The Ford is a big deal. Not yet. The Ford is a big deal.
Oh, guys, just wait. The Ford is a big deal event is on. Really? Now.
Hurry up to least a 2026 Maverick XLT hybrid all-wheel drive for $197 bi-weekly at 5.29% APR for 60 months with $29.95 down. That's like $99 a week. The Ford is a big deal event. Visit your Ontario Ford store or Ford.ca.
This Sunday, my exclusive interview with former President Donald Trump. When you go to bed at night, do you worry about going to jail? On the role he played in challenging the results of the 2020 election. What are you calling the shots that Mr.
President ultimately? As to whether or not I believed it was rigged? Sure. It was my decision.
On the charges he's facing in the classified documents case. He asked the staffer to delete security camera footage so it wouldn't get into the hands of investigators. It was not. It was not.
But let me tell you what I'm saying. I'll testify. And how he would lead if he won in 2024. He'd find federal legislation that would ban abortion at 15 weeks.
No, let me just tell you what I do. Joining me for insight and analysis are NBC News senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett, New York Times Chief White House correspondent Peter Baker, and NBC News Washington managing editor Carol Lee. Welcome to Sunday. It's Meet the Press.
From NBC News and Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is Meet the Press, the Kristen Loker. Good Sunday morning. We begin this new chapter of Meet the Press after yet another extraordinary week in American politics.
House Republicans announced an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. The President's son Hunter was indicted on gun charges and House conservatives double down on their threat to shut down the government. Meanwhile, people close to President Biden are increasingly worried his son's legal troubles could strain the president's focus on what's expected to be a razor-close election. It was against that backdrop that I sat down with the former president at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, his first network interview since leaving office.
We have extended the same invitation to President Biden. Mr. Trump has been criminally indicted four times and faces 91 felony counts, but continues to hold a commanding lead as the Republican front-runner. I began by asking Mr.
Trump what a second term would look like if he's reelected. When you talk about retribution, are you talking about directing your attorney general to try to go after your political election? When I talk about retribution, I'm talking about fairness. We have to treat people fairly.
These people on January 6th, when some of them never even went into the building and they've been given sentences of, you know, many years. Are you going to pardon those people who have been convicted, Mr. Trump? I certainly might, if I think it's appropriate.
No, it's a very, very sad thing, and they're dividing the country so badly, and it's very dangerous. Well, Mr. President, we're going to delve into that a little bit later on, but I want to stay on this idea of what you mean by retribution. Are you looking to appoint an attorney general who will prosecute the people you tell them to prosecute?
I'm looking to appoint an attorney general who's going to be tough on crime and fair. Very simple thing. Speaker McCarthy announced that he was launching in a impeachment inquiry this week into President Biden. Do you see this as a part of the retribution that you see?
No, not at all. I think, look, you look at the terrible things that have been happening with respect to Biden. Look at everything, Jimmy Comer, Jim Jordan, who have fantastic people and very legitimate people. I watched Jimmy Comer just a little while ago, talking about a lot of different facets of what's going on, and he was the one that said, I guess there were there are 12 things where it looks like it's stone cold, guilty, and the gun charge is only one of the 12.
He said this is the only one that doesn't implicate Joe Biden. So, but my question for you, did you talk to Speaker McCarthy about this? How's it going to tell him that he should open up? No, no, I don't think you do that.
I mean, he wouldn't do it based on me. Did you talk to your Republican allies on Capitol Hill and say, you should support this? No, I don't have to talk. They're more proactive than I am.
They think it's terrible. Do you think Republican hardliners should abandon their threat to shut down the government over their spending priorities? Now that there is this. No, I think if they don't get a fair deal, we have to save our country.
We have $35 trillion in debt. We have to save our country. Do you know the government? You support that?
I shut down the government if they can't make an appropriate deal, absolutely. If you are facing four indictments, 91 fell in charge. If you would say it properly, I'm facing four Biden indictments. He told the Justice Department to indict him.
Or, Merrick Garland said, let's indict him. Let me ask you this, Mr. Prime Minister. They indicted their political opponent.
I just want to hear from you on this. I want to know what's in your head. When you go to bed at night, do you worry about going to jail? No, I don't really.
I don't even think about it. I'm built a little differently, I guess, because I have had people come up to me and say, how do you do it, sir? How do you do it? I don't even think about it.
These are corrupt people that I'm dealing with. They're destroying our country. I don't even think about it. All I think about is making the country great, making America great.
Look, these are political, these are banana republic indictments. These are third world indictments. The President of the United States sees how we're doing. We have a movement, the likes of which has never happened in this country before.
And you see it with the polls. I mean, I'm up on these people by 60 points and 59 points. I don't mean, I'm at 59, I'm leading them by 59. You almost say, like, why are they campaigning?
Asa Hutchinson, he's at zero. Christie's at two, other ones are at one. Descentimonious is at nine, I just see a poll coming. I mean, I'm leading him by 60 points.
Mr. Prime Minister, why are they doing it? But here's what they did. They saw this happening.
And he went to the Attorney General of the United States, and he told them in day Trump. There's just no evidence of that, Mr. President. But let's thank the President.
I want Mr. President. I want to talk about it. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Look at all the lies he's told over the last couple of weeks. He said he was at the World Trade Center, and he wasn't. He said he flew airplanes, right? He didn't.
He said he drove trucks, and he didn't. Everything he says is like a lie, it's terrible. Mr. President, I want to say, he's not a 6, he's not a 6.
I want to stay focused on you for the purposes of this interview, okay? Because it's important that we hear from you about all of this. Well, I'd like you to, but you keep interrupting me. Tell me, Mr.
President, tell me what you see when you look at your mugshot. I see somebody that loves this country in me, that loves this country. I see tremendous unfairness. I think very few people would have been able to handle what I handled.
By the way, do you think your former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, is still loyal to you? He just pleaded not guilty. Well, I hope he's loyal to me. Do you worry about him for anything?
Do you worry about him for anything? Okay, I want to ask you about the case related to Mar-a-Lago, a new charge suggests you ask this effort to delete security camera footage, so it wouldn't get into the hands of investigators. Do you think it's false? But let me tell you.
Would you testify to that? I'm going to testify to that on the ropes. It's a fake charge by this deranged lunatic prosecutor who lost in the Supreme Court, 9 to nothing, and he tried to destroy lots of lives. He's a lunatic, so it's a fake charge.
But more importantly, the tapes weren't deleted. In other words, there was nothing done to them. And they were my tapes. I could have fought them.
I didn't even have to give them the tapes. I don't think. I think I would have won a court. When they asked for the tapes, I said, sure, they're my tapes.
I could have fought them. I didn't even have to give them. Just so you understand, though, we didn't delete anything. Nothing was deleted.
So that's false, the people who testified. Number one, the statement is false. Much more importantly, when the tapes came, and everybody says, they weren't deleted. We gave them 100%.
And just so you know, I offered them. I said, if you want to look at tapes, you could look at them. Let's move on to January 6th, and the allegations that you tried to subvert the election. Again, I just want to give you a chance to talk about this because voters want to hear about this.
The most senior lawyers in your own administration and on your campaign told you that after you'd lost more than 60 legal challenges, that it was over. Why did you ignore them and decide to listen to a new outside group? Because I didn't respect them. You hire them.
But that doesn't mean you know, you hire them. You never met these people, you get a recommendation. They turn out to be rhinos or they turn out to be not so good. In many cases, I didn't respect them.
But I did respect others. I respected many others. That said, the election was rigged. You called some of your outside lawyers.
You said they had crazy theories. Why were you listening to them? Were you listening to them because they were telling you what you wanted to hear? You know who I listened to myself?
I saw what happened. I watched that election, and I thought the election was over at 10 o'clock in the evening. You were listening to your instincts. My instincts are a big part of it.
That's been the thing that's gotten me to where I am, my instincts. But I also listened to people. There are many lawyers. I could give you many books.
There are books that are written on how the election was rigged. There are numerous books that were written on how the election was rigged. Just to be clear, were you listening to your lawyers' advice or were you listening to your own instincts? I was listening to different people.
And when I edited all up, the election was rigged. There are books that were rigged in fact, Molly Hemingway wrote a great book. Were you calling the shots ultimate? Excuse me.
Molly Hemingway was highly respected and great. She wrote a book, a best-selling book called Rigged. Were you calling the shots though, Mr. President?
Ultimately. As to whether or not I believed it was Rigged, it was my decision. But I listened to some people, some people said that. Like guys like Bill Barr, he was a stiff, but he wasn't there at the time.
But he didn't do his job because he was afraid. You know what he was afraid of? He was afraid of being impeached. He was petrified to be impeached.
And he's, how do you not get impeached? Don't do anything. Now, as you just heard, former President Trump referred to the federal indictments against him as Biden indictments. The indictments have been charged by a special counsel.
And according to the White House, President Biden has not spoken to the attorney general about them. And the White House found out about them from news reports. As for the impeachment inquiry, so far congressional investigators have not presented any evidence that President Biden has profited off of Hunter Biden's business dealings. I also talked to former President Trump about his actions on January 6th and why he never sent help when the Capitol was under attack.
In our conversation, he directly contradicted the sworn testimony of one of his aides who testified to the January 6th committee that the former president was so determined to go to the Capitol himself after his rally that he grabbed a secret service agent inside the President's limo. Take a listen. I wanted to go down peacefully and patratically to the Capitol. The secret service we have great respect for said sir, it's better if you don't do that.
It's could be unsafe because they didn't because of riots. It's because, you know, it takes one guy with bad intentions, okay? So I didn't have a dispute with them. You know, you had that one person said I grabbed the man around the neck.
Actually, I wish I was so strong to be able to do that. These are all tough guys smart guys. I dispute that account. Dispute it.
Who wouldn't dispute it? She's the craziest account I've ever heard. You mean that I was in the beast? And she said I was in the beast.
And the secret service didn't work. So I took a guy who was like a black belt in Barati and grabbed his neck and tried to jail. What happened? How ridiculous?
Just so you understand? And I have great respect for secret service, by the way, they're fantastic. The secret service said sir, it would be better if you didn't. I said I'd love to do it.
They said it would be better. And so we went back to the White House just so you understand. I spoke, I made a very nice speech. Tell me how you watch this all in full.
Were you in the dining room watching for me? I'm going to tell you, I'll tell people later at an appropriate time. Just so you understand, however. What did you do when the Capitol was under attack, though?
Let me just tell you. In the moment that the Capitol was in the statements I made in the Oval Office and just outside of the Oval Office. Absolutely. Our police are great.
We love our police. We love everybody. Go home. That was it.
That was at four o'clock in the afternoon. I don't know. Three hours after the attack started. We'll put out before that.
I want to know who you call on that day. Nancy Pelosi. I don't know why would I tell you that? Listen, Nancy Pelosi was in charge of security.
She turned down 10,000 soldiers. If she didn't turn down the soldiers, you wouldn't have had January. Did you call military or law enforcement? What?
Did you call military or law enforcement at the moment that Capitol was under attack? I don't know anything. Let me put it this way. I behaved so well.
I did such a good job. Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 soldiers. If she didn't do that. But Nancy Pelosi doesn't have the word that you had to stand there and she said.
Listen to me, Kristin. Listen to me. I understand that the police testified against her. The chief very strongly against her.
Capitol police, great people. They testified against her and they burned all the evidence. Okay, they burned all the evidence. What do you say to people who wonder why you as commander-in-chief?
You have authorities that Nancy Pelosi doesn't have. No, she has authority over the Capitol. Why did she send help in that moment, though? Frankly, just so you understand, I assume that she took care of it.
She turned down. When you realize that the National Guard wasn't coming? Well, you didn't realize anything until quite a while. National Guard, not coming.
Yes, I asked it to be there three days in advance. And she turned it down. She says that that request was never officially made. Let me just say, let me ask you about.
Let me ask you about the president. The mayor of DC gave us a letter saying that she turns it down. Okay, we have it. Nancy Pelosi also was asked, and she turned it down.
The police commission- I'll talk about the day. Please, wait a minute. Yeah. Capitol Police said that he wanted it, and Nancy Pelosi wouldn't accept it.
She's responsible for January 6th. Nancy Pelosi's responsible. Mr. President, if you have authorities that no one else has as the commander-in-chief, do you think you showed leadership on that?
Yes, absolutely. Okay, Mr. President, if you were elected, would you pardon yourself? I could have pardon myself.
You know what? I was given an option to pardon myself. I could have pardon myself when I left. People said, would you like to pardon yourself?
I had a couple of attorneys that said, you can do it if you want. I had some people that said it would look bad if you do it, because I think it would look terrible. I said, here's the story. These people are thugs, horrible people, fascists, Marxists, sick people.
They'd been after me from the day I came down the escalator with Melania, and I did a great job as president. People were acknowledged, great economy, great jobs, great this, great that, rebuilt the military, space for everything. I could go on forever. Let me just tell you.
I said, the last thing I'd ever do is give myself a pardon. I could have given myself a pardon. Don't ask me about what I would do. I could have the last day.
I could have had a pardon done. That would have saved me all of these lawyers and all of these fake charges. These Biden indictments, they're all Biden indictments, political. They indicted, they want to arrest their political opponents.
Only third-world countries do that, banana republic. So, ready? I never said this to anybody. I was given the option.
I could have done a pardon of myself. You know what I said? I have no interest in even thinking about it. I never even wanted to think about it, and I could have done it.
And all of these questions you were asking me about the fake charges, you wouldn't be asking me because it's a very powerful thing for a president. I was told by some people that these are sick lunatics that I'm dealing with. Give yourself a pardon. Your life will be a lot easier.
I said, I would never give myself a pardon. Even if you were reelected in this moment. Well, I think it's very unlikely. What did I do wrong?
I didn't do anything wrong. Now, a little bit of context here on Mr. Trump's allegations, he ordered troops in the days leading up to the January 6th attack. The Defense Department says the former president never gave a formal order to have 10,000 troops ready to be deployed to the Capitol.
Of course, it's unreasonable to blame former Speaker Pelosi or lawmakers on Capitol Hill for what happened that day. Pelosi's office says the claim she turned down troops was, quote, completely made up. When we come back, former President Trump explains how he would handle calls from within the GOP for a federal ban on abortion. It's here.
The Ford is a big deal. Not yet. The Ford is a big deal. Oh, guys, just wait.
The Ford is a big deal event is on. Really? Now. Hurry until at least a 2026 Maverick XLT hybrid all-wheel drive for $197 by weekly at 5.29% APR for 60 months with $29.95 down.
That's like $99 a week. The Ford is a big deal event. Visit your Ontario Ford store or Ford.ca. In the last election, more than a quarter of voters said the issue of abortion mattered most to them, just behind inflation and the economy.
And last night, nine Republican candidates were back in Iowa speaking to the faith and freedom coalition, a reminder of how potent the abortion issue is in that early state. Mr. Trump didn't attend the event, but I asked the former president how he would handle abortion in a second term. I do want to talk about the issue of abortion, which is important to a lot of voters all across the country.
Just this week, women in Idaho and Tennessee. I don't know if you saw this filed suit against their state saying their lives were put at risk after they were denied abortion services because their state's restrictive laws put in place after Roe was overturned. So my question for you, Mr. President, is how is it acceptable in America that women's lives are at risk?
Doctors are being forced to turn away patients in need or risk breaking a law. Ready? A little bit of a long answer. I hope you have time.
I hope you have time. I'm here. So you have Roe v. Wade for 52 years.
People, including Democrats, wanted it to go back to states so the states could make the right Roe v. Wade. I did something that nobody thought was possible and Roe v. Wade was terminated was put back to the states.
Now people, pro-lifers, have the right to negotiate for the first time. They had no rights at all because the radical people on this are really the people, the Democrats that say after five months, six months, seven months, eight months, and even after birth, you're allowed to terminate the baby. I'm saying that. I just have this Democrats are not saying.
Does it bother you, though, that women say their lives are being put at risk? Do you feel you bear any responsibility? Because as you say, you are responsible for having to go ahead. This is an issue that's been going on for a long time and it's a very polarizing issue.
Because of what's been done and because of the fact we brought it back to the states, we're going to have people come together on this issue. They're going to determine the time because nobody wants to see five, six, seven, eight, nine months. Nobody wants to see abortions when you have a baby in the womb. I said with Hillary Clinton, when we had the debate, I made a statement, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month.
You're allowed to do that and you shouldn't be allowed to do that. Again, no one is arguing for that. That's not a part of anyone's report. The Democrats are able to kill the baby after birth.
Let me talk to you. Nobody wants that. That Democrats don't want that. I want to know what you want.
I want to know what you're going to do if you're going to decide federal legislation that would ban abortion at 15 weeks. No, let me just tell you what I do. I'm going to come together with all groups and we're going to have something that's acceptable. Right now, to my way of thinking, the Democrats are the radicals because after four and five and six months, but you have to say this, after birth, you have New York State and other places that pass legislation where you're allowed to kill the baby after birth.
Mr. President, I want to give voters who are going to be weighing in on this election. Yeah. A very clear sense of a stand-up.
I think they're all going to like me. I think both sides are going to like me. Let me know. What's going to happen is you're going to have to ask this question.
You're asking me a question. What's going to happen is you're going to come up with a number of weeks or months. You're going to come up with a number that's going to make people happy because 92% of the Democrats don't want to see abortion after a certain period of time. If a federal ban landed on your desk, if you were reelected, would you sign it at 15?
Are you talking about a complete ban? A ban at 15 weeks. People are starting to think of 15 weeks. That seems to be a number that people are talking about right now.
Would you sign that? I would sit down with both sides and negotiate something and we'll end up with peace in that issue for the first time in 52 years. I'm not going to say I would or I wouldn't. I mean, the sanctus is willing to sign a five-week and six-week ban.
Would you support that? You think that's far? I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake. But we'll come up with a number.
But at the same time, Democrats won't be able to go out in six months, seven months, eight months and allow an abortion. Mr. President, when you talk about negotiating, I think a lot of people think to themselves, this is an issue that they care about deeply in their heart. They know where they stand and they want to know where you stand.
As you know, some anti-abortion groups are really looking for some clarity from you. So let me just ask you to put a fine point on this. Should the federal government impose any abortion restrictions or should it be completely left up to the states? No, I don't think you should be allowed to have abortions well into a pregnancy.
But what about the question I don't agree? No, we're going to agree to a number of weeks or months or however you want to define it. And both sides are going to come together and both sides, both sides, and this is a big statement. Both sides will come together and for the first time in 52 years, you'll have an issue that we can put behind us.
At the federal level? It could be state or it could be federal. I don't frankly care. So you're not committed to abandonment?
I would say this, everybody, including the great legal scholars, love the idea of Roe v. Wade terminated, so it'd be brought back to the states. It sounds like that's what you think too. I would say this from a pure standpoint, from a legal standpoint, I think it's probably better, but I can live with it either way.
It's much more important, the number of weeks is much more important. But something will happen with a number of weeks, the amount of time after which you can't do it. And you know what? The most powerful people that are anti-abortion are okay with that now.
And you know what? They weren't okay with that even a year ago. Your former vice president, Mike Pence, believes that a fetus should have constitutional rights. Do you believe that, Mr.
President? Well, Mike Pence said something about 15 weeks, too, which was a big change for Mike Pence, because Mike Pence had no exceptions. I have exceptions, by the way. I think people should have exceptions.
I think if it's rape or incest or the life of the mother, I think you have to have exceptions. Does a fetus have constitutional rights? And a lot of people, when they don't have exceptions. Now, I will tell you that I think most people, most Republicans are willing.
You go, life of the mother, rape, incest. I think most of them are there. But should a fetus have constitutional rights? Mr.
President, just... Well, I don't know why he's saying, because before, he wanted... You know, you couldn't have a push- What are you saying? Now, all of a sudden, he's saying 15 weeks.
I said, wow, where did that come from? That's a radical change. Look, something is going to happen that's going to be good for everybody. And that's what...
I'm almost like a mediator in this case. They wanted Roe v. Wade terminated because it was inappropriate. We got it done.
Something is going to happen. It's going to be a number of weeks. Something is going to happen where the both sides are going to be able to come together. And then we'll be able to go into other things like the economy or military.
Are you saying a federal ban was exceptions? Is that what you're saying? What I say is very simple, because you can't put words in my mouth like that. Because you've heard me talk about this issue.
And I think, talk about it very productively. It could be a state ban. It could be a federal ban. But Democrats want that, too.
Democrats don't want to see abortion in the seventh month. Okay, I speak to a lot of Democrats. They want a number. There is a number.
And there's a number that's going to be agreed to. And Republicans should go out and say the following. Because I think the Republicans speak very inarticulately about this subject. I watched some of them without the exceptions, etc., etc.
I said, other than certain parts of the country, you can't, you're not going to win on this issue. But you will win on this issue when you come up with the right number of weeks. Because Democrats don't want to be radical on the issue. Most of them do.
They don't want to be radical on the issue. They don't want to kill a baby in the seventh month or the ninth month or after birth. And they're allowed to do that. And you can't do that.
One important fact, Jack, we do want to highlight. Abortion's layer in pregnancy are exceedingly rare. When we come back, we turn to foreign policy, the war in Ukraine, and whether Mr. Trump would consider sending the US military into Taiwan if China were to invade.
Welcome back. The Republican Party's biggest fight may be on the issue of Ukraine, where Republican candidates led by former President Trump are turning away from the party's traditional national security routes and questioning the US's commitment to the war. I asked Mr. Trump about what he believes are the stakes in Ukraine for the United States.
Do you think that our security, the United States security, is linked to Ukraine's security? I think that Europe has to do more. We're in for $200 billion. They're in for $25 billion.
And it affects them more than it affects us. It certainly affects them much more than it affects us. So you do think that it's linked to somebody? Why the Europe is taking advantage of a stupid president.
You've probably... Look, look, Biden should say to them, you have to equalize, you have to catch up. You know, Europe is about the same size as our economy, if you add them all up, add the countries up, it's about the same size. And Biden should say to them, like I did with NATO.
You know, NATO, they all owed money. I said, get your money in. And we had over $430 billion put in almost immediately. And the head of NATO, Stauberg, Secretary General, nice guy.
He said to me, the most amazing thing I've ever done. And he said it publicly, too. Let me ask you about your strategy, though, because you have said you want to end this war in 24 hours. You saw the meeting between Kim Jong-un and President Putin.
Do you think that complicates your strategy if you were elected to try to end this war? It would have been easier if the war didn't start, and you'd have hundreds of thousands of people living, most importantly. But it would have been a lot easier if it didn't. But I can get it done, and I can get it done quickly.
Some people here you say are going to end the war in 24 hours, and they worry. That means President Putin is going to get to keep the territory he's on lock of things. I make a fair deal for everybody, but it doesn't mean that. That's something that could have been negotiated, because there were certain parts, Crimea and other parts of the country, that a lot of people expected could happen.
You could have made a deal. So they could have made a deal with his less territory right now than Russia has already taken, to be honest. And you could have made a deal where nobody was killed, they had a deal. They would have had a Ukraine country.
Now, nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over. I will say this, something's going on, and it's not good for Ukraine. I want to ask you about something President Putin said about you this week. I don't know if you've seen it.
This was very recent. President Putin said, quote, we surely hear that Mr. Trump says he will resolve all burning issues within several days, including the Ukrainian crisis. We cannot help but feel happy about it.
What do you make of that too? Well, I like that he said that, because that means what I'm saying is right. I would get him into a room, I'd get to go into a room, then I'd bring him together, and I'd have to deal with that. I would get to deal with that.
It would have been a lot easier before it started. Essentially, for four years, I kept them from doing anything, because you know what? I will tell you this, I never said this. Ukraine was the apple of his eye.
They said, don't ever do it, don't ever do it. He would have never done it. But again, oil prices, he wouldn't have done it because of me, but oil prices. The prices were so high that he had so much money, so he had all this money to prosecute the war.
The one who drove up the prices was Biden. Given that President Putin has bombed maternity wards, 20,000 kids in and out from Ukraine, by Russia, mass graves, do you welcome his support, his orbit endorsement? Look, I had a very good relationship with him, and yet nobody was tougher in Russia than me. I stopped Nord Stream 2.
You never heard of Nord Stream 2. That was the pipeline until I got involved. I said Nord Stream 2, people that were sophisticated, military people and political people, never heard of Nord Stream 2. I had it ended.
The pipeline was dead. Biden came in and they approved it. There was nobody tougher than me with Russia, and yet I got along with Putin. Let me tell you, I got along with him really well.
And that's a good thing, not a bad thing. He's got 1700 nuclear missiles, and so do we. But look, that's a good thing. Getting along is okay, but I got along through strength.
And the war would have never happened. The war would have never happened. Now what's happened, it's so bad. The oil price is so high, it's hard to get it stopped.
The oil price is so high, when he goes above $50 and $60 a barrel, he makes a lot of money on the war. Now, it's a humanitarian thing, it's a lot of different reasons, but I will get that war stopped very, very quick. I want to talk about another region that you talked about. Let's talk about another region you talked about, China.
If you were to cut a deal between President Putin and President Zelensky, do you run the risk of emboldening China to invade Taiwan? No, not at all. Because China, he's another one I got along to until we had the China virus come in. Once COVID came in, it was like, I made a great trade deal with China.
One of the greatest deals ever made for the farmers and for the manufacturers, $50 billion a year is a great deal. I don't even talk about it, because once COVID came in, it was like, I don't want to talk about anything. I was a much different person. What happened to this world, not our country, the whole world, what happened with COVID.
And it shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have happened. What happened, what China did to the world was so bad, but I had a great relationship. I had a great relationship with President Xi, a really great relationship.
And he was going to stop fentanyl from coming in. He was going to do a lot of it. He was going to criminalize it, if you made it. You know, in China, they have a death penalty for drug deals.
He was going to make that with fentanyl deals too. But then the election didn't work out and he never had to do that. I know you've been asked this very quickly, if China were to invade Taiwan, have you made a determination? Again, since voters are about to go to the polls, would you send the US military into Taiwan if President Xi were to invade?
President Biden says it would. I won't say, I won't say, because if I said I'm giving away, you know, only super people are going to give that. So I heard the other day, de-sanquimonia said something about he was going to do this, or he was going to do that. I say, well, why is he saying the strategy?
You can't say that. So when you ask me that question, I would never say that, because you give away all your options. But you don't take it off the table. I don't take anything off the table.
And you can see my full unedited interview with the former president following the broadcast at MeetThePress.com. We also talked about the economy, the UAW standoff, the Hunter Biden indictment and the potential running mate among many other issues. We do have a fact check available and much more reporting at NBCNews.com. And when we come back, the panelists here with their reactions to my interview with the former president.
Welcome back. The panel is here, NBCNews senior legal correspondent, Laura Jarrett, Peter Baker, Chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, and co-author of The Divider, Trump in the White House. And NBCNews managing Washington editor, Carol Lee, thank you to all of you for being here for my very first Meet The Press. I am so honored to have all of you.
I want to start off just by getting your takeaways of what we just witnessed. And Peter, I want to start with you. What's your big takeaway? I was struck by how defiant he is, defiant of you, defiant of the system, defiant of facts, right?
He just aboldos or shoveling falsehoods and lies. Well, you're interviewing, you're fact-checking him all along the way, but he is creating a different reality that has been successful for him so far in leading the Republican nomination fight. Yeah, energizing his supporters. That's for sure.
Carol, what was your big takeaway? Well, on the legal stuff, they take away, you can see why former President Trump has gone through a number of lawyers, as he's seen these indictments and been investigated, and just politically speaking, big picture. He's very clearly running in a general election, barely mentions his GOP rivals, and he focuses almost entirely on President Biden. Yeah, it's a really great point.
Laura, what was your takeaway? We have a lot of legal stuff to throw back. There were a lot of legal Easter eggs in there for us to chew on. I have to say, I thought one of the more fascinating parts of that entire extended interview was what he refused to answer to you, and what he refused to answer is what exactly are you doing in the dining room on January 6th?
Why do you think that is so significant, Laura? Let's start there before we go to some of the other Easter eggs. Well, I think for his lawyers, they would probably prefer that he didn't answer that, but there was so much that he was willing to go into, which is for a criminal defense attorney, sort of the nightmare scenario. When you have these four criminal trials, which are a long ways off, there's plenty of time for him to talk and do sit down interviews like this, and he's essentially boxing himself into positions that he doesn't need to without really knowing where these cases are going.
And so when he tells you know who I listen to myself, that's coming when his attorneys are saying at least previewing lines of defense that he wants to be able to rely on his lawyers. No matter how misguided their advice was about trying to steal the election, when you say I relied on myself, that is fodder for cross-examination. Yeah, and let's just delve into that a little bit more deeply because there was some wiggle room around the edges, but how significant was that moment? I think that's a huge moment.
And of course he's saying now in a sit down interview, months away from any of these trials he's going to testify, I would be shocked if he was going to endorse that view, but to say to definitively, I relied on my own instincts. That video is going to be replayed for a jury some way, somehow. Peter, let me turn to you and bounce off of what Laura is saying, because yes, he says he is willing to testify. I asked him about one of these charges in the Mar-a-Lago documents case in which he is alleged to have directed a staffer to delete surveillance footage that shows boxes being moved around.
He denies that off the bat, says he's willing to testify, but then tries to pivot to something that he's not accused of, just deleting the video. But he does say the actual charges false. What did you make of that? Yeah, I know he's asking, there's a lot of evidence that Jackson has already presented in terms of testimony messages and so forth on this very question.
It was part of a superseding indictment. So he is contradicting his own staff, people who have talked to Jackson about it. You're right, he's trying to say, look, if they were my tapes, I could have deleted if I wanted to and I didn't delete them as if somehow that gets them off the hook. If you direct somebody to do a crime, as Jackson is led, it doesn't matter whether they actually follow through on it.
You actually committed a crime yourself under Jackson's theory. Carol, you have a lot of reporting from inside the White House their strategy there. The president is trying to keep his distance from these indictments. And yet, some of his allies say at some point he's going to have to shift his strategy.
How do you think the White House Democrats are processing all of this? Well, what Democrats have told us in over the course of several weeks and months is that as these indictments pile up and the president has made a very concerted decision that he's not going to weigh in publicly on them and that they're going to keep this distance there. The question that Democrats raise is whether or not voters are seeing that difference. They're seeing that distinction.
And former President Trump is trying to make clear and make sure that they basically think that these are Biden indictments and President Biden doesn't want to weigh in. And the concern is that that's a real gamble, that politically, if the president is not challenging this and saying that his justice department is independent, now they're really talking about it, then that seeds that ground to Trump and he allows him to change voters' minds. Peter, weigh in on this point. I mean, how risky is the strategy of keeping hands off and saying, hey, I'm going to say focused on my campaign and my agenda and not talk about this.
I think it's frustrating for Democrats. Liberals and progressives are upset that he's not weighing in, but Carol's right. There's nothing but danger ahead, and if he engages on that, because he looks like he's doing exactly what Trump is saying. Trump says to you over and over again, they're Biden, there's no Biden.
He has no evidence to get anything to do with it, other than having a point in the Attorney General, which is what the president does. But he would feed into that by looking like he was going after him and giving Trump the image he wants. Laura, it was notable that the former president took aim at Jack Smith, special prosecutor who's charged him. And then I believe he's called him a lunatic, which we've heard him say before.
And then a day later, Judge Chutkin issued a request for a narrow gag order. So within that context, it doesn't seem like he's changing his rhetoric at all. And he talked about the significance of that issue and his ongoing attacks against the process. So he's not changing his rhetoric at all, but prosecutors are zeroing in on interviews like this one, mining them for things like that, because they're trying to say, look, not only is there a security risk for the witnesses and the prosecutors, the judge herself who has received threats, but they're saying it has the ability to have a fair trial.
And so that's why they're asking the judge for a narrow gag order that would not stop him from talking at all. You couldn't do that, but what they do want is for the judge to say, talk about the witnesses or make threats against anyone during the course of this trial. We'll see what she does. I think she's probably unlikely to do that in the first instance, but she may call him in and scold him again.
She'd be already seen her do it once, and she may do it again. Yeah, it just adds to the potential risk of the legal peril swirling around him. Speaking of that, Peter Baker, another revelation here, we have reporting around this, but he acknowledges for the first time, yes, there were conversations about him potentially pardoning himself in his final days in office. It's not clear if he has the authority to do that, that would be untested.
But what did you make of that revelation? Well, that's fascinating, because it shows that they understand that he, in fact, was in criminal exposure, that he exposed himself criminally potentially, and that there might be need for a part. You don't talk about pardoning himself, again, done anything. And they understood in those final, crazy days of the White House, when things were very volatile, very compestuous, and he'd just been impeached for the second time, and it suggests, of course, an understanding of just how exposed he was.
And I do want to talk about the other legal issue we've been tracking throughout this week, Hunter Biden indicted on gun charges, Carol, and you have some new exclusive reporting out of the White House on that. That's right, Kristin. What people close to the president have been telling us over the last several weeks is that, you know, this is a very sensitive issue. Obviously, it's a family issue.
Very few people talk to the president about his son only a couple of aides and only when they have to. Now, politically speaking, what people close to the president says, they're not worried that voters are going to look at this and say, oh, Hunter Biden wasn't indicted. I'm not going to vote for President Biden. What they are worried about is the emotional toll that this takes on the president and how that plays out politically, meaning he's distracted.
It's weighing on him heavily. And that creates a scenario in which the president is more prone to missteps and mistakes, the type that he cannot afford to make because Republicans will seize on them because voters are evaluating whether or not the president, given that he's 80 years old, is competent to serve another term. And so it's very fraud, it's very sensitive, and there are a lot of concerns. Well, and one of the other issues looming over all of this is something that I talked to the former president about, the issue of abortion and Laura before we get to the politics of it, legally, as I raised with him, there are a number of cases that are being brought throughout the country, women and doctors, saying that their lives are being put at risk now that Rose overturned, just set the legal landscape for us.
Right, so I think the former president's most enduring legacy, perhaps at least one of them will be putting three Supreme Court justices on the nation's highest court that struck down Roe. And there's a piece of him that seems to take pride in that and to use that to Trump at his position, but there's another piece of him that seems to realize sort of the peril of that position and kicking it back to the states. As he said, he sort of coughed as everybody was okay with that. Everybody was not okay with that because the natural output of that means that states can put in place highly restrictive rules which result in people even having medical issues and still not being able to have change in abortion.
And politically speaking, this is such a complex and complicated issue. And, Carol Lee, another complex and complicated issue that we're going to be watching, obviously, foreign policy. And you heard the president there not say that Ukraine's security is linked to the US. He declined to say that.
And he didn't say if he would send troops into Taiwan if China were to invade. And I know you also have a little bit of reporting on that as well this morning. Right, and first I just want to fact check a couple of things that the president said. On Ukraine, it's not true, the US spends much more than the president, much less than the president said, the former president said, and Europe spends much more than the president said.
And on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, that was already largely completed by the time President Biden took office. And the decision on whether or not that goes forward is Germany's, obviously. So there's that. And on China, what we've learned this morning is that the President Biden's National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, has been secretly meeting over the weekend in Malta, the third party European country, with the Chinese foreign minister.
And that's significant because this is seen as a precursor to a meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this fall. Fantastic new reporting there. Big picture, Peter Baker. I'm giving the final word to you.
We have gotten criticism for just sitting down with former President Trump. He is the former president. He's facing four indictments as journalists. Just set the scene in the backdrop why there is still news value, the value for the public to hear from him.
Well, this is a huge challenge for American journalists, of course, right? It can't be that a person can run for President of the United States to be a front runner in his party and possibly win without ever being challenged by a tough, independent interviewer. And that's, I think, an important part of our system. Now, it's obviously the challenge for us because he is just going to spout out one thing after another.
In fact, I mean, real hard thing, but what we've done here is edit it and make sure people understand what's real and what's not. I cannot thank you all enough for being here. Laura, Peter, and Carol, thank you. And when we come back, a look back at what the first moderator of me, the press, said about the value of this show before we go, I want to take a moment to thank you, our viewers.
It is an incredible honor to be sitting in this chair and I feel the huge responsibility it carries. I also want to recognize all of the women, all of the people of color who've been pathfinders to make this moment possible, as well as all of the journalists who've mentored me along the way. When my colleague, Andrew Mitchell, applied for her first job at a news radio station in Philadelphia in 1967, she was told the newsroom was no place for a woman. Well, she taught them into hiring her for the overnight shift.
I'm here because she and other fearless women never stopped fighting for their places in the newsroom. Now, all five Sunday shows are moderated or co-moderated by women. So to Martha, Margaret, Dana, and Shannon, I am incredibly honored to join you on Sunday mornings. I also stand on the shoulders of the first moderator and co-founder of this broadcast, Martha Roundtree, who had the courage to launch this program back in 1947.
Here's what she had to say, accepting a Peabody Award on the mission of Meet the Press. As long as the press of America is free, America will be free. And what we have tried to do is to bring the press conference, the heart of our free press to the whole nation. Let us never forget that information belongs to the American people.
And it is that information which meets the press has been trying to bring each week in the homes of the American people and inform public means that strong republic and meet the press is dedicated to that cause. True words have never been spoken. That is all for today. Thank you for watching.
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