CHUCK TODD:
This Sunday: abortion backlash.
PAT RYAN:
I honestly can't believe it. I can not believe it.
CHUCK TODD:
Republican concerns grow as Democrats show election strength after the Supreme Court's decision on abortion.
REP. SEAN PATRICK MALONEY:
There are five, five now, special elections since the Roe v. Wade decision, and they've all come our way.
PRES. JOE BIDEN:
The MAGA Republicans have awakened a powerful force in America: the women of this nation.
CHUCK TODD:
How abortion is hurting Republican chances of a big red wave in November. Plus, the Mar-a-Lago affidavit. One hundred and eighty four classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago in January, and the Justice Department believes the Trump team attempted to obstruct justice.
PRES. JOE BIDEN:
I'm not going to comment because I don't know the details.
CHUCK TODD:
I'll talk to Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of the January 6th committee. Also, the war in Ukraine.
VITALI KLITSCHKO:
We are fighting for the future of our children, the future of our country.
CHUCK TODD:
A stalemate at the front, a nuclear reactor in jeopardy and a mystery murder of a Putin ally. Six months into the war, I'll talk to former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis and former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. And return to the moon.
BILL NELSON:
This time we're going back. We're going to live there. We're going to learn there.
CHUCK TODD:
My conversation with NASA chief Bill Nelson about tomorrow's unmanned Artemis I mission and a new era of U.S. space exploration. Joining me for insight and analysis are: NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander; Kimberly Atkins Stohr, senior opinion writer for The Boston Globe; Rich Lowry, Editor of National Review and PBS NewsHour Chief correspondent Amna Nawaz. Welcome to Sunday. It's Meet the Press.
ANNOUNCER:
From NBC News in Washington, the longest running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.
CHUCK TODD:
Good Sunday morning. When the Supreme Court released its Dobbs abortion decision, Republicans cheered the culmination of a nearly 50-year effort to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue to the states. But since then, states under Republican control have moved to severely limit access to abortion -- four more in just the past few days. It has sparked a surge of Democratic anger and enthusiasm at the polls and is suggesting that the predicted red wave in this year’s midterm elections is being blunted by a strong blue undertow. Since the Dobbs decision, Democrats have topped Joe Biden’s 2020 performance in four special House elections; it’s a sharp turnaround from the special elections that were held prior to the Dobbs decision, where Republicans were overperforming. And, of course, there was the shocking 18-point defeat in Kansas of that anti-abortion ballot measure at the start of this month. In short, Republicans do have an abortion problem politically. And you can see they know it by the way many now are backing off their more extreme positions.
[BEGIN TAPE]
SEN. MARCO RUBIO:
I am in favor of laws that protect human life. I do not believe that the dignity and the worth of human life is tied to the circumstances of their conception, but I recognize that that’s not a majority position, and therefore I've always said I support bills that have exceptions.
BLAKE MASTERS:
Look, I support a ban on very late-term and partial-birth abortions. And most Americans agree with that.
TIFFANY SMILEY:
I'm pro-life, but I oppose a federal abortion ban.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
At the same time, Democrats are working hard to pivot and make abortion rights the issue of the midterms, like Pat Ryan did in that special election.
[BEGIN TAPE]
PAT RYAN:
How can we be a free country if the government tries to control women's bodies? That's not the country I fought to defend.
KATIE HOBBS:
Lake wouldn't just ban abortion, she'd criminalize it. Forced pregnancies for rape and incest.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
So we're going to do something a little different. We're going to start this morning with the politics of abortion and our expert panel, which includes PBS NewsHour Chief Correspondent Amna Nawaz; NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander; Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review; and Kimberly Atkins Stohr, the senior opinion writer for The Boston Globe. Rich, I keep coming back to a moment you and I were on the air. I think it was after the leaked pre-Dobbs decision, where you were, like, "Look, the midterms are going on a trajectory in favor of the Republicans, but abortion could change everything." Are we at the “change everything” moment?
RICH LOWRY:
I don't know whether it changes everything, but clearly it's an important change. And I think Republicans have to realize they can't run and hide from this issue. You try to do that, it's not going to work. You're going to get defined in a way you're not going to like. And you can't, in most places, adopt a maximalist position. So I think they need to do a version of what Rubio did. Say, "I want to protect every unborn child eventually. I realize I have a lot of work to do, public persuasion on that. In the meantime, here's a limit I support that actually is defensible and has public support," and then point at the other side for being extremist for supporting abortion in every circumstance with federal funding.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, Kimberly, that is what Blake Masters in Arizona attempted to do. And when he debuted this ad, he also tried to scrub his website. And, you know, we could show right before, he was – his website on the abortion issue was, "I'm 100% pro-life." We can put it up. And he was, in fact, a supporter of the federal personhood law. He got rid of that. His folks sort of said he still believes everything that was on there before, but it feels like, you know, they handled it slightly differently than Marco Rubio.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
They did. And in that ad, if you listen to what he's saying, what he's saying he supports is actually what was allowed under Roe. It was the law before Roe was overturned. And I think it's more than just Republicans realizing that their rhetoric is wrong right now. I think they're realizing where their rhetoric meets actual, real life consequences, whether it's a ten-year-old victim of a crime who's being forced into a pregnancy, or a 19-year-old woman in South Carolina whose fertility may be threatened due to the fact that she can't get the medical care she needs after an incomplete miscarriage. How is that pro-life? Republicans are realizing that they are not doctors. They are not physicians. And they didn't realize the consequences of what they were supporting.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, it's funny you bring up the South Carolina incident. I want to actually play that lawmaker. He talked about – this person you're talking about – her water broke at week 15. And basically, it was against South Carolina law for them to do anything about it. Here's his description.
[BEGIN TAPE]
STATE REPRESENTATIVE NEAL COLLINS:
She's going to pass this fetus in the toilet. She's going to have to deal with that on her own. There's a 50% chance, greater than 50% chance, that she's going to lose her uterus. There's a 10% chance that she will develop sepsis and herself die. That weighs on me. I voted for that bill. These are affecting people.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Amna, this is – you know, we've talked to every metaphor. They've caught the car. And it goes to something Rich said: Republicans weren't prepared for every aspect of what they needed to talk about when it came to this issue.
AMNA NAWAZ:
Not nearly. I think that's abundantly clear now. And it's not just Republicans. You know, I've talked to so many folks on the ground who've been reporting on the potential reversal of Roe for so many months leading up to the decision. And you saw even the groups on the ground who were advocating under this very broad, pro-life umbrella, were not prepared to answer very detailed questions about, "What does that mean? When do you make exceptions? How do you view IVF? If a child is raped in your state, how do you view that?" And you saw divisions within the Republican Party and among self-described conservatives showing up in exactly those cases. The child who was raped and impregnated in Ohio, even state officials there and pro-life advocates on the ground disagreed about how to handle that.
CHUCK TODD:
Peter, Glenn Youngkin, governor of Virginia, was in Michigan. Our reporters caught up with him, and he's basically saying, "Look, you know, the only people I'm talking to are worried about the cost of living, worried about kids in school.” He was still on the "Pay no attention to the issue of abortion here". I don't know if that's going to be able to hold.
PETER ALEXANDER:
I was speaking to Republican strategists just yesterday. They say that that issue is receding. We're watching it recede. The big marquis at every intersection is the price of gas right now. It's now gone down for 70+ consecutive days. But I was speaking to Abigail Spanberger. You're speaking about Virginia. I spoke to her yesterday. She launched her campaign. The first political ad out is on the issue of abortion rights. Beto O'Rourke, the first ad on the issue of abortion rights. And this, she says, "It's not just about abortion. It's about freedom," as we saw from Pat Ryan in Pennsylvania, almost sort of co-opting a line from Republicans, from Tea Party, you know, the Tea Party in the past like the Democrats are the libertarians here in some way. But the uncertainty, she says, is really benefiting those Independents that will now begin leaning toward Democrats. The way the economic uncertainty helped Republicans in some way, this uncertainty about what's really at stake helps Democrats.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, – go ahead, Rich.
RICH LOWRY:
I was going to say, on these terrible cases with miscarriages, this is another aspect where Republicans, they really need to know the case. They really need to know what these laws say. And every one of these laws has a broad health exception – not just life of the mother, but also physical impairment, including losing a uterus is obviously a physical impairment. And this woman in South Carolina did get her miscarriage care. Republicans need to be out there aggressively saying that, making the case. And attorney generals need to be making it clear to the attorneys at hospitals and medical facilities what the law actually says because there's a lot of bad advice being given.
AMNA NAWAZ:
I think it's also important to point out though, with miscarriages, which are, excuse me, much more common than we talk about in this country, these are things we have long known, right? That miscarriages can easy result in sepsis, that there is a risk to having a child --
RICH LOWRY:
Yeah, but --
AMNA NAWAZ:
– in America, in particular for Black women who are three times more likely to die because of pregnancy-related issues. And I do--
RICH LOWRY:
But pro-lifers do not oppose miscarriage treatment. Catholic hospitals that refuse on high moral principle to perform abortions will care for miscarriage.
AMNA NAWAZ:
That is true, but in many cases --
RICH LOWRY:
This is a misunderstanding --
AMNA NAWAZ:
--some of those miscarriage cases now have to be litigated on a case by case base.
RICH LOWRY:
But they shouldn't be. There should be clear guidance on this.
PETER ALEXANDER:
The message that carries the day though at the end of the day is not them trying to find the nuance and explain the difference in each state. It's women like Nancy Davis. This is a Black woman in Louisiana who we heard from just this week who learned that her baby, the fetus in her belly, has, is not going to have a skull and would die just days after it's born. As she said, and I think this is one of the most powerful sound bites we heard in the course of the last several weeks, she said, "I have to carry my baby to bury my baby." And it's that messaging that is now being heard across the country as real examples are demonstrated, even where there may be exceptions in those states.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
And there aren't exceptions in all these cases and I think that's the problem. These lawmakers don't even know what's in these laws, which is why you're seeing the DOJ stepping in and trying to enforce federal law that requires health-saving care for federally funded hospitals and sort of battling --
RICH LOWRY:
One of my colleagues--
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
– in places like Idaho.
RICH LOWRY:
--literally read every single one of these laws. And there is a health exception in every single one of these laws, literally.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
I think Merrick Garland would disagree in Idaho at least.
CHUCK TODD:
Rich, the irony here is I had a Republican pollster who's – and I've said this before, I'd say he pulled his hair out, but he doesn't have that much hair anymore – but he's, like, saying, "Fifteen weeks" like Kevin Bacon in Animal House. You know, "Remain calm." He's frustrated because 15 weeks didn't have a majority against. You know, it's not to say it's the most popular position, but it didn't have a majority against, and he's, like, "If they actually let Roberts get the compromise, it would be Democrats having --"
RICH LOWRY:
But that's not--
CHUCK TODD:
"-- a political problem." That's the irony here.
RICH LOWRY:
That's not the Supreme Court's role –
CHUCK TODD:
No, it's not.
RICH LOWRY:
– at all. It doesn’t matter– the Court should faithfully interpret the Constitution. It doesn't matter whether it creates a blue wave, a red wave. It doesn't matter if it puts Republicans in an awkward position because they're scared and confused and don't know how to talk about it. That's not the Court's job.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, they have certainly launched what is a massive political change that we're watching here. You guys were great. We're going to pause this part of the conversation. I want to now thank the panel. We're going to turn to what we learned from Friday's release of the Mar-a-Lago affidavit. The affidavit revealed that there were 184 classified documents in 15 boxes that were recovered in January. Those documents included 67 that were marked "confidential," 92 that were marked "secret," and 25 marked "top secret." The heavily redacted affidavit also revealed that the Justice Department feared there was, quote, "probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found in this month's search." So joining me now is a member of the January 6th Committee, Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Congressman, welcome back to Meet The Press.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER:
Thank you. It's good to be with you.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me start with the affidavit with you. It seems as if, if Justice wanted to charge the former president with a crime, doesn't it appear they already have enough evidence just simply on the mishandling of these classified documents?
REP. ADAM KINZINGER:
Yeah, I mean, look, I'm no expert in, you know, what it takes to indict somebody. You know, I'm a pilot. That's about it. But knowing what I know, I look at this and I go, "My goodness." I mean, Chuck, if any of us in the House of Representatives, who by our election we have, you know, in essence the highest level of security clearance, if any of us walked out intentionally with even one document from the SCIF, which is where we can go see classified documents at. And, you know, our organization came to us, the House came to us and said, "You got to give this document back," and we refused to do it for years, we'd be in real trouble. Not just one document in this case. We know of 180 plus then what was gotten after this search. I mean, the hypocrisy of folks in my party that spent years chanting, "Lock her up," about Hillary Clinton because of some deleted emails or, quote/unquote, "wiping a server," are now out there defending a man who very clearly did not take the national security of the United States to heart. And it'll be up to DOJ whether or not that reaches the level of indictment. But this is disgusting in my mind. And, like, no president should act this way, obviously.
CHUCK TODD:
Look, you're pursuing a different investigation. Whether these documents they withheld are documents that are helpful to your investigation, how are you able to find that out? Is there going to be a broad subpoena that you, your committee issues to get a look at what he was hoarding at Mar-a-Lago?
REP. ADAM KINZINGER:
Yeah, it's not an, it’s not an answer we have at this moment. I think we have to kind of figure out where does this fall? We're not going to get access to documents that are specifically on national security and nothing about January 6th, as an example. We'll never be able to know that. But I think it's important for us to take a look at kind of the broad areas. And if it seems like there may be something that's kind of in a broad area potentially, but again, this is stuff that, you know, from what we understand, may even be beyond what Congress, short of being on a specific committee, would have access to.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, when it, when it comes to what Justice may be looking at, I mean, I go back to: If this were simply about him mishandling classified information and the fact that they're not pursuing that charge, is it, is it fair to assume they're looking at something that would be even more serious than this?
REP. ADAM KINZINGER:
That's my perception. I mean, look, mishandling classified information is one thing, particularly if it was unintentional. You know, if you accidentally did take something home, there may be consequences. but I think you look into the intentionality of that. When you have — what we appear to know just through some of what we've seen, you know, they approached the president, the former president, with things that he had. He claimed he either didn't have them, or claimed he gave them up, any of those kinds of stuff. And we know he didn't. There is intentionality there. I mean, this seems big. And when you, when you look at some of the president's biggest kind of cheerleaders – Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan – have gone kind of silent – that tells you all you need to know, too. Look, it's like they're basically sitting there saying, "You know, we didn't start this fire," and walking away. But, you know, they obviously ignited it. They're the ones that have sat there and told this president everything he did was right, everything he could do would be okay. And they defended him at the beginning of this.
CHUCK TODD:
When it comes to what you guys are getting ready to lay out to the public in September, can you give us a sense of: What are the missing pieces that you didn't have that you feel like the public is going to understand better come September?
REP. ADAM KINZINGER:
Well, I think the missing piece — I think there's going to be a lot of depth that we're able to build, whether it's through these hearings or whether it's through the final report. So if you think about, for instance, the last hearing, the one Elaine Luria and I did, you know, we talked about: What was the president doing during the 187 minutes? Well, we did basically an hour-and-a-half hearing. We probably could have done one that was four or five. So there'll be more depth to some of that, some of the leaks. I think one of the more intriguing things is going to be some of the financing, right, some of the fundraising. The fact that, you know, a vast majority of this money was raised under, quote unquote, "Stop the Steal," with no intention of doing anything to so-called, "Stop a Steal." It was all about just raising money. And people were abused that way. So there's going to be a lot more of that. And I think we have a lot more to find out still about the Secret Service incident. I mean, there's a whole lot – we're still sitting around like, "Why don't we have some of these text messages? Why was some of this stuff hidden?" And I think we'll get answers to that by the time we can present that to the American people.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to get you to respond to something Rich Lowry wrote early this week in an op-ed in The New York Times. And he was talking about the January 6th Committee and sort of the difficulty you may be having in proving a crime. Because he writes this, "Trump engaged in a political offense against our Constitutional system that criminal statutes are ill suited to address no matter how infamous the conduct." Do you agree with that?
REP. ADAM KINZINGER:
No, not at all. Look, I had a lot of respect for Rich Lowry. I still read him on occasion. It's been amazing to watch his pivot from kind of intellectual conservative to, like, this anti-anti-Trumper. So he's against people that are against Trump. He's not necessarily for him. And so he's constantly with this, "Well, there may be not precedence." Of course, there's not precedence. We've never had a president of the United States attempt a coup against the United States of America. So there's no precedence. And if we need a new law, let's get a new law. But I'm quite sure that some of the laws can cover this. The DOJ seems very convinced of it. And secondarily, Rich, our job is not to prosecute Trump. Our job is to present information to the American people, to talk about recommendations. Here's what I recommend. And I'm going to say this even before the report. I recommend we never again elect somebody who does not respect the Constitution of the United States, who does not respect the voters, and who abuses people by lying to them. That is Donald Trump. And people can be anti those that are against Donald Trump. But we're not against Donald Trump for any personal reasons, except we love the United States of America. And he is tearing it down daily.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to ask you a quick political question. This week, we saw the primaries in Florida and New York, that special election in New York. I want to read you something Matthew Continetti wrote about the abortion issue and the Republican Party. He noted, "The Journal's op-ed page says the GOP has an abortion problem. And the problem? Republicans have no idea what to say about abortion." Do you agree essentially with that sentiment, and that this may have changed the political complexion of the midterms?
REP. ADAM KINZINGER:
I think it's definitely changed the complexion of the midterms some. I don't know how big. Look, I've always taken the position of rape, incest, life of the mother, and, you know, certain weeks up until 15 weeks or whatever. And that was actually a fairly common thing in the Republican Party. Even Donald Trump said, "Rape, incest, life of the mother exceptions." And now you've been seeing these Republicans go, "There is absolutely no exception," because somehow in the Republican Party, the crueler you are, the more likely you are to win a primary. So Blake Masters, for instance, can erase his website all he wants and now pretend like he's some soft on this guy. But he isn't. Because he used it to win a primary. And so yeah, I think Republicans are in real trouble because we have no leadership. This is the problem, Chuck. So Kevin McCarthy isn't leading. He's asking, "What does Marjorie Taylor Greene want me to do?" Mitch McConnell's just trying to save the Senate. He's probably not going to do that. We have no leaders. And no wonder our base basically believes everything Donald Trump says.
CHUCK TODD:
I'm just curious. Liz Cheney said that in some cases she may have to help a Democrat win against sort of an anti-democracy Republican. Do you feel that's what you're going to be doing over the next couple of years yourself?
REP. ADAM KINZINGER:
Yes. Yeah, I mean, look, the biggest issue – not everybody agrees with me, certainly in my party. And even Democrats like to say things like, "Well, but you're still a conservative." Yeah, I'm a conservative. But the bottom line is: The biggest threat right now to our country is democracy. And if you have Republicans that are running against even left-wing Democrats that believe in democracy and believe in voting, that person should be elected over somebody who basically would overthrow the will of the people and ultimately destroy this country. This country cannot survive outside of democracy. It'll turn into a power struggle between groups of different races, of different ethnicities, of different religions. Because the thing that holds us together is this belief that we can self-govern. Take that away, this country's a mess. And so Republicans that are for that have no place in office. I don't care what their policy position on taxes are.
CHUCK TODD:
Adam Kinzinger, Republican from Central Illinois. Congressman Kinzinger, thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective with us, sir.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER:
You bet. Good seeing you.
CHUCK TODD:
When we come back, how secure is that threatened nuclear plant in Ukraine? And who's responsible for the car bombing death of a Putin ally in Russia? Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul both join me next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, is set to visit that endangered nuclear power plant in Ukraine this week. Fighting around the plant has sparked fears of a nuclear catastrophe and people in the region are now being given iodine pills in -- to help prevent radiation-induced cancers in case of a nuclear disaster. What was supposed to be a lightning fast Russian military victory, of course, has run into a ferocious Ukrainian defense. And it has now turned into a bloody stalemate on the front lines after six months of war. So, joining me now are former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. Gentlemen, our experts on this -- in this area, I appreciate having you both. Jim, let me start with you and Zaporizhzhia and the nuclear plant. We've talked about this before. At what point is there no longer hope that Russia and Ukraine work this out, but that the United States or NATO needs to step in and protect this plant?
JAMES STAVRIDIS:
We're getting closer by the day, Chuck. Unfortunately, what really concerns me here is the fact that we don't have to imagine how bad this can be. It happened in 1986 in Chernobyl. It happened about a decade ago in Fukushima, Japan. We're looking at billions and billions of dollars, potentially thousands of lives, if this core is breached due to, in this case, an act of war. So, the good news here, Chuck, is that the IAEA you mentioned a moment ago appears close to getting a mission, potentially led, by the way, by the head of the IAEA, an esteemed scientist, himself, into the plant. But so far the Russians are dug in here, and they've got three things that they want. They want to use this nuclear plant as a sanctuary to conduct attacks. They want to cut off 20% of Ukraine's electricity. And above all, they want to scare the Europeans. They want a cloud to hang over European thinking on this, pun intended.
CHUCK TODD:
Right. Mike, I want to talk about Putin's decision this week to expand the size of his military, but not launch a draft. He continues to walk this line, it seems, for fear of upsetting his own population. But, but what does that say that he felt the need to find more troops?
MICHAEL McFAUL:
I think, first and foremost, it says, Chuck, that he has not won this war, that the strategic objectives that he outlined six months ago, he's failed on all of them. Remember, six months ago, he said he was going to unite Ukrainians and Russians because Ukrainians are just Russians with accents. He failed at that. He failed at denazification. He failed at demilitarization. He failed to take the capital of Kyiv. And now he's just fighting in Donetsk and in Kherson. And now he needs to bring new troops just to fight in that stalemated situation. So, on the strategic level, I think he's failed in this war. I don't see him recovering, but he stills wants to focus on taking Donbas. That is his new objective and he needs new soldiers to do that.
CHUCK TODD:
Mike, I want to stay with you a minute here and Putin's political situation. The car bombing of a political ally. There is all sorts of speculation, you know, from false flag to a either unauthorized or authorized Ukrainian operation. But isn't the simplest explanation that maybe it's Russians unhappy? And if that's the case, how lethal is that to the future of Vladimir Putin?
MICHAEL McFAUL:
Well, first, back to your earlier question, that's why he can't do a draft across the board, because that would make Russians unhappy. Second, we don't know who killed Darya Dugina. I want to be clear. There's lots of speculation about it. But immediately after she was attacked, a Russian partisan group, the National Republican Army -- I had never heard of them, Chuck, and I know all of these obscure groups in Russia -- came out with a manifesto saying that this was part of a partisan war to overthrow Putin. And then a former parliamentary -- an MP, Ilya Ponomarev is his name, the only Russian to vote against annexation of Crimea back in 2014, sitting in Kyiv, published their manifesto. Again, I can't say -- I can’t conclude that it's true or not, but the idea that it exists is something -- a new development in this war.
CHUCK TODD:
Yes, domestic problems. If this is being brought to Moscow, that has got to be troubling to Putin. Jim, let me go from the Ukrainian side of things. Winter is coming, and I'm not just doing that to promote tonight's next episode of House of Dragon. What does the Ukrainian military need to accomplish before winter sets in?
JAMES STAVRIDIS:
Well, if they could get a dragon and call Dracarys and flame throw the Russians, that would be a big help. I don't think that's going to happen. What they need to accomplish is exactly what is happening. Take these excellent weapons we are giving them, not quite dragons, but HIMARS, long-range cruise missiles that can reach out and touch the Black Sea fleet. Continue these behind enemy lines operations that are starting to look like shots out of Mission Impossible. The Ukrainian offensive, I think, is going to kick off in earnest after Labor Day, Chuck. They're aware that the world wakes up after Labor Day, they want to show they've got the ability to go on the offense. Look for that next.
CHUCK TODD:
And are we at -- both -- this is a final question of both of you. It -- Mike, it seems as if the Russians are preparing for a years-long conflict. And Jim, it seems as if Ukraine knows it can't do years-long conflict. So, Mike, how do you view this? How do you see this ending? And then, Jim, finally to you. So, Mike, you first.
MICHAEL McFAUL:
That's right, Chuck, the Ukrainians don't want it to be a years-long conflict. It costs a lot. Five billion a year they're getting from the west. They'll eventually run out of resources, military, these HIMARS that Admiral Stavridis was just talking about. That's why they want to go on the offensive in the south. The city of Kherson is what they want to take. They want to push the Russians out for the first time. With respect to the Russians, they think time is on their side and they think the longer the war goes, it'll play to their advantage. And Putin right now is focusing on trying to take Donbas. What's striking to me, Chuck, is he's been focused on trying to take Donbas for six months and still hasn't achieved that objective. That says to me that maybe Putin is wrong about time being on his side.
CHUCK TODD:
Jim?
JAMES STAVRIDIS:
I'll pick up Ambassador McFaul's points. I think he's, he’s right on. Above my head is the game of Risk. Both sides are playing it. Putin, I think, has got a burn rate in people, in equipment that is frankly higher than the Ukrainians. Ukrainians are going to count on patience from the West. I'll take that side of the game of Risk, the one that the Ukrainians hold.
CHUCK TODD:
That is quite the signage that you have behind your head there. That's a cool, old-school looking version of that game that, for some of us, was a staple, between that and Stratego. Anyway, Jim Stavridis, Mike McFaul, as always, I appreciate both of you being on here and sharing your expertise. When we come back, President Biden's decision to forgive up to $20,000 in student debt. If it's such good politics, why are so many Democrats unhappy about it? We'll be back in a moment.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. Part two of the panel, if you will. And we're going to start, Peter, with the decision by President Biden to cancel the student debt. And I say decision -- what's interesting is it was months to get him to this.
PETER ALEXANDER:
Yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
Here we are, and it is Democrats that are divided amongst themselves about whether this was a good idea.
PETER ALEXANDER:
Yes, I think that's right. So, the progressives obviously wanted it to be $50,000. Tim Ryan, up for the Senate seat in Ohio right now, is basically saying, you know, this was the wrong decision. You don't need to be helping --
CHUCK TODD:
Let me put up the names. I mean, it's a who's who of some Democrats on the ballot right now that have hit it. You mentioned Ryan, it sends the wrong message. Michael Bennet: "It doesn't solve the underlying problem." Catherine Cortez Masto: "Doesn't address the root problem." Jared Golden in a swing district in Maine; Chris Pappas, swing district in New Hampshire. Anybody in a swing district or a swing state didn't seem to love this.
PETER ALEXANDER:
Yeah no, that's exactly right. I mean, this is going to cost $250 billion to $550 billion, depending who you talk to right now. Even Goldman Sachs says that it won't be inflationary, but it's a challenging message for the Democrats to sort of defend right now in front of a lot of people, working class Americans, who they say they're benefiting here. There's some new ads that are out already running in parts of the country where you see, you know, a mechanic and you see others basically saying --
CHUCK TODD:
You're, like, playing producer for me. Let me show the ad --
PETER ALEXANDER:
Okay.
CHUCK TODD:
-- instead of you describing it, let's play it.
PETER ALEXANDER:
Good.
[BEGIN TAPE]
MAN:
I'm breaking my back out here for one reason. I want to pay off some other guy's debt.
WOMAN:
Biden's plan to pay other people's college loans using my tax dollars is a great idea.
MAN:
Biden's right. You should take my tax dollars to pay off your debts. My family will figure out how to get by with less.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Now, Amna, the White House pushback on this is, "Oh, you have PPP loans.”
AMNA NAWAZ:
Yeah. yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
Right? That's their pushback.
AMNA NAWAZ:
I mean, it's clear this issue has brought out the snark on both sides, right?
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah.
AMNA NAWAZ:
That was unusually troll-y for the White House too, I'd say, to do that. And I actually asked Senator John Thune about that and he said, "That's not what this is about at all. We're talking about apples and oranges." And look, the unfairness message, I think, is one you're going to see Republicans lean into again and again. Democrats in swing districts, as you mentioned. And the people who say this doesn't solve the underlying problem are absolutely right. It does not bring down the soaring cost --
CHUCK TODD:
They didn't even attempt --
AMNA NAWAZ:
-- of college. Not even a little bit. But it will make a difference in millions of Americans' lives. And it will make some difference. If the average college debt is around $30,000, it's making a huge dent. It will disproportionately impact low income families, Black and brown people in America. The question is does it make a difference in the longer term and does it bring them out to vote.
CHUCK TODD:
My political question for the two of you is -- I think this plays out as following: If you benefit from this, you'll never forget. If you're upset about it, you'll probably move on to something else in a week.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
I think that that's absolutely right. And I think both on the political and the policy side it's important. First of all, this is something Joe Biden promised to do on the campaign trail. He said immediately. A year plus in is not exactly immediately, but he's doing it. But it has to be paired, as you said, exactly right, this doesn't get to the bottom of the issue -- soaring costs of of education. And I think people get the idea that people should not be saddled with debt for the rest of their lives based on trying to better themselves and that you have to get to the affordability and you have to get to the, the the racial wealth gap that this exacerbates and move beyond that. I don't think that people would say, "Why is that guy -- why is the fire department putting that guy's house fire out when my house isn't on fire?" That's a terrible way to try to --
CHUCK TODD:
Now the courts, the courts may --
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
-- message all this.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
-- the courts may say, "Sorry, you can't do this," and they throw it back to the Congress.
RICH LOWRY:
Yeah, that’s a --
CHUCK TODD:
That's always possible.
RICH LOWRY:
That's what I was going to go to. I think the first order of business on this for me is for the president of the United States unilaterally to spend maybe, could be $500 billion, could go up to a trillion, to spend that much money on his own, with no clear Congressional authority whatsoever, is a grotesque abuse of power. I don't care what the politics or the, the policy are. The question is: Can someone get standing against it, you know, demonstrating some direct harm. But if someone does get standing, this thing will be slammed in the Supreme Court. Yes, Biden promised to do it, and he wanted Congress to do it --
CHUCK TODD:
Right.
RICH LOWRY:
-- which everyone else thought was necessary until the day before yesterday.
CHUCK TODD:
Right, which I think even Speaker Pelosi and Joe Biden both seemed to hint at that. All right, I want to shift. Speaking of the White House getting aggressive, Amna, President Biden used the F -- he's not -- he’s used the F-word before, but he used another F-word.
AMNA NAWAZ:
Clearly.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah, I know. And the F-word I'm talking about is fascism.
AMNA NAWAZ:
Yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
And look, that's quite aggressive.
AMNA NAWAZ:
It is, and especially for the president. It's something we've heard within Democratic ranks before. And look, I do think he's being responsive to some degree because we have seen concerns over threats to democracy go up in terms of voter concerns, in terms of what people are paying attention to.
CHUCK TODD:
Tops in our poll.
AMNA NAWAZ:
Certainly after the public hearings of the January 6th Committee. And I also think the more we get information about some of these classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, this continues to kind of rise on people's radars. And this is the president reacting to that and kind of meeting his voters where they are.
PETER ALEXANDER:
And you know, Chuck, what's interesting about this, when he has, as you described, used the word semi-fascism to describe the MAGA philosophy this week, let's go back to March, when he was in Poland, and he said of Vladimir Putin that he couldn't stay in power. And that became controversial. The White House, you know, backpedaled on that and walked that back. There's no backpedaling on this. It's clear that there's a more aggressive strategy. We talked about the way that they were handling the debate over student loans --
CHUCK TODD:
Do you think he actually soft-pedaled it? Do you think someone said, “You should say 'fascism,'” and he said, “I'm going to say” --
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
I'm going to say “semi” --
CHUCK TODD:
-- “semi-fascism.”
PETER ALEXANDER:
When I spoke to aides, this wasn't a, this wasn't a teleprompter speech.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah.
PETER ALEXANDER:
This is what he's been thinking.
CHUCK TODD:
Right.
PETER ALEXANDER:
They say he said it out loud. This was done not on camera. But it -- it fires up Democrats. It juices up the base because they want to see him be more aggressive on that. But it also does, you know, it does become problematic because, you know, this is a guy who said he wanted to be a unifier.
CHUCK TODD:
Here's my issue, just as a political science geek, does anybody know the definition of socialism and fascism and all of this when we start to throw these words out there? But anyway, we’re -- it's going to be tossed out there. The -- is the anti-democracy message helping Democrats?
RICH LOWRY:
I think the anti-Trump message helps. To the extent they can make Trump front and center, it helps two political entities in the United States of America: the Democratic Party and Donald Trump. And this is true of the FBI search in Mar-a-Lago. Maybe the effect will wear off over time, but it has bonded Republican voters to, to Donald Trump when they had been slowly falling away from him. And it's in part because, and you know, I'm very comprehensively pro-law enforcement, but there's a sheen now of radical doubt about any sort of investigation of, of this sort. And I, I will not believe anything about these documents myself until I basically get a top secret clearance, get to go into a SCIF, and look at them myself.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
But I think it’s --
RICH LOWRY:
-- because with Russia, there are so many leaks that were spun up --
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
But listen, going back to --
RICH LOWRY:
-- with so much hysteria --
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
-- the first part of your point about whether it's anti-fascism or anti-Trump, I think you can't separate those two. And I think even for a lot of Republicans, particularly after the January 6th committee, they have been feeling that. There has been a fatigue. There has been an idea that this is not helping anyone. And there is a push to move away from that.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. Well, I'm going to have to end it here because I've got to go to the moon. When we come back, first, we're going to talk to you about the midterms are usually a referendum on the party in power. But what if it's the party out of power that gets punished for the Supreme Court? That's next.
CHUCK TODD:’
Welcome back. Data Download time. The midterms, usually a referendum on the party in power in Washington. And that tends to mean the White House and Congress. But this summer has brought a lot of attention to the party that's in power in the third branch of government, the judiciary. And the latest NBC News poll shows a lot of lost faith in the Supreme Court following its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Let me show you. At the start of this new 6-3 majority court, the public was giving the benefit of the doubt, plus 25, positive over negative. Now, as you can see, the negative number in particular has more than doubled. And now, the Supreme Court is like every other institution here in Washington: underwater. And it's really across the board, as you can see. Look, across the demographic groups, the Court had net-positive ratings before the Dobbs decision. Now, if you look at this, men underwater by a point. Women, by double digits. Younger folks, by double digits. Really, only older Gen X and younger boomers are still positive on this court, but even their numbers have dropped quite a bit. And if you look at it by party, you can see: 60-point swing among Democrats to the negative, 40-plus-point swing to the Independents, negative. Even Republicans dropped a little bit. There's really only one part of the Republican coalition that is happy about this court. It won't surprise you: Evangelical Christians. Because in many ways, this decision was one that this voting group cared about more than any other part of the Republican Party, plus 35 points. The problem for Republicans is it’s not a big enough group to overcome all the negative with swing voters. When we come back, look who's going back to the moon. My talk with NASA chief Bill Nelson about our goals to fly to the moon and beyond.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. America is getting back in the moon business. NASA’s Artemis I is scheduled to lift off tomorrow morning from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This unmanned flight is to orbit the moon in preparation for landings on the moon and beyond, and it’s supposed to orbit for over a month. This past week, I spoke with former senator and current NASA administrator Bill Nelson, who as a member of the House back in the ‘80s flew on the space shuttle Columbia. And I began by asking Nelson why it’s taken us so long to return to the moon.
BILL NELSON:
We had to focus that we need to be on the moon for much longer periods of time than just landing like we used to, stayed a couple of days and left. This time we're going back, we're going to live there, we're going to learn there. We're going to develop new technologies, all of this so we can go to Mars with humans.
CHUCK TODD:
And the point – when you say we're going to live on the moon. Are we living there as scientists or is the goal we're going to end up living there?
BILL NELSON:
I don't think in the short run we're going to live there. I think all of this is to develop where we may be living on other worlds. They may be floating worlds, they may be the surface of Mars. But this is just part of our push outward, our quest to explore, to find out what's out there in this universe.
CHUCK TODD:
This Artemis I, it's been, it's been a big project in the making. It's taken years, there's the usual delays that you have. If this doesn't work, what does that mean for NASA?
BILL NELSON:
Well, it's going to work. This first flight is a test. We test it, we stress it. We make this rocket and the spacecraft do things that we would never do with a human crew. The main purpose of the flight is to test the heat shield because you can’t test that in a lab. So if the heat shield survives and does what it is expected to do, it's a successful test. So then we're ready in two years.
CHUCK TODD:
You've made it clear, you're stress testing it. Meaning you may push this to the limit where it looks like an accident. But if it is, that's not necessarily a failure.
BILL NELSON:
You can expect in a test flight that everything is not going to go as you expect it to. That's part of a test flight. That's part of, for example, developing aircraft. That's why you have a test pilot. But we're pretty confident about this.
CHUCK TODD:
NASA, for the last 30 years, has had a pretty successful partnership with Russia. Obviously, it is – seems to look like it's going to split up. You have been Mr. Optimism. You're basically – it seems as if you're ignoring the rhetoric, and assuming as soon as the war's over, things will go back to normal. Why are you so optimistic?
BILL NELSON:
Well, let me say at the outset that what Putin has done in Ukraine is inexcusable. It's a slaughter. It's, it's awful. But we were squared off against each other with the Soviet Union in the Cold War. And yet, we had American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts rendezvoused and docked and live together in Apollo-Soyuz in the midst of the Cold War, 1975. And that cooperative civilian space program relationship has continued all the way to this day. And despite the horrors that are going on in Ukraine, the professionalism, the relationship between the astronauts and the cosmonauts on board the International Space Station, as well as our two mission controls, one in Houston, one in Moscow, it doesn’t miss a beat.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. So let's turn to China. China's got an aggressive space program, and yet they seem to want nothing to do with anybody. Why is that?
BILL NELSON:
Because they're very secretive. They don't want any kind of cooperation, they are non- transparent. They send their rockets to blast their ASAT, and they put all of this space junk that hinders –
CHUCK TODD:
Are they rushing things? Like when you watch them from afar, does it look like they're so insistent in trying to catch up to us that they're rushing and cutting corners?
BILL NELSON:
They're not cutting corners, they are good. And they've gotten a lot of the technology from everybody else. And as a result, they're very good. But we have offered, “Come on and start cooperating with us.” They just don't want to do that. And you see that as evidence in our government to government relations with the Chinese. You see that, for example, they go out and they take the Spratly Islands and say, “This is our territory –”
CHUCK TODD:
How are we going to prevent that from the moon? Because I was thinking about is the moon going to turn into the South China Sea? Where when China gets up there, we're up there, is it going to be a land grab?
BILL NELSON:
Well, we have to be careful about that. And that's what I've said all along, that we're in a space race. And we want to get to the south pole of the moon where the resources are, where we think water is. If there's water, there's rocket fuel. And we don't want China suddenly getting there and saying, “This is our exclusive territory.” That's what they did with the Spratly Islands.
CHUCK TODD:
One last question on the Space Force. There's always been a military component. First the Army, then the Air Force, now Space Force. How has things changed, and does Space Force do launches that we're probably not aware of all the time?
BILL NELSON:
For the defense of the country, both defensive and offensive, space has become the next battleground. It's the high ground. And what you've seen is not only satellites that give us early warning of any attack on Earth, including a nuclear attack. But you've seen the eyes and ears for us to have some certainty of what our adversaries are doing. Those assets now, because of the development of technology, are being challenged. And therefore there are other assets that are developed in order to prevent those challenges. So space is the high ground that you want to retain. And that's why you're seeing, as you suggest, the Space Force becoming a major part of our national defense system.
CHUCK TODD:
Now, we said that tomorrow's flight is unmanned. That's still technically true. But on the voyage will be a Snoopy stuffie, if you will, which will indicate zero gravity when astronaut Snoopy starts to float. And there will be mannequins as well. Think of them as crash test dummies or what NASA calls, "moonequins." Anyway, good luck, NASA. And if it's not tomorrow, a couple other weather windows next Friday and next Monday. That's all we have for today. Thank you for watching. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.