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Meet the Press - December 18, 2022

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.), Mayor Karen Bass (D), Eugene Daniels, Former Rep. Donna Edwards, Stephen Hayes, Carol Lee

CHUCK TODD:

This Sunday: criminal charges? The January 6th committee is considering voting on at least three criminal charges against Donald Trump.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN:

Donald Trump’s role was far more central to these events than merely inciting them.

CHUCK TODD:

The committee could recommend the Justice Department charge Trump for the potential crimes of insurrection, obstruction and conspiracy.

REP. LIZ CHENEY:

Each of these efforts to overturn the election is independently serious. Each deserves attention both by Congress and by our Department of Justice.

CHUCK TODD:

And border surge: Migrants are gathering at the border in record numbers with the Covid-era border policy known as Title 42 set to expire.

SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI:

To secure our border is our responsibility.

CHUCK TODD:

Federal officials are now bracing for more illegal crossings.

REP. KEVIN McCARTHY:

They have ignored the problem. They have created the problem. And they have played politics with the problem.

CHUCK TODD:

My guests this morning: Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who’s considering a run for president in 2024. Plus, problem solving: Karen Bass, the new mayor of Los Angeles declares a state of emergency on homelessness on her very first day in office.

MAYOR KAREN BASS:

It is a humanitarian crisis.

CHUCK TODD:

I'll talk to the mayor about her plans to break through the bureaucracy and solve this big problem in America's second-largest city. Finally, the lives we lost. Remembering the legends in 2022 from Queen Elizabeth and Madeleine Albright to Bernie Shaw and Sidney Poitier, and sadly many more. Joining me for insight and analysis are: NBC News White House Correspondent Carol Lee; Politico "Playbook" co-author Eugene Daniels; Stephen Hayes, editor of The Dispatch; and former Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards. 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:

And a good Sunday morning. As we wrap up the year and prepare to enter a new one, entrenched political warfare has shifted our playing field just inches. Both parties are still struggling with the same problems they've had for the last few years. This Congress and the next one are two of the most closely divided in the past century. Republicans will have just a ten seat majority in the House, and the Senate has moved from a 50-50 Senate controlled by Democrats via a VP tiebreaker, to a 51-49 split. Not exactly a mandate for the Democrats. After a disappointing midterm cycle, Republican leaders are the ones under fire right now. The head of the Republican National Committee is mired in a bitter fight over who will lead the party. Kevin McCarthy is scrambling to get the votes he needs to be Speaker of the House, saying hardliners on the right have not moved and it may put the agenda in jeopardy. And then there's Donald Trump, running again after losing — and in more legal trouble. A major announcement this week bordered on self-parody — it was an infomercial for digital trading cards of himself selling for $99. It was even too much for former adviser Steve Bannon to defend. Democrats, meanwhile, may have a false sense of security, acting like they won the midterms, but they did lose the House and they did lose the popular vote. President Biden's approval rating is stuck where it was a year ago — in the low to mid 40s. In many ways, their successes in the midterms came, perhaps, only because of the excesses of the Trump right. This is the backdrop for the current immigration debate over the end of Title 42, the Covid-era policy that allowed officials to expel migrants from U.S. borders quickly, a crisis that has been mired in government inaction. In fact, some Democrats have criticized all of Washington for not doing more over two administrations.

[START TAPE]

MAYOR MICHAEL HANCOCK:

The reality is that government has not been up to the task. Partisan politics have gotten in the way.

REP. HENRY CUELLAR:

Who’s listening to the men and women in green and blue? And more importantly, who's listening to our border communities?

REP. VICENTE GONZALEZ:

I've actually written letters to the President asking him not to lift Title 42. I mean, we're still not completely out of a pandemic.

GOV.GAVIN NEWSOM:

There's no question in my mind that we are not prepared for a post-Title 42 world and we need to reconcile the fact that the federal government is not committed to comprehensive reform.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown is the only Democrat to win statewide in Ohio in the past decade. By the way, he did announce that he's running for a fourth term in 2024. Senator Brown, welcome back to Meet the Press.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

Good to be back, thank you.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me start with Title 42, and I’d like you to respond to what Governor Newsom said here. He thinks it's pretty clear, regardless of what we -- you think of the policy as it stands, and whether it should have been used or not, do you agree with him that essentially government's not ready for a post-Title 42 world at the border yet?

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

Well, I heard – quoting Chuck Todd, who 90 seconds ago said, government’s -- Congress is mired in, I think you said “mired in government inaction.” I think that's, that’s really the issue here that maybe, maybe, maybe, with this new Republican House and Democratic Senate, we finally get serious about immigration reform and quit demagoguing this issue by pointing fingers and, and say that disaster is about to happen. I think that the administration will figure this out short-term, but it's clear we've got to get serious as a body, and it's going to take both parties. And instead of trying to gain on bashing immigrants or gain on appealing to new citizens, whatever, we've got to get serious about that.

CHUCK TODD:

Can you give me any insight? You know, I've talked with others that said Senators Sinema and Tillis were close. This sort of compromise bill which would've finally helped create a path to legalization for DACA recipients. It would've given some new authority to DHS that was similar to Title 42. It seemed like the perfect compromise. What, what killed it?

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

Oh, I don’t, I don’t -- I think it was probably looking across -- I can't speak for Senator Sinema or Senator Tillis – but probably looking across the Capitol and seeing the chaos in the House right now, that even if we were able to do something in the Senate. But I appreciated their focus on DACA, on the Dreamer kids who essentially are Americans except for the paperwork. And it's really important we focus on them first. And, I mean, our national security, of course, our domestic security. But those -- that those kids have been waiting, and it's, it’s just terrible that we've not moved as a body.

CHUCK TODD:

Look, you, you brought up, I think rightfully, the issue of how it gets demagogue, the issue of immigration. I think about the state you represent. And you're going to be running for reelection in 2024. You know there's a lot of folks in the middle who are not very empathetic to, to what's happening at the border. How do you change the tone of that conversation to get them to accept the compromise like the one that Sinema and Tillis were trying to put together?

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

Oh, I think they will. I think my voters in Ohio are reasonable. And I -- we're a, we’re a slightly lean Republican state now. I don’t, I don't hear a lot about immigration from voters except people on the far right that always want to gain political advantage by talking about it. I see serious-minded -- when serious-minded people talk to me about immigration, they're looking for something like Thom and Kyrsten are suggesting. And I think that there is -- they're also emphasizing the Dreamer kids, the DACA kids who, as I said, are essentially Americans except for the paperwork.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me shift gears to something you're also very focused on right now, which is, as head of the Senate Banking Committee, it's what to do about crypto, and what we've learned from FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried. I've got to play what the U.S. attorney from the Southern District of New York said earlier this week. Let me play that for you.

[BEGIN TAPE]

DAMIAN WILLIAMS:

I think it's fair to say that by anyone's license, this is one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

And a big part of this financial fraud is how much, frankly, Sam Bankman-Fried, his executives, FTX, took advantage of political parties' hunger for campaign contributions and essentially used political donations to create the illusion of credibility for what many people think is a Ponzi scheme. I know probably where your head is on this. But my goodness, that's a huge vulnerability in our system, is it not?

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

Of course it is. And too much money in politics, too much unreported cash in politics. But FTX is only one -- a huge part -- but one part of this problem. You originally said I chair the Banking Committee. When I took over almost two years ago as chair, it was called the Banking Committee because it essentially was the committee for Wall Street. And the whole name, Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, we have aggressively taken on Wall Street. This committee's about housing. It's about public transit, what we've done in, in small towns and big cities in my state and around the country. And we -- this is -- we had our sixth hearing on crypto to educate the public about its dangers, not just the Ponzi scheme that you talk about, and not just the lack of consumer protection or regulation, but also the threat to national security from Korean cyber criminals to drug trafficking and human trafficking and terror -- financing of terrorism and all the things that can come out of crypto. So, we've got to do this right. I have already gone to the Secretary of Treasury as sort of the lead economics person in the administration, asked her to do a government-wide assessment through all the various regulatory agencies. SEC is particularly aggressive, and we need to move forward that way and legislatively if it comes to that. But I've spent much of the last year and a half in this job as chair of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, educating my colleagues and trying to educate the public about crypto and the dangers that it presents to our security as a nation and to consumers that get hoodwinked by them.

CHUCK TODD:

Are you at all concerned that if government decides crypto should be regulated, it's actually giving a green light to something that maybe some folks ought to -- think ought to be banned? Senator Tester isn't sure it should be legal.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

Yeah, I share that thought. I think though that what we need to do now is, as I said, get Treasury -- to get all the different agencies -- the agencies so far that have stepped up the most are Gensler at SEC and Russ Benham at the Commodities Future Trading Commission -- that's a more narrow jurisdiction he has. But we want them to do what they need to do at the same time – maybe banning it, although banning it is very difficult because it will go offshore and who knows how that will work. So this is a complicated, unregulated pot of money, it's been in so many ways. I mean, Sam Bankman-Fried was at one point worth, they said, $30 billion, and now he's worth probably less than zero and may very well face jail time. But FTX is not the whole issue. That's what the focus started in our committee but we really broadened it to discuss all the other -- in every other nook and cranny in our economy where are these people rear their heads.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me ask you a couple political questions. Do you think the party, Democratic Party, should support Senator Kyrsten Synema’s re-election bid in 2024?

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

Well, she has said she's not in the Democratic Party. I assume a Democrat will run for that seat, and then it plays out. I'm less interested and focused on Arizona politics --

CHUCK TODD:

I understand.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

-- than I am my own, and I know what we need to do in Ohio to win. And a message not of, not of “workers are on the agenda,” but “workers are the agenda.” And I think if our party would focus on that a little more, we'd win more seats.

CHUCK TODD:

And let me -- that final question is: Why do you think you're going to be able to find 50% plus one in the state of Ohio? Your good friend Tim Ryan came up short. It's a state that feels like it continues to drift to the right here than even when you were on the ballot in 2018.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

Well, I mean, I won by seven -- last two elections, I won by six and then seven points. I win because I focus on workers. I look at the last 18 months as huge accomplishments – what we did with Senator Portman on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the strongest Buy America provisions ever in federal law; what we did on the PACT Act to help those veterans with 23 different diagnosed illnesses, will get coverage, those veterans exposed in Iraq and Afghanistan to those football-field-size burn pits; the Inflation Reduction Act, taking on drug companies. I mean, this was a, this was a year and a half of great accomplishments. I'll take those home. The voters overwhelmingly support, I believe, all of those, those positions that we took and issues we passed to deliver. Not to mention the child tax credit, not to mention 100,000 Ohio union members have had their pensions protected. I mean, all of those things. I know that sounds like campaign speech, but you asked for it, Chuck. That's how I'll win.

CHUCK TODD:

I asked, you know, in fairness, I did. I asked a campaign question so I'm going to get a campaign answer. Finally, let me ask you about what we expect to hear from the January 6th Committee tomorrow, making formal criminal referrals to the Justice Department. Do you think that's necessary? Do you think that that's helpful or hurtful to what the Justice Department is currently doing with the former president and January 6th?

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

I'm not a lawyer, but you follow the law and you follow the evidence and it's pretty clear that the Congressman from Mississippi and the Congresswoman from Wyoming have done both of those things, and the others on the committee of both parties, the Republican from Illinois, the Democrat from Cali -- all of them -- from Maryland. And so I, I support what they're doing. I think they've shown courage. They've stood up, in some cases, to their own political party and stood up to a president who has clearly flouted, or worse, the law. So I applaud their efforts.

CHUCK TODD:

Senator Brown, before I let you go, are you guys going to be able to pass a budget before Christmas? Or are you coming back between Christmas and New Year's to wrap things up?

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

No, we're coming back Monday, we'll finish in the next few days. And the country will be better off because we've done it right.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, I hope for the sake of all of your families that you are able to get home for Christmas. Senator Brown --

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

Thanks, appreciate it --

CHUCK TODD:

-- appreciate you coming on and sharing your views. And enjoy the holiday season.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN:

Of course. Thank you.

CHUCK TODD:

And joining me now for some perspective from the other side of the aisle is Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who is serving his final days as governor, a successful two terms that he has had there. Governor Hutchinson, welcome back to Meet the Press.

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON:

Thank you, Chuck. Great to be with you this morning.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me start with something The Wall Street Journal editorialized about this weekend. And they're very frustrated watching the House Republicans — and frankly, Senate Republicans not work very well with House Republicans. And they write this: "The GOP dysfunction since Election Day won't matter if it teaches Republicans that their only chance of influencing policy is to stay united. On the evidence so far, however, Republicans are the gang that couldn't shoot straight, except at one another." Do you disagree with anything they wrote there?

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON:

Well, I certainly agree that the Republican Party has to come together; one, to elect a speaker. The American people put the Republicans in charge of the House. We have to operate as a team. We're expected to unite together as Republicans in the House and Senate. So absolutely, that point is well taken. We have to come together to be successful. And then secondly, we have to stop focusing on each other within our caucus or our party, and let's focus on the failures of the Biden administration, which we're about to see once again when Title 42 is lifted. So we’ve got an immigration crisis, we’ve got challenges with our economy that aren't going to change in the short-term. And so that's what we have to focus on.

CHUCK TODD:

Look, you've actually had to deal with a similar problem at times, even in your state. There's a small faction in your party that seems to have outsize influence. You see it at the RNC. We're seeing it in the speaker fight for Kevin McCarthy. We're even seeing it with a challenge to Senator McConnell. Two-thirds of the party does sort of speak with the same voice you're speaking with, but one-third seems to hold the rest of them hostage. Why is that?

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON:

Well, sometimes we fail in leadership. And so Republican leadership should not be listening simply to the loudest voice in the room, because it is a minority, because it might be extreme. And so let's get back to working for middle America. That's leadership, that's not yielding. And so when you look at Kevin McCarthy, you know, he’s got to win just simply because you can't yield to that loudest voice that's disruptive, that could bring our party — in terms of the strength of our House leadership — down. And so you’ve got to be strong. And whenever I ran I had somebody with a loud voice that ran against me for reelection in the primary, and I won with 70% of the vote. That means 30%, close to it, didn't like the views that I had, but that's the majority that we won with. We were able to accomplish a great deal with that. That's how we have to lead as Republicans.

CHUCK TODD:

I know, can you imagine that you couldn't take office unless you had 100% of the Republican Party supporting you before you could take office? That's what Kevin McCarthy is facing, isn't it?

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON:

Well, it is. And we have a diverse party, and you have to embrace the diversity. But at the same time, you know, if you're not going to operate as a team on certain fundamental levels, like being able to elect the leader of our party in the House, then we're failing the American people. And so we have to come together so we can then get the important work done of looking at the border security issue, to looking at controlling federal spending that's adding to inflation. And also, enforcing the rule of law, which the failure to do that is leading to crime in our streets, and really lack the confidence in public safety. These are the fundamental issues that we're good at, and we just need to get through the leadership part, and we'll be effective next year on this.

CHUCK TODD:

Look, you're thinking about running for president in 2024, and if you become the nominee you're the leader of the party. And I'm curious, if you were leader of the party right now, how would you deal with somebody who says the following? And I want to play this piece of sound from Marjorie Taylor Greene from just a week ago.

[BEGIN TAPE]

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE:

If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would've won. Not to mention, it would've been armed.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

That was Marjorie Taylor Greene making light of January 6th, basically saying, hey, if Steve Bannon and her were in charge it would've been, I guess, a more armed insurrection. She's becoming quite influential in your party. What do you do?

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON:

Yeah, the first thing is that you win on the ideas and the Constitution. And so you don't back away from going to the same audience that she does and say, "January 6th was a serious affront to our democracy, and we have to treat that seriously. And we can't defend what happened on that day. And we stand up for the Constitution." And so I've always gone to those tough audiences, explained that, and guess what? They listen, and there's always some that disagree. But you’ve got to win in the marketplace of ideas. And as the leader of the party, that's what you’ve got to do.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, it's funny you bring it up that way, because you spent a lot of 2021 trying to get some skeptics to take the vaccine in Arkansas. So I'm curious what you think of what Governor DeSantis is now doing down there. He has changed his view on vaccines over the last year. Let me show the audience that.

[BEGIN TAPE]

GOV. RON DeSANTIS:

My message is, the vaccines protect you. Get vaccinated.

GOV. RON DeSANTIS:

Like anything, I mean, you take an MNRA shot. And the way to view it is, "Okay, what are the benefits and what are the drawbacks?" And it seems like our medical establishment never wanted to be honest with people about the potential drawbacks.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

The Florida governor is leaning into vaccine skepticism at a time when I know health officials are trying to get people to take these boosters so that we can prevent the 300 deaths a day that we're still averaging in America. Do you have any thoughts?

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON:

Well, we shouldn't undermine science, we shouldn't undermine the medical community that's very important to our public health. And when you look at how I handled the pandemic in Arkansas, we didn't have mandates of government, forcing people to take the vaccine. But I did go out into the communities, and I had the medical experts there educating them as to how this is beneficial and how this is important. And I had local community doctors addressing that. So I think we are not good as a society, it's not the right direction, if we diminish the facts, we diminish all the best information that we have from science at the time. And sure, during the pandemic things change from time to time. We had more information, so we had to adjust. And that's what leaders do. But I don't think it's good to go back, whether you're going back to the 2020 election or whether you're going back and trying to re-litigate everything that happened during the pandemic. That's not helpful for where we are. And we do need to make sure we get the protection, whether it's a flu shot or whether it's a Covid vaccine. Everybody makes their decision, but I'm for the education and the science behind it.

CHUCK TODD:

It wouldn't be Meet the Press if I didn't try to pinpoint when you're going to tell us you're running for president. So tell me this, what is your timeline? And what would make you decide not to run for president?

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON:

Well, the timeline would be I finish January 10th, after two terms as governor of Arkansas. I can focus at that point more on the future. The fact that President Trump has already announced accelerates everyone's timeframe. And so the first quarter of next year, you either need to be in or out. And of course, an important factor is not what President Trump is doing necessarily, but what's the level of support out there? And that's important to know. And so we’ve got some work to do, but I expect a decision to be made in the first part of next year.

CHUCK TODD:

All right, Governor Hutchinson, I hope you have a Merry Christmas, enjoy the holiday season. And if you get out on the campaign trail, be safe out there, sir.

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON:

Okay. Thanks, Chuck. Great to be with you.

CHUCK TODD:

You got it. When we come back, the January 6 Committee is considering criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump. It's something that has never happened to any former president. The panel is here.

CHUCK TODD:

Back now with the panel: NBC News White House Correspondent Carol Lee; Politico Playbook co-author, Eugene Daniels; former Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards; and Stephen Hayes, editor of The Dispatch. All right, guys, I want to start with the news that we expect tomorrow, the potential criminal referrals from the January 6th Committee. Let me put up some -- the January 6th Committee by the numbers, as we like to call it around here. They've had ten public hearings so far, tomorrow will be number 11. There’s been over 100 known subpoenas that we've been able to confirm. They've done over 1,000 interviews and/or depositions – some of them, of course, were just interviews and not technically depositions. And of course, they've had hundreds of thousands of documents that have been examined. And now we expect three criminal referrals. Eugene Daniels, it's your news organization that broke the news about all three criminal referrals. How significant will this moment be tomorrow? Because we don't think it's going to be that influential on the Justice Department. Thoughts?

EUGENE DANIELS:

Yeah. I mean, I think it starts with the fact that we've never seen this is in this country before, right? We've never seen members of Congress put out a report and refer charges to the Justice Department for a former president of the United States. I think that's really important. But also, you know, it seems more likely than not that they're going to do this, that that's going to be a part of that document. Right now, it's still in there – three different types of charges that they're thinking of referring. And you still have members of the committee going out, doing interviews, calling Donald Trump guilty. The three things, those three charges – hey spent a lot of time during the committee hearings talking about those and trying to prove, and they feel like they have proven that he did those. And then when you look at the actual chapter titles that are -- that have been in the drafts, seven of the eight, Trump's name is in them, so it is squarely focused on him. And so I think it’s more likely than not that they're going to do it. The effect of it we still don't know.

CHUCK TODD:

Carol Lee, we expect that this committee is not going to present themselves as divided. Whatever they present to publicly is going to be pretty unanimous. Does that make it more impactful?

CAROL LEE:

Well, potentially, Chuck. And they've really gone to great lengths to try to stay unified. And one of the things that would be different about this, in terms of the charges that they're looking at, is insurrection. If they recommended criminal charges on insurrection for former President Trump, it's worth noting that none of the Capitol rioters who've been charged with crimes, have -- that hasn't been among the charges. So that would be pretty new, and additionally significant. Now, how it resonates with the American public is, just remains to be seen. I can tell you from the White House's perspective, they're going to really try to distance themselves from this, punt to DOJ, stay above it and away from it as much as they can. And yet, this is something that really benefits the president's message. I mean, just this week he was touting his record to Democrats – the White House was – and one of those things is his efforts to restore the soul of the nation. So there's not going to be an embrace of it, at least from the White House. But they can see the benefits playing out in this, and they'll punt it to DOJ.

CHUCK TODD:

Steve Hayes, what does this do inside the GOP? I mean, there’s a whole bunch of people who'd like to see Trump go, but they can't get caught celebrating Trump being seen as a criminal.

STEPHEN HAYES:

Well, I think the committee itself did a lot of the hard work already. I mean, if you look at the way that the committee handled itself, they left no doubt whatsoever that Donald Trump knew that what he was saying about the election being stolen was false. I think the committee expanded in a pretty dramatic way how much information the public had on that, and how much information Republican lawmakers had on that. The second thing they did was, by telling the story through Republican witnesses, they in effect gave political cover to elected Republicans who were, frankly, too cowardly to speak out against Donald Trump. You had Trump loyal Republicans, people who had devoted their careers to serving alongside Donald Trump or serving with Donald Trump, making this case for them. I think the committee's job to this point was to say, "It's time to hold people accountable," and they're going to turn it over to other, other entities to actually hold people accountable.

CHUCK TODD:

And Donna, this will be perceived pressure on the Justice Department. Is that a fair way to read at -- read it?

DONNA EDWARDS:

Well, I think it's going to be an important marker for the Department of Justice that a referral is coming from Congress directly to them really compels the Department of Justice to the extent that it wasn't acting. And frankly, I think the Department of Justice is acting, but it will give them, I think, more leverage to continue their investigations. The important thing is, though, that this is coming from Congress. This is the people's house, you know, saying that they believe that there has been some criminal behavior. And I think that's important for the American public to hear.

CHUCK TODD:

I want to shift slightly here. You know, it's going to be an interesting week. By the end of the week, Carol Lee, we expect to hear from the president on a bigger picture, sort of where things stand. And yet, what a week we're going to have. We're going to have these criminal referrals, you're going to have the end of Title 42, which will bring its own set of challenges. You know, what -- is this a victory lap speech we expect from the president?

CAROL LEE:

Well Chuck, I'm told that the president's going to speak to the American people before the end of the week, before the Christmas holiday, and really just outline what he sees as his accomplishments over his first two years in office, to hit the notes of unity and bipartisanship, to try to set the table for some of the benefits that are in some of the legislation that he's signed, that are going to -- is going to take effect in the new year. And so it was described to me as not necessarily a victory lap, but more of a celebration and a holiday spirit. But look, this is far different from where they were a year ago in this White House, where Democrats were infighting, the president's agenda seemed dead. And now the FDR comparisons, when you talk to White House officials, they are back. And this all comes ahead of a potential 2024 announcement in the early new year, Chuck.

CHUCK TODD:

Donna, I'm just curious, do you hear any rumblings now about challenges to Joe Biden inside the party? It seems like they’ve disappeared.

DONNA EDWARDS:

I don't. I think that they have. And a good thing. I mean, I think it's important as Democrats go into a divided Congress for there to be unity in the party, and that's what you're hearing. And I think until or unless Joe Biden makes another decision, you will not hear anything coming from Democrats. They are going to stand united against Republicans going into this, into this next Congress, and that is going to be the platform from which Joe Biden will be able to jump.

CHUCK TODD:

And for what it's worth, it's my understanding this holiday season, when they make the decision, if it's a go or whatever it is, we're going to know early. They're not going to delay telling the American people. Up next, on her first day in office she declared a state of emergency over her city's homeless population. I'm going to talk to the new Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, about her plans for running America's second largest city.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. In a recent survey of America's mayors, representing 126 sitting mayors at the time, 73% of the leaders of America's cities said they are held highly accountable for homelessness. But only 19% said they have a lot of control over the problem. New Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wants to change that. The first female mayor after 241 years, mind you, of America's second-largest city, she was sworn in on Sunday. And she began her term at the city's emergency operations center rather than at City Hall. She explains.

[BEGIN TAPE]

MAYOR KAREN BASS:

In Los Angeles, 40,000 people are sleeping on the streets every day. I believe that times of inflection require reflection. And I believe it's time for Angelenos to remind ourselves where we come from and who we are. My first act as mayor will be to declare a state of emergency on homelessness.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

And joining me now from Los Angeles is the former member of Congress and VP short-lister to Joe Biden, by the way, the new mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass. Mayor Bass, congratulations and welcome back to Meet The Press.

MAYOR KAREN BASS:

Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

CHUCK TODD:

I want to start with what's going to be different this time. And what I mean by this time is, in 2015 — this was pre-pandemic, obviously — Eric Garcetti declared a version of a state of emergency. Not quite the same as what you declared. Yours is a bit more comprehensive. But it freed up $100 million and tried to tackle the homeless problem that he was dealing with back in 2015. It didn't work. What's going to make what you're doing more successful than what Mayor Garcetti attempted to do?

MAYOR KAREN BASS:

Well, I think a few things. First of all, it's not just about the money. Of course money is needed, but it's really about the arcane bureaucratic process. You talk to developers and it's just so difficult to get anything done. So when I declared a state of emergency and issued following executive directives, it basically allows the process to be centralized. It allows time certain for building. Chuck, the other day I did a press conference on a piece of land where the builder had been working for 16 years and had just finally broken ground. So it's about bursting past the bureaucratic maze and developers having no idea when approvals will be done. So now I'm requiring that approvals and the process be moved within 30 to 60 days.

CHUCK TODD:

There's a few issues that people run into all the time when it comes to dealing with the homeless in the city. The biggest one is, What do you do about people that don't want to leave, that don't want to move, that don't want to go into shelters?

MAYOR KAREN BASS:

Well, you know, what we have found in the community organizations that we're bringing in to do this work is that you can get 95% of the people housed. People will go. It takes a while. You have to do outreach. And what the community programs do is that they work with people who were formerly unhoused. People are unhoused for a variety of different reasons. Some are profoundly mentally ill. Some are profoundly addicted. You have to address the reasons why they wound up unhoused while you house them. So we're going to launch a program on Tuesday called Inside Safe, which is going to address the people that are in the tents. Now, it's not going to address everybody, but it is going to address, hopefully, a significant number. But we're going to put them in motels and hotels immediately. It's interesting: it's lessons that were learned from the pandemic. Some community organizations have been trying to get the city to master lease out entire hotels and motels for years.

CHUCK TODD:

Are you still going to allow LAPD and sanitation officers to do these sweeps of encampments?

MAYOR KAREN BASS:

No, these are not sweeps at all. This is getting people to move on their own, but then after the person leaves sanitation is absolutely going to have to be there. No question about it. But this is not coercing people. This is not ticketing people or incarcerating people. This is moving people from tents to hotels or motels.

CHUCK TODD:

We know some of this is a — that you've run across quite a bit of mental health challenges here with the homeless population. Mayor Adams, in New York City, is talking about, you know, temporary institutions to help those with mental health problems. You know, do you think we need to bring some institutions like that into play to help you in Los Angeles?

MAYOR KAREN BASS:

Well, let me just say that one of our challenges in LA is the division between the city and the county. The county provides the services. We're doing this process jointly, so we know that the people on the streets — again, there's not enough services, but there will be some. But in the state of California the legislature passed something too that says if somebody is profoundly mentally ill, you know, they can be hospitalized.

CHUCK TODD:

I'm curious, you talk about the issues you have with developers. The biggest issue the city sometimes has when it comes to tackling these housing issues are these homeowners associations. They're extraordinarily litigious and extraordinarily powerful. Does your emergency declaration give you any more authority in dealing with these powerful institutions or not?

MAYOR KAREN BASS:

Well, it does give me more authority to do that. But I do think that there's a way to get neighborhoods to cooperate. You know, this problem is so severe in our city. I mean, literally five people a day die on our streets. It's so severe that I think that some of the resistance that we've experienced in the past, I'm hoping will be softened. So there's some neighborhoods that want buildings to be built in certain areas, but it is still within their general neighborhood. You cannot address 40,000 people without building housing everywhere. You can't just build all of the housing in the low-income areas that are already severely overcrowded.

CHUCK TODD:

All right. Before I let you go, give me a metric by which you should be judged in four years on the homeless situation. Is it the number of people on the streets? Number of tent encampments? What's a fair way to judge your success or failure?

MAYOR KAREN BASS:

Well, a fair way to judge it would be encampments should be significantly down if not eliminated, and there should be housing being built, underway, at a much more rapid pace. And there should not be 40,000 people who are unhoused, that's for sure.

CHUCK TODD:

Mayor Karen Bass, appreciate you getting up super early out on the West Coast to share your perspective with us. Good luck. Congratulations. And we'll be following your progress.

MAYOR KAREN BASS:

Thank you.

CHUCK TODD:

When we come back, we're going to look back at the lives we lost this year.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. As we do every year, we want to take a moment to remember and reflect and celebrate some of the iconic people in politics, culture, and the media whom we lost in the last 12 months.

[BEGIN TAPE]

SEN. HARRY REID:

I didn't make it in life because of my athletic prowess. I didn't make it because of my good looks. I didn't make it because I'm a genius. I made it because I worked hard.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT:

I have not found that being a woman is a handicap. In fact, I've found it a terrific gender to be.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH:

We must restore the culture of comity, compromise and mutual respect that used to exist here.

QUEEN ELIZABETH II:

No institution, city, monarchy, whatever, should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who give it their loyalty and support, not to mention those who don't.

BILL RUSSELL:

See, I never ever considered myself as a leader or anything like that. One thing I wanted to make sure: that I never did anything that my father would be ashamed of.

SIDNEY POITIER:

I arrived in Hollywood at the age of 22 in a time different than today's, a time in which the odds against my standing here tonight 53 years later would not have fallen in my favor.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

We are back. One of the odder moments of the week was when the former president, Donald Trump, teased everybody about a major announcement and it turned out to be this.

[BEGIN TAPE]

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

Hello, everyone. This is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president of all time, better than Lincoln, better than Washington, with an important announcement to make. I'm doing my first official Donald J. Trump NFT collection right here and right now. They're called Trump Digital Trading Cards.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

So if that made you uncomfortable you're not alone. Here's Steve Bannon.

[BEGIN TAPE]

STEVE BANNON:

He's one of the greatest presidents in history, but I've got to tell you — whoever, what business partner, and anybody on the comms team and anybody in Mar-a-Lago, and I love the folks down there, but we're at war. They ought to be fired today.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

Steve Hayes, when it's too much for Seb Gorka and Steve Bannon, what do you say?

STEPHEN HAYES:

Yeah. I mean, better than Lincoln, better than Washington? It's a bit rich for the people who have been in on the grift to now call it a grift, right? I think what they're probably most upset about is that they're no longer getting their cut. Look, I think, if you're surprised by this at this point you haven't been paying attention in the last seven years. But I think it's the kind of thing that ought to remind Republicans that every time they make a compromise with Donald Trump, either on a policy issue or by backing him when they know that they shouldn't, it's not a temporary pass to get you beyond this immediate moment. It's tying you deeper to somebody who would do something like this and claim in what appeared to be a serious argument that he's a better president than Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

CHUCK TODD:

Eugene Daniels, I know we go here all the time and it's, you know, "This is it. This is the beginning of the end," but my word. Seriously?

EUGENE DANIELS:

I mean, this is, you know, for weeks and weeks Republicans have been seriously starting to back away from Donald Trump. We've seen this show up in polling. I think they were fine with kind of, like, the drama and these weird kind of things when they were winning. Since the midterms that's not been the case, right? You have Republicans looking forward and saying, "We're not even winning and we're still getting dragged into all of those types of things." So I think, you know, we've been here before in 2016 when he was running, during his presidency many times, after the election, and after January 6th. So, you know, I would caution everybody, including myself, to think that the Republican is going to move away because it's going to take an actual head-on collision between one of these folks who are thinking about running — including Governor Hutchinson, who you had on earlier — with Donald Trump to really make Republicans move away from him.

CHUCK TODD:

I do want to point out though, Carol Lee, I'm going to put up this headline from The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch is calling Donald Trump a con artist. Of course so did Marco Rubio at one point during the 2016 campaign. But my, I mean, this could be the breaking point for some.

CAROL LEE:

So look, Chuck, talking to Trump supporters over the weekend, including Republicans who are also close to Governor DeSantis in Florida. The feeling is that there was a lot of excitement around the former president when he first announced, and since then, his supporters just can't find him. And a lot of Republicans said to me, "Imagine you're a Trump supporter and you want information about him. Where do you go?" And furthermore, imagine you're a Republican and you're looking for a leader. Who is it? There aren't a lot of options. It's not like Kevin McCarthy has people really excited, for instance. And so you see Governor DeSantis filling a void. And what's happening there is then you see him taking these positions where he's trying to get to the right of Trump on vaccines, for instance. And that's something that the former president's team has really taken notice of. I mean, that's how they see this. And yet, still there are no plans for him to do the things that his supporters say they want, which is big rallies and things like that. He's still very much expected to do these smaller events focused on policy. And so people say that this is something he could turn around, but if it doesn't, he has himself to blame.

CHUCK TODD:

All right. Unfortunately, I have to leave it there. That's all we have for today. Thank you for watching. We'll be back next week, even on Christmas, because if it's Sunday, it's Meet The Press.