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Meet the Press - February 12, 2023

Rep. Himes (D-Conn.), Gov. Murphy (D-N.J.), Gov. Cox (R-Utah), Mark Pomerantz, Garrett Haake, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Jonah Goldberg, Symone Sanders-Townsend

CHUCK TODD:

This Sunday, skyfall. U.S. fighter jets shoot down more mysterious high-flying objects, this time over Canada and Alaska.

JOHN KIRBY:

President Biden ordered the military to down the object.

CHUCK TODD:

Lawmakers are demanding answers one week after a Chinese spy balloon sparked this diplomatic crisis.

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI:

We don’t tolerate this, period.

CHUCK TODD:

I’ll talk to the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Democrat Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut. Plus, dividing lines. President Biden targets the GOP on cutting Medicare and Social Security.

PRES. JOE BIDEN:

There are a lot of Republicans. Their dream is to cut social security and medicare. Well, let me say this. If that’s your dream, I’m your nightmare.

CHUCK TODD:

While Republicans argue they are under attack from a "left-wing culture war."

GOV. SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS:

The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy.

CHUCK TODD:

I'll talk to two governors, Democrat Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Republican Spencer Cox of Utah about the challenges of bridging America's deep partisan divide. And, investigating Trump.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

You go to New York, nobody ever gets prosecuted. I’m the only one they go after.

MARK POMERANTZ:

The facts warranted prosecution.

CHUCK TODD:

He says Donald Trump should face criminal charges and resigned in protest when the Manhattan district attorney did not act. I'll speak with Mark Pomerantz, the lead attorney who worked on the case, who is now under fire himself for potentially hurting the criminal prosecution he pushed for. Joining me for insight and analysis are NBC News Senior Capitol Hill Correspondent Garrett Haake, Leigh Ann Caldwell of The Washington Post, Jonah Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief of the Dispatch and Symone Sanders-Townsend, former chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris. 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. For the second day in a row, and the third time in a week, the U.S. military has shot down suspicious, high-altitude objects over North America. U.S. fighter jets downed unidentified objects over Alaska on Friday and Canada on Saturday. This quick reaction comes after criticism that President Biden's response to the Chinese spy balloon last week was delayed while it drifted over the United States for days until being shot down after it left the Carolina coast. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered the takedown of a cylindrical object over the Yukon on Saturday afternoon. He spoke with President Biden who also ordered the object to be shot down. The FAA temporarily closed airspace in central Montana when NORAD detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate. They did not find anything that correlated with those radar hits. Just a day earlier, Biden ordered another unidentified object, roughly the size of a small car, so we've been told, shot down over frozen water and Alaskan airspace. But at a White House briefing officials did not disclose the incident until reporters brought it up.

[BEGIN TAPE]

REPORTER:

Can you speak to rumors that there is a Chinese balloon above Alaska or any other parts of U.S. territory that the U.S. shot down?

JOHN KIRBY:

So I can confirm that the Department of Defense was tracking a high-altitude object over Alaska airspace in the last 24 hours. Out of – the object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. Out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

Again, for some reason, the spokesperson, John Kirby, did not volunteer this information about fighter jets being scrambled to shoot down another object until a reporter in that room asked. In a statement on Saturday, the U.S. military could not provide details about the object, including its capabilities, purpose or origin. And again, there are some weather issues when it comes to actually collecting this thing that was shot down. The shoot down occurred as the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard continue to recover remnants of the Chinese spy balloon from the Atlantic Ocean last week. We asked the White House and the Pentagon to provide any guests this morning to tell us more about these incidents; both declined. Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. He's a member of the so-called Gang of Eight in Congress. When there is important missions like this that took place, the first members of Congress briefed are the so-called Gang of Eight. Congressman Himes, I appreciate you for coming in early this morning. So let me ask: what can you tell us and have you been briefed yet?

REP. JIM HIMES:

Well, Chuck, the first balloon, the one that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, we got a very extensive briefing on – at the Gang of Eight level. And then subsequently, the entire Congress got a top secret briefing on it. So we're pretty good on that one. You lose track of these things. You know, since then, of course, there's been the shoot down over Alaska and the shoot down over the Yukon. Congress has been out of session, and so we have not been directly briefed on that. Our staffs have been kept informed. But the reality is Chuck here, I think part of the reason – and by the way, I have real concerns about why the administration is not being more forthcoming with everything that it knows, but part of the problem here is that the – both the second and the third objects were shot down in very remote areas. So, my guess is that there's just not a lot of information out there yet to share.

CHUCK TODD:

You said, on Friday, you speculated – and you admitted you were speculating – that, hey, you know, there's a lot of stuff up in the air these days; the private companies put up issues, you know, things up there to deal with Wi-Fi; there's other foreign objects from other countries up there, including weather balloons. Just how cluttered is it up there?

REP. JIM HIMES:

Well, yeah. And that's still where my head is. And I should be clear, as I was on Friday, that, you know, I haven't been briefed on the other two shoot downs. But I look back a year ago to when we had this both open hearing and classified hearing on what are – most people call it UFOs. you're supposed to call it “unidentified aerial phenomenon.” And what we'd learned in that hearing is that there is a lot of garbage up there. It's really not that hard. Certainly, countries can do it, companies can do it and do do it. Individuals with resources can put balloons up there. And so there is a lot of garbage up there. And my, again, speculative guess as why we're seeing these things happen in quick succession is that now, we're really attuned to looking for them, right? Without getting into detail, I can tell you that much of our radar, much of our sensors, are not–are really designed against the threats that most Americans are familiar with. We spent generations worried about missiles coming over the North Pole. They move very, very quickly and don't act like balloons. We always worry about aircrafts. Those of us who remember 9/11 worry about aircraft that are unidentified. The truth is that most of our sensors and most of what we were looking for didn't look like balloons. Now, of course, we're looking for them. So I think we're probably finding more stuff.

CHUCK TODD:

So, do you think – are we changing our posture? It does seem as if we'd see this unusual aerial phenomena and the decision, if there was not a threat to the country, or threat to an individual, or an airline, we let it fly up there. Do you sense we're changing our posture, that if we don't know the origin, we're shooting it down now?

REP. JIM HIMES:

Well, I certainly hope not. I mean, if that's where we're going to go, there will be an accident, you know? At some point, we're going to shoot down something we don't want to shoot down, whether it's civil aviation or what have you. So, but no, I think it's a little early to make that call. I mean, I would say two things about it. Number one, there's a logic to what the administration has done. The two shoot downs have occurred around objects that were a threat to civil aviation. Remember, the Chinese – the initial Chinese balloon was at 50, 60,000 feet. That's not a threat. If you're down at below – at or below 40,000 feet, now you're in the travel zones for civilian aviation. There are concerns about gathering intelligence. That's why I think it wasn't wrong for the administration to want to observe the first Chinese balloon. There's questions about where this stuff might land. The two shoot downs, obviously, were over very remote areas. You know, the one thing, Chuck, that is troubling me here, I sort of see a pattern as I looked at social media this morning, you know, all of a sudden, massive speculation about alien invasions and, you know, additional Chinese action, or Russian action. In the absence of information, people's anxiety leads them into potentially destructive areas. So I do hope that very soon the administration has a lot more information for all of us on what's going on.

CHUCK TODD:

Well I – and that's what I'm trying to figure out here. The administration seems to want to downplay all of these incidents. It – I mean, look, again, the fact that a reporter had to drag this out of the administration, they don't want to be forthcoming. Is that because they don't know what it is or they’re–don't want to tell us what it is?

REP. JIM HIMES:

Yeah. I really can't answer that question because I haven't been briefed, either. And I do think by the way – look, I got a very detailed briefing on the first Chinese balloon and I think the decision-making process there was very good. We cap – we now own something that we're going to exploit for intelligence. I think the decision making was good. But I would observe for you, as well, that we didn't hear about the first balloon until it was over Montana. And, again, I think there may be reasons for it, but – and maybe it's because I'm in politics, and so I spend a lot of time talking to folks in grocery stores and town hall meetings. You know, in an absence of information, people will fill that gap with anxiety and other stuff. So I wish the administration was a little quicker to tell us everything that they do know.

CHUCK TODD:

Worst-case scenario, this is China, doing – you know, basically not taking any lesson from our decision to shoot down the first one. If we find out these two objects are also of Chinese- government origin, what does that say about our relationship right now?

REP. JIM HIMES:

Well I’d, first of all, I'd be surprised by that. I'm going to be careful, because I don't know what the second and third objects were. But I'd be surprised by that. I mean, I think it's fair to say that the Chinese are probably pretty embarrassed that they let a surveillance platform – the first one – go over the United States. It became a, you know, cause célèbre around the world. We now own it. That's not a comfortable thing for the Chinese. And of course, we canceled the trip of the Secretary of State. So my guess is that the other two objects are not Chinese, that China is doing everything they can right now to keep as low a profile as possible. But, who knows? We won't know for – I guess, until the administration fully briefs on what these things are. And to be fair, remember, Chuck, when you go by one of these things in an F-22 or an F-18, you're moving pretty fast. Until you actually pick up the pieces on the ground, there'll be some uncertainty.

CHUCK TODD:

All right. Congressman Jim Himes. He is the ranking Democrat on the House intel committee, member of the Gang of Eight. If anybody's going to have information, it is a member of that Gang of Eight. Congressman Himes, appreciate you coming in this morning and sharing with – sharing with what you know.

REP. JIM HIMES:

Thank you, Chuck.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me bring in the panel. We've got a couple reporters on here that may have a little more information for us, NBC News Senior Capitol Hill Correspondent Garrett Haake; Leigh Ann Caldwell, who's also co-author of The Washington Post's Early 202, anchor of Washington Post Live; Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch; and Symone Sanders-Townsend, host of Symone on MSNBC, and a former chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris. Garrett, I want to start with you. Frankly, I'm not surprised –

GARRETT HAAKE:

Yeah.

CHUCK TODD:

– at the limited information that has been briefed to Congress. And it does feel like Congress has had to drag stuff out. You know, not only are we as reporters, members of Congress are.

GARRETT HAAKE:

Well, this has given what we've called "the Seinfeld Congress" something to be about over the last week or so. They are about oversight on this Chinese balloon and now these other objects, whether it's intelligence, foreign affairs, armed services. Basically, every committee in both chambers wants a piece of this. It seems like the only people now who might know more than Jim Himes are the two Alaska senators who both indicated on Friday that they had gotten some information from the White House, and they were supportive of the decision to shoot whatever this object was down. But yes, think you're exactly right. When the Senate comes back in this week, the House is out, oversight into what exactly is going on over this northern airspace is going to be job number one.

CHUCK TODD:

Leigh Ann, I mean, what are you hearing from your sources on the Hill?

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:

Exactly what Jim Himes said. They haven't gotten a new briefing yet, and so they're not exactly sure what is happening with these last two objects. They want more answers. But there are problems that the House is going to be out for a couple weeks, so a new Gang of Eight briefing probably isn't likely, and that's where they get the most information. The Senate can do something. We already saw this. We also know that this is becoming very political as well. Not only Republicans see this as an opportunity to attack the administration over this, but even Democrats who are up for reelection in 2024 in conservative states, like Jon Tester, are also trying to be really tough on the administration. But there is unanimity on the issue of transparency. Everyone is calling for more.

CHUCK TODD:

Symone, you've been in those decisions when you have to disclose something that's uncomfortable. And you're doing it in a week when you're trying to, "No, no, no, no. We want to control our own message with State of the Union”. Can't help but wonder if that stuff's colliding a little bit.

SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND:

Well, you know, I do think when John Kirby came out, the spokesperson for the NSC, came out to the podium, it was very clear to me that there was a prepared statement, meaning that they knew this was a question that folks had. And they were ready --

CHUCK TODD:

But why wait for --

SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND:

– to answer it.

CHUCK TODD:

– the question?

SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND:

I don't know, Chuck. I don't know. I mean, maybe coming out just with it at top makes it seem more dire than what it actually is. And John Kirby, Admiral Kirby, didn't have any information, right? He had --

CHUCK TODD:

True.

SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND:

– very basic information. And the more information the American people got was in fact from the Pentagon. I think that this – what we're experiencing over the last two weeks, I would argue, is the reality of, you know, the presidency and the White House. You've got to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. You have the State of the Union, a number of domestic issues, the president giving the biggest speech on the largest stage he will give prior to a reelect. Twenty-seven million people tuned in. Plus, triangulating on a number of these foreign policy, diplomacy issues. And, look, I think that they have handled – I mean, if we juxtapose this with the other transparency question, issue that folks have around –

CHUCK TODD:

Right.

SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND:

– the documents, I think that they handled this quite well.

CHUCK TODD:

Jonah, this is sort of I think it feels like America is sort of changing its posture collectively on China, not just politicians. Like, all of this is going to change all of our sort of perceptions.

JONAH GOLDBERG:

Yeah. And, I mean, I've been saying for a while now that the only area of sort of bipartisan consensus in America for the last couple years has been hawkishness towards China. And the debate is between dumb hawkishness and smart hawkishness, but everyone agrees on hawkishness, right? And we can define those terms differently. I think Himes is absolutely right about this. The problem here is the lack of information, of people filling in the blanks on their own. I mean --

CHUCK TODD:

I've already been hit with the, "No, no, no, no. The Chinese thing is a story. This is really UFOs." I'm like, "Oh no."

JONAH GOLDBERG:

Oh, it's all over the place --

CHUCK TODD:

I mean, yeah. It has gone down some real rabbit holes.

JONAH GOLDBERG:

And I think one of the things he makes a good point about is: "Balloon" is a funny word. We like talking about balloons. And it was a giant, floating, middle finger above middle America. But the reality is these are all drones of one kind or another, with different forms of propulsion. And I think, not to get into the alien thing, but to quote Yoda, "Begun the Drone Wars, they have." We are going to be having this for a long time to come.

CHUCK TODD:

I don't know how to follow that up. With that --

JONAH GOLDBERG:

Now we go to break.

CHUCK TODD:

– there is no try when it comes to following up on there. All right, when we come back, Republican Governor Sarah Sanders accused President Biden this week of pursuing woke fantasies. We'll talk to two governors, Democrat Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Republican Spencer Cox of Utah, about the challenges they face on these culture war issues that divide Americans.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. When Bill Clinton declared, "The era of big government is over," in his 1996 State of the Union address, it was clear that, at least for the moment, Ronald Reagan had won the argument on the issue of the size and scope of government. This week, Republicans gave President Biden a primetime opportunity to crystallize just how much ground they have ceded in the fight over government spending. With an eye towards 2024 and the upcoming debt ceiling debate, President Biden used the State of the Union address to try to drive a wedge between Republicans on the issues of Social Security and Medicare.

[BEGIN TAPE]

PRES. JOE BIDEN:

Some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I'm not saying it's a majority. So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right? They’re not to be cut.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

A rare full standing ovation on that one. As Republicans seemed to surrender on these fiscal issues, they're divided on national security. The principal thing that binds the party together right now is cultural issues, which was reflected in Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' Republican response to the State of the Union on Tuesday night.

[BEGIN TAPE]

GOV. SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS:

I'm the first woman to lead my state, and he's the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can't even tell you what a woman is. The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left; the choice is between normal or crazy.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

Joining me now are the chair and vice chair of the National Governors Association, Democratic Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Republican Governor Spencer Cox of Utah. The governors met with the president on Friday. They attended a nice black-tie dinner at the White House last night. Brad Paisley was the entertainment, by the way, speaking of bipartisan entertainment. Gentlemen, welcome to Meet the Press.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

Great to be back, Chuck.

CHUCK TODD:

Governor Murphy, let me start with you. On, you know, this will kind of be a little bit of a ping-pong, I'm not going to lie to you here. But President Biden believes he has a lot to tout, to the -- particularly to working class Americans. And he’s got a lot to tout about economic statistics. But you know this; you felt this in your reelection: They don't feel it. The public doesn't feel it. Why?

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

I think there's a lead lag factor here. I think we underestimate the trauma of the past several years – pandemic, inflation, supply chain, war in Europe, kids not in school in person – I don't think you recover, I don't think you snap back from that overnight. I think this is going to take time. I think we need to look out sort of six or nine months from now, a lot more shovels in the ground, a lot more evidence that the economy is strong. And I think you'll see a different scenario.

CHUCK TODD:

Does he as an individual have more to fix with the public? Because, look, one of the things we found in our poll is there is some questions of whether he’s got, that he’s got what it takes to basically run for a second term.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

Yeah, he has, he has what it takes. And you know, you started to see -- he was up in New York with Governor Hochul and myself on the Gateway Tunnel a couple of weeks ago, the biggest infrastructure project in the history of our country. He was standing at the edge of the river between Kentucky and Ohio last month, celebrating a new bridge. I think you're going to see more and more of that, and when you do, you're going see, I believe, a significant shift in the numbers and reality.

CHUCK TODD:

Governor Cox, I want to ask you about what Governor Sanders said in her State of the Union response. She said, "It's a choice between normal and crazy." Is that how you see the dividing line in America today?

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Well, Mr. Todd, look --

CHUCK TODD:

Chuck, please, Governor.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Chuck, there is a divide, for sure, and we see more of that. I think there is a choice between the extremes and the exhausted majority, and that's the conversation we've been having this week with Republican governors and Democrat governors coming together. We're the people who have to get stuff done. And I think there are extremes on the left, for sure, that are driving a large part of our culture. I will admit that there are extremes on the right too that are hurting our nation and tearing us apart. And we believe that, that this exhausted majority still exists, that they're out there, and that they actually want us to work together to solve stuff, but the stuff that matters. Let's stop fighting about the stuff that doesn't matter, and actually get to work.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me ask you about that stuff. Because you just signed, you just signed a bill, and it was a veto-proof bill, having to do with trans medical care with children.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Yes.

CHUCK TODD:

The total number of people who identify as trans in America is one half of 1%. And you made this point when you vetoed a previous bill that had to do with trying to ban trans individuals from participating in sports. How do you stop -- it's mostly coming from your party. We saw, there's over 299 bills that have been introduced -- two-thirds of them, this year alone -- two-thirds of them target trans people. And again, one half of 1%. You just made the point yourself, what is this obsession?

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Well, I think it is a growing number. In fact, it's a vastly growing number. If you go back just ten years ago and look at the numbers -- and here's the problem, this has become such a toxic issue that it's hard to have a rational conversation around it. I actually had to look outside the United States to get data. I looked at what happened in Sweden, looked at what happened in Finland, looked what the French are saying about this, the explosion that they're seeing in those numbers, and some concerns about this. It's not just about providing care or not providing care, it's about whether we might potentially be harming young people, not having enough evidence to see what the long-term results of this are, and providing better psychiatric help for those young people who are going through this.

CHUCK TODD:

But you took this power away from parents to make this decision. Are you comfortable with that?

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Well, we take power away from, on a lot of things involving our young people. If there is potential long-term harm for our kids, we need to find that. And what Utah did was just push pause until we can get better data. We have a mandate in the bill to go out and look at the best data all across the country and then make a decision.

CHUCK TODD:

You've talked about -- you know, I'm running a little low on time -- but there's a state senator in Kentucky who did a very impassioned speech earlier this week. Her son committed suicide; her son's trans.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Yeah.

CHUCK TODD:

And she was basically begging the legislature to stop these bills that are targeting, because it's making these folks feel like targets.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Yeah. And that's the hardest part of this. That breaks my heart. What we're doing is we're increasing funding for our LGBTQ community to help with these issues. And so, again, if we could get outside of the culture war piece of this and have these kind of rational conversations, I would feel much better. But I fully admit, there are people on my side of the aisle that are targeting these -- that do not have their best interests at heart, right? I think there are people on the left that are promoting these things who also don't have the best interests of some of these kids at heart. And I think we should be able to sit down, and that's what we've been doing this week, is having rational conversations.

CHUCK TODD:

And you guys, I think, really do have an interesting partnership. But Governor Murphy, let’s not -- I don't want to overlook this perception that a lot of voters have, that the left is making a lot of voters feel as if they're racist in their views sometimes. I think even President Obama thought the left has gone too far in some of these things.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

I'll tell you something, I wish the American people could have had a camera inside the National Governors meetings these past several days. It completely at odds with that sort of craziness we saw Tuesday night. Civility, respect, a thirst for common ground, acknowledging we're not going to agree on a whole long list of things, but let's find where we can agree. You know, we're the ones who wake up with the responsibility for our residents. We balance the budget. We run our states. I tell you something, it was an incredibly refreshing experience for all of us.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me get you both to define this. You, well actually, I'll start with you, Governor Cox. Time Magazine called you, "The red state governor who's not afraid to be woke." I'm sure you didn't love that headline.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Terrible headline.

CHUCK TODD:

But how do you -- what is the definition of woke?

GOV. SPENCER COX:

I don't know what the --

CHUCK TODD:

Okay.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

– definition of woke is.

CHUCK TODD:

Because I don't either.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Look, there are extremes, and people are feeling this. I hear it all of the time.

CHUCK TODD:

Are they feeling it for real, or do you think social media creates this perception that it's bigger than it is?

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Does it matter?

CHUCK TODD:

Well, fair enough.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

I don't know if it matters. You know, I think there is some reality to it. We go on college campuses, and there's some data that came out this past week that showed that, especially conservatives, we don't know how to disagree anymore, Chuck. This is the problem.

CHUCK TODD:

That’s very fair.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

We passionately disagree, and we're best friends.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

That's true.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Like, we actually like each other. We had a debate, I wish you could've seen it. It was Jay Inslee from Washington, very, very liberal environmentalist, and Doug Burgum from North Dakota, about energy. And it was so respectful. And they stayed after for 20 minutes just talking to each other, figuring this out. Like, this isn't hard. We used to do this stuff.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, what's interesting is that you guys are the only ones that are having these -- the governors are having these conversations --

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

That's right.

CHUCK TODD:

-- you know, generally. I mean, there's certainly some. But you know, the partisans don't want to have these conversations right now, the hard partisans.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

Listen, we're all proud of our parties. I'm a proud Democrat, for sure. Somebody asked me, "Define yourself," a couple weeks ago. And I said, "I'm a proud progressive and a cold-blooded capitalist," and I feel very comfortable --

CHUCK TODD:

Do you think progressives would accept you as a progressive, if you call yourself a cold-blooded capitalist?

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

I don't know. But I don't mean this literally, but I kind of don't care. That's who I am.

CHUCK TODD:

Yeah.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

And I'd probably put our, both our economic record and our progressive record up against any other American state over the past five years.

CHUCK TODD:

Governor Cox, I don't want to ask you to give me one candidate; give me three candidates that you hope are running for president on the Republican side in 2024.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

Spencer Cox.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Sure.

CHUCK TODD:

And I know he wants you to run.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is definitely not happening.

CHUCK TODD:

But you've got a reelection maybe, right? Are you running for reelection, by the way?

GOV. SPENCER COX:

I am running for reelection --

CHUCK TODD:

Okay, good to know --

GOV. SPENCER COX:

--in the state of Utah, yes. So yeah, I prefer governors. That's the easy call for me. So the governors' names you've been throwing around like --

CHUCK TODD:

So Sununu --

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Sununu's fantastic --

CHUCK TODD:

-- DeSantis --

GOV. SPENCER COX:

-- DeSantis, a great record --

CHUCK TODD:

Hutchinson?

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Asa's a good friend.

CHUCK TODD:

Nikki Haley --

GOV. SPENCER COX:

All of those guys --

CHUCK TODD:

-- former governor.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Former governor, yeah. I like governors, I like Republican governors --

CHUCK TODD:

Kristi Noem, is just another one --

GOV. SPENCER COX:

All fantastic.

CHUCK TODD:

So what you're saying is you'll take a governor?

GOV. SPENCER COX:

I would love a governor, yes.

CHUCK TODD:

– over anybody that serves in that building across the street in the Capitol?

GOV.SPENCER COX:

Every day of the week.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

I'll take a president, by the way.

CHUCK TODD:

Alright. Governors Murphy and Cox, this is why we had you on together. I do think more Americans want to see this kind of conversation. Thank you both.

GOV. SPENCER COX:

Thank you, Chuck.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY:

Amen.

CHUCK TODD:

Up next, he resigned in protest when he believed the Manhattan DA was not going to bring criminal charges against Donald Trump. Mark Pomerantz is now under fire himself for potentially hurting the case he once pursued.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. Former Vice President Mike Pence was subpoenaed this week by Special Counsel Jack Smith in his investigation into the January 6th attack and Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the election results. The move by the Justice Department sets up a potential clash over the issue of executive privilege, if the former president chooses to fight the Pence subpoena. And it's just the latest development in nearly half a dozen inquiries involving the former president. In Manhattan last month, a grand jury began to hear testimony on Trump's alleged role in paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, during the 2016 campaign. District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office is also continuing to examine the way in which the former president valued his assets. His lead prosecutor in that case, Mark Pomerantz, resigned last year, calling Bragg's decision not to pursue charges at the time a grave failure of justice. Now, in a new tell-all,“People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account”, Pomerantz lays out his case for prosecuting Trump. But some critics worry the book could hurt any eventual Trump prosecution. In fact, this week Alvin Bragg fired back.

MANHATTAN DA ALVIN BRAGG:

I bring hard cases when they are ready. Last year when I took office, I did an exhaustive review of a matter put before me and came to the same conclusion that multiple senior prosecutors in my office independently came to. And that was that Mark Pomerantz's case simply was not ready. I continue to be concerned that it could jeopardize or undermine our ongoing investigation.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, joining me now for his side of this story is former Manhattan Special Assistant District Attorney Mark Pomerantz, author of this book. Mr. Pomerantz, welcome to Meet the Press.

MARK POMERANTZ:

Thank you so much for having me.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me start with the criticism, because he's not the only one criticizing. Here's some legal experts, Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney, "Writing a book about a pending investigation was really poor form." Cynthia Alksne, a former federal prosecutor, "Strikes me as totally improper." Eliza Orlins, New York City public defender, "This book could do irreparable damage to an ongoing investigation." I know you've heard this criticism. What say you?

MARK POMERANTZ:

Well, I think the criticism is unfounded. And I can tell you in a nutshell why. First, with respect to the Stormy Daniels investigation that has gained impetus over the last month or so, the facts have been in the public domain for literally years. In fact, as I was doing research and pulling together the facts for my summary of what would go into the book, where I went to discover those facts was the internet, Michael Cohen's book and the publicly available information from the federal prosecution of Michael Cohen. That's item one. Item two --

CHUCK TODD:

Let me stop you here, though.

MARK POMERANTZ:

Yeah.

CHUCK TODD:

In fairness, you know what was in that grand jury testimony, though. So you know what – so you can't un-know that information. So even though you're using the public record, what you choose to excerpt, is certainly - is it not influenced by what you know took place in the grand jury room?

MARK POMERANTZ:

Everything that went into the book with regard to the Stormy Daniels investigation, the financial statement investigation, was in the public domain. And if there was a detail that wasn't, as soon as there's an indictment — if there is an indictment, we don't know yet whether there will be a prosecution — if there is a prosecution, on day one under New York's discovery law, which is among the most liberal in the United States, the defendant, in this case Donald Trump, will get everything that the DA has by way of witness statements, documents, facts and so on. So there's nothing that's --

CHUCK TODD:

So in theory, anything in this book, what you're saying is he's going to get disclosed to him on day one post-indictment if one is happens.

MARK POMERANTZ:

He will get on day one all of the materials, for instance, that reveal what Michael Cohen said when he was interviewed privately in the DA's office. That immediately gets turned over to the defense. If you move forward in a prosecution and you ask the question, "Well, will it be possible to pick a fair jury?" I think when you look at it – there are challenges picking a jury in a case, a criminal case, against Donald Trump. The challenges flow from the ocean of ink that has been spilled about Donald Trump, and his lies and what I believe is crime. So I don't think my book is going to make the slightest difference if there's a jury trial.

CHUCK TODD:

All right, but let me ask you about your former life as a defense attorney. Because Andrew Weissmann wrote in his book review, "He believes if charges are brought this book is certainly going to be used in countless ways by the defense. The book improperly hurts an eventual Trump prosecution. One wonders if having this account at this time will have been worth it." If you were Trump's defense attorney, regardless of what you're saying now, would you use your book to fight for an appeal that might say, "Hey, this is an unfair prosecution?"

MARK POMERANTZ:

Look, Donald Trump's defense attorney is going to make objections about everything under the sun. We know that.

CHUCK TODD:

So he'll probably use the book?

MARK POMERANTZ:

I can tell you this. If he attempts, if he tries to use the book in litigating the case, I'll make a prediction. My prediction is that if that should happen, the district attorney's office will be saying, "There's nothing in this book that should prejudice this prosecution." The book has nothing to do with the facts and the law on which the case has to be decided. So the book is meaningless. It doesn't provide any kind of defense. And if they make that argument, they'll be right.

CHUCK TODD:

When you chose to write this book when you chose to resign, it seems like you were pretty convinced this case was never going to be brought. Had you thought he was still going to bring the case, would you have written this book?

MARK POMERANTZ:

I did think that the investigation was over. That's how it was presented to us from the circumstances.

CHUCK TODD:

Had it not been over, would this - would you be here today?

MARK POMERANTZ:

I would've thought more about it. But I don't think I would've reached a different conclusion. Because I am as sure as I can be, based on decades of practice, that this book is not going to compromise a prosecution. My whole point in writing the book was there needs to be a prosecution. If I thought that the book was going actually to jeopardize a case, I wouldn't have written it.

CHUCK TODD:

It seems as if, and this – this tension is in your book, there's a lot of violations of federal law that you can't really pursue at the Manhattan DA level. How important is it to flip Allen Weisselberg if the Manhattan DA's going to have a case?

MARK POMERANTZ:

It would've been great to get Allen Weisselberg's cooperation in a state case, in a federal case. He worked for Donald Trump for decades. He was the money guy.

CHUCK TODD:

As you write, you need a narrator sometimes in an indictment. Is he the ideal narrator?

MARK POMERANTZ:

He would've been a good narrator, depending on the crime. For the hush money case that the district attorney appears to be getting ready to bring, the narrator for that case is Michael Cohen. He was – he was right in the middle of it, and he's --

CHUCK TODD:

Is he a reliable narrator?

MARK POMERANTZ:

I thought he was telling the truth in what he said about the hush money and the cover-up of the reimbursement and so on. Look, I talked about Michael Cohen's credibility in the book. But I don't think I was divulging any secret sauce when I made the point that his credibility will be challenged. Everybody knows that.

CHUCK TODD:

Why do you think -- my interpretation of Cy Vance's actions when he decided not to seek reelection was it seemed like he knew he wanted to try to take as much politics out of the potential investigation that he was doing of Trump. The fact that he chose not to at the end of his term to me said something. Why do you think he chose not to green light prosecute – an indictment?

MARK POMERANTZ:

Cy Vance did green light the indictment.

CHUCK TODD:

Then why didn't it happen?

MARK POMERANTZ:

It didn't happen because we were working along – bear in mind, Chuck, we got the basic tax and accounting materials after months into years of litigation, two trips to the Supreme Court. We got those materials in February 2021. Within four months, we had indicted the Trump Corporation -- the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg on the tax charges that were later tried during Alvin Bragg's tenure. We then moved forward on the financial statement investigation. The concept is not difficult. You can't lie on financial statements and get financing. But probing the financial statements themselves, which were prepared over the course of many, many years, dozens of assets, hundreds of data points, thousands of data points, that took time. Cy Vance would have loved to have seen this case indicted during his tenure. And he wanted to --

CHUCK TODD:

And did you not have it by the end of his tenure? I mean, it feels like if he had had it he'd have green lit it.

MARK POMERANTZ:

He did green light it.

CHUCK TODD:

But then it didn’t, but then the indictment didn't happen.

MARK POMERANTZ:

We couldn't get it done. We were working days, nights and weekends at this point. And one of the events I describe in the book, as we got into the later part of 2021, we were working so fast that the investigative team had a near mutiny. And they came to the judgment, with which I agreed, "Look, we need to bring this case when it's ready." It should not be brought on the calendar that has to do with Cy Vance's tenure.

CHUCK TODD:

Do you regret pressuring Alvin Bragg?

MARK POMERANTZ:

I’m not --

CHUCK TODD:

Do you think you should've given him a little more time to sort of absorb the case?

MARK POMERANTZ:

I think he had the time that he asked for. There wasn’t – there was no dialogue that was, "Look, I need a couple of more months to review this." Everybody on the investigative team thought the case was ready for an up-or-down decision. And it needed to be made. And the DA's response was, "All right, you need a decision. I get that. The decision’s no." And then everything else happened.

CHUCK TODD:

All right, Mark Pomerantz, that's all the time I have. The book, it’s — I'd recommend it to folks — an easy read. Good luck with it and appreciate you coming on and sharing your position.

MARK POMERANTZ:

Thank you very much and thank you for having me.

CHUCK TODD:

When we come back, it's Super Bowl Sunday. Other than Meet the Press, of course, why football is the last shared experience for all Americans when it comes to what we watch on television.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back, Data Download time. With streaming services and the internet changing how we consume news and entertainment, and that partisan divide impacting everything from where we live to what we buy, it's pretty rare now for Americans to have a shared experience. But tonight is an exception, because data shows that one of the few things Americans have left in common is their love for the NFL and its biggest game, the Super Bowl. Let me show you some interesting data here. Look, this is an overall poll of, you know what are – what are you a fan of when it comes to sports? Coming out on top, the NFL – 44% of Americans call themselves NFL fans followed by baseball, the NBA, and the NHL, and soccer. We do soccer generally here because we know MLS, Premier League. There's all sorts of things that you follow with soccer. But football, it is such a dominating part of our sports fandom that it's actually evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. 44% of Democrats call themselves NFL fans, 45% of Republicans. Every other sport leans either left or right; not the NFL. How dominant is it when it comes to what we watch on TV? This dominant – of the 100 most-watched television broadcasts in the calendar year of 2022, 82 of them were NFL games. That's up from 2021 when it was 75, and in 2020, 69. Each year, it seems like the NFL is getting even more popular in our fractured environment. And how popular is the Super Bowl? Check this out. Of the 30 most-watched television programs in American history, 29 of them are Super Bowls. You know what the lone exception is? If you're over the age of 50, you know. It's the M*A*S*H finale. So there you go. And despite being America's most popular sport, football is also one of its most dangerous. This season's on-field collapse of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin and the string of head injuries to Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa brought renewed attention to the safety risks within the NFL. And according to the league, concussions were up 18% in the 2022 regular season with 149 suffered over 271 games. The league would say they're also monitoring concussions more. On Super Bowl Sunday 30 years ago, though, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue appeared on the Meet the Press to discuss the safety of the sport then.

[START TAPE]

BOB COSTAS:

How comfortable are you personally with the inherent violence of professional football?

PAUL TAGLIABUE:

Well, inherent violence I think is a choice of words that's a bit argumentative. Some people say it's a contact sport. Chuck Noll takes issue with that. He says it's a collision sport if you play it the right way. John Mackey played it as a collision sport. Mel Blount played it as a collision sport. So it is a collision sport. There will be a certain number of injuries in any sport of that type. There's a certain number of injuries in diving or bicycling or gymnastics. So we're very satisfied – and I don't want to sound self-satisfied – but we're very satisfied with the efforts that we make through our competition committee, through our coaches when I meet with them, through the league office to control the contact in the sport and to assure, to the degree we can, the safety of the players.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

Well, to say that those comments haven't aged well is an understatement. Since then, the NFL has made quite a few safety changes, including the concussion protocol they finally began in 2011 – obviously an acknowledgment that the game is not as safe as they said it was back then. When we come back, Mitch McConnell calls it a bad idea. A rare public disagreement with Florida Senator Rick Scott over his plan to deal with Medicare and Social Security, and how President Biden managed to restart that feud. Our panel is here.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. Symone Sanders, the State of the Union – what would the post State of the Union feeling be like for Biden without Rick Scott and Marjorie Taylor Greene?

SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND:

Well, I would – I mean, look, Rick Scott's plan was months and months in the making, and so that was already there. I think Marjorie Taylor Greene, sans her, it still would've been something. The Republicans in the chamber, and I know – you know, Garrett was in there; I watched him on TV afterwards – the booing, it just, it was just tasteless. And it allowed the president to engage with the hecklers but come away not looking small, which is often hard to do. But I also think this exchange on Social Security and Medicare was quite important because after that, you had the president, the vice president, the entire cabinet, going out this week and reiterating and reinforcing what the president said on that stage. Look, in polling, Republicans often get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the economy, when it comes to taxes, even though there has not been substantial pieces of legislation in, you know, in our recent history to support that. And, but because they say it so much, people believe that it's true. Democrats, I think, have to do better about saying the thing over and over and over.

CHUCK TODD:

Jonah, do you accept, sort of, my premise here that, sort of, what Bill Clinton acknowledged in the mid '90s, suddenly now Republicans in that chamber, "Okay, we don't want to be – we don’t want to cut spending anymore"?

JONAH GOLDBERG:

Yeah, look, I mean, no one is consistent on the spending issues on either side of the aisle. I think – I agree with Symone; I agree with the premise of all this that politically this is a big win for Joe Biden. But policy-wise, the State of the Union was a bit of a dog's breakfast. I mean, it was all over the place. He's pro-capitalism but he wants to be for competition, except he wants all buy American and economic nationalism. The reality is Rick –

CHUCK TODD:

And who loves that more these days?

JONAH GOLDBERG:

No look, it's very popular. It’s very popular.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:

That was one of the few bipartisan standing ovations.

JONAH GOLDBERG:

I agree. And that depresses me as a free market guy. But Rick Scott, his stupid gimmick about sunsetting these things, it's stupid politically and all that kind of stuff, and everyone's obsessed with the politics of this. On policy, Rick Scott is closer to the right than everybody who's getting a standing ovation in there because Social Security and Medicare are going broke. And we have to figure out how to fix entitlements. And that – everyone sort of laughs that off because it's such bad politics.

CHUCK TODD:

I got to play this Mitch McConnell takes down Rick Scott here, because I'm trying to figure out how much of this is about Republican politics and how much of this is about Rick Scott. Here's what McConnell said about the back and forth.

[BEGIN TAPE]

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL:

That's not a Republican plan. That was the Rick Scott. I mean, it's just a bad idea. I think it will be a challenge for him to deal with this in his own re-election in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any other state in America.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

Obviously, Rick Scott challenged Mitch McConnell. What's interesting is that Rick Scott decided to give it right back to McConnell here. This is – what had seemed to be a tamped-down feud is now out in the open isn’t it?

GARRETT HAAKE:

Well, and I think that serves Rick Scott's interests. I don't think it serves McConnell's. I mean, look, Mitch McConnell is better than any politician I've ever covered at not saying the thing he doesn't want to say. He's very comfortable saying nothing when he wants to. So when he says something like this, this is well thought out.

CHUCK TODD:

Everything is intentional with him.

GARRETT HAAKE:

Everything is intentional, and he means it. Now, I don't think this is about the leadership race because I don't think McConnell ever thought Rick Scott was a serious challenger. But I think this is a warning to anybody else that, "guys, I know what I'm doing. I want to be back in the majority. If you think you have a plan, bring it to me or keep it to yourself." Rick Scott gets talked about for this, which is good for Rick Scott. Mitch McConnell would like him to go quietly sit back at his desk.

CHUCK TODD:

You know, in fact, I do want to read the whole quote that Scott said, just in fairness if we're going to have McConnell rip Scott.

GARRETT HAAKE:

Sure.

CHUCK TODD:

Here's what Scott said back, Leigh Ann, "He's always sort of backed up Biden. So this is what he's doing. He's backing up Biden again. He doesn't believe that we ought to have a plan." It just seems as if this is only going to help the White House more continue to find a wedge.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:

Yeah, absolutely. So Rick Scott is a gift to the White House. And he's a thorn in the side of McConnell, as Garrett said, who wants to win back the majority. So this feud between McConnell and Scott goes back way – goes back to the last election cycle where McConnell blames Rick Scott for still being minority leader and not majority leader. But this issue of Social Security and Medicare, it is not going to go away. Biden said at the State of the Union, "great, we have, we're all in agreement now." But no, it's going – it’s never not been an issue in a campaign season. It's going to be an issue this time. It's going to play into 2024. And guess what? There's actually a bipartisan working group right now with – I interviewed Kyrsten Sinema this week, she's part of it. And they're going to present a plan to address Social Security. So this is not going to go away.

CHUCK TODD:

Not only that, but it does feel like we're going to lift the debt limit with a bunch of commissions, aren't we?

SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND:

Well, I --

CHUCK TODD:

Commissions, and committees, and all sorts of things so people can say, "Hey, we're going to do this stuff."

SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND:

So I talked to Jared Bernstein from the Economic Council at the White House. And I asked, "Well, one, if you're not going to negotiate on the debt ceiling, what is really going on here?" And he reinforced this conversation about the budget. The president's going to put his budget out on March 9th. The White House's position, in my understanding, is show me your budget from the Republican Party's point of view. So that is where they're going to have the debate. And I think that is where I think the White House will allow McCarthy to have some kind of win on the budget negotiations. But they're not going to touch the debt ceiling.

CHUCK TODD:

Jonah, to the Republican presidential primary, are we going to see Social Security as a wedge issue in a Republican primary?

JONAH GOLDBERG:

I doubt it. I think that almost everybody's going to capitulate essentially to the Donald Trump position, which was don't touch him ever.

CHUCK TODD:

How do they handle the flip flop? Because they all have it, really, except him.

JONAH GOLDBERG:

How do they handle all the other flip flops? I don't know.

CHUCK TODD:

There's your quote, there’s your quote of the show. Well, congratulations, that should get you trending on Twitter. Hey, before we go, this week on The Chuck ToddCast I spoke with Peter Baker and this person, Leigh Ann Caldwell, about how this week's State of the Union ranks with years past. And after we get off the air, we'll keep the conversation going. Look for a new episode later this morning. The Chuck ToddCast is free wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe by scanning that QR code on your screen right now, or by going to NBCNews.com/ChuckToddCast. Chiefs or Eagles, just say it out loud with me.

SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND:

Eagles.

JONAH GOLDBERG:

Chiefs.

CHUCK TODD:

Eagles, Chiefs.

CHUCK TODD:

There you go.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:

Rihanna.

CHUCK TODD:

That's the way we all feel. Rihanna. That's all we have for today. Thanks for watching. We'll be back next week, because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.