CHUCK TODD:
This Sunday, charged again. Former President Donald Trump faces additional criminal charges in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, engaging in a cover-up.
REP. JIM HIMES:
When you start talking about erasing security cameras and that sort of thing, it's pretty clear you know that something was wrong.
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
These are ridiculous indictments.
CHUCK TODD:
As Trump's lawyers meet with the special counsel about a third indictment related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
SEN. CYNTHIA LUMMIS:
Every time people bring charges or indictments against him, he gets stronger.
CHUCK TODD:
I'll break down the legal developments with former FBI senior official Chuck Rosenberg and talk to one of the Republicans challenging Trump for the nomination, former Texas Congressman Will Hurd.
FMR. REP. WILL HURD:
Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison
CHUCK TODD:
Plus, impeachment trial balloon. As Hunter Biden's plea deal unravels in court, House Republicans threaten to impeach President Biden.
SPEAKER KEVIN McCARTHY:
If they do not provide the information we need, then we would go to an impeachment inquiry
REP. KEN BUCK:
This is impeachment theater.
CHUCK TODD:
Setting up a potential impeachment investigation coinciding with the threat of a government shutdown, all in the fall. I'll talk to Biden campaign national co-chair Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. And, is age just a number? Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell freezes mid-sentence at a news conference, putting a spotlight on the advancing age of many of the nation's leaders.
SEN. MITCH McCONNELL:
The president called to check on me, I told him I got sandbagged.
CHUCK TODD:
How old is too old to serve? Joining me for insight and analysis are Leigh Ann Caldwell of The Washington Post, Amy Walter, editor-in-chief of The Cook Political Report, Faiz Shakir, chief political adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders and Stephen Hayes, editor of The Dispatch. 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. So, our democracy faces yet another stress test, one arguably that it hasn't seen since Reconstruction. In 2020, the country did face sort of an early pretesting if you will, whether an authoritarian-minded leader with an extremely devoted base of supporters would leave office voluntarily allowing for a peaceful transfer of power. Well, the answer on that test was we barely passed it. Now, criminal charges against Donald Trump have again put the nation on a collision course between partisan politics and the rule of law. In a new 60 page superseding indictment unsealed this week in the classified documents case, Special Counsel Jack Smith accused the former president of a cover-up, after Trump allegedly tried to get his staff to delete Mar-a-Lago security footage which had been subpoenaed by the FBI. The indictment also charges Trump with an additional count of possessing classified documents, specifically a battle plan related to attacking Iran which Trump allegedly showed to two people helping former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows write a book. That took place during a meeting at his Bedminster golf club. So, in total, Trump now faces 74 felony counts overall between state and federal indictments so far and a new federal indictment likely this week, stemming from the special counsel investigation into his efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election and an additional indictment out of the state of Georgia is expected later in August related to tampering with those election results. So, over the next year, we’re going to see the legal calendar for Mr. Trump collide with the political calendar for America. In October is when it begins. Trump faces a New York state trial on civil fraud charges. Now, Trump personally is not required to appear for civil trials in this case. On January 15th, it’s another civil trial that just happens to coincide with the day of the Iowa caucuses. That civil trial is involving writer E. Jean Carroll. It's an additional defamation case against him. On January 29th, a week before the contest in Nevada, yet another civil trial begins. This one is a federal class-action suit that accuses Trump and the Trump Organization of duping vulnerable investors into buying into a pyramid scheme. And then three weeks after Super Tuesday, when a dozen states vote, on March 25th the criminal case is supposed to kicks off in New York, where Trump is charged with falsifying business records to cover up an affair shortly before the 2016 election. And then two months before the Republican convention begins, on May 20th, the special counsel's criminal trial into Trump's handling of classified documents is scheduled to begin. Now I say scheduled because the additional charges announced this week are likely to delay the start of that. So, the potential trials into election interference federally and in Georgia, they’re not even on the books. And here is what we already know so far: 5 trials, 74 felony counts and it poses this question: is the Republican Party really going to go through with this and nominate Donald Trump with all of this going on? We’re staring at a Republican nominee who is desperate to postpone these trials until after the election because if he wins they go away and a Democratic nominee who is over the age of 80. And ask yourself: do we really think the status quo is going to hold when all of this collides in the spring of ‘24? It's pretty clear from voters that they don't want this rematch. 70% of voters don't want Biden to run again. 60% of voters don't want Trump to run again, and the last time we asked this question was before this latest round of indictments. And yet a Trump-Biden rematch appears to be what the voters are going to get. It’s not clear the general public fully appreciates that the two parties are going down this road. Last night campaigning in Erie, Pennsylvania, DonaldTrump escalated things. He threatened Republicans who do not pursue investigations, implying impeachment, of President Biden.
[START TAPE]
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
They sit back and they say, “They have other priorities, we've got to look at other things.” Any Republican that doesn't act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out. Out! They've broken the veil by indicting me with this ridiculous – these are ridiculous indictments.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Alright. We want to unpack the legal situation here so we've got former FBI senior official, former U.S. attorney, and NBC News legal analyst, Chuck Rosenberg. Chuck, I appreciate you coming in. So, superseding indictments are not something prosecutors like to have to do because it means they didn't have their full case. The fact that we saw this this week, is this more a reflection that Justice is scrambling or more of a reflection that they're getting more cooperators?
CHUCK ROSENBERG:
Well, it could also be, Chuck, that they're learning new information, perhaps from cooperators, other sources, documents, text messages, security camera footage. I think you're right. Ideally, prosecutors like to bring one set of charges against one set of defendants at one time. But sometimes, you learn additional information or something becomes more clear that had been opaque previously, and so superseding indictments, while not preferred, are not all that unusual. And by the way, they're perfectly permissible.
CHUCK TODD:
How much – how serious are these additional counts? There are two more counts. The security footage, specifically, there's some evidence in the superseding indictment of what they have. It's pretty circumstantial. Should we assume that's all they have or do we assume there's more?
CHUCK ROSENBERG:
Well, first, circumstantial evidence is every bit as weighty, as compelling, as direct evidence. The law makes no distinction between the two. But the new counts, I believe, are compelling in and of themselves. Obstruction in a case like this helps to prove intent. Intent is something that the government has to prove in these sorts of cases and can be hard to do because you have to get into the mind of some other person. But when that other person tries to impede the investigation, obstruct the investigation, thwart investigators by counseling attorneys to lie, by trying to destroy security camera footage, that helps illuminate that person's intent. So, I think those are strong counts.
CHUCK TODD:
Basically, at this point he would have to turn against his employees and hang his employees out to dry if he wanted to get out of this, right?
CHUCK ROSENBERG:
Possibly, but I don't think he's going to get out of it, even if he does that. And more likely, those employees – lower-level defendants, lower level in the organization – if past is prologue, would turn against him.
CHUCK TODD:
Let's move to the January 6th investigation. Obviously, there's all these tea leaves that something is imminent. Perhaps it's this coming week. We assume the grand jury's going to meet again. You’ve – They've actually outlined what they're – we kind of, we know what he's being targeted to do. It's interesting that they're – what – they’re not hitting him for the insurrection itself. Explain that.
CHUCK ROSENBERG:
Right. So first, we do think something else is coming, and with good reason. Mr. Trump received a target letter. When I was a federal prosecutor, Chuck, I would occasionally send out target letters to, well, targets. It's not a bluff. It's not a feint. It's not a game. If a federal prosecutor sends a target letter, that means he or she intends to indict –
CHUCK TODD:
You're seeking –
CHUCK ROSENBERG:
You –
CHUCK TODD:
– an indictment.
CHUCK ROSENBERG:
You are –
CHUCK TODD:
You may not get it, but you're going to seek it.
CHUCK ROSENBERG:
You're going to seek it. And by the way, when we seek it, we tend to get it.
CHUCK TODD:
Of course.
CHUCK ROSENBERG:
So why is insurrection off the table? Well, first of all, we don't know conclusively that it is. There's no requirement that you list all of the statutes that you intend to charge in a target letter. But let's assume it's off the table. It's probably with good reason because there's no need for the government to try and prove that Mr. Trump desired violence, although that's certainly what happened. The other statutes that were mentioned in the target letter are all compelling cases – in other words, that he tried to thwart the peaceful transition of presidential power. That, in and of itself, is as compelling a criminal case as I can imagine.
CHUCK TODD:
Without getting into the state courts because I know that's a separate situation, but in these federal charges, in your experience, the likelihood these get delayed till after the election?
CHUCK ROSENBERG:
Right. So I come from the Eastern District of Virginia, the rocket docket. 10 months away, May of 2024, when this Mar-a-Lago case is scheduled to go on trial seems like an eternity to me. Whether or not that trial has to slide, we shall see. But I don't think it has to. However, if more charges, new charges, additional charges are brought in the District of Columbia related to the events of January 6th I think it's going to be hard to squeeze that in between a May federal trial in Florida and the November election.
CHUCK TODD:
Let’s – I want to get your understanding of what happened in that Delaware courtroom with the Hunter Biden plea agreement. It fell apart under some basic questioning. Should, should – does that mean this is a pretty weak agreement?
CHUCK ROSENBERG:
No, it doesn't mean that. It does mean that attorneys on both sides perhaps didn't do a good enough job of being very clear with each other and with the judge about what that plea agreement, that contract, was drawn up to do.
CHUCK TODD:
Is that just – Is this just bad execution here? How does – this feels kind of basic.
CHUCK ROSENBERG:
It's kind of basic, but it happens. Most plea agreements go through without a hitch. This one had a hitch. It hit a snag. It's remediable. It's relatively easy to fix. If Mr. Biden still wants to plead guilty, and by the way, Chuck, I think it's in his best interest to do so, the two sides are going to hammer this out.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. Chuck Rosenberg, thanks for trying to provide some clarity to what is, I think, going to be a confusing situation for a lot of the American electorate. Thank you very much.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. Joining me now is the national co-chair of the Biden campaign, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. Senator Coons, welcome back to Meet the Press.
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
Great to be on with you again, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me start with the Hunter Biden situation, and I understand that, you know, you believe this is all – all being emphasized due to politics the Republicans – the House Republicans are doing. Let me ask you this, do you think it would behoove the President for him to come out and say, "Hey, I had no business dealings with my son. My son's issues are my son's issues." Do you think he needs to say that more directly? Because there's a lot of people that believe something – something else happened here.
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
Well, let's be clear about that point, Chuck. There's been a five-year investigation – five years – by a Trump appointed U.S. attorney. This investigation started during the Trump administration. And they've come forward with not one shred of evidence tying President Biden to any of this.
I am encouraged that in sharp contrast to President Trump – you just detailed his mountain of legal problems, where President Trump is fighting and pushing back and obstructing – Hunter Biden's come forward taken responsibility, paid his late taxes. As you just discussed with Chuck Rosenberg, I think the hiccup in the Delaware district courthouse will get ironed out pretty quickly. And I don't think President Biden needs to say anything more than he has. There is no evidence –
CHUCK TODD:
House Republicans are going to accuse him of –
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
They are.
CHUCK TODD:
They're going to make the accusations.
SEN. CHRIS COONS
They're going to accuse him of all sorts of stuff –
CHUCK TODD:
Perhaps, Whether they have the evidence or not.
SEN. CHRIS COONS
Correct.
CHUCK TODD:
The question – and they may have an information ecosystem that help amplify it to a point where you don't think he needs to just – "Hey, despite what you hear, so you know, I didn’t, I don't do business with my son, or my brother."
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
I think he's been perfectly clear. And I think, frankly, what makes the American people turn towards President Biden in the reelection campaign is that he has spent his time focusing on what they're concerned about. Not relitigating the 2020 election, not focused on grievance politics, as you showed in Erie last night. President Biden has delivered on an astonishing array of things that Trump promised to do, but Biden has actually done.
CHUCK TODD:
Impeachment was actually on the president's mind while he was in Maine talking about the economy. Take a listen to what he had to say.
[START TAPE]
PRES. JOE BIDEN:
Republicans may have to find something else to criticize me for now that inflation's coming down. Maybe they'll decide to impeach me because it's coming down.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Do you think politically, impeachment would help Biden? He seems to think so.
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
I don't know. If you look back at Bill Clinton and the experience of the impeachment, ultimately it did. Frankly, I think President Biden has an incredibly strong record to run on. And there was great economic news last night – last week that reinforced that the ground is shifting in his direction in terms of economic growth, unemployment. Three quarters of Americans showed in a recent poll they feel better about their economic condition. Consumer confidence is the highest it's been in years, so the ground is moving in his direction. But if the Republicans want a sharp contrast that Joe Biden's delivering on infrastructure, on high quality manufacturing, on making us stronger on the world stage, and they want to engage in political theater, an impeachment inquiry is probably the best thing they could do to hurt their chances next fall.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, what's legal in this town is sometimes very frustrating. You have Hunter Biden, who clearly was profiting off his last name. You have Jared Kushner, you've had members of Trump's family profiting off of their access to government. Should there be a code of conduct, should Congress – look, you’ve got controversies with the Supreme Court, is it time for a code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices and throw in presidential family members, you know sons and daughters of sitting presidents, should they have their own code of conduct, should Congress try to address this?
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
It's an interesting question that I haven't engaged with before. We have been engaging on trying to get the Supreme Court to adopt a code of ethics, as you referenced. They are the only members of the entire Federal Judiciary not covered by a code of ethics. Members of Congress have to fully disclose their assets, their stock holdings, their dealings, and those of their spouses –
CHUCK TODD:
Should presidential family members be separate – you know, perhaps come under a little additional scrutiny?
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
That may be worth looking at because frankly, as you referenced, Jared Kushner wasn't just a private citizen he worked in the White House and engaged in economic –
CHUCK TODD:
No, if you're outraged about Hunter Biden you should be outraged about Jared Kushner. To me, it's not like you could, you know it’s hard to –
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
– you can’t pick and choose.
CHUCK TODD:
You can’t pick and choose. Congressman Dean Phillips, Democrat from Minnesota, is openly now out there saying he thinks there should be a Democratic contest. He’s – by the way, he's against the No Labels idea, but he thinks that the President's too old to be running again. And he thinks this needs to be an active debate inside the Democratic Party. What say you?
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
Just look at the endorsements President Biden is getting earlier in the cycle, more broadly than ever before. Look, we've had contested primaries with sitting presidents. You've never seen a sitting president have as weak a field of potential opponents – Marianne Williamson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-- as he has now. And the endorsements President Biden has earned from the building trades, from climate activists, from reproductive rights activists, the base of the Democratic Party – as broadly as I've ever seen in my life – is endorsing President Biden because of what he's gotten done.
CHUCK TODD:
Are you at all – look, RFK Jr.'s kind of a clown show, and I think a lot of people sort of see that and I don't think it's a real threat. But Dean Phillips is a pretty serious member of Congress, maybe unknown. He's sitting there on that ballot of New Hampshire. That doesn't have you nervous?
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
It doesn't have me nervous, frankly. President Biden has the strongest record of legislative accomplishment since LBJ, and you're beginning to see the impact: 13 million jobs created by the private sector, 800,000 good manufacturing jobs, 35,000 infrastructure projects out there in the country. Dean Phillips can't cite anything like that. President Biden has made us stronger on the world stage. The Vilnius Summit showed his agility, his capabilities, the strength with which he's helped rally NATO to the defense of Ukraine, and the strength with which he's delivered on things Trump promised, like rebuilding infrastructure, cutting prescription drug prices. Where Biden has delivered, gives him an incredible record to run on.
CHUCK TODD:
I talk to a lot of our NBC affiliates in preparing for the Sunday show every week. Number one question they asked me was about age. How old is too old to serve? The Mitch McConnell thing was very – was very hard to watch. I think we're all hopeful that that's something that's not going to happen again for him. But is it time to consider – we have age minimums in the Constitution that, frankly, look kind of absurd in hindsight. Should there be a Constitutional amendment for an age maximum, whether 75 or 80, to apply to the entire federal government for political appointees or elected officials?
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
Look, I think the best test of whether or not someone is really capable of fulfilling their constitutional duty is an election. Having –
CHUCK TODD:
– six years, though. In a senator has six years. A lot can happen in a six-year period in your health, especially when you're in your late 70s or early 80s.
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
That's right. I mean, I don't disagree. Look, I talked to Minority Leader McConnell after the incident this week where he froze in a TV interview. He seemed fine.
CHUCK TODD:
You confident in him?
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
We spoke the next morning--
CHUCK TODD:
Do you feel like he's going to be running the show here?
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
I feel like he's going to continue to be the Republican leader through the rest of this Congress. And what happens after that, I don't know.
CHUCK TODD:
Senator Chris Coons, Democrat from Delaware. Good to see you.
SEN. CHRIS COONS:
Thank you, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
Thanks for coming out, sharing your perspective. When we come back, one of Donald Trump's only opponents who is actually taking him on directly over his legal issues.
[START TAPE]
WILL HURD:
Donald Trump is not running for President to make America great again. Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Former Texas Congressman and Republican presidential candidate, Will Hurd joins me next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. Former Texas Congressman Will Hurd was one of 13 Republicans who made their case to Iowa voters on Friday night at their annual Lincoln Day Dinner in Des Moines. He was the only one of the 13 to pointedly criticize Donald Trump for the charges against him -- to audible gasps and boos in the room.
[START TAPE]
WILL HURD:
Donald Trump is not running for president to make America great again. Donald Trump is not running for president to represent the people that voted for him in 2016 and 2020. Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison. And if we elect [AUDIENCE BOOS] -- I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Well, former Republican Congressman Will Hurd of Texas joins me now. Congressman Hurd, welcome back to Meet the Press.
WILL HURD:
Hey, thanks for having me on.
CHUCK TODD:Alright. You knew what you were doing when you went into that room. That was a prepared thing you did, not off the cuff. The reaction you got, was it as expected?
WILL HURD:
Of course it was as expected. I knew there were going to be people that didn't like it, but what I didn't expect was there were a lot of people that actually clapped, and then more -- there were more people that just sat there politely and probably understand and knew what I was saying was the truth. My goal was not to go in there and talk to the people that, you know, have been frustrated when they're told that the person that they respect has been lying to them. I was there to talk to the people that believe in personal responsibility, that believe character matters, that believe service matters, that believes that the United States has a role in the world and it's important to us back here at home. Those were the people that I was, I was going to speak to. And also to prove to the rest of the field that we're running for an election, and if you're afraid to talk about Donald Trump or talk about his baggage, then you're not ready to be president of the United States. And that's why I need some help. I need folks to go to HurdforAmerica.com and at least help me with -- give me one dollar so I can be on the debate stage.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, the last time you were here, it was before you -- you were still trying to decide whether to do this or not, and it happened in the week of the defamation suit where it was ruled that Donald Trump, indeed, not only defamed her, but the judge seemed to think that yes, he did rape her. We now have 74 additional criminal charges plus that civil defamation statement from another court. And none of it has mattered to Republican voters. Why?
WILL HURD:
Well, I don't know why the part of the population that supports Donald Trump -- I will say this race will tighten when we get closer to an election. That's what always happens in elections. The place that it is mattering is with independents and conservative Democrats that are frustrated with Joe Biden. If the Republican Party puts Donald Trump forward as our nominee, we will give four more years to Joe Biden on purpose. You said in the lead-in, nobody wants to see this rematch. People are looking for something different. And here's what I'm seeing on the ground. I get asked a question, you know, when I'm in places like New Hampshire and Iowa, "Are my kids going to be able to have good access to -- access to good-paying jobs? Is a robot going to replace my job? Are we going to win this new cold war with the Chinese government?" These are the kinds of issues that people on the ground want to talk about. And Donald Trump, all he's doing is litigating past elections. When people start learning when you give money to Donald Trump, it's going to pay his lawyers -- $3 out of $4 that Donald Trump raises is going to pay for his legal fees. And people are -- even folks, Republicans that have voted for Donald Trump twice, recognize that this baggage is hurting him, is going to hurt him in November.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, the consensus among most of your colleagues running for president -- most of your former colleagues on the House -- is that a Justice Department that's led by a former federal judge in Merrick Garland, an FBI that is led by a registered Republican, Chris Christie's former attorney, Christopher Wray, has been weaponized against the right. Is there any evidence to that, in your mind?
WILL HURD:
Well, look, can I make some arguments about some of the things that DOJ and FBI has done over history? Absolutely. But when -- that doesn't change the facts on the ground. Donald Trump is a liar. Donald Trump is a national security threat. Donald Trump willingly knew that he had this country's secrets, and he was trying to tamper with evidence to hide that he had that information. All of those things are true, and that doesn't matter who the head of DOJ or where FBI is. And that's what we have to be honest about. And if we want to change how the DOJ operates or the FBI operates, then we have to win elections. And we're not going to win in November if we nominate Donald Trump.
CHUCK TODD:
How would a Hurd administration restore confidence among voters left and right in the Justice Department?
WILL HURD:
Sure.
CHUCK TODD:
How do you do it? Do you change the way we appoint an attorney general?
WILL HURD:
Well, well it starts with appointing people that have immediate respect, right? Who that person or who that --
CHUCK TODD:
Joe Biden tried -- Merrick Garland was, in his --
WILL HURD:
-- particular individual --
CHUCK TODD:
-- Whatever you think of Joe Biden, in his defense, that's the way he was thinking. He had --
WILL HURD:
Sure.
CHUCK TODD:
-- Democratic polls criticizing him. "Hey, you need more of a defender there. Don't put a federal judge there."
WILL HURD:
Well, but did the population know who Merrick Garland was? No. All they knew about him was he was the dude that was selected to be Supreme Court justice and had to get pulled, right?
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah.
WILL HURD:
So, so having someone that people trust. And then, also requires the DOJ to start making decisions properly and, and, and not making mistakes. And, and the only way you can -- to rebuild trust is to do the right thing. And then, also, making sure people trust the broader government, as well, too. And how do you make it more efficient and deliver better services?
CHUCK TODD:You know, there was a history for a while, when parties wanted to send -- when presidents wanted to send a message that national security should be bipartisan, you appointed somebody else, of the opposite party, to Defense. Is that the solution here? Republican presidents should appoint Democrats attorney general, and Democratic presidents should appoint -- find a Republican as attorney general?
WILL HURD:
Well, I don’t think a -- do I believe in that concept? That makes sense. But if the, if the problem is the conservative base is distrustful in leaders, appointing a Democrat is probably not going to be the one that, that build that trust. But we can't forget the fact that making sure the government and our elected officials are actually doing what they say and it's reflective in what -- in their actions.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to talk about another candidate running for president, and that is Ron DeSantis. There's --
WILL HURD:
Sure.
CHUCK TODD:
-- the debate about curriculum in the state of Florida. And he is doubling down and defending the idea that slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit. That is exactly what the curriculum said in Florida. Senator Tim Scott took issue with it, and Ron DeSantis responded. Take a listen.
[START TAPE]
SENATOR TIM SCOTT:
Slavery was, was really about separating families, about mutilating humans, and even raping their wives. It was devastating. So, I would hope that every person in our country and certainly running for president would appreciate that.
GOVERNOR RON DeSANTIS:
You know, I think part of the reason our country has struggled is because D.C. Republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left, and to, you know, accept the lie that Kamala Harris has been perpetrating, even when that has been debunked.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Where are you on this?
WILL HURD:
Well, I'm glad Tim Scott's following my lead. I was the first Republican to come out and say that slavery is not a jobs program, and anybody that is implying that there was an upside to slavery is insane. And, and what, what is even more shocking to me is that everybody has come out -- Ron DeSantis' department of education doubled down on this. Ron DeSantis has doubled down on this multiple times, and he hasn't said, "Guess what?" -- You know, and then he wants to blame the people that wrote this and say, "I wasn't the one that wrote this." Real leadership would have stepped up and said, "Hey, there is no upside to slavery. Slavery was not a jobs program. Anything -- Nobody should imply that's what we did. And we're going to change the language." And this would have been done. But this is one more part of a fact pattern of Ron DeSantis being mean and hateful. And --
CHUCK TODD:
Has he disqualified himself?
WILL HURD:
Well, I wouldn’t -- it would be hard to make the case, if Ron DeSantis was the Republican nominee, that folks in Black and brown communities should support him. Folks in the LGBTQ community won't support him because of his hateful rhetoric towards, towards my friends in the LGBTQ community. And then, he hired a guy who had known cases of being antisemitic and then wrote it -- and then created a video that they tried to propagate on their systems. And then, he had to be fired. So, this is a trend. One is an exception. Three is a trend, and this is a -- this is a big problem.
CHUCK TODD:
Very quickly, the No Labels movement, are you supportive of them in general, what they're doing?
WILL HURD:
So, when I was in Congress, I was part of the Problem Solvers Caucus that had a relationship with No Labels. Can a third-party candidate win in the United States? I think that's the case. I think the French president Macron is an example, and the Mexican president López Obrador is another example. But I'm focused on -- if we want to get rid of, of Donald Trump, we've got to do it in the primary. And if Republicans want to get rid of Joe Biden, it's not by impeaching him. It's about nominating someone who can win in the general election.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, if it's Trump versus Biden, would you participate in a No Labels ticket?
WILL HURD:
My focus right now is --
CHUCK TODD:
You're not ruling it out.
WILL HURD:
No, no, my focus --
CHUCK TODD:
You just gave me that --
WILL HURD:
No, sure, listen to me --
CHUCK TODD:-- "no rule it out" answer.
WILL HURD:
Listen, you know, you know me, Chuck. I'm going to take time and deliberate. I wouldn't want something that would potentially lead to Donald Trump winning. My focus right now is criss-crossing the country and talking about how we need common sense in complicated times and that the best way we solve our problems is by recognizing we're better together. And that's why I need folks to go to HurdforAmerica.com and help me get on the debate stage.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah, you saw I was wrapping up, and you got one more pitch in. Congressman Will Hurd, thanks for coming in and sharing your perspective.
WILL HURD:
Sure. Always a pleasure.
CHUCK TODD:
When we come back -- be safe on the trail, by the way. When we come back, more on Trump's legal troubles. And why is Ron DeSantis still trying to defend Florida's slavery curriculum in the face of criticism from all sides of the political spectrum? Panel is next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back, panel is here. Amy Walter, the editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report; Faiz Shakir, the chief political advisor for Senator Bernie Sanders; Stephen Hayes, editor of The Dispatch; and Leigh Ann Caldwell, co-author of the Washington Post's Early 202 Newsletter and, of course, anchor of Washington Post Live. All right. Donald Trump, if it's possible to escalate things, he has really escalated things in this confrontation between politics and the rule of law. Listen to him last night in Eerie.
[START TAPE]
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
The others are dirty, sick players and the Republicans are very high class. They’ve got to be a little bit lower class, I suspect. They sit back and they say, "They have other priorities. We have to look at other things." Any Republican that doesn't act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried. And get out. Out.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Amy Walter, he is -- look, he is -- he announced when he announced in order to have this illusion that somehow the indictments were a response to his candidacy. And now, he's putting his party on notice and it sounds to me that he's putting Kevin McCarthy on notice. “You better impeach him."
AMY WALTER:
That you better do this. And that any attempt to make the case against Donald Trump is met with, "Well, how could this possibly be true? Because everything's corrupt.” The DOJ's corrupt in the way that they've handled the Hunter Biden case. It no longer becomes just about Donald Trump. They have now other pieces to bring in, to even bring those who are skeptical about Donald Trump into this process. And this is – the reality, too, is the more oxygen that Donald Trump sucks up, the harder it is for any of these Republicans to break out. They can't have a message that goes against what he has been bringing.
CHUCK TODD:
Leigh Ann, you've prowled those corridors in Congress a lot.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:
Yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
We know the appetite isn't fully there, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:
No, the fact that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy even opened the door to an impeachment inquiry this week means that it is very likely that it's going to happen.
CHUCK TODD:
Is this his way of negotiating spending bills, by the way? Does he think shiny metal objects on impeachment gets these guys to vote for spending bills?
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:
There's a couple things going on here. First, when you open that door, you can't walk it back. You can't do an impeachment inquiry and not do an impeachment. So most people who -- most Republicans and Democrats think that this is going to happen on Capitol Hill.The timing is interesting. He was having another internal battle with the far right faction of his party over spending bills. This is the fourth internal battle he's had. Meanwhile, he's getting a lot of pressure from Donald Trump to do something, to defend him. And so this has been his reaction. And it is absolutely political. You talk to Senate Republicans, and most of them are like, "What are you going to impeach Joe Biden on?" So, there's a huge gap within the party.
CHUCK TODD:
Faiz, if you're the Biden campaign struggling to get younger voters who are more progressive to rally around you, is there any better idea than impeaching him?
FAIZ SHAKIR:
Well, that and Trump is a gift every day. I mean, I think we've become accustomed to the idea that Trump evades legal accountability for his entire life, right? Bankruptcies, nonprofits, Trump University, sexual assault, you name it, he has generally avoided legal accountability for those. And you can see that setting into the mindset of the public. "Oh yeah, they always go after him. Oh no, they're always political." And that attitude in the public, I think, can be engineered by Democrats to say, "This time it changes. We've got an opportunity to assert public accountability. And we've got an administration who understands the rule of law. And it doesn't evade some of the richest in our society."
CHUCK TODD:
Steve, you and I were discussing this collision that's happening. And you've -- to plug what you guys are doing at The Dispatch, you've decided to create a whole new beat, this sort of what's happening here between the Republican primary and this legal situation here. Are Republican elected officials going to wake up on June 1st and go, "What have we done?"
STEPHEN HAYES:
I think so. I mean, if you watch Donald Trump's speech in Eerie yesterday he was making a campaign speech, making the arguments that we're accustomed to hearing. He was also laying the ground, I think, for something a lot darker. He's talking to people who are believing a totally different reality than he's putting out there -- where Joe Biden is the most corrupt president in the United States, where the DOJ's only coming after him, where he's the sort of innocent victim. And his supporters believe it because they're not seeing it covered in conservative media. They're seeing his arguments amplified and echoed. And I think that's really worrisome. You look at the kinds of arguments he's making. A third of the Republican Party who believe that he hasn't done anything wrong. There was a Marquette University poll out this week, 50% of Republicans think Donald Trump didn't even keep classified documents. I mean, we have video of this.
CHUCK TODD:
Trump has admitted it.
STEPHEN HAYES:
We have him on tape.
CHUCK TODD:
Right, he has said he did it.
STEPHEN HAYES:
Him on tape. Half of the --
CHUCK TODD:
He's not denying this stuff.
STEPHEN HAYES:
– Republican Party doesn't even believe this. I think we're watching these sort of steps to this collision, where Trump is not going to go quietly. And he's calling on Republicans to fight. The clip that you played, by the way, that was one of his biggest applause lines in his speech yesterday.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to pivot to his chief challenger, Amy, Ron DeSantis. And I keep thinking about a Haley Barbour quote, one of my favorite quotes of his, "Good gets better and bad gets worse." And we've been watching DeSantis, and I just want to put up this tweet from Congressman John James, African American Republican from Michigan, where he points this out and he says, first of all, "Slavery isn't CTE." That's the one thing he pointed out. And he said, "There are only five Black Republicans in Congress, and you're attacking two of them. My brother in Christ … if you find yourself in a deep hole, put the shovel down." At what point do we start to say -- ask, "Is it even recoverable for DeSantis?"
AMY WALTER:
Well, he's got the money, so that always helps. For how long? We don't know. But he certainly has a super PAC with a great deal of money to help him. To me, this debate is going to be fascinating on August 23rd.
CHUCK TODD:
They're without Trump now.
AMY WALTER:
Without Trump, you know exactly.
CHUCK TODD:
There's an actual interesting contrast. Scott versus DeSantis.
AMY WALTER:
Well, and the fact that you see the pile on right now on Ron DeSantis suggests that those people who are going to be standing on the stage with Ron DeSantis know exactly what they need to do, which is he's already this -- he's lowering, lowering, lowering. If they can just get one more punch in, he's no longer number two, somebody else gets to be elevated. This is a very, very dangerous debate for Ron DeSantis.
FAIZ SHAKIR:
You know the main thing that’s happening here, you and I believe this about campaigns, is they reveal people. And he --
CHUCK TODD:
It's an MRI.
FAIZ SHAKIR:
– is being revealed as of smarmy arrogance. This campaign was born of arrogance. It decided early on, when Trump was in the doldrums after the 2022 election, that we weren't going to get in. We weren't going to have a Trump-based argument. We're going to sit on our hands while Trump is out there announcing his campaign. They didn't seize that moment. And then when he does come out, he presumes, "I'm the frontrunner." No, you can't assume that. There's a Republican head who's got the votes locked up. You've got to have an argument. And to this day, he can't seem to find one.
CHUCK TODD:
Steve, do you think DeSantis or Trump is the better nominee for the Republicans? Is DeSantis putting himself in a less electable position?
STEPHEN HAYES:
Um yeah, but he's clearly the better nominee for Republicans. I don't think Donald Trump will win the election.
CHUCK TODD:
I totally accept that.
STEPHEN HAYES:
But, look, I think Ron DeSantis has gotten, to a certain extent, gotten a bad rap on this. I mean, this was not a whitewash. The curriculum that Florida put forward was not a whitewash. There are 191 items that tell a detailed and harrowing story about American slavery in his -- in his plan. And some of the language reflects what's in the EAP. The problem, I think, Ron DeSantis is having is he fights this. He doesn't get the benefit of the doubt anymore. I mean, we had this past week, he had to let go of a staffer on his campaign who had created a video with Nazi iconography whom he hired after this staffer had defended Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist. I mean, you're not going to win people's benefit of the doubt if you're doing that.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. I've got to pause it there. When we come back, there's growing evidence that a person's political leanings were a COVID risk factor. The real consequences of vaccine skepticism in Trump counties versus Biden counties. Data Download is next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back, Data Download time. The official COVID-19 health emergency may be over. But this week, a scientific study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed what many had suspected, Republicans who lagged behind in accepting the efficacy of the COVID vaccine paid a steeper price. Researchers from Yale examined 538,000 deaths in people 25 and older in Florida and Ohio from April 2020 to December 2021. And they found that the excess death rate, deaths beyond what would normally be expected, was 15% higher for registered Republicans than for Democrats. But after the vaccine became available in April of 2021 to a majority of the population, the death rate among Republicans was 43% higher. So, what about the nation as a whole? To test that theory further we looked at deaths over the same time period and used county level 2020 presidential election results as a proxy for whether a county leaned Democratic or Republican. So, here's what we found. The post-vaccine period in the study was harder on counties that voted for Donald Trump than those that voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Biden counties experienced more deaths from COVID before the vaccine became widely available than Trump counties did. About 325,000 versus 218,000, respectively. More people live in Biden counties and they're more densely populated. But after the vaccine became widely available, look at the numbers now in the spring of 2021. The numbers flip. There were about 104,000 deaths – COVID deaths in Biden counties, about 24% of the total COVID deaths through December of '21. Compare that to more than 135,000 of COVID deaths in Trump counties after the vaccine. 38% of the total COVID deaths during that time. These numbers could actually matter in the 2024 election. Remember, here are the three closest states: Arizona decided by just over 10,000 votes, Georgia just under 12,000 votes, Wisconsin just over 20,000 votes. And the COVID post-vaccine patterns in these three states look very similar to what the Journal of American Medical Association found. In the Trump counties, 35% higher than the Biden counties in Arizona. Same story in Georgia, 50% to 41%. Same story in Wisconsin, 30% to 25%. In a close election, a lot of factors can impact the outcome. Everything from weather to long lines at polling places. But this data suggests a correlation that could impact turnout in 2024. Every vote counts. Well, if there was one story this week that did bring both parties together, it was a congressional hearing that was out of this world. Speaking to a House Oversight subcommittee, a former military and intelligence officer said that the government knows more than it is letting on on UFOs, and they said this under oath, folks. In fact, one former intelligence official testified that, quote, "Non-human biologics had been recovered at crash sites." That's another way of saying aliens. Well, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second person ever to set foot on the moon, he joined this very broadcast 20 years ago. He was asked whether he agreed with his former Apollo 11 crew mate on the potential for life beyond planet Earth.
[START TAPE]
TIM RUSSERT:
I asked Mike Collins about life somewhere else in the universe and he said, "Absolutely." Do you agree with that?
BUZZ ALDRIN:
I agree.
TIM RUSSERT:
You do?
BUZZ ALDRIN:
I agree that I don't know that we can make it absolutely. Intelligent life, we're a unique species here on Earth. There's a lot of life here. But we're the intelligent ones.
TIM RUSSERT:
He thought this would be above earthlings.
BUZZ ALDRIN:
Well, it could be. If we find out they exist, then it's because of their communication to us. But they're going to be a long ways away. Space is enormous. Even the closest star could take a lifetime for a crew going from here to there, or vice versa.
[END TAPE]
[START TAPE]
SEN. JOHN THUNE:
He said he's fine. I take him at face value. You heard him respond to questions yesterday. He was very crisp in his answers.
SEN. TED CRUZ:
Obviously, what – what happened was disturbing. Everyone that watched that was concerned. But – but listen, Mitch is, Mich is strong. He's stubborn as a mule.
SEN. KEVIN CRAMER:
Obviously, his first responsibility is to the voters of Kentucky. But once you become a leader, your responsibilities obviously are with other constituents. So that probably does call for some - a little more - I should say more - call for more transparency than it would for somebody else.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Leader McConnell's office put out a statement on Friday morning, Leigh Ann. “Leader McConnell appreciates the continued support of his colleagues, and plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do.” You know what was notable in the statement, is that that was the pledge they made. They did not pledge to finish his entire term, which would be through 2027.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:
Yeah, that's absolutely right. And they didn't also say that he was going to run for reelection, either, something that McConnell, for the past couple years, hasn't said. But I will say on Capitol Hill I think that the sound bites that you just played are pretty representative. Before this incident happened, remember he had the fall where he had the serious concussion several months ago. And then he came back and there was literally zero discussion about McConnell's health among Republican senators. I would periodically ask sources. No one would talk about it.
CHUCK TODD:
They'd shut it down, huh?
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:
No one would talk about it. Now, there is – there is a lot of discussion. But people do make the point physically he's challenged, mentally he is all there. And they say that's the difference. But it does raise a lot of questions.
CHUCK TODD:
Steve, between what we've seen with Dianne Feinstein, we have two presidential – potential presidential nominees that will be, you know, if one wins, they're going to serve the presidency into their 80s. We have the McConnell incident here. Voters, when you ask them if age matters, they say yes. They only vote on it if they see a moment.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:
That's right.
STEPHEN HAYES:
Yeah, and I think we’re going to see – we're likely to see moments as we go through this campaign process. But I think we're in a crisis of trust right now. As a country, we've talked a lot about that. This is part of that. Because inevitably, after you see something like this, you get stories of, "Actually, Mitch McConnell's fallen a couple of other times."
CHUCK TODD:
Right, all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, they haven't been very forthright."
STEPHEN HAYES:
The Joe Biden question. I mean, we've seen a lot of what he's done on video. But then there are stories about what's happening behind the scenes that raise further questions and raise further trust. I think it's a big problem to have this happen. What's interesting to me is Democrats right now on Capitol Hill, in the context of the FAA authorization, are arguing against raising the mandatory retirement age for pilots to 67. They're opposing that. And the Biden administration is, too.
CHUCK TODD:
Faiz, you ran a campaign with a candidate whose age was, Bernie Sanders is a year older than Joe Biden.
FAIZ SHAKIR:
You know, one of my observations about this, though, Chuck, is that age is a class issue in America. Because – I see increasingly with variance, as you get older, if you're rich you have better access to health care. You have more information about how to preserve your health. And you're seeing that. You're actually seeing the divergence. If you have wealth and you happen to be a senator, you happen to be president, you happen to be former Vice President Cheney, you're probably going to outlive people at under –
CHUCK TODD:
Former President Carter is in his 90s. You have terrific health care.
FAIZ SHAKIR:
So my view is that we're talking about different classes. If you're talking about the elite classes of senators, they're probably going to be better off, quite frankly, than a normal human being similarly situated.
CHUCK TODD:
Amy, we have age minimums which, frankly, look ridiculous.
AMY WALTER:
I know.
CHUCK TODD:
And the only way there'd be an age maximum is you'd have to make it a constitutional administration. There's no doubt, I don't think, in any legal scholar's mind here. You think there’d be momentum for that? You put it at 80, you apply it to the federal judiciary. Something tells me there could be bipartisan momentum for that.
AMY WALTER:
I think there would be support for that. But yet, all of us know somebody who has everything clicking at age 80.
CHUCK TODD:
But they're slower.
AMY WALTER:
Yes. They may be slower, but that's different from flying an airplane. I absolutely want somebody who's flying an airplane to have everything clicking. Somebody who is sitting as a member of Congress, that's a different category when you're thinking about your – what your response rate is to certain things.
CHUCK TODD:
But it is also possible that Mitch McConnell came back too soon.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:
Yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
Pressure of the job. I understand why he would want to.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL:
Yeah. And he loves his job. The Senate is his life. You know who never criticizes Joe Biden in their age? Mitch McConnell.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, that's a fine way to end that panel. That's all we have for today. Thank you for watching. We'll be back next week, because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.