CHUCK TODD:
This Sunday: The new coronavirus variant.
DR. MARIA VAN KERKHOVE:
This variant has a large number of mutations, and some of these mutations have some worrying characteristics.
CHUCK TODD:
The U.S. and Europe imposing restrictions on travel from southern Africa.
PRES. JOE BIDEN:
We don't know a lot about this variant except that it is of great concern. It seems to spread rapidly.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
It's something that I'm concerned about, you want to be honest.
CHUCK TODD:
This as cases are already spiking in much of this country. My guest this morning: Dr. Anthony Fauci. Plus: The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments on Mississippi's new law that bars most abortions after 15 weeks. It could lead to the redefining or overturning of Roe v. Wade.
GOV. TATE REEVES:
It makes sense for the court to review their decisions from the past and this is a vehicle in which for them to do it.
CHUCK TODD:
I'll talk to Mississippi's governor, Tate Reeves. Also, Donald Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is free after serving time for breaking tax and campaign laws. I'll talk to him about the investigation into Mr. Trump's financial dealings --
MICHAEL COHEN:
They're working on a daily basis in terms of bringing this indictment.
CHUCK TODD:
-- and the former president's political ambitions. Joining me for insight and analysis are: NBC News Senior Washington Correspondent Hallie Jackson, Washington Post Columnist Eugene Robinson, Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute and Jake Sherman, founder of Punchbowl News. 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:
Well a good Sunday morning, and I hope you're enjoying the rest of your Thanksgiving Day weekend. Well, it appears the country and the world may be suffering from its own version of long Covid. Each pause in cases seems to be followed by a spike and now there's Omicron. This is the name of a troubling new coronavirus variant that the WHO is calling a "variant of concern." The first one they’ve labeled that since the Delta variant, and we know how that turned out. This was first identified in southern Africa, but as we've learned, when a variant shows up anywhere, it winds up everywhere. The reaction so far has been swift, despite real uncertainty over how serious this variant actually is. There’s been jitters on Wall Street over the news and it caused the Dow to drop more than 900 points on Friday, the single worst day of the year. All this comes amid a sharp rise in cases in the U.S. and across Europe, and this is pre-Omicron. Here at home, the seven-day average of cases has grown since the end of the summer wave with the recent spike especially sharp in the northeast and midwest, as more people go inside due to the cold weather. Ultimately, this is also a political problem. President Biden ran on taming the pandemic, and he prematurely declared independence from the virus back in July. At the same time we could see a backlash against all those Republican politicians who have been fighting mandates and playing down the need for vaccines. So where are we headed? Well, joining me now is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, it is Dr. Anthony Fauci. And of course, he is the president’s chief adviser on Covid. Dr. Fauci, welcome back to Meet the Press. So --
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
Good to be with you, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
-- I did some calendar math here. The Delta variant was labeled a variant of concern in May. Obviously, it didn't really hit us until mid-July. And, of course, we had a terrible surge there for about two months. Here we are post-November. So we are already experiencing a surge. Now we have this. Are we headed for a bleak winter here, sir?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
You know, Chuck, a lot of whether or not we're headed into a bleak or bleaker winter is really going to depend upon what we do. And I think what you're seeing is just the manifestation of what we've been talking about, why it is so important for people to get vaccinated and for those who are fully vaccinated to get boosted, because even when you have variants like this, and there are a lot of unknowns about this variant, we know from experience that when you get a level of protection with vaccine, and particularly now with the extraordinary increase in protection you get with the booster, even when you have variants of concern, you do well against them. It may not be as good in protecting against initial infection, but it has a very important impact on diminishing the likelihood that you're going to get a severe outcome from it. So this is a clarion call as far as I'm concerned of saying let's put aside all of these differences that we have and say, if you're not vaccinated, get vaccinated. If you're fully vaccinated, get boosted, and get the children vaccinated also. We now have time. Thank goodness that the South Africans were -- are really extraordinarily good in what they did. They were completely transparent right from the beginning. We were on the phone getting real-time information from them on Friday. We're going to be talking to them again today. So we have an advantage of this. We have an up on it. We know what's going on. We're getting more information in real-time. When you diminish or stop or block travel from a particular country there's a reason for that. It's to give you time to do things. So don't let this decision that was made about blocking the travel from certain countries go without a positive effect. And the positive effect is to get us better prepared, to rev up on the vaccination, to be really ready for something that may not actually be a big deal, but we want to make sure that we're prepared for the worst. And that's what we should be doing.
CHUCK TODD:
Okay. Why -- what is it about this variant that you've seen so far that has everybody so alarmed that the other variants that we’ve had between Delta and this one. You know, Delta alarmed folks, this one alarmed folks. Lambda and Mu, for instance, haven't. What makes Omicron so concerning to you?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
Yeah. Well, right now what we have is we have the window into the mutations that are in this new variant. And they are troublesome in the fact that there are about 32 or more variants in that very important spike protein of the virus, which is the business end of the virus. And there’s about ten or more of these mutations that are on that part of the virus, we call it the receptor binding domain, that actually binds to the cells in your nasopharynx and in your lung. In other words, the profile of the mutations strongly suggest that it's going to have an advantage in transmissibility and that it might evade immune protection that you would get, for example, from a monoclonal antibody or from the convalescent serum after a person's been infected, and possibly even against some of the vaccine-induced antibodies. So it's not necessarily that that's going to happen, but it's a strong indication that we really need to be prepared for that. That, together with the fact that it just kind of exploded in the sense that when you look in South Africa, you were having a low level of infection, and then all of a sudden, there was this big spike. And when the South Africans looked at it, they said, "Oh my goodness. This is a different virus than we've been dealing with." So it clearly is giving indication that it has the capability of transmitting rapidly. That's the thing that's causing us now to be concerned but also to put the pressure on ourselves now to do something about our preparation for this.
CHUCK TODD:
What is it about -- what do you need to know to find out if our vaccines are working correctly or if they need to be tweaked, or if the boosters need to be tweaked? We never tweaked the boosters for Delta. Do you expect us to do that for this one?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
We're preparing to, but we might not have to. That is the critical question that you asked, Chuck. So what you do is you get the virus, either the whole virus itself or a modification, what we call a pseudovirus. And you get that and you take antibodies from a person who's been vaccinated, and you see if those antibodies can neutralize this particular virus. And if they can at a high titer of antibody, we're in pretty good shape. If it looks like even at a high titer of antibody it doesn't, then what you've got to do is you've got to change and modify what the vaccine is going to be, which you can do pretty easily with the kinds of vaccines that we have. So the critical questions now are: Do the antibodies block this well? And what is the seriousness of the disease? So there are enough people right now in South Africa that our South African colleagues are following to determine is this highly transmissible, but doesn't really give a severe disease, or does it really give the same kind of severity that we've seen with Delta and other variants? All of these are gaps in our knowledge that we are all over and going to find them out pretty quickly.
CHUCK TODD:
So I got my booster five days ago. And now I'm wondering, did I get my booster too soon? And there are going to be a whole bunch of people out there that are thinking about their booster. I see you shaking your head, and I assumed you would. But I'd like you to clarify that because there are going to be people who sit there and say, "Well, maybe I should wait till the booster's tweaked." What do you tell them?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
No, right? If you are six months or more from the second dose of an mRNA, either the Pfizer or the Moderna, get boosted. If you're two months or more following the single dose of J&J, get boosted. Don't try to play mind games of saying, "Maybe I should wait a little bit longer." Get boosted now. The one thing we do know, Chuck, that's really good news is that when you get boosted, the level of your antibody goes way, way above what the level at its peak was after the second dose. So the booster not only gets you back up to where you were, it gets you way, way, way up. And that's the reason why we feel, even with variants like Omicron, that if you get boosted you're going to get a level of antibody that's high enough that it is likely you'll be able to get at least some degree, and maybe a lot of, protection against this. So as again I said in the beginning of the interview, Chuck if ever there was a reason for the people who are vaccinated to get boosted and for those who are unvaccinated to get vaccinated, it's now.
CHUCK TODD:
We are a country that was trying desperately to get back to normal. We're almost at pre-pandemic travel levels for the Thanksgiving holiday. Does the rise of this new variant and our continued stubborn unvaccinated population that we have in this country make you think we should have a different policy regarding holiday travel in a month?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
Well, you know, if people follow the recommendations of the CDC and all of us about what to do in traveling, in getting vaccinated, in getting boosted, we could have a situation where you do continue to veer towards getting to some degree of normality. Chuck, I say it so many times. It's within our own capability to do that. And that's the thing. We've got to put aside all of these things that are getting in the way of good public health practices. This is not rocket science. We know exactly what we can do and what we should be doing.
CHUCK TODD:
Should we have a vaccine mandate for domestic travel -- air travel?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
You know, Chuck I’m not going to make any pronouncements about what we should have about vaccine mandates for travel. We know we evaluate these things literally in real time, all the time. You know, everything is discussed and everything is on the table. Right now, we hope that people who get vaccinated and who follow the appropriate recommendations that air travel will continue to be safe. And right now, air travel is. When you say travel in general causes an increased risk of transmission, its the whole process of traveling: going to the airport, being in the airport, in a congregate setting, people taking their masks off. That's the issue that we’ve got to make sure that we adhere to more closely and more firmly.
CHUCK TODD:
How soon do we change the definition of fully vaccinated, considering now it seems like you're saying “if you haven't gotten the booster, get the booster.” Is fully vaccinated going to have to be the booster shot included?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
You know, Chuck, I think there's a little semantics there because when you say "fully vaccinated" with regard to certain regulations, or can you get into a certain place, can you be in a certain position or in a job, and then there's what's the optimal for you for your own health.
Right now, there's not going to be a change, certainly not in the immediate future, of what is the definition of fully vaccinated. And that's still two shots of an mRNA and one shot of a J&J. But if you want to optimize your protection as an individual, clearly, that's where we're saying go get your booster.
CHUCK TODD:
Is it pretty clear this is now an endemic? I mean, how does this end any other way?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
When you say "this," you're talking about what we're dealing with now --
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah --
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
-- in our own country, namely the Delta and what we're doing?
CHUCK TODD:
That we're going to have this virus --
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
-- You know, Chuck, as I’ve said --
CHUCK TODD:
-- circulating for perpetuity?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
You know, we certainly are not going to eradicate it. We've only eradicated one virus, and that's smallpox. Elimination means there's none of it in the country, like we have now with polio and with measles. I don't think we're going to be there with this. But what I do think we will be able to do is get a level of control that's low enough that it doesn't interfere with our function, it doesn't have a major impact on society and what we do. It's not going to go away. The lower we get it, the better off we'll be. And you get it that low when you get the overwhelming majority of the population vaccinated and boosted. So, like I've said multiple times, Chuck, it's in with our own grasp of how we're going to be able to live with the virus. The lower we get it, the lower the dynamics of virus in the community, the lower the risk to everyone, including vaccinated people.
CHUCK TODD:
Dr. Fauci, I hope you had as enjoyable a Thanksgiving as you could. And considering the breaking news over the week, I'm guessing it was a bit interrupted, but thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective with us.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:
Good to -- good to be with you, Chuck. Thank you for having me.
CHUCK TODD:
And joining me now is the governor of Mississippi, it's Republican Tate Reeves. Mississippi's Covid caseload, by the way, is way down from its summer peak in late August. The cases there have also begun to bump up a bit again. So Governor Reeves, welcome to Meet the Press. And I know, for what it's worth, we invited you to talk about the Mississippi abortion case, and I do want to get to that. But let me start with Covid. You let your state of emergency expire on Covid last Saturday. Given the news of the last week, do you have a metric in mind in your own head on when you might reinstitute that state of emergency?
GOV. TATE REEVES:
Well, Chuck, thanks for having me on this morning, I really do appreciate it. I hope you did have a happy Thanksgiving, as well. We're certainly monitoring this new variant. We don't have all the data that we need to make decisions at this time. Obviously, as Dr. Fauci was very clear and pointed out correctly, our cases are down significantly. We're at a seven-day moving average of about 235 cases. That's down over 90% from where we were in mid-to-late summer. You look at total hospitalizations in Mississippi, we have 175 Mississippians in hospital beds. We have only 59 Mississippians, and this is a state of 3 million, only 59 Mississippians in ICU beds. We have 28 Mississippians on the ventilator today. So our case numbers are way down. Our vaccination numbers continue to rise. We have 1.6 million Mississippians that have been vaccinated. That's not enough. But in talking to our state health officers, we believe that somewhere between 80-85% of Mississippians have some level of immunity, either natural immunity or immunity from having taken the shots. And I think one of the things that we've all got to start thinking about is the booster shots, and encouraging, not mandating, but encouraging our fellow Mississippians to get vaccinated.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you accept the idea, though, that the campaigns, like yourself and other Republican governors, have had against vaccine mandates have sent the wrong message about getting the vaccine?
GOV. TATE REEVES:
I actually believe that the president's decision to try to mandate vaccines, a decision that, by the way, flies in the face of what he said throughout the campaign. And that's one of the reasons his poll numbers are so low, is because he ran for office saying one thing and then he's decided to govern in a different way. But I actually think those mandates actually are hardening those individuals who were not interested in getting vaccinated. If you go around our state and you talk to those individuals that have not gotten vaccinated, in large measure a lot of them have gotten the virus and so they believe they have some natural immunity. And they were thinking about getting vaccinated as they got beyond the 90 days or got beyond the 180 days. But the president's insistence on mandating them have hardened them against the vaccine. So I actually think it's the president's policies that have made it more difficult in rural states like Mississippi to get more and more people vaccinated. But we have continued to see an uptick in the numbers. As I mentioned earlier, over 1.6 million vaccinations -- fully vaccinated Mississippians. And we're doing about 50,000 vaccines a week, and so we want to continue on that trend. I'm going to continue to encourage it. The only thing I know to do, I've encouraged vaccines from the beginning. I actually took my shots on Facebook Live, and I don't like shots very much, Chuck. But that was my way in which of telling the people of Mississippi that, "I think this is the best way for you to protect yourselves." But I also believe in individual liberties, and I believe in freedoms, and I believe individuals can make their own decision, what's best for them, after they talk to their physician.
CHUCK TODD:
So let me switch gears here, speaking of some individual freedom that I think people might have a difference of opinion on. This week the Supreme Court's going to hear some oral arguments in the case involving a law, a Mississippi law that would ban all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Do you hope that the Supreme Court makes this law legal within the framework of Roe v. Wade or overturns Roe v. Wade completely? I know your views on Roe v. Wade, you'd like to see it overturned or you believe it was wrongly decided. Do you think it needs to be overturned for this law to be enacted? Or do you think they can redefine Roe v. Wade to allow this law to be enacted?
GOV. TATE REEVES:
Well, that's a complicated question. But clearly, I think that this law can be enacted within a changing confinement of Roe v. Wade. But I also believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. I believe, in a simple reading of the United States Constitution, that when Roe was decided in 1973 there is no fundamental right in our United States Constitution to an abortion. And furthermore, Chuck, I believe very strongly that if you read the Constitution, there is nowhere in the Constitution that prohibits individual states, states like Mississippi, to limit access to abortions. And so I think Roe was wrongly decided. I also believe that some 20 years later in 1992, Casey was incorrectly decided. And if you look at the Casey ruling, what you find in my opinion is a ruling that was not based upon fundamentals of the Constitution, but a ruling that was determined based upon what the perceived political perception was at that time. And I don't think the judicial branch of government should ever allow politics to play into their decision making, and I think they did in Casey.
CHUCK TODD:
If Roe is overturned to allow your law to be enacted, do you plan on pursuing even more restrictions or are you going to stop at 15 weeks? Because there was a tighter restriction at one time, a trigger law that was on the books. Do you want to see something like that if Roe is overturned?
GOV. TATE REEVES:
Well, I certainly would like to do everything we can to protect unborn children. But let's put this in perspective, Chuck. You know, in Europe there are 42 countries that allow elective abortions. If Roe is overturned and this 15-week ban in Mississippi is allowed to go into effect, Mississippi will still have a law on the books in which 39 countries, 39 out of 42 in Europe, have more restrictive abortion laws than what I believe to be one of the most conservative states in the United States. 39 countries in Europe restrict abortions earlier than 15 weeks. And so the reality is that the U.S. abortion laws are not in conformity or are not even in the realm of what we see in other parts of the country. When you look at, for instance, abortion laws in California and New York, they are much more similar to those abortion laws in China and North Korea than they are to Europe or many other countries around the world.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to play something that you said about the vaccine mandate, and ask you why it doesn’t -- why this same philosophy doesn't apply here. Let me play what you said.
(BEGIN TAPE)
GOV. TATE REEVES:
This is a power grab by the federal government. We've seen this time and time again by the Biden administration. And now we're seeing their strong desire to try to make decisions on behalf of individual Americans. We believe in freedom and individual liberty.
(END TAPE)
CHUCK TODD:
Freedom and individual liberty. Why should the state of Mississippi tell a woman what they should do with their body? Why shouldn't they have that individual freedom on their body, particularly in the first 20 weeks?
GOV. TATE REEVES:
Well, this is a prime example. And the far left loves to scream, "My body, my choice." And what I would submit to you, Chuck, is they absolutely ignore the fact that in getting an abortion there is an actual killing of an innocent, unborn child that is in that womb. Here's what we know about babies that are 15 weeks. We know that they have a heartbeat. We know that those babies at 15 weeks actually can open and close their hands. We know that they have developing lungs. And we know that those babies at 15 weeks can feel pain. And so when you talk -- the difference between vaccine mandates and abortions is vaccines allow you to protect yourself. Abortions actually go in and kill other American babies. And let's just put this in perspective, Chuck --
CHUCK TODD:
But Governor, vaccines are not about yourself --
GOV. TATE REEVES:
The fact is --
CHUCK TODD:
-- Governor, hang on a minute. A vaccine is about protecting a larger community. A vaccine is about preventing spread. You could argue a vaccine mandate is a pro-life position.
GOV. TATE REEVES:
You could certainly argue that, Chuck. But even if you listen to Dr. Fauci's interview with you earlier today, he made it very clear that the vaccine may not keep you from getting the virus. It may not keep you from spreading the virus. But it can keep you from ending up in the hospital. That's what's been proven during this Delta surge that we've seen in America, is that the virus is continuing to being spread even amongst those who are vaccinated. Conversely, when you're talking about the pro-life position of protecting unborn babies, let's put it also in perspective. The fact is that during this very horrible and challenging time since I was sworn into office in January of 2020, Chuck, we've had 800,000 American lives lost because of Covid. And my heart aches for every single one of those individuals that have died because of Covid. And over 10,000 Mississippians. My heart breaks for every single one of them. But since Roe was enacted, 62 million American babies have been aborted, and therefore have been killed. And that's why I think it's very important that people like myself and others across this country stand up for those unborn children, because they don't have the ability to stand up for themselves.
CHUCK TODD:
Governor Tate Reeves, Republican of Mississippi, I appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective with us, sir. Thanks very much.
GOV. TATE REEVES:
Thank you, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
When we come back, the Ahmaud Arbery murder case. What the guilty verdicts may tell us about justice in America. Panel is next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back, panel is here. NBC News Senior Washington Correspondent Hallie Jackson, Washington Post Columnist Eugene Robinson, Jake Sherman, founder of Punchbowl News, and Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute. Alright, actually, the big news pre-Thanksgiving was the Ahmaud Arbery verdict. I want to play the 911 call because there's a line in there, Gene, that other people have pointed out that that might be the most important line of this trial. Let me play it.
[BEGIN TAPE]
911 OFFICER:
It's 911, what's the address of your emergency?
GREGORY MCMICHAEL:
I'm right here. It's Satilla Shores. There's a Black male running down the street.
911 OFFICER:
Satilla, where at Satilla Shores?
GREGORY MCMICHAEL:
I don't know what street we're on. You stop right there! Hear me? Stop. Travis!
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
So the emergency, Gene, was that a Black man was running down the street.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Black male running down the street, yeah. That's the line --
CHUCK TODD:
That's the line.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
-- that jumps out. And that was the emergency they perceived. I mean it was -- it was, the thing is, of course, we wouldn't know any of this and there wouldn't have been a trial had not that video been released and gone viral, because the initial decision by prosecutors -- local prosecutors -- was to do nothing. Was, you know, "Okay, we're good," right? You know, you just killed this man in cold blood. We can now say officially you murdered this man. But it was okay because there was a Black male running down the street.
CHUCK TODD:
That had the feeling, Hallie, of the, you know, your small town, "Oh, I know who those guys are."
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Exactly.
CHUCK TODD:
"I know them," and they all know each other. And it becomes one of those things. And it's like, well, they were going to get protected from committing this crime.
HALLIE JACKSON:
So, I think that Gene is bringing up such an important point. I spoke with Ahmaud Arbery's father just a couple of hours after that verdict came down this week. And we talked about the idea that if there hadn't been a video, what would've happened. And he said, "There would've been no accountability for my son." He strongly believes that, that it was the video that was the piece that cracked this open. I was also struck by something that Ahmaud Arbery's mother said in the in the immediate aftermath of the verdict coming in, which was she had prayed for justice. She had prayed for the right prosecutor to come in because, as Gene notes, there was a lot of, sort of, back and forth about this. And the discussion came up of, you know, as a person of faith, you can pray. Is that what you have to do? Should it have to come down to prayer, right? Shouldn't the system be better than that? And I feel like that's where so much of the conversation is going, especially with Mr. Arbery's family. His attorneys are talking about, "Yeah, this is a verdict, this is an important one. It is not justice, but it is accountability." But there are so many other cases, there are so many other systemic changes that this issue is shining a light on.
CHUCK TODD:
Dany, do you think bringing charges against the local prosecutor for not bringing charges is a way to fix the system?
DANIELLE PLETKA:
I think it sends a signal. Look, I think for a lot of us who saw and believe that justice was ultimately done, the fact that it almost wasn't even addressed is is possibly the most troubling part of the rule-of-law question here. And so if it sends a signal to other lawmakers, to other prosecutors, to other D.A.s around the country that you will get caught, that there is accountability, that in fact justice will be done by you as well. I mean, there is an investigation. There's been a grand jury. I'm actually impressed with the fact that they have followed up on this in a way that is extraordinarily aggressive, which is right. You want people not to have to pray. You want people to trust --
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Exactly. Exactly.
DANIELLE PLETKA:
-- the justice system.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Exactly.
JAKE SHERMAN:
And I also say we're shifting into this new era of cellphone accountability. I mean, I think we've been in it for a long time but I think that also puts people, puts prosecutors, puts law enforcement officers on notice that this kind of stuff will be filmed, and accountability will happen.
HALLIE JACKSON:
Well --
CHUCK TODD:
Go ahead.
HALLIE JACKSON:
I was going to say, one thing I've also, you know, heard from folks on this though is to be cautious a little bit about drawing too many lessons or signals from this case, because look what it comes on the heels of, which was Kyle Rittenhouse and the verdict there that angered a lot of folks.
CHUCK TODD:
But, but and then but many, some would argue on the right, "Well, jury trials worked in both cases."
HALLIE JACKSON:
That's right. That's right.
DANIELLE PLETKA:
But anger anger --
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Well, you know --
DANIELLE PLETKA:
-- is not a litmus test for how justice is done.
CHUCK TODD:
That’s fair.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Right. I mean, look, you, you know, you, the thing about the justice system is you have to look at the facts of any one case. And you also -- we also saw the trial unfold. And it is, you know, were prosecutors in the Rittenhouse case as good as the prosecutors in the Arbery case? No, they weren't. I don't think they were. And the judge explained the law to the jury in a different way. There was a judge in the Rittenhouse case who was well known for favoring the defense side over the prosecution side in almost every case. And so I don't want to say that a thumb was on the scales of justice there. If you want the justice system to err, you want it to err on the side of the defendant. But I think he was guilty of something, right? I mean, I think --
CHUCK TODD:
Well, I think the question was there -- was there the wrong laws or the wrong charges, right?
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Right. Exactly.
CHUCK TODD:
It was bad prosecution, you know.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Exactly. But you said, you know --
DANIELLE PLETKA:
But--
CHUCK TODD:
Go ahead, Dany.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
You know, bring a gun that you don't really know how to wield, or to handle, or keep yourself safe, or keep others safe. And so, you know, three people shot, two of them dead.
DANIELLE PLETKA:
Right. But if your argument is with the laws, then that's one argument. But as you rightly said, I think one of the complaints that so many of us have is that people -- too many people end up in prison. The complaint -- too many Black men are in prison in the United States. You want judges that are, that are going to err on the side of the defense. You want judges that are impartial when it comes to the application of rule of law, and they're not worried about what the anger is, the reaction is going to be. And you don't want people to be influenced by the notion that there are going to be riots. That's wrong.
JAKE SHERMAN:
I think from a larger perspective, I mean we just saw, and from the legislative perspective, I think this is going to have a huge impact. I think on Capitol Hill we saw two very well-respected members of Congress, Tim Scott, Cory Booker fail in their attempt to get any criminal justice reform passed. I think these incidents put together, and just the charged nature of both of these incidents, is just going to make it more difficult for both --
CHUCK TODD:
Well, we're about to see. Waukesha is about to, I think, become the issue in every Wisconsin race at a minimum, if not nationally, Gene.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Yeah, it's, it’s going to, it’s going to feed into this whole debate over cash bail, over the, you know, over the fact that again, you look at every individual case. And in this anecdotal instance, this guy was out on a $1,000 bail for committing serious offenses. And so --
CHUCK TODD:
We can see the TV ads already being made. In fact, we saw them made in 1988.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Exactly. But you, you know, you can, you can say that cash bail is used unfairly to keep people -- and at the same time say that but when somebody is a violent offender like this, it needs to be more than $1,000 bucks.
CHUCK TODD:
Wow, I have a packed show. We've got a lot of issues to get to. So I'm going to pause here. When we come back -- this will be an interesting one -- I'm going to talk to Donald Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, about the investigation into Mr. Trump's finances and why he thinks Mr. Trump's not going to run for president ever again.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. The criminal investigation into former President Trump's family business is reaching a critical phase. The outgoing Manhattan DA, Cyrus Vance Jr., is narrowing his focus to whether Mr. Trump fraudulently inflated the value of his assets to obtain better financing. One person with a lot of insight into Mr. Trump's financial dealings, particularly pre-2017, and perhaps the direction of this case overall in New York, is his former personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen. Cohen, who plead guilty to charges including arranging hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, ended his three-year sentence last week, much of which was spent at his home. Cohen also has written a memoir of his time with Mr. Trump called Disloyal. Michael Cohen joins me now. Mr. Cohen, welcome to Meet the Press, sir.
MICHAEL COHEN:
Nice to see you, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
So let me start with what you know about the Manhattan DA. We're not far from the end of the calendar year. He's termed out. We know this. We know the new DA hasn't been read into the investigation yet, since he's not been sworn in. Should we expect to see actual indictments before the new year?
MICHAEL COHEN:
You know, I generally try not to talk about the DA, which now also includes the attorney general's civil case in the same exact matter. So I really try not to talk about it because it's their investigation, nor do I want to tip off Trump or the Trump Organization's people about what is actually happening. So, you know, I would rather just not answer that specific question, other than to say that you can bet your bottom dollar that Allen Weisselberg is not -- and I truly say, I mean this -- Allen Weisselberg is not the, you know, the key to this. They are going after Donald. They're going after Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka, a whole slew of individuals -- family, you know, family as well.
CHUCK TODD:
You just referred to Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer. He was indicted. It looked to a lot of observers that this was the type of indictment that was brought against you essentially, which was -- in the previous cases -- which was to squeeze you and hope that you would cooperate. Were you surprised Allen Weisselberg hasn't cooperated?
MICHAEL COHEN:
Yeah, so they didn't really do to Allen Weisselberg what they did to me. You know, the threat against me was that they were going to file an 85-page indictment that was going to include my wife. They were going to say she was a co-conspirator to the hush money payment, which is absolutely nonsensical. And, look, I'm married now 27 years. I'm with the same woman for 29 years. There was no chance in the world that I was going to put her at risk with these animals. The way they came down on me is nothing like what they're doing to Weisselberg. They should be squeezing, right now, Barry Weisselberg, who worked for the Trump Organization, and they should be squeezing Jack Weisselberg, who is one of only two organizations that made loans to the Trump Organization that we still know. You know, when you talked about whether or not Donald Trump inflated or deflated his assets, every single word that I had said about that is 100% accurate.
CHUCK TODD:
Are you their best -- are you their only witness on this, or have they found other witnesses? Because it does seem as if they have this hypothesis, but you've got to prove it. You're one, you’re one witness. They're going to want somebody in the Trump Organization actively too. Do they have it?
MICHAEL COHEN:
So again, I don't want to get into the investigation at all. But rest assured, I am not their only witness. And most importantly, what I gave to them are thousands and thousands of documents. And as you know in law, there's something called documentary evidence. I'm not asking anybody to believe me. This is no different than when I testified before the House Oversight Committee. Every statement that I make, I've backed up with documentary evidence. I truly believe that they could indict Donald Trump tomorrow if they really wanted, and be successful.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you believe -- considering what they're investigating, are you confident you did help Donald Trump commit crimes?
MICHAEL COHEN:
I can assure you that Donald Trump is guilty of his own crimes. Was I involved in much of the inflation and deflation of his assets? The answer to that is yes.
CHUCK TODD:
I take it then you've been given some level of immunity from the DA and the attorney general in New York, have you not?
MICHAEL COHEN:
Yeah, my case is over. It was over when I had plead guilty. It was all part of one big, giant package.
CHUCK TODD:
So everything here --
MICHAEL COHEN:
And it's amazing that I'm the only one. You know, it's amazing that I'm the only one that ended up doing prison, right? And indicted, incarcerated out of his entire group.
CHUCK TODD:
It’s funny you bring --
MICHAEL COHEN:
I mean, the documents speak for themselves.
CHUCK TODD:
It's funny you say this because I wonder, here you have, you've been cooperative to the government both on a federal level, on a state level. Some might argue, “Oh, you could've been more cooperative at different times.” But let's set that aside. You have. No one else has been either held accountable or has come forward. Why do you think that is?
MICHAEL COHEN:
Because the system is broken. I did over 400 hours of cooperation. I didn't get a day off. I didn't get a minute off. I didn't get a second off of my sentence. They ran me door to door on this, you know, which basically was nothing more than campaign finance violation. All of the allegations that were centered around tax evasion are just not true. And, you know, again when they squeezed me, they squeezed me so hard that all -- and mine was in 48 hours. I had from Friday to Monday to plead guilty. But I don't even want to go into that. That part of my life, I'm trying to put behind me. I'm trying to move forward. Now the goal is to ensure that those people who are responsible become responsible for their dirty deeds. I should not be responsible for Donald Trump's dirty deeds. Donald Trump is the one who was involved with the campaign finance violation, as was Allen Weisselberg, as was Don Trump Jr., Ivanka, Eric, you know, and several other individuals. They need to be held accountable. And I, like everybody else, am waiting for both Cyrus Vance Jr.'s District Attorney case, as well as Tish James' civil case to move forward, and start moving forward a little quicker.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you now believe that the Trump Organization is a criminal enterprise?
MICHAEL COHEN:
Yeah, I don't even know how to answer that. Are they a criminal enterprise? Let's just say that they committed crimes.
CHUCK TODD:
And why are you so convinced he's not going to run, when it seems as if one could argue Barack Obama humiliating him at that White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2011 motivated him to run. I know you think humiliation is the reason why he may not want to run and lose again. But we've seen him use that as a motivator before.
MICHAEL COHEN:
Yeah. So this should become a documentary, and it should be called, “The Greatest Grift in U.S. History.” Look, Donald Trump has made it very clear, right, that he is grifting off of the American people, these supporters, these individuals that are just sending money to him at record levels. So one of the biggest problems for Donald Trump is that he makes this statement, right, that, "I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it." That's only to keep the grift growing and to keep the grift going. It's really amazing that people don't see exactly what the guy is doing. I talk about his sociopathy throughout Disloyal. I talk about it on my podcast, Mea Culpa, ad nauseam. Please understand, Chuck, and this is really important for all of the viewers as well, one of the things Donald Trump has done is grift off of the Big Lie that the election was stolen from him in 2020. It was not stolen from him. If he loses, which he will in 2024, what happens to the Big Lie? The Big Lie disappears. He can't now be like the boy who cried wolf. "Oh, they stole it from me in 2020. They now stole it from me in 2024," right? Now, that goes out the door and there goes his money. There goes the big grift. So like I said before, it's not going to happen. He's going to run it like he did in 2011, right to the very, very last second.
CHUCK TODD:
Michael Cohen, you've spent a lot more time with him than I have and many others who have watched. We'll invite you back and see what we think soon. Thanks for coming on and I hope you had a good Thanksgiving holiday.
MICHAEL COHEN:
Alrighty, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
Alright. When we come back --
MICHAEL COHEN:
Thank you, you as well.
CHUCK TODD:
-- how all that travel on this Thanksgiving Day weekend may have busted you out of your safe Covid bubble and your political bubble as well. Stay with us.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. Data Download time. A look at how traveling just a short distance during the holidays can actually put you outside of your political bubble and, of course, that comes with some health impacts as well, and combine with the ongoing pandemic. So I'm going to take a look at Thanksgiving travel. So far, the number of Americans traveling this year has been down, but it is way up. But there's 27% of the country is unvaccinated. 60% of that unvaccinated is Republican. But just because it's blue state, red state, you can live close together and end up essentially crashing into each other's blue and red bubbles. Take North Carolina. Mecklenburg County, a big Biden county, has an also higher vaccination rate. Just a 30-minute drive away is Stanly County, a big Trump county with a vaccination rate of under 40%. So just a 30-minute drive actually gets you outside not only your political bubble, but your Covid bubble. And that itself is going to not just roil political debates this holiday season, but also some health debates. All right, when we come back, that Mississippi abortion law heading to the Supreme Court. It's the biggest abortion case frankly in my lifetime since Roe v. Wade. Stay with us.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. It's been a busy show. As we said, we've done abortion, we've done Trump, we've done Covid. I want to go back to abortion, though, because this is, Hallie, going to be the biggest abortion case, the Mississippi case, since Roe v. Wade. I don't feel like there's a debate about whether the Mississippi law is going to be allowed to go forward. I think really the question is does it go forward under Roe v. Wade, or not?
HALLIE JACKSON:
And the political impact, too, of whatever the decision that happens, which we won't know for months, of course, after their arguments happen on Wednesday. What is so interesting is this question that has come up that I hear a lot, which is, "How much of a galvanizing issue is abortion going to be?" I don't have to tell you that there are typically smaller but very vocal minorities in the parties. So activists, for example, on both sides who want to make this an issue. But what we've seen traditionally is that for voters especially in the midterms and in a presidential, it's just not, right? It's the economy, right now it's Covid. We've seen that in these polling numbers. But right now, you have some of these laws, so not Mississippi, but when you look at Texas and what we saw there, in some ways, outpacing where the electorate is, even in the Republican Party, right? When you look at some numbers out, for example, from NPR showing that more Republicans don't support the various provisions in the Texas law. And so there's this gap here between, I think, the laws that are being put in place, and then what the populist even on the conservative side, actually wants to see. And so, I mean, that's really coming to a head, I think, this week when you see these arguments.
CHUCK TODD:
Gene, is it about Roe actually getting overturned before the left gets galvanized?
EUGENE ROBINSON:
I think probably, yeah. And I think Roe will be overturned. I see no indication that there isn't a majority on this Court --
CHUCK TODD:
You don't think Brett Kavanaugh--
EUGENE ROBINSON:
-- to overturn --
CHUCK TODD:
-- is going to, whatever promise he made to Susan Collins, who swears that he said he wasn't going to overturn. That he doesn’t find a way to allow the Mississippi law within the -- that he writes an opinion that keeps Roe alive?
EUGENE ROBINSON:
No. I don't think so. I mean, maybe he does, but I don't think so.
JAKE SHERMAN:
I mean, listen, Democrats I could tell you, I mean, facing still political headwinds in 2022 in the midterm election, see this as a galvanizing force for them. They do. I mean, they don't think they have much help --
HALLIE JACKSON:
And they want it to be.
JAKE SHERMAN:
They want it to be. Yeah. They think this is a base turnout operation. I mean, they think it's a big deal for them. I see you shaking your head. But they don't think that they have a lot to talk about in 2022. And they think that abortion will help them out.
CHUCK TODD:
Dany, if they catch the car. Overturning Roe. This is sort of like catching the car on the right. Then what?
DANIELLE PLETKA:
Well, the discussion I often have with my dog, "What are you going to do then?" No, I don't think it's galvanizing, for exactly the reason that Hallie said, which is that at the end of the day, the public has a much more nuanced view. I think a lot of conservatives have concerns about Texas not related to abortion. It's not about the underlying issue, it's about the way the law was written. And that has nothing to do with the question underlying it, but the question of empowering individuals to have --
HALLIE JACKSON:
Private citizens, yeah.
DANIELLE PLETKA:
-- a right of action, right, which I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with. But we have these conversations in a bubble here in Washington. The reality is that, while there is a very substantial majority in this country that supports a right to abortion in the first trimester, there's a very substantial majority in this country, in fact, slightly greater in the last poll I saw, that doesn't believe that abortion should happen after the first trimester.
CHUCK TODD:
Here's the thing if Roe gets overturned, though. One of the things, there are a lot of elected politicians who have been able to say what they want on abortion and never have to vote on it. If you overturn Roe, I don't care if you're running for the statehouse or the U.S. House, everyone’s going to actually -- because your guy's going to vote on something now. You're going to have to legislate --
HALLIE JACKSON:
You're going to have to be pinned down on a position of how you would actually legislate --
CHUCK TODD:
So that has a trickle effect on the entire campaign messaging then.
HALLIE JACKSON:
I mean, you're right. But again, I think it goes back to what Dany's talking about. How much does it actually move people when they're going to the polls to vote you in. I think you're hitting the nail on the head when it comes to the idea that people up until now -- I shouldn't say that. In many instances, there are people who are more perhaps in the center of the spectrum on either side of the aisle who can give some nuanced answers on abortion, and maybe some people in their constituency don't like it, some people do. But this is going to be something where you will have to be more pinned down, right? There is no way to run away from the issue at this point.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Look, if Roe goes, I think this is a galvanizing issue for the Democratic base. Now, whether that's enough for Democrats, that's another question.
CHUCK TODD:
Look, Democrats are in charge of Congress still. What are they going to do if Roe's overturned? I assume they're going to make some symbolic effort to try to codify it, right?
JAKE SHERMAN:
And they already have. They have in the House. It can't get through the Senate. It's not going to get through the Senate in any way. And I will also say if you look at this Congress or any Congress in the last ten years and think that they have the ability for political stability or just the heft to deal with a weighty issue like abortion, I don't know what you're looking at.
DANIELLE PLETKA:
Remember gun laws in the Obama administration?
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah. Just cue the Lauren Boebert stuff. All right. Unfortunately, we're out of time. That's all we have for today. Thank you for watching. Big shout out to the Maret Frogs State Champs, Class A Football. Good job, Coach Engelberg. Enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving weekend and we'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.