CHUCK TODD:
This Sunday: legal showdown.
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
The thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited and totally disgraced.
CHUCK TODD:
Donald Trump warns of potential death and destruction if he's charged in the hush money probe in Manhattan.
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES:
It's dangerous, and if he keeps it up, he's going to get someone killed.
CHUCK TODD:
He's ratcheting up the attacks, rallying his supporters to his defense, as yet another legal probe – the Special Counsel criminal investigation – intensifies. I'll talk to Trump's attorney Joe Tacopina and former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Plus: too big to ban?
REP. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS:
Your platform should be banned.
CHUCK TODD:
TikTok's CEO faces bipartisan skepticism that the app may be used for spying by the Chinese government.
REP. NEAL DUNN:
Has ByteDance spied on American citizens?
SHOU ZI CHEW:
I don’t think that spying is the right way to describe it.
CHUCK TODD:
Can the Biden administration ban the most downloaded app on the planet? And: parental permission. As Washington debates TikTok, Utah decides to target ALL of social media and becomes the first state in the nation to restrict how children use it.
GOV. SPENCER COX:
We have a responsibility to protect our young people.
CHUCK TODD:
I'll talk to Republican Governor Spencer Cox, who signed this new law requiring parental consent for minors using social media apps. Joining me for insight and analysis are: NBC News Washington Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, Jake Sherman, co-founder of Punchbowl News, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan and Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher. 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. This week left no doubt; Donald Trump is still in charge of the Republican Party. Just a few hours after Trump's false claim that he was going to be arrested in the Manhattan hush money case last Tuesday, the Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy announced that House Republicans were launching investigations into Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Three committee chairmen claiming an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority” demanded that Bragg testify and turn over documents. And I – let me remind you, it's on a case where we don't even know what the charges are or whether any will even be brought. So we're not even sure what documents they want. The rest of the party, even including Trump's 2024 opponents, race to fall in line.
[BEGIN TAPE]
SPEAKER KEVIN McCARTHY:
I think in your heart of hearts, you know too that you think this is just political.
REP. JAMES COMER:
This is a political stunt.
SEN. RAND PAUL
I think it's disgusting.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM:
It just kind of reeks of political revenge.
FMR. GOV. NIKKI HALEY:
We know that that's just political revenge.
FMR. VICE PRES. MIKE PENCE:
What I call “the criminalization of politics.”
SEN. CYNTHIA LUMMIS:
The politically motivated effort to me by literally a Soros-funded DA.
GOV. RON DeSANTIS:
The Manhattan district attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Again, all of those are what I would call pre-reactions because there is no indictment. And that one hasn't happened yet. Trump's biggest obstacles to the Republican nomination though are not his political rivals. His version of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are the legal probes that face him in Washington, Atlanta and New York. And as we've seen time and time again, when Trump is in legal jeopardy, his rhetoric intensifies, and it did this week. Trump attacked Bragg personally, who is the first Black District Attorney in Manhattan, viciously calling him a “Soros backed animal.” And he also added “he is doing the work of anarchists and the devil.” And then in an overnight social media post on Friday, Trump escalated it. He threatened “potential death and destruction” if he is charged. And later in the day, Bragg did receive a letter containing a death threat, including some white powder in the envelope. The white powder tested negative, but it was one of several hundred threats to the DA’s office, Bragg and others have received in recent weeks. And last night at his first formal rally of the 2024 campaign in Waco, Texas, of all places, Trump focused the bulk of his speech on his legal jeopardy. In fact, really leaned into it. His campaign even made witch hunt signs in order for them to be featured prominently behind him while he was speaking.
[BEGIN TAPE]
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
The district attorney of New York under the auspices and direction of the department of injustice in Washington, D.C., was investigating me for something that is not a crime, not a misdemeanor, not an affair. I never liked “horseface.” Prosecutorial misconduct is their new tool and they are willing to use it at levels never seen before. When they go after me, they're going after you.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Just a reminder, the Manhattan DA does not work for the Department of Justice. Joining me now is Donald Trump's attorney, Joe Tacopina, who represents him in the New York case. Mr. Tacopina, welcome to Meet the Press.
JOE TACOPINA:
Thanks, Chuck. Good morning.
CHUCK TODD:
Good morning. Let me start with a simple question. Why did your client, Mr. Trump, make that claim that turned out not to be true? Did he make it up?
JOE TACOPINA:
No, he didn't make it up, he was reacting towards a lot of leaks coming out of the district attorney's office. There had been a leak, Chuck, that Monday, the day before that Tuesday, there was a law enforcement meeting, including Secret Service and NYPD, that was going to go through the logistics of the arraignment. And then there was, of course, a lot of rumors regarding the arraignment being the next day. So he just, I think he just assumed based on those leaks that that's what was going to happen.
CHUCK TODD:
Has anybody in the –
JOE TACOPINA:
So it wasn't about making it up, and certainly he doesn't want to be arrested.
CHUCK TODD:
Has anybody in the DA's office contacted you, or told you about special arrangements? Did he have any of this knowledge through you?
JOE TACOPINA:
No, not through us. I mean, we've been in touch with the district attorney's office regarding potential logistics of an arraignment, if it gets to that point. But certainly it didn't come from us. It came from the leaks that we all read in the newspaper that Monday, or the Friday preceding.
CHUCK TODD:
Mr. Trump has described Alvin Bragg this week as a "Soros backed animal." He said he was doing the work of anarchists and the Devil, called him a degenerate psychopath, and he called him a Soros racist in reverse, saying, "This is the Gestapo." As his lawyer, do you stand by those comments?
JOE TACOPINA:
So Chuck, as his lawyer, I want to dissect this case, because it's a case that shouldn't be brought and wouldn't be brought if it were anyone other than Donald Trump, let's be clear about that. Does anyone actually think – left, right, or in the middle – that anyone else would be prosecuted for making a civil settlement in a hush money case with personal funds? Of course not. No one's ever been prosecuted for that. You know, the closest we've come is John Edwards back in the day, where a donor paid $900,000 for his mistress and the child to be, you know, housed somewhere. That case was openly dismissed by the Department of Justice after they couldn't get a conviction. And that was with the donor. The distinction here is so vast, and it's clear to anyone, whether you’re – again, if you're a supporter of Donald Trump or a detractor, or don't like anything about Donald Trump, we should all be concerned as citizens in this country about the weaponization of a prosecutor's office. And that is what this is. I swear to you, in my 32 years as both a prosecutor and a defense lawyer, I've never seen an abuse of discretion like this.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, you say that. We don't know what the charges are yet. We have no idea what the charges are. But I go back t o--
JOE TACOPINA:
Well, no, I do, I do have an idea.
CHUCK TODD:
– is it, would you advise a client, would you advise a client to personally attack a prosecutor like this? I mean, it's dehumanizing, Mr. Tacopina.
JOE TACOPINA:
You know, Chuck, I know. Again, I'm not his social media consultant. I don’t -- I think that was an ill-advised post that one of his social media people put up, and he quickly took down when he realized the rhetoric in the photo that was attached to it. But that being said --
CHUCK TODD:
You're only referring to the baseball bat.
JOE TACOPINA:
-- I'm not here to defend or support--
CHUCK TODD:
He didn't take down the other rhetoric. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.You're referring to the baseball bat thing, which of course was featured in The New York Post cover. The New York Post thought it was a pretty rough hit. And I mean, there was -- here's the thing: we went through January 6th, so this is not like a possibility that Trump's rhetoric creates violence. It's already happened once. Are you not concerned this could happen?
JOE TACOPINA:
Well, I'm not, I’m not, I’m not accepting that proposition, that his rhetoric created violence. I think violence was on the way that day. But I'm not here to discuss that, Chuck. I'm not going to defend or condemn anything regarding social media. That's not what I do. I don’t have anything to do -- I'm not a Trump PR person. I'm a litigator and a lawyer. And I'm talking about this case in Manhattan, which is a case that would not be brought if it were anyone other than Donald Trump. When we seek to use a prosecutor's office to politicize and weaponize a campaign, that's what's troubling to me. And if you look at the facts here, just look at the facts for a second. You have two crucial distinctions. One, this was personal funds. Can you imagine the amount of people that would be begging for Donald Trump's scalp had he used campaign funds to pay for what they would call personal expense? They would be going ballistic. And they would have a right to be going ballistic. Because the standard -- the law, Chuck, and this is really important, the law is this, that if you use personal funds and you're involved in a campaign, the bright line test is would you have expended that money, would you have made that payment irrespective of the candidacy, irrespective of the campaign? And the answer to that question is simply, yes. This was a personal civil settlement that's done every day in New York City. This had nothing to do with campaign finance laws. And members of the FEC have come forth and said, Chuck--
CHUCK TODD:
You keep saying --
JOE TACOPINA:
--and said this--
CHUCK TODD:
Look, you may have your day in court to make this case. But you keep saying it's personal funds. That is not what Michael Cohen pled guilty to. This was funds where he was repaid by the Trump Organization, Trump signed the check--
JOE TACOPINA:
No, incorrect--
CHUCK TODD:
– one of them that was there. So you call it personal funds. It is, in a court of law, it's been proven--
JOE TACOPINA:
It is personal funds.
CHUCK TODD:
--that it was Trump Organization funds.
JOE TACOPINA:
It's personal funds. It was not funds related to the campaign. That's the distinction --
CHUCK TODD:
But he used a Trump Organization check.
JOE TACOPINA:
It's not campaign finance laws. But Chuck, that's personal, that’s personal. It has nothing to do with the campaign--
CHUCK TODD:
So everything with the Trump Organization is Donald Trump the person?
JOE TACOPINA:
Let's focus this --
CHUCK TODD:
I mean, you realize the door you're opening there.
JOE TACOPINA:
Chuck, Chuck, you're absolutely conflating issues, and they don't go together. They just don't. This is a case that is being investigated because allegedly, Donald Trump had an obligation to notify the FEC, okay, the Federal Election Committee. He did not. The FEC has come forth and said that. This has nothing to do with whether he paid it through his organization, through a corporation, or his personal funds. These were personal funds. By all accounts, these were personal funds, not campaign funds. It's personal or campaign – whether Trump Organization, Donald Trump the person, you know, Mar-A-Lago Corporation, whatever it is – they're personal and not campaign funds. And that's the key distinction here. If they were campaign funds, we'd be having a different discussion. We'd be talking about how he used campaign funds to pay personal expenses, and they'd be begging for an indictment, as I said earlier.
CHUCK TODD:
But again, what this investigation may end up being is about the, essentially the falsifying business records. Which by the way, this prosecutor has brought over 60 – this one and the previous one – has brought over 60 times over the last four years. This is not an unusual crime to charge somebody with --
JOE TACOPINA:
Oh no, oh no.
CHUCK TODD:
– in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. We have over 60 instances here, Mr. Tacopina.
JOE TACOPINA:
Oh, Chuck, you could not be -- you couldn't be more wrong when you make that statement. This, first of all, would be a case of first impression. Never in the history of this country has this been done before. And never in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office has someone been charged with a crime for falsifying business records to pay hush money, as they call it, or it's a confidential settlement, in legal jargon, regarding a personal matter. Never in the history of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. If there were a filing obligation, if he had taken a tax deduction, which he did not, that would be a crime. If, if he had used campaign funds, we'd have an argument here. This was a personal matter. And --
CHUCK TODD:
But they called it legal funds. They called it legal fees. They claimed it was to pay a legal retainer.
JOE TACOPINA:
They were in fact, they were in -- no, they didn't say legal retainer. It was legal fees that was invoiced by Michael Cohen, who arranged this on his own, with his own money initially, took out a loan, literally, resolved this without the president knowing, came back and then sent a bill in for four times the amount. Over the course of a year it was paid off as legal fees, as was the invoice. But what was he supposed to put in his personal ledger? Seriously, what would he personal ledger? "Payment for hush money to quiet an affair that I claim I never had so my family doesn't get embarrassed." Is that what he should put in his ledger? There's no, nothing wrong with putting whatever you want in your ledger --
CHUCK TODD:
How about the truth?
JOE TACOPINA:
-- filing obligation, Chuck, Chuck --
CHUCK TODD:
You keep saying, what should be in the ledger? Should it be the truth?
JOE TACOPINA:
-- Chuck, would you ever put a four-paragraph sentence into a ledger? Chuck, you’re being, honestly, I think you're being a little petty when you're looking at this now. Because there is no filing obligation; you can put whatever you want in your own personal ledger. If there were a tax obligation, that would be one thing. If he had taken campaign funds, that would be something else. This, neither of these things happened here. So you have a situation where you're looking at either, was it a tax deduction? Enh. They pulled it out of the grand jury because they thought initially it was -- he was taking a deduction. He did not. And secondly, did he use campaign funds? If he did not, he used personal funds. And the test again is would he have made that payment regardless of the campaign? And the answer to that question is a resounding yes, by all accounts.
CHUCK TODD:
Alright, I do want to get you to respond to somebody who had a different point of view on this, and it was you a few years ago, let me play this sound and get you to respond.
JOE TACOPINA:
No.
[BEGIN TAPE]
JOE TACOPINA:
Quite frankly, you know, Michael Cohen, again, has made statements that would give rise to suspicion for any prosecutor to say, ‘That doesn't make sense that a lawyer took out a home equity loan, with his own money, paid somebody that he didn't even know on behalf of a client, who, by the way, had to wherewithal and the money to afford $130,000, and by the way, didn't tell the client about the settlement agreement.’ It's an illegal agreement. It's a fraud if that's, in fact, the case.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
And I -- and look we put the "if in fact, that's the case." ANd I understand –
JOE TACOPINA:
Did you hear that last line, Chuck?
CHUCK TODD:
I understand.
JOE TACOPINA:
Did you hear that last line?
CHUCK TODD:
No, no, no. I understand that. So what is it that you've learned about this case that changes your point of view?
JOE TACOPINA:
The facts, the facts, that what I just said, I'll repeat it again, that this was personal expenditure, not campaign money. The hypothetical question posed to me five years ago before I knew any facts, as a legal expert, as so many legal experts go on TV and discuss things they don't know, is, I was asked a hypothetical question. I responded with this twice. And I'm reading the transcript. "If that is in fact the case." I started with it, although I didn't hear in your clip, but you did play at the end where I ended with it with, which is, “If that is in fact the case." So when I'm answering a hypothetical question without knowing the facts, but I'm responding to that hypothetical question, I will respond how I think appropriate. Now, what I since learned is that there were no campaign funds used, that there was an illegal invoice sent by a lawyer over the course of a year to cover these payments and more. And more importantly, that the campaign finance law is clear. Bradley Smith, a former Chairman of the FEC has come on and said clearly that there's no campaign finance law involved here because he used personal funds, and the expenditure would have been made, irrespective of the campaign. Those are facts that I didn't have before me five years ago as a hypothetical question was posed to a legal expert on TV.
CHUCK TODD:
Alright, it sounds like you have a defense ready to go. But everything you've described --
JOE TACOPINA:
I'm ready.
CHUCK TODD:
– you know, is probable. I mean, if you're a prosecutor, you know, you're making these claims. Great. Show us your proof of it. It seems like there's enough at dispute here, that actually, this belongs in a court of law to resolve this.
JOE TACOPINA:
Of course it doesn't belong in a court of law. Chuck, listen, again, you can't bring a case, cobble two misdemeanors together to try to make a felony to meet the statute of limitations, when not -- not one misdemeanor exists. There is no crime here. There's not even a bad act, okay? Again, detractor of Donald Trump or not --
CHUCK TODD:
There's a crime here.
JOE TACOPINA:
-- we should all be concerned that we're doing this.
CHUCK TODD:
I mean, the crime is the one that Michael Cohen --
JOE TACOPINA:
What's the crime?
CHUCK TODD:
I mean, there is a campaign finance crime that he has pled guilty to --
JOE TACOPINA:
No, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
-- that involves the former president --
JOE TACOPINA:
Chuck, Chuck, but --
CHUCK TODD:
-- so there is a crime at --
JOE TACOPINA:
No.
CHUCK TODD:
-- at the core of this issue.
JOE TACOPINA:
Wrong.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, but that's not what the federal government said.
JOE TACOPINA:
Wrong. You're wrong. Because if you listen to his --
CHUCK TODD:
Michael Cohen served time. What did he serve time for?
JOE TACOPINA:
No, you're wrong. I'll tell you why you’re wrong. Can I tell you -- can I -- a million different crimes. I mean, the guy was committing taxi medallion frauds, other frauds, other perjury. Listen, you, if you want to just say it, fine. But if you let me answer, which is when Michael Cohen pled guilty, he said something that was so crucial to campaign finance law, and it's what every expert has used. Even if you accept the word of a convicted perjurer, a liar, a guy who's lied in every forum he's ever been in, he said when he pled guilty that this was done for the benefit of the campaign and for personal embarrassment to the client and his family, including his young son, Barron. Once he said the end part, it takes it out of campaign finance law. It's personal funds. It had to be used exclusively for the campaign. It's like me buying a suit to go on the campaign so I could look better than if I had an old, raggy suit on. That's a personal expenditure, it's not a campaign expenditure. Even though it benefits the campaign, it's not a campaign expenditure. So when Michael Cohen said it was both for personal and campaign uses or reasons, that takes it out of exclusively campaign finance law --
CHUCK TODD:
Alright.
JOE TACOPINA:
-- and there is no crime. I'm telling you, Chuck, that's the law on campaign finance.
CHUCK TODD:
We're going to find out. It is a very murky law on campaign finance. But it does -- like I said, it sounds like –
JOE TACOPINA:
For sure.
CHUCK TODD:
-- this is why you might need a court of law to figure this out. Mr. Tacopina, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective and obviously the perspective of the president in this case. Thank you, sir.
JOE TACOPINA:
Thank you, Chuck. Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
Alright, the Manhattan case. It's just one of four criminal investigations against the former president where we've seen some major developments over the last week. In Washington, Trump's executive privilege claims were rejected. Former Trump officials, including former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, will be compelled to testify on January 6th. Vice President Mike Pence's testimony on January 6th is also still in question. For what it's worth, arguments were heard this week. Trump also lost an attorney-client privilege argument. His lawyer in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case had to talk to a grand jury on Friday. And then there's the case on election interference in the state of Georgia, where the DA is likely to decide soon whether to bring charges there. Joining me now is the former U.S. Attorney from the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara. Preet, welcome back.
PREET BHARARA:
Thanks for having me.
CHUCK TODD:
Nice to see you. Let me start with what we just heard from Mr. Tacopina. At the end of the day, would this be an easier case in federal court?
PREET BHARARA:
I don't know. Obviously, the Southern District of New York, my former office that I ran, chose not to bring the case. But what was interesting to me about your exchange with Joe Tacopina, and I've seen him do this on many occasions, and we had, you know, a mélange of Republicans saying, “No crime here. Nobody would ever charge this case. It's unseemly. It's irrational. It's never happened before,” but it did. It happened with respect to Michael Cohen, who was not only charged with this type of crime, but this particular crime. And he thought it was a crime, pled guilty to it. His lawyer thought it was a crime, allowed him to plead guilty to it. The prosecutors in the Southern District of New York thought it was a crime. The judge accepted the guilty plea, thought it was a crime. So, you can argue about whether or not it's appropriate to bring such a case, you can argue about the optics of it, but the idea that this is unprecedented is just false. It's just wrong.
CHUCK TODD:
Look, you heard his case. He feels as if there’s not -- and look, the campaign finance cases have just not been easily prosecuted.
PREET BHARARA:
Yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
Look, we know that. Whether it's Bob McDonnell in Virginia, John Edwards. He brought up the John Edwards case.
PREET BHARARA:
I've had a few myself.
CHUCK TODD:
These are very difficult to win, because the law is not clear. Is that fair? And if you're Alvin Bragg, you know, how hard of a case is this going to be?
PREET BHARARA:
So, I don't know all the facts. I don't know what evidence they have in documents. I don't know what the witness testimony in the grand jury has been. I don't think anybody is saying it's a slam dunk case. I don't think anybody is saying that it's an open-and-shut matter. I think they're going to --
CHUCK TODD:
I'll be honest, the way I hear, it's like: Wow, it sounds like we need a mediator.
PREET BHARARA:
And look, I think you had it exactly right, that it's a provable case. You have challenges, like in any case. You have, you know, issues of credibility with respect to Michael Cohen, who's going to be a key witness in the case. Maybe he'll be able to persuade a jury, notwithstanding the instruction of the judge, that insofar as even a little bit of the motive was related to personal embarrassment, that can't be a campaign finance violation. That's not the law as I understand it. That's not the instruction that the judge is going to give. But nobody's saying it's an easy, easy case. I will make another point though. As people attack Alvin Bragg and say he's doing this for political reasons, this is a person who has been attacked for a year, in one instance in book-length form, for not rushing to judgment, for not finding the easiest and quickest case to bring against the former president. Even though he had respected prosecutors in his office basically begging him to bring that case, he didn't do it. So, this is the mark of somebody who is careful and deliberative. And we can have an argument about the merits and strengths of the case, once we see an indictment with respect to the campaign finance part of it, but you can't say about Alvin Bragg that he's rushing to the court to indict a former president on flimsy charges.
CHUCK TODD:
And look, I'm not asking you for sort of the political look --
PREET BHARARA:
Yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
– but as a former law enforcement official, I mean, look, what the former president did, however you look at it, and you're Alvin Bragg, if he brings the indictment, it'll look like he can't back down. If he doesn't bring the indictment, he looks like he's been bullied. I mean, in that sense, we're really seeing the legal -- the law enforcement community get challenged here by the former president's tactics.
PREET BHARARA:
Yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
How would you be handling this if you were handling it?
PREET BHARARA:
I don't know, but I'm retired from that business now by virtue of a firing.
CHUCK TODD:
Are you sure?
PREET BHARARA:
I'm retired for now. Look, I think the only way you can handle these cases – and you're going to get criticism whether you bring a case or whether you don't bring a case – is you've just got to look at the law and the facts. And the evidence is, as I said a second ago, that's what Alvin Bragg is doing. You can disagree with him, ultimately, when we see what the allegations are, but he's not just willy-nilly going forward and bringing cases. And I know some people say it's unprecedented to bring a case against a former president, but it's also the case that there should be one standard of law enforcement, equal before the law. And if other people have been charged with a crime -- and as I said, Michael Cohen charged in this case. He's the less culpable person, if you believe a crime was committed. Some might argue it's a miscarriage of justice if Donald Trump is not held accountable for it.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, he actually has no more to gain.
PREET BHARARA:
Right.
CHUCK TODD:
There's no sentencing. He's already done. He's already paid for his crime.
PREET BHARARA:
Yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
Hey, very quickly, the federal case where a judge decided attorney-client privilege doesn't -- I mean, that doesn't happen very often --
PREET BHARARA:
No.
CHUCK TODD:
-- the significance of that. And where do you think this could be leading to?
PREET BHARARA:
Look, I mean, as we've been discussing, and as you ticked off a couple of minutes ago, Donald Trump faces jeopardy from, you know, a number of sources. The Alvin Bragg case is just one of them. He has legal jeopardy in Fulton County, Georgia, and the federal matter being overseen by the special counsel is proceeding apace. And I think some people have speculated that it wouldn't be a case there, either Mar-a-Lago or January 6th, but this shows you that they're being aggressive. And this is now a second judge, in different contexts, it’s found maybe there's a crime fraud exception, and that attorneys and Donald Trump were conspiring together to commit a crime.
CHUCK TODD:
Is there ever an instance where all these prosecutors should work together? Any grand jury sharing agreements or anything like that?
PREET BHARARA:
You can have that. There's no overlap, as I understand it, between what Alvin Bragg is doing, the Manhattan DA, and what the Justice Department is doing. There may be some overlap between what the Fulton County DA is doing because it relates to election interference. And obviously January 6th was about the Big Lie and election interference. My guess is they're not really sharing too much because it's a local prosecutor and you want to keep those lines separate. But that would not be, you know, unusual.
CHUCK TODD:
And wouldn't be unprecedented. Alright. Preet Bharara, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, always good to get your perspective on things. Thank you.
PREET BHARARA:
Thanks, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
Thanks for coming down. Donald Trump may indeed become the first American president to be indicted, but others have come close. In 1974, a grand jury named Richard Nixon an unindicted co-conspirator for his role in the Watergate scandal. Nixon was pardoned by Gerald Ford after his resignation and never formally was charged with any crimes. He joined Meet The Press in 1988 and talked about the impact Watergate had on his legacy. And he also had a warning for future presidents.
FMR. PRES. RICHARD NIXON:
Winston Churchill once wrote that strong leaders usually do the big things well, but they foul up on small things. And then the small things become big. I should have read that before Watergate happened. In 1972, we went to China, we went to Russia. We ended the Vietnam War, effectively, by the end of that year. Those were the big things. And then here was a small thing, and we fouled it up beyond belief. It was a great mistake. It was wrong, as I've pointed out over and over again, but under the circumstances, now people, as they judge that period, have to see what we accomplished and what we did wrong. And for the future, I would advise all those that follow me in the position of president: Do the big things as well as you can, but when a small thing is there, deal with it. Deal with it fast. Get it out of the way, because if you don't, it's going to become big and then it may destroy you.
CHUCK TODD:
Just to remind you, that small thing was an attempt to hijack the Democratic primary process and in this case, perhaps successfully pick the candidate they wanted to run against in 1972. When we come back, Republicans rally to the defense of Donald Trump, anticipating he could be charged with a crime, while ignoring his dangerous attacks and calls for political violence. Panel is next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back, panel is here. NBC News Washington correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, Jake Sherman, co-founder of Punchbowl News, Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan. I want to start with sort of this issue of violence. I mean, the former president, Peggy, you know, he is doing it again. However you want to look at it, he's doing it again.
PEGGY NOONAN:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
And it's really kind of ugly. Let me play some of the stuff that he said, particularly this first bite. Alright. We’re -- we've heard him in, in those social media posts and all of that. Forget the legal debate here, why isn't there more outrage about this?
PEGGY NOONAN:
I wonder lately if people have become a little desensitized in this area with Donald Trump because they're so used to it. There's also, I think, there’s been a sense this week that you look at what he's doing, posing with a baseball bat, saying there may be violence, all this stuff. You look and you think, ‘is this strategy or a public nervous breakdown?’ You actually are not sure --
CHUCK TODD:
I'm not sure.
PEGGY NOONAN:
-- of which. Look, I think, speaking in terms of tacky politics, he's trying to nail down and excite his base. Looks like he succeeded. Waco looked last night like he succeeded. There's a part – a significant part – but only a part of the Republican base that is all about Trump. It seems to me they're there. The big question the coming year is can anybody else coalesce what is not Trump. But yeah, it looks like they're all excited.
CHUCK TODD:
Cornell, I'm actually with Peggy on this. I'm not sure if he's having a nervous breakdown, or if he thinks this is good politics or if this is his campaign strategist going, “let's make lemonade.”
CORNELL BELCHER:
Well, either way, it's a dangerous place. And, and I do have the quote talking about the District Attorney. “He's a Soros-backed animal,” right? And so, that's a classic antisemitism, racist trope. And, and look, I think it's my job part-time here to call out dog whistles. Chuck, that's a racist bullhorn. And it's inciting violence. And you already see the District Attorney is, is, is under tremendous threats of violence right now. It's, it’s dangerous in that we don't have more Republicans calling it out. It's really, really troublesome.
CHUCK TODD:
Go ahead, Yamiche.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR:
I think part of this also is that former President Trump hasn't had to face consequences and, in fact, has actually benefited from a Republican party that has backed him after something like January 6th. I mean, he was playing music from the January 6th men's choir, which I learned about yesterday, which is made up of men who were imprisoned because of January 6th. That tells you where we are.
CHUCK TODD:
They played footage of the attack on the Capitol. They played footage of the attack on the Capitol to the crowd.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR:
And that, to me, really underscores that Trump is doubling down on this and because he doesn’t -- he has not had to face political consequences or legal consequences. And he remains the most popular figure right now for the GOP nomination. So, that tells you that he feels like this is working for him and he's using this as a political strategy.
CHUCK TODD:
I'll fact check you on the political consequences. They did lose the midterms in '18. They did lose the reelection in '20 and then '22. I mean, there have been political consequences, Jake, but apparently not enough to get Republicans to sober up here.
JAKE SHERMAN:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result, right? Donald Trump lost them -- minimized their gains in the House, lost them the Senate, lost the presidency. He has been a political disaster for the Republican party, just from a pure statistical point of view. It is amazing to me, having been there on January 6th, and we all know, as sane people, what happened on January 6th. It was an insurrection. They tried to stop the election. The people who are in Congress, who were being guarded by Capitol police officers and federal agents with machine guns, also know what happened, but they're pretending they don't.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR:
And I should say political consequences within the Republican party --
CHUCK TODD:
No, I know. I know. I -- I was fact checking you just a bit there. I want to -- as much as we learned about Donald Trump and the GOP this week, we also learned a lot about Ron DeSantis this week. We've got a pretty interesting story here. A Republican strategist, who didn't want to be named, told our reporters here at NBC News that this last week with DeSantis has not been going so hot. "DeSantis is doing a book tour," this anonymous Republican strategist says. "He's barnstorming the country and his polls are going down. Meanwhile, Trump's potentially under indictment and Trump's going up. It's just not a good look for DeSantis." There's been a lot of, like, questioning of DeSantis this week, Peggy.
PEGGY NOONAN:
Sure.
CHUCK TODD:
Are you questioning him?
PEGGY NOONAN:
Well, look, the past week showed you all of the worst and most objectionable, upsetting, and just horrifying of Donald Trump, who DeSantis, we assume, will be running against. And Trump's numbers went up with the base and DeSantis' went down? Look, we'll see where it goes. It's early. You know all these -- that stuff people say, but let me throw in --
CHUCK TODD:
You sound like 2015 Peggy Noonan.
PEGGY NOONAN:
But let me throw this in. You look at DeSantis, you see his record, you sort of have one question. You have a few questions, but one is, “Why is he running? Does he know?” If he knows, maybe he could let everybody else know and maybe that will help him at a difficult time. I'm just not sure I'm seeing why he's running.
CHUCK TODD:
And you know, Cornell, he's sort of getting the worst of both worlds by kind of being a candidate, but not actually being a candidate. The Ukraine – I don't know what to call it, if it's a flip-flop or not. It's up to you what you want to call it.
CORNELL BELCHER:
I'll call it a flip-flop.
JAKE SHERMAN:
It is a flip-flop.
CHUCK TODD:
"While the U.S. has many vital national interests, becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them." Now take a look at what he said to Piers Morgan literally like four days later. Take a listen.
[BEGIN TAPE]
GOV. RON DESANTIS:
So if I could snap my fingers, I'd give it back to Ukraine 100%. But the reality is, what is America's involvement in terms of escalating with more weapons and certainly ground troops, I think, would be a mistake. So, that was the point I was trying to make. But Russia was wrong to invade. They were wrong to take Crimea. I mean, I think he is a war criminal.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Is this, Jake, somebody who was trying to play too cute with Tucker Carlson? Or does he just not quite know what his position is?
JAKE SHERMAN:
I think both. Well, I don't know if he doesn't know what his position is. He sees, on Capitol Hill, what I see, which is the Republican party turning against the effort in Ukraine, or a big chunk of the Republican party turning against the effort in Ukraine. You can't think it's a territorial dispute and at the same time think Putin's a war criminal, and we shouldn't be there.
CHUCK TODD:
He's coming across right now as somebody who learned how to sail, meaning he's always looking to see which way to move the sail.
JAKE SHERMAN:
He's also looking weak. I mean, it does look weak.
CHUCK TODD:
It's been a rough week for him. Alright, when we come back, kids in Utah will soon need their parents’ permission to use social media. We'll speak with the Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, who just signed those new laws.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. While Washington continues to talk about TikTok, this week Utah acted. It became the first state in the nation to dramatically limit how kids and teens can use all social media apps, not just TikTok.
[BEGIN TAPE]
GOV. SPENCER COX:
Ask teenagers, this is one of my favorite things to do. I ask them, "Are you seeing an increase in your own life, amongst your friends, in your school, in depression, anxiety and self-harm?" And every one of them will say, “Yes.” And then I ask the question, "What do you think is causing it?" And every one of them tell me it's social media.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
All right, the two bills that Governor Cox signed into law require parental consent before kids can sign up for platforms like TikTok and Instagram. They give parents access to their children's accounts. And it will prohibit kids under 18 from using social media between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. unless their parent or guardian modifies the default setting. Already a handful of states are considering similar bills, though they may be difficult to enforce, and the courts may have a say on this. Utah's Republican governor, Spencer Cox joins me now. Governor Cox, welcome back to Meet the Press.
GOV. SPENCER COX:
Hey, it's good to be with you again, Chuck. Thanks for having me back.
CHUCK TODD:
All right, so let me start, I know why you signed this. And as a parent of two teenagers myself, you know, all of us are looking for more tools to figure this out. But I'm curious, before you signed it into law, what kind of legal scrutiny did you put this under? Because there's a lot of constitutional questions about this.
GOV. SPENCER COX:
Sure there are. And I'm an attorney myself. We looked very closely at this. We worked with our attorney general, my general counsel. We worked with experts across the nation, researchers as well. And all of the – all of the law that is in question here around the First Amendment really was established in the late '90s, early 2000s before social media even existed. And so we feel very confident that we have a – we have a good case here. We expect that there will be lawsuits, and we feel confident that we're going to prevail.
CHUCK TODD:
And enforcement seems also to be a huge task here. Which department in the state is going to be monitoring these social media companies? And are you going to have to essentially hire more people to do this?
GOV. SPENCER COX:
So the Department of Commerce will be handling this. And we understand that there are definitely going to be enforcement issues. Anytime you wade into this type of an industry, it's going to be tough. And we don't expect that we're going to be able to prevent every, you know, every young person from getting around this. Kids are really smart. That's one of the problems. But here's what I would prefer, Chuck. Obviously, I would prefer that Congress act. That's where this should happen. And I think it will. It's amazing to me, we have very conservative members of Congress. Congressman Chris Stewart is running a bill right now, broad bipartisan support. The president, in his State of the Union, said we need to do this. And so I have President Biden, I have very conservative members of Congress working on this together. But the states have to lead out. And that's what we're doing. And I expect other states to follow, as you mentioned. And then that helps Congress kind of coalesce and come to an agreement on how we prevent these terrible harms from happening.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to get you though, again, the specifics of the law is where there's going to be some pushback. Evan Greer, the director for Fight for the Future said this: "These bills radically undermine the constitutional and human rights of young people in Utah. What about in situations where there is a custody battle or allegations of abuse and an abusive parent is attempting to obtain access to a child's social media messages?" This is where – I mean, I get it. Top down, this looks like a great idea, Governor. When you get into the details, things like this, you're like, "Okay, what do you do?" This seems to be a legitimate concern.
GOV. SPENCER COX:
Sure, sure. And there are legitimate concerns. And we'll be working through those. So one of the provisions in the bill, actually in both bills, these bills don't go into effect for a little over a year, which gives us time to work through all of those questions, making sure that we're protecting the data privacy of the citizens of Utah. Again, making sure that we're figuring out how these will work. In any custody battle, you have issues surrounding kids and their online activity and what they're doing. So those things are already being worked through in lots of contexts, and we will continue to work through. But this is about empowering families. It's about empowering parents. And it's about holding these social media companies accountable for what we know now. This is a data-driven approach. We've been working with Professor Jonathan Haidt at NYU who's been looking at this for many years, collecting research from around the world. And we know this is killing our kids. We have to start there. The harm being done to our children far outweighs. And again, this started well-before Covid. Since 2012, especially among young women, the rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, self-harm have skyrocketed. And every research institution that has looked at this is pointing to social media as the cause.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, I guess the other question I have about this though is if you go down this road, did you work with the social media companies and say what would it take for them to do real age verification? Because, let's be frank, you know, it's illegal for people underage to look at pornographic material or have access to it. It's been impossible to keep that off the internet and keep kids from being able to look at it. Why do you think your law's going to be able to work?
GOV. SPENCER COX:
Well, we think it’s – again, we don't think it's going to be foolproof. There's no question about that. But we are working with social media companies. Again, over the course of the year we will be going through a rule-making process to figure out what that's going to look like. Again, how do we protect data privacy? I suspect as we look at this that there will be third-party age verification companies that we will utilize to make this happen. We also don’t want – we've seen the leaks that have happened with some of these social media companies. We don't want them having copies of driver's licenses on hand. That's not what we're trying to do here. We believe that there are technical, logical fixes that we can work around this. And that's what we'll be working on over the course of the next year.
CHUCK TODD:
How are you going to prove addiction?
GOV. SPENCER COX:
We don't have to prove addiction. We'll be working, again, to look at these. And one of the things that the law does that I think is very interesting, now I think Congress is considering a ban under the age of 16. I think many states, I think Texas is considering a ban under the age of 16. We actually did something a little different. And that is that we gave a private right of action to parents and families to prove – to be able to sue these companies if there's harm done to their child. And harm is presumed. So it will be up to the social media companies to prove otherwise.
CHUCK TODD:
And you don't think that the Section 2030 doesn't indemnify these social media companies from your lawsuit?
GOV. SPENCER COX:
No. No, I don't because this is real harm. And we think that this will – this will remove those types of protections. And, ultimately, what that means is social media companies are going to have to be very careful in giving access to these platforms to kids under the age of 16 where, again, brains are developing. It's crazy. Listen, Chuck, there is no other industry where we allow 14-year-olds to contract with major corporations to use their data for anything they want. We just don't do this. We're going to look back ten years from now and think, "What did we do? We destroyed a generation of kids with this stuff."
CHUCK TODD:
We're allowing the tech world to do a giant experiment on the human brain. Frankly, that's not --
GOV. SPENCER COX:
That's exactly what we're doing.
CHUCK TODD:
-- just about teens.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah. Governor Spencer Cox, Republican --
GOV. SPENCER COX:
No, no, no. It's about adults too. And, we've got to figure this out for us as well.
CHUCK TODD:
Trust me, I'd love that ban of 10:30 to 6:30 a.m. to apply to everybody. I'm half-kidding. But only half. Governor Cox --
GOV. SPENCER COX:
Me too.
CHUCK TODD:
– thanks very much. Up next, the Biden administration is threatening to ban the most popular social media app on the planet. But is it too big to ban?
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back, Data Download time. As Washington debates whether to ban TikTok over national security concerns, the app's CEO testified on Capitol Hill this week to defend the social media platform. And one of his biggest talking points: that the app is too big to ban. So how big is the app and what kind of impact would a ban have? Let's take a look at the size of TikTok. TikTok claims they have already over 150 million users here in the United States. That's nearly half the U.S. population. We can't verify that number specifically, but we can tell you it has been the most downloaded app both in 2021 and 2022, and it still seems to be that way in 2023. You want to see how much of a financial juggernaut it's become? In 2020, ad revenue: three quarters of a billion dollars. 2023, according to Insider Intelligence, their ad revenue could get near $7 billion. This is a fast-growing app. And of course, people on the app also are able to make money. Not directly from the company that owns TikTok, but from a creator fund. You can make $20 to $40 million -- $20 to $40 per million views. Or you can get sponsored posts. Some people get deals that give them, as one of the TikTok influencers made nearly $20 million in income last year. So, what about the politics of a TikTok ban? Look, as people know, more Democrats than Republicans use TikTok. It's about a 10-point advantage, according to a recent Washington Post poll. But as for whether a ban is a good idea or not, there's not a ton of a political divide. There’s -- majorities in both parties are concerned that it is based in China. Obviously, Republicans a little bit more concerned than Democrats. And then when you look at the idea of a ban overall, it's kind of a mixed bag, right? You see Democrats are a little bit more in the middle on it. Republicans, a bit more supportive of a ban. But there's a lot of "not sure" here, which means, let's take a look at this in a couple weeks and see how all of this debate has impacted public opinion. So when we come back, from banning TikTok to Utah's new social media laws, is the tech industry finally meeting its regulatory moment? Our panel returns to discuss that next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. TikTok, is it a political problem for Democrats to ban this or not, Yamiche?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR:
First of all, I think there's bipartisan disdain for it. If you watch that committee hearing, you saw Republicans and Democrats on the Hill actually agree on something. But the 150 million people or plus who are on tick-tack, they're going to be --
CHUCK TODD:
You did what I did there, calling it "tick-tack." I do that, too.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR:
On TikTok, people are going to be very, very angry. I mean, you have young people who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars on this, apart from the people who are just addicted to it because they love to watch cat videos and dancing. So I think it's going to be possibly a political problem that's going to make a lot of people angry.
CHUCK TODD:
Cornell, are you worried about this --
CORNELL BELCHER:
I'll tell you a political problem. 150 million people? You know, Chuck, there weren't 150 million people who voted in the last midterms, right? Talk about an energizing thing to do. Look, we don't do very good historically at banning things either that are really popular. This is a billion-dollar industry. You've got people in the gig economy, young people making a lot of money on this. It is a problem, the idea of banning it.
CHUCK TODD:
Peggy, yeah?
PEGGY NOONAN:
Yeah. I've got to say I think underlying the TikTok story and the Utah governor story, mostly TikTok, is the fact that increasingly, I think, the world has come to see the United States as a nation of addicts. China sees us, 150 million of us, addicted to this thing, they make the most of it. Cartels find out, "Oh, they're addicted to all the drugs, fentanyl," they make the most of it so we don't have a border anymore. When you are starting to be known in the world as a nation of addicts, maybe we ought to have a hearing about that.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah.
PEGGY NOONAN:
Something's wrong.
CHUCK TODD:
It’s, yeah. We got, yeah --
CORNELL BELCHER:
Well, maybe there should be something about privacy. Look, I'm not going to pile on the Chinese right now, but you have no privacy with this, right? There are data brokers out here who can – China doesn't have to take it from TikTok. They can buy it from data brokers.
CHUCK TODD:
Jake, Utah, I think the most compelling thing about why you don't target TikTok, you should target all of them, is the fact that all of them are doing this --
JAKE SHERMAN:
Yeah --
CHUCK TODD:
-- with your data. Why isn't the Hill focused that way?
JAKE SHERMAN:
Well, a few reasons. Number one, the big theme of this Congress is anti-China. Every single committee is looking into China. It's a priority of Kevin McCarthy's. And, by the way, as Yamiche said, there is bipartisan support for cracking down on TikTok. I can tell you that I've watched an untold number of congressional hearings. That was among the bloodiest brawls I've ever seen, when the CEO of TikTok came to Capitol Hill.
CHUCK TODD:
Boy, did they blow it. And they had been working the community for the last two months. And then they came in this week, guns ablazing. It seemed like a bad PR strategy.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR:
I mean, the fact that there were simple questions like, "Can China buy all this data? Can China take over this application?" They couldn't answer those questions. The TikTok representative couldn't answer those questions. That's the type of stuff that just makes it seem as though, even if it's not happening, as if TikTok is run by China. I will say another thing. I think it's fascinating that China's version of TikTok is completely different, that they're about civilization and exercise and that they have time limits for children. That to me also is striking.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah, I know. It's fascinating what they don't allow their own people to do. Before we go, I'd like to take a moment to remember a really good friend of mine and a beloved longtime political journalist, NBC's Vaughn Ververs, who died last Sunday night. Vaughn was the top digital editor here at the NBC Washington bureau for more than a dozen years, but he also worked at Politico, CBS twice and he was the editor of The Hotline, where he and I both got our start one week apart over 30 years ago. Vaughn was with me almost on every ride I've been on as a journalist. Vaughn was a mentor to a lot of younger journalists. He was a steady compass on any political story, and he always had a wry, optimistic presence in every newsroom he was a part of. He also never forgot where he came from. He loved his Colorado Buffaloes and his upbringing in Alaska, and he never judged anybody without knowing the whole story because didn't like it when people judged him just based on one fact. Our thoughts are with Vaughn's wife, Lisa, and his kids Victoria, Cameron, and Vaughn Henry in this extraordinarily difficult time. That's all we have for today. Thanks for watching. We'll be back next week, because if it's Sunday it's Meet the Press.