this sunday, the new coronavirus variant. >> this variant has a large number of mutations. some of these mutations have some worrying characteristics. >> the u.s. and europe imposing restrictions on travel from southern africa. >> we don't know a lot about the variant except that it is a big concern. it seems to spread rapidly. >> something that i'm concerned about, you want to be honest. >> this as cases are already speaking 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. >> it makes sense for the court to review their decisions in the past, and this is a vehicle in which for them to do it. >> i'll talk to mississippi 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 -- >> they're working on a daily basis in terms of bringing this indictment. >> -- and the former president's political ambitions. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news senior washington kpant hallie jackson, "washington post," daniella pletka of the american enterprise institute and jake sherman, founder of bunch bowl news. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." from nbc news in wash, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck

todd. >> a good sunday morning. i hope you're earn joying the rest of your thanksgiving day weekend. 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 w.h.o. is calling a variant of concern, the first they've labeled that since the delta variant. we know how that turned out. this was first identified in southern africa. as we've learned, when a variant shows up anywhere, it winds up everywhere. the reaction has been swift despite worry about how serious this variant is. there's been jitters on wall street, causing the dow to drop more than 900 points on friday, the single worst day of the year. all this amid a sharp rise in cases. here at home the seven day average has grown since the end of the summer wave with a recent spike in the midwest and northwest as more people go inside due to the weather.

president biden ran on taming the pandemic and prematurely declared independence back in july. at the same time we can see a backlash against those republican politician whose have been fighting mandates and playing down the need for vaccines. where are we headed? joining me the director of the allergy and infectious diseases, the president's chief adviser on covid. dr. fauci, welcome back to "meet the press." >> good to be with you, chuck. >> 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. of course, we had a terrible surge there for about two months. here we are post november. we are already experiencing a surge. now we have this. are we headed for a bleak winter here, sir? >> chuck, a lot of whether or not we're headed into a bleak or bleaker winter is really going

to depend on what we do. i think what you're seeing is just the manifest case 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. even when you have variants like this, and there's 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 these differences 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 the south africans are really extraordinarily good in what they did. they were completely transparent right from the beginning. we were on the phone getting realtime 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 getion more information in realtime. 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 we're prepared for the worst. that's what we should be doing.

>> okay. what is it about this variant that you've seen so far that has everybody so alarmed that the other variants we've had in between, delta and this one -- delta alarmed folks. this alarmed folks. lambda and mu hasn't. what makes omicron so concerning to you? >> 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 nasal pharynx and your lungs. in other words, the profile of the mutation strongly suggests it will have transmissibility

and might evade immune protection that you would get from a monoclonal antibody or from the convalescent serum after a person has been infected and possibly against even some of the vaccine-induced antibodies. 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 with having a low level of infection and all of a sudden there was this big spike. when the south africans looked at it, they said, oh, my goodness, this is a different virus than what we've been dealing with. it's clearly giving the indication it has the capability of transmitting rapidly. that's what's causing us to be concerned, but also to put pressure on ourselves to do something about our preparation for this. >> 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 tweaksed? we never tweaks the boosters for delta. do you expect us to do that for this one? >> we're preparing to, but we might not have to. that's the critical question that you asked, chuck. what you do is you get the virus, the whole virus itself or a modification, a pseudovirus. you get that and take antibodies from a person who has been vaccinated and you see if those antibodies can neutralize this particular virus. and if they can at a high tighter of antibody, we're in pretty good shape. if it looks like even at a high titre of antibody it doesn't, then 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. the critical questions now, do the antibodies block this well and what is the seriousness of

the disease. 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 us severe disease or does it give the kind of severity we've seen with delta and the other variants. >> i got my booster five days ago. now i'm wondering did i get my booster too soon? i see you shaking your head. i assumed you would. but i'd like you to clarify that. there are going to be people who sit there and say, well, maybe i should wait until the booster is tweaks. what do you tell them? >> if you are six months or more from the second dose of an mrna, either the pfizer or moderna, get boosted. if you're two months or mo 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, check, that's really good news, 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'll get a level of antibody that is high enough that it's likely you'll be able to get at least some degree and maybe a lot of protection against this. as i said in the beginning of the interview, chuck, if ever there was a reason for the people who were vaccinated to get boosted and for those who are unvaccinated to get vaccinated, it's now. >> we are a country trying desperately to get back to normal. we're almost at prepandemic travel levels for the thanksgiving holiday. does the rise of this new variant and our continued stubborn unvaccinated population

in this country make you think we should have a different policy regarding holiday travel in a month? >> 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. that's the thing, weave got to put aside all 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. >> should we have a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel? >> you know, chuck, i'm not going to make any pronouncements about what we should have about vaccine mandates for travel.

we know that we evaluate these things literally in realtime all the time. 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. right now air travel is. when you say travel in general causes a risk of increased transmission, it's the whole process of traveling, going to the airport, being in the airport in congregate settings, people taking their masks off, that's the issue we have to adhere to. >> 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? >> you know, chuck, i think there's a little semantics

there. when you say can you get in a certain place, can you be in a certain position or 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's in the definition of fully vaccinated. that's still two shots of an mrna and one shot of a j&j. if you want to optimize your protection as an individual, clearly we're saying go get your booflter. >> is it pretty clear this is now an endemic? how does this end any other way? >> when you're saying this, you meenl mean what we're dealing with in our own country, the delta -- >> that we'll have this virus in perpetuity. >> we certainly are not going to eradicate it. elimination means -- i don't think we're going to be there

with this. what i do think we'll be able to do is get a level of control that's low enough that 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. you get it that low when you get the overwhelming majority of the population vaccinated and boosted. like i've said multiple times, chuck, it's within our own grasp of how we'll be able to live with the virus. the lower we get it, the lower dynamics of virus in the unto kmoo, the lower the risk to everyone, including vaccinated people. >> dr. fauci, i hope you had as an enjoyable thanksgiving as you could. i'm getting with the news over the week it was a bit interrupted. thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective. >> good to be with you, chuck. thank you for having me. joining me is governor of mississippi, republican tate reeves. mississippi's covid caseload is way down from its summer peak in

late august. the cases there have begin to bump up a bit again. governor reeves, welcome to "meet the press." we invited you to talk about the mississippi abortion case. but let me start with covid. you let your state of emergency expire last saturday. given the news of the last week, do you have a metric in mind in your own head of when you might reinstitute that state of emergency? >> well, chuck, thanks for having me on this morning. i really do appreciate it. i hope you had a happy thanksgiving as well. we're monitoring this new variant. we don't have all the data we need to make decisions at this time. obviously, as dr. fauci was very clear and pointed out directly, 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 mitt sippians in hospital beds. only five miss sippians -- only 59 in icu beds. we have 28 mississippians on the ventilator today. 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. in talking with our state health officers we believe somewhere between 80 to 85 of mississippians have some level of immunity, either natural immunity or immunity from having taken the shots. i think the things we have to start thinking about is the booster shots, encouraging our fellow mississippians to get vaccinated. >> 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? >> i actually believe that the president's decision to try to

mandate vaccines, a decision, 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 he ran for office saying one thing and he's decided to govern in a different way. i actually think those mandates are hardening those individuals not enter interested in getting vaccinated. if you go around our state and talk to those individuals that have not gotten vaccinated, in last measure a lot of them have gotten the virus so they believe they had natural immunity, and they were thinking about getsing vaccinated after they got beyond the 90 or 180 difficults. the president's insistence on mandating them have hardened them against it. i think it's the president's policies that have made it more difficult in rural states like mississippi to get more people vaccinated. we have continued to see an uptick in the numbers. as i mentioned earlier, 1.6

million fully vaccinated mississippians. we're doing about 50,000 vaccines a week. 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 vag seens. i took my shots on facebook live. i don't like shots very much. that was my way in which to tell the people of mississippi i think this is the best way for you to protect yourselves. i also believe in individual liberties and freedoms and people can make decisions on what's best for them after they talk to their physicians. >> let me switch gears speaking of individual freedom that i think people might have a difference of opinion on. this week the supreme court will hear oral arguments on a case of 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 over turns 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 or dough you think they can redefine roe v. wade to allow this law to be enacted? >> well, that's a complicated question. clearly, i think this law can be enacted within a changing confinement of roe v. wade, but i also believe roe v. wade was wrongly decided. i believe in a similar 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. 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. i think roe was wrongly decided. i also believe that some 20 years later in 1992 casey was incorrectly decided.

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. >> 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? there's 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? >> well, i certainly would like to do everything we can to protect unborn children, but let's put this in perspective, chuck. in europe there are 42 countries that allawi elective abortions. if row 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 conservative states in the united states. 39 countries in europe restrict abortions earlier than 15 weeks. so the reality is that the u.s. abortion laws are not in conformity or 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. >> i want to play something you said about the vaccine mandate and ask you why the same philosophy doesn't apply here. let me play what you said. >> 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 trying to make decisions on behalf of individuals americans. we believe in freedom and individual liberty. >> 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? >> well, this is a prime example, and the far left loves to scream my body, my choice. what i would submit to you, choice, 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 is 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. let's just put this in perspective -- >> governor, hang on a minute. a vaccine is about protecting a larger community, about preventing spread. you could argue a vaccine mandate is a pro life position. >> you could certainly argue that, chuck. 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. what's been proven during this delta surge that we've seen in

america, is that the virus is continuing to be 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 in perspective. the fact is, 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. my heart aches for every single one of those individuals that has died because of covid. over 10,000 mississippians. my heartbreaks for every one of them. since roe, 62 million babies have been aborted and, therefore, killed. that's why i think it's very important that people like myself stand up for those unborn children because they don't have the ability to stand up for themselves. >> governor tate reeves, appreciated you coming on and sharing your perspective. thanks very much.

>> thank you chuck. >> when we come back, the ahmaud arbery case. arbery case. what the guilty verdicts ♪ ♪ cases of anxiety in young adults are rising as experts warn of the effects on well-being caused by the pandemic. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (tiger) this is the dimension of imagination. ♪♪♪ ♪

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they learned how on youtube. what will you learn? welcome back. the panel is here. nbc news senior washington correspondent hallie jock son. washington post column northwest, eugene robinson, jake sherman from punchbowl news and daniella pletka from the americans enterprise institute. the ahmaud arbery verdict. i want to play the 911 call. there's a line in there, gene, that other people have pointed out that might be the most important line of this trial. let me play it. >> 911, what's the address of your emergency? >> i'm out here at satilla shores. there's a black male running down the street. >> where at satilla shores.

>> i don't know what street we're on. >> he drop that. damn it. stop. travis! >> so the emergency, gene was a black man was running down the street. >> black male running down the street. that's the line that jumps out. that was the emergency that was perceived. the thing is, of course, we wouldn't know any of this had not that video been released and gone viral because the initial decision by prosecutors -- local prosecutors was to do nothing. okay, we're good, right? 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. >> that had the feeling, hallie, small town, oerks i know who those guys are, i know them, they all know each other and it becomes one of those things. it's like, well, they were going

to get protected from committing this crime. >> i think gene is bringing up such an important point. i spoke with ahmaud arbery's father a couple hours after the verdict came down and we talked about the idea of the there hadn't been a video, what would have happened. he said there would have been no accountability, that it was the video that cracked this piece open. i was also struck by something ahmaud arbery's mother said in the immediate aftermath that she prayed for justice, she prayed for the right prosecutors to come in. there was a lot of back and forth about this. the discussion came up, as a person of faith, you can pray. is that what you have to do? should it have to come down to prayer? shouldn't the system be better than that? i think that's where the conversation is going, especially with his family. his attorneys are talking about the verdict, it is an important one. it's not justice but it is accountability. there are so many other cases, so many others that this is shining a light on. >> do you think bringing charges

against the local prosecutor for not bringing charges is a way to fix the system? >> i think it sends a signal. for a lot of us that saw and felt justice was ultimately done, the fact that it almost wasn't even addressed is possibly the most crucial rool of law question here. if it sends a message to other prosecutors and d.a.'s around the country that you will get caught, that there is accountability, that justice will be done by you as well. there's been an investigation, there's been a grand jury. i'm impressed with the fact that they have followed up on this in a way that's extraordinarily aggressive. you want people not to have to pray. you want people to trust the justice system. >> we're shifting into this new era of cell phone accountability. we've been in it for a long time. that puts people, prosecutors, law enforcement officers on notice that this kind of stuff will be filmed and accountability will happen. >> i was going to say, one thing i heard from folks on this,

though, is to be cautious about drawing too many lessons or signals from this case. look what it comes on the heels of which is kyle rittenhouse and the verdict there. >> some would argue on the right, jury trials worked in both cases. >> look, 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 -- prosecutors in the rittenhouse case, as good as the prosecutors in the arbery case? no, i don't think they were. and the judge explained the law to the jury in a different way. the judge in the rittenhouse case was well known for favoring the defense side over the prosecution side in almost every case.

i don't want to say 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. i think he's guilty of something -- >> wrong charges? bad prosecution -- >> right. bring a gun that you don't really know how to wield or handle or keep yourself safe or keep others safe. three people shot, two dead. >> if your argument is with the laws, that's one argument. z but as you rightly said, i think one of the complaints most of us have is that too many people end up in prison. too many black men are in prison in the united states. you want judges that are going to err on the side of 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 there are going to be riots. that's wrong. >> i think from a larger perspective and from the legislative perspective i think this will have a hunl impact. on capitol hill we saw two very well respected members of congress, tim scott, corey booker, fail at their attempt to get criminal justice reform passed. these incidents put together, the charged nature of both of thome will make it more different. >> we're about to see. waukesha is i think about to become the issue in every wisconsin race at a minimum, if not nationally. >> it's going to feed into this whole debate over cash bail, 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. >> we can see the tv ads are being made. in fact, we saw them made in 1988. >> exactly. you can say 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 a thousand bucks. >> a packed show. a lot of issues to get to. i'll pause here. when we come bang, this will be an interesting one, i'll talk to an interesting one, i'll talk to donald trump's personal

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his focus to whether mr. trump flawed rently inflated the value of his assets to obtain better financing. one of the people with insight is his former personal attorney and fixer michael cohen. cone who pled guilty to charges including arranging hush money payments to porn star stormy daniels ended his time last week. he's written a memoir called "disloyal." mr. cohen, welcome to "meet the press," sir. >> nice to see you, chuck. >> 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 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? >> you know, i generally try not

to talk about the da which now also includes the general attorney's civil case in the same exact matter. i really try not to talk about it because it's their vision. 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 -- i mean this -- allen weisselberg is not the key to this. they're going after don't, don jr., eric, ivanka, a whole slew of individuals, family as well. >> you just referred to allen weisselberg, the chief financial officer. he was indicted. it looked to a lester holt of observers that this was the type of indictment that was brought against you essentially in the previous cases, which was to squeeze you and hope you would cooperate.

were you surprised allen weisselberg hasn't cooperated? >> they didn't really do to allen weisselberg what they did to me. 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. i'm married 27 years, with the same woman for 29 years. there was no chance in the world i would 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 jack weisselberg who is one of only two organizations that made loans to the trump organization that we still know -- when you talked about whether or not donald trump inflated or deflated his assets, every single word i had said about that is 100% accurate.

>> are you their best -- are you their only witness on this, or have they found other witnesses? it does seem as if -- they have this hypothesis but you've got to prove it. you're one witness. they're going to want somebody in the trump organization actively, too. do they have it? >> again, i don't want to get into the investigation at all. rest assured, i'm not their only witness. most importantly, what i gave to them are thousands and thousands of documents. as you know in law there's something called documentary evidence. i'm not asking anybody to believe me, 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 they could indict donald trump tomorrow if they really wanted and be successful. >> do you believe -- considering what they're investigating, are you confident you did help donald trump commit crimes? >> 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. >> i take it then you've been given some level of immunity from the d.a. and the attorney general in new york, have you not? >> my case is over. it was over when i pled guilty. it was all part of one big giant package. >> so everything here -- it's amazing that i'm the only one -- it's amazing that i'm the only one that ended up doing prison and indicted, incarcerated out of this entire group. the documents speak for themselves. >> it's funny you say this. here, you've been cooperative to the government both on a federal level, a state level. some might argue you could have been more cooperative at different times. let's set that aside. you have. no one else has been either held accountable or come forward. why do you think that is? >> because the system is broken.

i do 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 monday me door-to-door on this -- which basically was nothing more than campaign finance violation. all of the allegations that were centers around tax evasion are just not true. again, when they squeezed me, they squeezed me so hard that -- mine was in 48 hours. i have from friday to monday to bleed guilty. i don't even want to go into that. that part of my life i'm trying to put behind me, trying to move forward. now the goal is to ensure that those people who are responsible become responsible for their dirty teeds. i shouldn't be responsible for donald trump's dirty deeds. he was the one involved with the campaign finance violation as was allen weisselberg, don trump

jr., ivanka, erica, several other individuals. they need to be held accountable. i am waiting for both cyrus vance jr.'s district attorney case as well as tish james' civil case move forward and start moving forward a little quicker. >> do you now believe that the trump organization is a criminal enterprise? >> i don't even know how to answer that. are they a criminal enterprise? let's just say they committed crimes. >> 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 kpous correspondent's dinner in 2011 motivated him to run. you think humiliation is the reason he may not want to run and lose again. we've seen him use that as a motivator before. >> yes. this should become a documentary and called "the greatest grift in u.s. history." donald trump has made it very clear 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 he makes a statement 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. i talk about this on my podcast maya culpa ad nauseam. please understand, chuck, and this is really important for all of my viewers as well. one of the things that donald trump has done is grift off 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 be the boy who cried wolf, they stole it from me in 2020, they now stole it from me

in 2024. now that goes out the door, and there goes higgs money, there goes the big grift. like i said before, it's not going to happen it. he's going to, like in 2011, until the very last second. >> michael cohen you've spent a lot of more time with him. thanks for coming on. thanks for coming on. >> all ♪ my work has been viewed by 100 million people. ♪ my work helps save lives. ♪ my work has gone platinum. ♪ my work gives people hope. ♪ i work at fedex. ♪ take your career to the next level with one of our many open positions. ♪ is struggling to manage your type 2 diabetes

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that's unvaccinated. 60% of that unvaccinated is republican. just because it's blue state/red state, you can live close together and crash into each other's blue and red bubbles. take north carolina, mecklenburg county, a big biden county has a higher vaccination rate. 30-minute drive away is stanley rate, a trump county with a vaccination rate of just under 40%. just a 30-minute drive gets you outside of not only your political bubble, but your covid bubble. that's going to roil not just political debates but also health debates. when we come back, th ♪ say it's all right ♪ ♪ say it's all right, it's all right ♪ ♪ have a good time 'cause it's all right ♪ ♪ now listen to the beat ♪ ♪ kinda pat your feet ♪

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welcome back. it's been a busy show. we've done abortion, done trump, done covid. i want to go back to abortion, though. this is, hallie, going to be the

biggest abortion case, the mississippi case, since roe v. wade. i don't feel there's a debate about whether the mississippi law will be allowed to go forward. the question is does it go forward under roe v. wade, too? >> and the political impact of whatever the decision, which we won't know for months, after the arguments happen on wednesday, what's so interesting is the question that's 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 there are typical smaller but very vocal minorities in the parties, activists on both sides who want to make this an issue. what we've seen, especially for voters, in a midterm and presidential, it's not. it's the economy, it's covid. we've seen that in the polling numbers. when you look at texas and what we saw there, in some ways outpacing where the electorate is, even in the republican party. when you look at numbers out, for example, from npr showing

more republicans don't support the various provisions in the texas law. there's this gap here between i think the laws being put in place and then what the populous, even on the conservative side, actually wants to see. so that's really coming to a head this week when you see these arguments. >> gene, is it about roe actually getting overturned before the left gets galvanized? >> i think probably, yeah. i think roe will be overturned. i've seen no indication that there isn't a majority on this -- >> you don't think brett kavanaugh, whatever promise he made to susan collins who says he wasn't going to overturn it, that he doesn't find a way to let the mississippi law -- that he writes an opinion to keep roe alive. >> no, i don't think so. maybe he does, but i don't think so. >> democrats, i can tell you, are facing stiff political headwinds in 2022. see this as a galvanizing thing

for them. >> they want it to be. >> they want it to be, yeah. they think this is a base turnout operation. i see you shaking your head. they don't think they have a lot to talk about in 2022, and they think abortion will help them out. >> if they catch the car, overturning roe, this is like catching the car on the right. then what? >> the discussion i often have with my dog, what are you going to do then? i don't think it's galvanizing -- for exactly the reason hallie said which is 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 is nothing to do with the question underlying it but the question of empowering individuals to have a right of action which i think a lot of people are uncomfortable with. we have these conversations in a bubble here in washington. the reality is that while

there's a very substantial majority in this country that supports a right to abortion in the first trimester, there's a very big majority that doesn't believe that abortion should happen after the first trimester. >> here is the thing if roe gets overturned, a lot of elected politicians have been able to say what they want on abortion and never have to vote on it. if you overturn roe, you're going to have to vote on something now. you're going to have to lejs late. that has a trickle ef fact on the entire campaign messaging. >> you're right. i think it goes back to what dani is talking about, how does it move people going to the polls to put you in. people up until now -- i shouldn't say that. in many instances there are more people in the center of the spectrum, on the other side of the aisle, who can give nuanced

answers, some people in the constituency like it, some people do. there's no way to run against the issue. >> i think this is a galvanizing issue for the democratic base. if that's enough for democrats is another -- >> democrats are in charge of congress now. what are they going to do if roe is overturned, make a symbolic effort to codify it? >> they already have. it's not going to get through the senate in any way. i also say, if you look at any congress in the last ten years and think they have the ability, the political stability or the heft to deal with a weighty issue like abortion, i don't know what you're looking at. >> remember gun laws and the obama administration. >> just big shout out to the moret flogs, class a football, good job coach engleberg.

if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

it just kind of exploded in the sense that when you look in south africa, you are having a low level of infection all of a sudden there was this big spike. >> dr. anthony fauci describing the origins of the new covid varnts called omicron. this morning, nations are closing their worders and joe biden has scheduled a speech on the u.s. response. another weekend of violent smash and grab heists. plus, one security guard is killed two major high profile cases are about to take off,