this sunday, sky first of all -- sky skwn fall. more mysterious objects over canada and alaska. >> president biden orded the military to down the object. >> we won't tolerate it, period. >> i'll talk to the ranking member of the house intelligence committee, democrat congressman jim himes of connecticut. plus, dividing lines. president biden targets the gop on cutting medicare and social security. >> a lot of republicans, their dream is to cut social security and medicare. well, let me say this -- if

that's your dream, i'm your nightmare. >> while republicans argue they are under attack from a left-wing culture warp. >> the dividing line in america is no longer between right or left. the choice is between normal or crazy. >> i'll talk to two governors, democrat phil murphy of new jersey and republican spencer cox of utah, about the challenges of bridging america's deep part zan divide. and investigating trump. >> you go to new york, no one gets prosecuted. i'm the only one. >> the facts warranted prosecution. >> he says donald trump should face charges when the manhattan district attorney did not act. i'll speak with mark pomeranz, the lead attorney, who is under fire himself for potentially hurting the criminal prosecution he pushed for. joining me are nbc news senior capitol hill correspondent garrett haake. lee ann caldwell from "the washington post," jonah goldberg, editor and chief of "the dispatch," and symone sanders townsend, former

spokesperson for kamala harris. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning. for the second day in a row and the third time in a week, the u.s. military has shot down suspicious high-altitude objects over north america. u.s. fighter jets downed unidentified objects in alaska on friday and can ta on saturday. this quick reaction comes after criticism that president biden's response to the cheese spy balloon last week was delayed while it drifted over the united states for days until being shot down after it left the carolina coast. canadian prime minister justin trudeau ordered the takedown of a cylindrical object over the yukon on saturday afternoon. he spoke with president biden, who also ordered the object to be shot down. the faa temporarily closed their space in central montana when norad detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to

investigate. they did not find anything that correlated with those radar hits. just a day earlier, biden ordered another unidentified object, roughly the size of a small car, so we've been told, shot down over frozen water in alaskan air space. but at a white house briefing, officials did not disclose the incident until reporters brought it up. >> can you speak to rumors that there is another chinese balloon above alaska or any other parts of the u.s. territory that the u.s., shot down? >> so, i can confirm that the department of defense was tracking a high-altitude object over alaska air space in the last 24 hours. the object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. out of an abundance of caution and the recommendation of the pentagon, president biden ordered the military to down the object. >> again, for some reason, the spokesperson, john kirby, did vot knot volunteer this

information about fighter jets being scrambled to shoot down another object until a reporter in that room asked. in a statement on saturday, the u.s. military could not provide details about the object, including its capability, purpose, or origin. again, there are some weather issues when it comes to actually collecting this thing that was shot down. the shootdown occur at the u.s. navy and coast guard continued to recover remnants of the chinese spy balloon from the atlantic ocean last week. with the white house and the pentagon to provide any guess this morning to tell us more about these incidents, both declined. congressman jim himes of connecticut is ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee. he's a membered of the so-called gang of eight in congress. when there is important missions like this that took place, the first members of congress briefed are the so-called gang of eight. congressman himes, i appreciate you for coming in early this morning. so, let me ask, what can you tell us, and have you been brophed yet? >> well, chuck, the first

balloon, the one that was shot down off the coast of south carolina, we got a very extensive briefing on at the gang of eight level and then subsequently the entire congress got a top-secret briefing on it. so we're pretty good on that one. you lose track of these things. you know, since then, there's been the shootdown over alaska and the shootdown over the yukon. congress has been out of session, so we have not been directly briefed on that. our staffs have been kept informed. but the reality, i think part of the reason -- and by the way, i have real concerns that the administration is not more forthcoming with everything it knows. the problem with the second and the third objects were shot down in very remote areas, so my guess is there's just not a lot of information out there yet to share. >> you said on friday you speculated, you admitted you were speculating, that, hey, you know, there's a lot of stuff up in the air these days. private companies put up issues -- you know, things up there to deal with wi-fi. there's other foreign objects

from other countries up there, including weather balloons. just how cluttered is it up there? >> well, yeah, and that's still where my head is. and i should be clear as i was on friday that, you know, i haven't been briefed on the other two shootdowns. but i look back a year ago to when we had this both open hearing and classified hearing on what most people call the ufos. you're supposed co-call them unidentified aerial phenomenon. at that hearing we heard there is a lot of garbage up there. it's not that hard. certainly, countries can do it, companies can do it, and individuals with resources can put balloons up there. so, there is a lot of garbage up there, and again, my speculative guess as why we're seeing these things happen in quick succession is now we're really attuned to looking for them, right? without getting into detail, i can tell you that much of our radar and our sensors are really designed against the threats

that most americans are familiar with. we spent generations worried about missiles coming over the north pole. they move quickly and don't act like balloons. wep worry about aircraft, those of us who remember 9/11, are worried about aircraft unidentified. the truth is most of our sen sores and minnesota timberwolves of what we were looking for didn't look like balloons. now of course we're looking for them, so i think we're probably finding more stuff. >> are we changing our posture? it does seem as if we see this unusual aerial phenomenon, and the decision, if there was not a threat to the country or threat to an individual or an airline, we let it fly up there. do you sense we're changing our posture, that if we don't know the origin, we're shooting it down now? >> well, i certainly hope not. i mean, if that's where we're going to go, there will be an accident. you know, at some point we're going to shoot down something we don't want to shoot down, whether it's civil aviation or what have you. i think it's early to make that

call. two things about it. one, there's a lodge toik what the administration has done. the two shootdowns have occurred around objects that were a threat to civil aviation. remember, the initial chinese balloon was at 50,000, 60,000 feet, that's not a threat. at or below 40,000 feet, you're in the travel zone for civilian aviation. there are concerns about gathering intelligence. that's why i think it wasn't wrong for the administration to want to observe the first chinese balloon. there's questions about where this stuff might land. the two shootdowns were obviously overry meet areas. the one thing that is troubling me, i start to see a pattern as i look at social media this morning, you know, all of a sudden massive speculation about alien invasionings and, you know, additional chinese action, russian action. in the absence of information, people's anxiety leads them into potentially destructive areas. so i do hope that very soon the administration has a lot more information for all of us on what's going on. >> that's what i'm trying to

figure out here. the administration seems to want to downplay all of these incidents. the fact that a reporter had to drag this out of the administration, they don't want to be forthcoming. is that because they don't know what it is or they don't want to tell us what it is? >> yeah. i really can't answer that question because i haven't been briefed either. and i do think, by the way, look, i got a very detailed briefing on the first chinese balloon, and i think the decisionmaking process there was very good. we now own something that we're going to exploit for intelligence. i think the decisionmaking was good. but i would observe for you, as well, that we didn't hear about the first balloon until it was over montana. and, again, i think -- there may be reasons for it, and maybe it's because i'm in politics and spend a lot of time talking to folks in floes groegsry stores and town hall meetings. in an absence of information, people will fill that gap with anxiety and other stuff, so i wish the administration was a

little quicker to tell us everything they do know. >> worst-case scenario, this is china doing -- basically not taking any lesson from our decision to shoot down the first one. if we find out these two objects are also of chinese origin, what does that say about our relationship? >> first of all, i would be surprised by that. i want to be careful because i don't know what the second and third objects were. but i'd be surprised by that. i think it's fair to say that the chinese are pretty embarrassed that they let a surveillance platform, the first one, go over the united states, it became a cause celebre around the world. we now own it, and that's not comfortable for the chinese, and of course we canceled the trip for the secretary of state. my guess is the other two objects are not chinese and china is doing everything they can right now to keep as low a profile as possible. but who knows. we won't know until the administration fully briefs on what these things are. to be fair, when you go by one of these things in an f-22 or

f-18, you're moving pretty fast. until you pick up the pieces on the ground, there's uncertainty. >> democrat jim himes, member of the house intelligence committee and the gang of eight. if anybody's going to have information, it's that gang of eight. congressman himes, thanks for coming in. >> thank you, chuck. >> let me bring in the panel. capitol hill correspondent garrett haake. lee ann caldwell, jonah goldberg, editor and chief of "the dispatch, " and symone sanders-jones. garrett, i'm not surprised that the limited information that's been briefed to congress, and it does feel like congress has had to drag stuff out. not only we as reporters, but congress is. >> this is what we call the "seinfeld" congress something to be about over the last week or so. they are about oversight on this chinese balloon and other octobers, whether intelligence,

foreign basically every chamber wants a piece of this. the only people who might know more than jim himes are the two alaskan senators who indicated on friday they had gotten some information from the white house hand they were supportive to shoot it down. when the senate comes back this week, the house is out, oversight into what exactly is going on over this northern air space will be job number one. >> lee ann, what are you hearing from your sources? >> exactly what jim himes said. they haven't gotten a new briefing yet so they're not exactly sure what is happening with these last two objects. they want more answers. but there are problems that the house is going to be out for a couple weeks so a new gang of eight briefing probably isn't likely, and that's where they get the most information. the senate can do something. we saw this. we also know this is becoming very political as well. not only republicans see this as an opportunity to attack the administration over this, but even democrats who are up for

re-election in 2024 in conservative states like jon tester are also trying to be really tough on the administration. but there is unanimity on the issue of this. everyone is calling for more. >> simone, you've been in those decisions where you have to disclose something uncomfortable, and you're doing it in a week where, no, no, we want to control our own message, state of the union. can't help wonder if that stuff is colliding a little bit. >> i think when john kirby came out to the podium, it was very clear to me there was a prepared statement, meaning they knew this was a question that folks had and they were waiting for an answer to it. maybe coming out with it at the top makes it seem more dire than what it actually is. and john kirby, admiral kirby, didn't have any information, or basic information. and the more information the american people got was in fact from the pentagon. i think that this is -- what we're experiencing over the last two weeks i would argue is the

reality of, you know, the presidency and the white house. you have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. you have the state of the union, domestic issues, the president giving the biggest speech on the largest stage he will give prior to a re-elect, 27 million people tuned in, plus triangulating on foreign policy and diplomacy issues. we juxtapose this with the other transparency, question, folks have around the documents, i think they handled this quite well. >> jonah, this is sort of i think -- it feels like america is sort of changing its posture collectively on china, not just politicians. like all of this is going to change all of our sort of perception. >> yeah. i've been saying for a while now the only area of bipartisan consensus in america for the last couple years has been hawkishness towards china. and the debate is between dumb and smart hawkishness, but everyone agrees on hawkishness, right. and we can define those terms

differently. i think himes is absolutely right about the problem here is the lack of information and people filling in the blanks on their own. i mean, i've already been hit with the no, no, no, the chinese thing is a story, this is really a ufo. it is going down some real rabbit holes. >> one of the things you make a point about we haven't been looking for -- balloon is a funny word, a giant middle finger in the sky, and these are all drones, but not to quote yoda, the drone wars, we are going to be having this for a long time to come. >> i do not know how to follow that up. there is no try. all right. when we come back, republican governor sara sanders accused president biden this week of pursuing woke fantasies. we'll talk to two governors, democrat phil murphy of new (fisher investments) in this market, you'll find fisher investments is different than other money managers.

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welcome back. when bill clinton declared the era of big government is over in his 1996 state of the union address, it was that, at least for the moment, ronald reagan had won the argument on the size of the federal government. this week republicans gave president biden a primetime opportunity to crystallize just how much ground they had ceded in the fight over government spending with an eye towards 2024 and the upcoming debt ceiling debate, president biden used the state of the union address to try to drive wedge when republicans on the issue of social security and medicare. >> some republicans want social security for sunset. i'm not saying it's the majority. so, folks, as we all apparently agree, social security and medicare is off the books now, right? >> a rare full standing ovation on that one as republicans seemed to surrender on these difficult issues.

they're divided on national security, the principle thing that binds the party together right now is cultural issues, which was reflected in sarah huckabee sanders' response to the state of the union. >> i'm the first woman to leave my state, and he's the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can't even tell you what a woman is. the dividing line in america is no longer between right or left. the choice is between normal or crazy. >> joining me now are the chair and vice chair of the national government association, democratic governor phil murphy of new jersey, republican governor spencer cox of utah. the governors met with the president on friday. they attended a nice black-tie dinner at the white house last night. bipartisan entertainment. gentlemen, welcome to "meet the press." >> great to be back, chuck. >> governor murphy, let me start with you on kind of the lit bit

of ping-pong, not going to lie to you here, but president biden believes he owes a lot to particularly middle-class america and a lot to tout about economics specifically. but you felt this in your re-election, they don't feel it, the public doesn't feel it. why? >> i think there's a lead lag factor here. i think we underestimate the trauma of the past several years, pandemic, inflation, supply chain, war in europe, kids not in school in person. i don't think you recover -- i don't think you snap back from that overnight. i think thost going to take time. i think we need to look out sort of six or nine months from now, a lot more shovels in the ground, a lot more evidence that the economy is strong, and i think you'll see a different scenario. >> does he as an individual have more to fix with the public? because, look, one of the things we found in our poll is there are some questions whether he's got what it takes to basically run for a second term. >> yeah. he has what it takes.

and you've started to see, he was up in new york with governor hole koul and myself on the gateway tunnel, the biggest infrastructure project in the history of our country. he was standing at the edge of the river between kentucky and ohio last month celebrating a new bridge. i think you're going to see more and more of that. and when you do, you're going to say i believe a significant shift in the numbers and reality. >> governor cox, i want to ask you about what governor sanders said in her state of the union response. she said it's a choice between normal and crazy. is that how you see the dividing line in america today? >> well, look, chuck, there is a divide for sure, and we see more of that. i think there is a choice between the extremes and the exhausted majority, and that's been the conversation we've been having this week with republican governors and democrat governors coming together.

we're the people who have to get things done. and there are extremes driving a large part of our culture. i will admit that there are extremes on the right, too, that are hurting our nation and tearing us apart. and we believe that this exhausted majority still exists, that they're out there, and that they actually want us to work together to solve stuff but the stuff that matters. let's stop fighting about the stuff that doesn't matter and actually get to work. >> let me ask you about that stuff, because you just signed a bill, and it was a trans medical care with children. the total number of people that identify as trans in america is 0.5%. you made this point on a previous bill that had to banning trans individuals from participating in sports. how do you stop -- mostly coming from your party. there are over 299 bills that have been introduced, two-thirds of them this year alone target trans people. again, 0.5%. you just made the point yourself. what is this obsession?

>> well, i think it is a growing number. in fact, it's a vastly growing number. if you go back just ten years ago and look at the numbers -- and here's the problem. this has become such a toxic issue that it's hard to have a rational conversation around it. i actually had to look outside the united states to get data. i looked at what happened in sweden, with what happened in finland, look what the french are saying about this, the explosion they're seeing in those numbers, and some concerns about this. it's not just about providing care or not providing care. it's about whether we might potentially be harming young people, not having enough evidence to see what the long-term results of this are, and providing better psychiatric help for those young people who are going through this. >> but you took this power away from parents to make this decision. are you comfortable with that? >> well, we take power away on a lot of things involving our young people. if there is potential long-term harm for our kids, we need to find that. what utah did is feel pause and

felt we could get better data. we have a mandate to get the best data across the country and then make a decision. >> i'm running a little low on time, but there's a state senator in kentucky who did a very passionate speech earlier this week. her son committed suicide. >> yeah. >> her son was trans. and she was basically begging the legislature to stop these bills that are targeting because it's making these folks feel to like targets. >> yeah. and that's the hardest part of this. that breaks my heart. what we're doing is increasing funding for the lgbtq community to help with these issues. if we could get outside of the cultural war piece of this and have rational conversations, i would feel much better about this. there are people on my side of the aisle that do not have their best interests at heart, right? i think there are people on the left that are promoting these thing who is also don't have the best interests of some of these kids at heart, and i think we should be able to sit down. that's what we've been doing this week is having rational

conversations. >> and you guys i think have an interesting partnership. governor murphy, i don't want to overlook this perception a lot of voters have that the left is making a lot of voters feel as if they're racist in their views sometimes. i think even president obama thought the left was going too far. >> i'll tell you something, i wish the american people could have had a camera inside the national governors meetings these past several days. they're completely at odds with that sort of craziness we saw tuesday night. civility, respect, a thirst for common ground, acknowledging we're not going to agree on a whole long list of things, but let's find where we can agree. you know, we're the ones who wake ub with the responsibility for our residents. we balance the budget. we run our states. i'll tell you something, it was an incredibly refreshing experience for all of us. >> let me get you both to define this. i'll start with you, governor

cox. "time" magazine called you the red state governor who's not afraid to be woke. i'm sure you didn't love that. what is the definition of woke? >> i don't know. >> okay. i don't either. >> look, there are extremes. and people are feeling this. i hear it all of the time. >> are they feeling it -- do you think social media creates it? does it matter? >> i don't know if it matters. i think there is some reality to it. we go on college campuses and there's data that came out this past week that showed especially conservatives, we don't know how to disagree anymore, chuck. this is the problem. we -- we passionately disagree and we're best friends. >> that's true. >> we actually like each other. we had debate, i wish you could have seen it, it was jay inslee from washington, very, very liberal, environmentalist, and doug bergen from north dakota about energy. and it was so respectful. and they stayed after for 20 minutes just talking to each

other. like, this isn't our -- we used to do this. >> what's interesting is you guys are the only ones having -- the governors are having these conversations. >> that's right. >> generally. there's certainly some -- but the partisans don't want to have these conversations right now. >> listen, we're all proud of our parties. i'm a proud democrat for sure. somebody asked me to define yourself a couple weeks ago, and i said i'm a proud progressive and a cold-blooded capitalist. and i feel very comfortable -- >> the progressives would accept you if you call yourself a cold-blooded capitalist? >> i don't know, but i don't mean this literally, but i kind of don't care. that's who i am. and i'd probably put both our economic record and our progressive record up against any other american state over the past five years. >> governor cox, i don't want ask you to give me one candidate. give me three candidates you hope are running for if the on the republican side. >> spencer cox. >> he wants you to run. >> yeah.

>> are you running for re-election, by the way? >> i am in the state of utah, yes. so, yeah, i prefer governor. that's the easy call for me. so the governors' names you've been throwing around -- >> sununu? desantis? >> sununu, desantis. ace is a good friend. >> nikki haley? >> former governor, yeah. i like governors. >> so what you're saying is you'll take a governor. >> i would love a governor over anybody that serves in that building across the street in the capitol. >> every day of the week. >> i'll take a president, by the way. >> governors murphy and cox, this is why we had you on together, i do think more americans want to see this kind of conversation. thank you both. >> amen. >> thank you. up next, he resigned in protest when he believed the manhattan d.a. was not going to bring criminal charges against nald trump.do doors can take us to new adventures and long-term goals. your dedicated fidelity advisor can help you open those doors. by helping you create a comprehensive wealth plan, with the right balance of risk and reward.

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there's more to your life than asthma. find your nunormal with nucala. doors can lead us toward what's important. your dedicated fidelity advisor can help you open those doors. by working with you on a retirement-income plan designed to balance growth and guaranteed income. because doors were meant to be opened. welcome back. former vice president mike pence was subpoenaed this week by special counsel jack smith in his investigation into the january 6th attack and donald trump's efforts to overturn the election results. the move by the justice department sets up a potential clash over the issue of

executive privilege if the former president chooses to fight a pence subpoena. and it's just the latest development in nearly half a dozen inquiries involving the former president. in manhattan last month, a grand jury began to hear testimony on trump's alleged role and paying hush money to stormy daniels, whose name is stephanie clifford, during the 2016 campaign. district attorney alvin bragg's office is continuing to look at the way the former president handled his assets. the lead prosecutor, mark pomeranz, resigned last year, calling the not pursuing of charges was a crime. now a new tell-all, pomeranz lays out his case for prosecuting trump. some critics worry the book could hurt any eventual trump prosecution. in fact, this week, alvin bragg fired up. >> i bring our cases when they are ready. last year, when i took office, i did an exhaustive review of a matter put before me, i came to the same conclusion that

multiple senior prosecutors in my office independently came to, and that was that mark pomeranz's case simply was not ready. i continue to be concerned that it could jeopardize or undermine our ongoing investigation. >> well, joining me now for his side of this story is former manhattan special assistant district attorney mark pomeranz, author of this book. welcome to "meet the press." >> thank you so much for having me. >> let me start with the criticism, because he's not the only one criticizing. here's some legal experts, barbara mcquade, a former u.s. attorney, writing a book about a pending investigation was really poor form. strikes me as totally improper. eliza orlins, this book could do irreparable damage to an ongoing investigation. you've heard this criticism. what say you? >> well, i think the criticism is unfounded, and i can tell you in a nutshell why. first, with respect to the

stormy daniels investigation that has gained impetus over the last month or so, the facts have been in the public domain for literally years. in fact, as i was doing research and pulling together the facts for my summary of what would go into the book, where i went to discover those facts was the internet, michael cohen's book, and the publicly available information from the federal prosecution of michael cohen. that's item one. item two -- >> let me stop you there, though. >> yeah. >> in fairness, you know what was in that grand jury testimony, though, so you know what -- you can't unknow that information, so even though you're using the public record, what you choose to excerpt is -- is it not influenced by what took place in the grand jury? >> everything that went into the book with regard to the stormy daniels investigation, the financial statements investigation, was in the public domain, and, if there was a detail that wasn't, as soon as

there's an indictment, if there is an indictment -- we don't know whether or not there will be a prosecution -- if there is a prosecution, on day one, under new york's discovery law, which is among the most liberal in the united states, the defendant, in this case donald trump, will get everything that the d.a. has way of witness statements, documents, facts, and so on. so there's nothing -- >> in theory, anything in this book, what you're saying is he's going to get disclosed to him on day one post indictment if one happens? >> he will get on day one all of the materials, for instance, that reveal what michael cohen said when he was interviewed privately in the d.a.'s office. that immediately gets turned over the defense. if you move forward in a prosecution and you ask the question, well, will it be possible to pick a fair jury, i think when you look at -- there are challenges picking a jury in a case, a criminal case against donald trump. the challenges flow from the

ocean of ink that has been spilled about donald trump and what i believe are his crimes. so, i don't think my book is going to make the slightest difference, if there's a jury trial. >> let me ask you about your former life as a defense attorney. andrew weissmann wrote in his book review he believes if charges are brought, this book will be used in countless ways by the defense. the book improperly hurts an eventual trump prosecution. one wonders if having an account at this time will have been worth it. if you were trump's defense attorney, regardless of what you're saying now, would you use your book to fight for an appeal, that might say, hey, this is an unfair prosecution? >> look, donald trump's defense attorney is going to make objections about everything under the sun. we know that. >> so he'll probably use the book. >> i can tell you this, if he attempts -- if he tries to use the book in litigating the case, i'll make a prediction. my prediction is that, if that

should happen, the district attorney's office will be saying there's nothing in this book that should prejudice this prosecution. the book has nothing to do with the facts and the law on which the case has to be decided, so the book is meaningless. it doesn't provide any kind of defense. and if they make that argument, they'll be right. >> when you chose to right this book, you chose to resign, it seems like you were pretty convinced this case was never going to be brought. had you thought he was going to still bring the case, would you still have written this book? >> i did think the investigation was over. that's how it was presented to us from the -- >> had it not been over, would you be here today? >> i would have thought more about it, but i don't think i would have reached a different conclusion, because i am as sure as i can be based on decades of practice that this book is not going to compromise a prosecution. my whole point in writing the book was there needs to be a

prosecution. if i thought that the book was going actually to jeopardize the case, i wouldn't have written it. >> it seems as if -- and this tension is in your book -- there's lot of violations of federal law that you can't really pursue at the manhattan d.a. level. how important is it to flip allen weisselberg if the manhattan d.a. is going to have a case? >> it would have been great to get allen weisselberg's corporation in a state case, a federal case. we worked for donald trump for decades. he was the money guy. >> you write you need an -- a narrator. is he a good narrator? >> he would have been depending on the crime. for the hush money case that the district attorney appears near to bring, that narrator was michael cohen. he was right in the middle of it and -- >> is he a reliable narrator? >> i thought he was telling the truth in what he said about the

hush money and the cover-up of the reimbursement and so on. look, i talked about michael cohen's credibility in the book, but i don't think i was divulging any secret sauce when i made the point that his credibility will be challenged. everybody knows that. >> why do you think -- my interpretation of cy vance's action when he decided not to seek re-election, he knew he wanted to take as much politics out of the potential investigation he was doing of trump. the fact he chose not to at the end of his term to me said something. why do you think he chose not to prosecute the indictment? >> cy vance did green light the indictment. >> why didn't it happen? >> it didn't happen because we were working along -- bear in mind, chuck, we got the basic tax and accounting materials after months, years of litigation, two trips to the supreme court, we got those materials in february 2021.

within four months, we had indicted the trump corporation -- the trump organization and allen weisselberg on the tax charges that were later tried during alan bragg's tenure. we then moved forward on the financial statements investigation. the concept is not difficult. you can't lie on financial statements and get financing. but probing the financial statements themselves, which were prepared over the course of many, many years, dozens of assets, hundreds of data points, thousands of data points, that took time. cy vance would have loved to have seen this case indicted during his tenure. and he wanted -- >> would he not have it by the end of his tenure? it feels like if he had it, he would have green lit it. >> he did green light it. >> but the indictment didn't happen. >> we couldn't get it done. we were working days, nights, and weekends at this point.

one of the things to, as i describe in the book, we were working so fast that the investigative team had a near mutiny and came to the judge and said, look, we need to bring this case when it's ready. it should not be brought on the calendar has that to do with cy vance's -- >> do you regret pressuring alvin bragg? do you think you should have given him a little more time to sort of absorb the case? >> i think he had the time that he asked for. it wasn't -- there was no dialogue that was, look, i need a couple more months to review this. everybody on the investigative team thought the case was ready for an up-or-down decision, and it needed to be made. and the d.a.'s response was, all right, you need a decision, i get that, the decision is no. and then everything else happened. >> all right. mark pomeranz, that's all the time i have. the book is -- recommend to folks, easy read.

good luck with it. appreciate you coming on and sharing your thoughts. >> thank you very much. when we come back, it's super bowl sunday. other than "meet the press," of other than "meet the press," of course, why football is the last what if you were a global energy company? with operations in scotland, technologists in india, and customers all on different systems. you need to pull it together. so you call in ibm and red hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. now data is available anywhere, securely. and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. think he's posting about all that ancient roman coinage? no. he's making real-time money moves with merrill. so no matter what the market's doing, he's ready. and that's... how you collect coins. your money never stops working for you with merrill, a bank of america company. [sword sharpening]

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welcome back. with streaming services and the internet changing with how we consume news and entertainment and that partisan impacting everything from where we live to what we buy, it's pretty rare now for americans to have a shared experience. but tonight is an exception because data shows that one of the few things americans have left in common is their love for the nfl and its biggest game, the super bowl. let me show you some interesting data here. look, this is an overall poll of, you know, what are you a fan of when it comes to sports. coming out on top, the nfl, 44% of americans call themselves nfl fans, followed by baseball, the nba, and the nhl and soccer. soccer generally because mls, the premier league, all sorts of things you follow with soccer. but football, it is such a dominating part of our sports fandom that it's actually evenly

divided between democrats and republicans. 4 4% of democrats call themselves fans. one sport leans left or right, not the nfl. how dominant is it when it comes to what we watch on? this dominant. of the most 100 most watched tv broadcast, 82 were the nfl. each year it seems like the nfl is getting more popular in our fractured environment. how popular is the super bowl? check this out. of the 30 most watched television programs in american history, 29 of them were super bowls. you know what the lone exception is? if you're over the age of 50, you know. it's the "m.a.s.h." finale. so, there you go. and despite being america's most popular sport, football is also one of its most dangerous. this season's onfield collapse of damar hamlin and the string of head injuries to tua

tagovailoa brought renewed attention to the safety risk in the nfl. according to the league, concussions were up 18% in the regular 2022 season with 149 suffered over 271 games. the legal would say they're also monitoring concussions more. on super bowl sunday 30 years ago, though, nfl commissioner paul tagliabue appeared on "meet the press" to discuss the safety of the sport. >> how comfortable are you personally with the inherent violence of professional football? >> well, inherent violence, i think is a choice of words. it's a big argumentative. some people say it's a contact sport. chuck noel takes exception with that. john mackey played it as a collision sport. so, it is a collision sport. there will be a certain number of injuries in any sport of that type. there's a certain number of injuries in diving or bicycling or gymnastics. so, we are very satisfied, and i don't want to sound self-satisfied, but we're very satisfied with the efforts that we make through our competition

committee, through our coaches when i meet with them, through the league office to control the contact in the sport and to assure to the degree we can the safety of the players. >> well, to say those comments haven't aged well is an understatement. since then, the nfl has made quite a few safety changes, including the concussion protocol they finally began in 2011. obviously an ak onliment that the game is not as safe as they said it was back then. when we come back, mitch mcconnell calls it a bad idea. mcconnell calls it a bad idea. a public dagreement withis i was born on the south side of chicago. it has been a long road, but now i'm working for schwab. i love to help people understand the world through their lens and invest accordingly. you can call us christmas eve at four o'clock in the morning. we're gonna always make sure that you have all of the financial tools and support to secure your financial future. that means a lot for my community

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welcome back. symone sanders, the state of the union, what would the post state of the union feeling be like without rick scott and evergreen? >> well, i wouldn't -- look, rick scott's plan was months and months in the making, so that was already there. i think marjorie taylor groan, it still would have been something. the republicans in the chamber, and, you know, garrett was in there. i watched him on tv afterwards. the booing. it was tasteless. and it allowed the president to

engage with the hecklers but come away not looking small, which is often hard to do. but i also think this exchange on social security and medicare was quite important because after that, you had the president, the vice president, the entire cabinet going out this week and reiterating and reinforcing what the president said on that stage. look, in polling, republicans often get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the economy, when it comes to taxes, even though there has not been substantial pieces of legislation in our recent history to support that. but because they say it so much, people believe the it's true. democrats i think have to do better about saying the thing over and over and over. >> jonah, do you accept my sort of premise that what bill clinton acknowledged in the mid-90s suddenly now republicans in that chamber, okay, we don't want to be -- we don't want to cut spending? >> yeah. look, look, no one is consistent on the spending issues on either side of the aisle. i agree with symone and the premise of all this is politically this is a big win

for joe biden. but policy-wise, the state of the union was a big of a dog's breakfast. it was all over the place monopoly he's pro capitalism but he wants to be for competition, except he wants all buy american and economic nationalism. the reality -- >> very popular these days. >> very popular. >> one of the few standing ovations. >> i agree. impressed me. free-market guy. rick scott, his stupid gimmick about everyone obsessed with the politics of this, on policy rick scott is closer to the right than everybody getting the standing ovation because social security and medicare are going broke, so we have to figure out how to fix entitlements. everyone sort of laughs it off because it's such bad policy. >> i have to play this mitch mcconnell takedown because i'm trying to figure out how much of this is about republican politics and how much

. >> how do they handle the flip-flop? do they all have it except for him? >> how do they handle all the other flip-flops? >> there's your quote of the show. well, congratulations. that should get you kind of excited. hey, before we go, this week, i spoke with peter baker and leigh ann caldwell about how this week's state of the union ranks with years past. look for a new episode later this morning. the chuck todd podcast is free. go to nbcnews.com/chucktoddpodcast. chiefs or eagles? >> eagles. >> chiefs. that's how we all feel. rihanna. that's all we have for today. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

throw it as far as his arm can take it, 12 short. and the kansas city chiefs have won super bowl lvii! >> a little mahomes magic lifts the chiefs to victory in a super bowl nail-biter against the eagles we'll have all the highlights from the instant classic shining bright like a diamond, rihanna brings down the house at halftime and breaks a little news of her own the announcement that has the internet buzzing another day, another downed unidentified object. the u.s. military taking action for the fourth time in less than tw