this sunday, the abortion legal wars. a judge suspends the abortion pill mifepristone.

setting up a likely supreme court standoff on the abortion bill. >> the fda went beyond their legislative authority. >> the contents of this judge's ruling is frankly shocking. >> as the abortion issue gives liberals their first majority in the wisconsin supreme court in 15 years. >> everything we care about is on the liline. >> wisisconsin, just t the latn a string of statewide defeats on the abortion issue for the gop. is anyone in the party going to listen to voters? plus, lawmakers expelled. two black lawmakers are ousted by the tennessee legislature after protesting on the house floor for stricter gun laws. >> we called for you all to ban assault weapons, and you respond with an assault on democracy. >> they had a protest against house policy. the effort to expel a third democrat failed. >> i don't know what else it was. >> i'll talk to the two ousted lawmakers, justin jones and justin pearson and trump charge.

>> these are felony crimes in new york state no matter who you are. >> as the new york case progresses, it's the probe into the mishandling of classified documents that may put trump in greater legal jeopardy. i'll talk to one of trump's attorneys in that case, james trustee and finally, defying china. my exclusive interview with house foreign affairs chairman mike mccall as he wraps up his own trip to the island of taiwan. joining me for insight and analysis are, nbc correspondent laura jarrett, nawaz, brandon buck and simone sanders townsend, former chief 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. and a good sunday morning. happy easter, passover and ramadan. the spring holidays are here.

pope francis presided over a mass in the vatican st. peter's square, but he did ride through the crowd on this easter sunday morning to the cheers of many, but despite the celebrations this morning, let's be honest, this is no ordinary holiday week. in fact, come november of 2024, let me look back at this week as the most consequential to the future of the republican party and into the overall electoral politics for the dueling abortion rulings friday night to overt policy warfare in tennessee. the least consequential event may very well be the former president's legal troubles at least the manhattan case though it's still important, obviously. what's happened this week in texas and in tennessee in the state house may reverberate the most as a widening divide corrodes our institutions from our state houses to the courts.

the national divide was crystallized friday friday in the dueling abortion rules, less than an hour apart on specifically the abortion pill with federal judges, these were legal efforts pushed by the political activists. there was no actual medical event, no misuse of this pill to trigger this look at the drug. it was simply political activists. this was approved at the end of bill clinton's presidency, four presidencies ago. a federal judge invalidated the fda approval for the abortion pill mifepristone which could account for more than 50% of all abortions in the country. an hour later it was a judge in washington state that contradicted the decision and he called it safe and effective and ordered the fda to make no changes and the supreme court has to weigh in on this. the political divide and the judiciary which looks very undemocratic these days is also getting worse on the state level. on thursday night in the scene

that had echoes of the ugly politics of the '60s. southern lawmakers in tennessee did something unprecedented. they expelled two democratic legislators for taking a gun violence protest over the recent national school shooting to the house floor itself. it was a violation of house rules, but a third legislator gloria johnson who was white survived the expulsion vote. let's be honest, 30 years of aggressive gerrymandering has brought us to this union. trump won over 60% of the vote, but republicans picked up over 70% of the state house. half of those republicans didn't face any opposition in 2022 not only from their own party. the tennessee legislature has changed the rules on the house rules that essentially stifles and limits dissent. until this week only two lawmakers in tennessee have been expelled since the 19th century. one for allegations for sexual misconduct and the other,

because someone was convicted for soliciting a bribe. i am joined by justin jones, and justin pearson. gentlemen, welcome to "meet the press." i'm sure this is not the way you thought you would be appearing on this program or other national programs. justin jones, let me start with you. i know you met with vice president harris, you met with president biden. what was their message to you and what did you hear from them? >> thank you so much for having us on today. i think the most resounding message we're hearing from the white house and across the world and people across this nation that this attack on democracy will not go on unchallenged, that the republicans intent to crucify democracy and has resurrected a movement led by young people to restore a democracy and we are in the midst of a third reconstruction beginning here in nashville. the message is that we will continue to resist. this is not the end.

that their decision to expel us is not the ultimate authority and the people will hold them accountable in a special election going forward through our legal processes. >> justin pearson, have you talked to any of your colleagues or now former colleagues since this vote? have any of them explained why you were ousted and gloria johnson was want? >> it's justin j. pearson, and no, i haven't talked to our former colleagues and the reality is an institution filled with people who are more concerned about supporting the nra and supporting the second amendment than the first amendment rights of children and teenagers to come to the capital and advocate for gun violence prevention laws is not the type of legislation that we deserve and need to have in the state of tennessee. cameron hall called those children insurrectionists and it is destructive to our democracy

and what ends up happening is perpetration of injustice and white supremacy that leads to the expulsion of the two of the youngest black lawmakers in tennessee. >> representative pearson, do you feel like -- you've been just elected to the state house. >> yeah. >> did you ever feel welcome tore did you feel unwelcome when you got there. >> no. it has always been a toxic work environment to work in the tennessee state capital when you have people who make comments about hanging you on a tree and hanging black people on a tree as a form of capital punishment and when you wear a dashiki saying you don't belong here and those are the responses that we heard on the house floor and the comments to myself and my brother, representative jones was about, and it's about us not belonging in the institution because they are afraid of the changes happening in society and

the voices that are elevated. >> representative jones, i can't help but wonder. you were a well known political activist to many of the lawmakers and you were there with a sit-in having to do with confederate monuments and there had been some run-ins that some lawmakers brought charges against you. they eventually ended up being dropped and do you think that history of activism made you a target on the house floor the minute you got elected? >> i think our presence as young, black voices for our constituencies, people who will not bow down, those who will not be conformed, that's what put a target on us the day we walked into the tennessee general assembly. this was the first time when we had a predominantly white expulsion and we are the two youngest black lawmakers in tennessee. so what we saw was a system of political hubris. this was not just an attack on us and it was an attempt to silence our districts who no

longer have representation. 78,000 people in each of the districts do not have a voice are silenced and this is what it's about, it's about the people whose voices were taken . >> how they've changed the rules even since you got elected and even since representative pearson got elected. explain some of the rule changes made just in the last few years on expressing dissent on the house floor. >> well, they've limited debate to what they say is five minute, but in reality, they'll spend five minutes answering it and you can't reclaim your time or sex ton will not call on you, and they'll cut off all debate. when we went outside to support the protest both myself and my brother pearson, we couldn't vote on the house floor. the speaker -- i mean, he runs the capital like it's his private palace, and see there is

no democracy in tennessee. tennessee is the most undemocratic state in the nation. when we try to talk about the issue of mass shootings that plagued our community we were silenced and all they offered our communities were moments of silence, in fact, and empty thoughts and prayers and our community deserves more than that, and instead of responding to the grief and trauma of our community, cameron sexton silenced us and that's what led us to the well. >> when you look at the maps you can see there's an attempt to limit the political power of nashville and memphis particularly in african-american communities, is there any recourse that you have here? it just feels like a very aggressive gerrymander that was beyond just protecting incumbents. >> yes. what we are seeing is the intentional political dilution of votes of people who are more progressive, of communities filled with african-americans and people of color and that is an intentional and systematic effort and people in the majority party to retain as much

power as they can in order to dictate and control what it is that their majority black populations and progressive populations do. in fact, the speaker cameron sexton called himself at one point an overseer and these are people in positions of power and bill lee. what is going on in the south is you have politicians who will vote for them rather than the people who are supposed to be choosing their elected officials. these are the situations that we get in and in the south in particular we need to pay attention what's happening with state legislatures. this is a battleground because if it's gun violence, abortion, education or health care, the south continues to lag behind and the people in positions of power are hurting us. >> there's a dramatic political lines here that have been drawn that we're going to show graphically in a few minutes, but i want to get to the last few questions for the both of you. representative jones, do you plan to accept a reappointment if it is indeed the case and if not, do you plan to run any special election to come back?

>> yes and yes. you know, we will continue to fight for our constituents and one thing i just want to say, chuck, is that this attack against us is hurting everyone in the state. it is not just hurting black and brown communities, it is hurting poor white people. i don't want it to be just about race. this is about an attack on black, brown and poor white communities and silencing them and they're more beholden to the nra than people like sexton. >> do you plan on running in the special election? >> yes. i would be honored to accept the appointment of the shelby county commission and to run in a special election, and i've already heard that people in the state legislature and in nashville are threatening our shelby county commissioners to not reappoint me or they'll take away funding for project that the mayors and others have asked

for and this is what folks have to realize is the power structure is always wielding against the minority party and people. >> there may well be some constitutional rights that have been violated here and the federal courts could be looking at. ? exactly? justin jones and justin j. pearson, thank you for sharing your views with us. >> thank you very much, we'll keep fighting. >> turning to the unprecedented scene that played out in new york city on tuesday as donald trump became the first president charged with a crime, 34 felony counts stemming from alleged hush money payoffs he made to adult film star stormy daniels at the time that it's alleged to avoid a scandal ahead of the 2016 election. trump's route to the courthouse to be fingerprinted and arraigned was trapped in an o.j.-like style overhead that you might expect from the new york city media and on the ground. he pleaded not guilty, but it was just the first chapter of what's likely to be a busy

spring, and the battery of defamation and this begins over two weeks, that carroll has brought against the former president to overturn his 2020 election defeat there and the special counsel probe into the former president's mishandling of classified documents and jack smith is looking into possible obstruction. the former president addressed that probe in mar-a-lago on tuesday night. >> you have a radical left lunatic known as a bomb thrower who is harassing hundreds of my people day after day over the boxes hoax. you know the boxes hoax as we call it. they like to say that i am obstructing which i'm not because i was working very nicely until the raid on my home. >> joining me now is james trusty. welcome to "meet the press." >> good morning.

>> thank you for giving me a few minutes and i want to start with "the washington post," let me read an excerpt on it. they believe the special counsel is looking at obstruction of justice. investigators now suspect that security camera footage and other documentary evidence that boxes including classified material removed from a mar-a-lago storage area after the subpoena was served and that trump personally examined at least some of those boxes. what's your client's response to this? >> well, it's nonsense. i mean, look, there's been a campaign of leaks from doj unlike anything i've ever seen. i was a prosecutor for 27 years. i've spent 17 at this department of justice. i don't recognize it anymore. they are consistently leaking and the angle they're pushing on the obstruction is to try to create some sort of daylight between joe biden's possession of documents and president trump's, and it's not going to work. they have literally put in everybody in the grand jury you can imagine. they don't respect any privilege that president trump holds and

it's desperately trying to hide an obstruction angle that just isn't there. >> the former president himself basically admitted to the crime. listen to what he said to sean hannity. >> i can't imagine you ever saying bring me some of the bockes that we brought back from the white house, i'd like to look at them. >> i don't have the right to do that. there's nothing right with it. >> i don't think you would do it. >> i would do that. >> where does he have a right to the classified documents. the press debt act is clear. no vaguery here. >> you are misinterpreting the presidential records act. notice he didn't say i did this. he said i would have the right. it is a non-criminal statute, that's the key. doj and political bureaucrats and mara criminalized grand jury subpoenas for a statute that

says ex-presidents worked with nara and it took 18 years for nixon's tapes to finally goat nara. there's a delay built into the process as a negotiating case. it was immediately trying to pounce on president trump to say he's holding on to things he's not entitled to, and the remedy for all of that if you have the fight between the archivists and the former president is civil litigation. they jumped right past that with a very happy and willing doj. >> you say that, but they spent 18 months before asking for a subpoena. he signed -- he had a lawyer sign that he had returned all classified documents. so the problem is he actively misled nara so it forced a situation where they didn't know where else to turn other than the law. he, himself, lied via a lawyer which has gotten that lawyer in trouble. >> you're putting a whole bunch of hoops that don't actually

connect. look, nara had 15 boxes given to them in january 2022, 15 boxes just here it is. take it and use these for archives. i've looked through those records and documents. you have a process. this is what every other president in history has gone through is a process of communicating and resolving issues as to what stuff he wants to keep and what stuff he wants to keep. >> none of it belongs to him. he has this mistaken -- that anything -- none of it belongs to him. it belongs to the presidency. >> read the presidential records act. there is the ability of any president to deem things as personal to say i'm going to keep these as personal. >> sure. >> if nara disagrees they can sue in d.c. >> i understand that, and you seem to be i think maybe unintentionally misrepresenting the law when you talk about nixon. the law was passed after nixon. nixon had a case because the law

wasn't in place, the law was effective with the reagan presidency in 1981. does donald trump think he should get paid because nixon got paid $18 million. is he holding the documents for a financial settlement? >> that's a cheap shop. >> he keeps bringing up this nixon thing. >> let's go more modern day. bill clinton had multiple things he kept in his sock door while in the oval office and talking to leaders and advisers, he says that stays in my sock drawer. obama foundation had millions of documents in a former, i think, furniture store out in illinois. arguable whether it was truly secured. they acknowledge they had classified documents probably to the tune of thousands and there was never any blink by nara. they said we'll give nara $3.3 million to help move the documents back eventually when

we have digitized documents. thousands for classified documents in some place near a mcdonald's in illinois, and never blinked and never any criminal tools and never any criminal referrals. so this has rotten underpinning in terms of bureaucrats being politicized followed up by an all too eager doj. >> he's done what no former president has ever done. you keep trying to say all of those situations you represent there was actual cooperation by those former presidents to deal with the dispute. in this case, not only is he not cooperating and he is actively not cooperating and again, he did not comply with a subpoena. that's at the end of the day, that's the obstruction charge, why didn't he comply with the subpoena? there was a subpoena for all classified subpoena? he was caught not complying with

the subpoena because the search warrant ended up discovering more documents. how do you explain him not complying with the subpoena? >> chuck, the narrative -- >> it's a set of facts. why call it a democratic narrative. it's a set of facts. >> you're ignoring aest is facts. let's talk about delaware. you have a vice president that has documents for decades in this chinese-funded penn-biden center. you have absolute obstruction there. >> how is that obstruction? >> because he had no right to have those documents. >> and did he refuse to turn them over when he found them? >> i don't know. it was hidden for so many months. >> again, did he turn them over? >> did his lawyers turn them over without any sense of chain of custody. >> has the former president turned this over after legal subpoena? >> we don't have the leaks coming from rob's investigation to know the details. >> is your defense that two, hey, we think other people broke the law so let us break the law?

>> of course not. >> that doesn't seem to be a good defense chuck, the point of it is not to say that someone else broke the law and it's okay. the common denominator whether new york, georgia or doj is differential treatment for president trump than anybody in history and to sit there and whitewash delaware aó aloud about 1800 boxes that are in the delaware university that biden put there, we are shut out from information about a much more egregious and intentional violation of the presidential records act by joe biden and perhaps even having documents that relate to ukraine of all places. that's pretty scary stuff. i'm not saying anybody should be criminally prosecuted if you're a president or vice president for having some of these documents in your possession or having people transported to your home. >> let me ask you this, there are some reports that some classified documents were found in a laptop, they turned over a thumb drive. can you guarantee that no copies of these classified documents are still remain at mar-a-lago?

do you know this for a fact that right now there are no more classified documents at mar-a-lago. >> yeah. sure. i can tell you the leak about what happened with this additional documents or several documents that were found and the thumb drive is absurd. we actually have a federal prosecutor that was in court that completely mischaracterized that. it's been the same mischaracterization that the media has run with to suggest that president trump is just sitting on a mountain of documents. not true at all. it was a completely innocuous situation. 4500 pages of documents with several mixed in that didn't stand out to a low-level staffer, period. when we found out that she had it, we said did you ever make copies of this? did it ever go anywhere? and we chased down the chain of custody in a professional manner and immediately turned that over to the fbi and doj and they tried to run with that as obstruction and it was the exact opposite. >> do you know if the former president got involved with the unpacking and moving of the

boxes? >> yeah. does anybody in their right mind really think that donald trump came down to mar-a-lago while still president in january and said hey, these are the boxes i packed and let's be careful, that goes in the dining room. >> he told hannity he could. >> he said i would have the right to. he didn't pack the boxes. that's absurd to think that president trump -- >> he didn't say i want to keep certain documents? you don't think he did that? >> if you look at the boxes -- >> you make it seem like it's hard to believe that anything who has covered and spent time to the former president, this is who he is. >> you will vouch unpacking the boxes. the idea that he wouldn't do it. he himself just said it. >> this is the third time i've had to correct you. he said i would have the right. >> if he didn't do it, he'd say he didn't do it. >> he's making the point that it's not illegal for a president to possess documents like this, but the bottom line is i'll make

it clear to you since you seem to be struggling with it. president trump didn't sit there with masking tape and sharpies and say let's sit down indian style and start packing these boxes. >> i don't think anyone has alleged he was sitting indian style. >> he's called jack smith a lunatic and a political hitman. you've worked with jack smith, is that the person you know? >> the president has every right to be frustrated by being politically target. we are crossing a rubicon where prosecutors can announce and this is the new york case specifically and georgia, hey, i'll run for office on the idea of taking down donald trump, that is flipping -- i was a prosecutor for 27 years. >> jack smith -- >> you are supposed to be judicious. you are supposed to pursue the evidence where it takes you, you use your discretion as a

prosecutor to take what's right. >> you stand by the comments he made about jack smith? calling him a monster? >> there is an unethical nature of the prosecution that not even a local d.a. in butte would do because they know it's against the ethics of being a prosecutor. >> so you stand by the president politicizing these attacks on jack smith? >> look, the president is a very resilient guy. he's a very opinionated guy. i'm not going to spend my time worrying about the politics and how his poll numbers are through the roof. i don't care about that stuff. i'm here in the legal lane. he's got a right to be frustrated and he's not just frustrated for himself. he's frustrated for the country. >> james trusty, attorney for the former president. >> all right, man. >> when we come back, it has been a divisive week in american politics with battles over abortion, guns and race and this does hey, dad. i got an a on my book report. -and i scored a goal on ashley. -that's cool.

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welcome back. the panel is here. nbc news senior correspondent laura jaret, amna nawaz, brandon buck, simone townsend and host of simone at msnbc. this is your first time at the table and there's a lot. >> a lot this week! >> i'll start with the dueling briefs here. look, we can get into the politics of how we got to this moment and let's go with mifepristone. is it going to be on the market this year or not? >> as of this moment, it is. nothing has changed, but we could be entering into a period of significant legal uncertainty if that order in texas is actually upheld within the next week if another judge doesn't block it, another appellate judge doesn't block it, then it is as if the drug was never

approved in the first place because he's put the effective date of it on hold which is not exactly what the plaintiffs in this case asked for, but that's what he's done and at the same time, you have another federal judge with the exact same level of authority and jurisdiction who said the exact opposite and that's why i think folks are likely predicting it could be headed to the supreme court's doorstep. >> will it go through the appeals -- each the two circuits first or does this get fast tracked? >> it depends on what the justice department does. you will see that this beak. it's a strategic call and they've filed the notice of appeal and we know the fifth circuit tends to lean conservative. at the same time, now that they have filed that notice they can also decide to go straight to the supreme court and not wait for the 5th circuit to act and just a discretionary judgment call. >> does the supreme court say no, we see this dispute. >> they have to wait for the justice department to tee it up -- >> this is a conservative majority. is it in line with the judge from texas?

>> it's interesting because the whole rationale for when they overturned roe was to say, let's leave this to the states. let's let the states decide what to do. this judge in amarillo judge kaczmarek has said in national policy for the entire country and has decided the fda didn't have the authority to do this for the entire country. so we throw wisconsin in with this, amna, and now we have a full-fledged -- it is hard for me to imagine, and i say this with some trepidation, but it certainly looks like 2024 will be another abortion rights election. >> it is what we saw from wisconsin and from the next year and special elections and certainly from the november midterms. abortion remains a politically potent issue and we saw it with kansas, michigan and minnesota earning trifectas in the midterms as well as we mentioned in wisconsin and the context that laura is hitting on is particularly important because the unprecedented nature of what we're seeing is what's mobilizing people to turn up on

this issue, right? you've never had a court, correct me if i'm wrong here, legal expert, weigh in and overturn an fda approval in this way and now we're seeing that uncertainty laura was mentioning, as well, that's what's guiding people to come out because they don't know what their future is. where you live increasingly determines how you live and your rights as a woman. >> the wall street journal editorial board would like to see them -- and the republicans should get their position straight. i think total ban is a loser in every state. i don't think this is just about the swing states anymore. kansas, michigan, wisconsin, there's a pattern. >> i don't know how many more warning signs we need that this is a political problem for us and we keep going deeper and deeper. >> why do you think it is? i have a theory that the party

has had that they don't know how to quit it. >> we've had a deal with the party and have made a lot of promises and a plot of people look at it in the political sense and there are people who firmly believe that there is the right moral to have and you can't walk away from it and the politics of it are devastating for us and we can't win without them, but obviously winning with them is coming at a significant cost. >> simone, it feels like a long way away and remember when joe biden's position was getting questioned in the primary? >> oh, my goodness. i remember vividly. >> we are a long way away from that? >> very long way. >> what brenda said should be underscored here because for a very long time this is what the republican party apparatus organized around. they did not organize around jailing women for getting an abortion, fining and jailing -- potentially jailing doctors. they did not organize around forcing girls to have babies by their rapists and that is exactly what is happening because of the positions they've advocated for.

they have to get the position straight for the voters and i'm confused and can't understand because that's the position. >> we said that we were going to send this back to the states because we would have some reasonable limitations on abortion and state by state doesn't look very reasonable and we are at the mercy of state legislatures. >> this situation in tennessee, simone, look, it is loud echoes from our recent past in the south and in the '60s and this also feels like the inevitable moment that you have when you have the gerrymandered super majorities that have become calcified. >> this is what it felt like, a whole bunch of people who don't deal with dissent. >> i was down in nashville and i spoke with the legislatures there. what is happening in tennessee and frankly, across the south is, in fact, jim crow. what jim crow was was blocking

black people to have participation in their government, disenfranchising lawmakers and again, it's not just tennessee. look at what's happening in mississippi. coming in to jackson and the state legislature stepping in. look at governor abbott in texas. look at what's happening in florida. this is an all-out assault. >> governor abbott, we wanted to be quick and i appreciate what you're doing with time, if there's a pardon of a travis county, a blue county prosecution a murder conviction of a black lives matter -- >> me put out a statement and said i welcome the pardon on my desk so i can sign it. it is an assault and i think these young people, young state legislators who stood up have galvanized. >> brandon, not a single republican leader has supported what tennessee has done. it is no doubt in my mind the silence is sending a message of oh, my god, that looks terrible, but i don't think it's helping the party's image. >> no.

what do they do? this happened in congress in 2016. we had a sit-in where democrats took over the house floor and we had members who wanted us to arrest john lewis on the house floor and you realize that's a bad look. you have a state legislature that is defying the party and no one is in charge and there are no consequences, as you said, their districts are such that they won't be voted out. >> half of them didn't face any opponent at all. it's stunning. >> this is a situation where there's no infrastructure and nobody calling the shots and we're being defined as extreme and republicans are on the run. >> despite the government divide there is one area why u.s. lawmakers were unified and intentionally so, (cecily) you're l looking pleleased wih yourseself. (s(seth) not t to brag, b but i just t sd to verizonon. (cecily)y) so you g got an awesesome netwo. (seth) and whenen i switchehed, i goto choooose the phohone i wantete. for freeee. not bragagging. (cecily)y) you'rere bragging.g. (neighghbor) ohoh, he's s bragging.. (seth) who, me?e? never. ohoh, excuse.

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ahhh.... bye. havave a good n night. whenen the most t trusted nae inin home secucurity addsds the intelelligence of goooogle, you hahave a homee withth no worrieies. brouought to youou by adt. welcome back. despite the domestic political division on full display this week, the effort that the united states made to show a united front on taiwan was extraordinary when you think about it as lawmakers at home and abroad met with taiwan's president and promised the

committee was a response. deploying at least 71 fight are jets into taiwan's space and surrounding the island with war ships all in an attempt to simulate a naval blockade. on saturday i spoke exclusively with house chairman mike mccall at the end of the visit in taiwan and whether the drills represented an escalation. >> we have a large number of sorties. those are chinese aircraft fighter jets in the air right now as i speak from the island, and this is in response to president tsai's trip to the united states and also our delegation's visit to taiwan and with president tsai. this is an intimidation tactic that they're known for. the size of this one is quite large, one of the largest ones we've seen, and -- but it's not going to -- it's not going to intimidate us. >> right. >> we have every right to be

here to meet with president tsai, and it actually strengthens our resolve. >> the taiwanese themselves seem to be downplaying this. look, you have a first-hand look and how would you assess their defensive capabilities right now? >> they're not where they need to be. if we're going to have deterrence for peace, we need to get these weapons into taiwan. i've -- i sign off on all foreign military weapons sales. 22 weapons systems over three years ago, chuck, that have yet to get into taiwan on to the island. that will provide the deterrence to chairman xi to think twice about an invasion and secondly is the combat training that is occurring on the island. we need to ramp that up to a larger scale so that they can provide that projection of strength and deterrence. they're not where they need to be right now. >> do you have a sense of what the taiwanese people want? and i say that in that we know

presort of what china -- before it took over hong kong. there was always a sense that a lot of people in taiwan wanted some sort of relationship with mainland china, that was negotiated and that was sort of respectful. is that what they still want or do they think some sort of military confrontation is now going to be inevitable? >> they don't want a military confrontation. we certainly don't want that. i think after hong kong there was a wake-up call for the people of taiwan. president tsai, we spoke with her today and that obviously helped her and the re-election and i think putin's invasion into ukraine was an eye opener. it woke up the taiwanese people that now you're seeing what we have not seen since world war ii and that is dictators invading sovereign territory and getting away with it. putin and ukraine wake up here and chairman xi in his address

to congress in wanting a reunification for taiwan and china. there's a debate here that two different parties and one party wants to talk to china and president tsai's party does not want to be a part of china, and i think the next elections in next january will be extremely important because i do believe with the former president ma and china right now, china's going to try to influence this next election and take over the island. >> right. >> -- without a shot fired. >> want to play something speaker mccarthy said because it seemed to shift a perception on the issue of ukraine. let me play it. >> i think what's happening in ukraine is an atrocity. i think ukraine, not just ukraine, the world has to win there. what russia has done is wrong. i look at every dollar of taxpayers that we would use, but the one thing i know in ukraine we have to win because it also would save taiwan at the same time.

>> are you reassured now and should the ukrainians, should president zelenskyy be assured that house republicans are not going to stand in the way of more aid to ukraine? >> i traveled with kevin and speaker mccarthy to poland and romania. he's always believed this and felt this way. when you're over here, chuck, when you talk to -- i've talked to the prime ministers and the presidents of japan, south korea and taiwan. what's happening in ukraine will determine what happens in taiwan and the pacific. i think the prime minister of japan going down to ukraine to signal their support and he said himself what happens in ukraine today will happen in the far east tomorrow. i believe the best deterrence to chairman xi is a failure for putin in ukraine. >> as you might suspect, i have a fuller interview with the

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♪♪ ♪♪ welcome back. "data down load" time, by electing janna this week wisconsin handed liberals their first majority on the court in 15 years and it gives them the power to decide the fate of many pivotal issues in the state of most central of course, to the campaign was abortion rights. so how did this issue deliver the rare double-digit victory for the left in a perpetual battleground state in the most polarized state in wisconsin. let me show you. it's not a story that stays in wisconsin. here's the 2020 presidential map. biden carried 14 counties and here's the supreme court map which carried 23 counties and look where it is. any urban area essentially became an abortion rights supporter here. kenosha should carry. this is where lacrosse is and this is green bay and these are areas joe biden couldn't carry and the old days democrats used to carry those areas and not anymore and they did for this issue.

let me show you kansas and five counties that biden carried in kansas and the abortion referendum in 2022 showed you other urban ask and suburban areas and kansas city, topeka and they had the fofrnor's race. here's the map of joe biden and look at the map of abortion referendum. wherever there's a college town or a small-sized city the abortion rights side seemed to do well. we see it in michigan, wisconsin and kansas. then there's the issue of turnout. this is the wisconsin supreme court election. 2019, they had one of these in the spring. 1.2 million votes. 2023, 1.8 million voters, the only difference, dane county and the university of wisconsin madison young voters turned out in droves. that made the difference. when we come back, it was overshadowed by the spectacle of donald trump's surrender in a new york city courthouse, but

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welcome back. there's been a lot of political news this week. i do want to get a little more politics out of the way here. simone, president biden's re-election which is not great.

there are more democrats who would like to see somebody else than joe biden. i know we spent a lot of the show with two polls out this week again and every week that goes by that he doesn't announce his re-election and the whispers begin. what's going on. what are you hearing? is he going to announce sooner or is he enjoying the amount of time he seems to have to do this? >> i'm hearing that there are contours of reelection campaign being put together, but it will be president biden who will make his announcement. i think he has a trip to ireland coming up, honey, you don't announce a campaign and hop on a trip. so my guess is something early -- early may, perhaps. >> are the trump legal -- that's what i was told, early may. are the trump problems making him think let's wait on being a political candidate. >> i don't think the biden folks are making decisions based on what donald trump is experiencing, but i think the

reality is that this week demonstrates that the president and vice president actually are in a very strong position. it was joe biden and kamala harris who were down speaking with the state legislatures in tennessee and they told me that that support spoke volumes. >> i want to move to another story that broke this week. propublica had a sensitive story about a longtime relationship he's had a relationship with a billionaire donor who has had a lot of causes and he took yachts and all sorts of trips and the more egregious elements was funding an organization that ginni thomas ended up getting a six-figure salary for. this was his response. early in my tenure, i was advised that this sort of hospitalite was who did not a relationship with the court was not reportable. how serious is this and will this put a spotlight on the supreme court that justices will feel uncomfortable about? >> i think it will increase the heat of the spotlight on the

supreme court that's already been there. there had been some reporting around this for years. l.a. times reported on this back in the early 2000s and certainly not to this extent and not to the degree that propublica dug into it. if you're the average american reading this, this will feed into the perception that there are biasses and the supreme court an institution that has been losing trust in the public as with all institutions of power recently. the bigger question is what are the rules? what is the law and the policy around these rules for supreme court justices? the answer right now seems to be they aren't really clear. >> chief justice roberts is the head of the judiciary branch and not just the chief justice of the supreme court. he pushes back whenever congress attempts to put constraints on the judiciary here and he is well aware of the court's reputation. >> the fact of the matter is unlike other federal judges, the supreme court justices are not subject to the same rules.

there is no ethics court despite protestations from democratic members of congress trying to make sure they get one. they don't have the votes in congress to get that done right now. so essentially roberts is said look, we look to the ethics code in guidance, but they're policing themselves. they're supposed to disclose gifts and this position of hospitality which is what he was alluding to, it was a major loophole until last month. >> congress has much stricter requirements than any of the judges, isn't it? >> when i worked on the hill. you could accept a coffee mug and a t-shirt. >> couldn't get a yacht? >> with a billionaire. i think that's the scandal here is that there really are no rules and there was a lot of interest in legislating congressional ethics and i can very easily see that shifting over into the supreme court. there has to be some level of accountability here and it clearly doesn't exist. >> what a week and it was supposed to be a holiday. that's all we have today. enjoy the rest of your holiday

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