and is no different. richard chirac is that, is quirkiness, adventurous spirit, devotion to those boycotts, all gone. >> we had a thing, it was called a richard file, if it wasn't stocked up and burning bright in the flames, almost leaking the treetops, it wasn't a good fire. so if you want a richard, fire that's the fire you've got to have. and when we are at scouting events, we have the big fire in the smoke coming up, we'll talk about richard. >> that is all for this edition of dateline, i'm natalie morales, thank you for watching. this sunday, skyfall. u.s. fighter jets shoot downmore mysterious high-flying objects,

this time over canada and alaska. lawmakers are demanding answers one week after a spy balloon sparked this diplomatic crisis. i'll talk to the ranking member of the house committee, jim hines of connecticut. plus, dividing lines. president biden targets the gop on cutting medicare and social security. >> there's a lot of republicans whose dream is to cut social security and medicare. let me say this -- if that's your dream, i'm your nightmare. >> republicans argue they are under awac from a left-wing culture war. >> the dividing line in america is no longer right or left. the choice is between normal or crazy. >> i'll talk to phil murphy of new jersey and spencer cox of utah, about the challenges of bridging america's deep partisan divide. and investigating trump. >> i'm the only one they go after. >> the facts warranted prosecution. >> he says donald trump should face criminal charges and design

in protest when the manhattan attorney did not act. the lead attorney who worked on the case, is under fire himself for perhaps hurting the prosecution he pushed for. join me for nbc analysis. garrett haake. lee ann caldwell. jonah goldberg. and symone 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. >> 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. flighter jets shot down items over canada on friday and

sunday. this after the reaction to the spy balloon was delayed, after it drifted for days. justin trudeau ordered the takedown of an object over the uconn on saturday afternoon. he spoke with president biden who also ordered the object to be shot down. the faa closed the air space in montana, when norad detected an anomaly and sent aircraft to investigate. they did not find anything that correlated with the radar hits. just a day earlier, biden ordered another subject, roughly the size of a small car, we've been told, shot down over frozen water in alaskan air space. 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 u.s. territory that the u.s. shot down?

>> i can confirm, that the air defense was tracking a high-altitude object in the last 24 hours. it was flying at 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. out of caution, president biden ordered the military to down the object. >> again, for some reason, the spokesperson, john kirby, did not volunteer this information, about fighter jet being scrambled until a reporter asked. in a statement on saturday, the u.s. military could not identify anything about the object. and there's weather issues when it comes to collecting this thing that was shot down. the shootdown occurred as the u.s. navy and coast guard continued to recover remnants from the chinese spy balloon last week. we asked the white house and the pentagon to provide us any guests to tell us more about the

incidents, both declined. jim hines is the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee. when there is important missions like this that took place, they are the ones to know. what can you tell us? have you been briefed yet? >> well, chuck, the first balloon, the one off of the coast of carolina, we got a briefing on. and the congress got a top-secret briefing on it. we're good on that one. you lose track of these. there's been the shootdown over alaska and the uconn. and congress has been out of session. we've not been directly briefed on that. but the reality is, part of the reason -- i have real concerns about why the administration is not being more forthcoming with everything that it knows. part of the problem is that the

second and the third objects were shot down in very remote areas. my guess is there isn't a lot of information to share. >> you speculated on friday, there's a lot of stuff in the air these days. private companies put up things to deal with wi-fi. there's foreign objects from other countries, including weather balloons. how cluttered is it up there? >> that's where my head is. i should be clear, as i was on friday, i haven't been briefed on the other two shootdowns. i look back a year ago, when we had an open hearing and classified hearing on what people call ufos. and what we learned in that hearing is that there is a lot of garbage up there.

it's not that hard. countries can do it. companies can do it. and individuals with resources can put balloons up there. there's a lot of garbage up there. and a guess why we're seeing these things now, is we're attuned to looking for them. without getting into detail, much of theory dar and sensors are really designed against the threats that most americans are familiar with. they move very quickly and don't act like balloons. we worry about aircraft. those of us that remember 9/11, we worry about aircraft. most of what we're looking for didn't look like balloons. now, we're looking for them and probably finding more stuff. >> are we changing our posture? it seems like we would see this

and the decision, if it was not a threat, we let it fly up there. are we changing the posture, that if we don't know the origin, we're shooting it down now? >> i hope not. if that's where we going to go, we're going to have an accident. i think it's early to make that call. i would say two things about it. there's a logic about what the administration has done. member, the initial chinese balloon was at 50,000 feet, 60,000 feet, that's not a threat. at or below at 40,000 feet, you're in the travel zone. 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 over remote 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 invasions 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 grocery 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. we have a couple more reporters that may have more information for us. capitol hill correspondent garrett haake. leigh 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 affairs, 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 and 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. >> leigh 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. >> symone, 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 fenger above middle america. but the reality is, 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 jersey, spencer cox of utah, about the challenges they face on these culture war issues that divide america. need a backup plan? get plan b one-step. plan b helps prevent pregnancy before it starts

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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 lead 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 this is 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 hochul 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 up 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 donald trump. mark pomerantz is now under fire himself for potentially hurting the case he once pursued. with just one pill a day. choose acid prevention. choose nexium.

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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 pomerantz, 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 pomerantz'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 pomerantz, 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 by 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 green light 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 alvin 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, 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 pomerantz, 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 course, why football is the last shared experiences for all americans when it comes to watch we watch on television. with flonase, allergies don't have to be scary spraying flonase daily gives you long-lasting,

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hi, i'm tony hawk, and like many of you, i take a statin to reduce cholesterol, but statins can also deplete coq10 levels. that's why my doctor recommended qunol coq10. qunol has the number one cardiologist recommended form of coq10. qunol. the brand i trust. welcome back. "data download" time. 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. 44% of democrats call themselves fans. 45% of republicans. 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 knoll 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 acknowledgement 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. a public disagreement with rick scott over his plan to deal with medicare and social security. and how president biden managed to restart that feud.

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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. 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. >> i have to play this. i have to find out how much is mitch mcconnell and how much is rick scott. >> this is a bad idea. it will be a challenge for him to deal with this in his own re-election in florida. it is the state with more older people than any state in america. >> rick scott decided to give it right back to mcconnell. this is what had seemed to be tamped-down feud is out in the open.

>> i think that serves rick scott's interest, and not mitch mcconnell's. mitch mcconnell doesn't say what he doesn't want to say, when he says something like this, this is well thought out -- >> everything is intentional. >> everything is intentional, and he means it. i don't think it's about the leadership race, and i think it's a warning to anybody else. guys, i know what i am doing and i want to be back in the majority. if you think you have a plan, bring it to me or keep it to yourself. rick scott gets talked about this which is good for rick scott. and mitch mcconnell would like for him to quietly sit back at his desk. >> i want to read what scott said back. if we're going to mcconnell rip scott. he's always backed up biden, so this is what he's doing, backing up biden again and doesn't believe we ought to have a plan. it seems as if this will help the white house continue to continue to find a wedge. >> absolutely.

rick scott is a gift to the white house, and a thorn in the side of mcconnell that wants to win back the majority. so this feud between mcconnell and scott goes back to the last election cycle. mcconnell blames rick scott for being minority leader and not majority leader. this issue of assist and medicare is not going to go away. biden said, we're all in agreement now. but no. it's never not been an issue in a campaign season. and it's going to be an issue this time. it's going to play into 2420. and guess what. there's actually a bipartisan working group right now -- i interviewed kyrsten sinema this week, she's a part of it. and they're going to address a plan to address social security. it's not going to go away. >> it feels like we're going to lift the debt limit with commissions, aren't we? commissions and committees and people that say we're going to do this stuff. >> i talked to jared bernstein

at the economic council. if you're not going to negotiate on the debt ceiling, what is going on here? he reenforced the conversation about the budget. the president puts his budget out on march 9th. the white house's position and my understanding, show me your budget from the republican party's point of view. that's where they're going to have the debate. i think that is -- i think the white house will allow mccarthy will have a win on the budget negotiations. >> to the presidential primary, are we going to see social security as a wedge issue in a republican primary? >> i doubt it. i think almost everyone is going to capitulate to the donald trump position, don't touch it ever. >> how do they handle the flip-flop? >> how do they handle all of the other flip-flops? >> there's your quote of the show. congratulations. that should get you trending. before we go, this week on the chucked to cast, i spoke to this person, about how this

state of the union ranks with years past. after we get off the air, we'll keep it going. the chuck todd cast is free. go to nbc news.com/chuck you know todd cast. chiefs or eagles? >> eagles. >> chiefs. >> that's how we all feel. rihanna. that's all we have. thanks for watching. we'll be back next week. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press. ♪ there are new questions this morning as the u.s. military shoots down a fourth object flying over north american air sp