right now on "andrea mitchell reports," the 2024 republican primary race comes into focus as battle lines are drawn at cpac. former maryland governor and prominent trump critic larry hogan takes his name out of the

running. former president trump vows to continue his campaign even if indictments are handed down. a reality check from a former doj prosecutor. a live report from ohio as federal investigators head to a town only 200 miles from east palestine where another norfolk southern train derailed over the weekend. and good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. the republican presidential race heating up 11 months ahead of the first primary contest. former maryland moderate republican governor larry hogan deciding not to run for fear of dividing the anti-trump vote he said, as other potential candidates avoid challenging mr. trump and his maga loyalists, who turned out for the cpac forum to hear the former president this weekend. >> i am your warrior. i am your justice, and for those

who i've been wronged and betrayed, i am your retribution. i am your retribution. i'm not going to let this happen. >> and joining me now, vaughn hillyard who was at the cpac forum, national political correspondent ashley parker and charly sikhs. vaughn you spent the weekend there and you've been there before. it was different this year, sparsely attended. lot of major players not there. as we saw the divide between club for growth and cpac on the same weekend different stages. >> others ceded the forum to donald trump literally. it was his show, his allies on the stage there, and those in attendance, you know, great number of them, i spoke to, i said, what do you think about ron desantis, mike pence not being here? and it wasn't necessarily -- the feedback wasn't we don't like ron desantis or mike pence, it was disappointment saying this

is where the conservative grassroots is and their inability to come and stand on the stage by knowing that this was going to be a pro trump crowd disappointed them. nikki haley did come and, in fact, the head of trump's super pac even saying here over the course of the weekend, essentially giving her credit and mike pompeo considering his own run, for stepping into the arena, despite nikki haley facing hecklers when she made her way out of the hallway. larry hogan is exiting the race. chris sununu said yesterday he would endorse and support whoever the republican nominee were to be. this is really turning into a situation that seems quite reminiscent of the conversations that we had eight years ago and yet, this time around, donald trump is recognizing a couple years after losing the presidential election he's got to figure out a way to make a pitch to those in attendance of how he could win a general election and started that with mail-in voting and early voting.

take a listen. >> all republican governors should immediately go for paper ballots, one day voting and voter i.d. until that day comes, republicans must compete using every lawful means to win. that means swamping the left with early votes, mail-in votes and election day votes. >> for donald trump among a great share of republican voters there's adoration. for donald trump, it is a matter of making the case that he would be able to win in a general election and what you heard from him there, was essentially endorsing mail-in and early voting which not only largely cost him in his 2020 presidential election but numerous republican candidates for governor and for the u.s. senate and u.s. house last year, andrea. >> yeah. and ashley parker, so while donald trump was at cpac, we saw governor desantis not yet a declared candidate, but giving a

major policy speech at the reagan library in california. what's his strategy going forward against trump? >> well, this is where we're getting to see it play out in real-time. so far, desantis has really refrained from directly punching at trump or even engaging with him and his answer often seems to be and sort of oblique terms, scoreboard. look at the scoreboard, right. donald trump lost the past three elections for republicans, and i won in florida. i had the sort of margins that republicans can only dream of in a critical state, and florida is the path to follow. not just electorally but as a model for the nation in terms of policies. the challenge for him, of course, is that you have these republicans, some of whom are looking for an alternative to former president trump but one thing they liked about trump was he was a fighter. desantis is walking a fine line where, again, he's not quite

fighting with trump just yet, but at some point, he may not just be able to say look, i did a good job in florida. he may need to take the former president head on more directly. >> it's hitting cultural issues certainly, you know, back home in florida with big legislative votes there on those. charlie, we saw larry hogan taking his name out of the running. let me play you a little bit of his explanation for taking a pass this time. >> i didn't want to have a pile up of a bunch of people fighting. you have trump and desantis at the top of the field soaking up all the oxygen getting all the attention and then the rest of us in single digits. the more of them you have, the less chance you have for somebody rising up. >> he said his heart wanted him to run but his head told him it's not in the cards and he doesn't want to help to renominate donald trump. >> no. but what he was also saying is

look, i mean larry hogan was a popular governor, a principled man, a decent man, thoughtful conservative and recognizes there's no place for him in this republican party. what you saw at cpac was the trumpist base. that's what a trump presidency would look like. ashley's point about ron desantis taking on donald trump, so far he hasn't been willing to do that nor have the other candidates as if somehow you can defeat donald trump by going around him, rather than going through him. i think that's naive, that at some point, you are going to have to take on donald trump and so far, they haven't been willing to do that. instead you have the magical thinking that something is going to happen, there's going to be a unicorn, maybe a media hit, maybe he will [ inaudible ] but none are willing to go head to head with donald trump at this point and i think that was on display this weekend. >> it was a real avoidance strategy. ashley, i want to play what new

hampshire governor, very possible governor there, you know, great legacy of the sununus in new hampshire in terms of politics an getting re-elected with 15% margins, so chris sununu what he said to chuck on "meet the press" yesterday about this whole matchup coming up. >> as far as former president trump i think he's going to run, obviously, he's in the race. he's not going to be the nominee. that's not going to happen. i think the former president has his own lane. he doesn't need to carve anything. he's an absolute known commodity to every american in this country, right. there's very few on the fence whether they're with him or not with him. if the election were today, ron desantis would win in new hampshire. no doubt about that in my mind. i think ron desantis would win in florida. i think the former president is trying to find a path to be that leading voice of the party. >> that was his way of saying, you know, he will support whoever is the nominee because he doesn't think that donald trump is going to be the

nominee. he hasn't been shy about criticizing trump. ashley? >> right. and that's a very savvy thing to say, if you want to say you're going to support the nominee, to sort of wish donald trump out of it. it's not, unfortunately for him, it's not quite accurate. donald trump very easily could be the nominee. he also somewhat easily could not be the nominee, and sununu did touch on that in his remarks to trump. donald trump does have a lane. he has a floor of 30% he's not going to fall below. so that is the challenge with what you saw with governor hogan saying, i'm going to take myself out of it. as we saw in 2016, what benefits someone like trump is a big field. the way republicans have a chance of defeating him most directly is through a one-on-one matchup, not trump versus deciding versus a half dozen other republican candidates. that is advantage trump. the final thing i will say pulling on something charlie said is that when you have all

these republicans who aren't willing to take on trump directly, that's another lesson they should have learned from 2016. they all kept on waiting for him to implode, and that didn't happen. so at this point, someone at some point will need to take him on. >> and chris sununu could be that man. i mean, he's got the advantage of being from new hampshire and that is on the rin side the first primary. >> that is going to be of help to him. even larry hogan acknowledging chris sununu was well positioned. asia hutchins, who is also now the former governor of arkansas has been making stops around the country and has more stops here in iowa planned. there are others that could try to fill that sort of lane here as well. but this is going to be difficult here and, frankly, with a republican party that is looking at attention continuing to be around the investigations

into donald trump, the former president, no matter how much time he spend in west palm beach, is going to continue to have defenders around him, stemming from those very investigations into him and we have seen this time and again from the impeachment proceedings down to the fbi raid on mar-a-lago, just last year. republicans, when questioned, have a tendency to defend donald trump when it hits right into the republican wheelhouse we repeatedly heard about from speakers on stage this weekend that the federal government is too strong handed, the department of justice, they contend, is politically motivated and donald trump is the best position to make the case he is the one most aggrieved from the democratic party being in control of washington, d.c., and he in his own words, i am going to be a retribution and that he should want to take the mantle because he's the best to try to take the democrats down. >> and you've got his allies on

capitol hill in charge of some key committees doing the investigations and we're going to be talking more about the investigations and the likelihood of whatever is going to come out of that with andrew weissmann coming up later in the program. von hillyard and ashley parker and charlie sykes, thanks to all of you. another train accident has residents worried for their safety in ohio and officials asking a lot more questions. more from the scene ahead. moments from now, president biden speaking to his strongest union supporters as he looks ahead to his 2024 likely run and tries to rebuild bridges with members of his own party. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. msnbc. the caggiano's. a family of long island brewers. harvests their own ingredients, on their own turf. there's a story in every piece of land. run with us on a john deere mower and start telling yours. subway keeps upping their game with the subway series. an all-star menu of delicious subs. like #8 the great garlic - rotisserie style chicken,

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. and any moment now, president biden is going to be addressing the international firefighters association here in washington, about a block from here on capitol hill. you can see the podium is ready for him.

the self-described pro-union president speaking to the group, a group one of the first to endorse him, one of his strongest supporters in the campaign, preparing for him to announce his re-election bided a couple months from now, amid strained relations with house democrats after last week blindsiding them, they say, siding with republicans in blocking changes to d.c.'s criminal code. moments ago the d.c. council care announcing he is pulling the bill from senate consideration. a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvers there. joining me senior white house correspondent kelly o'donnell and "washington post" columnist eugene robinson. the president is going to be testing some of his 2024 messages to this very friendly group of firefighters, right? >> there might be no more loyal a group than the firefighters union, so this is friendly territory and we will likely get a sense of how the president defines his own message for the expected 2024 campaign being

here. now, when it comes to some division among house democrats and president biden, any daylight between them is an unusual thing and this centers on some issues that don't always come into the national conversation. the president supports statehood for d.c., and so the idea of the d.c. city council being able to enact its own legislation and, of course, because of the way a federal district works, it's not state, things come to the president's desk for him to sign or reject, an in this case, the council is considering some changes to its own city criminal code that could change penalties for certain offenses, and in the city of washington, there is a concern about safety and there is a pushback to not have that happen, and president biden is taking the position that he wants to have that stronger message about safety. he does not support this legislation. democrats had been -- this is a tough vote and they had been

lining up to support d.c. because they want to send the message that they believe that those who are elected by the residents of the district, should let their representatives and the d.c. council put forward their legislation. those are sort of the lines there, and now the council is saying we're going to pull the bill. it takes it out of the realm of the president being the decider and being on the unexpected side of house republicans. that's the dynamic here. it's been a messy one in recent days for this white house, where you have the former speaker saying she wished that nancy pelosi, i'm referring to here, saying that wished the white house had let them know. andrea? >> yeah. just one day before he was in baltimore with the house democrats and then the next day goes to a senate lunch and tells senate democrats, let this bill survive, and basically a question, eugene, of d.c. statehood. this is a big issue here. taxation without representation.

this would be the first time since 1991 that the congress intervened and overruled something that had been decided by legislators here who can do little but at least determine their own budget and criminal code. the first rewrite of the criminal code worked on by 16 weeks and some measures in it that lessened the penalties but in most cases they tightened the penalties. the president i think viewed it as not wanting to look soft on crime, which already with lori lightfoot losing that primary election in chicago, has become a big issue against democrats, especially in big cities. >> right. i think the president decided he was not going to allow himself to look or be vulnerable on that issue. i think that's why he made that decision. but it does -- it runs counter to the principle that the people of the district of columbia, 7p

-- 700,000 people who live here, have no voting representation in congress. they pay their federal taxes and they are citizens in every way and they have no voice in the national legislature that has the ability to decide the district of columbia's laws. before 1991, in fact, way back when i covered city hall and i was in mayor marion barry, when i got to the post, that was one of the big things that any politician in d.c. had to consider and certainly the d.c. council had to consider was legislation, was who was in charge of the congressional subcommittees that essentially had the final say over what happened to d.c., over laws and policies, and everything like that. it is manifestly unfair and the easy way to -- well the simple

way to solve this is to have the district of columbia become the 51st state. of course, that is politically problematic and some say constitutionally problemic, yet the injustice, it's a clear injustice, continues. >> let me point out, put a final point on it, that d.c., you know, for decades a majority black city, not having a voting representative in the house or the senate. and, of course, the objection is mostly from republicans, not wanting a liberal enclave to have an extra senator or -- >> exactly or two senators. they would have two senators and republicans figure and they're right that this would make them harder to win and keep a senate majority if there are two votes likely to both go to democrats, two new senate votes likely to go to democrats.

that's just the political reality. i don't think democrats will be able to get a statehood bill through the senate unless there is a huge democratic majority that's willing to see it through. plus, a house majority as well and a president who would sign it into law. >> there are a bunch of moderate democrats, you know, who took a tough vote on this thing, and then they were the ones who felt so blindsided when the president pulled the rug out from under them, they felt, by switching position on it. the president is speaking to the firefighters and kelly, as you pointed out, he's, of course, thanking them because they were the first union to support him, they've been the strongest union for him, a very powerful union, and -- you know, thanking them for all of their help. we're going to go to him in a moment as he starts outlining what you've been reporting on, of course, so intensively the themes of his campaign, which is

the infrastructure bill, the bipartisan infrastructure bill and all the ribbon cuttings he's planning to go to in eight key states. kelly? >> well, certainly the president is trying to buy himself time to not be a formally declared candidate but using the time to hone the message about this he believes he's been able to accomplish with democrats, who have been in congress, but also by working with republicans, something that's not always popular, even with his own party, but he believes is popular with voters who want to see results. carefully choosing the places where that can resonate and we all know the electoral map gets very narrow about where do our presidential elections ultimately get decided, and one of the big changes we saw is that for democrats, they want south carolina to go first in the voting in terms of the primary calendar. we also know that there are key places in areas where the kind

of politics of joe biden, where there can be some crossover with some of the types of voters that in a broad way had been, perhaps, picked off by some of the populist kind of republican tones that are not classic trump voters but are in that realm of voters who understand some of the scranton background of joe biden, that he thinks he can speak to. so when you're talking about infrastructure, when you're talking about more affordable health care, when you're talking about union jobs, those messages he is trying to convince the public that there has been a record of accomplishment that he can run on, acknowledging that there are many americans who aren't seeing it when you consider things like the inflationary prices and some of the issues that americans have been dealing with at their kitchen tables. andrea? >> yeah. and liz browne from the hill from nbc is reporting that the

republicans are still going to try to push for a vote, a vote on that d.c. bill, even though the d.c. council has pulled the bill, to try to avoid that. they're still going to try to get on a record wait vote overturning in one instance in the district. let's go to the president. he's been talking about the first responders, about climate change an all the ways where first responders are responding to disasters around the country. >> chemicals and cancers on the job and in your gear. it's wrong. it's wrong. let me tell you something, i have your back. eddie talked about the three requests he has, i'm not going to go into them now but i'm going to push them. i promise you, you've had my back and i will have yours.

[ applause ] >> thank you. but that's -- i should be clapping for you. when i served in the senate, i fought to create the safer grant program. as vice president, i worked to double the funding. my first months as president i invested $350 billion in the american rescue plans to keep firefighters on the job during the pandemic, cities like tampa, dallas, tulsa, knoxville, used the funding for premium pay. new fire and rescue vehicles, extra staff during peak times. the law would increase federal fire fighting grants by $300 million, paying for emergency response vehicles, thousands, thousands sets of turnout gear, so much more we have to do. critical cancer research. putting more local firefighters

in the field since i spoke last october, fema has funded 400 more firefighter position, because i know you know that the things that protects firefighters again, i'll say it, again and again, is more firefighters. [ applause ] >> and as the president has talked about having the backs of first responders when they go into toxic areas, there's been another norfolk southern train derailment. only 200 miles from east palestine, days before the norfolk southern ceo is supposed to be testifying to congress. federal investigators are heading to springfield, ohio where a train carrying toxins derailed last month, this time none of the 28 derailed cars contained hazardous materials we are told, although toxins including liquid propane and

ethanol were on board other cars. ohio republican and house intelligence chairman congressman mike turner talked about that latest derailment in part of his comments on "meet the press" on sunday. >> what we've seen recently with the risks to communities is unacceptable. luckily it seems we may have missed a bullet in this one. >> joining me now is nbc correspondent jesse kirsch in springfield, ohio. this is the fourth derailment in five months. how is it affecting residents' trust in what the epa, railroad industry, other investigators are telling them? >> reporter: andrea, all four derailments in ohio in the last five months are norfolk southern derailments. the same company that has had this happening again and again and sherrod brown is calling the situation unacceptable. what you asked about how people

are feeling about this, it is certainly causing people to have faltering trust in our institutions. we've heard from people in east palestine repeatedly not fully trusting what they're hearing from the government and railroad about the safety of the air and water quality and we're seeing that translate here. i spoke with a gentleman here this morning who said even though we've heard from the ohio epa that nothing hazardous according to officials, nothing hazardous spilled into the water, air, soil, even with hearing that he's still skeptical because of what happened in east palestine. that incident is happening a ripple effect across the state. we're more than 200 miles away between dayton and columbus. that's the reality on the ground. there are other people i spoke with, spoke with a man earlier who thinks that the railroad is working on safety and also made a point of saying, the trains need to move to keep commerce going. that was his thought as well. >> jesse kirsch, thank you so

much in springfield, ohio. we have breaking news now from atlanta. fallout from the clashes between protesters and police at a training facility outside atlanta over the weekend. nbc's quad venegas joining me now. there are new charges against more than a dozen individuals we saw in that video briefly. tell us about this. i think this was a mixed group of protesters. there were a lot of different issues involved. >> reporter: andrea, it's impressive video that caught all of what happened yesterday. i'm going to step aside so you can see what's left of it. you can see some construction equipment that was set on fire, what looks like a bulldozer and more equipment down there. this is an area, a construction site where a new police training facility is expected to be built known as cop city. some of the protests that have happened in this area over the last few months are against the building of that facility. the atlanta police chief said last night, the people, the individuals involved in these

slept acts were not peaceful protesters and all of that was caught on camera. you can see more than 100 arrive in this area in that video, some throwing rocks, fireworks in the images, the police chief saying the officers were attacked and that's when they set fire to the equipment. we know now 35 individuals were detained last night and atlanta police informing us that 23 have been arrested, charged with domestic terrorism. now andrea, last night the chief said that most of the individuals detained last night were not from georgia. this is something that was seen in the past when other violent protesters, protesters that became violent in the past, were arrested, many were not from georgia. of the 23 charged with domestic terrorism from last night, two of them are not american. one is from canada, one is from france, and only two of the 23 are from georgia, according to the atlanta police department.

>> quad venegas, thank you very much. and the mystery in iran, thousands of young woman possibly poisoned? that's the latest on a troubling crisis there. that's coming up next. you're watching "andrea mitchell reporting." this is msnbc. 'm ready for this. heck ya! with e*trade you're ready for anything. marriage. kids. college. kids moving back in after college. ♪ finally we can eat. ♪ you know you make me wanna...♪ and then we looked around and said, wait a minute, this isn't even our stroller! (laughing) you live with your parents, but you own a house in the metaverse? mhm. cool...i don't get it. here's to getting financially ready for anything! and here's to being single and ready to mingle. who's ready to cha-cha?! ♪ yeah, yeah ♪

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schoolgirls falling nil 17 provinces across the country. police saying they ramped up security. in a video verified by nbc news you see this girl slumped over, her friends trying to help her. at the same school, girls coughing, gasping for air, the symptoms are not explained. we don't know the context there. local media reporting more than 2,000 iranian students, more than 60 schools, have suffered from mysterious cases of respiratory distress. this follows months of the biggest anti-government protests iran has seen in years sparked by the death of 22-year-old massa amina in the hospital three days after taken into police custody involving the hair covering laws. nbc's matt bradley joins us now. this is terrifying and now you see the ayatollah and other top officials acknowledging something that needs to be investigated. >> yeah. that's really interesting, right. this has been three months this

has been going on. more than 1,000 schoolgirls in provinces throughout the country, this is a national trend, all throughout just iran, have come down with mysterious symptoms. now it's been three months since november 30th, when we first saw this in the holy city, and now just now, we're hearing from the top authorities and there is no one higher than ha manny, than this crisis, the news tricklinging out explaining about what officials were saying. it took them this long to acknowledge this. that really says a lot about the protectiveness of the iranian state and how they view this tragedy. they are really kind of -- it's pretty clear, seeing the dissent around this scandal and around this incident as maybe more of a threat and as you mentioned because this comes alongside or on the tail-end of a lot of these protests against the mandatory hair covering law, now

they really do seem to see a lot of dissent as maybe perhaps a bigger problem than the problem itself and the poisoning of the schoolgirls and we've seen crackdowns on protests by parents against the way these girls have been held in their schools, parents who are concerned they've been tear gassed, we've been seeing in unverified reports from some parts of the country. one of the journalists who is covering this from the very beginning, he was actually arrested, detained by police, and even when we heard from ayatollah khomeini he was going to be pushing harshly anybody who did this, he's warning anybody who spreads fake news around this incident. >> real fault lines there. thank you. and protests broke out across israel for a ninth straight week on saturday. tens of thousands of demonstrators peacefully taking to the streets protesting against prime minister benjamin netanyahu's plan to change the independence of the supreme court and the judiciary that

israeli critics say is fundamental to israel remaining a democracy. ralph sanchez is in tel aviv with more. >> reporter: the political situation here in israel deepening into what some fear is becoming a full-blown constitutional crisis. prime minister benjamin netanyahu showing no signs of backing down in his plan to weaken israel's supreme court. unhis proposed law, israel's parliament, which is dominated by netanyahu and his right wing ally, could vote by a simple majority to ignore rulings by the supreme court. now netanyahu says this is a necessary reform to curb activist judges, but 160,000 took to the streets of tel aviv to protest against it. to give you a sense of scale, proportional to population, that is the equivalent of 5 million americans out on the streets of new york city. one of the protesters we met was the daughter of the late israeli

prime minister rabin assassinated in 1995 by a far right extremist. she told us how painful it was to see members of the far right now sitting around benjamin netanyahu's cabinet table after he brought them into government and how worried she is about the future of her country. take a listen. >> we are all for democratic state. it's not a matter of left and right. it's a matter of those who believe and fought for those values. >> reporter: one other sign of how serious the situation is, a number of reservist fighter pilots from one of the israeli air force's elite squadrons are refusing to attend a day of training this week in protest of netanyahu's plans. these are some of the most respected people in israeli society. they are the pilots who would be called upon to carry out an attack against iran's nuclear

facilities should it come to that, and the fact that they are prepared to weigh in to this political debate is a sign of quite how serious the situation has become. >> indeed. thanks to raf sanchez for that in tel aviv. making amends. south korea is going to compensate its citizens forced to work for japan during world war ii. no everyone thinks that plan holds japan accountable enough. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." this is msnbc. reports. this is msnbc. and homemade ba. they're called 'small businesses.' but to the people who build them there's nothing 'small' about them. that's why at t-mobile for business... you'll save more than $1,000 versus verizon. and with price lock guarantee, we'll never raise your rate plan. so you can keep your focus on toe-turns and making sure the sauce is extra spicy. at t-mobile, there are no small businesses. ♪♪

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- in this economy? what are we, rich?! ♪ ♪ are we rich? oh, what a relief. no more secretly renting the attic to that scary lodger that i met at the reservoir. - we're not rich... i used kayak to compare hundreds of travel sites to get a great deal on our flight, car, and hotel. (loud rustling and clanking from the attic) - who goes to the reservoir?! - kayak. search one and done. south korea today said it's going to compensate laborers forced to work for japanese companies during world war ii. this landmark agreement is going to help resolve a dispute that has hampered relations between the u.s.'s closest allies in asia. president biden hailing the plan, calling it a groundbreaking new chapter of cooperation and partnership. joining is is the senior vice president for asia at the center

for strategic and international studies, professor at georgetown and asian affairs at the national security council. talk about the significance of this announcement by south korea, how is it likely going to improve south korea's relationship with japan, our two most important allies as we face an aggressive china? >> that last point is very important. our two most important allies in asia. this goes back to a 2018 supreme court case ruling in south korea where they called on these two japanese companies to compensate these laborers. japan said this was covered in a 1965 normalization treaty and ever since then, the relationship has gone downhill for the past half decade, to the point where the japanese and koreans were threatening not to share information with each other about north korean missile tests or what was going on in the twain straits. it was quite bad. this agreement is important in that respect. it gets them both back in the game, if you will, with the

united states in terms of dealing with all the issues we have now, everything from their support for ukraine, to defense taiwan strait to north korea's unending ballistic missile tests. >> when we talk about china, there's so much concern about what we know and don't know about chinese intentions, president xi, of course, consolidating his power in china's government filling key posts with party allies and loyal state officials, as china's military is growing at its fastest pace in four years. >> yeah. and i think, again, that's why this agreement is important, from china's perspective, you know, they count on historical issues dividing our two key allies in asia, japan and south korea. they want those issues to continue to vex the relationship between our two allies and our ability to coordinate trilaterally among the three countries. while biden and secretary blinken are praising this deal

we don't hear anything similar coming from china or russia or north korea. >> and it's significant that at the g-20 and at other forums, you had secretary blinken and others in the administration working very hard to bring these two countries together, these two allies together. nbc is reporting exclusively, from dan today, an american firm subsidiary sold electronics to a chinese defense firm, which, of course, is linked to the military, linked to the spy balloon program. no indication this company, axt, is violating any american laws but raises the issues of u.s. technology ending up in the hands of china's military. >> yes. i saw that. that was a great story by dan. i did see that. it does, it does speak to the broader problem of how interconnected the two economies are, and how there are critical u.s. technologies that are finding their way into chinese

weapons systems, into their satellites, even into their balloons as dan's story says. if we're going to compete with china and prevent them from collecting intelligence on us, this really requires a universal mapping of all the critical technologies that u.s. companies may be supplying that end up in chinese weapons or satellites or intelligence balloons. >> and how difficult it will be to carry out any implied threats to sanction china, you know, if, in fact, they ended up supporting russia. it's too complicated. victor, thank you so much, as always. defiance, president trump saying the criminal investigations he's facing will not keep him from pushing ahead on his third run for the white house. that's coming up with andrew weissmann. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc.

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documents at mar-a-lago, former president trump is running for president again and says he will stay in the race even if indicted. >> can you take this moment to ensure your donors and supporters that you're in this race to stay no matter what happens with those investigations, if you are indicted? >> i wouldn't even think about leaving. these are fake stories. it's a disgraceful thing that's going on. the country has never seen anything like it. probably it will enhance my numbers, but it's a very bad thing for america. it's very bad for the country. >> joining me now is andrew weissmann, former fbi general counsel and former senior prosecutor on the mueller investigation. andrew, we want to talk to you about the law and what you see out there, not about the politics of all of this, although the president is saying that he can go on the attacks against prosecutors as he has in the past. is there any way to judge just how close the special counsel might be in deciding whether to

recommend a prosecution, and that's a recommendation the attorney general would have to follow unless it falls way outside the legal precedence? >> so the answer is we don't know. we don't know with respect to the two federal investigations, andrea, and the georgia state investigation and the manhattan d.a. all of those are pending criminal matters. i would say the one we have the more intel is the georgia state case, and that's because the d.a. said several weeks ago that a decision would be, quote, imminent, unquote. now, what imminent means is something that you and i and a lot of other people have speculated, but that could obviously be any day now, but there are state charges. i think just in terms of your reporting about what the former president said, it's worth

remembering that he is the person who made the federal search at mar-a-lago public because he thought it would help his standing and his numbers, as he suggested. in fact, it did. he may be very right that this would certainly help him in the primaries. it remains to be seen and this is for political pundits, not really for me, whether it would help in the general election if he is actually under state and/or federal indictment. >> he's moved to be a master of using legal challenges to delay cases. could he delay so long as to get into that realm where the attorney general under justice department policy would not want to prosecute because he is a candidate and the election in imminent? >> if he could delay the decision for over a year, he fell into the 60 to 90-day window before the election, then the answer is yes. i think the strategy is more likely to be that, if there is an indictment before then, and i

think if there's going to be one, i think both the state and federal cases will happen before then, is that he is also a master at throwing sand in the gears and he would slow up any trial either at the state and/or federal level. there are many, many ways and many novel legal issues that he could raise, whether it's the supremacy clause, whether it's immunity for presidential options. there are a whole host of issues that the courts would have to deal with. he could be in a situation where he ends up being indicted at the state or federal level but there is no trial until after the presidential election. >> he filed a motion already with the federal judge reportedly trying to block mike pence from testifying to a grand jury, citing executive privilege. does he have a basis as a former president for asserting the executive privilege? >> the answer from me and many, many other people is that that

is a loser, that he probably does not have executive privilege because he's a former president. even if the court conceded a former president can assert executive privilege, that is a privilege that is weighed against the need. and here if it's in connection with a criminal case, you can go back to the nixon decision where it's pretty clear that this would come out against the former president. so that seems like a very weak argument on his part. >> andrew weissmann, as always, thank you so much. >> you're welcome. that does it for this issue of "andrea mitchell reports." remember follow us online, on facebook and on twitter @mitchellreports. "chris jansing reports" starts right after this. "chris jansing reports" starts right after this it can quickly stop migraine in its tracks within 2 hours... without worrying if it's too late or where you are. unlike older medicines, ubrelvy is a pill that directly blocks a protein believed

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♪ ♪ good day. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york. we're seeing the first punches being thrown in what may be end up being one of the most brutal and bitter nominations in modern history. donald trump and ron desantis are both gearing up for their debuts in iowa. plus, take a look at these extraordinary images. another norfolk southern train flying off the tracks less than 200 miles from the derailment in east palestine a month ago. with the