>> she wrote. please pray for my father, tom, who worries himself sick and for nothing. i am and will be fine. if i die tomorrow, i have lived through almost everything in the world. and i am not afraid of anything. just know that i pray for god's forgiveness for bringing tears to my daddy's eyes. this sunday, taking on trump. the republican primary field will be expanding this week as florida governor ron desantis and tim scott both jump into the 2024 race. >> think the party has developed a party of losing.

>> it's time for us to be this sunday, taking on trump. the republican primary field will be expanding this week as florida governor ron desantis and tim scott both jump into the 2024 race. >> think the party has developed a party of losing. >> it's time for us to be proud to be americans and proud of our president. >> can either candidate make the case he's the better alternative than donald trump and unite the party process in the primary battle ahead? i'll talk to republican congressman byron donald of florida who is currently backing donald trump. plus, flirting with disaster. debt ceiling negotiations break down, restart and then stop again. >> default is not an option. >> this white house will not acknowledge that they're spending too much. >> what's really going on inside the talks. is either side negotiating in good faith? and how serious is the june 1st deadline for a catastrophic default? i'll talk to treasury secretary janet yellen. >> and abortion follow ticks. republican lawmakers in nebraska and north carolina pass new abortion restrictions as democrats prepare to fight back. >> politicians shouldn't push their way into the exam room with women and their doctor.

>> president biden's 2024 campaign is already planning on focus on the new ban in the swing state of north carolina. how will the battle over abortion rights impact the 2024 race? i'll talk to north carolina's democratic governor roy cooper. >> joining us for insight and analysis are nbc news managing washington editor carol lee, dan walz, and former republican congressman carlos curbelo and symone sanders-thompson. 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. this is going to be one of the busiest weeks yet in the presidential campaign as the 2024 republican field grows. concerns among some republicans that none of donald trump's current rivals will beat him in a primary.

tim scott is announcing his campaign tomorrow in his town of north charleston before heading to the early states of iowa and new hampshire. and ron desantis is expected to formally file paperwork for president this week, sort of a soft launch with his campaign with a donor retreat at the four seasons in miami before having the big campaign rally announcement later in the month. when the year began, desantis had the look and feel of not just a front-runner, but i of a potential juggernaut. the last months have not been kind. trump has relentlessly attacked him and desantis has floundered a bit and he's struggled with donors who doesn't return phone calls, others don't like this position on abortion and they worry it could affect his elect and could be a problem in a

general election and others worry about his charisma. he launched a book tour. he was immediately overshadowed when he called the ukraine war a territorial dispute and he walked it back after donors complained and then a fight with disney where he took a victory and it's turned into a problem. republicans believe he cannot win a general election, from sununu, to former new jersey governor chris christie and if no alternative materializes there donors are likely to keep shopping for republicans with general election appeal like governor ryan kemp or glen youngkin who himself rolled out a curious video this week who cast himself as a successor to ronald reagan. the fight between the two current front-runners will be over the issue of abortion and whose position makes him more electable. ironically that may not be about january 6th and trump's growing legal baggage. many people within the pro-life move month feel desantis is too harsh.

>> as a florida resident, he didn't give an answer about would you have signed the heartbeat bill that florida did that had all of the exceptions that people talk about. the legislature put it in. i signed the bill. i was proud to do it. he won't answer whether he would sign it or not. >> joining me now is byron donalds of florida. byron introduced desantis at his election night victory in november and he became one of the republicans to endorse donald trump. welcome to "meet the press." >> good to be with you, chuck. >> before we start with the politics and the political junkie conversation, let's talk about the debt ceiling. you remember the freedom caucus on here. where -- are you going to be comfortable with a deal that you probably personally won't like, but it's a deal that maybe progressives won't like and the freedom kay was doesn't like, but it can pass?

>> to be blunt with you we're not sure what deal is on the table. the white house is not serious. they came up with a proposal to send $30 billion more than they wanted to spend. they're not taking a look at the reality of where our country is fiscally. joe biden is saying he's cut 1.7 million from the deficit and people are saying that's not true. he's a trillion dollars over what cbo was projecting spending was going to be because after all of the covid spending and the last year of president trump that congress wasn't going to extend that and joe biden did. so we're in a situation right now where the only plan in washington has been passed by the house of representatives and joe biden is not serious about the negotiating table and at this point the question is what's the senate going to do. where's chuck schumer in all of that because the senate has not done any work at all and joe biden has not done any work at all. >> i want to get you to respond to something president trump said about the debt ceiling in 2019.

take a listen. >> i can't imagine anyone thinking about debt ceiling about as a negotiating wedge. >> why don't you agree with him on this? >> he also said that on a rival network, he said that he's not president. >> do you know how absurd that sounds? >> that's not absurd. >> how is that not absurd? that's absurd. >> he's always negotiating and that's what he does and that's the reasons why so many deal to our country worked out to our benefit, both republican and democrat. >> do you realize how le partisan that sounds? what is good for me is not for thee. he's saying when i'm president there's no negotiating on this, but when someone else is president screw them. >> let's be realistic now. when donald trump was negotiating with nancy pelosi they negotiated that. >> no, they did not. it was without restrictions. >> when they were doing that, when they were doing that, our economy was thriving, our debt levels were not were they are

now. they were $24 tll, not $32 trillion. and we weren't having massive deficits the way we are right now. and it was a very different environment. and now you have $32 trillion on the credit card and all house republicans are saying let's go back to common sense spending. they want fewer irs agents and fewer attempts to properly get tax receipts into the federal government's coffers. i have never understood the resistance of extra irs agents unless you knowingly cheat on your taxes. >> first of all, that's salacious, and you know that. most americans by far pay their taxes and do it honorably, and the republican party is concerned about is having irs agents go after middle-class families and small business owners and it's not to go after the rich. it's to go after middle class.

that's what that's for. >> if you're paying what you are supposed to pay, you have nothing to fear. >> you are making the assumptions that audits are up and putting more liens on the american people. that's not true. that data is not there. joe biden is trying to find out of every possible nickel out of every couch of every american for spending. why would we do that? listen, let me contrast for you. when we passed the tax cut and jobs act, cbo said it would cost $2 billion. it's not true. what ended up happening is the federal government took on a trillion dollars more than cbo actually projected. the economy grew. >> they would litigate the tax cuts because of what happened with covid. we don't know how much it ate into everything. we don't know. it certainly looks like there will be fewer revenues coming in and we don't know. >> fewer revenues now. >> there's no ability to litigate this because of what happened with covid. >> that is not true, chuck. in 2019 we took in more revenue than we ever have in the history of the nation. that was 2019 and tax receipts were still up. >> you realize that president

trump has added more to the deficit than joe biden. some of it is covid. >> the most of it is covid. let's be clear. that is not true because we raised more revenue than cbo projected. if you bring in more money than your projections are, how are you adding to your deficits, chuck? >> if somehow you keep cutting taxes and more revenue comes from the government, you can have it in the first year due to various accounting tricks, but it doesn't work all of the time. >> no, chuck, that is not true. the purpose of tax policy is to raise revenue for the federal government and not to equalize society. after the trump tax cuts were passed, more tax revenue has come to the federal government than in any other time in the history of our nation, and those are the facts. >> dollars can happen. >> and a percentage of the economy. >> let me ask you this on caps. >> sure. >> do you want to see caps on spending as well as domestic spending because right now there seems to be a dispute on whether

there's going to be a cap only on domestic, and republicans also want caps on defense spending. >> we're having this discussion about the feds. we're trying to see a way to keep defense spending in line because there are threats all over the globe. we see it in ukraine and we see what's happening with china's saber rattling with taiwan and military preparedness needs to be where it needs to be, and the department of defense has massive radical increases as well. we have to control spending everywhere in our government. >> let me go back to the reality of politics. tom said any deal would lose people like you on the caucus and he added this to the dispatch and he said, we're not going to have a deal if the president of the united states doesn't sign it and we're not going to have a deal if the majority of the house doesn't have it. so each side is not going to give the other side what it wants. it's politics 101. do you accept the premise? >> i accept the premise that joe biden has to come up with a

deal. he doesn't have one. you should ask him. if he will take your question, you should ask him if he has a strategy. the only thing he said it should be clean, but nobody with an economic mind is saying, yeah, sure, give the government a blank check. >> are you comfortable with reaching the debt ceiling? >> no, i'm not. this should have been done 100 days ago. house republicans have been working on this for three months. i've been in the room. i've been in those meetings, and while we were working on a strategy to raise the debt ceiling, which is something the house of representatives has passed, chuck schumer has ignored it and he's been derelict in his duty. >> more on the debt ceiling than any one of us expected. i want to play your celebration of governor desantis and ask you about it on the other side. >> the newly elected, democrat

beaten, freedom standing for america's governor, ron desantis! [ cheering ] >> obviously, you chose to support right now donald trump instead of who you described america's governor. what could governor desantis have done to convince you to stick with him and not with the former president? >> first of all, that speech was pretty good. you have to acknowledge that. it's not about donald trump versus ron desantis and it's what america needs and that's where i've been since day one. i talked about foreign policy in the last block. we have a situation right now where russia is on the move and china is on the miev. we need someone who can step in day one, look at vladimir putin and xi jinping and say enough. i'm back. >> you think desantis has that ability? >> think it will take him time. i think there's only one person that has the ability and it's candidate. for the naysayers that say he's

unpredictable and we don't know what he's going to do. when he was president of the united states the world was a much safer place. nobody can call today a much safer place. >> he called january 6th a beautiful day and that's not something that people associate with. do you think that's a position? >> i was on the house floor. it was a terrible day for the country. with that being said, we have to get the country back on track. i made a comment the other day, as bad as america is, the american people aren't consuming january 6th the way washington and the media is consuming january 6th. >> it's pretty scarring in washington. it was a pretty scarring day for washington. >> it was, but what's happening in the southern border right now. that's scarring for the people at the southern border. what's happening for middle income families when it's being eroded by a massive inflation and that's the stuff that the american people are concerned about right now. >> there's been some talk that you might be interested in running for governor in 2026. so let me ask you this. would you have signed the sick-week ban, or is that too

much? >> you know, honestly, that's something you have to look at your legislation on that. you have to look at the people and the legislation and decide on that. you have to deal with the people in your state and you figure out what the process is going to be. >> sounds like you think six weeks is too much. >> they put in a lot of exceptions. i want to be blunt with you. i don't know where the governor was and the legislature was on this. this is's far better place to be than when roe v. wade was. >> donald trump thinks it's too much. is he too extreme? >> he's on the record for that. abortion politics is very personal. it's very, very personal and we all know it's hyperbolic in our country and people are all over the place. >> isn't that a reason not to have government try to get more involved? >> the supreme court did that and they did that for 50 years,

and that's why it was important to return it back to the state because the country has never had to deal with the politics of abortion and america's abortion policy is radical compared to the european countries. most european countries are 10 to 12 weeks. that's where they are. >> they have exceptions that allow abortions. >> the florida law has exceptions as well. >> i'll do more on abortion here in a few minutes. byron donalds, republican from southwest florida, thanks for coming in. >> thank you. >> speaking of abortion, the super majority pushed a ban of 12 weeks. the new law bans abortion after 12 weeks and requires patients to meet in person 72 hours before the procedure and includes 20-week exceptions for rape and incest and a 24-week exception for life-limiting fetal abnormalities. and joining us now is the governor of north carolina, governor roy cooper. governor, welcome back to "meet the press." >> good to be with you.

we described how this bill came to be. it is a less restrictive bill than the south carolina surrounding states. let me ask you how "the washington post" described it, it is the first new abortion ban to pass since the fall of roe v. wade that does not allow most or most abortions, allowing roughly 90% of abortions to continue. are they correct in that assessment? do you agree with "the washington post's" assessment of that? >> i don't think so, but i hope so. we will make sure that this bill gets implemented in a way that we provide the most access possible to women. this bill was contradictory, conflicting, confusing, and they wrote it in the middle of the night, and it will be open to interpretation. this is in no way a reasonable

compromise as republicans have presented it. it's a compromise between the right wing and the radical right wing. it is better than some of these surrounding states, but we know that republicans are unified in their assault on women's reproductive freedom. not a single one of them, not a single one of them stood up even when they had made promises to the people that they weren't going to change north carolina's abortion law. that tells us where we are right now. >> well, look, the bill also includes millions of dollars of funding to include access to contraception and it includes paid parental leave for state employees. did you find those provisions that were included something you could support? >> first, i've already issued an executive order for paid parental leave for state employees, and they should be doing these kinds of things anyway. what they spent a lot of time doing is dressing up this bill so that they could attract their swing republicans because they knew they needed every single vote in order to be able to get this bill passed.

democrats were unified on a roe v. wade standard. so what they did is try to make this bill ugly. it's the old lipstick on a pig kind of thing, and, yes, they're important and should be made anyway, but when you lock at what this bill does, i don't think you can comprehend the pressure that these clinics are going to be under by these additional restrictions, women who are working hourly wages and already have children and have to make multiple trips in order to get reproductive care. north carolina has been an access point in the southeast. we already have long waiting lines, and when you compress the time that women have to make these decisions, i don't think it's reasonable to call this thing a 12-week ban because inside of that 12 weeks, there's a lot going on that would be

obstacles to be women and being able to get care. >> the 72-hour provision is a hurdle at a minimum and a full-on obstacle. want to ask about the party switcher trisha who switched parties, allowing the super majority to be there. a fellow state rep, a democratic state rep, cecil brockman, said the following, and i'm curious about your response. i didn't see it coming, but from the constant attacks that she has received. it is a lot of eating your own. the biggest issue with democrats in the state of north carolina is we rather be right than win elections and the implication that the progressive left so attacked trisha cotham that she felt unwelcome in the party. is that a fair critique? >> you can't make major policy changes because you get your feelings hurt. here in north carolina we are on

a razor's edge. major policy changes can happen because of one legislator making a decision. because of our gerrymandered districts, we are so close to a super majority. the last four years we've had enough democrats to be able to stop all of the bad legislation. all of my vetoes had been upheld. but when you're talking about investments in education for our children, when you're talking about expanding medicaid, which we were able to get done, by the way, when you're talking about bills that discriminate, bills that attack voting rights, bills that affect our democracy, those one votes matter, and, yes, it's a lot of pressure to make sure that we don't have these radical policy changes in a state that

has kept our purpose nature. one of the reasons why we're the number one state in the country for business is because businesses say we are stable. we have a good business environment, but we also have stayed out of the culture wars, and if you run for elected office, you have to be tough and ready to jump into these issues and understand that there will be differences of agreement -- differences of opinion and that people can be pretty rough in that kind of situation. >> yeah. politics sure ain't a bean bag. we do know this. i think abortion -- the issue of abortion will be the number one issue in north carolina come 2024. we will see what it does to the state's politics. governor cooper, democrat from north carolina, thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective. >> thank you, chuck. when we come back, when will the government run out of money? can they avoid a catastrophic default? you will hear from secretary treasurer janet yellen next. sey treasurer janet yellen next. and it's covered by medicare. before using the dexcom g7,

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debt ceiling as soon as june 1st, this week negotiations were on and then they were off and then they were on again as the bases of both political parties balked at some of the compromises that were reportedly on the table. house conservatives are, quote, privately seething at how the talks have been going, saying republicans are giving away their leverage. you had 11 progressive democrats in the senate and 66 in the house are arguing that president biden should invoke the 14th amendment and pull out of talks completely, saying the constitution requires the government to pay its debts. so with the bases of both parties unhappy, in theory we're in the sweet spot for a deal to get done or will the bases derail the deal? joining me is the secretary of the treasury janet yellen. welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks so much, chuck. it's a pleasure to be with you. >> all right, i want to start with today is may 20th. 12 days is june 1st.

how hard is 12 days? president biden seemed to hint earlier this morning that he thought were two to three weeks away and we can argue there, but how hard is this june 1st deadline? >> well, i indicated in my last letter to congress that we expect to be unable to pay all of our bills in early june and possibly as soon as june 1st, and i will continue to update congress, but i certainly haven't changed my assessment. so i think that that's a hard deadline. >> i want to point out something that a lot of house conservatives just simply don't believe what treasury is doing. i'm going to read you one quote here. some conservative republicans have said for months that they felt treasury secretary janet yellen in a bid to put pressure on the majority and she's anything to play it out now saying it's a crisis and the day

is here said ralph norman, a member of the freedom caucus. what do you think you can do to convince congressman norman that june -- that this early june deadline is real? >> well, treasury has a long history of informing congress about how much cash and head room we have under the debt ceiling, and we take pride in the credibility of the forecasts that we make. i would point out that the congressional budget office has recently indicated that they expected early june will be a problem, and forecasters on wall street who look at information daily on our cash balances and resources agree. so there will be hard choices to make if the debt ceiling isn't raised. and, you know, i would simply

say since 1789, the united states has a history of paying its bills on time. that's what the world wants to see. >> right. >> the continued commitment to do that. it's what underlies u.s. treasury securities as the safest investment on the planet, and it's not an acceptable situation for us to be unable to pay our bills. >> i just want to sort of understand the go or no go to june 15th in this way. it's clear that june 1st is not hard, but it's the beginning of that period. what is the likelihood we can get to the june 15th tax receipts to avoid breaching the debt ceiling. can you put a percentage on it? is it 20%? 40%? something like that. >> well, there's always uncertainty about tax receipts and spending, and so it's hard to be absolutely certain about this, but my assessment is that

the odds of reaching june 15th while being able to pay all of our bills is quite low. >> fair enough. let me ask you about one of the sticking points here. it does appear as if -- we heard president biden bring up revenue meaning taxes, maybe it's closing loopholes or maybe it's actually raising a percentage is it a hard and fast line? is the white house going to accept a deal on this to raise the debt ceiling that includes spending caps, but does not include any increased revenues or taxes? >> well, look, you know, the white house is negotiating in good faith with the republicans to try to find a bipartisan solution. i don't want to negotiate in public and put down any red lines, but certainly the

president has pointed out and it's important for the american people to understand we are all concerned about deficits and fiscal responsibility, but deficits can be addressed both through changes in spending and also through changes in revenue, and the republicans have taken that off the table, something that greatly concerns me is that they have even been in favor of removing funding that's been provided to the internal revenue service to crack down on tax fraud. we have an enormous gap between the taxes we're collecting and what we should be collecting if everyone paid the taxes that they really owe and that's really a reflection of tax fraud. it amounts to an estimated $7

trillion over the next decade. so equipping the irs with the funding they need to high income individuals and corporations, that's something that doesn't cost money. it nets money substantially for the federal government. so it -- and, you know, of course, there are revenue proposals that we think make the tax code fair. >> let's end with a phrase that i talked to you about at the beginning and that is this idea of extraordinary measures. is the 14th amendment fall under the category of extraordinary measures? >> well, extraordinary measures is used in a different way, but there hasn't been much discussion of the 14th amendment. and as president biden said, i believe this morning, it doesn't seem like something that could be appropriately used in these

circumstances given the legal uncertainty around it and given the tight time frame we're on. so my devout hope is that congress will raise the debt ceiling and pay all of our bills. >> but if it doesn't happen, okay, and we're at this point, are you just going to sit there and pick and choose, or why not go and pay and then, you know, it's one of those, are you going to pay all of our debts and essentially let the courts tell us, you shouldn't have? if we breach the debt ceiling -- i understand wanting to use it now, but are we really going to sit there and let bills go unpaid and not even trying this? >> we take the debt ceiling seriously as constraint on our ability to pay bills that are coming due and my assumption is that if the debt ceiling isn't raised there would be hard

choices to make about what bills go unpaid and -- >> so there will be bills. what you're saying is if the debt ceiling is not raised, that there's going to be a default on president biden's watch, even though he doesn't want it, that you're not going to try any other measures. you'll allow a default on some debt if congress doesn't raise this debt ceiling. >> well, there will be some bill. we have to pay interest and principal on outstanding debt. we also have obligations to seniors who count on social security, our military that expects pay and contractors who provide services to the federal government, and some bills will have to go unpaid. >> so there will be some bills unpaid if the debt ceiling is not raised? >> yes, and many people

including rating ageagencies? >> have you decided which bills? have you decided which bills they would be yet? >> look, i would say we are focused on raising the debt ceiling, and there will be hard choices if that doesn't occur. there can be no acceptable outcomes if the debt ceiling isn't raised regardless of what decisions we make. >> secretary yellen, treasury secretary for president biden, appreciate you coming on and sharing the administration's perspective. thank you. >> thanks. when we come back, ron desantis is about to make it official, but there's a whole wave of other contenders who are already betting he's already missed his moment. are there more alternatives to donald trump? the panel is next. for severe eosinophilic asthma. nucala is not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor.

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welcome back. the panel is here. nbc news washington managing editor carol lee. the chief correspondent of the washington post. carlos curbelo and symone chief counselor for kamala harris. let's you and i quickly on this debt ceiling, i feel like it's a

lot of theater and that almost the lack of urgency on the specifics of the endgame from secretary yellen tell me they still -- the white house wants to land this plane almost in any way possible. >> they do, and they also want to be able to land it in a way where all sides declare victory. >> all sides declare defeat? i think they all have to admit they lost something here. >> yes, but the president wants to be able to say he went in and fought for priorities that matter to the democratic party and he didn't give away too much and they raised the debt ceiling. the noise that we are hearing is part of the process. so the president is speaking with the speaker. he's likely to meet with the speaker and others this week, and they expect to have some sort of deal by the end of the week.

>> our advice, pay no attention to the posturing for social media in cable news consumption. >> let me set up the presidential race. we had a little bit of back-and-forth between desantis and a trump supporter. let me give you this back-and-forth this week from desantis and the new nominee for governor of kentucky. >> we are supposed to have this big red wave and other than florida and iowa. i didn't see a red wave across this country, and so i think the party has developed a culture of losing. >> a big thank-you to president donald j. trump for his support and his endorsement of this campaign. let me just say -- let me just say the trump culture of winning is alive and well in kentucky. [ cheering ] so dan, i can't wonder, if image if he'd flipped in his exploratory committee in january of this year would tim scott be even announcing this week? >> well, chuck, i think the

question is was he ready in january and he's been far from sure footed in his first steps in trying to run a presidential campaign, but he also caught himself in a situation in which he wasn't quite in, but he was trying to get in and so i think what we've seen is in some ways what may be the worst of ron desantis during this period, and i think the question going forward is will we see a different and more effective ron desantis. you know, chuck, interest campaigns past -- >> right. >> -- candidates, even ones who start out with a lot of hype can have trouble. barack obama in 2007 had trouble in the early spring and a lot of people were saying what's the matter with this guy? we thought he was a good candidate and we've seen it in a variety of other campaigns and so the real challenge for ron desantis is to now step up and show that he's a national candidate with a national message and the confidence about how to deal with and go after donald trump. >> carlos curbelo, i have someone who is wanting desantis

to get there sort of wonder here, geez, a lot's been lost over this last four months and does see, you know, that maybe tim scott and nikki haley don't have big donors coming to them. maybe chris christie doesn't have scaramucci. >> tim scott who will get around donald trump and ron desantis who doesn't have a choice, but to go through donald trump in order to get that nomination. i think if the brawl between desantis and trump gets nasty enough, candidates like scott could become interesting and could become attractive. i also think it's a little early to write off ron desantis. if any of us were to start a presidential campaign today and we had the money and resources. >> in double digits.

>> we would probably be happy. and desantis has a strong record to run in a republican primary on the general and he has a strong economic record to run on. it's been a tough last few month, but it's a bit too early to say this guy can't make it. >> symone, you're involved in a massive -- what people thought would be a derby in 2017. is them scott the pete buttigieg of this crowd meaning he may pop here -- >> is he the pete buttigieg or cory booker, the person that everyone liked but could not catch fire with the voters? i hike cory booker personally, but we saw what happened in the 2020 election. if there were more candidate --

if there were less candidates then and if there were other in the race could someone like cory booker could have caught fire? it's a question that tim scott has asked him and the team, that's something they've had to weigh and it's better to get in than stay out. look, i'm with you. i think it's early, but it's also late. >> yogi berra. >> earlier this week. it's late early -- it's early, first debate and the republican primary debate is not until the end of august, but it's late because republican primary voters start voting on january 8th. that's the iowa caucuses. >> yeah. >> how do you build an infrastructure? how do you become a national candidate that can connect with voters from state to state? >> the other issue is the abortion issue and i want to put up this graphic, carol, that we put together. since dobbs it is a consistent issue here for republicans across the board, so in 202 you have the kansas abortion referendum and the congressional election in new york where abortion was a huge issue and look what we learned over the last couple of months and abortion rights clearly helped

the left there and you have new mayors on the democratic side in jacksonville and knock out in colorado springs and all of them over being perceived as too out of the mainstream on social issues. will this republican primary even matter because of those numbers? >> i can tell you that the biden team is certainly looking at this and thinking is this an opportunity for them to expand the map in north carolina as well as florida. a biden official has told me that they think the six-week ban that governor desantis signed is very significant. >> and that's why they want to go to florida. they're, quote, unquote, testing the waters there and they're on the air and they see an opportunity there and it all comes down to abortion. >> dan, you pointed out in your terrific piece today, two key groups in 2022 showed up for democrats that they didn't expect. women without a college degree and voters under the age of 35. >> i think women without college degrees are a prime target, but

i think it was the abortion issue that drew them and i don't know whether that will be the case in 2024. they could easily slip back to the republicans. >> all right. we'll have more time, i promise. up next, the covid public health emergency has been declared over, and after living three years with this virus, what was the real impact? "data download" is next. impact "data download" is next. good thing the general gives you a break when you need it. yeah, with flexible payment options to keep you covered. so today is your lucky... oh! [crash] ...day. meteor! [screams] dangit. for a great low rate, go with the general. (♪ music ♪) (♪ ♪)

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earlier this month the national emergency that surrounded the covid-19 pandemic was officially declared over and we want to take a look at just how much the three-year pandemic impacted the country as a whole. more than a million americans died of covid-19 since it first appeared in early 2020. that's more people than the populations of austin, texas, or jacksonville, florida, and it's more people than live in the entire state of montana. the good news is the current death numbers are among the lowest, just 281 reported last week nationwide. at its peak in early january 2021, nearly 26,000 americans lost their life in just a week. just a week. now speaking of those vaccines, according to the cdc, over 81% of americans received at least one dose of the covid vaccine. that number dropped off a little bit on second doses, as you can le see, nearly 70%. let me tell you this. the boosters, they're not getting used by many folks very often. mostly, these are folks over the

age of 65. it's an indication of just how comfortable we are living beyond this virus. of course, the economic impact was huge with this pandemic. we threw over $4 trillion in money from the government to try to offset what was just a huge disruption in the american economy, and even though we threw all of that money in the american economy, it still impacted our overall national economic trends here. $14 trillion in lost economic activity from 2020 through the end of last year according to researchers from the university of southern california. before we go to break, this week special counsel john durham released his long awaited report on the russian investigation. bill clinton investigator robert ray joined meet the press days after striking a deal with the president to avoid an indictment and he talked about the lessons he learned as an independent counsel. >> the most important thing i learned is achieving a just result for a prosecutor is not so easy. one can think exclusively within

the box of being a federal prosecutor, but the position of independent counsel brings, i think, a larger responsibility not only to the interest of justice and also the country's best interest and achieving a result that's satisfactory to all of those concerns is not an easy one. it is important for the country's confidence to know that law enforcement, with regard to the integrity of public officials, can work. >> we look forward to hearing from john durham. we've invited him to be on this show. when we come back, we're going to look at the impact of the durham report on the fbi and what role it can play with an institution that is increasingly under partisan attack. s increasy under partisan attack.

welcome back. if you only consume media on the right you might be excused to think that the 306-page durham report was a bombshell and damning and that the investigation was an abomination

and a soft coup, but special counsel john durham's actual sharpest conclusions after a four-year investigation were that the fbi suffered from confirmation bias and, quote, discounted or willfully ignored materiel information that countered the narrative of collusion between donald trump and russia. the report recommended no wholesale changes to fbi rules for wiretaps and durham did not send a single person to jail although former president trump predicted that durham would uncover the crime of the century. that said, dan balz, this is not an fbi that should feel good about what durham discovered because at a minimum, this issue goes to the heart of how james comey seemed to worry so much about what the perception of the fbi was that it overdid and underdid hillary stuff and overdid and underdid fbi stuff. >> since comey, the fbi has been

under attack and the durham report in many ways confirms what the doj and ig -- >> almost identical. >> almost identical, yeah, and in some ways backed off of the rhetoric that they had going into it, but the fbi's been in a compromised position, and part of that has to do with the nature of our politics. the fbi has become a politicized institution and a political target, and this is going to make it much more difficult for merrick garland as he goes forward with these investigations, and i don't see any way out of that anywhere in the near future. >> no, and let me throw in this headline from the newspaper, dan. january 6th suspects, blm and black lives matter arrestees and other, symone, look, trust in the fbi is eroding left and right. it feels like we're in a moment where we need a real church committee, than is a moment when

the j. edgar hoover and fbi clearly has was no longer helping the american people. was there a moment? and it feels like we might be in one of those moments. >> i would say yes and no. yes because obviously, we -- as dan was talking, i thought about the activists and the civil rights activists and the black lives activists and black panthers that have been targets for ions going well before the political climate we sit in and fbi, and law enforcement, people who work for the government, they're in a precarious position because of their belief in the quote, unquote, deep state that i would argue doesn't believe, and you could be persuaded to believe that it does. fbi agent offices have been targeted. their lives have been put in danger. so would a church committee do anything but play right into the hands of those and the far-wing spaces and places of america? >> i hear you, but it seems like we have to do something to restore trust. we have to -- and it has to be

moderate trust. >> and the reason, chuck, is that the fbi -- the opponents of the fbi, the conspiracy theorists and the people who want to diminish our institutions, they just need 10% of the truth, 15% of the truth to make a living and bring down the institution. so the fbi has to raise its standards because they can't give these people an inch. within an inch, they can bring it down. >> i'll be honest. christopher wray hides. he hides. he only goes before congress and doesn't defend the institution. >> there is consternation within the fbi about that, and the way he postures publicly, and there are a couple of places where it will come to a head this year, and that is the two special counsel investigations and the hunter biden investigationing and the reauthorization of the fisa warrant, and the white house is worrying about it for months, and it will get worse. and all of this will be on

display by the end of the year. >> before we go, it has been 54 years since we first landed astronauts on the moon and now the u.s. is in another space race, back to the moon and then to mars. watch our latest episode of "meet the press reports" on peacock, youtube and after the broadcast on nbc news now. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." we expect to be unable to pay all of our bys in early june and possibly as soon as june 1st. i think that that's a hard deadline. there will be hard choices to make