♪♪ this sunday, charged again. former president donald trump faces additional criminal charges in the mar-a-lago classified documents case engaging in a cover-up. >> when you start talkinging about erasing security cameras and that sort of thing, it's pretty clear you know that something is wrong. >> these are ridiculous indictments. >> as trump's lawyers meet with the special counsel about a third indictment related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. >> every time people bring charges or indictments against him he gets stronger.

>> i'll break down the legal developments with former fbi senior official chuck rosenberg and talk to one of the republicans challenging trump for the nomination, former texas congressman will hurd. >> donald trump is running to stay out of prison. plus, impeachment trial balloon. as hunter biden's plea deal unravels in court, house republicans threaten to impeach president biden. >> if they do not provide the information we need, then we would go to an impeachment inquiry. >> this is impeachment theater. >> setting up a potential impeachment investigation, coinciding with the threat of a government shutdown all in the fall. i'll talk to biden campaign national co-chair senator chris coons of delaware. and is age just a number? senator mitch mcconnell freezes

mid-sentence in a news conference, putting a spotlight once again on the advancing age of many of our nation's leaders. >> the president calling to check on me? >> how old is too old to serve? >> joining me for insight and analysis are leigh ann caldwell of the washington post upon amy walter of the cook political report. fais shakir, political adviser to bernie sanders and stephen hayes, editor of the dispatch. 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. our democracy faces yet another stress test, one arguably it hasn't faced since reconstruction. an authoritarian minded, allowing for a peaceful transfer of power. the answer on that test was we barely passed it. donald trump put the nation again on a collision course between partisan politics and a rule of law. in a superseding case, special

counsel jack smith accused the former president of a cover-up after the former president tried to get his staff to delete mar-a-lago security footage which was subpoenaed by the fbi. it charged trump with classified documents, specifically, a battle plan related to attacking iran which donald trump showed the two people helping mark meadows write a book. that took place at a meeting had the his bedminster golf club. in total trump now faces 70 felony counts between indictments so far, and another is coming from the special counsel investigation into hit efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election, and an additional indictment out of the state of georgia is expected later in august related to tampering with those election results. so over the next year, we will see the legal calendar for mr. trump collide with the political calendar for america. in october is when it begins. trump faces a new york state trial on civil fraud charges.

trump personally is want required to appear for civil trials in this case. on january 15th it's another civil trial that just happens to coincide with the day of the iowa caucuses. that civil trial is involving writer e. jean carroll. it's an additional defamation case against him. on january 29th, a week before the contest in nevada, yet another civil trial begins. this one is a federal class action suit that accuses trump and the trump organization of duping vulnerable investors into buying into a pyramid scheme. three weeks after super tuesday when a dozen states vote, on march 25th, the criminal case is supposed to kick off in new york where trump is charged with falsifying business records to cover up an affair shortly before the 2016 election. and then two months before the republican convention begins, on may 20th, the special counsel's criminal trial into trump's handling of classified documents is scheduled to begin.

now i say scheduled because the additional charges announced this week is likely to delay the start of that. so the potential trials into election interference, federally and in georgia, they're not even on the books, and here's what we already know so far. five trials, 74 felony counts, and it poses this question. is the republican party going to go through with this and nominate donald trump with all of this going on? we're staring at a republican nominee who is desperate to postpone the trials until after the election because if he wins, they go away, and a democratic nominee over the age of 80, and you have to ask yourself, do we really think the status quo will collide in the spring of '24? it is pretty clear with voters they don't want this rematch. 70% of voters don't want biden to run again and 60% don't want trump to run again. it is not clear that the general public fully appreciates that the two parties are going down this route.

last night campaigning in erie, pennsylvania, donald trump escalated things. he threatened republicans who do not pursue investigations, impeachment of president biden. >> they sit back and they say, they have other priorities. we have to look at other things. any republican that doesn't act on democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out. out! >> they've broken the veil by indicting me with this ridiculous -- these are ridiculous indictments. >> all right. we want to unpack the legal situation here, so we've got former fbi senior official, analyst chuck rosenberg. chuck, i appreciate you coming in. so, superseding indictments are not something prosecutors like to have to do because it means they cannot have their full case.

the fact that we saw this this week, is this more a reflection that justice is scrambling, or more a reflection that it could be cooperating? >> it could be that they're learning new information perhaps from cooperators, other sources, documents, text messages and security camera footage. i think you're right. ideally prosecutors like to bring one set of charges against one set of defendants at one time, but sometimes you learn additional information or something becomes more clear that had been opaque previously, and so superseding indictments while not preferred are not all that unusual. and, by the way, they're perfectly permissible. >> how serious are these additional counts? there are two more counts. the security footage specifically, there's some evidence in the superseding indictments that they have. do we assume there's more. >> first, circumstantial evidence is every bit as weighty and circumstantial, and the new counts are compelling in and of

themselves. obstruction in a case like this helps to prove intent. intent is something that the government has to prove in these sorts of cases and could be hard to do because you have to get into the mind of some other person, but when that other person tries to impede the investigation, obstruct the investigation, thwart investigators by counseling attorneys to lie, by trying to destroy security camera footage. >> right. >> that help illuminate that person's intent and i think those are strong counts. >> basically at this point he would have to turn against his employees and hang his employees out to try if he wanted to get out of this, right sfl? >> possibly, but i don't think he's going to get out of it even if he does that and more likely, those employees, lower level defendants, lower level in the organization, if passed his prolog would turn against him.

>> let's move to the january 6th investigation. obviously, there are all these tea leaves that something is imminent, perhaps it's this coming week. we assume the grand jury is going to meet again. they've actually outlined what their -- we know what he's been targeted to do. it's interesting that -- they're not hitting him for the insurrection itself. explain that. >> right. so first, we do think something else is coming and with good reason. mr. trump received a target letter when i was a federal prosecutor, chuck. i would occasionally send out target letters to, well other targets. it's not a bluff. it's not a faint it's not a game. when a prosecutor sends a target letter that means he or she is seeking -- >> you're seeking an indictment. >> you're going to seek it. by the way, when we seek it we tend to get it. why is insurrection off the table? we don't know conclusively that it is. there's no requirement that you list all of the statutes that you intend to charge in a target letter, but let's assume it's off the table.

it's probably with good reason because there's no need for the government to try to prove that mr. donald trump desired violence, although, that certainly happened. the other statutes mentioned in the target letter are all compelling cases. in other words, that he tried to thwart the peaceful transition of presidential power. that in and of itself is as compelling a criminal case as i can imagine. >> without getting into the state courts because i know that's a separate situation, but in these federal charges, in your experience, the likelihood is these get charged. >> right. i come from the eastern district of virginia, the rocket docket. ten month away, may of 2024 when this mar-a-lago case is scheduled to go on trial. it seems like an eternity to me. >> right. >> whether or not that trial has to slide, we shall see, but i don't think it has to. however, if more charges, new charges, additional charges are brought in the district of columbia related to the events

of january 6th, i think it's going to be hard to squeeze that in between a may federal trial in florida and the november election. >> i want to get your understanding of what happened in that delaware courtroom with the hunter biden plea agreement. it fell apart under some basic questioning. should -- should -- does that mean this is a pretty weak agreement? >> no. it doesn't mean that. it does mean that attorneys on both sides perhaps didn't do a good enough job of being very clear with each other and with the judge about what that plea agreement, that contract was drawn up to do. >> is that -- is this just bad execution here? how -- this feels kind of basic. >> it's kind of basic, but it happens. most plea agreements go through without a hitch. this one had a hitch. it had a snag. it's remediable.

it's relatively easy to fix. if mr. biden still wanted to plead guilty. and, by the way, chuck, i think it's in his best interest to do so. the two sides will hammer this out. >> chuck, thank you for providing some clarity. joining me now is the national co-chair of the biden campaign. senator coons, thank you for coming back to "meet the press." i understand you believe this is all being emphasized due to politics, the republican house. let me ask you this. do you think it would behoove the president for him to come out and say i had no business dealings with my son? my son's issues are my son's issues. do you think he has to say that more directly because there are a lot of people who believe something else happened? >> let's be clear, chuck. there has been five years, and it's been five years. this investigation started during the trump investigation and they've come forward with not one shred of evidence tying president biden to any of this.

i am encouraged that in sharp contrast to president trump you just detailed his mountain of legal problems where president trump is fighting and pushing back, obstructing. hunter biden has come forward and paid his late taxes as you discussed with chuck rosenberg, i think it will get ironed out quickly and i don't think he has to say more than he has. there is no evidence. >> they're going to accuse him. >> they're going to accuse him of all sorts of stuff. >> whether they have the evidence or not. >> right. >> and they may have an information ecosystem that helps amplify it to the point that you don't think he needs -- hey, despite what you hear, just so you know, i don't do business with my son or my brother. >> i think he's been perfectly

clear and frankly, what makes the american people turn toward president biden in the re-election campaign is he has spent his time focusing on what they're concerned about and not re-litigating the 2020 election, not focused on grievance politics as you showed in erie last night. president biden has delivered on an astonishing array of things that trump promised to do but biden has actually done. >> impeachment was on the president's mind while he was talking about the economy. take a listen to what he had to say. >> republicans may have to find something else to criticize me for, now that inflation is coming down. maybe they'll decide to impeach me because it's coming down. >> do you think politically impeachment would help biden? he seems to think so. >> i don't know. if you look back at bill clinton and the experience of the impeachment, ultimately it did. i think president biden has an incredibly strong record to run on and there was great check news last week that reinforced that the ground is shifting in his direction in terms of economic growth, unemployment, three-quarters of americans showed in a recent poll they feel better about their economic condition.

consumer confidence is the highest it's been in years. so the ground is moving in his direction. but if the republicans want a sharp contrast that joe biden's delivering on infrastructure, on high-quality manufacturing,ed on making it stronger on the world stage, and they want to engage in political theater, an impeachment inquiry is the best thing they could do to hurt their chances next fall. >> what's legal in this town is sometimes very frustrating. hunter biden, clearly was profiting off his last name. jared kushner, member of the trump family profiting off of their access of -- sometimes there is a code conduct for supreme court justices and throw in presidential family members. sons and daughters of sitting presidents, should they have their own code of conduct? should congress try to address this? >> it's an interesting question that i haven't engaged in before. we have been engaging to try to get the supreme court to adopt a

code of ethics as you reference. they are the only member of the entire federal judiciary not covered by a code of ethics. members of congress have to fully disclose their asset, their stock holdings, their dealings, and -- >> should presidential family members perhaps come under additional scrutiny. >> that may be worth looking at because, frankly, as you referenced, jared kushner wasn't just a private citizen. he worked in the white house. >> if you are outraged by hunter biden, you should be outraged by jared kushner. you can't pick and choose. congressman dean phillips from minnesota is openly out there saying he thinks there should be a contest. he thinks the president is too old to be running and this needs to be an active debate inside the democratic party. what say you? >> just look at the endorsements president biden is getting. earlier in the cycle, more broadly than ever before. well, look. we've had contested primaries with sitting presidents.

you've never seen a sitting president have as weak a field of potential opponents and marianne williamson, robert f. kennedy, and the endorsements from the building trades and climate activists and reproductive activists as broadly as i've ever seen in my life is endorsing president biden because of what he's gotten done. >> rfk jr. is kind of a clown show. a lot of people sort of see that. i don't think it's a real threat, but dean philips is a pretty serious member of congress, maybe unknown, he's sitting on the ballot in new hampshire. it doesn't have you nervous? >> it doesn't have me nervous, frankly. president biden has the strongest record of legislative accomplishment since lbj, and you're beginning to see the impact. 13 million companies, 800,000 good manufacturing jobs, 35,000 infrastructure out there in the

country. dean phillips can't ite anything like that. president biden has made it stronger on the world stage and it showed his agility and his capabilities and the strength with which he's helped rally nato to the defense of ukraine and the strength with which he's delivered on things trump promised like rebuilding infrastructure, cutting prescription drug prices where biden has delivered gives him an incredible record to run. i've talked to a lot of our nbc affiliates. number one question was about age. how old is too old to serve and it was very hard to watch. i think we are hopeful that that's something that's not going to happen again, but is it time to consider -- we have age minimums in the constitution that are frankly absurd in hindsight. should there be a constitutional amendment for maximum, 75 or 80 to apply to the entire federal government for political appointees? >> the best test of someone is

capable of fulfilling their constitutional duty is an election. >> senator, it's six years. a lot can happen in a six-year period in your health especially if you're in your late 70s or 80s. >> that's right. look, i don't disagree. i talked to minority leader mcconnell after the incident this week when he froze in a tv interview. he seemed fine. >> are you confident in him? do you think he'll run the show? >> feel like he'll continue to be the republican leader through the rest of this congress, and what happens after that, i don't know. >> senator, good to see you. >> thank you, chuck. >> thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective. when we come back, one of donald trump's opponents who is taking him on directly over his legal issues. >> donald trump is not running for president to make america great again. donald trump is running to stay out of prison. former texas congressman and republican presidential candidate will hurd joins me next. candidate ll hurd joins me next

welcome back. former texas congressman will hurd was one of 13 republicans who made their case to iowa voters on friday night at their annual lincoln day dinner in des moines. he was the only one of the 13 to pointedly criticize donald trump for the charges against him to audible gasps and boos in the room. >> donald trump is not running for president to make america great again. donald trump is not running for president to represent the people that voted for him in 2016 and 2020. donald trump is running to stay out of prison, and if we elect -- i know. i know. i know. i know. i know! >> former republican congressman will hurd of texas joins me now. congressman hurd, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks for having me on. >> you knew what you were doing when you went into that room. that was a prepared thing you did, that off-the-cuff, the

reaction you got, was it as expected? >> of course, there was as expected. i knew there would be people that didn't like it, but what i didn't expect is there were a lot of people that actually clapped and there were more people that just sat there politely and probably under stand and knowing what was the truth. my goal was not to go in there and talk to the people that have been frustrated when they are told that the person that they respect has been lying to them. i was there to talk to the people that believe in personal responsibility, that believe character matters, that believe service matters, that believes that the united states has a role in the world and it's important to us back here at home. those were the people that i was going to speak to, and also to prove to the rest of the field that we're running for an election and if you're afraid to talk about donald trump or talk about his baggage, then you're not ready to be president of the united states, and that's why i need some help. i need folks to go to hurdforamerica.com and at least help me with -- give me one dollar so that i can be on the debate stage.

>> the last time you were here is you were still trying to decide whether to do this or not and it happened in the week of the defamation suit where it was ruled that donald trump was indeed -- the judge seemed to think that, yes, he did rape her. we now have 74 additional criminal charges, plus that civil defamation statement. does any of this matter to the republican voters? why? >> well, i don't know why the part of the population that supports donald trump, i will say this race will tighten when we get closer to an election. that's what always happens in elections. the place that it is mattering is with independents and conservative democrats that are frustrated with joe biden. if the republican party puts donald trump forward as our nominee, we will give four more years to joe biden on purpose. you said in the lead-in, nobody wants to see this rematch. people are looking for something different. i get asked the question when i'm in places like new hampshire and iowa, are my kids going to

be able to have access to good-paying jobs? is a robot going to replace my job? are we going to win this new cold war with the chinese government? these are the kinds of issues that people on the ground want to talk about, and, donald trump, all he's doing is litigating past elections. when people start learning when you give money to donald trump, it's going to pay his lawyers, three out of four dollars that donald trump raises is going to pay for his legal fees and people -- even folks, republicans that voted for donald trump twice recognize that this baggage is hurting -- is going to hurt him in november. >> the consensus among most of your colleagues running for president. most of your former colleagues on the house is that a justice department that's led by a former federal judge in merrick garland, an fbi that is led by a registered republican, christopher wray, and chris

christie's former attorney, has been weaponized against the right. is there any evidence at all in your mind? >> well, look, can i make some arguments about some of the things that doj and fbi has done over history? absolutely, but when that doesn't change the facts on the ground. donald trump is a liar. donald trump is a national security threat. donald trump willingly knew that he had this country's secrets and he was trying to tamper with evidence to hide that he had that information. all of those things are true and it doesn't matter who the head of doj and fbi is. and that's what we have to be honest about. and if we want to change how the doj operates or the fbi operates, then we have to win elections, and we're not going to win in november if we nominate donald trump. >> how will the administration restore confidence among voters left and right. how do you do it? does it change the way we appoint the attorney general? >> it starts with appointing

people that have immediate respect, right? >> joe biden -- merrick garland was -- whatever you think of joe biden in his defense, that's the way he was thinking. he had democratic halls criticizing him. hey, you need more of a defender there. don't put a federal judge there. >> well, but did the population know who merrick garland was? no. all they knew about him he was the dude that was selected to be supreme court justice and had to get pulled, right? so having someone that people trust and then also requires the doj to start making decisions properly and not making mistakes, and the only way you can rebuild trust is to do the right thing and then also making sure people trust a broader government as well, too, and how do you make it more efficient and deliver better services. >> there was a history for a while when presidents want to send a message that national security should be bipartisan. is that the solution here? republican presidents should appoint attorney general and

democratic presidents should appoint --? >> i don't believe in that concept, but if the problem is the conservative base is distrust in leaders appointing a democrat, it's probably not going to be the one that built that trust. >> right. >> we can't forget the fact that making sure that government and our elected officials are actually doing what they say and is reflected in their actions. >> i want to talk about another candidate running for president and that is ron desantis. >> sure. >> there's been a debate about curriculum in the state of florida. he is doubling down and defending the idea that slaves obtained skills that could be applied to their personal benefit. senator tim scott took issue with it and ron desantis responded. take a listen. >> slavery was really about separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. it was just devastating, so i would hope that every person in our country and certainly running for president would

appreciate that. >> you know, i think part of the reason our country has struggled is because d.c. republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left, and accept the lie that kamala harris has been perpetrating even when that has been debunked. >> where are you on this? >> i'm glad tim scott's following my lead. i was the first to come out saying that slavery was not a jobs program and anyone implying that there was an upside to slavery is insane, and what is even more shocking to me is that everybody has come out. ron desantis' department of education doubled down on this. ron desantis has doubled down on this multiple times and he hasn't said, guess what? you know, and then he wants to blame the people that wrote this and says i wasn't the one that wrote this. real leadership would have

stepped up and said, hey, there is no upside to slavery. slavery was not a jobs program. nobody should have implied and that's what we did, and we're going to change the language, and this would have been done, and this is one more part of a fact pattern of ron desantis being mean and hateful. >> did he disqualify himself? >> i wouldn't -- it would be hard to make the case if ron desantis was the republican nominee that folks in black and brown communities won't support him and folks in the lgbt community won't support him because of his hateful rhetoric toward the lgbtq community, and then he hired a guy who had known cases of being anti-semitic and then wrote it and created a video that they tried to propagate on their systems and then he had to be fired. so this is a trend. one is an exception, a three is a trend, and this is a big problem.

>> very quickly, the no labels movement, are you supportive of them in general with what they're doing? >> when i was in congress, i was part of the problem-solving caucus that had a relationship with no labels. can a third-party candidate win in the united states? that's the case. i think the french president macron is an example and the mexican president lopez obrador is an example. i'm focused on if we want to get rid of donald trump, we have to do it in the primary, and if republicans want to get rid of j it's not by impeaching him, and it's about nominating someone who can win in the general election. >> if it's trump versus biden, would you participate in a no-labels ticket? >> you're not ruling it out. >> you just gave me the don't rule it out answer. >> you know me, chuck, i will take time and deliberate. i wouldn't want something that would potentially lead to donald

trump winning. my focus right now is criss-crossing the country and talking about how we need common sense and complicated times and that the best way we solve our problems is by recognizing we're better together and that's why i need folks to go to hurdforamerica.com and help me get on the debate stage. >> you saw me wrapping up and got one more pitch in. >> always a pleasure. >> be safe on the trail, by the way. when we come back, more on donald trump's legal troubles and why is desantis trying to defend in the face of criticism from all sides of the political spectrum. the panel is next. the panel is next. spectrum the panel is next.

goli, taste your goals.

goli, taste your goals. welcome back. the panel is here. amy walter, the editor in cheer of cook political report, faiz shakir, stephen hayes, editor of ""the dispatch,"" and leigh ann caldwell of the 202 news letter and anchor of "washington post

live." donald trump, if it's possible to escalate thing, he has really escalated things in this confrontation between politics and the rule of law. listen to him. >> the others are dirty, sick players and the republicans are very high class. they've got to be a little bit lower class, i suspect. they sit back and they say they have other priorities. we have to look at other things. any republican that doesn't act on democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out. out. >> amy walter, he is -- look, he announced what he announced in order to have this illusion that somehow the indictments were a response to his candidacy and now he's putting his party on notice and it sounds to me like he's putting kevin mccarthy on notice you better impeach him. >> you better do this. and that any attempt to make the case against donald trump is met with, how could this possibly be true because everything is corrupt, right? the doj is corrupt in the way that they've handled the hunter biden case. it no longer becomes just about donald trump. they have now other pieces to bring in to even bring those who are skeptical about donald trump into this process, and this is -- the reality, too, is the more oxygen that donald trump

sucks up, the harder it is for any of these republicans to break out. they can't have a message that goes against what he's been bringing. >> leigh ann, you go to congress a lot. you know the appetite is there even though it doesn't happen. >> the fact that house speaker kevin mccarthy even opened the door to an impeachment inquiry this week means that it is very likely. >> is this his way of negotiating spending bills and does he think the shiny metal object -- first, when you open that door you can't walk it back and you can't do an impeachment inquiry and not do an impeachment. most republicans and democrats think that this is going to happen on capitol hill. the timing is interesting. he was having another internal battle with the far right faction of his party over spending bills and this is the fourth internal battle he's had. meanwhile, he's getting a lot of pressure from donald trump to do

something to defend him, and so this has been his reaction, and this has been absolutely political. you talk to senate republicans and most of them are, like, what are you going to impeach joe biden on? there is a huge gap within the party. >> faiz, if you're the campaign trying to get people to rally around you -- >> that is a gift every day. we've become accustomed to the idea that donald trump for his entire life, bankruptcies, trump university, sexual assault, you name it, he has generally avoided legal accountability for those, and you can see that setting into the mind-set of the public, oh, yeah, they always go after him. oh, by the way, they're always political. and that attitude of the public could be engineered by the public to say, this time it changes. we have the opportunity to assert public accountability and he understands the rule of law and it doesn't evade some of the richest in our society.

>> steve you and i were talking about the collision of this, and you've decided to create a whole new beat of what's happening here between the republican primary and the legal situation here. are republican elected officials going to wake up on june 1st and go, what have we done? >> i think so. i mean, if you watched donald trump's speech in erie yesterday, he was making a campaign speech and arguments that we are accustomed to hearing. he's blaming a lot darker. he is talking to people who are believing a totally different reality than he's putting out there where joe biden is not the president of the united states and doj where he's the innocent victim. his supporters believe it because they're not seeing it covered in conservative media. they're seeing his arguments amplified and echoed, and i think that's really worrisome. you look at the kinds of arguments he's making, and a

third of the republican party who believe that he hasn't done anything wrong. he was at marquette university this week, 50% of republicans think donald trump even kept classified documents. we have videos of this. >> trump has admitted it. he has said it. he's not denying it. >> the party doesn't even believe this. we are watching the steps to this collision where trump is not going to go quietly. he's calling on republicans to fight. the clip that you played yesterday, that was one of the biggest applause lines in his speech yesterday. >> i want to pivot to his chief challenger, amy. ron desantis and i keep thinking about one of my quotes, good gets better and bad gets worse, and we've been watching desantis, and i want to put up this tweet from congressman john james, african american republican from michigan where he points his out and says,

first owl of all, slavery isn't cte. one thing he pointed out. there are only five black republicans in congress and you are attacking two of them. my brother in christ, put the shovel down. is it even recoverable for desantis? >> he's got the money, so that always helps. for how long? we don't know, but he has a super pac with a great deal of money to help him. to me, this debate will be fascinating on august -- >> without trump -- >> there is an actual contrast, scott versus desantis. >> the fact that you see the pile-on right now on ron desantis suggests that those people who will be standing on the stage with ron desantis know exactly what they need to do which is he's lowering, lowering, lowering, if they can get one more punch in, he's no longer number two. somebody else gets to be elevated. this is a very, very dangerous debate for ron desantis. >> you know the main thing that's happened and what i believe about campaigns is they reveal people. he is being revealed for his arrogance.

when trump was in the doldrums after the 2020 election, that we'll wait, sit on our hands while trump is announcing his campaign? when he comes out, he assumes i'm the front-runner. no, you can't assume. there is a republican ahead and to this day -- >> steve, do you think desantis or trump is the better nominee. is desantis the less electable. >> i think he's the better nominee. i don't think donald trump will win the election. >> i totally accept that. >> this is not a whitewash. the curriculum that florida put forward is not a whitewash. there are 191 items that tell a detailed and harrowing story about american slavery in his -- in his plan and some of the language reflects what's in the opinion. the problem, i think ron desantis is having as he fights this, he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt anymore. i mean we had this past week, he had to let go of staff in his

campaign who had created a video with nazi iconography who he hired after defending the staffer nick fuentes, a white nationalist. you're not going to win people's benefit of the doubt when you're doing that. >> i have to pause it there. there's growing evidence that people's political leanings, vaccine skepticism in trump counties, "data download" is next.

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"data download" time. the official covid-19 health emergency may be over, but this week a scientific study published in the "journal of the american medical association" reveal what many had suspected, republicans who lagged behind in accepting the efficacy of the covid vaccine paid a steeper price. researchers from yale examined 538,000 deaths in people 25 and older in florida and ohio from april 2020 to december 2021, and they found that the excess death rate, deaths beyond what would normally be expected, was 15% higher for registered republicans than for registered democrats, but after the vaccine became available in april of 2021 to the majority of the population, the death rate among republicans was 43% higher. so what about the nation as a whole? to test the theory further, we looked at deaths over the same time period and used 2020 presidential election results as

a proxy whether a county leaned democrat or republican. so here's what we found. the post-vaccine period in the study was harder on counties that voted for donald trump than those that voted for joe biden in 2020. biden counties experienced more deaths from covid before the vaccine became widely available than trump counties did. about 325,000 versus 218,000 respectively and more people live in biden counties and are more densely populated. but after the vaccine became widely available, look at the spring of 2021, and the numbers flipped. there were about 104,000 covid deaths in biden counties and 24% of the total and covid deaths proved december of '21 and covid death in trump counties after the vaccine. 38% of the total covid deaths during this time. these numbers could actually matter in the 2024 election. remember here are the three closest states. arizona decided by just over 10,000 votes. georgia, just over 12,000 votes. wisconsin, just over 20,000 votes. and the covid post-vaccine

patterns in these three states looked very similar to what the "journal of the american medical association" found in the trump counties. same story in georgia. same story in wisconsin, 30% to 25% in a close election, a lot of factors can impact the outcome. everything from long lines to polling places and this data suggests the correlation that could impact turnout in 2024. every vote counts. well, if there was one story this week that did bring both parties together, it was a congressional hearing that was out of this world. speaking to a house oversight subcommittee, former military and intelligence officers said the government knows more than it is letting on on ufos and they said this under oath, folks. one former intelligence official testified that, quote, nonhuman biologics had been recovered at crash sites. that's another way of saying aliens. astronaut buzz aldrin, the

second person ever to set foot on the moon, he joined this very broadcast 20 years ago. he was asked whether he agreed with his former apollo 11 crewmate on the potential for life beyond planet earth. >> i asked mike collins about life somewhere else in the universe, and he said absolutely. do you agree with that? >> i agree. >> you do. >> i agree that i don't know that we can make it absolutely. intelligent life, we're a unique species here on earth. there's a lot of life here, but you know, we're the intelligent ones. >> he thought this would be above earthlings. >> well, it could be. if we find out they exist, then it's because of their communication to us, but they're going to be a long ways away. space is enormous. even the closest star could take a lifetime for a crew going from here to there or vice versa. ] [dice roll]

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sleepovers just aren't what they used to be. a house full of screens? basically no hiccups?

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he said he's fine. i take him at face value. you heard him respond to questions yesterday. he was very crisp in his answers. >> obviously what happened was disturbing. everyone that watched that was concerned, but, listen, mitch is strong, he's stubborn as a mule. >> obviously, his first responsibility is to the voters of kentucky, but once you become a leader, your responsibilities are with other constituents. so that probably does call for a little more -- i shouldn't say more, call for more transparency than it would for somebody else. >> leader mcconnell's office put out a statement on friday morning, leigh ann. leader mcconnell appreciates the continued support of his colleagues and plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do. you know what's notable is that was the statement he made. >> yeah. that's absolutely right. they didn't also say they would run for re-election either and something mcconnell for the past

couple of years hasn't said, but i will say on capitol hill, i think the sound bites that you just played are pretty representative. before this incident happened, remember, he had the fall where he had the serious concussion several months ago, and then he came back and there was literally zero discussion about mcconnell's health among republican senators. i would periodically ask sources. no one would talk about it. >> they'd shut down, huh? >> no one would talk about it. now there's a lot of discussion, and people do make the point, physically he is challenged and mentally he is all there and they say that's the difference, but it does raise a lot of questions. >> we've seen it with dianne feinstein. we've seen two potential presidential nominees that would be -- you know, one that will serve the presidency in their 80s, and we have the mcconnell

voters. voters, they would say age matters. >> we are likely to see moments as we go through this campaign process. we're in a crisis of trust right now as a country. we've talked a lot about that. this is part of that because inevitably after you see something like this, you get stories, and mitch mcconnell -- >> all of a sudden, oh, they haven't been very forthcoming. >> the joe biden question. we've seen a lot of what he's done on video, but then there are stories about what's happening behind the scenes that raise further questions and raise further trust. i think it's a big problem to have this happen, and what's interesting to me is democrats right now on capitol hill in the context of the faa authorization are arguing against raising the mandatory retirement age for pilots to 67. they're opposing that and the biden administration is too. >> faiz, you ran a campaign with a candidate whose age was -- bernie sanders is a year older than joe biden. >> you know what my observation

about this, chuck. age is a class issue in america because -- increasingly, as you get older, if you're rich, you have better access to health care, you have more information about how to preserve your health, and you're seeing that. you are seeing the divergence. you have wealth and you happen to be a senator and former vice president cheney, you will probably outlive -- former president carter is in his 90s and had terrific health care. >> you are talking about the elite classes and senators and they're probably going to be better off, quite frankly, than a normal human being similarly situated. >> amy, we have age minimums, which, frankly, are ridiculous, and the only way there would be an age maximum, you would have to make it a constitutional amendment, and apply it to the federal judiciary, something tells me there could be bipartisan --

>> i think there would be support for that and yet all of us know somebody who has everything clicking at age 80, but -- they may be slower, but that's different from flying an airplane. i absolutely want somebody who is flying an airplane to have everything clicking. someone who is sitting as a member of congress, that's a different category when you're thinking about your -- what your response rate is. >> it is also possible that mitch mcconnell came back too soon. >> yeah. >> pressure of the job. i understand why he would want to. >> yeah, and he loves his job. the senate is his life. you know who never criticizes joe biden and their age? mitch mcconnell. >> fine way to end that. >> that's all we have for today. thank you for watching. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

but the biggest complaint they get is that the republicans find out this information and then they do nothing about it! they don't do anything about it! >> any republican that doesn't act on democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out. out! >> every time the radical left democrats, marxists, communists, and fascists indict me, i consider it, actually, as a great badge of honor. i do. it's a great badge of honor because i'm being indicted for you.