let's give a warm welcome to the chair, asa hutchinson. [applause] >> thank you, bill. thank you everybody for joining me today to announce and go to the aspects of this initiative. bill mcbride is doing a great job as the executive director of the nga and is really accomplishing more than is imaginable, even coming out of the pandemic. my background, as many of you know, i served as united states attorney during the reagan administration. i was the youngest at that time. i served the congress and was in the bush administration as the head of the dea and after 9/11 i went over to homeland security as undersecretary and in all of those positions i sought out bipartisan solutions and i worked with those across the aisle to accomplish good things. the role of the governors association is to find common solutions that we can work together, goals to accomplish, and that's why i love the nga and am honored to be chairman through this year. the nga of course started under president teddy roosevelt. he was a former governor and had an initiative that was important to him, conve

we are pleased to join you all here today for the launch of the asa hutchinson initiative as the national governors association chairman k-12 computer science education. as some of you know, each year the

joining us to discuss, arkansas republican governor asa hutchinson. n, we'll get to the pandemic in a second. first, i want to get your reaction. you heard speaker pelosi lay out her plans, secretary yellen talking about inflation. you're a governor in the middle of the country. what's your reaction? >> well, the greatest concern americans have right now is the rising cost of fuel, gasoline, and groceries. whenever you hear speaker pelosi talk about the trillion dollar package, it hasn't been written, it can't be explained. you did a great job asking her questions about it, but it was as clear as mud. what that tells the american people is, we've got inflationary pressures that impact them, it's the cruelist tax and now all we see is more government spending, a trillion dollar plan out there, multi trillion dollars, and it can't be explained. it's worrisome as a governor to hear what's planned. we do need the bipartisan infrastructure bill that's critical for roads, for broadband, it's for water infrastructure, but this social engineering plan that the

governor asa hutchinson is next. >>> hello. i'm jake tapper in washington, where the state of the union is want been to be a fly on the wall president biden is hosting joe manchin and chuck schumer in delaware today. democrats have just seven days until october 31st. that's the date that speaker pelosi set to advance the agenda. this week, president biden secretsed confidence his party would deliver, but now it's clear that the social policy bill will be far less than the original $3.5 trillion. it's not clear what will make it into the final package. democrats have to make touch choices about which big-ticket items to prioritize joining us now, speaker of the house, nancy pelosi who is here in studio. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> how close to a deal are you in this package of elder care, daycare, child care, family leave, that stuff, whatever you want to call. the social safety net bill we call it. >> first, thank you for the opportunity to talk about that this morning. i'm glad you talked about cov

. >> i'll talk to arkansas governor asa hutchinson. >>> and god and politics. while most evangelicals are aligning with former president biden -- >> do you think he's using him? >> absolutely. i think president trump is a miracle. >> the bible belt is unbuckling. >> looking at the divide in the evangelical movement. joining me for insight and analysis are amy walter, editor-in-chief and publisher of "the cook political report," nbc news senior capitol hill correspondent garrett haake. kimberly atkins stohr from "the "boston globe,"" and john podhoretz, editor of the "commentary." welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >>> a good sunday morning. the economy's inability to fully recover from the shock of covid-19 is both an economic story and a political one. what is holding the economy back? in the spring we thought we were turning the corner on covid. when we turned that corner, the delta variant was waiting to hit us hard in t

one of those in attendance, a sergeant in, or getting -- asa hutchinson getting a closer look. >> when you have migrants coming from scores of countries, good across the border timing themselves to pick the right opportunity they can get through, it is not a closed border. >> reporter: rodney scott is sounding the alarm warning of mixed messaging from the administration and national security implications of this crisis. >> 90% don't get deported. we have 400,000 documented got aways. they were not claiming asylum and probably paid extra to go through one of the gaps the cartel controlled. >> reporter: seeing cartels in the last week where those governors are headed, m s 13 gained member arrested along with a mexican national convicted of child molestation in north carolina and guatemalan man convicted of sexual abuse in iowa. jillian: as he mentioned to reiterate there is news happening from the border today because ten governors have been invited by governor greg abbott, they will hold a news conference at noon so we've seen a number of republicans going to visit the border, sharing t

louisiana and also quite big and won arkansas and quite big and another voice of the establishment, asa hutchinsont the former president is still telling the big lie. we don't need that. >> relitigating 2020 is a recipe for disaster in 2022. let's talk about the future. the election is past. it's been certified. the states made decisions on the integrity of each of their elections and made improvements where need be. >> he gets to a very important point where the wind is at the republicans' back heading into 202. former prub keeps saying the election was rigged, are rigged, don't trust them so others are thinking republicans will stay home if the republican party doesn't make the next elections all about 2020. he thinks it's a political winning strategy to talk about 2020. he thinks of it as something that's personally valuable to him because as long as people are talking about 2020 they are that you canning about who, donald trump and that's what he wants to happen over the next couple of years as he gears up for a potential second or third run for the white house. >> maybe that message resonates

speaker nancy pelosi will join me this sunday for an exclusive, plus arkansas republican governor asa hutchinsoncan follow me on facebook, on instagram, on twitter, on the tik tiktok, @jaketapper, tweet the show. you can listen to the lead wherever you get your podcasts. until sunday morning, i bid you adieu. our coverage continues now with one mr. wolf blitzer in "the situation room." be nice to him now, he's a good guy. >>> happening now, breaking news. we just learned about critical testimony in the january 6 investigation. a former u.s. justice department official who pushed baseless claims of election fraud is now expected to appear before the select committee next friday. we're going to tell you why putting jeffrey clark under oath could be a huge step forward for the panel. >>> also this hour, president biden is plowing ahead with talks on his stalled agenda after revealing new details about his concessions and democrats' divisions. we're breaking down his performance at cnn's town hall and the prospects for

arkansas governor asa hutchinson who came to the rio grande valley to see the border crisis firsthand. while texas troopers with night vision scanned the mexican shoreline in the dark of night, governor hutchinson was given a tour of some of the smuggling hot spots all along the river. eventually coming ashore in one area where illegal immigrants commonly cross on rafts. >> with the boat setting there, they know we are here. they are not going to cross in this area. >> after a brief tour through the dense brush, we asked the governor for his thoughts on the biden administration's repeated claims that the border is closed. >> any time you have migrants coming from scores of country coming across our border, timing themselves to pick the right opportunity where they can get through, it's not a closed border. any time that you stop someone that's coming in illegally, and then you process them and release them into our country, that is not a closed border. in la joya today while on a break, we took this photo of several illegal immigrants being arrested near a fast food restaurant. we lat

asa hutchinson pushing back on donald trump's continued attempt to discredit the 2020 election.dy of louisiana who's not so sure trump would win the nomination if he runs again. last week trump said republican voters will not come out to vote in 2022 and 2024 if the party does not back his fully debunked claims that he won the election. you notice that cassidy there basically making clear that he did not win the election. he lost. he lost over and over and over again for the republican party. he said it clearly, plain as day. >> right, senator cassidy said it and governor hutchinson sid it. donny, you will notice you have two republicans, a governor and a senator and they were not from massachusetts and vermont. they were from arkansas and louisiana. i do think again when you have a situation that you saw donald trump, why did donald trump lose in 2020? he lost because as ron johnson, your good friend from wisconsin said, he said because there were a lot of republicans who just would not vote for him. there were like 55,000 or 60,000 republicans voted for every other republican

the state's governor is asa hutchinson is the state's governor. he joins us now.r goal is to increase vaccination rates. we believe the best way to do that is through education and experience. when i say experience, it is about seeing our neighbors who have not been vaccinated that go to the hospital, have serious illness because of covid. right now among our state employees without any mandate we're at 67% vaccination rate and that is as high as california where they have a vaccine mandate among their state employees that they're not doing a good job of implementing and so we think we have the right approach. the key on mandates is, government doesn't need to be in the business of mandating right now under this current environment. employers should have their own decision. we shouldn't be prohibiting them. we shouldn't be requiring them. that's the way of business and it is the best way for our employers to operate. stuart: you don't want to lose valuable state workers, do you? because if you had a mandate you would lose some? >> actually, no question about it. w