Political enemies facing new charges and the potential for more, donald trump flexes his power over his party. The republicans are very high class. Theyve got to be a little bit lower class. Whats next, and up close and personal. Republican candidates take their message to key, early states. If i am the republican nominee, joe biden doesnt stand a chance. We, the people, can handle the truth. But can they overtake the frontrunner without taking him on . Ill ask gop president ial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie joins me to respond. Plus, just a number . Renewed concerns about aging political leaders as candidates on both sides say its time for a fresh start. We need to start getting d. C. In order. Do americans believe age is just a number. Democrat chris murphy is coming up. Hello. Im Casey Hunt In Washington where the state of our union is thinking weve seen this film before. The political world begins a new week as we have so many times over the past seven years under the poll of donald trump. The far and away frontrunner for the republican president ial nomination whose legal peril worsened this week. On saturday in pennsylvania the former president took on republicans who he felt didnt back him strongly enough, arguing that any gop lawmaker who didnt prioritize investigating his democratic rival joe biden should face a Primary Challenge. Hanging over the former president , the potential for more indictments this month over efforts to try to overturn the 2020 election, and new charges in the maralago classified documents case accusing him of trying to have incriminating Surveillance Footage deleted. This weekend, trump punched down at his competitors for the president ial nomination even as most of them shy away from returning fire. On saturday he had nothing, but pradz for my next guest. He is running against trump and he is in third place in a new national poll. He received a warm welcome in iowa this weekend. Joining me now is gop president ial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Good to see you, kasey. In this national poll, donald trump, the former president still has 54 of republicans supporting him and you are in third place, yes, but you only have 5 . Trump is on the attack on many others in the field, but almost no one seems to be attacking him. How are you going to beat him . How are you going to catch up . I start at 0. 0 in march. Im now at an unambiguous third in this race and we are getting warmed up ahead of the first debate stage. The thing is im not attacking any of the my fellow candidates. I am not running against them and i am running for this country and thats what i see on the ground in iowa and elsewhere. People are hungry for an actual affirmative vision not what are we running from . What are we running to . I am leading to our American Dream and our identity. Sure we need to move forward rather than retroactively looking at grievance. Sure, i take your points. You also said in a recent interview and this caught my eye that, quote im quoting you here, 30 of the country suffers from psychiatric illness when trump is in the white house just because hes the one advancing them. This seems to suggest that you see issues with donald trump, but it also suggests that you believe that donald trump would lose the general election, is that what you think . So first of all, im not laying blame at anybodys feet, but i do think it is a fact that people in this country from 2016 to 2020, some of them even now, some of them even in the republican primary start adopting views that they would not have adopted if donald trump had not been the person advancing them. For my part, i stand for the America First agenda. I believe i will be able to take that agenda each further than trump did because im not yet having that effect on people. Do i think trump can beat biden in a general election in a narrow margin . To be honest, i do, but i think i am the only candidate in this race, in the entire republican Primary Field who can deliver a Ronald Reagan 1980sstyle Landslide Election, a moral mandate in this election, and i think that is critically important to unite this country and frankly, to drive forward the agenda that i have to shut down the administrative state, to declare independence from china. These are big steps that i want to take as the next president and thats going to take a moral mandate to do it. If you are running if you are running to the right of donald trump or at least trying to say youre trump 2. 0, or perhaps trumpier than trump, how is it that the number of people that would suffer from a psychiatric illness isnt more than 30 for you . How on earth do you argue that you are the candidate that can get more voters than donald trump when you are essentially saying to people im going to be more than he was . Because that presumes that Policy Disagreements are actually what drove it. I think it was a separate psychosis that relates to frankly, the medias relationship with that individual. Ive traveled to places like the south side of chicago. Kensington, in the middle of philadelphia on this campaign. Places where traditional republicans dont go. I find widespread support for policies like my plan to use the u. S. Military to seal the southern border. Frankly, to grow the economy, something that we havent done in a very long time. No longer paying single women more not to have a man in the house than to have a dual parent household. Okay. We find unity that goes beyond party lines and i dont think the real division is between democrats and republicans. I think it is between those are proamerican and antiamerican, thats 8020. Thats a Landslide Election and thats what i intend to deliver. Let me ask you more about the others in the field besides the elephant in the room, so to speak, donald trump. Florida Governor Ron Desantis is defending some new state educational standards that include the idea, and im quoting here, slaves developed skill which in some instances could be applied to their personal benefit, but senator tim scott points out, quote, theres no Silver Lining in slavery. I want you to watch when he says and then well talk about it. Slavery was really about separating families, about mutilating humans and raping their wives. It was devastating, so i would hope that every person in our country and certainly running for president would appreciate that. Are you with Governor Ron Desantis or senator tim scott on this issue, sir . The reality is i dont trust the medias filtering of what was in that curriculum so i really want to read it in detail and understand what exactly was being taught, but i will say this, i dont think that the division should be are you with the state of florida which is Governor Desantis response or the other side. I dont see it that way. I stand on the side of truth. Obviously, we should be teaching kids about the awful legacy of slavery, but more importantly, were not teaching them enough about the ideals that actually do define this country. Personally the deeper problem in the schools today is many of them teaching young black kids and minorities that theyre oppressed based on the color of their skin and genetic attributes and thats the real psychological slavery in the present and thats what i have the biggest problem with, but i do think some of these issues can be distractions from what Governor Desantis or tim scott or myself should be debating. How do we grow an economy . How do we lift all people up and revive selfconfidence and pride in The Next Generation of americans . Thats what i think we need to be focused on. Im going to move on here. I think it is worth underscoring that these criticisms have not come that were quoting here have not come from the media. They have come from africanamericans in the Republican Party, senator tim scott, congressman john james. Lets move on now to federal prosecutors added new obstruction of Justice Charges against former President Donald Trump on thursday. The indictment the superseding indictment says that after trump learned that the Justice Department wanted to subpoena Security Footage from maralago, trump talked with an aide who later told the i. T. Director at maralago, that, quote, the boss, end quote, wanted the footage deleted. You said repeatedly that you would pardon trump in this documents case, but this is significant, new information. So given this new information, do you still would you still pardon him if you were president . The standard i use as our next president is what moves our country forward. What is the right thing for the United States of america . Right and would having a president like this move it forward . I would pardon him. I would i intend to be our next president , and yes, i do believe i will move us forward and one of the right ways to do that is to pardon the former president of the United States from what is clearly a politicized prosecution, and i will share a view with you, kasie. This is not specific to trump. This is part of my broader view of the Justice System in our country and i think the general norm in the country is you should not convict someone of a processed crime when there was no actual underlying crime. So you think destroying evidence is a processed crime . Think by definition a processed crime. Nobody left, right, any legal scholar will agree with me on that statement. That is by definition a processed crime. A crime that would not have existed, but for the existence of an investigation and if we look at ourselves in the mirror and look at the acquittals and the fact that two people were acquitted in entrapment and i think its a bad thing that doj and fbi have gotten into, Intervening Crimes that would not have existed but for their action and as it relates to moving forward as a country, i absolutely think the right answer to the country is to put the grievances of the past behind us, to pardon President Trump so we can move forward as one nation rather than marching to a national divorce. All right, mr. Vivek ramaswamy, thank you very much for taking some time to be with us this weekend. Im sure well hear much more from you on the campaign trail. Thank you, kasie. My next guest is criticizing his fellow republicans for tiptoeing around trump. 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You, in addition to being a governor, were a federal prosecutor, and i would like to know when you look at this new evidence, is there a clearcut case of Obstruction Of Justice here . It appears that way, kasie. You look at it. Its pretty brazen. These guys were acting like the corleones with no experience. The day after a Grand Jury Subpoena is served which includes the surveillance tapes, they go down to maralago, and walt nauta appears to be the fredo of this family. They send him to go down there and they sent him to go and delete it. This is bad stuff, and you know, you cant say there was no underlying potential crime here. This was the withholding of confidential, Classified Information from the government. After 18 months of asking donald trump to return it voluntarily, not only did he not return it. He lied about having it. This is not the kind of thing we can do. I want you to think, kasie, for a second about the potential effect on the troops and Intelligence Officers by him having this around and him willynilly showing it off lon the back deck of maralago. This is not that a former president should be doing and not someone who wants to be president should be doing. His defense is i can declassify whatever i want and this seeps to fly in the face of that defense. Well, first of all, the declass i can declassify whatever i want defense is not a defense. You can declassify whatever you want when youre president. You cant do it by thinking about it. You cant do it by mind melding with the documents. There is a process you have to go through to declassify and he knows that. So there are no defenseses in that regard here. Hes presumed innocent, but the bottom line is the government has made a very, very compelling case and remember something, usually the government only includes at the most about half of the evidence they have and whats clear on the latest be on str strukz charges are they have a cooperating witness. Trump employee number four looks like a very, very important, cooperating witness. So we now have people inside the Trump Organization employed by donald trump who are testifying against him and i think the next one you are going to see is former Chief Of Staff mark meadows in the january 6th case, and i wonder what donald trump will have to say about that. Fair enough. So let me ask you about the rally last night on friday excuse me, the rally last night that trump held in pennsylvania. He called on congress to withhold aide to ukraine unless the republicans cooperate with Hunter Bidens probe, which seems to be very similar for what trump got impeached for in 2019, but he also had this to say to republicans. Take a look. They dont fight the way theyre supposeded to fight. The others are dirty, sick players and the republicans are very high class. Theyve got to be a little lower class, i suspect. Whats your response to that . Look, hes not even clearing that bar. I want voters to listen to this. It is most likely that by the time we get on the debate stage on august 23rd the frontrunner will be out on bail in four different jurisdictions, florida, washington, georgia and new york. Out on bail, kasie. I mean, that doesnt even clear the lowclass bar that donald trump is advocating for. Look, im running for president because i want to do the big things. I want to make sure that we fix our entitlement programs. I want to make sure that we give parents Ed Karnl Freedom to decide whether kid goes to School Across this country. There are big things we need to do here to lower inflation and to create jobs that are good paying and help people to save money, and hes sitting there at a rally for two hours last night talking about his own problems. This is a guy who is putting himself before the country. You cant put America First with donald trump because its trump first and the proof of that, by the way is for all those people who donated 25, 50, 100 to him when he was telling them in 2020 that the election was a lie and that he was going to try to reverse the election. A