Running mate. Ill ask him this morning. Plus challenging biden, the new Special Counsel appointment fuels more criticism from republicans. If he were a republican he would have been in jail a long time ago. Biden is also facing critics from within his own party on his capacity to serve. Ill talk to democratic congressman dean philips of minnesota who is actively calling for more primary challenger to biden. And red alert. That vote in ohio is pretty sobering. Ohioet voers deliver a victory to supporters of Abortion Rights and offer another warning sign for republicans. If republicans are just focused on one issue theyll have a bit of a challenge. Support for legal action for abortion is winning inside red and blue states from kansas to kentucky to michigan. Will it be a motivating factor for voters in 2024. Joining me for insight and analysis are. Politico mriback coauthor eugene daniels. Republican strategist brandon buck. Is imoen sanderstownsend, former spokesperson for Kamala Harris and betry woodruff swann. Welcome to sunday, its 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. In case you needed another sign that the 2024 a good sunday morning. Gn in case you needed another sign that the 2024 campaign will be shaped by legal dramas in courtrooms in washington, delaware, miami, and new york, rather than door to door in the state of iowa. We got a reminder again. Merrick garland announced it david weiss had now requested Special Counsel status. And hes going to get it. After a plea deal collapsed in court a few weeks ago when a federal judge granted hunter biden immunity. The appointment of mr. Weiss reinforces for the American People that the department is committed to not just accountability, but sensitive matters. President biden son could face this while people are trying to keep the focus on Donald Trumps legal problems. The two are hardly comparable. Donald trump is for overturning the 2020 election and for holding onto military documents. President biden has not been charged with any wrongdoing. So far Hunter Bidens alleged crimes are two months of not being taxes, who his it attorneys have said he has since paid. And lying about a gun purchase. President bidens handling of the case has raised questions at a time when voters already have doubts. At his age and clinical standing. Biden brought his son to a state dinner just two days after the plea deal that has since collapsed was announced. And he has repeatedly defended him. Even though hunter biden himself has pled guilty. First of all, my son has done nothing wrong. I trust him, i have faith in him. Did you encourage him to take the plea deal, mr. President . There are three special councils actively at work involved in this president ial campaign. Jack smith, named in november to oversee the Criminal Investigation in trumps handling of documents and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Robert was named in january to investigate classified documents found in President Bidens home. And of course david weiss. Its also a bit hard to understand. Even the language garland used, announcing his appointed friday, emphasizing independence, accountability, almost the exact same phrases that he used one appointing jack smith nine months ago to oversee the trump case. The legal calendar will continue to overshadow this political calendar. Trumps lawyers were in Court Hashing out the details of what he is allowed to say publicly about the generous sixth case. In an effort to protect witnesses with documents he is about to receive. Prosecutors in georgia, where trump is likely to be indicted a fourth time in the last year, have indicated they plan to present their case to a grand jury later this week. Still, Donald Trumps rivals are going to the motions in a traditional campaign. Even as he leads them nationally by more than 30 points. And the legal dramas just lot out the sun. He has a dominant lead despite just visiting the state six times. This weekend they pose with food on a stick at the iowa state fair. Despite going through the motions of campaigning against him trumps rivals have passed up numerous opportunities to criticize him for his 78 felony counts. They jump at a chance to comment on hunter biden. It just seems to me that they are going to find a way to give him time to have a soft treatment. Why did it take two years to do this . Why did they say hunter biden and not the biden family . Why did the suddenly come up when it was a pay to play conversation . I dont trust it with the American People and neither does the department of justice. Joining me is Chuck Rosenberg. Chuck, youre going to be a regular on the show at this point. Explain this to me. Why did the Attorney General choose to make david weiss Special Counsel . The same rational he used for Donald TrumpsSpecial Counsel clearly applies to here. And he had described david weisss running room that he had the ability to make his own decisions in the case. So i give him this extra title . It seems somewhat cosmetic to me, chuck. Are there additional tools that he did not have before . What are those tools . At the edges, yes. He can bring charges in other districts on his own signature. But frankly he could not have done that if he wanted previously two. The word here is, cosmetic. It doesnt change the tilt of the earth. So the motivation here for the Attorney General, is he worried the cases against trump will look biased . There seems to be a drumbeat to the point the Special Counsel can investigate at least hunter biden if not the biden family. Mr. Weiss and the Special Counsel has the authority to take the investigation where everything ought to go. There is a problem i think, generally, with the Special Counsel regulations. And theres another problem that worries me even more. I dont think mr. Biden, or mr. Trump for that matter, should be treated any better or any worse than any other person under investigation. They both deserve to be treated fairly. Whatever you may think of them they deserve to be treated fairly. Special councils will bring an intense focus on just one or two people. So what youre saying is they are not being treated the same way others would be treated by the Justice Department. That worries me. To appoint a Special Counsel in Attorney General has to find extraordinary circumstances. He keeps finding them. Quite a few. Which makes me think its becoming rather ordinary. Weve had five special councils in the last six years. I dont mean this in any way against those individuals. They are principled people and were doing the jobs they were asked to do. Rather, i worry institutionally whether having some a Special Counsel under so many sets of external circumstances corrodes the department. It seems to undermine the whole rationale of appointing a federal judge. The whole point was to take politics out of this and he is essentially conceding he is too biased to overseas cases. Thats what it looks like. I know thats not what hes saying. I think its a great point. Goes to a larger issue. The design of the department of justice, chuck, the design is that it be staffed by career people. The political layers are extraordinarily thin. The fbi has 40,000 Men And Women. One is a political appointee. Every department has at least one political appointee. Very quickly, arguing for what he can and cannot say. The judge, what is the stick . How is she going to enforce any pendency . Moving up the trial date seems to be an interesting stick that she chose to use. You think thats effective . The shorter the period between now and the trial date the less damage you can do speaking publicly about the case. She is in a tough spot. He absolutely has a right to campaign and he has First Amendment rights. On the other hand, you cant interfere with the Fair Administration of justice or tamper with witnesses. So she has to watch this very closely. But its not an easy thing for her to do. Chuck rosenberg, thank you for joining us this morning. Mr. Rosenberg, thank you, sir. Mr. Vice president , welcome back to Meet The Press. Let me start with your and reaction to the Attorney Generals decision to appoint david weiss, who was an appointee of the trump and pentz administration. His decision to make him a Special Counsel in the hunter biden probe. Do you approve of that decision . Let me say, chuck, im running for president because i think this country is in a lot of trouble. I think joe biden has weakened america at home and abroad. But frankly, the pattern of the Justice Department during our four years in the white house and sense has undermined Public Confidence in equal treatment under the law. While i welcome the apartment of a Special Counsel, which is of course appropriate and is a minimum where the Attorney General has a central conflict of interest. Im also comforted by the fact that congress is going to continue to do its work. Im confident that House Republicans will bring forward the facts in this case. The American People have a right to whether or not President Bidens family benefited or that he himself benefited when he was serving in the job that i had as Vice President of the United States, in a financial way, from foreign nationals. I am hopeful that Special Counsel david weiss will do his job without fear or favor. I have confidence that jim jordan and the others will do their job for the American People. I couldnt help but notice you had said that the Justice Department, even in the 40 the four years, didnt seem to conduct investigations fairly. Why do you think this is . This is a bipartisan problem that youre identifying. It started in 2016 when james comber gave Hillary Clinton a pass that no other american would have gotten. What weve found out sense is the truth about what was going on during the mueller investigation. I lived through that for 2. 5 years when we were rebuilding our military, cutting taxes, unleashing American Energy, securing our border. All the while we had fbi agents that were falsifying documents and pushing a political agenda within the Justice Department. Its one of the reasons why tell people that if i have the privilege of being president of the United States we are not just going to have a new Attorney General and fbi director, but im going to clean house on the whole top floor of the Justice Department and demand that we have Men And Women who are respected on both sides of the aisle as people of and integrity who will apply the rule of law equally to every american. Look, i want to get to the indictment on the former president here. And a specific point having to do with the electric scheme. Earlier this month he told a colleague of mine here that you didnt know a lot about the efforts to secure fake collectors until after the fact. It was interesting. In your book you brought up the fake slate of electors on generator. In your book you said this. I asked her a direct question, are there any alternate electors from any state . She told me there were not. I mentioned that i had heard that some alternate electors had been sent from several of the disputed states. This was on january 3rd. What can you tell us about what you knew about the scheme on january 3rd that prompted you to ask this question . I had heard what was being talked about in the press at the time, chuck. What i thought was important. In January Of 2017 i took an oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States. The constitution says states certify elections. There were irregularities in half a dozen states around the country that change the rules In The Name Of Covid Point we challenge those in 60 court cases. Once the courts had reviewed those and the states certify them i wanted to make sure that we were operating on january 6th in a way that was consistent with the constitution, consistent with the laws of the country. Thats the reason i sat down with the parliament and looked through the process. I was determined to hear the objections that republicans were planning to bring, chuck. And many did bring. You remember democrats brought objections to electoral votes in the last three elections that the republicans prevailed with. Under the law. I asked the parliamentarian very directly, chuck. I asked her because i was hearing rumors. I was reading in the newspaper that there were alternate electors. Was anybody in the white house telling you this . She said there was not. I dont recall that. I just remember hearing it. I wanted a definitive answer whether or not the polymer parliamentarian received any electoral votes. She did not. So as you know, we actually change the language as those Electoral College votes were recorded. Chuck, i told you many times. I said it many times at the iowa state fair. I had no right to overturn the election. The constitution is quite clear. As Vice President i was to preside over a joint session of congress. The says it shall be opened and shall be counted. I did my duty that day. Donald trump had said this week that he never asked you to disregard the constitution and that he never said you were too honest. Are either of those things true . You can check his tweets on the day of, the day before. The president was quite clear and quite public that he thought i had the authority to either reject or return votes to the state. Do stand by that he said you are too honest . Know basis. I do, chuck. Its a part of dialogue that happened between the president and me. And that was related i think to a bogus lawsuit that was brought to force my hand to have a federal judge say that i had the right to throw out votes. Look, there is no idea more un american than the idea that one person could choose which votes to count for president of the United States. The American People know, as i heard from dozens of people at the iowa state fair, chuck. The American People know the presidency belongs to them and them alone. No one person has ever had that authority or ever should under our system. Were you surprised that mark meadows was not listed as a Co Conspirator . Because you had told me, and you mentioned in your book, you thought he was leading the former president down this path on Election Interference and all of the people that he was bringing into the room. Did it surprise you . Chuck, i dont remember saying anyone was leading it. I dont remember there being a group of crackpot lawyers that were in the oval office that quite frankly should not have been allowed on the ground. You didnt tell me that the Chief Of Staff you had said in various ways. Im happy to repeat it. The Chief Of Staff is supposed to be a gatekeeper and make sure people are getting into the oval office and have the credibility to be there. Frankly, this group of lawyers that were allowed to counsel the president and tell him what his itching ears longed to hear is that i had some right to reject votes or return votes to the state. There is no basis in that in history. Look, chuck, our constitution is more important than any one man or one mans career, including mine. I took the stand i took that day because of that oath that i took. I couldnt be more encouraged, chuck, as one person after another. Not just in iowa this last week but in New Hampshire the week before. More and more americans are coming up to me and expressing their radiation for the stand i took. I chose to keep my oath for the constitution that day. If a president of the United States i always will. You are very careful in what you talk about, whether donald trump is a nominee and you can support him again. If you thought he violated the constitution how can you support donald trump again for president . What ive said is im happy to meet the criteria for the upcoming republican president ial debates. Im incredibly proud that more than 40,000 americans have supported our campaign and made it possible for us to qualify for the debate stage. In fact, chuck, i think im actually going to qualify for the second of april we get to the first one. More americans are seeing that my consistent, conser