♪ ♪ political enemies facing new charges and the potential for more, donald trump flexes his power over his party. >> the republicans are very high class. they've got to be a little bit lower class. >> what's next, and up close and personal. republican candidates take their message to key, early states. >> if i am the republican nominee, joe biden doesn't stand a chance. >> we, the people, can handle the truth. >> but can they overtake the front-runner without taking him on? i'll ask gop presidential 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 it's 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. i'm casey hunt in washington where the state of our union is thinking we've 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 front-runner for the republican presidential nomination whose legal peril worsened this week. on saturday in pennsylvania the former president took on republicans who he felt didn't back him strongly enough, arguing that any gop lawmaker who didn't 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 mar-a-lago classified documents case accusing him of trying to have incriminating surveillance footage deleted. this weekend, trump punched down at his competitors for the presidential 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 presidential 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. i'm now at an unambiguous third in this race and we are getting warmed up ahead of the first debate stage. the thing is i'm not attacking any of the my fellow candidates. i am not running against them and i am running for this country and that's 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 -- i'm quoting you here, 30% of the country suffers from psychiatric illness when trump is in the white house just because he's 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, i'm not laying blame at anybody's 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 i'm 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 1980s-style 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 that's 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 you're trump 2.0, or perhaps trumpier than trump, how is it that the number of people that would suffer from a psychiatric illness isn't 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 i'm 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 media's relationship with that individual. i've traveled to places like the south side of chicago. kensington, in the middle of philadelphia on this campaign. places where traditional republicans don't 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 haven't 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 don't think the real division is between democrats and republicans. i think it is between those are pro-american and anti-american, that's 80-20. that's a landslide election and that's 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 i'm quoting here, slaves developed skill which in some instances could be applied to their personal benefit, but senator tim scott points out, quote, there's no silver lining in slavery. i want you to watch when he says and then we'll 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 don't trust the media's 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 don't think that the division should be are you with the state of florida which is governor desantis' response or the other side. i don't 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, we're 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 they're oppressed based on the color of their skin and genetic attributes and that's the real psychological slavery in the present and that's 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 self-confidence and pride in the next generation of americans? that's what i think we need to be focused on. >> i'm going to move on here. i think it is worth underscoring that these criticisms have not come that we're quoting here have not come from the media. they have come from african-americans in the republican party, senator tim scott, congressman john james. let's 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 mar-a-lago, trump talked with an aide who later told the i.t. director at mar-a-lago, 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 it's 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. i'm sure we'll hear much more from you on the campaign trail. >> thank you, kasie. >> my next guest is criticizing his fellow republicans for tiptoeing around trump. gop candidate chris christie joins me live coming up next, and then a potential challenge to president biden from his own party? 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>> it appears that way, kasie. you look at it. it's 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 mar-a-lago, 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 can't 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 willy-nilly showing it off lon the back deck of mar-a-lago. 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 you're president. you can't do it by thinking about it. you can't 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. he's 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 what's 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 biden's 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 don't fight the way they're supposeded to fight. the others are dirty, sick players and the republicans are very high class. they've got to be a little lower class, i suspect. >> what's your response to that? >> look, he's 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 front-runner will be out on bail in four different jurisdictions, florida, washington, georgia and new york. out on bail, kasie. i mean, that doesn't even clear the low-class bar that donald trump is advocating for. look, i'm 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 he's 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 can't put america first with donald trump because it's 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. all of those people we now know have paid over $40 million of their hard-earned money for a billionaire's legal fees. he is not enough of a stand-up person with his wealth and his big, private 737 plane, and all the rest that he has and mar-a-lago, and the trump tower and all the rest, he's making regular americans pay his legal fees. it's outrageous. it's beneath the job that he seeks to hold again, and he's going to be -- let's remind them, out on bail. this is not the kind of person we want as our nominee because, by the way, joe biden will be the president again if donald trump's the nominee. >> so you mentioned the big things, and i want to ask you about that because the reality is there is some good economic news these days. inflation is creeping down to 3%. gdp is strong and consumer is not imesentiment is on the way . do you think president biden deserves any credit for that? >> kasie, what he deserves credit for is the fact that everything is 15% more expensive today than it was when he took the oath of office on january 20th of 2021. interest rates are at one of its highest level in 25 years, making it much more expensive for people to buy a home, to buy a car, to be able to invest in their business and grow it to create jobs. this guy is the jimmy carter of the 2020s, and his inflation that he created and don't take my word for it. democratic economists and larry summers has said that joe biden created this inflation through his ridiculous spending. i dealt with this in new jersey, cassie after coming after john corzine and we had a $29 million budget and we balanced the budget by cutting 836 individual programs and did not raise taxes. this stuff can be done, but you need someone who knows how to execute and knows how to do it. with the republican party voters, and all american voters, deserve two things. the truth. the truth is not ney goshable and i'm not going to say something different on your program than i will anywhere else in this country, and second, they need someone who can deliver on the issues they care about, on the border, on obama care, on the national debt, on entitlement programs. donald trump failed on all those when he was president, even with a republican congress. elect me to be president, and i won't. >> all right. former new jersey governor chris christie, thank you for your time,er is. i'm sure we'll see much more of you on the trail. >> sure will, kasie, thank you very much. >> all right. renewed question in the senate this week about aging lawmakers. democratic senator and gen-xor chris murphy is coming up. u knol u could actually take that trip for less than all this. chris murphy is coming up. mista. ♪ go to your happy price ♪ ♪ priceline ♪ introducing the all-new 2024 chevy trax. ♪ ♪ helps you stay connected, ♪ safe ♪ and charged. ♪ the all-new chevy trax starting at $21,495. the possibilities are endless. with the freestyle libre 2 system know your glucose level and where it's headed without fingersticks. manage your diabetes with more confidence and lower your a1c. it's covered by medicare for those who qualify. ask your doctor about the freestyle libre 2 system. i'm sholeh, and i lost 75 pounds with golo. i went from a size 20 to a size 6. before golo, nothing seemed to work. i was exercising for over an hour every day. it was really discouraging. but golo's so easy, the weight just falls off. >> woman: why did we choose safelite? >> vo: for us, driving around is the only way we can get our baby to sleep, so when our windshield cracked, we needed it fixed right. we went to safelite.com. there's no one else we'd trust. their experts replaced our windshield, and recalibrated our car's advanced safety system. they focus on our safety... so we can focus on this little guy. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ the morgan stanley client experience? listening more than talking, and a personalized plan ♪ to guide you through a changing world. ♪ subway's now slicing their meats fresh. that's why subway's proffered by this champ. and this future champ. and if we proffer it, we know you'll proffer it too. he's cocky for a nineteen year old. republicans may have to find something else to criticize me for now that inflation is coming down. maybe a they'll decide to impeach me because it's coming down. >> welcome back to "state of the union." i'm kasie hunt. president biden playing up solid economic numbers as he ramps up his re-election pitch. it's not clear yet that voters, though, are sold on that message with new signs this week that there's remaining angst about his campaign. democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut joins me now. senator murphy, good to see you. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> so president biden was in maine on friday to tout his recent economic successes as we talked with governor christie and the gdp report was very good and the american people are still rating the economy poorly. what's the disconnect? >> well, the economy is booming right now. you're talking about unemployment under 4%. you're seeing a reduction in inflation that's outpacing all of our other global competitors, gdp rising. one of the stunning statistics from the second quarter is that a, gdp grew by 2.5%, but 25% of that growth was due to factory construction, and so that means that this isn't just a short-term improvement in the economy. we are bringing back manufacturing jobs. we are going to be putting people back to work in jobs that have real wages, pensions, benefits and that's a transformation of the economy not just a band-aid, but i get it. people listened to donald trump, say that he was going to re-industrialize the economy. he was going to bring back manufacturing jobs and he didn't, and so there is a skepticism from the american electorate that presidents who say that they're serious about bringing good jobs back are going to do it, but i think as you continue to see these repeated quarters, these repeated good news stories about the american economy being transformed and people getting back to work that joe biden will get credit for that. he should because we are seeing an absolute revolution of our economy right now. the kind of good paying jobs that used to be the foundation of america are coming back and that's due to joe biden's policies. >> i need to ask you about something that shook the senate this week and that was republican leader mitch mcconnell who had a health scare. he froze up at a press conference and stopped talking. of course, he recently suffered a concussion. his office says that he will continue to serve as leader. have you spoken with him at all about the incident and what was your reaction to seeing what happened? . i have not spoken to him directly about the incident, but he was on the floor. thursday was a long day on the floor of the senate completing the bill and he looked like the old mitch mcconnell and my sense is he is still in know cotroll of the caucus and he certainly had a health scare and my sense is he is back up on his feet and he will be able to lead the republican conference very ably going forward. no question. i have a lot of disagreements with mitch mcconnell, but he has been one of the more effective leaders of the republican congress in my lifetime and i expect that that will continue at least until the end of this term. >> we certainly wish senator mcconnell the best in confronting his any -- any health challenges we should be facing, but we should acknowledge what happened has pushed age back to the center of the political debate including in the presidential race and president biden would be 86 at the end of any second term and this week we learned that one of your colleagues in congress on the house side, democratic congressman dean philips of minnesota is talk to donors about a potential primary challenge against president biden and he says that's in part because the u.s. needs a quote, unquote, new generation to step up. is it wrong for democratic voters to be concerned about the age and the health of the president going into what's absolutely going to be an incredibly demanding campaign? >> ultimately, voters in this country care about effectiveness. they care about whether a president can do the job. i guess age is relevant if it is an indicator that a candidate isn't up to do the most important job in the world, but joe biden is succeeding at an extraordinary and historic rate. the amount of major legislation passed by this president and the first gun violence bill in 30 years and the first major investment in clean merge and the biggest infrastructure investment in this country. all of that doesn't happen without joe biden. he is a master legislative tactician and he was involved in the detailed way in the passage of the bill, and i know because i wrote the gun bill and i was talking to joe biden on a regular basis and you pair this together witexpansion and there zero evidence that joe biden can't do this job, and so i don't bebruj any of my friends in congress from considering a presidential run -- >> given all of that, should congressman philips run? >> well, i mean, congressman philips can do whatever he wants. i don't think he will get very far because the democratic party is pretty enthusiastic about a president that has made historic progress on a number of priorities that we have been fighting and losing on for decades before joe biden became president. most incumbent presidents get some kind of primary challenge even if it's a pretty weak one, but joe biden's going to be the democratic nominee and i don't really think that anybody will have much of a shot at challenging him and we'll be behind him 100%. >> fair enough, although there are polls that show people would be willing to consider an alternative to joe biden. let me go to something that you and your democratic colleagues are working on in the senate and that is a code of conduct for the supreme court. this is something you introduced regularly, but we did get a response this week from supreme court justice samuel alito, and he said, quo, i know this is a controversial view, but i'm willing to say it. no provision in the constitution gives them, meaning congress, the authority to regulate the supreme court. period. what do you think he is saying there and what is your response? >> first of all, it's just stunningly wrong, and he should not that more than anyone else because his seat on the supreme court exists only because of an act passed by congress. it is congress that establishes the number of justices on the supreme court. it is congress that has passed in the past requirements for justices to disclose certain information, and so it is just wrong on the facts to say that congress doesn't have anything to do with the rules guiding the supreme court from the very beginning, congress has set those rules, but it is even more disturbing that alito feels the need to insert himself into a congressional debate and it is just more evidence that these justices on the supreme court, these conservative justices just see themselves as politicians. they just so themselves as a second legislative body that has just as much power and right to impose their political will on the country as congress does. they're going to bend the law in order to impose their right-wing view of how the country should work on the rest of us and it's why we need to pass this common-sense ethics legislation to make sure that these guys aren't in bed having their lifestyles paid for by conservative donors as we have unfortunately seen in these latest revelations. >> before i let you go here i do have to ask you about another thing bedevilling the democrats. federal judge this week said she wasn't ready to approve a plea deal for hunter biden, the president's son. house republicans are investigating a 2016 text that hunter sent to a chinese businessman, it claims that he was sitting with his father at the time. the president was not in business with his son, that seems to be a change from when they previously said that he and hunter never spoke about it. do you have any concerns about this? >> i don't have any concerns. i think this is a witch hunt. hunter biden hasec broen the law he should be held accountable for it. i don't think he's being treated any differently than anyone else who has been accused of the crimes he's been accused of and he's had a lot of trouble in his life and joe biden has been open about it and he's shown concern to help hunter biden recover, but there's never been any evidence that joe biden has compromised his office. in fact, the very opposite, the evidence around the allegations republicans have made about hunt are biden's involvement in ukraine suggests that joe biden was working to root out corruption in ukraine as he consistently did as vice president, i think those facts will continue to come out. >> all right. connecticut senator, chris murphy, thank you very much for your time, sir. we really appreciate it. >> thanks, kasie. >> all right. here's some advice from ron desantis from his own party. >> if you find yourself in a deep hole, put the shovel down. my panel weighs in next. ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ please don't go... ♪ ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ don't goooooo! ♪ ( ♪ ) ♪ don't go away ♪ get a free storage upgrade when you pre-order at verizon. ♪ please don't go ♪ [stomach growling] it's nothing... sounds like something. ♪when you have nausea, heartburn, indigestion♪ ♪upset stomach, diarrhea♪ pepto bismol coats and soothes for fast relief when you need it most. i was told my small business wouldn't qualify for an erc tax refund. you should get a second opinion from innovation refunds at no upfront cost. sometimes you need a second opinion. 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basically no hiccups? you guys have no idea how good you've got it. how old are you? like, 80? back in my day, it was scary stories and flashlights. we don't get scared. oh, really? mom can see your search history. that's what i thought. introducing the next generation 10g network. only from xfinity. ♪ ♪ ♪ only in america ♪ only in america indeed. welcome back to "the state of the union".not kidding, that actually happened. former president trump took the stage on friday night to the lyric, quote, one could end up going to prison or one could be president at the lincoln dinner in iowa. my panel joins me. who wants to take that one? >> the song has been in the president's playlist for a long time. the irony is that he ended up blaming kim reynolds and that's a song that us iintroduced all the candidates. >> and presupposes that these items are mutually exclusive. maybe both will happen at the same time. this has been a staple of republican presidential playlists for a long time, when i heard it just now i was immediately transported back to the days of the romney campaign. >> played it quite a bit in arena after arena in 2012, but seriously, will hurd was the only person on the stage in iowa who actually said what was included in that song. he got up there and he said the president's really only running because he doesn't want to go to prison and he was not actually booed off the stage and there were people in that crowd booing as he left the stage, and i want to get our democrats, michael la rosa, and let me start with you. will hurd on that -- in that environment. what does it say that there's no appetite there for that crowd and yet there are all those guys up on stage vying to be including your former boss, the alternative to trump in 2024? >> i think some of the candidates on the stage have expressed their differences with donald trump particularly on january 6th. it's the base of the party that looks back to four years and knows a lot was accomplished and will hurd goes on there and takes on donald trump and he gets media attention which he succeededa and there are plenty of candidates that also expressed their disagreements and when they walk into a venue like that, here's my vision for the future of the country without having to go back to talk about donald trump. >> karen, what does this do for democrats here? doesn't this underscore the reality that yes, we'll get to all of the challenges of president biden and what he faces here, however, i mean there's an argument chris christie is going to make this argument that president trump is likely to lose the election and some of these packfacts seem to underscore the possibility. >> the republican primary that is so much of what is being discussed in this republican primary would never pass muster with the general election electorate. i do not believe the general electorate of this country is going to re-elect donald trump. i mean, put aside how many indictments, just based on the record, just based on january 6th and it's just not going to happen. for democrats it would give us the chance to continue talking about as you heard the senator, expanding the economy, lowering healthcare costs and staying above the fray while they sort duke it out in a primary. >> his legal troubles are sort of irrelevant to democrats at this point and it's hard to county indict amments and charg. the last three election cycles that donald trump has been on the ballot and his candidates have been on the ballot, they've lost independents, even when the president of the united states issue the current president had a 40% approval rating and a 40-year high inflation, he had a historic, successful midterm as the democrats did outperforming republicans and expectations. so we would be glad to see him on the ballot because what we know is that numbers flee from him. >> scott? >> you heard it. they want to run against donald trump. i came out here prepared to quarrel with you today, but i agree with much of what you just said because -- >> don't worry. >> we'll get there, but i agree. a lot of what is happening is not going to fly with the average independent swing voter who decides elections in pennsylvania, george a arizona, wisconsin, places like that, and as much as republicans are digging in their heels to defend him over it, they're not the ones who will decide the next president of the united states and it will be the swing voters in the states that by the way, donald trump lost, and so i have a hard time seeing how we're going to reconcile that if he's the nominee of the party. >> do you have another challenge -- say he's not the nominee. i'm happy to run against him or not, he's still going to be a packer in the election even if he's not the nominee and that's not going to be good for whoever the nominee is. >> they'll stay home like they did for romney. >> democrats, no matter who is nominated, they're going to say it's worse than trump. you heard it here first. whether it's desantis, chris christie or anyone else, this is worse than trump. >> i think any other person would beat joe biden. i think for republicans there is a great excitement that if it's not trump they stand a great chance at winning. >> certainly, you can call the hillary clinton campaign and ask them about -- >> been there, who you want to run against and be careful what you wish for. >> exactly. all right. so one thing that we heard some of the gop candidates bring up in iowa, president biden is now acknowledging his seventh grandchild. there was a statement out last night our son hunter and his mother london are working to foster the what is the best interest. this is not a political issue and family matter. jill and i only want what is best for our brand children including navy. the president has come under scrutiny for only beacknowledgi his six brand children and the others who have the biden last name and his family ultimately decided to do this. michael la rosa, wow woyou work jill biden for's long time because i do think for many of the critics and there was a column about this in "the new york times." this is a very innocent little girl who did nothing wrong despite what her father hunter biden may have been going through at the time. why now for the bidens and honestly, why did it take them so long? >> two things, first of all, i respect you as a journalist for having to ask the question, but it is a very gross and uncomfortable subject to talk about -- >> let's not call it gross. >> no, no, no. i'm calling the inner sanctum of the family and the privacy of what goes on in a family and you're right. that little girl, she should not be weaponized by the republicans who are down there in arkansas with consentive lawyers and conservative pr people and posting on their instagram. they shouldn't be weaponizing her and everyone is welcome to make their own personal judgments on the bidens, but it is frankly, they are a family, a real family with real feelings, with real struggles and challenges like every family and i guarantee you that the more that the republicans make this an issue, it will not work. voters appreciate, voters relate to having struggles in their own families. they root for people with vulnerabilities. they root for people who understand and relate to them and you know, ultimatelies are t the bidens are a real family like anyone else. >> scott jennings, the president has made being a family man a central part of his political identity. >> it's not republicans with all due respect who made hunter biden a complete scumbag on this and other issues. the ignoring his own daughter for four years and the president of the united states hanging up a stocking for the dog and not for his seventh grandchild. >> we can have simply for peo sympathy for people struggling with addition. >> you know who end up picking up the pieces? the grandparents and in this case the grandparents would not acknowledge this little girl, it is offensive. >> they have now. >> oh, what a hero! the polling must have been brutal. the polling must have been brutal. >> you can't question the heart and integrity of joe biden as a family man and the human being and the pain, suffering and loss that man has been through including the struggles -- >> we have 30 secondses. >> i think it is far more appalling to see republicans this week starting with you, scott, calling the vice president president of the united states a liar when it comes to the very real personal story. i don't need some, you know, academic to tell me about the horrors of slavery. it's in my own family. you now have black conservatives who agree with they're liars, too. that conversation is far more troubling than an addict and a bad family situation. >> let me put a pause at this. >> it's a nice attempt at a pivot, and this is not joe biden not recognizing his granddaughter if four years. it is well wored and it shouldn't take four years to acknowledge a child of god that was conceived regardless of the circumstances at conception and it's a child of god -- >> i understand why you'd rather talk about that than talk about the fact that people are demonizing -- >> okay. we will keep this conversation focused and we have a lot more to talk about and we'll be right back. it cleans better, and doesn't leave behind irritating residues. and it's gentle on her skin tide free & gentle is epa safer choice certified. it's got to be tide our ancestors had power, our ancestors had hope and our ancestors had ambition. born in 1847, formally enslaved, started buying land, was in the house of representatives. we didn't know our family was part of black reconstruction. exactly. okay, seriously. finding out this family history, these things become anchors for your soul. . ... .... ... . ... .... ... my name is joshua florence, and one thing i learned being a firefighter is plan ahead. you don't know what you're getting into, but at the end of the day, you know you have a team behind you that can help you. not having to worry about the future makes it possible to make the present as best as it can be for everybody. you saw the city of atlanta put up security barriers around its courthse late last week. what's that about? 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