>> All eyes are on the U.S.
Supreme court as the nation
awaits a ruling to ban
mifepristone.
We turn now to the analysis of
brooks and Capehart.
It's always great to see.
If the court is weighing this
question of national access, it
really reflects the ways in
which the antiabortion movement
has escalated its effort to
eradicate abortion rights
everywhere.
>> Yes but this is not
surprising.
When the leak of the Dobbs draft
, the alarm bells started going
off about what this would mean
for other rights.
There are conversations about if
they do this, what does it mean?
Will they go over -- will they
go after education abortion?
With the overturning of roe V.
Wade, this is a pattern.
It goes to the states then the
states go hogwild.
Pushing the envelope, we saw
that after shall be the holder
-- holder where states given the
right to change their voting
laws, they went and did the
extra mile.
We see states doing the same
thing and now the danger is that
the supreme court is going to
allow them to do it.
>> How do you see it?
>> It was supposed to be about
getting the courts out of the
abortion business.
The idea that they would have
the scientific knowledge to
overrule the fda strikes me as
audacious for a set of judges.
The fact that this is even a
tough call for this is
mystifying, it's not a tough
call.
As for whether the antiabortion
movement helps their demands, if
you are an activist and you
believe it's the killing of the
most vulnerable people in
society, I don't blame them.
The question is how to handle it
politically.
What you are seeing in the U.S.
Senate, most of the leaders that
establishment types all the
John's, they don't want to have
a national policy.
They want to have the states and
personally, I think it's right
for the stability of our
country, people have radically
different views on abortion.
Let's let them do it.
That's not satisfying to a lot
of people who want to have a
national policy.
What I would say for those who
have proposed a national policy,
it seems to me there's not a lot
of support to do this nationally
and still most of the Republican
party wants to do it
state-by-state.
>> Let's shift ahead to next
week because president Biden is
expected to launch his
reelection campaign as early as
Tuesday.
He is eyeing April 25, the
anniversary of his 2020 campaign
announcement.
We should say nothing is
official until it's official.
How does unofficial announcement
change the contours of this race
if at all?
>> Certainly everything he says,
everywhere he goes is not just
viewed through the lens of it's
the president who is saying
doing and going to these places,
it's the candidate who was also
saying these things, doing these
things and going to these places
.
It allows him to start raising
money.
It also more importantly allows
him to start really making the
contrast between himself and the
number one person in the
Republican field and that is
Donald Trump.
Resident Biden loves to say
don't compare me to the
almighty, compare me to the
alternative.
By officially announcing his
campaign, he can start showing
people how he is the alternative
to the person he beat in 2020
and as his bumper sticker mantra
from the state of the union,
let's finish the job.
He can tell people about all the
other things he wants to do with
four more years.
>> His opponents are show
strength.
>> The midterm elections silence
all of that.
He has been looking strongly
give a strong state of the
union.
There hasn't been the obvious
scandals or things like that.
Even ideologically, he has
pretty well massaged the central
left in the party by doing
things that people like.
There is no natural home for an
opposition candidate.
What's interesting, he has been
sounded pretty candid even for
six month ago.
Saying he wants to go after
trump and he has been doing it.
Has to concern the white house a
little is they have had
improving inflation, a lot of
good domestic policy
achievements, the Republicans
have staked out extreme ground
and a lot of issues and people
at the polls are reasonably
close, his approval is in the 46
range.
We are in an extremely partisan
divided cynical country where on
a national level, nobody and
this is global no national
leader gets popular anymore.
There is so much cynicism across
the western world.
>> I remember covering Joe Biden
in 2019 and there was a moment
where he suggested and his aides
did to that he would be a one
term president.
He would be a transitional
figure.
The fact that that hasn't
happened and objectively, there
is a deep democratic bench with
a lot of talent, the fact that
this hasn't happened, I see you
getting ready.
How is it that four years later
Joe Biden is apparently the only
Democrat that can pull together
a potentially winning coalition?
>> When Joe Biden said, he did
say he would be a transitional
figure.
But transitional doesn't
translate automatically to one
term.
You can get to terms be
transitional than the next
person is a generation or two
behind you.
I see him in that regard.
Also, the guy has a record.
He has a record of achievement
that is startling for a lot of
people who have been watching
this for a long time.
His approval ratings are below
50% hovering in the high 30's.
Everyone fearing there's going
to be a red wave because the
president is so unpopular and so
unfocused on inflation talking
too much about threats to
democracy.
Yet that guy has his finger on
the pulse of the country as we
learned through the exit polls.
He just put his head down and
went about the work of getting
Democrats both his
administration and Democrats
running around the country
something to run on.
Of course the party, it's
Democrats.
Democrats are never happy with
the person have an office.
[Laughter]
But when push comes to shove and
they start looking at the
alternative, fingers crossed the
Democrats will come home and
Americans will come home because
alternative and we have been
through it for we don't need to
go through it again.
>> Allies of Ron Desantis insist
he is still making up his mind
whether to run.
Donald Trump is treating him as
if he has already thrown his hat
in the ring.
A pack is spending millions of
dollars on attack ads.
Donald Trump has openly mocked
Ron Desantis on social media.
It appears to be working.
A new pullout out today shows
trump has 51% support among
Republican primary voters
compared to 38% for Ron
Desantis.
>> It's possible to find a way
back, but I would not say he
should continue his current
method.
The idea in the Republican party
is that the old party were
getting beaten by the left every
day of the week and we needed a
tough guy.
So they are looking for someone
who is a tough guy and Donald
Trump proved that.
If Ron Desantis is going to take
him on, he has to prove he's at
least as tough as Donald Trump
and to do that he has to go
after Donald Trump.
It's a battle for the dominant
alpha male.
Ron Desantis has painted himself
into a position where he won't
criticize Donald Trump because
he's afraid of losing the trump
supporters.
He's caught in a trap.
Kristi has run against trump and
Santos in the normal way which
is to take down the other side.
Desantis is not doing that, that
strikes me as a hard way to
campaign.
>> There are Desantis allies who
are frustrated he's not fighting
back.
Does he want to run?
>> That's been my perennial
question does he want to run?
Does he have what it takes to do
the retail politics is involved
in Iowa and Hampshire?
We keep reading the stories
about how he does speeches that
he runs off.
He doesn't engage.
I also wonder to David's point,
I don't think he has the guts to
go after Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has no floor.
If you attack him, you have to
be prepared for a fuselage of
nonsense and belittling
nonsense.
I want to know when they are on
the debate stage and with Donald
Trump standing right here, will
Ron Desantis turned to him, look
him in the ai and attack him?
Number two, we have will he
respond when the dragon fires
back at him?
I have no confidence that Ron
Desantis will do any of those
things.
>> Lastly, let's talk about the
Fox News and dominion settlement
which I forgot was this week.
$787.5 million settlement
narrowly heading up the trial
after the jury was sworn in,
there was no public apology.
The main attorney -- the
dominion attorney said the
settlement, that was
accountability, that was
apology.
The fact that there was no grant
recanting, there was no
contrition shown by the fox
primetime personalities who
knowingly spread lies about the
2020 election, what is the net
effect of that?
>> $787 million is a lot of
money.
If you are running fox and you
realize that having Lou Dobbs on
your staff can be very expensive
so it has to change some of the
internal calculus.
What strikes me about this week,
a lot of people have said over
the years that fox has ruined
the Republican party.
Tucker and all this people took
over the minds of Republicans
and they went crazy.
With the whole trial shows is
that it wasn't fox through the
Republican party.
Republican party was running
fox.
What the reporters believed it
was not what they were saying on
the air.
The lesson for me from the big
trial is it's a bottom-up thing
not a top-down thing.
>> One wonders if an on-air
retraction matters at this point
given election lie has taken
hold.
It's the bedrock of Donald
Trump's reelection campaign and
he is miles ahead of any other
Republican.
>> I question whether Republican
-- public apology is necessary.
It will only work if the viewers
see it.
They not covering the trial,
they didn't cover January 6
hearings.
The hope is because of the
discovery and all the text
messages and emails that we
learned where they were telling
lies, it trickles down and gets
to the audience where they
finally start to see how they
have been lied to.
>> Think you so much, have a
great weekend.