right now on "andrea mitchell reports," on capitol hill, tiktok ceo's facing questions from lawmakers about whether china's communist party influences the social media platform. >> tiktok told us you weren't

tracking the geolocation of american citizens. you were. they told us you weren't spying on journalists. you were. >> did anyone discuss this hearing with you? >> since i've been here, i have not had any discussion with chinese government officials. >> what about the chinese communist party themself? >> i don't know the political affiliation of everybody i speak to. i can't verify the station. >> i will talk to congressman jamal rome, one of tiktok's defenders on capitol hill. the grand jury is not taking action on the trump case today. the controversy over the case is growing. donald trump on truth social calling the district attorney alvin bragg an animal. the d.a.'s office telling house republican chairman their investigating demands about the prosecution are, quote, an

unlawful incursion into new york sovereignty. we will talk to our legal experts about the hush money case and developing news on the mar-a-lago federal grand jury in washington. the 2024 campaign is heating up. former president trump unloading on ron desantis in a scathing statement. good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. there's a showdown on capitol hill over the wildly popular social media platform tiktok. there has been a bipartisan push to ban the app with many lawmakers and intelligence officials saying it poses a national security threat because of the chinese ownership. in his first appearance before congress tiktok's ceo highlighting they have 150

million active users in the u.s. >> making false or misleading statements to congress is a federal crime. >> i understand. >> thank you. reclaiming my time. can you say with 100% certainty that the ccp cannot use your company or its divisions to get content to promote pro-ccp aggression? >> we do not promote or remove content. >> the question is, are you 100% certain that they cannot use your company to promote such messages? >> it's our commitment to this committee and users will we keep this free from any manipulation by any government. >> if you can't say 100% certain, i take that as a no. >> dozens of content creators were on capitol hill wednesday in advance of the hearing sharing how it helped them personally and professionally.

carol lee joins me now. this is still going on. it's so contentious. >> reporter: this is the first time that the ceo has testified before congress. really, been given the opportunity to defend the company. also, it's the first time the lawmakers have had the opportunity to vent their concerns that they have had build up for several years now about tiktok, specifically when it comes to national security. you have seen some fiery exchanges so far. we know the white house, according to officials, said they are paying close attention to this hearing. they are also continuing to express concerns from the national security perspective about tiktok. president biden signed a government ban into law at the end of last year, which

basically means that anyone on a government device cannot have tiktok. now more recently, you saw the administration give tiktok somewhat of an ultimatum saying, have your chinese owner sell their stake in the company or face a possible ban. that's more difficult than it might seem, specifically because selling the company is something that the chinese government would have to sign off on. it's unlikely that that would happen. then you are left with, what do you do about this? is the government willing to go forward with a ban? can they reach some sort of resolution short of that? so far, for years now, as this national security review has been underway by the administration, have not been able to reach a consensus how to move forward with tiktok. you are seeing all of this play out today on capitol hill. >> carol, in december president biden, as you know, signed a bill banning tiktok from government devices.

a new "washington post" poll finds 41% of americans support a ban. a quarter oppose it. you were first to break the fact that 150 million americans use it. it's not just young people. it's a commercial platform, small businesses. from a political perspective, does the administration have concerns with the campaign to come that a ban might affect them and might affect them with young voters in particular? >> reporter: it's a great question. there are concerns among democrats that this could have a lot of political blowback if they are to move forward with banning tiktok. you can see the conundrum and the conflictedness that the white house has about this. you have the president saying, this is a national security threat. i don't have it on my phone. it's not on any government

devices because i signed a ban into law making that happen. on the other hand, you see the president in a video posted on tiktok. you have seen the president do interviews with tiktok influencers. there's a recognition that this is a platform that reaches a lot of americans, that a lot of americans like. it's enough that the president participates in it. at the same time, you hear this argument it's a national security threat. >> carol lee, thank you. it's great to have your national security perspective on this. appreciate it. joining me now is democratic congressman mike quigley of illinois who was on the house intelligence committee. you supported banning tiktok on government devices. i think you support the senate bipartisan bill. chinese divestment is not going to work as far as the chinese government is concerned.

where do you stand? how do you think we can fix this with so much pressure on the hill to do something drastic? >> look, i don't think they're going to disinvest -- go along with that. i think there's something going to have to. as a member of the intel committee, i had a ringside seat of what a foreign influence campaign can have on the 2016, russia and others were involved in that. now we have a platform that we have absolutely no control, no assurance, is it being influenced by the communist party of china? the chinese are not being less aggressive, they're being more aggressive on our assaults on cyber, intellectual property and spying and militarily. if anyone thinks the chinese can be trusted in terms of what they said today on the hill and that they won't try to influence or use this data, they are being

naive. >> there was an exchange earlier today about whether or not they sell information, personal data. >> would you commit to not sell selling data? >> i can get back to you on details. >> some of the answers have not been responsive. that's the complaint of some of the congressmen up there. >> absolutely. i don't expect them to be. i don't expect -- i think it would be naive to trust them at all given the stakes and what's happened already. at this point this time, they are so popular. the fact that it's extremely popular does nothing to me but make them a larger trojan horse that can have extraordinary influence here.

it's not just collecting data. it's using that data to influence over a period of time, something we need to be mindful of. they want to disinvest, fine. >> the justice department and fbi are investigating whether they have used it to spy on journalists. there's also the fact that china has a law that it has the right to go into a so-called private company and take data from it at will. >> absolutely. further proof there's nothing that the owners of tiktok can do. even if their heart is in the right place, they convince us they -- that they don't have influence over them to get the data that the chinese communist party wants and to use it to influence us or to hurt us in many or ways, it seems harsh, but this is important. it's the challenge of the next decade. >> i see you are wearing a yellow and blue ribbon. you have been very active on ukraine.

i want to ask you about that. you visited the joint systems manufacturing center in ohio to learn more about the tanks. the u.s. is now accelerating the systems to ukraine to the fall, not in time for the spring offensive. how woried are you about getting the tanks there and getting the troops, the ukrainians trained? >> there's two facets. first, from day one, i wanted to give the ukrainians weapons they needed to win this war. we were preparing them for a war of insurgency. it took us a long time to figure out they could win this. we were forever delaying and putting off decisions giving them weapons like the abrams, which in the spring offensive could be decisive. it's the best tank. it's the most survivable tank in the world. we have to get past that point. i think the second facet here has to do with just what you said.

this is no longer just keeping the west and our country unified. it's producing weaponry they need. weaponry that the members said is humanitarian aid. the russians will continue the crimes like i saw firsthand in bucha. flattening a maternity hospital. the only way to stop that inhuman behavior is unfortunately to give them the weaponry to end this war quickly. right now, they are firing 11,000 artillery shells, the ukrainians, in a couple days. that's how much we are producing in a month. i'm going to go to that plant as well and other facilities to see what we need to do to make sure the supply chains are in place and help our allies end this quickly and end the devastation. >> thank you very much for being with us today. >> thank you. the waiting game. as we await a grand jury in new

york to make its decision, donald trump's lawyer for the mar-a-lago classified document case is appearing today before a judge in washington on whether mike pence should have to testify to a grand jury in the special counsel january 6 investigation. we will have the latest on keeping all these separate investigations straight. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. boost® high protein. now available in cinnabon® bakery-inspired flavor. learn more at boost.com/tv think he's posting about all that ancient roman coinage? no. he's making real-time money moves with merrill. so no matter what the market's doing, he's ready. and that's... how you collect coins. your money never stops working for you with merrill, a bank of america company. ♪♪ inner voice (kombucha brewer):

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members of the manhattan grand jury are reconvening this hour. they are pushing the hush money case to monday at the earliest. they may be meeting on other related or unrelated issues. the former president is escalating his attacks against alvin bragg. today bragg's office fired back with a five-page rebuttal, objecting to three house republican chairmen who are trying to investigate the independent office. here in washington, the trump attorney at the center of new developments in the mar-a-lago classified documents case was

seen arriving at federal court this morning on another case. he is representing mr. trump in opposition to vice president mike pence having to testify before grand jury investigating january 6. the vice president is against having to testify. a federal appeals court rules corcoran himself will have to testify about the mar-a-lago documents. unless it's appealed and then overruled by the supreme court. joining me now, garrett haake in new york, phil rucker, joyce vance and andrew weissmann. there's so many moving parties. garrett, you are in manhattan. not much movement by the hush money grand jury regarding donald trump. >> reporter: yeah, it puts me in

a position to say my least favorite phrase which is that we just don't really know what's going on in that grand jury room on the fourth floor of the d.a.'s office behind me. the last time we had any true insight into what the grand jury was hearing was monday afternoon when they heard testimony from robert costello. they sent michael cohen home for the day. chose to not have him rebut costello. they didn't meet yesterday. today, they are convening, we are told, on other matters. perhaps not related to trump at all. a grand jury of this kind can do other investigative work. it could have something to do with any of the other cases. we are left to speculate. it's a very uncomfortable position to be put in as a reporter. the trump team feels confident their man, robert costello, put holes in the cases, holes that michael cohen or additional testimony from michael cohen can't fill or else they would have done so. they are speculating at this stage. the man himself, donald trump, is sitting back at mar-a-lago

raging against these prosecutors here in new york and in washington, d.c., even in atlanta, calling on social media for all of them to be removed. attacking bragg in racist terms, talking about him as an animal. making claims about him backed by george soros. upping the ante. bottom line, i don't think we will know today. i don't think we will know tomorrow. this grand jury isn't scheduled to be back in session on this matter or any other after today until monday. >> andrew, how do you read any of these -- i don't know what to call them. they never officially said they are about to do something. how do you read what's happened this week with the hush money case?"c/yié6p'<

with allen weisselberg. he was the chief financial officer of the trump organization. he was convicted in october and is in jail. there has been a lot of talk about whether the d.a. would prosecute him again based on information in the civil suit against donald trump and the trump organization where there's

allegations that allen weisselberg made false statements to an insurance company. we could be seeing -- i stress could, last-minute negotiations for his testimony. >> he is currently serving a sentence. >> he is in jail right now. that's not a pleasant place to be. you wouldn't want to be prosecuted again while you are serving more time. it's important to know, in addition to what i mentioned about lying to an insurance company alleged by james, there are allegations by michael cohen he was involved in the hush money payment scheme. that could be something that is on the table. >> there's so many different strands of these issues regarding the former president. joyce, let's turn to january 6. we saw evan corcoran going into the courthouse. this could be a pivotal moment for mike pence. they want mike pence, the

special council, to testify about what happened that day. he is a pivotal witness. he has been objecting. corcoran is objecting to mike pence testifying. >> when prosecutors investigate, they are entitled to get testimony from witnesses who have factual information that's pertinent to the investigation. there are relatively few exceptions to that general principal. we have seen over the last couple of years all of them litigated. i don't know that i expected to live in a time where xecutive privilege and attorney/client privilege would be talked about so widely. those privileges, those exceptions to the general rule have limits. we are seeing that come into play now. it seems clear that the district of columbia court has already overruled the notion of

executive privilege as a barrier to testimony, because some of mike pence's aides have testified. we have seen attorney/client privilege pierced in the case of corcoran, one of trump's lawyers. as we move into mike pence, the last leg he will have left to stand on is this notion of speech and debate privilege, that that seems very unlikely to be a winner. the ultimate impact of this litigation is that prosecutors who are patient and take their time get the evidence they need to assess whether they have a case to bring or not. the special counsel has been very speedy, very expeditious in getting to this point. >> to follow up on another thread that joyce alluded to, andrew, let's talk about the classified documents, mar-a-lago case, and the fact the appeals court very quickly rejected the appeal to the decision by the district court judge to pierce that executive privilege and let

corcoran, the same gentleman we saw walking in today on the mike pence issue, who represents donald trump on the mar-a-lago case and signed that affidavit back in may and june that everything had been turned over, which it turned out was not accurate, that he nowi)ú will h to testify, unless for some reason there's a supreme court appeal and they overrule that. >> this is the one i would really keep our eyes on because as joyce said, this is an example of the court finding that attorney/client privilege does not apply. if a client makes a statement to a lawyer and that is intended to be given to the department of justice, that is not protected by the attorney/client privilege. it's not seeking legal advice. if you submit a false statement, that the government can get that because of the crime fraud

exception that allows you to pierce the attorney/client privilege if applied. both the district court and the court of appeals as you mentioned have speedily rejected that claim. corcoran will have to answer the question, which is critical i think to the government, which is the certification that said all documents have been returned, where did he get that information? did it come from donald trump? reporting is that he said that he was misled by the president. if that's, in fact, what he says in the grand jury, then the government will have direct evidence of two crimes by the former president, obstruction of justice and making a false statement. those are federal crimes. they are charged. it's something the government knows how to prosecute. this could be on a fast track in terms of expecting charges if this plays out without any stay

in the case. >> we know, andrew, you were pointing out the other night just how quickly the appeals court demanded a response from both sides. overnight. they had seven hours, jack smith had, after a midnight filing, to get it in by 6:00 in the morning or something. >> that's extremely fast. it does lead to some speculation that the court that has seen some of the documents that mr. corcoran has given to court to review, that there may be something in there that has caused them to be wanting to go so quickly. >> phil, while all this is leaning against the president, at least in that case, as garrett mentioned, in the last hour, in terms of the new york case, former president posted an attack on everyone from alvin bragg to jack smith.

he is fund-raising, raising more than $1 million last weekend off of the national focus on his legal issues portraying himself as a victim. >> yeah. this is intentional by the former president and his political team. they have been taking advantage of this waiting game all week for the potential indictment out of new york to portray trump as a victim and use this almost as a weapon to try to rally his supporters more firmly in his camp. this is the beginning, of course, of the 2024 republican presidential fight. ron desantis, the governor of florida, is looking very strong. he is not an announced candidate, but he has begun attacking trump. trump is using this to keep those supporters close, to give them something to rally around, to portray himself as a victim, which he did time and again while he was president. i could expect -- we should expect this to only intensify in the days ahead as we get closer

to that potential indictment and as the mar-a-lago case moves along. >> garrett, finally, we have a scathing letter from the alvin bragg office, his general counsel, against what has been said or demanded by house republicans, three powerful chairmen, against their demands to investigate the prosecutor. >> reporter: yeah. i would sum up that letter by saying bragg argues congress has no jurisdiction over a pending local criminal matter. in fact, they wouldn't even be bothering bragg argues had the former president not falsely claimed he was going to be arrested the day after. he basically -- it's a brush back pitch to the chairmen saying, you have no authority and you are doing this for politics. they cite legal precedence why that's the case. thank you very much, the d.a. concludes. that will probably be the end of

his cooperation there. maybe subpoena requests. we will see how this develops. >> garrett, phil, joyce, andrew, thanks for sorting out the complexity of all of this today. give it time. 41% of americans in the latest "washington post" poll backing the idea of banning tiktok. some are defending it. one of those congressmen joins us next. nt alone. if you want laundry to smell fresh for weeks, make sure you have downy unstopables in-wash scent boosters. moderate-to-severe eczema. it doesn't care if you have a date,... ...a day off,... ...or a double shift. make your move and get out in front of eczema... with steroid-free cibinqo. not an injection,... cibinqo is a once-daily pill for those who didn't respond to past treatments.

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they have never asked us. we have not provided. >> i find that actually preposterous. >> there are people on capitol hill who do not agree with that. joining us is congressman jamal boman. you said it stems from anti-china hysteria. explain. >> republicans have been beating the anti-china drum since even before they took control of the house of representatives. this is more governing through fear mongering without actual evidence. i'm a sitting member of congress. we have never received one briefing explaining the dangers of tiktok and how it's a national security risk. this is a rush to judgment, without having a larger conversation around the harms of social media in general. our data right now on facebook,

google, microsoft, twitter, instagram, our data right now is available for purchase, for sale, for trading. it's currently being shared with foreign governments and foreign companies without our consent, without our knowledge. let's talk about all social media companies. write federal legislation to deal with those issues instead of scapegoating tiktok. >> that's what a bipartisan senate bill does, to give the president power over all of the other social media platforms as well. let me play something that happened two weeks ago at the national threat hearings. you are not a member of that. this is the director of the national security agency. >> one-third of americans get

their news from tiktok every day. one-sixth of american youth say they are constantly on tiktok. that's a loaded gun, congressman. >> that was in response to mike gallagher, who is the chairman of the select committee on china. a loaded gun. that was the assessment. she would not recommend people -- children or young people go on tiktok because china has a policy, a law that says the government, the communist party, can access data from any of their so-called private companies. that's different from other social media platforms. >> as i mentioned, there's no evidence that any of this has happened. there's no evidence presented to me as a member of congress that this is taking place. however, there is evidence to support and show that facebook looked the other way while russia interfered in our 2016

election. there is evidence to show that the myanmar genocide was mainly facilitated through facebook. there's evidence to show donald trump using twitter to help incite and inspire an insurrection. there's misinformation and there's data brokers selling our data. if you were to ban tiktok, these things will still be taking place. we will still be unsafe and insecure. data brokers can sell our data to the chinese government and chinese corporations without tiktok existing. let's broaden the conversation. 150 million americans are on tiktok. they use it for entertainment. they use it for education. they use it to be a part of a community. not for nefarious reasons. let's have a broader conversation about data privacy and security, which we should have as opposed to this

one-sided conversation while letting facebook and these other american companies off the hook. >> what you are arguing for is for better regulation, which i think a lot of people would agree with, better oversight of the algorithms used by facebook and other companies, especially in the election context. >> every company, including tiktok. we need better regulations to really understand what's happening with our data, what's happening with these companies. what harm they are causing. hold them accountable for it. not just tiktok. >> let me ask you about something else that's a concern of yours, the use of standardized tests, which often are against students from minority groups. they are written by the majority culture. they don't always use the same background, the same cultural context. how do you get away from that?

you are arguing for more time with teachers in the classroom than time preparing for standardized tests. >> abs■lutely. our kids are creative. our kids are innovative. our kids are artists. they love to work in groups. they love to build things and work with their hands. they love to be imaginative and explore. this standardized testing has taken all of those very important 21st century skills out of our school system. our bill seeks to end annual testing and replace it with either samplings of testing or grade span testing, where states have flexibility to get the data they need while also focusing more on teaching and learning in the classroom. that's where the magic happens between teachers and students in the classroom with parents being a supportive part of that. we need to get back to that so we can bring sports and arts and

play and culture and projects back into our schools. >> as a former educator, you know what you speak. you are reflecting a broad conversation in the education community. thank you very much for bringing that to us today. congressman, appreciate it. changing, the florida governor adjusting his stance on russia's president and the invasion of ukraine. what that tells us about the 2024 republican presidential field. that's next. stay with us. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. anything else i can help you with? like what? visionworks. see the difference. ♪ ♪ [ cat purrs ] [ phone vibrates ] introducing astepro allergy. steroid-free allergy relief that starts working in 30 minutes, while other allergy sprays take hours. now with astepro fast allergy relief, [ spray, spray ] you can astepro and go. if your business kept on employees through the pandemic, getrefunds.com can see if it may qualify for a payroll tax refund

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dispute was mischaracterized. this as former president trump is escalating his attacks against his likely 2024 rival, fellow floridian, calling desantis the most overrated politician in america. both men trading barbs over the alleged hush payments to stormy daniels. from desantis and the governor's record for mr. trump. joining me now, michael steele, robert gibbs. michael, what do you make of desantis taking a hit in some recent polls compared to donald trump in a hypothetical matchup? taking a lot of criticism from republican senators about what he said about ukraine. >> both of those in combination are why you are seeing the backstrokes by desantis right now, trying to regain his footing certainly on the foreign policy front, showing that maybe he wasn't as ready for primtime

as his advisors led him to believe. they miscalculated how republican senators would respond. they condemned his reremarks. that took steam out of it coupled by the side basidebars trump. we have seen the shift in polling from 33% to 27% now supporting him. trump's number growing to 41% among voting republicans. he has to figure out the footing. the problem is, donald trump owns the lane. he, nikki haley and others, are riding on the side of the road. they are riding in the emergency lane. they have to figure out how they veer into the lane to overcome the clear momentum that trump is building for himself. keep in mind real quick, donald trump hasn't really engaged in

any level in a presidential campaign. he has done some things here. he puts out crazy tweets. he is grifting the money game with his announcement about being arrested on tuesday, which never happened. that wasn't the point. the point is when he starts to engage, that's when the dynamics begin to unfold for individuals like desantis and how they handle that if they can't handle this part of it. it's going to be tough. >> robert, what about governor desantis' proposal to expand the so-called don't say gay law through all grades? is this a good issue for him going so heavy with these cultural issues? >> well, i think the governor has decided they are good issues for him in a republican primary, particularly in a primary or caucus state like iowa where

this contest will start, in the appeal to vangelical voters. i have concerns as to whether this is a strategy that will work in some sort of general election where you have to get suburban middle independent voters who i think are going to be more concerned about a different quality of life issue than books in the library and the like. i think there's a bit of a danger, and there always is, in these primaries. the candidates race to the edges and then have a more difficult time getting back. in regards to ukraine, i would say, welcome to the major leagues. the scrutiny on what you say and do now is exponentially greater than anything you have ever gone through in your life. this isn't running for congress. this isn't even running for governor. it's much bigger. it's interesting that they were

adroit enough to change the position. it's interesting to see how that will get push and pulled once they get on a debate stage and have to fight this out amongst themselves. >> robert, how does the president of the united states get any oxygen when everything has been focused on donald trump? the grand juries, will they or won't they? he has the anniversary of obamacare. he wants to celebrate it today. he is on his way later today to canada for a very important meeting and speech to the parliament there. been very little getting coverage. >> i would say, my guess is the president and the white house are just fine watching republicans talk about grand juries. i think donald trump did a lot of interesting stuff over the past week in terms of focusing people on this indictment. look what he did was basically get every republican that wants to run against him out to support the fact that this

prosecutor in their opinion was overstepping their bounds. interesting that -- i agree with michael that in order to beat donald trump, you have to get around him. if you spend a lot of your time hugging him and saying that what is happening to him is untoward and the result of a political prosecutor, it's going to be hard to draw that distinction. i think the white house spent the last month smartly setting up the big debates of the year, debt ceiling and the budget. have positioned themselves well as it relates to that. i think their big bet is the economic issues that are going to dominate this race later in 2023 and into 2024 are going to be more important to swing voters than these cultural issues are. >> michael steelexd are. >> michael steele and robert gibbs, thanks to both of you. and full force, at( nationwe strike sending thousands into the streets of paris. those areq live pictures today

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major disruptions across france todayñi amid nationwide strikes against presidente1 macron's decision to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. he jammed it through without a vote from parliament, which would not have supported it. the demonstrations growing

>> my voteñr isçór but i really don't like how he managedñi the country right now. this is thexd way the process.

>> i have other goals in life than working. i don't think that is justified and i don't think it's the best solution. he's angered members of parliament. the big questionr ab leading this country for another four years, andrea. >> and whether or note1 there wl be a vote of no confidence.jf he survived oneçóñr earlier thi week. meagan fitzgerald, thank you so much. and thatq does it for this r editionw3 of "andrea mitchell :e'orts," "chris jansing reports" starts right after these messages. with steroid-free cibinqo. not an injection,... cibinqo is a once-daily pill

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good day, i'm chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york xdlpcity. it's the d.a.i] versus d.c. district attorney alvin bragg unleashes on his republican critics for what hexd calls an unlawful and unprecedented attempt to meddle in donald trump's prom%pu+jjjy the latest on that and developments in noti] one, not two, but three investigations against the former presid'6á■. ÷rñ plus, 13 years after h