If it's Friday a potentially major setback in the Special Counsel's criminal case against

Donald Trump as the Supreme Court rejects Jack Smith's plea to have it take up a dispute that he says is fundamental for his case and for American democracy.

Plus, Israel faces renewed pressure from the U.S. and the international community to address the humanitarian catastrophe

in Gaza as the first American hostages confirmed to have died while in Hamas custody.

And President Biden is dispatching his Secretary of State and Chief of Homeland Security to Mexico

in an attempt to regain control over mass migration at the southern border that has reignited a

humanitarian and political emergency. Welcome to Meet the Press Now, I'm Garrett Hake in Washington, where we begin with a potentially

major setback for the Special Counsel in the criminal case against

former President Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

This afternoon, the Supreme Court declined Special Counsel Jack Smith's request to make an expedited ruling on a dispute that is

central to his case, all but ensuring the trial's March 4th start date will be

delayed. It comes as the former president is trying to delay the trial in the hopes

that he might have the power and protections of the presidency before a verdict

can be reached. And the powers of the presidency are precisely what is at issue in this

dispute as the former president is claiming that he has presidential immunity tied to

his actions around the 2020 election and January 6th.

In a filing of the Supreme Court earlier this month,

Special Counsel Jack Smith said an immediate decision on this question

was, quote, of imperative public importance

and starkly laid out what he says are the stakes in the case.

He wrote, this case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy.

Whether a former president is absolutely immune from federal prosecution

...