If it's Wednesday, former President Trump is set to sneak any moment now in North Carolina where he's expected to hit the economy and hit Vice President Harris as new polls show a tightening race in a state that's been reliably read in recent years. Plus, President Biden tells NBC News the U.S. has beat inflation as a new report shows inflation cooling to its lowest level in more than three years, teeing up the Federal Reserve for a long-anticipated interest rate cut. And stuck in space, NASA today saying that no decision has been made on where or how two American astronauts will be brought home as the crew, Boeing, and U.S.
officials scramble to fix the Starliner spacecraft. Welcome to the Press Now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington as we are tracking some major developments in the 2024 battleground states. Any moment now, former President Donald Trump is set to take the stage in Asheville, North Carolina.
It's a state that hasn't voted Democratic in the presidential race since 2008, but one that Democrats are hoping could be in play in November. Now that Vice President Harris is at the top of the ticket. The Trump campaign has billed this as an event about the economy, and we will see if the former president will stick to the message as several leading Republicans voice their frustrations about the unfocused tenor of his campaign. The latest Republican to go public with their worries is Trump's final primary opponent, Nikki Haley.
The former U.N. ambassador warning yesterday the campaign needs to focus or risk losing in November. I want this campaign to win, but the campaign is not going to win talking about crowd sizes. It's not going to win talking about what race Kamala Harris is.
It's not going to win talking about whether she's dumb. It's not. You can't win on those things. The American people are smart.
Treat them like they're smart. I think the campaign needs to focus. That's the main thing. Look, this is a winnable election, but you need to focus.
Now, many of those topics Haley is calling on Mr. Trump to avoid are ones he brought up at his press conference just last week, and the campaign announcing today that Mr. Trump plans to hold another press conference tomorrow. And when asked earlier today about his false claim that Harris's crowds were enhanced by AI, here's what he had to say.
Well, I can't say what was there, who was there. I can only tell you about ours. We have the biggest crowds ever in the history of politics. We have crowds that nobody's ever seen before, and we continue to have that.
We have a level of enthusiasm that nobody's seen before. They want to make America great again. That's what's happening. Vice President Harris is also spending part of this week focused on the economy, and it follows some positive numbers today showing inflation cooling.
Tomorrow, Harris will join President Biden for a White House event on the economy in Maryland, and Friday, she'll have a North Carolina rally on the economy of her own in Raleigh. The campaign says that event will focus on lowering costs for middle-class families. We'll be curious to see how much detail she gives. Well, as he makes his first solo campaign appearances this week, running mate Tim Walz talked about Harris's ties to the middle class yesterday.
Vice President Harris grew up in a middle-class family, picked up shifts at that McDonald's as a student. I keep asking this to make a contrast here. Can you simply picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald's trying to make a McFlurry or something? It's, oh, he knows, he knows, he knows, he knows.
He couldn't run that damn McFlurry machine if it doesn't do anything. Education should be a ticket to the middle class, not crippling student loan debt. Here's the thing, we don't have that long to go here, but think about the future that we can create. Now, Trump and Harris's trips to North Carolina this week come as the Tar Heel State and several other battlegrounds appear to be firmly in the toss-up column.
New polls from our friends at the Cook Political Report have Harris holding a narrow lead over Trump within the margin of error in five or seven battleground states. Trump had been leading or tied in all seven states back in May. Joining me now is NBC's Garrett Haight at the Trump rally in North Carolina, NBC's Yumi Shelsendore, who is covering the Harris campaign, and with me here on set is NBC's chief political analyst, Chuck Todd. Garrett, let me go to you.
Start things off. Obviously, we hear this growing chorus from Republicans urging Donald Trump to stay on message. What is the reaction inside the campaign? What's the strategy today?
Good evening, President, I want to ask for your question as Donald Trump is getting introduced on stage behind me right now. Look at the Trump campaign. We actually agree, at least conceptually, with the idea that they need to be more focused on Donald Harris's record and other policy positions. They've satisfied that they need their own policies, are the key to her defeat, and their own manner of discussing them are the tools they'll use to get there.
It's just been the candidate who's not been consistently dialing on that issue. And I think this Trump campaign, and I've had the benefit of watching the last two, knows that there's only so much they can do to force their candidates to stay on message. Although something like this today, an event that is both schematically and physically built out to focus on the economy with economic-focused messaging of Gary behind Trump on stage and the campaign, reminding people all week long that this is not a rally. It is an economic messaging event.
It's almost been, I think, as a message to the candidate, as much as for those of us covering it, that this is what this is going to be about, at least I hope. Yeah, well, Gary, amazing job barreling through there. Let me ask you a very quick follow-up before Trump takes the podium. He announced his press conference for tomorrow.
It was his press conference last week that roiled a lot of his allies. What's the thinking behind this press conference and are his allies concerned? That it's just going to be another example of him going off message. Well, of course, I don't have specific reporting on the reaction of allies to this, but I do get the sense, based on the time I've spent covering Trump across three campaigns now, that his press conference is almost certainly the candidate's idea, has much become more so than the campaigns.
It's out of Trump's property. It lacks, at least on its face, any specific focus. It's obviously not in a battleground state, much like the event in Mar-Lago, where I think you had a confluence of reporters who were already in Palm Beach. Trump's taking the opportunity to seize on us just being there, to go out and talk.
Maybe the campaign thinks they can generate more pressure on Kamala Harris to ultimately go out and put it in the camera and take questions, something they think will be bad for her. They just think she'll be a poor performer when she eventually does take questions. Maybe they think they can turn up to Keenan that way. But you're absolutely right.
The questions from how many reporters are credentialed to attend this event tomorrow are not going to be focused on the economy, at least not solely. They're going to be on all these other issues and all these other tangents that Donald Trump has embraced over the last week since his last press conference. And who knows what new rabbit holes will emerge now that way? Yeah, well, we know that you'll be there pressing him, let's pick up on where Garrett left off, which is the strategy that we are seeing from Donald Trump, from his campaign, to try to pressure Vice President Kamala Harris to do more press conferences, more interviews.
This is a recent statement that they just put out. It's been 24 days and Kamala Harris continues to duck and hide from the media. No interviews, no press conferences since she announced her campaign is hiding Kamala in the basement because they know she owns every single disastrous policy record of the Biden-Harris administration. What is the reaction inside the Harris campaign?
And there is a sense that she's going to be doing interviews after the Democratic National Convention, right? That's right. My sense in talking to campaign officials and also talking to allies of Vice President Harris is that she understands that she needs to sit down for a substantive interview. My understanding is that really the campaign wants to make this a joint interview between her and Governor Walz, her running mate.
That being said, she hasn't been engaging the press, so I want to just make sure that we do underscore the fact that she has talking to reporters, she has taken some questions, she has not done a full-on press conference, she has not done a big interview since she became the nominee, but she is, we are getting some questions in here and there, we always want more. But the Harris campaign is also looking at the Trump campaign and saying, if this is the best that you've got just based on my conversations, then this really isn't going to be problematic for the Trump campaign. They see the Trump campaign as really scrambling here and not really able to land anything. I think it's interesting that Nikki Haley was on another network talking about the fact that she doesn't also like this sort of strategy by the Trump campaign to try to pressure Harris to do an interview to talk about her race.
Nikki Haley is saying that that really isn't working for the Republicans. And the Harris campaign essentially is saying the same thing, saying that this is not going to be what sort of sinks their ship, that they feel like they're good, that they're building organizations, that they have a real handle on how to bring this enthusiasm into actual votes. So they're just not seeming to be worried here, though we do expect a bigger interview sometime probably after the DNC is not reporting. Well, and I know, Yamiche, you've also been reporting on this event that Vice President Harris is set to hold later this week.
It's going to be focused on the economy. And I think the big question on everyone's mind is how much detail will we get from the Vice President? And will there be daylight between her policies that she will roll out at some point we would anticipate and President Biden's policies? Well, Kristen, this is one of those weeks where political reporters like you, me, and Garrett, we circle North Carolina on our masks because that is where, of course, Trump is today.
And Vice President Harris is going to be heading there on Friday. I'll be covering that. And she's going to be delivering this economic speech. My understanding is that there is going to be substantive policy there.
The campaign in her heart, and she herself has been saying that she's going to roll out a bigger plan, a sort of real detailed plan on her policies as it relates to the economy. She has been messaging on this sort of since the beginning, talking about the fact that the middle class needs to be at the center of her campaign, that people need to feel like the economy is working for them, and that people need to see sort of at their kitchen table a better situation for everyone involved in America, and especially people who are struggling. That being said, I think the big question is going to be where is going to be the daylight. My understanding is that her campaign is going to want to be seen as breaking with President Biden.
She has a lot of respect for him. She understands really that she wouldn't be in this position if it wasn't for him picking her as a running mate and then, of course, leaving the ticket and endorsing her. So, but my sense is that they're going to say, look, the Biden campaign and the Biden administration did some great things. We want to push it forward and do more and try to build on that.
All right. Well, we will see just how much detail she gets into. Yamiche, thank you so much for your great reporting. As always, Chuck Todd, I want to turn to you.
We'll get to your column in just a moment, but let's break down these new numbers from the Cook Political Report. Top line, they show movement in Harris's direction. They show, and if we can put the numbers up, they show basically that a number of these key battleground states are effectively a toss-up with momentum for Harris in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina. What do you make of this?
I think this is the announcement bump a little bit, and what will be interesting to see is, is this her convention bump sort of happening a little bit earlier? I think we saw that with Trump. Trump got his convention bump a little bit earlier with the Vance pick and all of that stuff that was setting up. This was even pre-assassination attempt.
That all of itself had some impact on polling as well. So I am going to be curious to see, is there any more room for her to grow? Because what you really have seen in all these numbers over the last week is she got the wayward Democrats back, right? There was a whole group of voters who voted Biden in 2020 who were not happy with Biden, and they were, you know, were they up for grabs for Trump?
Were they flirting with some third-party candidates? We've seen the collapse of the third-party candidates almost across the board, particularly the two most left-wing ones, Jill Stein and Cornel West, they're barely registering anymore. And then whatever Democrats Kennedy had had gone away. Kennedy's down to mid to low single digits in almost all of these places.
And so whatever wayward Democrat was there, she's got. We're still looking, like I look at this, but we just had one bump for Trump, and now we've got one sort of like it's a seesaw, right? I do think about three weeks, we're going to settle into what will look very familiar to all of us, as much like 2012 as it did, I think, now, which will be a one-to-two-point race for the rest of the way. And right now, I mean, she does need to also have some momentum with the so-called double-haters.
Well, they've got as many double-haters. That's the most important thing. The double-haters basically heard it in the war, right? Because some of these double-haters were wayward Democrats.
So those that were already predisposed to leaning to the left, they suddenly don't hate the nominee. They're giving her a shot. So the double-haters, it's just like what happened with Biden. The double-haters were smaller in 2020.
The double-haters were a large cohort in 2016. Look, I am getting more and more convinced than ever that we could actually be seeing essentially the mirror image of 2016, where Trump is the incumbent who's not in office, just like Hillary was the incumbent who was not in office, and Harris is something new. We haven't tried that. Trump was, oh, we haven't tried that.
And that right now, I think, is probably her best asset. You leave it at your problem, but we should point out it's fascinating that you're saying she's something new. She's the sitting vice president, and she is running as the Sean Harris. This has been, I think, a fairly miserable experience for her as vice president, because it's pretty clear the Biden people did ice her out a lot, didn't want her involved.
Might be the best thing to happen to her candidacy. She doesn't have that many fingerprints on the Biden administration. I think some of the public believes that. It's why some of the following shows they think she's going to govern in a new direction, and it's a fair assumption because she really wasn't brought into the inner circle so many people try to keep her out.
Yeah, it does feel like we are witnessing her reintroduction to the world. I want to read a portion of your column in which you talk about 2016. You say the same for one candidate can turn swing voters against that campaign and toward the target. The best example of that, Hillary Clinton, who clearly never viewed Trump as a worthy opponent in 2016.
The deplorables comment only reinforced that view. It's possible the less respect he shows for Harris, the less scared the public will be to give her a chance to swing. Well, I'm told that he's been told this, that you don't respect her. And voters just sit there going, and there was no doubt Hillary Clinton did not respect Donald Trump, didn't think he belonged in the debate stage, didn't want to do any of those things.
And then deplorables was the sort of exclamation point. And voters were turned off by that. You know, this lack of respect, this is turning off, I think, Republican-leaning women. It's turning off Republican-leaning voters of color.
Plenty of people are first or second-generation Americans and are really proud of it. I was just at a citizenship ceremony about two weeks ago. It's one of the most moving experiences you can have as an American. And so, and by the way, a lot of people recognize me.
These were very politically diverse new citizens. So if he's out there insulting these new citizens or insulting first-generation immigrants, he's potentially insulting people who are predisposed to maybe distrust government and sort of want to be on the right. It is one of these, he is his own worst enemy. And I think it's starting to multiply.
And Chuck, what does that mean in a state like North Carolina, which as we said, Democrats haven't won since 2008, but you can see Harris has a very minor leader within the margin of error. Do you think that that state could be in play? Look, I do think it's in play when if you've got, if the African-American base gets fired up, look, Barack Obama carried it once. They didn't carry it twice.
It didn't have the same impact the first time. But what it does is it puts the state in play. It's still, I think the swing voter is sort of a center-right voter. So it's going to be difficult.
It is, you know, perhaps the abortion issue can be the sort of the second issue there. But it is pretty important for the Paris campaign to put pressure on Trump's path to 270. Right now, all the pressure is on her path to 270 in the three northern states. She needs to put pressure on him in either Georgia or North Carolina.
In this cycle, it looks like North Carolina is a better option. All right, Chuck Todd, breaking it all down for us. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Great to see you, as always. Yes, yes, yes. I told you to have a soft landing. We're going to have a soft landing.
My policies are working. Start right that way. Welcome back. That was President Biden this afternoon answering a question from NBC's Gabe Gutierrez touting today's inflation report.
Prices were up two-tenths of a percent last month, according to the Labor Department, but they were up 2.9% compared to July of last year. That represents the smallest year-over-year increase since March of 2021 and is a sign that inflation is finally cooling. The numbers also put more pressure on the Federal Reserve to begin cutting interest rates as soon as next month. Tracking all of this, NBC News Senior Business Correspondent Christine Romans, who joins me now live.
Christine, so great to see you. Thanks for being with me. Really appreciate it. Let's talk a picture.
What is the basic significance of these numbers that I just laid out? I mean, finally, you can clearly look at the chart and see that we have bent the curve. That 9.1% inflation rate from the summer of 2022, which was terrible, is behind us. And all those Fed rate hikes are working.
They're cooling off prices. And the economy, while slowing a little bit, is still pretty stable. That's the soft landing you heard the President talk about. Did it sound to you like the President is tired of people overlooking good economic news and only talking about bad opinion polls?
Just a bit. Just a bit. You know, Christine, obviously, the big question is, what does this mean for the rate cut that we are all expecting next month? How could it impact how large a rate cut we actually see?
What are you anticipating? I mean, I think it means it's coming. I think this is the kind of economic ammunition that the Fed can say, we feel comfortable cutting interest rates. The big bend of the inflation has been to the right direction.
It's not at the 2% of the Fed wants, but it's really darn close and could move there quickly if the economy really is slowing as fast as some people think it is. And then that means the Fed has this. this tightrope to walk to make sure that you've killed inflation, but you haven't started economic weakness that turns into a recession. And the Fed has a lot of room to use rate cuts to try to manage that soft landing.
So we're in a new phase, Kristen. I think that's what's really important for people to understand. I don't know if the Fed rate cut would be 25 basis points next month or 50. My gut says it would be 25 because the Fed doesn't like to.
And it's not bad happening here. Honestly, inflation is getting under control and the economy is still strong. The unemployment rate is still 4.3 percent. So it's kind of a sweet spot here for starting to cut interest rates.
And that relieves pressure on families and companies for borrowing costs. And that's a good thing. Well, you talk about the markets. They didn't really react much to today's CPI report.
What do you make of that, Christine? Because I think after yesterday's producer price index also came in a little cooler than expected, the consensus is that the inflation beast has been killed. Look, for the public, though, grocery prices are still up 20% over the past four years. Home and car insurance is up 50%.
So there are pain points in American budgets, no question. But that thing that the Fed is watching, that inflation rate has turned and things are looking better. Food prices are basically going sideways. Energy, gas prices are cheaper today than they were a year ago.
Housing, again, still a pain point. And you're going to hear policy, I think, from both campaigns about what can be done about the housing piece of this. But in terms of the Fed, it looks like interest rate cut is coming. All right, Christine Romans, thanks for helping us break it all down.
Really appreciate it. Great to see you. We want to turn now to the very latest on Hurricane Ernesto. The Category 1 storm is churning north of Puerto Rico, moving toward Bermuda.
Right now, heavy rain continues in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, bringing flooding and widespread power averages. About half of Puerto Rico's homes and businesses have lost power, according to the island's emergency portal system. Officials say sustained high winds are delaying power crews getting out to start work. And efforts are also complicated by the fact that Puerto Rico's electric grid was never permanently fixed after Hurricane Maria devastated the island as a Category 4 storm back in 2017.
Well, President Biden has approved an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico. Ernesto is expected to intensify as it moves northwest. And while it's forecast to stay well offshore in the continental U.S., East Coast beachgoers should be aware that swells are expected to bring life-threatening surf and rip currents over the weekend. Well, now to surprise encouragement into Russia as Ukrainian troops continue to push deeper into the Kursk region with those operations now in their second week.
Here's what President Biden told reporters about yesterday. Anyway, so... President Biden, what do you have to say about what's happening in Russia and Ukraine? Have you spoken with anyone in the Ukrainian government?
I've spoken with my staff on a regular basis probably every four or five hours for the last six or eight days. And it's creating a real dilemma for you. And we've been in direct contact, constant contact with the Ukrainians. Well, you can see video here of Ukrainian troops patrolling a village in the Kursk region.
President Zelensky claims 74 settlements in that border region are now under Ukrainian control. NBC News cannot independently verify the situation on the ground, but it does appear that this assault into Russian territory is having an impact on Moscow's strategy. A Ukrainian army spokesperson said they have seen Russian troops pull out of areas in southern Ukraine and are now being directed to other areas of the front line, including Kursk. Joining me now is NBC News International correspondent Josh Letterman.
Josh, thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it. What is the very latest on this incursion? Any sign of it slowing down?
It really is not. And that is really a surprise, Christian, because I think a week ago, if you were to ask most military experts, would Ukraine be able to actually hold on to Russian territory for a full week? They would have said probably not. But that is exactly what's happened.
In fact, the Ukrainians still appear to be on the march. Overnight, they launched what the Ukrainian SBU, which is their elite security service, is calling the largest drone attack of the entire war. They targeted four different sites inside of Russia that are air bases. We're also hearing that the Ukrainians now have set a goal to create what they're calling a buffer zone on the Russian side of the border.
Essentially, they're saying, look, Russia has been attacking us from their own territory right along the border. We're going to clear them out of there and try to hold it so that Russia can't use that territory to attack vulnerable parts of Ukraine. Well, Josh, let me follow up with you, because you mentioned that drone attack. How is Russia responding?
What's the view inside Moscow? So Russia has acknowledged now that Ukraine launched this attack. They're not really confirming the specifics of what the Ukrainians were able to target. But according to the Russians, they say that this was a wave of more than 100 drones and missiles.
On the flip side, though, Kristen, the Russians are really trying as best as they can not to show weakness here. They are suggesting the situation remains under control, that their military is responding well to try to kick the Ukrainians out of the territory they've seen, even as many prominent Russian bloggers who have a lot of influence in that country are openly questioning the Kremlin now and how it is that they allowed this to happen and then were unable to put a stop to it for more than a week. And I also want to turn to something that happened earlier in the war. That attack on the Nord Stream pipeline got a lot of coverage when this was first beginning.
Germany issued its first arrest warrant for that attack. Josh, what can you tell us about that? So the Germans are saying pretty tight-lipped about this, but according to the German public broadcaster, ARD, they have now issued an arrest warrant for what they say is a Ukrainian. They say this person was actually in Poland, and the Polish law enforcement authorities have confirmed that they received an arrest warrant for this individual, but that he apparently crossed back into Ukraine before they were able to nab him.
And so this is one of the first clues that we have from an actual national law enforcement agency about who they think might have been behind this. Because you'll remember, this was such a massive controversy, and it was a whodunit, Kristen. The German government, the Swedes, the Danes, they were all looking into this. Many of those national governments simply closed their investigations because they could not figure out who it was.
The Germans now appear to have a lead, Kristen. Certainly a significant development. Josh Lunderman, thank you so much, as always, for your great reporting. Coming up next, abortion on the ballot in Missouri is a Republican-led state with some of the strictest abortion laws in the country.
But my next guest hopes voters will change all of that this November. Stay with us. You're watching The Press Now. As the day wraps, I get the scoop on what's been happening with Here's the Scoop, a new podcast from NBC News with your host, Jasmine Vasudia.
We'll take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News' trusted journalists. It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful, and it's informative, bringing you closer to headlines and conversations that are shaping our world. From the front page to the Zeitgeist, Here's the Scoop from NBC News. Listen daily on Spotify.
Welcome back. 2024 will mark the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, drastically altering the landscape of abortion access in the United States. Currently, 14 states have bans on abortion, and several others severely restrict the procedure.
But that could change in November. Eight states are now set to vote on measures that will protect or expand abortion access, including Deep Red Missouri, which Donald Trump won by 16 points four years ago. Now, yesterday, the group that campaigned to get the constitutional amendment on the Missouri ballot celebrated the measure certification. Look.
I am honored to say that it is our turn to do something that no other state has done before, end a total abortion ban at the ballot box. This November, Missouri voters will have the opportunity to make their voices heard and return decisions about abortion to their rightful place, with women, their families, and their doctors, not politicians. Now, just to set the stage here, Missouri has a near-total ban on abortion, with exceptions only for the life of the mother. The ballot initiative would protect access through fetal viability, which is generally around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Lieutenant Governor and Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Keogh slammed the amendment in a statement saying, quote, it's an extreme proposal funded by out-of-state liberals. And joining me now, the Democratic candidate for Governor in Missouri, State Representative Crystal Quaid. Representative Quaid, thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for having me on. Let's first talk about this development in your state, this potentially significant development. What do you think the impact will be of this ballot measure in November for Democrats? Obviously, you live in a red state.
Yeah, we know it's going to be huge for elections in November. You know, we had just barely three months to collect the signatures for this initiative. And we were able to do double the amount needed with over 380,000 Missourians saying they want politicians out of their doctor's offices. And so we are thrilled that it's been certified and ready for November.
Do you think in some of these races, I mean, yours, for example, which is going to be an uphill battle, do you think it could make the difference in a race like yours? We absolutely know that it can and that it will. You know, we have folks from every corner of the state who signed this petition, folks who are self-identified Republicans and libertarians, independents who are really tired of this government overreach that we continue to see throughout Missouri, not just in our doctor's offices, but all over. And they are ready for something different and they want to have control back.
When you joined this program back in May, you expressed confidence that it would pass. Where do you stand now? Are you confident? Can you say here today that you feel confident this is going to pass in November?
Absolutely. I'm confident. You know, we've been traveling the state for the past year for this governor's race, and we've shown up in every corner in very deep red rural counties and had conversations with folks. And this is the first thing that comes up everywhere I go when I ask what they want to see come from November is access back to their health care.
Well, let's talk about the measure specifically, as I just laid out at the top, it would basically protect abortion rights through the point of fetal viability, which is defined as around 24 weeks. Do you worry it's not specific enough? Do you think that there should have been a specific gestational cutoff point? No, I think the way this language was written is exactly how it should be.
You know, we need to be trusting our doctors and families to be making these decisions, not the politicians and outlining a specific. I will also add what is really great about this amendment is protections for birth control, things like IVF. You know, we have heard Republicans in Missouri as recently as this year during legislative session say that IVF might be next on the chopping block. And so by voting yes this November, Missourians are not only protecting their access to abortion, but all of their access to reproductive health care.
You know, it's such a drastic shift from the law as it stands right now in Missouri and their total ban on abortion. What do you say to voters who look at this amendment and say, look, it just goes too far? They want something that's more in the middle. You know what I think Missourians want right now, besides just the giving politicians out of our business, is access to safe health care.
I can't tell you how many women I personally have received phone calls from who are in an active miscarrying situation and they're going to our hospitals and they're told to go home and keep weaning out on their bathroom floors because they're not close enough to death. This isn't a conversation about this being too extreme. The laws in Missouri right now are too extreme and they're brutal. Just to remind folks about the political landscape there in Missouri, Governor Parsons won the state four years ago by 16 points.
Donald Trump won, as you know, by a similar margin. Are you concerned, Representative, that there are going to be folks who still vote in favor of the amendment, but for your Republican opponent? You know, it's definitely a possibility. We've seen that with things like Medicaid expansion, stopping right to work, increasing minimum wage.
You know, Missourians have used the ballot initiative for so many deeply important things. And that's part of my job as the Democratic nominee for governor and along with my other candidates across the state to spread the message that we need to elect a Democratic governor so that we can uphold the will of the voters. We've seen time and time again Republicans try to undo what people say they want at the ballot box. And so it's imperative that we elect folks who will uphold this as well.
Let me ask you about the presidential race. Vice President Harris has obviously made reproductive rights one of her top issues. Do you think she should visit a state like yours, a red state like Missouri, that has this abortion access on the ballot? Absolutely.
You know, this is such an important conversation throughout the entire country. But I love the fact that Vice President Harris has always stood fast in her beliefs around abortion access, as have I and many other folks who are on the ticket this year. And her showing up in a place like Missouri, a state who has the opportunity to be the very first to overturn such a drastic ban, is huge for progress in our country. Any conversations with the Harris campaign about potential visit, Representative Quaid?
You know, of course, we're always trying. Okay, well, let us know if you think it might happen. Thank you so much, State Representative Crystal Quaid. We really appreciate your joining us today.
Coming up after the break, you're looking at live pictures of former President Donald Trump hitting the trail of North Carolina as the Harris-Walls campaign plans another battleground blitz heading into the DNC. We'll dig into the politics of all of it. The panel's next. Stay with us.
You're watching The Press Now. Welcome back. As we mentioned, Donald Trump is speaking right now in North Carolina for an event billed as an economic policy speech. But even as he lays out his economic vision, he continued the personal attacks on Vice President Harris, the same kind of attacks his allies have encouraged him to move away from.
Take a listen. Just remember, she goes to work every morning in the West Wing. Her desk is 10 steps from the Oval Office. She cast the tie-breaking votes that gave us record inflation, and for nearly four years, Kamala has grackled as the American economy has burned.
What happened to her laugh? I haven't heard that laugh in about a week. That's why they keep her off the stage. That's why she's disappeared.
That's the laugh of a crazy person, I will tell you. If you haven't thought, it's crazy. She's crazy. Joining me now is the panel, Semaphore reporter Shelby Talcott, Democratic pollster and NBC News political analyst Cornell Belcher and former senior communications advisor for the Tim Scott presidential campaign, Matt Gorman.
Thanks to all of you for being here. Shelby, let me start with you. There you had former President Donald Trump delivering this economic policy speech. That's what it was billed as.
He was talking about the economy, but then we're straight into a riff about Kamala Harris' laugh. It's the exact thing that his allies are saying. That's not going to win this race. What do you make of what's happening inside this campaign?
You know, I talk to Republicans a lot, both inside and outside of the campaign, and the really big thing, particularly with people who have worked with Donald Trump before, is the realization that Donald Trump is going to do what Donald Trump wants. So, for example, we got early excerpts of this speech, and all the excerpts were policy-focused. They were on the economy. It was exactly what this event was billed as.
But Donald Trump goes off script a lot, and his campaign and his campaigns in the past have recognized that reality. And they sort of have to figure out how to work around it, as they have in past campaigns, and that is proving difficult when he goes off script. Yeah, I mean, Matt Gorman, talk about some of the conversations that you are hearing about, and is it creating a sense of discord inside the Trump campaign? A couple things.
You can watch his eyes, watch where his head goes, right? It's on either side for the prompter in the policy part. Then he goes straight ahead, goes off the prompter. And he starts talking about laughing.
He can tell very clearly where it's going. But look, it's one of the few things that's uniting folks from Raleigh Ramoswami, Kevin McCarthy, all the way to Nikki Haley on Fox. And look, she might be the most more imperfect messenger on this than, say, Kevin or Veiga on it. But you're right.
There is certainly a need where there's plenty of stuff out there. Plenty of it. And it's a matter of, are we letting this go by without kind of the policy contrasting? Look, we all start going to be next week, so this is going to get even deeper from today.
Cornel, I'll pick up on that point. And one of the things they're going after the vice president on is the fact that she hasn't held a news conference yet. She hasn't done a long sit-down interview. What do you anticipate from her strategy?
Because I spoke to both of her saying her strategy is working, so she, at some point, will obviously do interviews. So look at what's happening across the country. Look at that. Listen, I've been around a long time.
I've not seen anything like this since 08. And as an Obama person, you know, that's blasphemy, right? But the energy and the crowds, as well as the momentum. And you look at the political polling that's out today.
You know, I don't take a look at one poll, but I look at trends. And look, the trend is moving in her way. So clearly they're doing something really right, and they shouldn't stop doing that. Let's say we still have the political polling.
Let's put that back up. And Matt and Shelby, I want to get both of your takes on this. I mean, Matt Gorman, it's stunning to see all of these battleground states now in the blue, clearly within the margin of error. And these are toss-up states, but the momentum has shifted so dramatically.
It really has. And look, I think this is why I would caution, too, as a Republican, it's not just about an interview. Because eventually she will do one. And all of a sudden, the media, and she'll think, thank you, and we're good.
It kind of takes my talking point. The key has to be getting her and the campaign back at its heels a little bit, where at least historically she's proven less adept in these kind of scenarios where she can control every variable. And also, what that also means is, down ballot, the Senate map shrinks dramatically, the House race map shrinks dramatically. You talk about abortion in the last block.
The ballot measure in New York, that's not about, you know, really abortion access. New York is fine in that regard. They have to try and take five or so House seats off the board through turnout. Yeah, and Shelby, pick up on, you know, the kind of reaction to the trend in polling.
There's a sense that, look, Kamala Harris still might be a bit of a honeymoon, period. Absolutely. And that's a big argument from Donald Trump's campaign. And I think it has merit.
But the problem is, Donald Trump sees these numbers. And you look at Donald Trump's campaign, even in the primary, he really hasn't had an extended period of time where he's in a ton of trouble this election season, right? pretty quickly in the primary. He was up on Joe Biden.
And now this is the first time that Donald Trump is seeing these numbers. And that's why we're seeing these sort of off script remarks from him because it's almost a little bit of panic mode. The attack lines aren't necessarily sticking right now. His campaign advisors are telling him, listen, just relax.
It is a honeymoon period. She's only been the candidate for a few weeks, but that's not always how Donald Trump operates. If you drill into the numbers, Cornell, President Biden was trailing Donald Trump amongst independent voters. Harris now has a lead.
It's not to say it's enough. It's not to say that she doesn't have room to grow, but that's one of the key indicators about where this race is. Well, there's several numbers I think are really important here. One is that independent voters always and to be competitive.
But it's also that moderate middle swap. If you look at where Obama as well as Biden dominated by 30 plus points, it dominated that moderate middle swap for the electorate. And if you look at what I would argue that Trump campaigns has to offer, those moderate voters, especially that moderate woman voters sitting there in the suburbs of Philadelphia, you know, attacks on the way to vice president's laughs is not sort of things that are going to move that. The Latino poll also came out today showing that, you know, she's gained double digits with Latino voters since she's taken.
And a poll by Black Pax is going to come out tomorrow at African-Americans in the battleground. You know what it's going to show? It's also going to show the same thing, that she's gained double digits even with African-Americans across the battlegrounds. At some point, this trend line becomes more than a trend.
And they've got to stop it. It's been very much tempered down. And I've answered, I think, very well in the debate. And it seems to be much less of an issue.
I think the abortion issue has been taken down many notches. I don't think it's a big factor anymore, really. Matt, is it not a big factor anymore? The abortion, go back and watch the abortion answer in the debate.
First of all, it's very good because it's Republican. But it was clearly, and then we listen anyway, rehearsed. It was very, it was, he practiced that and it came off well. And look, I think that's what it's going to come down to is that does it, abortion historically, single-shooter, understandably, and does it match up immigration, which of that battle wins out?
I think it's going to tell us a lot. I got to tell you, the abortion issue right now is still for Democrats and all the polling that we're doing from congressional Senate. It is still the number one testing argument against Republicans. It still plays and hits.
And it's not just with the base. It is also with a moderate swath of women voters who, quite frankly, even some Republican women voters who may not be for abortion, but don't think that this state's doing this as the right thing. And Shelby, one of the things that makes this so potent is that you have abortion on the ballot so far in eight different states. We're just speaking with someone from Missouri, obviously.
Yeah, and Democrats are making this a big deal, rightfully so, because there are so many individual states where it is on the ballot. And so it's hard to argue. I think it's a little bit of wish-casting from Donald Trump, and he did give a solid answer on abortion in the past. But I think in Donald Trump's ideal world, he would be able to say, I gave my answer.
Now it's not a big deal. Democrats are still honing in on abortion day in and day out because they have seen it historically in the midterms in the past that this is a winning issue for them. So that fact alone, it seems like, of course, it's still going to be on ballot in November. All right.
And Donald Trump has another news conference he's announced for tomorrow. So we'll see if he has anything more to say about that issue. Thank you all. Great panel, Shelby Cornell, and Matt really appreciate it.
Still to come in out-of-this-world waiting game. NASA addresses Boeing's botched Starliner mission, which has left two U.S. astronauts stranded in space and answers questions about when they may be able to come home. Welcome back.
We've got an update now on a closely watched situation in outer space. NASA now says it hopes to decide by the end of next week how to get two astronauts on board the International Space Station back to Earth. Butch Wilmore and Sue Williams arrived at the space station in June as the first test flight crew of Boeing's Starliner capsule. It was supposed to be a short stay.
But problems with the Starliner, thrusters and helium leaks have left the crew on the space station for two months so far. And while it is possible for Wilmore and Williams to return on the Starliner at some point, another option would be to bring them back on the SpaceX mission. That wouldn't happen until next February. I'm joined now by retired Colonel Chris Hasfield, retired astronaut and former commander of the International Space Station.
He's also the author of The Defector, a novel. Colonel, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. My pleasure, Kristen.
I'll do my best to try and help explain things. Well, please do give us your reaction to this headline that there is not certainty about whether they can return on the Starliner and that they might be on the International Space Station until February. Yeah, to start, Kristen, you mentioned they're stranded on the space station. That's a funny thing to say for an astronaut.
We think everybody's stranded on Earth. They don't get to go anywhere else. We work our entire lives as professional astronauts. We're willing to take an enormous risk just so that we can not only be stuck on Earth, but have a chance to start to explore the rest of the universe as well.
So for Sonny and Butch, this is a real boon. They thought they were only about there for a week or two. And even though they've lived there before, they've got to stay for a couple months. So I don't want people to get that opinion wrong.
This is what astronauts live for, is to train and then actually go spend extended periods in space. But they want to be safe. And the beauty of being docked to the space station is it gives you time. There's no big hurry.
If they did have an emergency, they would jump in the Starliner and, you know, come home tonight because the risk benefit would trade off. But we've got time to do all the analysis that we possibly can before we truly have to decide whether it's safe enough for them to come home or not. And as you mentioned, it looks like we'll probably make that decision in about a week, you know, late next week or something. And the next time there's other ships coming and going, so they've got to balance the schedule with everything else.
And they've got some really important data coming up here over the next week. But they'll make the most recent decision possible. And then they'll do what's right for Sonny and Butch. So they get everything done, but they're as safe as can possibly be.
Colonel Hatfield, I think the point you're making is so important. And I want people to really understand because I think for most people who don't understand what it must be like on the International Space Station, there is the reality that something did go wrong. And that's why they didn't come back after the initial 10-day period that they were supposed to be there. What are the conditions like on the International Space Station for a prolonged stay?
And just flesh that out a little bit more. Why wouldn't you be concerned if you were them? It's one of the coolest places that people live. I've helped build two space stations in order, and I commanded the International Space Station.
It's this amazing human outpost, a laboratory going around the world 16 times a day. It's huge inside. It's like a whole bunch of airliner-sized things bolted together. And there's a million things to do.
We're running whatever, 200 experiments. So it's super busy and purposeful. And they just fit right in because they've been there before. And there's lots of food.
And we recycle almost 100% of the water. And I actually watched Sonny and Butch's introduction to the Olympics. You couldn't see two more happy and lucky people. And Butch today floated through one of the interviews the radio station was doing.
He's just a big, goofy kid having a great time, former combat fighter pilot and top Navy test pilot. But he's up there doing the work, and he'll be ready to come home no matter what vehicle is the safest one, whenever management makes the right decision. Colonel Hatfield, to follow up on that point, take us inside what tests NASA, you anticipate, is conducting right now. How will they make this decision?
Yeah, there's been two problems primarily with the Boeing ship. And it's the first time it's ever flown with people. If you look at the first time the space shuttle flew with people, the list of things that were really bad were huge. They were lucky to get back.
And the first flight of the F-14 crashed, and the first flight of the F-16 almost crashed. So it's not that unusual. But the two big things are there was a helium leak. But they pretty much understand that.
And helium atoms are so small, they always leak a little bit. The question is, do you have enough? And they pretty much come to the conclusion, yeah, we've got enough helium. The real problem is in engines, little tiny thruster engines.
And when it's time to slow down enough to come back to Earth, will the engine work properly? And what they're doing right now is this three-dimensional simulation of those little valves that have been given them problems. The ceiling is made of Teflon, and it can overheat and come apart. And so they're going to run this simulation a whole bunch of times in all of the different potential circumstances.
And from that, then they can decide whether they're safe. And they should get that word later this week, early next week. All right. Well, Colonel Hatfield, I have a million more questions, but I'm out of time.
Thank you for being here to help us understand this. Please come back when we get more information. This was so helpful to have your perspective today. We really appreciate it.
And we do thank you and everyone for your service who's involved with the space program. Thank you for your time. I'm back tomorrow with more media press now. The news continues with Comcast Ellawin for Hallie Jackson right now.
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