Meet the Press NOW — July 1

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Now. I'm Ryan Nobles on an historic day here in Washington and for the nation as the Supreme Court issues a decision that has dramatically raised the stakes in the 2024 election by significantly broadening and insulating the immense powers of the presidency. In a major legal victory for Donald Trump, the high court granted the former president and also future presidents criminal immunity for official presidential acts. The court also left it up to the district court overseeing the former president's election interference case to determine what actions by Mr.

Trump were not official acts when he tried to overturn the 2020 election. The ruling all but assures that the presumptive Republican nominee will not stand trial in that case until after Election Day. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the majority in the sixth re decision describing an expansive view of presidential conduct that is presumed immune, writing, quote, the nature of presidential power requires the former president have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office, adding later that this immunity must be absolute when it comes to a president's core responsibilities. The opinion also sets a high bar to challenge that immunity, with the chief justice explaining that the president must therefore be immune from prosecution for and official act unless the government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the executive branch.

As sweeping as today's majority decision was a scathing dissenting opinion written by Justice Sonia Sort of My org warned that the President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country and possibly the world when he uses his official powers in any way. Under the majority's reasoning, he will now be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders Navy the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival. Immune Organizes a military coup to hold on to power.

Immune Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon. Immune Immune Immune Immune the Biden campaign, which is still reeling from last week's disastrous debate performance, they tried to use the ruling to refocus attention on their opponents, saying they are scared as fill in the blank of what Trump could do in a second term, arguing that today's decision would give him the, quote, keys to a dictatorship. NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Lane joins me now to talk all about this, it seems, Ken. But Phil, this informed me that this would be a pretty big setback to special counsel Jack Smith's case.

Just what kind of hand has he been dealt here? Somewhere between terrible and fatal. And let's start with the fact that this case is not going to drop for the election. So obviously, if Donald Trump wins the election, he can make this case go away and that'd be a really ugly scenario.

This is a lawful prosecution by Grandbury and Donald Trump has already said he's going to drop it. So that's the first scenario. What the special counsel is grappling with now is that they've laid out the springs, laid out guidelines on what is covered by official news, but they've essentially said it's up to the district court to really decide the details. But in their high level, and it's already knocked out a significant case, which is that the indictment that deals with Donald Trump's International Justice Forum trying to co op the DOJ to get them to conduct bogus investigations into imaginary election fraud.

They've said that that was an official conversation, official act of his conversation with the Attorney General and therefore that is not got the indictment. Some other parts of the indictment the Supreme Court said are presumed official act. For example, his conversation with Mike Pence about the certification of the election. Now, they did allow that the prosecution can come into court and try to argue somehow that was private conduct.

But the presumption is it's official. Another presumption, presumed official act is are the public statements of the President, the tweets, the speech at the Ellipse, all that stuff is covered in the indictment. And what this opinion says is no, we presume it to be official. Maybe Jack Smith can make an argument that's not, but he's got, you know, that's gonna be a tough sell.

Yeah. So what comes next? Obviously, they have kicked some of this back down to Judge Chunkin and that stage of what can we expect to see play out here over the next couple of weeks? Right.

There's a few legal, technical things that have happened. But the bottom line is that it's going to be up to Judge Chutkan now to hold evidentiary hearings and hash through this entire indictment and decide what are the official acts, what were private acts with in some cases, without real guidance from The Supreme Court. Now what they did say was a lot of the conduct on the indictment has to do with Donald Trump and Zalaz talking to state officials. The court pretty clearly said that that can be construed as private acts.

And so it's possible that some of this case may survive. And I'll say that Donald Trump's lawyers in oral arguments said they don't believe this indictment can stand if the court rules that there is official immunity for official action. And that's a court rule. And it's interesting too, because Justice Clarence Thomas also wrote that in a concurring opinion here, he takes things a step further.

He argued that special counsel Jack Smith's appointment is illegal. This is an issue that Trump legal campaign, our legal teammates, should take trying to bring up in the classified documents case. So this could impact more than just the January 6th prose. And that's what's so interesting about that concurrence out of left field.

That is an issue that was argued before Judge Cannon last week. And she, with a lot of raised eyebrows, she allowed so called friends of the court outsiders to come and make that argument that Jack Smith's appointment was unlawful. This is an issue that's been tested and has never succeeded in other courts. But now Judge Justice Thomas has given Judge Alan Cannon a giant opening to rule in that direction, if that's what she decides.

And she would then dismiss the case. Of course, that would appeal to the circuit, might end up in the Supreme Court. That is another way in which today's ruling reverberates. And it seems more and more that this is going to decide by the voters in November, at the very least whether or not this case even moves forward.

All right, Ken, thanks for that. Let's bring in our legal team to talk more about this former U.S. attorney and former senior FBI official and current NBC News legal analyst Chuck Rosenberg. Also with me, former U.S.

attorney Carol Lamb, who's also an NBC News legal analyst. So, Chuck, we did expect the court to someone split the baby on this case, but are you surprised at all at the way the bab was split? Yeah, Ryan, there are aspects of this decision that surprised me. So you're quite right.

We knew that there would be something off limits. You know, the core constitutional responsibilities of any president are immune. And we knew that there would be things that were potential grounds for prosecution that are not immune, purely private acts. What surprised me a bit was the notion that there are official acts, but that in order for those to be cognizable or prosecutable, there's a rebuttable presumption that the prosecutors have to overcome.

And, you know, I think a criticism by Justice Jackson resonates with me that the standards that the majority set for Judge Chuck and really for any district court judge are somewhat indeterminate. The Supreme Court pronounced a broad rule, but left for the trial court to fill in all the details. I think it's going to make this messy, long, difficult for the prosecutors. And to your earlier discussion with Candelanian, we may never get there if Mr.

Trump wins re election. Yeah. So, Carol, you have pointed to this particular line from the opinion as being most problematic. It reads in Divine Official from unofficial conduct, the courts may not inquire into the president's motives.

It seems to me there's so much criticism of this ruling today that it puts the president above the law. As a prosecutor, how could you ever try a case without establishing motive first? Well, that's the issue. That's why I find that line so problematic.

Brian, like Chuck, I'm former federal prosecutor, and I don't even see how you do the investigation. I'm a big defender. You can decide. You can decide whether a case should be brought or not or whether somebody has immunity from charges, but I'm a big defender of the ability to do an investigation.

And then you can leave the charges till later. This line by the Supreme Court saying that you can't even look into the President's motive at the time is very, very problematic because as four justices point out, not only the three who dissented, but also Justice Barrett who departed from the majority and said, I do not agree with this part of the minority decision. She says you can't distort the narrative of facts because what the court is saying here is that you can't even use the facts about what the President's motives are. You can't use any evidence there.

And that, of course, begs the question whether you can even investigate what the president's motives were. So this opens up a whole, a whole Pandora's box. For example, if the former president were to take the stand and say something that is provably false, if he were to say, I never spoke to anybody of the Justice Department about this and the prosecutors had information completely to the contrary, it sounds like they would not be able to use that to rebut the former president's testimony. So I see this as a very problematic line, oddly, one that the court almost threw out casually.

I mean, they gave no real explanation or guidance as to how that would work. So Jack Smith, to Chuck's very good point is going to have a really tough time trying to figure out where the limits are about the evidence that they can produce here. And you know, Chuck, we saw a pretty serious dissent from Justice Sotomayor. She gave very specific examples of the way she interpreted the dissent.

She argues that the President could order the assassination of a political opponent under the ruse of an official act. Do you think that this ruling goes that far? She corrected her assessment. Look, I understand the hyperbole, why she's articulating it that way.

I don't see the world quite as darkly as she does, by the way. That doesn't make her wrong in me. Right. And I think sometimes, and you know, I wasn't a particularly good law student, but I learned from people around me who were, that, you know, you argue extremes and you sort of resolve in the middle.

No, I, I don't think that's a realistic scenario. I think it's used to illustrate a point. And she's done a good job of it because we spent a lot of time talking about it today. You know, Justice Rob, Chief Justice Roberts sort of dismisses it out of hand and said, look, some of these hypotheticals are just too far fetched.

Nobody in the majority opinion really addresses her hypothetical, but Ryan, I do find it somewhat far fetched. And that's not what. That is not what is keeping me up at night. So, Carol, I want your reaction to this as well.

I want to show if we can bring full screen number three, which is also part of the dissent, which is along the same lines. It says in every use of an official power, the President is now a king and above the law. This is from Justice Sotomayor's dissent. Do you agree with her assessment?

Well, as Chuck said, the real problem is we don't know. And that's the most problematic, problematic aspect of this opinion. It purports to lay down rules, and it does lay down some rules. It says there's absolute immunity for official acts, and it says that there's a presumption of immunity for acts in the outer perimeter, and then there's no unity for private acts.

But it leaves all the details uncertain. And Justice Jackson's dissent points this out. She says, to the extent that you want to have a President acting with some understanding what he or she can't be prosecuted for or can be prosecuted for in the future, this really gives no guidance at all. Because what the Supreme Court does is they say, well, here are general rules, but we don't have to make this decision.

It's to be decided by the district judge, and then we will figure it out on appeal when her decisions are appealed. So there's so much that is left uncertain and undecided at this point that it really gives no guidance to anybody, to a president, to the prosecutors, and actually to the judge. I think there's no one in a more unenviable spot today than Judge Chutkin. Yeah.

And there's also the possibility here that the decision undermines the Justice Department's independence, something that, you know, the executive branch, the federal government, has provided itself on, that the Justice Department of the Attorney general, have independence and bringing prosecution. This is what the Roberts affirmative statement said relating to this. The president cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority. Trump is therefore absolutely immune from prosecution for alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.

And for background, for folks who don't remember, he attempted to install Jeffrey Clark, who was then an Assistant U.S. attorney, into the job of district. I'm sorry, into the job of attorney general, with the express purpose of getting him to investigate election fraud that no one was able to find evidence of. Does this change the level of interaction between the White House and the Justice Department?

Possibly. Ryan. So the independence of the Justice Department, which I think is crucial to the operation of our democracy and our rule of law, is a norm. It's not a constitutional imperative.

It's not a statute, it's not a regulation. It's a norm. And normal presidents have abided it. The fact is, and it gives rise to this tension that the Justice Department is part of the executive branch and therefore constitutionally under the control of the president.

And so the court is saying sort of what everyone knows, but it's ignoring the norm. And that's a very hard thing for a court to write to. Carol knows this well. She was part of the Justice Department for a very long time, as was I, and those norms were abided, and they matter.

And people paid. You know, people really respected that. But the Justice Department is part of the executive branch, and the president runs the executive branch. Yeah.

So I think perhaps the optimum word here is normal. Perhaps we're not in normal times anymore. Chuck and Carol, thank you both for being very appreciated. Let's talk about the political fall here.

Peter Baker, who's the chief White House correspondent for the New York Times and NBC political analyst, joins me now. How does this affect the current president, Joe Biden? Peter? Well, he wants to do a whole lot more than he has done up till now and feel free from Any criminal prosecution doesn't seem like that's the kind of thing he'll do, because he is one of the normal presidents who has abided by the traditions and norms and standards of the presidency.

When he has crossed the line, according to courts, he has then, you know, pulled back as the courts have told him to do. You can't count on that with Donald. Trump would make clear that he's going to push every boundary and every norm that had been established. But right now, it's better politics.

It's for a day, anyway. It takes some of the heat off of President Biden from last week's debate, and he's talking about something other than his age and condition. And reminds, I think, voters, particularly Democrats, who are nervous about his candidacy, that there's something really largest take here, which is to say the return of Donald Trump to the presidency, and not just the presidency as he had last time, but through a much more emboldened and empowered presidency next time. So I think for as a matter of politics, this is probably useful to the president to try to make the argument that something big is at stake here more than just mangled words and a bad debate night.

Yeah, maybe expand a little bit here. I said before, and I'll say it again, it does seem as though, in many ways, the Supreme Court has given the American people the ultimate decision as to whether or not Donald Trump should be prosecuted for these crimes of the special counsel accusing him of. Is that a tactic that the Biden campaign could potentially use going forward, laying on the line saying that you are ultimately going to be arbiter of whether or not he has to stay in court? Well, you know, what you've seen so far is President Biden being very reluctant to talk about these criminal prosecutions of Donald Trump so as to avoid playing into Trump's argument, which is it's all political wish.

If the president were out there saying that Trump ought to be prosecuted and convicted and thrown in jail by his Justice Department, then he would give ammunition, he thinks, to President Trump and his allies to say, aha, see, he's the one doing this. It's not about legitimate criminal behavior. It's about politics. And so Biden's been very careful about talking about that.

I don't think he's gonna change that in the next few weeks. But no question to say that this election will decide whether this prosecution goes forward or not may not go forward even if Biden wins simply because of the handcuffs of the Supreme Court's Bronj Jackson, but it definitely won't go forward if Trump wins. So Trump just posted on his social media platform saying that the Supreme Court decision is a much more powerful one than some expected it to be. He had previously said that he would be dictator on day one of his presidency.

I mean, how does today's decision emboldened him in some of the plans that he to take back the White House? Yeah, this is really kind of reoriented our thinking about our democracy. I think today it's a big day, a big decision in that regard, because for 250 years almost, we have been trying to figure out how to have accountability for a president of the United States. And we have seen the last few years that accountability is even more looser than we thought because in fact, it is not just the norms.

As Chuck just said, the laws themselves seem not to be holding a president to account. We saw a president impeach twice and then equated by the Senate because his own party sticks with him. That means impeachment basically has a matter of accountability for this president or any other president. It's pretty much a dead letter.

Because who thinks that impeachment is actually going to result in the removal from office? I don't think anybody does. We've seen that Congress has been willing to stand up to President Trump when he was in office. We've seen courts that have been able to adjudicate in four years whether his attempt to overturn an election constitute a crime or not.

So what is the check to be on the next president? It's hard to see how Donald Trump is going to worry about anybody else telling him not to do something because he knows now he has immunity for most criminal prosecution, if not all, because he won't, of course, allow his own Justice Department to prosecute him. He knows he won't be impeachment removed from office. He knows that the courts won't do anything to stop him.

And I think that raises fundamental questions about the nature of the executive in our system who's never meant to be a king trying to digest a salaria. I wish I was that sleepy dog behind you who seems to not have a care in the world. He seems to be one that has it all figured out. Peter Baker, thank you so much for being here.

I appreciate it. After the break, the fallout for President Biden's disastrous debate performance intensifies as he digs in and allies try to prevent a panic from consuming his campaign. We'll have the latest from the White House next. And Silicon NBC speaks to Steve Bannon as the diehard Trump ally and former White House advisor reports at federal prison for defying the House January 6th elect.

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Welcome back. The Biden campaign is aggressively pushing back after a disastrous debate performance, batting down suggestions the president should step aside as well. The campaign and allies try and paint Thursday's performances as nothing but a fluke. Biden's congressional allies took to the airways on Sunday to analogous poor performance, but making it clear they stand by their man for now.

Obviously, there was a big problem with Joe Biden's debate performance. And there's also just a tremendous reservoir of affection and love for Joe Biden in our party. So this makes it a difficult situation for everybody. But there are very honest and serious, rigorous conversations taking place at every level of our party.

Look, I think it was a weak debate performance by President Biden. He had a scratchy, roughy voice. Excuse me, scratchy, rough voice. He answered a few questions in ways that were not the most forceful.

But I think side by side, Donald Trump had a horrifying debate performance. That debate topic, as President Obama has said, and this was 90 minutes. But let me tell you about that 90 minutes. Donald Trump lies the entire 90 minutes.

Joe Biden has demonstrated, not over 90 minutes, but over the last four years, the character and the metal of the man that he is now. All kinds of sources tell NBC that the president's family urged him to stay in the race and, quote, keep fighting during a meeting at Camp David this weekend. Joining on set now is our resident Biden whisperer, Mike Mulling. So, Mike, obviously there's a lot of searching happening around the Biden family.

It's interesting to hear these Democrats talk. They seem to still leave open a sliver in that door that maybe there's an exit ramp for the president. What's your sense? Are family members encouraging to stay in the fight?

And is there anybody who can actually tell the president it's time to step aside? Well, when we reported that he was going to be spending time with his family this weekend. It was a big deal because everyone knows he's not going to change course because of the New York Times and board Peace. He's not going to change course because of a bed wedding donor who we certainly also heard a lot from.

He's going to really think about this long and hard with the voices of the people who he loves and values the most, and that's his family. I don't think this is one day conversation. They did seem to want to get out as quickly as they could. An initial impression that the family is fully behind him.

But look, I think the family's processing this like many Democrats are processing this as well, taking in day by day, looking at that as really what they want to see. I think over time. And the president, as our report indicated himself, is frankly humiliated by his performance. He was embarrassed.

He knows he didn't perform. And I think as that also builds over time, there's the conversations within the family become more nuanced as well. And so I think the campaign, I can confirm what you said, that they have been aggressive in pushing back on the idea that this is going to change anything. But I think everyone knows that, especially the leadership of the Pride Party, the best thing to do is give the president some space and time right now.

So there is a big factor. You mentioned the data, which may go a long way to making the final decision here, but money is a part of it. There are some donors that are spooked. I mean, how long are they willing to be patient as this process plays itself out?

It was interesting because the president did nothing this weekend but 10 fundraisers right before he went to Camp David. And some of those who were hosting him said people weren't backing out. They were very engaged. In fact, they wanted to see the president up close.

And personally they had that opportunity. But there was this call that we reported on with a very small group of donors in which it was more candid than some of the other briefings that had been going on from the campaign leadership. There were people still on board and wanting to hear more about what the campaign was going to do to be aggressively pushing back on the calls from Steps. But there are also those who were frankly blunt with the campaign manager about what they feel like was a downward spiral beginning and some of them even asking for their money back.

You can't do that. What Julia Chavez, already the campaign manager, lay out to them was, first of all, Biden's not going anywhere. That's what she made clear. But also these West Wing type scenarios that some people were floating about potential alternate candidates.

It's messy and it's either going to be the vice president who would inherit most of the infrastructure and money from the campaign, or it's going to be a messy fight. And that is an alternative that they're blame the groundwork for. It also not necessarily be better than the current. Very similar to the conversations I'm having, like maybe we should do this, but if we do it, it could be even a bigger problem than what we're currently dealing with.

Certainly Democrats find themselves in a difficult position, Mike, when you get defensive word lessons. Thank you, Mike. All right, let's now take a look at what the public opinion polling is telling us on Thursday's debate. NBC crack is at the big board.

So, Steve, we have not a lot of data yet, but we do have some new numbers from the CBSU Gov poll over the weekend. This is just an immediate snapshot following the debate. But what does it tell us? Yeah, I mean, everybody's waiting for sort of a definitive poll to come out.

We don't have that yet. We've had a couple. Now there's another one this morning that looks very similar to what I'm going to show you from the CBSUG poll. They have a couple of questions here.

Let's show you this. First of all, they asked a general question. Should Biden, this is just in general, should he be running for president? They've asked that throughout the year.

Back in February, 37% of voters said that Biden should be running for president. Now right after the debate, they have that number dropping to just 28%. By comparison, they asked the same question about Donald Trump. Post debate, the number is 46%.

Now, more specifically, in response to the debate, they asked this, what should Biden do right now in the wake of this debate? In this CBS poll, 64%, basically 2/3 of the electorate said he should step aside. I think what's particularly troubling for Biden, that number, not just the fact that it's two thirds, is look at within his own party. This isn't just his political opponent saying he should get out of race.

This is worry within his own party, concern with his own party, 45% of Democrats saying that Biden should step aside. Obviously, that performance I think is reinforcing it and maybe even increasing in terms of aid's potency. The main concern or one of the main concerns we've seen over and over when it comes to Biden, that is his age. This is a Gallup poll just before the debate already going into debate, 67% of voters say they consider Biden too old to be president.

That's 30 points higher than number for Donald Trump. And just take a look at the other oldest nominees in history. John McCain in 2008, Bowell 96, Reagan. In both of his campaigns, the number was somewhere in the 30s, even the 20s for Reagan.

That Biden number is a number we've never seen for any candidate before. And I will say if you wait for definitive polling, we do have one poll that is now asked the horse race question after the debate, asking Biden versus Trump after debate, who are you for? It's just from one state. It's from New Hampshire.

In that New Hampshire poll just a couple minutes ago, Trump leads by two points in the new New Hampshire poll. If you read my right, Trump +2. And the critical thing there is in 2020, Biden carried New Hampshire by 7.5 points. So we don't have a pre debate poll from St Anselm was the pollster here.

Their last one had been in December. They had Biden up 10 then. This is their first poll since December. But compared to the 2020 result in New Hampshire, their poll just after this debate is a pretty big shift.

Yeah, that's certainly warning sign for the Biden campaign. So Steve, what about the alternatives? What do we know about feelings for Vice President Kamala Harris? Yeah, you just heard Mike taking you through all of the sort of political imaginations that are involved there.

But here's the dilemma for Democrats, you can just see in the numbers. You take the basic question. There's a good measure of every politician. Favorable, unfavorable.

Two recent polls asked it about Joe Biden. You can see here, he was 39 favorable, 58 favorables about a week ago, about two weeks ago, 44, 56. And Fox, he's not good numbers. But they have the same question in the same polls about Kamala Harris.

These numbers aren't even better. In fact, a little bit worse. Her favorable 37 in the same poll where Biden is 39, 41 in the same poll where it's 44. And with what Mike just told you there, that's a huge consideration.

It probably is for Democrats because if you do say Biden is very weak, gotta get out, gotta get somebody else in. If Kamala Harris is likely to be that nominee, Democrats have to ask themselves, is that really going to enhance their political positioning? Okay, Steve Cornacky, thank you for breaking down for us, my friend. I appreciate it.

Next, the unprecedented and complicated paths that both presidential candidates now face. After a double dose of historic headlines from debate stage and the Supreme Court, the panel is next. You're watching with the press now. Welcome back.

As we mentioned, the president and his allies are trying to justify and defend his performance in the first presidential debate, including a new ad that showcases President Biden's fiery post debate rally where he addressed his age. Take a listen, folks. I know I'm not a young man and I know how to do this job. I know rights of wrong.

I know how to tell the truth. And I know like millions of Americans know when you get knocked down, you get back up. I wish you know, there's a bunch of things about this. This was posted debate, of course it was during the middle of the day.

He had a teleprompter. This is obviously a very professional and polished ad. As we mentioned, the initial polling, the immediate aftermath suggests a post performance mi coppola may not do much to reassure voters. Joining me now is our panel, Dan, America's investigative reporter for the Associated Press, Mark Short, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence and former White House legislative affairs director, result NBC News contributor.

And Maria Theresa Kumar is the president and the CEO of Otto Latina and is an NBC News contributor. So, Dan, give me your idea of what you're sensing from Democrats. You're talking to the panic meter off the charge right now. Are they starting to calm down?

What's the vibe? Give me a bijn. It's important to know the two things to be true at the same time. Democrats can be known for I think the technical term is freaking out a lot.

And they are freaking out right now and they might have a reason to. And I think part of that is this is an existential question for the Biden campaign for I think you see a few things in the next coming days based on conversations I've had. You're going to see Democrats down ballot trying to separate themselves with Biden helpfully. A lot of them have already been doing that.

But it's a difficult path to walk because every Republican friend against them is going to try and connect them with Biden and they'll have the Biden side of it and they're trying to push back like they have and in part using this Supreme Court decision that happened today to do exactly that, to ask American voters, do you really want to give Donald Trump the kind of powers that the Supreme Court just said he had? And I think that's why you're going to see a lot of focus on that Supreme Court decision in the next coming days. And the Biden campaigner did that today with some salty language on a call with reporters. Maurice Reese, let's go to you now.

And you know, we've seen the Biden campaign get the president out there, obviously did that raucous rally right after. Is that enough, though? What else can he do to try and assure Democratic voters, base voters in particular, that he's up to the challenge of being so I think this is what's been really interesting, is that if you talk to a lot of the base voters, they're with him. I think one of the challenges that the president's going to have to do is that how do you expand his group of voters so that they come out and vote?

And the ones that we're looking at is how does he get young people in the game? Because it was the young voter in 2020 that put him over the top. It's the young voter wave that came in during the midterms that also secured that there was not a red wave. And so that is the ones I've been looking for.

And the debate, quite frankly, didn't help him there because we knew going into the debate that the number one issue that young people had with President Biden was his age. And so they're going to have to figure out how do you talk to young people so that they come out in the record numbers that potentially could really be a watershed moment for this country when it comes to participation. I mean, that was already a problem. Right.

The debate didn't confirm. I mean, it basically confirmed their unease. What you're going to see if you saw, I don't know how close you're following X these days, but even what happen last night at the BET Awards where you had artists coming out and saying very speaking very plainly, that what Trump wants to do to their rights, their freedoms, that that is what on the ballot. And I do think that what we're going to see is a lot of people coming out on the Democratic base in the celebrity circles, influencer circles, reminding people that what is on the ballot is not just Joe Biden, but it's the whole infrastructure of democracy.

And we have to we have something else to point to, given what happened today with the Supreme Court. Mark, is that enough? I mean, I understand this idea that a lot of Democrats in particular think that Donald Trump's an existential threat to democracy, everything along the lines. But don't you also have to provide an alternative that people find viable?

Sure you do, Ryan. I think the reality is that Democrats have been right on that message for a while. And I think polls continually speak say my biggest issue is where we inflation. My biggest issue is the border crisis.

My biggest issue is how it's impacting my family. And so I'm not, I don't think that's enough. I do believe that America's really divided. We know that there's not that many undecided voters left in the United States.

But for those who had any question are looking to say, can this guy serve another term in the most powerful position in the world and now they're going to even finish this term. I think that's, that's the existential threat to the Biden campaign. I think it's a, it could have been worse. We just want to mark away on this too.

And I do think that sometimes Democrats kind of misunderstand that there are a lot of voters in this country that may not necessarily be fans of Donald Trump, but ultimately are comfortable voting for him if they don't have a better alternative. I think for sure, I think there's a lot of voters in America, they're in exactly that position. And they may not appreciate his personality, a lot of concerns. But again, you look at a lot of issues on the economy and foreign policy, they're more comfortable with his policies.

And so, so yeah, I think the Democrats need more as explanation as to why Joe Biden or Kamala Harrison never provides a better future. I think they're failing to provide that right now. Yeah, I mean, that's the central question the Democrats are raising. Also cuts both ways.

When you talk to Democrats who are skeptical of Joe Biden, they will say, sure, this may be an existential election, but that can be raised for Biden too. If it is so existential, is he the best candidate to be on the ball? You talk to Democrats who are skeptical if his place on the ballot, they will raise that and it could come back to hurt the Biden campaign if they keep pushing that message. One of the things that I think that we really need to take a look at and point out is that on the debate stage, while you saw Biden be imperfect, if it had policies, Trump didn't walk away winning anybody over.

And I think that's really clear. One of the things that Univision came out with an exit poll and found that Latinos who were on the fence prior to the debate said that after the debate performance of the Trump reminding them of his legacy, of how he was demonizing the community, they went from being on the Fence saying that they were voting Biden. So I would actually say there was actually a group of people that remember what Trump represented to their families that for that and that being enough for them to actually switch their vote is where you're actually gonna argue that they help Biden's polling numbers. Is that the position?

Because I think everything I will tell you so Even in Arizona, two weeks before the election, two weeks before voting, 2,000 undecided Latino voters in five battleground states. Even that 59% of them voting Biden, 39% were voting Trump. The moment and the biggest challenge right there, if you were to say who won the debate on Thursday night, it was not Biden, it was not Trump, it was third party candidates. That's the sleep ratio right now that everyone's talking about.

Well, I think it's a great question. Third party candidates, if they're really legitimate candidates, why wouldn't you be stepping into this moment? Why wouldn't you be out everywhere right now? But you see nothing from the Kennedy campaign.

There's no effort to actually appeal voters. And I think that the third party candidates were the biggest threats of Biden as far as re election and yet they're invisible right now we have some of the most surprising things last five days. Right. Let's talk about other big news today which is the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

Trump praised the ruling earlier today. Mark, is this exactly what campaign was hoping for to delay this process past the election and basically put in hands of voters? Yes, without a doubt. They wanted this, they wanted to delay.

I do think that my sense is as a non attorney is just there's too much emphasis on both sides. There's a total victory of it or not. I think the really Supreme Court did send it back to Judge Chutkin and I think that she's probably gonna be looking for the opportunity to say a lot of these actions were unofficial actions. But the delay is exactly what the Trump campaign wanted to get this past this election cycle.

Is there an opportunity here for Democrats to take advantage of this ruling and trying to fire up the base or target? I think they're going to capture very much what happened with the abortion law. You right now have such extreme folks of activists that are judges that are on the Supreme Court that it's going back. It's not just what happened today.

Basically providing the president sitting president with immunity for basically any action. This is a collective, collective rules that they did that basically also guts federal agencies for being able to do their jobs. It's not good for the American people what we've been witnessing the last 10 days. So again, I want to play for you something to reach back in the archives and play something that Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, said after voting against convicting Donald Trump in the second impeachment trial.

Take a look at this. President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen, unless the statute of limitations is wrong. Still liable for everything he did while he's in office. Didn't get away with anything yet.

Yeah. We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune for being accountable by either one.

He actually used the word immune. Former presidents are not immune for being held liable in either case. I mean, basically a big part of the Supreme Court ruling saying that the only avenue to hold a president accountable for official access through the impeachment process, which has become highly politicized. You think Senator McConnell regrets this speech?

Now, looking back on this, I mean, he also used the word, yet he actually used it twice. I think it really sticks out now given what the Supreme Court hasn't said. It's hard to get into his head and whether he regrets it now given all the trials and tribulations that we've documented about you documented on Capitol Hill, especially about Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell. But I think that people on Capitol Hill are looking at the presidency differently right now because ruling and the sweeping powers the Supreme Court seemed to give to the presidency.

And I Mitch McConnell is an institutionalist on Capitol Hill. I imagine he has some very interesting thoughts about what this means in terms of divided power between Capitol Hill and White House. Okay, ready to leave with everyone. Dan, Mark and Ray Tracy, thank you so much for being here.

We appreciate it. Up next to defiant Steve Bannon takes his election conspiracy theories behind bars after defying Congress. You're watching. Read the PRESS now.

Welcome back. Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon reported to prison today to survive his four month sentence for defying a congressional subpoena from the House January 6th Committee. Speaking to reporters outside of the Connecticut prison, he described himself as a political prisoner, adding that he was, quote, proud to be going to jail. NBC News correspondent Von Hillier sat down with Bannon yesterday for a wide ranging interview.

He joins me now. So Von Bannon continues to sow doubt about the 2024 election. What did he tell you about the state of that race and how does he view his role in 2024 even while he's in prison? Right.

Folks will recall that he was of course, the chief strategist in 2016 campaign and winning that role for seven months in the White House. But he makes the case that his influence potentially to a greater number of people has only increased with every passing year, in large part because of his podcast called War Room, which also simulcasts on air and online and has really become a driving microphone, a driving media outlet for right wing ecosystem to get sort of the MAGA movement message out there. He remains in touch with Donald Trump directly as well. One of the.

You listen to my question to Steve Bannon about the sort of campaign versus podcast atmosphere tickles Trump campaign to rejoin them here in 2024. No, absolutely not. My war room, I'm ten times more powerful, more needed war. We're the kind of augmented media arm of the mega movement.

I did the campaign one time. There were discussions in 2020 about bringing me back on by some of the senior donors. So I thought things a little lost track and. But now the war room is much more important to the MAGA movement, particularly President Trump's campaign.

Here's what they don't understand. We only get stronger with this. We're not gonna get weaker. We're a populist movement in this, in this MAGA and particularly the war room.

We took down the Senate speaker for the House for the first time in history. We took down Mitch McConnell and made him break his pick on the Ukraine vote, which he stepped aside. And then we took down the entire leadership of the RNC within 100 days earlier, earlier this year. So this show is like a military command center.

We have an army of the awakened. We're going to raise 100 or 200,000 people, not dollars people, to be all over the 2024 election. And it's not going to stop us one way. They're only going to make us stronger and more determined.

And this is where Bannon makes the case that the mega movement is something that outlives Donald Trump. Of course he is going to prison, which I should say is now in prison for the next four months. He's going to be released the week before the 2024 election because he defied the congressional subpoena that was handed down from the January 6th elected after nearly two years of appeals. Ultimately, the Supreme Court said that his prison sentence to women before and that's why he reported today along the seven things he's taking credit for there.

I'm not sure that he necessarily gets all the blame for that, but okay, we obviously got that Supreme Court earlier today on presidential immunity. We discussed what it could mean for the D.C. trial that Donald Trump's engaged in and his election efforts over to the 2020 election. Steve Bannon notably spoke to Trump on January 6th.

What? He had two phone calls with Donald Trump on January 6th. He had two phone calls on January 5th as well that lasted more than 17 minutes. And now he has claimed executive privilege.

They couldn't talk about it, of course. Trump's own legal team said that they would waive his executive privilege so he could go testify because he was not serving in an official capacity in the White House at the time of these conversations. And yet when he we sat down for this interview and he told me that he was ready to talk about everything, well, he didn't and he would not reveal the substance of those conversations in their personal and private conversations. This is where he was actively told me this.

Pressing for what is called a contingent election by effectively, if a couple of these closed states, their election results had not been certified by Mike Pence on January 6th, that would have brought down the number of electoral votes and Joe Biden had below 270. At that point, the U.S. house would have voted for president. And he makes the case that that would have led to Donald Trump being the President of the United States, effectively overturning the election results.

And so Steve Bannon is somebody who's very much active part of the 2020 election and undoubtedly here, despite being high bars over the next four months, is going to continue to be a voice within this movement moving forward. And he's scheduled to be released in prison just a week before Election Day. So regardless of whether Trump wins or loses, what does he see happening with the MAGA movement, even if Trump's not in the picture? Right.

The way that he framed it to me was that Donald Trump is a moderate in the MAGA movement, as we saw from the France results yesterday, in which right wing nationalist party came out on top. That is sort of the future that Steve Bannon sees for the MAGA movement within the Republican Party. And that is where Donald Trump, of course, so much of that will hinge on the election in November. At the same point in time, you have seen the Republican Party really get shaped into the MAGA image that Steve Bannon wants to take further to the right and believes that an American populace is ready and would vote for those sorts of foreign and domestic efforts that would be able to see that image through.

It really hasn't appeared to be a true error to Donald Trump's power over the Republican Party. But we'll never know until it happens. Vaughn, thank you so much for being here. Speaking of France, as Vaughn just mentioned, their far right is on the doorstep of taking power in Paris.

Next couple of days could decide the fate of a nation. We're live in Paris next. You're watching the press now. Welcome back.

In another sign of strength for the far right on the world stage, French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to call for snap elections appears to have backfired, which came after the far right National Rally decisively won the first round of parliamentary elections. Macron's own center's party came in third, also trailing behind the left wing block, according to the country's official results. Remember, Macron shocked the world when he dissolved Parliament last month after far right parties made significant gains in the European Union elections. Macron hoped that by calling the elections in France, he would be able to quell the rise of the populist parties.

The second round of voting will take place later this week, where the National Rally Party could secure an absolute majority of parliament and what would become the first far right government in France since the Nazi occupation in World War II. Joining me now from Paris is NBC's chief international correspondent, Keir Simmons. So Kier, how are the parties reacting to these results? Is Macron conceded that this was a miscalculation on his part?

Oh, Ryan, President Macron is not the kind of guy that concedes anything. Honestly. What he's saying is that he wants to see the centre and the left and the far left unite to try to keep out the far right. That has been his plan all along.

But frankly, we are learning how to say humiliated in multiple languages as the headlines roll out across this continent about President Macron. Because what we've seen is this 33% vote for the far right, former fascist party, anti immigration party. And that is going to be a real challenge for President Macron if, as you say, in the second round they manage to win, maybe even take over the government. That might mean, by the way, that we see a guy called Bardella, 28 year old, good looking, he's got a lot of personality who led his party to this win so far.

You might see him become the prime Minister. You might see other far right politicians become sportsmans. For example, as France welcomes the world for the Olympic Games. And that's just part of it.

There's also the question of the approach towards Ukraine. This party has been not as supportive of Western support for Ukraine. They've been warmer towards President Putin. All of these things have those on the left in the center here in France going forward.

And so what does this election mean then for Europe and potentially even NATO? Could there be changes there as a result? Well, it wouldn't necessarily mean that. Listen, you know, President Macron is still in charge of defence and foreign policy here in France, but he may well be a leg duck in just a few weeks time.

And keeping in mind just how important France is to Europe, it will shake the continent. It's not just France where you've seen this rise in the right. Actually, the far right leader in Italy, she is one of now the dominant voices in Europe. So I think it does mean potentially a substantial shift for Europe.

And what it means, of course, is that whoever wins the election there this year and is president in 2025 may well find themselves dealing with a very different Europe. All right, Keir Simmons, thank you for that update live from Paris. We appreciate it. And we'll be back tomorrow with more Meet the Press, but we've got a lot more news to come.

NBC News NOW coverage continues with Hallie Jackson. Right now, everyone, I'm Dylan Dreyer, co host of the third hour of TODAY and mom to three wild boys. I've learned a lot in my years as a parent, mostly that I don't have all figured out yet. And I'm not the only one.

This is my new podcast, the Parent Chat. Each week I sit down with someone, new conversation and real world advice about parenting. I am over here just like winging it. Hey, I'm trying not to screw my own kid on my video.

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