Meet the Press NOW — July 11

If it's Thursday, President Biden is set to meet the press just hours from now in his first solo press conference since that disastrous debate, as more donors flee, allies defect, and officials inside his own campaign begin quietly assessing a Kamala Harris candidacy. Plus, we're days away from the Republican National Convention, and the big reveal on who Trump's vice presidential pick will be, as the former president sharpens his attacks while also bracing for a potential shakeup on the Democratic ticket. And inflation cools more than expected in June, with prices falling for the first time since the pandemic began, raising the chances of an interest rate cut that could bring some economic relief to consumers and voters heading into November. Welcome to the Press Now, I'm Derek Hake in Washington, where we're just a few hours away from a presidential news conference that could make or break President Biden's 2024 re-election campaign.

This is NBC has new reporting that some of his own campaign officials don't think he can win, and that his campaign team is quietly assessing whether VP Harris would be a better choice. The president's upcoming solo press conference, his first in eight months, will come as he wraps up a busy week of NATO meetings. Today, he met with Ukrainian President Zelensky as reporters tried to yell questions about his decision to stay in this race. The Biden campaign itself is in survival mode.

Sources tell NBC News that his fundraising has taken a major hit despite personal pleas to donors from the president himself. Meanwhile, several of President Joe Biden's closest allies, including three people who are directly involved in efforts to re-elect him, are telling NBC News they now see his chances of winning as zero. And NBC News has also confirmed the campaign is evaluating Vice President Harris's strength against Donald Trump, commissioning a new internal poll. Top campaign advisors met today with anxious Senate Democrats, some of whom are demanding the campaign present them with some kind of clear and viable path to victory.

Only a few of those senators stopped to talk to cameras as they left the meeting. Are you still comfortable, Senator Blunt, with where President Biden is in this race right now? I think President Biden has to take the fight for Donald Trump, not just in one press conference tonight or a speech or a meeting, because the Democratic candidate, he has my support. However, I still have concerns because I need more of the data and analytics that show the path to victory in November.

It was a good discussion. This all comes with many Democrats in both chambers are basically ignoring the president's repeated public statements that he's staying in the race. Not so subtle message that they would like him to revisit that decision. And as the president faces more Democratic defections, including the first senator, Vermont's Peter Welch, as well as three more House Democrats, who are now joining a growing crowd calling for the president to withdraw.

Here's what some of those who say the president should step aside told reporters earlier today. Ultimately, if he remains a nominee, isn't it harmful? I'm expressing my opinion. Ultimately, the president's going to have a big decision.

This is showing a nationality issue, I think, for Americans. It's not so much about individual senators and members of Congress. His legacy is at stake now in terms of implementing the infrastructure, winning the war in Ukraine. I mean, his agenda for the next six months is overwhelming.

And that's his legacy. Beyond trying to protect democracy, I think he would be better served to be able to concentrate on that. The country would be better off. It's getting late, but it's never too late to make the right thing.

Is there anything that the president could say in his press conference and another interview that would get you to have homies in him? I'm not the one he has to convince. The Democrats tell me it's going the wrong way. Amid it all, a new poll shows a largely static race, with the president and former president tied nationally two weeks after the debate.

But if you look under the hood, there are clear frustrations and warning signs for the Biden campaign. Two-thirds of voters say he should step aside following his debate performance, including more than half of Democrats and three-quarters of independents. Meanwhile, former President Trump has expanded his already sizable lead on questions of mental and physical fitness to do the job. NBC's Monica Alba joins me now from the White House.

Ryan Nobles is on Capitol Hill. And senior national politics reporter Jonathan Allen joins me here on set. And Monica, I'll start with you. All eyes are on the White House, where we've seen folks calling tonight's press conference the biggest one of Biden's career.

What do we know about the preparation that's gone into it and how he is viewing it tonight? Well, Garrett, it's almost like every appearance that Joe Biden is having these days is the biggest X of his career following that really poor debate performance, right? We were talking about that last week in terms of the network interview that he was going to be sitting down and doing and in terms of that rally and in terms of the campaigning. But you're absolutely right that this news conference this evening is really absolutely critical when it comes to how Democrats and how others in his own party have discussed and assessed the president's own standing in terms of whether he will still be the Democratic nominee in November.

Now, he says that he's pledging and committing to staying in the race, but his advisors are certainly preparing for this news conference with a very real serious awareness of how important it could be. That said, they're trying to make the argument that it's not the only thing that people should be taking into consideration when they are trying to establish whether they should still support him or whether they should ask him to reconsider or whether they're calling on him to step aside, as we have seen now many Democrats do. And even if the president has been out there, he's been on the trail, he's been doing more events, he's trying to answer more questions, that's not really doing anything to stem the flow of these calls for him to reevaluate again whether he's the best candidate to take on Donald Trump. So they are preparing for this, they know that there will be news of day questions, but they're also really ready to face some really tough inquiries from my fellow reporters and colleagues in the White House Press Corps on the president's health, on the president's handling of all of this over the last couple of weeks, and certainly, of course, Garrett, on his path forward here.

And Ryan, you've been talking to members of Congress about the president's path forward for the last couple of days. What's your sense, I know there's frustration today that the president himself didn't come talk to senators who are probably the most core constituency that Joe Biden has. What are lawmakers looking for from the president tonight, and how important is it for him to do well to keep his standing within the elected base of his party as well going forward? You know, Garrett, I don't even know if it matters at this point.

Today, there was almost a sense of resignation that I sensed from a lot of these members of Congress that I talked to. Yes, they said all the right things, that they need to see more data, they need to see more analytics. It didn't have the same level of urgency that it perhaps had a week ago. We've been asking these questions for the past two weeks.

At no point in these conversations did it feel like the tide was turning in the president's direction. It just seems as though many, many Democrats have just given up on the idea that Joe Biden is the proper guy to take them through what they view as a very difficult next four months in order to win this election. Now, that being said, there's only 12 congressional Democrats, 11 House members, and one senator who are saying publicly on the record that they think that Joe Biden should step down. But there are a whole host of members who are telling us privately they think that should happen.

And then there's a whole other universe of people that when you press them on whether or not Joe Biden should stay in the race, they offer all these caveats and offer all these questions about whether or not it's possible and raise these concerns. That is not the formula for a winning campaign. So you have to ask yourself, where do they go from here? If it's not, if it hasn't turned around at this point, does an amazing press conference tonight change that conversation?

Perhaps. But it seems as though the mountain is just unbelievably high that the president has to climb at this point. When you talk about something that is not the formula for a winning campaign, I look at John Allen's reporting for today, which includes quotes from people involved in Biden's re-election efforts to say things like, he needs to drop out. He will never recover from this.

No one involved in this effort thinks that he has a path. Those are not the comments from a campaign that expects to be able to stop the bleeding. John, I mean, what does this, what does tonight, what the next couple of days look like within the campaign? Can they stop the bleeding even internally to say we've got to put up a good fight?

I mean, the problem with President Biden is that, you know, you look at tonight and say, okay, this is a big test for Biden. But if he fails that test, that's problematic. Yep. And then every other time he goes out in public between now and November, it'll be the same thing.

Can he perform it 100% or close to it every time he goes out? And I think what, you know, Democrats fear is that they've seen enough of Joe Biden over the course of the last few years, and particularly the last several months. And then in that debate, the George Stephanopoulos interview on another network, where they don't have faith that he's going to make it through another four months without, you know, sort of massive blunders or slips, right? So I think what you're hearing from these campaign folks and people who are involved in, you know, from outside groups, largely what they're saying is that these are widespread feelings, you know, among serious people that know what they're talking about.

That Biden is in trouble recovering. And part of it is not necessarily the polling they're looking at now. Part of it is what they expect to see happen over the course of the next four months, like these tests after tests after tests, and they keep passing each other. And then also what they're seeing with the donors.

They're seeing money dry out, right? So between those two things, they're like, this is a disaster for Democrats. Not only do they see Biden losing, but they also see him taking down the House and Senate efforts. They see him taking down state legislative efforts and potentially ushering in a Trump mandate.

We're during Olympic season here, so I think about this as like the Olympic hurdles now. He's not going to clear the first hurdle. He's got to clear every hurdle. It's not good enough to start clipping these things in the final heat.

Talking about this internal polling of Kamala Harris up against Trump, is that unusual for a campaign at this stage to be testing other names against a nominee? And what should that tell us about how the campaign is considering their options? At this stage, it's virtually unheard of, right? The campaign's testing all the time, you know, particularly who might be a better vice presidential candidate or who might be a better surrogate for one candidate or another.

But in this case, you can really only see two options for why the campaign would be testing Kamala Harris. One is to show Joe Biden that she has a better chance of beating Donald Trump than Joe Biden does in an effort by his own campaign to push him out, or probably more likely in an effort to make it clear to the public that Kamala Harris isn't as equipped to take on Donald Trump as Joe Biden is. And, you know, I think that there's going to be a backlash. I've already talked to some people who have, you know, close to the Biden world who have said, look, if they are testing Kamala Harris in order to trash her to help Joe Biden stay alive, he is risking losing some of the support from the very base that has kept him afloat the last couple of weeks, the Congressional Black Caucus.

Probably his most important supporters left. Monica, the president always likes to talk about the idea of if you're worried about how he's doing or what he's going to do next, watch me. He says, watch me. He's got a big job and he's going to keep doing it.

What do the next couple of weeks look like at the RNC's next week? There's sort of opportunities here for him to make the kind of contrast that are so central to his campaign. What are we going to see from the official side, the campaign side, you know, if Joe Biden continues to try to go forward here? The way they conceived of next week, Garrett, would be your traditional counter-programming to your opposing, you know, general convention.

And, of course, what we're going to be seeing in Milwaukee, they want to be having all these different messages. Of course, that shifted a little bit after the debate and as they were trying to design it. But there are already some events that are in place. So, for instance, on Monday, before he sits down with our colleague Lester Holt for that exclusive interview, which I think will also be a really important point and way for him to answer and address some of these concerns, he's going to be speaking about civil rights more generally and giving a broad sweeping speech about democracy and it's important in Austin, Texas.

And then he's going to be traveling to Nevada, where he's also then supposed to address some major groups and conventions over a couple of days. So he will actually be on the road out west while Republicans are gathering for their own convention. And that is really meant to demonstrate that he is still trying to talk to key voters and stakeholders. This has been a big message from the Biden re-election effort that the pundits can say whatever they want and that the lawmakers can have their positions.

But that when the president goes out and talks to some of the American people and voters who are going to be making these decisions if he's still the nominee in November, he claims that those people still want him to be the candidate and to be in the race. So they're going to try to extend that to other places that he's traveled to. And that's why you're also going to see him travel to Michigan on Friday tomorrow, which is significant, Garrett, after he wraps up this news conference tonight. You lost a House member from Michigan today, Hillary Shulton, who was one of those who came out and said she wouldn't support the campaign going forward.

So, Jonathan, if we're talking about this on Monday, what is, you know, what are the next, if Joe Biden clears these next two hurdles, right? The press conference tonight, the Lester Holt interview on Monday, does the campaign's memo today indicate they really, like, is that really the viable path forward? A three-state campaign, a blue-wall campaign, or what are we going to see going forward after the next couple weeks here? What was interesting about that campaign memo was they said, yes, we need to concentrate on these three blue-wall states, which are basically the firewall for Democrats.

But they also made the claim that they are still competitive in Arizona and Georgia and a bunch of other states that most Democrats have given up on. You know, look, I think that everybody should tune in to the Lester Holt interview on Monday, make their own judgments. All of yours, please watch. But look, Biden is at this point almost down to family and paid staff.

And as this reporting shows, some of the paid staff, it gets time for him to hang it up. That's right, Ryan, almost down. I think of John Fetterman, maybe the last loudest voice on Capitol Hill defending Joe Biden. If the cavalry is going to come from elected Democrats to back up Joe Biden, is he going to be Fetterman and the CBC?

Like, give me that scenario. Who are his big defenders left? And who can help him turn this around among Democrats who do have a megaphone here in Washington? You know, we did see Maggie Hassan from New Hampshire with a full-throated endorsement for the president after she left that meeting with the Biden campaign team tonight.

Haley Stephens I had a long conversation with from Michigan. But there is a pattern with the members of Congress that have this full-throated endorsement of President Biden. They're, in general, Democrats that are coming from safe seats in the House of Representatives or senators who just recently won re-election. Both John Fetterman and Maggie Hassan aren't going to be in front of voters again for another five years.

It's a lot easier for them to state their claim than it would be for Sherrod Brown or John Tester who are in highly competitive races coming up here this fall. So I would even caution this idea that the Congressional Black Caucus is 100 percent behind President Biden as well. You know, they have not put out a statement that specifically comes from the Congressional Black Caucus endorsing that he stays in the race. Stephen Horsford, who's the chair of that committee, put out a statement on his own.

He told us today during a press gaggle that we should not read into that being the entire caucus, that the caucus is not a monolith. And each one of these members speaks for themselves. And I know from our own reporting that there is some concern within the Congressional Black Caucus about the path forward. So, you know, there really isn't an organized group of people that are specifically working right now to try and keep President Biden in the race.

But at the same token, there also isn't an organized effort to push him out. That's part of the problem here is that all these Democrats are going in a million different directions and have a million different ways how to get through this impasse. And we're basically all just stuck sitting here waiting here. Well, it certainly makes some appointment viewing tonight and on Monday.

Ryan, Monica, Jonathan, thank you all for that great reporting. And tune in on Monday for the aforementioned Lester Holt exclusive sit-down interview with President Joe Biden. We'll have a preview on nightly news followed by the full unedited interview in a primetime special right here on NBC News Now. Coming up, President Biden is set to meet with Ukrainian President Zelensky as the U.S.

and NATO allies announce new steps to strengthen ties with Kiev and combat Russian aggression. I'll talk to a former ambassador to Russia straight ahead. But first, final preparations are underway for next week's Republican National Convention as former President Trump gets closer to naming his running mate. The latest from inside the Trump campaign is next.

You're watching The Press Now. Welcome back. While Democrats are gearing up for what's next after President Biden's big press conference tonight, Republicans are preparing for their biggest event of the year, the upcoming Republican Convention. The festivities are set to kick off Monday in Milwaukee.

And while we're still in the dark about most of the scheduled speakers, we do know Donald Trump will be speaking on the convention's final night one week from today. And we also know that his vice presidential pick will have a prime speaking slot as well. We learned today that Donald Trump Jr. will be speaking right before Trump's running mate on Wednesday.

But who that will be and when it will be announced, that's all unclear. Could the former president make the announcement while he's on the trail Saturday in Pennsylvania? Yeah, sure, maybe, but maybe not. Will he pick Doug Berga, Marco Rubio, J.D.

Vance? Yeah, sure, maybe, but maybe not. But before he gets to Pennsylvania or Milwaukee, NBC News confirms that former President Trump will meet with Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, who recently met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Joining me now to walk through all this is my NBC News colleague on the Trump beat, Von Hilliard.

So, Von, let's start on the Orban side of this. President Biden is making a big show of support for Ukraine today. Trump's meeting with Viktor Orban, who's been a skeptic of kind of Ukraine and NATO's relationship. Is this split screen by design, or is this just sort of Trump's best friend on the international stage right now?

I think it could be a book there. This is a clear indication from Donald Trump, though, who he is allied with on the international stage. Basically, they refer to him as being no better leader or smarter leader than Viktor Orban. Of course, Orban is somebody who has promoted the idea of a liberal democracies.

He is opposed to the expansion of NATO. He is in support of cutting off financial aid to Ukraine. These are positions that Donald Trump has remained open to. And after that March meeting, Viktor Orban, upon leaving the U.S., made the claim that Trump told him that he had the intention, if he were to get back in the White House, that he would send another penny to Ukraine with the idea that if there is no U.S.

support financially for Ukraine, that Europe would not be able to. fully fund the Ukraine defense effort itself, and therefore the war would come to an end. We asked the Trump campaign at the time whether that was in fact accurate. We did not receive any word from them, but those were the claims of Viktor Orban, too.

These men do clearly have a strong personal relationship in Donald Trump, who clearly believes that he would be a strong ally come 2025. And, Vaughn, on the beefsteaks, I know my reporting today has been that it looks more likely than not that Trump will get his wish and make his announcement perhaps during the convention week that he wants to have this big build-up. But what are you hearing about? How the Trump campaign is viewing the time period since the debate through the convention, how this decision-making process is playing out, and what have to be the final days if the VP is going to speak next week?

Right, Garrett, this VP pick has been a long time coming. There was some chatter that could have come before the debates. His campaign team said he could make the announcement at any hour. It's Donald Trump's decision.

He has one more rally before the convention. That's this Saturday in Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. There's some questions here, whether we're still looking at the likes of Doug Burgum of North Dakota, J.D. Vance of Ohio.

Of course, Marco Rubio was at his Doral rally the other night. Notably, Donald Trump never invited him up to that stage. He had him in a radio interview yesterday. He did remark that he is a popular figure, impressed by him, the fact that they're both from Florida, then potentially have some residency issues.

That is not going to be an over-complicating factor if he were to go that route. He commented just yesterday that J.D. Vance, he likes his beard, suggesting that it makes him look like Abraham Lincoln. And so really, this is going to be Donald Trump's timeline.

And in no way, I think, should we rule out a potential dark horse? At the same time, our colleague Henry Gomez is now reporting that Don Jr. is going to be the final speaker before the VP candidate takes the stage at the Republican convention next week. And of course, Don Jr.

has a close relationship with J.D. Vance. They share some similar advisors, and they have struck up a cordial relationship over the last two years. So that could be a potential indicator.

At the same time, of course, it is not unusual to have your child make a prominent speech there in prime time. So there's a lot of play here over the next week here. And while we don't have video to support this, we here at Meet the Press now would like you to know that a young Abraham Lincoln did not actually sport a beard. Vaughn, on the poll numbers here, this is interesting to me.

We've been talking so much about President Biden, this disastrous debate, all the trouble within the Democratic Party. And so these national numbers are still basically tied. Is the Trump campaign concerned at all that, despite how bad the last two weeks have been for Joe Biden, Donald Trump's still just pretty much right there in a neck-and-neck race? They have felt like they were in a very strong position coming into debate night.

After debate night, they felt like it only improved here. The numbers, if you compare them to 2020, our start, when Donald Trump was down several percentage points in the popular vote, nationally, at least in polling. And I was talking about Chris Lasavita, the senior advisor to Trump, right there after the debate. And he made the case there that they saw the potential to expand the map to places like Virginia, Minnesota, and New Mexico.

Of course, these numbers were going to tell us a lot more here in the days ahead. However, Donald Trump clearly has an opponent who he feels comfortable with, and he is perfectly fine sticking with. All right, Vaughn, thank you. We will leave it there.

And literally, as we were talking, to underscore this point, two more congressional Democrats have joined the calls for President Biden to step aside. Congressman Greg Stanton of Arizona and Ed Case of Hawaii, which brings the total now to 16 elected congressional Democrats calling for President Biden to withdraw. We'll have something to talk about now with our panel. Daniela Diaz, she's a congressional reporter at Politico.

Joe Crowley, former Democratic congressman from New York, and Charlie Dent, former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania. He's now a senior advisor at our Republican legacy. So Daniela, RNC kicks off on Monday. I had a Republican strategist say to me today, they'd probably be just as good off sending this money and sending every Republican on vacation and just let the entire country focus on what's happening with Joe Biden right now.

How much of the Republican goal next week is to stay out of their own way while things have been so bad for the current president? I mean, I've seen it play out on Capitol Hill even just in the last two weeks. I have covered Republicans for this entire Congress. It's been, you know, two speakers races, a lot of drama, and yet these Republicans are saying they're ecstatic that right now Democrats are having their own dems and disarray moment, and they like that the attention right now is on Democrats during this very chaotic moment where a lot of the press, as we just said too while we were here, are calling on Biden to step aside.

However, we know Trump probably does want some attention at the RNC. This is going to be a very glamorous event. Celebrities are going to be there. It's really interesting to see that there's these two scenes playing out at the same time.

If you get the Trump campaign truth serum, I wonder if they would rather have people watch the first half hour of convention coverage on Monday night or our Joe Biden interview on Monday night, which they think would help them more. Well, I know what I'm going to be watching on Monday night, and that is the interview with Joe Biden. It's what people are really talking about right now. It's really sucking all the oxygen out of the room that this is the biggest thing that is happening ever.

I mean, the fact that a presidential candidate is having members of their own party call for him to drop out. We saw that, of course, with Donald Trump back in the day, but it's different when this is a president that's serving in office right now. And for reasons that are related to his age, it's just very notable for the Democratic Party to be going through this right now. It wasn't all that long ago that we were making comparisons of Joe Biden to LBJ for his legislative achievements, and now he might be facing a very different LBJ comparison.

Congressman Crowley, what do you make of the makeup of the folks who are calling for the current president to step aside this rebellion within the Democratic caucus against the current president? Before I say, came to see Trump at the convention on the podium, and he says, ladies and gentlemen, my pick for vice president is, and you'll find it out, right after this message from our sponsor. Absolutely. It's such an apprentice moment, you know, so look, I think we've seen in terms of those folks, maybe they're on the front line, and for the viewers, that's people who traditionally have more difficult elections, where the population of that district is more balanced between Republicans, Independents, and Democrats.

And they have a much more tough time getting reelected writ large. But you've also seen safe folks like Pete Welch is not going to lose a election. No, no, you have, you have. You've seen some of that as well, but for the most part, the people that came out were the frontliners.

Look, the president still enjoys tremendous support amongst the Black caucus, amongst the Hispanic caucus, and amongst most members of Congress at the moment, at least publicly. And, you know, until that changes, I think it's pretty much still status quo. The rare situation here, Congressman, where it does seem like the Republican Party is far more rallied around their nominee, all his problems notwithstanding, than what the current president is facing right now. I mean, I know how fractious it was with Donald Trump as your president in the early part of, you know, 2017, I guess, but what do you see the comparisons here about how hard it is to wrangle this party together behind the sense of the man who's in charge of it?

Well, Republicans have a challenge right now. They're having a shot in Freud at the moment. You know, they're delighting in the misery of the Democrats. But I think you also recognize that Donald Trump is not in the best position to capitalize on the Democratic misery.

You just showed that polling, where Donald Trump is a known entity, his unfavorables are so high, he's got a very low ceiling. And, you know, I often say over 40% of the voters, you know, vote for a cadaver in blue fluid rather than Donald Trump. And that's the problem that they've got right now is that Trump is, you know, he comes with his own liability. So that said, you know, he still is in a good position to win.

I happen to think that the Republicans want to keep Joe Biden as the nominee as long as they can, because they see him as deeply wounded. I want to come back to that in a minute, but I'm curious, because you jogged my thought process on this. Is there a bit of a trap element here for Donald Trump walking to the Republican convention next week? He is not at his best when he gets overconfident.

And if he thinks he's got this thing sewn up, do you anticipate the risk that he will be too Trumpy for the Biden-skeptical voters out there who might say, I'm not with Joe Biden anymore. Can I test the waters? Can I talk myself into voting for Donald Trump? Well, whoever's advising Donald Trump should be advising him to be as normal as possible.

That is to be measured, to be careful. I mean, in a debate where, you know, he ostensibly did better, you know, he lied a lot. He, you know, he didn't, he didn't melt down. I mean, he was, you know, he was a bit more controlled.

And I suspect they're going to be advising him to remain controlled, because I think there's an alternative to Joe Biden. They're going to want somebody who's not out there frothing at the mouth, which Trump is often known to do. So the less he says, the better. And the other folks who might be considering an alternative to Joe Biden or the Biden campaign, based on our reporting, that they're doing this polling on whether Kamala Harris performs much better.

I asked John this question, but I'm curious from your perspective as well, how unusual is it to do polling like that? I know presidential campaigns test lots of things. And what does that tell you about the Biden campaign's, you know, real view of the race, where they're spending their money versus what they're saying out loud? Well, I think you have a lot of, this is a time for information gathering.

And it's happening with DCC, it's happening with the SEC, it's happening with the White House. I think they're testing a lot of messages to see just what the parameters are, where the president is right now, and what those other options, not that they're looking for, but what potentially could be out there, I think is what they're looking for, I want to play some of what Kamala Harris had to say on the trail today. Speaking of information gathering, we should consider this information about how she's campaigning, even as we speak. Listen.

The past few days have been a reminder that running for president of the United States is never easy, nor should it be. But one thing we know about our president, Joe Biden, is that he is a fighter. He is a fighter. And he is the first to say, when you get knocked down, you get back up.

You see, the vice president being, I think, a very effective communicator there on behalf of her boss. Should we expect to see more of her regardless, Daniela? I mean, she's the point person on the signature issue for Democrats in the selection, abortion, and reproductive freedom. I mean, if you all remember, right after that debate, everyone's shocked.

We all saw the same debate that Thursday. She was the first person in an interview defending Joe Biden, and she got praised for a lot of what she said. And it seems like she's doing the best job, the best surrogate for her boss to promote him and try to stir a voter should he not drop out, that he is the person that will lead them to victory to win the White House in November. It seems that that's what the White House is going to continue to do.

Pretty interesting that she was campaigning with Governor Roy Cooper when Roy Cooper has been floated as a potential vice presidential candidate for her should Joe Biden drop out. This is all very, all rumors at this point, but it's very interesting to see her in this role and that they continue to put her out there because she is his best surrogate. I love the idea that we're just going to be doing deep stakes forever from one party or the other for the remainder of time. Congressman, on the information gathering, I think the next big data point in all of this will be this press conference tonight, and I'll ask you kind of both about this.

Depending on how he does, I mean, an average performance, a kick-the-can performance, how much harder does that make it for Democrats going forward if we end up in sort of a zombie campaign here where you're just looking for the next press conference or interview or opportunity to reassess the Biden Canada city? I think that that has already begun, that process, and it's not going to stop, unfortunately, for the president. I love Joe Biden. I'm supportive of Joe Biden.

I want to be successful. I want the country to be successful. The one thing I do know about Joe Biden... Do you think he's the strongest Democrat to run right now?

I think the president believes he is. But I will say this, though. That's not a yes. No, no.

Right now, I think he is. Actually, I think he is right now. But I'll say this. Compared to the other guy, Joe Biden loves his country more than he loves himself.

He's a man of dignity and of character. The other guy doesn't have that, and that's what's going to see us through as a party as well. A party is a lovely character. Unfortunately, they're lacking that right now.

Congressman, we are seeing this map potentially shrink dramatically if Joe Biden does stay in. Pennsylvania could be the key, the whole thing. Donald Trump's going to be there Saturday. Joe Biden's been there more than he's been in any other swing state.

How do you see your former constituents viewing Joe Biden in this moment and going forward? What does he need to do to keep people like Joe Crowley here in the tent in Pennsylvania? Well, before this debate, I said that most voters thought that one of the candidates was too old and one was too dangerous. The debate validated that and amplified that.

But I think right now that Joe Biden has a problem in Pennsylvania, that many of these so-called swing voters, these people who Biden had made the sale on, they're not going to come to him now. And I think that you're going to see Trump's numbers actually improve a bit in Pennsylvania, just on the margins, just because Biden's not able to close the deal. I did my Jersey Shore test last weekend, and everybody went, it's all that whole Jersey Shore is popular with Pennsylvanians at that time here, 4th of July. Everybody was saying, you know, these are non-political people.

There's nobody who thinks he should stay on. And so I think that's going to hurt Joe Biden in the end on the margins, but Trump won't be able to capitalize to the extent that he should. Trump seems pretty well-stuck. My operating theory on this race has been that the undecided people are not.

Everybody in this country knows what they think about Donald Trump. It's Joe Biden the people are undecided about right now, but that's where we have to leave it. Daniela, Congressman Pearl, thank you both for joining us. And speaking of RNC, Kristen will be anchoring Meet the Press Now, this fine broadcast from Milwaukee every day of the convention.

We'll have special NBC News coverage every night of the week right here on NBC News Now. I will be there the whole week as well. Don't miss it. Up next, summer is hot not just at the Jersey Shore, but inflation now is cooling.

We'll have the latest after a better-than-expected economic report and what it could mean for interest rates headed into November. You're watching Meet the Press Now. Welcome back. For the first time since the pandemic, prices for consumers did not go up.

They went down, albeit ever so slightly. Still, the Labor Department reported today that month-to-month prices fell at a tenth of a percent last month. It is not a significant decline, but the last time prices went down was in May of 2020, right in the heat of when COVID had brought the economy to a grinding halt. Overall, prices rose 3% compared to a year ago.

That number is inching closer to the Federal Reserve's goal of 2%. News of cooling inflation comes after last week's news of a cooling jobs market, with unemployment topping 4% for the first time since November of 2021. Fed chair Jerome Powell hinted during congressional testimony this week that the central bank could cut interest rates later this year, potentially before Election Day. And we've seen your business correspondent, Christine Romans, turns me now.

So, Christine, where are we seeing prices start to stabilize, and where are we seeing them actually start to fall? Yeah, it looks like kind of a milestone moment here after all those months of rising inflation. Now you've seen inflation really come off of a peak of 9.1% pretty dramatically here. You're seeing energy prices down.

That was part of this report here. Shelter prices were up, but a little more slowly than they had been before. And so even though that housing number is 5.2% there, there is some excitement from economists who look behind those numbers and say they're hoping the housing costs are starting to come down. Energy are real help there.

And that food number also belies a little bit of what we've seen this year. The White House pointing out, the White House economic advisors pointing out that grocery prices from the beginning of this year to today are essentially up just a tiny, tiny bit, essentially flat overall grocery inflation. And with wages now rising faster than inflation for about a year, there's a hope that maybe people start to feel a little bit better about their family budgets. And did today's report make an interest rate cut more likely?

Did it make it inevitable? I mean, we were talking about multiple cuts this year at one point, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards anymore. I'm telling you the forecasts have been so wrong for so long that you have to be real careful about reading too much into one report. But the trend here is very promising.

You know, you see inflation go up and then you see inflation here come down pretty dramatically. And you're seeing some falling prices as well. Gas prices month on month, you're a year down. Airfares are down.

This is just from month to month. Use car prices down from May to June more than 1 percent, but down 10 percent over the past year. So there are some pain points that are improving here. And I think that's really important.

Does it make a Fed rate cut inevitable? Of course not. Anything can happen in the next days or weeks. But the conventional wisdom now on Wall Street is the Fed has the ammunition to cut interest rates in September and maybe again later in the year.

And there are several economists I talked to today who said if numbers like these jobs, the jobs report and the inflation numbers continue like this, you can see the Fed cutting interest rates slowly and steadily for much next year too. Well, they start in the fall. It's the kind of thing that could be very helpful to President Biden politically. That's how we look at it on this broadcast.

Christine Romans. Thank you. I know, I know. I'm stretching it a little bit here.

We're a politics show. Thank you. The Fed says it is an independent institution. Of course they are.

All right. We'll leave it there. Christine Romans, thank you very much. And coming up, NATO leaders look for reassurances from President Biden, not just about the state of his presidency, but about the U.S.'s enduring commitment to the alliance and Ukraine.

Ambassador Mike McFaul joins me on set after the break. You're watching me The Press Now. Welcome back. Even during a moment of political weakness for President Biden, the NATO alliance is looking to project strength, announcing new measures to counter the threat posed by Russia and further boost Ukraine's capabilities.

Earlier today, President Biden met with President Zelensky, where he touted progress on the battlefield to defend key cities and announce a new security assistance package. This afternoon, NATO leaders are holding a meeting on Ukraine after promising a, quote, irreversible path to join the alliance. But some allies are growing increasingly worried about what would happen to these new commitments if Donald Trump were to return to the White House. The former president has said he could end the war in Ukraine in a day before he even retook the Oval Office and on the campaign trail has made comments about letting Russia do, quote, whatever it wants to NATO countries who aren't meeting their defense obligations.

During the onset is Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia and an NBC News international affairs analyst. Ambassador, I want to start with something you wrote in an op-ed in Foreign Policy last week. You write, clearly Putin is waiting to see if Trump will win the November U.S.

presidential election, calculating with good reason that he will get a much better deal under Trump, including U.S. recognition of his illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory. But even if Biden is re-elected, the prospects for complete liberation of Ukraine from Russian occupation are faded. So the possibility of a complete liberation are fading.

How does this war end? Assuming it ends not with a negotiation under a Trump administration, but how can this war end? Are we looking at the possibility of a forever war here in Europe? Well, it'll end very differently depending on who's the next president of the United States, as you just mentioned.

If Mr. Trump is re-elected, he can end. in a day by forcing capitulation, right? And that's what the Ukrainians are very nervous about.

If President Biden is re-elected, I don't want to say we don't know how to predict wars. I think we need to be very careful about that. Can I ask you this way? Can Ukraine still win in any meaningful way?

They seem very, very stuck at this point. Depends on how you look at the glass. I think they've already won. Remember what we were talking about when Putin invaded.

Russian soldiers were going to be in downtown Kiev, completely was going to be subjugated. They were going to become a basal state of Russia. Russia was going to demilitarize Ukraine and keep them out of NATO. He's held on all those objectives.

Remember that. Zelensky's still president, more militarized than ever before. They've pushed, they've liberated 50% of their territory. And they're closer to NATO than ever before, which has been on display today.

They weren't having these kinds of summits. That all said, it's hard to move people out. It's hard to move soldiers out of defensive places. They've experienced that.

They had a big setback when they lost six months of fighting time because of our delays. And the next big counteroffensive in their minds and their planning won't happen until the spring of 2025. That is provided that we're still with them in 2025. And on that note, Zelensky has now started to say that the next big thing that he needs is essentially permission to use some of these U.S.

and NATO-provided weapons to strike targets in Russian territory. The Americans and other countries have suggested that's not the way we want to go. But we've also seen this White House slow walk other things that we've ultimately turned around and given Ukrainians, be they tanks or air defense systems or longer range missiles. What is the likelihood that we ultimately end up giving Zelensky the green light he's asking for here?

I certainly hope that's the case. I know that's what the Ukrainians most of all wanted in their visit here in Washington at the summit. It hasn't happened yet. But you rightly pointed out that oftentimes it takes them a while to get to the decision, but they ultimately make that right decision.

And most certainly it's hard to fight a war when you're constrained, right? It's hard. You know, this is self-defense, right? It's right in the UN charter, the United Nations charter, right to self-defense.

They just were attacked. Their biggest cancer unit for children was attacked. They want to strike back. And I hope we will eventually get to that decision.

NATO has basically said they would put forth this irreversible path for Ukraine to join after the war is over. What incentive does Vladimir Putin have to end this war right now? It seems like he would much rather have the forever war we talked about a minute ago than to say, all right, we're going to let go at any capacity and have his next door neighbor, the prize that he's got all this time, get what they want. You can just wait this out.

Well, definitely Mr. Putin thinks time's on his side. And he definitely has from the beginning. He has from the beginning.

He has more firepower. He has more soldiers. He's a dictator. He doesn't have to listen to his people.

And he's waiting for a new president in the United States of America. That's all on his side, on the time part. But there are two different scenarios. Either Ukrainians are going to push the Russians out of their territory and liberate their territory and then be free to join NATO.

And Mr. Putin will be so weak, he'll have nothing to say about it. Or more tragically, it'll be a stalemate, like you were just saying. Think of the Korean war, right?

They can't quite move. And at that moment, when they sue for peace, they might have to let some of their territory be occupied. That's the moment when they can join NATO. And Putin, that's the height.

He'll be at the height of his victory. He can say, I took over this occupied territory. I annexed it. He won't be in a position, I think, to talk about whether the rest of Ukraine could be in NATO or not.

So I think in either scenario, Ukraine will eventually be a member of NATO. Let's talk about what the other underlying conversations of this Senate this week, the idea of Trump proofing the alliance. What are the rest of these NATO countries thinking and doing about the possibility that Donald Trump may in fact be the next president and may want to change or roll back some of the commitments that are being made even now? Well, everybody's talking about our elections, right?

On the sidelines, every single government official I've seen at the Senate, that's all they talk about. And they have to make plans for that eventuality, including, by the way, the Ukrainian government. They're all making those plans. I think you see a couple of things happening.

One, they're trying to have NATO set up a direct line of military support to Ukraine that could be independent of just the bilateral support between the United States and Ukraine. And two, they're trying to lock in long-term military and economic commitments that will be harder to roll back. And number three, with respect to Ukraine in particular, when the whole NATO organization, all the allies vote to say this is irreversible, what can only reverse that is that they all vote together to reverse it. And that, I think, is another way to trump-proof this new commitment to Ukraine.

Very interesting stuff, Ambassador. We have to leave it there. Thank you for coming in for your expertise. And still come, jury deliberations are set to start tomorrow in Senator Bob Menendez' federal corruption trial after nearly two months of testimony.

We are live outside the courthouse next. You're watching The Press Now. Welcome back. After nearly two months of testimony and nearly four days of closing arguments, the fate of Senator Bob Menendez and two of his co-defendants will soon be in the hands of the jury.

Closing arguments wrapped up today in the New Jersey Democrats' federal corruption trial in New York. The judge told jurors they'll begin deliberating tomorrow. Prosecutors accused Menendez and his wife Nadine of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for promises of official acts in his role as a senator. The FBI says it found these large sums of cash and gold bars during a search of the couple's home in 2022.

Both Menendez's have pleaded not guilty. NBC News law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter joins me now from outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan. So, Tom, we've gotten to this point in fits and starts. What's actually happening inside the courthouse right now?

Right now, the judge is instructing the jurors as to how they should apply the law here to the evidence that they've heard over those past nine weeks as you've alluded to and what they need to think about as far as either determining beyond a reasonable doubt that Senator Menendez committed crimes or did not commit crimes and how they should view that for the other two defendants here, which is a real reason why this case has gone on so long. We're talking about why El Hanna and Fred Davies, two New Jersey businessmen, who are led to be part of this bribery scheme, how to apply the law to them and what they've been charged with as well. And for viewers who have not followed this as closely as you and I, a reminder of the charges that Senator Menendez is facing here and the possible sentence he could be facing if he's convicted. Sure, Darren.

So it's really kind of three buckets. It's 18 charges total. The first one is tied to this bribery scheme, and it's several bribery schemes involving El Hanna, involving Fred Davies, involving Jose Uribe, who's another person who was initially charged later, pleaded guilty and cooperated and testified in this case. In Qatar, in the work he did for them in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and as a foreign agent.

So that's column number two. And then the third column is obstruction of justice. We allegedly had his attorneys walk into the U.S. Attorney's Office here and assert things that were not true.

And so he's being charged with obstruction of justice along those lines. The maximum sentences here could put the Senator in jail for decades, effectively, Garrett. But as you know, and you know what's going to come out of my mouth, they rarely ever get the maximum sentence. And so we anticipate here that if he's convicted of everything, though, he could still face several years in prison.

Now, Tom, when you talk about gold bars and big stacks of cash, you think you're dealing with something that might be fairly straightforward. But the jurors heard testimony here for nearly two months. How complicated is this case? So a little bit of an asterisk to that, because a lot of people ask me, why did this case take so long?

What were they listening to? You've got three defendants on trial here. And basically, the federal government has to prove not just what Senator Robert Hernandez allegedly did, but they also have to prove what Fred Davies did and why Al Hanna did. And there's different components in conduct that pertains to all of that.

And the second thing is the evidence when we involve public corruption cases can become complex, can become quite detailed. We're talking about things before in diplomat lists, how basically the Senate Foreign Relations Committee operates. It requires a lot of nuance and a lot of detail, things that you and I could spend 15, 20 minutes talking about and still maybe not have the baseline knowledge that some of these staffers do that was needed for this case. We'll have to do that on another show, because now we're out of time.

This continues with Hallie Jackson right now. Hey everyone, I'm Dylan Dreyer, co-host of the third hour of today, and moms of three wild boys. I've learned a lot in my years as a parent, mostly that I don't have it 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 for honest conversation and real-world advice about parenting. I am over here just like winging it. Hey, I'm just trying not to screw my own kid up.

I'm not giving you advice when I'm not screw yourself. Search The Parent Chat on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.