Meet the Press NOW — July 20

If it's Thursday, the elephant in the room, House Republicans hold a second day of hearings on red meat issues, as lawmakers seek shelter from the legal storm facing former President Trump, and a looming third criminal indictment. Plus, President Biden heads to battleground Pennsylvania, amid slumping support in the polls, the threat of more labor strikes, and whistleblower testimony tied to his son, Hunter. And addressing America's mental health crisis, as the new report shows a staggering surge in mental health needs for cities across America, and a potentially devastating lack of resources. Hello, and welcome to Meet the Press Now on Ryan Noble's Infra-Chuktaad reporting in Washington, where for a second day in a row, House Republicans use their power over the chamber to hold hearings focused on red meat issues, as Donald Trump faces a third criminal indictment and urges his party to rally his defense.

Today, a House subcommittee established to investigate the, quote, weaponization of government held a hearing on government censorship, headlined by Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Now Democrats criticize Republicans for promoting Kennedy, giving his conspiracy theories on vaccines and his recent comments on COVID and Jews. House top Democratic King Jeffries calling him, quote, a living, breathing false flag operation by Republicans in an attempt to hurt President Biden.

The notion that Republicans would give a congressional platform to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who petals anti-Semitic tropes and baseless xenophobic conspiracy theories, which together are directed at the Jewish community and the Chinese American community, is unbelievable. Well, not surprisingly, Republicans pushed ahead with Kennedy's testimony using it to essentially amplify Donald Trump's claims that the government was trying to silence Biden's critics. It comes as yesterday, House Republicans heard testimony from two IRS whistleblowers alleging political interference in the Justice Department's investigation into the President's son, Hunter Biden, which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy repeatedly used to deflect from reporters' questions about Donald Trump's legal troubles.

I don't see how he could be found criminally responsible. He would not charge it. Well, what criminally activity did he do? He told people to be peaceful.

I just find this. This is what you asked me about when we have a hearing going on where we have three committees in a hearing, where you have two IRS whistleblowers. Did former President Trump voice frustration in the call with you about the target letter? You feel frustrated?

When you feel frustrated, you get a target letter? Let's just put it in perspective, because none of you have ever gotten back to the hearing that's going on right now with two whistleblowers. Now, all of this, as Mr. Trump is calling on Republican leaders to rally around him to shift the narrative away from his legal issues and hold a House vote to symbolically expunge his two impeachments.

I spoke to the House Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier today asking him to respond to a report in Politico that this speaker had made a deal with Trump to hold that vote this summer. There's no deal but that very clear. From long before, when I go against the impeachment study, they put in for purely political purposes. I support his budget.

There's no deal out there and take the source and you don't realize, read their deals with that. So you do support it? It's not a resolution. You do want those to come to the floor?

How long have you been covering Washington? A long time. Okay. Okay.

I said it when I was in the minority. I said it earlier this year when you asked what else happened. I still haven't figured out how long I've covered Washington. I've been working on that.

For more, I'm joined by my two colleagues on Capitol Hill, both of whom have covered Washington for a long time. Ali Vitale, who's still on Capitol Hill and Garrett Hake was with me on set. So Ali, let's start with you. I'm not sure you have the answer to this question, but I want you to give me your best shot.

Who was the audience for today's webinization hearing? Was this really just a show hearing? Yeah. First of all, don't age me.

I've covered Capitol Hill for a very short period of time. That's true. That's true. That's true.

That's true. Secondly, secondly, I think it's the right question. Honestly, when you talk about all of these webinization, so-called webinization of government subcommittee hearings, I think today there was sort of a two-pronged sense of what this was for. On the first hand, conservatives do talk about big tech and censorship often, so it is red meat for the base.

On the other hand, though, I did get the sense that it was sort of like using a Democrat to just troll Democrats while also trying to bolster the fact that this is a man who Democrats would rather ignore in his quest for the nomination against Joe Biden, and instead bringing him forward for a meeting about censorship where Democrats were effectively trying to say, hey, let's not hear from this guy anymore. But in terms of actual tangible substance, it was pretty minimal. Yeah. Not a lot of news, as they say.

So how much pressure, though, is Kevin McCarthy under to perceive these efforts to expunge Donald Trump's impeachments, and really, what risk is he facing if he actually put that on the floor? Yeah, because there's pressure in two directions here, right, guys? I mean, we know this well. We know members who would love to see the president's past impeachment expunge doesn't change the fact that he was actually impeached, but they would love to do that from a PR perspective show that he's still the front runner of the party, show that he's the guy that they're all behind.

But there are just as many moderates, especially in those Biden districts, who would rather not talk about former President Trump at all. Each time he comes into the news cycle, you and I can find these folks in the hall, they would rather not talk about him putting votes like this central on the floor, puts them in a really tough political spot, but that's the pressure that McCarthy is under, this constant push and pull between the far right factions of his conference and the more moderate sides of his conference. And my sense is that if it failed, Donald Trump wouldn't blame himself, but we probably blame Kevin McCarthy. So let's now talk about what Chuck Grassley, the senator from Iowa, did just a few minutes ago, he released a redacted FBI informant document related to Hunter Biden's business dealings that some Republicans claim could implicate President Biden.

Now, explain especially what this document is about and then catch us up to speed on white so significant. Yeah, this is pretty dense reading. And I'm sure that you guys went through this immediately too, because this is a document that we've really been waiting to see for a while here now, the long-fabled 1023 form that Grassley has long pointed to as a potential smoking gun implicating then vice president Joe Biden in the dealings with Marisma and his son, Hunter. Of course, Democrats would be quick to point out that that's not what this document does.

And frankly, in reading it, there are even some things that could be lost in translation between the Russian that was being spoken by this informant with the sources that he's referring to and the translation of that Russian. So it's not exactly a clean win or loss for anyone, but nevertheless, Republicans are going to point to this continuously as a clear sign of wrongdoing or potential wrongdoing and use it to continue to bolster these investigations that we saw them do earlier this week with IRS so-called whistleblowers about Hunter Biden saying that he was given a lenient deal by the Department of Justice for his tax violations. This is yet another page of that as we watch the Senate and the House move forward on the House side using the power of the gavel to continuously beat this drum against the White House and against it's on Hunter Biden. Yeah, and worth pointing out that Senator Ron Johnson, not above believing a Biden conspiracy said that this document should be taken with a grain of salt.

Ali, thanks so much for your reporting. As always, let's go to Garrett now. So Garrett, you know, you talk to Trump with every single day and your capacity also covering the Trump campaign. Do they seem satisfied with the level of support that he's getting right now from House Republicans specifically from the Speaker?

They're never satisfied. I mean, I had one source, an ally of Trump explained it to me like the quote from the office where they asked Michael Scott if he'd rather be loved or feared and he says I'd rather people fear how much they love me and that's kind of the attitude that Trump world takes towards this, right? There's never quite enough lawmakers who could go on TV and defend him publicly on all of these things. He is very interested in getting his vote in expungement taken care of although my sources both inside and outside of Trump world dispute the idea that there was ever some specific date certain or some deal with McCarthy to get it done.

They want more. They want him to be treated like essentially an incumbent president running for reelection. That's what he basically believes he is and that's the way they think the press to the party should be responding to him right now. Do they see nervous about that vote going to the floor and the potential that it might not pass?

Is that a concern? I don't know that it's been that well thought through in that sense, right? The idea that it would go and not pass. I think to Trump world and certainly to Donald Trump is an opportunity where he believes every basically every Republican thinks at least the first impeachment was political, right?

There was not a single Republican vote for it in the House, last go around that they ought to be able to clear these things up. I don't know that anyone's kind of gamed out all the steps of what happens if you vote for this. And probably the Trump thought process on this to McCarthy is get this vote on the floor and get it passed. Those are the two things.

Yeah, exactly. There's not a lot of thought to process. It's more about results here. Get this thing done.

Yeah. What should we take from this? Why was he there? And what does it mean for a potential indictment?

It's an interesting little mystery. I mean, as best we can tell this is at least the third time Russell has spoken in front of the grand jury, whether that means he's got to clean something up or that there's more information that's come out between his appearances that they want information on. He was a trip director or special assistant to the president. It's not a particularly high ranking role in the White House, but he's been photographed standing as you see there on your screen next to the then president on January 6th.

He was around and we know from some of what we heard in an unrelated court case today that he was getting asked questions today that potentially got into the realm of executive privilege, which would mean conversations that he either had or heard with the president himself during the time that he was president. There's a lot of mystery surrounding this. It seems to be relatively narrowly focused, but beyond that, nobody's sent. All right.

And we also learned that Rudy Giuliani met with the special counsel team earlier this year. What do we know about those meetings? What's the significance? Yeah.

These are meetings that apparently took place in New York. It's not clear whether they were pursuant to a subpoena or whether these were voluntary meetings, but Giuliani, given his role in the whole broader stop the steel movement, was always going to be of interest to prosecutors. I mean, I think to me the bigger question is, is he of interest as a witness against Donald Trump and others? Or is he of interest because he himself is a potential target?

Remember, he's been disbarred. We know he's a target in the investigation in Georgia. He is a central, central figure in this. So prosecutors have some of his side of the story.

It's an open question whether they believe it or whether they're looking at him as somebody who could potentially also face charges. Okay. Can I continue to be busy for you, Karen? Hey, thanks so much for being here.

We appreciate it. All right. We're going to talk more about this now with Congressman Jerry Connolly, the Democrat from Virginia, who was part of today's hearing as a member of the House Select Committee on the webinization of federal government. And he was also there for yesterday's hearing with the IRS whistleblowers because he's of course a member of the House Oversight Committee Congressman.

Thank you so much for being here. As we mentioned, you said, you said on both of these committee hearings, you asked questions of these witnesses. Now, if Republicans are trying to distract from Donald Trump's indictment, were they successful at all over these two days with these hearings? No.

No. In fact, take today, today almost seemed like a skit on Saturday Night Live, except it wasn't funny. I mean, they got three pitiful, crackpot witnesses who sound half-crazed, you know, with theories and conspiracy arguments that don't resonate with the American public. And half the time, because they're so used to talking within their delusional right-wing bubble, the broader public doesn't even know what they're talking about or referring to.

Even we had trouble sometimes following, what are you talking about? So no, I don't think it made any progress at all with respect to that. And you know, that's a steep hill to climb to overcome the headline of Trump above to be indicted. Yeah.

And do you have the same impression from the Oversight Committee hearing that you were a part of the day before? I mean, what was your impression of the witnesses that you heard from in that hearing? I don't imagine you put them in the same class as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

You're quite right. I think we had two sincere, professional IRS investigators whose beef is that the prosecutor didn't follow 100% their recommendations and appreciate their hard work. And at a human level, you can understand that. But there is such a thing as prosecutorial discretion.

And these two, I think, sincere employees of IRS simply didn't seem to appreciate that. You know, there are lots of pressures and dynamics going on in any prosecutor's office as they try to make determinations about which archival cases, what parts of the case will we bring forward if any. How do we gauge a jury's reaction to the arguments? And that may be very different than what an investigator finds or believes at the investigative stage.

And that was kind of painful and sad to witness, but I don't think they're crack clots at all. I think it was sincere, but I think they just didn't understand the dynamic. So let's get back to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

He's, of course, running as a Democratic candidate for president. Do people in your party take him seriously? Could he be a potential liability for Democrats? I know he's not only competitively with the current president, but 14% is not something to ignore.

There aren't very many Republican candidates pulling that well. Yeah, let's not get carried away by 14%. And that's all about his last name. And as the public understands, this is not that Kennedy.

This is kind of a wayward sheep in the family who's been denounced for his views by that family. Those numbers are going to fall very rapidly. So that's an ephemeral number, first time out of the gate, not to be taken seriously. Is he a liability?

For us? No. I believe, in fact, he could probably help President Biden over time in terms of the contrast. But more than anything, I just think he's a sad case.

I think it is a tragic and sad development that somebody with that kind of story name, with an iconic figure for a father, would descend this low in terms of intellectual content and fabricated belief systems and conspiracies, just a very sad state of affairs. Just from a strategic standpoint, when it comes to the president in his campaign, he's indicated he may skip the New Hampshire primary. He wants South Carolina for obviously for the diverse background of South Carolina voters to be the first primary. But what if New Hampshire decides to hold their primary first anyway and he skips it?

Is there any risk of embarrassment if Robert F Kennedy, for instance, goes there in campaigns and the president doesn't? Well, you know, I'm all done enough to remember Eugene McCarthy embarrassing Lyndon Danes Johnson in New Hampshire in 1968. I don't think that's going to be Joe Biden's fate. And especially in New England, I think there will be an awareness of and sensitivity to who this Robert F Kennedy, Jr., really is.

So I don't think that's going to be a materialized threat. But look, I run every election like the devil's at my heels and I recommend Joe Biden do the same. Yeah. Let's go back to the whistleblower hearing now.

And you mentioned that you did believe the credibility of these whistleblowers, but you just think that their assessment of the situation wasn't necessarily correct. Your leader, minority leader, had given Jeffery said today that there was, quote, not a scintilla of political interference with respect to the Hunter Biden case. How do you reconcile your perception of what the whistleblowers had to say versus that particular point? Do they have any kind of credibility when it comes to their concerns about the former or the current president's son, perhaps getting special treatment?

Leader, how came Jeffery's is absolutely right. We got to remember, they surmised that the fact that their recommendations were enacted on 100%, somebody must have interfered. Well, on that timeline, we had a Trump appointed Republican US Attorney, a Trump appointed Republican Attorney General, a Trump appointed Republican IRS commissioner. So if you're looking for interference, it could only have been one of those people.

And are we really supposed to believe that they wouldn't have jumped at the chance of trying to get Hunter Biden and through him, Joe Biden? So the fact that it was on that watch and that timetable, I think, kind of escaped the attention of or conveniently was ignored by those two so-called whistleblowers. Now, in terms of Hunter Biden, though, he is expected to plead guilty as part of a deal with investigators next week. There's obviously a ton of scrutiny around him.

This is something that Republicans are using to try and interfere with the president's re-election hopes. Do you think that this scrutiny around him is going to continue even after he enters his plea? I think the Republicans will use anything they can to try to harm President Biden, but a word of caution to them. Millions of American families have sons and daughters or family members who have struggled with drugs.

And they know the behavioral aberrations that occur from that. Millions more have friends, family members who have not filed their taxes on time or have dated taxes and had to make amends in that regard. This is a man who fell apart after his brother died tragically of cancer and took a long time to put his life back together. I believe there's going to be a lot of sympathy for Joe Biden, a father who tried to protect the son and try to get him help.

And to use Hunter Biden to pillory Joe Biden, I think risks enormous backlash with a much more sympathetic American public than exists here in the Republican side of the island Congress. Okay. Congressman Jerry Connolly, thank you as always for being with us. We appreciate it.

Pleasure. Pleasure. Coming up, President Biden pitches his economic agenda to Pennsylvania Union workers amid a potential turning point in the labor movement in America, plus two hot to handle. From experts fear, we could be on track for the world's hottest summer in more than 100,000 years.

His temperatures keep rising with no relief in sight. We'll have the latest he alerts and forecasts watching the press now. Welcome back. President Biden was in battle ground Pennsylvania today touting his bi-nomics agenda in Philadelphia.

He spoke to shipyard workers about his administration's investment in clean energy and how that will create new union jobs. But it comes as the United Auto Workers Union and Teamsters who represent UPS workers threaten to walk out amid contract negotiation disputes and as Hollywood has essentially shut down due to strikes. Biden, the self-proclaimed most pro-union president in American history, now finds himself balancing union demands with the potential economic consequences of widespread labor strikes. Joining me now is what House correspondent, Ali Roth, when I talk more about this, Ali, Biden being in Philly, which seems to be his second home outside of Wilmington, according union workers at a time when we're seeing strikes across the country and the entertainment industry, the UAW and the Teamsters are also talking about walking off the job.

Is there any sense as to whether or not the administration is going to try and step in and resolve this? Well, remember, one of those unions has actually publicly asked the president not to intervene and get involved in these negotiations. And so for now, we're seeing this sort of hands-off, but still concerned approach from the president and the White House. They're trying to keep a safe distance from this, not particularly getting too involved, but also expressing how supportive the president is as he's continued to be throughout his political career of these unions who have gotten him to this point.

Remember how heavily he relied on them during the 2020 election and he's counting on that same support to get him through 2024. So White House officials right now are signaling that at least for now this involvement is going to remain, like I said, concerned, but not too involved. They say that we shouldn't expect something similar to the situation we saw last year with that near catastrophic national rail strike that the president had to intervene into and prevent some national crisis. He did get some criticism for doing that because he was able to prevent that rail strike from happening.

But it did not appease the concerns of the union workers that were involved. So right now, the president plans to remain in the loop, but for now still keeping sort of a hands-off approach as it continues right now. And Ali, this comes at a time where he currently doesn't have a labor secretary. His Julie Su was the acting secretary who he has appointed, has not even received a vote on the Senate floor.

Has she been empowered to take the lead on dealing with these issues and talking to these labor organizations? Yeah. As you know, that confirmation vote has been really in purgatory for months now and it's still unclear. It's pretty unlikely, as you know, covering this on Capitol Hill, that she'll ever get enough support to be able to be officially confirmed.

But as you know, there's technically no federal law that would prevent her from continuing to work as an acting position. So as of right now, the White House is saying that they are heavily relying on her to continue in this acting position. One White House official telling me that she's been involved in these union talks, one saying that she's, quote, indispensable to the administration's outreach to these labor unions. But it's still unclear at this point how much of an impact she'll be able to make as these negotiations continue right now.

Okay. Thank you for that update from the White House ahead. Another moderate Republican chooses not to run. But New Hampshire Governor Kristin Nunes' decision means for his state and Republicans everywhere.

And who's next? We're watching with the press now. Welcome back. And we're going to turn out a startling trend in American politics.

The purge of elected moderates inside the Republican Party in the age of Donald Trump. Yesterday, one of the party's few remaining moderate governors, New Hampshire's Kristin Hoonu, announced that he would not seek reelection next November. The popular four-term governor, they only run for two years there, we should point that out though. And Trump critic also ruled out Senate bids and a presidential bid this cycle.

And his decision comes after fellow moderate Republicans, Larry Hogan of Maryland and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, who I actually saw on Capitol Hill today, both said farewell to public office last year. You can blame the polarization of our politics, the conservative echo chamber, or Donald Trump's incessant attacks on what he calls rhino Republicans, but right now there just isn't much room for Republicans to run from the middle. So let's talk about it. Joining you now on set, Rhonda Colvin, senior congressional reporter for The Washington Post, former Michigan Democratic Congressman Andy Levin, he's also a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and Republican strategist Doug Heye.

So Rhonda, just a few years ago, the state's political parties looked a little bit different. Now it seems as though it's one size fits all. And that's Republicans and Democrats in each state. How do we get here?

What happened? It is an interesting time to look at right now, because as you mentioned, it is a trend we saw with Larry Hogan, Governor Baker as well. And you have to wonder, you know, where are these people who are going to go after this? You know, first of noon, he was someone where the Republican party might have their eye on him for, you know, more aspirations.

But where is there a fit for them right now? And with governors, moderate governors leaving their seats, it may be an important time too, because as we know, state legislatures are doing a lot of work where they're doing a lot of bills on cultural issues. And if you're not having a governor who represents moderate America, you know, are those state legislatures going to have even more rain over their state. So it is an important time to look at.

I'm interested in your take on this as a strategist, because I'm blaming this all on gerrymandering. And you think maybe that seems kind of intuitive because we're talking about statewide races, but we've turned, we've kind of moved the political battlefield to these primary races because of gerrymandering. And I think in to a certain extent it's hardened our politics to a certain extent. Is that why the electorate has become more partisan, even at the statewide level?

It's partly why. And it's a federal issue. It's a state issue as well. You know, we talk about the chambers in the House, Republicans and Democrats being farther apart.

That's true in state houses throughout the country, whether it's a red state house or a blue state house. We're seeing that. But there are also a lot of other things that go into it. Our political reward system rewards those members.

I've been on countless segments on this network and others about Marjorie Taylor Greene. I've never gotten a question about, say, Gus Miller, Raccoon, Florida, who just puts his head down and does good work. He worked with Gus Miller. So we always reward the loudest voices.

Everybody saw Robert F. Kennedy at his hearing. We didn't see the good hard legislating that gets done, the good news doesn't get rewarded. And then if you're a governor who's putting your head down and trying to do that good work, like Larry Hogan or Charlie Baker in tough states as it is, you do have a certain point of diminishing rewards of doing that job.

Yeah, right. You mentioned this is not just a Republican problem, Congressman. It's also a Democratic problem. Your father, of course, a conservative Democrat, when that was a thing, you know, next November, we could see the end of red state Democrats in the Senate, John Tester, Joe Manchin, Sherrod Brown, all have tough races.

These states, all drifting more Republican, they're all states that Donald Trump won. Can any of these guys survive in this current era of American politics? Absolutely, they can survive. And just to correct you, my dad was definitely not a conservative.

Straight up New Deal Democrat for many decades. And you know, I really don't think it's, this is like a similarity between Republicans and Democrats at all. We have the full Rocha spectrum from Joe Manchin to the squad in Congress, my own governor. How do you characterize Gretchen Whitmer?

Is she a liberal, a conservative, within the Democratic firm? She, we all love her. And so I think the Democratic party has a lot of healthy breadth to it. We're a big tent.

And the Republican Party, meanwhile, has been captured by the MAGA extremists. Somebody like me would say from Nixon's southern strategy up to the attacks on, you know, the veiled racist attacks, you know, from George H.W. Bush's campaign, right up to the president. The Republicans have made this bad.

And now they have to sleep. And it's very uncomfortable because there's no space for anybody unless you're full on MAGA. And it's a sad thing when we need a loyal opposition party in this country. And Doug, that gets us back to Chris and Nina, right?

I mean, he came close to running for the Senate 2022. This is what he told the Washington Examiner at the time of the governor said that the message from virtually every GOP senator that he chatted with, and he chatted with most of them, was that he, they plan to do a little more with the majority that, until they get the majority that they were fighting to win this November, then it obstructs Joe Biden until hopefully 2024 ushers are Republican into the White House. And he said it bothered him that they were okay with that. Is that part of the problem?

You know, there isn't this, there aren't, and you've mentioned this before, you're not really rewarded by it. There isn't this effort to find common ground in bipartisanship. Well, on those things where we are partisan, that exists. There are a lot of things that Congress gets done and passes every day on bipartisan basis.

Those don't get highlighted. But we focus on these battles and those battles get more and more notice and it's why more and more whether Republicans or Democrats, people are joining running for office. And I was saying, not always our best candidates. If you hear the word fight over and over again from a candidate, it tells me they don't have much of a legislative strategy.

They're there to obstruct and to make news. And ultimately, that's not healthy for the process. Ryan, can I pack Doug up on this? You know, in my days in Congress, a lot of the things I'm proudest of, nobody paid any attention to.

I've got four kids, my two oldest both have Crohn's disease. I found a Republican who wanted to work with me on the Safe Step Act because of their family situation. It doesn't get a lot of attention because we weren't fighting with each other, but we were just trying to move the ball forward. So let's talk about something along those lines, expungement.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The former president is pushing his Republican colleagues to put these resolutions on the floor that would at least on paper, expung his impeachments that were passed in that body before. I'm going to explain to our viewers what these mean and if they have any kind of real effort of actually getting out of the house and what impact it could have. I think that's really an open question right now because Democrats are saying, is this even legal to do?

Yeah. It's already on congressional record that he was impeached. What we saw a couple months ago is representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, at least Stefanik put forward a resolution where they want to vote to expunge his impeachments. The first one of course was over the Ukraine call to Zelensky with holding funds from Ukraine and then the second one of course was January 6.

We don't exactly know just yet what's going to happen if or when there's a vote. We did hear that Speaker McCarthy said he supports any efforts to expunge the record. But we just don't know because this is uncharted territory. This has never happened.

I'm not even sure the parliamentarian knows what to do in this instance, so I think we're all waiting to see what the next week is. And I'll tell you why it's uncharted territory because there's no provision in the Constitution for expunging. This is appeasing the emperor who has no clothes. But directly, if you have 218 votes, you could do it.

You can have a resolution that says the sky is purple, right? Exactly. There's also a messaging challenge for Republicans here. Whenever they're asked about the latest indictment or the Trump tweets or through social or whatever, they say, I don't want to look backwards, I don't want to look forwards.

Expungions, my definition is looking backwards and they know that. How much pressure does Kevin McCarthy have from the right wing of his base to put something like this? I think a lot of pressure, especially you have at least Stefanik being one of the authors for this attempt. And of course, we know his situation with some of the hardliners, the Freedom Caucus, if they really want to push this with him, he may have to go along that at least try it.

But again, uncharted territory because we just don't know what it looks like to vote on expunging and impeachment record. And that goes to your original question about what happened to Republican moderates. At least Stefanik was considered very moderate Republican, not so much anymore. Yeah.

Well, and I'm interested in the political piece this morning, they had a quote from an unnamed member of Congress who said that if this gets to the floor and it fails, it would be like Donald Trump was impeached a third time. Do you think he is taking that into account, Don? Do you think he's understanding the potential political penalty of trying to push this forward? Kevin McCarthy is.

I don't know that Donald Trump is. And that's because you have those New York Republicans who won in Biden districts or David Balladillo from California. They don't want to look backwards and they don't want to look at Trump either. So they're most likely not going to vote for it.

So the question that Kevin McCarthy gets over and over again is, Steve Scalise, how do you get to 18? And it's not clear how you get there on this. Andy, I want you to weigh in on this before we go. You know, obviously a lot of attention on a hundred Biden this week and next week when he pleads to these misdemeanor charges, there were the IRS whistle doors this week.

You know, the one thing President Biden is not doing is separating himself from his son. We see him at the state dinner. Now, if you were in his position, if you were advising him, would you tell him to try and find a way to at least publicly distance himself from his son? No, I think that Joe Biden is a loyal dad who has a son who made a lot of mistakes and gotten a lot of trouble, had big drug problems and so forth.

As a dad, as an American, I can identify with him not putting politics above family. The president never did anything wrong here. He's not going to go run in a corner and act like he did. I think he's doing just the right thing.

And Republicans aren't going to let go, though. Are they done? No, and I think you'll see a lot more of them talking about the grandchild that hasn't been acknowledged by the president. Very easy to see Donald Trump in a debate saying, all of my grandchildren are here, Joe.

They're yours. And that could be a real moment for Trump if we get to that point. All right. We're going to leave it there.

Andy, Rhonda, Doug, I appreciate it being here. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks, Ryan.

And after the break, we're talking about the literal Miami heat as the city swelters amid an alarming global heatwave. You're watching me the press now. Welcome back. If it's Thursday, it's yet another hot day in the United States, it's temperatures across the country and the world break even more records.

According to data from NOAA Global Services, air temperatures were higher than 62 degrees for more than 14 days this month, spikes that are unheard of in the last 125,000 years in the USA, a whopping 121 million people are under heat alerts today. That's according to the National Weather Service. That's really over a third of the country. In Phoenix, temperatures clamped to 119 degrees yesterday, the hottest it's been since 2017.

And as the heat rises, so have the amount of heat related hospital visits and sadly heat related deaths as well. Maricopa County's weekly heat report reveals that at least 18 people have died from heat related causes already this year. NBC News correspondent Marissa Perra is braving the heat in Coral Gables, Florida. And I'm also joined by NBC News meteorologist Bill Carrens.

Marissa, we're joking that your beat now is to find the hottest place in America and fly there and stand outside all day long. The heat index in South Florida has been above 100 consistently for a record 40 straight days now. Talk to me about how area residents are dealing with this stretch of extreme heat. Yeah, well, I've been in both Phoenix and now Miami, of course, both in this band of one week.

And so hot is hot. But of course, these are different types of heat we're talking about. Of course, in the Southwest, it's a dryer heat, I would describe it as sticking your head inside of a very hot oven. And of course, here in Miami, it's a little more muggy.

It's lower temperature, but the heat index is going to feel a little different because of just how humid it is. And so here in Miami and both in Phoenix, of course, you're seeing less people outside. You're seeing not just humans, but animals and just all life impacted in some way, she performed. The streets were definitely a lot more empty in Phoenix than what we're seeing in Miami.

You can see behind me, there's still signs of life, people walking around, but we've still seen people taking precautions when it comes to their animals, picking up their dogs on the hot asphalt when they're crossing the street. And that is something we know how hot asphalt can get, you know, this black asphalt that absorbs the heat. And so in terms of the precautions that are being taken, cooling shelters and all of these cities that are impacted by the heat dome have been opened up to vulnerable people who don't have access to air conditioning or maybe not as much, maybe they're a little bit more vulnerable. In terms of the elderly, we know that this is a big concern, people with secondary conditions the heat just exacerbates everything.

We know this. You have a secondary condition. The heat is going to make that worse. And when we talk about the impact this has, by the way, Ryan, we're talking about all types of life, not just animals, but also under the water, Gulf of Mexico, we sell records hence with the Gulf of Mexico.

This is, you know, water that you'd expect to go cool down in, you're certainly not doing that on the shores of Florida. And the coral reefs, there's a big concern among scientists that with these increasingly hotter temperatures, not just outside, but warming up the ocean is well, there's some concern about what that's doing to the coral reefs as well, Ryan. All right. Where's Parra live for us in Coral Gables, Florida?

Where's the thanks for that. Let's go to you now, Bill. We're dealing with a record number of days feeling like 100 plus is the heat going to peak for them at some point and talk to me about the rest of the South and Southwest. Yeah.

This should be the peak. I mean, this, Angela, is almost the peak of summer just throughout everyone's temperatures and then in August, they slowly tail off. And by the way, you know, it's been 40 plus days in a row in Miami with the heat index above 100. They should get that on average every single summer day, but at least occasionally they get like a rainy day and they don't quite get as hot.

That just hasn't happened either. Florida's wet season hasn't been wet. It's been a lot drier than it should be. So even at this hour, Miami's at 103, so the sea breeze hasn't exactly kicked.

And Jackson was at 107. We're having a nice little friendly competition between Little Rock and Brownsville, both peeking out at 111 heat index. It's a dry heat in the West. We'll talk more about that in a second.

First, we have normal, many areas that are near record highs. So when you're above average, at this time of year, which is typically the hottest time of year, you're going to be close to record highs all the time. So New Orleans, and by the way, here's a little fun fact for you, New Orleans is one of the only major cities in the country. If you average June and July, that we call our summer season, that is on pace for the warmest year in the warmest summer, even Miami's not doing that, even Phoenix and even El Paso is not on pace for the warmest summer ever, but New Orleans is in today, 98 degrees.

Tomorrow, we do it all over again. And everyone is kind of close to record highs, just about tying or a little bit below. And the problem is, is that I can't say there's any relief in sight. There's no big rainstorms, there's no hurricanes, there's no tropical storms, just every day is a rinse and repeat.

Miami Para 97s this weekend, that means your heat index will be up there probably about 108 to about 109. And so then we talk about the dry heat in the West, which continues numerous record highs are happening as I speak. Phoenix is expected to get up to 118. That'll crush your old record high for this day of 114.

Many areas of the same. Vegas will probably come a little short. And then tomorrow, again, do it the same. What's unusual about this long duration heat wave is typically one is on the West Coast or maybe there's a heat wave on the East Coast.

This is just elongated all across the southern half of the country. And even in the next week, 115, 114, 113, I'm getting bored of talking about it, Ryan. I mean, this is just, yeah, every day is the same. I appreciate how candid you are, Bill.

One of these days you're going to say to me, yes, Ryan, relief is in sight. Well, hopefully that's not right. I appreciate it. Thank you, Bill.

Still to come. On the front lines of America's mental health crisis. I'll talk to the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, as she looks to address a staggering rise in mental health needs across America's cities, they're watching me at the president.

Welcome back. America's mayors are sounding the alarm about this country's growing mental health crisis. The issue of mental health cuts across all demographics and has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 global pandemic. According to a survey of cities conducted by the U.S.

Conference of Mayors, 97% say requests for mental health services have increased over the last two years. 88% say they do not have adequate access to mental health resources, and 82% have developed new initiatives to address the need for mental health services. Joining me now on set is Reno's mayor and the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Hillary Shibi, who has made addressing the mental health crisis a priority for presidency with U.S.

Conference of Mayors. Mayor, thank you so much for being here. And this is such an important topic. So I'm so glad that we got the chance to talk about it.

From your perspective, what's the biggest challenge in dealing with and addressing mental health issues here? Is it awareness? Is it a funding issue? Workers' shortages?

Where's the biggest problem? Well, actually, it's all of that. That's what's so hard about tackling this crisis. And I've been with mayors all week long on the Hill, addressing our representatives, letting them know that we truly believe this is the number one crisis in our cities, mental health and addiction.

And it's very, very complex, but we shouldn't have to have our loved ones arrested to get mental health health. And that's what's happening. Lack of access, lack of health care workers, lack of transparency. It's not just one thing, but the infrastructure is incredibly broken.

The policies we've been making have been failing dramatically. I think there's a big myth out there that there's a place to take those who are severely mentally ill. And actually, there's not. And even if they're seen in our ERs, they're just right throughout this revolving door that we've seen.

And we've allowed them to die on our streets. And it's incredibly inhumane. And I think the other myth is people believe there's some place to take them. We do not have the infrastructure in place.

And usually, that is through our states. And I've been working with my state for six years to get a crisis in our 24-7 crisis because mental health issues are not nine to five. And cities are 24-7. So we need help now.

We need better infrastructure in place. We need better health care workers. We're in trouble because we know we're going to lose health care workers. Talk to me a little bit about this effort that you've made to open these community crisis centers.

I mean, I'm just thinking, listen, if you talk about it, the resources needed to staff something 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you need professionals that have the licenses and all the skills to handle this, I would imagine that's a very expensive endeavor. Absolutely. And it's kind of interesting. Mayor Dyer from Fresno.

He's a really great mayor. But he's also a previous police chief. And we were all talking as mayors the other day. And he said, you know, I remember in the 90s, whatever Bill Clinton said, you know, we're seeing such high rates of crime in the 90s.

And so we need 100,000 police officers. Well, mayors are now going to be saying we need 100,000 mental health clinicians in our cities. And but we have to figure out how do we attract and maintain those workers, right? It's not a easy job, right?

No. And we're going to be losing a lot of health care workers because we saw during COVID-19 there was so much burnout. So this is another reason why mayors are on the Hill is very, very bipartisan. I took a Democratic mayors and Republican mayors and I'm a nonpartisan mayor and let them know that this is not a political issue.

This is a people issue. And you know, we continue to treat, you know, mental health in our ERs where we fix broken bones, not broken brains. And so it's a true, true crisis in this country and something that we've neglected for far too long. And you know, I have talked at length about the lobbying effort that you and your fellow mayors are doing here in Washington on Capitol Hill.

Do you think that the Biden administration should declare a mental health crisis calling it a US national emergency? I mean, that would unlock some federal resources to tackle a problem like this. Well, I absolutely think that mayors are looking at this and like I said, we believe it's the number one crisis in our cities across America. And if you look at that survey that you were referencing, 90% of cities are saying they don't have the resources and people are dying on our streets.

You know, I always tell like the story about, you know, there's a man lying on the ground and he's screaming and yelling and we run over and we say, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? He's holding his side. Well, what do we do?

We take him to the hospital and they say it's appendicitis. We're going to operate on you. The next week there's the same man lying on our streets and we run over there and say, what's wrong with you? And, you know, he's suffering from bipolar and schizophrenia.

And what do we do? We walk over. It's horrific. Yeah.

And you've pointed to this year, your conference has put together this survey of 117 cities and there's it's remarkable how many things can be attributed to mental health problems, substance abuse, COVID-19, homelessness, economic concerns, unemployment. It covers a wide range of problems. Huge. Absolutely.

And obviously the fentanyl crisis, we really believe that's a weapon of mass destruction. And knowing that it could kill hundreds of thousands of people, we need to make sure that we're prepared as if we were going to war. I mean, that is really true. The drug crisis is really severe because those drugs are so strong now.

And so we're always talking about we need to get in our schools early and often and talk about the dangers of one pill kills with fentanyl. There's a lot we could be doing to be proactive, but we also have to give the cities the power to do that. We're 24 seven mayors hit the ground running. We know how to get it done.

We're asking the states to give us that power to do that because a lot of that funding goes to states. And like I said, I've been trying to get my center open for six years and it's been incredibly challenging. Now you obviously come to this as a mayor who has cared for all the people in your city, but you've also had your own personal struggles with mental health issues. You wrote an op-ed in the Reno because that journal where you said that we can't afford to put off conversations about mental health.

You talked about how you're the mayor of the city, a prominent person in town. And it was difficult for you to even get an appointment to have your concerns addressed. Right. A couple of years ago, I lost my sister to mental illness and my brother to addiction and my brother-in-law to addiction and all at once and I was struggling and having a tremendous amount of grief.

And so I was calling out for help. And I have great insurance. If anyone knows, it's very hard to treat grief and depression and those things if you don't have insurance. But even if you have insurance, it's really difficult.

So that shouldn't be the case. But I come to find out it would take six or eight weeks. People would say, oh, I could get you in. Certainly I didn't tell him I was the mayor.

You know, again, the stigma, unfortunately. And that's changed a lot because what I decided after I learned that experience, I couldn't even get help is that's what I would say. It doesn't matter. Whatever isn't talking about it.

Who is? If your mayor can't get help, who can? And so that's why mayors are really standing up and making such a big plea for mental health. So quickly, before we go, I mean, you dealt with this, if there's somebody watching us right now who's struggling and doesn't know where to turn, what would be your best advice for that?

Yeah. Well, I know that's going to sound crazy. But mayor's offices were really, really resourceful, very resourceful. So I would.

I would reach out to your mayor. We're very accessible. Email them. Also call 988 number if you're really, really struggling.

But I'd also say have hope. And what I mean by that is we know that hopelessness can lead to excessive amounts of depression and is a predictor of suicide. So have hope. And you have to, you know, always have hope because that's where we see lots of hopelessness and statragity.

And so there is hope out there. I promise you that. But reach out to your local governments are actually probably a great place. But the 988 number, we can't stress that enough.

All right, mayor, from the biggest little city in the world, right? Yes. And how do you pronounce Nevada? Yeah, you got it right.

All right. Good job. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much.

And as mayor just said, if you know anyone who is dealing with emotional distress, having a suicidal crisis needs to be connected to resources, the numbers you just talked about, 988 for immediate support. Again, that's 988 help is just a call or text away. And that does it for us this hour. I'm back tomorrow with more Meet the Press Now.

But don't go anywhere. My good buddy, Aaron Gilchrist picks up our covers with an exclusive interview with the new director of the CDC that's on Heli Daxon Now.