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If it's Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris is set to arrive in Battleground, Georgia, minutes from now, as her campaign hits the airwaves for the first time and prepares to hit the trail with a running mate just days from now. Plus, new revelations about the assassination attempt on former President Trump, as the Secret Service's acting director testifies about numerous failures uncovered so far in their investigation, including a moment that he said, quote, made me ashamed. And the Israeli military launches a retaliatory airstrike in Lebanon's capital city, targeting a top Hezbollah commander, Israel says, was responsible for the attack that killed 12 children. Welcome to Meet the Press Now.
I'm Dave Gutierrez in Washington on a busy day in the 2024 presidential campaign, as Republicans and Democrats race to define Vice President Kamala Harris in the public eye, with less than 100 days to the election. Right now, the vice president is in route to Atlanta for just her second rally since launching her own presidential campaign after President Biden dropped out of the race. The location of tonight's rally speaks volumes about how much the political landscape has changed. It was just over a week ago that Democrats feared Georgia was slipping out of their reach under Biden's candidacy, amid fraying support among black voters.
Not anymore. In addition to re-energizing black voters, the Harris campaign is also looking to chip away at the Trump campaign's edge with white voters. Harris surrogates, including several VP contenders, joined a star-studded Zoom call last night for a group of white dudes for Harris. When I'm invited to an event with a name like white dudes for Harris, it doesn't usually sound like something I would join, but this is a terrific cause.
Let's be clear about who Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are. Donald Trump is a 34-time convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, and a congenital liar. He's a fraud.
And J.D. Vance is his mini-me. Donald Trump's unfitness for office is clear, and no one is better positioned to prosecute that case than Kamala Harris. I don't know who's asking for this crazy stuff that they're pushing.
Who's asking to ban birth control? Who's asking to raise the price of insulin? Again, this is preaching to the choir, but the choir needs to sing. The choir needs to sing.
This is our moment. This is not just transformational for one election. This is transformational for several generations. It comes as Harris inches closer to selecting a running mate from a field of predominantly white dudes, in what remained a fluid and fast-moving process that's expected to wrap up just things from now.
In a sign of just how close the campaign is to making a decision, two sources tell NBC News that Harris and her yet-to-be-named running mate will hit the trail next week campaigning in battleground states. Meanwhile, the Harris campaign today announced its first major ad buy of $50 million blitz to reintroduce her to the public. As a prosecutor, she put murderers and abusers behind bars. As California's attorney general, she went after the big banks and won $20 billion for homeowners.
And as vice president, she took on the big drug companies to cap the cost of insulin for seniors. Donald Trump wants to take our country backward to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and end the Affordable Care Act. But we are not going back. And that we're testing out a variety of attack lines over the past week.
The Trump campaign is out today with a multi-million dollar ad buy of its own, hitting the vice president's record on the border. Under Harris, over 10 million illegally here. A quarter of a million Americans dead from bedrock. Brutal migrant crimes.
And ISIS now here. Kamala Harris failed. Weak, dangerous, neoliberal. And joining me now, NBC's Yamiche Alcindor is on the ground in Atlanta, head of the Harris rally tonight.
NBC's Alex Sainz-Wald is also covering the Harris campaign and the so-called white dudes for Harris. And NBC's Garrett Haight is here with me on set. He, of course, is covering the Trump campaign. Yamiche, I want to start with you.
Tonight's rally is the VP's first evening rally since getting the torch from Joe Biden. So why don't you pick Atlanta and what should we expect from her tonight? Well, we can call this rally the Hot Girl Summer rally because apart from, of course, Vice President Harris headlining this rally here, we're also going to see Megan Disgallion, a very popular rapper who's going to resonate with a lot of people here. Because a lot of the voters here are African-American voters.
Vice President Harris is hoping to turn out in big numbers. Because this is a state where former President Biden only won by just under 12,000 votes. So former President Trump is targeting the state, trying to appeal to African-American voters, specifically African-American men. She's having this rally in the state as a sort of primetime rally since it started from around 7, 7, 30.
Really, in some ways, underscoring a new phase in her campaign, where she's going to be starting these late-time eating rallies to really underscore the way that she's trying to compete with former President Trump on the airwaves because he often has this rally since I've been here. I'm told that he's been talking a lot about the economy, talking a lot about issues and ways that she thinks that she could better this country. I've been talking to my church who's telling me that this is really a stock issue campaign. This isn't going to just be about rolling out policies on our website.
It's going to be about making people feel better on issues like the economy, on crime, on abortion, giving people a sense of hope, especially during, of course, the Democratic Party is now starting to get over this row in weeks. We saw, of course, President Biden drop out in Pergo to stop at the ticket as a likely nominee here. In terms of the beefs here, we know that White Cooper is drawn from this intention. He has sort of told me because he wants to run for the U.S.
Senate in 2026. There are other sort of issues there. We're also hearing now, you said there's two sources, that Vice President Harris is on the campaign trail with one of these people. Maybe not one of them, maybe they're someone else we don't know, but these are the top people we've been tracking.
I'm looking at that crowd behind you, the Gavin crowd, the music. And look, some of the President Biden's rallies that I've been to previously weren't exactly that loud. They were a little bit more, I don't know how you call it, polite, perhaps. Describe for me the mood right there.
How is this Kamala Harris rally different from perhaps the enthusiasm we've seen in some of the other Joe Biden rallies? What can you tell? Well, it's such a great question, Gabe, because this really is a vibe check when you ask that question, right? People are so relieved that I talk to you.
People are so excited. One voter I told you yesterday, I'm told you, while he was planning the vote for President Biden, he was really concerned about his health, and now he feels like he's never seen this level of enthusiasm. This fast, because remember, we're only really a week, maybe a week and one day into the Harris campaign, and people who already gathered, thousands of them on Zoom, millions of dollars being raised, the majority of them, something like 66% on one-figure or so short of the fee, are people that are first-time voters. So the people on the ground here in Georgia are so excited, a number of them are telling me also that they're excited to make history again, right?
They're excited to see a black woman, a South Asian woman, possibly become the first person of that demographic to be president. So there are a number of people here that are ready to go to the polls. And I can expect President, White Vice President Harris to lean into that, talking about the fact that this is a people-centric campaign, that people are going to have to knock on doors and call their neighbors and do all the things that they can to help her win this awesome game. I'm going to turn on to Alex.
Well, Alex, you know, while the VP heads to Atlanta to talk to black voters, as you reported, white dudes gathered yesterday in her name. What can you tell us about that unusual gathering? Yeah, this is a little bit of a cheeky event, but 180,000 people tuned in, presumably mostly white dudes, to what was essentially a star-studded Zoom call, kind of a throwback to the COVID days. A parade of beige, as actor Bradley Woodford put it.
There was the dude himself, Jeff Bridges, who played the dude with Nick Lebowski, Mark Hamill played Luke Skywalker, Josh Gad, Josh Groban, Lance Bass, from NSYNC, just a whole bunch of Hollywood royalty, in addition to about half of Kamala Harris' VP list, turned out on this call, which went three and a half hours and raised over $4 million. And it was an interesting mix of self-deprecating jokes, you know, saying, buy our trucker hats, not the pointy hats that white men typically wear when they get together making fun of the Klan, but also kind of a more serious conversation about how these white men don't want to be defined by the majority of white men who are with Donald Trump. That's been the backbone of Donald Trump's support. And they're hoping to kind of raise awareness of white men as a demographic, which is not really a group that we've talked about.
It's just kind of been the default. And it's one that Democrats have not really paid attention to in the past. So, you know, Harris is not going to win white men. That's definitely Trump's demographic.
But if they can move even a little bit of a percentage point here or there, there's so many white men that could really make a difference. And the $4 million that they raised out of this call won't hurt either. You know, so much of the politics, and we think of political rallies, and that's the traditional way to, you know, sense voter enthusiasm. We just saw Yamiche at that rally in Atlanta.
What's going on with these Zoom meetups? Have there been more of them over the past several days? And does the Harris campaign expect to use that to their advantage more so than the Biden campaign did? Yeah, absolutely.
It was a great point because one of the first events that Harris did after Biden stepped aside and she stepped up was a Zoom call with black women that just exploded. You know, over 100,000 people tuned in. They raised millions of dollars, totally unexpected by the organizers. Then there was a white woman call that raised $8.5 million and had also more than 100,000 people tuning in.
I think all of this is a sign of the grassroots enthusiasm and energy for Kamala Harris. We haven't seen this kind of energy among Democrats since probably 2008 when Barack Obama ran. So all of these Democrats who are kind of tuned out or unsatisfied with Joe Biden are suddenly fired up. They want to get involved, and they're just rushing to whatever venue they can.
So far that's been Zoom calls, but now the Harris campaign's job is to turn that into rallies, door knocking, and ultimately votes. Alex Natswold, our dude correspondent. We appreciate it. Thank you so much, Alex.
And I want to turn now to Garrett Haake, who of course covers the Trump campaign. Look, last week, you know, the Trump campaign, a series of attacks against Kamala Harris. Now they're putting their money behind the border attacks, which I guess was to be expected. But how much do they think this will resonate?
Is this their main message over these last 90-some odd days? Well, look, it's the main message for now. I mean, we'll see. I think they're going to test this in real time.
But the border has always been kind of Trump's favorite issue going back to 2015. They feel like it's Kamala Harris' weakest issue, just like it was Joe Biden's weakest issue on a pure policy front. So if you want to try to get a clean hit just on policy, this is as good of one as any to go with. They've got $12 million behind it in a couple of these different swing states.
J.B. Vance is on the trail, even as we speak in Nevada, which I think was the closest state that Trump lost in 2020, something like 30,000 votes. I've looked over the excerpts of his speech. He's going to go after Kamala Harris very heavily on the border message.
Look, there's plenty of time for them to respond to other news elements, but if you're looking at sort of like the open oppo book, this is where you would start. You know, the Harris campaign is very sensitive to this border attack. I mean, they keep pushing this idea. Well, she wasn't a border czar.
It was something the Republicans are going to go after her, that she was focused on the root causes of migration. How effective do you think the Harris campaign could actually be at convincing voters to see the distinction between a border czar what are the specific duties of the borders are? I couldn't tell you. You don't know either, right?
It's like that argument they may be technically correct on, but I think it's probably meaningless to most voters. And J.B. Vance is heading to the border letters week on Thursday. Do you think he's going to be an effective messenger on this issue?
Can he be a more effective messenger than Trump himself? Well, look, I mean, he can be a more disciplined messenger than Trump himself. That's, you know, one of the things that you get by adding someone like him to the ticket. He's been pretty effective when he's on the attack.
Obviously, he has his own negatives to the asset dealer. He spent a lot of time explaining his own past comments as well. But to the degree that he can keep at least some degree of kind of national focus on this as an issue for the Trump campaign, I suppose that's a better thing for him to be talking about than whether or not he has hard feelings against cats. Garrett Haake covers the Trump campaign.
Garrett, thank you so much. And joining me now is California Democrat Congresswoman Judy Chu. She's the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining us.
And as we mentioned, Republicans are trying to define her, Harris to voters before she can. So take a listen at some of an ad released by Pennsylvania candidate Dave McCormick. I am prepared to get rid of a filibuster to pass agreement with you. There's no question I'm in favor of banning crap.
Would you ban off to withdrawing? Yes, abolish. Is that a position you agree with? And we need to probably think about starting to scratch.
Outdated, it is wrong-headed thinking to think that the only way you're going to get communities to be safe is to put more police officers on the street. So Congresswoman, do you think the Vice President is going to have to step away from some of the positions she took on the border? Or will some of that stuff just be unpopular with voters? Well, I think that Kamala Harris' record stands for itself.
And she will explain what she meant by each of these statements. But one thing I can say, she has been a leader on key issues for voters, whether it's reproductive rights or addressing gun violence, whether it's addressing climate change or whether it's making sure that we reduce the price of insulin. Her record is very strong on these issues. And that's what I think voters will pay attention to.
Congresswoman, do you, of course, have endorsed the Vice President? Is she the strongest candidate Democrats can run against Donald Trump at this moment? She is the strongest candidate by far. She is our Vice President.
She's been there with President Biden on key decision-making times and with key issues. She has shown that she can go not only all across the country to talk about such issues as reproductive rights, but also has gone abroad and has represented the U.S. in over 20 countries, including in the Worldwide Climate Summit that occurred at Dubai. So she has shown that she can meet the test to be a good leader, if not great leader, for all of America.
And I want to talk about what the Harris coalition looks like. And as we mentioned, the Vice President is in Atlanta today, where she's hoping to galvanize the black vote. But do you believe that she can bring that same enthusiasm to other minorities? I used to live in Georgia.
I know Asian-American voters are growing there. Do you think that she can motivate some of those other groups? Well, actually, I've been on several AANHPI for Harris calls this past week. And what I can tell you is that people are wildly enthusiastic about Kamala Harris's candidacy.
And I do think she'll be critical in Georgia that she will be able to increase her numbers there. So let me tell you that the AANHPI population in Georgia is really growing. And in fact, in the 2020 campaign, they had been able to register 30,000 new voters. And President Biden won by just 12,000 votes.
And this is why I always say that our AANHPIs have gone from being marginalized to the margin of victory. And Congresswoman, as you well know, it's not just the presidency of the grabs, but the House and Senate as well. Do you think Vice President Harris, at the top of the ticket, bolsters your chances of taking back the House and perhaps holding the Senate? Well, actually, people were very, very concerned prior to President Biden leaving the race as to whether it might be a drag to lower ballot races.
And what we've seen since Kamala Harris's candidacy, that the numbers have been increasing and that people are so much more optimistic about being able to win these seats to take back the House. You know, we only need a net four seats to take back the House. And already we are seeing in polling that the numbers for these candidates is rising. And Congresswoman, to that end, with the Vice President still considering her own VP pick, who do you think might be the best choice?
You know, how much of this decision should be about the electoral map versus chemistry, which your colleague, Jim Clyburn, has called the most important factor? I think this is a decision that I trust Kamala Harris will make to the best of her ability. And I believe that the number one issue is winning in a battleground state that will ensure that she wins the presidency. Chemistry is indeed a large part of it, but I think the ability for that battleground state to win is actually the uppermost of importance.
Okay, so you mean that that is the top priority for you, that, you know, a state like Arizona, Senator Mark Kelly, or perhaps Pennsylvania, with that Governor Shapiro, you think that that should really enter into the calculation here of those key battleground states, someone that can help deliver them? Absolutely. That is what this is all about. It's about the Electoral College, and I do think that those that you named are certainly in the lead because of those factors.
And quickly, Congresswoman, I also want to talk about the issue of abortion. Yesterday, Iowa became the latest state to implement a restrictive abortion ban. Obviously, the vice president has been campaigning on the issue well before she became the de facto nominee. But how crucial will the issue of abortion be to Democrats' chances in November?
I believe that abortion is the number one issue, actually. I believe that there are many that are just so totally distraught about what happened with the Dodd's decision. And the Iowa ban only makes it much worse. And in fact, actually, with Iowa, now we have 22 states that have, in essence, banned abortion.
So it is clear that we need to turn this around. Right now, young women have less rights than their grandmothers did. We need to be able to make sure that women can make the choices that they need about their own bodies and their futures and not the politicians in Washington, D.C. And that's what will happen if Kamala Harris is elected our president.
Congresswoman Judy Chu, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. And coming up, the deputy FBI director tells Congress that anti-Semitic, anti-immigration and politically violent content was found on a newly uncovered social media account believed to be tied to the Trump rally shooter. All of those details and more from today's Capitol Hill hearing straight ahead.
But first, we're live in Lebanon amid growing fears of an escalating conflict in the Middle East. As Israel says, it's carried out a retaliatory strike in Beirut, targeting a top-Ezbollah commander. Don't go anywhere. You're watching me to press now.
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Listen daily on Amazon Music. And welcome back. We're following breaking news out of the Middle East, where the Israeli military just carried out an airstrike in Beirut against a senior Hezbollah commander, they say, is responsible for the rocket attack on the Golan Heights that killed 12 children late last week. Details about this strike are still unfolding right now, and an Israeli official tells NBC News it is unclear if that senior commander survived.
A White House official tells me that the commander targeted today has, quote, American blood on his hands and was on the U.S. most wanted list as he played a key role in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 American service members and injured 128 others. In Beirut, a hospital official tells NBC News one woman was killed in this strike and 17 other individuals were injured, including six children. And joining me now from Beirut is Matt Bradley.
And Matt, I just want to mention that Vice President Kamala Harris just landed in Georgia, her first comments on this Israeli strike. She said, and paraphrasing, that Israel has the right to defend itself against a terrorist organization, but the administration is still working on a diplomatic solution. That's something that the White House, the senior White House official had told me earlier. But I know details are still unfolding.
It's only been a few hours since that strike. But what are you hearing from where you are, and what do we know about that commander who's a target in the strike? Yeah, well, our understanding of the commander is we don't know whether he's alive or dead. In fact, we've been hearing different things from different news agencies, quoting different sources.
This man is Fouad Shukar. He's a senior Hezbollah commander. There were other talk earlier, a couple of days ago, from the Israelis that they might be targeting someone else that they considered to be somebody who was behind that attack on that soccer field that killed a dozen children and teenagers on Saturday. But this man, as you mentioned, he had a bounty on his head from the U.S.
government. You know, Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization, not just by the U.S., but by several other countries. So this is a man who was certainly in Israel's crosshairs for quite a while. But the question now becomes for everybody here and really for the wider region, is Israel going to be satisfied?
You know, is this something that will end their desire to continue pummeling Lebanon? We've been hearing a lot of bellicose language from the Israelis over the past couple of days. And if so, what will Hezbollah's response be? Will Hezbollah decide that they're going to be anti-escalate the situation and possibly risk bringing this to a region-wide war?
You know, Matt, the White House, as you well know, had been urging Prime Minister Netanyahu to take a more targeted response. So of all the response options it had, does it appear that Israel did take that more restrained approach? Well, it depends on what you consider to be restrained. This is going to be obviously up for open for interpretation.
But when everybody here in Lebanon talks about Israel and Hezbollah, their minds always go back to 2006. And that was a conflict that lasted for more than a month. It laid waste to the entire southern part of this country, including that neighborhood of Dahyeh, which is where we found today's airstrike that killed at least one person. So when compared to that situation, and compared to a lot of the rhetoric that we've been hearing from the Israelis ever since 2006, you know, we had the invention of this concept called the Dahyeh Doctrine, named after that very Hezbollah neighborhood.
The Dahyeh Doctrine, and this was proposed by a general who's still very powerful in Israel and one of the prominent commanders, a prominent politician. He said that the Dahyeh Doctrine's idea, the doctrinaire, was that if there's any attacks from Hezbollah, that Israel would punish all of Lebanon, lay the entire country to waste. Well, if that was their plan, if that was their escalation, they haven't done that tonight. And that's why I'm saying there's a lot of worries that Israel isn't finished yet.
But if Hezbollah decides to respond in a more muscular fashion, in a way that escalates the situation even more, in the Dahyeh Doctrine, and a lot of what the worst expectations of the folks here had, that really could come into play any time. Matt Bradley, live for us in Beirut. Matt, thank you. You and your truth, please stay safe.
And up next, Attorney General Merrick Garland meets the press in the aftermath of the Trump assassination attempt. We'll have an early look at his exclusive sit-down interview with NBC News. You're watching Meet the Press Now. And welcome back.
It has been another emotional day of testimony on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers once again grill top government officials about the events leading up to the attempted assassination of former President Trump. Today was Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe, alongside Deputy FBI Director Paula Bate, in front of the Senate, Judiciary, and Homeland Security committees. Rowe acknowledged mistakes made by his agency, including its failure to spot the gunman on a roof and its failure to confront the shooter about his reconnaissance of the site via a drone, which you'll here refer to as an Unmanned Aircraft System, or UAS for short, hours before the shooting. I went to the roof of the ATR building, where the assailant fired shots, and I laid in a prone position to evaluate his line of sight.
What I saw made me ashamed. As a career law enforcement officer and a 25-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured. What if we had geolocated him because that counter-UAS platform had been up? It is something that I have struggled with to understand.
It is something that I feel as though we could have perhaps found him. We could have maybe stopped him. Rowe also conceded that issues with radio communications prevented agents from responding more quickly to reports of a man with a gun on the roof. Rowe's hearing comes a week after his predecessor, Kimberly Chio, resigned in the wake of a disastrous testimony about the incident.
And while Rowe was more forthcoming in his answers today, there were still plenty of heated exchanges like this one with Republican Senator Josh Hawley over accountability at the agency. All right, well, we don't have that sound from Josh Hawley, so we're going to bring in NBC News Homeland Security correspondent, Julia Ainsley. Hi there, Julia. You were watching this rather lengthy hearing throughout the day.
How did the Acting Secret Service director do in comparison to his presence? I was going to tell you, I'll do my best Josh Hawley impression, but just to give you a recap of what happened today, I do think we saw two completely different characters in a really different agency today. Part of this is probably because of lessons learned from last week when Director Cheadle basically just punted on every single question she was asked. Some of the most basic questions she couldn't answer about what the Secret Service knew at the time they allowed Trump to take the stage about this suspect.
Even after there were multiple reports, including from NBC, the Secret Service had been tipped off by local law enforcement that there was indeed a suspicious person in the crowd, that they had identified that rooftop as a vulnerability. Today, though, with the new Acting Director, Roe, he was able to answer quite a bit more. And some of the headlines, I think, that came out of this is, one, they're doing a disciplinary review. So that means that rather than just getting a report six months from now and they'll say, here's some lessons learned, there could be people fired or disciplined who are still working at the Secret Service.
And we may actually have names about who made the decisions that day in terms of how to secure the President. Should there have been more resources? Should they have expanded their security perimeter? And another thing that he did push back on was this idea that they didn't have enough resources to properly secure Trump.
I thought that was really interesting. There was a heated exchange there with Ted Cruz. Yeah, and several of the senators, they were arguing that the Trump campaign had perhaps requested more Secret Service agents, more resources. What came out of that?
Is that true or not? Well, it is true. We've reported it here at NBC, and the Washington Post was actually the first to report that, I believe that was last week, where they said that there were previous rallies where Trump's Secret Service detail asked for more manpower, more technology, and were denied. Now, they did not specifically ask for that for the July 13th rally.
But what he said is that it's not a matter of resources, that they've increased their manpower by 250 just in the last year, and that sure, every agency could use more, but that's not what they're desperate for. But he was told, dream big, because when it comes to Trump, he's so different from securing other candidates. And as we mentioned, there was an FBI official at today's hearing as well. What information did Paul Abadi provide with regards to the investigation of the gun?
Well, I thought that was one of the biggest revelations because they have been able to comb through many of his social media interactions. They are looking at 86 different platforms between email and social media to see where he might have accounts, and they're still verifying a lot of this. So he was quick to put a disclaimer around it. But what they found so far does seem to indicate that there were profiles that looked like they came from the shooter, where he did post some anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant postings, and could that have somehow influenced his mindset and still unclear why he would then choose Trump as a target or that rally as a target.
And I do also have to couple that with previous reporting and public statements that said he had also been looking at the schedule of Biden and of when the DNC would be as well. Overall, do you think that Roe did a better job than Gio? Yeah, I think probably anyone who watched both of those hearings would say that. I don't necessarily want to say that that's just because Roe was a better, more forthcoming public servant than Gio was, but maybe Secret Service is learning some lessons here.
We're hoping, certainly as journalists, we're hoping they're learning a lesson that they should be more transparent because the questions are not going to stop. Yeah, that's right. And some of the lawmakers were urging at the whole press conference this week. Have we had any word on when that press conference will be?
I'm told to you, I'll stay tuned on that. Stay tuned, yeah. Julian is our Homeland Security correspondent. Julia, thank you so much.
And a moment ago, Attorney General Merrick Garland sat down for an exclusive interview with NBC News' Ken Delaney, his first since the assassination attempt. How alarmed are you that a 20-year-old was able to get a clear shot 150 yards from a former president? So this is extremely alarming. We can't, you know, our democracy will not survive if people decide that the way in which they're going to get whatever outcomes they want or whatever other motive he might have is by killing someone.
That's why we have to find out what happened here, why it happened, and make sure it doesn't happen again. And we'll have more Ken Delaney in sit-down interview with Attorney General Merrick Garland tonight on NBC90 News with Lester Holt. And up next, if it's Tuesday, it's primary day in Battleground, Arizona. We have new reporting on the key Senate and House races to watch as officials take new steps to combat election conspiracy theories.
We're live in Phoenix. You're watching the Press now. And welcome back. As we like to say around here, if it's Tuesday, someone is voting somewhere.
And today, it's in Arizona, where it's primary day in a number of key congressional races. In the Senate primary, Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego is running unopposed for the seat being vacated by independent Kirsten Sinema. On the Republican side, Carrie Lake, who lost in Herbert for governor two years ago, is the Trump-backed frontrunner in the Senate primary. And one of the most closely-watched congressional primaries of this election, both Blake Masters and Abe Hamaday, have now both been endorsed by Trump as they fight it out to be the nominee in Arizona's eighth congressional district.
Hamaday is an ardent election denier and has campaigned on the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen. This election cycle, officials in Maricopa County are working to combat those kinds of claims. NBC News campaign embed Alex Abbott has more on those efforts. In Arizona, Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates says he's ready.
We're in good shape for the election, both the primary election and then also the general election in November. Gates making a vow this election cycle. We've committed yet again in 2024 to running the most transparent election we've ever run. Taking new steps and big investments to try to put an end to the county's baseless stolen-related conspiracy theories.
Guys, we need to be the narrative. In 2020, while ballots were still being counted, there is a protest that is growing with people angry saying that they think that this election is being stolen from the president even though there has been no evidence of that. Unfounded claims that former President Donald Trump was cheated out of a win in Arizona. Last night, poor workers had to be escorted to their cars by police.
And in 2022, more unsubstantiated claims during Carrie Lake's failed bid to become Arizona's governor. And these bastards back there don't want us talking about stolen elections. A falsehood she's continuing to spread two years later in her Senate. You all know what goes on in Maricopa County.
I mean, you know the garbage to me, it's unconscionable when people who know better, people who are candidates for office, people who are nominees of the major parties are spreading that kind of information. This cycle to quash conspiracy theories, Maricopa County has installed additional 24-7 surveillance cameras inside the tabulation and election center which anyone can monitor from home. They've also spent $15 million in new equipment that can help crank out results more quickly. And they're giving Arizona's guided tours of their facility in hopes of restoring faith in Maricopa elections.
We brought in more tours than we've ever done before. He showed up ballots, in-person ballots. The last four years have been tough for Gates and his colleagues. We've dealt with death threats on social media.
Maricopa County recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican like Gates, facing a threat from another local Republican leader, Shelby Bush in March. If Stephen Richer walk in this room, I would lynch him. People within our own party who claim that we are traitors, that we are trying to rig elections, and it's incredibly frustrating. And Gates hopes with these new steps towards transparency, the people of Arizona will understand.
These are not, you know, faceless bureaucrats. These aren't just machines that are doing this work. These are thousands of people here in Maricopa County. Our aunts, our uncles, our mothers, our fathers, our grandmothers, our grandfathers.
And we owe it to them to make sure that people know the facts and the good work that they're doing. And Alex Abbott joins me on live from Phoenix. Alex, so good to have you. So, look, even with all that emphasis on transparency, the election results are still going to be challenged, aren't they?
Well, Gabe, it's important to note that in 2020, after the general election, and in 2022, after the midterm election here in Arizona, Maricopa County and the state faced dozens of legal challenges. And for every single one of those legal challenges that focused on the merits of the final results, those legal challenges failed. As you said, Gabe, if history isn't any indicator, we could expect more legal challenges in 2024. And Alex, you spoke to Ruben Gallego about his outlook on the general election.
What do you say? That's right, Gabe. Actually, Ruben Gallego voted at this polling location right behind me just about an hour ago. And as he transitions from being a primary candidate to a general election candidate, he is exuding confidence.
I want you to hear what he told me this morning. Well, look, it feels great, but we've been on this channel for 18 months. It'd be good to have a little more definition, but we are very confident, and I'm very confident because we've traveled the state. We've been going to the red areas, the blue areas, places where people have not been visited ever by elected officials, and we're outworking everyone, and doesn't matter what happens tonight on the other side, we're going to have the winning team to win.
And Representative Gallego Talked about traveling All around the state One of the targets Of the campaign Is visiting all of The 22 nationally Recognized Native American Tribes here in Arizona So far he's had about 19 of those Federally recognized tribes He's hoping to hit All 22 of them By the end of the summer Gabe Alex Abbott Live for us in Phoenix Alex thank you I want to turn now To some live pictures Vice President Kamala Harris Right there in Atlanta At the making stop At a local restaurant Popular restaurant Pascals You see her there Greeting supporters This is of course As we reported earlier In the broadcast A key stop for Kamala Harris Just her second major rally Tonight since becoming The de facto nominee It's going to be an important night She's trying to court Young black voters Something that President Biden Had been struggling a bit When compared to 2020 A key part of her coalition Again those are live pictures Of Vice President Kamala Harris Just after she landed in Atlanta The rally is scheduled For just a few hours from now We'll keep an eye out And still to come Donald Trump stands by Vance How the former president Is sticking up for his running mate As the VP nominee faces backlash For past comments about Quote childless Democrats The panel's next You're watching me press now And welcome back As we await the Harris campaign Selection of a running mate Former President Trump Is now defending his own running mate As J.D. Vance's 2021 comments On quote childless Democrats Continue to plague the campaign In an interview last night The former president Tried to brush off Those past comments Well first of all He's got tremendous support And he really does Among a certain group of people People that like families He made a statement Having to do with families It doesn't mean that A person doesn't have He's not against anything But he loves family It's very important to him He grew up in a very Interesting family situation And he feels family is good What do you say to women Out there watching I think they understand it No I think they understand it And the Congress The Washington Post reports Vance told donors This weekend President Biden Dropping out of the race With a quote Political sucker punch For the Trump campaign And joining me now Is the panel Leanne Caldwell Co-author of the early 202 At the Washington Post Juanita Toliver Post of What a Day podcast And an NBC News political analyst And Rick Tyler Republican strategist And also an NBC News Political analyst Thank you all so much For joining me Leanne I want to start with you Look conventional wisdom Is the vice presidential selection Should do no harm So what is J.D. Vance doing right now A little bit of harm Not really meeting those goals Look Donald Trump Selected J.D. Vance In a different race A race that he was Extremely confident Republicans told me That he was going to win He didn't need to expand His voter base He didn't think He wanted someone Who was going to Continue the Trump brand Of the party Now with a brand new candidate I know we love to talk about The V.P.
race And I love to play The part of the game too But in the end V.P. races matter little The only thing you need to know Is the person you pick What political operation From which state Will bring more delegates More electors to the ticket That's the other question Now in some cases Where Obama perhaps Had a perceived foreign policy weakness Let's pick Joe Biden Because he had a strong Foreign policy weakness But having said that If you were going to pick The absolute wrong candidate In the wrong year Because the target audience The one that's peeling off From Trump Are women and young women And in the wake of Roe v. Wade Which Republicans have been Messageless You would not pick somebody And they either Knew this was in his past They didn't prepare for it Or worse They didn't know So look I understand the argument That voters don't go For the number two on the ticket They vote for the top of the ticket But what's going on right now If Trump is now having to defend His number two on the ticket It's taking up his oxygen Which Donald Trump does not like Have you ever really seen Donald Trump people Throw the defense at anyone No And he's not doing it now And in campaigning Four resources Time money people and ideas And he's showing up time Defending his pick for V.P. When he should be on offense Defining Harris So this is a great opportunity For them to define themselves While he has to define his own Own it And the more time he spends on this Time is just slipping away It's also a great time to ask Why is Trump displaying his loyalty Because remember J.D.
Vance was kind of Based on his fun Was pushing him Tech donors Including him on us But if he does Don't expect the unexpected With Donald Trump I feel like that's the rule That has been established in 2015 So I'm not going to know The table Good point Good point So two sources told me Earlier today That next week already Kamala Harris The vice president Is going to be heading out With her own yet to be named VP Now she was asked As she was leaving for Atlanta today Had she made her selection She very coyly said Not yet But you were talking about Rick was talking about I feel like protecting the blue wall Is absolutely a priority So that puts someone like Shapiro up top But also messaging And expanding broad appeal Make someone like Tim Walsh Look really good right now He's got appeal with young voters Don't fall for him He's demonstrating We agree on the Blue wall needs protection And the Derrick's on the six points And the Pennsylvania's free points But also he appeals to Wisconsin And Michigan You know Like he appeals across the Midwest So I won't knock the walls in like that You talked about it earlier in the show White dudes for Harris He's doing pretty well in that respect So you know Talk about J.D. Vance You know He's talking about I want to talk to you about Some of your colleagues Reported on him saying That Biden That the Democrats Getting rid of President Biden For this race Was quote a political sucker punch You know Cardinal sin in politics Is to tell the truth So This is why experience matters Experience You should know Not to tell the truth What effect do you think Was he just too honest there Is the Trump campaign Really worried here I mean Things from donor meetings Get leaked all the time So either J.D. Vance Was very strategic And said that Wanting that to get leaked Or more likely He didn't realize That it was going to get leaked That it was not sacred space And whatever it is The effect was That J.D. Vance Did tell the truth And it was in direct contrast To what Donald Trump Is trying to spin it So you know We'll see what sort of impact It has I think that the Trump campaign Is struggling a little bit Not just with J.D.
Vance They're trying to come up With messaging That's going to stick Against Kamala Harris They've been thrown For a huge loop When just two and a half weeks ago They thought that they were On top of the world And coasting to victory So yeah The Trump and Harris campaigns Are both out with Dewey Yance today The Vice President Is still trying to introduce Herself to the country And Trump is really trying To hit her over her record As a prosecutor Really trying to highlight Her record on the border Do you think the Trump campaign Focusing on the border Do you think that is really Going to cut through In this environment While Harris focuses And she dominates that And then he makes himself The victim He can talk about Oh I know lots of criminals Who try to make themselves Out to be victims And she has this unique Advantage over him Something that's been Very powerful for him To make him look weak For acting like the victim All the time When in fact she's the prosecutor And I think that is one of her I'm not a strategist I'm not a strategist I would drive a wedge there Very very hard Juanita Governor Roy Cooper From North Carolina Took himself out of The running club Vice presidential race yesterday Do you think he would do Better in the Senate I fully hope he has his eye On the Senate And that's his logic And thinking In the next few years He will run and attempt To win again Statewide in North Carolina A state where Democrats Have not had statewide success At the senatorial level And knowing also That this race is about Not only delivering Vice President Harris a victory But delivering her a Congress That can actually get things done I hope that's his long term strategy In stepping back From this consideration And then Juanita and I Were just talking this in the break Is it hard to believe That 17 days ago This failed assassination On former President Trump Put this in context This race has gone on its head In just the past two weeks What have you made of it? What was once The most boring And predictable election That we all kind of Threaded covering To most known candidates On this planet And then all of a sudden It's completely turned upside down It's exhausting It's exhilarating It's fun And it's gotten a lot more people Engaged in the process again Where people were tuning out We're not hearing a lot About the double haters anymore Oh that's right But is this still the honeymoon period? Is this going to wear off for Harris? Okay I don't see this wearing off And here's my reason why The campaign has been investing In the ground game Throughout this entire process Thousands and thousands Of new volunteers Thousands of newly registered voters Who are largely under 35 years old This is an infrastructure building Moment for Democrats So I don't see this moment I'm going anywhere As long as people are tapped in Juanita, Rick, Leanne Thank you so much for joining us I really appreciate it And I'm getting to hear us I'm back tomorrow Those local pros are everywhere Which means when you're ready To buy or sell You'll get trusted neighborhood insight That puts you a step ahead Reach out today Rinax The experts close to home Each office independently owned and operated