Meet the Press NOW – June 1

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Conditions apply. Offer includes 1% loyalty rate reduction for qualifying customers. Visit hyundaicanda.com or your local deal for details. If It's Thursday Primary Politics and probe Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump hit the campaign trail at Iowa, New Hampshire as they both face a growing field of rivals and new questions about both their candidates.

Plus, the tale of the tape and Macy News has confirmed that Special counsel Jack Smith now has audio of the former president apparently admitting to keeping classified material after he left office in what could be the key piece of evidence in this criminal Pro and senators are open to move at warp speed after the House passed the deal to raise the debt limit that was broken by President Biden Speaker McCarthy. There's still just days to go until a potential default. Welcome to BE the Press Now. I'm Chuck Chat reporting in Washington where we are following a very busy day on the 2024 campaign trail.

Front runner Donald Trump is in a and facing new legal peril and Ron DeSantis in New Hampshire facing new questions about his campaign's strength and strategy. DeSantis is barnstorming early state pitching primary voters as the candidate to go up against what he calls the woke mind virus. We will go into office recognizing that this woke mind virus represents a war on the truth and so we must wage a war on woke. We will fight the Woke in the schools.

We will fight the Woke in the corporations. We will fight the Woke in the hot halls of Congress. We will never, ever surrender to the Woke mob. We've made the state of Florida the place where Woke goes to die as President.

We're gonna leave Woke in the dustbin of history where it belongs. His trip to New Hampshire follows a two days swing Iowa, which is shaping up to be mission critical to the DeSantis campaign. It may be extremely hard to see how DeSantis wins the Republican nomination without winning the state of Iowa, and it's nearly impossible to see how he wins it without winning Iowa. DeSantis has his work cut out for him in winning Iowa.

In addition to appealing white votes from Trump, he's an epic contender with a still growing Republican feel. Three more candidates are throwing their hats into the ring next week, including former Vice President Mike Pence. And hence is a favor of True Blue Principle evangelical voters, a key Coalition for DeSantis and Iowa. And Iowa is where President Trump is today, making it to a swing of his own, where he is sounding very bullish on his own chances.

Take a listen. I said there's no way we lose Iowa. I got China to give them for their farmers 28 billion. There's no way I can lose Iowa.

Let's see what happens. I don't think so. We'd have to. We'd have to do some really bad things to lose at this point, because we are.

It's been amazing how far I'm so. It's the best polls we've ever had overall nationwide. In Iowa, no matter where I go, it's the best balls because they love the four years that we had. We should note, as experts pointed out at the time, that tens of billions of dollars in aid the Trump administration gave it.

Farmers didn't come from China. It came from you and me, US taxpayers, to send losses from Trump's trade war with China. Trump's Iowa swing comes as new details emerge about his ongoing legal jeopardy. An informed source has confirmed news that Special Counsel J.

Smith has a taped tape of Donald Trump discussing a classified document. While acknowledging that the document was indeed still classified and that he took it after leaving office, the evidence appears undercut Trump's already dubious claim that everything he took it somehow been automatically declassified. He just think it remember, the news comes in a growing speculation that the special counsel could be nearing a decision on charges. But it's not at all clear what his legal peril could mean for Trump's position in the Republican primary.

Because when Trump was indicted this spring by Manhattan grand jury on 34 felony counts, high dot money payments he made in 2016, Republicans didn't run away from him. They were all around him. So let's get right to the campaign trail. Dave Gutierrez is following Ron DeSantis in New Hampshire.

Vaughn Hilliard is following down Trumpet Island. Also with us for more insight and the ever crucial Hawkeye State is the Des Moines registers. She politics reporter Brianne Fannon Steel. Let me start in New Hampshire with Gabe.

Gabe, look, if you look at the history of winners, past winners of Iowa, if they have been powered by evangelical voters in Iowa, they have hit a wall in New Hampshire. It is not nearly as socially conservative as Iowa. Is DeSantis finding a crowd that's ready to rally with them? Or is this gonna be a Tougher sell for him?

Well, Jack, it will be a very tough sell, as you laid out. The math is very difficult. But his campaign does see an opening. They think that roughly A third, about 35% of the GOP primary electorate will go for former President Trump.

20% is never Trump. They think these more moderate candidates, establishment candidates, will split that vote, essentially cancel each other out. And then they see potentially the other 45% being the sweet spot for Governor DeSantis. The question is, will that actually happen?

A couple interesting things I saw today. I was able to get a question into Governor DeSantis in one of his events earlier today. He did seem more engaged with voters, at least at this event, taking questions from them along the rope line. And his team did allow reporters to film that.

I asked him several questions and as you know, Chuck, sometimes it's very telling what a candidate chooses to engage on and what he doesn't. In this case, he did not engage on any questions regarding the classified documents investigation involving former President Trump. He did engage and fired back a response when I asked him about this idea. Earlier in the day, former President Trump had said that he could fix the US in six months.

And this comes after Governor DeSantis earlier in the week in his speech said that it take him two terms to turn around the country undoing the damage of Democrats. I asked earlier to say this what he made of former President Trump's response that he do this in six months. And DeSantis immediately fired back. He said, why didn't he do it in four years?

So he was clearly wanting to establish that contrast with former President Trump. I want to get to some of the voters I spoke with really quickly in Iowa yesterday. We were in Iowa yesterday, in New Hampshire today. Take a listen to what they had to say as this field started to get even bigger.

Take a listen. Did you support former President Trump? Absolutely. So this time around, do you think we're leaning more towards Governor C.

This or former President Trump? We'll see how things play out. I love Trump's policies. I struggle with his personality.

Just today that we heard that Chris, Christine and Mike Pence are getting in next week. What do you think of this spot of geode? I'm only going to work on these two. So yeah, Chuck, big question there.

Will, you know, he gain momentum if he does well in Iowa? Does his translation New Hampshire must have figured out he's going to South Carolina tomorrow. Governor Sanders. Jay, does the campaign acknowledge that this growing field is a bit of a reflection on his rough start?

You Know, again, as you know, Chuck, they will try to spin it. And they keep saying, well, it wasn't as rough as a start as everybody's making it out to be a show that there's interest. But certainly, you know, there was a divide internally in the campaign whether the Twitter route was the way to go. Look, they see it as they have an incredible amount of money to play with here in the next coming months, and they just think that if they can build the momentum and build something in these early primary states because they do have enough money to throw half this problem now that he's a formal candidate, now that in their view, he can go after form President Trump, although again, he doesn't do it in the stump, he waits reporters asking questions.

They think over the next coming months, the tide will turn. But as Chris Christie has said, look, in 2016, the GOP candidates thought that, you know, they were waiting to take Trump on one on one, and it didn't work out then. Some of the Santa's critics say it's happening all over again. Yeah, I know it is.

You know, some of us went through this a few times. Looks awfully familiar, Gabriel. Heirs on the ground in New Hampshire. Let's go over to Iowa where we find Vaughn Hilliard.

And look, let's. Let's say what the huge story is. Donald Trump spent the night in Iowa. Donald Trump, Vaughn spent the night in a state where he owns no hotel.

He did not sleep in a bed that he technically owns. I know we're all sort of laughing about this, but this is only the second time he's ever spent the night in Iowa as a presidential candidate. Right. He's now matched what he did in 2015, 2016.

Now he's got 18 months to double that. You know, it's notable because Ron DeSantis, by comparison, made stops in six different Iowa towns over the 48 hours he was here. Usually, Donald Trump flies into a city every couple weeks, holds his mega rally, and then he flies back home to either Florida or Medminster. And that was notable.

They flew yesterday and he's gonna be taking off tonight. But you know, the interesting part here with Chuck is when you're talking about Donald Trump and a lot of criticisms towards Ron DeSantis, is he willing to answer questions? Well, we went around a three different stop of Donald Trump today, and it was suggested to us he was gonna talk to reporters at some point. And at each stop, we're ultimately denied.

He's now heading to his fourth stop, we should note, which is a town hall with Sean Hannity that is set to air tonight. Of course, usually questions that come from that particular moderator are not usually reflective of the greater media's questioning. So it's notable that Donald Trump continues to steer clear of straightforward questions, especially at the heart of the special counsel's it unfolds. So how would you say he did it?

I would say, I mean, is he, you know, he doesn't do it traditionally. He doesn't do the things that every other person that's an expert about Iowa caucus politics would tell you you should do. He's like a speech and then he sort of walks away. What have you seen?

Has he done anything different than his usual. Well, that's the difference was instead of one big M, he did three small stops. He stopped and met with faithfulers. He stopped a West side conservative club, a group just west of Des Moines that is made up of more of your kind of suburban Republican types.

You know, I was talking to one particular couple who, you know, came, came to see him. They caucus ran this whole round. They said there's somebody else also caucus for Jeb Bush eight years ago, yet came into that room to hear him speak. Then he was here at a community center talking with another small group of folks.

And so it's different. And they're going to try to make the case that they are doing retail politicking and that Donald Trump is taking eyew seriously. You know, when we're talking about the kind of twofold parallel tracks of the political one and the investigative one here, Chuck, I want you to hear a little bit of him addressing that conservative group outside of Des Moines today, because he didn't talk about press by documents specifically, but he talked about the Department of Justice and the attack that he says that he's endured over your stigma. This is years and years of entrenchment, years and years of radicalism.

It's really radicalism and it's putting our country in great danger. And I'm fighting them all the time. And I think one of the reasons I'm doing so because, you know, I've really ford him successfully and we were making tremendous problems. But this is numerous presidents long term people are embedded in those positions and they hate us, they hate our values, they hate what we stand for.

I was talking, Chuck, to one close ally of Trump's down in Florida here who told me that Trump will continue to hammer home on this because of Ron Desantis is a big part of this. Essentially, Ron DeSantis for the eight months is gonna have to Make a decision. Does he echo what Donald Trump just told this Iowa crowd and that there is this deep state that exists that is coming to attack the MAGA movement? Or does he throw Donald Trump under the bus as somebody who's still a popular figure by longer than this Republican Party?

These next eight months are gonna be so much about the politics of IT policy, but also the investigations to find Donald Trump that he finds himself in Marga. That's the, that's a, that's the million dollar question. How do the legal developments impact this race? That's what we're all waiting to find out.

Vaughn. Hillary on the ground with the Trump campaign. Vaughn, thank you. Let me bring in the Des Moines Registers Chief political report, Brian Fannon Steel.

So, Brian, the last three Iowa Republican caucus score winners all came arguably from the evangelical wing of the party. Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee. None of them became a nominee. It is clear that this is the DeSantis strategy.

So let's start there. Is the evangelical vote there to be taken away from Donald Trump? Yeah, I think that's exactly right. This is a group of caucus goers who show up in disproportionate numbers.

They caucus pretty, you know, you can count on them to show up, so to speak. And so this is a group that Radisson is really going to be trying to reach out to. You know, they've been supporters of Donald Trump in the past and it's, it's maybe not an obvious pairing, but it's one that, you know, he's delivered for them, that he certainly comes to the state will argue that, you know, he's the person who paid the way for Rovers Wade to be overturned. And that is a huge issue for Iowa evangelicals.

And so he's coming into the state now. We're seeing an interesting back and forth over the abortion issue today. You know, Ronnie Said is of course signed a six week abortion ban in Florida. Donald Trump said that that was maybe too harsh.

And so at this event this morning at the west side Conservatives Club, the Never Back Down Pack, which is supporting Ron DeSantis, had his bus parked outside and was putting flyers on cars kind of critiquing Donald Trump's stance on abortion and saying that he's not strong enough on these pro life issues. So that's a really clear indication that Ron DeSantis plans to go after Donald Trump from the right in a direct effort to get these evangelical caucusers. So I was talking with Dave Koch on my podcast. By the way, great things to say about your reporting, for what it's worth.

And he made a note. He said that Trump's strength really comes from the. This could be an odd way to say it, but the coast of Iowa, the river towns, whether it's Council Bluff in the west or Dubuque and Northeast Iowa all along the Mississippi there. Besides those areas, where else does Trump have strength?

I mean, I think we're going to be seeing him compete in the major population centers. He has a huge advantage coming into this race and that he has a massive stockpile of data of people who have been supporters of him before. He has their phone numbers, he has their email addresses, and they're going to be reaching out to them as much as possible. And so in terms of trying to get people into his events, committing to caucus for him, I think you're really going to see him go to these major population centers to win over these people and cement their support going into the caucuses.

And that's an advantage. But it also leaves an opening for someone like Ron Desantis, for someone like Tim Scott to come in and go into these smaller communities, to go into places where it's tough for Donald Trump to show up. He has a massive amount of security detail that can make it difficult to do these smaller events that we're seeing. So it creates an opening and it's an advantage.

All right, let me talk about my friends and Tim Scott, the other two that I think could have some, some traction in Iowa. Pence is in some ways the more principled, potentially social conservative here is he viewed that way among some leaders in the, in the social conservative movement there in Iowa. Republicans are talking to about Mike Pence, who is set to launch his campaign with the Des Moines rally next week. You know, they like Mike Pence.

They respect Mike Pence. They view him as being a very principled conservative. They think he's doing this for the right reasons. But there's always a but after that.

They just don't know that he's exciting enough. They don't know that he's going to be able to bring new people in. They're really struggling to kind of see the lane for him going forward. So every time you talk to people about Mike Pence, they like him.

But. Interesting. That's a good way for you. I'm going to go away from that.

I like him, but Tim Scott, he strikes me as the western one candidate. Am I overstating it? Yeah. I think, you know, you could draw parallels to maybe Marco Rubio, who spent a lot of time in the, in the suburban Des Moines areas, trying to get kind of that moderate suburban, you know, maybe chamber commerce style Republican.

But we're also seeing him spend a lot of time in northwest Iowa, where there is a big bait of those evangelical caucasus that we're talking about, those very conservative folks who are also very religious. So they're on the far right of the spectrum, but they, they're, you know, rooted in their faith, which is something that Tim Scott talks a lot about. And they see him as being a very authentic messenger for that, for that issue. And so it'll be interesting to see whether he spends time in central Iowa or whether he's really courting kind of that northwest Iowa caucasus.

Brianna Panicle from the Blood Register, I have a feeling we're going to see you a lot and we'll get much better pronouncing your last name brand. Thanks so much. Joining now to dive more into the legal aspect of Donald Trump and what he faced, Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel and NBC News analyst. Andrew, welcome.

Good to see you. Nice to see you. Let me start with this audio and what it does say to us and what it doesn't. On one hand, he is apparently caught on tape saying he's aware of what the classification is of said document.

On the other hand, he seems to be taking precautions. Are we supposed to believe he was concerned that he couldn't share these things? What do you make of everything you understand about this audio and how potentially incarnating it is? I think that I don't see the other hand here, frankly.

If the tape exists and the underlying document exists, as we have the reporting on it, assuming that is all true and assuming there is this underlying document, this is such strong evidence, this was already a very strong case. But to have a defendant on tape saying that he is possessing a classified document, remember, he's not possessed of any government documents at all. But classified or not, and this is saying on tape that he has possessed it. Remember, there are times when I was a prosecutor, you don't bring a case because the quality of the proof isn't that good.

For instance, in the Alvin Bragg case, a lot of people talk about, well, Michael Cohen will be a witness, but Michael Cohen has lots and lots of baggage. But when you have a case like Mar a Lago, where in addition to the search, the documents that were found, the defendants, that is Donald Trump's inconsistent statements over and over again, the fact that there's so many witnesses who appear to have told him cannot keep classified information, his Dribbling out information back to the archives. But now you have a tape recording where he is saying, I possess a classified document. The only kind of precaution he says, is, I can't give it to you.

I can't read from it because it's a classified document. Well, that's not a defense to unlawful retention of a document. And even his own statement actually reveals content, because the reason we know that that document relates to plans to declare war on Iran is because the reporting is. That's what Donald Trump said the document contains.

So he actually is disseminating, if the reporting is true, information from that document. So this is a kind of win, win document. You know, the tape recording of the witnesses to it. I was gonna say the document matters a lot here as well, because is Donald Trump's history of lying a potential defense for him?

So the answer that's no for the following reason. If the document that he's describing does not exist, in other words, the whole thing is just his bluffing. The evidence on that tape is still useful to show his state of mind. But all the reporting to date is that that document that he's describing does exist.

And obviously Jack Smith is going to know for sure one way or the other whether it does or not. But the other thing is, when you think about all of the various defenses that we've heard, many totally inconsistent, like the documents were planted to hide every right to take the documents. Just imagine the chart that the government is going to use in opening an intimation of all of the inconsistent statements that Donald. To me, it reminds me very much of what happened in the E.

Jean Carroll sexual assault case, where the plaintiff there used Donald Trump's own words and inconsistent statements to prove her case. And I think that is what we're going to see in the Mar A Ladder case when it's brought. Is there still a deal to be cut? If you were Jack Smith and Trump's lawyer said, all right, look, he took these documents, he didn't do this.

He didn't sell them, he didn't do this. What can we. Can we make a deal? It's too late.

Well, you know, this is where it helps that I know Jack Smith. So I'd say the deal that Jack Smith would accept is if you want to plead guilty to a felony of unlawful retention and obstruction of a government investigation, then that's the deal. It's hard to imagine that Donald Trump would do that because then he'd be admitting his guilt from his own mouth. And he seems, as a Political matter, wanting to say all of this is just made up, so he can't really take that position, that he's accepting responsibility.

So I think just as a practical matter, the government would insist on a plea that I think would be righteous for them to insist on that, because that is what they've done in numerous cases that appear to be far less egregious than the one against Donald Trump. Do you expect Jack Smith to bring all the charges at once, or do you expect this to be piecemeal out? Great question. So I think Mar?

A Lado, I would expect him to bring it all at once. The reason I say that is I think that there probably will be a lot of internal pressure that he will be able to get this case to trial if he does his piecemeal. For instance, you're allowed to bring an indictment, but then to continue the investigation and to do something called a superseding indictment, which is essentially like a second indictment. The problem with doing that is that it delays going to trial.

And so here I think that there'll be concern about the American public really needing to know the answer to whether Donald Trump is guilty or not guilty of these offenses, which a jury will decide. And frankly, although I don't think he thinks this way, Donald Trump would be entitled to that as well. In other words, everyone should have their day in court, the government and Donald Trump, and it should be decided to. The American public knows that in advance of the election.

Well, and very quickly. What about January 6th? You think that's a separate. That that would be separated out?

Yeah. Well, it cannot legally be brought in the same charging instrument. It is possible, Chuck, that they would be brought at the same time. The only reason I think that may not happen is that that's just a more sprawling case.

There's just more to do. It's conceivable that they would be brought at the same time, but I don't think so. I just think there's more to do. Andrew Weissman, who has an incredibly clean desk for a lawyer.

Amazing area behind you. Mr. Weissman, thank you, as always, for providing your expertise. We're going to dig deeper into the state of the GOP race, the future of the party, former president's ability to defy political gravity despite these mounting legal problems.

Panel is next. Plus, it's going to be a long, hot hurricane season. How record warm ocean temperatures and climate change are going to complicate this year's storm predictions. Good news, fewer storms.

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Visit Canada.com or your local dealer for details. Welcome back. As we noted, former President Trump is a way of defying the laws of political gravity. As the former president campaigns now, he faces criminal charges in New York.

He could face more charges from a range of ongoing escalating criminal pros. And yet he has grown his leader Republican presidential primary with some of his supporters now Italian being seen that even indictment from the special counsel's office wouldn't dissuade them, not one bit. The stuff we're seeing is so silly. I mean, this is childlike.

We go after him, we go to Montalgo and we get documents and so on. For God's sakes, he was the president. He has the right to take things and be classified. So we make a big deal.

And what we find with our current president, I mean, I don't want to use that as an excuse, but everything they throw at him is the things they're guilty of. And you talk about his popularity. Every time they go after him again, he just got rockets. There you go.

I'm joined by my panel today. Eugene David Files for author, Political Publico co author, Playbook. He's also an ABC newsleton Democratic senator. Amanda Doug Johnson Sarah Longwell, the publisher of the Bulwark.

Eugene, every morning when we have our morning meeting, all right, what are we gonna leave with today? We sit there and it's like the Desantis Trump question, like, hangs over our heads every day. But she, Sarah, has a similar conversation with her team every day. And you do, too.

And it's the same question. Well, I think I know where this is headed. But how many indictments can Trump handle? And that's the question we just don't know.

Right? The strawberry rope, the camel's back is cliche for a reason. Is any of these indictments a strong. It's hard to know, right?

We heard from the voter, right There was them parroting exactly what Donald Trump is saying, things that aren't true about the presidential records that he can just go and wait a long and declassify things. He doesn't have to tell anybody. There's no documentation needed. That that doesn't matter.

That's not true. So what it tells you is that he has it's so deep within the Republican base. He has such a handle on the folks that like him and have liked him for so long that it's hard to see how to Sanders or any of them. I would pull that away from them.

When you heard them talking about how these indictments are child supportive, whatever it was like that is for every Republican strategist, I would be nervous about them because how you get beyond that, they're not going to believe that these indictments are true. Because Republicans spent a long time denigrating these same institutions that are now taking down Sarah's My podcast is with Dave Koch was a long Republican republic in Iowa and he's done a bunch of focus groups with Republican caucusers and he says it's extraordinary the excuses Trump supporters come up for Trump and he says it's you got handed Trump. He's brilliant. He has fed them what you just said, Eugene.

What that voter said is what Trump told him to say. And here's the thing. Why do the voters all the time two times Trump voters and what they say about the indictments are it's political. And the reason it helps them in the real state is because they're too scared of Trump.

They're out to get a deep state once again. And that to them is a testament to Trump's power. It's a testament to why he's the right one because we wouldn't be so scared of him if he wasn't so dangerous to the establishment, to us. But I will say I don't think the indictments are about her.

I think that might be the wrong question. I think the question is, is there another Republican DeSantis who has the political talent to make hay of it to get to go through Trump? And right now nobody has, you know, you can make these indictments work against Trump, but none of the other candidates really do because Trump has this crazy power of they come to his defense and as long as these other candidates come to his defense, he's fine. Doug Redtot is a Republican operator, has this theory system the reason Trump supporters back him up all the time.

He thinks everybody is trying to make 2016 aspects that by, you know, and these voters, they don't want to erase Trump. Maybe they'll move on from Trump but acknowledge he mattered. Like there's this, hey, this mattered. Don't sit here and say this was an accident.

Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. But I think, you know, Chuck, I think there's another element of this too. I faced this in my 2017 race when those allegations about Roy Moore came out. You know, people that supported him did not want to believe those allegations.

They couldn't believe this is a man they sold themselves. And it's this. And there's a lot of that, I think with Trump. When you indict Donald Trump, you're indicting his supporters in their mind.

And so I think that breaking through to that is very difficult when you've got a very, very strong base of support. So, yeah, I think there's all of that that's in play here. And that's why I think these guys are going to have a difficult time talking about the so called character issue that hadn't worked yet. And these people are seeing that as personal attacks because they were so invested in human beings.

We have a difficulty saying when we're wrong. Right. And so by going to the Sanders or trying to wish away Donald Trump, these voters are going to have to say, I was wrong that time. Why I've been tricked this entire time.

It's very hard for human beings to do so. It was like a psychology to this. I remember a post Clinton impeachment, Sarah, when a lot of people had to be reminded voters knew before Bill Clinton was elected that he had a wandering eye and. Oh, so you're impeaching them for that.

We already knew that. Right. Voters knew who Donald Trump was when they liked them. And I think sometimes we don't fully appreciate that voters knew who they were kidding.

So they did. Yeah. And so we're sitting there telling him, hey, he saw this. Well, you told us he was all this before.

I keep making this joke like, what is the. What is the stabs this oppo team gonna do? Like how are they gonna spend their time? We know everything.

We know all the better. Tells you something, Trick Ted Cruz tribe. He's not a real conservative. My goodness.

I used to have this. Nashley's to play Rick Perry is a cancer on conservatism and he goes right down the line. All these people, it didn't matter. It's also deceased.

His whole strategy is the Ted Cruz strategy. It's like I'm gonna go after Trump's base and the hug as far as I can and hopes him Doc exaggerate this event takes him out of that. I'm the last man standing. It hasn't worked for anybody yet.

And so I will Say, I have just seen lately a few signs of life from DeSantis where he is trying to go right at Trump. He's taking him on a little harder, and I think that's what he needs to do. Like, if you beat me, be the man. You gotta beat the man can't go around trying to guide you to go through him.

And so the question again is, does Ron DeSantis have the political talent to do that effectively? No. And that's what the beauty of presidential campaigns is, that it is. Somebody said this to me.

A Senate race or governor's race can be one with tactics. A presidential race to Canada. Absolutely. And the fact is that the more people get into that primary process, I think it helps Donald Trump.

Everybody says that. Everybody knows that. You're seeing Mike pants, you're seeing Chris Christ looking at jumping. The bigger that is, the more people that may try to attack him.

The others that are going to defend him, he's going to sit back and say, fine, y' all do get out the Chris Christie. I'm trying to think of another campaign where the. Where the candidate says, I'm only running to just get rid of that guy. You know, like Pappy Cannon ran in 92 to make a statement.

He knew him in the window. He wanted to make a statement. Arguably, Ron Paul ran to make a statement. Bernie Sanders, I think the first time was more making a statement.

I don't know how a candidacy that is totally based on revenge works. His hope is to do what he did to Marco Rubio, to Donald Trump. He's not going to. Donald Trump has made it clear.

He says he's not super interested in getting on the stage. In his eyes, he has, as he said over and over again, I'm the front one. Why do I get on stage the. With losers.

Right. That is how he is thinking about this. So if you're Chris Christie, your only chance is to knock him down in person. It can't be in a bunch of interviews.

It can't be on stage talking to your supporters. It has to be one on one or at least face to face with them. And, Sarah, we know what's gonna happen. One, there won't be a pile on Trump.

There'll be somebody that angles and says, oh, no, and says, I'll play fullback for Donald Trump. Right? Yeah. Which Chris Christie did last time.

And look, they won't be able to resist the idea. Like, I need to be mild when I Trump, I need to be second. Which means they're only going to be attempted to walk after DeSantis, which is one of Trump's big structural advantages as everyone's gonna try to get to that number two spot and hit the Santas while ignoring him. And that's gonna go along too long.

Before you know it, it's all over. All right, I'm not gonna let this pass. None of you care about this, but when your boyhard baseball hero says he's gonna run through the United States, I'm gonna throw it out there. Steve Garvey is a think about running for California Senate.

He's supposedly gonna run more as a moderate Republican. I do think Doug Jones, he'd be better off running as an independent. A Republican can't win state in California. Right.

But an independent fight, maybe. I'm doubtful that too. Look, I am very doubtful of independent candidates these days, whether it is in California, Alabama or in nationally running for. I'm sure there's some people Alabama says, well, the Democratic party brain is bad trying to independent candidates.

I had a lot of people talking to me about that and I kept telling them that, no, look, things are so tribal these days that at the end of the day people are gonna vote for Republican or Democrat regardless. So, you know, look, I, you know, C. Garvey is a baseball hero to a lot of people. I think it's a great people.

That's true, they do. But you know, at the same time, whether that translates into something you can campaign, I think is to be seen. It is a top two state though, and the Republican primary will be on that day, which means it will be the highest Republican for now. So the chances of him making it likely in the top two.

Other interesting thing. Adam Schiff voted before the debt ceiling. The other two in the America primary Porter and League did not. Wow.

Wonder if that's gonna be announced. Yeah, you think so if it's going to pop up at least 1 surpriser 410 times during the process from both angles anyway. Eugene Dug inserts Senateliers are urging members not to throw up any roadblocks as the chamber tries to move quickly to take up the deal. Just a few days until the potential to fault revive and cat will hold the latest set of belts.

Watch me first now. Welcome back. You have to raise the debt ceiling and vote of potential default on our debt is now hands of the U.S. senate for the House last night overwhelmingly passed the deal struck between President Biden Speaker McCarthy.

More Democrats 165 voted for this deal versus Republicans 149 and a bill passed 314 to 117 which is four days to a potential to fall tension. Senate leaders Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, both collectively have been urging quick action out of the tally. Jersey Allen Capital. So, Ally, it seems like everything's smoothish.

What could, what could knock this off the tracks? What could keep the Senate here through the weekend not getting an agreement on how long this is going to take? You know this well, if all 100 senators come to the table and say, let's do this quickly tonight, tomorrow it gets done. Done.

Getting them to say yes to that, though, in this instance requires an agreement on amendments. That's what they're still actively trying to figure out. The latest that we've heard is that maybe there's 10, maybe there's 12amendment votes. And when I spoke with Senator John Thune just about an hour and a half or so ago, he still thinks that this could all come together tonight and it could be a late night, but at least that means that we're well ahead of schedule.

And certainly senators love not having to work the weekend too. If who is trying to gum it up or are the usual suspects only half hearted about this, it's pretty half hearted because I think everyone, when you say smooth ish, Everyone agrees that this is like kind of on a glide path. It's just a question of how soon it gets done. So for people like Senator Mike Lee or Rand Paul, among the people who want amendments voted on, they know that the amendments that they want voted on are still going to fail, but they just want to vote on it.

So that's what they're trying to put together right now with a reality check that everyone's demanding an amendment vote, is aware that this is not going to change the process substantively. And that's a good thing because any amendments that would have gotten passed through this process would mean you tack on more time than this that would have go back to the House before it could go to the White House. That's not what we expect to happen right now, but doesn't mean that the process isn't still slow. Before working so fast, I saw Mike Lee was not happy that more Democrats and Republicans supported this deal.

He used that as proof that the deal is not a good deal. How, how, how much of a problem could that be for McCarthy down the road? I mean, that's something that I think we're going to keep tracking. I was just listening right before I came on with you to Chip Roy, who was on a conservative radio show and he's still griping about this in the same way that Mike Lee is raping about the fact that more Democrats voted for this in the House than Republicans did in the House.

It's something that Chip Roy is talking about, too. Whether or not that actually amounts to some kind of massive motion to vacate battle, that's the next step in this. It's just not clear that that's exactly where it's going to go yet. Yesterday when they were still in town on the House side, the vibe was finish the debt ceiling, then we'll move on.

I'm just not really sure there's Matt to move on, at least not yet on Capitol Hill as we get ever closer to finishing this manufactured crisis. Al, thank you after the break. It is officially hurting season. Between climate change and El Nino, we officially have no idea what to expect this season.

There's already a possibility of a dangerous storm forming in the Gulf right now. Watch me the press. Welcome back. The beginning of June means beginning of hurricane season.

And on this first day of June, the National Hurricane center is already warning the system in the Gulf of Mexico. Right now that could develop very quickly in the first tropical storm of 2023. The National Weather Service is referring to this right now as invest 9.1L, but some other watchers are referring to it as a blob. There's real uncertainty right now about what this hurricane season looks like because forecasters have no historical presence for the current.

There's record warm ocean temperatures combined with a likely El Nino. Chase K. Climate editor with our NBC News partner, Alex News, explains how climate change is making hurricane season a lot more difficult to predict. Ocean temperatures are breaking records by records, and that could have a profound impact on hurricane season.

These lines show ocean temperatures back to 1981. The dark black line is this year. And look at just how much hotter it is. Hurricanes are fueled by warm water and the oceans now store about 90% of the extra heat that humans have added to the planet because of greenhouse gases.

You know you're changing the physics, right? Hurricanes need warm ocean water to feed their engine, if you will. They evaporate water off the surface of the ocean when the ocean is hotter. When that sea surface is hotter, you can evaporate that water with a lot greater ease.

But the end result is that we're changing the speed limit on hurricanes. Increasing research shows climate change lets hurricanes dump more rain, push more deadly storm surge ashore and intensify more quickly. Last year, Hurricane Ian brought all three. The $114 billion storm killed 149.

Nearly all died from flooding or storm Surge amplified by sea level rise, storm surge, where we see the most damaging conditions and the most deaths. The problem is that the interaction between storm surge and sea level rise is what we call non linear, meaning they are sort of a multiplying effect on each other. So what we're trying to do is elevate the status of the storm surge warning and help people understand that storm surge warning is as important in some situations, more important than the hurricane warning. Then there are the carefree beaches of Southern California, usually shielded from tropical storms and hurricanes by the cool waters of the Pacific.

But as the Pacific is warming along with all of our oceans from the effects of human cause, climate change, that protection, that shield, is weakening a bit. And that's why for the first time this season, National Weather Service offices here in LA and in San Diego will have the ability to issue alerts for tropical storms and hurricanes. Consider that just last year, K brought flooding rains and tropical storm force winds to San Diego. The big thing that climate change is doing is it makes the behavior of the storms different than in the past.

So people that have lived in areas and have encountered hurricanes before, you really need to be aware that the storms we're dealing with now can be very, very different than the storms we were dealing with even 20 or 30 years ago. And in the Atlantic Ocean, a forecast of El Nino usually means a somewhat quieter hurricane season. But it's possible that record warm ocean temperatures could cancel that effect. And even if it ends up being a strong El Nino, I assure you it will not stop hurricanes from forming.

And at this point, El Nino is nothing more than a distraction for hurricane comparedness. So there are multiple things happening at once. Many of them lead to climate change and unfortunately, it's not a good picture. Bottom line, these storms are going to be more powerful, but there might be fewer than we think.

Silicon President Zelensky ups the pressure on NATO to admit Ukraine into the security lines as Russia launches more deadly airstrikes on key. My 101 with the white House National Security Coordinator next. You're watching the press now. Welcome back once again.

Air Raid. Simons Blader Cross Key in the early morning as Russia continues to barrage the capital city with missile attacks. According to Ukrainian officials, Russia launched 10 missiles, all of which the country's defense system was able to shoot down. But there were casualties from falling debris caused by the intercepts.

Three people were killed, including a nine year old girl and her mother, and at least a dozen more injured. Now, more than 15 months into this war, residents in Key are once Again finding themselves rushing to seek shelter from Russia's attack, just to see in the early days of Moscow's invasion. All this comes to the European leader, Moldova, where he pushed for an invitation to join the NATO alliance before the Defense Pact summit this summer. So Germany is National Security Council Strategic Communication Coordinator John Kirby.

John, always good to see you. Let me start with that question on NATO. Has America's position changed on this with Ukraine? It feels like France's has, that there is a growing number of NATO allies.

But you know what? We don't. There's no fear of Russia anymore admitting Ukraine isn't some escalatory thing with Russia anymore. We shouldn't worry about that.

We should protect Ukraine. Where are we on this? Our policy hasn't changed at all, Chuck. I mean, we still obviously support NATO's open door.

And what we said and continue to say is that discussions about membership, that's got to be between the country in question and the alliance. We certainly recognize and respect that. There's a process there. What we're focused on right now and what we believe we need to be focused on right now, not just the United States, but, but our allies and partners around the world, is making sure that President Zelensky has all the tools and capabilities he needs to be successful here in the spring.

Well, now it's almost summer. Summer, summer, months and weeks and months going ahead. Because if and when they choose to go on the offense, we want to make sure they're ready to do so. And that's where our heads are right now.

The munition issue. This has been something that has been of concern. Concern as fast as we can send artillery, they seem to go through it. Are you confident we can keep them armed?

Basically, yes. We are working very, very hard to make sure that we can continue to get them additional arms, ammunition. You saw, just yesterday we announced yet another package. And if you look at what's in there, it's almost all ammunition, whether it's artillery shells or our new interceptor missiles for the Patriots and new air defense munitions as well.

It's all in there. We're keep that going. We're roughly rolling out a new package of assistance every couple of weeks. And we believe we've got the funding to continue to do that through the end of this fiscal year.

Let me stay with NATO issues here. And I know President Biden spoke with President Erdogan after his re election in Turkey. Did the issue of Sweden's invitation come up and if it did, what's your sense of whether Turkey is Going to support it? Well, yes, it did come up.

The President reiterated our strong desire to see Sweden become a NATO ally. And we believe they'll be a great NATO ally. They've got a very modern, capable military, and we look forward to welcoming that military inside the alliance. As for the chances, we believe that we're going to get there, but obviously President Erdogan has got to speak for that, speak for his country's concerns, and he's done that.

We know those conversations with Sweden are ongoing, but the President has said before we're optimistic that we'll get there. You know, this war started. There were a lot of red lines that many folks thought Putin had when it came to the west, whether it was US or NATO, etc. And, and none of those red lines have.

If they were, if we cross them, Putin didn't enforce them. What have we learned about Putin and his bluster and how much bluffing does he do? I mean, are we convinced now that he can't back up what he promises? We've evolved the capabilities that we have provided to Ukraine as the war itself has evolved.

That's really been the driving factors. What do Ukrainians need now and in the weeks ahead? And so we're doing the best we can to provide those, because the war has changed, as you were alluding to in the opening there. You know, when they were going to Kyiv, it was really Stingers and Javelins, that Javelin anti tank missiles that the Ukrainians needed.

And then as we got into, you know, spring and summer, it really became air defense. And of course, we're still prioritizing air defense. And now as they get ready for a counteroffensive sometime in the weeks and months ahead, they really need what we call combined arms capabilities, armor, artillery and additional air defense and ammunition. So we're really focused on those.

And those have changed over time and naturally been the driver, not so much what red line Putin has put out there. Now, I will say, quite honestly, Chuck, and we've talked about this, we absolutely are concerned about escalation. We don't believe it would be responsible if we weren't thinking about the potential for this war to escalate beyond the level of violence that is already visited upon the Ukrainian people. The Ukrainian attacks in Moscow, I know what our official stance is, but do you think they're having an impact on Russia in a way that that might actually be advantageous to Ukraine?

I think it's too soon to tell, be honest with you. I mean, these have just happened in recent days and weeks. We've seen some reaction out of the Russians in terms of their own force protection, but it's too soon to know whether this is going to be some kind of a game changer. I want to stress again, we do not support attacks on Russian soil.

We do not encourage, enable Ukrainians to, to do that. Right. You know that if they didn't want to be satisfaction attack another country is, is probably a reminder to Mr. Putin.

Very quickly, China. I know President Biden, Secretary Blinken, there's this desire to de escalate. It looks like the Chinese do not have a desire to de escalate. The ignoring of Secretary Austin by his counterpart in China.

I thought China wanted to de escalate. Are we getting mixed messages or is this decidedly. They want, they want to have a more confrontational approach. I think in general the president is optimistic that we'll be able to get all the lines of communication back open.

Most of them still are, Chuck. I mean we still have an embassy there in Beijing. We still have the ability to communicate directly with the prc. Now this military channel has been closed.

Johnson then Speaker Pelosi visited Taiwan. We want to get that back open and that's one of the reasons why we want to get Secretary Blinken on an airplane over to Beijing as soon as it's practical so that he can start to open up some of those shutdown lines of communication. When you look at what happened over the weekend with the, with the intercept unsafe and unprofessional intercept over the South China seat, that's a classic example of why it's really important to get these military channels back open. John Kirby, the national Security Coordinator retired Admiral.

Thank you, sir. Always pleasure to get your perspective and thank you all for being with us this hour. By the way, in the three minutes I was interviewing John Kirby, the hurricane center is upgraded. That storm is now a tropical depression in the Gulf.

I'll be back tomorrow morning. The press now Embassy news now coverage continues with Hallie Jackson and I'm sure she's going to hit that lunch system as well right now. Drive off in a new Hyundai Launcher today with $0 down during the Hyundai Advantage sales event. Take advantage of the $1,000 spring drive bonus and lease the 2026 laundry essential for just $73 weekly at four point for 60 months.

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