If it's Friday, President Biden gets a bipartisan win in Washington as Congress passes the debt ceiling deal, while its two most likely 2024 opponents are trading partisan jabs on the campaign trail. Plus, Brand Blowback and Pride protest as some corporations find themselves in the midst of the culture war, facing boycotts and threats of violence over their support of the LGBTQ community. And a new wave of tensions between Kosovo and Serbia over ethnicity and governance and the future of democracy. The U.S.
and the EU step up pressure on leaders to ease clashes as new NATO forces move in. I'll talk to the most prime minister about efforts to de-escalate. Happy Friday and welcome to Meet the Press now in Chuck Todd reporting from Washington where fiscal calamity has been averted for now and President Biden is gearing up to take a bit of a victory lap himself, Biden has set to make his first Oval Office address of his presidency in sort of prime time tonight, 7 p.m. Eastern, as he signed a deal he caught with Speaker McCarthy to raise the debt ceiling.
The Senate passed the debt ceiling bill last night by a bipartisan vote of 63, 36 percent wise. There were actually more Republicans against the deal in the Senate than in the House, who had that on their bingo card. But this deal to avert default is a bipartisan victory for the president, despite the White House's messaging struggles, short term, and the president's initial insistence that he would not negotiate with Republicans at all. There were stubbles, but Biden got back up, you know where I went, and it's a reminder that Biden's message has been and continues to be in a form of unity.
Here's what he said in his inaugural address. We can see each other not as adversaries, but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature.
For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward, and we must meet this moment as the United States of America. That message of unity is in stark contrast with what's going on with Biden's potential 2024 rivals on the Republican side. Donald Trump and Rhonda Stanton have been spending the week slinging, mugging, mudded each other on everything from term limits to who handled COVID better, abortion politics, to whether or not to use the term woke, even though they both use it, here's a bit of this week's back and forth.
When I heard the sanctions go out and say and talk about eight years, we need eight years, we don't need eight years. You need six months. We can turn this thing around so quickly. If you need eight years, who the hell wants to wait eight years?
You don't need it. He's not going to be able to nix the deep state in six months. He had four years. He didn't make a dent in it.
Give me a prayer. He says he can do it in six months. Why didn't he do it in the four years that he had? 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 mom. I don't like the term woke because I hear woke, woke, woke, you know, it's like just a term that you say half the people can't even define it.
They don't know what it is. Folks, it's more than half a year until the first primary ballots are cast, but this week could very well be a preview of what a long slog is going to look like in 2023 with the top two Republicans attacking each other and potentially at least President Biden and opening to make the clear contrast that he made with swing voters, with what he would be as present. And in some ways, it's a debt ceiling deal. While not anything to celebrate on the left is a kind of deal he promised he would pursue if he had to.
You know what I mean? He said his NBC News White House correspondent and our resident Bidenologist, Mike Memley. Vaughn Hillier is following the Trump campaign for us in Iowa and Dasha Burns is quite literally in the moment following the consensus campaign in her car. She's not driving.
And she has received hold on in South Carolina. She joins us on the road between campaign stops. But let me start with Mr. Memley here and what the White House is thinking.
Look, we talked about this before a short term they were they always think about the long game. That's right. They made a short-term messaging awful. They seem that they have their eye on that ball and it seems to fall in the place.
I don't know how much of that is just their hesitance to use Joe Biden as a sort of. This is strategic. I mean, it's easy to say now that they've got the win. Right.
They say if the president had been out on a daily basis attacking Republicans who he's needed to get votes from ultimately to get this sort of the finish line. They need to give Speaker McCarthy the space to get yeses from his own conference. They wouldn't have gotten there. And it was interesting.
Even Chuck Schumer was last night about a headline we've seen a lot this week that Speaker McCarthy has been underestimated. Because McCarthy himself has been saying he's been underestimated. Well, the White House is now saying, hey, our guy has been pretty underestimated too. We don't give him enough credit, they say, for all the bipartisan accomplishments he's done.
And so tonight, the biggest platform a president has is an Oval Office address to the nation. And so they're planning to now start to make that argument that. Is this argument going to be to those swing voters that aren't big Biden? Maybe they're not big Democrats.
They're not big Biden fans. I mean, is he trying to or is he going to try to calm the left down a little bit? Does he think he has to? No, it's really about the former, because for as much as the 2020 campaign was dominated by the wrecking wall that is Donald Trump and COVID, the Biden team thinks they won because he convinced suburban, non-political, you know, the quiet middle of the country that he would bring back stability and normalcy to Washington.
And this for him is a good name. And this is exactly what that is. And so this now really clears the deck for his shadow campaign, right? That he can now run in the next summer months here to really continue to talk about those economic accomplishments.
And an advisor told me today, he's not going to be out there talking about his bipartisan deal with Speaker McCarthy. But because they said bipartisanship, this is bipartisanship campaigns are about contrast. But one of those contrast is the chaos in the Republican primary while he's out showing economics progress in this country. The fall, right?
This is the fear that I know the White House has, which is, you know, a viral video can travel farther than any Oval Office address. Look, I think it got back up to me. It's not a story. It's a story if you didn't get up.
It's a story if you've gotten hurt. None of those things happen. How did the White House handle this? And what was there?
How nervous are they about? I mean, this is a White House that just feels constantly star crossed that they can't win. One should have been really a celebratory moment for them, really got now thrown off by the coverage they of course are arguing is too much on our airwaves about this moment, but it really does underscore the challenge heading into reelection that for as much as voters might think, hey, this guy's been a pretty good president. They're not trying to do it for four years.
Do they acknowledge that if it's not Trump on the other side, this is a much bigger problem? They are continually saying they don't think that that's going to be the case that Trump is going to be the nominee. But you certainly hear that from donors that they are seeing Tim Scott and some of these new faces out there and thinking, oh, shoot. Live with this issue.
If it's Trump. If it's Trump. But everything. All those doubts reemerge.
Reemerge. Somehow Trump is off the stage. Well, Trump being off the stage and unlikely outcome at this point, Von Hilliard, does anybody inside the Trump campaign at all think about how bad of a contrast this could be in a general election? The horrible Republican in fighting compared to Biden getting to sort of play deal maker?
I think that this is a moment, Chuck. It's a good question here because I think as Mike laid out here, the efforts up on Capitol Hill of the Biden administration compared to Donald Trump going around and attacking the most popular governor across the country on the Republican side, it's quite a contrast. And a lot of the voters we've talked to over the last weeks have also suggested to us sort of a little squirminess over Donald Trump going on the attack against Ron DeSantis two nights ago in a local radio interview, a conservative radio host asked Donald Trump why he goes consistently on the attack against other Republicans. Last night on Fox, Sean Hannity asked him the same question.
And notably though, the crowd last night was Sean Hannity asked Donald Trump that question. They booed Hannity's suggestion that Donald Trump should take a step back and Donald Trump made it very clear that you got to go and fight suggesting that there are wars and Republican primary is a war. And we saw he did this eight years ago and he didn't suffer the political consequences. He won in the general election.
Speaking of that Hannity town hall in his own softball way, the, the, the input statement host did have a question about Mar-a-Lago. What did you learn? Right. I think we could actually let's play a little bit of it.
It's insightful into the existence of Donald Trump living in a reality that is separate from the facts that we are gathering in real time. Take a listen. First of all, do you know who this call may be with? Do you know anything about it?
No, I don't think about it. Well, I know this. Everything I did was right. We have the presidential records act, which I had bided by 100%.
Biden has 1,850 boxes with a lot of classified stuff that he's not supposed to have in his case. He had seven or eight boxes in Chinatown in Washington, D.C. When nobody even speaks English in Chinatown, Chinatown is very, it's in favor of China. I don't even know where that's going.
Chuck, you see there Donald Trump. Yeah. There was no follow-up question from Hannity related to any of the specifics of this Iran-related document that he had suggested that he held on to in the course of that recording. But for Donald Trump, you know, right now, it is simply the Department of Justice that is investigating him.
There is no effort, by Ron DeSantis or these other Republicans, to use the classified documents case, to use the Manhattan District's attorney's criminal charges, or any of these other major cases against him. And we're eight months away from now with caucus, and he continues to hold this very elite. Well, I won't call you Jake Vaughn, but I might say forget Jake, it's Chinatown. Hey, very quickly, the debate RNC put out some of the great requirements.
What do we think? Is Donald Trump showing up in Milwaukee for debates or not in August? Well, our understanding was that he had no intention of showing up for the first two debates. But now the new thresholds just came out that really are going to make it difficult for these other candidates to not only hit the polling marks, but also they've got to get a certain number of donors to donate to their campaign to get on that debate stage.
So in the scenario that it's just like Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, there'd be some pressure for him to get on that debate stage. But of course, the loyalty pledge is involved in, notably not a single candidate has committed to signing that loyalty pledge to support the eventual nominee. Donald Trump himself has suggested there's Republicans in this race, he's not so sure about. So I don't know what we have to debate at all, Chuck.
I'm so I'm so, I'm so, I'm so little and minded on that. Well, it's the Midwest in June. I don't want to see you get blown away by Midwestern Storm, my friend, Bonnie Hilliard in Iowa. It comes fast.
Yes, it does. It's fun. Thank you. All right, Dr.
Burns, driving right now in South Carolina following Ron DeSantis. So the most notable thing that we saw with Governor DeSantis between Iowa and New Hampshire was what he talked about in Iowa, what he didn't talk about in New Hampshire, which of course was abortion. What do we expect in South Carolina? Well, look, Chuck, and just warn anyone looking to jump into this journalism job.
This is, this is how glamorous our lives are chasing candidates around states. This is going to be my life for the next 18 months or so. But look, South Carolina, here's what's interesting is I've been talking to voters here. This is a state that votes to not forget Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, both from here, both presidential candidates, both Trump and DeSantis have really been looking at this race as a two man race.
And I will tell you, not a single voter brought up any other name besides Trump and DeSantis. This was a state where I was looking to see if they would bring up anybody else as a potential alternative. And I did not hear that. The notable difference for me at the first event that I just went to, which was just outside of Lexington, the amount of time that Casey DeSantis has spent in front of voters, she has really been front and center this week in this campaign.
As we know, there's been a lot of skepticism around the likability factor for Ron DeSantis. It seems that Casey is going to be sort of the secret weapon to soften his edges, if you will. And voters have been very, very responsive. They've been telling stories about their children when he gets on stage and sits next to her in this sort of fireside style format that they've been doing.
He's stopping stuff. And he becomes much looser and kind of a different type of candidate when he's on stage next to his wife. So that's kind of the big factor that I know is they've spent a lot more time together on stage in this latest round of visits. The other thing, Chuck, you've talked about this, the contrast that they're really starting to sharpen between him and Trump.
And I was surprised to hear Trump sort of step back from the term woke. And that issue, whereas DeSantis, of course, is leaning in, I had a chance to ask him about this at the rofline earlier today. Take a listen to what he said. Great.
We know what woke is, it's a form of cultural Marxism, it's about putting merit and achievement behind identity politics as basically a war on the truth. And as that is an effective institution, there's corrupted a lot of institutions. So you've got to be willing to fight the woke. We've done it in Florida and we proudly consider ourselves the state where woke those two down.
Thank you. Chuck, it's an interesting area where they splinter. There's been so much back and forth between, you know, how many terms one needs to change the course of the country to COVID response, to Disney, you name it. This is an all-out battle now.
The first time we've really seen both of them go ahead to head. It'll be fascinating. I'll be to see if Governor DeSantis, what he does, when or if the Justice Department speaks as soon as next week, Dr. Burns in South Carolina, literally on the road.
Thank you. Thanks to Von Hill, you're an Iowa. And Mike Bumley, right here. Thank you, buddy.
Come out. Pride Month collides with the Culture Wars. How a wave of anti-LGBTQ protests is complicating this year's month-long celebration for corporations. That's next.
Plus, the Department of Justice closes this investigation into a former Vice President Pence's handling of classified documents, days before the Republican has set to jump into the presidential race. What it means for the 2024 field, and what it could mean for the Justice Department case. You're watching me through the press now. Welcome back to China's Pride Month, dedicated to celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.
But this Pride Month is shaping up differently than any in recent memory. Women and corporations and companies are facing very public backlash for their more public support for the LGBTQ community, Target, Bud Light and North Face have all come under heavy fire recently for their, when it had been just sort of normal yearly Pride campaigns and collaborations. This year, they have faced protests, boycotts, and even threats of violence from anti-LGBTQ activists and right-wing media. And they're not the only companies being thrust into the Culture Wars.
It all comes as conservative lawmakers of ramp-up legislation that targets the LGBTQ community with laws that ban public drag performances and, of course, limit gender affirming care for trans people. My colleague, Stephanie Goss, has more on the pushback against corporate Pride. It's Pride Month merchandise, including a transgender-friendly bathing suit, to the back of some of its stores, after customer backlash. These are, like, naked people and shirts.
It's stock price dropped more than 15% in two weeks. I got some Bud Lights for us. Bud Light marketed a customized K&P drink transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, triggering an outcry. Sales dropped nearly 30%.
There are calls to boycott coals because of its Pride-themed baby clothes and North Face, the outdoor company as well. We like to call this little tour the summer of Pride. Transgender issues still seem strange and scary to people. 20 states have passed bans on transgender medical treatment for minors.
How has this very angry debate passed a shadow over some of the progress that has been made? I think everyone is aware that issues that seem to be settled just a few years ago are upper grabs again. Pride organizers across the country tell NBC News Digital that their once-eager sponsors are now more hesitant. Growing fearful of backlash, we'll target their bottom line.
And I'm joined now by Josie Kabir, Director of Special Projects at the National Center for Transgender Equality and a Forbes contributor. Josie, I appreciate you coming on here. Look, we're in a weird spot. We got to the point where mainstream culture has changed enough that LGBTQ marketing is favorable enough for large corporations for now, seeing this backlash suddenly come.
What is your take on this moment? Because I mean, just even last year through the previous decade, it felt like we'd move beyond this. Yeah. What we're seeing is an extreme ramp up of anti-LGBT ideologues like some that you just shown that are really causing this fervor, this anger in the community.
It's only a small amount. And what you're starting to see is that when this fervor gets so loud and reaches a boiling point, it starts to reach a level where you're starting to see violence. And it's a very scary time right now. What is happening in these executive conversations?
I know you've been doing some reporting. You've had some of these conversations. What are you hearing? I mean, look, we know the one thing about corporate executives is that they can just be cowards.
And I mean this if they come from the left or the right, they want to just crawl under their desk. What are you sensing? It's roughly that right. When you see that nine specific target stores have gotten bomb threats, you also see anhyzer bush factories receiving bomb threats.
And even the clites, though, marches with the horses, you've been seeing these threats of violence. And so what's happening is that these victims are really having to do this balancing act, right? Where they want to market merchandise to about 9%, 10% of the population that demands this stuff versus the backlash and the anger and the vitriol and the threats to their staff and their customer base. So it's a very hard time for them to realize, like, should we work in the side of profits and sellbacks?
Or should we try to look at the safety of our own staff and employees? It doesn't feel like we have a place to litigate this. I mean, part of this, I think Spark, obviously, is coming from state legislatures have been doing, you know, it's political theater and on the right. I mean, we know what it's designed for.
But like, where do we go for resolution here? Absolutely. Well, you know, a lot of this backlash is really starting to get loud because more and more people across the country, the general public, are starting to say, absolutely, it's okay for trans people and LGBTQ people to exist in my community. There are family, there are leaders or politicians or friends or postal workers.
And because of people saying, yes, this is okay, the increased visibility of trans people thriving in public life and just regular life in general, that is what is the best solution to this problem. We also need to make sure that these corporations start taking real stances. This isn't about just putting a rainbow logo out on your community. This is more than that.
And they have to make public statements to say, we're going to serve the people that want these products. I was just going to say, you're about to learn who's an ally and who is simply, I don't know what you want to call it, pride washing, I guess, might be a first. Absolutely. Because now the rainbow logo actually means something because the second you slap it on your organization, you're going to have extreme ideologues coming at you.
And so really, we're going to see, like you said, who is going to stand by this pride of month? I mean, this month of pride right now. And we'll see who our real allies are and see if their activism was just paper than. Are you sensing that members of the LGBTQ community are want to pull back on some pride events for fear of violence?
Absolutely. I mean, there is the fear of violence everywhere. We talk about safety and basically keeping your head on the swivel, but we have to remember where the roots of pride came from. It came from a protest in Stonewall where our existence was just a crime just to be openly out.
The queer community is ready to show their pride like the queer community has throughout history. So we're going to go and we're going to be proud and celebrate what it is to be a part of this community. And we're not going to stop to show who we are and be visible in our communities. It does seem as if this is a small band of loud voices that have used social media to gain traction.
Do you see any responsibility here in social media companies or, you know, is that just something that's so stale that's nothing we can do about it anyway? Well, you have seen the loosening of TOS, you know, standards in the terms of use in some of these social media companies. So you've seen loosening behavior where on Twitter, you can actually openly misgender people, which is wrong. But honestly, we need to start calling this what it is, it's stochastic terrorism.
These people are raising people's anxieties and anger, saying it's very explicit things like we're going after children and it's causing these radical few voices to actually take up and do action. And yes, absolutely social media companies are responsible for not holding these media figures to account. Welcome back. The Republican field is set to expand by three next week.
And as we mentioned up top this week in the primary was all about the fight between the two front runners. But even as Trump at the same time tried to draw lines between their canvases, they also frequently sing the same tune, particularly on culture or issues. So joining me now is our panel, Mark Murray, the NBC News senior political editor, I mean Nia, president and executive director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Sarah Chamberlain, CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership. Mark, let's start with the expansion of this field and what it means.
I keep looking at this as a reflection around the sense it's not Donald Trump. That's right. And, you know, Chuck, I think early on, if we want to go right after the midterm elections, there was kind of a doubt whether even Donald Trump was going to be able to run how big the field was in that being. But you end up seeing that the field has gotten larger as Donald Trump's lead has gotten larger in the Republican ratings.
And so that I think is a, if you are a Tim Scott or Nikki Haley, who all got in earlier, but now all of a sudden, if you are someone like Mike Pence, who actually has been laying the groundwork for this data, this isn't a big surprise that he's getting in, Christie's maybe a little bit more of a surprise. And now North Dakota's governor, Doug Ferguson, is going to say, hey, I'm going to get, but you say, hey, if you end up eliminating Ron DeSantis, well then why not me? And I do think though, it's important for us to be like, it's easy to get, we know what this is going to be. Donald Biden versus Donald Trump over the next 17 months, but those of us who have followed and covered presidential campaigns, we have to, there is going to be the unexpected.
We have to be humble that things could, something could end up happening that could knock Donald Trump on. Look, we feel like we all know, it's like, it's probably going to be Donald Trump, but what about those indictments? But what about this? Right?
Everybody's own health, right? He is, you know, the actual area tables apply to both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, right? But sir, let me ask this. A Trump DeSantis month fight for the next six months benefits, I think four people Joe Biden, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, maybe just three.
I don't know if anybody else in this Republican field can get the nomination other than the top two front runners in the two South Carolina. I would agree with that. It's fascinating to watch this, but they, I've always said the two of them will probably kill each other. And a third candidate will come up through the middle.
I mean, this is the way it works. Instead of primaries and gubernatorial primaries. It doesn't always work in presidential primaries. It doesn't, but it's interesting.
I'm predicting it's going to work. And I do think with the indictment coming, I think a lot of people think that Trump is going to get knocked out. And if Tim Scott is in first place in Iowa by Thanksgiving, would that surprise you? No.
No. He's a great candidate. He wouldn't surprise me now. Because he's going to spend all this money.
Well, who just went on the air? Elizabeth Warren did? Who became an Iowa front runner? Who became an Iowa author?
I don't know. That would stun me. I'll go on the record and say that would stun me. Because this is not an electorate.
This is not an electorate that's looking for something different. The primary elected, like, they're not looking for anything different. They are, they think of everything that's happened since Donald Trump lost, January 6th, indictments, all these things. 70% of the primary.
They'll say, yeah, we'd be fine with that. Like the difference, I think the challenge for Nikki Haley and Tim Scott is they're trying to sell something, you know, that we're going to look forward, that there's not really what the primary actually say they want. You can sell something that I'm wondering about. The scientists went there a little bit on character in a radio interview, take a listen to it.
Because I feel like other people tried this with Trump and it didn't work. Take a listen. I think it's so petty. I think it's so juvenile.
I don't think that's what voters want. And honestly, I think that his conduct, which he's been doing for years now, I think that's one of the reasons he's not in the White House now. So political pundit, Ron DeSantis there, I agree with him on his analysis about that's why he's not in the White House, but that isn't why he's the Republican. Yeah, Chuck, I go back to our NBC News poll that we had back in April and this was like right after the indictments that we ended up seeing in New York and Donald Trump's the charges brought against him.
We had 68% of Republican primary voters, Republican voters who say, hey, I want to stand behind Donald Trump. Despite all of that. And again, that's not only just that episode that was after January 6th, after his four years in the White House, many Republican voters have been conditioned to say, don't believe what the other folks are saying about Donald Trump or they've always enjoyed the ride. Now again, this can end up changing as you end up mentioning, you know, does future indictments out of DC or Georgia and that's impacting things.
But that conduct that's actually been fine with Republican voters over the last seven years. Trump, though, mocking woke seemed like a bit off-key for Republican primary voters. Yes, it certainly did. I was surprised by that.
I'm like, oh. Right. Is he just upset that he thinks this has a better line on woke than he was? Probably.
And I'm not even sure if he knows what really means. Is anyone? Right. I think it just reflects that his strategy is just punch where you think there's, I can make a contrary point.
There's no core. And I actually think that is what this primary is going to, it is going to put on display. I mean, candidly, what a dumpster fire the party has become that they're going to have these petty fights you hear about what's been going on these last few weeks. And I think that's going to just, you know, there's a policy for that you may want to say dumpster fire, but then you're like, well, I'm going to see that image and that mean all over social media.
And the Republican mainstream partnership members live in these top districts still. I mean, we live in the swing districts or we live in the bottom districts. So that's really a problem for us as we face reelection. Let's talk Biden here a minute.
I mean, it's interesting to me, Biden had an argument with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders going over, can you work with the Republicans or not? And Elizabeth Warren kind of mocked it. Do you mind getting on the last laugh? Oh, my gosh.
I think, I mean, let's be honest, I don't think of anyone who thought the promises he made two years ago of what he could get done, whatever comes to me. You didn't believe it either. No. I mean, you have to try and we knew reconciliation, but what actually has been the amazing thing is infrastructure, chips and sciences.
Whether we're with Obama. Yes. Gun violence. Now a budget, you know, it's, I mean, he's proven time and time again, in part because of his style that he's not a flamethrower, that he is willing to find common ground.
He's actually brought people to a very progressive position on a lot of these issues. And I think everyone's kind of underestimated just how steady and stable his leadership is. Mark, as long as he's underestimated, it always feels like he's strong. It's when people start expecting stuff from him that he can stumble.
Or when you go beyond the, I'm okay with the half a loaf in the politics. Look, I do think that the last couple of years has been kind of affirmation that compromise is possible. Your side, if your side isn't going to be able to win everything, but you get something and you can say that that's producing. Look at the infrastructure package that was done and obviously chips, you ended up even on guns that was bipartisan agreement.
It was minimal, but there was something that I could not end up doing. I think there was a difference on the people who say, I want the shoot for the moon and you don't end up getting that. And people say, well, I'm not happy with the half a loaf, but that world of like compromise and as long as your party controls at least one part of Congress, like, you know, that was so there's something like this end up happening if Democrats end up losing the Senate and Biden's hand would have been so much weaker. Sarah, I want to put up the House and Senate Republicans by percentages, 67% of House Republicans voted for this debt deal and only 34% of Senate Republicans voted for this debt deal.
I'm sorry, big ago, not being surprised by something. That's surprising. That was shocking to me. Okay.
Absolutely. What do you think that's about is the Senate Republicans, is the Senate Republican conference getting more to the right or these a bunch of senators who saw a free vote and worry about a primary challenge? I think they saw a free vote and they worry about a primary challenge. Yeah.
Yeah. That's what I think it was. The thing that surprised me is the wife that calculus didn't play in the house. Right.
It really was. Kevin really did a great job getting this all worked together. So that's why it didn't happen. I mean, 149 numbers.
I'm sorry. I don't think anybody thought there'd be that. No, that's right. For especially the deal that, you know, I think Joe Biden sees really as just the price of stability, the price of having Republicans won the House and that it really was, I mean, you know, Joe Biden really wanted some things that Republicans could get.
The answer to that is to be criteria today. It looks very similar to the criteria that Democrats had back in the day. And she even RNC chair Ron McDaniel said, hey, if they didn't say how many candidates does it take to create a second debate? No.
She just sort of left that door open that that could happen. Easy targets are not hard on the 40,000 individual donors will probably be the hardest for if you are some of those candidates. He's gonna be the toughest. You know, be able to get in.
So, and then, you know, I also, to Bon Hill, your point that he made to you earlier, Chuck Donald Trump hasn't signed that pledge or the loyalty pledge. Who else is going to sign it? So I think that that's also another. What is the incentive for Trump to debate right now?
None. Right. It's too nice. Yeah.
The incentive is only there if he falls in the polls. Right. And he won't right now. He won't.
You know, that doesn't happen until winter. Right. Sarah, Mark. Thank you.
And if it's Friday, by the way, we've got a new episode of Deep Press Reports. It premieres tonight this week. We're taking a look at some of America's most infamous modern day grifters. Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes, George Santos, Sandbankman Fried.
How did these succeed for so long? How did Americans fall for these schemes? Turn to those questions I sat down with this little journalist who've exposed this rock and a psychologist who helps us understand the minds of scammers and why we can somehow be easily scammed. Here's a peek that this week's, think the press reports deep down into how we became a grifter nation.
You're gonna get caught. One way or another. It's a mathematical fact. It's like Vegas.
The house always wins. The art of the con has fascinated the public and Hollywood for decades. You wanna be a grifter? Grifter.
Yes. But with trust in institutions eroding and the internet providing new opportunities to scam, grifters are showing up everywhere. Just one drop of blood. We can choose the world.
A thief takes your money. A con artist or confidence man depends on persuading you, the mark, to give it to him or to her. Con artists would not be successful if they weren't charismatic, if they didn't know how to manipulate you, if they didn't know how to manipulate your perception of them. And of course, for whatever reason, we're always fascinated with these grifters.
You can catch much more of my reporting tonight at 1030 Eastern. And of course, on Sunday right here on NBC News Now, and it'll be on demand on Peacock and YouTube starting on Sunday after the break, the conflict in Kosovo. My one-on-one with the nation's prime minister is NATO steps in to try to de-escalate tensions in the region. That's next.
You're watching at the press now. Welcome back. The government of Kosovo is facing condemnation from the United States and Europe this week after violence is broken out in the country's north. A region whose population is a majority ethnic serve.
Ethics serves within Kosovo, uh, within Kosovo, boycotted local elections held in April in Mass. Due to what they call provocations by the Kosovo government. Voter turnout amounted to just 3.5%. Now, remind us, Serbia does not recognize Kosovo's 2008 independence declaration.
The situation came to a head on Monday when Kosovo's prime minister moved to install the ethnic Albanian mayors who won in those elections. Serb protesters violently clashed with Kosovo police and NATO peacekeepers. Take a listen to a U.S. national guard who's unit is deployed with NATO, describing the scene on Monday.
I saw myself. I saw myself. I saw myself. I saw myself.
With shot bombs that were attached to class bottles. With small PD pellets. And either alcohol or cell type of fuel caused by violence. Today, French President Amano Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on Kosovo to hold new elections in the region.
While earlier this week, the U.S. benched Kosovo from an upcoming NATO exercise. So joining me now is the prime minister of Kosovo, Alvin Gortim, Mr. Prime Minister.
Thanks for coming out. Thank you for having me. Well, let's start with what, uh, the two European leaders have called for, new elections. Uh, you've suggested you're open to it.
Um, is there a precondition? What would it take for you to agree to new elections in this region? Uh, obviously, uh, mayors who won elections on 23rd of April have, uh, low legitimacy due to low, uh, turnout in these elections. But we called for all the people to participate in elections.
But official Belgrade did a lot of pressure threatening black mailing to Serbian people not to participate. Now these mayors have, uh, low legitimacy, but the only, they are the only one who are legal and legitimate. I do not dispute the necessity at some point for early elections. But beforehand, we should have a rule of law in place.
And these violent extremists, these, uh, mobs that participated in these violent unrest. First, they have to face justice and then to create preconditions for fair campaign, open campaign and democratic elections. Um, what do you think it would take to encourage these ethnic Serbs to participate? We have to stop Belgrade from bullying them.
People want to participate. People want to be heard. But Belgrade does not want to have more than one party for certain community. In Kosovo, 93% of the population are Albanians.
There are dozens of political parties. We have one Serbian party for 4% of populations who are Serbs. And then we have other minorities, each one of them having several political parties, namely Roma, Ashkali, Egyptian, Growny, Turks and Bosniks. So Belgrade wants only Serbian lists to represent a Serbian community.
There can be no democracy without political pluralists. That's why we insist on creating preconditions for an open campaign. And I believe that international community could help us a great deal in enabling Serbs to freely express their will for their elected representatives. Um, why do you think the United States, France and Germany are a bit unhappy with how you guys have handled this situation?
Uh, what we have done was our duty. Lawfulness, constitutionality, respect for human rights, the respect for mayors who got elected and who had to go to their offices at the municipal buildings. But apparently there has been too much worry on the side of democratic west that President of Serbia might destabilize not only Kosovo but the region. And there is this attitude, this approach of appeasement towards official Belgrade.
And this is neither just nor beneficial. Um, do you think China and Russia are encouraging Belgrade to start a pod here? Or do you think they could play a constructive role? Uh, Kosovo is the most democratic country in the western Balkan six.
We had great economic and democratic progress, especially in these last two years. We have no relations whatsoever, neither with Russian Federation nor with China. But to the opposite of this stands Serbia, which has a lot of Chinese investments and great military and energy cooperation with Russian Federation. I can assume that a special Russian Federation does not want to so what to succeed as a country because we are a success story of NATO intervention in 1999 to stop Serbian genocide.
And also we are a success story of economic development and democratic progress working together hand in hand. And there is a great struggle regarding narrative in 21st century. We are not a big country, but we are a great example that democracy and economy can grow together. So that's why I believe Serbia has directly or indirectly the support of all authoritarian Jews.
Do you believe that the during to quell the violence? Do you believe that Kosovo law enforcement has behaved appropriately? Or do you think there has been some escalation on your side as well? There is no evidence whatsoever that Kosovo police behaved inappropriately.
Kosovo police is the most professional police in western Balkans. It has been trained for over 20 years by United States, by European Union countries and by United Kingdom. So they are western oriented and western trained. On the other hand, we have these mobs.
It's not about Serbian people. It's about certain orchestrated violent mobs who are there to destabilize Kosovo and to play for the larger enemy of official Belgrade. You know, official Belgrade is in search for time machine. Sometimes they want to go prior to the year 2008 when we declared independence and sometimes prior to the year 1999 when we got liberated.
But there is no such thing as time machine. We have to look forward and future is European Union, democracy, human rights, rule of law, NATO. The summit of Moldova, we know that there was a brief meeting between the presidents of your country and of Serbia. We know that the French president and the German Chancellor were there as well.
Anything come out of there that can be built upon to create a piece here or a temporary solution? We need to make sure that we are going to have a sequenced implementation roadmap balanced and fair of the basic treaty that we have adopted together with Serbia on February 27 in Brussels. This basic treaty has as its centerpiece de facto recognition modelled upon two Germanist agreements from 1972 when they have decided this formula of live and let live two countries living side by side. And I think that normalization of relations has to have implementation of this basic treaty.
On the other hand, for de-escalation, we need these violent mobs, these extremists either to go back in Serbia because this is where they came from in the first place or to be arrested in Kosovo. And then early elections for sure, we cannot continue indefinitely with 3.5% of legitimacy. And at the same time, we need European Union to be active in this dialogue. Well, just one last question though.
Why not set at least a date for new elections with the conditions? Why not put that on paper so that the other side knows you're serious? Next week, special envoys from EU and U.S., Mr. Minister, Minister, and Minister Gabriel Escobar will come to Kosovo and we will discuss the details.
So I believe also in early elections, but for that, we need a rule of law and free and fair campaign for free and fair elections. Prime Minister Oben Korti, from Kosovo, appreciate you spending a few minutes with us to explain your perspective on the situation. I hope we can de-escalate here and see democracy throughout. Thank you.
Thank you. Still to come, my great crossings at the Southern border just hit their lowest point since Biden took office. Have you heard a lot about that? Defied expectations three weeks after the end of Title 42.
We got some new reporting explaining the surprising data. After a quick break, we'll watch and meet the President. Welcome back to the surge of border crossings when Title 42 expired. Has it happened?
At least not yet. In fact, the number of migrant crossings at the Southern border has hit its lowest point since Biden became President. Perhaps that's why you didn't hear either. Just answer to Trump talk about the border this week.
About 3,000 migrants have been stopped by border patrol officers each day down for more than 10,000 a day, just three weeks ago. Well, Julia Ainsley is here. She's been covering this crisis at the Southern border essentially since she came to BC as well as Title 42. And she joins me now, so Julia.
I don't think even Secretary Mayorkas thought it was going to be like this. Let's not get our stuff here. They predicted chaos. Yes, they did.
Yes. So anyone who tries to say it was just the media. And with the numbers they were predicting, they were modeling, they were testifying to Congress. We need more money because they thought they would be seeing 14,000 a day, easily, crossing the Southern border.
There were 60,000 migrants waiting in northern Mexico. Now we understand there are about 20,000 migrants waiting in their shelters. Some of them may have variable crossed before Title 42 lifted. A lot have not actually made it through.
There's been more enforcement on the Guatemala-Mexico border, so some can be turned back there. Some are still living on the streets in Mexico, desperate to get in, trying this new app to see if they can get an appointment. But some of these solutions that are keeping the numbers lower temporary. In fact, a lot of DHS officials say by the end of the summer.
Yeah, they're not taking a victory lap on this. And that's why we're not hearing much about it from Republicans or Democrats right now, because the situation is pretty tenuous. So I hear about all these governors sending members of their National Guard. It's sort of a little bit of political theater.
They've all did it, and it was clearly an orchestrated campaign. 50 or 100. What do these folks do when they get there? Well, certainly when they send them, it keeps the conversation going even if the numbers are lower.
That's clearly what they're trying to do. But because of our Constitution, they cannot be forcing the law, domestic law, within the boundaries of the United States. They're not handcuffing migrants. They're not processing migrants.
They're there in an assisting role. I see National Guard hanging barbed wire, putting up barriers, trying to do more of the office paperwork so that Border Patrol can go out to the front lines. And that is an issue I've heard Border Patrol chiefs say that they want at least 80% of their workforce on the front lines. But that was a concern when they were looking at 14,000 migrants crossing a day.
Sure. Instead, you're going to be sending a lot of people to maybe not have that much to do. We saw that under Trump, certainly. As we know, it's somewhat, it's somewhat, every time you think you plug a hole here, one opens up there.
When's the next moment that we should expect a test of the system? I would be looking at late summer, and here's why. The rainy season ends so more people are able to go through the jungle, at Darian Gap. And there is a court case, the ACLU has challenged these new asylum policies that they put into place.
That hearings July 19th. And if that judge says they can't do that anymore, more people will start crossing the border. The ANC was so important reporting there. Thank you.
Thank you all for being with us this hour. Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of The Drink. This month, Demi Lovato is my guest. The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now.
But getting there, it wasn't simple. Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood Young and why she now thinks she may have started too soon. She talks about recovery, her new marriage, and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook. The drink is always about the journey to the top, and this was an honest conversation about what that takes.
Hope you'll listen and follow The Drink wherever you get your podcasts.