Meet the Press NOW — June 26

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Russia in crisis. President Putin speaks out for the first time since the abrupt end of the revolt that challenged his authority and had Russian mercenaries marching toward Moscow. Plus, NBC's first presidential poll since Donald Trump's federal indictment showed the former president expanding his lead over his Republican rivals while DeSantis standing declines. And our poll shows concerns growing among Democrats about President Biden's physical and mental fitness for office as the White House faces a fresh set of headwinds and headaches heading into 2024.

Welcome to the press Now, I'm Kristen Welker in Washington. We begin today with the latest dramatic developments after this weekend's aborted rebellion in Russia. The leader of the group of Russian mercenaries led his troops on a march toward Moscow in an unprecedented challenge to Vladimir Putin's regime before abruptly turning around and seemingly agreeing to a deal sending him to exile. Now, moments ago, Russian state media played comments from Putin he made from the Kremlin.

Putin calling the revolt blackmail and vowing revenge against those behind it, but also praising the Wagner soldiers, calling the majority of them patriots. The organizers of this rebellion. This cannot but understand that they will be brought to justice. Everybody understands that this is criminal activity which is aimed at weakening the country which and this was a colossal threat from outside.

We are threatened now. Earlier today, President Biden addressed the situation for the first time, detailing how the US and its allies are approaching the turmoil inside Russia with urgency and also caution. I also convened our key allies on a zoom call to make sure we're all on the same page, critical that we're coordinated in our response and coordinated in what we anticipate. We agree.

They agree to me that we had to make sure we gave Putin no excuse. We gave no excuse to blame this on the west or to blame us on NATO. We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it.

This was part of a struggle within the Russian system. Now President Biden says he reaffirmed the US's support for Ukraine during a call with President Zelensky yesterday. Ukrainian leaders office meanwhile, released video it said shows him visiting troops in the Donbass region in the midst of his country's counter offensive. Whether this marks a turning point in the war remains to be seen.

But what is clear, according to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Putin's air of invincibility has taken a major hit. Here's Lincoln with chalk yesterday. To put this in perspective, what we've seen is extraordinary. Think about this way.

Sixteen months ago, Russian forces were on the doorstep of Kyiv in Ukraine, believing they would take the capital in a matter of days and erase the country from the map as an independent country. Now what we've seen is Russia having to defend Moscow, its capital, against mercenaries of its own making. Today we also heard from the Wagner Group's leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, for the first time since he led that short lived revolt. In an audio recording posted on his press office's Telegram channel, he says he acted to protect his fighters and not to oust Putin.

Now a short time ago, Senator Mark Warner told my colleague Andrea Mitchell that Prigozhin is now apparently in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk in a hotel without windows. The White House and State Department, though, say they have no confirmation of his location. Joining me now to discuss all this, NBC News chief international correspondent Keir Simmons, who's live from Moscow here. Thank you so much much for joining me.

So what do you make of these remarks that we heard from President Putin? What were the key takeaways for you? Well, I think it was an address to the Russian nation, but really aimed at an audience of one or perhaps an audience of just a few. President Putin absolutely asserting himself, doubling down, if you like, on the comments that he made on Saturday.

And remember why that's important, because later on the Saturday we saw what looked like this kind of compromise where Daniel Prigozhin would be allowed to go to Belarus if his fighters joined. This is the way it was reported, although it was hard to tell exactly what the compromise was. But if his fighters agreed to join the Russian military. Well now President Putin again, according on those fighters to join the military, describing, as you mentioned at the beginning there, this as blackmail, once again calling it as mutiny.

Why is that important? Well, in a sense, it's kind of like a war of words between President Putin and Prigozhin because just a few hours earlier we had this 11 minute audio from Prigozhin in which he was insisting that he had not tried to topple President Putin, though renewing his criticism of the Russian military leadership here and suggesting even that his so called march on Moscow was good because it exposed security failures in Russia. So quite some statement from Prigozhin and the answer very firmly from President Putin. We are hearing from Dmitry Peskovk, the currently spokesman tonight, Preston, that in fact President Putin is now locked in, in a meeting with law enforcement officers, including the head of the fsb, Bortikov, a number of others.

That is a high level meeting. And given what President Putin said today or just said in the past few hours, you have to assume that one of the things they're going to be discussing is how to, to hold those responsible for this rebellion that rocked Russia over the weekend, how to hold those people responsible. Now does that include Prigozhin? Is he now in Belarus?

We don't know. And what does that mean for the what was supposed to be part of this theory allegedly was that Prigozhin would not be prosecuted, would not be pursued legally. Once again, we just have to say there are so many questions, so many things we don't know and where this goes from here is difficult to predict. But you know, honestly, despite Prigozhin saying that he was not challenging President Putin, it was hard to imagine how the leader of Russia would be able to accept a challenge like this.

And frankly, and his statement tonight in the case that he certainly is not, I think that is such an important point to highlight here and it's just not overstated to say this is really the first real threat to Vladimir Putin's leadership and standing that we have seen certainly in this moment. What is his standing right now? What did you make of what we heard from him? Is he someone who is on shaky ground here?

Well, there's only one independent polling organization here in Russia and it has shown President Putin's polling favorability, numbers going up since the so called special military operation in Ukraine. Perhaps you could easily argue, of course you could, that Russians won't answer even a sort of private poll honestly. But from the conversation that I have with Russians, I do think that there is still huge support of President Putin. And I think actually you can see that in the fact that Nikki Prigozhin is saying I'm not trying to challenge President Putin, I'm just trying to challenge people around him.

So that gives you an indication of where this country is. I do think that people are concerned about how long that so called special military operation in Ukraine has gone on for. And you know, former members of the Russian government tell me that the question, one of the questions people ask me, where is the end point? What point does it stop?

Another interesting point to mention is that next year, next March, President Putin places an election here in Russia and he will take that seriously. And therefore, you know, he will try and find some kind of resolution. That's a political pressure on the leader of Russia. It's multi dimensional this.

And again, I just, I think we're being for some more surprises as this plays out. Oh, I think you are right. Kier, thank you so much for being there for us on the front lines. Please be safe.

We so appreciate your incredible reporting as always. Going to get more on the situation inside Russia in a moment with former Ambassador McBaul. But first, I do want to bring Kelly Kogya, who's in Kiev. So Kelly, thank you for joining us.

As the situation unfolds, how is Ukraine reacting to the extraordinary developments that took place over the weekend? Well, on one hand you hear statements from President Zelensky and others saying that Moscow is weak, that Russia is weak, that the leadership is in chaos. But on the other hand, there is a real concern here that there could be some sort of large scale attack, some sort of way of diverting attention to the turmoil that we're seeing in Russia right now. And actually leadership here has been sounding the alarm now for several days about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a place that the Russians have controlled now for months and months from the early days of the war, sounding the alarm that the Russians could mount some sort of attack there, create some sort of disaster, nuclear disaster surrounding that plant.

In fact, the head of intelligence for the military said just yesterday told the New states that the situation has never been as serious as it is now in relation to that plant. Today, Sergey Lavrov was asked about this in Russia, the foreign minister and said absolute nonsense and nothing's going to happen. It's all talk. But there is a real concern there that Russia could do something in this space to distract attention from what's happening in Russia, as always, and to you, please be safe as well.

Thank you for bringing us your incredible reporting from Kyiv. We really appreciate it. For more analysis on what's going on in Russia, I'm joined Now by Michael McAuth, Ambassador to Russia and an NBC News international affairs analyst and retired Lt. Gen.

Ben Hodges, senior advisor of Human Rights first and former commander of U.S. army Europe. Thank you both so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

And Master Rifal, let me start with you. What do you make of what we heard from President Putin and these remarks that he delivered? I think Putin's trying to do what Prigozhin was trying to do three days earlier with the Russian Conventional Army. He's trying to divide the leaders of Wagner from the soldiers.

He's saying to the soldiers, you were deceived by your leaders. They tricked you into doing this mutiny. Come back to us, join our forces. But he's throwing the leadership under the bus.

He's saying they were traitors, they led this mutiny, and trying to put a divide there. That suggests to me that they're not having success in getting those Wagner mercenaries to lay down their weapons and join the conventional forces. Otherwise, why would he make such an extraordinary speech? Ambassador, is Vladimir Putin weakened in this moment and by this, what was an attempted rebellion, but obviously was cut off without question?

I mean, anytime you have two different armies that are supposed to be loyal to the president, threatening to fight each other, that's not a good look. It's not a good look that people on the streets of Rostov were cheering for Mr. Prigozhin and his soldiers. And then he took the hard decision.

Right. He did not escalate. I think this is very important to understand. He could have gone after them and used force.

He decided to negotiate with somebody who only hours earlier he called a traitor. And he thought it was all done. But tonight suggests it's not all done, and that's why he is going out of his way with this extraordinary speech to try to divide the Wagner soldiers from their commanders, and I don't know if he'll be successful. Lt.

Gen. Hodges, weigh in on that point. What do you make of what we heard in the fact that he's trying to, as Ambassador McFallen said, alienate and separate Prigozhin from his fighters? Will it be effective?

Well, first of all, everything we've seen over the last 72 hours is not the kind of thing you would see from an army that feels confident that it is on a path to victory. So the fact that this has happened reveals enormous fault lines and friction between the different military forces inside Russia. They all hate each other. The regular army always has hated mercenaries as much as they hate Chechens and the FSB intelligence service.

And so that really has come out. I think the ambassador is correct, of course, that President Putin realizes he needs those thousands of Wagner fighters. I mean, it will be a real challenge for them to replace the 10, 15, 20,000, however many there really are. The experienced soldiers, the Russians, need them.

And so there's a practical reason for this, as well as for his own preservation. And Lieutenant General Hodges, just let me follow up with you on that point. You talk about the divisions inside Putin's inner circle. This is something we've been been reporting on since Russia's war in Ukraine first began.

Is this something that exposes those divisions, exacerbates them? I mean, could this ultimately lead to a change at the top? Well, the fact that Mr. Shoigu is still the Defense Minister is a clear indicator that for now, President Putin values loyalty more than he does competence.

I mean, it'd be hard to find the Defense Minister more incompetent than Mr. Shoigu based on how the Russian Ministry of Defense has performed over the past several years. The fact that they were unable to stop this 400 vehicle convoy that left Rostov headed past V en route to Moscow, that there was nobody there to even stop them, tells you what terrible shape they're in. But maybe at some point Shoigu is gone, Gerasimov is gone.

But the problems that they have are so deeply embedded in the corruption of the culture that it's going to take more than just getting a really good Minister of defense in there. Yeah, Ambassador, pick up on that point. I mean, yes, Defense Minister is still in his position of power, but do you think there are people behind the scenes who are angling for Putin's job and do they see an opening right now? There may be people thinking about it and thinking he's a bad leader.

I think there are a lot of people in Russia thinking he's a bad leader and especially did a tremendous damage to Russia's economy, to its security, to its standing in the world by invading Ukraine. That said, I don't see any indications that there's another Prigozhin like figure waiting to overthrow Putin. Tragically, I think Putin will hold on for much longer than this. But make no mistake, he's holding on as a weak leader.

This is an extreme, extraordinary set of events that he's never faced before in his 23 years of ruling, and that today he had to double down with a second plea. He's begging these soldiers, and I don't call them soldiers, that's an insult to real soldiers. He's begging these mercenaries, these thugs, these killers to lay down their weapons and join him, because they haven't done it. They didn't do it.

When he cut that first deal with Prigozhin. That's a sign of desperation from Vladimir Putin, not a sign of strength. This is taking place against the backdrop of Ukraine's counter offensive. It has only recently gotten underway.

But General Hodges, what are the implications for Ukraine here? Obviously, President Zelensky, we heard an emboldened message from him over the weekend. Well, of course, anytime your opponent is having real difficulty with their command structure and there's chaos and people don't trust each other, this is a good thing for Ukraine. I don't expect the Russian army is just going to collapse now.

But I think the divisions that have been exposed, and by the way, I think Putin does not know who to trust right now. There's a lot of military that should have been out in the streets, you know, immediately to defend the country, to defend the regime, and they pretty much sat on their hands. The fact that Russia was taken so quickly and easily, I think a lot of people have been exposed here. So there's going to be some opportunity, I think, for Ukrainians to, through the use of information, Mr.

Reznikov has already been reaching out directly to Russian soldiers saying, you don't have to die here. The real enemy is back in Moscow. Leave or surrender, and you will live. So I think that's part of what's going on here.

But at the end of the day, Ukrainian forces are going to continue their counteroffensive. The main attack has not started yet. They're still working to create vulnerabilities. When they do find those, then I think you're going to see a very strong armored force exploit those vulnerabilities.

Ambassador McFaul, could this be a turning point in the war in Ukraine, given the counter offensive is underway? What do you make of this moment? It could, I don't think, in the media run, but maybe in the long run. And the thing that I would be most concerned about if I were Putin is what is the morale of those soldiers dug in inside Ukraine because Prigozhin made a very dramatic speech telling them that they've been deceived, that there was no threat from NATO, there's no threat from Ukraine.

Your commanders have deceived you. And if you're sitting there watching this fiasco, you're sitting there watching where your commanders did not take charge. They did not fight to crush this mutiny. They dealt with that.

They did a deal with them. You've got to be wondering, why am I here? And I think to General Hodges point, that is the messaging that the Ukrainian president, Zelensky himself, did it. That's a message that they want to be stressing.

I think that could be the pivotal point. Not the actual ability to fight, but the will to fight. If it doesn't look like your generals are backing you, why should you stay? Stay the course.

All right, well, just incredible analysis. Thank you. Both Ambassador McFaul and Lt. Gen.

Hodges really appreciate it. Coming up, former President Trump expands his lead over Ron DeSantis and the Republican field even as he faces the second criminal indictment. The biggest takeaways from our brand new NBC poll and what it means for the race for the White House next. Plus, amid rising concerns among voters about President Biden fitness for office, I'll speak with a key Biden ally and congressional leader ahead.

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Visit ManLife CA Health. I'm probably the only person in history in this country that's been indicted and my numbers went up. Welcome back. That was former President Trump speaking to a group of evangelical voters over the weekend as new polling from NBC News shows him expanding his lead in the Republican presidential primary.

And joining me now at the Big board with a story from our new NBC News poll is NBC Steve Kornacki. Steve, it is great to see you. So he was right there. His poll numbers are expanding.

What are you seeing in our latest polling? This is remarkable. Yeah. Our latest polling is consistent with a lot of the other polling we've seen out there.

So it doesn't seem to be an outlier at all. But this is the state of the Republican race. Our new NBC poll right here. And you see Donald Trump running with an absolute majority with 51% in this crowded Republican field right now, nearly 30 points ahead of his nearest competitor, Ron DeSantis.

Nobody else even in double digits right here. The last time we took a poll, a national poll, the Republican electorate was back in April. Back then, Donald Trump in our poll was at 46%. So he's actually moved up five points since then.

And you know, just as interestingly here, we ask folks there positive, negative Republican voters here, we ask if you have a positive or negative view the candidates. There are some Republicans just about between 15 and 1/4. A negative view of two out of three Republicans, a very positive view of Donald Trump. You see the others here, DeSantis is popular, but he's just not attracting the support that Trump is.

And in fact, we asked folks, take all the other names out of this. If it's just Trump and it's just DeSantis, the only two who are registering in double digits right now. Who do you support? Emphatically, Republicans say Trump over DeSantis.

Wow. And again, as Mr. Trump says, this comes after his indictment, his second indictment. Does our polling show anything?

I should say, what does our polling show? About the extent of which voters care about this latest indictment. Yeah, it's very similar to what we saw back in the spring. We asked it after the action in New York, the legal action taken against Donald Trump in New York.

And we asked Republicans, basically two different possibilities here. We asked him one, given the investigations, is it important to nominate a candidate who won't be distracted or someone who can, someone who can focus on beating Biden or are the investigations politically motivated attempts to stop Trump? No other candidate is like Trump. We must support him now to keep his opponents from winning.

And you see with 68% choosing that second option. So we said back then, keep an eye on that number, because that could set the tone for any future legal actions against Donald Trump. We've seen another legal action. This indicated back in April the possibility that, hey, there would be.

Excuse me, there would be a rally around Trump effect if there was another legal action here. There was, yeah. And just to be very clear, to put a fine point on it, there's not a whole lot of good news in this poll for Ron DeSantis, is there? No.

As we see, DeSantis nearly 30 points behind Trump. Our poll back in April had him about 15 points behind Trump. There was other polling at the start of the year just coming up, those 2022 midterm elections. There was other polling, national polling, actually had to say this ahead.

But just take a look at this right now. This is with all voters, general election voters here. You see none of the principles here. Joe Biden is not popular.

Donald Trump is really not popular. 56% with a negative. But DeSantis getting known outside the Republican Party. Now, more than three out of four voters have an opinion of him.

46% negative on the Santa. So he's fallen 30 points behind Trump. And one of the arguments that the CIS folks want to make is that he's more electable than Trump. He does do a couple of points better in our poll against Biden.

But you see those negatives are getting awfully high. They're making a left early argument. All right, Steve Kornacki. It's just fascinating.

Thank you so much for breaking all those numbers down for us. Good to see you. With me on set now to put these numbers in perspective is Amy Walter, publisher and editor in chief of the Cook Political Report. Amy, thank you for being here.

Really appreciate it. Good to see you, too. Let me give you one more figure. 77% of GOP primary voters say the federal charges against Trump in the classified document case gives them either minor concerns or no real concerns at all.

That's right. Because if you believe that these are politically motivated, then, which I think pretty much as we've seen over and over again, Republican voters believe that Donald Trump is being persecuted, whether it's by the media or by the justice system or overzealous prosecutors, and that he, you can't take any of this seriously because he is just always going to be this target. And this is the challenge. Right?

If you say, well, now what do you do if you're an opponent to Donald Trump, you're Chris Christie, you say, well, I'm just going to keep going after him saying he's not electable, he is not a moral person, he is not, you know, a loser from losing 20, 20, 2022. He's going to lose. Again, if you look at those polling numbers, those don't even really tell you that one. He would definitely lose.

Steve is right. He's a little bit behind, but not much further behind Biden than, say, where DeSantis is and more important, Republican primary voters. That's not a message that they want to hear. They're not at all interested in that message.

That's why you see so many of Trump's challenges holding their fire. I want to delve into what's happening with DeSantis because it really is fascinating. Our polling shows that he's running strongest against Trump with moderates, college educated voters and Republicans who say they're not part of the MAGA movement. And yet DeSantis is trying to run to the right of former President Trump.

Is that a flawed strategy? Is it a mismatch in his messaging? Right. Or that the only people right now who are committed to voting against Donald Trump are the people who were always committed to voting against Donald Trump.

They've been looking for a vessel, and he is an acceptable vessel in the sense of, well, at least he's not Donald Trump. The question is, how do you win over those other voters who still like Donald Trump, Trump who think he's being persecuted, who think that he is still the right person for the job, who think he can be Joe Biden, how do you get those voters? That is really, really the key question. Because right now, the same as, again, as he pointed out, it's not that he's been disliked, it's just among Republicans, it's just that he's not really standing out that much.

I don't think Republican voters are looking at him and going, you know, you're right, this is a much better pick for me that he's much more. There's something about him that's more compelling than Donald Trump. Donald Trump will always be the most compelling candidate. So how do you eat into that?

It's very tough to do. Yeah. President Biden still beats former President Trump narrowly in a head to head match up. And I've been talking to a number of Democrats who say we need Trump to win if we're going to win the White House.

Is that flawed reasoning? I mean, especially when you're holding 2016, if your entire rationale is we win, as long as the alternative is much worse, then that works if the alternative is actually that candidate. The challenge that Biden has is the economy, Russia, all these big issues. They're important, but his age is the issue.

And that is not going to go anywhere between now and then. Right. You can't change that. You can't suddenly make people all of a sudden feel better about the fact that you have an 81 year old who will be if he wins a second term in his mid-80s to late 80s by the time he leaves office.

That fundamentally is what is holding, I think Biden's numbers down and even with Trump on the ticket is awake and voters concerns about his fitness for office. That's right. Going up in that. Thank you, Walter.

Thank you so much. Great to see you. Up next, what Rhonda Santa, celebrity news when we asked him about his decline in our new NBC poll, We'll bring that to you. You're WATCHING ME the PRESS now.

Welcome back. Florida government. Ron DeSantis made his first formal policy announcement as a presidential candidate this morning, unveiling a slate of aggressive border policies at an event near the border in Eagle Pass, Texas. The policy, dubbed no Excuses would send military resources to the border.

It would end birthright citizenship and turn back migrants as their asylum claims are being processed. As we showed earlier in the hour, the announcement comes as DeSantis drops nearly 10 points among GOP primary voters in our new NBC News poll. Join me now to discuss this and his interview with Governor DeSantis. NBC Gabe Guterres, who joins me from Eagle Pass, Texas.

So, Gabe, you talked to Governor DeSantis this morning. What did he say? What were your big takeaways from the border plan? Hi there.

Hi there, Chris. Good afternoon. Green's from very warm Texas Governor Ron Santis feeling the heat here is over 100 degrees, but he's also taking that much more aggressive stance against former President Trump attacking him on his signature issue. And yes, as you mentioned, some of the details of his proposal he Also talked about ending birthright citizenship, reinstituting that controversial remain in Mexico policy.

Some of DeSantis critics say that these proposals are mirroring what former President Trump has advocated for all along. But the governor told me this is about necessarily disagreeing with those policies. It's pointing out is, you know, you mentioned in his tagline, no excuses, what he is arguing is that former President Trump may have promised a lot but did not deliver on all of it. And that's the argument he's trying to make in these GOP primary voters.

And Gabe, I know you also asked him about the fact that he dropped 10 points in our latest poll before Naki just showed us. What was his response to that? Well, that is a big question right now. While he would do better than former President Trump, according to that poll, against a hypothetical matchup against President Biden, would need to get through Mr.

Trump first in that GOP primary. I asked him about that. Take a listen. How do you explain to your supporters and your donors that since your campaign is launched, you've dropped nine points?

So, two things. One, I think if you look at the swing states, Biden beats Trump in the swing states and I beat Biden handling the swing states. That's ultimately the election right there. Who's gonna win?

Georgia, Arizona, obviously, I win Florida on the canon, Texas, Wisconsin, those states. You gotta be able to do that. If you don't have a path to do that, then nominating doesn't, doesn't make sense. There's other polls in the primary.

I've grown. I think at the end of the day, you know, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We're doing everything we need to do in these early states. A marathon, not a sprint, Chris.

And another thing about his immigration proposals that struck me he really tried to hit today this idea that if someone is trying to get into the US and we're here, right here at the Real Brand, somebody's trying to cut through a border wall. He is saying he wants law enforcement down here to be able to shoot on site and use deadly force to combat drug smugglers. I know that came up during the Trump administration. Again, Governor Ron DeSantis is trying to make a case that he will do that, and he's unapologetic about it.

The Trump campaign, meanwhile, talking to them a little earlier today, they're trying to make the case that, look, again, this is a copy of a former President Trump said years ago. And they look at Governor DeSantis who are trying to paint him as a Fisher Price candidate. Essentially that not the real thing that they, you know, they think former President Trump is best position to deliver on that issue of immigration which is so credible to the gop. Very quickly, before I let you go, Governor Sampson is basically saying, look, I'm running to write Trump on a whole host of issues, whether it's immigration, abortion, the culture issues.

And yet if you look into our poll, the voters who are most attracted to him among GOP primary voters are moderates, are people who've rejected the MAGA message. So is he standing by his messaging at this point? Look, he is laser focused as he says his campaign sees it on these GOP primary voters, as you mentioned now is that polling is incredibly interesting and it really should be interesting how it plays out over the coming weeks. Whether he can somehow go to the right of Trump but also attract moderates.

It's unclear. I will say this person during his actual speeches, he's very careful not to, not to attack former President Trump directly. But in these interviews, yes, he is going to the right of Trump. So it should be sharpens his attacks as we get closer to those all important debates.

Gabe, thank you so much for that of a green master interview after the break. With the fate of the Democratic Party on the line, 7 in 10 voters now say they're concerned that President Biden may not be fit for another term. Congressman Jim Clyburn, Biden campaign co chair and a member of the House Democratic leadership, joins us ahead. You're watching ME the press now.

Welcome back. Republican presidential candidates have signaled that support for Ukraine is not a priority for their campaigns as Republicans in Congress continue to balk about extending US Funding for the war. I mean, the press yesterday Chuck asked Congressman Don Bacon if Putin's weakened position and this weekend's Wagner Group rebellion is likely to have an impact on the overall GOP position. Take a listen to the exchange.

What do you say here, House Republicans who have been a bit soft on Putin after what we saw over the weekend, do you think this will change some minds in your conference? I think it's minority Republicans who have been weak on this. I think the majority of us believe that we have to stand by Ukraine. You can't let a bully do what Putin's doing.

If you don't stand up to the bully, the bully will come back and it won't be just Ukraine. It could be the Baltics or other countries next. And I think what we saw this weekend was how fragile Putin's leadership is right now, how fragile the military is, the Russian military, Tony, now it says Benji Sarland, Washington bureau chief for some four Democratic strategist and NBC's political analyst and Republican strategist and NBC News political analyst Rick Tyler. Thanks to all of you for joining me on this Monday.

Benji, let me start with you. What do you make of what we heard from Congressman Baker? Because the reality is you do have a number of members on Capitol Hill, including housekeeper Kevin McCarthy, saying they're not going to blank check with the debt ceiling out of the way. This really is emerging as I think the next major conflict for this Congress, maybe the finding fight for this Congress.

And you can tell how torn they are by McCarthy himself, who has seen to sort of bend a little back and forth on how much he wants to say he'll support Ukraine aid versus how much he wants to qualify with no blank check versus the biggest challenging challenge out of the settlement agreement, how it conforms to these new spending caps that they've agreed to and whether they have to, for example, pay for it by taking money elsewhere or elsewhere in the defense budget. So there's no answer to this that's going to satisfy everyone in the Republican caucus. It's just completely impossible. So we're really going to see it's going to be up to the party here to find some kind of consensus for it.

Rick, weigh in on this. Is there a political risk? I mean, I've spoken to a number of Republicans who say, you know, we used to be the party that put strength and foreign policy first and that this feels like a step back from that. It does.

But you have to consider the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have changed the mood of the country. But more Republicans need to speak out about defending Ukraine because Putin will not stop in Ukraine. I speak to my colleagues in Poland, in Estonia and Latvia, and they're right on the NATO front line. They understand that a weakened NATO is a dangerous world and that we will pay in blood and treasure in the future.

Right now Ukrainians are firing American made weapons that are working in the field. And as long as Ukrainians are firing these weapons and Americans are not firing these weapons, we should get those weapons to them as quickly as possible. My only criticism about Biden, actually his whole policy is that it's a little too slow, it needs to move a little faster. But he has been excellent on this because he understands and he also, I think he does understand.

I don't know why he said what he said today. I don't, I don't think I would advise him to say that, but he understands the precarious leadership of Putin. Putin's in a very precarious situation. Wagner is not a good.

They're not good guys. They're very bad guys. But the fact that they're fighting each other shows you weakness attracts aggression. And if we show weakness, Putin will be the aggressor.

Putin has shown weakness because he's losing, and that is invited aggression. And I don't think he's the only one. Let's talk about our poll. I want to delve into it.

It shows former President Trump gaining after two indictments. Juanita, what do you make of this? I mean, he is at this point in time the strong front runner in this race. And it sure does look a lot like 2016.

It looks a lot like 2016. But the other thing I noticed about those numbers is the inverse relationship with Trump up 5, with DeSantis down 9. And that just shows that the GOP primary voters are doubling down on Trump. But you know who isn't is independent voters.

And when I zoom out to the numbers around the general electorate and showing that Biden's up, what, four points, you know, within the margin of error still, but still up on Trump, it shows that those independent voters are moving away from Trump. And 55% of independent voters, according to this poll, are concerned about these indictments. I only expect that never to keep going as we expect more indictments from Dojo, Georgia. Benji.

It also shows that concerns about President Biden's fitness for office have increased amongst voters. I mean, do you think Democrats are making a miscalculation by saying that Trump is their best bet? Because I've heard a number of Democrats that was just dissecessing Walter, come up to me and say, yeah, we really want to face off against Trump. Is that a miscalculation?

So I'll add this important caveat here. There's a lot of attention paid to Democrats and liberals and media figures and commentators perspective on who they prefer. You know, do you want DeSantis or Trump? It doesn't matter much.

This is ultimately up to Republican voters. There's not really a concrete thing that Democrats can do to influence it. But I do think it does get to an interesting debate here, which is I think if you ask practically any Democrat, they will say, yeah, Trump can't win. We should not act as if this is a bag.

You know, the polling on the face is telling you that this is a completely competitive election, perhaps even more competitive than the last one. So definitely don't take anything for granted. I don't think Rick Weigh in on that. I mean, do you think that Trump is capable of winning the general election?

How much concern is there about electability? I don't, because I don't think the country is ready to go back to the chaos of the Trump administration. What I see in the polls is two things, and the first is that the Republicans do want an alternative to Donald Trump, and for a while, they thought that was DeSantis, and the Republicans made a summary judgment, OK, not him. The others are much, much lower in the polls, which actually is kind of a good sign because they have just entered the race and people have not made a judgment about this.

Remember, this is 57 races, 50 states states, six territories, and one convention at the side. But the other thing I see in this polls is that people, and this is very dangerous, by the way. People do not trust our institutions. This is not a judgment on Trump.

This is a judgment against the Justice Department. This is a judgment against election officials. And that's very dangerous. When a democracy is undermining its institutions and people don't have trust in them, that's a future I don't want to complement.

And that's obviously something that President Biden has spent a lot of time talking about as well. But how concerned are Democrats when they see these numbers, when they see the fact that voters are increasingly concerned about his fitness for office? I think it raises enough concern for them to go back to the reality that this is going to be another choice election. So when they say they want to take on Trump, they know they can send those two records side by side.

They can show a clear juxtaposition between these two men as individuals and as candidates and potential leaders for this country. And all the threats that come along with Trump. Listen, 35% of Americans think that Trump is also one unfit in some way or concerns about his ability to serve. So that's not good sign.

One of the fascinating things, we've been talking about this throughout the show is this idea that the voters, the GOP primary voters who prefer DeSantis are the moderates, are the ones who've rejected the MAGA messaging. Benji. And yet he's trying to run to the right of former President Trump on issues like immigration and abortion. Is that a failed strategy, or is that not the best strategy, I should say at this point?

Well, here's the good news for DeSantis is that this is how the strategy in theory is supposed to work. At least half of it, which is that you run to Trump's right, you try to kill off Some of those MAGA voters and then the remaining moderates in the party are so sick of Trump that even though you've moved so far to the right, even though you're trying to outflank Trump on the same issues, they'll feel absolutely compelled to go with you anyway. So the good news for Desantis is some of them are still taking that approach and saying, yeah, Desantis maybe too far right to my liking, but he's the only ticket out of this run. The problem is everywhere else right now got parade behind him.

Look a lot. Too many of these candidates have this hope that somehow Chop will fall apart and they'll be able to trick. I hope it's not a political plan that doesn't work. Christy's actually the only one.

Maybe he has a husband. I gotta turn the tables. I may not have a chance or maybe slim, but at least I gotta turn the tables. And that's what they're doing.

All right, guys, thank you very much. Great conversation. Rick Silicon My 101 interview with Congressman Jim Clyburn. That's natur watching the press now.

Welcome back. President Biden often responds to questions about his age and fitness for office and ability to serve a second term with a quick comeback. Watch me. But as we talked about with the panel on new NBC News pol shows, voters are doing just that and they're still worried.

A whopping 68% overall say they have major or moderate concerns about President Biden having the mental and physical health to be present president. That's up 17 points from October 2020. And take a look at this. Those doubts are rising among Democrats with 43 calling the president's fitness for office a concern of 22 points since 2020.

Joining me now is the assistant Democratic leader, Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. He's also a national co chair for the Biden campaign. Congressman, thank you so much for joining. Really appreciate it.

Thank you very much for having me. So, Congressman, you see those numbers. Why do you think that concerns are increasing about President Biden's fitness for office? Well, I think that we all are concerned about the aging process.

So much about it is unknown. But we all realize that when we are making choices as to who to vote for, we compare the candidates to each other. As long as we're talking about this in sort of a generic sense, then that's going to be a problem. But I think that when we get down to the nuts and bolts, people compare the two candidates, they look at their programs for the future and make decisions.

And I think if that were to occur, I feel pretty good about Joe Biden and his chances of success in the next election. Congressman, though, how concerned are you that the problem seems to be growing for voters? It's not just it's a problem, it's an increasing problem for voters. Is the president doing enough to counter the narrative that he's unfit to serve?

Well, you may recall some time ago I said then I thought that that aid to be a concern whether the president should confront it head on and dismiss it head on. And I think he can do that. Congressman, does he need to do more than just say watch me? Well, I think that you want to watch him, but I think people tend to feel that levity is sometimes a pretty good way to deal with it.

I remember the way Reagan dealt with it when he was being confronted with that question with his opponent. And I think a similar way of dealing with this would be good for Joe Biden. I want to read you something that Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Waltz said about the disconnect between the White House and the American public. He says they're having a challenging time connecting the achievements of the Biden administration, whether it's the infrastructure bill or the Iraq or the CHIPS act, connecting it to real lives and real job creation.

The president's approval ratings in the low 40s right now. Congressman, do you agree with that assessment? Is the president failing to sell the American people on the policies that he's passed? I think Tim Walters are on the money with that.

Look, I'm here in South Carolina. I'll be meeting tomorrow with Secretary Ranholm to discuss electric buses and automobiles and battery plants, all that are being constructed here. A whole new automobile coming to South Carolina. And the next day I would be with the secretary judge.

He just announced today a $29 million program for North Charleston. These are things that this president's doing because this state needs it. And he's vowed to be a president of all the he's demonstrating that time and time again. And I just believe we do have to do a better job of getting that message out to people so they know exactly what this president is doing.

I don't think we do a good enough job of that. I think Tim Walsh is absolutely correct. Let me ask you about this head to head matchup between President Biden and former President Trump. President Biden is up four points.

And as I've been saying, I have had Democrats come up to me saying that Trump is going to be the best challenger for him in a general election. Do you worry that some Democrats are repeating the mistakes of 2016 and underestimating Trump? Yes, I am concerned about that. I don't worry about it a whole lot, but I'm really concerned that we have to be careful with this.

You know, I'm a history guy, and I know the history of these kinds of things. I remember us coming up short on Ronald Reagan when we thought that nobody will erect a movie star to be President of the United States, and look what that got us. So we have to be very, very careful about this. So many people last time out thought that Trump had no way of winning the nomination, and he did, and he went on to win the presidency as well.

I'm concerned about that. Do you think that it's Democrats underestimating former President Trump? Are you concerned that the president himself is underestimating Mr. Trump?

Tim Ryan is warning that the White House may be underestimating the threats. Well, I don't think the president is. I talk to the president often, and I can tell you he is not spending one moment underestimating Donald Trump or anybody else. He's fully prepared to go to the American people with his record against that of the Republican Party, irrespective of who that nominee may be.

Now, in spite of all these numbers, I'm not in the camp yet. It feels that Trump is going to be the nominee. He may be. I'm not there yet.

You say that just because it's still early, because he's running away, and because there's so much out there for people to be concerned about. We've seen his numbers decline, and I think they're going to begin to tank. Congressman, let me very quickly ask you about plea deal for failing to pay his taxes over the course of two years. He attended a state dinner last week, a station that was also attended by the Attorney general.

Was that a mistake? Should Hunter Biden have decided to stay home and not attend that state dinner? Absolutely not. I'm a father of those because I have three daughters.

But let me tell you something, I'm not gonna stop being a father to those three daughters. I'm sorry, was it an optics problem for him to be there? Well, it may be an optic problem for some people, but for me, it was not a problem. It was him being a dad just a few days after Father's Day.

Okay. Congressman Jim Clyburn, thank you so much for joining me to discuss all of this. We really appreciate it. Good to see you and thank you for being with us this hour.

I'm back tomorrow with warmeth the press. Now. NBC News now coverage continues with Hallie Jackson right now. 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 then 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 podcast.