Meet the Press NOW — March 4

If it's Monday, a unanimous decision from the Supreme Court that Donald Trump stays on the ballot in Colorado and other states as the High Court reverses Colorado's decision to disqualify him from the ballot over his actions on January 6th. Plus, we're just one day away from Super Tuesday, the most consequential day of the 2024 primary, with former President Trump looking to continue his march to the nomination and Nikki Haley ramping up her attacks on the front run. And the White House doubles down on its push for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, as the administration calls the current situation quote, "...intolerable and unacceptable." Vice President Harris meets with the top Israeli war cabinet member at the White House. Hello and welcome to Meet the Press Now in Ryan Nobles in Washington at the start of the busiest week in presidential politics so far in 2024.

So let's dig right in. A historic and unanimous decision from the Supreme Court this morning that states cannot remove former President Donald Trump from their ballots. The decision reverses a Colorado ruling that disqualified Mr. Trump due to his actions on January 6th, with the High Court saying that state governments do not have that authority.

This afternoon Trump prays the Supreme Court as his legal team prepares to argue another case before the court next month, one that will decide whether or not he has presidential immunity for his actions on January 6th. It was a very important decision. We're very well crafted. And I think it will go a long way toward bringing our country together, which our country needs.

And while we're on the subject and another thing that will be coming up very soon will be immunity for a president and not immunity for me, but for any president, if a president doesn't have full immunity, you really don't have a president. We'll have much more on the legal fallout from the Supreme Court decision coming up. But the bottom line politically is that Trump will be on Colorado's primary ballot tomorrow and in 14 other Super Tuesday states. It is the single biggest night of the presidential primary contest.

The former president is looking to run the table and make it virtually impossible for Nikki Haley to catch him. Haley won just her first primary contest yesterday in the District of Columbia. And with time running out, she's ramping up her attacks on the front runner and backing off her pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee. You did sign a pledge in RNC pledge to support the eventual nominee.

Do you still feel bound by that pledge? I have always said that I have serious concerns about Donald Trump. I have even more concerns about Joe Biden. So is that a no?

Are you bound by the RNC pledge? The RNC pledge. At the time of the debate, we had to take it to where would you support the nominee and you had to, in order to get on that debate stage, you said yes. The RNC is now not the same RNC.

Now it's so long. So you're no longer bound by that pledge? No, I think I'll make what decision I want to make, but that's not something I'm thinking about. Now as a former president looks to further pat his delegate lead this week, the current president is gearing up to deliver his State of the Union address on Thursday with this reelection campaign facing a potentially brutal road to November.

In a trail of polls over the weekend, Mr. Biden trails Trump in everyone, albeit within the margin of error. But there are bigger warning signs for President Biden. In a New York Times, Cienopol, which has 10% of 2020 Biden voters now say they're supporting Donald Trump.

And the majority of his 2020 supporters now agreeing that he's just too old to lead the country effectively. But President Biden is projecting confidence, telling the New Yorker this. Remember in 2020, you guys told me how I wasn't going to win, and then you told me in 2022 how it was going to be this red wave, and I told you there wasn't going to be a red wave. And in 2023, you told me we were going to get our butts kicked again, and we won every contested race out there in 2024.

I think you're going to see the same thing. Our NBC team is covering all of the day's top political stories. President Biden is here with me on set for more on the Supreme Court ruling. Garrett Hagus following former President Trump in Florida, Ali Vitaly with the Haley campaign in Texas, and Gabe Gutierrez is outside the White House.

So Ken, since you're here in studio, let's start with you, and also because you're covering the Supreme Court today. The top line decision, 9-0, Trump is back on the ballot, but there wasn't disagreement from the judges. So maybe this wasn't as unanimous as it was on first look. Exactly.

Well, first of all, resounding decision, and just a reminder of how consequential the Supreme Court is in our politics and our country, because a lot of smart people thought that this was a plausible avenue to keep Donald Trump off the ballot. And resoundingly, they said, no, it's not, states can't make this decision. That would cause chaos. But you're right, they did disagree.

The three liberal justices joined by Amy Coneyberry thought that the majority went too far by saying the only way to enforce this provision is for Congress to pass a law. They didn't say this, but there are other amendments affecting presidential qualifications that don't have enforcing laws. For example, the 22nd Amendment requires a president to serve only two terms. So, but they put this requirement now in place.

And what the minority said is that there's no other way to enforce it, for example, through a federal lawsuit ruling by a judge, or if Donald Trump was convicted of actual insurrection, a statute that bars him from office. So they thought the majority went too far, but they agreed that you can't have states knocking people off the ballot. And so, I'm going to read a line from the concurring opinion that was signed by Justice Kagan Sotomayor and Jackson. It says, quote, even though all nine members of the court agree that this independent and sufficient rationale resolves this case, the five justices go on, they decide that novel constitutional questions to insulate the court and the petitioner from future controversies.

Do you read this as a little dig by the liberal justices on the other members of the court about the politics of the situation? Absolutely. 100% it was. And they're right.

I mean, it does insulate Mr. Trump from any other consequences relating to the 14th Amendment because, you know, there's no prospect for Congress passing a law to enforce it. Okay, great. Thank you, Ken.

Let's go to you now, Garrett. I'm going to talk about the Supreme Court decision today. It certainly seemed like he tried to spin today's ruling into something that it wasn't, which is kind of his brand, is it not? Yeah, that's right, Ryan.

And you played really the only bite of Donald Trump at this sort of pseudo news conference. He took one question in which he actually spoke specifically about the Colorado ruling. Everything else was an attempt to tie together, as he so often does, all of his various legal quandaries in which he finds himself into one giant Biden-focused conspiracy to knock him off the ballot. But he was particularly focused on the next case of his that the Supreme Court will hear.

This question of presidential immunity, and he tried to talk about the issue as something bigger than him and about protecting the presidency. Here's a sampling of how he talked about that face. You can't do this to a president. And again, I'm not talking about me.

I'm talking about in the future. A president has to be free. A president has to be if the president does a good job. I did.

Some people would say a great job. But if the president does a good job, a president should be free and clear and frankly celebrated for having done a good job, not indicted four times and not gone after on a civil basis and not demanded to be to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines on something that was absolutely perfect. I mean, Ryan, we could spend the rest of the hour unpacking all of that. Obviously, the former president was not indicted for having not done a good job.

He was indicted for his role in the, what we saw after the election. He was indicted for mishandling classified documents and his civil problems span the gamut from sexual assault claims to business fraud. So as you know, all of this is kind of all over the map, but to Trump and to more perhaps more importantly, to Republican primary voters that thus this far, it has all been wrapped together in kind of this big conspiracy that he sees. And the voters, again, at least in the Republican primary, are agreeing with him on.

And how is Trump's team working to keep him on message and focus on President Biden as opposed to just running down his list of grievances? I know they're working to do that, but what did we hear from him on the trail over the weekend? Yeah, I mean, not particularly successfully, Ryan, I think is the short answer to that question. And this has been the challenge with Donald Trump going back to 2015 when he first started running for office.

His advisors know the potency of what he's able to do when he is focused on the sort of the big goal in front of them, but he is so rarely focused on just that goal. Over the weekend, we saw him going after Nikki Haley again, trying to defend his memory, lapses and mistakes he's made on the trail, suggesting all of these he's maybe confusing Pelosi with Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi or Biden with Obama that these are somehow all intentional. I mean, he is all over the map. When he is focused, he is dangerous as a candidate.

But the team that is around him now knows that they can kind of only give him the runway in which to act and that they cannot control Donald Trump, something which several generations of chiefs of staff and campaign advisors and chiefs have learned the hard way going back to his political career. Yeah, you really can't control Donald Trump. You just have to kind of hang on and go along for the ride. All right, Garrett, hey, thank you for that report from Florida.

Let's now move to Ali Vitaly, who was with Nikki Haley in the great state of Texas. So Haley, of course, notching her first win of the campaign yesterday here in Washington, D.C., probably not something she's been a brag about to Republican-based voters. Where is her campaign setting the bar for Super Tuesday tomorrow? Look, Ryan, on the one hand, winning D.C., as the only primary you've won in a Republican primary, not the most ideal, but at the same time, the Haley campaign had been really looking for a win and they finally got one, not just them.

But frankly, they were able to make history last night as Haley being the first woman to ever win a Republican primary. So if for nothing else, they have that notch of history in their belt. Of course, they're looking for more, they're hoping for more, but at this point, it's really hoping against Hope. When you look at the polls throughout the Super Tuesday states, all of them heavily tilled in Trump's favor.

That being said, there are some that the Haley campaign are looking at. I know you're going to be in Virginia. And we're going to be watching closely from Charleston as well, because that's one of the states that they think they could drive up the margins in. Again, the Haley campaign has been clear, they are not setting out expectations of states that they can win.

In fact, we're not even going to see Nikki Haley tomorrow. After her event tonight here in Fort Worth, that is right now her last publicly planned event. She's going home to the Charleston area. That's where she'll be taking in results.

Will, of course, be there, too, should she decide to make any remarks, but it is a striking contrast between the former president who will be holding forth for a watch party tomorrow night and his only rival who will be ostensibly watching privately. It's interesting, Ali, because you're with her in Texas, she's gotten in a couple of stops before the vote yesterday. She isn't holding back on Donald Trump even at this stage of the game. What did you hear from her today?

She's not holding back from Donald Trump at this stage in the game, but that's also not to say that she doesn't, for example, support the Supreme Court's ruling that they made today. Watch what she said about that. And you looked at the Supreme Court rule today that Donald Trump could stay on the ballot. No, I think that was important.

We don't ever want some elected official in a state or anybody else say who can and can't be on a ballot. This is America. This is America. Look, I'll defeat Donald Trump, Farron Square, but I want him on that ballot.

And Ryan, you even hear her there. Someone in the crowd boos when she tells them the Supreme Court's decision and she said, no, no, this is what I want. I want to beat him at the ballot box. Again, it seems unlikely that she'll be able to do that in any of these Super Tuesday contests.

And then that, of course, begs the question of what comes next for Nikki Haley over the weekend with Kristen Welker and that exclusive Meet the Press interview. It was really striking hearing the way that Haley said, and the pledge is basically just a piece of paper. And she'll decide what she wants to do when it comes to a Donald Trump endorsement when that time comes. But she has reiterated time again with me, with groups of reporters, and of course with Kristen Welker over the weekend that she's still running this race and that is where her head is, not publicly around what she's going to do regarding endorsing or not endorsing Donald Trump.

Super Tuesday does seem to be a marker for her though. Allie's been there the whole way. We'll see what happens tomorrow night. I'll tell you in Texas, thank you for that.

Let's go to Gabe now who's at the White House. Of course, the president, the current president, Joe Biden, has a big night this week on Thursday. That's of course the state of the union address. Talk to us about the stakes for this big speech on Thursday, Gabe.

And what should we expect to hear or maybe not hear from the president? Hi there, Ryan. Well, the stakes are incredibly high for the Biden campaign. You know, Ryan, you hear from the Biden campaign over and over again in response to those less than ideal poll numbers that things will be different once people start tuning into this race.

But Thursday night will be one of those moments millions of people watching at the state of the union address. And this will be an opportunity for the president to really lay out his contrasting vision with former President Trump. Now, we expect them to talk about reproductive rights and also to really make the case as he has been now for several weeks and especially last week down in Texas that it is Republicans who are holding up that border security funding. Although, according to two administration officials and a congressional official who has seen a draft of the speech, the president is not expected to unveil any executive action at the border as NBC News has been reporting.

The White House has been considering an executive action to potentially tighten asylum rules. From what we understand so far, he's not expected to make that announcement Thursday night, Ryan. But he has gave expected to hit the road, his cabinet officials expected to hit the road. That's pretty customary after a state of the union address.

They go and try and sell the message that was delivered on Thursday. Where are we going to see the president this weekend? Yeah, well, on Friday, he's expected in Pennsylvania, Vice President Harris is expected in Arizona. And Jennifer Granholm, the Secretary of Energy, she's expected to be in Colorado.

Now, on Saturday, the president is heading to Georgia and Vice President Harris heading to Nevada, obviously very important swing states. But one place that the president is not expected to go until very late this month is the critical swing state of Michigan, Ryan. And, finally, we saw President Biden tell the New Yorker about what he thinks about the polls that have a neck and neck or even losing to Donald Trump. How does the Biden campaign feel about all this behind the scenes?

Look, and as I referenced this earlier, the Biden campaign really shrugs off these poll numbers that we've been seeing there. You just see some of the latest poll numbers there. The Biden campaign repeatedly says, this thing will change once we get into the heart of the campaign season. And once the president is able to make that case on several major topics, including reproductive rights, and what's interesting, Ryan, as you well know on the Hill, that over the past several weeks, the Democrats are really trying to flip the script on Republicans and trying to seize the message on immigration, trying to paint Republicans as the obstructionist.

We'll see if that how that plays out over the coming months. But the Biden campaign, you know, they almost seem very often seem annoyed when they see those poll numbers and say, just watch. And so we head into the heat of this campaign. We shall see, Ryan.

We will see for sure. All right, Gabe Guilliard is at the White House. We appreciate that. So the couple are digging people into the legal fallout of today's report ruling that states cannot just qualify Donald Trump from the presidential ballot.

That ruling coming just the day before Super Tuesday. And speaking of which, we'll have live special coverage and analysis of tomorrow's results, news making interviews and breaking news reporting from across the country and the campaign trail all starts at 5 p.m. Eastern right here on NBC News Now. Special coverage returns on Thursday for President Biden's State of the Union address, and of course the Republican response.

Our News Now team will kick things off at 8 p.m. Eastern. Don't go anywhere. Much more head on today's top stories.

You're watching me The Press Now. Welcome back. The Supreme Court's 9-0 decision to keep Donald Trump on Colorado's ballot wasn't as unanimous as you might think. While none of the justices disagreed with restoring Trump's ballot access, there were notable disagreements about how the 14th Amendment should be interpreted and the potential impact of this ruling.

The courts three liberal justices, Alina Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Contaggio Brown Jackson, issued a separate opinion accusing the majority of going too far in its reasoning, writing quote that the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to holding federal office. I'm joined now by Carol Lamb, former US Attorney and former federal judge, who's now an NBC news legal analyst. Also with me is Nate Persily, who's an election law expert and a professor at Stanford University. Sorry, I got through all that.

Nate, let's talk first about what those liberal justices wrote in their concurring opinion. They say, although that we agree that Colorado cannot enforce Section 3, we protest the majority's effort to use this case to define the limits of federal enforcement of that provision. Talk to me about what those limits that the liberal justices are referring to in their concurring opinion. Well, what they wanted the court to do was simply to say that what Colorado did here goes beyond state authority under the 14th Amendment.

Instead, what the court did is it seemed to foreclose all kinds of lawsuits of this character, even after someone might have an insurrectionist might have taken office. And so this could potentially have implications for, for example, criminal prosecutions later on, which might have led to an insurrectionist not being disqualified. It also potentially could have implications for something akin to what we saw in January 6th when, you know, could Congress not to legislation, but could it deny the sort of the seating of or the opening of the certificates for the electoral votes? And so the basic point, the three justices and the concurrence wanted to make is that the court simply went too far.

So, Carol, were you surprised that the overall decision was unanimous today? Certainly not surprised, Ryan. I think that was the expectation that there would be at least a majority that found that Donald Trump should not be taken off the ballots in any of the states. And it was both heartening to see some agreement by the entire court, but the literal wing of the court plus Justice Barrett did point out that they've essentially neutered this provision of the 14th Amendment barring some kind of legislation from Congress.

And if, for example, you take the scenario of somebody who's actually charged with insurrection, who's actually convicted by a jury of insurrection, that that person can still run for and be seated and hold the office of the President of the United States barring any enabling legislation by Congress, specifying that such a person cannot take office under the 14th Amendment. That's what the concurring opinions are concerned about, that there was really no reason to go as far as the court did to rely on Section 5 of the 14th Amendment to say that Congress has to enact some kind of legislation to give any kind of life to Section 3 the insurrection men of the 14th Amendment. But to that point, Nate, did the Supreme Court provide a roadmapper Congress as to how they could apply the 14th Amendment to disqualify a presidential candidate in the future? They did, and they cite history and other precedent for this that pathway.

So if Congress wants to disqualify a candidate, they can pass a law through the normal processes. And there are precedents for this going back to the Civil War where there's disqualification of certain candidates. And so I think that there is a procedure that is sanctioned here. The problem is that it's not like Congress is going to, especially if it remains divided between the parties, it's not going to be able to act in a way that's going to sort of enact a piece of legislation directed to Donald Trump.

But let's look at it the other way, Carol. Is there the possibility, though, let's say that there's some sort of a sweep and one party controls both the House and the Senate and the White House? Couldn't they theoretically use this path to weaponize this decision and keep someone off the ballot? Well, that is a theoretical possibility, but it would have to be limited to the concept of insurrection.

And it would have to abide by the language in the 14th Amendment that isn't a ban against anyone who has not only participated or engaged in an act of insurrection but has actually previously sworn in oath of loyalty to the United States. So there are certain conditions involved here. And again, this 14th Amendment really came about because of the Civil War and because of the insurrectionists in the Civil War who were about to take office in the new government. And so there was a particular reason why this insurrection ban came to pass.

There's a saying in the law that bad facts make bad law. And it's also a good idea to have a little bit of time to think about things before this kind of legislation gets passed. But to Professor Persily's point, these aren't ideal conditions for that kind of legislation to get passed. So Professor, I mean, the court did rule that state-level officials can be capped off the ballot.

One of the things that we're concerned about was that a state can't make an overall encompassing decision for the entire country. They said that we conclude that states make disqualified persons holding or attending to hold state office, but states have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency. I mean, is this something that could come up in the future? Could it end up being more impactful than we realize years from now?

Well, the power that states have over their own officers is one that doesn't create the same danger that you could have sort of different ballots throughout the United States, some with some federal candidates on it, some without. And so if it's limited to a state, it doesn't oppose the threat to uniformity that the court found here is so important when it comes to federal elections. But there are examples at the local level where you have states that are disqualifying candidates who have taken oath of office and therefore they can't serve in state government. All right, let's we have both Section 5 and Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

We're going deep into this legal conversation right now. And I'm wondering Nate, should we be paying more attention to Section 5 of the 14th Amendment instead of just the Section 3? This is Section 5. It states clearly that Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article.

Is that really what the court is leaning on here? It is, but that's a very familiar phrase in the Constitution. Whatever the Constitution gives Congress the power to enforce a particular article, it speaks in those kinds of words. And so here, the question was whether a state court on its own could disqualify candidate.

And what they said, what the court said is no, you need congressional authorization, congressional legislation under Section 5 in order to disqualify presidential candidate. And then finally, Carol, Donald Trump brought it up. So we will too. The Supreme Court said to hear arguments next month on his presidential immunity claim, is today's ruling completely separate from that?

Or did it give us any insight into how the court may rule? I think it's quite separate. The issues are entirely different. But I do think it's interesting that as Justice Barrett notes in her concurring opinion today, the court at least certain justices are very, very pleased when the court can actually agree on something.

And I think it's a little bit of a peek into the challenge that Justice Roberts has in trying to keep the court civil and on the same page with each other as much as they can. And you can see even here where the decision was unanimous, it was still only unanimous with respect to part of the decision. And Justice Barrett points out that even though there's some disagreement there, everybody should take heart that the court can still come up with a unanimous opinion in some sense. That's really quite extraordinary for that sort of thing to have to be called out by the Supreme Court.

Yeah, it shows what Arrow we are in. Well, Carol, they personally, this could have been a really boring and in-depth conversation. You guys made it accessible to a lot of people without a lot of reason. I appreciate both of you for being here with your expertise.

And up next, Vice President Harris holds a closed-door meeting with a top Israeli official and rival of Prime Minister Netanyahu as the White House ramps up pressure on Israel for a temporary ceasefire. We'll have the details. We're watching the press now. And given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table.

Welcome back. That was Vice President Kamala Harris yesterday, pressing for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza as the administration tries to ramp up pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale back Israel's military operations. And the administration isn't backing away from that strong tone. Take a listen to what State Department spokesperson Matt Miller had to say about the humanitarian situation in Gaza today as he urged Israel to do more.

The situation is simply intolerable. And that's why the United States is focused on increasing and sustaining aid in Gaza through as many channels as possible. The point that we make to them is that the situation as it stands now is unacceptable and everyone involved needs to do more. Meanwhile, this afternoon at the White House, the Vice President and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan both met with Ben Gantz, a member of Israel's war cabinet and one of Netanyahu's main political rivals that is by Gantz highlighting the deepening divide within Israel's wartime unity government as well as the tensions between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Joining me now is NBC's White House correspondent Aaron Gilchrist. So Aaron, what does the White House hope to get out of these meetings with Ben Gantz? And what's the message that it sends to the current Prime Minister Netanyahu? Well, Brian, Ben Gantz requested this meeting, these meetings with the White House and they were happy to oblige him of that.

We were able to just get our hands on the readout from the Vice President's meeting that started around the three o'clock hour here in DC and has apparently just ended. We had a fairly detailed readout that really is consistent with what the Vice President said. We showed a video from her speech in Alabama yesterday. She in that meeting with Ben Gantz today pressed for more to be done as it relates to the humanitarian needs that have arisen in Gaza as a result of the war there.

Obviously she reiterated the administration's position that it supports Israel's fight against Hamas and a threat that has existed and seems to be growing still in that area. At the same time, she said that more needs to be done according to the readout here to address the humanitarian crisis that has developed in Gaza, affecting the Palestinian people. She did talk about what she planned to address with Ben Gantz a little bit before she went into that meeting as she was leaving an event here in DC this afternoon. I want you to hear a little bit of what she had to say from the Vice President.

The President and I have been aligned and consistent from the very beginning. Israel has arrived to defend itself, far too many Palestinian civilians. In a sense, civilians have been killed. We need to get more aid in.

We need to get the hostages out. And that remains our position. And Ryan, I think notably another part of the readout indicated that there was a conversation about the Israelis presenting a credible and implementable humanitarian plan before any major military operation in Rafa. This is something that we've been hearing about over the last few weeks that the Israelis would go into Rafa knowing that there are more than a million Palestinians who've been pushed into that area.

The U.S. have been asking for visibility of that plan. And to this point, the best of our knowledge that plan has still not been presented by the administration. And speaking of ways the U.S.

has attempted to help with the humanitarian crisis, we saw that the U.S. began those air drops of aid into Gaza. What do we know about what's being delivered? And should we see these kinds of operations by the U.S.

continue? Absolutely. You're looking at some of the video released by the Department of Defense from that air drop on Saturday. As we understand it, there were 38, ready to eat meals.

The MREs that we hear about from that the military members would use when they're deployed overseas. And so there were some 60, some out pallets of those meals dropped into Gaza. And the administration has said through the National Security Council in particular that it will continue to do these air drops of food. Potentially, we could see medicine be a part of the air drops as well.

Other countries, including Egypt, for example, have done air drops like this, Jordan as well. There's also an effort now, Ryan, to try to figure out a way to get the same sorts of supplies, food in particular into Gaza by seam routes. They're looking at maritime possibilities. There are a lot of security considerations to be made with these sorts of maneuvers, Ryan.

And so the administration has said that while they are looking at these plans, particularly by sea, nothing is imminent. At the same time, we will absolutely, according to the National Security Council, see more of these air drops into Gaza. Okay, Aaron Gilcrest outside the White House. Aaron, thank you for that.

And after the break, it is super Tuesday eve. We're spotlighting a number of key races and key states up and down the ballot. We're on the ground in North Carolina next. We're watching Meet the Press now.

Welcome back. And as we mentioned earlier, tomorrow's slate of super Tuesday primaries could bring former President Trump within a hair-spreath of securing the Republican nomination for president. But it's not over till it's over. And both Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, fresh off for first primary win in Washington, D.C., spent the weekend in Battle Ground, North Carolina, making their final arguments to voters.

And Donald Trump also weighing in on what is expected to be the most pivotal and most expensive governor's race in the country this fall, endorsing the Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson. NBC's Jack Brewster is on the ground in Graham, North Carolina, with a preview of what to expect tomorrow. So, Jack, you are in a county that Donald Trump lost in the 2016 Republican primary. How are things looking this time around?

Well, frankly, they're looking much better for the former president. You mentioned this is a county that he lost back in 2016 in the primary, but he won the state back then by just 3 percentage points. So on paper, it looks like North Carolina could be a place that Nikki Haley could have some success in. And so, I think that's a lot of the neighboring state in South Carolina.

This is a state with a Democratic governor. So we know there's moderates or at least crossover voters here, but then you look at the polling and you see former president Trump far and away ahead of Nikki Haley. That's why you had both of the candidates here in North Carolina trying to make that final case. But it's clear, even in conversations that I've been having with voters today, that there's a lot of ground that Nikki Haley would have to make up if she wants to truly be competitive in the state line.

And as we pointed out before, both from Nikki Haley were in the state this weekend. What's their message bend to voters? And has Donald Trump expended as much energy hitting Haley there as he did in her home state of South Carolina? Yeah, you really get the sense of former president trying to brush her aside at the rally that he had in Greensboro on Saturday.

He essentially said he doesn't think it's worth saying her name or even really going after her. Meanwhile, you have Nikki Haley at her two events on Friday and Saturday. You had Nikki Haley saying that Donald Trump cannot win a general election in her belief. She talks about the success that she's seen in other states in terms of at least chipping away at Donald Trump's support and says essentially that he is a marked candidate, that he won't be able to bring people together, that he's a chaotic candidate and won't be able to win over moderates and those crossover voters.

So those have been the closing messages that you've been hearing, not just for North Carolina, but really those super Tuesday states. It remains to be seen whether or not it has an impact. I think what is clear is that, again, there's an uphill battle for Nikki Haley, but we do hear that there is some support for her. It's just not clear that it's enough in a Republican primary.

And maybe expand on that a little bit. Does this tell us a bit about the overall super Tuesday strategy? It seems as though both candidates have kind of honed in on a message. For sure.

And you know, one thing we saw with Nikki Haley is that she made clear she was defiant after her big loss in her home state of South Carolina that super Tuesday was somewhat of an inflection point for her. She said that she was going to say in the race, we heard that as she was on meet the press this weekend. Is making this a clear point for her candidacy. I think what you're hearing from the Trump folks is again them trying to just brush her aside and say they're seeing that he's on the path to have not only an insurmountable lead later this month, but potentially even clinched the nomination and based on polling, based on what they've been seeing so far, at least up to this point, but the exception of Washington, DC, it's not clear that anyone can stop his march to the nomination.

Okay. She killed Brewster on the ground in North Carolina. She thanked Shaq. Thanks so much for that.

And it's time to bring in our panel, First New York Times Chief White House correspondent and NBC News Political Analyst Peter Baker, the former Florida Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy and the former Republican governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker. He's also the president of the Young America's Foundation. So Peter, I mean, I think we've been saying the same thing over and over again with this Republican primary. It seems as though Donald Trump's going to win this pretty easily.

We're heading toward a Trump Biden rematch. I mean, what could we get out of these contests tomorrow night? Well, I think what we're looking for is just to see how much of a win you guys and how much of a protest vote there still is at this point, right? In a way, it's like Biden and the uncommitted vote in Michigan.

Obviously, he's going to win Michigan. Obviously Trump's going to win tomorrow. How many Republicans are going to vote for Nikki Haley as a way of saying they don't want him to nominate him. And how many of them can we tell if Mexico's might not vote that way in a general election?

Obviously, the polls over the weekend, including in my newspaper, are pretty good for president, Trump, more president of Trump. He's five points ahead in the New York Times, Santa College, poll nationally. He's ahead in the Bloomberg polls in all the swing states. But you have to wonder the Biden strategy or theory of the case is when the push comes to shove in the fall, people are focused on it.

Many voters are not right now. They might not be able to give Trump another term. And we'll see if that's right. So let's expand a little bit on the polls that we were talking about, Stephanie.

The general electorate doesn't really seem to like Trump or Biden very much, but it does seem as though the president has a favorability problem that's even a little bit worse than Donald Trump's. When you look at this breakdown, he's under water by 21 points versus 11 points in the New York Times, Santa Paul, 2212. It's a pretty similar trend here. Is this something the campaign needs to start to worry about the president's favorability rating, especially when it comes to enthusiasm in November?

I think they need to be worried about a lot of things right now. Their weakness with their base, the kind of overall weakness with the electorate broadly, the general sense that most Americans have that he's too old for the job. But he has an opportunity this week at the State of the Union to actually have a platform to be able to remind the American people that he can govern, especially since he's going to be in the chamber that has demonstrated that they have been unable to govern over the last couple of weeks when it comes to funding. He has an opportunity to try to unite.

I think he'll get people who will stand up and applaud when he speaks about Israel, both Republicans and Democrats. He also has a chance to lay out an agenda for what the next Biden 2.0 would look like. He has an opportunity to fix some of this stuff. Governor, one of the things that Democrats always tell me when they see these big polls, it's like every time we've gone to the ballot box since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, we've won, even when the polls say that we aren't going to win.

That's something that the president said in the New Yorker piece over the weekend that Democrats have been counted out over and over again, but yet they do better than what the polling tells us. Do you think the limber of hope that Democrats have right now? Well, I think it's a bit of a stretch and the reality is as was mentioned, the former president's ahead in every battleground state. So for all this talk in the primary about a counter, it's shown that even with the way the sentiment is out there in the primaries, that the president can win the my state in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, he's winning all states, he's winning overall.

You know, NBC, as, uh, said, I've had a, a sketch over the weekend where they said, they called him Sleepy Joe, kind of an implication that his images are. I'd say more than that, it's that most of us are living a nightmare of his policies. When you look at high prices, uh, the economy, you look at border security and personal safety, those are the things that people care about across the country right now. That's where all these polls show a big gap between Joe Biden.

If those are the issues that referendum the voters are having, then Donald Trump will win. And then back to this point, I think the governor's making about enthusiasm, Peter, and I want to highlight another number from the New York Times, the Annabelle. And it says that Republican primary voters are more than twice as enthusiastic about Trump than the Democratic primary voters are about Biden. Now, we should couch a little bit because Trump actually does have somewhat of a contest where Biden really doesn't.

But 43% say they're still satisfied with the president. I mean, does president have a little bit more wiggle room by appealing to these folks that are just kind of okay with him, they aren't necessarily excited or is it a red flag that maybe those people aren't going to show up. And so this problem is holding on to the voters who came for him in 2020, right? So President Trump, for President Trump has not lost basically anybody who voted for him for three years ago, 97% in our poll, those who voted for Trump in 2020 are still for him today.

Biden is down to 83% of his 2020 vote still for him. So his problem is reinventing people back in. People who are disappointed in him for the reasons the governor mentioned because of his age, perhaps the Congress won't mention for whatever reason. And one way he's going to have to do it is to scare them about Trump to remind them why they voted against Trump in 2020.

So far they haven't been able to achieve that a lot of Democrats. I talk to pretty upset that they're not more urgent about that. They feel like they're a little too confident. But their argument is that the contest is still in March, it hasn't really completely been joined yet once they start rolling out their money, which they have a lot of and we'll see a difference.

Governor, one of the things, Nicky Haley, the argument she's been making is whether he's in time staying in because 45% of Republican voters are still voting for me. Do you think that that base eventually comes home to Donald Trump or could Donald Trump have a similar concern that Joe Biden might have that there's a big swath of Republican voters still uncomfortable with him? No, I think 100% they come home. And the reason why is because at the same time they're polling that way in the primaries, the polls like the New York Times and others are showing that the president, former president should say President Trump can win in all the battleground states.

So they're showing up in both. And it's because of those policies. A lot of those people, independents and even leaning Republicans, maybe in 2020 voted for Joe Biden because they thought he was a e-nighter, they thought he worked around the Senate. They haven't seen that play out over the last few years.

And what I saw in that poll that was particularly interesting working at the American Foundation is that young people, there was a 16 point drop between 18 and 29 year olds who said they voted for President Biden in 2020 who said they're not going to in 2024. That measures are the poll that we did it off back a few months ago where the number one issue with college students was the economy. It's the economy, even for college students, the president's in trouble. And young people have both the role that they play as voters, but also as the field operation for a Democratic campaign.

We need young people's enthusiasm to be out in the field knocking doors and getting people to vote. That's a double whammy for the Biden campaign. And so the governor's point does appear, at least on some level, be a referendum on President Biden. But to Peter's point, the campaign is hoping that eventually becomes a referendum on Donald Trump.

Is a referendum on Donald Trump enough to make these young voters and some of these other voters of color that may be uncomfortable with President Biden right now come back out and get confused about the race? These young voters were like 12 and 13 year olds when Trump was last in office. So it's going to be really hard to make the pitch that it's a referendum on him. And voters have a short term memory.

So they don't really remember the chaotic nature of the Trump presidency that the Biden administration is trying to make to the case for the American people. They don't really remember that. And so I think it's going to be really hard to make this a referendum on a former president. That's a true point.

But there's a lot of voters I think would take a little political chaos and return for lower prices. If that's the bargain, I think it's very small for the former president. All right, let's talk about policy though, Peter. And the second big political event after we get through Super Tuesday tomorrow is of course the president delivering his State of the Union address.

His campaign may want to focus on the general election, but he's really facing some serious divides within his own party and the prosecution of the war, the economy being another big one. How does he deal with that? How does he appeal to both factions in his party and bring them together? Yeah, I was in New York last week when he said that he expected there to be a ceasefire agreement in Israel as of today, Monday.

There isn't one obviously. It doesn't look like it's going to be one by Thursday by the time he gives a speech. The hope is to get it in place by Ramadan, which is I think next week. But that's a real dividing point right now, obviously, between left and middle in the Democratic party.

And that's a hard one for him. I think if you hear him talk a lot in this speech about prices though to the governor's point, he recognizes that that's still a very sore point. The economy is doing a lot better in a lot of ways. And the unemployment's down, jobs are up.

There's a lot of good things he can point to stock markets. But the prices, while inflation's come down, the prices themselves haven't come down obviously. And so he's to talk about how he can do things through junk fees and other ways that reduce people's cost of living and say that he understands their point of view. Again, we'll see if that works.

People have to see it in their lives. It's not enough talk about it. It's not enough to see what a poll says. But the theory of the case of the White House is that it's a lagging indicator and by some of the things that continue to do well in the economy, maybe people start to feel a bit better about things.

You have to remember that the State of the Union isn't just elected official sitting in that audience. Every member gets to invite somebody to come with them. And to date, it has been the progressive left that has booed the president at public events. They have shouted him down.

They have prevented him from telling his story and telling his accomplishments. Let's hope that we don't have one of those spoilers sitting in the chamber on the night of the State of the Union. Is that something you're worried about? I think if you're somebody who cares about this issue, that is the perfect platform for them to get their message out.

But it could be incredibly painful for the Biden campaign and the Biden administration. Okay, we're going to leave it there. Terrific conversation guys. We appreciate you all being here.

Peter Baker, Stephanie Murphy, Scott Walker. Thank you all. And still to come campaigns and campuses inside the president's 2024 pitch to young black voters and how students are responding. We'll be watching you get the press now.

Welcome back. As we mentioned, President Biden is grappling with some serious warning signs ahead of November from his weak favor, building numbers to the growing protests over his handling of the Israel Hamas war. By November, though, the Biden Harris campaign is working to shore up support within their base, including outreach to a key voting block, historically black colleges and universities or HBCUs. NBC News campaign in Ben Nabe in Buan Since taking office, the Biden Harris administration has made a concerted effort to run over students, alumni and leaders of historically black colleges and universities.

HBCUs represent two key Democratic constituencies, young voters and black voters. It is because of that turnout that Joe Biden was elected president of the United States and I was elected the first black woman vice president of the United States. The Biden Harris team is investing time and money, $7 billion into HBCUs. We have RJ Jackson.

RJ Jackson was there and asked the question when Vice President Harris visited Morehouse's campus last year. It was the honorable lifetime. I mean, it's not many times you get to hear the vice president in specific the first female and first African American female vice president. My conversations with HBCU students like RJ in Battleground, Georgia make clear that efforts by the Biden Harris team to highlight HBCUs haven't gone unnoticed.

The consider commitment to us as well to make us feel heard and understood is critical and crucial. But on the campuses, a familiar theme emerging. I think that's a very important thing to do with the president's historic investments undercut by his stance on issues like the Warren Gaza. I would like for the war to end.

I think Israel has been too cut through how they approach this situation. What we're seeing through that's being portrayed to us through social media is how women are being killed. People don't feel as though they're doing enough to help and actually prevent or call for a ceasefire. And that one, our campus has really influenced a lot of girls to say, you know what I can't I can't vote for people who can't protect the lives of innocent civilians.

Gaza, just one of many issues where students say Biden needs to do better. As a student, as someone who's gen Z, we've seen countless school shootings, countless, you know, fellow students being killed and murdered innocently for no reason. I think the issues that they need to focus on more is health care, abortion rights for all people, and also continue to eliminate student loans, which has been a big concern for students who attend HBCUs. Another factor at play efforts by Republicans to win over HBCU students.

I got record funding for historically black colleges and universities. Although several of the students say the former president Sarajirak makes them unlikely to support him. I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time. And a lot of people said that that's why the black people like because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against.

Between him and us, that's a very different experience. That's not a shared experience. So I'm not very fond of that statement at all. Still Trump's message is resonating with a small but growing number of their classmates.

I had a conversation with some brothers yesterday and there was one person who said he kind of liked Trump. That he liked what he did for the economy. The DNC doing its part to the Mitchrumps impact launching in February a nationwide digital advertising campaign to reach black and young voters on 15 college campuses. Nearly half HBCUs.

DNC chair Jamie Harrison saying in a statement, young black voters know there's only one choice on the ballot this November with a proven record of delivering for them. That's President Biden and Vice President Harris. I will be voting for Biden, but I feel like I'm voting out of the sense of voting for the lesser of two evils. And thanks to non-being, Juan Uru for that reporting and thank you all for being with us this hour.

We're back tomorrow with a special Super Tuesday edition of Meet the Press Now. And as we mentioned, my colleagues Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, Tom Yamas, Holly Jackson and Kristen Welker will have special coverage of tomorrow nights results at 5 p.m. Eastern right here on NBC News Now. Then the News Now special team will be back for live coverage of President Biden's State of the Union address on Thursday.

Don't miss it. I'll be in the chamber for the speech on Thursday. And don't go anywhere because the news continues now with Holly Jackson straight ahead.