Meet the Press NOW — May 23

If it's Tuesday, no deal on the debt ceiling Republican negotiators sounding pessimistic today after huddling on the Hill with time running out and a government default looming in as little as nine days. Plus, first NBC News sources say Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will announce he's running for president tomorrow in an online event with Twitter CEO Elon Musk. Plus, Battle of the Bands, a six week abortion band heads to the Senate floor in South Carolina amid an escalated legal battle in Texas where more women are now suing over the state's restrictions. Welcome to MEET THE PRESS.

Now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington where negotiations to avoid a potential default on the US Debt are are ongoing. But still no deal in sight despite warnings the US Would run out of borrowing power just nine days from now at this hour, President Biden and housekeeper Kevin McCarthy have done a lot of talking but have not reached an agreement. The two leaders both called their meeting yesterday productive.

But this morning the Republican negotiator struck a very different tone. I don't think things are going well until the White House understands that they have spending crisis, they have tax crisis, they have debt crisis, we're not going to be able to make this deal. Lack of urgency here is apparent from the negotiating stance of the White House. The White House is clearly not sent a sense of urgency in their negotiating team.

Now sources familiar with the negotiations tell NBC News the only real areas of progress so far are on calling back Covid funding and permitting reforms and the biggest issues like how significantly it cuts spending, where and for how long, not to mention disagreement on how long to raise limit and a whole host of other sticking points and red lines on multiple issues. In a closed door meeting this morning, Speaker McCarthy told his caucus that little headway was being made in negotiations, although he told reporters later that the deal before the deadline is possible. Take a listen. We could still Finish this by June 1st in a timeline 97 days President want to meet.

So I mean we're trying to convince everything in a short time frame. The House passed bill to Senate ever passed. So now it's more difficult. What else do you have in the ocean?

From a lot of different perspectives. And despite mounting anxiety on Capitol Hill, Senator Rich McConnell urged calm today while speaking in his home state of Kentucky. Look, I think everybody needs to relax. The last 10 times, the last 10 times we raised the debt ceiling, there were things attached to it.

This is not that unusual. It is almost entire required when you have divided government. Regardless of what may be said about the talks on a day to day basis. The president and speaker will reach an agreement.

It will ultimately be passed on a bipartisan vote in both the House and the Senate. The White House's negotiators arrived earlier today on Capitol Hill for another day of talks following last night's marathon negotiation session that stretched past 11pm Meanwhile, the Washington Post is reporting the senior Biden aides are now rummaging through the government's books looking for emergency ways to conserve cash and prevent a default catastrophe. Join me now, White House correspondent Monica Alba, as well as NBC News senior Capitol Hill correspondent Gary Hakes. So Monica, I want to start with you.

Let's talk about all of our new reporting because you and Garrett and I have been talking to our sources and trying to figure out where the real areas of common ground are. And right now there aren't a whole lot. We have clawing back Covid funds and permanent reform on. It seems like a deal is still pretty far out of sight at this point.

Far away. Kristen, you're absolutely right. And that's because those two areas you just mentioned, we've been talking about those potential areas of cooperation for weeks. So it's not like much has really changed progress on the really sticky stuff like spending cuts and all these other issues that you just raised in the intro.

That is what we haven't seen any real progress or momentum for. Last night when President Biden and Speaker McCarthy were gonna be together in the Oval Office, we understood that maybe they were gonna make some headway on some of these issues that you see there, things like work requirements for some federal programs that the president has been open to, a couple specific ones, but not anything that would affect people's healthcare, for instance. And then you're right. When it comes to the timeline for how long raising the debt ceiling would last, Democrats in the White House want something like two years, whereas Republicans want something shorter than that.

So now when we're talking about what's off the table, what's not being considered here again, the president as long as he's been in office has said he wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations. That's pretty much non starter for Republicans. We know yesterday the White House even presented something kind of like closing the carried interest tax loophole. That's something again, that was rejected immediately.

So that's now off the table. In addition to these other things have been introduced and been in and out and in and out the last couple of weeks. Where does that leave things now? Essentially there is no future call or even meeting right now between the President and the Speaker.

This is going back to the negotiators to work behind the scenes. But even though both sides maybe agree that they don't want to see America default for the first time, they don't really agree on much else here in terms of what the roadmap is to arrive at that destination by June 1st person. Monica, you're absolutely right about that. And the signals that are coming out of these meetings are so confusing.

Garrett, let me turn to you because part of the reporting that we've been doing is that there is potential negotiation, potential common ground to be found. The White House at least had hoped on this issue of some medical revisions and to the tax code there, particularly Medicare Part B. But you asked Speaker McCarthy about this. He seemed to throw cold water on it.

Walk us through that exchange. Yeah. Look, what this all comes down to is Republicans want to ultimately find ways to spend less money next year than we spent this year in. The White House, in lieu of doing cuts to domestic programs, has been trying to put other ideas on the table that saves the government money without something that is sort of as easily described as a spending cut, as something that could be hurtful to people on the social safety net, for example.

And so one of the ideas that have been floated here was to reduce the amount of money that Medicare would pay for more prescription drugs or reduce the amount of money the Medicare would reimburse insurance providers. It's something the White House thought could potentially save tens, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars. Speaker McCarthy seemed less than enthusiastic about it when I asked him earlier today. The President said, you can't do anything with Medicare, Social Security, and now he wants to bring that into the poll.

We all heard that of all the people across the country over and over. Chris, I think when we look at this, is the White House essentially trying to call McCarthy's bluff and say, if you're really serious about deficit reduction, here's a way to do it that doesn't involve the kind of spending cuts that you've been proposing and McCarthy coming back and essentially saying, no, that's not on the table, we want to focus on the cuts. As long as McCarthy keeps taking these other ideas off the table to reduce that overall spending number and the White House refuses to reduce it through cuts, we're stuck. Yeah, that is absolutely right.

Michael, let me go back to you and ask you a two part question. One, any sense of when we know that obviously meetings are going on between negotiators, but any sense of when the president, Speaker McCarthy might need it. And two, look at the difference between the optics that we are seeing. Garrett walking with Speaker McCarthy today.

Almost every day, frankly, we have seen President Biden. He did hold a news conference. He did make some public remarks yesterday. You had a chance to question him last week, Monica.

And yet a slightly different public relations strategy coming out of the White House, right? Yeah. It was President Biden who cut his trip short. He was in Japan for the G7.

He ended up canceling the Australia portion to get back to Washington. He says we could continue these critical talks, but after that meeting that he had with Speaker McCarthy in the Oval yesterday, we didn't see him come out and talk, talk about this, take any questions. Instead, he released a pretty short paper statement echoing what the speaker said, again saying he's productive, even though not really identifying where the progress of the momentum took place here. So when you look at today, Kristen, the President had no public events.

There was a White House briefing a little bit ago where the press secretary answered questions by really repeating the exact same points that the White House has been making on this issue for the last couple of months. Again, not a lot of new ground, not a lot of insight into this process on how anything is going to be resolved now. And there was always sort of we were hurtling toward when they could meet, when a meeting was on the table with the leaders, then it was narrowed down, then it was just the President and the Speaker. Right now for the first time, really, we have no idea when the two will next meet or speak.

You know, one of the things that we've all been talking about is the possibility of a short term versus a long term deal. The White House Republicans say they want this to be a long term deal. And yet the closer we get to this deadline, the more the possibility grows that there could be a short term deal. What do you hear about that?

Yeah, I mean, look, publicly nobody says they want a short term deal, but we've been through this kind of thing many times before. And the most typical Washington solution to a crisis like this is to punt it into the future. I mean, part of the reason why I think a short term deal remains on the table is it's not exactly clear what a legislative vehicle would look like to even do this, to raise the debt ceiling and to have all these other policy elements attached to it, especially when the White House has never actually publicly said they're interested in negotiating over raising the debt ceiling. And so many House Republicans aren't going to want to vote to actually do it at least for the length of time that the White House wants to see happen.

So I think the closer we get to June 1, the more live that possibility is. But I've talked to number of House Republicans about this, including one quite close to Speaker McCarthy indicated to me even that would come with a policy cost to it. There's not going to be a clean debt ceiling lift of any length that's going to go to the floor of the House. There'll be something else attach to it if that's the move.

So you know, look, every possibility is live and I think more perhaps come back alive as we get closer to June 1st. But that's not anyone's preferred outcome. Yeah, I think that's the right way to think about it that all of those options are now back on the table. Monica, before I let both of you go, I have to ask you about this really disturbing incident that happened overnight.

This happened after Speaker McCarthy was meeting with President Biden where a man was arrested on multiple charges. He crashed into barriers near the White House. He was driving a U Haul truck. What can you tell us about this scary incident for sure?

Christmas you see in that video. And the person who now has been arrested, a 19 year old from Missouri. He apparently made threats, not just the elected president of the vice president and members of their family. Secret Service luckily was able to act very quickly.

This is a heavily scrutinized and security presence kind of operation around the White House and Lafayette park which you see behind me. So they were able to really get in there quickly and arrest him and talk to him and interview him where he continued apparently to make these threats. So now he does face all of these different charges and then we understand that Secret Service officials actually are going to continue to interview him today. And they also found a Nazi flag in that U Haul truck that we should point out didn't have anything else in it in terms of weapons or explosives.

And so now they're of course also looking into his potentially extremist history here. And now an investigation is underway into what led him to really set off this violent attack here. Luckily nobody was injured. That is the one piece of good news there.

All right, Monica, Alvin Garrett, thank you for all your great reporting starting off today. Appreciate it. I'm joined now by Republican Congressman David Valdeo with California. Congressman, thank you so much for joining.

Really appreciate it. I know it's a busy time. Thanks for having me. So I am hoping you can help to give us a reality check because we're getting so many mixed signals coming out of these meetings.

We know that the President's party described last night's meeting as productive. We also saw what negotiators said today that they're no closer to getting a deal. You are presumably in the meeting with Speaker McCarthy today. What did he tell you?

How close are they to reaching deal? Well, McCarthy didn't get a lot of specific this morning at our conference in 9aM but he signed it off and said meeting this afternoon at lunch. I know that there was folks coming in the White House and the looks on their faces come out of that meeting were positive. And so we do feel like we're close and at least had a conversation I had with speaker and Kevin and I were each other there in California.

We spent a lot of time together. But everything I've seen, he seems optimistic, like we can't get a deal done. I just think we need to get all the more trained positions, the extreme party parts of our party, just to back off a little bit and allow the speaker to negotiate with the President and find some sort of compromise we can all work together on. That presumably is part of the biggest challenge here that you have, frankly.

You know, the two far ends of both parties who are in part driving these negotiations weighing in. Do you think the speaker has room to negotiate a deal here and that he can get the votes once they have a handshake agreement? I do believe he does. And the problem that we have here is we started asking the President sit down over 100 days ago and we passed our bill out of the House last month and to wait till this last minute and then try to bring up some last minute issues as if he's been negotiating for a month.

It's a problem and it does complicated. I think the President should have been paid a lot longer ago. We would have a lot more flexibility to be able to have these conversations and actually filter to what needs to be done. But sadly they waited till the last minute and here we are today.

But I do believe the speaker has the ability to come to a compromise. We just have to get mindful the amount of time we have left. The President's argument had been that he wanted to see the budget, he wanted to see the priorities of the Speaker. And then of course, the bill did pass through the House and then that's when these talks started to resume again between the President and Speaker.

But let me try to get you to drill down on what we think seems to be the biggest sticking point, which is about the spending cuts, correct me If I'm wrong. But is that the remaining biggest sticking point, or I should say, is that the biggest sticking point that standing in the way of dealing with all of the other sticking points that remain, the length and substance of spending cuts? No, obviously spending cuts are going to be a big part of it and it's going to have an impact. But what we're asking for here, this is the problem that we're seeing from the administrations.

They're taking this as some sort of extreme position, but we're only asking to get back to where we were five, six months ago on the spending. We're talking 2022 levels and we're now in the 2023 budget year. But it's not an extreme position. It's something that we put out, we talked about for quite some time.

And for a president to act like he didn't have the opportunity to speak to us. The guy's been in Washington longer than I've been alive in my mid-40s. He should understand that compromise is what the country is built on and compromise what the American people want to do. The only way to do that is sit down and have a conversation with the people who run the House and bring in the folks who run the Senate, have those conversations and get to some sort of solution.

And Congressman, the White House is saying, let's freeze spending levels. That'll save a trillion dollars. Why is that not good enough? Why not say that's a good start, let's raise the debt limit for a certain amount of time around that spending goal, and we have to see how that plays out when we get the votes.

Would you support that? Congressman, just to be clear, would you support freezing spending levels? I think that's a possibility I could support. It depends on what the rest of the package looks like.

We have to make sure we look at the permitting reform, which is a big part of this as well. When we talk about reducing the deficit, growth in our GDP is going to play a major part of that. And allowing business to be successful, allowing us to produce energy, all these things play a role in it. And so to say that I'll commit to just one piece of it when we have a whole package, I think is very important.

And I know that yesterday we heard a lot about taxes. The President saying, let's close loopholes and essentially ask wealthy Americans pay a little bit more in taxes. Speaker McCarthy has said that's not the issue. The issue is not about new revenues.

It's about spending. Do you agree with the Speaker's assessment? There or could you back potentially closing some tax loopholes? Oh, absolutely.

The problem is about spending. I mean, the amount of spending that's going on right now is just out of control. We have to get this under control. And there are dollars out there, especially during COVID during the pandemic, which falls on two administrations, not just one.

But we do have to get this back under control and get us back to where we should be, which I think 2022 is a reasonable place. And when we asked for that, we didn't get into specifics about different departments. We just want to get the top nine out in 2022, then we can work it out from there. So taxes are off the table for you, closing tax on the polls?

I do believe that the tax increases are off the table for myself and most members of Congress, yes. We've also heard Speaker McCarthy kind of throw cold water on this newer idea that's being floated by the White House. Health Savings targeting Medicare Part B where the government seems overpaying private health companies. Either cold water on that.

But why not support that idea if it could save money? Well, the reason why we're probably pushing back on that is because it's so last minute to be bringing something like this up. But would you support it if it were a final deal? I mean, it's something we should be talking about.

But to save somebody a final deal just to throw something out there isn't appropriate, especially this late in the game. We've been talking about bringing the President to the table for a month now with a plan in place that he can point to. And to be throwing these last minute things out there just to shake the room up isn't, isn't productive and the conversation should be had for the long term. Obviously there's opportunities there, but this late in the game with so much on the table, it just seems more frustrating.

The President will play these types of political games. I do hear you expressing some optimism that something will get done in time. And I'm wondering if you can help us understand what that looks like. Do you think it'll be a long term deal or do you think a short term deal is looking likelier given that we're so close to the June 1st deadline?

I actually think it'll be a longer term deal, at least on the debt. I do believe we'll get through. I don't know the President wants to go through this again. I know the majority of members of the House and said do not go through another debt to fight for the next election cycle.

I want to ask you a big picture because obviously President Biden is running for re election. A lot of people are looking at this and saying he will be judged in part by what happens right now. Do you think the same is true for Speaker McCarthy? Do you think his job, his speakership is on the line right now?

All of our jobs are always on the line and we always face an election. I do believe the president will be judged. I do believe the speaker, I do believe myself will be judged. And every time that we do anything here in Washington, American people are watching us.

But for a person like President Biden who even just in last few weeks put out his new campaign ads about being the univier and talking about compromise and working together, but does nothing sit down the table with us, it's not going to go up for him. I think that we're seeing the results of that in some of the latest polls. All right. Thompson Valdez, thank you so much for joining me.

Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Coming up, NBC News was first to report the floor. Governor Ron DeSantis is planning to announce he's running for president tomorrow alongside Twitter CEO Elon Musk.

We'll have the new details ahead. Plus, South Carolina at the center of the abortion rights fight, lawmakers moved to enact a six week abortion ban. The latest on that story and the potential legal and political fallout ahead. You're watching THE PRESS now.

Welcome back. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will launch his 2024 presidential campaign on Twitter tomorrow. NBC News was first reported according to three sources familiar with governor's plans, the announcement will come during a Twitter spaces event with current Twitter CEO Elon Musk. Joining me now to discuss this is Dasha Burns who helped break that story.

Great job, Dasha to you. So tell us what to expect and why Twitter. Why is he doing this with Elon Musk? Yeah, Kristen, certainly not your conventional presidential launch.

Right. But that's kind of the point. Look, this is a soon to be candidate who likes to bypass traditional media and who likes to bypass convention. Right.

And now he is going to be using Elon Musk's massive reach on this platform. He has more than 140 million Twitter followers. So, so tactically in terms of getting directly to those vot, directly to the people, that is what they are hoping to do here. And on the other hand, in terms of the sort of theme of this soon to be official campaign and the message that they are trying to drive home here, the sources I've been talking to say, look, Elon Musk is a guy who's really about the future.

And according to my sources who are familiar with conversations between Musk and the DeSantis team, the sources tell me that in these conversations, Musk has made it pretty clear that he does not believe that former President Trump can win again in a general election, and he believes that desantis can. He believes that desantis is the future. And this is what sources tell me is going to also be the framework of the campaign. What you're going to see as soon as DeSantis hits the trail, which we expect to be next week, he's going to hammer home past versus future, failure versus success, talk versus action.

These are messages that you are going to start hearing over and over again. And of course, the name Donald Trump is not in any of those talking points, but that is a contrast that they are trying to set up here. Kristen? Well, Dasha, contrast is the word that comes to mind because when I think of Twitter, I think of Donald Trump.

Of course, he was kicked off of Twitter. He was reinstated when Elon Musk took over. But it does raise the broader question here, which is what is Ron DeSantis strategy going to be as it relates to Donald Trump? We've seen him take some very subtle, careful swipes at the former president, but he has not taken the gloves off, clearly concerned about alienating the Trump base, which he probably thinks he needs in order to win.

But what's the strategy? Is he ever going to throw a punch here? Well, look, Chris, and taking a step back and looking at this launch plan, right, this in some ways is a subtle or maybe not so subtle, depending on how you look at it, jab at the former president, you know, talking directly to his voters via Twitter was Trump's superpower. And now this is something that DeSantis is trying to do in a really big, very viral way.

So you have that. But look, you know, when I talk to Republican voters, the message I hear over and over again is that they do not like the vitriol. They don't like when former President Trump goes after DeSantis and those really personal kind of attacks. And they told me over and over again that they don't want to see DeSantis doing the same thing.

And you know, I don't think from the reporting that I and the NBC News team have been doing, I don't think you're going to see DeSantis go directly after Trump. I think he's going to focus on his own policies, on his own work and take those Subtle jobs. You might see some more direct hits from perhaps his super PAC or some of those outside groups. But there are a lot of voters out there for whom Donald Trump may be number one, but DeSantis might be number two or vice versa, and it's too risky to alienate those voters right now.

President yeah, it is clear most of the Republican field has made that same calculation. Nasha Burns, great reporting. Congratulations on the scoop. Joining me now is my panel, Camila Chalice, Washington Post congressional reporter Joe Crowley, former congressman from New York and former chair of the House Democratic Caucus.

And Rick Tyler, Republican strategist and an NBC News political analyst. Rick, I have to start with you and get your reaction. Is this smart or is it risky? I think social media just got more depressing.

Talk about an awkward conversation. Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis. Look, maybe it's innovative. I don't know.

It doesn't seem like it's going to generate this excitement that a live rollout event would do to a little city. So it's not done before. So maybe great. So I don't know yet.

Joe, what's your take? And obviously there's some early criticism of Ron DeSantis that he's not a natural when it comes to retail politics. And here he is launching his campaign virtually with Elon Musk. We've seen other candidates launch their campaign virtually, but does it feed into that narrative?

It may very well. I mean, he had a reputation, and this is my colleagues on the other side of the aisle of being kind of aloof, would walk around with headphones in his ears on the floor when people try to whip and, you know, get his vote or indication where he's voting that he would, you know, ignore them. And if he did say they know, I know, I know, he's tracking me, I'm not giving you an answer type of thing. It's not really the way Mitch McMillan's congress actually interacts.

I can only imagine looking in terms of how he's rolled out not only this announcement, but how he's dealt with people he really is not very comfortable with. Yeah. Camilla, what is your take, and specifically on this question of strategy? Because I think Josh is right.

I think the fact that he's doing this with Twitter CEO Elon Musk is a not so subtle jab at the former president. And so you could argue that he's starting to get a little tougher. But he's clearly also knows that he has to walk a fine line when it comes to Trump base. Right.

I mean, look, there's no secret Elon Musk has a huge following. And so people will tune in for that reason. And I think most importantly, they want to hear what Ron DeSantis has to say. I mean, this is not about how he governed in Congress.

It's really about whether he can really resonate with American people and have them turn out for him in the primaries. He's going against Donald Trump, which there's no secret that Trump has a huge hold on the Republican Party. So he's going to have to distinguish himself about his personality. Whether they like the building or not.

Well, they can really relate. And whether Republican voters really see that he's the person that can lead the country, that's going to be the biggest test for him. So here's a mistake. I think now that I thought about Donald Trump used Twitter a very effective way to talk to his base because there's nobody on social media who's politically active, who's convincible.

Like they're either on one side. You don't have to go on social media. Sorry folks, you know, they're on social media. I convince people you're right.

It's just not doesn't happen. Political people are not on Twitter, I mean, or non political people who decide elections, by the way. And that's who he needs to reach. Well, and that raises the question about the general election.

Let's just say misanthrope's whole argument, Joe, is apparently going to be that he's more likable in a general election. But going on Twitter, as Rick points out, this is a place where everyone is very dug in for their camp. Well, I also think you really don't score points with the Trump vote. But besides that, when you have the bullet trains that are going after Trump right now, you know, rule of politics is staying out of the way, let that happen on its own.

But yeah, look, it is, I think again, it's overplace. But I would have preferred probably if I were him to do this somewhere in a statement that matters. I'd be physically have a huge crowd behind me type of thing and show that there's really great support or civil support that President Trump has. I want to talk about Tim Scott, who of course just launched his campaign.

Our Tanya sat down into an interview with him and asked him about how he's going to carve out his lane. Take a look. What will you offer voters that former President Trump will not? Well, the question is I'm running for president, period.

I plan to win. So the question is, what do the voters want in the president? They want someone who can persuade on the issues that matter the most to the run. Couple things I say, number one, having an optimistic, positive measure, that this actually anchored in conservatism and in optimism matters.

A lot of two, I say that our work and all the Tax Cuts and Jobs act, where we were able to slash taxes, bring home jobs, as well as creating opportunity zones. Camilla, what do you make of that? And he's basically saying, I'm gonna offer a positive message. Does that work in the post Trump era?

It's really interesting how he's leading with that. Just given Nikki Haley was kind of saying some more things, you can kind of see how they're shaping the rhetoric around. You know, we're trying to stay away from the drama, the petty fights, actually get something done. The whole thing is whether that's really effective and that really resonates with Republican voters and whether they can really distinguish themselves outside of Ron Desantes and Trump, who are now kind of the front runners in there in Capitol Hill.

In the Senate side, he is seen as, you know, trying to say that he's a united. But a lot of issues, even when you come go to just crime or doing anything on that end of the spectrum there, it's been really difficult to get through. A lot of people talk to Congressman sees gridlock, that nothing gets done. So it's going to be a little tough thing to sell to say, hey, when it got to come back and I'm gonna get things done.

Just given the trajectory of what's happened in Congress the last four years, Absolutely. What we're witnessing right now, Rick, what do you make of that message? I mean, Dasha reports voters are getting sick of some of the ugly rhetoric, and they're expressing frustration with that. Is there a lane for Tim Scott?

I think there is a lane for Tim Scott. And the lane is he juxtaposed this vision of America that Trump had, which was American carnage, versus a hopeful message of someone who is not a grievance candidate, in fact, is an anti grievance candidate. He also has a special lane occupied in that he is appealing to evangelical voters, which makes up most of the caucus goers in Iowa. If he wins Iowa, he has a potential of winning South Carolina, although he has a competitor there as well.

And that would give him two out of three of the first states. That would be very tough for Ron DeSantis to overcome, and it might be very tough for Trump to overcome. So nobody knows what's going to happen because of the way that the calendar lays out. Joe, what do you make of that?

And the fact that there's now buzz that Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia might throw his hat into the rhythm. What does that say about the state of play Rap happened to be South Bend this week when my daughter graduated. Know her name, his son graduated. The buzz.

No, but you have fresh reporting, I think, for Trump, like, more than merrier. Right? Like, to some degree. And look, you know, these folks who are coming in at 0 or 1% or 2%, they have to do something to distinguish themselves.

This is something, you know, that the Senate is doing that does somewhat distinguishing them. But, like, if you're Asa Hutchinson, you get to throw more bombs, especially a guy like Trump where you clearly have differences. And he also appeals to evangelicals as well. But until they do something like that, they don't really move those numbers much.

I think the strategy, which I haven't seen for many of them, is to really confront this notion of what are conservative policies. Trump was pro tax, pro tariff. He tripled the deficit, the one we're trying to solve right now. That's on Trump's watch.

And he did all these things. I mean, what is it that he delivered? He was 1500 miles short in securing the border because he built 52 miles of WA. And if you just look at the border today, he clearly didn't solve that problem.

What is it they. And if you look just politically, forget the policy stuff, the guy is just a loser. He lost the House, he lost the Senate, he lost the White House, all in four years. That's gotta be recorded.

I give you the final words. I think the biggest thing that a lot of these Republican candidates have to do, especially when it comes to Trump, is that they want to kind of business themselves, but they want to make sure that they're not just throwing jabs at him and possibly alienating supporters of him, because they still need those votes as well. So I think that's a really big thing. And laying out exactly what they want to do, not just talking broad terms, but being as specific as possible, even around, let's see, abortion, right.

A lot of them come with different answers when it comes to that, even while state bans are passing different things. So I think it's just something to look forward to, really have them harp in and really hone in on what exactly do they want to set if they do become president. We're going to talk about abortion coming up. I think you're absolutely right.

That is one of the biggest challenges for the Republican candidates. Great conversation. Thank you so much. Camila, Joe and Rick, great to see all of you.

Coming up next, eight more women, this is what we're talking about, are jumping into a Texas lawsuit challenging the state's restrictive abortion laws, saying the abortion bans put their lives at risk. I'll talk to the lead attorney on that case next. You're WATCHING ME, THE PRESS now. Welcome back.

South Carolina state Senate is debating a bill today that would restrict abortion in the state, limiting abortion access from the current 22 weeks to just six. Now that's before many women know that they're pregnant. The bill already passed the South Carolina House last week but is expected to face some pushback in the state's Republican led Senate. A bipartisan coalition of the state's five female senators are attempting to block the ban.

At the same time, Texas is facing new challenges to its six week abortion ban as eight new plaintiffs joined a lawsuit this week alleging they were denied access to abortion in cases where their pregnancies endangered their lives despite exceptions for medical emergencies. These women joined five original plaintiffs and asking for an emergency stay on the law. I'm joined now by Molly Rain, the lead attorney on this case for the center for Reproductive Rights. Thank you for joining me.

Thanks for having me. So let's start off with these eight new plaintiffs who have joined the Texas suit. Can you tell us about their experiences? Why do they want to be involved in this case?

Well, what we have seen since we filed our lawsuit in March of this year is an outpouring of support from people in Texas and people across the country. And most notably, a number of women have reached out to us. I think I've talked to at least 25 women since we filed the lawsuit in March saying, you know, your story is my story. And what we have seen from the state of Texas and you know, other states that you mentioned like Florida and South Carolina and North Carolina is that, well, these are just bans that, you know, still allow abortion in cases of rape, incest or life of the mother.

But what our lawsuit shows is that's simply not true. These so called exceptions to abortion bans do not function at all. And in fact, they terrorize doctors and make it truly impossible for people in life threatening medical conditions to get the care that they need. And so our lawsuit is seeking, you know, at a bare minimum, these women with severe pregnancy complications should be getting abortion care in their home communities.

Let me ask you to respond. And you talk about the exemptions. The president of the Texas Right for Life says the law does actually provide medical emergency exemptions and that the issue is with messaging instead of what's actually in the law. Let me play you a little bit of this and let you respond on the other side.

We do have doctors in Texas who are misled about what the law allows them to do. And so there are some doctors in Texas that believe that they can't intervene and they can't help a woman if she's having a miscarriage or she's having a toxic pregnancy. That is, you know, an issue of implementation, not an issue of the law. The problem here is that the usual groups that help inform those doctors have abrogated that role.

And that is the president of the Texas Right for Life talking, my colleague Yumi Schalcindor. What is your response to his argument? My response is that politicians should not be micromanaging healthcare because this is inevitably what happens when he talks about writing a medical emergency into this law. If you actually look at the language of the law, it is extremely confusing.

It is not written with medical terminology. It does not use phrases that any physician knows how to interpret. And more to the point, right, these states that have abortion bans in place have also some of the most verbant politicians pushing anti abortion policies and saying they will vehemently enforce their abortion bans. In fact, Attorney General Paxson, you know, who's the defendant in our law school when the Biden administration issued guidance after Roe v.

Wade was overturned, saying that, you know, just a reminder, under federal law, when a patient's life is at risk, you must provide an abortion. Well, what did Ken Paxton do? He challenged that guidance and now it's not in effect, in part in Texas. So what are doctors supposed to do?

Of course they are terrified. Of course they are confused. And what the experiences of our plaintiffs in this lawsuit show is that this is not just a doctor here or there who doesn't know how to interpret the law. This is a widespread, pervasive and government inflicted public health crisis.

And all of these activists and politicians need to be held account for the laws that they have pulled back. And just to follow up with you on that point, you talk about doctors being terrorized. We've reviewed the law. Is it really aimed at criminalizing doctors?

And is that the core issue? Well, there are several abortion bans in place in Texas. There is a criminal abortion ban which has some of the harshest penalties in the country. 99 years in prison if you get it wrong.

Right? What doctor is going to risk their liberty for a prosecutor or a jury saying, you know, actually that abortion was not necessary to save that patient's life. Let me on top of that. I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, no, that's, I was just gonna say on top of that, we have the six week ban which has been in place since September of 2021, remember? And this is a vigilante bounty hunting loss law that makes it so that neighbors can come after neighbors for presumably violating this ban. So it's really an impossible scheme for doctors in Texas to be operating under. And you don't have to take my word for it.

One of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit who joined this week is an OBGYN herself who not only was a doctor for one of the original apprentices, but had to travel out of state when she received a devastating diagnosis during her own pregnancy. So I think that really speaks for itself. Molly, just very quickly, we talked to the top about South Carolina state Senate hearing debate today on a six week abortion ban. Just a yes or no.

If that passes, do you see yourself challenging that as a next move? Well, I feel like I'm living in Groundhog Day here because the center for Reproductive Rights already challenged a six week ban in South Carolina and one, in fact, the South Carolina Supreme Court recognized a state constitutional right to abortion. And what is the legislature doing passing another ban again? Yeah, I think it's safe to say that law will be challenged if it passes.

Okay. Molly, Duane, thank you so much for your time and your perspective. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

After the break, the federal government's billion dollar deal with western states in an effort to save the Colorado river and divert a water supply crisis. We'll have detail the deal and whether it's enough. That's ahead. You're watching THE PRESS now.

Welcome back. With the help of the federal government, California, Arizona and Nevada have struck a major deal to cut back on water usage in an effort to save the Colorado river and divert to water supply catastrophe. The plan aims to conserve what amounts to 13% of all the water used from the river across the three lower basin states. By 2026, the federal government will give out $1.2 billion in subsidies to those who agree to temporary cuts, including farmers, Native American tribes and cities.

Last year, water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell dropped at historic lows, renewing concerns the two reservoirs could reach deadpool status when levels are too low to pass through the dams. NBC Patterson joins us with the latest on the details. So, Steve, what are the key headlines from this detail deal? After months, negotiations Yeah, I think Averting Disaster, as you said, Kristen, is the number one headline.

This is a stopgap solution at best. It's going to take a whole lot more conservation and complete restructuring. I think about the way we think about climate change and the way we think about usage of the Colorado River. But for right now, you know, these states finally, after months and months of negotiations that essentially failed that, you know, there were several missed deadlines along the way to this, the fact that these states are now coming to an agreement can say we all have a stake in this.

If we do nothing, all of us are going to lose out. To say that we're going to save a little bit here and there and we're going to sacrifice a little bit, I think are the biggest headlines now. They're able to do that, I think purely because of the winter we've had. There is so much more snowpack than we originally saw in the last three or four or five or 10 winters.

So there's more sort of negotiating power to go around a place like California. 300% more of the snowflake pack than they're usually accustomed to. Of average, that is all going to run off into the state, which means that California will have much more of in state supplies that it can use rather than solely relying on the river. There's also the threat from the federal government of what would have happened had the states not come to an agreement, which could have been disastrous depending on how that took out.

Either by water rights, which would mean a place like Arizona, which has less senior rights than California, would have gotten a whole lot less of the overall pie, or by just unilaterally, which means the federal government would have limited usage of the river, whole scale for every state. And California is a bigger state, which means it has a smaller piece of the pie, which means it has a lot less to work with. So that was a huge factor in this. And I think moving forward until we get to 2026, this is an effort just to say, hold on, let's pause the brakes on this thing and try to save as much as we possibly can to avoid total disaster because nobody, nobody wants that person.

Well, as you say, this comes after a lot of stalled negotiations. It is a hugely significant development. Thank you so much for your reporting on this. Really appreciate it.

Silicon CROSS border conflict Russia says it repelled Ukrainian attack inside its borders here. Says it was actually a Russian uprising against the Kremlin. The former ambassador to Ukraine joins me next. You're watching the press now.

Welcome back for the Second day in a row Moscow says Russian forces fought off a cross border incursion from Ukraine, a rare military assault inside Russia's own borders. The alleged attack happened in the region of Belgorod, near northeastern Ukraine. Moscow is blaming the raid on Ukrainian military saboteurs while Kyiv denies any involvement. Two paramilitary groups made up of Russians who oppose the Putin regime have claimed responsibility for the attack.

Ukraine is calling an uprising against the Kremlin by Russian partisans. NBC News has not been able to independently confirm claims about the attack or the situation in the region. The border fighting Huns is Russia claims mission accomplished in long contested in the long contested city of Bakhmut, but struggles to make advances elsewhere in Ukraine as Kyiv ramps up preparations for its spring counter offensive. Joining me now to discuss all of this is Bill Taylor, former U.S.

ambassador to Ukraine. Ambassador, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. Help us first understand what's happening in Belgorod.

How do you view that situation? Kristen, as you said, these are Russians. These are Russians who have been training in Ukraine. They've been preparing for this kind of attack.

There have been other attacks deep into Russia done by some of the other Russians that are going after rails and derailing cars. They are bombing recruiting stations inside Russia. They've got radio that comes from Russia into other parts of Russia. So these are Russian partisans who are opposed to the Putin regime.

And what's the broader significance for the state of play right now? Because we know that Ukraine is about to or already has launched its spring counteroffensive, depending on who you ask, how does what's happening there play into the broader war? This is part of the preparation, they call it, the shaping of this thing. And they are what they are looking to pull some of the Russian forces that would be there to defend against this counter offensive back up into Belarus to try to defend against that or other ways to make the Russians less able to counter this counter offensive.

So let's talk about your travels, because you were just in Kyiv. What were your key takeaways, Ambassador? And do you think Ukraine has what it needs for the counterfeit? Because I think they do have what they need for the counter offensive.

They are probably at the best position that they've been in in a long time. They've got the equipment, they've got the, they've got the people, they've got the soldiers. They got the morale. They got the morale.

I mean, the soldiers. I was there with a democracy group called ndis, the dni. The discussion of the Russian morale is so bad and the Ukrainian morale is so high that you can hear it from the troops. You can hear from the people on the street.

The people are there. They don't want to live under Russia. And is it your sense that the counter offensive has begun based on what you saw, based on what you witnessed? It's not clear.

This is clearly the prep part of the strategy. Right? Part of the strategy. We don't know.

No one knows. And particularly the Russians don't know where this is going to come. There's a long border. The Ukrainians have a lot of different places that they can attack, and they're looking for the weak points, and they're trying to create weak points.

I want to get your reaction. I was just in Japan with the President when it was announced that the US and its allies will provide Ukraine with F16 fighter jets. This is something, as you know, that President Zelensky has been asking for for more than a year now. The jets are not going to get there in time for the counteroffensive.

We don't know exactly which countries are going to send them or when. But this is a big win for President Zelensky and for Ukraine. What do you make of this shift that we saw from the Biden administration and from European allies? You're exactly right.

It's a big win. This enables. This will enable the Ukrainians to defend themselves against the Russian air attacks. This is a big component, a big weapon that can stop and block and shoot down missiles that are coming in from the Russian side.

They did an amazing job. While I was there, there was a big attack. And the Patriots are able knock down these missiles when they're coming in, our Patriots knocking down their missiles, but they're stationary. And the F16s can defend against those missiles all across Ukraine.

Let's talk about what we have seen from President Zelensky, because he made this surprise appearance at the G7 summit in Hiroshima. It was a very powerful moment. He was asking and thanking, first of all, world leaders for the F16s asking for more aid and assistance. But this is part of a broader crisscrossing of the globe that we have seen by President Zelensky.

He's been in Germany, he's been in France. He's been meeting with leaders in the Middle east, trying to get them on board with Ukraine. What's the significance? He is making the case to the world.

You're exactly right. He was in all those places. He was also in Italy the beginning of the week. So he is making the case that there is a a just war, that he is on the right side of all this and he's doing a great job of doing that.

And you and I have talked about for quite some time where this war goes and how long it lasts. The fact that he's getting the F16 is a sign that this war and that allies could be in this for the long haul. Yes. And it's also a sign that we are going to provide him with the weapons that he needs.

If we do that, he can shorten this war. He can make this war end sooner. It could even be this year, it could even be this summer. If he gets the weapons that we're promising him, he can have a success that will end this war sooner.

Okay. We'll keep a close eye on it. We know China's been trying to be engaged with this as well. We'll see how that plays out.

Ambassador Bill Taylor, thank you so much. Always good to be with you. And thank you for being with us this hour. Check us back tomorrow with more me the Press Now.

NBC News NOW coverage continues with Hallie Jackson. Right now, everyone, I'm Dylan Dreyer, co host of the third hour of TODAY and mom to three wild boys. I've learned a lot my years as a parent, mostly that I don't have all figured out yet. And I'm not the only one.

This is my new podcast, the Parent Chat. Each week I sit down with someone new for honest conversation and real world advice about parenting. I am over here just like winging it. Hey, I'm trying not to screw my own kid, though.

I'm gonna give you advice on how to screw yourself. Search the parent chat on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.