If it's Wednesday, we're running to see who's simply the best. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis jumps into the presidential race, and Donald Trump goes on the attack. What's love got to do with it? The stage is set for a rock-as-fight for the Republican nomination.
Plus, political finger-pointing, partisan posturing, and a pessimistic tone on Capitol Hill. Mind your keys. As negotiations keep rolling, rolling, rolling. On a river to the White House, with a potentially catastrophic default, now it's a little as eight days away.
And left a good job in the party. Arizona Senator Kirsten Simmons speaks with NBC News, in an exclusive at the border. Questions swirl about the future Biden's border policies and her own political future in the 2024 battleground. State of Arizona.
Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Chuck Todd reporting from Washington. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has made it officially filed his paperwork a little while ago, and less than two hours from now, he'll officially verbalize. His announcement to run for president, the biggest question his campaign will immediately have to answer is, are they ready?
Frontrunner Donald Trump has clearly signaled a willingness to go scorched or fund a Santa's. Will DeSantis fight back? Can he fight back? Or to put it another way?
Is the Republican primary about to turn into a brawl or a beat down? DeSantis enters the 2024 race tonight in a different place than where he stood at the start of this calendar year. With the polling gap between him and Trump now widening. New polling from CNN shows a 27-point gap between Trump and DeSantis.
Trump led by just four points in their March poll. A Quinnipiac poll released today shows a slightly wider gap, but essentially the same 31 points in this one. That's double the lead that Trump held back in March in their poll. It's important to note that in both of these polls, Trump is over 50%.
Usually that's the biggest important marker in national polling. I'm a president of choice. Most of the president's primary now stuff is garbage, but when you're over 50 and a farmer's over 50, it means something. Look, this is a dire backdrop for DeSantis as he launches his campaign tonight.
As first reported by NBC News, the announcement will take place on Twitter spaces. A live audio conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk. We know a lot of Twitter users didn't even know something like this existed. When you look at the top of your Twitter, they get you always wonder, what's all those emoji icons over there?
Those are people having these live Twitter spaces conversations. So this announcement comes with DeSantis leans hard into a culture war and own the lives brand that he has tried to establish as government. Well, Launch could also be seen as a subtle dig at Donald Trump, who was of course a prolific Twitter user in his first term before being removed from the platform after January 6. But it subtly is the kind of fight that DeSantis is preparing for.
He's likely to find himself permanently on the defensive. We see news reports. His campaign has no intention of declaring open warfare again. Even after being the former president's favorite punching bag for months, a fact Trump's campaign doesn't plan on changing.
Trump has already gone after DeSantis on his own social media platform today, multiple times, calling him among other things, just loyal. A Trump advisor tells NBC News quote, announcing on Twitter is perfect for Ron DeSantis. This way he doesn't have to interact with people, and the media can't ask him any questions. Meanwhile, the rest of the Republican field seems eager to follow Trump's lead and pile onto DeSantis.
In an interview with NBC, South Carolina Senator and newly minted presidential candidate, Tim Scott was eager to explain why voters should choose him over DeSantis. But of course he pulled his punches. When asked about Trump? The campaign of former Governor Nikki Haley has been hesitant to directly criticize Trump as well.
Accepted seems as the way to attack DeSantis. Releasing this ad, calling DeSantis an echo of Trump. Whatever I want, you want to say. You're fired.
Then Mr. Trump said, you're fired. I love that part. Make America great again.
Make America great again. DeSantis's campaign faces a fundamental hurdle. He rose to Republican prominence by emulating Donald Trump, drafting all of him in NASCAR terms. Is he really ready for political combat against Donald Trump?
Joining me now is Dasha Burns. She's in Miami. So Dasha, this is sort of a, we've had, I don't know, six or seven. He's going to announce new cycles.
And now we've got different sort of announcement plans. The paperwork got filed. We've got Twitter spaces tonight. You're in Miami.
There's supposedly a four seasons event. Then something next week. What can you tell us? Well, look, this is certainly an unconventional approach to declaring a bid for the White House.
But that's kind of the point here, right? Look, Elon Musk has 140 million Twitter followers. This is a soon to be candidate that we've talked about many times, likes to try to bypass traditional media. And this is a way to do that.
The other piece here is not just a tactical reach element of it, but also the message that the campaign is hoping to deliver to folks tonight. And it's one that we're going to hear once he officially hits a campaign trail as a candidate over and over again. And that is the contrast of past versus future. You talked about how he's not going after Trump directly.
That is the way that they are trying to draw the difference there, painting former President Trump as a past without directly saying it, and painting DeSantis as the future. Elon Musk with his sort of futurist brand. They hope we'll help to do that tonight. And of course, this is an event where we kind of have to expect that unexpected joke.
Look, we've reported what we know, which is six p.m. Twitter spaces, they're going to have a conversation, but it's live. And Elon Musk is not the most predictable of individuals. We don't know how this is going to go, how this is going to land in the execution.
It's going to be critical for DeSantis. It's maybe a high risk, high reward kind of situation for the campaign tonight. So Musk said he's not endorsing, but then he already endorsed. I mean, he tweeted this year ago.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He did say that he would support DeSantis if he ran for president in my conversations with sources as we were reporting the story out. One familiar with the conversations between Musk and the campaign said that Musk can make pretty clear that he doesn't believe that Trump can win again.
He does believe that DeSantis can and that he's the future. But he's not, he said he's not planning to endorse, but he's not a conventional elected official that, you know, will stand behind the candidate at the podium and sign a pledge and say I'm endorsing, he's also just not that kind of guy. So, you know, take, make of that what you will. And I think it will be interesting to see how people interpret what he's doing with DeSantis tonight and how far he will go in terms of giving him any sort of praise this evening.
Look, the first 90 days of a presidential announcement is usually more fundraisers than public events. Do you have a sense of how often we're going to see him on the campaign trail versus the fundraising trail over the next three months? It's a really good question. If they are planning to hit the ground running, my reporting says that, you know, next week we will see him hit those early states.
They're going to do this combination of they're going to try to do the retail politics while doing some of these unconventional things with Twitter with their donors. They're trying to have a massive massive ground game here with their super pack that is going to have some big big dollars behind really launching a major operation in those critical states and those building up that infrastructure. We're going to have to see, look, this is a first time presidential candidate going up against a third time presidential candidate. We'll see how those two operations stack up against one another.
Dasha Burns, biggest week yet in the presidential race, Dasha in Miami for us, Dasha, thank you. So as this answers ramps up his campaign, his pack is already up with a new ad touting his accomplishments as floor to governor, leaning in to the culture wars. He's like the woken to schools. He's like the woken to corporations.
We will never ever surrender to the low fobs. He will be courageous. And we will never back down. You're under sentence for president.
I'm going to bring it out, Ken Kuchenowy. He is founder of the Never Back Down pack. He is, of course, a veteran of the Trump administration at DHS. And he was also prominent supporter of Ted Cruz in 2016.
And I want to start there, Mr. Kuchenowy. By the way, it's good to see you. Welcome back to the show.
Good to see you as well. Let me ask you this, because this is to me the fundamental puzzle I have, which is if you run to the right of Donald Trump on cultural issues, which I do believe on the policy front, there is room there. How do you convince a voter that somehow, on the culture war, you should pick the Santas over Trump. When I think many of them would say, hey, there'd be no to Santas without Trump.
This to me seems like the highest hurdle you guys have. I don't really agree, Chuck, because it's based in the past and elections are about the future. And that's the way people respond and vote. It isn't necessarily how they talk, but it is how they vote.
And right now, DeSantis stands virtually alone in the Republican field in standing up to the woke mob that you played part of our ad there on. And Trump has come down overtly explicitly on the side of Disney. Others in his camp on the side of Budweiser in these recent corporate contests, but what Ron DeSantis was talking about in that ad was the schools. And look, independent and Democrat mothers came over and voted for him in his re-elect because of these policies, not in spite of these policies.
Because he was protecting children and giving control back to parents. And Trump has been on the wrong side of this, and DeSantis has taken a lot of heat for it. And he stood in the face of taking that heat just like he did with COVID. What lessons did you learn, though, from 16?
Because I would argue that Ted Cruz ran to the right of Donald Trump, and voters didn't respond to it. They saw Trump as, for whatever reason, as the more honest cultural warrior. What do you take away? What's the lesson from that that you think DeSantis can learn from and not lose that battle again?
So I think that part of the reason that Ron DeSantis stands now is the most popular leader in America. Period, Democrat or Republican. If you watch the Real Clear Politics, Fave Unfave Balance, if you've been watching it throughout 2023, only Ron DeSantis has been on top of that. And he's been on top of it all year.
And so while polling can fluctuate, that is a foundation to build on with his track record in the Republican nomination contest. The more Republicans learn about his personal history, about working his way through college and so forth, and all of the different policies that he fought for, including frequently in the face of Donald Trump, in the face of the media, in the face of very aggressive corporations, those are things that are appreciated by voters in the Republican nomination. So the more he gets around and tells that story, the more he's going to rise and I'm confident when we get to 2024, he's going to win this thing. I just go back to why is this time different?
I could argue Ted Cruz had all of those same things. He was much more, you know, much better track record on these cultural issues. If you cared about those issues, Ted Cruz had a much better track record than Donald Trump did, but the voters didn't see it that way. You can win for them.
You can win the argument, and then yet on sentiment, you know how this works, whether it's right or not, sometimes people vote on their country. People vote on their guts, not necessarily on what the position papers say. Absolutely. I mean, go back and look at the first presidential debate of 2020.
Donald Trump did the near impossible. He lost a presidential debate to Joe Biden. Despite having position advantages in our view across the board, but he couldn't exercise any self-control, he defeated himself in that debate. People should go back and watch that debate, because I think you're going to see that kind of showmanship attempt on his part on an undisciplined basis, and that's what a lot of these attacks have been.
Heck, he came after me today on Truth Social, and just making up new history out of the blue, and he's turning more people off from his camp, not bringing them to him. And he's going to do more and more of that. Everybody watching who liked President Trump at one time or another, and I worked for him, obviously, wished he'd get off Twitter. You know, we talked about that, oh, gosh, he's killing himself a lot.
Well, he's been off Twitter. As we get farther through 23, as you know better than almost anybody in America, these candidates are going to be more and more omnipresent in Americans' lives. And history shows when Donald Trump is omnipresent, his undisciplined, irritating, and backwards-focused, childish, petulant name-calling wears people down. He will lose them.
And that's where Ron DeSantis' track record of steadiness and leadership and fighting in for things that matter will really come into play. And he will win those people over very steadily, all the way, not just to Iowa, but all the way through the nomination and the election. So another challenge that I think he has, it's to me very similar to 16, is look at the other candidates in this race. Are they going after the front runner, or are they going after the chief challenger?
Right. We saw this eight years ago, where everybody ignored Trump because the idea was, oh, I want to be in the second position, then I can get to take on Trump. And you got Nick Haley coming after Governor DeSantis. You got Tim Scott whirling the contrast with DeSantis.
What do you make of that? And do you worry that that pile-on could hurt you? So, first of all, all of these candidates are going after DeSantis because they understand who is most likely to win and why. And they know that he is the guy to be.
Whatever the polls say today, DeSantis is the person to be. That's why they're all going after him. And I don't agree with your characterization for 2016. Lots of candidates mixed it up with Trump throughout the race.
Some of them did better than others. He obviously won that contest back then, but that's a different dynamic than right now. DeSantis has been attacked, as you all noted, by the president pretty relentlessly, and frankly on some crazy things, like COVID of all things. And DeSantis's response has been, you know, an athlete, a baseball player.
Hey, look at the scoreboard. Let's see what I did on COVID. Let's see what I've done on these things. And that sort of indirect response has been infuriating the president and reminding people of what DeSantis has done and how nimbly he handles those kinds of attacks.
He's very good at it. Have you thought about the scenario where you have more delegates and Donald Trump doesn't concede? Well, look, we're going to play this all the way through. As you know, Chuck, I was the delegate Wrangler for the Cruz campaign in 16.
And we outperformed the Trump campaign there. I have every intention of doing that again and outperforming them again. And there's two levels to the contest. You have to go out and win elections.
You also have to win the conventions and processes. And we're going to win both. We're going to win both of those. We're all ready.
Donald Trump never conceded. I would knock on 20,000 doors. That's fine. You know that.
That's the way he behaves. I understand that. Are you worried he's going to burn? Are you worried he's going to burn the party down if you guys win the nomination?
He certainly talks that way all the time. But that would be like giving into somebody holding a hostage, in this case an election hostage. And we're not going to do that. We're going to press this forward and make the case to all of the voters of America.
And when it all comes down to it, when we get to the general election against Joe Biden, Donald Trump is one vote. He gets one vote and a big megaphone. And I think that the folks who really believe America's first, like me, can make a choice on an impersonal basis of who's best for that. Who is the founder of Never Back Down?
Good to be with you. The big super pack. I have a feeling you and I will be talking a lot more throughout the year. Thanks for coming on and sharing the super packs perspective.
Good to see you. Alright, let me now bring in someone who knows firsthand about running for president and running against Donald Trump. And it's the same person. It's John Casey, former Ohio governor and NBC News political analyst.
John, let me just start with what you just heard there. I look, I see something that looks very familiar to me in 2016. You are even, you are in the middle of it. Is it look familiar or can this be different?
Well, you know, the one thing that is strange and shocked to me is somehow they think they can win by being cultural warriors and trying to eclipse Trump. I think that's really hard to do. I mean, with the Santhas, my opinion, I ought to be talking about is what he did as governor. The God of those massive victories, including places in the Miami area that nobody thought would happen.
And those are issues like what he did with a hurricane to be a leader, what he did to open the state economically, what he did with the Everglades on environmental issues, why did they keep pivoting to the hard right? You know, a cultural warrior. Reagan was a happy warrior. You know, being a cultural warrior today, I mean, you may win a prime year, but how do you win an election?
What all you're doing is talking about this, these divisive issues. That's what kind of puzzles me about all this. And the question is, is the party ready for anybody with a more positive agenda? And I'm not so sure at this point.
You know, it's interesting. I talk to a lot of strategies about this because I'm just as puzzled as you are. And what they'll say is, this is what the electorate wants. They're looking for fighting, they're looking for resistance, they're looking for the cultural warrior.
There isn't, for whatever reason, there isn't a belief that the party's been losing, right? They're for, you know, we can discuss it. I know. This is what they believe that the electorate is looking for this.
So I don't get it either, but you know, you're closer to the ground in Republican politics. And I know things are on fire, right? Listen, the problem that the party has is they are a party right now that is in fear of the future. They worry about the demographic changes.
I mean, who are these people that are going to come in? What do they look like? They're worried about these cultural changes. I mean, they want to kind of roll the clock back, you know, 25 years ago, or longer than that.
That doesn't really work. You know, they worry about, oh, they worry about technology. You know, this AI, you know, it's just terrible scary. I mean, we cannot, and the Democrats on the other hand, they get excited about change.
Backwood Reagan was running for president. He was the youthful forward-looking person. Now it seems as though our party kind of looks backwards. And, you know, when people care about Chuck, you've covered all these races.
Jim Rose, the old governor of Ohio, talked about it. It's the pocketbook. It's prescription drugs. Although I did see that DeSantis is now beginning to talk about the prescription drugs.
I think that's a really important issue. It's always pocketbook issues. Not just banning and casting his fursions on people who don't look like us or think like us. I mean, I don't see that.
But look, that's where they think they're going to go. But I don't know how you win. Look at the results in the last few elections. How do you say we're winning?
We're not winning. So what do you do about Donald Trump? You're Tim Scott. Let's, we've been talking about DeSantis.
You're Tim Scott here. He's trying, look, he's trying to be the optimist. He, in some of his language, sounds like you. And I mean, that is a compliment the way he's trying to talk.
He's trying to be forward-looking. He's trying to be a futurist. He's trying to be rhetorically a bridge builder. I know some, ideologically, we can have a debate on that.
But rhetorically, he's trying to go there. And there's a lot of skeptics about whether that'll work. Chuck, when you run for president, and I've done it a couple of times, most seriously the last time, you don't run trying to figure out how you can put your rhetoric or your pieces into a puzzle. You're running for president because you have a vision.
You have a purpose. The problem that the party has right now, there's two things that they have. In regards to defeating Trump, one is he's captured most of the state infrastructure, right? You know, he controls a lot of these county chairman.
And that plays at his advantage when he comes to the primaries. I mean, that is the very big thing that he has going for him. And secondly, you know, he keeps, he stays on this, on this message of the cultural war. I, you know, if I were Tim Scott, if you're running for president, he believes in a better America.
Sing your own song. You know, Chuck, when you play golf, you don't worry about what the other guy's getting. You're worried about how you get it in the hole, the lowest possible shots. You know, in other words, when you run for president, have passion, have a purpose.
Don't be trying to figure out how to get to the right or the left or something. I know that sounds, people will be cynical. They say, that's the only way you can do it. What's the purpose?
And if you don't win, if you run on your own refrain with your own song and your own purpose, then you're a winner, even if you don't win. That's what I did. And I consider myself to have been a winner. I talked to a few Republicans who are reluctantly going to end up supporting Trump, not because they think he's the best candidate, but because they think he'll burn the party down if it's not him as a nominee.
And that in order to preserve the down ballot conversation, let him go, let him lose this one more time and then the party can move on. How do you deal with this fear of him not conceding? Because I think it's having an impact. Chuck, can you imagine people saying political?
I don't know who they are. They must live in Washington, in a case somewhere. They must say, we need to let him win because we're worried about all these other elections. Are you kidding me?
What about the country? And what about the party? See, the Republican party wants to get back on top again. It has to have a positive agenda for the future that improves the lives of families across the country.
And that's the economy, that's immigration, it's trade policy, it's prescription drugs, medical costs. You know, that's what I would do. Chuck, if I were doing it now, I would get out there and talk about those issues. If people didn't like it and they voted for somebody else, so be it.
But to say, well, we're going to be for Trump because, oh, if we're not for him, he'll ruin everything. That's ridiculous. I mean, that's not the way we should think. That's why, in many respects, our country politically is addressed.
Do you think that Trump is holding the party hostage? No, you want me to try to predict Donald Trump? No, I mean, I'm not predicting the wrong word. Look, you never can see it losing any place that he lost.
Look, I mean, the guy is capable of saying anything and doing anything. What impact it has that he's not the nominee? I don't know. I mean, obviously, if he did that, but it's a long way between now and then, and we just have to see how it goes.
If he does it, there's going to be, you know, an outrage. Look, if the party doesn't change its vision and its message. Cultural wars, Chuck, I mean, you're going to think I'm wrong about this, but I don't think you win by dividing with cultural wars. I just don't see it.
I don't know how you want to generalize. You agree? Yeah. I'm talking about general action.
I understand the primary. I understand the primary. You run to win the primary, and then what do you do? You know, the Republicans, you run kind of to the right, and then you move to the middle.
These people are running to the right to the right to the right. And on issues that are so divisive, it doesn't bring about any sort of American kumbaya, which we need to sum up, I think. Well, don't case it. The Democrats are perfect, by the way, because remember one thing, the Democrats are not happy with their nominee.
They don't have the fact that Republicans and the Democrats, neither of them like Trump. They don't want Biden. They wish they had somebody else. It doesn't seem as though there's a force to get them out of the way.
Well, maybe, unfortunately, Tina Turner was right. We don't need another hero. We just need a leader. Anyway, John Kasich.
Thank you, sir. Always fun. Chuck, thank you. All right.
All right. Coming up, we may need another hero. We'll dive deeper into what to expect as Republicans in the race for president. Get ready to rumble panels next.
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Welcome back. As we mentioned this a big week for the Ever Expanding Republican presidential field. Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis, both officially in. Well, Trump has embraced Scott's candidacy.
DeSantis not surprising. He's getting a frostier welcome from the former president. As well as the rest of the field. Let me bring in our panel.
Josh Crosshauer, Axio, Senior Political Correspondent, Ray Theresa Kamar, President and CEO. Vodolatino, and NBC News contributor. International reviews, Senior Political Correspondent, and also a Washington Post contributing columnist. So Josh, here we are.
And I think with DeSantis, and I want to start, let's talk about the run up here. This has been, we've had plenty of anticipated rollouts in the past. Some, you know, of major changes. This has been one of the rockier ones.
And partly it's, it's because of the Trump campaign. I mean, is this more about how effective the Trump campaign's been for the last one months or how ineffective run is this? I think it's more of the ladder. Look, the run up to the announcement was very rocky.
You didn't get much of a response. From the DeSantis camp on Trump's attacks. We still don't know where he stands on Ukraine and foreign policy. And look, this rollout itself is going to be on Twitter spaces.
I've never used, I used Twitter a lot. I don't use Twitter spaces. Do you know how many people have asked me? Who do you sort of?
Where's Twitter spaces? You ever noticed all those emojis on the top of your doom-swirling feed? You know, that's what that is. Well, look, I assume there was also going to be a complimentary, like, in-person video or something.
Video announcement in, in Florida, like thousands of people. That's not been scheduled yet. No, that's not going to happen next week because there was talk of that happening. That is not on the book.
So, you know, I can understand, maybe they're going to do a bunch of interviews, they're going to do Fox News tonight. But to just do it online, this is the one time DeSantis is going to have everyone watching. And to just do it on Twitter, I think it's a little bit confusing. Jim, I don't know if we'll ever know the truth here.
Is this the planned rollout or was this always what they, when they decided four months ago, and I'm told there was a debate about whether they should flip the switch in January or not. Obviously, it looks like I should have, but I understand going through the legislative session. That is not an, a crazy notion where they did, but it kind of looks rushed all of a sudden. Yeah, I mean, look, when we write the history of the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign, however it ends, the debut, the announcement is going to be a small chapter.
It's not going to be a win. Well, if it is a small chapter, then things have gone well. If it doesn't go well, it's a big chapter for what it's worth. But the point being that Nikki Haley had what everybody thought was a good one, and it's really ended up almost nothing so far this year.
If Ron DeSantis rises or falls, it's going to be how he does, probably on that debate stage up against Donald Trump, and probably if that first debate, maybe in the second one, we're going to know is Ron DeSantis, the kind of guy who can go toe to toe with Trump, makes it, you were not as good a president as you think you were, you let a lot of people down, and I'm the better choice because of X, Y, and Z. And if that works, then nobody's going to care about any of this. If that doesn't work, he could have the best debut possible, and still is going to be doing good. Great to speak, Mark.
Speak from the White House perspective here. Is this, this week probably is going about as well as I could hope for? Absolutely enough. Right.
I think the fact that you have DeSantis and everybody is double-guessing them, right? And I think that right now what we're going to see with DeSantis, unfortunately for him, is that he has gone right of Trump on many issues that is mobilizing the White House and the Vice President. I'm thinking of the book banning, I'm thinking of signing on to, going after Disney, signing on the six-week abortion ban. Son of John Kasich.
Right. A bad general election decision. And I don't think we're going to go back to the same sentence right now. Right.
But I think that is also, it's also allowing for the White House to read the tea leaves. Where are the fractures right now with the Republican Party? And there's many of them that they're going to be able to take him out. This is sort of the real head scratcher for me, Josh, which is their theory of the cases.
They've got to prove they're the better culture warrior. And I understand they may, they can win the argument on paper. They've done education. He didn't.
You know, he's on abortion. He's taking on Disney. Donald Trump won't do it. Right.
I understand in theory what they're trying to do. I just don't know if a voter will believe it. Well, look, the culture war issues, the anti-wokeness is one issue that does unite every aspect of the Republican Party. But it does seem like DeSantis can't take a win.
Like, he actually has found this before he won the election. He found the sweet spot. He kind of eliminated some of the stuff that's been taught in the elementary school system. It's sort of back down.
The abortion, the 15-week abortion ban before pursuing the six-week abortion ban. And then after he won the election, it felt like he needed to go as far to the right as possible. And just keep more cowbells. Like he's keeping the ante to a point where he's not helping himself that much in the primary.
And he certainly is jeopardizing his prospects if he gets to the general election. November 22 DeSantis seemed like a much more formidable potential Republican nominee than the conversion we have now. His message is going to be, I'm all the good stuff you like about Trump. I'm not the crazy stuff getting fed up with, you know, ranting about Don Lemon or whoever's irking him on social media.
Which kind of raises the question if I don't know if announcing your campaign on social media is a good way of saying, I'm the guy who won't get distracted by that. Right. This is picking your venue, you're trying to send a message. This feels like a guy.
I always say this. There's like a bunch of senators. You can always tell the ones that do them scroll too much. They're online all the time.
There's one senator from Florida who seems to always be online. Then there's like John Cornet. Who's never online? And you can kind of tell.
Right. But I think that's one of the reasons that he's interested in this Twitter spaces. And this is where we don't talk about much. He's actually not only going after the Cultural Warriors, but he's also going after the male libertarians.
And the male libertarians watch what Elon Musk does all the time. And there's a lot of small dollar donors in that pool. And that's the only way I can see that. I think it's an actress.
It's much more to start strategic. Wait a second. Yes, I have the cultural war. I will be able to go toe to toe.
But what I need is deep money and I need money fast. And the libertarians aren't going to like our message. He doesn't need money fast. He's sitting on a giant campaign war chat.
I mean, I see the argument. Look, when you sit down and do an interview with Elon Musk, that will get you viewers that the average campaign video sitting in a classroom. I'm worried about our country's future and our children. You know, that kind of stuff is going to reach a certain standard.
People who are really into Elon Musk and not that into politics might tune into this tonight. Say, what's going on there? And maybe they'll pick up some support. I don't know if you would expect this giant influx of money from Elon Musk.
I go back to, you know, I understand Elon Musk has his own brand. This feels like Ron DeSantis is part of the marketing team for Twitter rather than Twitter being part of the marketing team for DeSantis 2024. Well, Chuck, you know, which candidate was very popular with the libertarian online, right? In the midterms, Blake Masters in Arizona, like doing those weird videos.
A Peter Teal guy in a PayPal material. That's a Twitter thing. Right. It's a very online world.
Yeah. It was popular. What was it translated to? It didn't translate with the suburban voters that are so crucial in both primaries and also certainly the general election.
Yeah. The Tim Scott decision not to engage with Trump. Jim, but willing to sort of knock DeSantis. Why do I feel like 2016 flashbacks?
Here we go again. You guys are going to fight to see who gets to be in the final, in the final selection with Trump. They didn't go well before. For almost every other candidate, I would agree for Tim Scott.
Chuck, once the last time Tim Scott got mad at anybody. I know. You're a step on his toe. He's probably like, ah, that's okay.
I'm sorry. My foot wasn't. You know, you know, Tim Scott coming out there. Let me tell you why Donald Trump's allowed.
That's not a style. It wouldn't work. It doesn't fit with his entire persona. Look at this.
We're a three-way Senate primary. I'd say Tim Scott's the guy to watch. He's going to win this thing. Can it say?
Maybe the living day lights out of it. I suppose it's conceivable. Not likely, but conceivable. Trump versus DeSantis is the grudge match of the century.
They run tons of attack ads. They set all of this effort tearing each other down. Lots of Republicans get sick of it. Lots of Republicans don't like it.
Again, not likely, but conceivable. And they say, oh, how about Tim Scott? He seems pretty happy. Do you buy the White House, Maria Theresa White House, that they're actually targeting Florida as a control of DeSantis?
No. I think that once Disney has gotten to the fight and saying that they're going to pull out their billion dollar investment and people are getting angry, not only through that, but also the bans and abortion and the situation. It's a thing, but also the fact that he signed this legislation that basically creates racial profiling for everybody who looks like an immigrant. That Cuban American voter that goes to the hospital to try to get care and cannot, because all of a sudden it's asking their ship, that is going to ignite something.
And I think it's a calculus of all of his arconian laws all coming together at once. And Floridian is saying, wait a second, this is not actually the state that I want to live in. Yeah. The abortion issue just seems to be a problem almost across the board for the chicken right now.
Yeah. I think it's a big problem, especially in the swing states, Florida. I think it's a little more red. We're going to find out.
We're going to find out. We're going to find out what that does. I do that. I'm curious about it.
Totally. Georgia Kemp, they did this week. It's a very fair point. Well, it's here.
Campaign is on. Great to read. Jim and Josh, thank you all. As Tina Turner would say, you are also the best.
We've got even more of the 2024 race on today's episode of the Chuck Todd Cash just gained the QR code on the bottom of your screen right now to listen up next. I don't want to fight no more. That's decidedly not what negotiators are saying. As the debt ceiling standoff continues, how serious do we take the on again, off again, on again business?
We've got the latest next. You're watching the press now. Welcome back. After multiple long days and late nights behind closed doors at the Capitol debt ceiling talks have shifted down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.
That's where Republican negotiators settled with administration officials earlier this afternoon. Mr. Failing yesterday to come to an agreement. One of those negotiators, Congressman Garrett Gray, spoke to reporters on his way to the White House earlier today.
Okay. The deal is that we've been working all night trying to look at things differently, trying to come up with new ideas. We recognize the urgency here. A Democratic official, meanwhile, says NBC News negotiations have hit what they call a speed bump.
And House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he hasn't spoken with President Biden since the two men on Monday. All of this comes just eight days before the so-called potential x-date when Treasury Secretary Janet Allen, one of the U.S., could begin to default on some debts. And moments ago, Speaker McCarthy told reporters in Capitol Hill, there's still not close to an agreement, but some progress have been made toward a deal. They also told reporters he believed it was possible to get a deal done this week.
Mike Manley joins me now from outside the White House, but Mike, let me check my calendar here. It's May 24th. That's a lifetime between now and June 1st. And we know how Congress operates.
They're going to go all the way until mid-May 31st. Are they not? Well, Kevin McCarthy, the speaker on Capitol Hill today, did reiterate there is that 72 hour rule. He was that specifically about waiving that and he did not do so.
So that's kind of the other deadline the White House and the negotiators have been working on is that they have to have something in place by Monday to start the votes. But let's be real. I mean, as one White House official put it to me last week, this is not 2011. They were more bullish about things at the time.
I think we know where this is heading. But it is worth noting that these negotiators were at the White House, or technically speaking the EOB for more than three hours today. So that's a sign of progress. If you're talking to people who are talking to both sides, this is the existential question.
Are we just in the theatrics mode or are there real substantive disagreements? And one read I got today was that if there isn't a deal announced by tomorrow or Friday so that they can alert all the parties involved at their Memorial Day weekend, this needs to be cut short, then it's time to really get nervous. But for this moment, at least this person was choosing to believe that we're in a good place and that we're still just in the shouting until the announcement is ready. Like is the White House still blaming the media for their messaging problems on this?
Or when they look at the various way this is pulled and you can question, there's a new CNN poll that's poorly worded. I grade them that. But they lose on the elevator pitch where you have 60% basically saying, yeah, spending cuts with that ceiling. Sure.
Now you don't have a public paying a ton of attention. Do they own any of this on themselves? Or is it, again, everybody else's fault with their own? Yeah, it's always the pesky media who just isn't really in touch with what Americans are really thinking and really understanding about this and it's bad polling for good measure too as well, John.
It's always felt to me that the White House has a very good strategy for the long term. They know how to use this issue against Republicans next November. But as we see the speaker doing multiple gaggles on Capitol Hill every day and we haven't heard from the president directly on this in some time, you get the sense and Democrats on Capitol Hill seem to be feeling this as well that they're losing the short term battle. This is all forgotten though and this is a White House that believes in the long term if there is a deal at the end of the day.
And so what I'm kind of looking at here is how is the White House trying to manage Kevin McCarthy. So they want to empower him. It was interesting to me that they equalized him on the level of the president on Monday kicked out the rest of the big four to try to give him the stature that perhaps he needs within his caucus to be able to say, this is a deal. Not me if you want, but I think we can sell this.
And that's really what's interesting to watch in terms of how the White House is managing the speaker at this point. Yeah, it's fascinating. You know, the speaker, I'm hearing some House Republicans going, where's the Senate? And Speaker McCarthy is the one that didn't want congressional Democrats involved in the talks.
Well, it's interesting on that note, we just heard from the House Minority Web Catherine Clark to say that we have 213, the entire House Democratic Caucus now on that discharge position. And so, you know what that number means, five Republicans as one of the escape vows. The other question, of course, hang over is the 14th Amendment one. And that's one we're still pressing the White House on because they have made it clear they think the uncertainty of a legal challenge is too high to test this theory now.
But if we do get past Friday without a deal in place, I think we're going to be into the territory of getting advisory opinions from DOJ and the like. Well, let me ask you this, Mike, what I'm going to understand, and I couldn't get the Treasury Secretary to say that, are they really going to stand there and not pay a debt? Or are they going to go ahead and write the check and dare it not to be clear? Well, the Washington Post had this interesting reporting about what, if any, payments could be held off.
Because there's an interesting part of this that I think speaks to the White House being off guard on several fronts. One was they didn't expect House Republicans to be able to get 218 votes or in that case 217 for their debt ceiling option in late April. The other was that they thought that this would be kicked at least until July. And so the question of what the Treasury Department can do to maybe hold things off when you don't technically default until June 15th.
And what's significant about that date is you get a significant windfall of corporate tax payments that might extend this a little bit further. That's another way that this could be held off, but we're a long way, I think, from getting to that point. A lot more tax refunds early on than they expected, which sort of I think sped up the process that made June, which I think at first was not a real date, and that was turned into one. Mike Family, reporting from the White House Times, Mike, thank you.
After the break, Senator Senemos speaks out about our plans of 2024 crisis at the southern border. This is from NBC's exclusive interview, next if you're watching the press meeting. Welcome back. Amid a week where the Republican field for president is running, Washington remains focused on the debt ceiling debate, a crucial member of the Senate is trying to put a spotlight on another key issue crisis at the southern border, Arizona's independent, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who does caucus with the Democrats, back with border officials in Nogales, Arizona yesterday along with Republican Senator James Langford, Oklahoma, and an exclusive interview with NBC's Julie Serkin.
Senator will call out both parties for a lack of action on the border. Well, you know, serving in the United States Senate, you have the ability to actually change the laws of our country. And what we've learned from this crisis is that we both need the Biden administration to effectively administrate the laws that are on the books today. We also need Congress to take action to fix the broken system.
So we need members of Congress who are willing to actually change these laws. The administration can't do that. That's our job. But we need both sides of these branches of government to do their part.
And I'm really happy to be in the legislative part. Julie Serkin joins me now from Nogales, Arizona, near the southern border. So you know, Senator Senemos has not been somebody that has been out there very often. She's not big on the pole of sides.
Obviously, you had to work your way to make that happen, almost trail her to the southern border to do it. Is, do you sense that she is now trying to up her public persona a little bit, given that we're starting an election here, if she's running? Well, she feels very comfortable, not only in Arizona, not only in Tucson, where she actually grew up about 45 minutes north of here, but also talking about this issue of immigration. She continuously says that she's a child of the border region and the interview with me.
She really kept her focus on that issue. She said that is her number one priority as she looks ahead to even potentially considering a second term. But that sound bite that you just played, Chuck. I think it's so interesting because I kind of asked her and I would have left field question.
I said, well, you're so passionate about immigration. Obviously, this is something that you might not be able to get done now in this term. Did you ever consider pursuing a fix to it outside of Congress, maybe in the Homeland Security Secretary position? We know that she doesn't really like Secretary Mayorkas and she said, oh God, no, I'm very comfortable in the legislative branch and that's the piece of the answer you heard there.
I also asked her, however, what she feels about 2024 in terms of the Oval Office, right? Who she's willing to endure. Who she thinks Americans are looking for. She didn't use that opportunity to endorse a current president to abide and who she endorsed in 2020, which I found telling as well.
Take a listen to that exchange. So looking ahead to 2024 in the presidential race, who do Americans need right now? Republican, Democrat or Independent? Well, I think what Americans are looking for is someone who speaks to their values and is more interested in solutions than the partisan talking points.
Unfortunately, our political system right now rewards those who engage in the political bombs and the talking points and I think people are hungry for someone who comes forward with practical, common sense solutions. That's what I'm looking for. So is that an independent? Well, I think it doesn't matter as much what a person's registration is.
What matters is what they actually do. And my experience has been in the United States Senate that there are partners on both sides of the aisle that have shown a dedication to being work horses, getting things done. I'll tell you, at the end there, Chuck, a kind of off-camera a little bit. She joked about Senator Tim Scott saying that he's great, he's amazing, he's awesome and I was like, well, will you endorse him?
And she said, I don't think that would help Senator Tim Scott very much. But needless to say, she doesn't seem closed off for supporting someone in a different party. Wouldn't surprise me at all. It would only surprise me if she adores a front-runner.
I would expect her to almost be a little iconic classic there, right? Anyway, Julie Circuit at the border with that Pearson Center interview, nice work Julie. Thanks very much for bringing it to us. Still to come.
A new warning from the Department of Homeland Security on the potential for violent attacks against critical infrastructure and government buildings is the 2024 election season ramps up. We've already had a near-miss here in this city that we're boarding is next to watch and meet the personnel. Welcome back. He tells today on that 19-year-old who was accused of ramming a U-Haul into barricades near the White House earlier this week in an attempt to, in his words, cease-out, according to prosecutors, he is not a US citizen or permanent resident.
In interviews with law enforcement, after his arrest, Khandula allegedly revealed admiration for Nazi ideology. It all comes as the Department of Homeland Security sounded the alarm today on the potential for violence in the lead up to 2024 and that big presidential race, warning that government facilities, critical infrastructure and faith in minority communities could be at risk, especially if misinformation around the election is as prevalent as it was in 2020. Julie Ainsley joins me now with more on this report. And Julie, everything they say is something that we've been an alert for now, frankly, for eight years.
I mean, we've had IRS agents, we've had FBI, civilian, Cincinnati targeted, you know, this is sadly something that feels like it continues to escalate. Is this increased escalation or would you characterize it in the same level we've been dealing with the last four or five years? They say we continue to be in a heightened threat environment. So these are these national terrorism advisory system bulletins that the Biden administration began putting out when they took office, really because they took office right after January 6.
And people needed to know what buildings needed to protect it that allows local law enforcement to know where they should deploy more resources, you get the idea behind it. But what they're collecting, how they get this information, is often from incidents that have already happened, like the shooting in Allen, Texas, which we know was racially and ideologically motivated, like a number of things, unfortunately, that would take me too long to let. Well, I think about that weird thing in Nashville that like it was a, it was, I believe an electrical grid part of the, you know, they were targeting and that this is an issue of critical infrastructure has suddenly been targeted all around the side. Right.
Or you have just this person last yesterday, you know, the U-Haul driver who claims to have Nazi ideology. But what this does is they're also looking at chatter online and where people might go next. And I said, are we going to have another January 6, I just asked that on call today with senior DHS officials. And they said, we are concerned that leading up to 2024, people continue to find the narrative that their vote doesn't matter.
Elections are rigged. It's a flawed system. It's a way to trigger more violence, particularly among those people who are already motivated. But they actually think that some of these prosecutions could be dampening that anger that people don't want to get arrested.
I would, the first thing that comes into my head about 2024 in my fear of violence is Milwaukee. Milwaukee is going to host the Republican Convention. If this is a very, I mean, you know, it was before our lifetime at Chicago 68 is an ugly visual memory for many people. Is there any sort of heightened security that they're thinking about for the conventions?
Well, what's interesting is DHS kind of does the academic version of this at this point. So we're seeing this for the people in the ivory towers. Hey, this is what we're watching. It continues to be a problem.
2024, we think things could ramp up as we get closer to an election. If people don't feel like their voices are heard or they matter, they can resort to violence. But then, and you can debate whether or not we should have a more centralized process around this check, but then it is up to local and state law enforcement. It is up to people like FBI, like federal protective service to protect those buildings.
But that connection doesn't get made immediately. No, it doesn't. And it's something I hope folks are concerned about earlier than we're thinking now, Joane. Thank you.
Thank you very much. And thank you all for being with us this hour. We'll be back tomorrow at the press now. NBC News now coverage continues with Halle Jackson right now.
Listen to all episodes of trace of suspicion now, wherever you get your podcasts.