If it's Wednesday. The legal and political world now on verdict watched during deliberations runaway in lower Manhattan as 12 men and women now decide whether or not Donald Trump will be running for president as a convicted felon. Plus, Israel says it expects the fighting in Gaza last through the end of this year as Secretary of State Antony Blinken implores Israel to ask itself if the incremental gains against Hamas are worth the horrific consequences. And President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris is making a rare joint appearance in the critical balogram state of Pennsylvania as the campaign braces for a new phase of political warfare with Mr.
Trump while trying to shore up support among black voters. Welcome to the press now. Peter Alexander Here in Washington, all eyes are on the courthouse in lower Manhattan, where jury deliberations are underway as we speak in Donald Trump's hush money fraud trial, the first criminal trial against a former president in American history. The jury began its deliberations just after 11:30 Eastern Time this morning.
Jurors are expected to keep at it for at least another half an hour or so today before they resume tomorrow if they do not reach a verdict. At stake here, the fate of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to a series of alleged hush money payments his fixer Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. In the brush of the 2016 election, every check, every invoice, every ledger entry is its own felony count. Deliberations began after Judge Mershon verbally gave the jury more than an hour of deliberations detailing what they can and cannot consider as they decide a verdict.
Those instructions, complex and consequential while driving home. For jurors at a conviction hinges only on unanimous agreement beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Trump used those falsified hush money business records while conspiring to commit or conceal another crime of unlawfully influencing the 2016 election. To call the jury's task complicated, that would be an understatement.
And making matters more interesting here, jurors do not have access to the 55 pages of the judge's instructions, although they can't ask for parts of them to be reread. Right now, Donald Trump, though, along with his lawyers, they are in a different room inside that very courthouse as we all await a potential verdict. And as deliberations began for the presents of votes, reporters again falsely claiming the case against him here is a political witch hunt and his words, election interference. Mother Teresa could not be discharged.
These charges are rigged. The whole thing is rigged. The whole country's a mess between the borders and fake elections. And you have a trial like this where the judge is so confused, afflicted, he can't breathe.
He's got to do his job. And there's nothing to me that I can tell you it's a disgrace. And I mean that mother duration could not beat their structures. But we'll see.
We'll see how we do. NBC News national correspondent Yasmin Basugi and joins me from outside the courthouse in Manhattan. Also with me is former assistant Manhattan district attorney Jeremy Salon and former federal prosecutor Elise Adamson. I appreciate you all being with us.
Let's get to you as when you're on the ground there at the courthouse. We know the jury just within the last hour or so gave a note. They rang the bell as they say that they had some questions they wanted answered. A second note has just been delivered to the judge as well.
Tell us what they've been asking to hear. Rang the bell twice. The policy secretary, as you came to me, I was actually looking down the ground, also on the ground because my iPad is down there. I'm trying to watch exactly what's happening inside the courtroom because everyone's down the courtroom by Donald Trump defense seeing the prosecution as well as jury inside the court because of those two bells that were rung.
I gotta say we were on edge here. I'm outside the courthouse as awaited what those notes actually read. Was there a verdict or did they actually have questions? One fact we got that answer.
There were questions, four questions in fact in that first note. One question, the second note. Let me talk about the second note first and then I'll double back to the first note. The second note was they want to get the jury instructions re read to them.
Judge 1 Rashawn has now said to them they will reread those jury instructions, which we know now will take at least an hour and 15 minutes tomorrow morning when they resume court because we're just about 30 minutes away from court going into recess at 4:30pm this afternoon. So jury instructions will be reread tomorrow morning when court resumes. Then when it comes to those court questions, it's gonna take at least 30 minutes for so the judges sent to read through those transcripts. Remember, they have a laptop with them in that deliberation room.
They don't have transcripts on that laptop. They have the evidence on that laptop that has been submitted by both the prosecution and defense. What are they asking for? They're asking for the testimony from David Tucker, when it comes the investigating meeting was in when we got a phone call from Donald Trump.
Donald Trump asked him, I'm paraphrasing here, Peter. I don't want to take you through the entire TR transcripts about the Kermit situation, asking, for instance, David Pecker's opinion on the Kermit situation. Should he in fact pay for Karen McDougal story at that point? Belljump voices.
I don't like kangaroo stories. That sort of thing always gets out where David Pecker actually suggests that Donald Trump should in fact pay for the story to make sure it does not, in fact get out. Another question they had with regards to Karen McDougal and buying her life, right? A conversation that was had back and forth between David Pecker.
This was testimony again from David Pecker along with the conversation they had with Michael Cohen in which Michael Cohen was very antsy about the decision they were going to make, like Kane to Karen McDougal and paying her $150,000. And finally, David Pecker asked Michael Cohen, how am I going to be made whole? And Michael Cohen said, the boss is going to be taking care of it. David Pecker took that to mean long fact.
Donald Trump will be paying back David Becker AMI signing for $150,000 payoff. The two other things that they want from the testimony is David Packer's testimony about the Trump tower meeting in 2015, Michael Cohen's testimony about the Trump Tower meeting in 2015. We have talked about this meeting ad nauseam. Essentially what happened was David Packer, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump were all in Trump Tower in which they talked about having stories in National Enquirer that were about Donald Trump's opponents in the 2016 election and then killing stories that were about Donald Trump that would necessarily make him look out for stories about women.
Because I know, and he testified to this, that when someone runs for political office, a lot of women end up coming out of the woodwork. I would say it seems as if, and this was something that was brought up in the prosecution closing arguments, when it talks about Michael Cohen's credibility. Do not rely solely on Michael Cohen's testimony and his lack of credibility, if that's what you think he has or is lacking. Right.
Rely more on the evidence. Rely more on the testimony from others that you may find more credible on the paper, from others on the evidence. I'm wondering if here, in fact, are trying to corroborate Michael Cohen's testimony. I just wanted to indulge my interruption here and Just let all of you know as well, because it's coming on your eyes.
You stay on the ground even as we're speaking right now. We now have learned that the jurors have been dismissed for the day. That means the day one of the deliberations are complete. The second day of deliberations will begin tomorrow morning.
The first item of business, as evidenced by the note of the judge, will be a rereading of those 55 pages of juror instructions. We actually have a copy of them. They've been shared widely, but not specifically with the jurors themselves. You can understand how that's a lot of, I dare say, garlic for these individuals who are trying to juggle a lot right now, trying to get down to the very basics of what they need to result.
Let me bring in quickly about some of the points that we just heard. Jeremy, let me get to you if I can. The jurors, as we heard from Yasmin here, they want to hear and we'll just give you the wide swap. If they want to hear parts of David Packer's testimony, as we said about the phone call he testified, the app with Mr.
Trump during investor meeting that was in June of 2016, during which he, Mr. Trump acknowledged he knew Karen McDougal. They want to hear his testimony regarding the Trump Tower meeting. They also want to hear Michael Cohen's testimony regarding that same meeting.
What are your key takeaways and why are those requests notable? You know, if I'm Team Trump or more specifically Donald Trump, I'm a little anxious and nervous with this request. Why is that? Well, I think that they're looking to David Pecker, to ASM's point about someone who can corroborate, not Michael Cohen, but the whole story, and that doesn't include Michael Cohen can tell the story and tell the narrative that, yes, Donald Trump was central to this reported conspiracy to promote an election.
And we know that not because of Michael Cohen. We know that because we have David Pecker and potentially indirectly, the former president's own words. So I'm concerned if I am Team Trump. And keep in mind this, though, that not every one of those jurors may say, I want it here.
It could have been three of them, could have been all of them. They could be trying to convince one person, hey, you had it wrong. But when I also hear that they want to hear David, pardon me, Michael Cohen's description of those events at Trump Tower, are they looking to try to corroborate and see if it's consistent or not, and how it's different, that could be a very good question. But overall, I'm more concerned about the defense than the prosecution.
Yeah. Jeremy, you make an important point, right? Because you want to hear David Packer on this and you want to hear Michael Cohen on this. If those two are in line, then it could give the jurors a pretty good impression that Michael Cohen had corroborated statements.
Right. That despite him being described by the defense as the greatest liar of all time, the gloat, as they said, this could be significant here, at least. Let me bring you in specifically on a second. No, right now, that's about the jury instructions.
What's striking here is that the jurors do not have a copy of the judge's instructions, 55 pages of it. The media has been provided a copy of these. Is that typical? And are these more complicated, these juror instructions?
This was a lot to try to make sense of for those of us who got to reread it multiple times. Yeah, sure. This was a lot, even for me, and I'm an attorney. So this is a really old school way of doing things, not sending the written instructions back to the jury.
In a lot of jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia, jurors do have copies of the instructions. I think the rationale for doing it the New York style is that way the jury is listening to the judge and how the judge has instructed them. And if they have questions, they will come, like we saw today, provide a note, and the jury and the judge will then explain it to them. However, what we've just seen is the argument for why they shouldn't have the instructions.
It's not one question. They want all of the instructions again, and that's because this is a complicated 15 minutes worth of reading instructions. Right. If you play board game with you kids before you know, by the time you're flipping the page, this has already gotten perhaps too complicated than you guys are ready for.
This is 55 pages worth. But you're saying that that's not unusual in a case of this kind? No, I'm not saying it's not unusual. It is rather unusual.
I'm saying this used to be the way things were done, not so now. I think it's unusual that Manhattan is still employing this. And perhaps after this trial there'll be a good argument to start sending instructions back. The case is just simply too complicated not to let the jury read through their own.
It's a long time, as we've seen. This is taking an hour and 15 minutes out of the deliberations to go with the instructions again, no doubt. So generally, let me ask you if I can about this for a second. One of the key takeaways from the judge earlier, reading these instructions was that they do not need to be unanimous and their conclusion about what other alleged crime Mr.
Trump may have intended to cover up. He said, although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election by unlawful means, you don't have to be unanimous in what the unlawful mean is. In determining if Mr. Trump used unlawful means to influence 2016 election, the jury may consider violations of the Federal Election Campaign act, falsification of other business records or violation of tax laws.
Can you help make some better sense of this? Because the point was in simplest of terms, as I understand it, they don't have to be in agreement about what law he was trying to cover up as long as they think he was doing it in the mean in an effort to cover a broken law. Correct? Correct.
So the way, the way I can try to make it a little bit easier is changing on this topic. Burglary is a term we all have heard before and burglary is basically a trespass in New York State with the intent to commit another crime. So if you're trespassing, that's we'll call that piece one. And the intent to commit another crime could be to sell drugs in the building, it could be to commit a sex crime, it could be to steal, commit larceny.
That next piece, you would not have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the reason reason why you committed that burglar because you had intent to steal as opposed to committed sex crime or damaged property taking that here, that same philosophy is you have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was an intent to commit this other crime or conceal it. But what that other crime is, you do not have to prove that piece beyond a reasonable doubt. And you, the jury can differ as to what it may be as long as that initial intent existed. This is more complicated because of nature, but it can be used in other crimes in New York that are fairly, I wouldn't say routine or mundane, but not as sort of invoking as this.
Yeah, this is interesting, right, because there wasn't anybody who testified whether there were violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act. It was all about the COVID up, so to speak. Yeah, no doubt. Let me go back to the courthouse of Candy as men to you again.
We have reported now we have been told that the jurors have been dismissed for the day they'll begin the day tomorrow with reading of the instructions. Donald Trump and his team had been, well, I guess just cooling their heels in a neighboring courtroom, waiting to know whether they'd be invited back in. What else has been going on in and around that courthouse as we wait over the course of these several days, several hours for some better answers. So you mentioned the jury has been dismissed.
They're gonna come back tomorrow, 9:30 in the morning to resume Donald Trump, as you mentioned, also still inside the building because the prosecution and defense have to agree on which pages are actually going to be read back to the jury per what it is that they ask for until they basically find those pages. First and foremost, remember we're looking at six, six weeks of a trial here, write a lot of transcripts when it comes to some of these witnesses, especially getting, by the way, the first witness called the stand in this trial. Once they agree, once they decide what pages will actually be read back to jury, that's whenever I come back in the court, make sure they all agree on it. And then, in fact, they'll be dismissed until tomorrow morning.
So 9:30 court is back in session tomorrow morning. They will not go beyond 6pm tomorrow. Remember, court usually ends around 4:30 in the afternoon. Afternoon.
The judge said we may ask you to work lately, we will not go beyond 6pm let's not forget last night they went till about 8:30 or sopm to finish up closing arguments there. And they will start with those jury instructions. An hour and 15 minutes of jury instructions, likely 30 to 45 minutes of reading back to this transcript. So far, four and a half hours of deliberation today.
If we put that math together and you ain't doing math on television, we're looking at not resuming deliberations tomorrow until after all is reg started at 9:30 in the morning until about 11 or 12 in the afternoon here at least. First of all, yes, thank you, Elise. I want to follow up on the points that Yasmina was making for us there right now. So let's take a look at 35,000ft for a second here.
What are the key moments, the key decisions that these jurors have to make? What are sort of the crucial moments in the testimony we've seen over the course of the last several weeks that you think are going to be critical to decisions being made here? Well, I mean, it's really going to go to what the former president's intent was. Right.
The question is, and I think they're grappling with it Right now, with these early meetings with Packer, was. Was the former president even aware this was going on? Was he part of this scheme for this, the catch and kill of these stories? And why is that important?
It's important because we're talking about that other offense he entered into this agreement with Cohen and Packer to create to catch and kill these stories to benefit his election. He did not want them out, and he did not want them harming his campaign. That is his motive, that is the intent, and that is what the jury really needs to decide. And they don't want to decide it just on Cohen testimony, and they can't.
They were instructed that as an accomplice, you cannot find. You cannot find beyond a reasonable doubt by Michael Cohen's words alone. It needs to be corroborated. And I think that's another reason that you're asking.
They're asking for reback for Pepper's testimony because he is going to be corroborative of everything that Michael Cohen, especially with respect to this meeting, which is so key. I also want to point out something that is significant. The jury seems to be going in the same chronic chronological order that the prosecution did their closing. We are only in August of 2015 here.
That is the Pecker meeting. So it looks like the jury is kind of following this tour guide invitation that was by the prosecutor and they're starting this meeting. But this and this after the Weisselberg meeting, I would say is the most significant. Jeremy, last thought to you quickly here, which is the effort by the prosecutors in their closing arguments was basically to say, hey, we didn't pick this guy as our key witness as our star witness.
Michael Cohen is the defendant who picked him. And that's what we have to deal with. This is a guy that you view as a liar. He's a liar because Donald Trump hired a liar.
Is that enough? That is Michael Cohen's fate just intertwined with Donald Trump. Is their belief of Michael Cohen critical to the decisions they make here? Well, the prosecution tried to make a point that he didn't have to be only on Michael Cohen.
But I think most importantly to your point just said moments ago, you know, Michael Cohen was not chosen by the prosecution, just like Henry Helen saying the bull were not chosen by the respective mob flip to testify against the bigger bad guys. You know, you surround yourself with certain people and you don't surround yourself with people who are on the Boy Scouts and you're committing reported crimes. I think they did a terrific job of corroborating him. And Lisa just pointed out the evidence that they're asking for now is not Michael Cohen directly, it's indirectly Michael Cohen.
And it corroborates him. They're doing a good job. And I think these questions show that, well, this is always the case. We sit and we wait.
And it turns out we wait at least for a first night until tomorrow, try to get more answers and perhaps even verdict. Jeremy Saland, Elise Hampson, appreciate all of you. Thanks for getting with us to start your day on this critical day for us. And come up, the former president and his allies try to capitalize politically on the legal complexity of this case.
And it's trying to sow confusion about what could be happening inside that jury room. Our panel is next. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now. Welcome back.
As the jury deliberates his fate, Donald Trump is lashing out about the jury instructions in his New York hush money case. Taking social media, falsely claiming the judge is not requiring a unanimous decision on the charges. To be clear, all criminal convictions by a jury require a unanimous decision. As we have noted, though, the jury instructions from Judge March on do note some complex questions.
The jurors do not have to decide unanimously to find Trump guilty. They have to unanimously agree that his falsification of business records was part of an attempt to commit or conceal another crime. What the jury does not have unanimously reasoned here is what the elements of that other crime were. So Mr.
Trump's posed is at best a gross misrepresentation of the jury's instructions. But already his commercial allies, including two potential vice presidential candidates or seasons on this detail as proof that the trial is political. And joining me now is our panel, Nicholas Wu, the congressional reporter for Politico, Megan Hayes, former special assistant to President Biden Matt Gorman, Republican strategist and former adviser to the Tim Scott presidential campaign. Nick, we can start with you if we can.
This is clearly not the first, certainly won't be the last time that Donald Trump has made a false claim as it relates to this trial. We reached the point, though, where it almost doesn't matter, the conclusion here that Donald Trump has diluted things enough, at least for enough people, where the final results from the judge and the jury will not matter. We've certainly seen Trump and his allies trying to muddy the waters a lot around this trial. The interesting thing for me as a Hill washer is to see those tweets from his allies who in some ways have started to use this trial witness test for their loyalty to the former president.
Those two senators, Scott Rubio and Con are both reportedly under consideration for Trump's vice presidential pick. And so we see them getting out in front to defend former president. So let me ask you about this a little bit. Is this sort of render mood, whatever strategy the Biden folks had at this point?
Right. Like we'll talk about what happened yesterday in a moment. But going forward, there's been a lot reporting, including for those of us first at NBC, about the strategy about what they're going to do after this to try to better make clear to the audience what happened here, to Americans, what happened here. Not just to, not to politicize it per se, but as the reporting is that he says, hey, except the outcome, what does the White House or the campaign, I should say, have to do with whatever we witness happen here?
I think it just seems to move forward and keep drawing the contrast between present Trump stands for. I think that there's a lot of really good messaging there. There's a lot of really good anecdotes of what the difference between the two. But I do think we need to put a big scene to animated before it get into the campaign season.
So you're saying he's anonymity in the campaign season. But one of the real challenges, as you know well, is that the White House feels like Americans. That's why they want to move the debate, for one reason. Right.
Because they want to show that contrast between these two characters, not just characters politically, between the two, the character of each of these individuals. Doesn't this speak specifically to the issue of characters as something that they want to sort of amplify? Sure, absolutely. But I also think that Trump is out on the campaign trial talking about what he's going to do, what his plan is and what he wants to do for the next four years.
And the more he does that, the more contrast people see between him and President Biden. People already know their character like their actual character. People already know the difference there, but they need to see the difference in their policy and not President Trump on the campaign trustee yet. Let me ask you about it again.
Get back to where we started here, which is about the sort of representation that we've seen from the former president and some from his allies. What is the line between sort of political posturing and spin here and willful misrepresentation? They're using this, the fact that the judge said you don't have to unanimously agree on what the crime was that he was trying to cover up, in effect, that that was evidence that this is a sham trial. That doesn't make this a sham trial, as every legal expert will tell you at this point.
Well, there's two different audience here, right? There's the legal audience where, look, I'm not getting a whole lot of Greece. I'm not going to tend to plant. There's also the political audience, right?
Like even though, you know, you look at polling, ABC polling, the folks group I've seen on other networks, this remember what happens in this trial, it's not swaying from folks, by and large, from one camp to the other. However, you're going to message it as best you can to turn out, at the very least, their respective bases. We saw that with the Niro, you know, quasi press conference yesterday. We'll see that with the tweets today.
And I think too, you know, what you mentioned, the debates. I think the Nero press conference is kind of another example of this. We're starting to see now tactics that show at least the Biden campaigns acknowledging that they're not where they want to be. They need some momentum.
They need to be a little bit scrappy. I think we're seeing, we saw yesterday as another example of that. You said that because the base have now moved up their effort right in June and because Robert Derek showed up yesterday and they sort of tried to spin things the business, they could get some ambition now they really need to change the game a little bit. They're on a glide path of just being the same way, down five points or something like they were.
So what was right now get to zero again on this first spot, which is about the idea that you have these advocates, these allies of the former president. You got Marco Rubio, you got Tim Cotton, both on the shorter. Who knows how shortlisted right now exists for vp, but there's not always a reward for those who stand up and sort of skew the former president's talking points here. Take the representative from this state or from not this state, the neighboring state of Virginia, Representative Bob Good, who showed up with a proud red tie like the man he was speaking on behalf of Donald Trump just a couple of days ago.
Take a listen. So we're here to have his back. We're here to defend him and to tell the truth about this travesty of justice, this political persecution, this election interference, this rigging of elections. We are President Trump's voice.
We have his back. He will ultimately be proven innocent. So this was Bob Good just a couple of weeks ago. And just today, Donald Trump endorsed Bob Good's opponent.
We should know Bob Good in the past had said he would support Ron DeSantis in the primary here, Donald Trump. This is you talking about fealty and devotion. This is a pretty clear message. Hey, you can try to come cross back, but it's not good enough for me.
Yeah. As we see with Mr. Goodloe, he only goes so far. And the interesting thing about him going there was that his primary challenger, Maguire was there at the same time as him at the front.
So we see Republicans converging on this trial as part of it with all the attention and all of the cameras that are around there as a way of not only trying to show their loyalty to the president, but also to play up their own political credentials. And I think Mr. Goods raises a good example of that. So let me ask you again, I want to get to another Robert De Niro topic.
Right. I didn't want to look backward yet, but now let's get it. Let's look back because it says a little bit about what we may see going forward. I spoke to several senior campaign aides today.
We said among other things, this was an effort to try to not just win those political news watchers, but to try to get other means of news consumers plates. Right. Those who make it their news through entertainment tv. Robert Diogo gets on Entertainment Tonight on Access Hollywood, so to speak.
It's on TMZ and in places here. But what was striking is they have been so sort of steadfast in the rapper not to engage in any form that yesterday the argument is they made that they needed to try to break through the noise with some of the views as credible like Robert De Niro was a critical sort of tactic. Not the only tactical views, but they tactic. But what does that say?
To me it was kind of striking because it did come out of nowhere. Yeah. I think this has been months and months of weeks and weeks of listening to Trump just over and over dominating all the news cycles. I think this is a good way for them to try to break through and to get into narrative.
They're also trying to reach where they are just taking the other publication. But let me interrupt. If Donald Trump is only doing harm to himself, they wouldn't feel a need to break through here. Right.
So is this an acknowledgement that Donald Trump, they may not be seeing the damage to their opponent this fall that they're hoping to see at this point in this drop? I think they're just building their own narrative up. I think that they're just playing around work from the end of the day and building momentum here. I think that the news is covering the Trump trial non stop wall, the wall.
And I think that they're just trying to get some more damaging into the news. Talk to Marco Rurio. Tom, you know very well Tim Scott, a guy that he traveled all over the place with when he was running for president before he dropped out. Now he stands behind Donald Trump in a lot of the photo ops, including somebody does in the courtroom at the courthouse right now.
Is you here for the people that you talk to in your community of friends and allies? Is Tim Scott a front runner in this list? Who, who do you think the buzz is about when we talk about vpc? Look, I don't have much information but I'll say, look, I think someone certainly him and Forbes are close.
And I think too if the Trump campaign wants to have that continued outreach to minority voters, specifically African American men, which I think are gonna be very, very crucial as we go forward, Tim Scott would be someone who could absolutely appeal to those folks and talk about his story. I absolutely think so. Index we talk about those folks who try to appeal to. Right now it's a black voter that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris today trying to appeal to.
Not just today. We saw Joe Biden with I think, what, four separate days just a couple of weeks ago, speaking specifically to black voters. Spoken Morehouse College, among other events. How concerned is the White House and the White House's allies, the president's allies, about not just shoring up black support, but making sure that they have the black support, the numbers they need.
He's wanted dramatically in the path on Trump, 80%, I think a couple of several years ago. This time he's pulling much better than that. Well, the Hill Democrats I've talked to certainly addressing concerns and jitters about what polling seems to show is a drift among black voters and black men in particular towards Republicans and away from Biden. Now, whether this is due to the economy or memories of the civil rights movement waning, remains to be seen.
But for Democrats, we're certainly seeing these efforts to show up support and to show that they're not trying to take black votes for granted. Since this constituency has been such a key part of the Democratic Party, it doesn't matter why these black and particular male voters may not be as interested in Joe Biden right now. We have a lot of, we've done a lot of testing in the field. So many individuals in different places where they live and they say, right, yeah, I open the vote for Joe Biden, but tell me why I should vote for Joe Biden.
Right. There's still a lot of information on work that White House the president needs to do, isn't there? That's for sure. And that's why we're seeing the lash.
And Democrats try to play at this contrast early between their side and Trump. Biden on a stop today I believe was talking about the difference, how he would handle January6, how Trump would have handled January6 if the riders were black a long way. So it's obviously one of many demographics at all sides are going to be trying to engage with it. Good.
Nice to see you at Gorman. Meghan. Hey, it's always a pleasant pleasure to have you here. At the next the Biden campaigns fight against Donald Trump post trial is President Biden Vice President Harris, as we just noted, hit the trail together.
We're gonna talk to a co chair of the Biden campaign. That's next. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now. Welcome back.
President Biden Vice President Kyla Harris made a rare joint appearance on the campaign trail this afternoon for black voters in Pennsylvania, a crucial constituency in a key battleground state. Today was the official launch of what the campaign is calling black voters for Biden Harris and included top surrogates like Maryland Governor West Moore along with visits to black owned businesses. At an event in majority Black school, Mr. Biden spoke about his administration's record with black Americans and accused Mr.
Trump of pandering for their support. My angel said when someone shows you who they are, believe them. The first time you got a kid, you got it. I've shown you who I am and Trump has shown you who he is.
And today Donald Trump is pandering and peddling lies and stereotypes for your vote so he can win for himself, not for you. Well, Donald Trump have a message for you. Not in our house and not in our watch. Today's events were the latest in a series this month geared toward galvanizing black voters.
This whole show Mr. Biden's level of support below what it was in 2020. And joining me now is Delaware Democratic Congresswoman Lisa Blount Rochester. She is a national co chair for the Biden Harris campaign and is running for a Senate seat in Delaware.
Congresswoman, we very much appreciate your being with us. The president and the vice president as we just shared, are in Philadelphia today, according black voters. They also held events geared at black voters. Earlier this month they were Georgia and in Michigan.
Is this enhanced outreach and acknowledge acknowledgement that president find standing with black voters is not what it once was or what it needs to be. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on the show. As you know, this is my second time as a national co chair. And so for me, as someone who has known Joe Biden for most of my life, I can tell you that this campaign, this person takes the black vote seriously.
And it has been at the heart of his career. I mean, even in Delaware, Joe Biden will tell you that truly it has been the black vote that made him senator, vice president and also president. And so we're not taking one vote for granted. We're going to make sure that people, as the president said, when someone shows you who they are, that Maya Angelou quote, believe them the first time, well, we can see the difference between a Joe Biden and a Donald Trump.
And I know personally because I've served under both presidents and I know there's a big difference, particularly for black folks. So Congress, let me ask you specifically that. I think the question is if the campaign was in such good shape with black voters, as President Biden has done in the past so many times, why would it be using its most valuable resource? The president holds so many events, five events targeting black voters in May of an election year.
You know, I think part of it is to show that we see how important that vote is. A lot of times people feel like their vote doesn't matter. A lot of people are going through a lot of struggles right now coming out of the pandemic, and they are not even aware of the things that this administration has done to really uplift our community. So is that evidence of why we're seeing some.
I'm sorry, to represent evidence of why we are seeing some of the erosion right now that needed sort of better communicate that so they can bring those black voters back, back. You know, again, I think a lot of people are had their own pains and things that they're dealing with. And so we want to make sure that we highlight the different investments that he has made, whether it is in our infrastructure and creating jobs, the lowest black unemployment rate in, you know, in 50 years and probably ever for us investments in our black small businesses, which is why he was visiting small businesses today. When you look at the investment in education, you know, the $16 billion for HBCUs and also student death relief, which is one of the top issues that I hear about from black voters.
I had a Capitol police officer stop me on my way into the Capitol, ask me to roll down my window. He said, my wife is a school teacher. She's been working for decades. We were able to get that debt relief, and it's the first time that we've been able to get out from under, and I feel like I hit the lottery.
I want you to tell Joe thank you. We want to make sure that people see and hear those right, and we're making those investments now because it is a priority and it's this community as well. I was just gonna say forgiveness right now is obviously one of the benefits of. Democrats and Republicans and other independents has had their own complaints saying it's unfair to support one community once it's college and not to support another.
These are challenging decisions for the White House right now. I do want to put up some of the key numbers, though, from our NBC poll. Compared to 2020, the number of black voters and young voters who say they are very interested in the election is sharply down. Those were two key groups for the president.
So I know the efforts that you're making right now to spark support, but to this point, has the White House not done a good enough job of communicating this message to the black community? We have a lot of folks we spoke to out there right now who talk often in the black community about how high prices are not exclusively inflation, but just how expensive things have become. Yeah. One of the number one issues that we hear about that this administration is working on is lowering the cost of things.
Everything from making sure that insulin prices are cut and capped at 35 for those on Medicare, to again dealing with issues such as student debt and access to capital. But I think the reality is, you know, like I said, folks are living in their own world right now, and they are. We're trying to make sure that we let them know we see you. And that's why this administration has put so much effort in and that we're going to make sure that you get the message that works for you, not the same message doesn't work for everyone.
And if you just did a split screen of the two presidents just today, one is in court, one has, you know, extremists following to the court, him to the courthouse. And then you have Joe Biden, who is actually out in communities, out talking to voters, seeing what their needs are as we finish the job, but also sharing those incredible things that have happened. I mean, he's done more in one administration than some presidents do in two. And it is a lot to communicate.
So we're trying to make sure we meet people where they are. I hate to keep it up. There's so many questions I want to be asking you. So thanks for your time to speak to me, I do what I ask about the Middle east if I can for a moment.
The Israeli national security advisor just said that the war there will last through the end of the year. Is this situation politically sustainable for President Biden? What does he need to be doing differently? Yeah, you know, first of all, the president, like myself and so many others, want to see peace in that region.
It is why he has been calling for the hostages to be released, is why he has been calling for there to be humanitarian aid. And you know, and it is why he's been calling for a two state solution, but it has not released differently. Actually, I, I want to push back on you and say that this administration has been working very hard to make sure that we get to peace. But your question was about voters and will it impact us at the polls and the reason why it's really important for us to make sure that people understand the choice.
I'd rather have a Joe Biden negotiating a peace than the former president in court. I'd rather have somebody who has fought for reproductive freedom because the people most at risk from a, from a Donald Trump election are young people and people of color taking away our planet, taking away our reproductive freedoms, and also not supporting us in jobs in the economy. So I think the choice is going to be very clear to people. The choice is very clear.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are working for everyone as opposed to Donald Trump, who's about himself. Let me ask you specifically about that topic, reproductive rights buying campaign for that statement just hitting a reported Trump plan that would remove requirements that insurance cover forms of contraception. Is the Biden campaign laying out the stakes of a Trump presidency? Well, enough.
This has obviously been a very determined issue in a series of states, including some red states in the early primaries that we have seen right here. Does the White House need to do more to make this issue clear to a wide swath of American voters? Well, first of all, it, you know, we've got a former president who has bragged about wanting to ban abortion. He has bragged about actually the job's decision and who he put in.
And now he's talking about contraception. He's talking about ivf. I literally became a grandmother this past year for the first time. And had it not been for ivf, my granddaughter wouldn't be here.
So this administration, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been real fighters for this. What you're seeing across the country, that is an issue that brings together young people. It brings together Democrats, Republicans and independents, and it's going to be on the ballot. It is going to be one of the determining factors in who wins this election.
You got somebody who is focused on reproductive freedom and somebody who's trying to take, for the first time we've actually had a constitutional right taken from us that Donald Trump owns it. He owns it. And so we're not going to let him forget it either on the campaign trail, Congresswoman, and we should say Grandma. LISA blunt, Rochester we appreciate thank you so much.
After this break. Israel's National Security Council now says Israel is expecting seven more months of fighting, at least in Gaza, despite mounting backlash and international pressure to end the offensive. Be the very latest in this war next. You're watching.
Be THE PRESS now. Welcome back to the growing concerns over the trajectory of the war. Israel peers be signaling it will not slow down its offensive in Gaza, put increased pressure on President Biden when it comes to enforcing his red line. The White House maintains that the strike that killed dozens of Palestinian civilians in Rafah will not result in a change in US Policy and that it has not yet seen Israel launch a major operation.
But the secretary of state, and he blamed him now today that even targeted strikes by Israel could still result in unspeakable tragedy. We also see that even limited, focused targeted attacks designed to deal with terrorists who killed innocent civilians that are plotting to kill more, even those kind of operations can have terrible, horrific, unintended consequences. Secretary Blinken went on to say Israel must ask itself whether those incremental gains against Hamas are worth the unintended consequences and costs for civilians. Israel, meantime, appears to be forging ahead with Israeli Defense Forces tank seen in Rafah's city center and a top Israeli official saying the war there will go on for months.
NBC's international correspondent Raf Sanchez filed this report for us from Tel Aviv. Hey there. With Israel stepping up its offensive in Rafah and the number of Palestinian civilians killed growing by the day, the White House is facing new questions about where exactly is President Biden's red line and has Israel crossed it. Now, the line from John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, is that President Biden does not want to see a large scale Israeli ground offensive involving lots of units involving the levels of destruction that we saw in northern Gaza.
And the White House believes that at this point we have not seen that happen. But earlier today, a senior Israeli official saying Israel believes this war will continue at least until the end of the year. And that likely means that there will be more bloody days like what we saw on Sunday night when an Israeli airstrike igniting a firestorm in a camp for disaster displaced people, killing at least 45. Many of them are women and children, according to the emergency services in Hamas around Gaza.
Now, the IDF releasing what it says is the initial investigation into that strike. They say they use two small bombs to target Hamas leaders meeting at a structure inside of that camp. But they say there was some kind of secondary explosion which caused that firestorm. They are saying the weapons they used were too small to have caused that fire itself.
They are suggesting possibly there were Hamas weapons hidden inside the camp which caused that secondary blast. They haven't provided any evidence of that. An Israeli official also suggested to NBC News it's possible that a gas tank ignited. The Pentagon is also confirming a report we did earlier, earlier that the US Military has been forced to suspend the delivery of aid into Gaza by sea after that temporary pier off the coast of Gaza was damaged in bad weather.
That is a major blow to the humanitarian effort at a time when the Rafah crossing, the main lifeline for food and aid into Gaza remains closed. Now, an Israeli official tells NBC News that Israel has drawn up a new ceasefire proposal and has presented that to the American and the Qatari mediators. But at this point, Hamas says they haven't seen that proposal. And there is no indication right now that these talks sold for so long are going to lead to significant progress.
Back to you, Rob Sanchez on the Grandfather, thank you. And we want to bring in Richard Haas, the President of Merit to the Council on Foreign Relations. Richard, President Biden said that a major ground operation in Rafah was in effect, a red line. I want to play for you what we heard from John Kirby of the National Security Council at the White House following the death of those dozens of Palestinians in southern Gaza within recent days.
Listen, a major ground operation is, you know, thousands and thousands of troops moving in a maneuvered, concentrated, coordinated way against a variety of targets on the ground. The kinds of things we've seen, we've done ourselves. That's what we're talking about here. So the White House trying to be very specific about what a major operation looks like.
This is a fine line because crossing a red line would require a change of US Policy by the president's own words. So is the White House moving that red line right now? The problem with the red line is it's simply too legalistic and narrow. I understand the opposition to a large scale Israeli military operation in Rafah that would inevitably cause large numbers of civilian casualties.
The real question for the White House is Whether that's a sufficient policy, and I would suggest not, as we've just seen, even more targeted policies by Israel can lead to large numbers of civilian deaths. And again, there's no reason to believe that the further degrading of Hamas will bring about stability in Gaza if the Israelis continue to refuse to introduce a political dimension here. One has to have a comprehensive policy that is both a military and a political approach, and the Israeli government refuses to do that. So at some point, the administration has to ask itself, does it support, for example, a resolution in the United nations calling for a ceasefire, maybe in exchange for hostages, which people aren't talking about anymore.
But I don't think it's enough to say we simply oppose a large scale military operation. That's necessary, but it's not sufficient. And Richard, I think as compelling as anything that we've heard over the course of this was that after all the pressure that we heard from the White House, from Jake Sullivan, from whomever, Israel's National Security Spokesperson, National Security Advisor, said that the war will continue through the end of this year. It is not yet June.
What does that say about Israel's strategy here, its effectiveness and the White House's ability, the perhaps inability to influence it? Well, it's clear Israel continues to reject American entreaties. A lot of them will depend upon how the Israelis define the word war. Let me give you one extreme.
The Israelis do something very, very slow, careful, very modest, just going after the Hamas leaders when they get really good intelligence, that's one thing. At the other end of the spectrum is they do something big with tanks and aircraft and so forth. So I think we have to see the idea that there could be open ended, low level, targeted military operations against Hamas leaders doesn't surprise me. I think that's probably inevitable.
The real question, though, is the scale of what Israel does. Again, whether they introduce some political dimension to their policy, whether they are working with Arab countries and the Palestinian Authority to provide an alternative in Gaza to either Hamas or Israeli occupation. That's what I'd be focusing on if I were the White House. Israel submitted a new proposal we heard today to the US and Victoria officials for what they described as a sust calm, not a formal ceasefire, an extended permanent ceasefire.
Are we moving in the right direction here? My guess is we will get there. You'll see a few more weeks of fairly intense military operations. My guess is sometime next month, you'll see the dial go considerably down and you'll see the end what I would describe as major military operations.
But Israel can't agree to a total ceasefire. If, for example, three weeks from now or three months from now they got really good intelligence about where this or that leader of Hamas is, they can't be expected not to act. So I think there's not gonna be a total blanket or prohibition on military operations. But it's got to be dialed significantly down militarily and it's got to be dialed significantly up diplomatically.
And we'll see if that happens. And that's what we should be pressing for. Richard Haas, how much of this is a political calculation by Benjamin's election on the horizon here? The US People have multiple motives here.
It could be to extend his own situation. It could be to play for an alternative leadership here in the United States. He's clearly put the pursuit of the war ahead of anything to do with with hostages. And he's got a coalition government that simply refuses to introduce a serious diplomatic initiative here.
That's the big problem here. Richard Haas, I appreciate it. Thank you for being with us. To share all you know about that region is still coming right here.
Supreme Court controversy Justice and Alito now rejecting calls for him to recuse himself from cases involving the January 6 riot and the former president. New reporting is next. You're WATCHING ME THE PRESS now. Welcome back.
After facing backlash over reports that he flew controversial flags at his home, Supreme Court justice and Alito was rejecting calls recuse himself from cases involving former President Trump and the January 6th attack on the Capitol. In a letter to Congress, Alito once again blamed his wife for flying those flag, including a flag with links to Christian nationalism at their homes in Northern Virginia and on the Jersey Shore, saying that therefore he was duty bound to reject the recusal request. Donald Trump was quick to apply Leo's decision and opposed on his true social account, the former president congratulated Leo for showing, quote, intelligence, courage and guts. And joining me now on set as NBC News justice reporter Ryan Reilly here at Donald Trump saying it's effectively courageous to say it was your wife who did it and not you.
But really it's the recusal that Donald Trump was most satisfied by there as he would be a key conservative vote for him on any of these cases. What do you make of this moment and how should we watch this thing playing out further? Yeah, I think there's a really question that he was going to reach a calls for his recusal so he can like dress it up in this language, duty bound and what have you. But yeah, he's effectively investigating himself and deciding that he did absolutely nothing wrong and everything was above board.
So it was kind of a foreseen outcome that he would reject these calls. But it does, I think, with the public raise a lot of questions. The idea that in January of 2020, 21 days after the US Capitol has attacked your flying an upside down flag on your property and then just claiming I have no role in this whatsoever and I can't do anything with the fact that my wife is flying this flag. Otherwise, she said it was there as a signal distress, distress because of an argument with a neighbor here.
But in that climate where America and turn back the clock to that day, you remember where Americans were at that time, that flag was carried by plenty of riders there on the hill, as well as the appeal to heaven flag, which flew with their vacation home, which I just Salina said he wasn't aware of the connection to the January 6 there said that people can have the flag for historic purposes, even if new groups have repurposed it in a year since. So first, I guess that's what Democrats are saying about this. And the reason this matters, right, is because the Supreme Court answers to nobody here. They can, you know, we can talk about ethics all we want, talk about Justice Clarence Thomas as well here.
But at the end of the day, the court does as pleases. Yeah. I mean, the court really is like this public trust. Right.
So as much as you can have discussions about this, because they don't really have those strict rules that they decided to do on their own, it is really a matter of public perception. The Supreme Court only has power because the people give it power. So public confidence is really important in these matters, especially when you're talking like you know, about president like Trump, because especially with the executive branch, that's really what this all boils down to, is the public confidence in the court, which is why that's so important. I have to maintain that, as has been said before, their robes are black.
They're not red or blue. And Americans would be better served perhaps if we were able to watch them in that same lens as well. Right. But it's a lot more challenging these days.
Ryan Reilly, thank you. We'll be back tomorrow with more be the Press. Now the news continues with Hallie Jackson right now. I'm Craig.
Mel. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.
I've always been a glass half full kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way, too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges, their stories are funny and vitamin, so I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own Glass F4. Search Glass F4 with Craig Melder from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast.