Meet the Press NOW — October 29

If it's Tuesday, Seven days to go. Vice President Harris is set to deliver a closing argument tonight in front of the White House as the former president hits the trail of the fallout from his divisive rally in New York City. Plus, the Trump campaign fights the fascist label while the former president leads into anti immigrant rhetoric and criticizes Democrats of unleashing bloodshed and squalor in U.S. cities.

And the Young and the Restless. NBC News catches up with first time voters on the final day of early voting in Pennsylvania where the rice for the White House could come down to the wire. Hi there. Welcome to MEET the press.

Now I'm Lion Nobles in Washington, where Vice President Harris has set to deliver a closing argument tonight with exactly one week to Election Day as former President Trump leans into his strongest and his strongman rhetoric in the campaign's waning days. At this hour, the former president on the ground in battleground Pennsylvania after speaking for nearly an hour from his Mar a Lago home this morning, painting the state of the country as one of doom and gloom as he attacked Harris's record. Bloodshed, squalor to our cities is common and they've unleashed a war and chaos all over the world. No respect for our country anymore.

No respect for our leadership. No person has caused so much destruction and death at home and abroad. And she's running on a campaign of immoralization and really a campaign of destruction. But really, perhaps more than anything else, it's a campaign of hate, campaign of absolute hate.

She's going out and only criticizing, talking about Hitler and Nazi and because her record's horrible. Tonight, Mr. Trump will rally in Allentown, Penn. A scenario with a sizable Latino and Puerto Rican population, just two days after a comedian made racist and crude jokes about Latinos in the island of Puerto Rico at Mr.

Trump's rally in New York City. Now campaign sources tell NBC News that tonight's program at Trump's event will lean heavily on Puerto Rican speakers. But Sunday's comments appear to have rankled voters beyond the Latino community, including a key group of voters that both Trump and Harris campaigns are trying to reach, people who voted for Nikki Haley in the Republican primary last night. As part of our NBC News Deciders focus group, we put back to Nikki Haley voters who are now split on whether they're voting for Trump or Harris or neither.

But some who had strong reactions to those racist comments at the Trump ral. That is so typical of what I hear from them all the time and why as a Republican, I have become so upset. I think it's disgusting. I can't say that it would change my vote.

I'm not gonna vote for Harris because of it. It still makes me torn. Like if so if they had done a very professional event, maybe that would move the needle a little towards him or something like that. But it keeps me in a place where it makes it hard to fill in that hole.

Okay, take what you just heard there with this. Nikki Haley won just over 16% of the vote in Pennsylvania's Republican primary this year long after she had her campaign. She also got double digits in Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and North Carolina. Folks, it is prec kind of voters that could swing a close election.

It's also the kind of voters that the Harris campaign is hoping to win over with a Trump focused closing message from the Ellipse near the White House just a few hours from now. The vice president previewing that message during an interview with the Breakfast Club that aired today. I'm about to give a speech Tuesday night at the Ellipse in front of the White House. And part of what I will be talking about is that there is going to be a new president on January 20th of next year and it's either going to be Donald Trump or it's going to be me.

And I would ask people to imagine the Oval Office, people seen it on tv. You know what it looks like? It's either going to be Donald Trump sitting behind that desk writing out his enemies list of who he's going to seek revenge and retribution on, or it's going to be me working on behalf of the American people, as I always have done, working on my to do list. Joining me now to talk about all this, our team of NBC News reporters on the ground, senior White House corpus spot on, Gabe.

Gul Harris, he's covering the Harris campaign ahead of the vice president's speech tonight. Garrett Hake is in Allentown, Pennsylvania, following the Trump campaign. Also in Allentown's Jordan Solis, who's been talking to voters ahead of tonight's rally. So, Gabe, let's start with you.

The vice president set to make a closing argument about Donald Trump tonight. Now is it, Gabe, being confident this is the right message with just a week to go? Does what we heard from the former president today really fit into that narrative that they're trying to sell? Well, hi there, Ryan.

I definitely think it is the right message at this time, partly for reason they just laid out. They want to reach those persuaded voters and they feel that this message will be key to doing so. Now, Ryan, it's Not just a message that is important here, but it's also where she is giving a speech. The location I'm here on the ellipse, you can see right behind me is the White House.

And that's one of the two reasons the campaign officials laid out to us today for the selection of this place. One, that it shows the gravity of this, the backdrop of the White House here, such a key location for where to deliver this message. The second reason is also that former President Trump, this is the place where he delivered his remarks on January 6, just before some of his supporters attacked the US Capitol. Now we've just received some excerpts from Vice President Harris's speech tonight.

She will mention that former President Trump wants unchecked power, again alluding to his message on January 6th. And something else is this outreach to moderate voters, perhaps some of those Nikki Haley voters that you just reference the introduction, she says, end quote. The people who disagree with me, unlike Donald Trump, I don't believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail.

I'll give them a C at my table. So again, Ryan, this is a two fold argument showing just how dangerous the campaign believes that Donald Trump would be in a second term. But also this message to persuadable voters in those key swing states of the contrast between what they see as her administration and what would be a second Trump administration. Ryan?

Yeah, Gabe, it does seem to be a bit of a change in tone. Right? They definitely don't want to lose this message of the threat they think the Donald Trump presents, but they're trying to find a way to tie it into what she would do as president. The enemy's list coupled with the to do list, if you will, is this a desire to create a contrast on character, but also making sure that the policy message doesn't get lost, especially considering how short this campaign has been for the vice president.

Yeah, certainly. Look, Ryan, as you said, this has been a change in tone, especially in the last couple of weeks. You remember at the start of her campaign when she took over the Democratic ticket, the initial feeling from the Harris campaign seem to be diminishing. Donald Trump talking about how he was weird and basically saying that he was unfit for office, but he wasn't a serious person.

Notice in last few weeks, Ryan, it has changed. Saying he is a serious threat to democracy, which again goes back to the message that President Biden had during his campaign early on this year. But they made a calculation that at these closing moments of this campaign, this final week, they feel that that message will resonate with some of those key voters, a sliver of the electorate that will be so key in those crucial battleground states. Ryan, it seems like it wasn't that long ago that there was this fear that she wasn't giving enough interviews.

Now it seems like she's giving interviews all the time. She's going to do a round of interviews with TV interviews in key battleground states. Will we know more about those interviews? Yeah, Ryan, it is quite remarkable.

As you said, she wasn't giving many interviews, at least the mainstream outlets, for quite a while now. It seems that every, every day she gives what the reporters know as a gaggle, basically taking informal questions outside of. Yes, you mentioned this recent round, this most recent round of television interviews. He is speaking with four television stations in three battleground states.

And those local TV interviews, Ryan, as you know, are a key way to get her message out. And they usually have a time limit to the attachment. So she won't face some of the questions she may not want to answer on a national scale, but she does is able to communicate with those crucial battleground states and those key voters that she needs, which is a few days left round. Okay, thank you for that.

We appreciate it. Let's turn out Garrett was in Allentown, one of those battlegrounds, ahead of Trump's rally there tonight. But before we get to what he's going to do there tonight, now let's talk a little bit about what he did this morning, I guess, this afternoon at Mar A Lago, Garrett, and explain to me the utility, from the Trump campaign's perspective of performing what essentially seemed like a truncated rally without the excitement surrounding it. What was the purpose of ostensibly what was billed as a press conference?

Yeah, Ryan, I was almost all it remotely, an affiliate Trump rally on decaf, just very low energy, a little bit unfocused, no prompter, a message meant to be focused on immigration and migrant crime, Donald Trump's two kind of pet issues. But I don't know that they did a lot for them. The theory behind it was the idea of getting out early, making sure he could kind of set the tone for news coverage for the day ahead of the vice president's remarks later this evening, adding something, Mr. Lago, they know they can get news coverage.

They're getting that national cruise down there. But I don't know that whatever this was supposed to be for the Trump campaign was very effective in doing that. Most people took away from it. What I took away from it was his complaints about when he started to See the ground of, you know, bad things happening in Pennsylvania.

So guessing there might be cheating going on in the election up here. To me, that was probably the single biggest takeaway from that whole event. I don't know if anything moved the needle with voters who might suddenly make a decision out there. And it's interesting because we just talked with Game about how all of a sudden the vice president is seems to be taking questions all the time, entertaining interviews on almost a daily basis.

Conversely, it seems that the Trump campaign has bottled him up. Again. This was essentially a press conference. But he didn't take any questions, right?

Well, yes and no. Ryan, the Trump campaign never called a press conference. I've been on a one man mission to make sure we didn't call a press conference at this network. Remarks to press means one thing.

Press conference means you take questions. And he never said he was going to take questions. And in fact he didn't. It's also kind of Campaign 101 that when you think you are ahead, you minimize the risk to yourself.

You minimize the risk of being knocked off message and you don't take questions. I saw with Romney in 2012 when he thought he was ahead in the last couple weeks of the campaign, you bottle him up. You take questions. We want to make sure that your message is getting out there or you feel like you need to change the subject from what it is kind of prevailing national discourse or state level discourse wherever you are.

The Trump campaign, whether they truly believe it or whether they want Donald Trump specifically to believe it or acting like they think they're ahead and they're trying to reduce the risk of an off message moment, which with a candidate like Donald Trump is always a relatively high risk. And also, you know, he's going to make his own messages out. He wants to take questions, which is part of the reason, for example, on Friday we were in awesome. They kept us like 30ft away from him at the closest we were ever able to get right.

Of course, that prevented him from being asked questions about what happened at Madison Square Garden over the weekend in those controversial comments by the community. Open forum, let's now open and talk about this Nikki Haley voter. A potential problem that the Trump campaign could have. She has not appeared with him.

She given what I think is fairly described as a tepid endorsement and she really won a pretty significant portion of the voting after she was out of the some of these key battlegrounds, including where you are in Pennsylvania. Is there any opportunity for them to kind of mend this fence and bring it home in the last couple of days or has the ship sailed? Well, let's be too glad. But the Trump campaign is kind of like why start now, right?

I mean, they really never made any significant effort after Nikki Haley got out of the race to court her specifically or her voters in these battleground states. Yours probably heard me say this 15 times that their strategy has been almost scare those voters back into their camp to essentially say, you're not going to be for Joe Biden, you're not going to be for Kyle Harris. They are anathema to your values. You're going to come back to us eventually and hope that it's true.

Now, in the last couple weeks, we've known there were discussions between the two camps to try to have some kind of unit event between the two. But you know, steering the battleship that is the Trump campaign has made that too complicated and time is now frankly just too short. Ryan. Yeah, I guess we'll find out who calculated that right on election Day, the day after, maybe after we're done counting votes a couple days.

But Gary, thank you for that report from Allentown. Let's go to Solis. He's also in Allentown. He's talking to voters ahead of tonight's Trump's rally where there have been some reaction to what happened with this comedian at Sunday's rally.

George, what the voters are telling you, hey, this joke was not funny. No matter which party aisle you stand on, some of the voters here still support former President Trump saying they understand that this was the comedian from March and not the former president. Therefore, it really doesn't move the deal for them at all. Back when I spoke with selling Merc saying Puerto Ricans for Trump, Dominicans for Trump, saying look, we are still going to stand by him and we understand that these jokes were in poor case.

It does not represent the people of Puerto Rico, does not represent the island. But for us, that is our candidate. That is what we are going to support. On the other side, we have people who are completely outraged by those comments saying for those undecided voters here in the crucial Paddle brown state of Pennsylvania, this could be the nail in the coffin for the former president.

Minor about 600,000 eligible Latino voters here in the Keystone State, some of them undecided still. So now the effort from those people is trying to make sure that they can court those votes. Using that remark as an example, as I'm standing here, Ryan, we actually see often the distance appears to be a lot of Puerto Rican voters here, those supporting Vice President Kamala Harris who plan to in a way demonstrate here their opposition to the former president. We can take a listen to some of the voices from some of the voters I'm talking to here today.

Wrong time with little days left to election and Trump time. Trump trying to do his best for the Latino community. I think it was so down for him to do it. I ain't changing my vote.

I know. I'm sticking with Trump. Trump is the one that's going to make everything better for the Latino community. Yeah.

Again, a lot of back and forth on the subject. Wait to see if there are protests here tonight. The question is whether or not the former president addresses remarks here at the rally and if there is any kind of apology. A lot of people holding breath to see what happens here tonight.

Brian. Sorry, not style, George. I'll have to wait and see what happens. Thank you for that report.

Coming up, a top official inside the Harris campaign joined us ahead of her major speech at the Ellipse. The campaign fights regain some lost momentum in the polls. Plus, we're live in Ohio spotlighting a Senate race that could tip the balance of power as incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown fights for his political life. You're WATCHING ME, the PRESS now.

Welcome back. As we mentioned, we are just a few hours out from what Vice President Harris's campaign Italians are closing arguments speech here in Washington. The VP will be speaking from the Ellipse near the White House in the National Mall, the site of former President Donald Trump's remarks on January 6th. She tells the country it's time to turn the page on Trump.

A national park spokesman says that Harris campaign had amended their permit application tonight to accommodate more than 40,000 people. Joining me now is Michael Tyler. He's the communications director for the Harris campaign. Michael, thank you for being here.

We are, of course, one week out. Kamala Harris, giving what your campaign is doing is its closing message this evening on the Ellipse. Where are we going to hear tonight and who is this message targeted toward? Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

We're very excited about tonight's closing argument because I think what you'll hear the vice president lay out is the fundamental choice in this election in prime time to the American people, particularly those voters who are still undecided, who are still deciding who they're going to support in this presidential election or whether or not they're going to vote at all. She's going to make clear that on January 20, one person is going to occupy that building right behind me. Either Donald Trump is going to walk in that office every single day with his enemies list in hand or Kamala Harris is going to walk in there with her to do list of things that she wants to get done for the American people, to lower costs like groceries, healthcare, housing, to make sure that store our women's reproductive rights. To make sure that we actually bring people together in search of common solutions.

Right. That is a differentiator between her and Donald Trump who's seen whether it's a Madison Square Garden or the Mattarelli's Travis campaign, his only currency is chaos, is division, spear and hatred in the absence of any actual solutions for the American people. So that's the contrast in the choice that she's going to present tonight. And we're gonna carry with us across the battleground stage with Biowitan's campaign then.

I hear you and I see that the goal here tonight is about turning the page moving forward. If it's about the future, why hold it at a place that most of us remember as the speech that Donald Trump gave on January 6th? Yeah, well, listen, we all remember what happened on January 6th when Donald Trump inspired violent mob to try to overturn the results of a free affair election. I think everybody remembers the harm that was caused that day.

Of course we'll be thinking about that. But we're also talking about the harm that Al Trump caused every single day when he sat behind the resolution. What the vice president is going to tell American people is that it doesn't have to be this way. Right.

You do not have to have leadership that traffics in chaos, that traffics in division, that celebrates violence every single day. We can actually have leadership that is focused on the people, that's focused on turning down the temperature, bringing people together and getting things done. That's what so many, particularly these undecided voters who are exhausted with the current brand of politics in the Trump era. They are looking for a new way forward.

That's exactly what the vice president talked about and that's exactly what she'll offer tonight. And I understand campaign spent a lot of time trying to remind voters of the threat they believe Donald Trump poses. But I want to put up for you a piece of a recent story in the New York Times that maybe raises some questions about that strategy. And an email circulated to Democrats about what messages have been most effective in its internal testing Future forward.

The leading Pro hair super PACs said that focusing on Mr. Trump's character and the fascist label were less persuasive than other messages. Is that true? Are those strategies less effective.

And should she be talking more about her policy proposals and what she'll do in office as opposed to continuing to just talk about Donald Trump? Well, I think she's been talking about her policy proposals and what she wants to do and how she's been doing. Hasn't she launched this campaign? We've put out a range of proposals to lower cost of the American people to spur a small business world to make sure that American manufacturing remains right here in America.

What I've not seen is Donald Trump do anything that I think because only he found a policy he's talked about since he's launched his campaign. It's another tax cut for the ultra, ultra rich. The only thing he's talking about in the middle class is across the board tax increase raising costs on American families by $4,000 a month. So you'll hear the vice president talk more about her economic plan tonight where she wants to take this country.

We do think it's hands and start contrast with what Donald Trump is offering up to middle class families across this country. We think it's resonating how the side voters are still making up their minds on the course this last week. We're going to make sure they hear that. I want to change gears a little bit and play for you in exchange that Bernie Sanders had with Kristen Welke on Sunday about voters skeptical of Vice President Harris over the war in Gaza.

Take a listen. My own view has been that the United States should not continue to provide financial aid or offensive weapons the Netanyahu's right wing winning extremist government. But what I would say to Leila and to all those people thinking of not voting or maybe even voting for Trump, Trump is even worse on this issue. While I disagree with Biden and Harris, they are still a lot better than what Trump and Benson talked about.

There are a lot of young voters in particular Michael, who their number one issue is the situation in the Middle east and the conflict in particular. And they are not in line with the Biden Harris position as it relates to the conflict in particular happening in Gaza. Is it enough for those voters in particular to say that Trump is worse or does the campaign need to do more to explain to them why she should earn their vote? Well, yeah, listen, I think what these voters want, what they're going to respond to is a candidate for office who actually approaches the sit with the seriousness it observes, who would sit inside the situation room every single day with the temperament, the judgment, the wisdom to actually manage complex global situations like the ones playing out in the Middle east, who actually has America's national security interests at heart, who cares about our allies in the region, who cares about global security?

I think what they do not want is an agent of chaos who's increasingly unhinged, increasingly unstable, whose only North Star has his own personal self interest. That is a contrast that we're going to present to voters across the country as relates to national security. And we think the voters will never resonate with voters when they go to balance. Well, I want to play for you something that we heard this afternoon from the Republican vice presidential.

And I want us to actually follow President Trump's lead here because, yeah, President Trump condition out as well as anybody. He's the best counterpuncher in American politics. But when President Trump goes after his political opponents, he goes after Kamala Harris and goes after Tim Walls. He criticizes the people who stepped in the arena, which again is his right to do.

Every person who steps in the arena asked for. But you know what Donald Trump doesn't do? Donald Trump doesn't attack everybody who's going to vote for the other side as a fascist or Nazi. He doesn't demean his fellow citizens, even the ones who aren't going to vote for him.

And so I'd ask us to follow that lead. Is that true? Do you feel like Kamala Harris has been attacking Trump voters or people that would support Donald Trump? No.

I think you also know that that's clearly a lie. Right? Donald Trump calls half the country everybody who disagrees with him, who disagrees with him, enemies of the people. Frankly, what the vice president has been referring to are the comments of people like John Kelly, his longest serving chief of staff.

She's been referring to the comments made by Esper Milley, the people who served under Donald Trump, who know him best, who understand the threat that he to the American people. Those are their words. And it's why, frankly, so many people across the political spectrum, Democrats, independents and Republicans, are standing against Donald Trump, standing with Vice President Harris because they understand the threat that Donald Trump poses and they understand that by President Harris, there's somebody who's fit, capable of serving as commander in chief and who be focus on the people every single day as president of the United States. There's one candidate in this race room.

That's reality. That's Vice President Harris. All right, Michael Tower, thank you. To fight through some background noise there to get through this interview.

You did effort to make that happen. We appreciate it. Good luck the rest of the way on this campaign. Up next, election security concerns the key House races.

Authorities search for a suspect tied to a pair of ballot box fires, including one that damaged hundreds of ballots in a swing district. The incumbent House member in that district joins me now. You're watching. Read the PRESS now.

Welcome back. Now turning to the latest in the investigation, tied to a pair of ballot box fires out west. Officials say that an incendiary device was found in a ballot box in Portland, Oregon and a ballot box fire in neighboring Vancouver, Washington that damaged hundreds of ballots and they are likely connected. An identical Volvo was spotted at both scenes and the use of that incendiary device in Portland was described as similar in nature to what happened in Vancouver.

Democrat Congressman Marie Lucian Camp Perez, who represents the Vancouver, Washington area, is calling for round the clock law enforcement presence at all ballot drop boxes locations in that county. Lucian Camperez flipped her seat from red to blue in 2022 and is now one of five House Democrats seeking re election in a district that Trump won in 2020. She's in a tough race against Trump back Republican Joe Kent and a seat that could be key to which party controls Congress next year. The congressman joins us now to talk more about everything that's happening in her district.

Congresswoman, thank you so much for being here. First off, have you received a response from authorities about your request for round the clock presence at these ballot Dropbox? Is that going to happen? It seems like we're going to have election servers in a vehicle near each ballot box starting on Wednesday.

So that's a huge step towards having the kind of certainty people need to ensure that their right to vote, regardless of their party, is not impeded by some dweezil in a Volvo. And so describe for me who these monitors would be. It would be law enforcement. They'd be volunteers.

Would they be from the respective parties? Who are they? No, no. These are paid, nonpartisan staff for the election office.

This is election officials. Okay. And how many ball boxes are we talking about here? Is this, how big of an effort would this be to monitor all these locations?

22. So it's not insignificant. And, you know, that's nothing of trying to reach out to people. You know, there's not a list of who was impacted by this.

We have all vote by mail, which is, you know, the gold standard in election security. But, you know, the reports by the auditor's office on the daily ballot receipts indicate that it could have been at least a thousand votes that were impacted. So to that point, if either you or your challenger Joe Kent wins by just a few hundred votes and perhaps a thousand ballots were impacted by this. Do you worry that the fire could undermine the legitimacy of the results?

Well, I'm mostly upset about it as an American who's concerned that our system of voting, of each person having the right to engage in our political process is being impeded by these weirdos like, you know, we don't know who did it, but we do know that patriotic, community minded Americans don't take a match to other people's ballots. And so what is your message now to your constituents who have been using ballot dropboxes for a long time? You mentioned that this is something that your state has done for a long time, quite successfully, I might add. You do feel confident there will be surveillance at these locations.

Does that make you confident enough to tell your supporters and other constituents that they can feel comfortable putting their ballots in these drop boxes? Absolutely. This is a secure process. There will be observers there to make sure there's quick response if another attack does occur.

You know, and if you voted in Vancouver at the picture landing ballot box between 11am Saturday or 4am Monday, you need to check the auditor's website to see if your ballot was received. If it wasn't, call, find out and you can go ahead and ask for a replacement ballot. Yeah. And talk to me a little bit more about that process.

If you, if you were someone that was impacted by this, it's not as if your ballot is gone forever, Right. You have an option here to make sure that your vote is cast, correct? That's right. You can ask for a replacement ballot and you don't need to be concerned about any kind of fraud happening here.

They match your signature. And once your signature is accepted, that first signature that's accepted is the one that is counted. It's also important that this is one of the biggest counties. And so if you turn your ballot into another location, go ahead and check online.

But try leave the phone lines open to the people who are impacted in this area. There are, you know, at a minimum of, you know, 16,000 people who know this is their local ballot box. Let's make sure there's timelines stay open to those folks who are impacted. So check online before calling into the auditor's office in any case.

All right, let's talk about the campaign now and you tonight, we'll see. Kamala Harris was the nominee of your party. Make her closing argument today. At the left, where I am right now, you're someone who very proudly sits in the middle of the political spectrum.

What Are you hoping to hear from the vice president tonight in this closing argument? Do you hope that she reaches out to a broader set of Americans, not just Democrats? Well, that's what we want for everyone, right? We want to hear that our priorities, our values in Southwest Washington are reflecting the national agenda.

We want to hear that reflecting D.C. and not D.C. inserted south into our lives here in an incredibly toxic way that we've seen here recently. It's really important that we're talking to people about the issues they're facing.

We are hearing them when they say the prices are out of control. They're worried that they're never going to be able to own a home. You know, they're working for jobs and they're not making rent. Those are the things I hear all the time.

You know, I was just talking to one of the directors, one of our largest labor delivery delivery boards. She told me that right now about 40% of the babies born in her hospital have at least one parent to take the fennel. That is astonishing. And it feels like if this is something that was happening to what their family here taken seriously.

And it's worth putting my shoulder behind me these past many months as a member of Congress. And if Kamala Harris wins, if Donald Trump wins, I mean, there's still the very real possibility that we're facing divided government in some respects, depending on who wins the House and Senate. If you win, once again, you will be looked upon to be a kind of bipartisan voice when it comes to these conversations. How can that look if we have Republican, White House, Democrats in the House, Republicans in the Senate, how will you get anything done?

Especially when the track record of Congress has not been that great over the past couple of election cycles. Yeah, I mean the work in front of me is consistent no matter who is in the Oval Office. It is to ensure that the priorities in my community are heard, that we are given the platform we need to address the hauling out of the middle class here. I will always have my community at the center of every vote I take and my experience running auto fair shop.

As somebody that lives in rural community on gravel road, mother of three year old, my experience is what informs my worldview and my bike person voting record. And finally, in terms of presidential race, I know you haven't wanted to talk very much about who you're supporting for president. Has that changed and why do you think it's not something that you should have front and center? Well, I don't think people in my community are going to change their vote based on what I say about the presidential level.

So I'm very clear personally about my value and, and you know, who I'm not voting for. But, you know, we're running in a race that is feeling increasingly polarized and overshadowed by a national agenda that's not talking about experiences of living in rural America right now. So, you know, at a time when my listen, my phone is called for the funding of the ATF and the FBI, he has called voting by mail sketchy. And it's, it's really even more important that we are talking about issues that matter to people, that we're supporting the systems that undergird our values.

I think that 90% of Americans agree about 90% of the issues. And so to see ourselves torn apart and weaponized against each other is really concerning. Okay, Congressman Marie Glencoes and Perez, thanks for coming. We should also point out that we would also invite you to your podcast as well, if you would like, as we get closer and closer to Election Day.

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Silicon look at the view from young voters in Batt around Pennon on the final day of early voting there. Here's what some Philadelphia high school seniors told NBC News on their way to cast their ballots.

Probably the most important election we've had and it is our duty to vote. It's the future. We're thinking about the future right now and we want to make this country better. So vote.

Welcome back. Ohio may no longer be a presidential battleground, but it is the heart of the fight for control of the Senate. Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown is facing Republican challenger Bernie Moreno. Brown won re election in the same 2018 which was sandwiched around Trump winning the state in 2016 and 2020.

That means the Senator Brown is likely to be more than a few ticket splitters to hold on to the seat. For more, Alec Tower joining out from Strongsville, Ohio. So tell me Ali, you have been going all across the country looking for these ticket splitters. Who are the ticket splitters in Ohio that Brown is counting on win?

Yeah, you were looking for them in Montana and I'm looking for them in Ohio. And that's because you and I were both trying to answer the same question, which is can these known political quantities, John Tester in Montana and Sherry Brown here in Ohio can their personal politics Trump, for lack of a better word, the partisanship that is so baked in in these red states in Montana more than Ohio. Don Tester has worked to do overperforming the top of the ticket. But Here in Ohio, Sherrod Brown has done this before.

In 2012, he outperformed Obama even when Obama won the state by three points. Then after 2016, when Clinton lost by eight here, Sherrod Brown still managed to win reelection two years later by six points. And he will have to do that again if he's able to keep this seat blue for Senate Democrats, Democrats who badly need him to successfully play defense here. To do that, he needs voters that are gonna vote for Trump at the top of the ticket and then still vote for him at the Senate level.

When I was talking to one of the county officials here, though, he runs the Board of Elections in Marion County, I'm sorry, in Lorraine County. And he was telling me ticket splitters get rarer and rarer by the day. Listen to our conversation. So we were talking about the idea of split ticket booters.

Do they exist? Well, there's fewer and fewer of them in our county. We used to have a large number. You would see different candidates for different parties win.

But over time, there's fewer and fewer of those. Those are the people that I have mostly been meeting, with the exception of one woman didn't want to talk to us on camera, but said she voted for Trump and voted for Sherry Brown. That's kind of how he survived. Survived in at least the Trump era, right?

Well, I think if there is a race where you might see split ticket voting, it's gonna probably be between President and U.S. senate. But once again, like I said, there's just fewer and fewer of those voices that we've seen. So you heard there.

We did talk to one woman. She didn't want to be on camera, but she did say she voted for Trump at the top of the ticket. Sherrod Brown next. But most of the voters I talked to today, Ryan, did say they were keeping their tickets all straight blue or all straight red, depending on who they voted for at the top of the ballot.

That's why we talk so often about the role that presidential races play in these down ballot races. But there's one other interesting data point here in Ohio last year, this is a state that voted to enshrine abortion protections, despite the fact that it's now considered solidly right at the presidential level, it is still a state that was moved by that issue. And that's also something that Brown is relying on here if he's able to keep his seat. Okay, Alex, thank you for that update.

Keep searching for those ticket splitters. We're going to move now to another battleground state and that is Pennsylvania, where in the city of Brotherly Love, hundreds of high school seniors gathered at City hall before marching together to cast their ballots for the first time. Joining me now is NBC News and State 2 reporter Maya England, who is at that rally in Philadelphia and she's been covering the youth vote in this election. Maya, talk to me about this.

These first time voters are gathering where you are, what are you seeing and what are you hearing from some of them? Hey, Ryan. Yeah. Just a short while ago, there were hundreds of high school students out here in the iconic Love Park.

They actually marched their way across the street, 500 students estimated to be out here from 17 schools. And they landed here at the iconic City Hall. This is the last day for early voting. And a lot of them told me that they feel a sense of pride being able to cast their first ballot.

Some of them feel a bit nervous. Some of them were super exc. Here's a few conversations we had today. It's a lot.

It's very like pressure, like a lot of pressure to vote. And I know that like not only does my vote matter, but a lot of you votes in general matter because I said one vote could completely make a huge difference. I definitely think that we have to make sure that we set the tone for the generation that's coming after us because they are very much not sure of what the future is going to be like. So we have to stay optimistic for things that happen.

At the end of the day, I think a lot of people might Asian care about politics and especially as we get older and our folks start to matter, we're able to vote. You know, after 18, I think people start to pay more attention and understand that it's our civic dude to vote. Ryan this organization was called PA Youth Vote. It's nonpartisan and they really just want to encourage people to start engaging in the democratic process.

For your and once again, my there's so many eyes on Pennsylvania this election cycle. How are the voters you're talking to reacting to all the attention that they're getting? Is it easier to convince a young person to come out and vote when they know that their stake could be the difference between who wins and loses? I'll be honest, I think some people were really excited with the amount of attention.

But a few people I spoke to said the pressure was almost overwhelming and a few of them were kind of wishing that all of it was just over and they actually knew the results. What's interesting about Penn, though, is that young voters historically kind of over perform comparatively to the national young voter number. So in 2020 alone, 54 of 18 to 29 year olds showed up in this state alone. So all eyes and vote campaigns are really paying close attention here.

Okay, Maya, thank you so much for that report. We appreciate it. Still to come, the fight over fascist as the Trump campaign tries to mite a water amid a new live attack for the Harris campaign. Our panel is next.

You're watching NICA Press now. Welcome back. Over the last 24 hours, we've seen Republican Vice President Alani J.D. vance downplay the racist comments made at Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden.

But he's also trying to muddy the waters on another line of attack from the Harris campaign. Here's fans now. I didn't I've heard about the joke. I haven't actually seen the joke that you mentioned, but I think that it's telling that Kamala Harris's closing message is essentially that all of Donald Trump's voters are Nazis.

And you should get really pissed off about a comedian telling a joke. Rather than persuade their fellow Americans, they've decided that they're going to call their fellow Americans Nazis and fascists. And I think to it's time. Disgusting.

Do not dare go in front of cameras and call your fellow citizens Nazis. If you want to leave this country, act like a leader and stop insulting your fellow citizens. Joining me now is our panel, Shelby Telkis, the reporter at semar. Eugene Robinson is a columnist at the Washington Post and NBC News political analyst.

And Mark Schwartz, the former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence and a Meek Press political analyst. So Shelby JD Vance says that Harris is essential supporters Nazis. I haven't seen her call any Trump supporters Nazis. What do you make of this deflection strategy?

Is this something that Trump supporters might believe and actually take the heart harkens back to when Hillary Clinton actually did call Trump supporters deplorables. And there was some resonance to that. Yeah, I think this is pushed back on the General Kamal Hare strategy of using Donald Trump's words and former officials who have warned against him to say this is what a second Donald Trump presidency would be like. And so we're seeing Donald Trump's campaign respond in this manner to that narrative, which a lot of Democrats have said this is going to be really effective for them.

Now, there is some debate internally. There has been, there have been some Democrats who say actually this is not a good thing. But there's been polling suggesting that this is something that is effective. When voters hear that this is what Donald Trump Presidency would be like according to people used to work for Democrats.

And what we're seeing here, though, this is why Trump put J.D. vance on Ticket. Right. So that he can come out and defend him in a way that others can't.

Yeah. Listen, Donald Trump certainly believes that J.D. vance is a good messenger. We saw that the debate.

He is good at debating. He is good at getting the message out in a way that Donald Trump often is not. Donald Trump often goes off message. JD Vance stays on message.

He's sort of a bulldog. His campaign is aware that that is what he's there for. It is a lie, though. We should point out that she didn't call any voters Nazis.

She pointed out that certain people who work for Donald Trump had called him a fascist. And that rally the other night was. You had those overtones. But they're trying to hilariazer.

Right. You know, the deplorables was a mistake and they're accusing Paris of having made the same mistake, only she didn't make that mistake, in fact. So, Mark, is that a distinction of a difference or does it matter that she's never actually said those words? Ryan, I think so little of this matters right now.

I think the rallies of American people were so porous and divided, they made their opinions known on this for a long time. I think that the rally was a bad idea. I think the clown car speakers was a bad idea. I don't think this is what the Trump campaign wants to be talking about in the last week, at least for Rick Scott wants to be talking about in four.

But having said that, I don't think any of this really moves. Number four. Eugene, maybe drill down on that a little bit because I wonder. Yeah, I agree with you.

I don't think this moves the battleship. Right. Are we past the battleship stage of this campaign? Are we not talking about a couple thousand voters in very specific reasons.

I think we're talking about individual photos. We're talking about, you know, David Cliff was working on the campaign on the Harris campaign has said this is going to be so close in so many states that everybody's pressing, scrambling for those new persuadable voters. Let's talk about what Columbia Harris is going to do tonight. Big speech plan at the Ellipse.

Her campaign says that it's going to be optimistic and hopeful about the future, but obviously the optics are hard to ignore. She's in the same place that Donald Trump was on the morning of January 6th, which is she's also trying to remind people of that dark moment in American history. How'd she thread that needle of reminding people of that but then also offering a bright future? I think it's a tough needle to thread in the campaign is making clear that yes she is, she's going to go out there and talk about the future.

But she's also focused in the last few weeks about warning what a second, what she says a second Donald Trump presidency would look like. And so that I don't expect to be ignored tonight. And so it's going to be a mix of I'm going to offer something forward looking for the American people, but I'm also going to go after Donald Trump. That's why she's having it here in Washington, D.C.

it's clear. Is that enough, Mark? Did she have to really start to is it too late to establish herself and only talk about her policies or will it enough just to hang with Donald Trump here in the last I think she's missed opportunities to talk about how she would address the economy, inflation, how she would address the border. I think she has missed those opportunities, Ryan.

But I do think that this is unconventional in the sense that this is not so much to get out the vote. Last minute pitch, I think to your last question. What this really is is targeting a small number of elected Republicans who are uncomfortable Trump who she wants to win over. And I think that Gene said it's really targeting this point because there's a very narrow number of undecided voters.

I think that's who they're appealing to and I think that there's actually evidence suggest that more Republicans crossing over than our Democrats crossing the vote has not gotten much attention. That's what we're talking about. This data from the CNBC poll, the persuadable voters out there, they largely look at this appear to be independents and Republicans, 39% independence, 24% Republicans. Does this give us some insight into this closing message of the Harris campaign, the fact that she's going around the country?

I think that's the reason why the answer to every question is Donald Trump, because I think there's a strategic decision by the Harris campaign that talking about Donald Trump reminds those persuadable voters about the chaos, about the insanity of the Trump years in a way that makes them perhaps more likely to go ahead and vote for Kamala Harris, that they don't want to repeat that. And so I think there's going to be this turn the page motif tonight with a lot of reminding of what it was like and and presenting the alternative. And in that just remark about this because I want to play something that J.D. vance said about your former boss over the weekend and then the pen's response today.

So let's watch this. So all those 10 people, including the former Vice president Mike Pence, all of these people are, have this horribly damaged worldview and they're all just going after Donald Trump because they want to send people into war. That's really your argument? Absolutely.

It's not like it's. Absolutely. That's why some have recently suggested that those of us that want to see American leadership on the world stage standing with our allies, standing up to our enemies, have a desire to send troops to war. I truly do believe that appeasement and isolation is a pathway to war.

Peace comes through American strength demonstrated on the world stage by standing with those who stand for freedom. So how do you respond to that, Mark? Well, Ryan, I think that Danny Vance obviously is very bright, but he says some pretty stupid things sometimes. And the reality is that Mike Pence has a son as a captain of the Marine Corps, he has a son in law as a Navy pilot to suggest he wants them to go off to war.

He basically had the same broadswipe that John Kelly whose son was killed in action. And it's, you know, back to the original question with Jaden Vance, who made Hitler comparisons 2016 for Donald Trump. So I think that he's obviously smart, but he does say some pretty stupid things. And sometimes he gets a dumb message.

Yeah. And so shabby. I know you're gonna be put there, I mean, cut you off. This idea that there's this enough Republican voters who weren't, who maybe voted for Donald Trump in the past, either January 6th or something else has made them feel like they're uncomfortable doing it.

Is Kamala Harris's goal here to actually get them to cast a ball for her for them to stay home? How does she, you know, what's the campaign strategy? I mean, in an ideal world, they would go and cast a ball for her. But I think that they would be content if these voters stay home and did not vote for Donald.

On the flip side, it's interesting because I've brought up to Donald Trump's aides that Kamala Harris is clearly trying to do this. She's clearly trying to, as you said, sort of remind voters of the chaos of the first Trump administration. And when I talk to them, they say, well, essentially these voters have known what Donald Trump has done for years and years, and they believe that the reason that they are undecided is because they know what Donald Trump has done and don't love him, but they still don't trust Kamala Harris on some of the issues like the economy. Right.

And so, Eugene, you know, there is someone waiting in the wings in the Republican Party who got hundreds of thousands of votes after she was already out of the presidential contest. And now Ms. Nikki Haley. She's offered somewhat of a tepid endorsement of Donald Trump, but they haven't appeared together.

Would this be a way for Donald Trump to reel in some of these voters at the 11th hour? You know, if he would. But he hasn't. Right.

She did offer. He said she would go and campaign. I guess he hasn't called. You know, he holds grudges, and this seems to be a grudge.

I think it's a huge mistake. If Nick, is Nikki Haley talking to her builders, I think she would bring some of them along, and I think. I think a lot of them are not going to come along. Okay, we're going to take a great conversation.

Shelby, Eugene, Mark, thank you all for being here. And we'll be back tomorrow with more of the press now. But the news continues with Hell yeah. Sync right now.

Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the Drink. This month, Demi Lovato is my guest. The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now. But getting there, it wasn't simple.

Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood young and why she now thinks she may have started too soon. She talks about recovery, her new marriage, and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook. The Drink is always about the journey to the top, and this was an honest conversation about what that takes. Hope you listen and follow the Drink wherever you get your podcast.