Meet the Press NOW – September 11

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Show up for Cammage and rise up for mental health. Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca If it's Monday, new reporting on how Democrats in Washington are trying to jumpstart Biden's struggling presidency and campaign by invoking two words to rally both Biden's supporters and Trump and impeachment, plus devastation and the desperate search for survivors in Morocco where the death toll has risen to nearly 2,700 people with thousands more injured and displaced after the region's worst earthquake in more than a century. And America remembers 9-11 President Biden will be speaking this hour to mark 22 years since the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S.

soil as most Republican presidential campaigns hit pause on politics to mark the moment. But not all. Hello and welcome to meet the press now on Ryan Nobles reporting and Washington and with my Buffalo Bills kicking off soon against the New York Jets. What better way to segue to today's top story in politics with Democrats here in Washington trying to go on offense to get voters and donors to rally behind a flagging presidency and sluggish reelection campaign.

And what better ways to do that than using the specter of a second Trump presidency and a potential Biden impeachment inquiry? We have new reporting this afternoon for myself and our NBC News Capitol Hill team that Democratic Congressman and House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin has been holding meetings with Democrats as late as last night to strategize about an aggressive plan of defense for President Biden even before Republicans formally launch an impeachment inquiry. According to a source in the room Raskin put it this way quote the Constitution says the standard for impeachment is treason bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. They don't have anything like that and in a new memo Raskin described the Republican investigation as a quote total bust and an epic flop saying the evidence gathered doesn't support their claims.

I'll talk to Congressman Raskin in just a moment. To be sure though a vote to formally launch an impeachment inquiry isn't yet a slam dunk for Republicans in fact far from it. Republicans in moderate districts are concerned about going full war into that kind of a partisan warfare and even folks inside the most conservative parts of the Republican caucus have their disagreements. I believe and have publicly stated that we need pursuant impeachment inquiry and go down that road.

I think the evidence is overwhelming. I think the corruption is very clear. There is not a strong connection at this point between the evidence on Hunter Biden and any evidence connecting the president. The time for impeachment is the time when there's evidence linking President Biden if there's evidence linking President Biden to a high crime or misdemeanor.

That doesn't exist right now. Now at the same time my NBC colleagues at the White House have new reporting today from inside the Biden campaign this tries to boost a lackluster fundraising effort campaign officials and officials familiar with the strategy telling BC that they intend to focus more on former President Donald Trump as a threat to democracy which was key was a key tenant of a successful 2020 campaign. Now both of these moves by Democrats the emerging and aggressive impeachment defense plus the push to use Trump to kickstart campaign cash suggest that Democrats recognize that they do have some political problems and it comes as the latest polling shows that voters are not inspired by President Biden and want someone else to run. Much of that concern is among Biden allies and it's tied to his age and fitness for office even as he wraps up a long trip to Asia to meet with world leaders.

But even halfway across the world Vice President Harris was forced to dodge questions about her boss' abilities. The Wall Street Journal had a poll showing two-thirds of Democrats say Joe Biden is too old to run again. Are you prepared to be Commander-in-Chief? Yes I am if necessary but Joe Biden is going to be fine let me tell you something.

I work with Joe Biden every day. Under Joe Biden's leadership we have transformed and are in the process of transforming America's infrastructure within historic investment in not only roads and bridges but high speed internet what we are doing around issues like lead pipes and I could go on and on. And joining me now on set to talk about this is NBC News White House correspondent Ali Rafa and Amy Walter who supports the publisher and editor-in-chief of the political report that's not Jet Green that Amy's wearing either. No it is more of a grave.

More of a grave. Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough.

So Ali, walk us through this reporting right now with you and your colleagues about the President's advisors. How do they think that this pitch basically reminding everyone about Donald Trump is going to help them with fundraising and do they hope it could light a fire with their Democratic supporters? Well they certainly hope so and we're expecting the next FEC filing deadline at the end of the month with those results coming out in mid-October and their first results of their first quarter revealed that their high dollar donations have been very successful as a matter of fact a lot of the high dollar amounts had come out from high dollar donors that had legally maxed out their donations so they couldn't legally get any more during this 2024 campaign cycle. Their small dollar donations though are lagging.

The campaign in an official comment is saying that that is not the case but we spoke with allies and with officials who say that there's just a lack of enthusiasm that there's still a disconnect in getting those grassroots donations those smaller donations really to ramp up and that could be because we really haven't seen the sort of enthusiasm that we saw in 2020 with a Biden campaign using these arguments of breadth to democracy or using Trump more directly and so we expect them to take a few steps with this new approach. We're going to see more of Biden attending these fundraisers. There's going to be more of them. There's a whole effort to recruit a thousand new fundraisers by January to focus on those small dollar donations.

There's going to be new merchandise, new messaging but that lean in towards Trump is what's going to be the most noticeable and important to get these voters back. So that's a noticeable shift but is it something that we're going to hear from the President himself? He seems to avoid talking Trump at all costs. Well remember on Labor Day when he gave that speech to union workers that was the pretty much the sharpest most direct mention that he had given of the former President and it was still without mentioning him directly by name.

So we're expecting sort of the same so far but it's going to be this approach so far has been seen by some Democratic allies as risky the fact that he hasn't really taken advantage of Trump his unraveling legal woes and so this is something that we're definitely going to see a difference in in messaging and some Biden allies are saying that they expect to see an influx of donations and not just when Trump's trials start in March but also when they expect him to become the nominee. So is this the general election? Is it underway, Amy? Are we not worried about the Republican primary contest?

I'm going to still pay attention to the Republican primary contest. I'm not willing to put it away yet but look Donald Trump is right now set to be the Republican nominee based on what we're seeing today and I think Ellie's point is a really good one is that look once Donald Trump becomes the nominee or comes very close to being the nominee once we've turned the page into 2024 he wins Iowa he goes on to win New Hampshire. I don't think they're going to have any trouble raising small dollars to get that fundraising up and off the ground. Donald Trump is not the day-to-day reality that he was in 2021.

He was literally in front of people every minute of the day from the White House. Sometimes in those COVID press conference. He was a constant presence in your life which gave Democratic donors even more impetus to hit that send button on. They're at blue and they're small dollar donations so I don't know that he's going to have trouble doing that and I do think the more that impeachment talk starts to ramp up that's probably likely to help him raise some of that money as well.

I think a lot of Democrats cry frankly just they're just not paying attention. I remember talking to Democrats after the 2020 election pretty deep into 2021 who said you know after Trump lost I stopped paying attention. He's not there anymore so as soon as he comes in whether that's his trial or whether that's as the nominee I don't I don't know that they're going to have trouble generating the kind of small dollar fundraising. Is this an example of them going back to what works?

I mean this was basically their strategy in 2020. Trump as a threat to democracy the alternative will be better under any circumstances instead of running on his record but he also has to do both which is to say I'm the incumbent president things are getting better under my watch that would be the message that I would expect to hear more from him personally at the same time making the very clear distinction with your opponent. You saw this in 2011 and 2012 you had Barack Obama who was presiding over economy that people still felt wasn't up to where it should be. Obviously it was better than where things had been in 2009 but a real deep frustration that things hadn't gotten better.

So while they were talking on the one hand of things going in the right direction they also were making a very clear contrast with Mitt Romney who they put they sort of were able to make out to be somebody who didn't care about regular voters. Of course the president on his way back from G20 a trip to Vietnam but Democrats still seem to be really concerned about his age and his fitness for office. Let me show you this poll. The Democrats biggest concern about President Biden as a candidate overwhelmingly it's his age.

49% there's some concern about mental competence health and things along those lines. Are they hoping showing him on a stage like this staying up late at night giving press conferences will demonstrate that he's still up to the job despite his age? Well you have to think of the two arguments here. We saw the president make some comments in just about the time difference and his schedule at one point he said you know what time is it or I'm going to go take a nap.

We heard a Vietnamese government official essentially say you know you haven't aged today since the last time I saw you in 2015. So even if the Biden campaign and president Biden didn't want age to be thought of when viewers were looking at this and voters were looking at this it was a reminder by just hearing these comments. But the Biden campaign and the White House for their part they're just hoping to show that with this hectic schedule that this would be a trip that would really knock the wind out of anyone and that we saw an 80-year-old president take it in stride and was able to successfully complete the trip while also holding some sidebar meetings with the world leaders. Okay we're going to leave it there Ali Rafa and Walter thank you both for being here we appreciate it.

Now to discuss this is Congressman Jamie Raskin a Democrat from Maryland and of course the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee. Congressman thank you so much for joining us we appreciate it and just tell us right out of the gate. Why take such an aggressive preemptive stance on impeachment now? Talk us through the timing and the thought process as it relates to the release of this memo.

Well we've been hearing our Republican colleagues say that they will not pass a budget on September 30th or participate in the budget process unless there's an impeachment investigation launched against Joe Biden. So we can see where the mega caucus is headed and we know that they've been pretty much driving the ship over there because you know there's just a four-vote margin so McCarthy is really beholden to the most extreme faction of the Republican Conference and so we wanted to get on top of it. We've spent seven months on this. They got pretty much all the evidence they could have asked for.

All they wanted more than 12,000 pages of documents all of these witnesses and it's all produced one conclusion which is that Joe Biden hasn't done anything wrong. There's no wrongdoing by Joe Biden say whatever you want about Hunter Biden and what's going on with the US Attorney or the Special Counsel's investigation as to the tax charges and the gun charges. None of it touches Joe Biden and the constitutional standard is treason bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors and they haven't shown any wrongdoing at all and we even have Republican colleagues who are acknowledging this and saying hey we better not go down this road so we want to get on top of it and say this is a really dangerous direction that the Republican caucus appears to be headed down right now. And you mentioned that four-vote margin that Republicans have and I wonder if this is part of your thinking by taking such an aggressive preemptive stance here and you mentioned some of the Republicans that have expressed a level of reluctance in moving forward with an impeachment proceeding.

The speaker said he's going to bring it to a floor to a vote. I know that you're trying to convince the public that there isn't any there there but are you also trying to reach out to some of those more moderate Republicans that may have a difficult time voting yes on an impeachment inquiry? Well I mean we certainly want to solidify anyone who is simply registering the obvious at this point which is after seven months of this wild goose chase inless fishing expedition they haven't found anything on Joe Biden and in fact what you really have is people like Lev Parnas who was Rudy Giuliani's right hand man in gallivanting all over the world looking for a story against Joe Biden come before and saying there's nothing there and you haven't shown anything and he's explicitly called on Chairman Comer to call off the wild goose chase. So you know before the country is plunged into another unnecessary crisis provoked by Donald Trump who's obviously demanding this we want cooler heads to prevail and we're looking for Republicans, Democrats, independents, everyone to come together and say look let's move forward on the real problems of the country.

I mean we've just been through the hottest summer in the record of humanity. I mean we're talking more than a hundred thousand years we've not seen a summer this hot and it's likely to be the coolest summer that any of us will ever see again and yet instead of working on the problems of climate change and the nightmare that confronts us they want to impeach Joe Biden for doing nothing. Right I understand your concerns here but the fact that you've decided to take such an aggressive preemptive effort against this is it somewhat of a recognition though that this could be or maybe already is a political problem for the president as it comes to the allegations against his son regardless of the facts is it something that's just not going to go away on its own. Gee I mean I haven't spoken to President Biden or the White House about what I'm doing I just think it's a major dereliction of duty in Congress for the country to be facing all of these problems and for us not being you know cooperative and working together to try to address those problems.

President Biden has reached out numerous times to the Republicans on the infrastructure act you know why was there for four years we had an infrastructure week an infrastructure month infrastructure day under Donald Trump we just had no infrastructure bill and Joe Biden brought us one in I think his second month in office and we got it done 1.2 trillion dollar investment in the roads and the bridges and the highways and you know the internet and so on well we can do that same kind of work why would we want to drag ourselves down into impeachment over a non-scandal and I think it's because Donald Trump who's obviously running for president doesn't want to be the only guy on the ballot who's been impeached before but he was impeached for good reason he incited a violent insurrection against the union as determined by the House of Representatives and in a 57 to 43 vote over on the Senate side. So let's talk about the political implications of this and I do want to show you a recent poll about the allegations as it relates to Hunter Biden how that impacts the president. 57 percent of voters say it has no impact on them at all. 34 percent say it would make them less likely to vote for him 2 percent actually saying more likely.

Are you concerned that by bringing this out into the light by talking about it that you're actually giving air to something that might otherwise fizzle how do you think that this could help the president? Well this is obviously the only thing that the GOP certainly in the oversight committee is talking about I think the Judiciary Committee their weaponization committee this is what they're working on. I went to 57 percent you know people understand Hunter Biden is an adult child of the president who's led his own life he had a serious drug problem which he's talked about and he's written about and he got himself into some trouble and the rule of law and the justice system is working there and it's a Trump appointed originally US attorney in Delaware David Weiss who's now the special counsel in that case. So the justice system is working and their attempts to drag Joe Biden down with it haven't worked and so but I hope that they look at it and say it's not worth going forward on that and then we can work together on a whole bunch of serious issues that are confronting the country including gun violence which is out of control and we should put our heads together and come up with the meaningful gun safety solutions like a universal violent criminal background check.

That's the kind of thing that the voters are expecting us to do and the people want us to do. All right well let me just ask you though about the president's current standing as a supporter of the president and I'm going to show you another poll and this is a poll of Democrats and it's Democrats who overwhelmingly say they would prefer a different candidate than the incumbent president. 67 percent to 33 percent. I understand the effort that you're making here to try and and and stave off impeachment or at least slow down the impacts of impeachment but there are issues regarding his age and some other things that seem to be resonating in this polling.

Are you concerned that there's a lack of energy around the president's campaign as he seeks reelection at such a crucial time? You know I just completed a cross-country tour I went to nine states I was in Colorado I was in Michigan I was in Pennsylvania I've you know I've been all over the country I'm in Kentucky right now and people definitely raise ages of concern both about Trump and Biden and people are asking when there will be a generational transformation in our politics and undoubtedly that will come but I also hear among the Democrats since you raise my party tremendous pride in the accomplishments of this administration in the Infrastructure Act in the Inflation Reduction Act the most massive investment in climate action in the history of any country on earth the dramatic reductions that we've made in prescription drug prices I had constituents were paying more than a thousand dollars a month for their insulin shots if they were diabetic now that's thirty five dollars a month so I think there's a lot of pride in the progress that's been made and you know I don't know you know how the country is going to deal with the age problem it seems like you know we've confronted sexism and racism and homophobia and so on and ageism seems to be the one thing that's still with that's and obviously there are real issues there we need to have an honest conversation about it but I think there's no comparison between the record of my party and the corruption and the lawlessness that are presented by Donald Trump the twice impeached former president who's facing 91 criminal charges in four courts all over the land all right congressman jimmy raskin we're gonna have to leave it there thank you so much for your time sir we appreciate it thanks for having me and up next thousands are confirmed dead as emergency rescue and recovery efforts are underway in morocco following this weekend's devastating and historic earthquake will have the latest on the ground next plus two america's biggest four adversaries are deepening ties all sides point to an imminent meeting between russia's president Putin and north korea's kimjongoon you're watching meet the press now welcome back we are following rescue and recovery efforts in morocco right now following the devastating 6.8 magnitude earthquake that struck late friday night so far more than 2,600 people have died and 2,500 more are injured at least 1,400 critically injured in the quake it's the largest quake to hit the region in over a century cctv footage from friday night shows people in the city of macarec fleeing falling debris the moment the quake hit search and rescue operations are ongoing as emergency responders race to dig through the rubble in the hopes of finding survivors eight teams from spain and the uk joined those efforts this weekend but as you're seeing in these images rescue teams aren't just racing against the clock to find survivors they're also dealing with a challenge of reaching these hard hit areas the quake appears to have destroyed some small remote mountain villages close to the epicenter and that has made it difficult for rescue teams to get crucial equipment and teams into the hardest hit areas nbc news foreign correspondent matt bradley is on the ground americash morocco with the latest so matt what is the latest on the search for these survivors and what are searching rescue crews up against right now yeah right i mean the real thing that they're up against right now is as you mentioned the terrain it's hard to get up into those mountains it was hard before this earthquake but now a lot of those roadways have been damaged and there's still a real problem uh trying to get people out because the government's according to a lot of the people that we've been speaking to they're not really there we haven't really seen much of a presence there and so this is still very much a struggle uh trying to reach these people trying to get aid to them uh so this is something that is continuing uh there's a real desperate search but you know there is that 72 hour window the kind of golden slot as rescue workers would call it when they can expect to still find people alive but ryan i was in turkey back in february when there was a major earthquake and they were still pulling people out of rug it rug excuse me out of rubble five six days later so that might be something that's keeping people going there is that 72 hour window and we're up against that right now but there's still the thinking and this we've seen this all over the world and disasters like this but they can still find people they could still be alive well a quick also hit in the atlas mountains uh has the government and any of the NGOs been able to get any aid into those remote areas and you mentioned already how difficult it is to get to many of these places even before the disaster like this yeah i mean the government has been able to get some relief to these people uh we haven't seen as i mentioned much of a government presence and the government has come under pretty fierce criticism for that uh we heard from a government official really for the first time yesterday uh saying that the government effort had been very good and very strong but we didn't really see anybody up in the mountains we have been seeing some footage released by the military showing aid being dropped from helicopters and airplanes this is something uh that kind of helps them to get aid to these remote areas but the idea of getting teams people who are capable who have equipment to get people out of that wreckage that's a whole nother story and that's much more difficult but the people that we've been speaking to when we were up in the atlas mountains earlier today they said that most of the food stuff that they were getting was coming from civil society groups not from the government itself and and right now what would you say are the most pressing concerns for the survivors and the aftermath of this earthquake have they been able to find safe places to shelter if their homes or places where they live were destroyed well the village that we visited they were people who were living in tents and these were tents that they had built themselves and that was a real issue that didn't seem as they had much help but as one person explains to me these villages are basically like big families so everybody was helping out the problem is in some of these villages you're talking about large numbers of people who are dead and that means that there's not a manpower to uh to help extricate people who might still be alive under the rubble or to build tents or to provide housing the main challenge here ryan is housing and that's something that i think is going to be persistent because unlike in turkey where you can simply basically drive up to a lot of these sites and provide all of these food these are remote areas and you know it's very difficult to get access okay matt Bradley on the ground in Morocco thank you for that matt let's turn now to the ongoing war in ukraine the Kremlin is confirming that latin rippouten has invited north korean leader kimjongoon to russia for a meeting in the coming days and in fact multiple news organizations are reporting that kim appears to have boarded a special train bound for russia presumably for that meeting nbc news has not yet confirmed that reporting but the Biden administration has been warning that arms negotiations between the two leaders have been quote actively advancing nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard anglo joins me now from denipro ukraine so richard what do we know at this point about this potential meeting between kim and pouten so it has finally been confirmed by the kremlin pouten's own spokesman to be to pescov said that this is an official state visit so when kimjongoon eventually arrives in south korean media are saying that his armored train was spotted departing heading toward vadovostak which is just across the border russia and north korea share a border it's not very big it's the smallest of russia's land borders but it is still a direct border i've been to this area i've seen that north koreans will often cross the border there there are north korean work gangs that work for russian companies so the russian companies will pay north korean employers and use them for heavy construction so there are a lot of ties already and according to demetri pescov this will be a state visit with official delegations carrying out negotiations bilateral meeting with president pouten state luncheon and one would assume that all the trappings that come with their official state visit in russia including some sort of military parade this is exactly what north korea has been looking for for many years this kind of recognition and international role to be desired and useful to to its more powerful northern neighbor and also Vladimir pouten needs something that north korea has and has an abundance which is artillery this war here in ukraine is extremely costly in lives and in terms of artillery and you're seeing the united states which is struggling to keep up with the artillery demands on the ukraine side has been sending cluster munitions and on the russian side they've been using drones they've been drying buying drones from moron and now it looks like they are or potentially going to quite soon be receiving vast quantities of artillery and missiles from the north koreans in exchange according to u.s officials in north koreans would not only get food aid which they badly need get some technical assistance for their own military program potentially their nuclear program submarine program so they they also have a lot to to gain from not just prestige well and richard we don't think of north korea's being a country that can provide someone else aid we don't have that much time but is this an example of desperation by pouten in the kremlin i think it's more pragmatic it's desperation because they have to go to north korea which is a rogue state but Vladimir pouten is now can't travel abroad because he's considered an international war criminal so do you have a rogue state going to another rogue state if you want to call that desperate that's just really name calling but what we're seeing here is Vladimir pouten reaching out to north korea because north korea has something that he needs right now uh we how many times have we told the story of all the guns pointing from north korea down at the city of soul well all those guns are artillery pieces and they all carry the kind of ammunition and artillery rounds that Vladimir pouten needs right now to fire at Ukraine okay richard engl thank you so much for your reporting and please stay safe up next it's been 22 years since the 9-11 terrorist attacks and the nation is marking the moment from ground zero to the campaign trail you're watching meet the press now i joined you on this solemn day to renew our sacred vow never forget never forget we never forget each of us each of those precious lives go on too soon when evil attacked well welcome back that was President Biden of course just moments ago speaking on the 22nd anniversary of 9-11 right now his remarks were still ongoing he's at a military base in alaska on his way back to washington from asia the remarks come as the white house announces an additional four million dollars to the national september 11th memorial and memorial plaza in new york and there was of course a solemn ceremony at ground zero this morning where more than 2,700 people died when two hijack planes flew into the world trade center each of those victims names was read aloud as it has been every year since the attack at the pentagon where nearly 200 people died when a plane crashed into that building the names of each victim were also read first lady jill biden participated in a reedling ceremony at the pentagon 9-11 memorial just a few minutes ago and of course a similar ceremony was held today in shanesville pennsylvania where another hijack plane crashed into a field after passengers thwarted the hijackers efforts to target the capital and in a reminder of the ever-increasing toll this tragedy continues to have the uniform firefighters association says that 341 first responders have now died from post-9-11 illnesses roughly the same number of firefighters who died in the attack on the world trade center this year's anniversary of course comes in the midst of republican presidential primary former vice president mike pence attended a 9-11 remembrance ceremony in iowa and he wrote not bad saying quote isolationism only makes america in the world a more dangerous place if america were to step back from her leadership role on the world stage it would create a vacuum that china russia and other hostel nations would be more than happy to fill join me now from new york city is ndc's vaughan hilliard so vaughan which candidates did we see today and how are others in the field remembering this anniversary right here in new york city ryan we saw vice president kamala harris as well as florida governor ronda santis at the 9-11 memorial service here this morning alongside mayor rudy juliani michael bloomberg current mayor iraq adam's new york governor patty hokkol but you also saw my pence who was in his first year of serving in congress in 2001 he was in iowa here today he also put out an op ed in which he called out those who have called for american isolationism referencing the 9-11 attacks and the importance of having uh... american uh... interests overseas and broad and you're looking also at the likes of ronda santis he was in college at the time of the 9-11 attack but joined to the military and the navy as a lawyer in 2004 he served stints and went on a mobe as well as iraq and of course nicky haly is somebody who is married to uh...

her husband who's currently employed in africa but also served a year-long appointment in afghanistan in 2013 as a member of the south carolina army national guard and so uh... when you look at the republican candidates will hurt another who served in the cia in the aftermath of 9-11 in the counter-terrorism unit serving stints in afghanistan and in uh... pacistan and so uh... this is you know a reality when you're looking at those in power and those seeking power uh...

in the 22 years since the 9-11 attack individuals who have very different lived experiences of course in uh... in 2001 joe biden was in his 28th year in the u.s. senate and serving as the chairman of senate foreign relations committee at the time. So of course 9-11 not typically an anniversary that's often politicized but it seems that's a little bit different given uh pence using this opportunity to write this op-ed about isolationism uh...

is it clear that this was directed at anyone in particular perhaps vivic ramaswami who has taken a more isolationist approach in his campaign rhetoric? Absolutely you saw mike pence go on the attack against vivic ramaswami uh in last month's debate in milwaukee and it's important to know vivic ramaswami will be here at the 9-11 royal in new york city just a few hours from now of course ramaswami just last month opened up fodder to 9-11 conspiracy theorists when he uh pointedly stated that he didn't know whether it was an inside job or not he was widely condemned for his remarks that opened up air with time to those 9-11's 9-11 truthers and so when you're looking at the politics of 9-11 uh you know vivic ramaswami wasn't high school at the time of the attack and clearly was somebody who was uh uh somebody who lacks uh great extent of knowledge around the attacks and the aftermath of it uh you also mentioned the politics of it i think it's important to note donald trump we are not exactly sure what it was where about sort of plans are today and it's typically customary for uh presidents former presidents not to go on the attack uh but in just the last few moments uh donald trump hosting on his true social account quote the one thing i never understood about politics who the hell would ever vote for crooked joe biden of course donald trump is somebody who is not invited by customs of american politics uh over the course of these last eight years right that's pretty fair analysis one thank you so much let's talk about this now with our panel niggless woo is with us the congressional reporter for politico samon saner's town is in the host of samon on msnbc and former senior advisor vice president kamal harris and steven hay is the editor and ceo of the dispatching is also an nbc news contributor and i want to start with you because you're involved on a daily basis in this debate in washington over ukraine funding uh and it's interesting we're only two decades removed from the 9-11 terrorist attacks it's the republican party that's suggesting that america should no longer be the policeman of the world and are you know pushing back big time against ukraine funding and it's just interesting in the context of 9-11 to think about how the party's changed i think we've seen this evolution over the past three years and especially the bipartisan consensus on ukraine uh sort of crumble a bit in recent months as as members of the freedom caucus and others on the right want aid to ukraine conditioned or perhaps cut altogether it's a sign that you know some of the party are trying to turn away from these overseas entanglements and and are want to play some more constraints on this one but they're not all you know there's certainly a loud vocal group of house republicans that don't feel that way but the leader in the senate on the republicans i doesn't feel that way listen to what mcconnell said from the senate floor just a few minutes ago it were what one ad hominem accusation in particular there's nothing neo-conservative about support for ukraine helping a democratic partner defend its sovereign territory against an unprovoked attack from a common enemy is obviously in america's interest steven neo-con uh you know on the senate floor i mean what's your take on where the republican party is i mean if there's a word that's been more misunderstood or more misused than neo-conservative i'm not sure what what it is look there's a fight inside the republican party the people the republicans who are supporting continued funding for ukraine are winning that fight there's a loud as you said right vocal minority who are making the opposite argument something that would be closer to a neo-isolationist or a non-interventionist argument like some of them are making it based on principles they think the united states should avoid foreign entanglements and they've held those beliefs for a long time it's also there are also others who are making it on a more opportunistic basis sort of aping what donald trump has said you know making arguments the united states shouldn't be involved anywhere we have to refocus at home those arguments though i think are not consistent with the long history of the republican party and you know as you saw in the mic pence op-ed more most republicans not just the so-called establishment republicans but movement conservatives believe in extending american power okay so so let's pivot now and talk about the biden campaign uh... in this effort now uh... by biden his associates to put donald trump more of front-facing and when it comes to their reelection bid do you think that's a smart tactic are they doing it too late or maybe too early i think it's a necessary thing to do every single day whether folks are watching local their local news nbc nbc news now or opening up the paper you are reading and hearing about donald trump and these other republican candidates were running for president and unfortunately you're not hearing just as much about the biden campaign you're not hearing as much about what joe biden is doing thing because they are in fact not talking about donald trump they have been buried messaged discipline to talk about their agenda i think that so much is happening you can't make the argument about the threat to democracy and democracy is on the line as uh...

battle continued battle with the soul of the nation as joe biden and vice president common here's our due common here's our doing and not talk about or the biggest threat donald trump yeah and folks that we cover every day on capitol hill they certainly believe that democrats should be out and about touting the accomplishments of the inflection inflation reduction act and of course the big infrastructure plan but do you the democrats do that you talk to are they frustrated that biden isn't going after donald trump more the democrats i've talked to yes from a very much interested in and i titled these uh different achievements that they've passed um but the difficult thing with attracting this much attention to the president is that it doesn't always play that well in swing congressional districts especially ones where donald trump won uh you've seen a lot of frontline democrats tiptoe around the former president in some ways and because you know their voters did at the end of the day support the former president overbought it right so you see folks in those sorts of districts talking more about legislative accomplishments and trying to make it a more local race than a more national one yeah so we do have a spectrum of impeachment that is hanging over the congress when the republicans turn and and see we have some reporting about how house democrats in particular are going to be at the front edge of defending the president um you know we've seen impeachment backfire sometimes in political arguments right it certainly helped donald trump in some respect in terms uh when in terms of his base kind of consolidating around him bill clinton when he went through it also had a similar effort of consolidation is there a chance that when if and when republicans take this move that will see a similar kind of uh group of democrats come behind the president and support him while he's being attacked by republicans yeah i think that was would be what i would expect i mean i think it depends what you think the goal of the impeachment processes is the goal to impeach and convict joe biden because of some procedural you know process that republicans want to follow it's not the goal is to muddy them up i think the goal is to make the case that look he didn't tell us a lot of things there are serious questions about hunter biden uh we can ask those questions in this inquiry but more importantly it's when people go to the polls in 2024 and if they're faced with the question about donald trump or joe biden you'll have some people who have said they're all criminals they're all crooks and that's how they'll make the question but is that a big a problem is his age it's not look uh so i think that full first of all impeachment um you know nich talked about the republicans who are the democrats that sit in seats districts where donald trump won they're 18 republicans that sit in seats that joe biden won so i think that impeachment is a very sticky situation for those front line on both sides of front line members i think when it comes to this thing about hunter biden and then the president's age when it comes to hunter uh you know i i like to scour the streets right and talk to the regular folks on the on the instagrams and when i'm traveling and the folks that i have talked to they're like who doesn't have a family member who has been through some stuff that is hunter biden it is not the president and so they have yet to connect what hunter has done to uh to joe biden now maybe the efforts of some of the republicans on capitol hill are trying to bridge that gap right now there is no there there for the american people i think when it comes to joe biden's age the president is old okay so i i mean it's just a fact of the matter but are we connecting age to ability and i think what you have seen from the biden campaign is you know that ad recently that they put out about uh president biden's trip to ukraine uh they talked about how long he was on the train right he looked strong there's all this doom doom doom news behind him right that was to show strength to project that hmm if joe biden can make this long train ride and go out there and stand up to the bully that is russia of course he can fight for you here at home right right and he's ultimately comes out of the binary choice you were talking about before right Stephen yeah i mean this is the joe biden argument right it's not it's not a theoretical choice if it gets to a trump biden race it's trump versus biden and they're taking great pains to make him look and sound strong just the way that samon suggests okay pre-guys nicholas samon Stephen neck i call you next sorry about that thank you for being here i appreciate it still the come back to school in a post-pandemic america the fda just approved new covid-19 shots as classrooms struggled to cope with the pandemic's lingering impact on students and teachers details next you're watching meet the press now welcome back an updated covid vaccine could be headed out to the public soon after the fda granted approval to new shots from moderna and fisor this afternoon the updated vaccines come as covid case and hospitalizations are on the rise once again across the united states and amid criticism that the fda didn't move fast enough to get the vaccines out before the case is increased the updated shots target a common omicron variant of the virus and are authorized for anyone five years and older but you won't be able to get one at your local pharmacy just yet a cdc advisory panel has to first recommend their use for the public that group is expected to meet tomorrow and across the country and inside the classroom students are back also returning some familiar problems as students parents and teachers continue dealing with an educational hangover from the covid-19 pandemic earlier this summer the national center for education statistics released test scores for a nationwide assessment of 13 year-old students also known as the nation's report card those results were alarming reading scores were down four points and math was down a whopping nine points the highest drop and a half a century and as schools look to turn the page and get students back on track districts across the country say they just don't have enough staff for more on how we can address the ongoing issues related to education i'm joined by dr peggy car was the commissioner of the national center for education statistics a doctor car we're so thankful to have you on i am the father of a 13 year-old who is struggling with math right now so these statistics speak to me i mean one of the biggest challenges right now for american schools and what they're facing as this new school year gets underway or you're absolutely right it is a new year but the challenges well they're front and center as they have been for the past couple of years we really need to stay focused on getting students back on track math in particular your son is not alone really represents our biggest challenge these students need a lot of help so recovery is our big we're uh it looks like technical problems with dr car but she's back a dr car you suppose that for a second so just summarize where you're headed there well i i'm gonna come in on your 13 year-old son my daughter actually my daughter but that's okay oh well her too yeah but math is our biggest challenge particularly for eighth graders she said your child was about 13 years old that is where we're seeing the biggest challenge moving forward but you know it's about a lot more than the academic challenge mental health it's something that schools i'm going to really need to focus on as we get into the new year and so you know this data released this summer just really shows how far these test scores have dropped as you mentioned but how do schools address something as widespread as this do they have to change curriculum to change their methods do they change the way they score tests and the way students are learning at what time do they learn do students have to go back and grade how do we fix this well you know you bring up uh you bring up a real interesting point to the table one of the challenges clamps from teachers are going to have is that the students are further apart than they were before so the lower performers are lower than they were before so teachers are going to have to figure out how to better differentiate instruction and meet the lower performing students where he or she is and the student who's not struggling quite as bad so it is going to be important to have really skilled teachers and we really are falling short and having certified teachers as you have said i come from a family of teachers my father was a teacher all my siblings are teachers all my sister-in-laws our teachers and they all talk about how everyone is just burnt out and that's one of the reasons that you see teachers leaving in droves how do we fix this and do we go to a four-day work week something like that well how can we reinvigorate the teaching profession well we certainly need more tasks on time more time more tasks students need to be in school longer longer days summer all of that it really has to be a real comprehensive approach to getting more time with students with these subjects and you know we have another new normal that we've got to turn around absenteeism is something that students are a really sort of struggling figuring out well do i really want to go to school it has actually increased since uh covid and so we're concerned about that so lots of challenges can't teach students if they're not in the room yeah right well dr peggy car as always terrific insight we thank you so much for being here thank you and thank you for being with us this hour i'll be back tomorrow with more meet the press now NBC News now coverage continues with holly jackson straight ahead but go bills he was a young marine she didn't care about convention they made a life together then one night the marine died and then the death investigation took a wild unexpected and utterly bizarre turn i'm josh megawess and this is trace of suspicion an all new podcast from vlan listen to all episodes of trace of suspicion now wherever you get your podcasts