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Our new NBC News poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump tie in a neck-and-neck race. The real measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up. I think she's dumber than hell. Voters revealing concerns Harris would continue on the same path as President Biden, as positive perceptions of Trump's presidency grow.
Would you have done something differently than President Biden to pass for you? There is not a thing that comes to mind. Steve Bernanke will break down the latest results. Plus, storm surge.
Former President Trump has led the onslaught of lies. A rising sea of disinformation threatens relief efforts in the aftermath of two deadly hurricanes. She did nothing as people struggled in the round and day after day. No one came.
The idea of intentionally trying to deceive people in their most desperate and vulnerable moments. And my question is, when did that become okay? How will it impact voting in these storm-attered states? My guest this morning, speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, joining me for insight and analysis are NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba, Lee-Ann Caldwell of the Washington Post, Democratic bolster Cornell Belcher, and Lonnie Chen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Welcome to Sunday, It's Meet the Press. From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Kristen Welker. Good Sunday morning.
We begin with our brand-new NBC News poll and the headline. With just over three weeks until Election Day, former President Trump and Vice President Harris are now tied among registered voters 48 to 48%. The five-point lead, Harris, held after the presidential debate a month ago, is now gone. Steve Bernanke will take us inside the numbers, including the enormous gender gap just moments from now.
Donald Trump's approval rating now 48% is higher than his job rating was at any point during his presidency. By 43 to 41%, more voters are concerned that Harris will continue President Biden's approach than are concerned that former President Trump will continue his first-term approach. On the trail, Vice President Harris has struggled to answer how she would be different than her current boss. What do you think would be the biggest specific difference between your presidency and a Biden presidency?
Well, we're obviously two different people, and we have a lot of shared life experiences. For example, the way we feel about our family and our parents and so on. But we're also different people, and I will bring those sensibilities to how I lead. Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?
There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of, and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact. Now, NBC News has learned that the Vice President's team has been discussing ways she could put more distance between herself and President Biden in the final weeks of the race. Harris is leaning into one key difference, her age, 59. On Saturday, she released a letter from her White House doctor, quote, Vice President Harris remains in excellent health.
She possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency. So today, I released my medical records as I believe every candidate for President of the United States, except Donald Trump in this election cycle. And it's just a further example of his lack of transparency. Former President Trump's campaign recirculated a letter from his former White House physician now Republican Congressman Ronnie Jackson, as well as a letter from a personal physician from last fall.
But the 78-year-old former president has not released his medical records, though he pledged in August to do so. Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are hitting the trail for Harris. Former President Obama urgently telling Black men they cannot sit out this election with a woman at the top of the ticket. You're thinking about sitting out or even supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that's a sign of strength, because that's what being a man is, but we're not.
That's not right. At a rally in Poachella, California, last night, part of a tour aimed at showing Mr. Trump can draw a crowd in blue states. The former president ramped up his dark rhetoric and false claims.
She's aborted an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the Third World. They come from the dungeons of the Third World. Anyone who orchestrated an invasion of America cannot lead America, Kamala Harris. Her reign of terror ends.
The day I take office, she's finished. Illegal crossings at the border are at their lowest levels in nearly four years after the Biden administration's new restrictions on asylum. And for more on our brand new NBC News poll, I am joined now by national political correspondent Steve Kornaki to take us through all of the numbers. Steve Boy, this is a big one.
Yeah, of course, and I mean, the numbers say it. It is a tie game here, weeks before the election, and it's that shift. Our last poll taken in the wake of that September debate. Harris had opened up that advantage over Trump, gone in our new poll, what goes into that, what's behind that.
I think this one is revealing. This is the basic perception voters have of these candidates. Is it positive? Is it negative?
Now, these are not great numbers for either one. Trump, 43 positive, 51 negative. These eight points underwater, you might say. But look at Harris, exact same positive score in that negative number, almost in the exact same place.
And this is it. The last time we pulled this question after that debate, Harris had really made up ground in this area. Look, she had a positive rating, 48 to 45. So that advantage has all in the last few weeks.
And our poll washed away for her. Then there's some issues, some characteristics here. These are advantages in red here that you see for Trump now versus September. On the immigration and the border, we ask voters who would be better on this?
In September, Trump had a big advantage. It's gotten bigger. On inflation and the cost of living, Trump's advantage now hits double digits. And on the question of who represents change, Harris had the advantage in September.
She still does, but lower. So significant because voters are telling us, change is a critical issue for them, not the direction you want to be going in there. No, absolutely not. And maybe a reason for that too is, remember, she's the VP in an unpopular administration.
Look, we're asking Joe Biden's policies as president. Do you think they're helping or hurting your family? Look at that. Almost two to one say, hurting, more than helping.
His job approval rating is in the low 40s. And then here's the twist when he asks folks, when Trump was president, where his policies helping or hurting, look at that difference. 44% say, helping, 31% say they hurt. So retrospectively, Trump is getting some numbers here.
Maybe he didn't even get when he was president. And then this is in perspective, the challenge that Harris faces, these are the modern vice presidents like Harris and incumbent vice presidents running while their boss was still in office. And just look, 88, George Bush senior, his boss Reagan had nearly a 60% approval rating. Bush won, 2000, Clinton was at 60%.
Gore didn't win but he won the popular vote. We can tell you that. And here's Harris and Biden. Look how different the atmosphere is.
Biden's approval rating in our poll, only 43 points. She's running in a totally different atmosphere than previous incumbent vice presidents did. And then we can talk about issues. This is an interesting way, typically in the past.
We've just given folks a list of issues said, are they important? Here with that question, is this issue so singularly important that it's the entire basis of your vote for president? And that's so significant, this is the first presidential election after Roe v. Wade was overturned, usually significant abortions at the top.
Usually we're talking about the cost of living as being the energizing factor. Absolutely. I think the Harris folks, if they're looking for good news in this poll, it's this because this issue is her biggest advantage over Donald Trump. And you can see, as you say, potentially a motivating factor.
And one more note here, just got to show this, the gender gap. We always talk about gender gaps in presidential races. But how about this? Trump by 16 among men, Harris, 14 among women.
That is a 30-point difference between those two. If that happens on election day, that's one for the history books. We've never seen it that high. Yeah, historic gender gap for sure.
All right, Steve Bernanke is always great stuff. And joining me now is the Speaker of the House Republican Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, welcome back to Meet the Press.
Hey, Chris, and great to be with you. It's great to have you. I want to start off by talking about the hurricane response. Obviously, it is appended life in parts of the southeast.
FEMA says that it does have enough funding for now. Different story for the Small Business Administration, which provides low interest loans to renters, homeowners, and beyond. SBA is saying it could run out of funds within mere days. Mr.
Speaker, you've said it's premature to call Congress back to get more funding. But has the possibility of leasing small business owners in a lurch changed your calculation? Congress will not leave small business owners wanting. I am a small business owner, and I'm from a hurricane prone state, Louisiana, where kind of experts in this disaster recovery.
The SBA loan, as you indicated, is a small interest loan that helps people bridge the gap and get back on their feet. But importantly, about that program, it is a supplement to private insurance and other disaster relief funding. And so by definition and necessity, it takes a few weeks to calculate it. Now, Congress is expected to come back.
We're already scared to come back right after the election. We're 23 days out from the election. That will coincide almost perfectly, I think, with the time for most of these applications to even begin. And many of them to be processed.
Now, FEMA has received thousands of applications already, and they're going through that laborious process of affirming and confirming it. But when the time is needed, we will cover the needs of small businesses. Congress is all on board. Remember, one day before Helene made landfall, we appropriate a $20 billion additional dollars to FEMA so they would have the resources to address urgent needs.
But I'll say this, it's a very important to note. As of yesterday, roughly 2% of those funds have been distributed. We need the Biden-Harris administration to get about the business of distributing the funds that Congress has already set aside. That is a really important thing.
People are hurting. I've been on the ground in the most affected disaster areas Florida, North Carolina. They really need to help. Mr.
Speaker, just to be very clear, are you ruling out calling Congress back to get more funding even for the SBA? No, Congress will do whatever is necessary to cover the needs of the people. But see, what happens after a big storm like this, the magnitude of these storms was enormous. I mean, it's on the scale almost of Katrina, which we're still recovering from 20 years later in Louisiana.
I know this process well. But the states have to go and calculate and assess the need, and then they submit that to Congress. So that takes some time, especially when you have a storm, this broad and this wide affecting so many people. So as soon as those numbers are submitted to Congress, we will act, and it'll be bipartisan, and we'll cover the needs.
All right, Mr. Speaker, let's move on to another big issue. You just saw in our new poll, there's a historic gender gap in the election. In addition to that, the top motivating factor in this election is abortion.
Donald Trump has probably says he takes credit for overturning Roe v. Wade. He also says he would veto a national abortion ban. Let me put this to you.
If you are, again, Speaker of the House, do you pledge not to hold a vote on any legislation that would ban abortion? No, Kristen, listen, this is really important to what you just did there. We watched four minutes, Decor and Aki showing all the numbers that Donald Trump is surging ahead, that Kamala Harris is dropping in the polls. The only bright spot for her was abortion, and that's what Steve just said.
That's good news. When abortion is your only good news in an election, we need to be talking about what people really care about. I've been traveling around the country. I've done campaign events in over 224 cities and 40 states.
I'll do many more this month. I'm on the road again this morning. Everywhere I go, Kristen, and I go to blue states and blue districts, swing districts, the number one concern on everybody's mind is the cost of living. Right after that is the wide open border that the borders are Kamala Harris enabled and put together all the catastrophe that comes from that.
The word about the weakness on the world stage that Biden and Harris have projected, which has got to send the most dangerous situations in World War II, that's what matters to people. That's why Trump is surging in the polls, and that's why we are going to win this election. The White House, the Senate, and the House. But Mr.
Speaker, just to the substance of my question, I understand there are other big issues. But on this big issue, which is critical to a lot of voters as well, do you pledge, if you are, in fact, Speaker of the House, again, not to bring any legislation up for a vote that would ban abortion at the federal level? We're nowhere in a universe where that would be possible right now. The next Commander-in-Chief, Donald J.
Trump, has said, this is an issue in the states right now. That is exactly what the situation is. But he said he would veto. He said he would be...
You want me to answer the question? Let me answer the question, okay. Before you can have political consensus on a divisive issue, you have to have cultural consensus. Remember, politics is downstream from culture.
We don't have that right now. There's a lot of difference of opinion out there in the states, and we've got to work through all that. And those of us who are pro-life and believe that life is sacred, and that everybody should have the chance to be born and live. I mean, I'm the product of a teen pregnancy myself.
This is my life story. I believe that that's an important issue. But I've got to build a cultural life. I have to build a cultural consensus.
We're nowhere near that in this country. We know that. So there's a lot of work to do. Donald Trump said this is a states issue.
He's going to be the Commander-in-Chief. That's the end of the story. But Mr. Speaker, you co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act.
You are the Speaker of the House. The Life at Conception Act would have effectively banned abortion at the federal level. So I think a lot of people want to know where you stand on this because Donald Trump has said that he would veto a national abortion ban. So can you say that you would move to try to ban abortion at the national level?
I understand there's not a consensus. But would you move to ban abortion at the national level? I couldn't do that, even if I wanted to, Kristen. I have 434 colleagues.
I mean, I'm a Bible-believing Christian. I believe in this idea of life. My view doesn't change. But there's no way I could bring that bill in Congress right now.
We couldn't even get a, I don't know, it would be a very small vote right now, okay? Even among Republicans. So we have a lot of work to do. The pro-life organizations and groups are out there doing what they do.
We need to show that we care for women at all stages of pregnancy and all stages of life. And that's what we are. We're for families. We're for IVF.
We're for the everything that allows for that. And we need to take care of these ladies who are in difficult situations with their pregnancies. That's what the states are doing, very effectively. Crisis pregnancy centers and others around the country care pregnancy centers.
It's a lot of great work being done. And we need to have dialogue and conversations about this issue. But there's not a bill coming to Congress because we're nowhere near any consensus. You're saying a lot of states are doing this effectively.
Some women have come forward and said their lives are at risk because of some of these laws in place in their states. Let me move on though. We're three weeks from Election Day. Former President Trump continues to make false claims.
Let me read you a couple of them. Ben is welling gang members of Overrun and Apartment Complex. He says in over Colorado, Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio are eating cats and dogs. FEMA funds have been redirected to housed migrants.
Mr. Speaker, all of those claims have been debunked. If former President Trump is so confident in his policies, why not make the argument along policy lines? Why say things that have been debunked by local officials?
President Trump is making all sorts of arguments constantly. He works 24 hours a day. I saw that Kamala Harris issued her medical records. Congratulations.
Donald Trump's health is on display for the entire country every hour, every day. He has more stamina and mental acumen and strength than any political figure in probably any history of the country that I can remember. He goes nonstop. So what he's talking about is the things that the American people care about.
Is FEMA dollars going to resettle migrants? That is a fact. I mean, that is an objective fact. What he's talking about.
It's not a disaster relief fund, but it's another fund that FEMA used to resettle all the illegal aliens that they led across the open border. Mr. Speaker, as the borders are, was the engineer of that? I do have to.
The FEMA funds were not redirected to housed migrants. That has been debunked. It's a separate fund. FEMA has said as much.
That's right. But just to the substance, why not make the argument of the substance of the policies, Mr. Speaker? I'm trying to do that.
Let me do that. The federal emergency management agency, FEMA, as his name implies, should be working on federal emergency management, not resettling illegal aliens that are violating federal law. They're sending them around the country. They're putting them on taxpayer benefits.
That is enraged the country. That is why Kamala Harris' numbers are dropping in the polls. And she just said in her own words, you saw the tape there. There is no difference between her and Joe Biden.
The Biden policy, Biden, all the things they championed are destroying the country and everybody knows that. That's why Donald Trump elected. We should know. Mr.
Speaker, we should know that FEMA funds were actually redirected on Donald Trump's watch to deal with the migrant issue. Let me ask you. You mentioned the medical... No, wait a minute.
No, wait a minute. Wait, facts are important. That is a new program that started in 2020 under Joe Biden. That funding wasn't necessary under Trump's administration because we secured the board.
We didn't invite illegal aliens and dangerous people into the country. That's a Biden-Harris policy and everybody knows it. Mr. Speaker just did have an under Donald Trump's watch.
Let me just ask you about medical records. No, no, no. Should Donald Trump release all of his medical records? Should Donald Trump release all of his medical records?
He has. He issued the records of his physicians. Donald Trump's health is on display. Everyone in America can see it.
The man works nonstop. He never quits. He probably sleeps four hours a night. He doesn't require as much sleep as the average person.
He's an unusual figure. And this is the strength that we need in a time like this. We're in the most dangerous moment. Since World War II, you have to have strength.
You have to have a steady hand. You have to have a commander-in-chief that our allies respect and our enemies fear. They do not fear. They do fear Donald Trump.
Mr. Speaker, just be clear. He hasn't released all of his medical records. He released two letters.
Should he release the results of the cognitive testers? He says he's on display every minute. So it's unnecessary. You can see that he didn't release his medical records.
You don't want to know things like his cholesterol level weather. He's dealing with any issue that we may not know about. If he's going to be a commander-in-chief. And he also said he would release cognitive tests.
Should he release that? The American people don't care about the cholesterol level of Donald Trump. They care about the cost of living. In fact, they cannot pay for groceries.
Because Joe Biden's policies have put them in that situation. The medical records are irrelevant. Let's talk about things that the American people care about. That's why Donald Trump doesn't care about it.
He doesn't care about it. He doesn't care about it. He doesn't care about it. He doesn't care about it.
He doesn't care about it. He doesn't care about it. They care about the cost of living. In fact, they cannot pay for groceries.
Because Joe Biden's policies have put them in that situation. The medical records are irrelevant. Let's talk about things that the American people care about. That's why Donald Trump is surging in the polls because he's doing that.
On stages, in interviews, non-stop around the talk, and Kamala Harris has done nothing. Every time she talks her numbers go down. Because she is uniquely unqualified to be the commander-in-chief. In one of the most dangerous times in the history of the country.
That's a fact. Very quickly, let me just ask you. I'm going to be speaking with Congressman Liz Cheney just moments from now. She's been very outspoken.
Obviously an opponent of Donald Trump as well as House Republicans. She's expressed concerns that if Trump has been an insult, concerns that if Trump doesn't win, that you would not certify the election results. So here and now can you say, if Donald Trump does not win, do you commit to certifying the election results? Kristen, I'm a constitutional attorney.
I've dedicated my life to go to my life and demonstrated every day that I will uphold the Constitution. We are going to do our job in Congress. A free and fair and legal election will be certified, and that is our hope and prayer across the board. Of course, I'm gonna follow the Constitution.
I'm gonna follow the law. That's my job. It's my duty. I took an oath to do that, and I will fulfill my oath.
Regardless of who wins, you'll certify the results. And of course, yes, if the election is free and fair and legal, and we pray and hope that it is, a lot of work being done to make sure that's true. I think this one's gonna be so large, there'll be no question. I think Donald D.
Trump is your next president, and that can't happen soon enough. When people hear you say, if it is free and fair, does that not undermine people's competence in the election results, Mr. Speaker? No, it shouldn't.
No, it shouldn't, because what I'm saying there is what the Constitution provides, what the Supreme Court has affirmed, time after time, what history has affirmed. Listen, Democrats have objected to Slates of Electors in every single election this century, when a Republican president has won. Every single time. And yet they all have conceded.
And yet they have conceded former president Trump has yet to concede in 2020. And that's the point. No, no, the point is the process works. We have the peaceful transfer of power.
We did in 2020, we will in 2024. Everybody can sign and take a deep breath. Our system is gonna work. We have the greatest system in the history of the world, because we live in the greatest country in the world.
But that last part is in jeopardy right now. This is a decisive election, and everybody knows it. And that's why we're gonna have given the chance to run this country again. We're gonna turn it around, I can't wait.
All right, Speaker Mike Johnson, thank you so much for your time this morning. Really appreciate it. You got it, thank you. When we come back, she's one of the most high profile Republican supporting Kamala Harris, former Republican Congressman Liz Cheney joins me next.
Welcome back and joining me now as former Republican Congressman Liz Cheney, author of Oath and Honor, A Memoir and A Warning. Congressman Cheney, welcome back to me. The press, thank you for being here. Well, thank you for having me.
Always great to be here. Well, it's great to see you. Let's start right where I left off with House Speaker Mike Johnson. And I'll put it this way.
President Biden has said that he doesn't know if there will be a peaceful transfer of power in 2025. You just heard how the House Speaker answered my questions about whether he would certify the election results. Do you have faith that this election will be free and fair and that there will be a peaceful transfer of power? I do not have faith that Mike Johnson will fulfill his constitutional obligations.
And if you just look at what he did in 2020, he knew and he knew his specificity that the claims of fraud that Donald Trump was making and that he was repeating, he knew those to be false. We had very clear and specific conversations about that. He knew that courts had specifically found that those claims were false. He knew they weren't true.
He also knew that what he was urging Congress do in terms of throwing out the votes of millions of Americans, he knew a specificity that that was unconstitutional. He was told that not only in discussions with me, but also by the House Republican Council, he signed his name to a brief filed with the United States Supreme Court that made those claims he knew to be false. So he has a record repeatedly of doing things that he knows to be wrong. He knows to be unconstitutional in order to placate Donald Trump.
And frankly, you saw that sycophancy just now on display. So I think that it is very concerning. I do think that Donald Trump has consistently said, again and again and again in the last few months, that this election is going to be rigged and that if he loses, that's why. So I think it's very important that the Republicans not be in the majority in the House come January 25.
And when it comes to the possibility of a peaceful transfer of power, are you optimistic that there will be? Yeah, look, I think that Donald Trump is not currently in the White House, so he does not have the ability to exercise the control he did in 2020 and 2021. I hear repeatedly from people like Mike Johnson, like JD Vance, this claim that somehow we had a peaceful transfer of power. Donald Trump sat and watched for over three hours while our Capitol was brutally attacked by a mob that he sent there.
While police officers were brutally beaten and Donald Trump refused to tell them to go home for over three hours. So anybody who is interested in the truth ought to go look at those videos. We did not have a peaceful transfer of power in 2021. Just this week, Senator JD Vance was asked five different times if Donald Trump lost the election, he refused to say yes.
People show that millions of Republicans share that same view. How do you really reach those voters, those Republicans? Yeah, I mean, I think, Kristen, when people write the history of this period, the Republican elected officials who know it's false, who continue to spread the lie, will be among those who are shown to just be really complicit in this attempt to unravel the republic. And so they are spreading this lie, they know it isn't true.
If we are gonna be a nation of laws, we abide by the rulings of the courts. And Donald Trump had the opportunity, 61 out of 62 courts ruled against him. And he was told repeatedly throughout this period that what he was saying was false. So the fact that now you've got the Republican Party, the leaders of the party who are in the grips of, you know, it seems to me just to be powerless that they are afraid of Donald Trump, but that they are willing to perpetuate his lies at the expense of their duty of the Constitution tells you something about the real damage that's been done to the Republican Party.
You told my colleague Savannah Guthrie last year, quote, a vote for Donald Trump, naming the last election that you ever get to vote in. That is an incredibly dire warning. Congresswoman, what exactly did you mean by that? You know, I think people really need to look very carefully at what Donald Trump will do if he were ever to be in the Oval Office again.
The extent to which that, you know, and he has said repeatedly that, you know, he believes he will be immune, certainly it's Supreme Court ruling, whatever they thought they were doing, Donald Trump believes he will be immune for anything he does once he's in office. He will not respect the rulings of our courts. And people have to realize our courts can't enforce their own rulings. So if a president refuses to carry out his obligation to do so, then we are no longer a nation of laws.
Donald Trump will ignore Congress. He will appoint people, people like Mike Flynn, for example, who just, you know, 36 hours ago, Mike Flynn was at an event where he was asked whether or not the president's opponents should be executed. And he basically said, listen, yes, I'm gonna unleash the gates of hell. These are the kinds of people that Donald Trump will be putting in place.
The people that stopped him from his worst desires last time around won't serve again. Well, like Mark Millie comes to mind who according to Bob Woodward's new book, War Called Am A Fascist. Would you go that far? Let's call him that far.
Look, I have tremendous respect for General Millie and I see no reason to disagree with that assessment. I wanna ask you about something Donald Trump said. The Donald Trump that the world got to know back in 2016. He was asked back then during the debate with Secretary Clinton whether he would accept the election results.
Here's what he said. One of the prize of this country is the peaceful transition of power and that no matter how hard for what a campaign is, that at the end of the campaign that the loser concedes to the winner. Are you saying you're not prepared now? What I'm saying is that I will tell you at the time, I'll keep you in suspense.
Well, Chris, let me respond to that because that's horrifying. Congressman, did you regret standing by him at the time and for all of those years after? Yes, I do. And I think that, you know, we've now actually seen him carry that out.
And so for, you know, certainly people after what he did on January 6th to act as though you can have confidence in him, you know, that simply is just not credible. The other thing I think people have to realize is what he did on January 6th, you know, watching that brutal attack. That's depravity and it's just also fundamentally cruel. It's the same kind of thing that drives him to lie to people about where they can get hurricane relief.
I mean, think about the fact our fellow citizens are in dire straits, they're in dire needs, people's live service and he's lying to them for his own political gain about where they can get relief. That kind of cruelty makes somebody unfit for this office. And the Supreme Court has now ruled that he has immunity for official acts that were taken while in office. I'm curious, Congressman, do you still have faith and confidence in the Supreme Court?
Look, I think that the court took far too long to issue that ruling. I think that they should have taken this up when Jackson had asked him to initially. And I think they got it wrong. And I think that Justice Sotomayor and her dissent in the description that she gives of the danger that Donald Trump poses, she got it right.
Now, you know, I'm conservative. I'm somebody who has supported those Supreme Court justices in the past, many of them are friends of mine. You know, actually Justice Kagan was one of my professors in law school, my favorite professor in law school. But I know the conservative justices too, but I am deeply concerned about things like the role that Jenny Thomas played.
And Jenny Thomas is a continued refusal to say that she accepts the rulings of the courts. So, and I'm also concerned about, you know, the flag flying upside down at Justice Alito's home. I think that's indefensible. Have you lost faith in them, though, Congressman?
I think it's very important that the courts stand apart from politics. I do have some real concerns about recent activities and rulings, but I think we need our courts, both our Supreme Court as well as the lower courts, to play the kind of role that we've seen, frankly, the vast majority of judges play since January 6th. Back in 2020, you said Kamala Harris, when she was announced as President Biden's running mate, he called her a radical liberal whose policies, quote, are completely inconsistent with what most Americans believe in and stand for. I know that you don't view this as a policy election.
You've been very clear about that. But are there policies that Kamala Harris supports that you also back? Absolutely. And I would say the extent to which, you know, she and I certainly have had our disagreements.
But when you look at the whole range of issues, for example, with respect to support for Ukraine, with respect to the fact that, you know, she is saying that the United States has to lead in the world, Donald Trump is embracing tyrants. Donald Trump loves tyrants. He idolizes them. J.D.
Vance and Donald Trump both support. Very isolationist foreign policy and an erratic and chaotic foreign policy that will leave us much less safe. Do you regret any of the language that you use to describe Harrison Biden at the time they would dismantle our freedom to destroy our history, the type of language we're using now about Donald Trump? Look, I think certainly those were harsh things that I said.
I think that they reflect absolutely that we had a policy disagreement on a series of issues. But I also think that's why it's so important for people to focus on the fact that I am supporting her now, and that there's such a broad coalition that's coming together to support her. And it's based in part on who she is, on the fact that she will lead with a sincere heart, on the fact that she is somebody who's dedicated her life to public service, and looking at what Donald Trump poses, the kind of chaotic, absolute depravity that he would bring if he were ever to be elected again. Congressman, do you still consider yourself to be a Republican?
And can you take us inside the conversation you had with your father when he decided to vote for Kamala Harris? I'm a conservative. Not a Republican? I'm a conservative.
I am not a member of this, do not consider myself a member of Donald Trump's Republican Party. And my father and I speak every day, and he has really, from the very beginning of this process, understood as much as I do even more at the beginning, probably the threat that Donald Trump poses. And so this was not any kind of a surprise. And look, I think the fact that it's not just him, but the numbers of senior officials, national security advisors, secretaries of defense, that you have seen who serve in the Trump administration, who say this man is unfit.
And Republicans can try all they want to get people to ignore that, to look away from that. But I think that's a very important thing for the voters to recognize. Congressman Liz Cheney, I know we'll be seeing a lot of you out on the campaign trail. Thank you so much for being here this morning on a very busy time.
Thank you, appreciate it. When we come back, positive feelings about Vice President Harris are falling in our latest polls. Pail's next. Stay informed with the NBC News app.
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Thanks to all of you for being here on a big poll day, Monica. Let me start with you. 48 to 48. This race is deadlocked.
I know you've been working your sources for a long time. What are they telling you about a potential shift in terms of how she answers this critical question? How she's going to be different than President Biden? It's a major question.
And certainly the Harris team maintains that that sugar high that was seen after she took over the top of the ticket, after the convention, the debate, that that was going to wear off, that was going to come back down to Earth. So they're saying now that that's why she's running the race, that she is what she likes to call as the underdog. But there are certainly some indicators in this poll that help us understand some of the things that they're weighing actively about shifting here. And one of those is this issue of the Biden presidency being a bit of a drag on her own candidacy.
And she has tried to be very respectful. She's fiercely loyal to him. But we know that there are certain areas where she would like to say, I could do something different. I would do something different.
And in particular, after those answers last week, that she tried to clean up in the moment, but certainly didn't satisfy a lot of people on. We know that there are things that she can be talking about and trying to subtly shift at and hint at that. But there is very limited runway left. So they know that that's something she will have to get into in the next couple of days.
But she's also going to be doing that while trying to earn the support of one men, have a blue wall battle ground blitz. She's going to be in Pennsylvania twice in the span of three days this week in Michigan twice in Wisconsin. So they're trying to juggle all of that, but there is certainly an awareness to that being a big challenge. This report hits at the heart of the challenge for the Harris campaign, which is that our poll shows that former President Trump's approval rating right now is higher than when he was in office.
It's higher than President Biden's. Why do you think voters are looking back at the Trump presidency at this point in the way that they are? What are the implications? Well, I'm not really sure.
Maybe Cornell can talk better about the meaning of that exact question is, but I will say that that's very common with all presidents. They're always more popular when they aren't in office. People have an nostalgia belief about what's happening. One thing, what happened, one thing with Donald Trump is that he's not on Twitter anymore.
News is not covering his rallies from, you know, wall to wall anymore. And so one thing that the Harris campaign is trying to do is to remind voters of the chaos that a Donald Trump presidency will bring. The Trump administration believes, despite the fact that there are a lot of good economic indicators right now, that people remember that still their eggs cost less when Donald Trump was president, then they do now. And that's why you're going to see Kamala Harris on the campaign continue to hit this economic message because that's really what independent voters seem to be caring about the most.
And that's why she is talking about her economic plan first and foremost. So look, the 48, 48, 51 is sort of 48 approval of 51. Yeah. So it's where the horse race wants to go.
Right. And when you look in sort of the internals of the NBC poll, all of his supporters are now in our polling room of his job, right? That's part, that's part, part, part, and part of what you have happening. And when you go underneath that, look at what's happening underneath that approval rating 72% among rural voters.
It's underwater among suburban voters. So some of those dynamics are still there, but that 48, 51, I got a feeling that's where the election wants to go. And consistently in polling, he's a 47, 48% candidate, not only in polling and ABC poll has out today where I think her 51, him like 47 or 48 also. So he's, so this asymmetric sort of conversation about what she's got to do, I think it's interesting because he has a ceiling.
It never goes above 47. We've talked about 47% lying, and yet Republicans are coming home. The non-magical Republicans seem to be coming home, but he can't get above that 47%. What does that tell you?
Well, you are seeing coalescence amongst Republican voters. And I think that the self-identified block of Republicans who are quote, non-magical is definitely decreasing. I think there's a few reasons for that. First of all, I do think that there is a recognition amongst the issue that Republicans care most about, which is immigration.
I mean, if you look at this poll, every poll that we see, it is immigration. There's a lot of contrast on that issue, and I think Trump has successfully driven contrast on that issue. And those voters are coming home because of immigration. I would also say that there's a positive view, I mean, to your point, about his administration's policies on the other issue they cared out, which is constantly living.
And so that contrast on issues is quite significant. That is coalescing Republicans. And I think that is the single reason why his numbers have improved significantly over these last several weeks. And the good piece of news for Vice President Harris-Lian is the fact that abortion is at the top of the list in terms of what voters say is going to turn them out to vote?
Yeah, absolutely. And this is why, in part, you see this gender divide in this polling. And Trump is a big issue for Kamala Harris. She is winning this issue.
And that's what, not only Democratic voters, but it seems like some independent voters really care about this too. She's talking about freedom and the freedom to control your own body, which is really important. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is really trying to expand that gender divide by focusing on men. Everything that he has done in his campaign has been, you know, to increase the support among men.
It's an historic gender gap, Monica. So that is where this battle is going to be fought and won, it seems. Absolutely. And we certainly saw with former President Obama's comments in the last couple of days specifically aimed at men with his message also that he delivered to black men.
This is an area where the Harris campaign knows they're going to be targeting and laying out more new ads specifically with black men, talking about why they support the vice president. They're going to be leaning into that. But on abortion as well, and this point with the gender gap after Labor Day, the Harris campaign decided we're going to have a reproductive freedom event every single day in a swing state until the election. And they view that as really a key part of their strategy.
Reproductive rights is Republicans chasing the car and catching it is the dog chasing the car and catching it. Right. And I said this going into the last midterm. It is a it is a mobilizing issue on the on the left and away we have not seen before.
So we going into another election where I think Democrats are going to over perform because of the mobilizing effect of abortion rights. All right. Well, much more with all of you coming up. But when we come back to deadly storms fueled by climate change, the widespread destruction.
So what lessons have been learned? Are we the president? It's next. Welcome back.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the southeastern U.S., claiming nearly 1400 lives and becoming one of the deadliest storms in U.S. history. In the wake of the tragedy, former President Bill Clinton joined Meet the Press to discuss the growing impact of climate change and its role in intensifying natural disasters. I don't think any person with a straight base can tell you that Katrina was caused by global warming.
But what we do know with the evidence shows is that there is an increase in the number and severity of bad weather events all across the globe. We know that. So and that will continue. Keep in mind, in the last decade, 12 blocks of ice the size of the state of Rhode Island have broken off South Pole.
We now have some significant evidence that the North Pole and even worse, the ice cap on the greenland, the massive island of greenland are spinning. This is going to lift the water level. It's going to complicate the rebuilding of the New Orleans. If we don't reverse it within 50 years, we'll lose 50 feet of Manhattan, Iowa.
That one of these little countries I'm working with, Maldives, the water will just roll over it. We'll never recover it. So I think that we just need to face the fact that the climate is changing and this is one of the consequences. To help those who have been impacted by hurricanes, Milton and Helene, please consider giving to organizations like these.
When we come back, former President Trump is pushing more false claims about immigration and hurricane relief. What will the impact be? Our panel is next. Welcome back.
The panel is still here. We're now Monica just raised the point that former President Barack Obama out in Pennsylvania campaigning for Harris with a very strong message to black men, get out and vote. It's not acceptable to sit on the sidelines. Some people said, uh, that seemed a little bit like lecturing.
Do you think that energizes or could it backfire? Look, I will say this. There's not a better sort of more popular spokesperson in this country than Barack Obama. If you have African American men who are sitting on the fence, by the way historically, 14 percent of African American men vote Republican.
I'm less worried about the African American men that 14 or 12 percent vote Republican than I am. Those not turning out. If you look at places like Milwaukee, since he was on the ballot in 2012, you've seen the black turnout there drop significantly behind that of white turnout. What I would say to them is these men who are still in the fence, give them an economic message of how you're going to fix their, their economic angst and, and I think they'll come around to you.
I think what the NBC survey shows is that for convinceable voters at this point, it is the economy. It's not abortion. It's not immigration. It's the economy.
And so that needs to be the core of the argument for Harris and the close. And it, frankly, is a Trump strength. So I think it's going to be a challenge for her because I think the case that he makes on the economy is, listen, look back to when I was President and as the poll also reveals, people have a much more positive impression of the economic policies during Trump's first term than certainly those abides. But Trump is absolutely, as we're talking about this gender divide, focusing on men, not just white men, but also black and Hispanic men too.
One of the campaign ads that he's running the most in his final weeks is an anti-trans gender ad. And his campaign tells me that that is not a play for the base. That's a play for Hispanic and black men who are more culturally conservative. And they think that they can get them.
Trying to chip away at Harris's lead there, Monica. On the economic message specifically, that's why you're going to start to see former President Bill Clinton out on the trail heading to rural areas in Georgia starting today where I'm told no Harris surrogate has stepped foot, let alone a former president because they think he can have some of these smaller events where he likes to be the explainer in chief and talk about some of the economic messaging that they think could be helpful again in those rural areas. You're going to see former President Obama continue to be out there. You're going to see former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton start to do some events in the closing stretch.
But there's an open question too about what role former First Lady Michelle Obama might play in these final days. She had a really key message at the DNC imploring Democrats to do something. And the question is she's been more behind the scenes when it comes to voter turnout. Will she be there in the final days?
I'm told yes, but that's something made her watch. And there is no more surrogate who is more popular than former First Lady Michelle Obama arguably on both sides of the aisle. Guys, thank you. Fantastic conversation.
That is all for today. Thanks for watching. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's wheat the press.