these days, but, you know, the guy who actually connects with working people in this country is not fake scranton joe. it's real president donald trump. because they know -- because they know that he has their best interests at heart. they know that when he was president for four years, groceries and gas and energy and housing were actually affordable to a normal person in this country, and after four years of the biden administration, the basic trappings of a good middle class life have become less and less attainable. in my home state of ohio, the average ohio family is about $10,000 poorer than they were four years ago. and of course ronald reagan famously asked in a great debate, i think it was jimmy carter, he asked the american people in a debate with jimmy carter, are you better off than you were four years ago.

i know millions of ohio families who would answer that question with a resounding no. and if you asked the opposite question, were you better off in 2019 and 2020 than you were in 2016, those same exact families would say absolutely yes. it is time to go back to the leadership of donald trump. it is time to get rid of the corrupt biden/harris regime that has broken this country, that has ruined its reputation in the world and most importantly has made a basic middle class life less affordable for our citizens. let's get rid of him and bring donald trump back to the white house. i've got a little bit of a taste of this over the last few days because it turns out in secret service detail, i've thought about this a lot because i felt like instinctively this thing that's going on with americans in electric vehicles.

the guy probably hasn't driven a car in 20 years. i know he hasn't driven a car in eight years. i'll tell you what secret service does. >> so we have been watching j.d. vance at his very first campaign event here in wisconsin. he was just announced as vice president. he's got his big speech later tonight where he introduces himself to the republican party and the nation as a whole. we're told it's going to be a lot of the origin of who j.d. vance is, where he comes from, his path from poverty to yale law school, silicon valley, and then to capitol hill, this pull yourself up by your boot straps story. he kind of fashions himself as an economic populist for the republican party, and that's a new way to look at the republican party, it's something that they have been trying to push in the past few days by having sean o'brien, the head of the teamsters here, talking about the union and the way that they can work with the republican party and republican voters, which is a new thing for

a convention like this. i want to go to my panel, the i've got chuck todd, our chief political analyst. we also have charlie sykes here with us, and john nichols, i don't have your intros in front of me. forgive me if i have messed up everybody's title. let's talk about j.d. vance, chuck, he's definitely trying to do something different for the republican party, the traditional republican party, more in line with the donald trump future vision of things, i guess? >> i think that's the way to do it because it is interesting how there's surface unity on j.d. vance as the nominee. everybody here is just in a very good mood. it's still weird to me that this is such a celebratory mood given what happened saturday. but they are. perhaps they just believe it's divine intervention, destiny, however you want to look at it, and i'm not going to let other people analyze the psyche of

that, but this is a very celebratory place. it is interesting the nervousness among tradition. whatever you want to call it, long time republicans. i'm sorry. and, john, i would be curious if you agree with this, that teamster speech on monday night, i felt -- i was transported back to san francisco 1984 and the walter mondale convention. it would have felt right at home, and just the raucousness, and frankly, i grew up in a mixed political family, and my father is of the management class conservatives, and he was not a big fan of that. my father is no longer with us, my father would be waking up going, wait, the republicans want tariffs? like, it's just -- it was -- and the thing is that the rest of the party isn't there even though it looks like they're there. and so i'm not ready to say i think donald trump wants the party to go in this direction. >> donald trump has spoken to union workers. he hasn't spoken to union

leadership. union leadership has been on the side of the democrats. they have been on the side of joe biden. sean o'brien, not, i mean, head of the teamsters, him showing up here, he's not saying he's endorsing donald trump, but he did make a mention -- >> the teamsters has a history of playing both parties. they have been more effective in that sense. >> it's not the more traditional union support, but it is still notable for him to show up here, and to mention j.d. vance, even before j.d. vance was the vp nominee. >> in a relatively positive sense. it was very interesting. look, what sean o'brien did is something that has angered some of his union ally, angered many democrats, but he actually did a very practical thing as a union president. no matter who the teamsters endorse, no matter where they come down, it's important to note that sean o'brien has said in recent interviews, joe biden is one of the best presidents ever for labor. whoever they endorse, separate

and apart from this, he wanted to come before the republican convention, and wanted to lay it out. a good friend of mine said that we should analyze the language, it may have been the most left speech to a republican convention in the history of the country. i disagree. i think teddy roosevelt sometimes got good lines up. >> i can't keep up with you guys, you're bringing up teddy roosevelt, come on. >> i only went back to taft the last time we were on. >> this is harder core, it wasn't a republican speech. this is a harder core progressive pro labor speech on a lot of economic issues than what you might hear at the democratic convention. >> it was very surprising, and it ruffled some feathers among some people in the republican party who, i don't know, aren't so pro union or maybe more pro corporations and cutting taxes and, you know, making the richer and making everybody else deal with it.

>> it's worth mentioning, this is the republican party. they are not progressive liberal. they are not pro union, and what you're seeing here that you mentioned, chuck, is that there's this surface unity. everybody is in a good mood. this is a wrenching change for the republican party. j.d. vance is one of the most radical isolationists in the country. he is one of the bitterest opponents of aid to ukraine. he is also, you know, despite the barefoot boy from wall street line, he is a creature of billionaires who basically said we're going to make you a united states senator. so there is this tension where you have this party, which is really enthralled to, and i'm surprised you didn't use the word, sort of the billionaire oligarchy. i'm the man of the people, but i'm going to be supporting trade policies that are massive tax increases on the middle class, and plus, i represent a really

very different vision of this. now, again, the country club republicans, the establishment republicans, the business class republicans are watching all of this, and like they have for the last eight years, but we can control this. don't worry. we have this. but it's not clear, because this is a convention where i think it's got to be dawning on many of the tradition republicans, even the nikki haleys of the world, that maybe they were the wigs, since we're doing this. they go way back, that in fact this is a party that is abandoning free markets, abandoning internationalism, and it is repudiating reaganism, and we're seeing this in just a very short period of time. >> let me tell you a quick j.d. vance story. >> go ahead. >> he's going to present himself tonight as a champion of working people, i promise you that. just as it was set up and it's going to go. i encourage you to find the clip of when j.d. vance showed up on the picket line of the uaw in toledo last fall, and it

happened that, luckily for him, so too did marcy captor, the long time pro labor congresswoman from the district, and she came there and j.d. vance comes over, shakes his hand, he's running for the senate or had just become senator, and she goes first time on a uaw picket line, and it was like, nobody shuts it down like marcy captor. this becomes the complexity of j.d. vance. he believes he can go show up on that picket line, the first time, and it may work. and it's going to come down to the democrats in the media, whether they can do what marcy captor did. if they can't, he might well succeed. >> it's an interesting clip. he's trying to shake his hand. she cuts his knees off from underneath him. let me ask you about how the campaign plans on using him. the reporting is he's going to be parked in michigan and wisconsin, here in this state. pennsylvania, speaking directly

to the voters he grew up with them, and telling them that donald trump is their champion, don't trust joe biden with another four years. >> this is what's interesting about this transformation to the party in that, you know, that basically, i'll never forget watching in 2012, the big 10 network, because the obama campaign was pommelling romney about outsourcing jobs and all this stuff. you never saw one positive obama number but it was just this pounding, and i bring up big 10 network because it was all about the big 10 states, including ohio then, now we're looking at three of those four, back then iowa was in play. it worked, and this is going to be the tension with the republican party is what if those voters are now republicans? they're actually going to demand more union protection. they are going to demand these things. i think vance's instincts is with him. the question i have is, what

happens when peter teal says don't do that. you know, i'm going to take "hill billy elegy at his word. i think the corporate world thinks trump is always transactional. others might call that buying offable. they think, don't worry, we'll be able to convince him, don't tariff that. >> he cut their taxes, and that might work. >> it's also reported that he's promising to cut their taxes once again behind closed doors. >> i think the problem they're going to have is suddenly you're going to have elected leaders who actually think they actually have to respond to the voters' demands and this is what could divide the party in the long term. they're going to sit vance here and convince these folks, it's not just about guns and abortion anymore, and god, which used to be the pitch to union members, hey, you know, we're not with you over here, but you're with us over here. i think he's trying to say, hey, we're going to support you as a

labor union. >> how effective can he be. donald trump won these states in 2016, that's why he won the presidency, did not win them in 2020, can j.d. vance help or does donald trump alone the messenger. what does j.d. vance add? >> donald trump is not alone the messenger. vance is good at this. remember, he beat a very serious challenger in his race. tim ryan, maybe not perfect, but trying all the messaging, trying everything and vance won. vance is good at what he does, and he's going to be okay in this state, and in these other states. again, what i will say is, it isn't just about vance. it's about the democrats and labor. it is about what they say, and how they respond to this. and if they just simply say, oh, you know, he's, you know, peter's friend or something like that. that's not going to work. they've got to go to heart and soul economics. >> do you welcome, great, glad you made it to the picket line.

>> what i would like to see is your record, i mean, you've been in the senate for a little while. did you vote pro labor? the answer is no. >> i question how much people want to see records these days. they're not going to vote for donald trump. if they're looking at a record, they're not going to say this guy is a pro union guy. >> this is about donald trump. vp's generally historically do not make that much of a difference. this feels like all of the deep dives into what impact will sarah palin have. in the end, it doesn't. >> she kept georgia from going to obama. that's about it. >> i understand that we're always trying to put this into a normal category. the fact is that j.d. vance may be an id log, he's a man of no principle, like donald trump. where they're going to go, what pressures they will have, and again, could we just, i mean,

talk about j.d. vance, what he has morphed himself into, the old j.d. vance versus the new j.d. vance. i don't think j.d. vance is going to be the spokesman for populism, he's going to be a spokesperson for what's happening in our politics. >> sarah palin is an important comparison. she was relatively unknown like vance. plucked, less than two years in office, just like vance. started out felt really good for the party, and then she got defined by the other side because she was an empty slate, and i think j.d. vance is more of a blank slate, and i think it's very likely that by november he's -- >> i have to cut it off here. that's an interesting take, and we'll see what happens with that. we also have some news regarding president biden, adam schiff, one of the most prominent voices in the republican party, running for senate in california has come out and he says the president needs to step down. our nation is at a cross roads,

the second trump presidency will undermine the foundation of our democracy and i have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat donald trump in november. joining us now from las vegas, nbc news white house correspondent mike memoli, and punch bowl cofounder and political contributor, jake sherman. adam schiff, how powerful is his voice? >> very. he's going to be the next senator from california, katy, but more importantly than that, he's a close ally of nancy pelosi. i don't have adam schiff's phone tapped but i would be shocked if adam schiff did not talk to nancy pelosi before he did this or at least thought he had her blessing. nancy pelosi, remember, katy, has said on "morning joe" just a couple of weeks ago that joe biden has to make up his mind whether he wants to run again, after he publicly made up his mind that he was going to run again. i am not surprised here because "the new york times" reported yesterday that schiff said

they're going to lose the house and senate. but when you have somebody who's about to win statewide elected office in one of the largest states in america, one of the most important states for democrats in america, democratic donors, activists, et cetera, that's a humongous statement. >> mem, how does the white house feel about this? there's also news that the dnc is going to slide the nominating process just a bit. >> reporter: that's right, katy. it's interesting because when you talk about adam schiff and jake lays this out so well, i know him from my time at the los angeles times covering capitol hill and the investigations when he was the house intel committee chairman, he's not just an ally of nancy pelosi, he's one of the most pro dijous fundraisers for the democratic party. he can speak for the candidates on the ballot, somebody who has a much freer race and ability to speak his mind without necessarily alienating a constituency. and i think what he is speaking to much more explicitly now is

something he hinted at on "meet the press" a few weeks ago, this race and part of the biden spin now and about schiff, but also in general over the last few weeks has been the polls haven't shown a dramatic shift in the race to justify the president stepping aside. adam schiff said on "meet the press" two weeks ago, this race should be much more in the democratic column at this point than it is, and we have to ask ourselves why, and he's talking about the president's age, he's articulating that much more clearly right now. the interesting dynamic, when you combine this with what our nbc team is reporting about this delay now in that virtual vote for the dnc to certify biden as the nominee is that hakeem jeffries who is now the democratic leader in the house along with chuck schumer, the leader in the senate, pushed for that. nothing at the dnc happened previously unless joe biden wanted it to happen. who's running the dnc, jeffreys and schumer having an impact in

shifting the time line. >> i'm going to shift this around the table. does joe biden stay in this race? can he stay in the race? >> i think he wants to stay in the race. it's clear the rest of the democratic party wants him out. i think he's going to read the room and by the end of next week, i'm now based on some reporting, more likely to think he will acquiesce at the end of next week. >> i have to say, i went out and spoke to voters outside of this perimeter in a town 20 minutes from here. i will not try to pronounce the name of the town. and i got a real different smattering of viewpoints, and a lot of democrats as well, and not a single one of them was excited to vote for joe biden. they will vote for joe biden, but they don't want to vote for joe biden. they want to vote for somebody else. >> democratic party is in crisis right now. whether you think biden is going to be the nominee, or you don't think he's going to be the

nominee, whether you want him to be or you don't, the fact is the only discussion in the democratic party and frankly on its periphery is what to do about this. a party cannot exist in that way very long. that is something that has to be resolved. this virtual vote talk, nothing could harm joe biden or the democratic party more than giving donald trump the chance to say, oh, they faked up a vote or something like that. terrible, terrible thinking. >> he's got to make a decision and the party has to make a decision before that vote. >> if they do a virtual vote before the convention, that will blow up on them. >> charlie. >> i can't tell you what joe biden is going to do. i expect chuck is right, the pressure will intensify next week. what he ought to do is he needs to look at this landscape, at this particular moment, and put the country before his personal ambitions and i'm disappointed that he has not done so so far.

but i think the urgency of this moment, the impact of the convention, what you're seeing in the swing state polls, they're trying to tell the democrats something, and it comes down to joe biden who needs to do one last sacrifice for the country. >> can i make one quick point. >> very quick. >> one point these days is what five points used to be. you can't underestimate a loss of a point or two in the swing states. to move anything, if anything moves a point, that's a big movement, not a small movement anymore. back in the day, five point swings were common. they're not, and so a one point swing is a big deal. >> i have john bolton waiting for me. i have to ask a quick question, do the unions stay with joe biden? >> by and large, they do. if the unions break with him, then it's done. but at this point, look, very very fast, and i know you got no time, john bolton is waiting, but the fact is he said a lot over the years. >> it's a board policy day.

i got to talk to him. >> one critical thing, whether biden stays in or goes out, the chaos has to end and if he can't end it -- >> the conversation needs to end. >> the conversation can't go on. >> chuck, charlie and john. >> you booked us. >> thank you. and i did. and you know what, i'll do it again, despite my own interests. mike and jake, i appreciate it. still ahead, scared to death, what reagan era republicans like ambassador john bolton who's hopefully still waiting for us, he joins us to talk about foreign policy next. and what happened when old rivals kevin mccarthy and matt gaetz came face to face, and president biden's about face, what he now says he is prepared to do on the subject of the supreme court. do not go anywhere. not go anywe

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the theme of tonight's rnc convention is make america strong once again with a focus on the military and foreign policy. joining us now, former assistant to president trump for national security affairs, ambassador john bolton, ambassador, so good to see you. so tonight is all about foreign policy, what is the foreign policy of a second donald trump administration? >> well, no one really knows because trump doesn't know. he doesn't have a philosophy. he doesn't do policy, and the commonly understood meaning of that phrase, he proceeds

episodically, transactionally, and seen through the prism of what benefits donald trump, so he has themes that he comes back to, things he said over and over again, why he likes tariffs, why he likes to negotiate with authoritarian leaders, and why he basically doesn't want to get involved in american alliances, whether they strengthen american national security or not. whether that comes through in either the vice presidential nominee's speech tonight or trump's tomorrow, i don't know, but what you can predict with a high degree of certainty is that a trump administration will proceed very uncertainly internationally. >> there's been a lot of reporting. andrea mitchell has done a lot of great reporting about the hesitance nato allies have about a donald trump administration, a second term, the nervousness they have about it, if they can rely on the united states. donald trump of course has, you know, not been so fond of nato,

and he's not said friendly things about nato, but during his time in office, were his policies friendly toward nato? i had the chairman of the intel committee, congressman turner on today who said that, yes, they were, and he believes nato will be fine. >> well, i'd like to believe that, too. >> policies that you've seen before, i think really high confidence that he, again, will strengthen nato, and certainly nato's not at risk. >> i'm sorry. that kind of came in out of nowhere, what do you make of that? >> well, look, i respect the chairman's opinion a great deal, but he wasn't in the room with me in brussels in 2018 at the nato summit when trump came within an inch of withdrawing from nato. he doesn't understand the alliance. he sees it terms of america providing defense contracting services to a bunch of

ungrateful europeans who don't pay for it. and if he had his druthers, i do think he would withdraw from the alliance, i think it's a very serious risk. >> what about the subject of ukraine and the pick of j.d. vance. j.d. vance is somebody who believes that ukraine needs to make a peace deal with russia and to seek territory if necessary. he doesn't believe it's good financially for the united states to keep sending money to ukraine because he doesn't believe ukraine has the ability to win. what's your expectation for a posture towards ukraine with donald trump back in office, and now with j.d. vance as his running mate? >> well, i think it's going to be very bad for ukraine. it's what vance has said about it is wrong in many material respects. i don't think he appreciates the american national security interests in protecting ukraine against this unprovoked russian aggression. there seems to be this idea that we're doing this out of the goodness of our hearts.

it's an act of charity, we're nice people, although we are. we're doing it because there's an american national security interest and peace and security in europe. huge trading partners of ours and allies in other areas around the world. you know, it's interesting, one of the things vance relies on is he says we just need the europeans to do more in europe pause we have to worry about chinese threats in the parveg, and -- pacific, it is the case that china is the existential threat, but it's forming an axis with china. and vance ought to listen to his boss's interview on bloomberg news last night, where trump said, you know, taiwan's 9,000 miles away, which is consistent of what trump has said about taiwan on other occasions. i think there's a real disconnect here, but the bottom line is that these are candidates who do not

fundamentally understand that a strong american presence in the world is good for us here at home. >> so the new generation of maga republicans don't believe in the old ways of the republican party, the hawkish foreign policy. they don't believe it worked. they believe it led to disaster, and they'll point out what happened in the middle east after 9/11, they'll see george bush and the policies of the administration were a failure and got us into an even bigger mess, that the united states can't be the world's policemen. and so when you come out and say they don't understand it, they will turn it back at you and say, well, you didn't understand it either and you haven't put us in a safer place. what is the response to that sort of thinking that we hear so frequently among the new generation of republicans here the at -- at the republican convention? >> it's not as widespread as people think it is. i think the party remains strongly committed to a reaganite policy, that's what

polls show, including aid to ukraine. i think it would be extraordinarily foolish to walk away from nato or under cut nato, the most successful military alliance. i think in the middle east, it was not the overthrow of the taliban after 9/11 that caused the problem. it was the trump deal that biden implemented to withdraw from afghanistan that's left us in real danger there. and i think the unwillingness of both trump and the democratic party to pursue effective policies with respect to iran. and when it comes to china, i don't think even the people like j.d. vance appreciate that what trump is most likely to do with china when it comes down to it, if only xi jinping calls him up after the election and congratulates him to revert immediately to the negotiation mode to produce the biggest trade deal in history, which is what trump really sees as an achievement. you know, this is an important

conversation because i do think that the republican party is the at risk of the virus of isolationism. we repeat this mistake from generation to generation. and i hope we're not about to repeat it again. >> ambassador john bolton, it's really good to have you. again, you have been in the room. you have seen donald trump in action. making these decisions. ambassador, thank you very much. >> glad to be with you. and what president biden said he will do about the supreme court that he's resisted doing up until now. and bad blood, what happened when two republican rivals came face to face on the rnc floor. we are back in 90 seconds. in 90.

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what night are you speaking? are you speaking tonight? >> hey, if you took that stage, you would get booed off of it. you would get booed off the stage. >> do you think the republican party is more kevin mccarthy or is it more matt gaetz? >> well, i would hope there wouldn't be another matt gaetz in the republican party. i mean, paying underage women, the other people who are involved in that are in jail. look, everybody has different people in their party, unfortunately matt happens to be here. i think at the end of the day, he probably shouldn't be on the streets. >> for all the show of party unity in milwaukee, and to be frank, this room feels united

and alive, there are still some areas of real tension, especially when you gather a group of lawmakers who prioritize showmanship, which is what we saw when congressman matt gaetz went after the former speaker of the house, kevin mccarthy, on the floor last night. and joining us now, garrett haake, and correspondent jacob soboroff who joins me up here. garrett, that confrontation between gaetz and mccarthy felt inevitable. it shows there is quite a lot of tension in the republican party because there are such big personalities. >> reporter: yeah, there's big personalities and big policy differences. i saw versions of those kinds of confrontations between gaetz and mccarthy going back months and months on capitol hill. there's definitely no love lost between the two of them. i think stylistically, matt gaetz is the republican party's most aggressive expression of where the party is going, the sort of trumpian, in your face set of tactics around policies that are pretty different

between how kevin mccarthy came up within the republican party, and i think that's part of it, stylistically and on policy, they're going in a very different direction than the party of john bolton whom you just interviewed, who would find basically no home in the party that he was so recently going to charter a member of. >> so j.d. vance is going to be speaking tonight, and he's going to be trying to convince voters here in wisconsin, jacob, that they should vote for this ticket. i talked to voters, and there were some voters who were excited to vote for donald trump. didn't matter who the vp was. there were others who were just still on the fence or just didn't like either candidate. i want to play a conversation i had with a man named kevin about how he feels about this republican party, and the rnc here in wisconsin. also how he feels about the democrats. >> well, i grew up outside of -- in waukesha county. i grew up in a very conservative area, and my mom was a public

schoolteacher and my dad was a surveyor. they were both union workers their entire lives. they both raised me to be extremely progressive. despite what my classmates might, you know, say. i was always kind of like black sheep type of kid. >> in the county? >> yeah, in the county where i grew up, you know, i was like one of -- there was like where i went to high school, there was like 500 kids in my graduating class, and i was like one of five with brown skin, so i was constantly fighting what i felt like i was prejudice, bullying, stuff like that. it was kind of -- basically all the people i despised growing up as kids are trump supporters, and all the values that my parents raised me with, fall in line with the progressive party. >> how do you feel about the democrats right now? >> well, i kind of feel like i

agree with the populist in that biden would never be our first -- i mean, he wouldn't be my first choice. >> reporter: that is the sentiment from so many voters. you're trying to pick between two people you're not totally enthusiastic about. >> kevin sound like he feels like an outsider, and the theme of being an outsider, is something i have heard over and over again, crossing the country for the series we're doing for nbc news, and i think when i was in door county, wisconsin, over the course of the last six presidential elections has accurately predicted the president every time. three republicans and three democrats over the course of the last 24 years, and tom and sue, they're cherry pickers, and they have been generations of cherry pickers in this place in door county, wisconsin, and what they said to me, what they hear, bickering was the word they used, they too feel like outsiders in some measure, and they don't have a home anymore in the political spectrum, and folks that come to events like this are insiders, folks that come to the democratic national convention are insiders, and i

think there's far more people now in the country that feel like outsiders to the political process, than feel like insiders. >> that's why i want to get outside of the convention. i wanted to talk to voters who were not a part of this. it's very easy once you're wrapped up in the pomp and circumstance of an event like this, everybody is a true believer to start to believe the messaging they're projecting, this is a party that cannot be stopped. once you take a step outside the perimeter and start talking to people on the street, a lot of them aren't paying close attention and a lot of them feel disillusioned by the entire process. >> you know, i have been out on leave for a couple of months, and consuming news like a civilian. it's a good reminder that conventions like this is summer camp for true believers in these parties. the folks you talked to on the floor are dialled in, they're not representative of most of the rest of the country who's spending their summer thinking about taking their kids to actual summer camp and living their lives.

the vast majority of people don't like the options particularly that they have in this race. they may vote in november. they're not especially excited to engage in this battle between these two older candidates, that are sort of ready to move on from, over and over and over again, every day between now and november. >> when we did american swamp, when you and i spent a year and a half, crossing the country while you were pregnant, talking to people about the way they perceived life in washington, d.c., we would hear over and over again, how people didn't feel reflected, not only from places like this, but that they would see on television news. >> i was going to mention that donald trump is on stage. he's doing his walk through for his speech which is going to happen tomorrow. again, we haven't heard him speak. he has been talking to some papers but we haven't heard him speak publicly at any event since what happened on saturday, and there's been a whole lot of talk about how he might sound, what he might change in his speech, and whether he might

talk to the people who feel disillusioned. is he going to talk to the outsiders, give him a reason to give another shot. is there anything this man can do to convince the people who don't trust him or who are wary of him that he does actually fight for their interests as well? >> other than the obvious republican, after the attempted assassination on former president trump over the weekend, how horrific and horrible and what a shock to the conscience of everybody across the country it was, i also think it provided a moment for americans to all stop and sort of take a pause on this process that we're all talking about, you, me and garrett, insiders versus outsiders and allowed us to connect for a second about sort of where things have gotten in the american political consciousness and dialogue, and an ability for all of us to sort of reflect on what every day life means. what life means to so many people across the country. and so it will be so interesting to see not only when j.d. vance speaks tonight but when former president trump speaks tomorrow about -- and i've heard you talk about it for days on end at this

point, what that sort of message of unity and reconciliation, and an attempt to connect with everybody outside this building, and here he comes. >> we're watching him. we don't have any audio. we might have audio. i'm not sure. we'll see what happens. garrett, talk to us about the speech itself, and what reporting do we have about what might have changed? >> well, most of our reporting comes from what donald trump has told us himself, which is that he started with a hum dinger of a speech, a very tough speech going after joe biden, which has been kind of the mo of his campaign, up until now, and that he threw it in the trash, he's trying to write something that could be more unifying. we have been watching donald trump on the national stage for the better part of a decade, and as you well know, when we talk about speeches, he operates in a fairly narrow range. it's not as if he has -- this was true when he was president, kind of the range to do the

consoler and chief on one end, the sort of inspirational speaking on the other end. donald trump is going to give a donald trump style speech, hit on the themes he likes to hit on, and he may talk about it in slightly different terms. overall, we kind of know the emotional range in which he's going to operate. secondly, you have to remember his idea of unity here. he's talking mostly about party unity. you talk about donald trump and unity, his vision is he wants people to unite around him. the tell has been his posts online, the truth social posts. just like his tweets, have been the rosetta stone, the best way to translate what he's actually thinking. nothing about his online posts has changed at all. he's calling democrats radical left communists, witch hunts and hoaxes. it's the same type of language he was using friday before the assassination attempt to the day after the assassination attempt, as we watch him, katy, one bit of color, can i give you one -- >> yeah, go ahead. >> just one bit of color as you

have seen in the room, look for clues about the speech when any of these speakers are coming through to test the prompter, what we see in the prompter is not the speech they will give later. it is the gettysburg address, which some of the speakers have treated us in the room to their renditions of. that's all we're going to see. not anything about what donald trump may or may not have already written to this point. >> so we don't have any audio, you can hear he's talking in the microphone, but the audio is not being projected into the room here. you can look at who he's surrounding himself with, literally, physically surrounding himself with, and on that stage is steven miller. >> i think everybody knows he is one of the most divisive figures of former president trump's first term. he was one of the driving forces behind perhaps the most controversial policy of the first term of the trump administration, the family separation policy that separated over 5,000 children deliberately from their parents in a way that no other administration had done before. the obama administration had considered it, and tom homan,

the former acting i.c.e. director had proposed that during the obama administration, it was rejected by former secretary jeh johnson, steven miller and others in the administration resuscitated that policy and brought it to pass in the summer of 2018, and it's something that most of our viewers will never forget. >> jacob and i noticed him a couple of times, the images taken off to donald trump's right, he's on the side of the stage, he's just to donald trump's left, actually. >> he's wearing a gray suit. >> he's wearing a gray suit. there's a wide shot. and you know, there's obviously jason miller, one of his spokes people. i asked eric trump, i know you had an exchange with john jr. on the floor about family separations. i asked eric trump about the deportation policy that donald trump might have in a second term. there's been talk about stephen miller wanting to deport a million migrants, undocumented immigrants a year, i said, will

there be any exceptions made, will there be exceptions made to people who have been here their whole lives. worked hard, families, children. will families be separated, yo know, will people who have only known this country be sent somewhere they don't know, he notably danced around it. there are a lot of americans, democrats and republicans who see what's happening at the border as not great, who understand that there's an issue with migration, that the country is not -- you know, we can accept more people, but the country is not set up to accept more people in a clean and quick way. to make sure that people that are coming in that are safe but also to get them working quickly because the asylum process is so old. and so antiquated and has not been updated because congress cannot agree on it. >> i think it's important to point out that president biden had proposed along with republican members of congress one of the most restrictive border measures in modern american history, and according

to reporting here at nbc news and elsewhere, it was rejected by republicans in congress at the direction of former president trump. and this platform issue of the republican national convention to enact the largest deportation effort in american history would go further than the first term of former president trump, and we're not talking about stopping them from crossing, but interior removals, people who have been here. >> an operation in 2016, that harkens back to eisenhower, the name of the operation is a racist name. >> so offensive, you can't say it on television. >> in 1954, they deported not only 1 million mexicans, but mexican americans who were swept up in it. if you like at julia ainsley's reporting, the idea that you could deport, is not only a logistical operation that may not be possible, but what it would take in order to enact that may not be something the american bureaucracy can handle.

>> i'm happy you brought up the immigration reform that was a bipartisan deal, a bipartisan group of senators worked out. it leaned conservative. it was the first bipartisan immigration deal that, you know, was -- had a chance of surviving in over a decade, but it didn't go anywhere because donald trump started making calls to members of the house and members of the senate saying don't vote on this. i don't want it. i would like it to be a part of my campaign, i want to run on the issue of immigration, if it gets solved, it doesn't work for me. and their argument, once he wins, if he wins again, they'll be able to do their own version of it. i will note that donald trump had control of the house, the senate and the presidency, did not pass fundamental immigration reform. didn't happen while he was there. we got some breaking news from the department of justice that we want to get to, special counsel jack smith's office has filed a notice of appeal in donald trump's classified documents case in the southern district of florida. the charges were dismissed monday by judge aileen cannon

who ruled the special counsel had been unconstitutionally appointed to his job. garrett haake you're still with us. garrett, this appeal was expected? >> reporter: yeah, that's right. i mean, jack smith and the justice department backing him have long felt that his appointment was perfectly in line with the constitution. they believe there's decades of precedent that supports the manner in which he was appointed, and frankly, even donald trump's own legal team and his outside allies who support him in this matter thought this effort to get jack smith dq'd essentially as not appointed by congress or not approved by congress was a bit of a long shot here. there's an opportunity for the doj and jack smith to prove their argument katy, even if they get them scheduled in a timely fashion you're looking at the kind of delay that could push this past the election and inauguration and make all of it a moot point. one of the other people we have

seen on stage although as i turn around and look i don't see him in our schott anymore. i do see him further back, walt nada, his co-defendant on stage with the former president. >> that is such a good point. i noticed him too and wasn't quick enough to name him. he was the co-defendant before the case got dismissed. andrew weissmann had been advocates or saying that what jack smith could do was pass this off to a u.s. attorney, sidestep the issue of a special counsel and have a u.s. attorney prosecute this case and that, you know, the u.s. attorney could take on the staff from the special counsel's office. they could take on jack smith if they wanted to to get this thing going quickly again. i think that is still an option even as they go through the process of filing at least a notice of appeal as was expected. i'm hope you can play on this other topic we got news of, president biden is talking about

some measure of judicial reform and i'm sorry this is going to come to you out of left field, but it was another topic that we did want to discuss, because president biden had been so reluctant to do anything on the supreme court for fear of looking like he was trying to meddle. the supreme court obviously has been a major point of contention between both parties, a major issue for this election. we can see, by the way, donald trump walking off the stage, the run through is done. the supreme court that donald trump ran on appointing justices who would overturn roe v. wade did that. now that is something the democrats are running on, the supreme court and their ability to potentially appoint a new supreme court justice if that happens during the next term, they're running on not allowing donald trump any more chances to make an appointment. how is news like that going to play on the campaign trail? >> well, look, it may be motivating to some of the

liberal activists and some of president biden's most progressive supporters. some of the people that he, frankly, needs to motivate quite badly, people who have been turned off by his support for israel and the war and conduct of the war in gaza, some of the people not overly enthusiastic about biden's campaign might re-engage on this issue but i can tell you, it'll be just as intensifying on the right where, you know, the political right in this country has been far more organized on anything related to the judiciary than democrats have been for decades. i mean, the project to remake the supreme court in this country goes back decades on the right. you've seen the results of that in realtime, and republican voters are just far more motivated by issues around the judiciary than democratic voters ever have been. it's also noteworthy, anything serious you want to do, pass a new law or take serious steps to reform the court here or pass a constitutional amendment, god forbid, it will take the kind of buy-in in this country that i

don't think any democrat thinks they can turn around. it is an opportunity to try to change the conversation for president biden under friendlier territory and motivate his base but i don't know how much further it could go than that. >> let me say it's not about expanding the court. it would be putting age limits on the justices and having a code of ethics that was enforceable. garrett haake. >> reporter: enforced by who, right? this is the argument that conservatives will make. this is the judiciary committee republicans who i cover in my other job, we'll say, whose job is it to enforce those kind of limits on the judiciary? they will argue and have argued that it's a constitutional overreach to even begin that process. that's a fight joe biden would probably like to have right now just in terms of the topic but good luck in passing it in this divided congress. >> garrett haake, thank you so much and sorry about that left field question, but you handled it well, jacob, thank you, as well. now, president biden is pushing ahead, he's back on the campaign

trail for a second day. nbc news reports in an effort to move forward, the president is tightening his inner circle as he grows frustrated with stubborn questions about whether he's fit for the race. joining us from las vegas, nbc news national correspondent david noriega. i know you spoke to people out there. what did they tell you. >> reporter: yeah, katy, i talked to a number of voters in henderson, a suburb of vegas that leans a bit republican but is, you know, pretty up in the air as is the state of nevada, and spoke to people across the spectrum but what i want to talk about, people who are planning on voting for biden or do not want to vote for trump but are still on the fence so persuadable to some degree. a couple things stood out as new. having talked to them in nevada and other swing states, i heard sort of really full-throated and enthusiastic support for biden in i way i had not been hearing all year directly in response, sort of a defensive response to

the efforts to replace him on the ticket from people who like him. now, that said, people who said that are ones who were already planning on voting for biden so it's not clear how much it would move the needle. the thing that would move the needle for some sitting on the fence is replacing biden on the democratic ticket. a lot of people are also uncertain and kind of unhappy with the chaos. i want to play a few clips of things voters said, again, all people who are in that category of either voting for biden or do not like trump but are not yet sold on biden. take a listen. >> everything is in chaos right now, so is biden staying in? is biden not staying in? are they going to put kamala harris in? they don't seem to want to. are they going to try to shovel somebody else in there? >> nothing personal against the guy. he just is completely too old and too out of touch and not cognitively there. >> what do you make of the efforts to get him to step aside after the debate? >> understandable, understandal

from a political perspective. >> i still struggle with voting for biden because i also don't feel like he's a competent candidate. i don't necessarily believe with his policy or the things he's done, but at least i feel like he's someone admirable and an honest man and surrounds himself with decent human beings. >> reporter: so, katy, that last voter you heard from, lifelong registered republican, voted for trump in past elections now regrets it. is not going to vote for trump this year. still cannot bring herself to vote for joe biden. a change at the top of the democratic ticket would possibly push her over the edge, the kind of voter the democratic party would fantasize about under normal circumstances and struck me really as one of the most remarkable voters that i've spoken to, again, in a year of talking to voters in swing states. >> yeah, i spoke to young voters here in wisconsin who said that they didn't really want to vote.

they didn't feel like it was worth it. what about a change in the ticket and they said if it was somebody exciting yes, i would go out. i said, who is exciting. they couldn't name somebody so that's the problem. the idea of replacing joe biden might sound good but who with and is that person somebody, a democrat, so are enough people in the country that would know by the time of election day to make them feel like it's a risk worth taking against donald trump. david, thank you, very much. that's going to do it for me today. "deadline: white house" starts after this short break. after this short break ♪ things are getting clearer ♪ (♪♪) ♪ i feel free ♪ (♪♪) ♪ to bare my skin, yeah that's all me. ♪ ♪ nothing is everything ♪ (♪♪) with skyrizi, 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. and most people were clearer even at 5 years. skyrizi is just 4 doses a year,

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