>> they all seem to be moving in one direction. take you very much. that will do it for us tonight. there is much more still ahead. rachel maddow will pick up her coverage of night three of the republican national convention with j.d. vance taking the stage tonight. do not go anywhere. good evening a thank you for joining us for special coverage of day three of the republican national convention. the convention is a four day affair altogether. it means we are nearly there. tomorrow night will be the big finale. donald trump giving his speech accepting the presidential nomination of his party for the third straight residential election. the last time they had a different nominee it was 2012.

every time they have had a nominee since then. it has been this guy. his democratic opponent the president of the united states joe biden tonight announced he has tested positive for covid. he has therefore canceled all events so he can recover back home in delaware. the president is said to be mildly symptomatic. the president's doctor releasing a statement saying he has upper respiratory symptoms including a runny nose and a nonproductive cough. the doctors a statement says the president has general malaise which generally just means you feel bad. the white house statement i should point this out misspelled the word malaise. i spent if you panicked minutes googling the misspelling of the word to make sure it wasn't a new medical term i have never heard before. turns out it doesn't. the president just feels lousy. he has malaise. and a dry cough.

he is taking paxlovid. this is the president of the second about with covid. the first time he had it was almost exactly 2 years ago july 2022. that time the president had tested positive and he also took a five day course of paxlovid. you may remember that once he took the paxlovid he tested negative for a while but as sometimes happens with paxlovid, he then had a rebound that started testing positive again. what that meant all in all from top to jail is that in president biden's last bout with covid two years ago that had him laid up for about 16 days. two days and two weeks. now, president biden is generally in very good health. he has the best medical care in the world. everybody's hoping and praying for an immediate recovery for him and a very mild bout. but covid is wildly and unpredictable. it is a novel coronavirus.

and, you know, if this is like his previous bout, if this takes another 16 days off his schedule like it in the first time, that would put a serious dent in his campaign when they just aren't that many weeks left on the calendar. if he does lay up for 16 days like he did the last time that would be we would expect to see him out amount to the first week of august. this comes, of course, at a fraud time in politics. nbc news tonight has not confirmed splashy potentially very consequential news that was first reported by abc news tonight. is the president biden this week field a direct request for him to step down and leave the presidential race not just from an ominous critics or people not putting their name on it for backbend members of the congress who nobody much cares about but rather from the top congressional leaders of the democratic party in washington.

democratic leader chuck schumer and house democratic leader hakeem jeffries. this is not confirmed. is single service reporting from jonathan karl, abc news. i encourage you to keep a healthy sense of skepticism. the reason i'm telling about it nevertheless stressing it is unconfirmed is because you should know that this is the sort of reporting that is explosive enough in its implications. that it may sort of make its own weather. it may catalyze other developments in democratic politics, which would it make sense to you unless you knew that this report was circulating. now, what nbc news has been able to confirm is that chuck schumer and president biden did meet privately one-on-one with no staffers on saturday this past weekend. and that senator schumer at that meeting presented president biden with polling information about the state of the race.

the washington post is reporting both chuck schumer and hakeem jeffries have told biden that his continued candidacy, quote, imperils the party's ability to control either chamber of congress next year. meaning if you stay in the race , mr. president, you are not only likely to lose the white house but the democratic party is likely to lose the house and the senate. we think that we are going to lose the house and the senate with you at the top. again, this is purported reporting about a message to president biden from senator schumer and from leader hakeem jeffries. the two senior democrats in congress. we reached for comment to senator schumer's office. it is not denying in exactly but said somewhat cryptically quote leader schumer conveyed the views of his caucus directly to president by on saturday. we don't know what that means. that's basically talking about

the shape of the container not what was in the container. house democratic leader hakeem jeffries office would tell is only, quote, it was a private conversation that will remain private. again, not denying substance of these reports. first from abc news and then from the washington post. partially but not entirely confirmed by nbc news. obviously here we are night three of the republican national convention. it is notable. it is freaking shakespearean that this is happening on the night of j.d. vance. again, the republican vice presidential nominee j.d. vance is not to be speaking in prime time this evening at the convention. we will bring that speech here live when it happens. he will be introduced by his wife and we will bring in the speech. even though the television audience for this convention thus far has not been particularly large by modern standards one might expect that people will tune in tonight to hear from this new running mate

for donald trump. many people who have never heard of before this week j.d. vance is not a widely known public figure. he is best known for having written a well-received autobiography, which he started what he was at yale law school. mr. vance also served for six months in iraq as a public affairs unit officer in the marine corps. excuse me, served in a public affairs unit in the marine corps. yes, even the marines to have public relations. they are great at it, in fact, but that is a type of unit a public affairs unit that he was in when he was in iraq. after he did his law degree and then at yale. he became a protigi of a very right wing billionaire who you might remember from the first republican national convention, that nominated donald trump for president he had a primetime speaking slot and was one of the weirdest beaches of the 2016 rnc. his name was peter teal. he got j.d. vance a job at a biotech company in san francisco.

after j.d. vance graduated from law school. peter teal got him the job literally. the company's ceo says explicitly that j.d. vance was hired, quote, as a favor to peter meaning as a favor to peter teal. peter teal then got j.d. vance a second job. he directed one of his venture capital companies that they, too, should hire j.d. vance. this is why these guys are so against any kind of affirmative action. clearly they got where they are in this life that of sheer merit is represented by having your billionaire friend call people and tell them to hire you even though they are not sure why they are supposed to be hiring you. after mr. vance washed out of the second job that peter teal gave him, mr. vance and got another job at a different venture capital firm with another tech billionaire, steve case, who founded aol. how did that work at? mr. cases on the records and, quote, he wasn't really working very much. [ laughter ]

nevertheless, mr. vance then was able to go and start another venture capital firm with, surprised yet more help from peter teal. like mr. teal who is named his companies after things in the lord of the rings series of j.r.r. tolkien books lord of the rings is sort of a favorite cosmos for naming things and cultural references for a lot of far right and all the right figures within europe and the united states. peter teal names things after token figures and places like his company -- like his mentor like peter teal who had given him all his jobs in the world. mr. vance also when he found that his own venture capital firm with help from peter teal named it after he would've the rings and called it maria -- n- a--y-r-a. a pattern that has something to do with elves and rings from

the lord of the rings series. i don't know. in his new for mr. vance may 1 notable investment in one kentucky company that kentucky company went public and promptly went bankrupt. so that's the career. does that sound like a rocket fuel trajectory of a person on a fast track to be nominated as the vice presidential nominee of the republican party of the united states before he turns 40? no, it does not. writing a memoir and otherwise being peter teal's intern is not usually the way you get to be a vice presidential nominee. it's not the way you get to be a united states senator either. it is the way you get to be a u.s. senator if you are j.d. vance. j.d. vance's campaign for the u.s. senate was the first time ever ran for anything. his campaign was substantially emphasis on substantially funded by peter teal. he dumped $15 million into a super pac that supported j.d. vance running for senate. that super pac then further effectively took over the operation of the campaign and

ran most of it for mr. vance. after peter teal personally took j.d. vance to meet donald trump literally peter teal physically walked him into the meeting and presented him to trump, that is how vance got the trump endorsement for that u.s. senate seat, which is all you need to win a republican primary for ohio senate in 2022. that's how we won the republican primary. he then vastly underperformed other ohio republican candidates on the general election ballot in 2022, but he did win, which is how we got into my state and it. a grand total of a year and a half ago. half ago. and that's how he got to be the vice presidential nominee of the republican party right now. as internships go, that's a really good internship. but choice of j.d. vance to be donald trump's running mate is reportedly a

decision that was only made at the very last minute like the day before it was announced. you do not choose a person like mr. vance because you think you need help winning the election. when they chose j.d. vance they did not think they needed any help winning this next election. if you are trying to make up for some, you know, soft spot, weaknesses in the republican party's electoral process to do not, for example, choose a vice presidential running mate who is on the record on tape taking this position. >> i certainly would like abortion to be illegal act nationally. >> i certainly would like it abortion to be illegal nationally. 2022 podcast interview first unearthed by cnn today in which j.d. vance says i certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally. republican presidential nominee donald trump, whatever you think about his politics and his political instincts he has been very open about the fact that he sees republican parties strong stance against abortion.

particularly strong stands for a national abortion ban as electoral loser. even though mr. trump is the one who orchestrated the overturning of roe versus wade and therefore the republican abortion bans all of the country. trump has admitted that strongly restrictive stances on abortion particularly may nationally restrictive stance on abortion will cost the republicans elections they could otherwise win. so then why do you pick j.d. vance to be running mate? if you are donald trump and you pick a running mate and were looking to pick a running mate to help her electoral prospects as you were to buy your chances of winning the election, you would never pick mr. i would certainly like abortion to be illegal nationally. you would never pick a national abortion ban guide. you would also not pick a guy who says we are in a, quote, late republican period. he does that mean capital or republican. he means small. meaning we are at the end of being a republic.

j.d. vance quoting a far right internet personality and blogger famously advocates openly for the united states to become a monarchy or an outright dictatorship. who has called for abolishing the u.s. government, the u.s. system of government being abolished so we can instead be ruled by a caesar figure. that is who j.d. vance has been citing when he talks about us being in a late republican period as a country. that's what he thinks about where we are as a country and where we should go as a country. you do not pick a man like that if you're worried about your electoral prospects. the man who created j.d. vance as a political figure gave him all his jobs and also his seat in the u.s. senate and also his introduction to trump he says he does not believe freedom is compatible with democracy. he wants freedom so that means he does not want democracy. if you are donald trump and the republican party and you are

worried about your ability to win this election in november, you would not pick j.d. vance as you vice presidential candidate. you can only pick a candidate that's out there is j.d. vance. if you really thoroughly quite sure you are going to win no matter what kind of criticism you put on the ticket. and what you want to bring into the white house with you. j.d. vance is not the guy you pick to win over suburban women. or whatever. is not to persuade the undecided guy. j.d. vance is the guy you bring in to change the american system of government. into whatever it is you think comes after us being a republic. you only do that because yorty think you have the election in the bag. what is coming together both sides of the clinical spectrum right now is that republicans who are thrilled to have it in the bag think they have it in the bag. and that's why tonight isn't

nikki haley or tim scott or marco rubio. it is national abortion ban and of the republic j.d. vance. who was giving the speech tonight. on the democratic side, this very serious reported turn related to president biden's prospects of staying at the top of the ticket in this race, reported visits to the president from the top democrats in congress. they're not just going to have and express their opinion they are going to have bringing him the polling. it is not about the republicans hopes and expectations that they have it in the back. it's about the democrats fear that the republicans might be right. and that therefore a radical change might be necessary to avert what democrats fear is an otherwise inevitable course. it is j.d. vance night. at the republican national convention.

to have that happening at the same time this reporting a servicing of the president by them is as serious as a heart attack on both sides. >> what did you bring for the mugs after that? [ laughter ] >> i'm sorry. >> i need a shot. once again, of course, you are exquisitely correct unfortunately. that's exactly right. you had someone on yesterday with bedrock reporting that supports the belief inside trump world. i believe what tim alberta reported as difficult as it was to stomach there's a line in that they read six times. that they are preparing for not just victory but landslide. we don't have landslide anymore. you know my understanding of the pick is always do when we sit here is like watching at home. they made j.d. vance believe in they are already winning in a landslide. >> yeah. >> i know there's a lot of anger at people covering the

democratic side. it is exactly what endangered democracy do in the final hours to determine whether they remain democracies at all. so people should pull up a little bit on the democrats who are on the side of angels trying to make sure we will continue to live in a democracy. >> you are saying that there is big trends at work and big dynamics at work but the late decisions that are made when things are really at the hardest can make all the difference. >> and jim hines and adam schiff are all the anger i know a lot of reviewers feel toward them are saying things out loud that they are uniquely able to say. they are not the ones who have the private polling that shows them losing. they are probably going to build save at the man who is at the top. visit in about jim himes and adam schiff. piercing things about what other people can say. he described it as a privilege to be covering this part of the story. i was, like, what?

is the hardest mode gutwrenching. i texted and i said i feel emptiness. joe biden his beloved. him he is decent. four years ago it was the perfect contrast. this year it's not working. donald trump is winning. >> i thought you laid out so importantly clear, rachel and the politics of it are telling. the politics of republican party that has a national abortion ban novice and that's the little term he's a rookie senator, he's another senator. coming out of physically finance and delete educational circles. he's not an appeal to any part of the coalition of the country. it is much or something else that you diagnosed and i will repeat it. it's possible to look at something that's scary but not be scary. it's possible to say this is a scary moment for all the different reasons that informed people know and then decide and still use fax, evidence and logic to go forward. even though it isn't a very

sleazy diagnosis gary. it's coming amidst the pouring i think you are -- i can take on a life of reality it's on that we don't know you. something is happening at the highest levels of the leadership of the democratic party based on a confluence of events that involves a shared premise with the leadership of the republican party as you put it. the view that this is high- stakes that it matters. and that they may not still have the best ticket. i thought you put that well. that's what we are tonight. >> i want to hear from you both. while we have been talking had a little bit of new information and we have a response from the white house. this is my white house spokesperson. the white house told both leaders meeting schuman and jeffries he is the nominee of the party. he plans to win and look for to working with both of them to pass is 100 days agenda to help working families. this is obviously the topline response is, no, i'm not going anywhere. this also i think implicitly, i

may be a little over my skis here but i think this implicitly confirms that schumer and jeffries did go to president biden and say, what it all is with you at the top of the ticket and you need to decide if you want that to be your legacy. >> and less humid and jeffries denied that that's what they said. and neither of them have issued something which nicole and i have written a lot of statements. we have been apart a lot of non- denials, denials. if that's not true they should come out and say it. i want to echo something nicole said because of the democrats have been under a great deal of attack online and otherwise. the reason the people are having this conversation is because of the threat of donald trump and now j.d. vance who will be the project 2025 plan and be a more effective implementor. it's an because they don't like to abide them or because they don't think is a great

president. it's because they are scared that they could take over and what they would do to our country. that's what people are having the conversation. in terms of what we know and what we don't know which is always important, too, i will say that contextually having worked for joe biden, chuck schumer and hakeem jeffries are people obviously in the democratic party. they're not people he has close personal relationships with as close as he has with say jim clyburn or as close as he is with nancy pelosi. there have been reports in, again, we were all piecing together reports and talking to a lot of people about pelosi's behind-the-scenes work. we don't know much more about that. i think it's hard to believe adam schiff would have done what he did without her knowing about it but a spokesperson for her said it was news to her. these are things we know right now. the other things we note noah's impact on money if the money dries up that i was a huge factor. i think the other thing i will say about what to know that joe biden because it's what's the reality is we are watching and also how he operates as a human, is that he has felt underestimated always.

he has got a chip on his shower. >> it's his superpower. >> he feels that people never thought he could winzy in 2020 and he didn't. these are entirely different circumstances but for anyone is thinking while the leaders of the democratic party are making them step up is open and amount of hours, i just wouldn't make a bet on that. >> what i would say that what you said very well matches what i am hearing from -- i feel like i might have talked to every single member of the congressional plant caucus in the last, you know, 24 to 48 hours. it matches what i am hearing not just from dam but also some of the people whose jobs it would be to turn off votes. people actually do this and at their people who specialize in turning out particularly votes in places like fulton county, places like detroit. places like milwaukee the democrats will have to win and win big and get big turnout in in order to win the election. and what i am hearing and the anger i am hearing that's

coming from them, is that to the point that you are making given the stakes and the stakes being democracy itself, the stakes being project 2025, the stakes being a trump presidency, which i think everyone agrees that african- americans would be first in line to suffer, right? so they understand the stakes. there is a sense among the people that i have spoken to including some senior members of the caucus. that given that there is a sense there is gamesmanship going on inside of this effort to remove president biden from the ticket and that that gamesmanship is heavily geared toward also pushing aside kamala harris, vice president harris and is a sense there's a lot of pressure coming from -- some people call in california at this point. whether it's donors or it is members, whether it is whoever.

the sense of huge pressure for the cbc, which is locked on for president biden i think we can all agree on that. they have been unwavering. they are sticking with him. claire mccaskill will tell you to the very end there with him. the huge pressure is coming without regard to the vice president. and that there is this what they perceive as a push for an open convention and that people are taking the risk of playing 2028 games with a 2024 crisis. and that the gamesmanship in trying to maneuver people who may want to run in 2028 and maneuver them in now is seen as undercutting the whole project when the project is beating trump. when a lot of folks are telling me is that they see gamesmanship to try to set aside the person who would be next in line in 2028 meaning the vice president. and that they will and i would just say my last thing is that what i will tell you is based on the many dozens of conversations i feel like i have been not been off the phone and i'm exhausted by it.

>> i was literally on the phone until the second we turned it on. >> i thought you had a landline. oh my god. we brought in a landline. >> i literally where the phone around my neck because i always lose my phone. >> i thought you were on a hotline to moscow. jason to my wonderful husband realize i'll never stop asking for my phone is. i literally can wear it around my neck. it's a necklace. this is when you have a good partner in life. i was literally listening to you and responding. that is the sense that people fear that vice president harris will be moved decide in this process and the cdc will not move -- hakeem jeffries is an exception. they and going nowhere is the they think she's in jeopardy. >> what if vice president harris isn't in jeopardy? and what if the move relates to president biden but is about

elevating president harris? >> totally different conversation and i had a very senior member of the cdc say that to me almost verbatim that if this was a conversation they would all support her. she is a member does much he was a member of the cdc when she was in the ninth in the -- in the senate. they love him. i think you said it, mindy. president biden is the loved. that is very clear. even the people asking him to be moved decide they love him. they have been hugely successful. >> even political rivals love him.'s backer some republicans want admitted though. >> i think that is a sense of don't play this game with this important issue. >> everything you just said can be true and the close to get to the convention the more that logistically the only offramp would be the vice president because you wouldn't have time for an open convention. you wouldn't logistically,

financially, legally be able to do much with the campaign coffers unless they were part of the biden/harris ticket. when you described could be a now thing. we don't know if this is still being discussed two weeks from now it start to narrow from only biden which is what he is tonight or running mate who can take over the campaign infrastructure and financing. not starting from scratch in late august. >> the idea -- they keep telling me we had to take a break. i'm sorry. i will pay personally. [ laughter ] i want to finish this conversation. i have been -- i don't do a lot of this. i'm not a person who has tons and tons of life sources in politics because i don't like being friends of people who -- i don't like people having my phone number. it makes it hard to -- i'm to suburban. i can't do it. i don't do this a lot.

this is the exception what i am talking and texting with senators. i have to say just reacting to what you are hearing, joy, what i am hearing and maybe we are talking to some of the same people. i don't know. if vice president harris were going to be the choice of the democrat party. have president biden decide you know what for whatever reason on whatever terms i'm going to pass the torch and i'm going to be a transaction traditional leader now. and it was going to go to vice president harris, there definitely be a lot of work to do to make sure that vice president harris was strongly positioned to be donald trump in november. it would then be a normal democratic work product -- project to get her to try to win. there wouldn't be this other existential thing going on. >> it was described to me today because vice president kamala harris political strength is a moving and ascending part of the story as well. there was a sense two weeks ago

that there was a question mark around her likability. there was a report last week that there were some poll in the field about the president pulling allies testing her political strength. without any ads, without any effort behind it. it's very impressive. a lot of political people in both parties would love to design a campaign around vice president kamala harris. a lot of her speeches have been happening in my hours. i've been taking them live. she's electric on the campaign trail, and he picked her. he given unbelievable speech yesterday. his first line was you know what a black job is? black job is president of the united states. it's a fantastic argument to take to the country. it's a phenomenal contrast with donald trump. i guess the other side to what you sort of laid on the table, which is so sobering is there is so much baseball left to play. it's like the second inning of one of seven and 18 innings is

the longest game ever played. there is so much [ the democrats would think all acting in good faith i don't need any advice for me but diving i would say that is no room for despair. there's a lot of time. she's fantastic. he's beloved. everything will probably be okay. >> god bless you. >> i know we are already in trouble. i want to say one more thing. i also think the president will be influenced by seeing her own path to victory. this is obviously a decision he has to make. it's frustrating people on many levels. people are angry, upset, mad. he cares deeply about the democratic party and the senate winning. about the house being in the democratic-controlled. if you can see a path for her to victory i have no doubt that would be influential for him, too. while he picked her i did think what he said about her the last couple of days is true and also significant. people should hear that. that's another piece.

i will give one piece of advice to democrats out there. people who are supporters of hers don't know where it will end. far too many people hearing stories to say don't take this away from her, which by the way is incredibly defensive about someone who was an election perform on the campaign trail. who speaks about abortion rights in a completely compelling way. there's no reason to be defensive. whatever happens she's a powerful, amazing candidate would be a great candidate and a great president. period. its way to have a defensive of a conversation. the only person that makes this decision is joe biden but there's no reason to disparage the only conversation about her being passed over. >> i think we will have to send a venmo to msnbc. i will say a quite compelling argument imagine the prospect of a former sex crimes prosecutor prosecuting authority for phelan who also been adjudicated sexual assault

or. i think for a lot of people just the idea of watching that match happen is kind of giving people a little bit of the feeling. >> there's a poll out today of african-american women showing a 31 point drop in support from 2020 to 2024 in terms of plans to vote for president biden. vice president harris turned that around. if you think democrats can win the presidency with a 30 point drop in the black female vote, there's a real problem at hand. if vice president harris has a supportive president biden and the support of the party broadly, and i can get there procedurally, i think there isn't a brighter path in november in the path that goes through her. and we shall see. the other thing i have to tell you is we killed the break. [ laughter ] a very special guest who would like to join.

actually who let's like to join in on this conversation and probably anything else in his entire life. he will join us. he is our friend jamie harrison, the chairman of the democratic national committee. you have stumbled into quite a conversation. thank you so much for being here. >> rachel, i followed it intensely. is a reason why i don't have any hair. [ laughter ] >> i have a whole bunch of questions. i had a whole different set up. let me ask you to be real with us and respond to what you are hearing here. is a man who was responsible for the fortunes of the democratic party and who has been dropped the biden/harris era. how do you hear this conversation among us? is anything we talked about it we are getting the wrong way around ? >> this is always my guiding light, right? it is the millions of voters who went to the polls and voted for joe biden. and, you know, often times we

talk about january 6 and the importance of that and we talk about donald trump's effort to overturn the will of the people. we got to be very careful in this situation that we don't overturn the will of the people. i hear that specifically from black voters. all voters are important. every vote matters and is important. in a democratic party we also understand this. this is a rule. if you don't have strong, black support you're not going to win the election. and we know that. we will know that. i think it's really, really important in these conversations to understand that. these folks went to the polls. joe biden got 14 million of those votes. 14 million votes. he controlled over 90% of the delegates to the democratic convention. he in essence is the nominee of our party. there's a lot of academic conversations but at the end of the day joe biden has to decide

and the decision he has made that he is expressed to me and i think to all the american people is that he's in this race. he's in this race to win. he's in this race to protect our freedoms, our rights our economy but most importantly the future of our kids. i want to be of the term my son and say yes, that's my president of the united states who has been the most transformational president of our lifetime. look at student loans, climate change. i can go on and on in terms of how this president has transformed our nation. i don't want to turn to my sons and say, yes that's our president. he has been twice impeached. he was convicted 34 times. a judge that he a woman. and you can go on and on and on. that is the choice we have in this election and i believe folks we have a good man and a decent man and a transformational president. probably the most transformational president of

my lifetime. republicans are galvanizing behind their guy life laid out his resume. why the hello are we galvanizing kind our guide who has been transformational and has done such greatness for this country. that's where i stand right now, rachel. >> jamie -- mr. harrison doesn't expect you can call me jamie. >> this is embarrassing. that is why i should take my hat off my body and put it in a jar at the end of the night. mr. chairman, we are talking about the particular importance the centrality of black voters to the democratic coalition. i think that's just axiomatically true and mathematically obvious. the ap polling that is out today of democratic voters shows that among white voters and among hispanic voters is roughly two to one the democrats think it's time for president biden to not be at

the top of the ticket for this election. it's about two to one. among black voters, it's about 50-50. it's about one to one. while there definitely is a difference in black voters are more aggressively supportive of president biden, it is still a 50-50 proposition among black democratic voters and that is not a whole of whether you like joe biden. it is just whether or not you think he should stay. it does feel like there's a lot of fluidity in these numbers still. i know everybody has criticized democrats for having this conversation in public for having this conversation on television. with reporting like we are getting tonight about senator schumer and hakeem jeffries the democratic leader at the house going to president biden having this conversation with a man to man, i to i is a top democratic leaders in washington this conversation is joined and is no way to avoid it now. i guess i want to know from you if you feel like there is a way to have this conversation

because it is real. in a way that is more constructive and not destructive. >> i push back on the polls. the same polls was going to be this major red wing and was bunch of red tears, right? and it didn't happen. it didn't translate. be polls that are most important to me is when i hit the ground -- look at the credit joe biden talk to at the naacp. these are folks who are leaders, black leaders and communities across this country. joe biden had been on their feet and if they did a poll i guarantee you you would've probably gotten 90%, 95% saying, yes we are still riding with joe. look at the response he got in detroit just recently. not only were people standing on the fee but they were chanting, joe don't go! these people a fusible he are working-class people. they believe in this president because this president has always believed in them.

there are people right now in this country who don't have student loan debt but have hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt four years ago and i don't have it now. that's because of joe biden. there's people right now the people at my grandma were paying $100 a month for insulin but they don't have to pay now because of joe biden. this president has been transformational for working people in this country and what we have to do is instead of having people get on tv asked are talking about well joe biden needs to read, talk about what joe biden has done what he will continue to do. if joe biden is elected and we are able to wipe out medical debt, i can tell you in the black community, in my family had transformational that will be. when we think about capping the costs of rent. i can tell you had transformational that will be. on the other side, we have these people who are talking about ripping away people's freedoms and their rights. i just want people to step back and just think about where we

are. if you want the polls to go up, then hell go out and talk about joe biden. talk about the good he has done for this country and have his back like he has had our back for these past four years. that's where i am. there's no time for hankering. it's about rolling up your sleeves, knocking on these doors and making sure folks are ready and getting people ready to go to the polls. there are more that lesson there are of them. the question is are we going to be unified or are we going to do what we do, which is a crab and the bell pulling each other down. that is where we are. >> mr. chairman, let me ask you about another way that this is being contested. it is obviously wanting to try to win more votes than the republicans after nearby win the electoral college and thereby win the election. it does seem like the republicans one of the ways in which they have radicalized is that they have decided to make

this about not just for votes. but a battle over the ordinary processes like certifying the results. by county or state. they tried to do on january 620 21, with not counting the electoral votes. it didn't work because they only had real electoral votes slates from all the states. they have now told republican officials at every level down to the county level that they are justified in not certifying election results. they have not committed that they won't try to prevent individual electoral slates or real electoral slates from being certified at the state level. you had all those things together and they are trying to force the state. they have already started the process of forcing the contest in the selection to be one that is not about the votes. but is instead about some sort of procedural fight in washington that doesn't involve the real cast votes of the

people. now, it's a remarkable thing to cover that the republican party is working on that. my question to you as the head of the democratic party is what is the defense against that and does a democratic party have a plan to deal with that operation chaos, which is already started ? >> rachel, for the last 3 1/2 years i have been working on just that. doing the midterms and enough you will remember, it was relatively quiet in terms of -- even though georgia passed all of the suppression laws it was relatively quiet as it relates to suppressive activity coming from the other side. and part of that was because the dnc and our partners build the largest voter protection program that we have ever had in the history of our party. and what we have been doing is just a continuously building on that. recruiting lawyers around the country. sometimes people say what are you tell us the plan. part of it is, what good coach

at the super bowl will lay out and say i'm going to run this play and i'm going to run this play? sometimes it's best to keep your mouth quiet and just do the work. is my former boss said, you want to be in politics, you want to be a workhorse and not a show horse and we have been working behind the scenes to ensure we have the voter protection program. not only to counter what the republicans are doing but you make sure we are proactively asking the questions. for instance, we have some of our state party tears writing letter to the county and election commissions asking, okay, i see this white precinct that has 1000 voters. i see this black precinct that has 1000 voters. do they have the same number of voting machines in this precinct? because we know that is a part of the way how they have suppressed in the past. to give the black voters two machines and one of them doesn't work. the white has the same number has five, right?

my heart doesn't feel with pride to see long lines because if we can get people into the super bowl or the nba finals like that and why the hell can we get people into a voting booth to vote for who they want him back to work just like that? it is being proactive in that way sometimes you doing it undercover, not with a lot of pomp and circumstance. to make sure we are proactively and ready for the reactive attempts that we know that are going to come from the other side. people get frustrated sometimes. you know the ohio situation. people are frustrated that i'm moving forward but i'm doing that because i know the games that republicans play. and i'm not playing those games. that's not going to happen on our watch. i'm blessed that we have joe biden who is -- has green light the resources historically because we have never done this. green light the resources so that we can do that and build up this operation. >> jamie harrison, chairman of democratic national committee, earning his keep and spending some very precious time with us.

it's always great to see you. thank you. i really appreciate you being here. >> thank you. >> how was that for timing? thanks for leaving me out there. i was lusting anybody else? -- >> i think we are through at this point. i think we will actually go to our friend steph rule -- stephanie ruhle who was on the floor in milwaukee. think we have her now. she is covering the rnc in milwaukee this evening. what have you got? >> reporter: i would say the word of the day is unity question mark. we have heard for days at donald trump is sort of should shifting his message he was to lower the

temperature in the country since the shooting on saturday. and really show unity and bring people together and the campaign keeps sending that message out. however, when it comes to actually what's being said and done here at the convention, we are really not seeing that. we saw nancy mace speak tonight and she started speaking with nancy not pelosi. peter navarro fresh out of jail was the next person to speak and he immediately is a saying, went to prison to protect you from going to prison. donald trump had prepared remarks a moment ago we talked again about stop the steel. what is so interesting is that we're going to hear from j.d. vance. i heard you and nicole talking about earlier. j.d. vance is relatively unknown to everyone here. they are excited about donald trump and the combined ticket. it's so interesting that they have chosen someone like j.d. vance with the message of unity when he is as far right as it gets. earlier today they were sort of rumblings out there that maybe donald trump is looking at a jamie dimon jp morgan to be treasury secretary. why? they want to push the idea that maybe non-hard-core trumper's,

maybe people outside would be open to make donald trump if he had someone like jamie dimon. i picked up the phone and i called a source close to jamie dimon and he says he's not leaving his job for years. what's interesting is his idea there pushing unity, unity. when we hear from j.d. vance tonight who, remember, is strictly against giving a single dime to ukraine the question is, they talk unity but it's not actually what's being represented. not here tonight. not in the policies or any of the rhetoric. >> great to have you there for us. we will be back with you in just a moment. we have a speaker we are looking out for just a second. donald trump has been saying repeatedly that he can get wall street journal reporter -- released from detention in russia. he said he can get that done only if he, trump, wins the election. he has been a prison in russia

for nearly a year and a half on espionage charges. charge that he and the world the wall street journal on the u.s. government vehemently denied and there patently ridiculous. starting at the end of may trump started saying that he had a way to seek away to get even gerghkovich released. he said that even gerghkovich, quote, will be released almost immediately after the election but definitely before i assume office. he will be home safe and with his family. vladimir putin will do that for me. but not for anyone else. unless trump is lying. he is saying he will have a way to get even gerghkovich out of prism and some sort of connection with russia. the message to russia of course is that they should release him until trump has been elected in november. is just this profoundly disturbing use of even gerghkovich's hostage situation in a way that by trump's own account is potentially prolonging even gerghkovich's situation for trump fs political game.

means, in hebrew, the first crop, is our first born. he was born in new york city one month after 9/11. eight months pregnant i walked across the queensboro bridge towards home that day and here we are 23 years later and he is the victim of another vile

terrorist attack. let me tell you a little bit about my son. he has a connector. he is an extremely social person. he loves sports. in high school he was captain of the soccer, volleyball, and basketball teams. he was a natural leader. and he cares deeply about others and about helping them grow. he turned 22 on october 14, 2023 and instead of celebrating with us and with his friends, he spent his birthday as a hostage of hamas terrorists. imagine over nine months not knowing if your son is alive,

waking up every morning, praying that he, too, is still waking up every morning. that he is strong and is surviving. i recited psalm 23 and his merit every single day. i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil, for thou art with me. my rod and thy staff, they comfort me. >> bring them home. bring them home. bring them home. bring them home. bring them home.

during the brutal october 7 attack on israel, over 1200 people were slaughtered. of them, 45 were american citizens. where is the outrage? where is it? this was not merely an attack on israel. this was and remains an attack on americans. he is one of eight american hostages and one of 120 hostages still left in gaza. citizens of 24 countries and five different religions, still held by hamas, denied basic human needs. their lives threatened every day.

president trump called us personally right after the attack. when he was taken captive. we know he stands with the american hostages. we need our beautiful son back. and we need your support. we need your support to end this crisis and bring all the hostages back home. bring them home. bring them home. during them home. during them home. bring them home. >> omer, we love you. we won't stop fighting for you. >> say it with us, bring them home. bring them home. bring them home.

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you are looking at live images from the republican national convention in milwaukee, wisconsin. this evening of course, the big speech is trump's vice

presidential running mate, j.d. vance, when he addresses the rnc. the nomination of j.d. vance marks the first time since john mccain ran against barack obama in 2008 that we have had a u.s. military veteran at the top of the ticket as the presidential or vice presidential nominee. j.d. vance is a retired marine who spent six months in iraq as a combat correspondent as part of a marine corps public affairs unit. at the same time he was in iraq, literally at the exact same time another rising star in american politics, and increasingly recognizable face in american politics, maryland governor wes moore was also deployed with the military. he was a captain in the u.s. army, leading combat troops as a paratrooper with the 82nd airborne in afghanistan. incredibly both of these men came back after their military service and wrote widely

praised, highly accomplished, award-winning memoirs. wes moore's memoir is called the other wes moore, one name, to fates. it is a look at how two men in baltimore with the same name who grew up under similar circumstances and hardships could go on to live very drastically different lives. the wes moore that we know went on to be a rhodes scholar and white house fellow and a captain in the army. the other never escaped poverty and he ended up in prison after being convicted of serious crimes. j.d. vance's memoir is about growing up in rural ohio in a family struggling with poverty and addiction. it is an examination of the struggles faced by white, working-class americans. both of these memoirs by these young men, widely praised. beautifully written and important books in their own way. following military service and writing celebrated autobiographies, both of these

men have ascended to top positions and their political parties. wes moore is now the governor of maryland. j.d. vance was just named as the vice presidential nominee of the republican ticket after serving about a year and a half in the united states senate. now we are about to speak with governor wes moore. i will say this before he gets here, because he will not want to talk about this, but i will tell you behind his back knowing fully that he can hear me, that as democrats of been having a very emotional, all in the family, kitchen table tears in their eyes discussion about whether the beloved figure at the top of their party, joe biden should remain at the top of the presidential ticket this year, wes moore is one of the rising stars in the democratic party now getting tested as a candidate himself. he is not doing that himself. other democrats and outlets are starting to test his prospects. he will not want to talk about that. he has not expressed any interest in being on the

ticket. he is an outspoken, firm supporter of president biden and indeed a surrogate for the campaign and he joins us now. wes moore, governor of maryland. it is a real pleasure to see you. i hope you were listening. >> i was not listening, i joke. it is good to see you. >> good to see you, too. let me start by asking you about j.d. vance. the vice presidential nominee is obviously from your generation. you are only a few years apart from one another. his background overlaps with yours in interesting ways. i want to ask a given some of the similarities you obviously arrived at radically different views on the country. what you make of his selection as president trump's running mate? >> i have known j.d. vance for a long time and that is one of the reasons i could never support him as being the vice president of this country. because at the same time j.d.

vance is introducing himself to many people in this country, for those who know him before he is reintroducing himself to us and there is something incredibly dangerous and problematic about that. i really hope he is doing some soul seeking and asks the question, is the ambition worth it? that we watch the shape shifting of j.d. vance that is incredibly troubling and we are now talking about someone who is saying that he is fully for a nationwide abortion ban. we are talking about someone who has said that he has rallied against the affordable care act and rallied against social security. this is a person who believes in extremist views when it comes to american isolationism. his values do not match the values of america and do not match the values and vision that for so many of us, for so many patriots, people who love this country. think about the actual direction this country should be going in.

so it is a bit disheartening, frankly. i know i said during the start of my campaign, i have no problem spending every day introducing myself to people who don't know me, but i refuse spending a second reintroducing myself to people who do know me and i think that is what j.d. vance is doing now. >> chris hayes here. i want to ask about a race happening in your home state that i think sheds light on the national race given the pick of j.d. vance and the abortion politics of j.d. vance and trump at the top of the ticket. the former governor of your state left with a high approval rating, running in a state that is quite democratic and supportive of abortion rights. essentially attempting to kind of moonwalk his way away from the republican party position on abortion and try to get maryland voters who were adamantly pro-choice to come along. do you think he can pull that off and what lessons will be learned from that for national

politics, where i think we have seen some signs of the republican party wanting to do the same thing in an entirely contested race? >> i actually don't think the old governor is moonwalking. i think he is about facing. it is amazing seeing him say that he is pro-choice and an independent thinker when the truth is when he had power he vetoed legislation that enhanced privacy. he vetoed legislation with production for providers. on my first day in office i released $3.5 million of previously unused funds because the old governor now running for senate refused to release them for political reasons. so it is not lost on anyone in our state that he was handpicked by mitt mitch mcconnell. getting larry hogan to run. i think larry hogan is going to

have a very difficult time trying to show the people of our state that you can be independent while at the same time knowing you were recruited by mitch mcconnell. you said you will caucus with the republicans and vote with the republicans, giving republicans the 51st senate seat. abortion rights is going to be on the ballot in the state of maryland to make it part of our constitution. larry hogan has shown he is not where the people are, he is not pro-choice and people will make sure we remember that in november. >> governor, it is your friend alex wagner. last time we talked to you we were talking about the black male vote and we had polling showing inroads with voters of color, specifically black men. the trump campaign launched an effort. i do wonder now that the choice of a vice presidential running mate has been named, j.d. vance, does that seem like a

pick designed to appeal to a broad cross-section of the american public and i wonder how you think is election place among communities of color and among black men in particular given his focus almost exclusively on white, working- class grievance. >> i think donald trump has made it very clear who he is going to double down on and what he sees as the vision for the country and it is true. we know that in order to get the support of african american men, you have to earn it, because there is a natural cynicism and natural skepticism that is long-standing and frankly it honors and it knowledges the history of this country. the history of this country has been remarkably uneven to african americans and particularly african american men. in order to earn the vote you have to go earn it and when you're looking at the history of the administration there is actually a track record they can talk about and the vision

for the future they can talk about. the biden-harris administration can talk about how they have been able to reduce the unemployment rate to historic lows. the biden-harris administration can talk about the fact we are watching the fastest start in businesses led by african american men and 30 years. the administration can talk about the fact we're watching a 60% jump in blackwell since the start of the pandemic under the biden-harris administration. there is the track record and receipts they can stand on and frankly not only is there not a track record we are seeing with the trump administration, there is not a vision for where we are going either. hope and division win elections and i think the biden-harris administration is the only campaign out of this race that is adding a hopeful vision for where we see african american men and i say that is the only african american governor in this country. i know what kind of partner that i have and the kind of results we are seeing in the

state of maryland and i know what i want to see for the next four years. it is the kind of partnership i have with the biden-harris administration. >> governor moore, it is joy reid, how are you? there has been a lot of football spiking i think on the republican side. a lot of confidence that they are going to win, even a state like maryland, dismissing the idea that angela alsobrooks can beat larry hogan and really confident they will get that seat. what do you think that is based on? what is the mood inside the state of maryland as you have read it and my second part of that question is what do you think is the state of the outreach to younger voters? because that is one of the stated weaknesses of the current democratic ticket in that younger voters are just not motivated. are issues like abortion and project 2025, do you think those are motivating enough to put maryland out of reach for republicans? >> yes and one thing i will

say, candidate quality does matter and the great thing, when you look at the senate race in the state of maryland, angela alsobrooks is a remarkable candidate. she is someone i proudly endorsed early. someone i did an event for earlier this evening and someone i will be proud to have as my partner when she heads to the senate and she is going to not just outwork the old governor, but someone with a vision that matches where the state is and your point about young voters is absolutely right. young voters were our foundation. they are the ones that paid attention to our campaign when we were polling at 1% and when i am not voting was polling higher than wes moore. i think the thing we continue to see is that you have got to show not just a track record, but also the fact that you are bringing them on board. when we look at our state where we had the most precipitous drop in homicides and violent crime of any state in this country.

the last time the homicide rate was this low in baltimore city i was not born yet and we have been able to do that work because we have been engaging with young people. a few weeks ago we had the largest mass pardon for cannabis convictions in the history of this country, where i personally pardoned over 175,000 cannabis convictions because i don't understand how people can be punished for something that is no longer illegal in our state. we worked with young people to make that happen, so young people have to understand that they are not just a subject of the conversation. they must be part of the conversation. it is something i believe in deeply in our leadership. it is something we have been doing in the state of maryland and it is the reason i know young people will rise to make sure we get the election results in november that those who came before us hope for and those that come after us deserve. >> maryland governor wes moore, such a pleasure to have you with us. thank you for making the time. thank you. you know, the democratic party,

in terms of the democratic party's future, since well before he became governor, you can see why. again, we are talking about him and he can probably still hear us. you see the way that he is articulating his vision and the president, the case for the president and the case for democrats in maryland. then you look at his social media presence and it is like him working out with the cadets at the naval academy and shotgunning beers with tailgaters. he has a level of both charisma and communication skills that do not come along even once in a generation. >> very true. i will say we have the same book editor and publisher and his book is a lot better than mine. a lot better than mine, so i will just leave that right there. he is a once in a generation talent on many levels. >> your literary agent is on the phone. >> i have to say, one of the

things that has been striking, i was actually going back through some of the transcripts. i don't think this is a controversial thesis. i think the presence of donald trump has kind of generally dragged down the level of communication and politics. i came across a nixon speech the other day where he was explaining accusations of impropriety. it is incredibly complex. he really walks you through and talks about it. i am so struck by the speeches we heard. the only difference was marco rubio did try to make an argument last night. tried to engage in persuasive communication. the median level of public communication and politics right now at this moment really is not very high-end when you hear someone like wes moore who is incredibly gifted, that seems more like the level we should be operating on at the public discourse. it is really striking to me.

>> i don't know that it is trump. i would take that back further to the tea party movement. part of what the tea party movement was, marco rubio claim to be part of it and predated it, joined it belatedly. it's the idea that joe the butcher would replace the professionals who did not know how to stand up for the real working class and the working man. the great replacement was really replacing really intelligent politicians were mostly lawyers and speechmakers and it was part in reaction to obama. president obama represented the intellectual elite that made them angry by his presence. >> there are commas in his sentence. >> and they hated it. >> i think vance is interesting, because j.d. vance is very capable of effective public communication. he is capable of speaking at a level of genuine complexity. he can do it. what choice he makes politically tonight --

>> complex is not it. >> i wasn't banking on it. >> joe the plumber, right? it is sort of a reaction. >> whose name was not joe and he was not a plumber. >> true, but i think this comes up as a byproduct of vanishing lines between talk radio and republican elected officials. so to speak the language of the very popular and connect to -- the politicians grafted onto that. i think, you know, i say to people who don't follow us all the time, we are not super divided. 76% of americans think that roe should have stayed. 80% of americans want gun safety legislation. we don't have massive policy divides. we have a massive, ugly, vicious, driven by social media cultural war going on and if you talk to conservatives and listen to talk radio, they say

things about other human beings that i can't imagine they would ever say to someone's face. about athletes, lgbtq issues. it is this dehumanization that has overtaken republicans and overtook the language and it has been accelerated. >> let me just say, donald trump jr. is speaking right now. he just did an endorsement for a book called unhuman, which is about what the left is and why we can't think of them as human and need to treat them as vermin and he endorsed it and he is the former president's son. >> what you are saying is so true and we also have a world in which that has turned off the majority or at least a plurality. 40% of people don't even vote in presidential elections and i think we have a very low turnout generally, even in presidential elections. we are doing great when we get 60% of people to participate.

like you said this broad agreement in society is not reflected in politics. it is the most active partisans who participate and they are more polarized than the electorate or the people generally. >> also speaking in complicated poetry or even prose has become a hallmark of being a liberal elite somehow. even if you are j.d. vance who went to yale law school, work for a hedge fund and lived in san francisco. we are going to speak in simple language, because that is what our base needs to hear as a hallmark of our bona fides. >> and i say one thing which is i used to think of this -- that we lost the ability to use words because we don't much need them anymore. just different versions of the smiley face and stuff. looking at this in history, one of the things, one element of scholarship about authoritarianism versus democracy is that the more authoritarian the society is, the more noun based and direct

the public communication is around politics. nouns, no commas, short direct sentences and that is a hallmark of communications and societies in which authoritarianism is rising. >> and turning against elites. >> what is striking to me about donald trump and the trump era and i imagine true of many speakers including now, donald trump, whatever you say about him, he has certain rhetorical gifts. he does not make arguments. he states things, he sort of hammers things. he does stand up, he does banter. he does not make arguments and democratic politics is about making arguments to persuade people and it is really the case that that is not where the political discourses. >> that is a very astute and important point. it is not about persuading people. it is about stating what is true and winding up behind it. we have more coverage of the republican national convention

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back to our special coverage of the republican national convention. live in milwaukee, wisconsin, as you can see here.

we also want to show you president biden. this is air force one arriving in delaware, dover air force base in delaware. as we reported earlier this evening, the white house has confirmed president biden tested positive for covid, so his schedule has been cleared and he is on air force one because he is heading home to recuperate. the white house described him as being mildly symptomatic. he has had covid before and they described him as having respiratory symptoms including a runny nose and a general malaise. this is the president arriving at dover air force base with some random people, we don't know who they are, just kind of looking around in the front. that is the perspective of the shot. eight years ago at the 2016 republican national convention, donald trump received a primetime endorsement from a tech billionaire named peter teal. among other things he was a proponent of something where people who are sick of living

in civilization should ditch it and instead govern themselves in floating cargo containers that the so they can get away from dastardly government. he also said things have only gone downhill since women got the right to vote. he has written that democracy and freedom, democracy and freedom are incompatible things, with the implication being that democracy has to go. that is why it was a surprising endorsement. i think a lot of people found it unnerving to see a person with those kinds of views take the stage at a major political party convention. after that 2016 rnc appearance he decided, i don't know, maybe the republican party decided, maybe he is not the best face for politics. maybe more of a behind-the- scenes guy. after that the instead became a prolific funder of candidates, but not necessarily a public facing guy. in 2022 thiel was the very,

very generous backer of two republican senate candidates. blake masters in arizona. he lost. he was perhaps best known in that race for expressing that he thought the most underrated thinker in america was the unit bomber, so that did not work out great in arizona. at the same time peter thiel back to j.d. vance, sort of a protege of his that he had given a number of jobs to in california. he then pumped $15 million into a j.d. vance for senate race in ohio that vance had absolutely no shot at. it was the largest amount ever given to boost a single senate candidate ever and it worked. peter thiel created the senate candidate out of whole cloth. thiel personally introduced vance to donald trump. literally walked him into donald trump's office and helped encourage trump to

endorse vance, despite the fact that a few years earlier he called trump reprehensible and immoral and absurd and wondered if trump was, quote, americas hitler. nevertheless, holding thiel's hand was enough to get j.d. vance donald trump's endorsement and now, 18 months after peter thiel put him in the senate, peter thiel now has his guy, j.d. vance, on trump's ticket as his running mate. whatever you think of vance, the working-class champion who is also a venture capitalist millionaire. the reason he at age 39 has risen from a guy who was only famous for writing an autobiography to now being the republican nominee for vice president of the united states, it is because of peter thiel. because of a handful of radical tech billionaires, mostly thiel, but also others. his worldview off the senate floor makes that background pretty clear.

he told the podcaster recently that in a second term if he is reelected to the white house donald trump should defy supreme court rulings. he said trump must seize power because the entire american system is collapsing. he said, quote, we are in a late republican period. he doesn't mean republican party , he means republic, but we are not going to be one much longer. if we are going to push back against it, we are going to have to get pretty wild and pretty far out there and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with. last year j.d. vance spoke on a panel with a philosopher who called on conservatives to carry out regime change in the united states not just to topple the democratic president, replace him with a republican president, but to replace liberal democracy with, quote, post liberal order. at that event vance identified himself as a member of the post liberal right. not about being against

liberals, it is about being against liberal democracy. he said he views his role in congress as explicitly anti- regime, the regime being the american system of government. j.d. vance is a yale law school graduate. he called american colleges and universities the enemy. a couple months ago he was asked about hungarian autocrat viktor orban's seizure of universities. he said that he made some smart decisions that we could learn from in the united states. j.d. vance within minutes is about to make his debut on the national stage. americans have a lot to learn about him. joining us from milwaukee is stephanie ruhle, who is there along with alex eisenstadt who has done fascinating reporting on j.d. vance's rise. thank you so much for being with us. i will let you take it away. >> reporter: rachel brilliantly laid out the tale of j.d.

vance because most people in america, even people in this arena, they know nothing about him. what you think is the most important thing we need to know about this guy who is essentially crafted by peter thiel from 2013 to today? >> he has had this fascinating rise we have not seen in politics since barack obama. two years ago he was running in us than a trace. -- running in a senate race. he transitioned quickly from being someone who is anti-trump to someone who is extremely pro- trump, so it has been a remarkable transformation and he is very much associated with the maga movement and that is a big part of the reason donald trump picked him to be vice president. he is comfortable with him, trust him and has the support of donald trump's family, namely his son who is speaking behind us right now. >> who is the voting block that j.d. vance could bring in for donald

trump? if he squarely as a hard-core, far right maga guy, those voters are already backing trump. who is this guy bringing to the table? >> j.d. vance root hillbilly elegy, a book that focused on blue- collar voters. they will park him in the rust belt states. michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin, those are really important states on the ballot that trump needs to win or wants to win in this election, so you can bet that j.d. vance will spend a lot of time talking about his blue-collar roots. >> his rust belt brand is very different from yale law school. very different from silicon valley, working in d.c. and not just being backed by peter thiel, but now elon musk and a cadre of super successful tech billionaires. what we need to know about why they are backing him? one example is cryptocurrency,

which we have not heard so much from the biden administration or donald trump. but of j.d. vance is aligned with these guys who are so deep in crypto and suddenly we see the way that the s.e.c. is put together, the way crypto regulation is put together, that could put these guys exponentially wealthier and having their control of j.d. vance give them everything they want. how concerned should people be that you have elon musk or peter thiel behind-the-scenes? >> there is no question that if donald trump returns to office you will see the rise of the silicon valley elite. someone like elon musk. there will be a tremendous amount of influence that silicon valley is going to have potentially in the trump white house. in a lot of ways you have silicon valley voters which are replacing old, mainstream republican party donors who were with george w. bush, who were with mitt romney. there is this wholesale shift happening with the republican party and you can bet that with j.d. vance on the ticket you will see a lot of money coming in from someone like elon musk who

said he will give potentially $40 million a month to the trump campaign. >> isn't that a transactional shift? not ideology. this group of business people have traditionally been libertarians who are all about small government, yes, low regulation, but that is what donald trump represents. >> look, it is one of those things that trump has shifted the republican party away from what it used to be to now something very different. he is now meeting with crypto people. he is having people get involved. in a lot of ways donald trump has shifted the republican party. his mindset is something very different. >> very transactional. what should we know about j.d. vance because if this were a traditional rnc, which clearly it is not, foreign policy would be a top priority. things like the war in ukraine would be a top priority. >> it is not and he is someone who is a non-interventionist.

we talk about the break you are seeing with donald trump and the bush republican party. the bush republican party was all about overseas intervention. that is not what this is about. behind-the-scenes in the republican party. the interventionists and the non-interventionists like j.d. vance. >> or maybe it won't be a conflict behind-the-scenes. maybe those traditional republicans will be out of the scene. >> it is going to be interesting to see how trump, if he wins, how he will build this white house. he will bring in someone like mike pompeo -- much more hawkish on foreign policy and how will they interact with j.d. vance? that will be an interesting dynamic to watch if trump wins. >> rachel, this isn't spinal tap, but they have definitively turned it up to 11 behind us, so i will turn it back to you. >> we will send you whatever vitamins are supposed to restore your hearing after it

is damaged from this trauma. thank you very much. alex eisenstadt, reporter from politico. some really good reporting on vance being sort of created in a lab by tech billionaires with creepy politics. i am just summarizing from memory. let's bring in nbc news correspondent jacob soboroff, covering the rnc for us in milwaukee this evening. you have better seats. you have a better vantage point from when we left you with those poor south carolina delegates last night. what are you seeing tonight? who have you been talking to? >> reporter: rachel i think the story of this convention so far can be told in some measure through the signs ended out. the campaign hands out signs every night and i think the messaging has changed. i will go through them with you. i will hold them up. make america strong again. one of the first ones to come out. american oil from american soil. a theme of our previous evening and a little bit tonight.

trump vance when they announced the presidential pick. tonight the idea of issues that will unify the country went out the window. mass deportation now. >> oh my god. wow. >> reporter: i have shared the sign with some of my colleagues and i have to give it back because there is a woman, i'm not even joking, who said she wants to bring us dayspring this home with her. i'm not joking. ma'am, here is your sign. thank you. it is part of the policy platform of this convention to create the largest deportation effort in american history. that is verbatim and i know as a student of history, forgive me to our viewers who might've heard me talk about this earlier in the evening, but for those tuning in at this late hour i want to say a 1954 after the program where many guest workers are brought into this country, the eisenhower administration deported, under an operation with a name that is a racist i'm not comfortable

saying it on television, deported around 1 million mexicans including some mexican americans. the program under the trump administration would be bigger than that and bigger than anything in the first trump term. these are the issues coming up. we heard from peter navarro who had a more rousing ovation from anyone we've heard. i heard stephanie talking about it from the floor earlier. i want to say that the tone has changed considerably tonight and other than former president trump after the assassination attempt, i am hearing the biggest ovation for the tone and tenor of the program tonight as we watch former president trump right now with greg abbott, the texas governor. there is devin nunes, now running trump social. doug command -- doug burgum and speaker of the house mike johnson. right on cue, here goes a man just as the border wall. >> jacob soboroff, do you think

the border wall guy was seeking you out or was that a lucky coincidence because you did something in a past life and you were really lucky? >> reporter: the latter. >> thanked the ancestors. jacob soboroff tonight on the floor of the rnc in milwaukee. we are expecting in a couple of minutes and introduction to the main speech of the evening. the main speech of the evening of course, republican vice presidential nominee j.d. vance. we expect he is going to be introduced by his wife, usha vance. she will give her remarks momentarily. this week many people including many republicans learned that usha vance is indian american. she is practicing hindu. she and senator vance have three kids. she is also a very successful lawyer. she clerked for john roberts as well as justice brett kavanaugh. that's right, she has clerked for two of the most

conservative justices ever to sit on the united states supreme court. she clerked for justice kavanaugh when he served on the appeals court in washington. she then became a trial lawyer for a firm, an excellent firm in san francisco that has been described as radically progressive in the way it is run. she left that very well regarded firm after her husband was named this week. she is also a registered democrat until at least 2014 but has since voted in the 2022 republican primary, which her husband ran in. when she was asked about the prospect of becoming the second lady last june she replied, quote, i am not raring to change anything about our lives right now, but i really believe in jd. i really love him, so we will see what happens in our lives. we have the eyes on the convention stage. usha vance is expected to begin her speech shortly.

we do believe that her husband, j.d. vance, will be speaking right after her, so we will keep an eye for when she starts her remarks. one of the things about being a very young person in this sort of position is that you end up being a person whose family is introduced to the country in a way that has the candidate you have to feel very protective of. they have three very young kids and they are about to be very famous. it is one thing to be a senator for 18 months. it is another to be the vice presidential running mate and this is a big step onto the big stage for a young family. let's watch. >> good evening. good evening. when i was asked to introduce my husband, j.d. vance to all of you, i was at a loss. what can i say that has not already been said before?

after all, the man was already the subject of a ron howard movie. jd has shared much of his life through his own eloquent words. in his book, hillbilly elegy, during his senate campaign, and now as a sitting united states senator. it occurred to me that there was only one thing to do. to explain from the heart why i love and admire jd and stand here beside him today and why he will make a great vice president of the united states. i met j.d. in law school when he was fresh out of ohio state, which he attended with support of the g.i. bill. we were friends first because who would not want to be friends with j.d.? he was then, as now, the most

interesting person i knew. a working-class guy who had overcome childhood traumas that i could barely fathom to end up at yale law school. a tough marine who had served in iraq, but whose idea of a good time was playing with puppies and watching the movie, babe. the most determined person i knew with one overriding ambition, to become a husband and a father and to build the kind of tightknit family that he had longed for as a child. my background is very different from j.d.'s. i grew up in san diego in a middle-class community. both immigrants from india and a wonderful sister. that j.d. and i could meet at all, let alone fall in love and mary is a testament to this great

country. it is also a testament to j.d. and it tells you something about who he is. when j.d. met me he approached our differences with curiosity and enthusiasm. he wanted to know everything about me, where i came from, what my life had been like. although he is a meat and potatoes kind of guy, he adapted to my vegetarian diet and learned to cook food for my mother, indian food. before i knew it, he had become an integral part of my family. a person i could not imagine living without. the j.d. i knew then is the same j.d. you see today, except for that beard.

and his goals in this new role are the same he has pursued for our family. to keep people safe. to create opportunities. to build a better life and to solve problems with an open mind. it is safe to say that neither j.d. or i expected to find ourselves in this position, but it is hard to find a more powerful example of the american dream. a boy from middletown, ohio -- raised by his grandmother through tough times, chosen to help lead our country through some of its greatest challenges. i am grateful to all of you for the trust you placed in him and

in our family. and with that it is my great privilege to introduce my husband and the next vice president of the united states, j.d. vance. ♪♪ >> thank you.

thank you. thank you. please. wow. wow. first of all, i am a lucky guy. isn't she lovely and amazing? greetings, milwaukee. my fellow americans and my fellow republicans, my name is

j.d. vance from the great state of ohio. tonight -- ohio. you guys, we have to chill with the ohio love. we have to win michigan to, so -- my friends, tonight is a night of hope. a celebration of what america once was and with god's grace, what it will soon be again. and it is a reminder of the sacred duty we have to preserve the american experiment.

to choose a new path for our children and grandchildren. but as we meet tonight we cannot forget that this evening could have been so much different. instead of a day of celebration, this could have been a day of heartache and mourning. the last eight years, president trump has given everything he has to fight for the people of our country. he didn't need politics, but the country needed him. now prior to running for president he was one of the most successful businessman in the world. he had everything anyone could want in life and yet, instead of choosing the easy path, he chose to endure abuse, slander, and persecution and he did it

because he loves this country. i want all americans to go and watch the video of a would-be assassin coming a quarter inch from taking his life. consider the lies they told you about donald trump and then look at that photo of him defiant, fist in the air, when donald trump rose to his feet in that pennsylvania field. all of america stood with him. >> and what did he call us to do for our country? to fight. to fight for america, even in

his most perilous moment, we were on his mind. his instinct was for us, for our country, to call us to something higher, to something greater. to once again be citizens to ask what our country needs of us. now, consider what they said. they said he was a tyrant. they said he must be stopped at all costs. but how did he respond? he called for national unity, for national calm, literally right after an assassin nearly took his life. he remembered the victims of the terrible attack, especially the brave corey, who gave his life to protect his family. god bless him. and then president trump flew

to milwaukee and got back to work. that is the man i have gotten to know personally over the last four years. he is tough, and he is, but he cares about people. he can stand defy it against an assassin at one moment, and call for national healing the next. he is a beloved father and grandfather, and of course, a once in a generation business leader. he is the man who is feared by america's adversaries, but two nights ago, and i will share a moment, said good night to his two boys, told them he love to them, and major to give each of them a kiss on the cheek. and i will say don and eric squirmed the same way my four- year-old does when his daddy tries to give him a kiss on the cheek. sorry, guys. he has all those things, but tonight we celebrate, he is our once and future president of the united states of america.

now, i want to respond to his call for unity myself. we have a big tent in this party, on everything from national security to economic policy. but my message to you, my fellow republicans, is we love this country and we are united to win. now, i think our disagreements actually make us stronger. that is what i have learned in my time in the united states senate, where sometimes i persuade my colleagues and sometimes they persuade me. and my message to my fellow americans, those watching from across the country, is

shouldn't we be governed by a party that is unafraid to debate ideas and come to the best solution? that is the republican party of the next four years. united in our love for this country and committed to the free speech and open exchange of ideas. and so, tonight, mr. chairman, i stand here humbled, and i am overwhelmed with gratitude to say i officially accept your nomination to be vice president of the united states of america!

now, never in my wildest imagination could i have believed that i would be standing here tonight. i grew up in middletown, ohio. a small town where people's book their minds, worked with her hands, and loved god, their family, the community, and the country with their whole hearts. but it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by america's ruling class in washington. when i was in the fourth grade, a career politician by the name of joe biden supported nafta, a bad trade deal that sent countless good jobs to mexico. when i was a sophomore in high

school, that same career politician named joe biden gave china a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good, american, middle-class manufacturing jobs. when i was a senior in high school, that same joe biden supported the disastrous invasion of iraq, and at each step of the way, in small towns like mine in ohio, or next-door in pennsylvania or michigan, in states all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and our children were sent to war. i agree.

and, somehow, a real estate developer from new york city by the name of donald j trump was right on all of these issues, while biden was wrong. president trump knew even then that we needed leaders who would put america first. now, thanks to these policies that biden and other out of touch politicians in washington gave us, our country was flooded with cheap chinese goods , with cheap foreign labor, and, in the decades to come, deadly chinese fentanyl. joe biden screwed up, and my community paid the price. now, i was lucky. despite the closing factories and the growing evictions in towns like mine, in my life i had a guardian angel by my side. she was an old woman who could

barely walk, but she was tough as nails. i called her memo, the name we hillbillies gave to our grandmothers. mamaw raised me as my mother struggled with addiction. mamaw was, in so many ways, a woman of contradiction. she loved the lord, ladies and gentle men. she was a woman of very deep christian faith. but she also loved the f word. i'm not kidding. she could make a sailor blush. now, she once told me when she found out that i was spending too much time with a local kid who is known for dealing drugs, that if i ever hung out with that kid again she would run him over with her car.

that's true. she said jd, no one will ever find out about it. now, thanks to that mamaw , things worked out for me. after 9/11, i did what thousands of other young men did at that time, swearing patriotism and love of country. i enlisted in the united states marines. semper fi to my fellow marines. now, i left the marines after four years and went to the ohio state university.

i'm sorry, michigan, i had to get that in there. come on, come on. we've had enough political violence, after ohio state i went to yale law school where i met my beautiful wife. then i started businesses to create jobs in the kind of places i grew up in. my work taught me that there is still so much talent and grit in the american heartland. there really is. but, for these places to thrive, my friends, we need a leader who fights for the people who built this country. we need a leader who is not in the pocket of big business, but answers to the working man,

union and nonunion alike. a leader who won't sell out to multinational corporations, but will stand up for american companies and american industry. a leader who rejects joe biden and kamala harris's green and new scam and fights to bring back our great american factories. we need president donald j trump. some people tell me i have lived the american dream, and of course, they are right. i am so grateful for it. but the american dream that always counted most was not starting a business, or becoming a senator, or even being here with you fine

people, although it is pretty awesome. my most important american dream was becoming a good husband and a good dad. being able to give -- i wanted to give my kids the things i didn't have when i was growing up. and that is the compliment that i am proudest of. that tonight i am joined by my beautiful wife, usha , and incredible lawyer and a better mom. and our three beautiful kids. ewan, who is seven, viv x, who is four, and maribel, who is two. they are back at the hotel, and kids, if you are watching, daddy loves you very much, but get your butts in bed. it is 10:00. but, my friends, things did not work out well for a lot of kids i grew up with. every now and then i will get a call from a relative back home who asks, did you know so-and-

so? and i will remember a face from years ago, and then i will hear they died of an overdose. as always, america's ruling class wrote the checks. communities like mine paid the price. for decades that divide between the view with their power and comfort in washington, and the rest of us only widened. from iraq to afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the great recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who govern this country have failed and failed again. that is, of course, until a guy named donald j trump came along. president trump represents america's last best hope to restore what, if lost, may never be found again. a country where a working-class boy, born far from the halls of

power, can stand on this stage as the next vice president of the united states of america. but, my fellow americans, here on this stage and watching at home, this moment is not about me. it is about all of us. it is about who we are fighting for. it is about the autoworker in michigan wondering why out of touch politicians are destroying their jobs. it is about the factory worker in wisconsin who makes things with their hands and is proud of american craftsmanship. it is about the energy worker in pennsylvania and ohio who does not understand why joe

biden is willing to buy energy from tinpot dictators across the world when he could buy it from his own citizens, right here in our own country. you guys are a great crowd.

it is about, our movement is about single moms like mine, who struggled with money and addiction, but never gave up. i am proud to say that tonight my mom is here, 10 years clean and sober. i love you, mom.

and, you know, mom, i was thinking. it will be 10 years officially in january of 2025, and if resident trump is okay with it, let's have the celebration in the white house. our movement, ladies and gentlemen, is about

grandparents all across this country who are living on social security and raising grandchildren they did not expect to raise. while we are on the topic of grandparents, let me tell you another mamaw story. my mamaw died shortly before i left for iraq in 2005. when we went through her things we found 19 loaded handguns. now, the thing is, they were stashed all over her house. under her bed, in her closet, in the silverware drawer. and we wondered what was going on, and it occurred to us that towards the end of her life, she could not get around so well. so this frail old woman made sure the no matter where she was, she was within arms length of whatever she needed to

protect her family. that is who we fight for, that is american spirit. now, joe biden has been a politician in washington for longer than i've been alive. 39 years old. kamala harris is not much further behind. for half a century, he has been the champion of every major policy initiative to make america weaker and poorer. and in four short years, donald trump reversed decades of betrayals inflicted by joe biden and the rest of the corrupt washington insiders.

he created the greatest economy in history for workers. it really was amazing. there is this chart that shows worker wages, and they stagnated for pretty much my entire life until president donald j trump came along. workers wages went through the roof. and just imagine what he is going to do when we give him four more years.

months ago i heard some young family member observed that their parents generation, the baby boomers, could afford to buy a home when they first enter the workforce. but i don't know if i will ever be able to afford a home. the absurd cost of housing is the result of so many failures, and it reveals so much about what is broken in washington. i can tell you exactly how it happened. wall street barons crash the economy and american builders went out of business. as tradesmen scrambled for jobs, houses stopped being built. the lack of good jobs, of course, led to stagnant wages. and then the democrats flooded this country with millions of illegal aliens. so, citizens had to compete with people who shouldn't even be here for precious housing. joe biden's inflation crisis,

my friends, is really an affordability crisis. and many of the people that i grew up with can't afford to pay more for groceries, more for gas, more for rent, and that is exactly what joe biden's economy has given them. so, prices soared, dreams were shattered, and that china and the cartels sent fentanyl across the border, adding addiction to the heart ache. but, ladies and gentlemen, that is not the end of our story. we have heard about villains and their victims, i have talked a lot about that. but let me tell you about the future. president trump's vision is so simple, and yet, so powerful.

we are done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to wall street. we will commit to the workingman. we are done importing foreign labor. we are going to fight for american citizens and their good jobs, and their good wages. we are done buying energy from countries that hate us. we are going to get it right here from american workers in pennsylvania and ohio, and across the country. we are done sacrificing supply chains to unlimited global trade, and we are going to stamp more and more products with that beautiful label, made in the usa.

we are going to build factories again, put people to work making real products for american families, made with the hands of american workers. together we will protect the wages of american workers and stop the chinese communist party from building their middle-class on the backs of american citizens. together we will make sure our allies share in the burden of securing world peace. no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the american taxpayer.

together we will send our kids to war only when we must. but as president trump showed with the elimination of isis and so much more, when we punch we are going to punch hard. together we will put the citizens of america first, whatever the color of their skin. we will, in short, make america great again. you know, one of the things that you hear people say sometimes is that america is an idea. and, to be clear, america was indeed founded on brilliant

ideas, like the rule of law and religious liberty, things written into the fabric of our constitution and our nation. but, america is not just an idea. it is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. it is, in short, a nation. now, it is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers. but when we allow newcomers into our american family, we allow them on our terms. that is the way we preserve the continuity of this project from 250 years past, to hopefully 250 years in the future. and let me illustrate this with

the story, if i may. i am, of course, married to the daughter of south asian immigrants to this country. incredible people. people who have genuinely enriched this country in so many ways, and of course, i am biased because i love my wife and her family. but it is true. now, when i propose to my wife we were in law school, and i said honey, i come with $120,000 worth of law school debt, and a cemetery plot on a mountainside in eastern kentucky. and i guess standing here tonight has just gotten weirder and weirder, honey. but, that was what she was getting. that cemetery plotted eastern kentucky is near my family's ancestral home. and, like a lot of people, we came from the mountains of appalachia into the factories of ohio, pennsylvania, michigan, and wisconsin. now, that is kentucky coal country, one of the 10 poorest

counties in the unit entire united states of america. they are very hard-working people, and they are very good people. they are the kind of people who would give you the shirt off their back, even if they can't afford enough to eat. and our media calls them privileged and looks down on them. but they love this country, not only because it is a good idea, but because, in their bones, they know that this is their home. and it will be their children's home, and they would die fighting to protect it. that is the source of america's greatness. as a united states senator i

get to represent millions of people in the great state of ohio, with similar stories. and it is the great honor of my life. in that cemetery there are people who were born around the time of the civil war. and if, as i hope, my wife and i are eventually laid to rest there and our kids follow us, there will be seven generations just in that small mountain cemetery plot in eastern kentucky. seven generations of people who have fought for this country, who have built this country, who have made things in this country and who would fight and die to protect this country if they were asked to. now, that is not just an idea, my friends. that is not just a set of principles, even though the ideas and the principles are great. that is a homeland. that is our homeland. people will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home. and if this movement of ours is

going to succeed, and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that america is a nation, and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interest first. now, we won't agree on every issue, of course. not even in this room. we may disagree from time to time about how best to reinvigorate american industry and renew american family. that's fine. in fact, it's more than fine, it's good. but, never forget that the reason why this united republican party exists, why we do this, why we care about those great ideas and that great history, is that we want this nation to thrive for centuries to come. now, eventually in that

mountain cemetery my children will limit to rest. and when they do, i would like them to know that thanks to the work of this republican party, the united states of america, and as strong and as proud and as great as ever. that is who we serve, my friends. that is who we fight for, and the only thing that we need to do right now, the most important thing that we can do for those people, for that american nation that we all love, is to re-elect donald j trump, president of the united states.

mr. president, i will never take for granted the trust you have put in me. and what an honor it is to help achieve the extraordinary vision that you have for this country. now, i pledged every american, no matter your party, i will give you everything i have. to serve you and to make this country a place where every dream you have for yourself, your family, and your country will be possible once again. and i promise you one more thing. to the people of middletown, ohio and all the forgotten communities, in michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, ohio, and every corner of our nation, i promise you this. i will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.

every single day for the next four years, when i walk into that white house to help resident trump, i will be doing it for you. for your family, for your future, and for this great country. thank you, god bless all of you, and god bless our great country.

>> jd vance being greeted by his family on stage after giving his speech accepting the republican party's vice presidential nomination. interesting, not the most important thing in the world, but interesting music choice. this is the signature clinton campaign song from the 90s. that's an interesting choice, perhaps a coincidence.

his wife, usha, gave very charming remarks introducing her husband . loki very charming, very human introduction of him. and he gave his speech. jd vance, again, not a well-known public figure. he is well-known in conservative circles in large part for his meteoric rise. he has only been in the united states and every year and a half. he has never run for anything before, he has essentially been a protigi of a tech billionaire named peter teal, the person who personally introduced him to trump, who funded his senate campaign, and who gave him all of his jobs. now here he is, the vice presidential running mate for donald trump. i will say that the speech was a very straight up republican speech. not a particular jd vance speech, except for a few charming anecdotes about his family, particularly his grandmother. if it was going to be important for this campaign for donald trump's running mate to be an electrifying order, he was not.

he is not. maybe he is in other circumstances. his acceptance speech tonight was not an electrifying speech. he looks a lot like jerry falwell junior, you might remember, from liberty university. jerry falwell senior, the televangelist, fantastic orator. jerry falwell junior, real estate lawyer, and talks like it. this is much more of a jerry falwell junior, vibe, then someone who had oratorical chops. again, those are style points, not the most important thing in the world. i know you are watching with a fact checker side towards us. >> i think the approach was a kind of do no harm approach, particularly because this was a guy who went on tucker carlson and said the country was ruled by angry, jealous cat ladies who want to make everyone as miserable as they are. he is the one who tweeted the democrats basically had blood on their hands after the assassination intent on the president. his rhetorical mode is very

impressive. >> when he was against trump he had what proportion of the u.s. population has donald trump sexually assaulted? that is what is natural tone is. >> that is as natural tone, that is not the stone, which i think is a deft choice. if you're introducing yourself to the country, not to the rate . i think that was smart rhetorically. he did this riff about joe biden's political career in which he said true things. the trade deals of joe biden did in fact favor, which donald trump oppose, which is also true. donald trump did oppose nafta and most favored nation status. he said donald trump oppose the iraq war, which is not true, and i think we had a litigate over and over and over in 2016. he also seems to make it that the iraq war, we lived through it, was a democratic war. it was not, it was run by george w. bush, probably ardently supported by many of the people in that hole with it. i was there, actually, for that convention that year. the last thing i will say, not really a fact checking point, but i think is important.

there is a story he is telling about the neoliberal gutting of the american industrial base, what it did to those manufacturing towns in america and how it betrayed the american working man. and that joe biden was a symbol of that. what he left out of that is the biden economic policy, which is created 800,000 manufacturing jobs, and the most remarkable manufacturing investment and in sourcing we have seen in generations, is precisely aimed at and has been wildly successful at restoring the american industrial base, focusing on manufacturing jobs, focusing on unionized manufacturing jobs, focusing on those jobs and places that are far away from the enclaves of liberal metropolitan areas. >> and jobs for which he is physically do not need a college degree. >> correct. so this entire sort of story he is telling, which has some truth to it as a matter of history, what is happened the last four years. which is been, in some ways, pretty vance kind of approach

to industrial policy. the last thing i will say, and i will be the strum until i put a tear in it, that america is producing more oil now than any nation in the history of the world has produced ever. so everyone has their talking points from 2008, and they go up on stage and they see drill, baby, drill. and the fact of the matter is this pickets are as open as they get, they are turned all the way open. we are pumping oil out of the ground like no one is ever seen. these are the facts. it drives me insane. you can say that's bad, you can say that's good. it just is the case that we are, right now, the global force, the global hegemon in energy in a way we probably haven't ever been in my life. >> yes, and imagine if the republicans had that to brag about, you would never hear the end of it. with joe biden having that to brag about, again, arguably, if you want to brag about that, republicans are not only pretending it has not happened, but attacking them as if they will somehow embody his record instead of him. lawrence? >> so, the previous three republican presidents would not recognize this as a republican speech. to the anti-nafta stuff, it should be remembered that the nafta negotiations began under

president ronald reagan. they were almost entirely completed under president george h.w. bush. then bill clinton picked up what had been left, the work done prior to that, and got it passed fairly quickly. mostly with republican votes. more republican votes than democratic votes. that is the history of it. what donald trump did with nafta is exactly what you do a trade agreements like that, which is they just updated it. it is still nafta. it is still there. everything. the whole basis of it was still in place. so no one has actually done anything to significantly change nafta. and then, if you could only quote two minds, and this goes to george w. bush, the disastrous invasion of iraq. that is what he just called it. the disastrous invasion of iraq. there was a 2004 convention

celebrating that invasion, that convention was held in new york city, and this pretending it didn't happen, pretending it wasn't us, and applying it to joe biden. joe biden supported the disastrous invasion of iraq. that was the sentence, because he voted for it in the senate, as did most democratic senators. then the other one, the line that i think the audience kind of worked on this one themselves. we won't cater to wall street, we will commit to the workingman. that is, in a republican vice president's accepting the nomination speech, and as i set here, stylistically, in terms of convention speakers, i had to think back. i was trying to remember what was cheney's speech like? i think it was a little more exciting. and i know dan quayle's was better. i don't know, you have to go back to, i don't know, richard nixon may be to find something

is flat is that as a vice presidential speech? >> is a critique, that it was just flat? >> the lines were written for the surge from the ground. and he didn't get it. so i was wondering two things about that. i mean, one of these lines was, you know, okay, so the invasion of iraq line was actually written for a surge that he did not get. there was no response to it at all. no response to a bunch of these lines, and i wondered, is of the crowd? do they not think, are those not winning lines with this crowd anymore? are they exhausted? or is it his fault as a speaker. and i suspect that it was his fault and his rhythms. he just didn't have, you know, mike pence did that preacher thing. he did that christian preacher thing, which that audience understands and knows how to respond to the rhythms of it. he didn't have any rhythms. but we will see, it is his first one. >> there was a rhythmic outbreak at one point during the speech, when the crowd spontaneously said joe must go,

joe must go. and vance looked very pleased and allow that to happen, and when it started dying down he said i agree. leg wait a second. >> he did not lift them. that's what the speeches can do, they can take them where they are and lift them. >> i will note that peter navarro reported when we were on earlier that he lifted the crowd, it was when he threw them red-hot beats. and this speech designed to do the opposite. to make sure you do have more charisma than the nominee. that he sort of seemed like his nice grandson who didn't really do any harm. he did not convey the radicalism that you so brilliantly laid out in the open. instead, he sort of gave us normal. he kind of gave us something similar to what donald trump ran on in 2016, which was the man of steel speech. they just talked about the

heart and soul of america is going to be renewed by donald trump. just a couple of things. he said, this was, i thought, a pretty well-written line. america's ruling class wrote the checks, communities like mine the price. for decades the divide between the few with their power and comfort in washington and the rest of us only widen. take washington out of there, and put wall street and the hedge funds he comes from. this is somebody, who, as you pointed out, is the creature of peter thiel. he wrote hillbilly elegy, but other than writing that book, what is he done that has impacted a positive way, and what is he proposing that is impacted in a positive way the working class? meanwhile, here's an associated press headline from today. america's aging infrastructure is getting an upgrade. the i-95 bridge that annexed tennessee and arkansas across the mississippi river is going to be upgraded. this funding was provided by big infrastructure. present biden's infrastructure bill. if you drive anywhere in this country right now, you see what i would call biden box.

you see this infrastructure spending happening everywhere. you see it more if you are in a red state. i saw it more when i was down south. i saw it more even in louisiana, a place that biden will not win, but you could physically see it. and you see these workers with jobs, that is provided by joe biden. joe biden actually, this is a speech that actually could've been written for joe biden. because joe biden has governed as a working-class guy. he is a genuinely working-class person. and his programs and policies have been hugely beneficial, not just the working class, but to the working class in red states. and the proof of that is that all these republicans are running around taking credit for it, and they voted against it. but they are running around of the groundbreaking, at the joe biden programs that he is providing for the working class. >> i know that there was not the same red meat, sort of blood and soil nationalism that you might hear in other parallel universe republican conventions, but i do think

there was some sort of easter eggs of white nationalism in this speech. one of the things that stuck out to me was when he started talking about what america is. he said america is not just an idea, it is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. the thing about america is that it is not a group of people with shared history, in fact, i think a lot of people would argue it is quite the opposite. it is lot of people with different histories, efferent heritages. >>'s in-laws don't shed history. >> and that's the other piece of it. he went on a long paragraph, at least, about this plot in eastern kentucky where his six generations of his family are buried. and his hope is that his wife and he are eventually laid to rest there, and their kids follow them. and i sort of understand the idea of sharing the burial plot, but it also reveals someone who believes that the history that the family should inherit, and indeed, the history that should be determinative in the story of the vance family, is the history of the eastern kentucky vance, and not the vance is

from san diego, which is where his wife is from and from where her indian parents are from. in america it doesn't have to be the white male lineage that defines the family history, that that branch of the tree supersedes all else. and i just think the construction of this notion reveals a lot about someone who fundamentally believes in supremacy of whiteness and masculinity, and it is couched in a sort of re-visitation of his roots, but it is actually really revealing about what he thinks matters and who america is, and that america is a place for people with a shared, western background. that is the idea of america, that is the nation of america that he wants to resurrect. >> i want to interject one thing, since we have been talking, actually since mr. vance was speaking, cnn has just posted a new report, and this adds to what we talked about at the top of our coverage this evening.

reporting first from abc news, then the washington post, nbc news reporting some parts of it, but not all. cnn is now citing four sources saying former house speaker nancy pelosi has privately told president joe biden in a recent conversation that polling shows that president biden cannot defeat donald trump, and that biden could destroy democrats chances of winning the house in november if he continues seeking a second term. again, this is according to cnn. this is not confirmed by nbc, but they are citing four sources, which is why am bringing this to you. again, the earlier reporting this evening was that the top two elected democrats in congress, the democratic leader in the senate, chuck schumer, and the democratic leader in the house, hakeem jeffries, have both reportedly spoken directly one-on-one with president biden, telling him that he cannot win, and that at the top of the ticket, that the democrats are staring down the barrel of losing the house and the senate, and that he should effectively pass the torch. that he should leave the top of

the ticket, not head of the ticket heading into november, allow another democrat, presumably his vice president, to take over the ticket. not only for the prospect of beating donald trump, but also so democrats can have a chance at the house and the senate. again, this is now chuck schumer, hakeem jeffries, and nancy pelosi, which is a different quality of conversation in terms of the people involved and their influence in this party than the other intraparty democratic conversations we have been reporting on for these last couple of weeks since the debate. now, i put that to you as i now go back to the floor in milwaukee, because i would like to bring an nbc news correspondent jacob, with somebody right now in milwaukee who is a very interesting person to talk to at this moment, the governor of the great state of ohio, mike dewine . over to you. >> thank you so much, it's great to join you hereafter listening to senator vance speak. i wanted to quickly get your

reaction to the senator from your state. what is your immediate reaction to hearing and speaks night? >> what people have heard tonight as we have known ohio for some time. he's an amazing person, amazing life story. i think is going to be able to relate very well to people, and people will relate well to him. this is his introduction, really, for the national stage. but as the campaign goes on, what you see is what this guy is. he is real. >> practically speaking, and issues you and i were talking about a little bit before we just came on the air, about one of the main themes of this speech. jd vance has a very compelling personal story about family members who have been involved with, have died with, knowing people from opioid addiction. it is the biggest drug crisis in american history, your state, at certain points in recent history, has been the center of it. i have reported from montgomery county, ohio, over the last couple years, sort of at the center of it. practically, do you really think that, we heard a lot of rhetoric about changing the trajectory of the crisis. can jd vance and president

trump actually change what is happening here with the drug crisis in america? >> i think i can help the situation. we have to focus on the fence know. 80% of the deaths in ohio still are coming from fentanyl. it is coming into the united states, in china, upper mexico, up to the border. so there is a direct relationship. this is real, it is real people, and it is affecting people. every family has someone they know or part of the family that has been hit by this sentinel. >> let me ask you about one of my colleagues back in the studio new york talking about this evening. both senator schumer and former speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, have formally spoken with president biden. they have concerns about whether or not he can win this race. your reaction to hearing that news tonight? >> that is certainly big news. we will just have to watch. i am not in the business of telling democrats what to do, but look, that is serious when

those two individuals are, if that's what they told him, yes, certainly very serious. certainly i would think a game changer. >> a game changer, is that what you said? >> i would think so. >> tell me why. >> well, these are two very well-respected people. and, you know, the president is a product of the u.s. senate. he is a product of congress, and i would think that them telling him that would have some impact. i don't know, this is not -- >> i appreciate talking you on a special, momentous night for the state of ohio. nice to see you. rachel, back to you. a >> jacob, thank you very much, and thank you for asking that question about the breaking news. i appreciate the governor being willing to engage on that even as he is just learning. thank you for that. i will say, that was very interesting. we are going to take a break in just a second, but republicans, one of the important ambient stories about what is going on in democratic politics is the way republicans have held their tongue about it. and you saw that a little bit in governor mike dewine, who is a relatively reserved speaker

in tone and tenor, i think as a longtime republican politician and is ohio's governor. but for him to say i'm not in the business of telling democrats what to do. republicans restrained, i guess you should call it that, strategy of not piling on, not attacking joe biden, not saying anything about this, they are desperately hoping that the democrats work this out in a way that is most advantageous to republicans. and it means they are biting their tongues to bleeding on the stuff. >> it would be good if you would tell the democrats what to do in terms of the nominating calendar in relation to the ohio ballot. there remains some confusion as to whether that law takes effect in september, or if it only takes effect in september, does that mean a nomination done on, say, august 20th won't fit this law that changed the date? i mean, if we could have got

that question to him, governor, can you guarantee that the nominee of the democratic convention in the week of august 20th, can you guarantee that that nominee will be on your ohio ballot? that would've been a very interesting answer. >> the dnc does not believe that, they are not confident at all. the rules committee both of them very clear, there is a letter circling among them saying that they believe, not only do they believe that they will not adhere to that law, but there is a 90 day waiting period that they feel is a gray area. they feel that there might be lawsuits as to whether or not the democratic party can put your name on that ballot. they are not confident that there will not be shenanigans, and that is one of the reasons they were trying to move up this virtual vote. >> i was just going to say, in terms of biting their tongue until it bleeds, i think the thing they want is for this excruciating, liminal status to extend as long as possible. i bet if you set at the hotel bar tonight with a bunch of

them, they would tell you what i think, this way or that. my general sense is, here is what i will say the 30,000 foot view, which is definitely clear from the conversations i've had and clear from what they are saying. they are measuring the drapes. they think this is done. marjorie taylor greene sitting behind donald trump, like the one who went to the weird alt right, holocaust denial adjacent . >> no, the literal, out loud praising hitler conference. >> she is there and she is sitting behind him. they named jd vance with his record on abortion, which i don't think you mentioned once tonight in the entire speech. >> not once, i was looking for it. >> probably smart. they are acting with the kind of swagger and the kind of confidence of we have this in the bag. >> nothing change, because we are going to win 40 states. nothing changed. that is how they are acting.

>> i will also say, i don't know if they are right. it reminds me a little bit of democrats after access hollywood, where it was like a, what are we talking about here? how long is he going to last? >> he was probably like i can't lose to the sky. they went in with supreme confidence. >> joe biden remembers overconfidence in 2016 and not being part of that. >> i would also just mentioned, mike dewine was a senator. so i suspect there might've been a little personal commentary there. because a lot of these politicians from the olden days, they know joe biden. and i think probably have big respect for him. maybe that was part of why he was so circumspect. >> these dynamics are fascinating. our colleague, stephanie ruhle, is in milwaukee at the now rapidly emptying fiserv center in beautiful downtown milwaukee. look, is never lonely when you are with michael steele.

it is always like there is a party happening around you, always like the room is full even if the only man there is michael steele, because he is michael steele. >> well, the best man. and i can tell you, while michael and i just listen to that speech, i have been frantically taking notes. and i know you all were just sort of evaluating stylistically and the performance of jd vance's remarks, but i want to fact check it for a moment. because that is kind of my big frustration here tonight. jd vance has all sorts of views and policies that he could've talked about, that perhaps this audience supports. he supports a national abortion ban. he believes that social security and medicare are the roadblocks to any sort of fiscal sanity. he didn't talk about any of that. he did not talk about how much he supports project 2025. those are his actual, factual views, and we did not hear that. what we did here, and this goes to what joy said, a ghost what chris said. all sorts of things that have no connection to his policies. he talked about how wages were stagnant for his whole life,

until they skyrocketed under donald trump. he talked about how joe biden is buying energy from dictators around the world. we all know that under joe biden we are producing more oil than any other president in u.s. history. and one thing that really got me was when he was talking about the housing crisis. the housing bubble in 2008, that subprime crisis, when people from all over this country, especially states like his, people lost their homes. and he said it is because wall street robber barons came in, they shorted the market, and they screwed the common american man. and he is right, that happen. but, let's actually talk about who supports donald trump and who has policy support. because, you know who i flew out here this morning with? a hedge fund manager named john paulson was on my flight. john paulson became a billionaire running a hedge fund called paulson and company, and he became a billionaire because he massively shorted subprime. so, the truth is, a guy like

john paulson is in here sitting in a suite, or sitting with donald trump, and he was able to raise $45 million for this campaign for donald trump because they are boys. yet, jd vance gets appear on the stage and talk to these people, like we are going to create an america and we are going to create policies that are going to help you, and that, to me, is what is the most puzzling. we are going to take on china. we are going to bring manufacturing back. if you want to bring manufacturing back, talk to joe biden. because the chips act is bringing back jobs and opportunities around the country. and to talk about immigrants stealing americans jobs, we have an immigration problem. and we definitely need conference of immigration reform. but give me a break, michael. to say that immigrants are stealing jobs for americans? i just don't know why we are misrepresenting things to this audience, who already love these people. >> yeah, the reality of it is, a couple of things about the speech right out of the gate. you nailed all the essential elements of it, that just are incongruent with the reality of where we know jd stands. but part of the speech was to

sort of brush over that, to give it a softer patina. the word went out after saturday, we don't want to deliver the harder message. >> want to make it soft but true? >> well, truth is in the eye of the beholder, right? for this world, it's a different kind of truth. i think the interesting dynamic of this race going forward with jd is the workingman narrative. because he is settled with a billionaire who likes gold toilets. he is being right now supported by a lot of wall streeters who are expecting him to deliver them more gold. what is the worker going to get out of that deal? how do you align these two things up? at the end of the day, as he told the story 1000 times, and it is true, the tax cut did not benefit the workers in appalachia.

mississippi, or maryland where i live. so how are they going to make that work with this new updated hillbilly energy that is not necessarily for hillbillies? >> the sad truth is in the age of misinformation they will never know the truth. think about all of the republicans that voted vents the american rescue plan who showed up to cut ribbons. think about the republicans that did not support the american construction act and say do you like this bridge, so people will not know the truth. the people in the audience will never hear the truth. >> this narrative is handicapped by the fact that right now as rachel mentioned a moment to go, the democrats are you capping themselves over biden so there is no counter narrative to the story coming

out tonight, what is the narrative tonight? nancy pelosi, chuck schumer and jeffries want him to go. you can run this race 1001 ways but there is only one way to take it and the democrats right now are giving every advantage to this house that is about to leave here with a clear glide path. the reality is, as long as the democrats stay parked on the side of the road and cannot put out a counter narrative from what we heard tonight and what we will certainly here tomorrow, there we go. >> thank you, be sure to turn out the lights on your way out. we know we can trust you both. i want to get your take on jd vance speech. there were is one sour note in

the speech which was a ad lib. where he was talking about going to ohio state university and then he said as a ad lib., we got enough political violence . i do not think of myself as a shrinking violet around these things but it strikes me as too soon to make that kind of a crack at this convention, this week when his running mate is sitting there with a bandage on his ear from the assassination attempt. na that struck me as a notable and sour moment. >> i had the same reaction. i was sitting upstairs, i kind of gasped in the moment and you are wondering what went through his head, not that i am excusing him but that is my bet. i read the speech before

watching it and reading it i thought, i do not agree with things in here but it is a well constructed speech when you read it. he did not deliver as well and that was clear within the first minute. i think the purpose of this speech which we have been talking a lot about and the fact checking, there are biden policies in here technically, the purpose was to introduce him to the republican electorate and he may have done that. >> most stories were great. >> i would also say, this is one of the things that happens when you pick your running mate two days in advance. vice president harris is a meticulous proper but she will probably practice on the teleprompter soon, i do not know if he wrote the speech before hand, but it was clear he did not practice it many times.

one thing that michael steele th said, this is a messy situation for the democratic party, this is the best time for this to be happening, you never breakthrough during the other parties convention. >> you say for the democrats to have this crisis, it is good to be happening during the rnc? >> they have to resolve it soon but they are overshadowed in this moment anyway. i will say i am not sure i am in agreement of that particular piece. >> one piece of reporting as we come up to the top of the hour, the new york times had details about the shooting on saturday including striking details about the shooter. some of it is process related. local officers spotted the young man quite a long time before the shooting happened,

20 minutes before the violence, the sniper spotted him, took his picture and passed it around but then lost sight of him him at that is disturbing. apparently because they got into his own they found not only did he search for images of trump but also of biden, garland and fbi director chris wright, and he searched for dates and places for appearances, not only for trumpn but also biden. new york times is reporting this this evening. we have more when our special coverage of the rnc continues in just a moment. stay with us. stay with us.

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