case was not handled with sensitivity. he also extended his deepest apology to denise and aaron for how they were treated. he said to you at the end, i'm sorry about this. this will mess you up. he was right about that. >> yeah. it definitely messed me up for quite a while. >> sometimes the truest story is the one that sounds like a lot. why did you want to talk to us? >> if i can contribute to making sure this is taking seriously and say this is not a hoax, lived firsthand through this and i know for a fact it is true. >> that's all for this edition of dateline. i am andrea canning. rea cannin. ♪♪ ♪♪ this sunday, energized. ♪♪ this sunday, energized. >> don't just sit around and complain. do something. let's get to work.

>> aren't you proud to be a democrat? >> we're not going back. >> when we fight -- >> we win! >> with just ten weeks before election day, democrats rally behind the nominee in a show of unity after president biden's exit from the race. >> i promise to be a president for all americans. >> vice president kamala harris makes history as just the second woman and first woman of color to top a major party presidential ticket. did democrats do enough to win over voters who had soured on biden? i'll speak with democratic senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts. plus, the gop rebuttal. >> the federal government ought to be focused on getting food prices down, getting housing prices down, and the issues where kamala harris has been a disaster. >> my exclusive with jd vance of

ohio, the republican vice presidential nominee. and exit stage right. robert f. kennedy jr. suspends his campaign and endorses donald trump. what does his departure mean for the race in joining me for insight and analysis on amna nawaz from pbs news hour, cornell belcher, and marc short, former chief of staff to vice president mike pence. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with kristen welker. good sunday morning. the 2024 campaign is now in its final sprint to election day with just 72 days to go, and this week vice president kamala harris made history, becoming the first woman of color to accept a major party's presidential nomination. >> on behalf of americans like the people i grew up with,

people who work hard, chase their dreams, and look out for one another, on behalf of even whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on ertz, i accept your nomination to be president. >> on wednesday, harris will return to the campaign trail with new momentum, kicking off a battleground state bus tour with running mate tim walz in georgia. this is still an incredibly tight race and harris has the burden of being a sitting vice president who will be held responsible for the events happening on the administration's watch. in chicago, top democrats laid out the election's high stakes. >> the torch has been passed. now it is up to all of us to fight for the america we believe in. and make no mistake, it will be a fight.

>> in many ways, donald trump is an unserious man, but the consequences -- but the consequences of putting donald trump back in the white house are extremely serious. >> i want to know, who's going to tell him -- who's going to tell him that the job he's currently seeking might just be one of those black jobs? >> democrats tried to reach out to republicans and independents, bringing a number of them on stage. >> i know there are people of various political views watching tonight, and i want you to know, i promise to be a president for all americans. >> and no matter who you are, kamala harris is going to stand up and fight for your freedom to live the life that you want to lead. >> how can a party claim to be

patriotic if it idolizes a man who tried to overthrow a free and fair election? >> we're all americans, and together, let's all choose kamala harris! >> harris and former president trump are already preparing for their first face-off in september. on friday, former president trump accepted the endorsement of independent candidate robert f. kennedy jr. who suspended his campaign. on saturday i sat down with mr. trump's running mate, ohio senator jd vance in cincinnati. >> senator jd vance, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you for having me. >> thank you for having us in cincinnati. let's start with the democratic national convention, some of what we heard this past week. vice president kamala harris making her case said the tariff trump donald trump is proposing will hurt the middle class. here's what she said specifically. >> he intends to enact what in a

sense is a national sales tax -- call it a trump tax -- that would raise prices on middle-class families by almost $4 thousand a year. >> now the estimates vary, but how do you respond to that charge that trump's tariffs would hurt the middle class? >> if you step back a little bit, kristen, there's this whole thing that kamala harris did at the convention where she made claims about what would happen and not enough on what already happened. donald trump was already happened. he used tariffs to bring manufacturing jobs back to our country, and i think he'll do it again and did it while keeping prices extremely low. if you go back to the trump presidency, he had 12,000 factories built during donald trump's presidency, and inflation never ticked past 12% during his presidency. if we do what trump did, it will be way worse than it was last time, i don't think that makes a lot of sense.

>> let's talk about trump's first term. he did impose a round of tariffs and it cost americans nearly $80 billion in new taxes. do you acknowledge that imposing more tariffs will ultimately cost consumers? >> well, what it really does is it penalizes importers from bringing products from outside the country into the country. china and other countries are using effectively slave labor to undercut american workers. what kamala harris is saying if you do this you will somehow cost skyrocketing inflation. donald trump already did it, he brought jobs back and it didn't cause inflation. >> but it caused consumers to pay more. it cost $80 billion in taxes. do you acknowledge that consumers will ultimately pay more if there are more tariffs imposed? do you acknowledge that? >> no, i don't, kristen. economists disagree about the

effects of tariffs because there can be a dynamic effect, right? what some exists will say is what you just said is that it will raise costs for consumers, but what other people say and the record supports this other view is it causes this dynamic effect where more jobs come into the country. anything that you lose on the tariff from the perspective of the consumer you gain in higher wages, so you're ultimately much better off. you have more take-home pay and better jobs and more reliance. i don't blame democrats for this, but one of the things we learned during covid, kristen is if our supply chains are brittle, if we depend on the chinese to make too much of our stuff, then prices can skyrocket at a time of crisis. the economists say tariffs are bad, and they don't take that into account, and we've all learned that the hard way. >> it is economists across the board "the wall street journal" said the trade war with china did not achieve reversing the declines and u.s. manufacturing and reshoring manufacturing jobs. i hear what you're saying. it's a complicated picture, but

on the bottom line point, you can't guarantee that americans can't wind up paying a penny more, can you? >> if you don't bring more manufacturing jobs back into the country, you don't make the supply chains more stable. it will cost more over the long term. >> you acknowledge they can wind up paying more? >> what i acknowledge, kristen is unless we bring more manufacturing jobs we'll pay more in the long term. this is a bipartisan thing, my own party was as wrong about it as the democrats were, and donald trump was right about it. if you shift the manufacturing to east asia and to mexico, americans would pay lower prices. here we are now, and americans are paying higher prices. and one more thing on this, kristen. >> yeah. >> it's important to go at what kamala harris saud in her convention speech. she said she wants to stand up to china on behalf of american

workers, if you're not willing to impose tariffs on companies that are manufacturing in china using slave labor in china you're not standing up to the chinese and americans are going to suffer. >> and on pricing and prices right now, inflation at its lowest level since 2021, but let's move on. robert f. kennedy, the big news yesterday. >> very big news. >> he suspended his campaign, announced he's endorsing donald trump. he's also someone who's known for blaming vaccines for autism and antidepressants for shootings and saud he won't take sides on what happened on 9/11. do you have any hesitation about accepting his endorsement? >> no, kristen, i don't because we will disagree on issues, right? there are things that robert kennedy said that i disagree with, and there are things that i said that he'll disagree with, but i think what his endorsement represents is that donald j. trump's republican party is a big tent party. i was raised by two grandparents who are blue dog democrats and they believe in having a border

and you shouldn't have censorship in the united states of america and they may disagree with donald trump about tax policy, but they believed in fundamental american values and i think what rfk's endorsement really shows is that the kennedy democrats are actually more at home in the republican party of donald trump. and unfortunately, kamala harris's party, higher prices, doing nothing to fight back against the chinese, to say nothing of a wide-open border, that is not jfk's democratic party. we're thrilled to have the democratic party where they belong. >> some have stepped forward to say they sharply disagree with this endorsement and he said he isn't taking sides with 9/11. do you agree with that statement? >> of course, i don't agree with that. i don't know what rfk actually said there. maybe there was additional context. you have to hear what people say before you agree or disagree. i don't think we should have been attacked and i think hitting back against terrorists was justified and i don't know what rfk said there, but he said a lots of very interesting

things, that the democratic party has become pro-censorship, and in the wake of covid became anti-child. to say we should be masking toddlers in their schools even though we knew it caused veptal disabilities, and i agree with rfk that that was crazy. >> there was scientists that they were grappling with information as it came in. >> totally fair. there were important leaders. donald trump was among them, rfk was among them who were saying some of this stuff is crazy and if we'd listened to them i think our kids would have been better off in the pandemic. >> scientists showed the masks helped stop the spread of the disease. >> we have to be able to balance this stuff and i think the way that rfk struck the balance was much smarter unfortunately than the way kamala harris did. let's talk about another big issue. it's being talked about on the campaign trail, abortion.

>> sure. >> democrats made the case this week and beyond this week that donald trump, if elected, will impose a federal ban on abortion if he wins. donald trump says he won't, but can you commit, senator, sitting right here with me today that if you and donald trump are elected that you will not impose a federal ban on abortion? >> i can absolutely commit that, kristen. donald trump has been as clear about that as possible. it's important to step back and say what has donald trump said on the abortion question and how is it different from what kamala harris and the democrats have said. donald trump wants to end this culture war over this particular topic. if california wants to have a different abortion policy than ohio, then california has to respect ohio, and ohio has to respect california. donald trump wants the states to make these individual decisions in these unique political sensibiliies to make these

decisions because we don't want to have a non-stop federal conflict over this issue. the federal government ought to be focused on getting food prices down and getting food prices down and an issue where kamala harris has been a disaster and donald trump is right. we want the federal government to focus on these big economic and immigration questions and let the states figure out their own abortion policies. >> let me follow up on that point because i've been talking to republicans, including senator lindsey graham last week, who made it very clear that if donald trump is elected and if you're electelected, thel continue to press this point. senator graham said, i will keep saying that there should be a federal ban. if such a piece of legislation landed on donald trump's desk would he veto it? >> i will be very clear he will not support it. >> will he veto it? >> he would veto a federal abortion ban? >> i think he would. he said that explicitly that he would. >> i don't think he said

explicitly. did he explicitly say that to you? >> lindsey graham, i need to see the context because lindsay graham has the had a federal minimum standard. that is not donald trump's view and he disagrees with lindsay graham on this. no reasonable republican is saying that we should have a complete national abortion plan, and i shouldn't heard that from my colleagues and donald trump has staked his position and made it very explicit, he wants this to be a state decision and the states will make the determination themselves. >> the census bureau estimates all right. let's talk about women voters more broadly. the census bureau estimates there are 22 million women between the ages of 20 and 40 who for whatever reason do not have children. what do you say to those women who hear some of those comments including childless cat lady comments that you've been asked about, who feel that you won't represent them? >> i will represent them. i want to be the vice president for the whole country and i want to represent everybody. yes, i made a sarcastic comment that democrats have willfully misinterpreted.

it's a profound change that's happened in our country where we've become anti-family and i would like to change that. if you talk to young woman or don't want to have children, what you consistently hear is a lot of young women don't feel they have options. i saw this with my own wife, who is an accomplished litigator and always felt like having to balance being a good mom with being the litigator that she wanted to be. i just want women to have more choices. i've seen that personally in my own family, and i think it is broken about our country. >> let me zoom out a bit. you're calling it a sarcastic comment, and yet some women -- and you got the feedback in real time -- felt like it was a gut punch to them personally. do you regret making that comment? >> look, i regret certainly that a lot of people took it the wrong way and i certainly regret the dnc and kamala harris lied about it. >> do you regret what you said, senator? >> i'll say things from time to

time that people disagree with. i'm a real person, and i'm going to make jokes and say things sarcastically that people are going to disagree with, and what's important is that we focus on the policy. there are things that i will say if i'm elected vice president, well, i wish he'd said that differently. i think it's important to be the person i actually am and to say those sarcastic comments were made in the service of a substantive point. the country has become too anti-family. it's too expensive to afford a house. it's to expensive to afford groceries. and unless donald trump under his leadership changes that -- >> again, just very quickly, given that people have told you directly, have spoken out, have said that they were offended and they were hurt by those comments do you wish you'd never made those childless cat lady comments? >> it's much more important for me to be a normal human being. >> no regrets? >> i have a lot of regrets, kristen, but making a joke is not at the top of my list. all right, donald trump has

made a lot of estimates about mass deportation. more than 11 million u.s. citizens live in households with mixed immigration status, including more than 5 million children. if you and former president trump were elected, would you separate families as a part of your mass deportation effort? >> we have to start with the foundational issue here which is we have 25 million illegal aliens in this country right now because kamala harris has -- >> very quickly, dhs says it's closer to 8 million. where do you get the 25 million? >> 25 million are the people that should have been deported and you add another 12 to 15 million since kamala harris -- look, whatever the number is. >> dhs disputes that number for the record. they say it's closer to 8 to $10 million. >> dhs is underestimating. whatever the number is, it's way too high. it's too much. >> she's not the cause of the

root cause of migration. >> it's important to sequence this in the right way. if you want to get control of the illegal immigration problem you have to stop the bleeding. you have to stop so many people from coming here illegally in the first and that means undoing everything that kamala harris did on day one of the administration. you have to reimpose deportations, you have to stop catch and release, stop granting asylum and say that they need asylum, and stop granting mass parole. these policies are why we have the immigration crisis that we have. focusing on fixing the problem, we have to stop the problem from getting worse. >> as you know, president biden passed a series of executive actions on illegal border crossings, so much so that greg abbott is no longer bussing people to other cities. let me ask this fundamental question. will families be separated under your mass deportation? >> because you made a point and i want to answer this question

about families and deportations. you made the point that border crossings are lower. border crossings are lower because the harris administration is sending more immigrants through the ports of entry. instead of coming through the southern border they're being flown at taxpayer expense all over country. the number of border crossings, they're not any lower, they're shuffling people. >> they are able to process more efficiently, but greg abbot is not sending other -- >> kristen, i don't want a border czar who makes it more efficient for illegal immigrants to come into the country. that's why we have the problem that we have. >> so many people want to know the answer to this, will families being separated under your mass deportation policy? >> i think families are being separated and you have to.

deport some people in the country. >> is that a yes? >> you start with the most violent criminals in the country and that's where you focus federal resources. you have a number of children who are currently living with drug cartel members not actually their families. we need to, of course, find their families and give them back to their families and it's very interesting here because what kamala harris says is that donald trump wants to separate families. kamala harris' policies have led to thousands upon thousands of children living with sex traffickers and drug cartels, and that is the consequence of her policy. that's not a policy to separate families. >> if you know that your policies will lead to family separation you don't get to -- this is not -- they are and everybody knows it and she has to take responsibility for that and that's what real leadership are. >> there are families who were separated some you said because their parents are criminals, but under the trump administration there was a zero tolerance policy. >> i can just please -- we are

>> i'll give you more time. >> okay. >> there was a zero tolerance policy during the trump administration, and that led to less family separation than kamala harris. that's what's so striking about this. enforcing the border is the humane thing. >> i don't hear you denying that families will be separated. >> let's hear something that donald trump said in south carolina and yet again friday night. >> our primary focus is not to get out the vote. it's to make sure they don't cheat because we have all the votes you need. you can see it. >> why is donald trump casting doubt on the election before it's even happened? >> i don't think that's what donald trump is doing. >> that's what he's doing. that's what he says here when he says, to make sure they don't cheat. >> i think what he is saying is we want to pursue a set of policies in the republican party to make it easier for every legal ballot to be cast and counted and make it harder for illegally cast ballots to be counted. we can disagree about how many there are, whether there are a

few hundred, a few thousand, maybe more. just in the last week, okay, just in the last week, once in arizona and once in pennsylvania there were major -- that made our process more secure and effective. i think that's what donald trump is talking about. we have to pursue, sometimes through litigation, sometimes through better policy at the state or international level, a set of rules to make sure every ballot is legally counted. >> it's very different from your message which you said and i'll quote you back to yourself. we have to work as hard as possible to persuade americans to vote for us. are you on the same page as donald trump? he seems to be casting doubt on the results of the election before it's even happened. >> i think we're on the same page, kristen. we talk all of the time. if he sat said and you said donald trump do you think your campaign has it persuade voters as much as possible, of course, he's going to say yes, that's not inconsistent with thinking that we need to approach a set of approaches that make sure legal ballots get counted and illegal ballots don't get counted.

>> do you have faith the 2024 election will be free and fair? >> i do, kristen. we'll make sure legal ballots get counted, and i think we'll win this race and win it in a very good election. >> all right, senator jd vance, thank you so much for your time. >> likewise. >> i appreciate it. a note on senator vance's claim about separation. the numbers show the trump administration separated more than 5500 families, most of them under that zero tolerance policy. the department of homeland security says currently up to a thousand children are separated from their families. the trump administration had a policy to systematically separate families. the biden administration only does so under extraordinary circumstances like if the parent has a criminal record. and we should also note that when senator vance talked about flying migrants into the u.s., he was referencing a policy that

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introducing a revolution in pain relief. absorbine junior pro, the strongest numbing pain relief available. it's the only solution with two max strength anesthetics for fast penetrating relief absorbine junior pro. nothing numbs pain more. welcome back. democratic senator elizabeth warren was visibly emotional in chicago on thursday night, wiping away tears as she received a standing ovation before her speech endorsing kamala harris, and massachusetts senator elizabeth warren joins me now. senator warren, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you. good to be with you. >> well, it is great to have you on a big sunday. i want to start off by getting your reaction to what you just heard from senator jd vance. he said if legislation banning

abortion at the federal level arrived on donald trump's desk, if he were to be elected, he believes he would veto it. what's your reaction to that, senator? >> american women are not stupid, and we are not going to trust the futures of our daughters and granddaughters to two men who have openly bragged about blocking access to abortion for women all across this country. look, right now where we are is if donald trump and jd vance take the white house, they have current law, the comstock act, which with the right person that they put in with the department of justice and one of their extremist judges out in the world, they can actually ban all this country. and understand, when i saban access for abortion, i don't

mean with exceptions for rape or incest or a 16-week ban, i mean ban it for every woman any time she needs it because once they take the medications off the market, once they take the surgical instruments off the market, they're not there. for a woman in the middle of a miscarriage and goes into an emergency room and discovers there's no medication and no treatment for her because abortion has been banned nationwide, they can thank donald trump and jd vance. >> and just to follow up, donald trump and jd vance have been asked about the comstock act, as well, as you say which could ban the distribution of medication. and they say we're not going to use that to try to ban abortion. 6 sounds like you don't buy it. >> don't buy it? just read it. jd vance actually sent a letter last year to the department of justice saying, enforce the comstock act, and

remember, he did that and then donald trump picked him to be his vice president. take a look at project 2025. it lays out the roadmap for exactly how to do this, and, quite frankly, when you've got a pawn in the department of justice and pawns in the judiciary, it isn't even hard to accomplish. you know here, i'm going to go with vice presidential nominee tim walz who said you don't do a playbook unless you're planning to use it. there's already a plan in place, and, you know, understand this. today 30% of all women live in states that effectively ban abortion. donald trump and jd vance in the white house, it won't be 30%. it will be 100%. the only way that we're going to protect access to abortion is to have a democratic congress send a bill to kamala harris. she will sign it into law, and then we will restore a right to half the population in this

country, and no longer will a woman have to go into an emergency room and be told she's not near enough death to get the medical treatment that she needs. >> senator, let me ask you about a another part of my conversation with senator advance. he defended donald trump's tariff plan. he imposed some new ones, and that cost americans more than $3 billion. do you think it was a mistake for president biden not to roll back donald trump's tariffs? >> well, i think of it this way. the difference between what donald trump did, which was to throw tariffs out there as a matter of peak, and what joe biden and kamala harris have done is they've said, sometimes we should be using tariffs. we should be using tariffs to protect domestic industries. we should be using tariffs to level the playing field for labor so that we're not using

overseas labor to undercut our domestic labor. but what donald trump is talking about, at least in his campaign rallies, he's talking about doing wide bans. he's talking about doing tariff bans all across the economy. >> so you're saying some tariffs are okay, senator? >> we know that's going to increase prices. >> so you're saying some tariffs are okay, senator? >> absolutely. it is a tool in the toolbox when it has specific causes in specific areas. we need to protect our domestic manufacturing. we need to bring that back onshore, and joe biden and kamala harris has done that with the chips and science act. so we're making real investments for the first time in america in onshoring manufacturing. tammy baldwin's bill, buy america, means that we are building up so that we are a nation, once again, that builds

things here. that's what we do. and tariffs are a part of how we get that industry up and going once again. that's what will bring down prices for american family. >> let me ask you about what happened overnight, senator. israel launched what they called a preemptive strike in lebanon after lebanon launched a large-scale attack. you support military aid to israel. what is your reaction to what happened overnight, israel? >> am deeply concerned about the violence and chaos spreading throughout the region. this just underscores the emergency. we need to put an end to this war. we need to stop all of the bombing and get the hostages back home and spend real researches on humanitarian relief in gaza, and, most of all, give a hard shove to both parties in order to keep them at the negotiating table. it's time for a two-state solution where palestinians have self-determination, where the

israelis can be guaranteed security, and that we have a lasting peace going forward. >> and, senator, very quickly, do you believe that vice president harris should be conditioning military aid to israel? will you counsel her to do that? >> i want to be clear. american law already says that we give military aid only to those who are in compliance with international law. what benjamin netanyahu has done in creating a humanitarian disaster in gaza raises questions about compliance with international law, and the united states needs to live its values every day. >> senator elizabeth warren, i have more questions and we are, unfortunately, out of time. come back soon. thank you very much for being here. we really appreciate it. and when we come back, the

2024 campaign has been reset, and both sides are still bracing for an extremely close race. the panel is next. ly close race. the panel is next. to duckduckgo on all your devie

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welcome back. the panel is here. amna nawaz, co-anchor of pbs news hour. amy walter, cornell belcher and marc short, former chief of staff to mike pence. am rah /* /* na. >> amna, let tell start with you. key takeaways that we heard from jd vance, san antonioably again trying to make the case if elected they will not ban to try to move abortion nationallied a you heard elizabeth warren is not buying it.

>> i was so glad to see you press him the way that you did, and this is a question in a lot of voters' minds which is to look back at the record he's been on every side of this issue and it's not what the republican stands for when it comes to this one issue that will be an enormous issue and the other thing i'll take away from the interview is just how willing senator vance is to dismiss his own party in the service of holding up donald trump. to be able to say even my party has gotten it wrong, but only donald trump has gotten it right, it's doubling down on this issue. we've seen where this is clearly just the party of trump. >> amy, what's your take? we are looking at a gender gap that is growing by the day. it's clear. donald trump knows this better than anyone because he talks to people about it, the fact that he's worried about this issue. >> right. well, there are two things i want to say. if this election -- if this is what we're talking about going into september, that is a really big problem for the trump campaign. this is exactly the train, of course, that democrats want to fight on, and they have been. if you look at the downball lot races, look at what the senate candidates who are democrats,

what they're running on. thus far they've run about $13 million in advertising just on abortion. a lot of it hitting the republican opponent and we're seeing republicans playing defense in those states. so this is an issue where democrats are certainly getting traction. now, the gender gap -- that's an excellent point. the decision by the trump campaign to double and triple down on the sort of maga image going really with their base rather than trying to win over swing women voters was made by the decision to pick jd vance, by the decision to really, you know, make -- that was a choice that they made, and that is a decision that they're going to have to continue live with. >> cornell, what do you make? we just heard from senator vance and as amy says, these polls that we're tracking? >> they can't flip-flop their way out of this, right? that was amazing to me the way they're trying to now flip-flop and move away from the issue that's hurting them. for how long did donald trump brag on national television on

interview after interview taking responsibility as he chose the supreme court that finally overturned roe v. wad he took personal responsibility and owned it, and now he's trying to move away from it. he cannot move away from it or from this issue. women all across this country understand where he is and i guarantee you we will spend million of dollars reminding them of where he is on this issue. >> marc, what's so interesting is for some conservative republicans, the reaction is the opposite, which is betraying what they would like to see, which is a candidate at the top of the ticket who is fight for a federal ban on abortion. >> kristen, he had a good interview and strong on the border and it's incredibly disappointing for pro-life advocates that there's no standard bearer for the life position on either party at the top of the ticket. i think for conservatives and pro-life advocates, you look at

the bill and say that the abortion after the child feels pape is supported by 70% of the public. the legislation of 15 weeks is more liberal than socialist europe, which is 12 or 13 weeks, and we are on the defensive and opposed to saying the democratic position through all nine months of pregnancy. that contrast is appealing to a lot of voters, and after making that case, and as well on the economic issues, kristen, there's nobody making a case for the premarkets, and you have kamala rolling out price controls and higher taxes and jd vance doubling down on why we should have a tax. >> just to be clear, democrats wouldn't describe it as abortion. what part of the argument is 24 weeks and of course, if the life of the mother or if there is a medical emergency and that happens in very rare cases. but very quickly, let's zoom

out. let's talk about the convention overall. >> cornell, do you think kamala harris did what she needed to do? she re-introduced herself and came in with momentum. did she do what she had to do, and will we see it in the polling? >> i think the contrast between the vision of donald trump and the vision of harris couldn't be starker or clearer. i think we have as clear a contrast coming out of these conventions as we have had in our lifetime. i'm not being partisan on this. if you listen to -- look, go back to ronald reagan's convention speech where he talked about, you know, optimism and the exceptionalism of americanism, and even go to bush where bush said we have to seize this moment as a promise for americans. there is an optimism that american leaders lean into, right, that has. been partisan at all.

donald trump talks about darkness of america and the division of america. he is someone who literally talked about hannibal lector. she gave a very american, optimistic view of this country, and donald trump gave one that, quite frankly, is outside the continuum of leadership both on the left and the right. >> amy, it was interesting to hear vice president harris so many of the other speakers really try to have a more positive vision, really a stark difference from what we heard from president biden, who is warning consistently of the threat of donald trump. they're almost trying to minimize not his threat, but donald trump the man. >> i think the most impressive thing about where kamala harris has been for the last month and it sort of culminated at the convention is she's taken the mantle now of the change candidate, even if she's the incumbent party. now is this going to continue? this is the campaign and we have 70+ more days and the trump campaign has to be able to try to undercut her ability to make herself change. >> marc, he's struggling, donald trump, to figure out exactly how

do go after her. we have about a minute left, and i want to get to amna too. >> he provides a better contrast. it makes her think part of the job of the border czar is to stop the flow of the border. it makes no sense, and that provides better contrast for trump and that provides a policy debate and alas, i don't think it will. >> great point. does she need to put more meat on the bones? >> the one thing that struck me is how much policy there was. >> she did not give details. >> if you had a question about what a harris presidency looked like, you got some of those answers. she walked the middle ground, talked the middle ground.

she talked the middle ground and abroad and prioritized middle-class values and we know there are thorny issues, economy and that's where republicans have the strongest argument against this candidate and ticket and right now those are the headwinds and there are still a lot of questions about how she would be president. >> all right. great conversation, guys. stick around. we have more when we come back. a look at how vice president harris campaigned against donald trump the first time around, our "meet the press" minute is next. . announcer what if you could whiten your teeth by simply brushing your teeth? now you can with smileactives, the teeth whitening breakthrough that safely gets your teeth white and keeps them white every day just by brushing your teeth. christine i never thought that whitening my teeth could be so easy. i just put the gel on the brush, the toothpaste on it, brush and i can see my white teeth. announcer simply add smileactives to any toothpaste, and our patented polyclean technology activates into a powerful micro foam that penetrates into the enamel surface to safely lift and remove stains. robert you need a simple way to withen your teeth without strips, without trays, without going to the dentist. and it was about time that a product was developed

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vice president harris will formally face off with former president trump for the first time at a debate in september, but she's been preparing for this moment for years. during her 2020 primary bid, then senator harris talked about her approach to taking on mr. trump.

>> here's the thing. there are people who voted for him for a variety of reasons, and a lot of it had to do with the promises he made, which he has not delivered on because they were false promises, and he betrayed a lot of people. he came in saying he would help working families. everyone from farmers to autoworkers. we are here in iowa. there are farmers, a lot of farmers, who are looking at bankruptcy because of his trade policy, and he betrayed people. and the american people are smarter than to go for all of the flash that he tweets all the time. and look at the fact that not only on trade policy, but this tax bill that benefits the top 1%, and the biggest corporations of america that this guy, he betrayed them, and i know that the american people are smarter than go for the oak can doak.

>> when we come back, rfk jr., suspends his campaign and endorses trump. will it have an impact on the race? the panel returns next. to duckduckgo on all your devie

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welcome back. the p welcome back. the panel is still here. marc, let me start with you on rfk jr. suspending his campaign and endorsing donald trump. you actually have a slightly different perspective than a lot of folks have. who does it help? who does it hurt? >> if kennedy made the decision to get out, then you want his endorsement, kristen. the fact is trump has such a low ceiling, you want him to meet 40. people forget in 2016 when he won, gary johnson got several points in most pivotal states. he needed a third-party candidate, and so you want the endorsement if he's getting out, but it doesn't help trump in a binary race. so i think in the end, this actually helps the harris campaign more come november. >> amy, what do you think? >> that's a very good point. we had our own polling in battleground states, and if you reallocate those voters, it gives trump just a very tiny

margin of support. but we also know that margins -- very tiny margins, are what determine the last two presidential elections. >> right. >> i think you also have to be careful in the polling on this because it's such a narrow swath of the electorate that you've got to be careful what is that 5% going to go to? i agree with marc completely on this is that she benefits from a two-person race. i understand what happens in a multi-candidate race because i saw it in 2016. he wins by subtraction, not addition. i think a one-on-one race, most of the battleground states i think it benefits harris. >> and amna, just zooming out, the next big data point of this election are going to be, we're anticipating an interview with someone, hopefully this broadcast. >> exactly. with vice president harris,

every journalist on earth has put their plug in, but amna, in interview and then the debate is going to be huge. >> no one needs reminding that debates have had the potential to dramatically change the course of this race so far and harris has proven herself to be a skillful debater in the past and the number she had the one line that ended up on t-shirts when she was talking about bussing to desegregate and saying i was that little girl, so she's been on that stage before. so the interviews for me -- and, yes, i am biased -- but, yes, candidates don't need us as journalists to get the message out. they don't in this ecosystem and candidates is where they face rigor and skepticism and issues that they're not raising on the campaign trail in a way that's good for voters and good for democracy. i will say having been with vice president harris in unscripted scenarios there are policy demands there that can come out in these kinds of interviews.

>> can i say that i love you and i love you, but as a campaign hack, no. she should be talking to the voters and barnstorming -- >> that's cold. that is cold. >> again, when i say i love you all, i don't want her talking to you all right now. she should be talking to voters. >> there is risk in talking to us. there is no doubt about that, amy and yet, she had this soaring speech at the democratic national convention. she did talk as amna said, about policy, but there are still a lot of questions when it comes to will she continue to build on the biden agenda, or will she lead differently? >> i think that's exactly right, and, look, there are still a lot of questions that voters have about her. she came into this race, even though she's the vice president, as relatively unknown. she's been able to fill in the gap in the way she wants to. the trump campaign's trying to fill it in the way they want to. right now she's ahead of the game on that, but i think there are still voters that are skeptical because they want to

hear it directly from her in response to questions. the debate will be the place where you can't avoid that. >> yeah. she's going to georgia this week. we know trump is going to be hitting the battleground states as well. marc, trump is not who someone traditionally prepares for a debate, but this is different. i mean, he seems to understand -- and in talking to allies, that this is a real race, that he's, you know, in some states behind. >> yeah, i think he is. i think the reality is that his performance can be overpowering sometimes, but he's probably not going to study the policy as hard. i don't know that that's always been kamala harris's strength, either, and she performed well, and i'm not so sure she did in the main debate. [ laughter ] >> i don't think she wasn't as well prepared when she came into the vice presidency itself, but i think that the on eye think that back to you all's conversation, i think it's good for america to hear her put up more of her policy views. i think it's bad for a campaign

because, again, what she did last week was really far left elizabeth warren policy, and with that, that benefits trump because that's on immigration and on the economy. >> marc and cornell agree, it's a first. >> i'm sorry. that is all for today. thank you for watching. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday it's "meet the press." ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ b