maybe he would finally open his ears and listen to what working people everywhere are saying, that america needs a raise! >> that is, of course, hillary clinton. she's hitting donald trump. that happening just moments ago in michigan. good afternoon, everyone. i'm erica hill. clinton is still speaking at this hour. she's rallying union members from seiu in detroit, and we're keeping an ear on those remarks. she is, of course, speaking less than an hour after donald trump wrapped a meeting at trump tower here in new york with senator bob corker. a rumored vp contender and, of course, chair of the powerful senate foreign relations committee. here's cork after after that meeting. >> i have no reason whatsoever to believe that i'm being considered for a position like that. i'll say that until i'm blue in my face. this was a meeting between two people who didn't know each other, except over phone calls.

>> a new nbc news "wall street journal" poll shows clinton and trump in a statistical tie. clinton continues to still fight for her party's nomination. >> i am going to be the nominee, and i want to spend a lot of my time, as you've seen me do, really take on trump. i find what he says, the kind of candidacy he's presenting to pose a danger to our country. >> bernie sanders shows no signs, meantime, of bowing out of the race, instead touting himself as the candidate to beat trump. >> i think the objective evidence is very clear, that in virtually every national poll and every state poll, we defeat trump by larger numbers than does secretary clinton.

>> our political team has all of the angles of this race covered on your monday. we're going to kick things off with katy tur, who's outside trump tower. not getting a lot of information there from senator corker. i know you were trying to coax a little bit more out of them. what are we hearing about what was discussed and more about the meeting? >> well, corker said it was very generalized and couldn't get into specifics. some aides are saying that this was just a simple meet and great, a courtesy call. kind of how corker described it as well. other aides are saying he is certainly pretty high on the list when it comes to vp possibilities. he does fill a lot of the holes that donald trump doesn't have in his experience right now. and i pressed corker on a number of things, including on the muslim ban. he had come out against the muslim ban. i wondered today since they were speaking about foreign policy if perhaps that would come up. take a listen to how he answered that. did you speak to him about the muslim ban?

>> we did not talk about that. >> reporter: i know you've come out against it. was that part of the conversation at all? >> we talked bigger picture. really relative to foreign policy, domestic issues that matter a great deal. about how the campaign is unfolding. it was more of a -- you know, we had never talked other than on the phone, and more of a sort of get to know each other. >> reporter: you're the highest ranking republican leader to actually visit donald trump on his home turf since he became the presumptive nominee, perhaps this entire campaign. it's certainly setting off some vice presidential rumors. >> i don't think that's -- >> reporter: why would you make the trip here if it was just a hi, hello? >> i was up here last monday meeting with henry kissinger, and i'm in new york a good deal. and, you know, i think it's certainly worthwhile to sit down and get to know the nominee in a

little bit different way, and we did that today. >> reporter: senator corker was in trump tower for a little over an hour, and there is a lot of speculation right now that he could be a possible vp pick, because he fills those hellos, as i just mentioned a moment ago. one of them is the fact that he's a chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, so he would help donald trump when it comes to foreign policy. he's also a legislator, somebody who's known to get deals done in congress, even as it's been mired in gridlock. these are two major things that donald trump does not have in his experience belt, if you will, and it's two things that could potentially help him on the ticket. >> katy turf for us outside trump tower. thank you, as always. kasie hunt is following the clinton campaign, she joins us now live from detroit. we played a little bit of sound there just off the top. some of the remarks that we had heard from hillary clinton a little bit earlier. what's her message today as

she's trying to win over support here? >> reporter: hi, erica. you heard her talk a little bit there about donald trump and the minimum wage, saying that she knows what she believes donald trump doesn't, which is that the country needs a raise. minimum wage has become an issue both between her and republicans, but also her and rival bernie sanders, which, of course, has been overshadowing clinton's efforts to turn and focus on donald trump. she's, of course, here at the seiu international convention, and she's going to -- we're waiting for her, according to aides, to talk about his immigration-related comments and how he would not, in their words, be good for immigrant families. but in the meantime, she's fighting this battle with bernie sanders. and the new poll shows you just how close this has become. clinton aides tell me that they believe she has a couple more points on donald trump, but they're not showing up right now because a lot of democrats just haven't come home, and they

think that's happening with republican voters that are consolidating behind trump, and that's why you see this closing so much. but, of course, that's a bigger problem for hillary clinton, because as you heard her tell our chuck todd over the weekend on "meet the press," she doesn't want donald trump's candidacy to become, quote unquote, normal. so their effort is to make it seem like he's more of a reality tv start over a presidential candidate. but when those polls come out, it's a much tougher sell, erica. >> kasie hunt for us at that event with hillary clinton. thank you. meantime, our new nbc news "wall street journal" poll, it does show this dead heat. donald trump and hillary clinton basically tied in this head-to-head match when you factor in the margin of error. mark, you always have great takeaways here. i know you have three main points. one of them actually, we just heard kasie bring up, the clinton campaign really trying to sell this idea that well, you know, partially these numbers are probably because republicans

are coalescing around donald trump. would you agree with that? >> yeah, erica. two forces are at play. republicans are starting to rally around donald trump, given that he's the republicans' presumptive nominee. in our poll last month, 72% of republicans were backing donald trump in a match-up against hillary clinton. now it's 86%. so that number is actually bumped up a little bit. the second takeaway, the democratic race is still ongoing and there's still some fissures on the democratic side. while so many democrats are still backing hillary clinton, only 66% of bernie sanders supporters are backing her in a head-to-head match-up against donald trump. that means the other third is either voting for trump or that they are undecided, and hillary clinton's goal is to be able to get many more of those people up to be able to boost her polling numbers in the months ahead once the democratic race concludes. and then, erica, the third point overall is that you end up having -- that the democrats still think this has been a good

and healthy process. our latest, we just released this number at noon, our nbc "wall street journal" poll found that by a 2-1 margin, democrats say the whole long process going through june, having bernie sanders and hillary clinton battling it out, has been good for the party rather than bad. those numbers were reversed almost back in 2008 between barack obama and hillary clinton. so even though if hillary clinton hasn't been able to unify the entire party, most democrats, or a lot of democrats are saying this long process has been good for them and their party. >> always interesting to see the different takes on it. mark murray, appreciate it as always. >> thanks. >> it's been a rallying cry for both bernie sanders and donald trump, that their party's respective primary processes are rigged. sanders repeating that claim only days ago, suggesting his 700-plus delegate deficit is proof that the system is fixed. >> 93% of the super delegates in the democratic establishment have gone to secretary clinton.

and what is even more unbelievable is that over 400 of these super delegates indicated their support for secretary clinton before anyone else was in the race before the first ballot was cast. >> ben ginsburg, always good to see you. we're going to broaden it out. we're going to get your take on the republicans and the democrats, too. when we hear senator sanders say things like that, when we hear donald trump or see donald trump tweeting out saying he thinks the system is rigged against bernie sanders, that's not entirely surprising, because that could only help donald trump in many ways, to try to make people feel less disenfranchised. how, though, is this message resonating with voters to this

point? >> i suspect the conversation about being the system being rigged is over among republican voters. victor has a way of doing that. it's really interesting on the democratic side. what bernie sanders is referring to is the over 700 super delegates that democrats have. now, what's interesting about the super delegates is that they represent the party establishment in an anti-establishment year. the problem for hillary clinton going into the convention is that in pledged delegates, delegates actually won, bernie sanders is probably going to end up within a couple hundred delegates of her. so it is the party elites, the party establishment who are tilting it for hillary clinton, and the trap door for her, that must be animating her people is that super delegates really are not necessarily pledged to hillary clinton, but to the maintaining of power of the democratic party.

the more they see polls like your nbc "wall street journal" poll, the more those super delegates think this is a potential problem for us. they are not bound to hillary clinton. and if the polls keep going down, she's got to worry what happens on the floor of the democratic convention in philadelphia. >> how much does this come into play moving forward? as you say, things are quieting down on the republican side now that there is a nominee. but could some what we've been hearing, could this influence changes to compost-2016? >> i think that people who want the nomination of both parties and both current candidates think about 2020. if you're on the republican side, we're likely to have a disagreement about whether our primary should be opened or closed. donald trump did really well, attracted independents into the republican party. some other candidates who were

probably interested in 2020 would like to keep it a core republican process. on the democratic side, if hillary clinton's nominated, she's going to want to keep super delegates because they're the establishment. yet bernie sanders fighting at the convention will probably want to get rid of them. >> really quickly, want to get your take, ben. as katy tur pointed out for us, senator bob corker is the highest ranking republican to make the visit to new york to meet with donald trump. they met for a little over an hour. what are you taking away from that? even just as a visual. >> well, the official is it's good for donald trump to be meeting with people from washington and from the party who have knowledge. did it with james a. baker iii. did it with henry kissinger. did it with bob corker. there is a theme of the sort of deans of the republican foreign policy establishment. >> corker as vp? yea? nay? >> certainly could be. donald trump has said in the past that he wants somebody with experience, who he can see

taking over the office. bob corker is knowledgeable, more knowledgeable than most about foreign policy and a member of the senate who knows how to get things done. >> msnbc political analyst ben ginsburg, appreciate your time, as office. >> thanks. our latest nbc news "wall street journal" poll reveals 47% of voters say they would consider a third party presidential candidate in november. today's microsoft pulse question, we're asking would you vote for a third party candidate? here's a look at your results so far this hour. and a reminder, the pulse remains live, so you still have a chance to weigh in. just log on to pulse.msnbc.com. we are following breaking news out of baltimore. a police officer cleared in the death of freddie gray calls this afternoon for calm in that city. we'll go live to the courthouse in baltimore for a better sense of how folks are reacting. that's next. [ male announcer ] tora bora fallujah argonne

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we are following this break news out of baltimore, where a judge has cleared a police officer for his role in the death of freddie gray. the officer was found not guilty, acquitted of assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. gray suffered severe spinal cord injuries while in the back of a police van and died a week later. luke, we got this decision. this was handed down within the last few hours. what's the reaction been in that time within the city of baltimore? >> reporter: hey there, erica. obviously, this is a town that a year ago was reeling under enormous rioting and fires and burning and whatnot. this time around, there hasn't been as much of a spirited reaction, and that's really because local leaders have said look, let justice play its course. this is the second of six

officers who are charged in regards to what happened to freddie gray. this was a five-day bench trial. judge barry williams saying essentially that the officer had no credible facts to show that he was directly involved in gray's arrest. interestingly enough, erica, the attorney for freddie gray's family, billy murphy, was giving credit to judge williams. take a listen. >> you can't knowledge judge williams after he's done essentially a public service in not only ruling, but explaining in great detail every basis for his ruling. how can anybody dispute that this officer did not have -- and that the public did not have a well-illuminated absolutely fair process that led to this result. >> reporter: so right there, the attorney saying the process was well-illuminated and fair. also giving credit to the judge

for ruling fairly in this case, not trying to pass any judgment on the other charges that will be thrown. those trials get under way throughout the course of the year. >> and you sort of set the scene, when we first began speaking, you talked about, of course, the riots that we saw last year this is a much different situation today, and in many ways, this, in fact, is a finding that was expected. so it has been pretty calm throughout the day, correct? >> reporter: yes, and it's similar to what happened with officer porter, is that when you saw the case play out in the courtroom and the media reports, you realized the difficulty, what it takes to prosecute a case like that. a gentleman thought this was a joke. he's upset about it. in regards to the community reaction, we haven't seen the level even what i covered the porter trial, there seemed to be more protest around the white house for that one. this one for the most part is relatively calm. i think part of that can be played up because of the rain. and also because the local leaders have gone out of their ways to say this is the justice

process. this was why these officers were charged. this is playing out in the open. we still have more trials to go. let justice take its course throughout the year. >> luke stay with us, i want to bring in ari. this is the first verdict from one of the cases against the six officers. not the first case. the first verdict, as we know. how does this, could this in any way impact those other cases moving forward? >> as you mentioned, five cases to go. in theory, it doesn't have to affect anything at all because each case could be on the merits and the facts with regard to the defendant and what they did that fateful day that ultimately ended with freddie gray's death in custody. but in practice, i think being realistic, we can say it's not good for the prosecution's momentum on potential cooperation from other defendants if they are not winning any of these cases. it is early yet, because one mistrial, one acquittal today,

that leaves five to go. but what you're going to see in the remaining cases, i would expect, is a defense to be particularly aggressive with the idea that the prosecutors have overcharged and reached beyond what they would argue the facts show to scribe a greater culpability. officer nero was not involved directly in the van ride or driving the van or the more serious parts of this. this was all today a verdict about the original arrest of freddie gray, who was not ultimately found to have committed a crime or done anything to support an arrest. >> as an attorney, were you at all surprised to see billy murphy come out there and praise the judge, praise judge williams and the way this was handled? >> not at all, and in fact, one of the sad parts of this, and we try to stay very respectful and sort of thoughtful about it. but day in and day out, we are looking at repeat players who do, hopefully, try to operate in good faith. by that i mean prosecutors and defense counsel who win some,

lose some, and try to respect the system. much has been made of, for example, this judge's race. he happens to be african-american. baltimore is a city with a lot of problems and racial tensions, but also, a diverse leadership, politically, legally, and in the officer corps. so i don't think there's anything extraordinary about it. this is not a political campaign. this is not a partisan issue. and today's case, i think for those who see it as justice done, is an example of the case going to trial, the facts being heard, the process being transparent, and whether you like the outcome or not, whether you're the gray family attorney, as you quoted, or the officers, that is an outcome that we can see in our justice system works when the system works. >> ari, luke, thank you both. we, of course, at the top of the hour, we brought you some remarks from hillary clinton. she's just wrapping up that speech there in detroit to the seiu, speaking to union representatives there. that, again, wrapping up. kasie hunt was there for us. meantime, as we shift our

focus to the questions, and there are still many about what happened to that egypt air flight 804, it is today a race against time in the mediterranean. search teams are hunting for those black boxes. we're going to have live coverage for you from egypt. we'll get you the very latest on that urgent search mission, next. it's more than a network and the cloud. it's reliable uptime. and multi-layered security. it's how you stay connected to each other and to your customers. with centurylink you get advanced technology solutions, including an industry leading broadband network, and cloud and hosting services - all with dedicated, responsive support. with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you're free to focus on growing your business. centurylink. your link to what's next. jen stops working, but her aleve doesn't. hey mom! because aleve can last 4 hours longer

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♪ there is a day, for every number. ♪ ♪ there is a time, for all my slumbers. ♪ one coat guaranteed marquee interior. behr's most advanced paint. get the best paint for anynt. budget and save 10 or 40 bucks. only at the home depot. a submarine is now scanning the waters of the mediterranean in a desperate search for egyptair flight 804. it's been five days since the plane went missing, and the clock is kiticking for that bla box. the pings on the battery-powered black box only last for so long, about 30 days. so we've got about 25 left. here's the egypt minister of civil aviation earlier with nbc's bill nealy. >> we couldn't identify exactly

where the aircraft had crashed. however, let's hope that the team working there will be able to continue the search, and with the use of new equipment and more advanced equipment, they would be able to locate the two data boxes within, like, the preferred time. >> new debris, including plane parts and clothing were found over the weekend. as for what downed that plane, however, there are no solid leads for investigators. only very few clues, including smoke alarm warnings in the final moments. what is the latest? i know we just heard a little bit from the aviation minister. give us a better sense of what you're hearing from authorities about this search and investigation. >> reporter: the investigation is working on two fronts. obviously, this search and recovery is still the major component here, because getting that black box, the cockpit voice reporter, establishing a timeline, answering some very

critical questions. what we learned about an hour and a half or so ago from egypt's general prosecutor, they've launched an investigation, they have now sent a request to the french prosecutor asking the french government as well as the greek government to share all relevant information with egyptian authities. they are now asking the french government to provide any kind of information as it pertains to the plane while it was at charles de gaulle airport for about an hour or so. they also want any kind of recordings that may have taken place between the control towers at charles de gaulle and the egyptian pilots during that flight, as well as that from the greek government. so that is critical to their ongoing investigation here on the ground. but as you mentioned, a big component of this is trying to recover the wreckage and that flight data recover. right now, conditions are not working in their favor. they're searching an area that is about 50 or so square miles. about 200 miles off of the coast of egypt, and it is about 1.8 miles deep. so it is a difficult challenge,

but as you mentioned, the egyptian government has deployed a submarine to that search area to try and survey the bottom of the seabed to see if that will give them any other clues as to where that wreckage might be. erica? >> hopefully they'll pinpoint that area. thank you. captain john cox is an aviation analyst for nbc news and msnbc. and we're going to talk with him in just a minute. but i see tom costello sitting there. tom, always good to see you, too. give us a sense. one of the things that has come up is the tracking, being able to find things, having radar on the plane. it's not as easy to locate a plane as one might think, especially in the u.s., people who fly a lot are used to things like wi-fi. even those connections that we're used to don't necessarily exist on many of the planes. >> i think the real concern is when planes are out of radar range, if they're out over bodies of water and they're not covered by radar, and the concern has been, how do you track a plane that is no longer

being covered by radar? we've seen that with malaysia flight 370 out over the south indian ocean, that apparently vanished. we still haven't seen or heard from it, really other than pieces of debris over the last two years. and isn't there a better way to track specific locations? what they're talking about now, is whether they can stream the data from the black boxes live. in other words, that's a huge data stream. if it wasn't just going to be recorded on the black boxes and then you have to recover the black boxes, if they could stream it back to headquarters, that would give them more information about the performance of the plane, what may or may not be going wrong with it, but also maybe precise locations of where that plane is and where the debris is. the trouble is that's extremely expensive. only one major airline in the world, qatar airlines, is talking about adding that to all of their planes in the near future, but at a cost we believe of tens of thousands of dollars per plane, not to mention the

infrastructure you have to build out on the ground to be able to collect all of that data and interpret it and keep some of it. so we haven't seen aircraft or airlines, rather, really embracing this idea of live streaming back to headquarters. but because we've now lost two airplanes over the course of the last two years, with 804 and with malaysia 370, there is increasing talk from the international association of civil aviation to try to encourage airlines to do exactly that. stream back live data from their black boxes in addition to satellite coverage so we always know exactly where these planes are at all times. >> so you mentioned the financial hurdle to that could be tens of thousands of dollars for each plane. but then there's also the logistics of it all. this isn't exactly the kind of thing, or correct me if i'm wrong, perhaps it is, where we could flip a switch and say by the end of june, we can actually -- money's not an

issue, we can get the system working because of the satellite issue, because of the technology onboard, because of those other systems that need to be built out. is there a sense of how far out something like this is? >> well, if there were suddenly some universal commitment, or if ae ae airlines started committing to that, in theory they could get it up and running within two years. but you'd have to have enough airlines to have it useful for the aviation authorities. that said, given the pressure that's on some of these airlines now to increase transparency, increase transmissions of everything they have, so that we know more about airplanes when they go down, more about what might have caused them, you can see a scenario where the pressure is building on them every day, and qatar airlines may be only the first. that said, it's also from a very rich emirates, right? we'll see how that plays out worldwide. >> all right. we'll be following it. tom, always good to see you. appreciate it. we do want to bring in now

captain john cox, an aviation analyst for both nbc news and msnbc. so captain, as we're talking a little bit there and you have decades of flying experience, as we're talking a little bit about the limitations of the data and finding that data, and tom just mentioned the pressure for transparency with these transmissions. how effective do you think that pressure is at this point? do you, based on your experience, envision something changing in the very near future? >> no, i think that what we've seen in the past is we have one airplane that has not -- is a mystery. and that's malaysia 370. i think that we'll find egypt air 804. i think that they're closing in on it. and i'm very comfortable with the fact that they'll find the wreckage on the sea floor. it's a long way, it's deep, but it's not nearly as deep as some of the recoveries that have been made in the past. tom costello mentioned just some of the problems with streaming data off of an airplane. the amount of data would be

extremely large. expense is certainly part of it. there's a lot of legal questions that are unanswered. and in the history of commercial jet aviation, when there are passengers onboard, and the tragedies where we've seen the loss of an aircraft, other than malaysia 370, we've always found and been able to solve it. so i think that -- i'm not sure that there's the pressure or the political necessity to incur these kind of expenses at this point. i think we'll solve 804. i think some of the evidence is beginning to come in. and so it's a matter of just being patient and working through this very proven method of accident investigation. >> being patient always one of the hardest parts, not just for the loved ones, but people who are used to immediate information these day. you mentioned some of the clues. there are these alarm signals that we know about, that went off not long before the plane was lost. the first message indicating some sort of problem with the cockpit windows. and then two more smoke alarms. one from the lavatory close to

the cockpit. another from the avionics underneat the cockpit. based on your experience, what did those alarms tell you could have happened? >> well, interestingly, when we first got word of those faults that had been sent down via the acars system, the question that comes to mind is, having three basically simultaneous window overheats is really unlikely. so that causes you to question, is there some place where all of that information originates in a single source? and the answer is yes. all of those overheat signals come out of a window control unit computer that is in the avionics bay. the same thing is also true with the lavatory smoke. there is a computer that deals with that, that's in the avionics bay. so right now, increasingly, there is focus on what went on in that avionics bay, than to be potentially an indicator of what actually happened in this

tragedy. >> these pilots had thousands of hours of flight experience. the pilot himself had a great deal of experience with this particular aircraft. how were you as a pilot trained to deal with a situation where perhaps all of those alarms are going off at once? >> well, pilots first and foremost have to learn to prioritize things when we get warnings that are across several different systems. and that's how you deal with it, you prioritize it. and then you move forward one step at a time. >> captain john cox, always appreciate your insight. thanks for being with us this afternoon. >> my pleasure, erica. straight ahead this hour, hillary clinton hammering donald trump in detroit, out there on the trail, as new polling shows the two of them in a statistical dead heat. that's next. [alarm beeps] ♪

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heat race of a potential match-up between donald trump and hillary clinton. our nbc news "wall street journal" poll showing donald trump has virtually erased clinton's double-digit lead. the two are now in a statistical tie when you figure in that margin of error. moments ago, hillary clinton delivered some of her most forceful words yet aimed directly at her republican rival, hitting donald trump on guns, women, immigration, and party unity. take a listen. >> the gun lobby doesn't intimidate me. mr. trump likes to say i'm playing the woman card. well, you know what i say, if fighting for equal pay and paid family leave and raising the minimum wage and affordable childcare is playing the woman card, then deal me in!

we have to reject this wrong vision for america with a strong, clear voice. we have to stand up for hard working american families, and that includes hard-working immigrant families. we are going to unify the democratic party and stop donald trump! >> bill clinton, meantime, is speaking at the moment to a fired up crowd at california state university in fresno. the republican party does appear to be coalescing around donald trump. a high-ranking republican senator making his way to new york city today. but even as rumored swirled about the purpose of his visit to the big apple, the lawmaker was busy playing down that meeting's importance. >> i'm in new york a good deal. i think it's certainly worthwhile to sit down and know the nominee in a little bit

different way. we did that today. >> nbc's halle jackson was there, and it was interesting, because he was responding to a question about well, you know, isn't this kind of a big deal? you came all the way to new york to have this meeting. and he was trying to down play even that aspect of this meeting that lasted a little over an hour, and yet there is no denying that there are certain optics and messaging at play here. is the initial reaction that we're getting from the trump campaign somewhat favorable that this is going the way they wanted it to? >> it's not a bad thing, right, erica, that senator corker came here to new york, here to trump tower to head upstairs and to meet with the candidate himself, given that donald trump just a couple of weeks ago as you know was down in washington meeting with speaker paul ryan. i'm told by a top aide that corker and trump were set to meet in washington a couple weeks ago after trump delivered that foreign policy speech. after senator corker delivered that sort of backing of trump, back when nobody was or very few people were on the republican side before he became the really

presumptive republican nominee. so yeah, the optics is kind of interesting when you look at it. the other part of it that's fascinating is the speculation surrounding corker as a potential vice presidential pick, as a possible running mate for donald trump. you heard him during his brief availability just around the corner here, really brush it off. he says he hasn't been notified. he has no reason to believe that the trump campaign is vetting him as a possible vice president. but he also didn't answer our questions about whether he's submitted documentation for that vetting process. corker fills a couple of gaps. he's got a lot of foreign policy experience. he's the chair of that very powerful senate foreign relations committee. so given some of donald trump's perceived vulnerabilities on international relations, bob corker is somebody who could help boost him in that arena. the other part of it, trump himself has talked about wanting a running mate who is able to build connections in washington. to build bridges in d.c. that is an area that trump is weak in, and it's why he's headed to washington to try to interact with speaker ryan. it's why his teams are meeting

with chiefs of staff over on capitol hill. corker has been in the senate since 2006. he has a lot of relationships in congress, and he's somebody who could help trump in that area as well. >> nbc's halle jackson for us outside trump tower this afternoon. thanks. i want to bring in now robert kaufman, national political reporter for "the washington post." what are you hearing in washington at this point from republicans? how is this meeting being received in the capital that we saw today? >> senator corker is the chairman of the foreign relations committee, someone who surprised many by being more in line on foreign policy. he mentioned trump as a realist in harkening back to henry kissinger and richard nixon, casting trump as someone who's not a traditional conservative hawk. so even if he's not on the ticket, he's seen as someone who's a powerful hand, supportive of the nominee. >> and halle jackson pointed out too there if he were a potential running mate, he does fill some

important gaps that donald trump has. how far does that go with republicans as we see them starting to coalesce around donald trump as the nominee? does a meeting like this help with that? >> corker wouldn't bring you a swing state. republicans are likely to win tennessee. what he does bring is the inside knowledge of how washington works. he also brings a rapport with the candidate. if you look at corker's biography, this is somebody who comes out of the real estate world. a as businessman, as someone who's rich, he has maybe a personal rapport with trump on those fronts. >> is this the beginning of perhaps more meetings? donald trump was in washington recently when he met with speaker ryan, met with a number of high ranking republicans. but interesting to see senator corker, of course, make the trek to new york. could we see more high level republicans start coming to new york, going through the doors of trump tower? >> based on my reporting, i think we can expect to see quite a few visits to come. i think the trump campaign and the candidate himself in a

conversation with him last week, he said he likes when people come to trump tower and get to know people in the party, because he doesn't have the relationships. even though he's the presumptive nominee, he's trying to build that foundation as he comes toward the general election. >> you say based on your reporting. any names you want to throw at us? >> i think you can look to see some trump allies who have endorsed him. i think it wouldn't be surprising to see governor rick scott of florida, jeff sessions of alabama come up to trump tower in the coming weeks. >> what are the chances of speaker ryan making a visit to new york? >> more unlikely. i think he's focused on his house activities. his attention is not so much to rebuild, or building a relationship with donald trump. it's about preserving the house majority. and he still has some reservations, especially privately about whether trump is good for the party or not. >> how much more do you anticipate we'll see of donald trump making the visit down to washington? >> i think that's more of a paul

manafort activity. he's the new campaign chairman and he's the one who has the relationships, going back decades with many of these senators and congressmen. and trump may not do it himself. >> and we know paul manafort has been holding those meetings on a regular basis. always appreciate you being with us. thank you. as we head now to break, we want to update you on today's pulse question. we asked whether you would vote for a third party candidate. you can see the results. basically unchanged from earlier this hour. if you haven't weighed in, you can do so at pulse.msnbc.com. stay with us, we'll be right back. all the way to jordan and chelsea's wedding. rumble! road trip. there she is. uh oh, oh, oh, oh, what? so here is our road trip itinerary. what's this? a bunch of different places... nah, bro. we gotta go off-script. rip to shreds every motel, cabin and teepee, between here and the wedding. now get out of my seat. alright. (screams) road trip! whahhhh hahaha... road trip!

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how were they feeling, and what was their reaction? >> yes, i have had the opportunity to speak with some of the members of mr. gray's immediate family. and speaking with them, they remain the same as they were at the beginning of this case. they understand that the pursuit of justice is a marathon, it's not a sprint. so they certainly understand that justice does not mean a guilty verdict or a not guilty verdict. they were looking for a fair and impartial process. and as of this moment, there's nothing to suggest that this process has not been fair. in fact, everything that we have seen shows that judge williams was not only fair, but he was impartial. he listened to the evidence and applied the law to the facts of the case as were presented to him and he delivered a fair and just verdict. >> and that is what we heard from your colleague billy murphy, who actually praised judge williams. moving forward. this is one verdict. we have five more cases to come. what is the thinking now both from a legal standpoint and also from the viewpoint of the

family? what are they expecting heading forward based on what we saw today? >> well, the family is expecting more fair trials. the family expects that there will be five additional trials, that there will be separate evidence presented in every single case, and that the fact finder, whether it's a jury or a bench trial, the family is expecting that the facts will be applied to the law and that a fair verdict will be delivered as to each of the officers. the family has never looked for a verdict of guilty from the very beginning. they wanted a fair and transparent process, and that's what they are expecting moving forward with each of the five upcoming trials. >> attorney jason downs, appreciate you joining us this afternoon, thank you. >> thank you. stay with us. we'll be right back. groom. turquois dresses... so excited. did all her exes get invited? no one's got moves like uncle joe. ♪ should i stay or should i go? ♪

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i'm erica hill. thanks for staying with us. at the top of the hour, kate snow will have an interview with tim canova, who is, of course,

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here, have some of ours. oh! when your hot dog's kosher, that's a hot dog you can trust. hebrew national hello, everyone. i'm kate snow. in a campaign of firsts, it seems like every single day we're describing something as having never happened before. so, keeping with what's becoming tradition, here's another first for you on this monday. donald trump and hillary clinton are the most unpopular likely presidential nominees in the history of our nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. matched in a general election head-to-head, they are now in a dead heat. what once was a double-digit lead for hillary clinton is gone. her lead today, just three points, that's within the margin of error. and don't forget, clinton hasn't locked up the democratic nomination yet. bernie sanders reminding everyone not so fast, he's still

in it. but don't try telling that to clinton. >> i want to spend a lot of my time, as you've seen me do, really taking on trump. >> i think secretary clinton is jumping the gun a little bit here. we're going to fight as hard as we can for every delegate and every vote. >> new numbers out within the last few hours having to do with that drawn-out race. by a 2-1 margin, democrats think it is good for the party. that's a huge reversal from around this time in the 2008 race. we're going to dive into all those new poll numbers and check in with our team of reporters covering the candidates today. let's start with today's big meeting in new york city, donald trump and senator bob corker, chairman of the senate foreign relations committee. nbc's halle jackson is just outside trump tower in manhattan. okay, halle. the who, what, when, why. give it all. >> the tenets of