♪ i know you're waiting on the other side ♪ ♪ i'm like you on-demand glucose monitoring. because they're always on. another life-changing technology from abbott. so you don't wait for life. you live it. good day. 3:00 here in the east. 12 noon on the west coast. and we begin this hour's live coverage with breaking news, word to nbc news through sources attached to the biden campaign effort that the former vice president has indeed reached his decision on a running mate and may be in a position to announce that decision as early as this afternoon. to mike memoli we go, covering the biden campaign in wilmington the ongoing waiting game that's

taken several days, mike, what further can you add? >> reporter: well, brian, the biden campaign, of course, joe biden himself has gone through this process himself being chosen by barack obama 12 years ago. they were emulating in a lot of ways the obama process itself. three months ago, joe biden became the defacto nominee after the end of the primaries, bernie sanders offering his concession. the biden campaign casting a very wide net. democratic women governors, a fume of important members of congress, we saw over time that process narrowing down even further to the point where joe biden himself has over the last few weeks has been engaged in meetings with the potential short-listers, biden is looking for somebody to be his own joe biden, he wants to try and replicate that relationship in the white house with whomever he would choose as his vice

president if he should win in november. joe biden believes he has found that woman. now the biden campaign has had a plan in place for once they got this decision from biden himself, they were working furiously not just over the past weekend of course but over the last few weeks in conference calls, when they were discussing their plan for this moment, they referred to her, we'll see know who her is in this. we'll see a text message, we'll see an e-mails going out to his supporters and we'll eventually see a video featuring that woman giving the introduction to the country. we also have seen a significant amount of activity here in downtown wilmington just today. specifically around a hotel, the dupont hotel that some personal and historical significance to joe biden n 1972 the place where he celebrated his upset victory to earn his first senate seat.

brian, we're waiting for if this is the pick indeed at this point, the name of that person we should expect that in that text message. we're working our sources to see if we can find it out ourselves. >> so, mike, let's show a little bit of our homework here, you not unlike the military, two types of intelligence in this line of work, human intelligence and signals intelligence, the latter means that every reporter worth his or her salt has been looking at flight tracking apps trying to figure out any private jets coming into wilmington and the philadelphia and the human intel obviously is simply working sources, asking people who might know someone who knows in addition the campaign of course it's to their advantage to leak details as they can and i'm guessing we're full tilt on both of these fronts? >> reporter: yeah, brian, for

sure. 12 years ago when i began this journey covering joe biden i myself was that individual in a driveway at the foot of his driveway not far from here and we saw of course eventually a day after he himself got the call from barack obama, these signs of activity that he was indeed the choice, closely keeping an eye on the major contenders. the betting favorite since the beginning of this process, kamala harris, susan rice as well karen bass, val demings. gretchen whitmer, faded as the public consideration on the short list, we reported last thursday that she was indeed still very much in serious consideration. it was only a day later that we learned from that flight tracking software that you mentioned a reporter covering state government in michigan in fact finding a flight that had gone from lansing, not to wilmington, not to philadelphia,

but a smaller airport down in rehoboth, delaware, where the former vice president has his beach house where he's been visited the last few years, one of the locations he's done these one-on-one meetings. not all the finalists got that in-person meeting with the former vice president, knowing how he makes these decisions and just how important that personal dynamic is, we know that that was his personal consideration. all the measures and sourcing and efforts we would take to try to keep on top of this story have been that much more obsc e obscured because of the pandemic, travel has been limited and access to sources in person has been limited, brian. >> mike, is that only the reason why whitmer was the sole outlier on this list the one person who we had confirmation had had an

in-person visit in the delaware area with the former vice president, there's no -- there's no reason to believe that others haven't made similar trips, correct, we just hadn't confirmed their travels. >> reporter: that's exactly right, brian. a number of finalists, the women among those finalists live very much close to the washington area, about a two-hour drive from either washington to wilmington, or across the bay bridge into rehoboth bridge, it's worth noting that we have had our eyes on the former vice president's residence here for at least a week or so, it doesn't necessarily we've been able to identify all those coming in and out. we remember very carefully, very well in past cycles the degrees in which these campaigns engage in misdirection, four years ago, tim kaine the eventual choice for hillary clinton as her

running mate, he was attending a fund-raiser in rhode island. he was told that john podesta was actually sitting in a car outside the venue where he had been speaking at a fund-raiser for a senate colleague. they whisked him to an airport and flew him to the announcement the joint appearance for both of them in miami the next day, so obviously, the degrees to which, you know, in a normal circumstance would be able to keep tabs on this made it that mu much more complicated. in a pandemic we can do a much better job of keeping this secret. >> mike, thank you. we'll let you go back to your phone and glean what you can. our white house correspondent kristen welker joins us. our conversation has focused on the skullduggery that breaks out, we have had former vice

president bolt through the backyards to avoid news media, in the front yard, all kinds of false starts in this line of work over the past few years, but the headline remains joe biden has reached his decision, may share with -- it with us later this afternoon. >> a source familiar to the matter i spoke to, you highlight something that has made this process quite challenging for reporters the tea leaf reading that we're able to do to determine who the eventual pick will be made so much more complicated by covid-19. one of my sources say, typically, even the people aren't in the room where they're making this final decision are huddled outside because they're at a campaign headquarters, that's not the case this cycle, of course, because everyone is largely at their own homes, in their own states, working

remotely, having said that, brian, we've had our eyes on several women we think at the to which this list, it includes senator kamala harris, susan rice, gretchen whitmer who's the governor of michigan. but then there are other names that we have kept our eye on, everyone from senator elizabeth warren, senator tammy duckworth, this has been such a dlib ra tif process. joe biden is someone who takes these deliberations quite seriously. he i'm told wants to make sure he's dotting every i, crossing every t. he's up in the polls nationally and in critical battleground states, someone who's going to

be real partner to him in the white house. now, it's important to point out that that relationship wasn't the something that the two men enjoyed on day one, it was something that was developed and evolved over time. any way you slice it, though, it will be an historic pick given the fact that he's choosing from a list of female candidates. the first african-american female running mate, so this is certainly significant from an historic perspective. president trump for his part already taking aim, he has his eye on this as well, he's criticizing biden of boxing himself in and he says that some men will be offended by this decision to choose a female running mate. we'll have to see, but everyone has their eyes on this critical choice, brian. >> well, you mentioned the pandemic in the background, this

also robs joe biden presumably, reports out there that there won't be the traditional event, two people walking forward to the stage that this in keeping in our times, a text and social media and computer-driven event and not a human-driven event. >> reporter: that's a really important point. i think virtual, all of this is going to be done in such a unique way and biden and the campaign have really made a point of that, the reason for that, brian, is that they want to and biden wants to showcase the fact that he's going to make the argument that he's going to be leader as it relates to the pandemic. he'll practice what he preaches. he won't engage in large gatherings, of course, key medical experts have said those types of gatherings could help to spread the virus, so he's

going to adhere to that advice, whether it be through this announcement or during his convention, they're making those types of decisions, but it puts that much more pressure on the words that are spoken once this announcement does come forward. so again, brian, all eyes in the political world and across the country awaiting this key decision by the former vice president. >> kristen, indeed, these conventions are going to look a lot more like zoom calls during this pandemic. we should plain about that, do we have any intel on whether there's any planning, albeit six feet apart to see the nominee and the vice presidential nominee physically in the same space at this early stage? >> reporter: boy, that's a really interesting question and i think it still remains an open question, brian, they're still working through some of those final details, but certainly,

that's going to create one more challenge, because, of course, that's one of the key moments of any convention, when you have the presidential nominee and the running mate appearing together, that joe of force, it's still unclear, but there will be a real attempt to create that sense of unity within the party, now of course until about several days ago, we expected biden to be speaking from milwaukee and he decided ultimately in the wake of president trump cancelling his decision to speak in jacksonville, florida, that he was going to speak remotely, so those fine details are still being hammered out, both of these conventions, brian are so unique. because i think in some sense it's the planning is going to be taking in very real time, right up until the moment the speakers

start to deliver their speeches. andrea mitchell who's well sourced in these things and has broken her share of vice presidential picks over the years, andrea, to kristen's point, this year's different in so many ways. chiefly, this is all a virtual business now. >> reporter: absolutely, and to the fact that there's going to be a virtual convention that they're going to announce this online, which has been done before, we expect that we'll be seeing the two together at some point this week before the convention. but the fact is, all of this has involved no retail campaigning from the democratic standpoint and this they believe one of the strong points of the biden's campaign's argument, he's made the vice presidential selection as we're now reporting, he's telling advisers and may well be rolling it out as soon as today.

the fact that he's met in person, carefully socially distant with some of the major candidates involved, you know, the first revelation of that was the reporting a week ago friday that gretchen whitmer had come from michigan unnoticed and come to delaware to meet with him as well. so he's done this very dlib ra tifly, we along the way he's consulted barack obama but not on the final decision. the former vice president wanted to be seen as the kingmaker in all this. prominently on this list were black women, which would be historic. i said, women have been on the ticket for vice president before, if it's historic he said it's a black woman, he paused, anything vice president biden does would do will be historic.

we think it's going to be today. the mayor garcetti on l.a. was on fox and was asked, i can walk my dog this afternoon? and his answer, only if you can relieve your dog very close to a telephone. very close to getting back in the house. we do think that this could come today. if it's a black woman, of course it could be kamala harris, it could be susan rice, he's said in the past that he wanted someone who had campaign, prefer someone with campaign experience, that would be kamala harris, great excitement over her rollout in oakland last year, that huge rally and there were some bumps along the road including with joe biden of course during that first debate, nbc/msnbc debate.

he's long since said he holds no grudges. she has fund-raised with him since. he's said and his advisers have said he wants a governing partner and either one of those women could be a governing partner and there's been at he of pressure that we were reporting yesterday, a hundred black men said, this is the moment and it should be a black woman and echoing black women who made that point and of course there's been the historic moment the reckoning that america is facing and that would create the excitement certainly generate a great deal of excitement and immediately create a target. outside groups said they are well prepared of targeting of any of these candidates, as well as racist targeting if it's a

black woman, but that would certainly make this historic landmark choice. the other thing about that is, if he were to choose someone like a white woman, at least in the 24 hours, 48 hours, or longer, a cycle of debate over that decision, in the black community, not to say that he wouldn't get support in the black community, perhaps not the enthusiasm he needs in key batt battleground states, he may be ahead in the polls but it's still early and one never knows what happens in campaign this volatile. number one the biden campaign has tried to leverage this announcement by saying sign up to receive a text message and be among the first to know. number two, a new reality for us is the possibility/likelihood that this choice will be

instantly trolled by the incumbent president of the united states. >> reporter: well, he's already been tweeting today that he doesn't think that -- that he thinks he said in a radio interview earlier today that he doesn't think biden was smart because he boxed himself in by saying it would be a woman and that he would be offending a lot of men, so if they want to take that approach, i think the democrats would welcome it. already an enormous gender gap, brian, and they would welcome re-energizing women, suburban women who may come over to biden. we know how close this election was fought in those three battleground states -- wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania and a lot of the failure to win those states was in cities like detroit and

philadelphia, where the black vote didn't turn out in the numbers with the enthusiasm that they had in previous cycles for barack obama. perhaps understandably but it didn't turn out enough and suburban women particularly in pennsylvania, michigan, did not turn out for hillary clinton, who didn't campaign in wisconsin, they've got some homework to do, they know that, we're trying not to be overconfident and read those early polls, but the president is certainly going to be after whoever, they're totally prepared for that because they've seen the way he nicknames many of these choices already and certainly has his nicknames for joe biden, i think the big difference when you pointed out to the difference of a virtual campaign is that they're not going to depart from the very careful procedures that joe biden has followed throughout, whereas the president ridiculed him for wearing a mask from the very beginning for not having in-person rallies, you can see

what happened after tulsa, then he went on and of course the president did mt. rushmore, i think the polling certainly indicates that reopening too soon is a mistake, that we go back to a place we then have to revisit a lot of the restrictions and that the biden people feel that his position on being careful and in following scientific guidelines will actually win them votes. >> well, as lyndon johnson once said, these are the stakes. to our viewers, these are our lead journalists working on this story at this hour. mike memoli, kristen welker, andrea mitchell, a small portion of the total of the msnbc journalists on this story at this hour. we'll take a break in our coverage. should there be any development obviously he'll blow out of a commercial and come back live on the air. but either way, our live

coverage will continue right after this. ue right after this

25 minutes after the hour, welcome back and let me reset the scene for you, nbc news is reporting that joe biden has reached his decision. further, our reporting is that we could learn his decision as early as this afternoon, east coast time, now the biden campaign has asked people to sign up to get text alerts and to be among the first to learn, that may well be how the world learns of this choice because so many of our reporting techniques are shall we say hampered by the pandemic, you don't get as much movement of people and personnel and security as you used to do in this business because of the kind of limited lockdown so many of us are under. but rest assured, we have a small army of men and women in

our news organization working to hunt this down. while we wait for word, let's bring in pbs newshour, white house correspondent yamiche alcindor, one of our frequent contributors. and professor eddie glaude jr., welcome both of you to our broadcast. let's call it what it is, let's talk about the pressure on joe biden to name a black woman vice presidential running mate and i would ascribe that to two central reasons -- number one, the moment in history we find ourselves in and number two, something formative about the fact that there's a biden campaign and that's what happened in south carolina, thanks to a certain member of congress and a certain

formidable, dependable voting bloc. >> i should tell you the two things you mentioned, i should say vice president biden is feeling this pressure, but i will also add one of the things that i hear from people is that african-american women in particular are the most loyal, some of the most loyal democratic voters and have been for a long time, in other words, black women have been going to the polls and voting for democrats and they haven't seen themselves representing on the ticket in the highest way possible. of course, there's the idea that african-americans especially in south carolina were the ones who really delivered this nomination to joe biden and this idea we're living in this racial reckoning, everybody's talking about race and opportunity. joe biden has said that he would pick an african-american woman to put on the supreme court. but picking his vp would kind of really have that promise someone who's working if the white house

with him every single day, that being said i was hearing from miss sources he didn't feel particular pressure to pick only a black woman. he made the commitment to pick a woman but he looked at all sort of people. he's looking for someone who's going to be loyal to him, governing alongside him, even though it's super early. we would be looking at the 2028 primary nominee the democrats are looking at a bunch of people they have and whoever's the vice president pick likely they'll start looking at someone who will se veeventually be preside long after joe biden, donald trump. joe biden in some ways and the joe biden campaign understand that there's momentum with this pick and wanting to capitalize

on the media attention and the attention and the vice president is getting for this pick, given that can campaigning has been so different, he's continued the campaign on and off camera. >> professor glaude, you study our life in society for a living, it's your life's calling as an academic, a point i made with you before, second perhaps to only gay marriage, the public polling on the black lives matter movement and its underpinnings and meaning following the death of george floyd makes it one of the fastest moving public issues of our time in terms of acceptance, it's not just a dotted line between the death of mr. floyd and the era we're living in right now, it's a bright