the dance recitals and birthday parties and library visits, they were all there. the precious, chaotic rhythms of a family that once was. proved there was a time when all was as it should be. proof, also, that time is gone, forever. democratic ticket. >> she's ready to do this job on day one. >> joe biden picks his running mate. >> your next vice president of the united states, kamala harris. >> the first woman of color ever on a national ticket. >> we need a mandate that proves that the past few years do not represent who we are or who we aspire to be. >> the trump campaign, struggling to find a consistent line of attack. >> she left angry. she left mad. there was nobody more insulting to biden than she was. >> how will this ticket fare with progressive democrats? this morning, my interview with senator bernie sanders of vermont.

plus our brand-new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll on the eve of the democratic national convention. also, as covid relief talks break down -- >> perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gave a damn. >> -- president trump says no deal, no new postal service funding for mail-in voting. >> it's very simple. how are they going to do it if they don't have the money to do it? >> prompting charges that he's sabotaging the mail in order to help his re-election chances. >> what we've never seen before is a president saying i'm going to actively kneecap the postal service. >> and as president trump struggles at home, he secures a big agreement in the middle east. i'll talk to national security adviser robert o'brien. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt, former homeland security

secretary jeh johnson, carol lee, and charles benson from our nbc affiliate in convention city, milwaukee. welcome to sunday and our coverage of the democratic national convention. it's "meet the press." from nbc news in washington, the longest-running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning. normally on the sunday before a national political convention, we'd be inside a sports arena right now anticipating cheering crowds, boisterous protests, and even anticipating colorful balloon drops, but not this year. not before this week's unconventional convention or next week's republican gathering somewhere in america. this year's conventions, like everything else, have been upended by covid-19. one thing that has not changed here, though, is the pre-convention naming of a running mate with joe biden picking the odds-on favorite of for the role, senator kamela harris of california. biden will try to do something that has not been accomplished since 1992, defeat a sitting president. and they begin with a bit of a

head start. our brand-new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll shows joe biden with a nine-point lead over president trump, 50-41, while that's down a bit from last month, overall, the numbers look pretty stable when you look at this race over the entire summer. but interestingly, among biden voters, only 36% say their vote is more for biden. while nearly 60% say they're voting primarily against mr. trump. overall, interest in this election is extraordinarily high. 79% of all voters right now in august, 83% of democrats and 85% of republicans, and all of these voters in august say they're highly interested in this election, those are october numbers normally. the bottom line from our republican and democratic pollsters is this. while president trump needs to pull another inside straight to win, this election is not yet a done deal for biden. and all this past week the president made it clear that he's willing to hobble the postal service and imperil

mail-in voting, which, of course, he fears will help the democrats in november. >> universal maine voting is going to be catastrophic. it's going to make our country a laughingstock all over the world. >> the postal service inspector general is looking into the postmaster general, after an urgent warning to dozens of states that it cannot guarantee all mail-in ballots will be counted. dejoy acknowledged unintended consequences to service, arguing cuts were necessary because our financial condition is dire. >> is he trying to discourage mail-in voting? are you? >> no, not at all. the steps that he's taking are trying to stop the tremendous losses that have taken place for many, many years. he's trying to streamline the post office and make it great again. >> mr. trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in ballots lead to widespread voter fraud, although, he and melania have

requested mail-in ballots in florida. >> i've heard some people say they think that the reason the president doesn't want people to vote by mail is polls show that people who want to vote by mail tend to vote for vice president biden so this is a political calculation. >> what we've never seen before is a president say, i'm going to try to actively kneecap the postal service to encourage voting and i will be explicit about the reason i'm doing it. >> meanwhile, president trump is struggling to respond to the biden/harris ticket who are hammering his handling of the virus, which 58% of all voters disapprove of. >> let's institute a mask mandate nationwide starting immediately and we will save lives. >> other countries are following the science. trump pushed miracle cures he saw on fox news. >> and mr. trump and his campaign are struggling to define harris. the republican national committee argued liberals revolt against biden/harris ticket. >> she's going to have to hide her time as a prosecutor from

the anti-police left. >> before saying her pick shows radical extremists have seized control of the democratic party. >> she's radical left and now she tries to pretend she's not, but she's the most liberal person in the u.s. senate. >> the president called harris nasty, a madwoman, and he is renewing the racist birther conspiracy theory he pushed for years about president obama. >> i heard it today that she didn't meet the requirements. and, by the way, the lawyer that wrote that piece is a very highly qualified and very talented lawyer. i have no idea if that's right. he wrote an article saying there could be a problem. it's not something that i'm going to be pursuing. >> harris was born in oakland, california. and joining me now is the independent senator from vermont, bernie sanders. senator sanders, welcome back to "meet the press." and while this is a convention sunday and we want to talk about the campaign, i want to start with the postal service.

you've suspect a lot of time in your career, fighting on behalf of the postal service in different ways, fighting to make sure stuff doesn't get cut. so this is a topic you are well versed in. so let me ask you this about what we're seeing right now. on one hand, the united states postal service is telling states they can't handle the increased capacity of mail-in voting and on the other hand, we've got reports of sorting machines going away, no more overtime. what are we witnessing here, senator sanders, legitimate reform of the postal service or sabotage? >> well, chuck, what you are witnessing is a president of the united states who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to engage in mail-in balloting at a time when people will be putting their lives on the line by having to go out to a polling station and vote.

so what trump is saying is, we're going to do everything we can and this is not me talking, this is what trump himself said. look, i happen to think, as you know, that trump is a pathological liar. he lies all of the time, but i have to admit that the other day he was very honest. he said, look, we want to kill mail-in balloting. we don't want millions and millions of people to be able to cast their ballots through the mail so we'll destroy the postal service. we'll defund it. they can't vote. i guess that he thinks that a suppressed vote, a lower voter turnout, will work for him and that it will help him win the election. so, this is a deliberate effort to defund and destroy the u.s. postal service so that people cannot engage in mail-in ballots. that's not bernie sanders talking. that's what donald trump is telling the american people, and it is an outrage, chuck, because this campaign is more than health care. it's more than education, it's more than the postal service. it is democracy and he is sabotaging our democracy. >> i think the question now is, what does congress do? what can you do?

the house is -- you're hearing some word that the house democratic leadership is thinking about bringing the house back early to deal directly with this postal service crisis. do you think that's a good idea and do you want to see senator mitch mcconnell do the same thing? >> absolutely. i think what the democratic leadership in the house, nancy pelosi and others are talking about, is exactly right. this, again, is not a debate about the postal service alone. that's important. this is about the future of american democracy and whether people have a right to participate. chuck, earlier this week, here in vermont we had our primaries. we had the largest voter turnout in primaries in vermont history. most of the people voted by mail-in ballots. it worked just fine. we could do this in every state in this country. so i would urge speaker pelosi to bring back the house. we will do everything that we

can to get mcconnell to bring back the senate. this is a crisis for american democracy. we've got to act and act now. >> you know, your colleague brian schatz in hawaii, democrat from hawaii, saw shades of ukraine in here. he tweeted, trump messing with it is more impeachable than the ukraine thing, which was super impeachable. he's really going to try to cheat. i guess the question is, what do you call what the president is doing when he said that he's hoping this lack of a deal on the postal service means no mail-in voting? what do you call it? >> i call it undermining american democracy. and, chuck, what i hope is that -- i mean, everybody knows my point of view. i'm a strong progressive. but this campaign is not about whether you're moderate, progressive, or conservative. this campaign in the deeper sense is whether we respect the sacrifices the men and women

died in defending american democracy against the president who really quite openly is trying to undermine our democracy, and i hope the american people come together, progressives, moderates, conservatives, to say, sorry, mr. president, we may have our disagreements, but in america we are a democracy. everybody is going to vote, and we're not going to let you get away with what you're doing. >> what would you tell voters right now that want to vote by mail but are nervous? >> i would tell them, look, the average voter is put in a very difficult position. you are more than familiar with the fact that there are states which have discouraged mail-in votes, urge people to come to the polling places, and some of those people have become sick. so the average person is put in this terrible quagmire. yes, i want to vote, i want to participate in democracy, but i'm afraid to go out.

the people who man the polling stations often are older people. they are afraid of spending an entire day dealing with other people who are voting. what i would say it people is stay tuned. in one way or another, we're going to make sure the people in this country are going to have the right to vote, and donald trump is not going to undermine our democracy. >> when you say stay tuned, what does that mean? do you really believe congress can act to hamstring the president here? he seems to control the -- >> we're going do everything that we can in every way that we can, and different state mace respond differently, but this is an issue. this really is an issue where ideology shouldn't get in the way. i don't care if you're a conservative, moderate, whatever you are. if you believe that people have a right to vote and in a pandemic should not have to put their lives on the line to go into a polling station, you know what? you will have to support the full funding of the postal service and make sure that people can participate. >> all right. i want to talk about tomorrow night. you're speaking on the same night as john kasich. first of all, what do you make

of that, number one, and give us a preview of your speech, if you don't mind. >> only if you don't tell anybody, chuck, all right? just keep that between you and me, what my speech is. what i'm going to be talking about are a couple of things, number one, what i just referred to is that this is a campaign about whether or not we maintain american democracy. we have a president and it's not just the postal service. you will recall that not so long ago trump said maybe we should delay the election. i'm behind in the polls, let's delay the election. and earlier than that, he said, well, you know, maybe if i lose, i may not want to leave office. this is a president who has used federal agents in unmarked cars to round up people exercising their constitutional right to protest. so this is a campaign about democracy, but i'll tell you

what else it is. right now, as we speak, chuck, and we don't talk about this enough. with 30 million people having lost their jobs since the pandemic and since those $600 checks have ceased to come, what you are seeing all over this country is people in economic desperation. you're seeing people who today in america, the richest country on earth, unable to feed their kids, worried about being evicted from their homes. you are seeing people who cannot pay their bills, who have no health insurance. what we are looking at is an absolute horror show. what congress has got to do is not only fund the postal service. we've got to maintain those $600 checks. we've got to make sure that people get at least $1,200 to pay their bills. and obviously trump and mcconnell have done nothing in that regard. >> let me ask you about one aspect of the democratic party platform. there is one reference we can

find to medicare for all. i'm going to read it here. "we are proud our party welcomes advocates who want to build on and strengthen the affordable care act and those who support a medicare for all approach. all are critical to ensuring health care is a human right." it is the only reference we could find to medicare for all. how do you feel overall about the party platform, and do you feel like you've got enough of your views represented in it? >> well, chuck, as you may be aware, i am not the candidate. so my views are not the dominant views, but what i will credit strongly the biden campaign for is that joe and i talked about this, and he and i agreed that we should have task forces dealing with some of the major issues facing this country, including the economy and health care and climate change and immigration, education, et cetera.

and the people on those task forces work very, very hard, and i'm not here to tell you as a strong advocate for medicare for all that we got everything we wanted. we truly did not. but i think if people look at the outcome of those task forces to find the reality that if those task force proposals are implemented, you know what? joe biden will become the most progressive president since franklin delano roosevelt and that at this moment is what we need. >> kamala harris. this is joe biden's vision of the future of the democratic party, perhaps a future president, perhaps a future nominee. is she a future progressive member of the democratic party in your mind? >> chuck, i think almost all progressives understand that in this moment, we have got to do everything we can do come together to defeat donald trump,

who in my view is the most dangerous president in the history of this country. and we need to elect joe biden. as i have said many, many times the day after biden is elected we will be working with the grassroots of this country, with working people, to stand up to fight for an agenda that works for working families and not just the 1%. and that most certainly includes medicare for all. so we are going to rally the american people around an agenda, and i look forward to doing that the day after biden is elected. >> very quickly, in the state of wisconsin, kanye west is trying to get on the ballot, and one of his petition signatures that apparently right now is being used to get him on the ballot is by the name of -- a gentleman by the name of bernie sanders, and it claims that you have signed this. mickey mouse also apparently signed these petition signatures. i just want to confirm that that is not you, sir. >> i cannot confirm mickey mouse.

that i don't know about, but i can tell you i certainly did not sign that petition. >> okay. senator bernie sanders, we look forward to hearing what you have to say tomorrow night. and, again, how you do feel about sharing the stage with john kasich? >> look, john will do his thing, i will do my thing. i expect they will be different types of speeches, but we are united in the understanding that trump has to be defeated and biden has to be elected. >> all right. bernie sanders, the progressive independent senator from vermont, the runner-up in this democratic nomination fight that we all witnessed here. thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective, sir. >> thank you. when we come back, i'll talk to national security adviser robert o'brien about the big diplomatic development in the middle east and about russian election interference. stick around.

welcome back. from joe biden to nancy pelosi, the praise has been pretty universal. last week president trump announced that israel and the

united arab emirates, also known as uae, would establish full diplomatic relations. making the uae only the third arab state after egypt and jordan to officially recognize israel. it was a significant achievement with broad implications for the middle east and one of the many issues among also the russian interference in our elections that i want to discuss with my next guest. joining me now is president trump's national security adviser robert o'brien. ambassador o'brien, it is good to have you on the program again. so, in announcing this agreement, you -- the president portrayed it as an icebreaker, if you will, for israel to norralize relations with other countries in the region, particularly gulf states. what kind of timeline should we expect? is this months? is this years? who will be number four? >> well, thanks, chuck. that's a great question. super glad to be with you. let me answer, but before i do, it's a bit of a bittersweet weekend for the president. we had the remarkable

accomplishment with the abraham accords, but he lost his brother robert, who he said was his best friend, and i want to extend my condolences to the family as they mourn robert trump's passing. but i'll tell you, last week was quite an accomplishment and it was a result of very hard diplomacy, much of it being quarterbacked by the president of the united states himself on calls with bibi netanyahu and muhammad bin zayed. and it took courage by other leaders, as well. as you indicated, there have only been three of these peace treaties since israel's founding so it's a historic accomplishment. we think there's momentum for additional parties to join. we fanned out as soon as this was announced. i've been on the phone with leaders in the region, and the president has, jared kushner has, secretary pompeo has, and we are quite hopeful that we can build on this momentum, and i can't give a timeline because

these are the toughest negotiations in the world to broker peace between israel and the arab and islamic world. but we are confident that we think there are a couple of other countries that will get onboard soon and i'm curious about that. >> i'm curious, saudi arabia, because they're the guardians of some important religious aspects of islam, do they end up the last? do you think they could do it or could they be next? >> it's possible they could be next. the three great holy sites of islam, as you know, chuck, are -- the king of saudi arabia, the keeper of those two sites and the other two sites are the al aqsa mosque and king hussein of jordan supervises that. one of the great things about this agreement is you will now have direct flights from those fantastic airports in abu dhabi and tel aviv. we will have arab and muslim pilgrims coming to jerusalem and coming up to the mount and worshipping at the al aqsa mosque, and we think that will

be something that's a great confidence-builder, and i'm hoping that king salman and mbs, muhammad bin salman, see that development and realize this would be great for saudi arabia and it will be great for the arab people and the islamic world, as well. so we're hopeful. we'll have to see what happens, but we're talking to a number of countries in addition to saudi arabia. >> i'm curious, you know, there seems to be a little bit of -- i don't know if it's an intentional misunderstanding or not. the uae says they feel comfortable making this deal because israel will not be doing annexation. prime minister netanyahu has made it clear, he made it clear this morning in remarks this morning about this, that israel did not have to pledge to do anything, and did not have to pledge not to perhaps annex parts of the west bank. let me ask you this. does the united states believe israel is entitled to annex the west bank?

>> well, what we've said all along is the contours of the west bank have to be decided by negotiations between the israelis and the palestinians. and president trump and his vision for middle east peace put out a map and that map was the starting point for negotiations, and we think the only way this can get decided and have lasting peace between the israelis and palestinians is for them to come to the table. there are some facts on the ground and some settlements there that are durable and longstanding and there may have to be some land swaps and that's something that's been considered all of the way back to oslo, but i think in the meantime we are confident and that israel will not extend unilateral sovereignty and israeli law to the west bank and that's what part of this deal is about. i understand prime minister netanyahu's view that ultimately there are parts of the west bank that israel would like to have and there are probably other parts along the borders that the palestinians would like to have and that's why you would have a negotiation, and i'm hoping that this uae deal with israel and other deals that could happen with israel will encourage the palestinians to come to the table because we want a two-state solution, and we want

to see the palestinian gdp double, and we want to see a great state of palestine living in peace next to israel. that would be fantastic. >> your loss at the u.n. on the extension of an arms embargo on iran and given how much the -- how few allies the united states had on their side on this issue, do you at all look at this? wouldn't the united states be in a better position to extend this embargo on iran if they had remained in the iran deal? is that a big diplomatic mistake? >> no, i think it's exactly the opposite of that, chuck, and getting out of the jcpoa and showing our allies and partners in the region who are terrified of iran that received $150 billion under the jcpoa in sanctions relief and they didn't take that money to improve the lives of ordinary iranians. they took that money and engaged in proxy wars with iraq, syria, yemen, and other parts of the middle east.

so i think getting out of the jcpoa was the predicate for this fantastic deal between uae and israel. and, look. the only people -- you have thomas friedman coming out with an unqualified endorsement of the deal, which i never thought i would see president trump being endorsed by thomas friedman on this deal and david ignacius and others. i think the only people who were against the idea were the ayatollah and ben rhodes. this happened because we got out of the jcpoa, not because we should have stayed in it. >> i want to move to the issue of russian interference. it was kind of an alarming thing that the dni put out that russia is actively still involved in trying to denigrate the democratic campaign in particular. >> yeah. >> the president likes to said and you have said that this administration somehow has been tougher on russia than the last administration. let me ask you this. if you have, then why is it a policy failure that russia is

still interfering in our elections? >> well, i think the dni report was really terrific, and what the dni report did, which has not come out before, is it details that the influence and the efforts of china and of iran to denigrate president trump and to make sure that he's not re-elected. it also talked about the russian interference. as i have said and as the president has made very clear, we're against every foreign party trying to get involved in our elections, whether it's the communist chinese or putin's russia and whether it's theocracy in iran. we want all of them to stay out of the election, and what we've done to make sure that happens is we've spent millions and millions of dollars hardening election infrastructure and working on cybersecurity and we've also sent very strong messages to all these countries. with respect to russia, we put so many sanctions on russia there's almost nothing left to sanction. >> it's not working. >> look, these are foreign powers that are adverse to the united states. we are in a period of great power competition.

and, look, russia and china are on the other side. but what we've done is we've pushed back. unlike the past administration, we sent javelin anti-tank missiles to ukraine when in the past they were sending blankets and mres. we tried our best to stop the pipeline from russia to germany and have had tremendous success there. we've put sanctions on hundreds of russians. we've closed their consulates in san francisco and seattle. we've closed their diplomatic annexes here. we've expelled 60 russian spice in the u.s. and all of that was done under president trump and not the other administration. we stood up to china in a big way, and we're not just not going to tolerate this. >> right. and i understand -- it sounds like you're conflating china and you don't seem to have as much evidence as russia.

but let me ask something about russia. >> i don't think that's true. >> we have no evidence. they -- they have not released any of the evidence that you have said, ambassador. none of what you have said of china was not in the intel report made public. will you make this chinese stuff public? >> what the intel report said is that there is information to suggest that they're doing that. what we're not going to do is release sensitive intelligence. but if you believe the dni on russia, then you have to believe them on iran and china, as well. the media can't -- it's not a cafeteria where you can go through and say i'll take this and not that. they've made it very clear, and, look, i'll come out today and say there are other countries that would like to interfere in our elections as well beyond russia, china, and iran. look, they have different preferences. >> right. one quick question though. if russia is a bad actor, why does the president want a summit with vladimir putin before the election? why reward vladimir putin with

that if he's a bad actor in our democracy? >> we are not having a summit. in fact, putin has floated -- >> but he would like one, right? >> he is having a p-5 meeting with the p 5 in germany and russia. >> the president doesn't want something here? >> no. we've rejected that and it's not just russia. what the russians are proposing is a summit with -- with russia, germany, iran, and the other p-5 members to try to bully the u.s. back into this terrible jcpoa deal, which is the worst appeasement since munich. and so we're not going to do that. now, having said all that, we'd like have to a better relationship with russia. we'd like to get an arms control deal with russia. when the soviet union was there and the evil empire was there, ronald reagan negotiated to try to reduce the nuclear weapons that are pointed at each country. we'd like to see that happen. we'd like to have good relations with russia. but that's up to the russians. and as i've made it clear and the president has made it clear, they have to decide how they'd like to move forward.

we'd like to get an arms control deal with russia. that's safe for america. >> so the president has not asked for a meeting with putin here in the united states? >> no. we're not doing a meeting with putin in the united states, but at some time we'd love to have putin come here hopefully to sign a terrific arms control deal that protects americans and protects russians. >> ambassador robert o'brien, again, a huge week in the middle east. i appreciate you coming on and sharing the president's perspective. >> thanks for having me on, chuck. take care. >> you got it. one note before we go to break as ambassador o'brien mentioned earlier and the condolences he passed along, we would like to acknowledge that the president did lose his brother robert trump. he died yesterday. robert was a big supporter of his brother's candidacy. he worked for the casino business with his older brother for a while. more recently, robert was in the news as he joined the president's lawsuit against their niece mary in trying to stop the book of the president and his family. president trump said in a statement, he was not just my brother. he was my best friend. robert trump was 71.

when we come back, it's been headline news all weekend long, including in the battleground states. president trump versus the postal service. is this political gamble backfiring on the president? the panel is next.

our panel is joining us from their remote locations. nbc news capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt, former homeland security jeh johnson, nbc news correspondent carol lee, and charles benson from our nbc affiliate wtmj in milwaukee.

and, charles, i'm going to let you get started because you're the only one in the convention city. the rest of us are not. charles, is there a convention happening? how were the parties last night? >> yeah. wish you could have been here. milwaukee's a great place to be in the summertime. look, everyone knows this is not the convention that democrats wanted. however, it is the convention that they have decided to have, and what i mean by that is they believe this was the safe and smart decision, not to have a big convention. it is largely going to be an all-virtual convention. so we're not going to see the democratic presidential nominee joe biden or his running mate, senator harris. we are going to see, expected to see president trump and vice president pence here in wisconsin next week. stark contrast, strategically different decisions. and, by the way, chuck, that

plays well with both parties within their parties. >> no, it is. you're right in many ways. and, look, i wanted to get you in there on the convention, but, kasie hunt, i want to begin with before we get back to the convention with this postal service and what's going to happen on capitol hill and whether suddenly recess is over. i want to just show you how much this story has penetrated. take a look at just how -- these are not the biggest city markets in america. this isn't an east coast bias story. take a look at how much this postal service story is penetrating america. >> new sweeping changes to the u.s. postal service could mean a delay in getting your mail. >> some montana communities are seeing their local usps collection boxes disappear. >> the elimination of letter sorting machines is happening even here in the lehigh valley at the main mail hub. >> so, kasie, the point there was to show this is not some d.r. thing when it comes to the postal service.

>> this is something that is affecting so many americans in their communities. this is something in a way like the virus that everyone is experiencing in their own specific ways, and that makes it different from many of these other headline or kyrone-driven stories of issues for president trump. and it's gotten to the point where you have congressman jim cooper, he's from tennessee, not a progressive fire-breather by any stretch of the imagination. it's a pretty conservative with a small "c" district and he's saying they should drag dejoy before -- the postmaster general before congress and if he doesn't show up, he should be arrested by the sergeant at arms and that's how bad it is with these communities. and there is a question about whether the house will come back to do something about this. nothing has been decided at this point, but i do think it's a possibility and one thing i would say, chuck, as we talk about this as a political issue.

for the biden campaign, i think they're thinking of this as yes, the mechanics and seniors are getting prescriptions in the mail and all of those things. but and they also see this as a concerted disinformation campaign to undermine american faith in our civic institutions and in the ability of our institutions to function correctly. and they see that as dangerous, and they want to make sure that americans do believe that their mail will work, that they have ways to get their ballots in because they see this as part of the trump campaign strategy to undermine faith in the election generally, chuck. >> jeh johnson, probably the single most trusted government institution has been the u.s. postal service going back decades. it does feel as if, you undermine the postal service, you are undermining the most point thread -- among the most important threads of our democracy. >> that's correct, chuck.

i think the message to the american public has to be plan your vote. think oerl early about how you're going to vote. as soon as you get a ballot, return it in the mail because we don't quite know what will happen in the run-up to election day. i do know this, a properly resourced, mission-oriented agency of our government can do this, could move 100 million ballots in a couple of days. everybody likes to point out that absentee votes are the same as mail-in ballots. actually it's quite different. a mail-in ballot is a local act, in new jersey, i'm mailing a ballot from my home in essex county. when they all show up, thousands of them, they have the same destination. so properly resourced, you could do this. and from what we're hearing, we lack the leadership in washington to want to make that happen. >> carol lee, the head-scratcher on this politically is the idea that rural america is a big part

of the president's base, and rural america views the postal service as an important lifeline. >> that's absolutely right, chuck, and the president said that he's not going to roll back or push to roll back any of these changes that the postmaster general has made that have caused some of the delays that we've seen, but i think there's a real question facing the president of whether or not he sticks to that. i spoke to a white house official yesterday who wouldn't rule out that the president changes positions on this and that he does try to in some way tamp down the political firestorm, which is coming from both sides of the aisle, democrats and republicans, and there's a real concern that like his railing on mail-in voting generally, he risks suppressing his own and hurting his own interests in suppressing his own vote, chuck. >> very quickly, charles benson, this postal service story, how consuming is it to your viewers? >> we've had two elections

already in wisconsin during the pandemic. one last month and the other one in april where there was more chaos and confusion and more court challenges and we already saw in real time concerns about ballots, ballots that did not get to voters and voters who were not able to get those ballots back. we had a record number of absentee ballots. about 1,000,001 ballots in april and it could be twice that. having said that, starting mid-september those absentee ballots will go into the hands of wisconsin voters, and they're going to have up to 45 days to vote. >> yeah. we'll see if they end up having a return. >> kasie hunt, very quickly, you covered bernie sanders in '16 very closely. he really made it clear this is a detente and then november 4th, i'll be back. >> he did, chuck.

i think it speaks to, quite frankly, president biden's personal approach. i think he has extended some grace to bernie sanders that the sanders campaign didn't feel that they were extended in the wake of the 2016 presidential primary nominating contest. i think that's made a real difference, and i think he also feels like his policies and positions are being heard out by the biden campaign, but certainly, you know, they're willing to sing kumbaya for right now heading into the convention week. i'm not sure that will last much past the inauguration of president biden, but i guess we'll see. >> he didn't say inauguration. he said november 4th, which i thought was interesting. clearly he'll care about that transition if there is a transition for biden. when we come back, the one big reason you can't count out president trump's chances of winning re-election. stay with us. (brad) apartments-dot-com makes getting into a new home

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♪ ♪ welcome back. data download time. our latest nbc news/"wall street journal poll" shows good news for democrats overall, but there are a few shining lights for president trump if he can figure out how to capitalize on them. when it comes to a handling of a few key issues, mr. trump does hold an edge among registered voters on one big one. and the biggest is the economy, but he also leads on issues like crime and having the necessary mental and physical health for the presidency. but it's a ten-point edge on the economy which may represent the president's best chance to gain traction in this campaign. but, of course, bind has his own

winning formula of issues. voters in our poll believe he'd be better at bringing the country together, he'd be better at handling race relations, and perhaps the biggest, dealing with the coronavirus. he has a 16-point edge over president trump on that issue, larger than the president's lead over biden on the economy. so which issues are actually the most important to voters this year? here's what they told us. when we asked them to list the two or three they cared about most when picking a president, a majority told us the economy is the number one issue on their minds as they make their choice so remember, that's an issue president trump leads on by ten points but on all the other top issues, bringing the country together, strong leadership qualities and health care and yes, the coronavirus, it is biden who is leading trump among those voters. so president trump and his team are smart to argue that he's better equipped to guide an economic recovery, traditionally, the economy trumps all other issues, but that may not be the case in a year when voters blame the president for doing a poor job in controlling a pandemic.

when we come back, those fringe believers in the qanon conspiracy theory. are they really on the fringe anymore? ymore? find the world is new, again. at chevy we'd like to take you there. now during the chevy open road sales event, get up to 15% of msrp cash back on select 2020 models. that's over fifty-seven hundred dollars cash back on this equinox. it's time to find new roads, again.

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with a powerful and reliable internet and voice solution at a great price. call or go online today. this week, we saw the rise of something called qanon.

if you are not familiar with it, for viewers, it is a really conspiracy theory that lumps all conspiracy theories together and claims one weird deep state thing, one person's pulling the levers. it's very popular on the extreme right these days. an adherent named marjorie taylor green won a republican runoff in georgia congressional district. she is likely to end up in congress as the first sort of known conspiracy theorist of the qanon thing. here's what the president had to say about her victory. >> well, she did very well in the election. she won by a lot. she was very popular. she comes from a great state and she had a tremendous victory, so absolutely, i did congratulate her. please, go ahead. >> qanon, do you embrace that conspiracy theory? do you agree with her on that? that was the question. >> jeh johnson, the president refused to ever answer that question. he's refused to answer that question millions of times. he's never said he believes in it, but he always seems to do a wink and a nod by not saying anything in either direction. how dangerous is this -- is this qanon?

is this a virus inside the republican party? >> i'm afraid it could be, chuck. chuck, qanon and movements like this are gaining currency because of the way in which americans receive their news and receive their information on social media. not enough organizations have standards, have journalistic standards, and people, therefore, are drawn to sources of information that reaffirm their own biases, their own prejudices, and conspiracy theories, and that is the environmental in which we live, and americans have to be much, much more skeptical about what they read and see. that's how a group like this gains traction to the point where somebody could win a primary. >> carol lee, you've been doing a lot of reporting whether it's on the russian interference issue which i just got into pretty back and forth with ambassador o'brien or this queue a non. there's this perception, even those that want to sound the alarm will afraid to sound the

alarm because it will upset the president whether it's russian interference or qanon. >> right. and when it comes to qanon, chuck, the president clearly sees this as something where he doesn't want to alienate any of his supporters. it's worth noting the president has retweeted and promoted multiple times things that qanon supporters and believers have posted. so he's not just not denouncing this, in some ways he's embracing it and even one of his campaign aides criticized a republican lawmaker for speaking out on qanon and saying why don't you focus on democratic conspiracy theories. so this is another instance where people around the president and those that i've spoken to said the president, you know, they don't want him to give oxygen to this, but at the same time they think people have the right to be wrong. so that's kind of the viewpoint from which they're coming at this. there's a real reluctance to try to challenge the president on this because he sees it as a political issue and something he doesn't want to put his thumb on the scale on because it might hurt him in his election.

>> and, kasie hunt, it seems that the leadership on the republican side, they've had some words on much else. this is what her runoff opponent described her this way. dr. john cowan who was running as most of the mainstream conservative candidate. he described her this way, kasie, "she's the antithesis of the republican party and she's not conservative, she's crazy. she deserves a youtube channel, not a seat in congress. she's a circuit act." kevin mccarthy is going to welcome her in and apparently seat her on committees. >> chuck, i think it's very important we underscore here that this conspiracy theory "a," is starting to move out of just the fringe. we've seen celebrities struggle to deal with it in their instagram and twitter comments. we have also seen a series of incidents in real life, many of which involve violence or the threat of violence to the point that you had this fbi warning about these people. so i think it's very important when we talk about how we cover

this. it is not just a matter of people being free to believe what they want in a political way or say what they want. this is leading to actual acts in real life that are threatening people and their livelihoods. i think that's what's at stake when we hear republicans say, fine, come on in, join the party. this is much more than that. there's responsibility that also goes to the social media companies where so much of this is percolating. >> and, charles, i know you said you have yet to come across this a lot in wisconsin, and i think a lot of us hope that stays the case given how kooky and crazy that is. i apologize we have to cut that short. i'm a little low on time. before we go, quick programming note. please join lester holt, savannah guthrie, andrea mitchell, myself, for the nbc news coverage of the democratic national convention. we'll have it monday through thursday every night on the network. we'll start at 10:00 and on streaming we'll start at 8:00. that's all for today. thank you for watching. please keep safe, and we'll be

back next week getting ready for the republican convention because if it's sunday, no matter where we are, it's "meet the press." new urgency and action. nancy pelosi pushes back on the president's campaign to sabotage the election. we'll have the latest on the postal crisis. also the democratic national convention kicks off with major star power as they kick off with candidate kamela harris. and the latest covid response as the president seems to be eyeing yet another unproven treatment.