tv Katy Tur Reports MSNBC May 29, 2023 12:00pm-1:00pm PDT
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justifiably proud, but more than anything, happy to have him home. >> thanks to harry smith. and it is right now 3:00 p.m. on the east coast, good to be with you, i'm katy tur. will we avoid a debt default. it's not up to congress. or it is up to congress now. it's now up to congress. speaker kevin mccarthy and president biden have a deal, and now they are trying to convince their parties to vote for it. so what exactly is in this deal? a two-year suspension on the debt ceiling, a cap on spending keeping it at 2023 levels for the next two years. clawing back unspent covid funds, more requirements on s.n.a.p. benefits and temporary assistance programs, work requirements, that is, and 20 billion less for the irs. but perhaps most importantly, unlike the 2011 debt deal,
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economists say this one should not hurt the economy. joining me now is cnbc senior analyst, congressional continue, julie tsirkin, and nbc news white house correspondent, al -- allie raffa. i want to read a few notable things. jason fuhrman, the former deputy director of obama's national council says the fed will be happy. the economy needs cooling off and this takes pressure off interest rates in accomplishing cooling off. a jpmorgan chase analyst says the agreement could function as the equivalent of a quarter point increase in interest rates in terms of helping to restrain inflation, and ben harris, a former deputy treasury secretary says the most important impact is the stability that comes with having a deal. markets can function knowing that we don't have a cataclysmic debt ceiling crisis looming
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anymore. so, ron, explain that to us. explain what they're talking about. >> so katy, i'm going to take answer number three as the most accurate one. i just think avoiding a debt ceiling debacle will calm financial markets, and quite frankly, the stock market rallied into the last couple of days of last week in anticipation of a deal being brokered over the weekend. with respect to whether or not there's enough fiscal restraint here to slow the economy, given the way this deal is structured, i doubt that's the case. some of the clawback of the irs funds, for instance, are going to be used to cover other nondefense discretionary spending shortfalls, so i don't really think there's that much in the way of fiscal restraint, if you will, in this bill. far from it, in fact, republicans were looking for a rather large across-the-board spending cut, outside defense
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spending and cutting into entitlement programs. that's not going to happen. i think the big event here is there's not going to be a breach of the debt limit. there won't be a default, and i think markets will likely be calmed by that. there is an expression on wall street that you buy the rumor and sell the news. we'll have to wait to tomorrow to see how markets react. >> let me ask you about 2011 because there's all of this monday morning quarterbacking, but looking back on 2011 and the effect that that debt limit deal had on the economy and the recovery from the great recession, why was that such a problem, and why are there still lingering concerns about what might happen with this? >> it's a vastly different set of cuts that occurred in 2011. they were certainly deeper. we were still struggling to come ouch the great financial crisis, and we had not stimulated the economy to the same extent coming out of the gfc as we have coming out of the pandemic, and so, again, for those reasons, i think this is probably less impactful from a slow growth
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perspective, from what france -- transpired in 2011. markets were not only reeling about a default, but also a european sovereign debt crisis that slowed global growth as well. radically different environment than we saw 12 years ago. >> let me ask you, because i have you, i want to talk about the recession that everyone says is coming and coming and coming and they have been saying it now for a year. what is happening with the economy. where is this recession that companies keep preparing for and cutting jobs in preparation for? >> we're slowing down for sure. the first quarter growth rate was 1.3%. we're expecting to grow a little over 1% in the second quarter. there are some indications that we've gotten over the last several months that would suggest that sometime between now and the fourth quarter of this year, we could see an actual contraction in growth. the federal reserve has raised interest rates almost every month since the beginning of last year. mortgage rates are high. we've seen a real cut into certain aspects or certain areas
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of the economy that have weakened, and as you say, we're starting to see layoffs, no one is necessarily predicting armageddon. we could see a mild to moderate recession later in the year. we're about on pace. what a lot of us expected was a recession or notable slow down in the third or fourth quarter of 2023. >> allie, did you want to add something? >> we spoke last hour about what sort of level of involvement the president has in these ongoing talks as white house negotiators try to sell this deal to progressives and moderate members of their party. he departed to wilmington, delaware, from the white house just a few minutes ago, and he gave a little bit of an update. he was asked if he was confident this deal will pass. he replied, quote, i'm never confident with what the congress is going to do, but i'm confident. then he was asked what his message was to skeptical democrats, those democrats who have criticized pieces of this deal, like the added work
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requirements for federal assistance, specifically food assistance recipients. he said, quote, talk to me. if this was a 10% good deal for the democrats, do you think it would get passed. he said i've made calls already, adding it's a bipartisan deal, so, katy, at this point, the white house is giving as much attention to progressives who are criticizing this deal as they are to democratic members of the party. they're reaching out to both sides having these virtual briefings, having these one on one phone calls, trying to break this deal down. so much so that each member can understand in the white house's perspective what was protected in this deal. they argue that there were things they protected as far as the president's legislative priorities, things like student debt relief were untouched. work requirements for medicaid were not added. eligibility for more federal relief for disabled veterans and the homeless were expanded. so at this point, they're trying
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to shore up as much support as possible from the middle of their parties so they won't have to rely on those progressive members supporting this deal, trying to lock that in so they don't have to worry about this when this eventually goes on wednesday, as early as wednesday to the house for a vote. and as far as what we have seen so far, as far as the coalition of democrats that have already pledged the support, it's looking like this will be a safe passage in the house. as we talked about, it may take house democrats to be able to supplement what we expect to be these republican losses under house speaker kevin mccarthy, katy. >> let's talk about the rules committee. first, julie, as you know, it's got to get out of the rules committee if it's going to make it to the floor. you have three republicans on the committee who don't like this deal, chip roy, ralph norman, chip roy called this thing a turd sandwich.
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any idea how they might vote? >> chip roy a few minutes ago said he will be a no on this bill. obviously in theory he can vote yes. we don't have any indication as to why he would do that. he also tweeted another potential handshake agreement that was made way back when speaker mccarthy was trying to get that gavel, another concession that we are still learning about to this day, that apparently seven republicans on the committee will need to vote yes in order for this bill to move forward. seven out of nine. now, one source familiar told me that that was, in fact, a deal made behind closed doors. i talked to congressman dusty, an ally of speaker mccarthy, he read the rule book, he didn't see that in there. it doesn't mean it wasn't made off the pages, right. if you have at least three republicans voting no in the rules committee. by the way, thomas massey has carefully criticized the bill. he did not say he would be a no. that means they need at least one democrat to vote in support of the bill, moving to the rules committee with the full floor. we don't know if that's going to
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happen. we have no reason to believe at least one democrat wouldn't support that push because this bill was negotiated by president biden, who's the leader of the party. in the past, traditionally, the opposing party, the minority party doesn't do the majority party any favors in moving smlg -- something out of the rules committee. that meeting is going to start 24 hours today. that will be something to watch. >> let me ask you about the senate. we heard senator mike lee saying he would do everything to stop this bill. lindsey graham is not happy with the bill and the defense spending within it. do we have an idea of what this might look like when it gets to the senate? i know minority leader mitch mcconnell is saying that this is a good deal. >> it's a great question. it's interesting. senator lee and senator graham oppose it for very different reasons. lee, and that faction say it doesn't do enough to cut spending. graham is saying this isn't enough money for defense spending, which we know is the only part of the deal that was plussed up for the next year.
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what this all comes down to, i asked about this as well, could they amend it technically in the senate and send it back as graham is suggesting he wants to do? they just don't have time for that because, remember, if the house passes this wednesday evening, i'm told it's going to get filed in the senate. the senate comes back. we know the process will be dragged out by mike lee, and others who feel like this doesn't do enough to cut the deficit. all in all, they don't have enough of a window to turn around, amend it, send it back to the house, and kick it before june 5th. >> what's the mood like among democrats in the house and senate, julie. president biden was saying as late as february there was no negotiation on this. we weren't doing anything on the debt deal, he was saying. it's a clean pass or nothing. and now there was a negotiation. how do the democrats feel in congress right now? >>. >> the progressives feel like they were swindled because of what's in it, especially when it
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comes to adjustments to work requirements. it's interesting that now they are turning to the middle of their parties, both democrats and republicans to try to pass this. we haven't talked about a conversation where the moderates were in play. basically the whole congress since we got into january and the last congress as well, but really, this congress has been all about progressives for democrats, hard right conservatives for republicans. now they're looking to the center to try and get this deal passed, and they believe they will with this support. it's so fascinating, a point that's not getting lost on those of us who have been covering these negotiations, who have been covering other negotiations this year. >> the big sticking point, ron, for so long was work requirements. democrats don't like them. they don't think they're fair. republicans want them. they think they should be required for anyone who's asking for government assistance. if you look at the polling on this, the majority of americans agree with work requirements, but if you look at studies on how work requirements actually are enacted, they don't work the
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way that you would expect them to work. can you break down the issue with work requirements? >> i think it's speechless on the part of republicans to suggest that those who are receiving supplemental benefits, whether it's s.n.a.p. or the tanf program aren't working. there's bureau that show the majority of recipients are working anywhere from 20 hours a week to full time. this has been in a certain sense, katy, a real misdirection play on the part of the republicans. it's not wasteful spending. it's barely a rounding error when you're spending $6 trillion a year. these numbers almost don't show up. if you were to cut the entire program out, it wouldn't reduce the trajectory of a longer term deficit accumulation. and so, in my mind, it's kind of silly. a lot of paperwork requirements, misfilings also affect the way in which people can either gain or not gain access to these benefits, and so, you know, in my mind, it's in a certain sense, a nonstarter from an
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economic perspective. like i say, most people who are receiving these benefits in large part are already working, and so it's really nothing that would be cut that would affect the overall outlook for federal debt, and deficits over the next ten years. and so, in my mind, that negotiation is a waste of time. there are much larger areas to focus on that simply were not part of this conversation. and won't be anytime soon. >> defense spending i bet is one of those also. social security. >> what's going on the next two years. >> let me ask you about the irs. the democrats added all of that money to the irs because they said there are a lot of rich people who can afford fancy lawyers and accountants who can game the system, and they wanted to be able to audit those people. they didn't have the necessary agents to do the auditing. that's why they needed the $80 billion to get it done. taking away 20 billion of that, does that negatively affect it in a significant way?
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>> not in a significant way because the money has already been appropriated and the irs has access to $60 billion up front and can begin to spend that as rapidly as it pleases. and so to a certain extent, to the extent that the irs can utilize those funds up front, and then request moneys in the future once the spending caps are lifted two years from now, there's a good chance they're not going to burn through $60 billion in two years. so they can move forward. the one thing that is true is to the extent that the irs is slower in auditing the wealthier among us, it does reduce the ability of the irs to bring in additional revenues to the tune of $240 billion over ten years, so in the short run, it's not really a problem, and catherine rampell of the "washington post" has been tweeting all day about the various details of this. if anyone wants a granular look at this, i would follow her on twitter. she has done a great job breaking this down.
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>> i'm sure she'll love to hear that. ron, thank you so much, and julie and allie, appreciate it. it just fell down, an apartment building in davenport partially collapsed all of a sudden. it is not actually what you're looking at right now. president biden and speaker mccarthy, they didn't collapse. they came to a deal, but i promise you we're talking about iowa in a second. don't go anywhere. ing about iowa in a second don't go anywhere. - representative! - sorry, i didn't get that. - oh buddy! you need a hug. you also need consumer cellular. get the exact same coverage as the nation's leading carriers
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and 100% us based customer support. starting at $20. consumer cellular. pain hits fast. so get relief fast. only tylenol rapid release gels have laser-drilled holes. they release medicine fast... for fast pain relief. and now... ...get relief without a pill. with tylenol dissolve packs. relief without the water. the front of an apartment building in davenport, iowa, fell off over the weekend while people were still inside. search and rescue teams pulled an 8th person from the rubble overnight, and now they say the building is scheduled to be demolished tomorrow. nbc news correspondent maggie vespa is in davenport following those developments. so demolished tomorrow, that means they must be pretty confident, maggie, that no one is left inside that rubble. >> one would think, essentially,
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but katy, to your point earlier, this morning, as of this morning, officials told us they hadn't nailed down the number of people who were still unaccounted for. we have been asking city officials, how did it come to be that as of a few hours ago, you were saying that, and here we are this afternoon, and you're saying this is scheduled for demolition. and quite frankly, we're waiting on clarify for that point. one of the reasons we asked it, one key one, people on the ground want to know. they have loved ones who are unaccounted for. i want to push in and show you how severe the damage is. you can see there are still remnants of the lives lived inside the building. the top floor, there's a clothing rack there. you can see again, these were six stories of apartments. a former hotel that was turned into apartments there. this is a historic building in downtown davenport. the people living here, according to loved ones we have spoken to, a lot of them, they say, have been living on the
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brink of poverty, fixed incomes, on the brink of homelessness. these are people we're told who didn't have a lot of places to go, and had been complaining about this building being in various states of disrepair. we'll talk more about that in a second but first to give you the insight we have into the search and recovery efforts in davenport, the fire chief talking about the cadaver dogs and search and rescue dogs who worked through the night as much as possible to comb through the wreckage, given that it still looks like this. take a listen to what he described earlier. >> these k-9 dogs are specialized, and they're specialized in multiple different functions. some are cadaver dogs, some search out live rescue, individuals that may be trapped. they have been working. i think we had a total of six dogs on scene, and doing different shifts, working through the operations. >> and so, again, that was the fire chief there, and caught a sliver of good news that we got this morning. the cadaver dogs working overnight had zero hits.
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that means the dogs that were looking for bodies, trained to look for bodies, even in situations like this, even under rubble, that has complicated that they had zero hits, and officials say that was a good sign. again, we have people on the ground who are saying they're hearing about a possible demolition tomorrow, and saying how can it be demolished when we don't know where our loved ones are. we have the info on that. we will bring it to you. in the meantime, a lot of people have been complaining about the building being in state of disrepair. we're hearing about cracks in the wall, in ceilings, the city and county saying they were working with the owner, demanding he upgrade this building, and permits have been issued. that process was underway. a lot of people saying their worst fears have basically now come to fruition. katy. >> very scarey stuff, maggie vespa, thank you very much. and a rare daytime air-raid warning sends school children running through the streets of kyiv. what kyiv is saying about russia's attacks. and what general barry
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is what it sounded like. those moments came moments after the air-raid sirens leaving people including children, very little time to get underground. you can see those kids sprinting and screaming down the sidewalk after the first series of blasts. the head of the ukrainian armed forces says eleven land-based ballistic and cruise missiles were launched at kyiv and that all were shot down. msnbc foreign correspondent molly hunter is in kyiv for us where it is now nighttime. thanks for being with us. scarey day, and these daytime air-raid sirens, they're unusual of late. >> reporter: they're new, the school children with their backbacks on, clearly in the middle of the school day, running and screaming were shared by both president zelenskyy and the first lady. everyone in this country seems to have seen that video.
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extreme disturbing. it has rare to have a daytime air wave and attacks. it's the third wave in 48 hours. on sunday, we saw the biggest drone attack the country has seen since the start of the wash, according to ukrainian air force officials. then we saw a monday overnight attack and this attack in the middle of the day. what's different, look, to be clear. people in kyiv are back to life. they're going to school, going to their jobs, having lunch, sitting outside. they are still enjoying life in this great city. but sheltering in the middle of day is different. when you are in your bed, you go to your shelter in your house, stay upstairs, go to the basement. during the day, 41,000 people went down to the subway, according to kyiv city officials. that is different and new. ukrainian officials say russia is testing the air defenses. they are looking to identify and exhaust the air defenses. over the weekend, i had a chance to speak with senior presidential adviser. we asked him about whether or not kyiv specifically and ukraine as a whole could sustain this kind of air defense.
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he said absolutely, he had assurances from western allies that they would continue to supply kyiv with what they needed. the other big story line is the counter offensive we keep talking about. we keep hearing we are on the brink of the counter offensive. we asked and he was very clear. he said it has already started. we are in a new phase of the war, a preparation phase. they're readying the battlefield, not only striking rear russia targets across enemy lines, making sure the advanced weapons are with the best trained troops off the front line. it was very clear, there was not going to be one day where they say suddenly today is the counter offensive. we'll be watching all of that very closely this week, katy. >> molly hunter, thank you very much. and with me now is msnbc military analyst, and retired four star general, barry mccaffrey. we have been hearing for so long that there is a soon to come counter offensive by the ukrainian military, the officials were talking about it
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as late as this past saturday, they produced a very slick video that they put out on social media showing their armed forces preparing. we're going to have that video in a moment. where is the counter offensive? what can you tell from your outside standpoint? >> well, of course the ukrainians have been masterful about putting out their own deception plan, their own information. we don't know. i would assume they have probably given their own military forces three options, and they're not going to reveal to the commanders on the ground until the last minute which way they're going. what we do know is there are nine modernized armored brigades in the ukrainian army that are not committed to combat. they are somewhere in the battlefield that will attack sometime in the coming weeks before the end of the summer. the russians are on tender hooks, the russians lost, perhaps, 100,000 killed and
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wounded. the defender, ukrainians defending had the advantage enormously in terms of bleeding the russian horses dry. here we are waiting to see how this will come out. fortunately, the brits and the europeans have come online now and provided some fully modernized nato caliber technology. the brits gave them some fairly long range or a couple hundred kilometers glide bombs that they're using as molly stated earlier to shake the battlefield. a lot is riding on this. ukrainians can't continue to have their cities savage for years on end. >> does russia have the capacity to keep on waging war against ukraine. we've leveed everything we can at them, it seems,
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sanctions-wise. tried to cut off their funding, tried to give them less money on their oil, and we're giving ukraine basically everything, almost everything we have militarily. is there an end in sight? how much longer can russia do this? >> of course you go back to world war ii, the massive losses the russian armed forces, the russian people are willing to put up with in protecting themselves against nazi germany. they're not even remotely the same level. having said that, katy, i am confident, just listening to dr. snyder at yale university, russia economically is actually in a crisis situation. there's no question about it. politically, diplomatically, they're an isolated pariah nation. inside russia, we have seen hundreds of thousands of military-aged men run for it any
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way they could get out of the russian federation. and then finally, i think the fact that the massive loss of russian infantry forcing putin to depend upon this mercenary wagner force, you know, taking the convicts of the russian siberian colonies and putting them into combat where they lost enormous numbers, i think the cracks are there. if the ukrainians can hit them a major blow, we may see a collapse of the russian armed forces. one can only hope that's the outcome. >> that last picture we're looking at, the one we're looking at right now is the city of bakhmut. that's just how bad it looks, currently after war was just raged inside that city. nobody is left. interestingly, the wagner group, the head of it, general, as you know, was warning vladimir putin, listen, you got to get
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everybody involved in this war otherwise you're going to see a revolt within that country. general barry mccaffrey, thank you very much. >> and after finally coming to a debt deal, the president is now finally headed to delaware. here's what he told reporters about the deal a moment ago before boarding marine one. >> are you confident it will pass congress? >> look, you know i never say i'm confident what the congress is going to do, but i feel very good about it. i've spoken with a number of the members. i spoke to mcconnell. i spoke to a whole bunch of people. it feels good, we'll see when the vote starts, and look, one of the things that i hear some of you guys saying is why doesn't biden say what a good deal it is? why wouldn't biden be saying what a good deal it is before the vote. you think that's going to help me get it passed? no. >> president biden before he boarded marine one, and want to be president, ron desantis's
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road trip, the newly minted candidate is hitting a multi-city tour, but what his actual plan is to woo voters, well, we're going to try to figure that out. plus, new fbi records are revealing an unbelievable attempt on the queen of england's life. we'll tell you what was planned. england's life we'll tell you what was planned. what are folks 60 and older up to these days? getting inspired! volunteering! playing pickleba...!
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desantis, presidential hopeful. his 12 city campaign swing across three states kicks off tomorrow in iowa, where he will immediately try to pitch himself as diet donald trump. in a state that likes full fat donald trump. joining me now senior politics reporter, jonathan allen and chief communications adviser to former house speaker paul ryan, brendan buck. also an msnbc political analyst. john, i know you like that. how do you pitch yourself as diet donald trump when a state likes the real donald trump, the real thing? >> i mean, that's perfect, katy, diet donald trump or donald trump light, if you will. ron desantis right now is going to have to go all force at donald trump. trump right now is polling at over 50% in national polls in most of the states he's winning by significant margins. in order for desantis to have a chance, he's going to have to
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beat trump up, i don't mean physically obviously. but he's going to have to beat trump up. and voters will come along in the general election. it's a tough tight rope to walk. >> it is a tough tight rope, what i have been struggling to understand is how do you walk that tight rope. does that tight rope even exist? what would make a voter look at ron desantis or nikki haley or mike pence, and say, yeah, i want to vote for them. i'm sorry, over donald trump. if you want to vote for donald trump, and you like donald trump, why would threading the needle get you anywhere? >> well, i think the first thing that ron desantis or frankly any of those people need to do is consolidate all of the people who aren't looking for donald trump. donald trump has a significant lead. he's at 50% in a lot of polls. i actually think that means you can look at this in a binary. so i think that's the first step. making sure that any of those people who are never donald trump or who are skeptical of
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donald trump come together. and really, you're seeing all of these people jump in at this race, and it's kind of ron desantis's own making. it's his fault that all of these people are getting in. i think everybody realizes there's going to be one alternative. a lot of people thought that was ron desantis. he proved himself not to be a strong alternative, and all of these people said, wait a minute, if it's not desantis, maybe it can be me. he has to get his steady footing with those people, and he can go on the attack and say i've got the rest of the party behind me and go full steam at donald trump. you have to take him down too. >> is it a two-step plan? be nice now, and later bring out the hammer? >> you know, i hate to disagree with brendan, my long time adversary and the reporter and public relations guy wars, but here's the thing, donald trump was at 40%. he was at 41%, 42%. at that point, you can say, if you consolidated the rest, and came after trump.
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there was reason to believe that would work. right now, in order to beat donald trump, you have to take some of the people currently saying they're going to vote for donald trump, whatever the path is to that, it's going to be a prickly one and certainly a much more difficult one. as brendan points out correctly, desantis has fallen and that has given a lot of energy to these candidates that will make it difficult to consolidate the support, and everybody something that's going to take what trump has and beat them in the primary. >> we're so far away from the general but has the general changed in any way, does it look differently today than it did last month? >> no i don't know, and if i can defend myself a little bit. i'm not saying you don't need to go after donald trump but i think you can establish yourself as a clear alternative by taking him on directly. in fact, i think that was some of where ron desantis stumbled a bit was when he was getting shots taken at him by donald trump, he let them come on and
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didn't stand up to them. if you say i'm not afraid of donald trump, i'm willing to take him on. if you have confidence that i can beat him, you can stand bind me. that's what he needs to do as part of consolidate that base. donald trump is stronger than he did a month ago, rallying around somebody who was in trouble. there's still a lot of people who don't want donald trump to be the nominee. we have a long way to go until we figure out who that is. and, frankly, you know, nothing is given to ron desantis. nothing makes him the alternative. he has to take it, and if he doesn't do it, somebody else will. >> john, what about the others that might get into the race? there's been a lot of talk about chris christie jumping in, and chris christie has been vocal about what he thinks needs to happen to beat donald trump, and that's to go after him directly. do you think folks might be waiting for somebody like christie to go in there and do the dirty work for them?
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>> there's already a don and a ron, i'm not sure a john will be running. there are any number of candidates ready to go in. we know mike pence is on the verge of getting in. there's been a super pac established to pave the way for that, so the great expectation is he's going to get in from new hampshire, or simply could be taking his moment to get some attention for himself. to brendan's point earlier, no one has been dissuaded by the performance of ron desantis so far, and what that means is, you know, anybody who thought that they might run this time is going to run, and anybody who was waiting to see has waited to see and determined that desantis, chris christie, another one who's right on the precipice of potentially running. >> john and brendan, thank you, guys, very much. and coming up next, what the fbi did in 1983 to save queen elizabeth's life. plus, serving with your sisters, what it means to send a
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nbc news correspondent erin mclaughlin explains. >> during the queen's visit here in california in the 1980s, a threat was made to kill the late monarch. those fbi files have been kept a secret until now, some 40 years later, the details of that potential danger and a number of other security concerns are coming to light. >> reporter: as queen elizabeth ii arrived in california in 1983, smiling as she greeted then president ronald reagan, local and federal authorities were on high alert and ready to thwart a possible assassination attempt. that's according to newly released documents from the fbi. the 102-pages record report said a police officer received a phone call from a man who wanted to harm queen elizabeth. the unnamed man believed to be an irish republican sympathizer mentioned two opportunities for potential attacks, one of which was to kill the queen during her
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visit to yosemite national park, a trip she made with prince philip. the would be assailant also had plans to drop some object off the golden gate bridge on to the royal yacht britaina. in response, the secret service closed the walkways to san francisco's famed overpass when the queen's yacht neared. the threats came at a time of tension between the british monarchy and the ira, which was dedicated to removing british rule in northern ireland. >> the queen did not have personal enemies, she had symbolic enemies. >> reporter: the internal fbi memos outline a number of potential risks for the queen's safety during her visits to the u.s. from several anonymous threatening telephone calls received dug one of her trips to kentucky to potential concerns surrounding her appearance at an orioles game near president bush
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in 1991. while there's no indication any of these threats materialized, experts say there are likely more we don't know about, all throughout history. >> i'm absolutely convinced that every time a british monarch has visited the united states or, indeed, other countries, there have been all sorts of potential threats. >> reporter: the documents do not indicate arrests were made for any of the threats made against queen elizabeth. in a letter to nbc news, the fbi says there may be additional records related to this, though they did not say when or if those records will be released. the british government declined to comment. back to you. >> erin mclaughlin, thank you very much. and coming up next, fighting sisters, the story of three sisters who served in iraq alongside each other in honor of this memorial day. aq alongside each other in hor noof this memorial day. ♪ma ma ma ma♪ [clears throut] for fast sore throat relief, try vicks vapocool drops with two times more menthol per drop*, and the powerful rush of vicks vapors for fast-acting relief you can feel. vicks vapocool drops.
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in honor of memorial day, president joe biden and the first lady dr. jill biden laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier in arlington national cemetery. they were there to thank and remember those who have died in service for this country. >> we must never forget the price that was paid to protect our democracy. we must never forget the lives, these flags, flowers and marble markers represent.
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and father, mother, son or daughter, a friend. >> our history is filled with countless stories about those who have served. and we have one of them right now, wisconsin army national guard specialist michelle witmer was only 20 years old when she was killed in action during the spring of 2004. michelle was deployed to iraq along with her sisters charity and rachel. and her family continues to honor her sacrifice 20 years later. msnbc's lindsey reiser speak with the witmer family. and she's healer now. it's got to be really hard sending three sisters to war. sending a family to war and then to have one of them not come home. >> and to still talk about it 20 years later. >> yeah. >> reopening the old wounds. these sisters made international headlines when they volunteered
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to enlist. and at the start of the iraq war. and now today, they're channeling their unimaginable pain and try to help other families who are experiencing loss. >> reporter: it started as a testament of american patriotism and duty. >> tonight, we have a story of a fairly modern military family that has a lot of people thinking back to "saving private ryan." >> reporter: threer ises, charity and michelle and older stir charity going to war in iraq. >> i have a twin sister. it's really hard. >> reporter: but less than a year into her de employment, 20-year-old michelle was killed when area humvee was ambushed. sisters charity and rachel flew home. michelle's casket followed. michelle's dad raised national headlines raising fresh questions what to do when siblings go to war. >> she had seen the worker of iraq, yet she kept her faith in god and humidity.
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>> reporter: today, michelle's parents john and lori witmer still live in wisconsin. >> like before we watch michelle or after, that was such a change. everything just changed. and it never goes back. >> reporter: niece days, they find joy in their ten grandchildren. john is writing a second book after sharing michelle's story in hopes of helping other families cope with grief. >> why was it so important for you to be so black and white about the darkest moments of your family's life? >> because other people are going through the same thing. so then they may know they're not alone. >> reporter: it's been 20 years since the start of iraq war and 19 since michelle's passing but her memory and name live on like in this street side in her childhood home. and in her niece's name. >> i just feel it was the name i was born to have. i'm so happy to be named after
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her. >> i wonder what she would look like if she had kids of her own. >> reporter: michelle's sister after serving in the military has three girls of her own, including oldest madison michelle. >> it's just like you lose somebody that you love so much, and all of the soldiers who have lost their lives. you just look at it in such a new way. >> i just try to live as the best person i can be. and jut remember she's probably looking down on me. so, i'm going to try to make her proud. >> reporter: the witmer family says while time has sanded the sharp edges of grief, there's not a day that goes by that they don't think of michelle. >> she will be gone 20 years next april and that's as old as she was. you never want to believe that your children will be forgotten. she's not forgotten. >> she's not forgotten.
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>> reporter: an impossibly high price for any family to have to pay. this weekend, for a grateful nation, a time to remember. there was a lot of discussion after michelle was killed in action about whether her sisters would continue to serve overseas. the family wanted them to be home so they could grieve. they had a family overseas to be there as well. ultimately, they were advised against returning to service because essentially they had become targets so they finished serving stateside eight years. >> such a tough story, lindsay, thank you for bringing it to us on this memorial day. that is going to do it for me today. be sure to join me tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. eastern where i'll be talking to uma thurman about will to grow. and her work to help kids thrive by supporting low-income families here on msnbc. first after a quick break, msnbc films presents a holiday
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