megamillions. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz-balart. you can reach me on twitter and instagram. thank you for the privilege of your time. garrett haake picks up with more news right now. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," president biden traveling to lithuania for a critical nato summit hours after an audience with king charles at windsor. also, the president defending his decision to send controversial cluster munitions to aid ukrainian forces on the battlefield despite the pushback from within his own party. >> it's not in certain areas we're trying to get through those trenches and stop those tanks from rolling. so but it was not an easy decision. >> and new details on special

counsel jack smith's other big investigation into former president trump as federal grand jurors hear more testimony that could possibly lead to new indictments. good day. i'm garrett haake in washington. andrea is traveling to lithuania to cover the nato summit where russia's invasion of ukraine will continue to dominate the conversation for our allies. united states has made it clear going into this summit that a fast track for ukraine's entry into the alliance is off the table for now as the president and his diplomatic team work to sell turkey on agreeing to allow sweden to become the next nato member. the president may have to cruise use some of the nato meetings about his decision to provide ukraine with the deadly cluster munitions that his own administration has denounced.

mr. biden spent the first leg of his trip solidifying the relationship betweening first with the british prime minister when traveling to windsor castle to meet with king charles where they met with investors to stress urgency over the climate crisis just days after the world's hottest day on record. joining me now, our royal commentator outside windsor castle and michael beschloss. daisy, this is the first time that a british king has met with a u.s. president in something like 80 years. it's another historic moment for king charles. what does this moment mean for these two leaders? >> reporter: i think you could really see in the body language and the way they interacted with each other there was a genuine warmth there. this wasn't just for show when you looked at king charles and president biden together. there's been some chatter here that might amuse you that maybe

president biden had broken royal protocol by touching the back of the king's body, his back. that has been completely shot down with people close to the king saying the king is delighted, the king is a touchy, feely person and he thought it showed the genuine warmth between the two men. and they have that shared passion of the environment and green agenda. >> i didn't have the king down as a touchy, feely person. michael, president biden's been working to strengthen his ties with the prime minister. today, he has this face-to-face with the king to focus on climate. key issue for charles over the last couple of decades. in this post brexit world, are we seeing signs these two countries can still do big stuff together? >> i think we are, garrett. having both a chief of state and

head of government, king and prime minister, it's almost like a belt and suspenders. great britain has had poor prime ministers in the last four years. at the same time, there have been two chiefs of state. charles and his mother, and the long relationship with president biden between him and the once prince charles is something that helps here. you know, the images we're seeing of the president and the king, it really harks back to other moments in history when the world was in crisis. for instance, 1939 when roosevelt had king george to the united states for a visit to prepare the united states for the possibility we may have to fight to defend britain in a war. or the 1980s when reagan had a surprisingly close relationship with the queen, queen elizabeth, based not least on their love of horse back riding. then a few years later, the

queen came back, elizabeth. 1991. and saw president george bush on the south lawn of the white house as we can see in this image. she was not quite tall, or i should say the lecturn was not quite short enough for her and this picture is called the talking hat picture because all people could see from this vantage point was a hat talking into the microphones. >> michael, how important is it for the american audience to see king charles playing a diplomatic role with our president? both from the historical standpoint, but also politically? if you're the biden administration, this is what you want people to see. this is the president out doing head of state president stuff on the world stage. >> sure is. roosevelt's relationship with king george, although it irritated some people he didn't want to united states to get into a war, it made him look like a world leader for them to be sitting side by side in

roosevelt's open car. same thing with reagan when he ran in 1984. the subtle message was or not so settle, do you want to throw away this close relationship, this world leader ronald reagan in favor of someone who may not have that kind of relationship? and the other thing you mentioned, garrett, was brexit and the rocky last few years. this is a time where more than ever, this relationship between the united states and the u.k. has been tested. now that we're at war in ukraine, now that people like donald trump and a substantial part of our republican party are at least questioning the value of nato and whether we should stay in it at all, joe biden is an assurance to our allies and others in our own country that there is someone who shares the values that go back to president truman citing the nato treaty, 1949. >> in some ways, there's nothing more normal than seeing our

president and british figures working together on these global issues. >> absolutely. >> daisy, this is important to the royal family, too. talk about how this is playing in the u.k. especially after all these months of public focus on harry and meghan, the two former royals who have taken up so much of the spotlight on that side of the pond. >> reporter: i think people here are really relieved to see the royal family getting back to business, welcoming the president of the united states. that is a big deal. of course, it is. but also being reminded that charles and president biden are of a similar age. there's 86 years between them. that charles met his first president of the united states when he was 10 years old. and in fact, he was shown president biden was shown some documents today in windsor castle behind me commemorating that event, when his mother, the queen, sent the president at the time a recipe for scones that he

was e namered on. there is a sense of business as usual. a sense of being reminded that charles has been practicing for this job for 70 years. that he's met ten out of the last 14 presidents himself. so he knows what he's doing. he's a safe pair of hands but just as you two chaps are saying now, there are issues that need to be sorted. whether or not it's the environment, this country's place in the global economy and global politics. whether it's brexit. all these issues will benefit from some soft diplomacy that charles is very, very capable of doing. >> yeah, that long apprenticeship for the top job. another thing these two men share. thank you so much for getting us started. coming up, on defense. president biden tries to justify sending ukraine highly controversial cluster bombs. the reaction here at home and from our allies overseas. and tomorrow, be sure to watch andrea's one-on-one

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it was a difficult situation. we're in a situation where ukraine continues to be attacked across the board. took me a while to be convinced to do it but the main thing is they have the weapons to stop the russians now from their, keeping them from stopping the ukrainian offensive through these areas or they don't. >> president biden making the case there to provide president zelenskyy's forces in ukraine with cluster munitions. a decision that's being met with criticism from his own party. in a statement released over the weekend, 19 house progressives saying in part quote the united states has a proud commitment to

global, moral leadership in defense of human rights. that should have included refusing to transfer cluster munitions which hold a serious risk of harm to civilians. joining me now, ben rhodes and "new york times" diplomatic correspondent, michael crowley. ben, you're well practiced in this space. what do you see as the diplomatic pitfalls for the biden administration? seems like the civilians at risk, ukrainians, seems to be a mitigating factor. >> i think this is happening now for a couple of reasons. first, there are clearly shortages of ammunition and we've seen this ukrainian counteroffensive stalled a bit. i think the biden administration wants to do everything they can to help ukrainians make advances on the battlefield. however, there are real risks. i worked on this issue a lot in

government. i went to laos where there are children still losing limbs because they're picking up unexploded cluster munitions. but also the conflict is one of holding the moral high ground. the united states and ukraine have had that throughout this conflict. this enters into a gray area. ukraine is still facing aggression. as president biden said, they need whatever they can to fight off a russian attack but this was a tough call. and i think it's appropriate that there continue to be scrutiny that crossing a norm like this and reversing a direction of u.s. policy away from these, there should be push back to that so that it doesn't become a norm again to be using these kinds of things in battle.

>> ben, is this not a wake up call for the west that we're 500 plus days into this war and still having problems supplying the conventional ammunition that ukraine needs? the whole nato infrastructure here, we cannot get them the shells they need so we don't have to give them these weapons? >> really good point. huge wake up call because clearly in this war that has a front line, artillery battles, small arms are necessary, am in additions necessary. the drawdown from nato countries as well as the capacity to produce those things and get them off the production lines, that is not keeping pace with the ukrainians need. they also had a grueling battle in bakhmut over the course of the winter where a lot of munitions were used. this is a stopgap measure. i don't think anybody would think cluster munitions are a long-term solution to this challenge of ammunition shortages.

there's going to be to have a concerted effort to get ukraine more of those types of munitions. >> as we look at a live picture of air force one emerging from behind an air star in lithuania, michael, there's also drama around nato membership with the allies debating on whether to bring sweden in soon. they would like to announce it will go along with that, and if ukraine can be asked to join. do you see this being sorted out at this summit or being left unsettled? >> the goal for a summit like this is to project total unity. especially now where nato is in essentially a proxy war with russia. what the leaders of these nato nations and particularly president biden, would love the story to be, is absolute unity. no tracks in the alliance. they're not getting that.

on the war effort itself, yes. there's pretty strong consensus about what we're doing. although you're seeing debate within the nato alliance about the wisdom of using these cluster munitions. on those two issues you mentioned, i don't see a resolution coming on the sweden question. i mean, it is possible that president biden and mr. erdogan will pull a rabbit out of the hat at this summit. erdogan will say fine, sweden can come in, but there's a lot that has to be done. erdogan is making a lot of demands. he's now talking about turkey's membership in the european union, which was not an issue before. i just don't see that happening. you also have the issue of whether the u.s. will sell f-16 fighter jets to turkey, which will cause members of congress to bite their tongues. i don't see that being sorted out. then on nato membership for ukraine, that's not going to

happen. there will be some kind of new nato statement of policy about how they're going to approach this longer term question but my understanding is they're literally still sorting it out. i think phone calls are being made from air force one and from president biden's traveling delegation to try to figure out where people are ready to land, but essentially, it's going to be largely rhetorical assurances to reaffirm the idea that nato welcomes ukraine. they might say some things to the effect of we're going to try to fast track it, lower the bar a bit, but it's not going to be the kind of breakthrough that ukraine wants and i think that's one reason we're not going to see president zelenskyy. his absence will be conspicuous at this summit because he's not happy about that. >> the president's made clear he doesn't want to open a new alliance. add ukraine and nato while they're in the middle of this war that would draw the rest of nato in right away. ben, back to the russian side of this and this new development

from the kremlin with the spokesperson saying the wagner rebellion leader, prigozhin, met with president putin five days after standing down. he was supposed to be in belarus. putin's been calling him a traitor. my questions to you are one, do you think this meeting happened and where do you think prigozhin is right now? what is going on there? >> well, you know, by all appearances, seems like this happened and prigozhin doesn't seem to be in belarus where he was supposed to go under this deal. i think if all this is true, if prigozhin after putin went on national television and told all the russian people he's a traitor and essentially brings in prison, if after all that, prigozhin now goes free but is having this discussion with putin, he's able to move inside russia. what it tells me is how much putin needs prigozhin. >> interesting. >> if he didn't, prigozhin would be gone by now. and i think what wagner's done is made itself somewhat indispensable to a tenuous war

effort. they've had hardened fighters who have been in mercenary wars and is cannon fodder they've recruited from russian prisons. clearly, putin wants that force to remain a part of russia's military. i think the russian military wants that under russia's military command. so that's the message i take from this. putin has been weakened by this whole episode. he has not backed up his rhetoric about prigozhin and he's trying to keep wagner in the fight. >> michael, i want to give you a quick last word. the idea here was oh, surely this is going to weaken putin. russia's standing in the world. have you seen any change in how countries like china or turkey or other allies have been dealing with putin? >> no. i think hopes got very high, very quickly. but i don't the follow through on that. i don't see signs that china or others are hedging. i'm sure they are watching this extremely closely. and i think that if things start to fall apart, it will happen

very fast. so in other words, we're not seeing it until all of a sudden they go running when it looks like putin is teetering and ready the fall. i just don't think we're on the brink of that although this is a very weird situation and a lot of u.s. officials don't really understand in a fundamental way the dynamics playing out here in moscow. >> as we await seeing president biden deplane here, ben, i'm going to bounce that back to you. is there an opportunity here for nato leaders in the west? we didn't want anything to do with the idea that we were somehow connected to that rebellion. that whatever it was in russia. but is there an opportunity now for nato and our allies to drive a wedge between russia and its allies? this wagner thing was embarrassing for you guys. how do we exploit that? >> i think so. here's the key point in this. putin's message to his own people, the world, china, has been i can wait this out. i'm in this for the long haul.

as bad as this looks in ukraine, i'm not going to budge and i'm in total control in russia and the fractures are going to form in the west. in nato, america's dysfunctional politics. what we saw for the first time with that mutiny is maybe that's not true. maybe the longer this goes, the fractures could come from within russia itself. maybe time is not on putin's side in the same way he's wanted to project to the world. so i agree with michael. you're not going to see some run for the exits from russia's supporters like china. but i think they are watching this and maybe questioning putin's strategic assumption that time is on his side. i think for nato, it's all the more important they're able to project unity about the pace of ukrainian membership. if they can project they're in this long haul and that the west is going to get stronger not weaker as this goes on and that putin's the one who faces risks from a protracted conflict, that's kind of message you want to be projecting to the fence sitters around the world who have not taken a side or

supported russia thus far. >> we touch on the sweden part of this, but the last leg of the trip that the president is on is going to finland. something like an 800-mile border with russia directly. surely that part of this also sends a very powerful message to putin, does it not? >> yeah, absolutely. i was in helsinki last month with secretary blinken. i went to the border with russia and wrote story about the situation there. i would just add as an aside, it's a huge, long border. as you put it, 800 plus miles. it doubles i think more than doubles nato's existing borders with russia. it's a big problem for russia. and the finns say there's little threat to them right now. one reason for that is all the russians who were at bases along their border were sent to ukraine. a lot of them are dead, actually, so it's going to be a while before russia could reconstitute a threat to finland

but the kremlin is very unhappy about this. president biden's line about it, which is reasonable, is that it shows one of several ways in which mr. putin's invasion of ukraine has backfired. he did it in part because he said nato was encroaching on his borders in a way that was an existential threat to russia and what he has gotten is an expansion of nato and a more than doubling of nato's border with his country. so that's bad news for him. it's a pretty good achievement for president biden. he's going to do a little victory lap but there's the little asterisk fly in the ointment of the sweden membership apply at the same time in june of last year. they were hoping to bring them both in in time for the summit. it's a damper on the celebration, but still a big event. >> would be a huge victory if as you said, the president can pull a rabbit out of a hat and make that happen. gentlemen, we're going to leave it there as we continue to await

the president in lithuania. ben, michael, thank you both for your analysis on all this. meantime, parts of new york are now under a state your legal name after a rare flash flood. communities surrounding the west point military academy in the hudson valley received about a summer's worth of rain in just hours. roads and bridges washed away. residents are bailing out their basements as crews attempt to clear the roadways. dive teams are also on the scene helping with water rescues. at least one death is being blamed on what's been called a thousand year event. governor hochul has spoken with president biden. 14 million people remain under flood alerts in the northeast and new england. next, new details about jack smith's 2020 investigation and witnesses from inside trump's

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in the months since jack smith launched an investigation on trump's conduct, an nbc news analysis has found dozens of witnesses have testified to a federal grand jury impanelled here in washington which continues to meet regularly from people like mike pence, rudy giuliani as well as state officials who came under pressure from trump like brad raffensperger and former arizona house speaker, who you may may remember from the hearing. there was those involved with this fake electors scheme. joining me is nbc's justice correspondent, ken dilanian and harry litman.

ken, this is a sprawling investigation. we outlined some of who they have talked to. do we have any sense of how much work remains to be done here? >> not entirely but it feels like they're getting close to the end here. we shorthand this as the january 6th investigation but really, smith was tasked with investigating any potential violations of law thaes the ladies and gentlemen of the order. and what he appears to be doing here is investigating what looks like from the way they look at it, a conspiracy to disrupt the lawful transfer of power not only with the january 6th attack but with the scheme to have false electors to raise money around that. the list ranges from mike pence to secret service agents to state officials. >> newt gingrich was one of them apparently. >> it's a really far reaching investigation.

remains to be seen what they do with it but they're pursuing this case. >> i'm trying to develop the january 6th language from anytime we report on this. the special counsel is focused on the fake elector scheme. 74 fake electors, seven swing states, all signed false documents declaring trump was the winner in 2020. what would jack smith need to pursue convictions related to that effort? >> it would be a conspiracy and it would mean everybody agrees to do something unlawful and that is to submit these false electors and then they do one thing to further it which is easy to prove. but what's really noteworthy about this and we learn about dribs and drabs but you put it all together and it begins to seem oceanic.

the charge he's readying to bring starts with people in state officials. some of whom may get immunity but goes definitely really to trump's inner circle including the director of elections and rudy giuliani, who were orchestrated the whole thing and probably in direct communication with trump. that's what's impressive to me. to ken's point, he could be investigating anything and everything. doesn't mean he'll bring it right away. this investigation could go on for years. the question is is he readying one specific aspect of it and there are concrete signs even though we're a little bit in the dark that the false elector scheme is coming to market and it will be broad from state on the ground in states to the oval office. >> so ken, it could go on for

years but there's a narrow window to land this thing on the calendar to the degree that the doj cares about the other things out there that could get in the way. there's a georgia investigation which would come to fruition in early august according to some moves willis has made on the grand jury schedule in georgia. there's a republican debate in august and then labor day, which is an unofficial kickoff. they've been nervous, hesitant to pursue some things as you get closer to elections. how does that play out in terms of the calendar for the decisions jack smith east trying to make? >> huge. the closer it gets to an election, the more reliable. particularly a candidate in the election. they're also looking at potential trial. optimistically, it takes a year for a case like this to go to trial. of course, it could be delayed.

it really does feel like while they could investigate for years, they are forced to finish it up soon if they're going to pull the trigger on charges. >> you say case like this. we are wearing out the word unprecedented. so hard to judge what kind of word we're talking about. there's the speech on the ellipse. something the january 6th committee was very interested no. how difficult might it be to bring charges to that? given the first amendment protections that would be available to what is at this point the president of the united states, a political candidate, and someone making obviously political speech. >> pretty daunting and there's a checkered history of bringing that sort of thing. of course, they already have done insurrection charges with the actual marauders so it would be odd to not go after the main guy but they have plenty to deal with. i just want to clarify what i'm saying though. when i say the investigation

would go on, i mean other aspects that i have they're going to try to bring something manageable in the short-term and to the fulton county point, that grand jury that we know is going to bring the charges, it begins to sit tomorrow. so it really does complicate smith's timing. you want to be the first there just to be able to jockey and have a sort of pole position. i'm sure he has that in mind as well. >> gentlemen, thank you for your reporting and analysis on this. and as promised, president biden moments ago arriving in lithuania. he and secretary of state blinken meeting with people on the tarmac there. you can sort of see in that shot. all right. coming up, inmate escape. the urgent man hunt for a suspected murderer who's broken out of prison once before. is he gets help from the outside? this is "andrea mitchell

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a man hunt is intensifying for a man who escaped from a pennsylvania jail. the police warn the 34-year-old man is armed and dangerous and say he could be hiding in the woods areas near the jail because he has previous military experience and is a self-taught survivalist. law enforcement has focused its search on the pennsylvania new york border near warren and has now expanded it through the allegheny national forest. >> we've located small stockpiles and camp sites in area in warren and believe some may be associated with him. >> joining me now, rehema ellis. what makes this more interesting, concerning, is that he has evaded authorities before when he was originally captured in the first place.

what do we know at this hour? >> as the officer was saying there, they believe he is still in the warren, pennsylvania area and in the wooded area around allegheny county. you heard him say they found stockpiles and camping equipment. because this man is someone whom they identify as a survivalist with military training, they think he would be well prepared to hide out in wooded areas. so that appears to be where they are focusing their search now. and to your point, he is someone who is being held and considered armed and very dangerous and he was in authority's custody on rape and murder charges, so this is someone they consider to be very dangerous, garrett. >> rehema ellis, thank you. in a florida federal prison, disgraced sports doctor and convicted sex offender, larry nasr, is in stable condition after prison officials say this

morning, another inmate stabbed him multiple times. nasr in 2018 pled guilty to sexually abusing gymnasts under his care, is serving up to 175 years on state and federal charges. kathy park is following the story for us. what do we know about the events that led up to this attack and about his injuries? >> reporter: we have a lot of questions out there that are still unanswered but we know according to a prison union leader that this supposed altercation broke out this weekend specifically on sunday and larry nassar was stabbed multiple times and also suffered a lung collapse. you just mentioned there a few moments ago he is currently in stable condition, garrett, but that is all we know at this point. we have calls out to the bureau

of prisons to get more information about what exactly happened. how did this altercation begin? and who is the other individual? we just don't have those answers at this point, but once again, larry nassar suffered a stabbing and is in stable condition recovering. >> kathy, thank you. coming up, save the date. the first 2024 republican contest is set for iowa on the books earlier than many expected. can ron desantis or somebody, anybody else, close in on donald trump? this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. trump? is is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc tles with falling asleep... ...so he takes zzzquil. the world's #1 sleep aid brand for a better night sleep. ( sfx: ding, ding, ding.) so now, he wakes up feeling like himself. ( sfx: crowd cheering ) the reigning family room middle-weight champion. ( ♪♪ ) get the rest to be your best with zzzquil. it's non-habit forming

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for freeee. that's what i'm talking about. order in the subway app today. florida governor desantis is pushing back on the fact he's trailing former president trump by at least 20 points in his bid for the presidency saying on fox news this weekend it is too early to count him out. >> we're doing what it takes to win. this is not something i ever expected to just snap fingers and all of a sudden, you win seven months before anyone happening. you've got to earn it and work and it requires a lot of toil, sweat, and tears. >> on his way to a ufc fight in vegas on saturday, trump punching down at his rival. >> he's highly overrated. he's getting killed. his thing is going, whashing.

also has no personality. >> joining me now, david, donna, and jeff mason, not a congressman from anywhere. >> true. >> david, 49% of republican primaries, primary voters polled by nbc news say donald trump should continue to lead the republicans. ah. but a combined 50% said it's time to consider other leaders. we have an iowa caucus date. january 15th. what is ron desantis or anybody else needs to do to rally that 50% and become the nominee and catch donald trump? >> yeah, one of the problems, garrett, is that 50% has 11 other candidates to choose from. which is why you see ron desantis 20 or 30 points behind the former president. look, i think the damning week that desantis had has really put him on his heels. his superpac spokesperson said it's trump's race by a long

shot. you're seeing desantis change his strategy a bit. where he said he might not join the gop debate in august if trump did it. now he's saying he will because he realizes he's at risk of losing relevancy. he holds a juggernaut of a campaign. well financed, orchestrated, digital, mail, door knocking campaign. he's doing all the things right. but what will it take? a change to donald trump's status that we have not seen. so you have to look to only one thing right now. if donald trump has to go to trial before the gop nomination is secured in say march, maybe that impacts it but short of a trial, there is nothing that is in donald trump's way right now and that includes ron desantis. >> it's interesting because that seems to be the strategy of a lot of these candidates maybe kind of say the right things but hope the doj does their work for them and somehow gets trump out of the way but chris christie

sees the way the beat trump is to go through him. >> the people in the republican party and quite broadly across america, are tired of having political candidates who are snake oil sales men who just don't tell them the truth. this time in 2015, donald trump was at 4%. so i don't think anybody should be worried about the polling right now. >> so let me ask you what do you make of that strategy? better to go around donald trump or through him? if it's not desantis is it chris christie or perhaps who's not in the race right now like a governor in virginia or georgia or some place like that? >> well, i think the challenge for chris christie is that he's good at punching but it's not really clear to me that that's going to make a single bit of difference in the republican lek rat. what he was saying, his remarks were speaking to a broader electorate but i think within the republican party, it's not really clear he's making that

much progress even as he tries to beat up donald trump. it really seems the more people punch at donald trump, the more indictments that come forward, the more solid his base is and even growing. until there's a one-on-one fight, it's not really clear to me that any of these republicans can make up that 50% difference. >> and you know, some of that was david's point, too. we're a long way from one-on-one and there's other candidates trying to get a slice of this pie. jeff, you have former vice president pence out there. he's trying to run as a traditional conservative, kind of a reagan conservative in a trump party. he's also trying to contrast with the former president on ukraine. where he had this to say today, which was interesting. >> my former running mate likes to talk about solving it in a day. the only way is if you gave putin what he wanted. >> republicans are very divided about ukraine. i see it in my day job between

the way house republicans talk about the ukraine issue and senate republicans talk about the ukraine issue. does mike pence have a potential wedge issue here where he can peel off some more traditional republicans who aren't comfortable with the way trump talks about that war and putin? >> he might. i thought it wasputin? >> he might. i thought it was interesting he referred to him as a former running mate. it is an interesting sort of push-down. he's looking for way to say differentiate the former president. he's doing it now on ukraine, and that could be enough to try to get some republicans to his side, but it's a tough challenge, particularly for former vice president pence. he is so tied to president trump, and he certainty want looking for distance during the four years they served together. but foreign policy is a traditional area for a conservative. >> it's worth noting in our

poll, pence andchristie has more of negative -- from the white house perspective, they have said publicly to them it's either trump or a trump acolyte. s how do they view that on pennsylvania avenue? >> number one, the white house doesn't say anything publicly. they would certainly prefer to have president biden run against former president trump. the strategy for biden is to show him governing. they're happy to have him in europe talking about ukraine, russia, while this chaos happens on the republican side and while there's a differentiation, perhaps, between people like

vice president pence and president trump. i think in general, they would lie to show that that our guy is doing it now and doing it well. >> there's a great contrast with president biden shaking hands with the king, and donald trump shaking hands with joe rogan. i think both sides would say that works for their sides. thank you all for being here. there's a looming threat of a government shutdown. some republicans are still upset that speaker mccarthy cut a deal with president biden to avoid the debt ceiling breach. they're still pushing to impeach president biden. now, politico reports that some house republicans are also trying to target the salaries of key biden administration officials.

ryan nobles joins us now. they want blood somewhere. >> reporter: i think you're exactly right, garrett. i think there's a real possibility there will be some sort of impeachment vote before the 20 th election. the question might be exactly who the target of that impeachment vote is. even while there's a loud, perhaps animated, section of the republican house conference that would like to see joe biden's impeachment vote brought to the floor, kevin mccarthy knows how to count votes, is probably concerned that bringing any sort of vote to the floor that could ultimately fail would end up backfiring on the republican conference. what you see happening right now is behind the scenes deliberations about the next best step to confront the biden administration on a long list of topics that republicans have issues with. that may mean targeting some of

these cabinet secretaries, mayorkas is one many are upset with, and merrick garland, who has become a focus of the republican conference, especially as it relates to the handling of the hunter biden investigation and of course, by extension, what is happening with the special counsel investigations and subsequent prosecutions into the former president donald trump. this is a balancing act, garrett. you know this better than anyone, as it relates to kevin mccarthy. he wants to continue to move the train forward, passing bills, making legislation happen. that includes funding the government. that's something that's a real threat as we moved into september, but in order to keep many of these conservative republicans on board his plans, he's got to then also do these more provocative actions as it relates to confronting the biden administration.

the very long answer is i think the big question is who is the target and we may not get that ant until later in the fall. wednesday chris wray is on the hill. that could tell us a lot about the temperature for house republicans, at least as we-looking at the justice department. ryan, we have to leave it there. thank you for the reporting. that will do it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." you can follow me at garrett haake. i'll be back tomorrow with andrea, where she will be hosting from lithuania. "chris jansing reports" with lindsey riser is next. lindsey riser is next.

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good afternoon. just in the last 30 minutes, president joe biden landed in lithuania for a high-stakes nato summit. >> using there is unanimity i