might be considered for membership. in just hours after nato green lit sweden's addition to the group. that move also dealing a major blow to russian president vladimir putin after his own ally turkish president erdogan was the last domino to fall for their membership. it's being seen as a win for president biden and sending a signal to putin about his ongoing invasion of ukraine. >> adding finland and sweden to nato is consequential. i still think that president putin thinks the way he succeeds is to -- nato, not going to do that. >> president biden has a big challenge tomorrow, that's when he meets directly, directly with zelenskyy. also this hour, back here at home, delay, delay, delay. the latest bid from president trump and his legal team looking to push the date of the classified documents trial back to after the 2024 election.

and more shocking pictures coming out of vermont. rapid flood waters pounding that area following those massive storms. so much damage that the federal government has now officially declared a state of emergency there. so lots to get to, but we begin with the high stakes nato summit in lithuania. members making decisions that could change the course of the war in ukraine and that are already reshaping the alliance itself. this as the man with arguably the most at stake, ukrainian president zelenskyy here, you see him arriving ending speculation on whether he would even be invited or show up to this summit. well, he will meet, as we said, with president biden tomorrow less than three days after the president poured cold water on the idea of ukraine joining the transatlantic alliance. and ahead of his speech, where he'll make his case for his country's membership. zelenskyy tweeted earlier today

uncertainty is weakness. nbc's monica alba is traveling with president biden in lithuania, kelly cobiella reporting from kyiv for us today. also with us, ha gar chemali, former spokesperson for the u.s. mission to the u.n. good to have all of you here. monica, president biden says he supports nato language on ukraine joining in the future potentially. tell us more about this fine line he's trying to walk with zelenskyy and what about the other security guarantees for ukraine in the meantime? >> reporter: well, chris, it is certainly a fine line that he is walking. for many months the president has said that of course there will be unwavering support for ukraine, but this question of the country joining the nato alliance is a lot thornier because, according to this commune cade that came out from the world leaders here this will only be able to be extended as an invitation once the allies agree on any kind of of a time

line and once conditions are met. of course the ongoing war in ukraine is a major factor into how this could all come to be, and there is no clear time line. we heard that from the national security adviser earlier today, that this is something that eventually could be supported, that the u.s. would like to see that in the future, but there's just no sense of how long that could take, though it doesn't seem at all it will be in the short-term, which is what president zelenskyy had hoped for. we got a little bit more of a sense from the nato secretary jens stoplightsenberger. >> i'm confident that we will make a strong and united decisions on ukraine, both to sustain and step up our support. i'm also confident on the membership issue, allies will reaffirm that ukraine will become a member. >> and president biden will be sitting down with president

zelenskyy tomorrow. of course they will be discussing this, but there have been these other security guarantees, the u.s. pledging to send those controversial cluster bombs to ukraine, 10,000 of them in the coming days, which president zelenskyy had asked for in the past. this is really a situation where the u.s. is continuing to say as circumstances change in the war so too will decisions about what can be sent to continue to bolster this unwavering support for ukraine as it continues to face this aggression from russia, chris. >> kelly, there had been some question about how much would hold. there's obviously political pressure in some of these member countries because this war has dragged on so much longer than many people expected, certainly from the start. talk a little about what's facing zelenskyy himself both when he speaks to the gathering overall but has that one-on-one meeting with biden as well. >> reporter: expect him to press his case that in his view, the only way to deal with russia is

to stand up to russia, and he would argue the way to do that is to show russia that ukraine will be a member of nato at some point and give ukraine a firm time line to achieve that understanding that it can't happen while the war is ongoing. he was very unhappy with that vague language earlier today. in fact, he put out this tweet. let me read a little bit of it to you. he said it's unprecedented and absurd when time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for ukraine's membership. while at the same time, vague wording about conditions is added even for inviting ukraine. he said it seems there is no readiness neither to invite ukraine to nato nor to make it a e member of the alliance. this means that a window of opportunity is being left to bargain ukraine's membership in nato in negotiations with

russia. and for russia, this means motivation to continue its terror. uncertainty is weakness, he wrote, and i will openly discuss this at the summit. so effectively saying that he believes that this statement leaves the door open to use ukraine's membership in nato as a bargaining chip somehow to end the war here. now, he did soften his language a bit once he arrived in vilnius. he says that he has faith in the solution, faith in our partners, faith in a strong nato, but do expect him, chris, to be really, really tough in arguing this case. he has the population of ukraine certainly behind him, some 89% of ukrainians want to be members of nato, while again, understanding it can't happen while the war is ongoing, chris. >> so hagar, let's talk a little bit, if we can, about this argument that he is going to try to make. and again, i don't know that -- how often we've had a world

leader who's had to learn so quickly on the job. he's become a wartime leader, right, he's become the chief diplomat and had a lot of success, but we have a map, i think, that we can show you, hagar, that shows you the membership and how it goes up against russia virtually russia on its flank surrounded. if you add sweden to the membership, if you add ukraine to the membership, the argument is the message that's sent to vladimir putin is both pointed and strong. talk about the argument for ukraine becoming a member and also what joe biden is making for waiting. >> yes, so chris, it's an interesting -- it's a very interesting issue and i admire president zelenskyy for how tough he is in general, how strong he is, how brave, and how much he pushes for the best that ukraine can get over and over again, whether it's military equipment or nato membership, eu candidacy, he is pushing for the best. and i admire that, but nato

membership is unrealistic right now, and the reason for that -- and he seems to be aware that it would be unrealistic during wartime. but what does war mean? what does the end of the war mean? this conflict has been going on since 2014, not since last year. last year it was obviously escalated in a much greater way, but that's something -- it's a very complicated issue, and that's what president biden is trying to convey. it's not that this might not be a potential possibility in the future but that setting some kind of firm time line or saying that absolutely when this war ends that ukraine will be granted access to membership to nato is difficult to promise because, a, there are other conditions that need to be met, issues related to democracy, to corruption, to the judiciary, to civilian control of military, these are nonnegotiable, usually when gaining membership to nato. and then there's also the question of do you really want to give that bargaining chip away. president zelenskyy mentioned this. the fact is that wars end in

diplomatic negotiations, and that zelenskyy understandably -- and ukrainians do not want to barter away chunks of ukrainian territory, which i agree with. that said, there are going to be other things and perhaps leaving this one in the balance might be safer. if you say that you grant them membership at the end of the war, wouldn't that perhaps incentivize putin to prolong the war as long as possible. >> one of the big conversations that's also going on, how do you arm, how do you continue to help ukraine getting just frankly, ammunition made, getting the things that they need both manufactured and to them has been a question. secretary blinken spoke with andrea mitchell earlier about the decision, controversial decision to send cluster bombs to ukraine. let me play that. >> we have been working very hard to make sure that the productive capacity to make the conventional munitions that they need is being ramped up. but there was going to be a gap between when they ran really low on those munitions and when the

new ones were able to come online. these cluster munitions fill the gap. >> let's talk about that argument because this is something we're hearing a lot from the biden administration. this is kind of a temporary move. do you think the white house, when you hear that, is trying to walk things back a little bit, trying to make it more palatable to allies who are very nervous about it? what do you hear in that answer? >> i think they're between a rock and a hard place. because the fact is it is true that the rate at which ukraine is using ammunition is faster c can't go and give all of our ammunition away because that would decrease american combat readiness. that's not something that anybody should want for our own national security or any other country wants. so i understand this argument. i've heard other arguments as well saying that, for example, that these are munitions that while they are very controversial and they are, by the way, extremely controversial because they can be very indiscriminate in how the munitions fall, which means they

can increase the chance for civilians to be killed, and they can also occasionally not detonate, the u.s. has a high rate of avoiding that problem, but that is also a problem that comes with these, and the argument i've heard is that, well, listen, this is ukraine defending its own land. they're using this on their own land, and also, that these are not areas that are populated anymore by civilians. and so i understand that argument. i also believe cluster munitions are extremely controversial. i don't like to see them in war. they cause a lot of problems because they don't detonate all the time and because they can indiscriminately kill civilians. i understand the white house's argument, they're just between a rock and a hard place. >> monica alba, kelly cobiella, and hagar chemali, thank you all. donald trump lawyers to delay his criminal trial until after the election with another major case still pending in georgia. is this argument to postpone going to be made in every case against the former president

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♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ in what his critics are saying is a major stalling tactic, donald trump's lawyers are asking a judge to postpone his criminal trial without setting a new date, arguing trump will be too busy running for president to prepare his defense. in filings late last night, they also argued to start the trial this year would be, quote, unreasonable, telling, and would result in a miscarriage of justice. that the stakes are too high to hold a trial during the campaign. i want to bring in former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst joyce vance, also with us "washington post" national reporter and msnbc contributor, carol leonnig. good to see you both. joyce, is this going to be the norm now if trump faces more challenges, essentially arguing that to try trump before the election amounts to blocking a

fair election. in that filing, his lawyers argument that the campaign would be complicated unfairly, frefrg jury selection to reviewing classified documents. as a legal argument, could that work? >> well, whether it could work, i think, is a separate question from whether trump will make it because clearly he will. his goal will be delay at every stage of the proceedings, you know, whether it's a nickel dime delay of two or three days because of lawyers' conflicts of interest or whether it becomes lengthier delays if we go past the first of the year and trump begins to argue he can't be required to interfere with cam paning to begin to show up. whether it works is in the hands of the judge, of course, judge cannon, and she'll have an early moment here, something that happens inside of these pleadings where she had ordered defense lawyers to expeditiously prepare their paperwork so that they could obtain security clearance. and at least one of the lawyers has not yet submitted those

papers. if she's serious, if she means business, she'll order the lawyer to submit those papers forthwith. there's no reason for additional delay. there's been over three weeks at this point in time. the problem is these are discretionary calls that she gets to make, and she could very well cede to the former president's demands, and we could be looking at a very different schedule than the one the government has asked for. >> just to be clear, when you say discretionary calls, she is the final arbiter, whichever way she rules, whoever doesn't like that ruing can't go anywhere else to ask it to be overturned? >> so there are some limited vehicles for asking the 11th circuit to intervene. for instance, when a judge declines to set a trial date, something that you can do is ask the 11th circuit for a writ of man danmus. the law in the 11th circuit is

pretty clear that's only an appropriate remedy in very extreme cases. here we're at an early stage in the proceedings and trump's represented by an excellent appellate lawyer who's clearly written the pleadings here and who talks about the uncertainties of the discover process. that i think those arguments do not have merit. there are a lot of important steps the government has taken very quickly. they've said the fbi is prepared to go through the clearance process for lawyers very quickly, and the government has stream lined its process in this sort of case significantly since the cases that the defense is citing took place. some of those cases, manuel noriega in the 1990s. you can understand how 30 years down the road the path is much clearer for classified discovery, but judge cannon will ultimately make those calls and because she will have a leg to stand on, the leg provided in these defense pleadings from

chris keese, it's unlikely that the government will be able to take them at least initially to a higher court. >> so interesting. another interesting argument is just how do you navigate all the trials trump could be facing? carol, your colleague at "the washington post," devlin barrett writes this, the defense lawyers also argue that trump cannot realistically be prepared to go to trial later this year given the other trials he is facing, including a march 2024 criminal trial in manhattan on state charges related to hush money payments made during a 2016 presidential campaign and a civil trial scheduled to begin in october in new york over fraud allegations leveled by the new york attorney general. we all know, carol, there could be even more potentially, so what do folks you talk to say about the sheer volume of potential charges. is this a case of more unprecedented logistical challenges, not just for the candidate, but other candidates,

taking up all the oxygen in the race. >> you know, it is -- we often said when we were covering donald trump the president that this is unprecedented ask now as we deal with him as a former president seeking election, we use the tired old word unprecedented. there's never been anything like this, chris, and you know it -- >> as a defendant, right, it's unprecedented. >> it's unprecedented which way. i think joyce will agree with me here, i agree with her entirely, that donald trump's whole m.o. while president and while an ex-president has been delay, delay, delay. trying to push off discovery, trying to push off a decision about whether certain documents are covered by attorney/client privilege, trying to push off a subpoena seeking the testimony of his former vice president, every when way to sunday that donald trump can put off information being in the hands of prosecutors or put off information being presented by

prosecutors to a jury, he has done so and will continue to do it, for whatever reason that you can conceive. but here's where i think there's something important to relay. there's no more important case right now than this one with regard to the stature and the prominence of the case, the seriousness of the case. mar-a-lago, the idea that a former president basically stuck national security information into his back pocket on the way out the door and refused to turn it over when given and served with a criminal investigaive subpoena. that is the premier case here, and if you're the lawyer trying to make the excuse for how we can put this off, you might say, oh, all the other attorneys have other trials or donald trump has this other case going on with georgia and new york, but the one with the most significant consequences, the one with the

most juice, the one with the most importance to donald trump's future, at least at this moment, is this case. >> yeah. >> so it should be the one that decides all the others. >> and we may want to mention that a decision on grand jurors who will consider trump charges in the georgia case are being selected today. so that's something maybe we can talk about tomorrow. joyce vance, carol leonnig, thank you both so much. in the meantime, federal prosecutors have now indicted the man who repeatedly but without substantiation accused the biden family of corruption. a copy of the indictment reviewed by nbc news reveals a host of charges against gal luft for operating as an unregistered foreign agent working to advance the interests of china in the united states. i want to bring in nbc news investigation correspondent tom winter, when what more can you tell us about this, this guy considered himself some sort of

whistle-blower. in fact, this charge suggests he was more of a spy. >> well, yeah, and i want to be clear about that. when you don't register as a foreign agent, you're not technically conducting espionage on their behalf. but you're putting forward their interests. that's really one of the key components of the charges here, as you said, somebody trying to advance the interests of china and also several companies there including cefc and another company that was supplying arms allegedly to various countries overseas. that was a whole host of other violations. the reason whey this person is in the news, the reason we're talking about him is he's somebody who came forward who said he had information about hunter biden and the biden family that he received millions of dollars tied to chinese intelligence, that hunter biden had some sort of mole in the fbi that's giving information to him. the house oversight committee congressman comber said, look, this is somebody he thought had

serious allegations against the bidens and he came forward in march 2019 to tell fbi agent about these crimes luft said he was aware of. we know that meeting was true. we also know according to the indictment that was unsealed yesterday but filed last year, he lied at that meeting according to the justice department. he lied about his involvement with the chinese company. they have immediate questions about his credibility. as an old boss of mine says as soon as there is one definite fact that is wrong in your story, the whole story is in question. at the moment, that's where the justice department is. if you're not telling us the truth on one hand, hour can we start to believe you on the other hand, the other things that you bring forward to us. he's a fugitive of law. he's someone who went missing after was initially arrested in cypress and somebody who the justice department is actively looking for. >> he's somebody who suggested

something illegal was going on, for which there are no charges against the biden family but now against -- >> and to be clear, against him. and to be clear, the idea that the bidens, specifically hunter biden and another family member, that they received money from cefc for a business contract, we've established that. i could have told you that a year ago. we reported it. it's close to $5 million. so some of the things he has said are true, but they're also verifiable public information. where this goes from here and whether or not there's investigation into the allegations, that's something we continue to point out. >> as always, thank you very much. millions of americans are at risk because of that dangerous weather and deadly flooding. we're g going to head to vermont where president biden just declared a state of emergency. that's next. biden just declared a state of emergency. that's next. by pros like me. where president biden just declared a state of emergency. that's next. oing to head to ver where president biden just declared a state of emergency. that's next. ared a state of eme. that's next. i can dunk if i want to.

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right now conditions in the northeast are so dire that in the middle of his high stakes trip to lithuania, president biden signed off on emergency funding for the state of vermont because, well, this is what it looks like there, roads buried in waist high waters, emergency teams making no less than 50 rescues, and the governor warning just hours ago the floods aren't over yet. >> i'm very concerned about the next few days. we will have the sun coming out this afternoon. people will think this is over, but it's not over.

>> deluge washed out train tracks in new york, suspending upstate and track and metro railroad services. they move tens of thousands of people each day. meanwhile, unbelievable images out of california. a dozen families in l.a. county forced to evacuate when their houses started sinking into a canyon. now, they did make it to safety before ceilings caved in and walls began collapsing, but look at how far these homes shifted from their original road. and there's still movement today. and there's still also a heat wave sizzling in the south. the record temperatures felt by 63 million people coast to coast. let's turn to nbc's kristen dahlgren reporting from vermont's capital city where flood waters are still rising. >> reporter: well, hi there, from main street in montpelier where you can see it is completely flooded, feet of water in the downtown area here, and it continues to rise. take a look over here, and you

can see just how quickly the water is pouring into this area, two rivers converge right here, so the water now spilling over both banks and coming in from both sides. you can see that car, when we got here this morning, was about a foot more of it visible so the water is really coming up quickly, and this is just one of the areas in vermont that has been devastated. there were flash floods across the state and the rain continuing on and off this morning as we continue to watch. officials now concerned about a dam above the city here. they say it's approaching capacity. they may need to let some water out, which could be devastating. they are still warning everybody to be ready to head to higher ground. back to you. >> kristen, thank you for that. and nbc's george solis is in highland falls, new york. george, what's it look like there? are recovery efforts underway? talk to us. >> reporter: yeah, chris, it

doesn't look anything like vermont does. the waters have started to recede. it is now here assessing new damage for a lot of residents. we still have some water in their basements, earlier this morning, i spoke with the father of the one fatality here of fort montgomery. those waters started to rush into where they were, she tried to get over to the other side of the street where her father was and her fiancee was. they had just moved their cars to higher ground. the father says it is cathartic for him to speak about the loss right now. you can tell he is still in shock and processing the loss. take a listen to my conversation with him. >> her fiancee decided he was going to go across the street to get his car. he fell in the water, started going down the street. i'm pretty nimble. i ran and jumped across the street on the bank over there. i ran down in front of him, grabbed the telephone pole and pulled him over the side. pam was in the house, she saw

the yard collapse. she got really scared. so she tried to come out with the dog, and we screamed at her, stay in the house, stay in the house, and she started screaming the house is going to fall down. she wouldn't listen to us and tried to cross the street, as soon as she hit the road she was gone. >> reporter: your heart just breaks listening to that story. he wants people to know this is why you should avoid any high water, especially if it's moving. he wishes he could have reiterated that a little bit more with his daughter. they are now in the midst of funeral arrangements. again, you hear the story from a lot of people in this community, those that knew her grieving, of course, and the cleanup, which is still very much underway in highland falls. >> what a tragic story. frankly, you don't underestimate mother nature. thank you so much. appreciate your report. in our next hour, more on the dangerous flash floods wreaking havoc in vermont. i'll speak with that state's public safety commissioner about what they're facing.

plus, what an interesting plot twist, new numbers from a trump/desantis matchup poll in florida. we've got those details next.

el paso. a brand new florida poll shows donald trump continuing to dominate ron desantis, although not by quite as much as he has been. the florida atlantic university poll shows the former president leading the current governor by 20 points among florida

republicans, but in an interesting twist, trump's lead dropped 7 percentage points since fau's last poll in april. that was before trump's federal indictment. let's talk about it with matthew dowd, former chief strategist for the bush cheney 2004 campaign. the easiest analysis would be trump got indicted and his poll numbers dropped seven points. i think one thing we can say is it's not great, maybe even problematic for a sitting governor to be down 20 points in his own state, but what do you read into this poll? >> not great would be the best way to describe it, i mean, this is a guy that just won re-election, ron desantis, overwhelmingly in 2022. is popular among florida republicans and is 20 points behind donald trump. so if donald trump had any vulnerability, you would notice it in the home state. he has large leads in south carolina where nikki haley and

tim scott are running. he has large leads in every single state, and florida, who is 20 points behind. that earlier poll was taken before ron desantis announced for president. the interesting thing, numbers this that poll in the previous poll compared to this is while donald trump dropped seven points, ron desantis dropped three points from that poll to this poll, and so he announced for president and lost support. any diminishment of donald trump hasn't accrued to ron desantis. >> yeah, and if you listen to ron desantis in recent interviews including one yesterday with fox business, he rejects the idea that he hasn't run a good campaign, in fact, blames his problems on the made -- media, let me just play a little bit of that. >> it's pretty clear that the media does not want me to be the candidate. i think they've tried to create a narrative that somehow the race is over. this is going to be a state by

state contest. >> we have been the target of the corporate media. they clearly do not want me to be the nominee. these are narratives, the media does not want me to be the nominee. i think that's very, very clear. why? because they know i'll beat biden. >> okay. well, what do you think of that as an argument? it's not his campaign. it's the media misrepresenting the state of the campaign. >> this is like my kids when they were in elementary school and every time they didn't -- they got criticized or got caught not doing their homework, they blamed the teacher doesn't like them. the teacher doesn't like them, and nine times out of ten it was because they didn't do their homework or they didn't do the assignment they were supposed to do. >> the dog ate their homework, matthew. >> yeah. that would be the normal. but normally it was the teacher's fault for some reason. it was always the teacher's fault. i don't know what ron desantis

thinks he's supposed to get from the media other than coverage, which he's getting, and the media is covering ron desantis just like every other candidate. actually, he's getting more coverage than other republicans running because he was thought to be the candidate that could beat donald trump. every single insight you get into the campaign i think is a tell that they know that their launch didn't go well, and actually, not only did their launch not go well, every step in the aftermath of that -- and take a look, we were just talking about florida polls, take a look at the national polls, chris. the national polls before ron desantis started running, he was closer. now he's nearly 30 points behind in the national polls, and one thing i'll remind the viewers of this, the republicans are interesting. for the last 50 or 60 years, if there is a dominant candidate in the race, they nominate the dominant candidate. every time there is a dominant candidate in a gop primary, the republican primary voters nominate that candidate. could this be an exception to that rule?

possibly, but donald trump is liked by 80, 82% of republicans and ron desantis campaign isn't doing anything to help him. >> so a critically important question before we go, i'm going n a different studio today. did i have a bad studio previously or did you grow a mustache while i was on vacation. >> i was going to see if you knew it was me. i was going incognito. i'm up in vermont. >> are you okay? is everything okay where you are? >> yeah, we got 8 inches of rain here the last two days. the house is built up on a hill. the roads are washed out part of the way around, so i can still get around. the house didn't get any water damage, but neighbors and all that, the rivers have overflowed and the creeks are crazy. so yeah, it was a deluge. >> i spent a lot of time in vermont when i lived in upstate, one of the most amazing, wonderful, beautiful places in america. you take care, and i hope all

your neighbors are okay. matthew dowd, thank you. we're going to take a poll as well on the mustache, and we'll get back to you on that. thank you. >> okay. it's known as tranc, or the zombie drug. whatever you call it, the impact is clear. it's deadly. the white house drug czar joins me to discuss new plans to stop it. and amazon's prime day forces retailers to battle it out in these hot mid summer deals. it's a 48-hour blitz, they've got counter, what shoppers should watch for. we're live with cnbc in our next hour. like father like son, vladimir guerrero jr. crowned the home run derby champion in seattle's t-mobile park last night, following in his father's foot steps, 16 years after dad was the home run champ. first time in nearly 40 years of derby history father and son have won the title. guerrero jr. also gets a million

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it. at the times related to it have skyrocketed more than 240% since 2018. now, it's commonly laced with fentanyl but also mixed into pills frequently sold on the black market including xanax and adderall. now the white house has called it an emerging threat. i want to bring in dr. rahul gupta, director of the white house office of national drug control policy. thank you for being with us. dr. gupta, how serious is this threat, and specifically how could this plan reduce the number of people dying? >> thanks for having me, chris, on. it is, if you thought that fentanyl was deadly enough, this makes it much more dangerous and deadlier. it is important because we've seen the numbers go up and it is prevalent across almost all 50 states. what that means is for especially this administration, president biden, we have to act

with a sense of urgency to make sure we are getting ahead of this. that is exactly the thought process behind which we released the national response plan just now. >> i guess some people would say if this rise started in 2019, again, we said 240%, why now? why didn't we get on top of this sooner and specifically what can be done that might have an impact? not years down to road, but soon? >> well, chris, this is an important question because one of the things that this is the first time any administration can declare any substance an emerging threat. since 2019, we've seen a pattern increase but across all regions of the united states and we've called it this is the time not to just act on it, but able to defeat it. in the past, we've had challenges we had difficulty getting ahead of like fentanyl,

heroin and the opioid pill crisis. this is the first time we're moving forward and ahead of this crisis to take a comp hen comprehensive approach. >> if you meet your goal, which as i understand it is to reduce deaths by 15%. in two years. is that ambitious enough? >> absolutely. so here's what the president is aiming to do. with the policies the biden administration has now, we are aiming to expect the deaths are about 165,000 a year by 2025. going to reduce those by 80,000. it's important we have control over any new emerging threats and this is the number that gets us where we can get it under control again. this is a sub part of the bigger challenge we're facing with drugs like fentanyl and meth and cocaine. >> not many people would argue

against what you're trying to do. clearly, there's a danger here, but where's the money going to come from and will it be taken out of other programs to fight the problem of drugs? the scourge of drugs which goes unfortunately far beyond fentanyl and trank. >> this is why president biden has proposed an historic budget of $46.1 billion with a b to congress. the reason that is the case and this administration has been asking for more funds to save lives. that's our north star. while congress acts, we need to be making sure we're doing everything to use the current existing resources as well as the funds to be able to save lives. so we're looking under every corner, every authority granted to us to make sure that we can take actions like making sure people have narcan available. test strips available. and be aware of this. while at the same time,

encouraging that congress does its duty by taking its action. >> thank you so much. we appreciate your time today, sir. >> thank you. there's troubling new data revealing students are still struggling to catch up in school following the pandemic. this is according to a new national study. most elementary and middle school students slowed slower than average growth in reading and math last year and need about four and a half extra months of instruction in math in order to catch up to the typical pre pandemic student. the study analyzed data from millions of public school students from third to eighth grades. these findings fall short of expectations to make up learning losses during covid, which was supported by billions of dollars in federal funding. disgraced gymnastics doctor in stable condition after being stabbed in prison. nbc news spoke to one of his survivors. that's next. spoke to one of his survivors. that's next.

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right now, disgraced doctor for gymnastics larry nassar is in the hospital. nbc's stephanie gosk spoke to one woman who survived his assault. >> he was repeatedly stabbed at a high security federal prison in central florida. the confessed sexual abuser struck twice in the neck, six

times in the back and in the chest leading to a collapsed lung. he's in the hospital in stable condition. according to the president of the union representing prison employees who says the facility has been facing staff shortages, impacting safety and security. the bureau of prisons confirming the assault but would not name the injured inmate. he is serving what amounts to be a life sentence for sexually abusing minors and possessing child pornography. >> violence wasn't what any of us were looking for. vengeance wasn't what we were looking for. >> sarah klein is the attorney for the victims and a victim herself. does it make things more difficult for you? >> i think so because we're dragged back into the spotlight. we're having to relive our trauma. >> among his other victims, simone biles and the entire 2012 london team. aly raisman became a vocal

critic. >> this is bigger than larry nassar. we have to get to the bottom of how this happened. >> biles joining her in a hearing on capitol hill. >> to be clear, i blame larry nassar and i also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse. >> usa gymnastics and the u.s. olympic community agreed to pay $380 million in a settlement with victims. he worked for decades at michigan state university which also settled, agreeing to pay 5 million. in 2018, victims shared their stories in a michigan courtroom at his sentence. >> he betrayed my trust, took advantage of my youth and sexually abused me hundreds of times. >> we have a lot to cover in our