just felt that she was finally at peace. she can rest now. >> rest for wendy, the kind young woman who loved animals and enjoyed playing dress-up and who fatally married a stranger, till death he did part. >> that is all for this edition of dateline. i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. ♪♪ this sunday, warning signs. a new nbc news poll shows an overwhelming majority of voters have concerns about president biden and former president donald trump. >> i got the job done. i got it done.

>> as the gop candidates get ready to debate for a second time without trump. will any of them be able to break through? >> i don't think we need people who are in it for themselves seeking retribution. >> i'll ask former new jersey governor chris christie why trump is still dominating the party. plus, shutdown risk. house republicans struggle to agree on spending bills and now another government shutdown is just days away. >> they want to shut the whole place down. it doesn't work. >> house republicans continue to be in the midst of a civil war. >> will speaker mccarthy turn to democrats for help? i'll talk to democratic congressman james clyburn of south carolina and transportation secretary pete buttigieg. and taking bribes. democratic senator bob menendez of new jersey resisting calls to

resign. >> the senator and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. >> federal agents found gold bars and cash stuffed in envelopes hidden in the senator's clothing. how damaging will this be for senate democrats. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news chief white house correspondent peter alexander. amna nawaz, co-anchor of pbs newshour. and leigh ann caldwell of the washington post. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with kristen welker. good sunday morning. here in washington, disfunction is on full display. the federal government is careening toward a shutdown just one week from today with no deal in sight as one top house republican lawmaker told me overnight, quote, it appears that's where we're headed as hardline republicans dig their

demands for deep spending cuts threatening to replace speaker mccarthy who warned this week, quote, they want to burn the whole place down. democratic senator bob menendez is resisting calls to resign for allegedly taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to benefit the egyptian government and prosecutors release stunning photos when they searched menendez home, gold bars and a mercedes-benz. the indictment appears to undercut republicans' allegations of a two-tiered system of justice and former president has been indicted four times. in just days mr. trump's republican rivals will try to make their own contrast at the second republican debate at the reagan presidential library, but is it too late to break through? our brand-new nbc news poll shows they have an uphill climb,

i am joined now by national political correspondent steve kornacki to take us through the numbers. it is so great to have you here. a lot of headlines in this new poll. >> you mentioned an uphill climb for opponents of donald trump. let's show how steep it is. donald trump, brand new poll of republican voters, nearly 60% support the former president. his nearest rival ron desantis, more than 40 points behind him now. obviously you can see here nobody else in single digits and look at the movement, too, from the start of the summer, we polled this back in june. trump seemed to have a dominant lead then. it has only gotten more dominant from 43 now, it was not even 30 in june, and you can see here, we asked the question. i think this gets to the heart of it. we ask the republicans, should donald trump be the leader of your party? now nearly 60% say yes. it wasn't quite 50 at the start of the summer. >> well, steven, what is so stunning about this number, i lots happened since june, we are

talking indictments against donald trump and four in total and he's solidifying his lead with gop voters. >> you know this from talking with republicans. you are talking about rival campaigns and everything you just explained they thought it would take him down a peg this summer and the party needs a new leader, that has gone down. so for donald trump there, nothing, but good news. it raises this question, if republicans go forward and nominate trump again, this is what the rematch in the poll would look like? >> 46-46, and how about this? joe biden won the popular vote by more than four votes. desantis who pitched himself as the electable version of trump to republicans fares worse against biden than trump does. we also tested nikki haley. the former u.n. ambassador. she actually leads joe biden by our poll. >> this is notable. she should such a strong showing in the first primary

debate. could that be a reason why see this bump? >> one thing our poll has found she's not nearly as well known as trump and desantis and more scrutiny and more attacks, will this hold up? we'll see. but obviously, the fact that the president is struggling this much against every republican raises the question, where is that coming from? the most obvious answer is this is a simple question of job approval, barely 40% approve of joe biden's performance. >> we have to note, 56%, that's the highest disapproval rating for president biden since he took office, that's significant. >> let's take a look at what's driving that, too. no surprise it is the economy. look at this contrast. this is april of '21. months after biden took office, nearly half the country was satisfied with where the economy was then, now, barely one in four americans satisfied with the economy. there's also this. we found an enthusiasm gap between the two parties. we asked folks on a scale of one to ten, how enthusiastic are you about the presidential election,

and you can see republicans and democrats, there is a gap right there. where is the lag for democrats? we found a couple of places. non-white voters you can see significantly less enthusiastic than white voters and how about this age gap? the youngest group of voters who democrats have been trying to get excited and motivated up 50 points, nearly a 50-point gap. >> so really an uphill trying to make sure voters don't stay home if you're democrats. >> the problem for democrats, the lack of enthusiasm about the election and there's a lack of enthusiasm about the president do you want options next year beside biden, 59% said yes they do. this is not a normal number for an incumbent. we asked the same question a year before donald trump sought re-election of republicans. only 37% wanted more choices then and that's a very high number. this is like the inverse of each other, these two numbers.

>> it raises the question, what else concerns democrats and i think this gets to the elephant in the room here. biden's age and fitness. look at this contrast. we have talked so much about donald trump, the indictments and the legal woes and they are clearly a major or moderate concern to the majority of americans, but biden's age and fitness for office almost three out of four in our poll. this is democrats, republicans, independents say it's a major or moderate concern. how about trump? only a few years younger than biden, a full 37-point gap right there and this is looming as a major problem for the president, too. >> it's notable. his strategy is to laugh off concerns about his age and fascinating stuff. steve kornacki, thank you so much. as republicans prepare to debate on wednesday night, mr. trump's opponents are taking him on for not showing up. >> i think it's a missed opportunity for donald trump, and i think it's a missed opportunity for republican voters. >> he owes it to people to make

the case and to defend his record. you can't be just not showing up to these things. >> and joining me now is former new jersey republican governor and presidential candidate chris christie. governor christie, welcome back to "meet the press." >> kristen, it's great to be back. thank you so much for having me. >> absolutely. let's delve into the numbers. you see there. former president trump is solidifying his lead with gop primary voters. you've been in this race since june, governor, why aren't you gaining more traction? >> kristen, look. i know you spent a whole lot of money on national polls, so i don't mean to go after the polling folks, but the fact is that national polls don't matter. we don't have a national primary. if you look at donald trump in the latest polls in both iowa and new hampshire, the two earliest states, he is barely at 40 in iowa and he is under 40 at 34 to 38 in new hampshire.

that means that between 60 to 65% of the voters in those two very important early states want an alternative and in places like new hampshire i'm in second place behind donald trump. so, you know, this whole race will change when people actually vote, kristen, and no offense to any poll that comes out now, but if it's a national poll, if we don't have a national primary i don't spend more than three minutes thinking about it. >> let's talk about new hampshire. you've obviously been very focused on new hampshire, as you say, your polling is better there, but governor, how do you win a 50-state race focusing on just a few states? >> kristen, you understand the way this works. you're very experienced with this. the whole race will change when iowa happens and the race will change new hampshire, and i'm telling you, that if i beat donald trump in new hampshire, and i plan to do so, that his sense of invincibility and his

sense of inevitability will go away, and there are a lot of republicans in those numbers, even in your national numbers, will be with donald trump just because they think he really is the only alternative to joe biden. when i beat him in new hampshire, folks will not he's not the only alternative to joe biden, and we'll do it, by the way, just the way joe biden did in 2020. you remember quite well he lost iowa and new hampshire and everyone said he was dead and he won south carolina and went on to sweep super tuesday states in places where you have an organization and never spent one day campaigning. momentum is everything in this race without establishment in new hampshire. >> i understand. one of the big arguments you're making is donald trump cannot win a general election and that's something we've heard from your rivals as well and yet our polls show he's in a dead heat with president biden. do you need to shift your strategy and will we see that on

display on the debate stage on wednesday, governor? >> well, look, my strategy is not based alone on electability against donald trump. donald trump made a bunch of promises. i was on that stage in 2016, kristen, he made a bunch of promises to fellow republicans and then fellow americans in the fall and didn't deliver. he said he would repeal and replace obamacare and even with a republican congress, he failed. he said he would build a big, beautiful wall across the entire border of mexico. he built 52 miles of a new wall in four years and mexico never paid a first peso for it. by the way, if he goes at that pace, you don't need another 110 years as president to finish the wall and most importantly -- >> go ahead. >> he wanted to balance the budget in four years and he added 7 trillion to the national debt, the worst record of any president in four years in american history. he broke his promises to the voters and we're making a case on that much more than we are on electability.

>> governor, you supported him for re-election despite everything you are saying and i want to focus on your background for president trump. you're the first major republican to endorse him in 2016 and stood by him on major controversies from the muslim ban to charlottesville. what do you say to voters who hear you calling him an autocrat and they feel like they're getting whiplash. >> first off, i supported him in 2016 because he was going to be the nominee and i didn't want hillary clinton to be president of the united states. i make no apologies for that. i still don't want hillary clinton to be president of the united states. but i broke with him on election 2020. when you stand before the american people, behind the seal of the president in the east room of the white house and say the election has been stolen when it wasn't and there's no evidence to prove that it's stolen now nearly three years later, that to me was a

disqualifying moment for donald trump. he's continued to do that and worse since then and so -- listen, american elections are about who's left to vote for, and i made the decisions i made then and donald trump left me. i didn't leave him. >> governor christie, let me press you on that. as you know, that was not the first time that donald trump had claimed an election had been stolen. he claimed that 2016 in iowa was stolen when ted cruz won. he said that there were claims of fraudulent elections throughout the 2020 election. so this has been a pattern with him. i guess the question is why didn't you take a stand back then? >> i did take a stand when he said iowa was stolen. i was on the stage and said it was untrue. >> you have prepared him for a debate in 2016 against hillary clinton when he said he wouldn't accept the election results, governor. >> he didn't say -- look, kristen, the fact of the matter

is that i didn't want hillary clinton to be president of the united states, and this is much different. much different. when you're president of the united states and people think you actually know something, know something they don't know because you're president of the united states. that's what made what he did in 2020 so destructive and we know from looking at what's happened since then that a lot of american people believed it because he was president, because they thought he knew things they didn't know. that goes much further than anything you just mentioned and by the way, will not be the determinant thing in this election either, but people need to look at that history like i did and that's why i broke from him. >> governor christie, let's move on to senator menendez, do you think his indictment undercuts the republican argument that there are two tiers of justice in this country? >> i'm glad that the justice department acted. they acted on some very horrific facts. look, i did this, kristen, as

you know, for seven years as u.s. attorney of new jersey, the fifth largest office in the country. we did 130 corruption cases and never were defeated so i know a bit about this. there is no way that any public official has any legal or plausible or ethical explanation for having $500,000 in cash stuffed in jackets and envelopes throughout their home, gold bars that have the fingerprints and dna of someone who you were attempting to fix the system for. i commend the southern district of new york for doing the right thing. by the way, i do not believe the whole department of justice did something wrong. i believe what david weiss did in delaware was wrong with hunter biden and gave people the sense that there were two tiers. >> hunter biden has now been indicted. >> only after pressures, kristen. >> would you run against senator

menendez if you don't win in the fall? >> no. i have no interest of being in the united states senate. >> you rule it out completely. >> yes, i have throughout my entire career. i had the chance to appoint myself to the united states senate in 2013, kristen, when frank lautenberg passed away and i was governor. if i didn't appoint myself to the united states senate the easiest way to get there i sure as heck am not going to run for it. >> let me get your take on what's happening on capitol hill, the other big story, and the fact that we're careening toward a government shutdown. do you think speaker mccarthy is showing strong leadership? >> i think speaker mccarthy is managing a very difficult caucus under very difficult circumstances and doing the very best he can. we're going to see. he's paid to deliver results and we need to find a way to deliver -- to avoid a government

shutdown. it will be bad for the american economy and for the american people. >> do you think his speakership survives? >> i do. i think kevin mccarthy will continue to be speaker through the 2024 election and then if he's speaker in january 2025, i look forward to working with him as president to try to solve some of the problems that joe biden has created and solve some of the problems that donald trump didn't solve even though he promised he would, and i'll say this, kristen. you started off with some of the debate stuff and i'm looking forward to wednesday night. i'm looking forward to continuing to make my case there. it is unfortunate and selfish that donald trump will not be there, and people should go to chrischristie.com and donate so when donald trump does show up i'm the one there waiting for him. >> let me get one more thought here and one of the sticking points is over ukraine aid and i know you've been very robust in saying that should continue, but let me ask you on the subject of ukraine, when you said that donald trump in his first

impeachment, first threatening to withhold military aid to ukraine until president zelenskyy agreed to announce an investigation into joe biden, you said back then that donald trump's actions were, quote, a laudable, public policy role. last month, you said, quote, donald trump blackmailed them over their military aid in an attempt to get dirt on joe biden. which is it, governor? >> it's the latter. >> what changed? what changed, governor? >> we learned, kristen, we learned a great deal between when that comment was made which is when the phone call was first released to what we've learned now and that's the most important thing about someone who is running for president. what you need to do is to make sure that when you get all of the facts you don't stay handcuffed to something that you said when you didn't know all the facts and when you learn all of them you make sure you play it out and you let people know. look, i did that based on what i knew then, now that all of the facts are out we know exactly

when he did, and by the way, he's also made very clear that he didn't want to be supportive of ukraine anyway, kristen. he's made that clear by making clear he turned ukraine over to vladimir putin in 24 hours if he was president again. that's not the kind of person we want in the oval office. that's the kind of person that will destabilize europe and will destabilize the world with america by not being a leader. >> we know ukraine will be front and center on the debate stage this week. we'll be watching closely. governor chris christie, thank you very much for your time. we really appreciate it. >> kristen, thank you for having me on. i look forward to being back. >> we do, too. thank you. when we come back, it's chaos on capitol hill with days left before a government shutdown. jim clyburn of south carolina joins me next.

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issue democrats say is his top vulnerability. >> so i'm running again and you may noticed a lot of people are focused on my age. i know better than anyone. there's something else i know. when i came to office, this nation was flat on its back. i vaccinated the nation and rebuilt the economy. our democracy is still at stake. >> this shows the approval among black voters is down 17 points since the first year of his presidency and he is also down among latinos, voters without a college degree and independents and 59% of democratic primary voters tell us they want to see a challenger to president biden. i am joined now by a co-chair of

the president's 2024 campaign democratic congressman jim clyburn of south carolina. he is, of course, also assistant democratic leader in the house. congressman clyburn, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you very much for having me back. let's delve into some of these numbers. our poll shows president biden is in a dead heat with former president trump who has been indicted four times. why is that? >> i think the american people are focused on style than substance and that is the way it is in politics. joe biden is a man full of substance. the style is something that you get from another candidate, you won't get it from him. he believes in democracy, and he believes in the american dream, and he does what he possibly can to help people fulfill that dream and maintain this democracy and that is not the kind of stuff that you poll very well. >> congressman, our poll shows that the vast majority of democrats want to see a

challenger to president biden. is he the strongest candidate for 2024? >> i think he is the strongest candidate, and i believe very strongly that the american people believe that, as well. when you are -- i remember back -- was it 2010? 2012? we got shellacked in 2010. in 2012 all of the polls i saw said obama had no chance to get re-elected, democrats wanted an alternative to obama and what happened in 2012 is now history. he won very comfortably, and i think the same thing will happen here. >> well, as you know, in a close election, every single vote counts. >> absolutely. >> lay his support among african-american, latinos, young voters, has dropped. how do you make sure they don't stay at home, congressman? >> they will not stay at home.

we understand what's at stake here. the problem with me is i spend too much time studying history, and i see what's going on here. i know where the playbook came from that resulted in january 6th. it came from the 1876 elections, almost exactly, names, alternative electors. they had a scheme put together with the playbook that came out of that election and now that people are beginning to focus on that, and let me say something else, i was in that hall last night. i've been around here all week and african americans from all over country, if you think he's lost 17% support among african-americans you just have another thing coming. he is not in any trouble with african americans in this country. i guarantee you that.

>> all right, let's turn to vice president harris. do you see her as the future of the democratic party? >> i see her as a part of that future, absolutely. >> is she the future, though? is she the future of the democratic party? >> i think she could very well be. i think she is running a very good campaign. her speech last night was great, and i look to her as a successor to this president, but i also know the history of that, as well. it's not a given. you don't automatically move up. she'll have to compete going forward with whoever may have dreams and aspirations, and i think she will equip herself well. >> i know that you're saying you don't look at the polls too much, but our poll does show her favorability is actually lower than president biden and even than former president trump. why do you think she's not resonating more with voters. what do you think the issue is? >> when you compare the first woman of color and first woman

to be vice president of the united states and compare that to all of the history before, you will get that. i think that during this campaign she demonstrated as she did in that hall last night that she knows exactly what she's doing. she has the capacity and the capability to be president of the united states if called upon to do so. >> let's move on to what is happening where you spend your day every day on capitol hill and the potential government shutdown that is looming. it seems like, based on my conversations overnight, talking to republican sources, they are no closer to reaching a deal. now there's some action in the senate potentially trying to get something that democrats and republicans can support. tell me what you and other democrats are specifically doing to try to avoid a government shutdown. >> we believe, democrats believe very strongly that when you make

a deal you live by it, and the speaker made a deal to what the budget would look like. democrats agreed to it. house democrats -- democrats in the senate, even republicans in the senate agreed to it. they have marked up to those top lines and then all of a sudden mccarthy seemed to be backing away from the deal because five or six people on his side of the aisle seem to be calling the shots. the tail wagging the dog is not the way you do this. >> understood, but don't democrats, given that it's a potential government shutdown, bear some responsibility? is there any conversations -- are you having conversations behind the scenes to try to keep the government open? >> hakeem jeffries is a great leader and i think he's doing exactly what needs to be done to keep the lines of communication open. >> as we sit here today, do you think the government will shutdown? is it a foregone conclusion at this point? >> it is not a foregone conclusion and i don't think it

will get to that point. i hope it doesn't. >> senator menendez as he's been indicted, should he step down? i'm leaving that to democrats in new jersey. they have a democratic governor. >> but you're a democrat, congressman. doesn't this cast a cloud potentially over your party at a critical moment? should he step down? >> i don't think so. we have to compare apples to apples and when you compare apples to apples, i don't think you compare a united states senator to the president of the united states. that's a big, big difference. >> despite the fact that you have a long list of democrats who are now calling on him to step down, despite the fact that he's been accused of taking bribes to help egypt. again, innocent until proven guilty, but these are serious allegations. >> they are serious, and i read them, and i hope they are not true. i hope there's an explanation that he says there is, and i would like to hear it, but i will leave it up to him and his friends among the democrats in new jersey. >> let me ask you about the impeachment inquiry that is going to unfold this week on capitol hill. i know that you and your

fellow democrats have called this big politics. they're trying to see if there's any link between hunter biden and the president and his business dealings. are you comfortable with a family member profiting off their last name in this town? >> you know, we all to some extent live so that our children can be proud of the name that we've given them. i have three daughters, and i want them to feel very comfortable being a clyburn, and i do know that that is very, very important for going forward, but that doesn't mean that i want them to do things that are unseemly to the name. i do want them to use the name to their benefit. >> and yet, president biden according to one witness testimony was on the phone 20 times with hunter biden's business associates and described as pleasantries, but is that appropriate? >> i think it's appropriate to be a father to your son, and if your son is having a problem,

and we all know the history of the problem that hunter has with addiction, and he is being a father to his son. you don't impeach a man for being a father to his children. >> congressman jim clyburn, thank you so much for being here. >> thank you very much for having me. >> we really appreciate it. and when we come back, as president biden gets ready to join striking auto workers in michigan, is the white house push for electric vehicles at odds with what union workers want? transportation secretary pete buttigieg joins me next. want? transportation secretary pete buttigieg joins me next.

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welcome back. with the uaw strike now in its second week, president biden announced he's traveling to michigan on tuesday to, quote, join the picket line with the uaw members on strike against the nation's leading automakers. the trip will come a day ahead of former president trump's trip

wednesday and was announced just hours after the union president shawn fain publicly invited the president. joining me now is the secretary of transportation pete buttigieg. thank you very much for being on "meet the press." >> thanks for having me on. >> i want to talk about this potential government shutdown. all sides dug in on the republican house, understanding that the fight is over there, but take me behind the scenes, what is president biden, the administration, doing to try to avert a shutdown at this critical moment? >> president biden and the speaker of the house kevin mccarthy reached a deal earlier this year, so the focus of the administration is to get the house republicans to live up to the deal they already made. by the way, it wasn't the easiest deal to accept and it cuts things i was hoping to do in transportation. it's the deal that we have now for some house republicans to be propelling us toward shutdown means, among other things, that air traffic control training

would stop. it means that air traffic controllers who would go to the towers to work would not be getting paid. think how stressful of a job on the best of days and now we'd be asking them to show up to work without a paycheck. and all of the service members are not getting paid for all of the other things going on with the shutdown. >> i understand the fight is with the house, but again, if there's a shutdown it falls on everyone's shoulders. there is some movement, potentially in the democratic-led senate, is president biden doing anything and why not use his bully pulpit more? >> they're trying to get them to honor the deal they made. the administration is ready to go. >> does he have a role and a responsibility? >> the most frustrating thing is the president and the administration have a responsibility to make sure, no matter what congress does, that the country keeps on succeeding

and that's what we're doing, but we're doing it and he's leading us in doing it with the focus on not allowing a shutdown to happen in the first place and by the way, the cuts that house republicans are threatening the shutdown over will also cut into things. >> very quickly, do you think a shutdown is all, but inevitable at this point? >> it can't be. we can't let it be, this is no way to run the government of the most powerful nation on earth. >> let's turn to the uaw strike. president biden calls him the most pro-union president is heading there on tuesday, as i said, a day before former president trump, the gop front-runner is going. is president biden going to try to avert any potential momentum mr. trump can gain with union workers, that critical voting bloc? >> look, this is who president biden is, who is a deep pro-worker president. not only compared to the anti-union tendencies of the trump administration, and compared to any other modern president, president biden is proud to be the most

unapologetically pro-worker, pro-union president we've had and that will be on display when he's on those picket lines. we want the auto companies, the auto sector to succeed, as well, and are pushing the parties to get a win-win deal to be right by workers. >> what is a win-win deal? what does the president want to see out of this deal? does he want the workers to get the pay increases they're asking for? >> the president says when you have record profits there out to be record pay going to the workers that created that value and that's only fair and only sensible and by the way, it's in keeping of how the middle class was built in the first place. my hometown, south bend, indiana, home of uaw local 5 and local 9 and the unions and the president want to make sure that those jobs are good paying going into the future. >> let me try to pin you down a little bit more, one of the other items that labor workers are asking for a four-day workweek with five days of pay. does the president support that? >> is that a yes?

>> we're not at the table and part of the negotiations and not doing the numbers and that's for the companies and the unions to do. what the president is making clear is he's leading an economy needs to grow from the bottom up and the middle out and not the top down. it's a stark contrast from the economic vision you saw from the last administration or republicans who are more interested in corporate tax cuts and anti-union. >> let me ask you to respond to other issues. some republicans say that the push for electric vehicles to meet emission rules will ultimately cost workers jobs. how does the white house respond to that and do you see that as a real problem? >> workers are smarter than that, and the uaw has made clear that they are not trying to pretend that we can trap americans in the technologies of the past. most people who are clear headed about this recognize the transition to that new technology, that's already under way. it's happening with or without us and under the trump administration they allowed china to build an edge in that.

we're making sure that that is a made in america ev revolution. >> but evs do require fewer jobs. what happens to those positions, mr. secretary? >> we are going to see an auto sector grow on american soil where there will be more american jobs to be had and at best, evs are better vehicles including in the sense that they have fewer moving parts and they don't break down as often and they also represent a huge growth area for america to reclaim more of the sector. remember, after a manufacturing recession under the last administration, we're seeing a manufacturing boom under this administration. this really can be a win-win-win, and to be clear, there's no going back. this technology is coming to the global auto industry with or without us. the question is will american workers thrive? >> let me ask you about what we are seeing at the border. recently the administration sent active troops to the texas border to deal with a surge with migrants and some record numbers this past week. was the administration caught

off guard by this latest surge for migrants? >> what we saw we responded and proactive when necessary -- >> were you caught off guard? >> the president did what needed to be done and often that involves a rapid response like the rapid response that this administration directed and also when we see is a political dynamic where some people prefer to see the problem continue rather than to do something to solve it and that kind of reminds me of what's going on in the funding fight, where some of the very same people who would line up to take a shot at the administration over something like air travel disruptions, are also trying to disrupt us from training more traffic controllers. >> mr. secretary, just finally, i want to get your reaction to an opinion piece by david ignatius, he wrote, it's painful to say that given my admiration for much what they've had

accomplished, but if biden and harris campaign together in 2024 i think biden risks undoing his greatest achievement which was stopping trump. how do you respond to that? >> winning the election was the beginning, not the end of president biden's achievements, and since then, we have seen more jobs created than under any presidential term in american history. we've seen an infrastructure bill that so many others promised and failed to deliver. the achievements are being stacked one on top of another and that work needs to continue in the administration. obviously, i can't talk about the campaign side in this capacity, but look, we've got a lot to be proud of and i'm proud to serve under president biden and vice president harris. >> secretary buttigieg, thank you so much for joining the program this week. we really appreciate it. when we come back, the second republican primary debate is days away as the gop struggles with an identity crisis in the age of donald trump. we'll look at how one very

prominent republican once defined his party loyalty. s par.

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ronald reagan first joined this broadcast in 1966 as he was running for governor of candidate as a candidate who switched parties. here's how he describe himself. >> since i've become a republican, and i was a democrat most of my life, i believe that you play on the team, and i participated to the best of my ability and i didn't do anything in the '64 campaign that i didn't do in the other campaigns. >> have your views changed substantially in any regard since the 1964 campaign? >> no. as a matter of fact, my views haven't changed an awful lot since i was a democrat. i believe then that anything whether it came from labor, management or government that imposed unfairly on the individual or the freedom of the individual was tyranny and should be opposed. i still feel that way. when we come back, president biden has reached the highest disapproval rating of his presidency. how worried are democrats? plus, can kevin mccarthy still do his job? the panel is next. ts? p

welcome back. the panel is here. nbc news chief white house correspondent peter alexander. amna nawaz, co-anchor of pbs newshour and leigh ann caldwell, anchor of washington post live. thanks to all of you for being here today. peter, i want to start with you and obviously, our poll has really concerning numbers for the white house, particularly on the economy. how is the white house dealing with these broader concerns about his re-election? >> it's not good news for this white house, certainly. they dismiss polls like these, national polls saying nobody votes on a national basis. it's the states that matter and we're a year out from the election, but all of that acknowledges the fact that this is a big issue, both the president's age and the issue of the economy.

you showed the numbers on each of those issues, nearly three in four americans have a real concern about age and it forced this white house to lean into two things. one is the contrast with donald trump earlier than they may have wanted to based on the conversations with democratic allies right now. we've heard him sort of sharpen his language and it's the end of the spending quarter so a lot of it's been at fund-raisers and saying donald trump is trying to destroy democracy and they've lifted up their spending and the biggest ad buy ever in battleground states this early for a re-election campaign. they had one of the first ads in the united states was about the trip to ukraine the president took. it wasn't about the issue of ukraine and it was on the topic of stamina that gets right to the topic of his age. >> that's really a fascinating point and trying to have that show of force standing there with president zelenskyy. let me pivot to you, on that point because when you look at what voters are saying, and i think we have this poll, look at how many of them say that they would potentially back a third-party candidate. if you add it all up it adds up

to 14%. >> that's right. >> that has to be a real concern for the white house and for biden allies because of course, a third-party candidate, if one does get into the race until the end, the thinking is it would hurt president biden. >> and you notice a three-point difference between mr. trump and mr. biden is within the margin of error so not great numbers and that we're hearing mr. kennedy is considering a third party run now and he's already been polling in double digits in some cases in just looking at potential democratic primary and this is why every single constituency matters and that's why this uaw strike really makes a difference for president biden because this is a group that helped put mr. trump into the white house in 2016 with just enough voters there in 2020 and they broke for president biden by 56-42 for then-president trump and in 2023, what we are seeing is a backsliding in support there. when you're talking about voters who do not have a college degree, we've seen a softening of support there.

similar to the softening you covered earlier with black voters, latino voters and independent voters and that enthusiasm gap is a huge concern for the biden administration. >> the concern, leigh ann, that these core constituencies will stay at home. you are talking to democrats on capitol hill, what are they saying about these numbers, these numbers consistent with past numbers that we've seen with the deep concerns about the economy? >> i think you hit it and the polls said something similar from what i'm hearing from democrats and the concern about the enthusiasm and the motivation and one thing that the nbc poll pointed out today is that a majority of voters were more interested in voting for biden because they did not like donald trump and that is not a good sign to turning out the base, and so concerns on capitol hill are big, but people are also saying it's kind of late to make a change. >> it is, and amna, to the point

that you're making -- or peter, i should say to the point amna is making about uaw, here, you will have this split screen with president biden in michigan and then former president trump on wednesday in detroit. he's trying to counterprogram the gop primary debate, but talk about the politics of this decision to go because some union workers on the front line say don't turn this into a political event. we want a deal. >> democratic officials, we should say, nbc news has invited president biden to come out on labor day. the president balked at that and is now going to be going after shawn fain, the uaw president invited him. one, the white house is trying to figure out who the president shawn fain is and the president doesn't have a long relationship with him. he's a bernie progressive, right, and it's made it more complicated and when the president gets out there this week as you speak to democratic allies they say two things, one, this is the most obvious thing

to the president and core to who he is, and two, they acknowledge this is a bit of a risk because by going to the picket lines you also potentially own the outcome here and if it's not the one that the uaw workers like, perhaps, it could be a problem. it is a delicate, tricky political scene. >> fascinating point. let's turn to the shutdown, speaking of owning the outcome. republicans are deadlocked. leigh ann, it doesn't look like there is an end in sight? how does this end? are we headed to a shutdown? >> we absolutely are headed to a shutdown. this is a shutdown because republicans cannot agree. it's not a shutdown because there's a disagreement between republicans and democrats. kevin mccarthy has a choice, it's up to him on if they want a shutdown. >> this is a big week for the president because he'll be going to arizona the day after the debate by the republicans, right? and the focus is it's been all

about democracy, we'd heard, and it's about bipartisanship and in large part that's a reaction that the white house has tried to brand as the republican shutdown. susan collins even acknowledges things like this don't go well for republicans. >> amna, it's true, if there is a shutdown, you have republicans saying historically we bear the brunt of that. that's going to hurt us. >> you have some republicans saying that. you have speaker mccarthy saying that, senate republicans saying that, i spoke with house freedom caucus member congressman ralph norman last week. he's 100% sure they're headed to the shutdown. look, kristen, the math ain't mathing. they want to see a top line number and they offered 1.471. they haven't seen a top line number from leadership, but yes, the idea is if there is a shutdown it hurts the economy. we know that's to be true. and to bring it full circle, if the economy does get hit that's also bad for this

president, though, and the inflation is coming down and they need to strengthen their campaign next year. fantastic conversation. thank you all of you. that is all for today. thank you for watching. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." let's be clear, if the government shuts down that means members of congress, members of the u.s. military are going to have to continue to