to say it's time for men na december to step down. this is a different place than where we were during the senator's first indictment back in 2015. now it seems like an overwhelming majority of democrats are calling on him to step aside. i was in a press conference with peter agular, the chair of the house democratic caucus. he said that it is time for menendez to step down. forceful condemnation as we see menendez continues to deny his wrongdoing. >> thank you for being with us. we will stay on this. we will monitor that. you will see it immediately as it happens. before we go, a personal note. today is our second show anniversary here on msnbc. i want to let you know how incredibly essential people are behind the scenes of this program. this broadcast can serve you, our audience.

it's a privilege to work with this extraordinary team. i thank them for their constant work and love of craft. i thank you for the privilege of your time. that wraps up the hour. andrea mitchell picks up with more news right now. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," robert menendez and his wife appeared for their arraign money and pleaded not guilty in manhattan on federal bribery charges. the senator's grip on his seat slips with a growing majority of his democratic colleagues calling for his resignation. it's debate night at the reagan library. seven republican primary candidates try to break away from the pack. the heavy favorite, former president trump, skipping the debate but heading to an event for striking auto workers in michigan. the house and senate remain far apart on a way to avert a government shutdown three days from now. breaking news overseas. travis king, the american

soldier who crossed into north korea in july, is back in u.s. custody. officials say happy to be back. ♪♪ good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. moments ago, in a manhattan courtroom, bob menendez, his wife, and two of their co-defendants were arraigned on bribery charges that have rocked the senate and produced skanling headlines. the news on capitol hill today, illinois senator dick durbin, the number two democrat in the caucus, becoming the most high profile senator to call for his colleague's resignation, citing similar statements from new jersey governor phil murphy, senator cory booker from new jersey and 27 other sitting senators. the big question for the democratic party, will their senate majority leader, chuck schumer and possibly president biden now follow suit and apply the same type of pressure that could get a defiant menendez to

resign? joining me now, ken dilanian, former assistant manhattan district attorney catherine christian and former obama white house deputy chief of staff jim messina. what's the latest from the courtroom, ken? what's next for senator menendez? >> what's next is now the long slog, as he prepares for a criminal trial. we know that that can take as long as a year. he pleaded not guilty. he is professing his innocence. resisting calls to resign. new nbc news reporting, led by our colleague, that says there's also separate from the criminal probe, an fbi counterintelligence investigation looking at the question of whether egyptian intelligence services were involved in this bribery scheme where the senator is accused of secretly aiding the government of egypt and exploiting his position as the powerful chairman of the foreign relations committee to do that. as you said, i have new

reporting this morning highlighting the fact that senator menendez single handedly blocked, in 2020, legislation that would have updated and reformed and strengthened the foreign agents' registration abt, that law governing foreign lobbies in the united states, requiring all foreign agents to register with the attorney general and disclose their lobbying activity. it's rarely enforced. penalties are not substantial. there was a widespread belief by both democrats and republicans that it needs to be reformed, there needed to be changes. there was legislation that senator grassley brought to the floor back in 2020. it had the support of mark warner, ranking democrat on the intelligence committee, feinstein and other democrats. senator menendez used his power to object to unanimous consent and blocked the passage of the bill. at the time he said that his reasoning was that there needed to be more thought given to what

reforms should happen to this law. he said he personally was in favor of strengthening the law but wasn't ready at that time. now obviously, his actions are viewed in a different light knowing that according to the fbi and the justice department, he was engaged at that moment in a bribery scheme in which he was allegedly secretly aiding the government of egypt. >> i have some additional reporting from our end to add to your reporting. in separate legislation that was co-sponsored by then congressman tom malinowski of new jersey, a previous human rights advocate and previous human rights state department appointee, an assistants secretary of state, and he has always been suspicious and now is more suspicious since this indictment because somehow his bill died in the senate. it had bipartisan support. it was to withhold some of the annual $1.3 billion that egypt gets from the united states in

foreign aid, military aid, because of their human rights abuses of the egyptian government. somehow, despite broad support, bipartisan support, it died in the senate. he never, until the indictment, realized who might have put his finger on the scale. that's not proof positive, but it's strong suspicion that that aid to egypt went through untethered because of the untoward and perhaps illegal influence of bob menendez. it's something we have to further investigation. tom malinowski said yesterday on this program he believes that's the case. catherine, i want to bring you. your experience as a prosecutor in manhattan to get a sense how difficult this is. how bad is it for menendez? normally, senators give a fellow democratic senator some slack, despite an indictment. this indictment, this speaking

indictment was so incriminating because of the gold bars and the cash in his jacket and everything else. they have been lining up now in the last 24 hours. you have i think 29 democratic senators, more than half saying that he should resign, including dick durbin, the number two to chuck schumer. >> i think it's because of his last indictment, which he wasn't convicted. the jury could not come to a decision. it was a hung jury. now we have another indictment. this one is very factually detailed. their allegations so he is innocent until proven guilty. it's heavily detailed on facts. the search warrant of his house found -- he said there was money because he was -- he is not a cuban immigrant. he was born in new york. because of his cuban background, he just had been saving money and keeping cash around his house. the prosecutors say that some of

that cash and some of the envelopes it was in had the fingerprints and dna of one of his co-defendants. the gold bars and then the mercedes-benz and the trove of text messages that the prosecutors have, the photographs the prosecutors have. this is a lot of evidence that has to be proven at trial. but this, unlike the last indictment where there was a hung jury, it's very, very -- it seems very strong evidence that still has to be proven, but it's a bucket load of evidence, which prosecutors would say. >> i want to ask you about this third indicted, i guess conspirator. i don't know how you legally call him. the third person in the indictment had been in egypt and came back voluntarily yesterday. was arrested at jfk. was arraigned last night. let out on $5 million bail.

he was a key person between menendez and the egyptian government. there is a -- he was a longtime friend even meeting the senator, of his then girlfriend now wife. he is a major player. >> major, that's mr. hanner. you pointed out what's striking about this indictment is how the senator's wife is all through it. she's the one who had the longstanding relationship -- friendship, i'm not taking romantic, with mr. hanner. they were the ones allegedly that introduced the senator to the egyptian contacts. another co-defendant is a longtime friend of mr. hanner. and mr. dabi is a fund-raiser for the senator. all five defendants -- they are

all connected and have long-term relationships. particularly the senator's wife. she's really all through this indictment. >> the fact is -- let me bring in ken dilanian again. the timing of this is, the previous indictment in that case was dropped after the mistrial. prosecutors didn't feel they could proceed. it was only after that that his wife met him. she told "the new york times" in a subsequent interview, it was at an ihop and they were attracted to each other and they courted through 2018 and married in 2020. there was a public -- they did a video proposal outside the taj mahal. ken, you know that sequence. are they looking into her relationship potentially, whether there is or is not, with the egyptian government? >> that's our understanding. they are looking at that question. it is remarkable, just shortly

after he gets clear of the previous corruption case, the justice department announces they are not retrying the case, his soon to be wife meets him in a union city, new jersey, ihop. five months later, they are engaged to be married. according to the indictment, she introduced him to the egyptian american businessman and to another figure who he is accused of intervening in a criminal case. these were not friends of his. they were friends of hers. at one point in the email and text chains, the egyptian american businessman referred to the senator as our man. that's the kind of language. he had connections to the egyptian government. that's the language that will peak the interest of fbi counterintelligence officials who are trying to make sure this is in addition to an alleged bribery scheme, trying to figure out whether it was a foreign influence scheme.

>> i want to bring in lindsey reiser who is outside the courthouse. let me ask catherine, what is legally happening to him at this arraignment? i know it was off camera. it's a federal courthouse. would there be a mug shot? would they take fingerprints? what is the procedure? >> yes. he would be processed -- first of all, he reporting is he pled not guilty. they would be fingerprint and have their photographs taken, which will not be revealed to the public. i would be interested to know if senator menendez and his wife are represented by the same attorney, or do they have separate attorneys? the same attorney means that they are sort of a joint defense. as i said, his wife is all through the indictment. his wife is the one who introduced him to the co-defendant. she's the one that had the long-term friendship with him. it will be interesting if they have separate attorneys.

>> it was also that she texted -- there's the email chain with her, but he was, for whatever reason, not texting. lindsey reiser, you are outside the courthouse. what is the situation there? is there a crowd? >> reporter: yeah, behind me you see a throng of media and cameras. there's a truck. you see a glimpse behind me, in addition to that live shot that we have outside the courtroom, there's one of two exits that the parties can exit the courtroom from. we have the courthouse, rather. we have cameras at either one. unclear if the senator or his co-defendants will make any comments or their attorneys. we do know that he has remained defiant throughout this process. first from the statement on friday, and then those on-camera statements in which he refused to answer questions on monday, in which he said he believes he will be exonerated. he said he believes after this that he will remain new jersey

senior senator. he has not clarified whether he intends to run again when his term is up in 2024. our capitol hill team tracked him down yesterday in washington, d.c. in the halls of congress. he said that he will remain doing the job of the people that new jersey elected him to do. notable, of course, the cascade of senators that we have heard on the democratic side who have called for his resignation, including cory booker, saying that the allegations have just shocked constituents and people inside the senate with who he has to work day to day, shaken them to their core. although senators are held to the same criminal standards as everybody else, they are held to a higher common ideal standard. this is notable. cory booker has been one of his allies. he was a character witness in that 2015 indictment that you have been discussing, that led to the hung jury in 2017. it's unclear if there will be any statements today. we are watching and waiting.

today in the courtroom behind me, all parties pleading not guilty. senator menendez and his wife were in one row. others were behind him in another row. there were conditions for release that the judge said. $100,000 bond for senator menendez. he has to surrender his personal passport. he can travel internationally on official business. >> jim messina, adding to what lindsey was telling us, what is the president likely to do, what is chuck schumer likely to do? i was interviewing john kirby. he said we don't discuss anything in the justice department. that's what they have been saying about hunter biden and about donald trump. are they going to break precedent and say something about this out of the white house? >> reporter: you have just two very different reactions from the two major political parties. you have 30 democratic senators calling for his resignation. you have kevin mccarthy refusing to call for george santos' resignation after his

indictments. only mitt romney is the only republican senator who said that donald trump, who has 91 felony counts against him, shouldn't run. you have one fully functioning democratic party saying, look, our guy, the guy elected as a democratic senator from new jersey, should resign. he can't do his day job. you and i know how the senate works. i worked there over a decade. right now, he will be a pariah. no one will sponsor bills with him, work with hill on

he can't functionally do the job

of united states senator. he should resign and get this period past him so the people of new jersey can be ably represented. >> of course, governor murphy is a democrat. he would appoint a democrat to replace him, presumably. it's a 50/50 senate. if he runs in a primary, as he indicated he would, in '24 when he is up, if it's a crowded field, andy kim, a democratic congressman from new jersey, has declared. others will line up. if it's a crowded field with the power that he has over the hudson county machine, his home base, he could win against a crowded field. what would that do as he is going into a trial? >> reporter: yeah. in theory, he could win. the problem here is that new jersey is a democratic state. it's not that democratic. governor murphy had a close election last night. democrats would understand they could lose the senate seat.

we just can't have that. it's likely that democrats would consolidate behind one candidate who is not bob menendez, to make sure that bob menendez is not the nominee because he would lose the general election. >> ken, catherine, jim, stand by. we will wait for senator bob menendez to come out and see whether he or and/or wife speak or his lawyers. bring that to you live. big news today on private second class travis king. the american soldier who intentionally ran across the north korean border this summer, is back in u.s. custody and appears to be in good health. and in good spirits after months of intensive diplomacy to get him out. sweden went into north korea, bringing private king across the border, once north korea agreed. they signalled a month ago they were willing to let him go. he went across the border to

china. according to u.s. officials who spoke to us this morning, they say that china then played a big role by letting the u.s. pick him up in china so they could bring him out of china to a u.s. military base. king was supposed to be headed back to texas following his release from prison in south korea on an assault conviction. u.s. say their focus is on his physical and social well-being. a spokesperson for his mother writes -- joining me now is victor chau. victor, big question, why did north korea expel travis king, let him go? we are told that there were no concessions made by the u.s. to get him out.

>> it's quite interesting. it's not what we normally expect of north korea. i think in the end, they interrogated him. they understood the circumstances under which he left. they thought, we don't want him in the country. they let him go. as you know in the past, north korea has held americans and has really tried to extract concessions, asking former presidents to come and take out these americans with big public apologies attached to them. this time, it seems like they handled it in a very business-like manner. the swedes played a big role. sweden is our protecting power there. they managed to coordinate with the chinese to get private king over to the united states through china. >> i don't know whether it was in 2009 or 2010, but i remember clinton and gore went to north

korea to bring out lisa ling. >> that's right. they were taken into custody. initially, to get them out in a negotiation, the united states offered for former vice president gore to go, who was involved with a publishing company the two journalists were with. the north koreans didn't want him. they wanted the former president. so president clinton went in to get them. then he had to take a picture with kim jong-un and had dinner with him. in this case, the north koreans didn't do that. i'm sure they quarantined king for at least a month to make sure he didn't have covid. they made a decision not to make it a political issue and simply to send him out of the country. >> i was on a call with u.s. officials this morning about this. it was a big effort between the state department, military, of

course, and also you had the u.n. involved. you had the u.n. military command, which is at the dmz in south korea, involved. it was a very -- and sweden. it was not china that mediated the release. it was sweden that went in and was talking to the north koreans. the previous release that we referred to back when president clinton went was kim's father. the younger kim, who has been mostly active in setting off ballistic missiles and a new submarine launch and other aggressive moves, could this release of an american soldier lead to better communication? there's been none since president biden was elected. >> it's a good question. it's really -- it's difficult to say, frankly, right now, andrea. the north koreans are very solicitous of putin and russia because of the arms deal for ukraine.

they don't appear to be interested in talking to the biden administration. nevertheless, as you said, others were involved in this. perhaps there's an opportunity for dialogue. sweden's role is very important. they are our protecting power when it comes to north korea. you may remember in 2007, when we arrived at the airport, the swedish ambassador was there to meet us. not a u.s. embassy control officer. we don't have an embassy there. we have to thank the swedes for the role they played in this. in any situation like this, behind the scenes, state, nsc, u.s. fk, united nations command were probably all working to get private king out. >> victor, your aid is invaluable today, your expertise. thank you. living on the edge. with the possible deal in the senate, there's no agreement in the house makin a shutdown in three days likely and no deal between the house and the

senate. capitol hill coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports." we are in shutdown countdown, only on msnbc. n shutdown countd only on msnbc. y free & gentle downy will soften your clothes without dyes or perfumes. the towel washed with downy is softer, and gentler on your skin. try downy free & gentle. this is spring semester at fairfield-suisun unified. they switched to google tools for education because there's never been a reported ransomware attack on a chromebook. now they're focused on learning knowing that their data is secure. ( ♪♪ ) when you shop wayfair, you get big deals for your home - every day. is secure. so big, we'll have you saying... am i a big deal? yeah you are, because it's a big deal, when you get a big deal. wayfair deals so big that you might get a big head. because with savings so real... you can get your dream sofa for half the price. wayfair. it's always a big deal.

♪ wayfair, you've got just what i need ♪ ♪ if you struggle. ♪ and struggle. ♪ and struggle with cpap. you should check out inspire. ♪ no mask. no hose. just sleep. inspire. sleep apnea innovation. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com (vo) in three seconds, janice will win a speedboat. learn more and view important safety information (woman) bingo! i'm moving to the lake. gotta sell the house. (vo) ooh! that's a lot of work. (woman) ooh! (vo) don't worry. skip the hassels and sell directly to opendoor. (woman) bingo. (vo) get your competitive offer at opendoor dot com.

the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network.

let's go back to the federal courthouse in lower manhattan. there could be some action coming soon. we have tom winter, who was inside the courtroom for the arraignment. tom, tell us what happened on this incredible case. >> reporter: that's right,

andrea. the senator is in the lobby of the courthouse about to come out to the black suv after pleading not guilty to a host of charges tied to bribery. the hearing, not lasting too long, as you would expect. the senator did not enter the plea himself. he had his attorney do that. he was seated ten feet from me. he entered the courtroom at 11:13 a.m. eastern time this morning. adjacent to him, one of the defense tables, was his wife who is also charged in this case. the senator wearing a black pin-stripe soon with a white shirt and navy tie. just answered yes or no questions to the judge when prompted to do so. he is out on bail, as you know by now. he will be able, along with the other defendants, to be out pending this trial. he has to surrender his personal passport. his official passport, the one he would carry if he was on an official congressional delegation abroad, that he can keep. he can go abroad for any sort of

business that's official with the senate. obviously, now stepping down or at least temporarily stepping back from the senate foreign relations committee, but somebody who has a lot of business overseas. part of that is one of the reasons why he has been charged here. >> his business overseas is also going to be very much under the spotlight. he is a member of the committee. he is just not the chairman, as i understand it. he could be on one of the congressional delegations. >> reporter: that's right. thank you for that clarification. it's that overseas component that sparked a counterintelligence investigation as our colleague reported yesterday, the counterintelligence investigation is underway into the senator's wife to determine whether or not she could have been used by egyptian intelligence. there's a number of egyptian government officials and intelligence officers who are referenced in the indictment, not necessarily named.

obviously, a number of details in there about the senator's interactions and his wife's alleged interactions with the egyptian government and intelligence officers there. something that stuck out to me, the cash that was allegedly found in the senator's jackets, the gold bars we have allegedly -- that we have been talking about that are an alleged part of the case, but it was the senator's discussion or passing along of the amount of people that were in the u.s. embassy, two egyptian officials. that alarmed u.s. intelligence officials. as you know from covering the foreign beat and the state beat so long, that information can sometimes be helpful to foreign governments to determine who is doing what in the embassy and who might be there as a secretary or typist, but maybe is there on an intelligence mission for the united states. those are more details and more reporting to be done on that.

it's not necessarily surprising that federal counterintelligence investigators might be looking to see if someone was an unwitting agent, doing work on behalf of the egyptians. that is something we will track and closely follow during this case. the u.s. attorney said when announcing the charges, this is very much an ongoing investigation. just because the senator was charged last week doesn't mean that that's the period on the end of the case. >> tom, one other thing i wanted to raise with you. we were told that -- the indictment says the co-defendants were longtime friends of nadine menendez, not the senator. she was the introducer of the fellow defendants. one of the things that catherine christian was saying, the former prosecutor, was that she wanted to see whether nadine and senator menendez are having

separate or shared attorneys. what was the representation like for the two of them? >> reporter: they have separate counsel. they have separate counsel. they are represented by different law firms and different counsel. to clarify something i said before, i said they were adjacent at the defense table. the way the court is laid out, that's common. i could not imagine a scenario where you and i would be charged in the same case, but if we were, even if we had different interests and different counsel, it wouldn't be unusual to have both sides kind of sitting in the same row, if you will, but this clearly is a distinction between the two. it's the way the courtroom is laid out. it's not what you might envision in a courtroom where one side are prosecutors and one side is defense. the prosecutors sit in the first row. there are rows for defense and people charges behind them. to give you a little bit of a sense of the way things are set up. to your specific point, to the technical question, do they have separate attorneys, yes, they do.

>> i want to bring catherine in. you raised that very smart point. it does indicate, they have separate experiences, separate life experiences. she was texting, he was not. you could see a case where they are not pursuing the same legal track. >> when you have one attorney representing two people, all of the communication with that attorney have to be shared by the two clients. they have their own separate attorneys, whatever the senator says to his attorney, that attorney will not and cannot tell his wife and vice versa, the wife whatever she says to her attorney. that attorney for senator menendez may say, i think you should do x, y, z. the attorney for the wife could say the same thing. they are a married couple. their communications are each other are privileged. they don't have to reveal to each other what their attorneys are saying to them. i think it's interesting. it's usually a good thing, but

it's interesting they have separate attorneys. like i said, his wife is all over it. she's the one who got the car. she's the one who reached out to the manhattan jeweller to try to sell the gold. she's the one who did most of those text messages. she's the one who made the introduction to the co-defendant and then to the egyptian officials. she's all over it. i also want to say that the call for his resignation, as a criminal defense strategy, it's not good for him to resign. i'm talking strictly as a criminal defense strategy. you want to walk around, i'm still the senator. you want the perspective juror panel to see you are going to d.c. probably none of his colleagues will be photographed with him. he keeps the trappings of being a senator. for a criminal defense strategy, he is probably not going to resign. >> as well as for income, in fact. >> that, too. >> it's true that this is not a

longstanding marriage. she met him in 2018 after his previous case was dismissed. they said they met at an ihop. they very quickly, within five months, were engaged and married. we will be back if the senator and his wife come out and start talking. let's go to capitol hill for a moment. with three days to go, this is important. it's looking increasingly likely that washington is headed towards a government shutdown. slight movement on the hill. th hse is pushing ahead with four long-term spending bills that are non-starters in the senate. different levels of spending and different ingredients. the senate is working on a short-term deal to keep the government open. the senate deal doesn't include cuts that house republicans are demanding and continuous funding ukraine through early november. a key goal of the white house and the state department and the military. joining us now from capitol hill

is ryan nobles and former top aide to john boehner, brendan buck, who was involved in the negotiations to end the 2013 government shutdown. ryan, where do things stand now? why is kevin mccarthy now calling to sit down with the president? >> reporter: it seems late in the game for that. doesn't it? we have known this is something that needed to be done for months. here we are three days away. the situation right now is that in the past, there was a way to get around this. if you weren't ready to pass a long-term spending bill, you would pass what's called a continuing resolution, a short-term spending bill. that would give you time to negotiation. but they have become a political pariah for republicans in the house of representatives. many of them have said that they are never going to vote for one. when you are in a situation where you don't have an exit strategy to at least move the ball down the road so you can continue broader negotiations, you are left in a position where there's a standoff between the two sides.

that's something that is frustrating the more establishment republicans that have been around and have seen this play out in the past and have seen what losers shutdowns are for both political parties. listen to how the senate minority leader mitch mcconnell talked about it this morning. >> we can shut the government down in exchange for zero meaningful progress on policy. these important discussions cannot progress if congress simply fails to complete our work on the standard short-term funding. the basic functions of government end up being taken hostage. >> reporter: mcconnell's point is, just keep the government off for two, three weeks, maybe two months so we can have conversations about the larger budget agreement. right now, house republicans don't see it that way. that's part of the reason we are barrelling toward a shutdown this weekend. >> brendan, you have been

through these before. from president biden's perspective, he made a deal with senator mcconnell, kevin mccarthy, senator schumer, obviously. there was a four-way bipartisan agreement on spending back in july to avoid the debt ceiling crisis. having agreed to those levels, why should he sit down with kevin mccarthy if kevin mccarthy can't get those handful of runaway hard right republicans who want deeper cuts than what was agreed to in july, which everyone thought was settling this? >> i don't think he will sit down with kevin mccarthy to do that, for the reasons you laid out. that deal, in fact, is what underlies all of the problems that kevin mccarthy has. kevin mccarthy did i think a pretty impressive job getting a bipartisan debt limit deal and slipped one by the more conservative members. it wasn't until after it passed that they started having temper tantrums. you did that debt limit deal.

we will hold you accountable on government spending. that changed the dynamics. this was supposed to allow for a bipartisan process where we are able to appropriate money in a functioning way that we haven't been able to do in decades. how has thatseratives are angry. i don't think kevin mccarthy disagrees with anything mitch mcconnell said. kevin mccarthy knows they are a loser. you have a handful of these members who refuse to accept anything based in reality. he may just have to prove to them that he is willing to shut it down, he is willing to fight, willing to bleed with them to get the permission to do the very obvious thing that's necessary, which is do a short-term funding bill so that we can keep the lights on. this is so -- the idea that this is broken down over a simple thing is quite unusual. it does not bode well for what a long-term solution will look like later in the year.

>> quickly, brendan, they have to -- to get anything through, they need to go to democrats. >> yeah. that's the problem. you have house republicans who say they won't -- they will remove him from office if he does anything with democrats. democrats control the senate. democrats control the white house. you can't do anything without democrats. they are setting up a standard that they know he cannot meet. ultimately, yes, there's going to have to be something done with democrats. he will have to show them he is willing to fight for a little while before he does that obvious thing. >> ryan, brendan, thanks. can any of donald trump's rivals break through as the frontrunner is skipping the debate tonight, the second one? what to watch for next on "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪

bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ want a smarter way to mop? introducing the new swiffer powermop. an all-in-one cleaning tool with a 360-degree swivel head that goes places a regular mop just can't. mop smarter with the new swiffer powermop.

tonight's debate at the reagan library will give donald trump's challengers a critical chance to narrow the former president's overwhelming lead. former president is not attending the republican presidential debate. instead, he is running a general election strategy against president biden by appearing a day after the president walked the picket lines with striking auto workers. this time in detroit and at a non-union plant. joining me is garrett haake, tim

miller, david jolly and maria theresa cumar. garrett, it's the scene of everyone but the frontrunner who is pulling farther ahead in our poll this week, farther ahead from the second place candidate, ron desantis, with nikki haley having the best post-debate showing in the polls. >> reporter: yeah, that's right. haley was the only candidate who had measurable polling growth nationally or in one of the early states after the first debate. it was donald trump who managed to widen his lead over the field after the first debate that he skipped. that's the challenge for the other seven candidates who will be on stage tonight. how do you manage a moment that matters meaningfully when the frontrunner is ahead by 43 points? that's the gulf in the nbc poll between donald trump and ron desantis.

how do you manufacture that and get the voters who are backing trump to care about it at a debate they may not be watching because the frontrunner will have another event streamed live on another channel at the same time? there's different strategies at play here. if you are ron desantis or mike pence, you may try to come at trump from the right on his comments about abortion. perhaps chip away support there. trump has in his back pocket the fact he appointed the justices behind the dobbs decision. that may be a weakness of that strategy. you could do what nikki haley done, continue to make it an electability argument. suggest trump is the most unpopular politician in the country. also true based on polling. she might try to build on the fact there's polling showing her facing off the best against joe biden. these are difficult bank shot arguments to make to an electorate who is mostly focussed on a frontrunner who will not be sharing the stage with these candidates as they try to build something out of effectively nothing in the

attention economy that donald trump has dominated thus far in the race. >> thank you so much to garrett haake out there in california. tim miller, first of all, how do they run against trump without making him a larger figure by going after him? what does chris christie do, for instance, whose whole campaign is to be the one person left standing who is going hard against donald trump when donald trump is not present? >> i don't know that what chris christie does matters that much. i think if you look at polls, republican primary voters have -- feel better about robert f. kennedy junior, the democrat, because of his anti-vaccine stance, than they do about chris christie and mike pence. these are folks that republican voters are not interested in hearing from. i would go further than garrett went. the first debate ended up becoming absolutely meaningless. you show poll numbers on the screen. look at the polling averages,

donald trump stayed absolutely steady. ron desantis ticked down a little bit. nikki haley went up from five to seven. tim scott went down a little bit. all that was is nothing. nikki haley, i guess she got a bump. she's losing by 45 points. this is a blowout. none of these candidates -- to make an electability argument when donald trump is tied with joe biden in national polls, no republican voters are buying that. unless they go on stage tonight and actually deliver a forceful argument against trump that might appeal to republican primary voters, what are we doing here? this is just a waste of everybody's time. >> david jolly, was it a waste of time for ron desantis? he didn't move the needle at all. if anything, moved it down after the first debate. what does he have to do? what is his mission tonight? >> i agree with tim. this is a big night for each of the candidates.

likely not a big night for the race. it's a 40-point race. nothing is moving that. if you are the candidates, this is your opportunity to try to solidify a second place in this race. maybe set yourself up for a future run or position. what ron desantis or nikki haley or any candidate who try tonight that has not been done is to speak not to the moderators, speak not to each other on the stage. go to the republican voters and make your ernest and sincere case as to why you are the better vessel for maga nation and republicanism than donald trump. is it electability? is it something else? go to the voters and say, i am the person to make this case to joe biden. will it be enough? probably not. if you are just going at each other on the stage, you might secure that number two spot, but that spot is 40 points behind the frontrunner, donald trump. >> if donald trump is the biggest figure overshadowing and another figure overshadowing this debate is ronald reagan,

who was the greatest performer of any of the recent modern presidents. what happens with the anchor who is co-moderating the debate, fox debate? president biden's approval with latino voters is 43%. it's not great. there could be an opening for one of the republican candidates to break through perhaps with latino voters. >> it wasn't lost on the irony they are doing it at the ronald reagan library. when he was debating then president nominee bush, they were fighting for the latino vote. they were talking about undocumented, compassionate conservatism. where the party has come since then, it's unrecognizable to many republicans. i do think while people are saying there's a latino defense to the republican party, poll after poll and turnout after

turnout shows that's a mirage. there's a slight shift among older voters in the latino community, sure. the majority of latinos are under the age of 30 and the people that are open to democratic ideals and are very much alive with biden but don't know it are young people. i think this is an opportunity for everybody to not only share the stage, sure, and debate among how they are ideally not like the maga republicans if they have a case to win a marginal amount of latino voters. it's an opportunity for the american people to recognize once again what is at stake next election. what is at stake is absolutely our democracy. when you talk to latino voters about the democratic ideals and the reason many of their families fled anti-democratic governments, they get it. i do think it's an opportunity at the same time for the democrats to double down and recognize that it's not enough to wink at them, but investment

among latino youth will shore up the opportunity for defending our democracy come november. it's good for the american public to hear these individuals. none of them have been able to espouse democratic ideals in a way that is modern modern and future looking. so that's when i'm looking for. i'm looking to see who, you know, is there a nikki haley moment where she not only snubs vivek, but also comes out on the right side of democracy and possibly talks about the importance of welcoming immigrants and not demagoging them. >> tim miller, who is most likely to be forward leaning on that subject? nikki haley coming from an immigrant family? >> boy, i think that most of those candidates are worried about covering their right flank and their maga flank. you know, you saw desantis go hard on this. nikki haley and tim scott have not exactly been representing bush, mccainism on immigration.

chris christie, i'm not seeing it right now. i think the party is pretty all in on the pivot towards a born nationalist, you know, antiimmigrant view. i'd love to be surprised about that, but i'm not holding my breath. >> tim miller, david jolly, and maria toe mar, thanks to all of you. we're going to go back to manhattan, still expecting senator bob menendez and nadine menendez to come out at any moment. ken dilanian, talk to me about what's at stake here for senator bob menendez as he comes out. i would expect that he will be defiant as he has been. >> yeah, what's at stake is his freedom. these charges carry some of them a maximum of 20 years in prison. obviously federal sentencing guidelines determine an ultimate sentence. he's got a long legal fight ahead of him. no doubt he is buoyed by the fact that he beat very similar corruption charges back when a jury hung in that case in 2017

and the justice department decided not to retry it. that also involved allegations of improper gifts from a friend of his that the justice department said were bribes, and what that case hinged on was menendez went into court and said this wasn't corruption. this was friendship. i had a relationship -- it was a florida ophthalmologist who was taking him on luxury trips and private jet trips and trips to the caribbean, and the senator said that this was about friendship and that the official acts he took to benefit that florida op that molgss were not related to the gifts. ultimately he prevailed in the sense that he wasn't convicted. what's different about this case, as we discussed earlier, two of the three alleged bribe pairs were not his long time friend. they were friends of his new wife and only recently introduced to him, and the evidence in this current case is just more tawdry and sordid than the evidence in the last case including the seizure of gold

bars and half a million dollars in cash. when i talk to former prosecutor s about this case, they acknowledge that the government has a burden here. they have to show an agreement to essentially sell his office, to exchange gifts for official acts, but they also said when the jury sees the gold bars and the mercedes convertible and the cash, that is just incredibly compelling evidence, and it's going to be really difficult for senator menendez to counteract that. >> let's just remind our viewers that the reason why the bar is a little bit higher, quite a bit higher actually in recent years when trying to convict an elected official is a case that involves senator bob mcdonald, the governor, former governor of virginia. he was on trial, and the supreme court ruled that you have to explicitly prove a quid pro quo, that you did something in return for the alleged bribe, that it wasn't just a favor for an old friend, right?

>> exactly. and i'm sure that this time the united states attorney doj is very well aware of that supreme court case and has carefully tailored the evidence in this case and makes sure that the fact will survive appeal if there's a conviction. the senator had mentioned in his press conference before that he was being targeted he felt because he was a latino, and damon williams, the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york in manhattan is a black man, and i seriously doubt that he was looking for a latino politician to target. i think he believes that the evidence of corruption is there and that he can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. >> and jim messina, the other thing that the senator said in his press conference was that he had kept the money, $500,000 or so in cash and gold bars, some of the cash inside his jacket pockets, and he kept it at home because of his experience as a

cuban american because of cuba being a country that had confiscated wealth. of course he was born in the united states. he's not cuban born. his parents are. and there hasn't exactly been a record of the u.s. confiscating money without cause from u.s. citizens. >> yeah, as a political consultant the, i look at that answer and say that's not a good answer. you don't need that kind of cash because your parents were born in cuba. you don't need that kind of cash with the fingerprints on the envelope of the people that you're alleged to have been bribed by. so i don't think that answer is going to hold up in the court of political opinion, and i certainly don't think it's going to hold up in front of a jury. >> we also have a speech that senator menendez gave ken dilanian, you referenced this in the story that you wrote today. this was a speech on the senate

floor where senate colleagues, republicans and democrats were seeking unanimous consent to tighten the laws on lobbying for foreign governments, and one senator stood up, bob menendez and objected, which meant that it could not pass. to the surprise of the judiciary chairman, fellow republican senator grassley, the leader of the senate judiciary committee at the time, as well as to people like, you know, senator warner who was the head of the intelligence committee. so let me play a little bit of that speech that you referred to. >> i agree with the senator that the past few years have demonstrated that changes are needed, but they also demonstrated the statute may need more than a few tweaks. before we have determined exactly what the most needed reforms are, it seems shortsighted to provide additional enforcement tools

before we have figured out what the regime should look like. >> ken dilanian, in your story you point out with his objection they could not pass it. that would have tightened the lobbying rules which have not been very rigorously enforced. >> that's right, it's common for senators to object to unanimous consent, which is why we had to do extra reporting to make sure he was doing it on his own behalf and there was, in fact, bipartisan support for that bill. and it turns out there was. as you said, mark warner then the ranking democrat on the intelligence committee, dianne feinstein, then the ranking democrat on the judiciary committee had lined up behind it. there was bipartisan agreement that the laws governing foreign lobbying registration needed to be strengthened. the penalties for violating those laws needed to be sanctioned. this was after the whole saga of the russian intervention into the 2016 election and various scandals that emanated from that that did resolve around secret foreign influence campaigns. and what was interesting as you

read the record and the remarks by senator grassley is he seemed legitimately surprised. he thought that this bill was going to move forward with bipartisan support, and then all of a sudden there's bob menendez standing up and objecting and giving what seemed like reasonable reasons for doing that, but of course it all looks very different in retrospect as we view this indictment accusing him of even at that moment secretly aiding the government of egypt in exchange for bribes, andrea. >> and the details here as katherine has pointed out, tom winter, are very explicit. they have photographs. they have gold bars. most people don't keep gold bars, certainly not elected officials, keep gold bars in their home. there's a mercedes. there was also a job, what they call a ghost job for his wife, in which she didn't really have to show up. >> that's right, andrea, i think to get even more granular into the indictment, which was quite specific as our colleagues have

pointed out, when you look at some of the activity that's alleged to have occurred, that the payments to the mercedes benz stopped when one of menendez's co-defendants allegedly got an inquiry from the fbi about those payments and then all of a sudden they stopped. that's the type of thing that will be very powerful potentially on a witness stand should this case go to trial, kind of saying, okay, well, if there was nothing wrong with it, why did you stop making those payments? those are little kind of clues and things we pick up on as we read through the indictment. we've got a couple of cameras down here, andrea, you're looking at one of them right now. this is overlooking the entrance and exit of 500 pearl street, the main courthouse. the courtroom where today's proceedings occurred was on the 26th floor, the top floor of this building in one of the larger courtrooms we have. i'm across the street. there's a green sedan that's kind of clustered by press right now. we're just waiting to kind of see activity there for when, of course, the senator comes out, andrea. >> well, i just want to thank all of you.

clearly everyone's poised, all of those cameras are poised, aimed at that revoling door of the courthouse that tom winter has spent so much time in. thanks to so many of you. that does it for our edition of "andrea mitchell reports." "chris jansing reports" start thes right now. good day, i'm chris jansing live anb