let's continue with political reporter josh lederman. josh, what can you tell us tonight? >> this is sending shock waves through the white house as they are reacting to this. obviously the white house knew at least a little bit in advance that this story was going to be coming out because the reporters from the "new york times" reached out to the white house for comment on it. the president saying he knew sort of generally this was coming but he didn't know exactly when this was going to drop. we've heard the response from the white house tonight to essentially dismiss this with a blanket assertion of what the president called total fake news made up, but what we haven't seen the president do is say specifically what he's actually disputing. when nbc's kelly o'donnell asked the president, okay, you say this is fake news, how much money did you actually pay in federal taxes in those years, the president declined to say. so he won't actually pesify what he's taking issue with. another troubling part of this that we're learning tonight, joshua, is about money that the preside

we want to start with nbc's josh lederman in jupiter, florida, and nbc's mike memoli is covering the biden campaign. josh, i'll start with you. florida and north carolina, two key states. his first stop in three weeks. what's his focus today? >> reporter: good morning, craig. you're right. we're in the final stretch between the labor day holiday and election day, that final sprint for the candidates. we've seen trump. he's going to be coming here to the lighthouse behind me in jupiter, florida. will he be focusing on what he sees as a positive environmental record in a state that carriesw grades and heading later in the afternoon to north carolina, another state that the president won by just a few points four years ago. the polls in both states have been very close. that's why it's really do or die time here for trump to try to redefine his opponent, joe biden. we know the trump campaign wanted to do that over the summer. they wanted to have that already accomplished by now. we saw over the summer that the president tried to use several lines of attack against biden, none of them rea

joining me on the ground is josh lederman, also robert costa, an nbc analyst.he president going down there to play environmentalist, if you will. it's an issue that does unite the state of florida generally. but it is an issue that republicans used to try to show their conservation credentials a little bit and that is extending moratoriums on offshore oil drilling. the moratorium doesn't expire this year so there's no sense of urgency to it. what is the president adding to this, josh? >> well, the moratorium expires next year, but there have been calls from both of the republican senators from florida to extend that another decade. we're still awaiting final details about what exactly the president will include in this, whether it will be just limited to the water offs of florida or potentially other states along the coast as well. but this is a pretty transparent political about-face by the president. it was president trump's administration, chuck, that in 2018 moved to expand offshore drilling to basically everywhere including off the shore of florida, califo

nbc's josh lederman is in raleigh for us. his huge shift in the way people vote this year? >> reporter: it really is an enormous shift. this is not a state that has a real tradition of voting by mail. typically in an election in north carolina, around 5% votes by mail. this year election officials tell me they expect that number to go as high as 40%. how do you do? you've got to prepare and start early. that's why election officials here at wake county have spent the last days and weeks getting that first batch of 600,000 ballots ready to go, stuffed into envelopes, loaded on to trucks and headed to voters today. listen to what elections director gary simms had to tell me about whether north carolina is ready. >> can north carolina handle this volume of absentee ballots? >> the answer is we have to. that's what we're working on right now. we're working on scaling up our operations. >> i would also tell people go ahead and request your absentee ballot now. request your absentee ballot now as a safety net. in case something shou

joshua. >> nbc's josh lederman reporting from the white house. as we pause, take a look at this somber tradition at the supreme court. it's a black drape that's been hung over the courtroom doors after the death of justice ruth bader ginsburg. her bench chair and the bench in front of it have been draped with black wool crepe in her honor. this tradition goes all the way back to 1873. we'll speak to shee port, louisiana, mayor who is running for a senate seat about ginsburg's passing and more when we come back. t ginsburg's passing and more when we come back hey, can i... hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here. he's right here. - hi! - hi. hey! - that's totally him. - it's him! that's totally the guy. safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today. safe drivers do save 40%. verizon knows how to build unl

here with me now from raleigh is nbc news national political reporter josh lederman. uddy. you're there on the ground in north carolina, where i'm told election workers are hard at work. so what are people there saying about the demand for absentee ballots? >> well, the demand really is unprecedented. in a typical election here in north carolina, about 1 in 20 people vote by mail. this year, election officials across the state tell me they expect that number could be high as 1 in 3, geoff. part of the reason that officials here say they are ready for this, they're prepared, and they're not too worried about it is a provision in state law that allows them to start processing the mail-in ballots, not counting them, but processing them before election day. they'll take them out of the envelopes, get them loaded into the tabulation machines and on election day, they'll press a button and get a print out and be able to get us results much quicker than if they had to wait until election day to start doing any of that work. >> all right, nbc's josh lederman, thanks to you. >>

josh lederman where it's all kicking off. appreciate it.ur of "msnbc live." we have a lot more to get to including more with my colleague chris jansing right after the break. (vo) businesses are always making choices. here's a choice you don't have to make. the largest 5g network... award-winning customer satisfaction... or insanely great value. now, with t-mobile for business, there's no compromise. network. support. value. choose. any. three. t-mobile for business ready when you are. ♪ ♪ ♪ the open road is open again. and wherever you're headed, choice hotels is there. book direct at choicehotels.com. ♪ before money, people tools, cattle, grain, even shells represented value. then currency came along. they made it out of copper, gold, silver, wampum. soon people decided to put all that value into a piece of paper, then proceeded to wave goodbye to value, printing unlimited amounts of money as they passed the buck to the future. that's why it's time for digital currency and your investment in the grayscale funds. go digital. go grayscale.

nbc's josh lederman is at the white house and joins me now. josh, he lost the state in 2016. what did we learn from trump's rally last night about the campaign strategy? >> well, lindsey, if you were to ask me or pretty much anyone in washington a week ago who the trump campaign was really targeting in these last two months of the election, we would have said the president's longtime political base. largely white working class voters who helped to elect him four years ago. but in the last couple days, we have really seen a shift in focus where the trump campaign is now putting a real laser focus, at least for this weekend and the next couple days, on latino voters. one of the reasons is some of the polling that they're seeing, especially in florida, but also in some other parts of the country that suggests that joe biden is actually underperforming with latino voters and there could be an opening there, if not for trump to get anywhere near winning a majority of hispanic voters, to at least do better than he had in the past, change the margins there. but if president trump is

josh lederman on the ground for us in raleigh. thanks very much. >>> speaking of voting, this sunday we'll be kicking off nbc's vote watch week with a special edition of "meet the press" as we count dune to an election unlike any in our lifetime. we'll focus on voter comugz, concerns about misinformation, and more. don't miss it. by the way, don't forget to plan your vote. you can get that at nbcnews.com. thank you for being here with us this hour. i hope you have an enjoyable and safe labor day weekend. please keep covid in mind. msnbc coverage with geoff bennett continues next. >> chuck, thanks for that. i'm geoff bennett in for katy tur. it's 11:00 a.m. out west and 2:00 p.m. in the east, where once again the white house is playing defense over an explosive report about president trump. this time, for comments the president allegedly made belittling and insulting u.s. service members. including those killed in battle. the atlantic is out with a new report which asserts that the president referred to a cemetery where american se

we have josh lederman live at the white house. josh, what is the campaign planning to do now? >> reporter: the plan for the campaign swing, kendis, involves the president holding an event not in reno, but an airport 45 miles south of there. the tahoe airport and the los angeles suburbs with two events tomorrow. a big focus for the president on the trip. hispanic voters. he has two different events with hispanics. this comes as recent polling has been showing that contrary to a lot of political observers, president trump is doing better with hispanics than he would have expected while joe biden has actually been under performing with seniors. we saw that in a series of recent polls in florida and other states that have large numbers of hispanic voters. the trump campaign is hoping to increase their numbers at least a little bit with hispanic voters. particularly in nevada. a state the president did not win four years ago, but got very close coming within 27,000 votes. the trump campaign hoping if they could give nevada it would give them more of a buffer in other places if the

mike memoli in d.c., josh lederman in jupiter, florida and shannon pettypiece standing nearby the white house. joe biden says post-labor day, that's now, he plans on doing a lot more traveling. what's in store? >> yeah, steph. in fact, even president trump taking note of joe biden's busier campaign itinerary tweeting about it this morning. in fact, what did we see yesterday, steph? joe biden though campaign trail in pennsylvania. his running mate kamala harris making her first solo road trip to the battleground state of wisconsin. where was president trump? he was the one home with that hastily called news conference at the white house. what did we see from biden on the campaign trail? not doing the kind of rallies, we shouldn't expect the campaign for him to hold the traditional campaign rallies, but what he was doing was socially distant roundtable discussions on the economy. it's that issue that the biden campaign says he wants to focus on in the coming weeks contrasting his build back better economic plan with what he himself has said is a trump economic plan which prioritizes only

. >> josh lederman, deepa thank you so much for starting us off this hour. the poll shows former vice president joe biden winning in 75 out of a hundred scenarios but at this point of the race it is about the momentum. with 52 days in front of us. this week's polling from the cook political report shows it is ebbing right in two battleground states, nevada where reliable polls are few and far between. cook is down grading the state from likely democrat to lean democrat and then florida cook moved its rating from lean democrat to toss up indicators potentially shifting that uncertainty over trump's standing with seniors and biden's with latinos. on the flip side a recent military times poll showed the president trailing biden by four points among active duty troops and that poll was conducted before the recent reporting that president trump had referred to american troops as suckers and losers. joining us now, taking a look at this, senior fellow at the university of miller center and former assistant to president obama, co-founder of fowler strategies and ms

let's dig into the numbers with nbc's josh lederman at the white house with us. biden leading among different demographics. walk you tlus through the numbe. >> reporter: the good news is the numbers nationally, when you look at overall top lines, as you mentioned seem to be unchanged. that biden lead seems to be helding steady closer to the election. even with all of the tumult of the last several months. but when you break down the numbers deeper, you start to see where some of those strengths are and particularly where some of trump's problems are and they tend to be with the same type of voters he had problem with years ago. and with black voters, you see massive advantage for joe biden. 90% of black voters prefer him over president trump. similarly with women. you see biden with a 20-point spread, 57% of women saying they prefer the former vice president over president trump. biden also holding an advantage when it comes to the critical independent voters, that every campaign is always going so hard after. biden with a six-point advantage currently over trump