joining me now kristen welker, moderator of "meet the press." kristen, this is a critical moment. there is no scorecard here, but what does each side need to do to feel like they succeeded this evening? >> great question. former aides to president trump tell me they're advising him to deliver a measured performance tonight after that previous debate in 2020 where she was harshly criticized for interrupting repeatedly. meanwhile, for president biden who is trailing in key states and needs to shake up this race, critical for him tonight to counter polls that show voters have concerns he is not up to the job, and to come across as tough against mr. trump. >> and kristen, we have both moderated presidential debates. the rules in this one are a bit different than what people likely normally see. >> you're right about that. in fact, the new rules are going to be center stage as much as the candidates will be, particularly this change where they will mute the mic of the person not speaking. hallie just talked about that. so the big question, will we get to see those clashes that often de

i'm peter alexander in for kristen welker. for the first time in american history, a former president has been convicted of a crime. this past week a manhattan jury concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that donald trump falsified business records in order to influence the 2016 election, finding him guilty on all 34 counts, felony crimes. mr. trump, who chose not to testify, instead vented his anger outside the courtroom, claiming the trial was rigged against him and vowing to appeal. >> this was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. it's a rigged trial. a disgrace. they wouldn't give us a venue change. we were at 5% or 6% in this district, in this area. this was a rigged, disgraceful trial. the real verdict is going to be november 5th by the people. >> in the days since, the former president's allies, including vice presidential hopefuls, have lined up to rail against the trial and its outcome and have attacked democrats claiming the fix was in from the start. >> what happened there was outrageous, and you're ri

i'm peter alexander in for kristen welker.has been more than 1,3 hundais since the last debate between president biden and former president trump, the last time either man appeared on a debate stage. in four days they will face off in the earliest election debate in history in what may be the most consequential face to face in decade. the two candidates and their allies have signaled that they will attempt to portray each other in the most negative light possible casting mr. trump as an unhinged felon and president biden as not physically or mentally equipped to serve another term. >> crooked joe's gone to a log cabin to study, prepare. no, he didn't -- he's sleeping now because they want to get him good and strong so a little before debate time he gets a shot in the [ bleep ]. >> the things he said are off the wall. i want to be a dictator on day one. i want to move in the direction of -- you know, he talks about, you know, suspending the constitution. i want to hear what he says. remind people what he says and what i believe

kristen welker is moderator of "meet the press."great to see you and what a week this hack coming out of that debate on thursday night. obviously, we heard from president biden over the weekend. he has been vigorous at these debates. his campaign is saying all of the right things, but as you've been reporting he is huddled with his family, his closest advisers at camp david. so is there a chance they are considering his getting out of the race? >> well, we know that privately a number of democrats have been talking about that possibility. here is what i can tell you about what is happening at camp david. this was a long planned visit to camp david. he will be there with his family. the topic of the 2024 election would have come up regardless but, obviously, now the debate, his campaign what to do next will be front and center. look. taking a step back, willie, donors, supporters, lawmakers on capitol hill have content the week quite frankly, in panic mode. one telling me he can't win. another saying this race is effectively over. re

kristen welker, thank you.o i assume is with john. >> yes. kudos to john. thank you, chris, i appreciate that. >> with a toddler and a baby. >>> biden's digital war room, how the president is trying to shake the conversation about tonight's debate among millions of followers online and we'll talk to the president's deputy deputy campaign manager next. esy deputy campaign manager next dk on your trash talk. i'd rather work on saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. that's a pretty good burn, right? deep down, i knew something was wrong. since my fatigue and light-headedness would come and go, i figured it wasn't a big deal. then i saw my doctor and found out i have afib, and that means there's about a 5 times greater risk of stroke. symptoms like irregular heartbeat, heart racing, chest pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, or light- headedness can come and go. but if you have afib, the risk of stroke is always there. if you have one or more symptoms, get checked out. holding off on seei

please join me in welcoming kristen welker, moderator of meet the press. hi, kristen. welcome back. great to see you this morning, hope. thank you baby. time has been wonderful. i want to ask you about doug burgum. you talked to him this morning exclusively last year on meet the press. he said he would not do business with trump. but now, one year later, he is an enthusiastic trump surrogate. is he answering to that shift in his relationship with the former president? he has he's answered for that a number of times. and look, he has said that was then he was running against former president trump. now, of course, he's running to be on his ticket . so look, i pressed him on a number of his past statements, including the fact that he says he never lied and the fact that donald trump uttered 30 different things that were not true on the debate stage on thursday night. so we talked to him about all of them. it is clear that he is a fierce defender of donald trump, that he wants that job very much and a little bit of news, if i could tease. i asked him if he has spoken to donald trump ab

kristen welker has his story. >> reporter: i think it is all for kind of age for getting out in the suny that. >> reporter: of shelves in his living room, david toler has pulled in old copy of history, a landmark book on america's triple response to a.i.d.s. in the work of his former colleague at the san francisco chronicle. >> he was, you know a journalist from the beginning. and i think he did amazing work. >> reporter: i always tried to report on things that would not be covered if i didn't do it. >> reporter: randy shilts the first openly gay journalist at the chronicle, would produce three monumental books on lgbtq rights and central epidemic. >> when it is also your own community and people that you know are dying and getting sick. you know yourself what your situation is. >> randy and i talked about this a lot because we were both openly gay working at the mainstream media . and covering the biggest story to hit the gay community, which was eight. >> reporter: retired kpix reporters said the crisis was inevitably personal, while publicly it was often controversial and that is som

kristen welker, back from maternity leave, welcome back! >> thank you. >> and of course, nbc news will bring you special coverage and analysis of the first presidential debate. it will be tonight right here on nbc! >>> meantime, as kristen mentioned, one hot-button issue set to be a major topic tonight is abortion rights. this comes after the supreme court mistakenly posted a document relating to the idaho abortion case for a brief moment yesterday. what happened? >> good morning. it was a decision day like no other, as the justices took the bench, hundreds of reporters across the country sat at their computers, frantically hitting the refresh button for opinions to post online, but someone made a discovery. a document in one of the blockbuster cases this turn. only problem was, it wasn't supposed to be there. >> reporter: this morning, a supreme mistake rocking the must supreme court. a major decision on abortion prematurely released on the court's website, suggesting the high court is likely on the verge of allowing emergency abortions in

i'm peter alexander in for kristen welker. with the presidential debate just 11 days away, the two men who will face off on stage are aggressively gearing up for the general election. former president trump on capitol hill for the first time since the capitol attack used part of his day in washington for informal debate prep with senator marco rubio among others. president biden, who returns to washington late tonight, will begin extensive debate prep this week, as well, overseen by his first white house chief of staff, ron clain. he held a star-studded fundraiser in los angeles last night with president obama, george clooney, and julia roberts among others. >> we have the spectacle of the nominee of one of the two major parties sitting in court and being convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 counts. what i would say and what i do say to a bunch of good people out there who are conservatively predisposed who may not agree with everything that joe or i or other democrats stand for is that there was a time when we had certain c

>> hallie, thank you >>> let's bring it all down with kristen welker, moderator of "meet the press.",own. this morning, kristen welker, spin aside, this is, as we said spin aside, it isn't the performance the biden team hoped they would get. before, it isn't the performance the biden team hoped they would ge they wanted this debate. they wanted to put aside the issues about the president's age, competency. and that didn't happen. anted t. wanted to put to rest these issues about the president >> that didn't happen. remember the timing of this d a that didn't happen. >> savannah, that didn't happen, debate. they were hoping they could get people to tune in early. and, this is the earliest debate we this debate. they were hoping have seen in modern american history. they could get biden was trailing in the polls. people twanted to put those concerns to rest.o tune in earl. this is the earliest debate weave when in american history, biden was trailing in the polls instead, we got widespread panic from democrats. one texting me saying this is a disaster.g into t one saying, this is hard t

lester holt and savannah guthrie will lead nbc's special coverage and analysis with kristen welker back from family leave and tom llamas and hallie jackson. we will be back next week because, of course, if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." >>> i have the wounds all over my body. if i took this shirt off, you'd see a beautiful, beautiful person, but you'd see wounds all over me. i've taken a lot of wounds, i can tell you, more than i suspect any president ever. >> one of several bizarre moments from donald trump this weekend. the former president's strange tangent on saturday in philadelphia, which even had fox news cutting away from it. we'll have more of that in just a moment. >>> also ahead, we'll have the latest on the debate strategies and preparations for both sides as we with now just days away from the first meeting between president biden and donald trump in 3 1/2 years. >>> plus we'll preview a high-station meeting between israel's defense chief and the biden administration. ♪♪ >>> good morning and welcome to "way too early" on this monday, june 24th. i'm jonathan lemire. tha

i took the six topics kristen welker laid out.reated six one sheets of debate game changer, ways to move from defense to offense. that is so important in this debate because if jake tapper could spend 90 minutes on january 6th, he will do it. >> >> yes, it will be important for him to think through how to respond to, -- you know, he is not debate just joe biden. is he debating the cnn moderates, that's actually very typical for republican candidate. not just going against democrat opponent. you are almost always going against the moderator or moderators as well. he has probably had a time to think through what he did poorly in first debate in 2020 and what he did well in the second debate rightly staned need to be presidential and policy. this is where president biden is weak. he has a very bad policy record. people are talking about how old he is. and how is he stumbling and mumbling, those are really big problems, the worst problems for him are his policies, a lot of the debate prep we are seeing him go through they are claiming

peter alexander is in this morning for kristen welker as moderator of "meet the press." good morning. it's great to see you, my friend. >> great to see you, my friend. >> you, too. you said the campaign race, a boatload of money after this verdict and through the weekend, so my question to you, what are you hearing from the campaigns about how they're going to handle this. the white house and the biden campaign now can say it's running against a man convicted of 34 felonies so far. how is it going to play in this race? >> to be clear, anyone who tells you they know the way this will play out is lying. we've seen so many unprecedented moments, it remains unclear. there is some early indication that it may have caused erosion among those independents. some republicans for donald trump, but you really have to just watch the way things play out and where these campaigns try to capitalize. in my conversations with those close to the biden campaign, they say the trump conviction is not going to be a central message of their campaign going forward. i'm going to ask hakeem jeffr

peter alexander is in for kristen welker as moderator of "meet the press." donald trump was in washington, where you're sitting, up capitol hill meeting with members of the house and the senate looking for all the world like a party that has completely fallen in line, save a couple of senators who didn't show up like mitt romney, fallen in line with the former president, just over three years after the attack on that capitol on january 6th. what did you see in those images on thursday? >> reporter: well, willie, moatably this was the first time mr. trump has been back to capitol hill since the january 6th attack. it did mean burying a lot of baggage between him and top republicans, among them mitch mcconnell. you remember mitch mcconnell after january 6th said donald trump was practically and morally responsible for it. in the past trump has attacked mcconnell as a lousy leader and worse, insults about his wife using racial slurs. they buried all of that, apparently, and demonstrate once again this is donald trump's party going forward. i think we learned a

of the vice presidential contenders from north dakota was on "meet the press" this morning and kristen welker said. >> so let me ask you, governor, can you say, as someone who is on the short list to be trump's vp nominee. can you accept the 2024 election? >> your questions implying that everything is going to ■çgo perfectly. >> you will not commit to accepting them? >> i will commit if it is free and fair, of course. >> come on. why can't he just answer the question? you go first. >> because then he would not be on the short list for vice president. >> correct. >> he has to add in these. the only answer is yes, i will accept the results of the election because black people voting and latino people voting those are legitimate votes. that is the unspoken subtext when they question the results of elections, since 2020 trust said the only reason he lost in 2020 is because of millions of illegal people voted. people are not illegal. i am quoting trump. now, that ■çis the subtext. that is what they are not saying. again, a bunch of gaslighting, but another word for gaslighting is lying. >> let me

. >>> peter alexander is in for kristen welker this morning as moderator of "meet the press."er, my friend, good morning. so let's talk about what's at stake with this debate. first of all, walk us through how it is going to be difficult from anything we've seen in recent years, and just really what is riding on this for both the current and the former president? >> joe, the stakes, as you know, are incredibly high this go-around. 73 million americans watched the first debate between donald trump and joe biden back in 2020. it's now been 1,300 days since either of these men were on a debate stage. you'll remember donald trump didn't show up for the republican primaries. you remember the first debate last time around all the interruptions -- i think americans are still haunted by it -- where joe biden said, will you shut up, man. the intention is to avoid that this go-around. no studio audience will be in the room when this takes place on thursday night. separately they're going to be employing a mute button, which means when it is not a candidate's turn to speak, their microph

let's bring in kristen welker in the debate spin room, and hallie jackson. being written right now about this debate? >> lester and savannah, there's no way to sugar coat this. this night got off to a tough start for president biden. he delivered a performance that was at times halting. at times he seemed to lose his train of thought. at times he started to talk about one topic, for example, the economy, and shifted to afghanistan, which gave former president trump an opening. and abortion, he raised the issue of immigration, which gave former president trump an opening. as the night progressed, he did begin to pick up steam. he had some really strong moments on the issues of what this administration, for example, has done for veterans. but zooming out, this was a debate about performance. this was a debate about allaying americans' concerns about his ability to serve another four years. and i had a number of reporters at nbc news have heard from a range of democrats who have said that they are concerned by tonight's debate. one telling me of this race, quot

with kristen welker. >> good sunday morning. it is yet another extraordinary moment in the 2024 election cycle. with democrats in a state of crisis after president joe biden delivered a disastrous debate performance that fueled voters' top concerns about his age and ability to serve another four years in office. not since the first nixon-kennedy debate in 1960, has a debate had as much potential to shake up a presidential race. this morning, there is widespread panic within the democratic party, and questions about whether the president should drop out of the race. >> i think it was a [ bleep ] disas astor. i think it was maybe the worst debate i've seen in my entire life. >> i think people feel we are confronting a crisis. >> at first it was shocking and scary and then it was sad and by the end absurd. it's the riskiest path sticking with joe biden or the riskiest path saying we want someone else and anybody who says that that is not a tough call right now is full of [ bleep ]. >> on friday, in a stunning move, "the new york ti

i am kristen welker, and i welcome you to the 2020 residential debate between president trump and former vice tonight's debate is sponsored by the commission on presidential debates, and conducted under health and safety protocols. the audience in the hall has is. no cheers, boos, or other interruptions -- except for right now as we welcome to the stage former vice president joe biden, and president donald j. trump. [applause] ms. welker: i want to say good evening to both of you. this will cover six major topics. at the beginning of each section, each candidate will have two minutes to answer without interrupon the debate commission will■a th turn on your microphone only when it is your time to answer, and turn it off exactly when two mites after that, both microphones will are remain on but on behalf of the american voters, please speak one at a time.to hear eac and for the american people to hear every word of what you have to say. with that, if you're ready, let's start. we will against the coronavirus. president trump, the first question is to you.■h the country is heading into a da

kristen welker and her husband john welcoming a baby boy via surrogate on may 30th.t live in studio. celebrating a brand new album, celebrating with us with a special live performance coming up after your local news, weather, and these quick messages. is it possible to be more capable and more practical? be able to perform here and here? make a statement while barely making a sound and command the world as well as what lies ahead. how we get there matters. get exceptional offers at your local audi dealer. ♪ ♪ >>> the amount of training, the sacrifice. >> we can face insurmountable challenges. >> i won last year, and i'm here to win again. >> he might have a shot. >> "american ninja warrior" tonight on nbc and peacock. ♪ >>> back now at 8:30. it is a monday morning. let's talk about a very big week for us. so, guys, 30 years ago today, our studio 1a moved to this little corner of the world. >> wow. >> it was very cool. the plaza was born. >> a bouncing baby plaza was born. we are going to celebrate all week long. we are kicking it off with something special. thank you