[Music] if it's Thursday President Biden delivers a warning to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the future of us support unless Israel takes immediate action to address the humanitarian crisis and the safety of Palestinian civilians and Aid workers inside Gaza plus the latest installment of NBC's deciders focus group giving us a revealing look at a voters at voters from Union households as both Biden and Trump ramp up their pitches to workingclass voters who could decide this pres
idential election and rescue crews in Taiwan in a race against the clock with hundreds of people still stranded trapped under the rubble following that devastating 7.4 magnitude earthquake the most powerful Quake the island has seen in a [Music] generation welcome to Meet the Press now I'm Peter Alexander here in Washington where President Biden is growing increasingly angry and frustrated AIDS say over how Israel is conducting its military operations in Gaza and he's delivering a new warning to
day to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu after that fatal strike that killed seven World Central kitchen workers today the president and the Israeli Prime Minister spoke by phone the first time they have done so since that deadly strike President Biden emphasized that the strikes on the aid workers of the overall humanitarian situation in Gaza is unacceptable two US officials are telling NBC news that the president strongly implied that the US would withhold military aid if Israel does not make
immediate changes both the state department and the White House spoke to reporters following the call he made clear the need for Israel to announce and to implement a series of specific concrete and measurable steps to address civilian harm humanitarian suffering and the safety of Aid workers he made clear that US policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel's immediate action on these steps what we want to see are some real changes uh on the Israeli side um and um
you know if we don't see changes from their side there'll have to be changes from our side despite important steps that Israel's taken to allow assistance into Gaza the results on the ground are woefully insufficient and unacceptable if we don't see the changes that we need to see there'll be changes in our own policy that was secretary blinkin traveling overseas today the clock is ticking according to the National Security Council adviser John Kirby who told reporters that the administration ex
pects to see changes from Israel in the coming hours and days when asked about a time frame meanwhile calls for an independent investigation into the Israeli strike on the those Aid workers they're certainly growing louder including from Jose Andre himself the founder of the world Central Kitchen so these was not use a bad luck situation where oops we dropped the bomb in the wrong place or or no that's why we need to have an investigation that is neutral and is above ibf um I I I I believe will
be good intentions on anybody and they will tell the story whatever they want to say but what I know is that we were targeted deliberately nonstop until everybody was dead in this Convoy for its part Israel says that it is conducting a quote thorough and transparent investigation but it also signaled that that investigation could take weeks all of this follows a week of escalating frustrations and very tense White House meetings about the war American officials tell NBC news that Ron durmer a to
p adviser to prime minister Netanyahu began yelling and waving his arms during what was a virtual meeting on Monday with top us officials as durmer was pressed about the viability of Israel's proposal to move more than a million civilians out of Southern Gaza ahead of its planned offensive there then in a separate incident a palestinian-american doctor who treated patients in Gaza recently tells NBC news that he walked out of a meeting between the president Administration officials and Muslim Am
erican community members on Tuesday to signal to the White House how his community has felt abandoned by this Administration additionally according to an attendee in that meeting President Biden revealed to Muslim Community leaders some of the pressure that he is facing personally including from first lady Jill Biden who he says has urged him to end the war telling her husband quote stop it stop it now Joe and today new pressure from the president's allies in Congress as Delaware Senator Chris C
oons a Biden campaign co-chair is now saying for the first time that he would support putting conditions on military aid to Israel I think we're at that point I think we're at the point where President Biden has said and I have said and others have said if Benjamin Netanyahu prime minister were to order the IDF into Rafa at scale they were to drop thousand pound bombs and send in a battalion uh to go after Hamas and make no provision for civilians or for humanitarian Aid that that I would vote t
o condition Aid to Israel I've never said that before I've never been here before joining me now is my colleague Monica ala she is outside the White House now Monica the White House as you and I saw says that Israel needs to change its policy so what specific actions and really what time frame are they demanding right now well Peter this is sort of a conditioning of the conditioning this is the US laying out what it wants to see from Israel in the coming hours and days and then effectively telli
ng them if Israel doesn't step up its protection of Aid workers in Gaza if it doesn't allow for more humanitarian Aid to go into the Gaza strip specifically from places like Jordan or perhaps to open up more border crossings if those things don't happen in a concrete fashion the US is effectively saying we will consider conditioning that military aid that has been so crucial to Israel's bombardment of Gaza and that is a shift here just in terms of what we've been wondering about for weeks and mo
nths if we would reach a point in this nearly six-month War where the US would decide there could be a change in policy there had certainly been some adjustments to rhetoric outrage has continued to grow and Spike but it's different when we're now talking about this actual US policy that could shift and we are really talking about this Peter in the near term they're saying they want to see this in the immediate and so I think this is something that the US doesn't want to preview an exact timelin
e but they are being more clear more blunt than they have been in the past that if they don't see a specific change from Israel on the humanitarian Aid Front that then that is something that could be conditioned and we are told by us officials who were briefed on this call between the president and prime minister that the message that was conveyed very directly was all about this potential for a change in military aid Peter Monica we haven't heard from President Biden publicly on this he's relea
sed some statements we have heard from AIDS privately telling us that the president is angry he's frustrated he's outraged right now I guess among the questions is will we hear from the public explaining the situation to the American people there's new polling from NBC news that just just how um how upset so many Americans specifically Young Americans are with this situation but I want to ask you specifically about what it is that is driving the White House the president's frustration that anger
what are our sources telling us is really fueling all of this and it's one thing to have this private anger and to have officials talking about behind the scenes everybody is universally frustrated about this but it's another to really translate that again into some action and into a shift but what we understand behind the scenes the reason and what is really fueling this is that the president has for months taken this approach of the way to try to influence Israel perhaps to do what the US wan
ts is to keep Israel close to embrace prime minister Netanyahu to really be sure that that consistent steadfast support does not change isn't altered that has been something the president has even said to some of his top AIDs that he feels proud of taking that position in that approach when he felt like his once running mate and his predecessor on the Democratic side former president Obama had taken different steps when it comes to prime minister Netanyahu and Israel so this is really something
where the president is the one who feels very driven by this approach something he thinks he has enough foreign policy chops on but that now clearly isn't working and so there is this internal realization of that and then you have these incidents in the last week or two with the aid workers that just really crystallizes the need to potentially change that yeah Monica Al appreciate all your expert reporting today thank you so much and for more more on the situation on the ground in Israel NBC New
s International correspondent Raph Sanchez just filed this report for us from Tel Aviv Israel's military says it is investigating the killing of those seven Aid workers but now World Central Kitchen says that's not enough they want to see an independent investigation conducted by a third party they are calling on Israel to preserve evidence and they say there are a lot of unanswered questions the top of the list how is it that Israeli forces open fire on that Aid Convoy with remember multiple ai
r strikes when those Vehicles were clearly marked with the logo of the world Central Kitchen and when the aid group had coordinated their movements with the Israeli military ahead of time now I had the opportunity earlier to speak to the parents of Jacob Flickinger he is was a 33-year-old US Canadian citizen he was a volunteer with World Central Kitchen he was among the seven dads his parents telling me they also don't have confidence in this Israeli probe they want to hear an apology from the I
sraeli government they want to hear a whole lot more than that and they are also saying that they are just two people who are suffering right now the Searing grief that comes with the loss of their only son but they point out that there are thousands and thousands and thousands of families who have lost somebody in Gaza they are calling for a ceasefire they want their son's work to continue to feed those people on the brink of famine right now now a couple of hours before that Israeli air strike
in Gaza that killed those Aid workers there was an explosion at the Iranian Embassy in Syria Iran saying it was an Israeli attack that it killed number of senior officers with the Revolutionary guard and over the last day Iranian leaders have been vowing Revenge Israel tonight is on high alert its air defense systems are ready the Israeli military has cancelled leave for combat soldiers because they are bracing for possible retaliation and Israeli official tells me at this point there is no con
crete intelligence that indicates that an attack is imminent but there is a lot of concern here the Israeli military confirming that it is jamming GPS systems which means that people's Google Maps aren't working in some cases and this is a threat that's being taken seriously rap Sanchez thank you for that reporting and joining me now is Ambassador Dennis Ross former Special Assistant to President Obama for the middle east region and an NBC News Foreign Affairs analyst Ambassador Ross I appreciat
e you're being here on this day us officials are telling NBC news that President Biden's message to the prime minister to Netanyahu included a warning that the US would consider conditioning military aid unless Israel makes immediate changes to address humanitarian concerns in Gaza and unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire as soon as possible I just want to get your reaction to that warning and how soon do you think Netanyahu really has to act to respond well I think there's really two different i
ssues here one is I think the president is looking for some kind of clear demonstration that Israel is doing more not just to facilitate humanitarian assistance going into Gaza because actually I think more humanitarian assistance actually is going into Gaza but I think what the president's looking for is much more direct Israeli action to ensure that there isn't chaos under the delivery that there's security for the delivery that if humanitarian assistance is going in doing more to create an en
vironment where those needed are actually getting it I think that's something that uh the administration the president will be watching to see number one number two I think on the issue of the the ceasefire it's tied to an agreement with Hamas now the problem is last week Hamas rejected right a proposal Bill Burns made uh which the Israelis had accepted what it suggests to me is that within Israel there has been a fair amount of reporting that the negotiators for Israel on the hos deal haven't b
een given the Mandate that they feel they should have been given whether they're the ones letting that be known or others who know them are saying that not clear but it is interesting to me that the president picked up on that because up until now that's really not been anything that we have suggested so that too indicates that this is an issue that the president's kind of attuned to on the one hand but also is quite mindful that it's a domestic issue within Israel uh and it does it's a differen
t way to put pressure on prime minister NE that is interesting point that you flagged there I do want to ask you specifically about this threat that Aid military aid could be conditioned as a consequence does that have teeth I mean Israel right now does not need any more new American Aid I recognize it would be symbolic but would that actually have any real impact well as it relates to Gaza probably not but Israel right now has cancelled leave of all of their military because they're on a high a
lert in anticipation of some kind of an attack by Iran as a result of even though Israel didn't admit it they were the ones who who took out maybe the most important revolutionary guard leader since kasum sulamani uh in their attack in Damascus a couple of days ago and it's clear Iran is saying there's going to be Israel is going to pay a price for this so the fact that you could see some kind of expansion of conflict either coming out of of Lebanon and hisb or something that's triggered by the
Iranians or some of its proxies maybe with barrage attacks from Iraq or Syria that gets you into a situation where if Israel was fighting a wider War even beyond what we've seen now then some kind of hold of American Military assistance would be an issue right although I I hasten to add president was pretty clear in the statement released by The White House that when it comes to threats from Iran the United States is going to be there with Israel let me ask you if I can we talk about this being
a tense back and forth between these two men obviously uh in some ways they have really competing interests here do you get the sense that the Prime Minister BB Netanyahu has really been trying to just see how far he can push the US in recent weeks about the limits of its support what is what is netanyahu's calculation right now I I think the calculation is driven more by his own domestic needs he has a a coalition where the people on the right who are the ones who he has the greatest concern ab
out possibly leaving the government and there and therefore bringing it down they're the ones who are insisting uh less responsiveness to us a tougher even tougher approach in Gaza going into Rafa now don't waiting on it and I think what he's been doing he's he's been posturing himself towards them I would just flag for you one key indicator that Israel really didn't intend to go into Rafa anytime soon anyway yeah they agreed all along that they had to evacuate Palestinians who were who are cram
med into the Rafa area well if they're really trying to send a message to Hamas as opposed to a kind of public posture you would have seen that evacuation begin that would have been an indicator they were preparing for an attack there hasn't been any evacuation that's begun yet so that's why I say I see this as much more public posturing towards his own domestic needs and the needs of his Coalition uh and probably the attitudes of the public more generally given what their view of Hamas remains
and but I think less sort of posturing of course President Biden although it has that consequence I was going to say and just to be clear Mr Ambassador part of the tension that existed in a call earlier this week between the White House and Israeli leaders was over this issue of how the Israelis proposed dealing with Rafa 1.4 million Palestinians uh there and the Israelis were proposing basically making them move in a matter of days or weeks which the US said was simply not feasible it wasn't do
able I want to ask you quickly about the growing calls right now um even members of the war cabinet are calling for some early elections Benny gance wants to see them held in September that news coming out within the last 24 hours or so Netanyahu says elections during a war could paralyze the country could new elections in Israel restore trust in the government is there any possibility that happens and how and how big of a Difference Maker could that be in this circumstance if you look at the po
lls in Israel 70% of the Israeli public do not trust this government so that's a pretty clear indicator of why the Prime Minister probably doesn't want early election number one and number two I would say Benny gance on his own can't bring the government down but there is this issue with the draft of the ultra religious uh and subsidies for them have been cut off by really threatens D yah's Coalition yeah does it does and it may be that what you see gance doing is making this call because this m
ay be part of the maneuvering with the ultra religious to see would they support this in return for some kind of interim measures to preserve subsidies for their yiva students yeah a lot of maneuvering going on uh you know watching Israeli politics for lots of years I would say don't assume anything just yet I I'm not betting just yet that we're going to have yeah elections by September but I wouldn't be surprised either this is this has been a hugely consequential and challenging time on all si
des Ambassador Dennis Ross we appreciate your expertise and your perspective thanks for making time for us my pleasure still to come right here with shake up and the presidential race sort of No Labels coming up with no candidates ending the group's hope of Fielding a candidate who would appeal to the voters who are not happy with either Biden or Trump there's also some breaking news on the Trump legal front as judges in Florida and Georgia today rejected his efforts to dismiss both of those cas
es it's all ahead you're watching Meet the Press [Music] now welcome back as we noted we are watching some breaking news right now out of the former president's criminal case tied to his mishandling of classified documents at is maralago property the federal judge presiding over his case there in Florida has denied his motion to dismiss the charges effectively rejecting his argument that the documents were personal under the presidential records act the judge here is Aileen is Eileen Cannon a tr
ump appointee who has raised eyebrows with some Trump friendly rulings in this case to this point she said that the charges that he wanted dismissed make no reference to the presidential records act this ruling however does leave open the possibility that Mr Trump could use the presidential records act later on in this case separately the judge presiding over Mr Trump's election interference case in Georgia today rejected his bid to dismiss those charges on Free Speech grounds at the same time w
e have gotten several Stark reminders in recent days that former president Trump is able to withstand sometimes even a benefit from controversies that would be politically fatal for almost any other politician while campaigning in Michigan this week Mr Trump claimed that he spoke to the family of Ruby Garcia she is the 25-year-old woman who was allegedly killed by her undocumented immigrant boyfriend her family told NBC News affiliate in Michigan that that is simply not true Garcia's sister said
quote he did not speak with any of us so it's kind of shocking seeing the that he had said he had spoken with us misinforming people on live TV the Trump campaign for its part has declined to comment here's another example the former president has repeatedly defended people who are in pre-trial detention for their actions during the January 6th attack he calls them hostages he said they're Patriots but an investigation by my NBC News colleague Ryan Riley found that many of those currently being
held are accused of assaulting law enforcement at the capital and the people the number of people being held is dramatically less than Mr Trump makes it right now 15 January 6 defendants are in what they call pre-trial detention at the order of federal judges that is out of more than 1,300 charged in connection to the attack those reporters are joining us now on set NBC's Garrett hake he covers the Trump campaign for us as you surely know by now NBC News justice reporter Ryan Riley he wrote tha
t January 6th story as well Garrett let's start with you we'll start with a ruby Garcia example here you just imagine if anybody the president who cover on a day-to-day basis said that they had spoken to somebody and sort of shared that personal account without having ever reached out to that individual what the sort of push back the backlash would be but for this president who in effect has found himself to be Teflon to often on these things he's just trying to drive right through it what is th
e reaction that you're hearing what are they saying well the campaign is now getting very quiet on this issue as you pointed out they had no specific comment when we asked them about you know why the former president had said he' had this meeting when he had a source within the campaign didn't want to be on the record basically said look we don't talk about these meetings unless the family wants us to talk about them in this case the family was pretty clear this meeting didn't even happen so I t
hink there's a couple things going on here first Donald Trump has gotten very comfortable in the space of using these personal tragedies for his political benefit as he did with lak and Riley's family in Georgia there you had something of a split he did meet with some family members some afterwards described themselves as uncomfortable with it what I think we're also seeing here is something Peter that you'll probably remember from the White House days in which Donald Trump tends to kind of fabr
icate conversations in a general sense the sir conversation so I was just talking to someone very Pro who very powerfully said to me sir you got to do this right he blows through specific details of things that actually happen quite often in the service of a narrative that he wants to put out here he got caught doing so and we'll see how long the sort of tale is for him on this one and the bottom line here is this is all about his effort to focus on migrant crime trying to blame Joe Biden right
whereas the Biden uh campaign is so heavily focused on the issue of reproductive right that's sort of the big backdrop to all of this Ryan let me ask you I want to talk about your story here Trump Praises these defendants as unbelievable Patriots I'm making sure I get the language right he has played the national anthem as sung by some of those Patriots as he described it that's how he's begun some of these rallies in recent weeks the defendants still awaiting trial though have some pretty heavy
charges here so give us a sense of what they are facing and why the accusation that they are hostages is so wrong yeah I mean so people convicted of a crime obviously aren't hostages that's sort of ridiculous we have a Judicial System where these people go through they have their case held heard either before a judge or heard before a jury of 12 people of their peers who get together review the evidence and I should point out that even here in DC where there's been these claims that oh juries a
nd DC can't handle these cases clearly they have acquitted January 6 defendants even up to the oathkeepers of certain charges so they're looking at the actual evidence they're applying the evidence and the facts and figuring out what the right determination is from here and that has to be an ananymous decision from uh the those uh those juries here but what I really focused on here was pre-trial detainees and there's really only 15 of them as you said of those more than 1300 yeah so it's a very
narrow window and that's really gone down from you know there were 60 at some point a couple of years ago but as these cases have worked their way through the system as more people have pleaded guilty as more people have been convicted at trial it's really only a narrow subset of these defendants who are being held pre-trial without being convicted included in that group or someone who fired off a gun allegedly at the capital two gunshots in the air covered from multiple angles not really a ques
tion about their identity here there's another individual who actually threw an explosive device inside the tunnel where some of the most violent uh scenes of the day took place where all these officers were packed in some of the officers talked about how they you know they temporarily lost their hearing some had ringing in their ears for days uh even lost their hearing for a few hours afterwards um and then there's another individual Edward Kelly is actually the fourth individual who goes insid
e the capital and he's someone who you know bust open that door even after that even after that evence he was allowed free several months later he was rearrested why because the FBI says he was plotting with a friend of his to kill the FBI agents who are investigating him his friend in that case has already pleaded guilty admitted that they conspired together Edward Kelly himself uh was talking about potentially a plea deal now it seems like that case also might go to trial separate and apart fr
om the underlying crime of January 6 by the way if you're listening to us this is a lot to keep track of Ryan wrote all about this it's at nbcnews.com under Ryan Riley it's easy to find I want to tell you on this topic I reached out to one of the families of the American uh Israeli American hostes being held right now in Gaza and ask them for their reaction when former president speaks about this and they were sharply critical about the language when he describes these individuals as hostages th
ey said among other things um they said basically that this is just outrageous that this wasn't true and they said it's excruciatingly painful it's not the same as being kidnapped dragged across the border and taken into a tunnel beneath Gaza where you're held for months in the dark it's not just inaccurate and painful it is cruel right right now so does the Trump campaign have anything does the president have anything to say to sort of defend his his argument they really try to avoid specifics
and I think that's something that we can really try to do as reporters or something I'm going to try to do on the hilt here because you never no one ever wants to touch these individual cases they like talking about this as though there's a bunch of granny's held you know next to Career criminals and some supermax somewhere and that's just not the reality of the situation you know individuals the sentences that have been handed out to individuals I think are probably what a lot of Americans woul
d probably agree was about the right uh sentence for these individuals when they're ultimately sentenced and the people who individually have been uh held behind bars are there because a judge individually decided on their case that they need to be held because they are either a threat to the public or there's a worry that they're going to flee several of these individuals fled already three of them were at a compound in Florida another National Guardsman uh in New Jersey went on a man the FBI p
ut on a man hunt for 48 hours because he fled when they showed up yeah I don't even know how you keep up with all these different names it was a heck of a read to get through Garrett we we're reminded of you know the John McCain moment during the first go around with former president or he attacked him saying he's not a real hero I like Heroes who don't get caught so to speak didn't face any condemnation for that or he did but it certainly didn't stick in that occasion it it just seems like you
know this is a challenge to all of us who do this right in the way that we frame this stuff but also when he's speaking to his base here the challenges can he get that to a wider audience can he grow this sort of campaign of frustration and angst and agreement to a wider audience yeah look and I'm not convinced he's going to try I mean there's nothing in the way that Donald Trump has run his campaign that suggests to me that they are throwing their arms open to bring more people in I mean I thin
k that that's when you would see a traditional pivot right that you're used to seeing after a primary where all of a sudden you change your tone you change your tactics a little bit you try to invite folks from the broader middle into your campaign that's not what Donald Trump is doing I don't and I don't expect to see him change I think what you're going to continue to see is the same kind of dark and divisive rhetoric that he has used that does motivate his core base and to just keep hammering
away at President Biden this is in I think in the Trump campaign's mind more of a race to the bottom than it is to somehow suddenly drop all this and invite people back in who've been tuned out because of this grossness we basically know Donald Trump has a ceiling the question is can Joe Biden reach that ceiling and go beyond it that is a lot of what we're going to be covering for the course of the next many months I know we'll have this conversation again Ryan Garrett nice to see both of you i
n person thank you up next Democrats are becoming increasingly alarmed at Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr's strength in the polls and we've got new NBC news reporting on Democrats mobilizing what they describe as sort of a major effort to try to thwart his third-party presidential bid we'll get into that you're watching Meet the Press [Music] now welcome back President Biden and former president Trump we'll have one less opponent to worry about in November that's because no labels now says that it
is ending its 2024 effort because they have no candidate the bipartisan group says it was not able to identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House to run on a third-party ticket that announcement today it could ease some Democrats concerns about a potential Centrist spoiler candidate but there are other third-party candidates on the ballot and NBC News has new reporting on why Democrats are quote freaking out about one candidate in particular you could likely guess RFK Jr
NBC News senior digital politics reporter Alex sital broke that story and he is joining us now for a lot of Democrats I think it's like a huray moment right the No Labels ticket is not going to be on the ballot but RFK Jr right now has really been the threat that Democrats have been so heavily focused on even Mo mobilizing efforts to try to deal with him right now why do they think he is a bigger threat to Joe Biden than he is to Donald Trump yeah I mean it's the history of just in my lifetime D
emocrats have lost two presidencies they think because of left-wing spoiler candidates Ralph nater in 200000 and Jill Stein in 2016 this election is going to be so close Democrats think that if even a small fraction of Voters 1 2% in some key swing States go for RFK instead of uh for Joe Biden they think that could be the decisive thing that puts Donald Trump over the top they're especially concerned after he rolled out his vice presidential uh pick Nicole Shanahan not only because she's going t
o potentially bring a lot of money to the ticket that they need to get on the ballot the former wife of Google founder Sergey Bren very importantly yes uh but also because the way they talk about it they're positioning more to the left she's a former Democratic donor he's obviously a former Democrat they're saying hey if you're an exd Democrat if you're dissatisfied with the Democratic Party come join us the water's warm so what does that mobilization look like what is this effort I mean I've be
en hearing about a campaign and been directed to contacts to call about their efforts what are they specifically doing yeah there's a lot going on there are super packs plural that have been started just to combat third parties the DNC has its own operation they have mobile Billboards going around Kennedy events to kind of troll him there's big legal efforts going on to try to keepe Kennedy off the ballot wherever possible and this is a totally different approach from how they've handled third p
arty candidates in the past which was basically just to ignore them pretend they don't exist so now they are you know loading the hopper with millions of dollars to potentially Pummel them if they need to oh Alex one of the real challenges is I try to report this out as well right is is the is why Democrats think that someone who is eyeing RFK Jr right now would come around and vote for Joe Biden or I mean presumably these are people who are more inclined to votee for for Biden in the past right
and now if they're not going to vote for Joe Biden this time wouldn't they just pick another third party person or or sit it out all together I mean in either case they face a real challenge here that's definitely one of the issues and and one voter that we spoke to who is at the uh RFK VP event said that if uh she doesn't end up voting for RFK she would likely vote green party instead so there's a kind of you know multi-dimensional chess that has to be going on here but the main point they wan
t to make is that a vote for anybody other than Joe Biden is a vote for Donald Trump and isn't Donald Trump scary you can't reelect him so that's going to be their number one message and the people that they're most concerned about these kind of marginally attached voters as they call them to the Democratic party low propensity voters especially young men of color pay attention to there that's where a lot of this game is going to be played hear the same thing as I do the reporting it's always va
lidating when someone else who's reporting similar things here's something not too disimilar Alex nice to see you thanks for your reporting and for sharing it with US president B meanwhile is counting on Union support to help him win in some critical States among them Michigan the president already secured an endorsement from the United Auto Workers in January but that may not translate into Union votes this November from the latest installment of our series we call it the deciders focus group p
roduced in collaboration with engages Syracuse University and SAG we heard from Michigan voters who are either in unions or have family members in unions about how that may influence who they support this fall who would say former president Trump's policies are pro-union none of you so Deborah help me with this he's not pro-union but you'd support him in the next election tell tell me why because I think he's Pro worker I think he knows how to get jobs out there you know this taxing the rich and
everything that's all great except for the rich are the ones that provide the jobs if you tax them too much they're going to go to another country and there will be no jobs I agree with what Deborah said I do I think he's more about the worker workers as a whole not just the union who would say President Biden's policies are pro Union five of you just in the last few years I've watched our uh bargaining power become stronger the right to work laws are starting to get repealed and our salaries a
re going up he's starting to listen to us I'm starting to feel like our uh voices are being heard and that we're not in danger of like losing our jobs or you know even having like unions getting dissolved I just feel like he's publicly made his support of unions known he's he's not afraid to uh to support us in the open NBC News White House excuse me Washington correspondent yish Alor I see her at the White House on occasions it it's nice to see you at least in person today that was kind of rema
rkable to hear those words from these individual ual Union families union members and their reaction there why did they say that their sort of Union connection may not actually play a role in their choice well it's a it's a good question because you have President Biden calling himself over and over again the most Pro Union president in history and you also have former president Trump courting unions but what we learned from this focus group was that they're not a cohesive voting block mainly be
cause they're worried about a number of other things like abortion or the economy or housing so they don't see the Union the defining thing that's going to make them vote for one candidate over the other the other thing that was really interesting is that there's really a political divide between the union leadership and the rank in file and they said in a number of cases that when they looked at their union leaders they thought they were motivated by money or by politics they were at times comp
laining about the fact that they only that most of the time they back Democrats so you had some Trump supporters saying my union leaders don't really want to talk about the the candidate that I want to support so it was very interesting to see but really they just don't see unions as the number one thing on their list well the biggest takeaway from what you said right is that these are not a monolith these Union voters Union family member voters here these guys were in Michigan these men and wom
en with whom uh they spoke recently but the issue that was key to them had nothing to do with what's going on in Michigan in terms of Border Union issues it had to do with a border a big national issue right now that's right when you look at this group 15 people seven of them said they were voting for President Biden six for for for former president Trump two said that if it was a two-way race they wouldn't vote but on the issue of the Border they were cohesive so people who were literally yelli
ng at each other last night at this focus group when it came to the Border they all got together so take a listen to what they said who's concerned about the situation at America's Southern border Jo fingers who's concerned about the situation at America's Southern border six of you Colleen what concerns you we need to think about us first we're we're at odds with our own country we need to be focusing on our own people not letting in people that are not even part of this country they're getting
social security and benefits that I can't even get even being an employed person in this country and it just makes me angry and I never used to feel that way I was like straight liberal as liberal as you could get years ago but the more I see the more my eyes are opening like it just makes me sick you all live in Michigan you're more than a thousand miles from the southern Texas border why is that border such a big issue for you it is taxing the resources of the entire country it doesn't um it
doesn't matter what state you're in in my opinion it's it's um it's a huge strain on financially on all the resources that we have it affects the drugs are still getting to Michigan the crime is still coming to Michigan I mean A Thousand Miles doesn't is nothing to the these kind of criminals they they travel wherever they're well organized and they're well funded there's a lot to break down from all this first of all most fenel goes through border crossings as opposed to between those border cr
ossings but those are really revealing views that a lot of these folks have about this issue including the first lady who said she's very liberal presumably a Democrat but said on this issue she has real concerns right now I want to ask you quickly the president his argument is hey there's a bipartisan border deal this is the most Mitch McConnell was on board with this thing even the Border Union supported this and they endorsed Donald Trump does it does any of that resonate with these individua
ls it really just goes by their partisan um view of the world so if you're a supporter of President Biden you see that him you see him really trying to do something on the border but if you're someone who's supporting former president Trump you see him as being weak On the Border even with that border security package I want to just double score really underscore the fact that two of the men in that it was Larry and Paul they were just really arguing all night long I watched this for three hours
last night they were arguing with each other when it came to the Border they literally just started saying the exact same things echoing each other's languages talking about the fact that Democrats and Republicans they need to get together and fix the Border issue and it was really telling that they said in Michigan they're like yes we're a thousand miles away from the border but the fentanyl the crime all of that comes to this state so really really telling three hours of uh watching focus gro
ups that's a big big Wednesday night for the alidor family last night you're a good sport listening to it but they have some really revealing things to share y thank you for sharing that and after the break rescue efforts are still underway in Taiwan after the Island's biggest earthquake in 25 years it left more than a thousand people injured at least 10 are believed dead you watching Meet the Press [Music] now welcome back we are still monitoring the developments in Taiwan where rescue teams ar
e working to find hundreds of people still trapped after Wednesday's powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake NBC News correspondent Janice Macky fryer is on the ground inside Taiwan this is Juan and you can see the building behind me is tilting very precariously that's the force with which the earthquake struck here and this was the hardest hit Area we're about 11 miles from the epicenter and the numbers continue to rise more than a thousand people have been injured and hundreds are said to be trapped
uh emergency crews and helicopters were able to reach dozens of Mine Workers uh who had been trapped in two quaries the focus for search and rescue efforts is in the mountain areas around here it's where hundreds of people have been cut off uh landslides are blocking roads they're they're caught between the rockfalls people are stuck in tunnels there are dozens who are at a hotel in a national park rescue team have been able to get food and water to them some medical care if necessary but it wi
ll be a slow process uh to try to get those people out to safety uh landslides are Mo are blocking most major routes there is debris and falling Rock a dash cam video today uh said it all it it showed Boulders rolling down the road and crushing cars uh the other challenge for rescue teams right now aftershocks there've been more than 300 of them since the initial earthquake and now weather is becoming a factor with rain coming into the forecast here in the city officials are taking a hard look a
t any buildings that have been significantly damaged the one behind us uh will be demolished tomorrow uh as they continue to clean up and move ahead from this most powerful quake in a quarter Century Janice Macky frer there in Taiwan for us thank you we're going to be right back with more Meet the Press [Music] now welcome back that effort in Nebraska to overhaul how the state dos out its electoral votes seems to have flamed out pretty darn quickly Nebraska legislators last night blocked this tr
ump-backed effort to shift the state to a winner take all electoral vote system that likely would have benefited the former president while it is possible that supporters take another stab and trying to advance this proposal it's unclear whether the proposal has enough support or time to become law and joining me now to talk about all of it is Idris Kon he is the Washington bureau chief for The Economist Maria Teresa Kumar the president and CEO of voto Latino she is also an NBC News contributor
and Sarah Chamberlain is with us she is the president and CEO of the Republican Main Street partnership adri it's nice to see you in person we haven't done one of these conversations so I'm going to start with you here it looks like it's less likely now that may have been that there's going to be any change in Nebraska the reason this matters for those who are watching is if you live in the Omaha area that's a more blue part of the state and that one vote could be the difference between a 270 to
268 Electoral College victory for one of the candidates are 269 to 269 coming up here what is your reaction to what we saw in Nebraska it's a big win for Joe Biden um you know that that single vote that he gets from Nebraska 2 probably will get again um is really helpful for him because if he ties um there's this weird part of the Constitution where the house becomes even more gerrymander than normal every state has a single vote and the block as a whole votes and basically if you look at the m
ath Republicans are going to be the majority of that so for the for that weird reason uh this Nebraska vote going in this way is good for Joe Biden it avoids a tie and and a tie up for him well and among the other reasons why this got a lot of eyeballs right is because so there are two states that do this Nebraska and Maine Maine would benefit Joe Biden so Donald Trump has no issue with what's going on in Maine right now he's not going to win that state in any form in Nebraska he has the potenti
al to win an extra electoral seat that could extra electoral vote that could matter here right that is always pretty striking for anybody trying to get an understanding of what the calculation is yeah Donald Trump is just always in favor of things in his self-interest it's surprising for for a lot of people he consistent yeah shocking breaking news I I will say Nebraska's become famous I I work in a British company I've I've spent time in the UK and people always pay attention to our politics an
d all it's always so shocking to have people in London come up to you and ask you about Nebraska 2 and how it's going to go but people actually it's it's worldwide now the world is concerned yeah well our politics have become sport for a lot of the world right now with some real concerns about the way things are going I want to ask you about this if I can for a little bit too Sarah to get just your sense of the way things are going on this issue and about Donald Trump broadly calculation wise he
re he's been saying he's been talking about hostages we were talking about earlier in this conversation referring to these January 6th as salance as hostages only 15 of them are being held in pre-trial detention out of like 1300 a lot of them because of some pretty serious charges which is why that's the case so what does this say about the party that there isn't any push back within the Republican Party about this kind of language that even a member of the hostage family told me today is cruel
it's painful and it's inaccurate it is but it's working for his base and right now it's all about Donald Trump's base most of the Republican Main Street partnership members aren't focused on that so the calculation for him is just to try get as much of the base as you can not to grow it anywhere and try to knock Joe Biden down as low as you can and spread out some of his I think his strategy is all about turnout and making sure the the Trump base turns out and I think that's how he thinks he's g
oing to win I think he has a problem with Suburban women and he can't win them I don't and so if he can turn out more of the rural people he can drive up the numbers and and hopefully get to Victory I want to ask you about that really quickly so you look at States like Florida the White House or the Biden campaign says it may be winnable now States like Arizona North Carolina will have Reproductive Rights initiatives language on their ballots how does that change this conversation I think Florid
a is a bridge too far I just do not see Joe Biden really be able to play but it does it Force Donald Trump to spend money there defend it could we'll have to wait and see how the how the Ping goes but North Carolina is a little different North Carolina has a lot of people from the north that have moved down there and their governor candidate maybe um will hurt will hurt Trump we have to wait and see yeah he's very far right C he's very far right let me ask you Maria I want to get back to the sor
t of the predicate that we were here Joe this is the same Donald Trump that said he could walk on a Fifth Avenue and shoot some body and his supporters would still support him here it does really for a lot of Democrats raise questions and concerns about what a trump 2024 to 2028 White House might look like right those Republicans a lot of mainst Street Republicans were willing to work with them the last time around he has knocked he has pushed all of them out they are not even anywhere near his
inner circle anymore well I think it's not just the Democrats that should be concerned it should be every single American who believes in our Constitution and our form of government and our rights that should be concerned he has already told us what he wants to accomplish when he's at the White House and that is basically centralized power for himself he has the memo Maggie herberman put out exactly what he wanted to do the idea that he would like to be a dictator for day one we should take ever
ything he says absolutely seriously because he has demonstrated that he's willing to follow through and if you want to look at his presidency the first term that was a dress rehearsal he now understands how government works he understands the levers of power and he is okay saying with the mainstream Republicans I don't need you and so there is no way to grow the base because I think that's been solidified what the Democrats need to do though is they need to figure out how to grow their base all
these polls that you see right now in North Carolina and North in uh Arizona and Nevada what they're missing are the tens and hundreds of thousands of young people that have turned 18 since the last election that haven't jumped in yeah how will they jump in so I I want to ask you about that in a little bit of way because one of the key issues for that voting block as were in particular is the issue of what's taking place in Israel in Gaza right now and there's new polling from MBC that just show
s how Furious how upset that voting block is with the present presidents the present us position viav this issue right here in interest to you then on this in particular what's notable to me is that Donald Trump has basically been absent on this issue he said publicly yeah they should about Israel should finish the job there right but he has sort of escaped accountability as it relates to Israel I mean there's no real understanding or ation about what it would look like under a trump presidency
no I mean he's a canny politician and he avoids discussing not just Israel he avoids discussing abortion he doesn't also talk all that much about Ukraine I mean the people on on the Republican side who do that are people like JD Vance and Tucker Carlson um he avoids these issues because he doesn't feel compelled to do it and you understand why Joe Biden at the moment we saw him vent some frustration a lot of frustration in Netanyahu today but his base is split right I mean he has young people wh
o are more Progressive leaning who are uh you know just appalled at the level of Civilian casualties on on Palestine at the same time there are a lot of Democrats who are incredibly favorable towards the state of Israel and wanted to do well and Biden is is stuck between those two po but where there's agreement I would suggest is that everybody wants this thing to end and the hostages to get home right they want the Palestinians protected they want the hostages to home they want this thing to en
d and the president himself wants that perhaps as much as anybody because of the political calculations he has to worry about as well here I want to ask you about something that the former president Donald Trump said just a couple days ago he said I'm gonna make my position on abortion clear soon as it relates to what's going on in Florida a six we ban that's going to be on the ballot this fall the Democrats would say you've made your position pretty clear on this you've claimed credit for the t
hree justices who helped overturn Ro Wade what say you he has but at the same time he's also gone to 15 or 16 weeks I think that's where he's going to come down so getting that he's going to come down there so you were talking about women in sub in the suburbs right now are women in the suburbs for whom this is a key issue it's been a big winner for Democrats across the board right now to they give the presid presid former president any credit for anything else he says on this issue at this poin
t they are struggling with that we do a lot of pulling around this issue they're struggling but if he can come in at 15 or 16 weeks that's where the majority of the women are in this country they can live with that and then we'll see if if they want to support Trump on other issues but 15 or 16 weeks Works last thought on that I don't think I I think that's where he's going to land will it stick does it matter should it matter it should matter because you because once he gets into the White Hous
e you don't actually know if he's actually going to follow through with that but back to this um this notion about Donald Trump and Netanyahu they're very they've been close in the past so that's one of the reasons why he doesn't want to visibly talk about what he why would Trump jump in if Biden is dying on this issue 100% but we kind of know what it will look like if he was part we'll keep doing this in the commercial Brank I should like put it on my phone let people watch then I appreciate yo
u guys being here you're just nice to see you in person Sarah Maria Teresa Kumar nice to have you as well NBC News News Now coverage continues Jackson right now thanks for watching stay updated about breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or follow us on social media
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