We are coming on the air with breaking news. The major story of the day. President Biden speaking to the press amid growing calls for him to drop out of the 2024 race. The entire country watching to see how President Bidel would handle this big test. Off the bat, the president with a major blunder when asked about how he feels about Vice President Harris ability to beat Trump if she were on the ticket.

Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president. Did I think she was not qualified to be president?

The president later seemingly losing his place when responding to another reporter.

How many times did you hear in that conference? I know it sounds too self serving, but other leaders, heads of state in thanking me, saying the reason we're together is because of Biden, because Biden did the following. Look, folks, this is, well, anyway, I thought it was the most successful conference I've attended in a long time. And find me a world leader who.

Didn'T think it was the backdrop of all this new explosive reporting from NBC News and the New York Times. Cracks in the president's support now reaching the president's inner circle. Several of the president's longtime aides saying they no longer see a viable route to re election. One campaign official going as far as saying, quote, he needs to drop out and he will never recover from this. And as questions and accusations swirl over his fitness for office, earlier tonight, President Biden caught in a jarring moment, mistakenly calling Ukrainian President Zelenskyy President Putin.

And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. President Putin. President Putin. You can beat President Putin. President Zelensky.

And this stunning development. NBC confirming that the Biden campaign is quietly assessing how Vice President Kamala Harris would fare if she were to go up against Trump. At this hour, more lawmakers are coming forward saying it's time for President Biden to bow. We're following all the latest developments on the heels of that consequential news conference. Monica Alba joins us now. Monica, a couple questions for our viewers. Right. If you were tuning into this, you don't really understand the machinations of how the White House, how they decide who gets to ask questions. How were the reporters selected for this conference? And did they put a cap on who and how many people could ask questions?

Well, I have to tell you, Tom, that the president did take questions for a little close to an hour. He had those opening remarks, and then he pivoted to really taking those questions from at least eight different questioners. And then even at the end, he called on two reporters and said that he would not just wrap it up with one but let the other one. And I should point out that multiple of those supporters, my colleagues in the White House press corps, had follow ups. So he really did answer dozens of questions, if you take the follow ups into account. And at the very end, I thought it was notable that he did take a shouted question from our colleague Peter Alexander, who asked him about that clear stumble where he incorrectly referred to his vice president as Vice President Trump. And Peter posed that question to the president saying, what did you mean essentially? And did you realize that? And referring back to the point that already we're seeing Donald Trump and his allies and his campaign seize on that moment. And in response, President Biden said to Peter, listen to him. And that is a big, big message that the whole White House and Biden reelection effort wants to be the takeaway from this news conference.

They want to turn the page. They're trying to, on that disastrous debate performance and put it back on the presumptive republican nominee. And that is why you saw President Biden in his opening remarks, talk about NATO in the context of what Donald Trump has said about President Putin and about the defense alliance more generally. He also put it into the context of other foreign policy challenges and really tried to make this about a contrast between his position and vision for a second term and what Donald Trump might do if he is to win back the White House. But overall, Tom, as you saw there, the president, extremely defiant, saying, look, I'm going to stay in this race. I understand why people have certain concerns. He says that they are valid. He says that he understands. He even conceded that if his, his neurologist suggested that he should have another extensive examination like the one he did earlier this year, that he would do that, which is something that stood out as well, given all the questions about his age and his health right now.

Yeah. And we're going to have to wait and see how voters saw his stamina, how they saw his energy, how they, how they saw his cadence, how they heard this speech. He did, he did have one moment there towards the end of the news conference that you mentioned. I want to play for our viewers now in case they missed it, basically asking what would happen at the convention if the pledge delegates to President Biden decided they didn't want him to be the nominee. Listen to that tomorrow.

If all of a sudden I show up at the convention, everybody says, we want somebody else. That's democratic process. It's not going to happen.

So President Biden, as you mentioned, they're defiant, right? Essentially saying that this is not happening, even though the reporting coming from NBC, New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, various other news organizations that people in his inner circle and also other Democrats maybe want him to step down, maybe want another candidate. I want to play another moment for you. This is something he said during the news conference. You cover President Biden day in, day out. You've been covering him every step of the way since the debate. He said this about major events that he's been hosting since the debate. I want to play for our viewers now. Let's, okay, we're going to give him a second to cue that up. It's the 20 major events, but it's ready to go. Let's go.

And where's Trump been? Riding around in his golf cart filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball. He's done virtually nothing. And I have, I don't know how many don't hold me to roughly 20 major events, some of them with thousands of people showing up. And so I just think it's better. I always have an inclination, whether I was playing sports or doing politics just to keep going, not stop. I just got to just pace myself a little more.

Monica, is that the case? Is the president hosting 20 events? Is that fair? Is it around there? Was he being truthful?

Look, I think he's trying to combine a couple of things here, Tom. He's talking about the fact that he did hit the campaign trail after the debate. He was traveling a little bit. Then he did do a handful of radio interviews, then he was back and traveling again. And so he's taking all of those individual engagements and let's say maybe a stop at a restaurant like a waffle house and probably counting. That is one of those things. In addition to then giving a speech in a battleground state, in addition to then these engagements that he has had at NATO over the last couple of days. So if you add up all those.

Things, but not 20, right. But not 20 major campaign events, I understand. Now, since you mentioned the radio interviews, I know there's some new reporting on that. What exactly has happened and what's, what's been uncovered with some of those radio interviews?

Yeah.

And I think what's notable about those is that they have really generated more controversy in the way they were handled than the actual of what was said in those interviews. He did them right before the 4 July. And in those interviews, he conceded that he had screwed up, that he had made a mistake, that he had had a terrible debate night. But what we learned after the fact is that, in fact, some staffers from the Biden campaign and from the White House had apparently suggested interview questions to those radio hosts, and some of them were taken and essentially asked pretty verbatim. And so that's one development. And then in a separate development, also related to those radio, radio interviews. Tom, we understand that the campaign asked them to edit out a portion of something that the president had said during the interview because they didn't happen live to air. They were taped to, then later be released at another time. And that is something apparently that this radio station did, though they said that wasn't up to their journalistic and ethical standards.

Monica Alba, terrific reporting from the get go. We appreciate having you on tonight. I want to get right over to our chief political analyst, Chuck Todd, who joins us now. Chuck, your first thoughts after watching that. I have a series of other questions for you, but I want to get your initial opinion from watching it.

Well, look, you know, if there wasn't the debate, right, if that had never happened, this would have been fine and somewhat perfunctory. Right. It would have been sort of frankly what we've come to expect from these public performances by the president, some slip ups here. He clearly on the topics and on the substance, he knows this stuff. I think the reaction you're going to get, though, is really a Rorschach test. If you are looking for a reason to break with him, you can find some instances to say, look, while he knows the topics, can he really go toe to toe with Trump? He still is allergic to the word abortion. He finds a million different ways even, you know, to vaguely talk about it. Right. So, Chuck, explain that point.

Chuck, I think that's important.

Explain what you mean there about the specific on abortion.

Yeah, yeah, explain that.

Well, I mean, look at it. He talked about, when he was talking about the strengths of Kamala Harris, he started saying freedom for women's bodies and then it was controlled guns, not girls. Right. He makes allusions to it, but it's clear and it drives a lot of democrats, particularly in these swing states, crazy that he can't say the words abortion ban or abortion or anything like that or abortion rights. You know, my point is if you want to stay, if you want to feel better about Biden or at least tell yourself, hey, he's good enough. You know, I think this press conference could, you could say, okay, you know, yes, he can lead the ticket, but I don't think he allayed any concerns about his ability for all four years. And I think that, you know, look, there, I think there were some questions that could have been asked more directly about that about all four years. I do think it's notable what he said at the very end when he said that if his team came to him and said there was no path to victory, you know, he would take that into consideration.

And then he quickly said, but there's no evidence of that. Right. It's not true. You know, I think if you're looking for is he leaving the door open to be persuaded to get out? Perhaps that answer at the end, you could hang your hat on that. But I'll tell you this, before this press conference, it did feel as if, boy, is he going to survive the weekend? Look, he's digging in. And if democrats really want him out, they're going to have to do a pilgrimage. They're going to have to be more public, and they're going to have to, 100 of them are going to have to come out from Capitol Hill, I think, before he's going to budge here. And I don't know if there's 100 elected Democrats that have the stomach for that.

But, Chuck, you know, you say it was a Rorschach test, and I want to ask our great director Brett Holy to get this answer lined up when it was asked directly about Harris's qualifications. Vice President Harris, I do want to ask you, when you have a candidate for office, an incumbent who is debating whether or not to take a neurological test and saying that he is open to taking a neurological test, I mean, aren't you essentially saying or signaling we may be in some real trouble here with voters?

Well, look, I mean, I think this is the problem he's facing here is that this is the number one issue voters have decided is a huge concern for them. And it's been this way for a year. Our own polling has shown, plenty of polling has shown it. You know, there's people that claim that somehow this hasn't been reported in the mainstream media. It's not true. I think this is why there's widespread concern about whether can he serve another four years? And if that is your test, if you're trying to figure that out, you know, if your test is, can he lead this ticket for the next four months, or should your test be, can he serve another four years right in this capacity? And I think that those might be two different questions that certain Democrats are asking themselves here on that point. But if, you know, I'll tell you, for me, I don't think he did enough to answer the question about his ability to serve the next four years. You know, he actually quite cleverly didn't answer the question about his ability to go one on one with Putin two years from now, three years from now.

He also got to give him credit.

For not having this moment where he essentially said he was trying out that the next couple of weeks, like he was trying out to assure voters who had fears that, listen, I can still do this. Here's what he said when he was asked about Vice President Harris qualifications.

First of all, the way she's handled the issue of freedom of women's bodies to have control over their bodies. Secondly, her ability to handle almost any issue on the board, this was a hell of a prosecutor. She was a first rate person, and in a sense, she was really good. I wouldn't have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be president. From the very beginning. I made no bones about that. She is qualified to be president. That's why I picked her.

It wasn't a ringing endorsement of a list of qualifications of what she's done since vice president. But was it enough?

Again, I think, look, I do for him. I think if you've noticed, a lot of his answers were that he would start with a, sounded like he was going to give a laundry list and then he'd sort of stop in the middle. Well, whatever. Right. It's just, it's sort of been a tick, but I want to sort of step back here. This really is the fault of how the White House has handled him and handled this. I go back to something, Tom, and I think you've talked about this before. Had they, you know, I think the inner circle looks at this performance and says, oh, it was fine, because that's the Biden we used to every day. Well, because they're with him all the time, but because they bubble wrapped him over the last two years and were very reticent to put him out in any unscripted moments. And there have only been recently, have they even been doing more unscripted moments. I think it's still a shock to a lot of american people when they're watching this. I think if they had been putting him out there over the last two years and letting the public get as used to him as they are, he might be in a different situation.

They might be supporters of his that are giving him more benefit of the doubt. But right now, you've got Democrats who are just scared of Donald Trump, and they want somebody who's a fighter and the problem is, I think that while substantively he's, you can argue that he's, he's on top of everything he should be trying to campaign on. The question you have to ask yourself is, can he make the case out there? Can he go out there on the stump and do this for 100 straight days between now and November?

You know, the argument he was, there's.

A lot of questions about that.

The argument he was, he was putting forth is the same as campaign managers did to Senate Democrats. Right. If you look at the polling battleground states, it's within the margin of error. It's still an incredibly tight race. Is that enough, you think, to convince, I don't even know what to call them anymore. Right. Because you have the president who's calling them elite Democrats, but the establishment Democrats, any Democrat, if you have a d, if you're a liberal, is that enough to convince them to stop the, I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's organic, if it's a ground swell, if it's a revolution. It seems like a small trickle of elected Democrats that are coming out there when you think of the vast majority, but it feels like the last two days there's been definitely a sea change. Is the argument, though, enough to stop that?

Well, heres the question I would pose to them. Tell me how youre going to make this election all about Donald Trump when there are so many questions about your ability to serve the next four years and can he make this campaign over the next 100 plus days more about Trump than himself? And I think thats what a lot of these swing state Democrats are nervous about, that they look at it and say this is way too much a referendum on Biden. And Democrats dont believe they can win a referendum on Biden election. The only way this is winnable for all of them is they want it to be a referendum on a return of Trump. But has Biden introduced too many of his own variables and own questions about his ability to do all four years? Is that going to be, frankly, a distraction from their ability to laser beam focus on all things Trump? And I get why they're concerned that Biden's just not going to be strong enough to pivot like this.

All right, Chuck Todd, stand by for us. We want to get to Peter Alexander. He was in the room. He got ultimately the last question. The president sort of answered him. Peter, we're going to play that exchange you had with the president. Brett, let's roll that. Respectfully, earlier, you misspoke in your opening answer, you referred to Vice President Harris as Vice President Trump. Right now, Donald Trump is using that to mock your age and your memory. How do you combat that criticism from tonight?

Listen to him, Peter.

You can pick it up from there. Your thoughts? You were there for every moment of that. What do you think? Well, Tom, I have a couple of thoughts. Let's start with that moment that you just revisited at the end of the news conference here. Obviously, it was at the beginning of this news conference where the stakes, as we note, cliche, but they could not be higher. And it was its opening answer with the president. President mistakenly said Vice President Trump when referring to Vice President Harris. I'm seated in the second row right behind some of the president's top aides and advisors. And I have to tell you, there was an audible gasp from reporters in the room and even one of the president's top aides, I saw him just bow his head and just take a very deep breath. I think they recognized the potential damage from a simple moment like that. And within minutes, it was already ricocheting around social media, certainly being amplified by conservatives, Donald Trump junior, Donald Trump himself. So I wanted to get at the end of this news conference a question to the president on that topic. We locked eyes, and his response, as you heard, was listen to him.

So I think in some ways he's hoping to sort of put that to bed. But I would suggest that that is going to be one of the major headlines of this, one of the moments from this that people will be talking about tomorrow and in the days ahead. I think you have two things to think about here. First, performatively, the president, absent that gap, I think most people will say he performed pretty well. I'm hearing from a Biden aide already saying if this Joe Biden has showed up at that debate two weeks ago, they wouldn't be in this aides word in the mess that they are in right now. But substantively, I think a lot of people will feel also those of his supporters, those Democrats in particular, like he demonstrated a real deep understanding about the complexities of foreign policy, talking about China and Israel, Hamas, Gaza and Russia and Ukraine. So I think there's going to be a little confirmation bias. If you think he needed to step aside, it's likely you still believe that. If you think that he has what it takes to be president for four more years, I suspect you probably feel that way.

As I will say that I heard from a top democratic aide just as this news conference wrapped up. They were responding to my specific question to the president, and I asked them if this changed anything. And they said simply, nope. They said it will not be enough to satisfy those House and Senate Democrats who were prepared to come forward saying that President Biden should step aside. And already I didn't get to hear the top of your conversation, but already we are now hearing from another Democrat, Connecticut's Democrat, Jim Himes, the House Democrat, saying immediately after the news conference ended that he believes that Joe Biden should step aside, should allow there to be another nominee. So clearly, this did not stem the tide of democratic defections. Tom? Peter, I think sometimes it's important to pause. Right. And explain to the viewers the process. We're used to this. Right. Because we cover the president. You at the end of the news conference had to get up and sort of shout your question. Right. Explain to our viewers how were the people selected to ask questions and why was there sort of a limit? Because people may be asking themselves, great reporters like yourself from NBC, ABC, CNN, they didn't get a chance to ask questions at this consequential news conference.

Explain to our viewers why that happens. Well, I mean, there were probably a hundred reporters in here, so I recognize that not everybody's going to get a chance to ask a question. Certainly, I would have liked to and ultimately got to at the end here. But generally, pulling back the curtain, the reporters asked the White House, they say, I'm going to be in attendance and I'd like to ask a question. And the White House decides for itself who's going to get those questions. And you likely don't know until the president calls on you. So reporters like me have to be prepared either way. I do think the questions did address a lot of the major topics that needed to be addressed in the course of this. The president, at the very end, seemed to leave the door open to the possibility of stepping aside. If he was shown evidence that Kamala Harris could beat Donald Trump and that there was evidence that he could not, he then dismissed that, saying that that's not going to happen here. But, you know, the president did speak for, what was it, roughly an hour, perhaps a little more than an hour tonight in this news conference.

If this was an effort to try to demonstrate stamina, I think on that front, after a very long several days dealing with world leaders here at the NATO summit that he is the host of, I think he'll satisfy issues that may have related to the topic of stamina. But, but I do think, you know, beyond that, obviously, people are now going to see this in digested pieces. They're going to see it on the Internet. Clips like that first mistake that gaffe are going to play all over the place. And before he arrived here, he had another mistake where he accidentally, as he spoke to it, referred to President Zelenskyy, Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine as president Vladimir Putin of Russia. He quickly corrected it. But those are moments that, if you see them in small snippets, I think will only underscore the real concerns that presently exist about this president, given the real issues right now in terms of his candidacy and the topic of his mental and physical preparedness. And we should point out that a lot of the questions that were asked were from foreign news agencies because he is hosting that NATO summit.

PeteR Alexander, phenomenal reporting as always. We want to bring in our political pros now. Hogan GIDleY, republican strategist and former Trump White House deputy press secretary, and Michael Starr Hopkins, a democratic strategist and who has served on the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton presidential campaigns, both men, good friends to top story. Great to have you here. Michael, I'm going to start with you. How did President Biden do?

It was a good performance. The problem with the good performance is it puts Democrats into an even tougher position because that debate wasn't an outlier. It was more of an indicator of the problem that's been resting just under the sea level for this party moving forward. I think you're still going to see a number of Democrats come out tomorrow that were holding off because of NATO. He can't fix the problem.

Wait, Michael, let me stop you right there. They're going to come out and do what?

I'm going to come out and say that it's time for him to step aside. I've been talking to some hill staffers as well as some members of the CBC who have publicly said that they're with Biden. And as we get closer to NATO ending, and now that this press conference is over, I expect many of them to come out in the next couple of days because the press conference alone.

Can'T stop from the Congressional Black Caucus, is that what you're saying?

Yes, from the Congressional Black Caucus.

That would be a huge blow to the president. Right. Because as we know, we've talked about it in our show a lot. You cannot win this election if you're a Democrat. If you don't have the coalition of voters like black voters, hispanic voters, that would be a pretty big event. If that does happen, you think that's going to happen?

I do. If you look at the fact that Congressman Jeffries has the opportunity to be the first black speaker, and a lot of CBC members have been celebrating this in really looking forward to it. If the polls continue to be true, Democrats aren't just going to miss that opportunity, but the Republicans are going to capture the House by 1020 seats. And so I think you're now going to start to see more CBC members come out in hopes that we can stop the bleeding and speaker Jeffries can, or soon to be Speaker Jeffries, if we're able to course correct.

Michael, we know President Biden needed a home run tonight. How did he do at the plate?

You know, I would say that this was a double. The problem is that every day he's got to be perfect, and there's no way that any candidate can do that. You know, like Peter Alexander was saying, the story today is going to be the two incidences where he mixed up the names. It's not going to be that he spoke for an hour and was able to really articulate a clear message. It's going to be those two moments.

Yeah. Especially complicated foreign policy issues. Hogan Gidley, you know how the Trump campaign chain is going to handle this. It has already started exactly what Michael just said there. The tweets are out there. They're just honing in on all the mistakes and they're going to pump social media with that. What else do they do with this news conference?

Well, I think Michael's absolutely right. And if, if the congressional Black caucus begins to fracture and show that there, there's cracks in that dam for their support for Joe Biden, that's a huge story and would be a massive shift. And I think Joe Biden would have some serious trouble at the end of the day, though. So I still think the dust settles and Joe Biden stays in. They rally the troops and they try to do what they can to salvage the sagging poll numbers and the sagging candidacy of Joe Biden. But this was a bad night, I think, for Biden, but it wasn't bad enough to, I think, push him out of this race. I think Democrats have a tough time now. Michael's absolutely right about that, too, because if he'd have fallen on his face completely, we'd be having another conversation. But he came out, the bar was set very low, and everyone was watching this not to find out what he would say about a topic. They just wanted to find out if he could talk about the topic at all. He did achieve that. Of course. There were flubs along the way.

These are flubs that we've kind of come to know and expect from Joe Biden from the last four years. I don't think that's the story, though. I think the real story is Trump is going to look at this as a win. I think he should because it puts the Democrats in further turmoil. And I think Democrats are going to be in a weird spot here because it was a win for Biden and now they have a tough time coming out and calling for his ouster when he just put up a performance like that.

Robert, you've worked with a lot of candidates, candidates whose maybe their campaigns are on the ropes. Did it sound like President Biden was projecting strength? Did it sound like he was staying in this race as you think he's going to do, or did it sound like he was maybe listening and opening the door to possibly dropping out if the entire party turns on him?

There were a couple moments I did think he was kind of seeding the ground, if you will, when he talks so glowingly about Kamala and why he picked in the first place. You know, there could be a switch, and he was trying to make that possibility. But then he doubled down even more on him staying in the race. There were some awkward moments with reporters. I thought, boy, did they give him a soft glove tonight. No real questions about his health that were of any significance. I mean, the toughest question, I think, came from Peter Alexander, who stood up and just basically pointed out the flub he made that was so problematic to set the tone for that press conference and set Twitter ablaze, of course. But look, I think for the most part, we're kind of back to status quo here. It's going to be an interesting next few days for the Democrats as we head into Milwaukee for the republican convention.

Michael, what do you think happens?

Look, pride's a hell of a thing, and you've seen the president double down about staying in. But at the end of the day, this is going to be about donor money. When John Morgan, when George Clooney, if Jeffrey Kastenberg all cut off money to candidates, especially at the top of the ticket, it's going to be devastating. And as you look at more down ballot candidates, look at the polls and see that the president's going to be a drag on the ticket, there's going to be those calls, and those calls aren't going to stop. They're going to pick up, especially now that NATO's over. It was a good performance, but it can't save him.

Michael star Hopkins Hogan Gidley, always a pleasure to talk to you guys. I want to get to, my good friend Hallie Jackson has been standing by for us. She was watching every minute of that news conference as well. Hallelujah. We've heard from our White House reporters. Right. Monica and Peter, we heard from, from Chuck Todd and we've heard from our political pros.

I'm curious to get good, good, Tom.

And they're good. It's good. The tough, tough show to follow. Right. It's a fact to follow. I do want to ask you, though, what you think. Right. Because the most important people that this matters to are the voters. Right. And what did the voters see that night? What did they want to see? And did President Biden deliver for them?

It really depends on which voters you talk to. Right. Think about this moment, though. For President Biden, this is, you don't get opportunities in primetime on network television, across all the networks, to speak to the american people all that often. Right. That is, that is fairly rare. Of course, the last opportunity President Biden had to do that was exactly two weeks ago tonight, and that was his debate performance that's been widely panned as disastrous. That's what put him in the political crisis that he's in now. So it depends on the voters that you talk to. I will tell you that you're seeing kind of a variety of it. We have these amazing embeds, as you know, who are supplant, you know, planted in different places all around the country. They're talking with voters and, you know, democratic voters in particular, who, some of whom are suggesting that they are with Joe Biden because they believe that the alternative is so much worse. Now, the polling, if you're going to look at it not just anecdotally but quantitatively, if you will, the polling suggests, of course, that President Biden still narrowly trails and what is a very close race.

And I have to caveat that many of the polls are inside the margin of error in some of these key battlegrounds. You can look at national polling shore. But these races, as you well know, or won and lost in these half a dozen key states present, former President Trump leads in many of them, again, inside the margin of error for almost all, except, I think, Pennsylvania and the Biden campaign sources that I talked to there say, listen, this is still very close. They haven't seen a ton of meaningful movement away from President Biden since that debate performance. So that brings us to tonight. Right. Another moment now on the primetime stage in front of Americans in this big audience here. And I'll tell you what I heard from one, one current democratic member who said this is kind of like an inkblot test. Right? If you came into tonight and you were on the side of Joe Biden, you wanted to see him stay in this race, you probably didn't see anything to make you change your mind. You're probably feeling okay. If you wanted the president to withdraw his name from the ticket, there's probably not much that you saw tonight that made you change your mind either.

Right? So here we have this, it seems for now, bit of a status quo. Now, I say that with the caveat that who knows what could happen tomorrow, the next day. I'm sure you've already talked about Congressman Hymes, who has now come out in the seconds after that news conference to say that he thinks President Biden should step off the ticket. You may start to see more of that drumbeat now that the NATO summit is over and now that those world leaders have left.

You know, two, two important moments, I think, from this news conference that that should be huge takeaways. One, we had a sitting president, the incumbent, who is debating taking questions on whether to take a neurological test at this moment, right now in the campaign, when really you should start to think about your closing arguments to voters. Right. It's almost like the president right now is at the start of this campaign. And two, the only other Democrat mentioned is, of course, Vice President Kamala Harris. And we have some new reporting from Yamiche Alcindor talking to her sources, talking to Democrats close to Kamala Harris, saying what the president said tonight was great for her because they showed that he's completely behind her and that she's qualified, if this were to happen, to be in that net, that pole position, to be the first one lined up on the ticket. How big of a night was this for the vice president, do you think?

You know, she has been walking this very sort of delicate tightrope, I think, behind the scenes, publicly, obviously, full throated support for President Biden. But, you know, she's at the center of all this speculation on what would happen if he did come off the ticket were she to be, in fact, the nominee. I mean, to the point where there's speculation in the rumor mill, the like Beltway rumor mill is going about who would be Kamala Harris's running mate this November if, in fact, she were to get on the ticket. I mean, I think there are some folks who are like ten steps down the path right now when we haven't even, you know, President Biden has not even opened that door because he says he's staying in it. So I think, obviously, of course, it's, you know, Vice President Harris is, I'm sure, undoubtedly happy to hear that President Biden has confidence in her. But if he didn't have confidence in her, he probably wouldn't have put her on the ticket in the first place to be his vice president, given the relationship there that any president has with their vice president moving forward. I would also go, I would go, you one more macro, so to speak.

And that way I pull back even more because you talked about how interesting this is. In your view, one of your key takeaways was the way that this feels like a moment when you should be making your closing argument, not your opening argument, just to take a beat here, sort of the world that we're in right now, where you have the sitting president of the United States conducting a news conference that focused in large part on his ability to even serve in office, that touched on his bedtime, that touched on, I mean, some of these things that are, you know, well within the arena of fair play for questions, given that Democrats remember the calls coming from inside the House. Democrats have raised these concerns. But this is a pretty extraordinary moment in american politics. Whatever happens from here, whether President Biden remains on the ticket, as he hopes to do, or whether he comes off it.

Holly Jackson for us. Holly, always great to have you. We thank you for that. We're going to have much more on the president's news conference in just a moment. We're going to take a very quick break. We'll be right back.

I'm determined on running, but I think it's important that I realize I lay fears by seeing, let them see me out there. Let me see them. You know, for the longest time, it was, you know, Biden's not prepared to sit with us unscripted. Biden's not prepared to in any way. And so what I'm doing is that I've been doing, I think we've done over 20 major events from Wisconsin to North Carolina to, anyway, to demonstrate that I'm going out in the areas where we think we can win, we can persuade people to move our way, or people are already there. Look, the other thing is we have the most extensive campaign organization that anybody's had in a long, long time. We have well over a thousand volunteers knocking on doors, making phone calls, making tens of thousands of phone calls. We have headquarters. I forget exactly how many. I want to cite a number and then find out. I'm off. But we have scores of headquarters and all, and all the toss up states were organized, were moving, and I, that's awful hard to replace in the near term.

That was President Biden at that news conference that just recently wrapped up. NBC News White House correspondent Mike Memle covers President Biden for us. He's covered him for a very long time. He's one of the most well sourced reporters covering President Biden right now. What are your sources telling you, Mike, about the news conference that we just witnessed?

Well, Tom, in the White House, the campaign knows how important this moment was. They have seen a lot of important moments coming that he has failed to deliver on. Of course, first and foremost, that debate and some of the moments since. And they know there are going to be other tests for him to come. The question really is what does President Biden think at this moment? And I think tonight we heard indications of, of course, his intention to stay in this race. But, Tom, I thought some of the most interesting and important parts were the potential openings he laid to exiting this race. Talked about the possibility that his team could give him polling data that shows that Vice President Harris could win and that he could not. He said he hasn't seen it yet, but that's possible. He talked about members of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention potentially being open to vote their conscience. He doesn't expect that they will vote for somebody other than him, but they, at the moment, he is giving them that indication. And so for somebody who is 100% in until he's 100% out, I think we heard tonight he's 100% until still.

But I wouldn't foreclose that he is open to the introspection.

Mike, let's spend some time on that. Right. Because, you know, again, President Biden better than maybe any other reporter on this planet when you listen to that, because I picked up on that as well. But it's, you know, other people hear different things. Did you think that was him sort of slightly opening the door or, because some people have said President Biden, especially since he is now the leader of the free world, he can do pretty much whatever he wants. He can also be very stubborn. It was surprising to me. Did you read it the same way?

Well, we saw flashes of the different. Joe Biden's right. We saw that scrappy kid from Scranton who is geared up for a fight. He knows he's fighting for his political career. He got his voice raised at certain points, especially talking about gun violence. You can see that he still thinks he is the best person, as he put it, in this order to govern and to win. But I also did see that Joe Biden, that a lot of Democrats really have such a well of empathy and goodwill tours, and they want to see him end this the right way. They want to see him go out. He said he's not doing this for his legacy. He's doing this because he thinks he could see needs to finish the job. And I think the days ahead are going to be so critical. For instance, Jim Clyburn, who is as important to his current position being in the White House as anybody, going to be on the Today show tomorrow morning. What will he say? How did he view tonight? That's a voice President Biden will listen to. He's going to spend the weekend with his family again in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

What kind of thoughts are they having now that we're two weeks into this moment of political crisis for the family? Have they gone through a process where they think his future, his legacy might be better served by him stepping aside? I think President Biden has gone through a range of emotions over these past two weeks. He's gone through a range of possibilities. The fact that he knows how important it was to set up Vice President Harris and for success potentially, if she has to step in is important. And the fact that he showed a little bit of recognition that there could be a scenario where he steps aside is important as well.

Mike, will he listen to those Democrats that you mentioned?

Well, I thought one of the things that was so interesting is think about how President Biden first entered the national political scene. It was as a Senate candidate, 29 years old, in Delaware in 1972. He was elected senator that year against a longtime incumbent by just a few thousand votes, a very close race. Even though Richard Nixon, the republican sitting president, won Delaware overwhelmingly, he didn't get into the weeds the way I just did with you. But that's what he was referring to. He thinks Democrats who are worried about him being a drag on the ticket only need to look at what he did in 1972. What we know, politics is a much different situation right now. The top of the ticket and the down ballot are much more linked. We're almost parliamentary in that way now. So I think if Chuck Schumer, if Nancy Pelosi, if Hakeem Jeffries were to come to him or ask for time with him, that will be important. President Biden has often talked about the fact that he respects the views, not of pundits, not of people like me who haven't run for office themselves. He respects those who have put themselves on the ballot before.

He'll listen to anybody else. And I think if he can be made, if there's a convincing case that could be made to him, him, that this is unwinnable and that he is going to hurt the party, that's going to carry a lot of weight with him.

You know, NBC News had some explosive reporting that the New York Times had as well, which was that key aides are now talking to President Biden to, and these are, these are my words, but essentially talking to him about the possibility of stepping aside. What's your understanding of those conversations?

Well, the president has such a very loyal team of advisers, some of whom have been with him for decades, who continue to be at his side. Now, the circle of those who are really in on the important day to day decision making, in fact, I think has shrunk somewhat. There are those close to him, and our reporting bears this out, as does the times, who do believe that this race is unwinnable and that he should consider stepping aside. They are doing their due diligence to prepare him for a graceful exit. The question is, is he aware of those conversations gracing those conversations? I don't think so at this point. But they are doing what they need to do to continue to be loyal, to continue to serve him well, to prepare for that possibility. And that's where we are at this moment.

Mike Menily, we appreciate all your reporting. We're going to take a quick break right after this break. Jen Psaki, she joins us here on top Story. Stay with us.

I'm not in this for my legacy. I'm in this to complete the job I started, started.

President Biden still defiant at his news conference that just wrapped moments ago. The president, they're defending his time in office so far and saying this is not an ego trip. Right. He still has work to do. Joining Top Story now live is Jen Psaki, who, of course, worked as a press secretary for President Biden, now a host of MSNBC and a good friend. To top story. Jen, first question is easy. How did he do?

I think he did. If you're in the White House right now, you're relieved. And I know that may sound a little crazy, but for them and on the campaign, but they're playing kind of a time game here. Right. The more time that goes on, the more likely it is in their view that the president remains the nominee. So the president just, he had flubs, no question, a big one in the beginning when he called Vice President Harris, Vice President Trump, that's on Twitter. People are talking about it's a problem.

And the Putin before that earlier and.

The Putin before that earlier today. So he's had and flubs, imperfect, not a home run. But he did talk about foreign policy.

China, 50 plus minutes.

Yeah, Middle East, Ukraine, Russia, that's his sweet spot. It's his comfort spot. And so for them, yes. Congressman Jim Himes, who is the ranking member on the intelligence committee, but came out with a statement immediately as it concluded, which means that was pre written, I bet. And he was going to do it as NATO concluded. But they maybe bought themselves some time. Now, that is a terrible purgatory for the Democratic Party at the same time. Right. Because the resolution of this, the uncertainty is so hard for candidates running for the House, for the Senate, for the DNC, even for the people working on the campaign, the uncertainty is a killer.

So it's been two weeks since the debate, right. And something strange has happened in the beginning, the debate, the Democrats, people like President Obama, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, they rallied around the press, president, and it felt like they were going to stand by him. And then the last three days have been very interesting. You've had more members of Congress, still a small number, but elected Democrats who say he needs to step aside. You had former Speaker Pelosi on morning Joe not giving a ringing endorsement of the president. Now you have the reporting from NBC News, the New York Times that aides close to President Biden are trying to explain to him what's happening, trying to open the door to get him to not run again what happened. Because if we can put the poll up for our viewers and ask our great director Brett Holy, the poll from Washington Post that shows it's a dead heat in the battlegrounds. Look at this. It is still a dead heat. And in a lot of the battleground states, it's within the margin of error. That's, that's the argument the Biden Harris campaign managers are making. My question to you is what happened this week?

What do those Democrats see that maybe the american public doesn't see yet?

I mean, I think there's a lot of dynamics happening at the same time, I think people watching the debate felt sad, felt a little shocked, needed a moment to digest. The instinct of people in the Democratic Party, elected officials, is to rally around. I think that's what they did. The ABC interview. I don't think, well, I think the president did okay. It did not survive. He survived it. It didn't instill or reaffirm confidence. They haven't seen him a lot on the campaign trail. They haven't seen him out publicly. I also think that there's been a lot of people have seen more polling since then, and I don't mean nationally.

Seen internal polling in the states that say this is worse than people think.

Well, I think you have House members running for Congress in the House and the Senate. Not many of the frontliners or the vulnerable candidates have come out. A couple have, some have, not a ton have. But they are talking to their consultants. They're talking to people on the ground. They're back in their states. They are probably seeing polling and the polling is telling them things like, is there a change in enthusiasm? Not that I've seen or that anyone's put out publicly. That's something you watch. Is it? Is it is there is, he could be a greater drag on the ticket and they're on their race. It really depends on the candidate because a lot of them were already running ahead of Biden and he has unique challenges that is different from a lot of candidates running and that he is old. If you have a 40 year old candidate, nobody's going to say that person's old. Right. But I think it takes time to assess the political impact. And then he hasn't done anything tremendous to help himself over the last two weeks either. So I think it's a combination. But if you look at these statements, some of them are tortured in how they're written, very carefully written.

A lot of them are trying to leave him space. Nobody wants to embarrass him. People like him personally a great deal. He's been around the Democratic Party for a long time, a leader in the Democratic Party for a long time. Also, they recognize that even for people who don't think he's the right person to be leading the ticket, if they call for that publicly, a lot of the prominent leaders, that weakens him dramatically if he's still the nominee. So there's a lot of factors going on right now. I don't know if it's a dramatic thing in the last couple of days as much as it's a compilation of things over the last two weeks.

When you have an opponent like former President Trump who is just projecting strength, right? And at some points it's just strength. And there's, there's nothing else there. When you have President Biden at this news conference debating whether he should take a neurological test, talking about his bedtime, talking about his wife's getting upset because they're putting too many events. How hard is it to turn that around?

Well, I think the challenge is really about Trump within the Democratic Party in this sense. This is not Mitt Romney running, right, where Democrats may disagree with him, but fundamentally, there's not a concern of him having the nuclear codes. Right. This is somebody who Democrats, a lot of independents feel is an existential threat to our country, that it'd be the end of democracy. Now, that may sound dramatic or what, but that's how people feel. And so because of that, it has put the pressure on whether Joe Biden is the right person to defeat him. And that, I think, is the challenge. Strength is certainly an issue. It's an issue. And it's why do people think Donald Trump is more stronger than Joe Biden, how he projects himself? That's certainly probably why. But I think it's also because of the threat that many Democrats feel he poses, and he does, that people are so contemplative about it right now.

That's the argument some Democrats are making, making. James Carville in the New York Times right after that, you had George Clooney, Brett, I'm going to ask you to set up that bite from Jon Favreau. So you have these, you know, if you want to call them establishment Democrat, I don't even know what to call these people anymore because you have the president who says he's not an elite. It's sort of, it's sort of crazy. They're Democrats. They had rallied around the president up until now. Right. And their argument is the same argument you're making, this, this threat to democracy. Right. Here's what Jon Favreau, one of your former colleagues said. He worked for the Obama administration. Administration. Here's what he said about one of the fundraisers that he saw President Biden at. It was not surprising to any of us who were at the fundraiser. I was there. Clooney was exactly right. And every single person I talked to at the fundraiser thought the same thing except for the people working for Joe Biden, or at least they didn't say that. But I remember my wife Emily turned to me after the fundraiser and said, what are we going to do?

You know, our viewers at home may not know Jon Favreau. He has a huge following with podcasters and in the democratic wing, worked for President Obama. When you have Democrats publicly coming out like that and then even bigger people. George Clooney, James Carville. I mean, how do you, the genie's out of the bottle. How do you get it back in?

Well, I think my view is this is an important conversation to have. The genie should be out of the bottle. I don't know if that's the right continuation of the analogy, but it is a big question, and yes, this has never happened before, that there are millions of people who have cast their votes for Joe Biden. There are some very strong arguments that campaign has and has made. But at the same time, if there is a real concern among the majority of the american people, among the majority of Democrats, about whether or not he can win and whether he can serve full term, then it is a conversation that needs to be had about what the right path forward is. It could be Joe Biden. I mean, I mean, meaning he could still be the knee, because there is, there is a question here, and this is what campaigns are talking about right now, of the alternative and whether Vice President Harris is stronger or weaker than Joe Biden as an alternative. And there's a difference of view on that from campaigns.

We have a poll up. We're going to pull it up. It's, it's vice president Harris in a head to head against President Trump. This is the Washington Post poll just came out. It had her up there pulling up now. Take some time. We have so many elements that have come in because this news conference had about 2% right here. It is right here. So she's on top. She's doing better than the president is. How much of a vote of confidence is this when you, you take that and the comments from President Biden tonight?

I think the comments from him tonight were very important because he had previously said over the course, I think in the ABC interview that he is the only person. Right. And that has continuously been his talking point. So it was important for him to reaffirm that he only would have picked her if he knew she could do the job. He also said something else interesting where he said, like, the delegates can do what they want right now. Some might be concerned.

That was, I mean, I was talking to Mike, Emily, about that because it's strange. On one hand, he was like, defiant, but on the other, it sounded like he was opening the door. It was hard to understand what he was doing.

Well, I think, well, I think what he was, there was a defiance, right? And there was a defiance at different moments in the beginning around guns. It kind of popped up in different moments. But I also think he was recognizes on some level, or this is how I watched it and read it, that he needs to also be the leader of the party and somebody who's reaffirming the objective of defeating Trump and what the party believes in. And that's why that answer he gave in that George interview where he basically said, as long as I tried hard, it would be good enough, made people so mad because to a lot of Democrats and independents and others, it's about much more than that. And so I think he knew he needed to do better than that answer.

Campaigns, white houses, as you know, have to be ready for this moment. We were just talking during the break that this, to me as a journalist, feels like the 2016 campaign with Trump into the Trump White House and that there was breaking news every day, every night you wake up, there was a new story. It hasn't been like that over the last three years with President Biden. Right. Is the White House and the campaign ready for this moment, which is news is breaking every hour about the president and about your campaign. Are they ready for this? Because the last three years, I don't want to say have been easy because they're never easy. I know, but they've been nothing like this.

It's so interesting. It's an interesting question because it's like, what does it mean to be ready for it, right? I mean, they have to be, they don't really have another choice. I think that the question is, what is the plan moving forward? And I think 99% of them don't know the answer to that question. Right. For all intents and purposes, if you're on the campaign in the White House, you, Joe Biden has said he's running, he's going to stick it out as the nominee. That is what you were planning to do. Is that what the result ends up being? I don't think we know the answer to that yet.

Are you surprised how many leaks there have been in the last two weeks?

Yes, very surprised. It was not a leaky white House when I was there. And that shows you the frustration and disappointment and anger, which is maybe concern and maybe concern, concern that people are feeling at different levels. Now, some of those people may not be people who ever interact with the president. Right. And they're just feeling under duress by the whole situation, which is completely understandable.

And that happens.

And that certainly happens. But yes, that is, that is a different, different from the White House I was in two years ago.

I know you don't have a crystal ball, but I do want to ask you, what do you think happens?

I don't have a crystal ball, Tom, I promise. I think there's two clear paths here and those predominantly ones, one is there is a larger avalanche over the next couple of days of Democrats who call on the president to step back, there's polling that shows he can't win. There's polling that shows House and Senate Democrats will lose and we lose the House and the Senate. And he also said tonight, I haven't seen polling that shows I would lose. Right. And his family and closest advisors go to him and say, you don't have a path. These House and Senate Democrats could lose. That's one path. If that happens, it is Kamala Harris. I think by all accounts, she can take in the organization, all the money. She'd be the first african american woman.

Also, name recognition, I would argue she.

Has the highest name recognition, name recognition. And she's also been a fierce campaigner. She's improved a lot in her public performance as well. The other path is that time ticks, Tom. Right. We get into tomorrow, maybe a couple out, maybe a couple more people come out, maybe more than that come out. And the president's like, I did well in the press conference. Polling hasn't showed me anything different. I'm sticking it out. We're in the republican convention. You, everyone's going to be focused on the republican convention, what Trump's saying, what they're doing. All of a sudden we're ten days from now and time ticks away and he's still the nominee. So I don't know which path because a lot of it is dependent on factors I have no control over. But those are the two likelihoods, paths.

Jen Psaki, always a pleasure to have you on the show. We thank you.

Yeah.

We're going to take a quick break. We'll have more right after this. Welcome back to our continuing coverage here on top story of the president's primetime news conference which wrapped a couple of hours ago. I want to get to NBC. White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell joins us live from the White House tonight. Kelly, a very late night for you. We know that. Tell us what, what is Biden world saying? What is the White House what to the campaign saying, their reaction to this news conference?

Well, the first thing they would point out is that the president took a number of questions, more than we've seen at other points this year. We've often made as part of the press corps concern about his availability to take questions. So in terms of having unscripted moments and a chance to be pressed on a variety of topics, they feel that the president demonstrated his foreign policy knowledge. They say that his command of those issues which are very important in the world right now, and of course, this was at the end of the NATO summit, which is why there was such a focus on that. They said to me that they believe that compared to Donald Trump, the former president, Mister Biden, showed a real command there. They also noted that this was a chance for him to address the critics on issues like the concerns about him staying in the race and that he addressed that to talk about his health, where there have been questions from elected Democrats, from the public about whether he needs to have additional medical tests. He said he would do that if his doctors thought it was necessary. And so far they have not.

So at this point, the initial reactions from advisors are that the president, even though he had a misstep and he called Vice President Harris, Vice President Trump. So there were some instances where he had some, some word issues that the overall ability for the president to communicate what he was thinking, what his views are, they felt that that worked. Well. Now that is really up for viewers and voters to decide. Was this enough?

Kelly so the president, when we had fact checked this with Monica Alba earlier, spoke about these 20 major events he's doing, Monica was explaining in her reporting, it sounds like the president is grouping in some of those radio calls and other events, some of the NATO events he did as well. I do want to ask you, what does the president have on his calorie calendar moving forward? When we look at the Republicans, we know President Trump has a rally in Pennsylvania. A lot of people will be watching because of the Veep stakes. And then the Republican National Convention, as we know, starts Monday. What is the president doing?

Well, the president will be in Wayne County, Michigan tomorrow. So that is one of the most crucial battleground states, the state he won in 2020. So that is a certainly a hot contested part of the battleground map. That's tomorrow. Then he will be in Nevada and Texas in the beginning of the week. And, you know, in days of old when the other party's convention was happening, it was typical that either candidate.

Yeah, they'd go dark things out, right?

Yes, going dark is the term. That is not what he's going to do. He will be giving interviews. He'll be noting the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights act in Texas at Austin and he will be doing a additional interviews. And they believe that that is another way that he can be tested and show that he is able to handle unscripted moments.

One with our lester holt on Monday. Okay, Kelly, we thank you. Where to take a quick break right back after this. Welcome back. I want to get right to Julie certain with some breaking news. Julie. Another democratic defector.

Yeah, that's right. Scott Peters of California, who has opened the door before. So not a huge shock here. I want to go back to Jim Himes just quickly here, because it's the first member of the Connecticut delegation to Congress to come out and call on Biden to step aside. This is somebody that I was talking to often, Tom. And so this is really significant that he has come out. I anticipate, for the RNC next week. They will pause for now, but many questions remain.

Julie Serkin, we thank you for your report. And we thank you for watching this special edition of Top Story. Good night. Thanks for watching. Stay updated about breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or follow us on social media.