Meet the Press NOW — September 25

0:00At Jared Jewelers, we know it's about more than fine jewelry. It's the moment they open the box. That smile they can't hide. Knowing you chose exactly right. Because the right gift can bring a lifetime of meaning. A promise. A milestone. A memory in the making. Make every moment unforgettable. Find great gifts starting at$250. Jared. Make the holiday last forever. Shop Jared Jewelers. Great meeting. Who took notes? Anyone? With Monday Notetaker, the meeting ends and the plan already exists. Action items, owners, deadlines. Go to Monday.com, the AI workspace platform.

0:56Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Yamiche Alcindor. We're now just under 40 days away from the midterm elections, and it's been a week full of warning signs for Republicans' hopes of holding on to their majority as lawmakers and candidates in key races try to distance themselves from the president and his sinking poll numbers. In our new NBC News average of national polls, Democrats now hold a nine-point advantage on the question of which parties should control Congress. That's the biggest gap between the parties since February of last year. We'll have more on those new polling averages in just a moment.

1:27And it comes as our friends at the Cook Political Report are shifting more than a dozen House races in Democrats' direction, including moving three races that leaned Republican into toss-up territory. This week, Cook also moved three Senate races toward Democrats, with Kansas moving from likely Republican into a more competitive category. Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune seeming to temper expectations for his party in November. I'm hopeful, obviously, but also realistic. It's a very competitive environment out there, a lot of tight races, many of them in the margin of error. And so, you know, these things are generally decided in non-presidential years by turnout.

2:11And so in a lot of the key states where we have competitive races, we're very focused on turnout. And I hope that's going to be something that helps us get over the top. but not make any predictions about it because I just don't think anybody at this point can say for sure one way or the other. Meanwhile, in an act of political self-preservation, at least a dozen Republicans have distanced themselves from President Trump in the past two weeks. It's a move that would have been unthinkable for most Republicans in recent elections. One of those Republicans is Mike Rogers, who is running for Senate in Battleground, Michigan.

2:46Rogers is now defending an ad he released calling for an end to the war in Iran. I think the best option now is to wind it down. There's still other things you can do to make sure that they can't hurt their neighbors and can't pursue a nuclear weapon. I just argue the time is now. This is the most important harvest time of the year in Michigan, September and October. Diesel costs are pushing over six bucks. that is going to take a horrific toll, not only on our farmers trying to get the harvest out of the field, but certainly grocery prices. And my argument is you just can't let it go and linger.

3:23And while the war in Iran was one of the top reasons for Republicans splitting with President Trump, the dissent spans a variety of other issues, including data centers, immigration and Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington. All of it in apparent acknowledgement of the political headwinds facing the president and how it could hurt their chances in the midterms. But Trump ally and West Virginia Senator Jim Justice, who is not up for re-election, is skeptical that a September change will be enough. I don't think that will resonate, you know, substantially with the voters at all. You know, because the voters are going to think this way.

4:00They're going, well, if you thought that way, why didn't you think that way three months ago? You know, and if you thought that way, if you're really wanting us to believe that, How do we believe that you're not going to go right back, you know, right after the election? You know, that's voters are not dumb bunnies. I mean, that's all there is to it. Interesting words from the senator. And joining me now at the big board is NBC News chief data analyst Steve Kornacki. NBC's Monica Alba is at the White House and with me on set. Chief Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles and Aaron Covey, House of Representatives editor at the Cook Political Report.

4:35So thank you all for being here, Steve. I want to start with you. You mentioned that there's this big gap and we mentioned that there's this big gap between Democrats and who they prefer to hold on to Congress when it comes to asking voters about which party should be holding on to power and which one should be ushered into power. That comes from our brand new NBC News polling average. So tell me a little bit about these numbers. Yeah, I mean, right here you can see the generic ballot, as you pointed out right now. The NBC News average of all the polls out there right now has the Democrats ahead by nine points of the Republicans on that.

5:06I remember you think about how this kind of goes this time of year, right? One day you're going to see a headline. Oh, here's a poll. It's really good for the Democrats. Another headline a few hours later, here's a poll. This one's actually pretty good for Republicans. The whole idea of the average is to get everything together to kind of, you know, flatten it out as much as you can so that, you know, the outliers are kind of accounted for on either end of it. And really, you can kind of get a sense of a sense in one number broadly what it's looking at. And a nine point advantage for Democrats, a nine point advantage for a party in a generic ballot in a midterm election that typically would correlate with a pretty big dividend for that party in November.

5:43Of course, this is still late September. There's time for these numbers to change. And in fact, one of the things I think you've seen with a lot of the polls that go into this average, this generic ballot average over the last couple of weeks, really since Labor Day, some of these polls really have opened up for the Democrats since Labor Day. One of the things that happens with a lot of them around Labor Day is the pollsters switch from just using registered voters as their pool to a likely voter model, trying to really project what the electorate's going to look like in November. And we've seen several pollsters when they made that switch right around Labor Day, that Democratic margin opened up in a few of those polls.

6:17And when that happens, it opens up in the average as well. Well, Steve, I also want to ask you about the president's job approval. Tell us about that and sort of what it looks like, given the fact that we're seeing all these Republicans start to distance themselves. Yeah, look, I think it goes hand in hand with what you're seeing here in the generic ballot. Nine point advantage for Democrats there. And look at that. Trump's average. Again, this is our NBC poll average here. A lot of approval rating polls out there right now. On average, Trump is running just under 40 percent job approval and he's running at nearly 60 percent disapproval.

6:51a 20 point gap between those two numbers for him. You take a look at the trend line here. If you take a look at, again, this is the NBC poll average here, just looking at all of the numbers really in Trump's second term. Look, remember, when he first came back to office, his approval rating actually slightly outpaced that disapproval rating. And since then, look, it's been a pretty long and pretty steady decline there of about 10 points for Trump over the year and a half or so of his second term. And that disapproved number, you could see there in the spring of 2025, the two lines crossed and it's really opened up a 20 point gap.

7:26Again, if you went back to Trump's first term, that 2018 midterm was not a good midterm for Republicans. The gap was not it was there was a gap then, but it wasn't as wide as what you're seeing right now. Big question. Can that narrow it all for Republicans between now and Election Day? Wow. Those are such interesting numbers, especially when you look at those two lines diverging. Thank you so much, Steve. And Monica, let's turn to these Republicans who are backing away from the president. What we haven't seen, which we've seen in the past, is President Trump lashing out at these folks. Is there an acknowledgement there, you think, at the White House that the president's presence might actually hurt some Republican candidates?

8:01Well, the vice president was asked about this recently, Yamiche, and sort of did seem to give a little bit of cover to some of these candidates. Now, of course, he's a former senator, so perhaps he gets it in a way that others may not, and he was trying to kind of approach it from that sensibility. But he basically said, we understand why our fellow Republicans are going to say some things that we might not necessarily agree with when it comes specifically to the war against Iran. So I think that's the kind of answer you might expect from somebody like the vice president with his background. But the president himself is about to hit the trail, is about to be out and campaigning and likely could have harsher words for some of these Republicans who are at odds with his strategy in the war against Iran.

8:43So that will be a really interesting tell. And we know that he's going to hit the road starting next week. He has pledged to go to all these different competitive districts to back these GOP candidates and really travel throughout much of the month of October. We'll see if that actually happens, because his first two events are in Alabama and Oklahoma, the RNC announced just earlier today. Yamiche. Yeah, really interesting to see the president going to those ruby red states. We've also seen what appears to be TV ads either praising the president or using the president's image. Let's watch this.

9:21He's the toughest, most resilient person that I've ever met. And nothing is going to stop him from fighting so hard for the country he loves. This is only the beginning of the golden age of America. God bless you all. And if viewers couldn't see it, it says paid for by the U.S. government. What is the White House saying about that? Yeah, the timing of it kind of remarkable as well, given that Xi Jinping was here over the last couple of days. But the White House is basically calling this a public service announcement. They put out a statement at defending this, saying that this is about, quote, reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending at home, at our borders and abroad.

10:05They say the ad is an educational and unapologetically patriotic and that they should be proud of our country. And that is why they put this out. Interestingly, earlier today, Yamiche, somebody tried to ask the president whether it was appropriate for taxpayers to have to foot the bill for these kinds of ads that really look indistinguishable from a campaign ad. And the president did not engage or respond to that question. Yamiche. Oh, I'm sure we'll keep asking him, Monica. The other thing you just mentioned, the Chinese president, he just wrapped up his visit here to Washington, D.C., spent a lot of time with President Trump.

10:41Were there any concrete agreements that came out of this visit? And not that we know any details about the president did make a vague reference earlier today while they were having tea inside the Red Room to some kind of intimation that American farmers were going to be happy, perhaps with some kind of agreement or discussion that these two leaders had. But this comes amid repeated promises of China wanting to buy or going to pledge to purchase soybeans that haven't panned out in reality in the way that they were initially proposed. And so is there something that maybe is happening there? Or is that another example of something that the president is saying farmers might be pleased with when in reality they may be very disturbed by the high diesel prices, as you talked about there in the introduction?

11:28But on these other really thorny issues on AI, on Taiwan, we just don't have many specifics about whether any kind of an agreement or any kind of more solid or robust discussions actually took place. So we wait to hear more on that front. Yamiche. Yeah. Well, I'm sure you'll be talking to your sources about it also. Thank you so much, Monica, from the White House. Erin, I want to come to you. We've been talking about the Cook Political Report. You made some really interesting changes. So we're probably going to put it up for folks to see some of those changes. is walk us through what happened here.

11:59Yeah, so we're looking at an environment where it will be very difficult for Republicans to hold the House in November. Under our current rankings, there's slightly more races that favor Democrats than Republicans at the outset. But Republicans are defending the bulk of the races in the toss up category. We shifted 15 ratings today, all in Democrats favor. A lot of those races are in Texas and in Florida, which is in part due to reversion and backlash that we're seeing among Hispanic voters to Trump. But a lot of these races, you know, are affected by state by state, district by district issues as well.

12:33Ryan, if you hear a dozen races shifted in the direction of Democrats, that is not lost. I mean, I imagine it's not lost on a lot of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. What's the mood up there? Yeah, I don't know if I'd go so far to call it panic quite yet, just because I think there was a level of expectation that this was the trend line that was emerging. But Republicans still remain at least somewhat cautiously optimistic that there's at least a path to them to stop the bleeding. If you ask them to predict whether or not they can hold on to either the House or Senate, they acknowledge that it's a difficult path for them to do it.

13:07But they point to the fact that there was this unprecedented mid-decade redistricting that helped them in some areas that they normally wouldn't. The fact that they have a big cash advantage in some of the most key states and that they believe that the president's going to be able to help really fire up his base in a way that polls are showing us right now is not very enthusiastic. That is, without a doubt, the most Pollyannish view of where things stand for Republicans right now. But they're certainly not in a mode where they're just telling us we're giving up. We feel like we've got no shot at this point.

13:37Yeah. And Aaron, when you look at this and look at the changes that the Cook Political Report made, a bunch of the of the races are from likely Republican to lean Republican, which means that Republicans are still favored there. If you're a Democrat looking at that, what should you take away? Look, a likely R to a lean R means this race is very competitive, but we still see Republicans as having the slight edge. That might change over the next five weeks as we get closer to November. So if you're a Republican in any of these districts, you have to be cautious, including in the likely Republican districts as well.

14:08I think there are currently polls that show some of those races are tied. Now, a lot of voters are still undecided, and the bulk of those voters do favor Republicans. But if Republicans can't get those voters to turn out, then there may be even more races that start shifting in Democrats' favor. So as you're looking at these numbers, what's a good night look like for Democrats and what's a bad night look like? I think a good night for Democrats would look like them winning anywhere from like 227 to 230 seats. That's not as many as they had in 2019, but it is still a very good night for them, given the smallness of the battleground compared to what it was like that cycle.

14:43A bad night for Democrats might be them, you know, barely winning the House, which is possible. And Republicans do have a path to holding the majority, but it's very, very slim at this point. A good night is a blowout and a bad night is a slim win. That's pretty remarkable to hear. Ryan, the president started off just a couple of weeks ago saying, pretend I'm on the ballot. You know, think of me when you're voting in the midterms. What do Republicans want? Do they really want that now? Well, this is the difficult position Republicans always find themselves in in the Trump era of Republican politics.

15:16He is so polarizing. But polarizing is good and bad. His base, the 39 percent that Steve Kornacki was talking about earlier, loyally support him. They will do what almost anything he says. And that includes voting in a midterm. If those folks don't show up, that serves as the foundation of a Republican victory. If they don't show up at all, they've got no shot at winning. But on the other side of it, the more the president is involved, the more there is the risk of alienating those moderate, independent and even swing voters that might vote Democrat or Republican in every election. So they have to be very strategic about where the president is using his time, energy and resources.

15:53And here's the problem, Mish. The president is bragging about all these states he's going to go to and all these events that he's going to hold. But from I can tell, talking to my sources on Capitol Hill, there's absolutely no interface or coordination between the president, the White House and his political arm and the political arms of both the Republican Senate and the Republican House. They need to be very strategic about how and the way they use the president. And it seems as though at this point there's just no conversation about how to do that in a way that would actually help their candidates as opposed to hurting them.

16:24It's remarkable the lack of coordination that you're describing there. The president has, as you hinted at, said that he's going to go to 35 campaign races and campaign and 35 races. Are there candidates who want the president in their state? And if they are candidates like that, they think that he's doing enough. Because right now, as you look at that calendar, we haven't seen the president barnstorm yet. Yeah, well, so I'll give you an example. Derek Van Orden is running for real election in Wisconsin. This is very much a swing district. I think you guys have it rated as a toss up. He's facing a very energetic challenge from Rebecca Cook there.

16:56I talked to Derek Van Orden at the Texas GOP midterm convention, and he said, I need the president to show up. I need him to fire up the rank and file Republican voters, because in a district like that in Wisconsin, we're not necessarily talking about swing voters, people that vote Republican in one race and then Democrat in another. It's really all about turnout. There's an equal number of committed Republicans and committed Democrats. And the biggest problem that Republicans have right now is that the base of their party, Republican voters, are just not going to show up. They will lose this midterm if those voters don't show up.

17:32And it's really the president's job to get them energetic and excited to get out to the polls. It's just a form and fashion in which he does that. Yeah, well, it's always a question of whether or not people are going to actually leave their homes to go. So much of it is who do you pick? But really, it's will you even get off the couch to go there? And they're way more inclined to do that when Donald Trump's name is actually on the ballot, which it's not this time. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Aaron. Thank you so much, Ryan. And turning now to the latest with the war in Iran, the consequences of which are having major midterm implications.

18:03Yesterday, while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Iran's president seemed to signal he was hoping for a deal to end the war before the November elections. That stands in contrast to President Trump's recent timeline for ending the war. He has repeatedly claimed, including this week in his own U.N. speech, that he doesn't expect to make a deal with Iran until after the midterms. In response to Iran's latest comments, the White House tells NBC News, quote, the president is courageously ensuring that such an evil country never possesses a nuclear weapon, which will make the entire world safer and more stable.

18:37And joining me now is NBC News senior national security correspondent Courtney Kuby. Courtney, even if the U.S. and Iran agreed to the memorandum of understanding, of course, that was ripped up back in June, we should remind folks, but if there's a reason, is there any reason to believe that you think that it will hold up given the fact that there was this deal in June and then it just went poof? The one thing that we have seen is both sides have violated the agreements that they have had over the last several months. And the real question right now is, does either side have a lot of incentive to make a deal right now?

19:10They are not very close still. So would the Trump administration want to have a deal before the midterms or would they want to carry this out? I think from Iran's perspective, there is a lot of concern that after the midterm elections, President Trump will do something big militarily. He's threatened it. He is foreshadowed that possibility. And he has everything in the region that he would need to actually carry that out. So there could be some incentive on Iran's part to make a deal before then. But then again, it doesn't seem like they're really that close to an actual agreement. Well, as you said during his speech at the U.N., President Trump said he was considering annihilating Iran.

19:48We've heard those threats before. He's even said it sometimes. I'm going to make my big decision this weekend and then no decision happens. So I wonder how seriously is Iran taking this based on your sources? And it doesn't seem like either Iran or the world is really taking it that seriously. But you have to look at how President Trump acts here now. Now, and also look at what's actually happening in the region. The U.S. military is coordinating with ships that are going in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, and the numbers are quietly but pretty consistently climbing. They're getting several dozen out.

20:19Fifty, sixty ships are making their way in or out of the strait every single day. Iran is still firing on them, and sometimes they're hitting. We saw it happen already this week several times. But the U.S. is helping to move. So shipping, oil, critical goods, they are making their way out. But very importantly, the ship, the blockade of Iranian ships coming in and out of Iranian ports, that is holding. So Iran's not getting its oil and gas out. So this could come to a point where there's a back and forth firing. And that is when President Trump has in the past escalated the situation with more U.S.

20:54military action. We've not seen it happen in several weeks, though. Turning to another subject that is really important that you've done amazing reporting on, you covered the USS Lincoln during their point port visit. to Thailand after their extended deployment. We've now heard today that eight sailors attempted suicide, sadly, during that extended deployment. What more can you tell us? Yeah. So, I mean, just to put this in perspective, this is the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group. So it's both the aircraft carrier, the attached air wing. It's a couple of destroyers. It's all the ships that are part of that carrier strike group.

21:28So it's upwards of 7 ,000, maybe 7 ,500 total people. And so we know that during, as you said, this extended and difficult deployment that they had, that at least eight individuals attempted suicide. Fortunately, the Navy tells us that none of them were successful. For perspective, that percentage is not super high compared to other times where we see a population of that size and a difficult deployment. But what's really important here is to point out how there was reporting about the difficult conditions on the ship. They didn't have fresh fruits and vegetables. They weren't getting their mail delivered.

22:03There's sort of quality of life things that make a long and difficult deployment, especially when you're in daily combat operations for an extended time. The things that sort of make that a little bit easier to deal with, they didn't have a lot of that. And there were concerns about the mental health of the sailors on the ship. And the Secretary of Defense and the president himself dismissed those concerns and even pushed back and said the media who were questioning whether the sailors and Marines needed more help, that we were undermining their resilience and undermining the men and women on those ships.

22:33When the reality is we now know on the record from the acting secretary of the Navy that there actually were at least eight individuals who attempted suicide during that time. Just pointing out what we've all been reporting, that it was a tough deployment, more than 280 days underway without a single break. Just so such a sad situation, though. Of course, I know that they're resilient and our service members are doing amazing work. But you also did such incredible work on that story. So thank you so much. And we should note Kristen Welker will have an exclusive one on one interview with Iran's foreign minister this Sunday only on Meet the Press.

23:09Coming up, Bill Gates speaks out. The Microsoft co-founder tells Meet the Press exclusively that artificial intelligence is powerful enough to, quote, cause a billion deaths. Warning that it is time for regulation now. You're watching Meet the Press Now.

23:51Try Google Workspace with Gemini at go.gle slash workspace with Gemini. The Beautyrest Black Friday sale is here. Wonder how the people who buy the best gifts and host the best parties do it every year? By getting their Beautyrest. Save up to$1 ,000 off select Beautyrest Black Mattress and Adjustable Base Sets featuring pocketed coil technology for exceptional support as individual as sleep itself. Limited time offer. Visit beautyrest.com to find a retailer near you. People at their best get their Beautyrest. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. One thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home.

24:32For decades, Angie's helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at Angie.com.

24:45Welcome back. In fact, the White House says President Trump will meet with tech executives next Tuesday to discuss AI. The announcement coming just hours after tech leaders, including Elon Musk, Apple's Tim Cook, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, attended last night's state dinner for the Chinese president. The White House says the two presidents discussed AI during their closed-door meeting. Afterwards, President Trump posted on social media, quote, super intelligence will be a big topic of discussion, but I want to leave it exactly where it is. That is China's position also. In an exclusive interview with Kristen Welker, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates warns of the dangers of AI and urges governments to be involved in monitoring the technology.

25:27Do you believe AI is powerful enough to end all of humanity? AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths. So even though it's pretty hard to get to 100%, there's never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools. Anthropics CEO Dario Amadei recently called on AI companies to slow model development to try to mitigate risks. Do you think self-regulation is sufficient or does it need to be accompanied by legislation in Washington? No one thinks self-regulation is enough. So there needs to be legislation passed in Washington?

26:19Absolutely. You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like. And that has to be a required thing. And it will be a little bit of overhead for the industry, but not a dramatic slowing of what they're doing. You can see much more of Kristen's exclusive interview with Bill Gates this Sunday on Meet the Press. And joining me now is Dr. Max Tegmark, professor doing AI research at MIT and someone who has been sounding the alarm on AI's potential danger for years. Last week, he briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill about the threats and risks posed by AI.

27:05So thank you so much for being here. I want to start with your reaction to what we just heard from Bill Gates. Do you think AI is actually powerful enough to cause a billion deaths? It certainly will be, yeah, later this decade. It's just remarkable how quickly the technology is strengthening. You know, the kind of stuff that's happening now, where we're seeing 1 ,200 rogue AI bots swarm out of companies and going on an international hacking spree without humans knowing about it. That would have sounded like total science fiction four years ago, which means that the sort of things that might happen four years from now or sooner, like causing massive harm for humanity, will sound like science fiction today.

27:53Duh. That's pretty scary to hear. I want to also ask you about Bill Gates. He says self-regulation is not sufficient enough. What's your take on that? He's totally right on that. Self-regulation is a joke and exactly what's gotten us into this kind of crazy situation we have now with AI girlfriends committing teens to commit suicide, with AI bots going totally out of control without the companies knowing about them. But the good news is there's a massive bipartisan counterpush now. Now, you mentioned last week, you know, we organized, there's this pro-human declaration saying humans have to stay in charge of AI and other things.

28:38We had a conference in DC with everyone from Bernie Sanders to Steve Bannon and very many in between, basically speaking in unison, saying we need guardrails, we need regulation. So that makes me optimistic that we're not just going to continue this dystopian race to replace, you know, replace human relationships with AI, replace human workers wholesale with AI and then replace decision making and maybe our species even. Nobody wants this. Well, as you said, you're optimistic about lawmakers. Last week, you briefed lawmakers from both parties on this. Here's what Jeffrey Hinton said about that briefing.

29:17Do you think Congress is nimble enough to be able to react to something like this in a year?

29:25You seem skeptical. You have the Fifth Amendment here, right? I don't know. Maybe Congress can behave very differently about this issue because there is a lot of bipartisan support for it. So what was your message to lawmakers? And are you optimistic, maybe more or less optimistic? The Jeffrey Hinton there who had a pretty deep pause when asked that question. Well, I've seen more change in where politicians are at on this in the last few months than I have in the previous 10 years. It's kind of like you shake a ketchup bottle, you know, nothing, nothing, nothing, and then all the ketchup comes out all at once.

30:03And it's not just lawmakers. is so many people in the national security community are also waking up to this being a national security threat and probably soon the biggest one. They hear people like Dario Amadei, CEO of Anthropic, saying there's going to be a country of geniuses in a data center maybe next year. And they go to themselves, did he just say country? You know, maybe that country needs to be on my list of NADSEC threats that I'm keeping track of next to those other countries. And particularly the fact that warnings of control loss are no longer just conversations about stuff that might happen in the future, but that has already happened during this past summer.

30:48And as far as we heard today, it might be happening even still today. has really, I think, made people who were quite skeptical before realize that this is a massive national security threat. As you say, it's a national security threat. What type of guardrails do you think need to be in place? And do you think Congress has the knowledge and know-how to put them in place? What has to be put in place is quite obvious. Just like we do with pharmaceuticals and cars and airplanes, we have to have legally binding safety standards. and companies can only profit from their products once they've met those, right?

31:26And on that list, I think there's very strong consensus all the way from people like Ron DeSantis to various Democrats that you should not be able to sell AI girlfriends to kids unless you can really demonstrate that they won't cause a lot of suicides. You should not be allowed to release products unless you can, the company, you know, can demonstrate it won't teach terrorists to make bioweapons. And certainly you shouldn't be able to release it unless you can make a good case that you can keep your AI under control. Yeah. President Trump, who's called AI concerns a hoax, is going to be meeting with tech leaders next week.

32:01What would you like those tech leaders to tell the president? I would like them to tell him that if he gets persuaded by various lobbyists to go tell the American public that no serious harm can possibly come from AI, he's taking a huge political risk. You know, George W. Bush downplayed the risk from subprime mortgages and from Hurricane Katrina shortly before this caused massive damage and that tanked his legacy and cost the Republicans the election. And I really hope that Trump is shrewd enough to realize that he should not go out and promise that things won't happen when it's quite likely that they will happen in the next six months.

32:54Well, thank you so much, Dr. Max Tegmark. We really appreciate you joining the show. And up next, how race, religion, and a private jet can make often overlooked parts of Ohio part of the battleground in the race for governor there. That story is next. Stay with us on Meet the Press Now.

33:38work less work. Try Google Workspace with Gemini at go.gle slash workspace with Gemini. The Beautyrest Black Friday sale is here. Wonder how the people who buy the best gifts and host the best parties do it every year? By getting their Beautyrest. Save up to$1 ,000 off select Beautyrest Black Mattress and Adjustable Base Sets featuring pocketed coil technology for exceptional support as individual as sleep itself. Limited time offer. Visit beautyrest.com to find a retailer near you. People at their best get their beauty rest. Hi, it's me, your gutters. Everything is totally fine. There's just a lot of debris up here and I've been managing it mostly on my own.

34:21I just thought you could find someone on Angie to clean me up. I could really use it. Your gutters have waited long enough. Find a pro at Angie.com.

34:33Welcome back. It's not just control of Congress at stake on Election Day. This November, voters will be voting on some key gubernatorial races, including in Ohio, where Trump-backed Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is facing Democratic candidate Amy Acton. Ramaswamy overwhelmingly won the GOP primary, but Acton is looking to make gains in areas of the state where Ramaswamy underperformed, particularly in rural counties. NBC News senior national political reporter Henry Gomez has been covering that governor's race and joins me now. So, Henry, now you've been all over this. Ohio hasn't had a Democratic governor in more than 15 years.

35:11So why does Amy Acton think that there's really a path to victory here? And what does that look like? Well, two things, Amish. For a Democrat to win a governor's race in Ohio, the first thing you have to do is run up the score in the big metro areas like Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. The second thing, which has been much harder for Democrats in Ohio over the last 15, 20 years, has been trimming the Republican margins outside of those areas. And where Acting is focused on, as you mentioned, is this wide swath of rural and Appalachian counties in Ohio. They mostly ring eastern and southern Ohio along the Ohio River.

35:48These are places that have become very, very conservative over the last 20 years, and they especially move toward Donald Trump in the Trump era. And these are places that Amy Acton has prioritized. She's been showing up there, campaigning, hoping that she can take advantage of some of the concerns that voters have about the Republican Party. And these are also the counties that Vivek Ramaswamy underperformed in relative to his statewide margin in the primary. He won the primary overwhelmingly, and he won these counties by wide margins. But his margin of victory in these counties was less than his margin of victory elsewhere in the state.

36:26So that's where Amy Akin and the Democrats are hoping to pick up some of these votes. And you talk about Ramaswamy sort of facing some headwinds here. He's also facing some challenges connecting with voters, in part because of his race, religion and personal wealth. How concerned is his campaign? You know, they say they're not concerned at all. But I'll tell you that having talked to Democrats and many Republicans over the last few months, they constantly bring up the fact that Ramaswamy is of Indian American heritage, that he is a Hindu in a state that is largely white and largely Christian. And those counties that we were just talking about, the ones that he underperformed in, most of them are 90 percent white.

37:05And I'm not the one that's bringing this up. It's coming up in just about every conversation I have with Republicans that are closely tracking the race. Former Governor Ted Strickland, the last Democrat to be elected governor in Ohio, told me that he thinks two of Ramaswamy's weaknesses, candidly, were his ethnicity and his religion. Ken Blackwell, the Republican whom Strickland defeated in 2006, told me that he thinks that Ramaswamy needs to be making the case that he believes in religious liberty, that he's a constitutionalist, acknowledging that that could, in fact, be a liability for him. But then Strickland and others also point out that it's not just these issues.

37:41It's more that Ramaswamy is a billionaire and that he's flying around the state campaigning in his private jet. I talked to one former county chair in Appalachia, county Republican Party chair in Appalachia. And he told me that he wants Ramaswamy to stop flying around in a plane, basically to park the jet. And I showed up at a Ramaswamy press conference this week in Ohio. And I asked him about the criticism that he received from a fellow Republican. And I believe we have his response to that. This has been the sole theme of her campaign. She wants to focus on my bank account. I want to focus on improving the highlights of bank accounts.

38:16And I think that's the contrast between us. I've lived the American dream and I'm grateful for it. And because I wasn't born into it, unlike the first hire she's ever made, a running maid, the fact that I wasn't born into it and came from humble beginnings to where I am today is what allows me to know how to help those other families. the most telling part of his answer right there is that he's deflecting to amy acton but this was i should note a criticism that i've been hearing from republican activists and leaders in the state well very interesting especially since president trump has that private debt that he's been rolling around with thank you so much henry for all that reporting and after the break from the press box to the ballot box of the trump administration is pushing the boundaries of executive authority.

39:00White House lawyer from President Trump's first administration weighs in. This is Meet the Press Now.

39:14Welcome back. The White House TV press pool is operational again more than 24 hours after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the president's White House ban on three media outlets as the president continues to push the boundaries on what is and is not legal. Ty Cobb was a White House attorney during the first Trump administration. He joins me now. So thank you so much for being here. I want to start with your reaction to the president's attempt to ban three media outlets from the White House grounds. Do you think the president here is just testing the limits with the court?

39:48No, I think that this is the president just acting petrantly and stupidly as pursuant to his narcissistic whim. There wasn't any strategy involved. He just was offended by the fact that these people reported the truth. The truth is not really in his favor. The Iran war is going horribly. Diesel's approaching$7 a gallon. His favorability is under 30 percent in many polls now. And Republicans are fleeing from him across the country from Byron Donalds in Florida, who scrubbed his website of references to the president this week, to Ashley Hinson in Iowa, who is now countering him. So I think he was just in a bad mood.

40:30He exercised this. He knew it was illegal. He'd already lost this identical battle in court when he stripped Jim Acosta's credentials in 2018. And the same judge with the same plaintiff's attorney got to the same result this week. It was not surprising to any constitutional observers. Well, you mentioned the judge. The president accused that federal judge in that case, whom he appointed to the bench during his first term, of being, quote, disloyal before the judge even issued that temporary restraining order. What's your reaction to that?

41:09It's characteristic of the president. I mean, this judge is a conservative judge. He's a rock rib Republican. He was an aide to Senator Grassley when he worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee. But but he's an honorable man, an intelligent man with decades of government service who did did what he was supposed to do. He applied the Constitution. The Constitution only only allows one answer in a case like this, where the president does something that the Constitution clearly prohibits, denying press passes to the outlets that were involved without due process, and exercising viewpoint discrimination.

41:51I mean, as he said, although he tried to make up and pretend that there were other reasons after the fact, but as he said when he canceled them, that they were being banned for a couple of years of unfavorable treatment. So that's that's not appropriate under the First Amendment. It's not appropriate under the Fifth Amendment due process wise. There's substantial case law that the judge was obligated to follow. And he did follow it and decisively ruled against the president promptly, as everybody predicted he would. And in the past few weeks, as you talk about different decisions, the Supreme Court has also rejected the president's effort to use the post office to restrict mail in voting.

42:31Do you think and do you expect the courts to have to play a role in the November midterm elections? I think the court is going to be stressed throughout the period between now and the election and then following the election as the president's assault on voting and elections in America continues. He's desperate to cling to power. He's going to do everything he possibly can. Keep in mind, this is a man who was willing to endure the hanging of his vice president in order to stay in power on January 6th, the day of his fomented insurrection. There's nothing that people should put past him to do now.

43:12And yes, I think the court will be actively involved. What are you most worried about when you think about that?

43:21I'm worried about everything. Today, I'm worried about the president sending ice to the polls in violation of federal criminal law. I'm worried about persistent efforts to try to prevent people from voting, prevent people from exercising their freedoms under our Constitution. I'm worried about post-election challenges, and I'm worried about Mike Johnson and the president scheming to refuse to seat Democrats that were duly elected. Wow. Those are a lot of worries. Thank you so much, Chai Cobb, for bringing your expertise and your viewpoint to Meet the Press Now. We always appreciate having you on the show.

44:02And the panel will be next. Keep it here on Meet the Press Now.

44:15Welcome back. Joining me now is the panel. Katia Goba is politics reporter at The Washington Sun. Herbie Ziskind is former White House deputy communications director for President Biden. And Sarah Chamberlain is president and CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership. Thank you all for being here. Kadi, I want to start with you. The president announced this plan earlier this month to campaign in 35 races. So far, he's been in North Carolina and is set to go to deep red Oklahoma and Alabama. What do you make of this strategy? Do you think he has a sort of way that he's looking at this that maybe we don't understand because you look at deep red states that he's going to?

44:50I think the indication is that the president has a turnout problem or Republicans have a turnout problem. It's what the recent Republican convention was based off of. going to Texas to turn out true red Republicans because they need that kind of turnout. They're not getting a lot of feedback or positive feedback from those middle of the road or moderate Republicans. So therefore, they need to turn out their base. And I'm not sure. The interesting thing is when I talk to Republicans, they're not completely positive that him going out stumping is going to do that for them. I wonder for vulnerable Republicans, do you think they really want him there, especially when you look at all the Republicans who are distancing themselves?

45:38Yeah, we did a piece on this the other day where we did a split screen between Republicans who were in the at the convention in Dallas and I shadowed Gabe Evans, a Republican who was home fighting for his reelection. And no, they didn't go to this convention. They are gradually disassociating themselves from the war, from gas prices. I heard a Republican say the other day to me, you know, the president has his priorities about the war. What I'm trying to do for my district is lower the prices. So they acknowledge the issue and are trying to effectively disassociate themselves from the administration.

46:21We also heard from the Click Political Report, They're moving a number of races, more than a dozen, in the favor of Democrats. What are you hearing from Republicans, Sarah? They're actually agreeing with that. I mean, on the ground, we've got a huge problem. That's why a lot of, you're right, the toss-up seats are not, they don't want President Trump. When J.D. Vance was in Iowa, the vice president, they didn't go. So they're concerned about that. So we're seeing a shift. And what's going on in Texas is Latino vote. I mean, they're unhappy with immigration. So district by district, there's different reasons why they're not doing well.

46:57But Texas is all the immigration issue. It's interesting to hear that because obviously the president has been so clear about his immigration stance. But Herbie, I want to go to you. The polling averages show Americans want Democrats to control Congress, which is interesting. But also polls show that 50 percent of voters view the Democratic Party negatively. I wonder what you make of that, how Democrats are going to square that. And if they run the risk of possibly being overly ambitious because these numbers could kind of cut both ways. The most important number is President Trump's approval rating.

47:27You go back to midterms over the last century, that is the best, most important indicator. And Democrats need to keep the focus on Trump's policies. You know, the president this week was trumpeting his ballroom and showing the leader of China the ballroom. He's talking about his war in Iran. And people are struggling. They're struggling at the pump. And he's deeply unpopular. So even though the Democratic brand is not very strong right now, the most important number in this midterm is the president's approval. Sarah, do you agree with that? I do agree with that. And actually, we're fortunate that they're not stronger because I think you'd see a bigger loss coming.

47:58I think you're going to only see about a five to ten point or ten seat swing in the House. If the Democrats had their act together, it'd probably be 2025. And I was just at the National Archives. The president rolled out the red carpet for the president of China. Of course, he is a communist and the president has been making the case that Democrats are communists. I wonder, is there any concern in this White House among Republicans that he is undermining his own messaging? Yeah, I think you'll start hearing people in the admin privately say that they are concerned with how cozy he has been with the president of China.

48:32I certainly spoke to lawmakers on the Hill, Republicans specifically, whether they're China hawks or not, who said that they were concerned, especially on the business aspect, you know, certain issues or the potential of our chips going to China. They have a real issue with it. Whether they'll talk up or not is a whole different story. But privately, they have absolutely been talking about this week and how how much or how pro-China he seems to be or how soft a lot of them were saying on China. But then he's running that commercial and there's a lot of concern about what is that commercial? I mean, you all know what I'm talking about with that U.S.

49:18government's paying for. And they love me backgrounds. I mean, and we don't like communists. We don't like all this while the Chinese is here. So it's a bizarre situation that nobody really understands what messaging he's trying to get out there. We did show that ad paid for by the U.S. government earlier in the show. And Monica Alba smartly pointed out that it's almost indistinguishable from a campaign ad. Herbie, though, should Democrats be focused on this or should they just continue to talk about affordability, the cost of living, or can they do both? They should do both. They've been doing both.

49:49That's why these numbers are moving in both places. You know, I think about after this week when I worked for President Biden, he had this saying. He would say, I'll campaign for or against you, whatever helps. He sincerely wanted Democratic candidates up and down the ballot to perform well in elections. President Trump doesn't care about Republicans and how they perform. He handpicked someone in Texas who's a major liability, Ken Paxton, to be the nominee in Texas. And you see this across the country. He just doesn't care. He's talking about data centers. He's not talking about the issues that voters care about right now.

50:18And it's a real liability for Republicans. You name checked it, that race. So I'm going to do it. I want to turn to what the Democrat running against Ken Paxton put out. Take a listen to this. I mean, Ken Paxton has been dodging debates all year. And it's why today I'm challenging Ken Paxton to a debate on Fox News. So let's go to Ken Paxton's safe space. Let's do Brett Baer on Fox News. I'll go into the lion's den because I know what I believe. What do you mean of that strategy? He's confident. He's ahead. He's winning. I mean, Ken Paxton spent July 4th, 250th anniversary of America in London.

51:04He's a very unpopular candidate. And if the Republicans had run John Cornyn, we'd be in a very, very different place. You're hearing a confident nominee. Should Ken Paxton agree with a debate? He has to agree, I think. I don't think he has any other chance of trying to pull this out. But if it had been Cornyn, we wouldn't have had the discussion with these House seats either. I think the entire ticket is being brought down. And candidates matter. And in Texas, we're seeing that. And if we pay attention to the money that's being spent in Texas, a lot of Republicans are griping about that money should be going to different races to ensure other Senate races.

51:39The map has grown for Democrats in the Senate, and they're blaming a lot on President Trump's pick in Texas because they feel like that's a flood of money that could help other races. Do you imagine that the president could stay on message to try to help Republicans? Or do we think that we're going to see the president just doing other things? I mean, we saw this with data centers the other day. Most Republicans flipped on it, and he just went totally the opposite way. So I don't think that he's capable of doing that. But we'll see. What's that mean then, Sarah, for the midterms? It means what we're starting to see some of the Republicans kind of pulling away a little bit from from him.

52:21Maria Salazar down in Florida. Florida is getting soft now. Now, there's not a lot of media coverage on that, but it absolutely is. So Maria Salazar did her commercial and you're going to see a little bit more of that. No one is going to criticize the president, but they're going to kind of separate a little bit on the issues from him. Yeah. Well, thank you so much to all of our panel. We'll be back Monday with more Meet the Press Now. And if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press on your local NBC News station. Kristen will have exclusive interviews with the Iranian foreman minister, UN Ambassador Mike Waltz, Congressman Ro Khanna, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

52:56There's more news ahead right now.

53:13Your gutters have waited long enough. Find a pro at Angie.com.