Joining us now, NBC News correspondent Dasha Burns and Jasmine
Wright,
reporter at notice. So, Dasha,
what can we expect to hear from the former president
today?
Well, it'll be interesting, Jose.
Look, he has not been out on the campaign trail
this week.
Instead, his running mate, JD Vance has been doing the
counter programming to Harris and Walls.
Vance said that their strategy is,
quote, divide and conquer when asked about why former President
Trump wasn't out there with him.
And he has not been in the headlines,
at least not for anything positive this week.
And recently, Harris and Walls have been very much in
the spotlight.
It's something that isn't the former president isn't used to.
So look for him today to reclaim the spotlight,
to try to garner some headlines and to try to
build up a contrast to potentially make some news as
he pivots his strategy to a new ticket to Harris
and walls a very different ticket than he was running
against before President Biden dropped out.
And you have seen him,
Jose, in real time. Try to recalibrate,
try to
use different attacks to see what might
for voters. Expect to see some of that today,
Jose
and Jasmine. Well, is the vice president planning on holding
her own news conference anytime soon?
Yeah, Jose. Well, I think that is actually the question
of the hour.
So it is not that she has an engaged press,
but it has certainly been on the vice president's own
terms,
as kind of it has been for the last three
years that she's been vice president.
She goes back and she talks to the press on
the plane.
Those are typically off the record comments if she does
want to make a statement on the news of the
day,
we've seen her approach the press waiting under the wing
of Air Force 2 to give a statement,
but then she turns away before questions before
before answering any questions. And so I think that the
public is expecting or certainly the media is expecting for
her to engage more with reporters now that she has
replaced Biden at the top of the ticket.
Now I know I'm just covering her the last really
six years that
her engagements with the press are varied.
Certainly as she's been vice president,
we've that we've seen some
kind of damaging moments when her speaking to the press,
particularly that first interview she did in
2021 with Lester Holt about her work on immigration.
And so I think that that is something that's always
been on the mind of
her office and the vice president herself,
of course, we've reported that she has been doing some
media training over the over her vice presidency.
So I think that that's the major question.
And that and timely Lizzie is running short for her
to kind of present herself in front of the media.
Yeah, although she's been doing a very good job of
presenting herself in front of thousands of people in events
throughout and much of these very critical states.
She has. Yesterday in Michigan,
Jasmine, she was interrupted by protesters at her rally.
There are thousands of people there.
Some protesters chanted things like,
you know, you can't hide.
We don't vote for genocide and free Palestine.
Here's how she responded. Take a listen.
You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win,
then say that. Otherwise, I'm speaking.
What do you make of that moment?
Yeah, Jose, it's actually funny because after I saw that
clip,
I texted some of my other former Kamala embeds and
I said,
raise your hand if you've received that look before when
asking her a question.
That is who the vice president is.
She is a prosecutor, and she wants to come across
strong and she wants to have her voice heard.
Now, before that clip happened,
she actually did listen to the protesters.
She has been empathetic with pro Gaza protesters since October
7th and I think that's something you can expect to
continue.
But it's certainly going to raise a question of
potentially why she wasn't more prepared or why she didn't
take
a more
agreeable route. Maybe with these protesters,
particularly knowing how difficult it was for Biden to recoup
credibility with them after his actions
post October 7th. Really that was kind of
a a thorn in his side when he had those
major rallies.
Protesters continued to prop up and and disrupt.
So I think that they're going to have to really
calculate how they want her to respond in these moments.
Obviously, they don't want to offend these progas or protesters,
but the vice president also wants to be able to
deliver her message to those 12,015 thousand
rallies where people really want to hear her speak.
Yeah. I mean, and Tasha.
Lastly, former President Trump has recently criticized
Harris's running mate and Minnesota governor walls over his handling
of the George Floyd protest back in 2020.
And because he got a new audio from June
2020. What does that audio tell us?
Yeah, Jose, this is part of that real time recalibration
that I've been talking about as they're trying out these
different attacks.
The former president has been criticizing Governor Walls over his
response.
He and his allies have been posting online.
He posted to Truth Social saying that Governor Walls,
quote, let Minnesota burn in the aftermath.
But we got some new audio of him praising Governor
Walls in the aftermath and during those riots.
Take a listen.
I know Governor Walz is on the phone and and
we spoke
and I fully agree with the way he handled it
the last couple of days.
I spoke to the governor,
the governor's I think on the call and he he's
an excellent guy.
And all of a sudden
and I said you got to use the National Guard
in big numbers that in the first.
So now the Trump campaign is defending those comments.
His spokesperson telling us that days after the riots began,
that was when the phone call happened.
And that President Trump acknowledged Governor Walls for finally taking
action to deploy the National Guard to end the violence
in the city.
And then reiterating some of the former president's talking points,
criticizing how the governor handled that and saying he let
Minnesota burn after the former president offered to deploy soldiers
after cries for help from the mayor of Minneapolis.