Bills to go to the floor where theres no guarantee they will pass will show hard liners, the speaker is working in good faith, and get the hard liners on board for a shortterm Spending Bill to keep things open. Will that work . Theres also talk of a Discharge Petition where six republicans cross the aisle and allow democrats to bring a funding bill to the floor themselves. How likely is that . And senator schumer is working on a shell bell that will include a stopgap spending measure, including ukraine aid and disaster relief, which Mitch Mcconnell is helping to nail down. If they do send it to the house, does Speaker Mccarthy put that bill on the floor. If he doesnt, there will be a shutdown. If he does, he might face a vote to strip him of his gavel. If that does happen, do democrats get involved . Well, maybe. Heres what one democrat told my colleague ali vitali on way too early this morning. Would you yourself vote to save mccarthys speakership if it came to a motion to vacate . Yeah, i mean, i think those are great conversations to have, and i think, you know, catherine clark, our whip, has made it clear that theres certainly a discussion to be had. There will be concessions if we do that, and i think thats a good conversation. We ought to have those conversations, but they have not started at all. What those concessions could look like. Joining us now is nbc news senior capitol hill correspondent garrett haake, and nbc news digital senior policy reporter, Shannon Pettypiece at the Capitol Area Food Bank in washington, d. C. To remind us that there are real people with real lives at stake in a Government Shutdown. Heres what Speaker Mccarthy told reporters this morning. You have to keep the government open. Reporter do you believe you can pass a cr and send it to the senate before im a believer in everything, i never give up. You have to keep the government open. If people want to close government, it only makes them weaker. He does believe in everything, he never gives up. Is that optimism or resignation. Where exactly do things stand right now . Reporter look, Speaker Mccarthy has shown an incredibly high political pain tolerance during his time as speaker. I think youre seeing a little bit of that on display. He has had the floor essentially hijacked by some of the republican hard liners for more or less the last two weeks now. I think there is some resignation, perhaps, that this is the act that he has to play out here. They are going to go through with this plan of trying to pass some of these fullyear funding bills, which dont have a chance of becoming law but do reflect the priority of his most conservative members and the hope among republican leadership, by getting the votes on the floor, theyre able to move Something Like a cr, a shortterm gap measure, that could prevent a shutdown or get him out of one. This is like plan d. There are several different it rations of the plan d at this point, and if this one doesnt work, were talking about the prospect of how do you end the shutdown. Theres just not functionally any time left for a plan e. All right. What happens if the senate, gar ret, gets it together, and theyre able to send a shortterm Spending Bill to the house, how can Kevin Mccarthy not put that to the floor . Well, look, the senate has been the less dysfunctional chamber, at least over the last few weeks. Its not always that way. It has been this way over the last couple of weeks because there is more of a bipartisan agreement in the senate about the way to handle this and about trying to stick to top line numbers that, oh, by the way, were negotiated in the spring and early summer as part of the debt limit deal. They could pass something this week. Theyve got their own procedural hoops to jump through that would keep the government open for 45 or 60 days under current Funding Levels that would have a lot of the same priorities in it that bipartisan membership wants on that side. The problem for mccarthy is that cr is likely to have stuff in it that many members said they wont vote for, more money for ukraine or keeping the Government Funding at biden levels, not House Republican levels. He could refuse to put it on the floor. Thats the only game in town. It makes it that much harder for republicans to blame anyone but themselves for the shutdown that would inevitably follow. Discharge petition, we were talking about this regarding the debt a few months earlier, and it seemed completely unlikely. Does it seem more likely now . There are a couple of front line republicans who say they could potentially be on board for handing things over to the democrats, so something could get passed. Going back a couple of years before that, we talked about it on gun legislation. Be ever that, we talked about immigration legislation. Discharge petitions are incredibly rare when they actually work. You just dont see it a lot. To me, its a little bit more west wing than the veepbased reality that we have been operating in on the hill for the last couple of weeks. I think it serves a useful purpose in the discussion for everybody involved. For the moderates it shows mccarthy, they want to be serious. Its a good threat to have against him should he go too far in favor of the hard liners. For mccarthy, at the end of the day, if theres nothing he can do and the Discharge Petition gets through, he can put his hands up and say this wasnt on me. It was on you. I dont know if everybody will believe that. The possibility, the discussion of it is useful in moving the negotiations such as they are forward within the republican conference right now. Now that we have spoken about the politics, lets get to what actually happens in a Government Shutdown. Shannon, Doing Reporting on what it would mean to have the lights go off saturday at midnight. Reporter well, it means that about 4 million federal workers will not get paid starting next month. Were talking about active duty military members, tsa agents and air Traffic Controllers at the rport, were talking about Border Patrol agents or just those people who pick up the phone when you have a ques about your Social Security benefits or anyor of Government Services that you receive, and not getting that paycheck for many will mean struggling to put food on their table. Im at the Capitol Food Bank in d. C. During the last shutdown, which would be smaller than this in numbers, we saw about 4,000 people a week coming in for food. I talked to the ceo about what shes anticipating this time around. Heres what she had to say. You look the federal government workers, and again, those earning up to 90 or 100,000, they probably will need some support, especially if theyre going to miss one paycheck, maybe two. Theres an element of pride. Theres an element of just, you know, some people have said, were your donors. We give you the 20 a month, the 30 a month. We have come to volunteer, in the food bank. Never did we think we would be on the other side. Reporter and a lot of people think of a shutdown as being a washington, d. C. Problem. Take a look at this map. You can see the darker colors are the states with the highest percentage of workers, texas, california, michigan, ohio, pennsylvania, florida. Anybody whos got an airport in their state or a military base, those workers are going to start going out with pay october 1st. Many of them will still have to report for duty on the job. They wont be getting aid indefinitely until congress could pass a budget. Shannon pettypiece, garrett haake, thank you very much. Joining us now is democratic congressman from pennsylvania and Ranking Member of the budget committee, brendan boyle, congressman, thank you very much for joining us. What are democrats doing right now as republicans in the house seem to be tying themselves up in knots. Its good to be with you. I think its important to set the stage to keep in mind that over the last 30 years every single Government Shutdown that has taken place has taken place when republicans are in charge of the house of representatives. No Government Shutdowns have taken place in 30 years when democrats were in charge. So unfortunately, this is something that weve gotten a little bit used to. Heck, the last Government Shutdown in 2018 was under republican house, republican senate, and republican white house. We have members right now on the republican side who are publicly saying they want a Government Shutdown. So i continue to fight against it. To rail against it. You just showed the real life consequences, some of what happens with a Government Shutdown. The last one i referenced earlier, through 140,000 job losses as a result of that republican shutdown. We can prevent another one, if we just have enough moderate or independent republicans who are willing to band with democrats and end this nonsense once and for all. We have a couple of republicans who said they would be interested in it. Theyre willing to consider a Discharge Petition. Mike lawler, have you heard whispers of anyone else . I have good news for them, im actually the author of the Discharge Petition, and right now it is still sitting in the well of the floor. They can go to the well anytime the house is in session. Every single House Democrat has signed that Discharge Petition. I originally filed it back some months ago, regarding the debt ceiling. It is live and active and can be used on any issue, including this one. We need half a dozen or so House Republicans to join with us, and then we would be able to discharge a bill to ensure that the government remains funded. I realize that, you know, Discharge Petitions rarely work, but i have seen them work before. Once in my previous nine years, this gambit has worked. It worked, again, in the previous decade. If this works about once a decade, i would say were about due for one to work. What about Kevin Mccarthy . It doesnt behoove anybody for congress to be in chaos. I have heard leading democrats say that. Does that mean that you would potentially, as a democrat, be on board with saving mccarthys speakership . I know hes not a part of your party, but i dont know, you tell me. When we heard this morning from one congressman who said there is talk among leadership about this, what have you heard . I will say this, ever since that embarrassing first week in january when it took Kevin Mccarthy 15 different rounds of voting to get his own side to elect him speaker, i did fear that he would be so beholden to the most extreme maga members of his caucus and willing to bend over backwards to please them, that it might mean inevitably we would reach this point. I would point out, though, the one time he stood up to them was in june, when we ultimately raised the debt ceiling, that bill, 80 of House Democrats voted for it. 2 3 of House Republicans voted for it. If Kevin Mccarthy would have the backbone to stand up to matt gaetz and Marjorie Taylor greene and donald trump from the outside, i think he would see actually theres a pretty large bipartisan consensus when it comes to this issue. Are you saying if he were to stand up to them and come up with a compromise that democrats would be on board with keeping him in power . Actually, no, that wasnt what i was saying. I said that democrats showed in june that were willing to vote for bipartisan legislation, and we would do so again in order to keep the government funded. But part of what is tying his hands is that if he does that, theres the motion to vacate. Obviously the negotiation to bring it down to just one person probably wasnt a great idea, but thats how he got the gavel. In order to reach a compromise, and the compromise he reached for the debt ceiling put him in a position where his hard liners are saying we want him out. In order to say to matt gaetz, you know, i dont care im going to do this anyway, im going to do the right thing. Does that mean hes got to get some democrats on board with keeping him there, and if so, are there concessions that he could make to you, to democrats to make it more palatable . There are a couple of things there. First, i do think if he actually stood up to his hard liners, i think he would be a little pleasantly surprised to find a lot of support even within his own ranks, number one, and it wouldnt necessarily come to a motion to vacate votes. To your hypothetical, if it came to democratic votes, i would have a very difficult time ever voting for Kevin Mccarthy for speaker given some of the really extreme stuff that i have seen over the tenure of his leadership. That said, though, at this point, i certainly wouldnt rule out anything, but we are, you know, a number of hypotheticals down the line when it comes to this question. The impeachment inquiry, im sure, did not help. Thank you so much, congressman brendan boyle, we appreciate you coming on with us today. Thank you. Senator bob menendez says he isnt going anywhere. Are his colleagues on his side this time around . Plus, it is almost over. The Writers Guild have reached a deal with the studio. What did they get . And will the writers say yes. General mark milley steps down as chairman of the joint chiefs. Over the weekend, former President Trump said in another era, he would have been executed for what he did at the end of Donald Trumps time in office. Former Defense Secretary mark esper joins us to explain what it was like in the last months of the Trump Administration, and what threats we face now, including What A Second Trump Term would mean. A second trump term would mean. [sneeze] dude you coming . Alkaseltzer plus powermax gels cold flu relief with more concentrated power because the only thing dripping should be your style. Plop plop fizz Fizz Winter Warriors with alkaseltzer plus. I wanna hold you forever hey little bear bear. Im gonna love you forever cmon, bear. You dont. You dont have to worry. Be by your side. Ill be there. With my arms wrapped around. To those who have rushed to judgment, you have done so based on a limited set of facts, framed by the prosecution to be as salacious as possible. Remember, prosecutors get it wrong sometimes. For now, i remain focused on continuing to do the important work i do every day on behalf of the 9 Million People who call new jersey home. Including doing everything we can this week to avoid a Government Shutdown. Deliver critical funding for States Affected by catastrophic Natural Disaster and ensure the people of ukraine have everything they need to defeat putin. And ill return to washington this week to do exactly that. Senator bob menendez says he is not going anywhere despite federal bribery charges and growing calls for him to resign. Joining us now is nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian, and nbc News Senior National political reporter, sahil kapur. Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us. Ken, so menendez, when he talks about prosecutors get it wrong, he has been indicted before. Hes been put on trial. Hes beaten those charges. This is now the second time. Walk us through what is in the indictment, what he addressed today, and also that he did not address the gold bars . Thats right, katy, and first of all, the previous indictment, it wasnt that prosecutors were wrong. It was that a jury was hung on the question of whether the conduct was criminal. The indictment accused him of accepting a Million Dollars worth of gifts from a florida eye doctor and a Senate EthicsCommittee Found he did that, and ruled he brought disrepute on the senate, he wasnt convicted in that case. Now hes charged with essentially selling his office and selling the Foreign Policy of the United States with regard to egypt in exchange for bribes. Nearly half a Million Dollars in cash, hundreds of thousands of Dollars Worth of gold bars and a 60,000 mercedes for his wife, among other things. As you mentioned, he addressed the issue of the cash today, curiously, it was the only specific issue he addressed in the indictment, and what he said was he has a 30year history of withdrawing large sums of cash from his Savings Account to keep at home for emergencies. So he should i guess Hope The Bank Records bear that out, number one, but number two, he did not address allegations that prosecutors made at their News Conference the other day that the dna and Finger Prints of one of the alleged bribe payers were found on some of the envelopes of cash found by the fbi in Senator Menendezs closet. Hes arraigned on wednesday. What are we expecting there . Thats right. It should be a standard arraignment, reading of the charges. Hell plead not guilty. Well find out whos representing him, who his legal team is. You know, by staying in office, theres an advantage to that. It likely makes it easier for him to raise money to defray his legal costs, and it gives them some kind of leverage and keeps them in the public spotlight. He is defiant, he is not resigning despite calls from democrats. Lets talk about those calls. Who are those calls coming from and is it anybody in the senate . Reporter yes, well, the calls for Senator Menendez to resign among fellow democrats have been pouring in. Some of the most notable names are new jerseys democratic governor, phil murphy. Among those calling on him to resign is nearly everyone in new jerseys congressional delegation on the house side, names like josh gottheimer, Bonnie Watson coleman, bill pascal. And alexandria ocasiocortez became the first latina member to call for him to resign. And will run against bob menendez in his 2024 campaign, kim says he feels compelled to run against menendez after these charges. The unified view is menendez has a right to the Presumption Of Innocence until Proven Guilty but doesnt have a right to remain a senator with charges this serious after violating the trust of his constituents in this manner. Now, one senator who has called on menendez to resign, john fetterman, the freshman senator from pennsylvania who tells nbc news, his team, i should say, tells nbc news that he will return the 5,000 in donations that bob menendez gave to his 2022 campaign. Fetterman will do that in envelopes stuffed with hundred dollar bills, referring to the Court Documents that discussed hundred dollar bills along with the jacket that has Senator Menendezs name inscribed in it. Fetterman revealed he put out a fundraising email for andy kim. Hes not endorsing anyone in the race but wants to make sure theres a rigorous opponent when he makes an illadvised decision to run for reelection next year. Among those remaining silent are senator majority leader Chuck Schumer has not called on menendez to resign. And cory booker, the Junior Senator from new jersey has not called on menendez to resign. We will watch out to see what they might say in the future. As for aoc, she was asked about menendez concerns that these charges against them exemplify bias against latino people. She said, as a latina, there are ways in which there is systemic bias, but i think what is here in this indictment is quite clear. And thats from aoc. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Coming up next, the writers have a deal. Does that mean the actors are close to one as well . And what does it mean for production . Which shows are going to come back first . Plus, what message President Biden will be sending to auto workers when he makes history and joins them on the pick the line tomorrow. D joins them on te line tomorrow. [bones cracking] tense music one aleve works all day so i can keep working my magic. 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Its almost a wrap on the hollywood writers strike, a tentative agreement reached late yesterday between Hollywood Executives and the Writers Guild of america will end one of the longest strikes in the history of the entertainment industry, as long as the writers ratify it. We dont officially know the details but there are whispers that the writers did get a whole lot of what they were asking for. As for the actors, they are still on strike, but that could also be coming to an end as well soon. Well, maybe it is, maybe its not. Lets ask. Joining us now is Deadline Hollywood senior editor, dominic patton. Ill ask about the actors in a moment. Talk about the writers. The whisper is that this is a pretty good deal for them. The heads of the union are saying, hey, listen, this is great for us. Were talking its historic, and in many ways it is, were going to learn all the details in the next few days. This is going to go through a process of ratification, and the members who im sure will overwhelmingly vote for, will be voting in the next ten days or so. Look, they were fighting over very serious issues, the future of the industry looking at ai, data transparency, residuals, writers rooms, went back and forth. We thought there was going to be a deal. We had reports there was going to be a deal on thursday. More issues came up back and forth. The ceo of netflix, disney, nbc universal, and Warner Brothers discovery were in the room for a number of days this last week. They finally hammered it out. They got to the final details, and there were a couple of more potholes just before sundown, people leak to us a deadline all the time. No one is bad mouthing anyone right now about this deal. That tells you a lot about how satisfied people are. That is interesting because up until now there has been bad mouthing about the Hollywood Executives, especially after the bob iger comments in the summer when they said what they were asking for was too much and people felt he was out of touch. How much leverage did the writers ultimately have, did it surprise the studio executives, not only that they were willing to go on strike as long as they were but there was so much public support behind what they were doing . I think very much so. You mentioned comments by bob iger, there was the piece that i wrote, laying out what the end game was. They were trying to break the wga. There was an unprecedented amount of strength, they were prepared, they had a battle with agencies about two years ago over whats called packaging, and were successful there. They were feeling emboldened and ready to flex, so to speak. Taking that even further is when the actors went out on strike in july, we saw unprecedented solidarity between the two of them in their first strike since 1960, when Ronald Reagan ran the actors union. Going into that, and then in august when we had the first talk between the writers and studios since the strike started in may, that turned into a fiasco for the studios and they basically seemedo bully them around a bit, and said, were going to release the proposal we gave to you on august 11th out there, and were going to let your members decide, hoping the members would turn on the leadership, the reverse happened, again, a stronger sense of solidarity, and sometimes you have to remember if some of the ceos were leading the room, figuratively. Ultimately what happened is the writers had a tremendous amount of leverage and the calendar was in their favor. If the strike wasnt resolved by the end of october, youre not going to see new shows on the Broadcast Networks come the new year, and might have seen the Summer Block Buster Season next summer in serious trouble. At some point this was kicking in. Im not talking about the terrible fourth quarters a lot of studios could have seen and the backlash from wall street. The writing was on the wall, no pun intended. Hold on, the Late Night Shows can get started quickly, but that doesnt mean the scripted shows can get started because the actors are on strike. Does this mean the actors will come to an agreement soon . Does this portend well for the actors . I think it does. Theres a unique situation happening here. Were seeing labor disputes all over the country, the uaw, the president is going to be marching with them. The president gave a big statement of support. The writers today, theres one of the things thats going to happen, like ai, residuals, data transparency, those are issues the actors want to talk about as well. Unlike many Labor Negotiations when the actors get in the room with the studio heads soon. Which we think is going to be fairly soon, theyre going to have a lot of ground already covered. Its different for their specific needs but already covered. You might see the momentum, and i would dare to say optimism that we now detect in hollywood that was certainly not here a week ago. We might see that enough to push them over the line. If everybody can get their ducks in a row, there might be a new season, a new Television Season in january, and the movies and more importantly in some ways, the actors out there promoting the movies as they move especially into oscars season and emmys, that could also come back. You could see the bottom lines for everyone rising again. I would like to see the sequel to dune, so im hoping those actors can get on the red carpet and promote it. Dominic, thank you so much for joining us. As for that other big strike, we just were mentioning it, the Auto Workers Union doesnt yet have a deal with the big three. There is movement in negotiations with ford. 6,000 workers joined the picket line with gm and stellantis over the weekend, and the union expanded the walkouts to 38 more warehouses across 20 states. Tomorrow the workers will get a high profile boost as the president of the United States joins the picket line in michigan. While donald trump, the former president goes to detroit to give a speech to Union Workers on wednesday. Joining us now is nbc news correspondent maggie vespa whos with the picketers in center line, michigan. How do they feel today, and whats the word on President Biden joining the pick the line . Do they think thats going to be a good thing for them . Reporter basically the picketers who broke for lunch just in time for live tv, they basically tell us they will take the support wherever they can get it. Theyre excited to have President Biden come down here, regardless of anybodys politics, frankly because it points a larger spotlight, a brighter spotlight at these negotiations. We have been hearing from people, whether its President Biden, President Trump, regardless of the infighting in between the two of them and their two campaigns, they will take, again, whatever support, whatever boost, and whatever attention they can get on this dispute and these negotiations, especially when youre talking about gm and stellantis, two of the big three where workers say they have a long way to go. The union says they have a long way to go. Heres some of what we have been hearing today. You can hear a supporters out here. Heres some of what we have been hearing from workers on the picket line today. Take a listen. My thing is, whether its biden or trump, youre coming down here to ponder to the membership, telling us things you already told us in the past but did nothing for. Right . This union has been struggling for the last 43 years. We have 1. 5 million auto workers back in 1979. We have 150,000 today. Thats the problem for me, this is not a political situation. These are our lives. This is how we feed our families. So we dont need that to be political. We need people to take it seriously and get a deal done. Reporter one more thing that we have heard from everybody, by the way, and this is on both sides, President Bidens visit, former President Trumps. They want to know the details, frankly of these visits. Nobody knows where the president is going to be. Which company, which plant hes going to be standing in front of, which workers hell join. Nobody knows when the former president will speak. The workers want to know pragmatic details so they can quite potentially get next to the president , the former president to be a part of these moments, and again, add to the attention on these negotiations, katy. Maggie vespa, thank you very much. Coming up, 2024 polling from nbc news from the multiple trials donald trump is facing to the questions about President Bidens age and health. The challenges they are both facing with an overwhelming majority of voters. First up, though, Behind The Scenes of the tumultuous relationship between President Donald Trump and joint chiefs chairman mark milley with someone who was often in the room with both of them. Former Defense Secretary mark esper joins me next. Every little moment you get with them. Tyler, hes 10, and little dayrl, hes 12. Being a single dad, it is hard, really hard. Ive been there since day one. I know how it is, you know, not to have nothing. I dont really get paid much. Theres been time ive went hungry. Made sure they ate. There aint a thing i wouldnt do for them. Right now, millions of our neighbors are facing hunger. Rising food prices are making it tougher to put food on the table. Please call or go online and join with feeding for 19 a month, just 0. 63 a day. Youll help families fill their plates with nutritious food, thanks to a nationwide network of food banks, dedicated volunteers and the monthly support of people like you. At least now i know i got, you know, help if i need it. One in eight children face hunger in america and food costs are rising. We are getting closer to the day when no one in america faces hunger. But we cant do it without you. Call or go online now. Visit helpfeedingamerica. Org and give 19 a month, just 0. 63 a day. And when you use your credit card, youll receive this exclusive canvas grocery bag to show youre a part of a Movement Working together to ensure that everyone has the food and resources we all need to thrive. 98 of your donation goes directly to help millions of families bring meals home from coast to coast and in your own community. If youre hungry, you know, if they got it, theyll feed you. People just got to realize, you know, places like this do exist that will help you. Please call now or make your monthly donation at helpfeedingamerica. Org. Working together, we can end hunger in america. 20 men have served as the chairmen of the joint chiefs since its creation in 1949. Few have faced as much political turbulence or been as polarizing as general mark milley who served under both donald trump and joe biden. He was there for january 6th, the messy afghanistan withdrawal, the ongoing war between russia and ukraine, and whatever happens next in taiwan. Some say General Milley who will step down as chairman at the end of this week helped save americas democracy. Donald trump says he was a train wreck who in times gone by would have been executed for his behavior. Joining us now is former Defense Secretary in the Trump Administration and the author of a sacred oath memoirs of a Secretary Of Defense during extraordinary times, mark esper. Extraordinary times indeed. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for joining us. I know you worked alongside thank you. General milley, and you were there in the room with him during a lot of those final moments during the Trump Administration. How do you see his legacy . Look, i think its a very strong legacy of a military officer, a man who served his country well for over 40 plus years, and throwing some of the most difficult if not the most difficult times during our nations history. I know because i lived and worked alongside him. I think he has a very noble history and a great story to tell, and he was critical to being one of many Circuit Breakers in what could have gone really bad, worse than what we saw, actually . Explain that. Well, look, as i commented in a couple of articles, milley was a great adviser and partner to me during my tenure there, and side by side, we had to address any number of issues, most notably, of course, was the president s desire to use active duty troops. Pushing back on things like that or an eagerness to attack countries or conduct other types of operations. I have described of course in my memoir that you mentioned the president s interest in striking cartels with missiles in mexico. But there are any number of things that milley and i were side by side and played the professional responsible role that he did providing advice to me and the president as well during, again, this very tumultuous times. I mentioned in the leadin to you, donald trump saying in times gone by he would have been executed for some of his behavior, and what were talking about specifically is the calls that he made to china in the final days of the administration, you know, and with the election and all the tumult surrounding that. Explain what he was doing, and why that mattered, and why donald trump might be so angry about it . Well, first of all, that statement by the president is horrible. Its intolerable. It should be condemned by everybody, right, left, republican, democrat. Right . Mark milley served his country well, did it professionally, and we owe him a great deal of gratitude, i do as well. Part of this is a lot of misinformation, i think in some case, inaccuracies or incomplete stories that came out of some of the books that were published at the time. One of the two events that the president referenced is a call he made to china in october of 2020, where he warned him, if you will, and i think the allegation is he gave them information or something, but whats often not told is the other part of the story that i describe in quite some detail in my book, that i had reached out to the chinese two weeks beforehand because i was concerned about what was happening, about what we were picking up in intelligence and in open sources and from private parties about the chinese, concerned and troubled by what they were seeing. And my view was i did not want a mishap, an imperception to lead to some type of conflict in the south china sea. And it was in a subsequent meeting that i directed General Milley to reach out to his counter part as well to send the same message that nothing going on here. That we have no aims against you, that its going to be steady she goes, and that was what we did typically in these types of situations. He portrayed that message. Somehow it got portrayed that he was a rogue general, and its an incomplete story. Mark milley did what i directed him to do, what other chairmen had done in the past, which i think is responsible diplomacy and state craft to prevent mishaps from happening. What about the former president saying things like he should have been executed or in times gone by, he would have been executed. Its terrible, again, it should be condemned. We owe mark milley, and his pred predecessors, and uniformed officers, a debt of gratitude for what they do. They spent 40 plus years of their lives moving around 20 plus times in war and peace, dragging their families around, spouses cant get jobs. Its a tough life, and its a tough life lived by their families, and we owe them, again, a debt of gratitude and thanks for their service, condemnation, and not that type of rhetoric coming out of no less than the president of the United States. Milley steps down, leaving a more stable administration behind, not necessarily a more stable world. You were in taiwan recently, is it taiwan, chinas incursion into the island or is it what were seeing with russia and ukraine . Its a dangerous world right now. You know, katy, we have a hot war in europe, and looks like a cold one emerging in asia, particularly in Northeast Asia between china and taiwan. Youre right, i was there, theyre concerned. Theyre making a number of moves. Stockpiling arms, making other things and the chinese rhetoric continues to increase their nearly daily incursions of chinese aircraft and ships into taiwans Air Defense Identification Zones and territorial waters and so i see things escalating. And it gets even more dangerous today when we see chinas economy slowly collsing, right, and the concern is will it get so bad in china domestically, economically, with Everything Else going on, Youth Unemployment above 20 , will they lash out against taiwan in order to distract the people . I think its incumbent upon the United States and other democracies in the world that support taiwan, that believe that the democracies of the world should push back against the autocracies of the world to stand firm with our taiwanese partners. Were picture froze, youre back, good. Do you see us getting into a war with china, getting involved in a war, boots on the ground with china over taiwan . I dont think its inevitable, and its certainly not imminent. Obviously president xi jinping has set out a time line for the Peoples Liberation army to be ready to do something against china by 2027. The taiwanese will have a very important election in january of next year, which the chinese are not happy about. I think this is something we have to act in unison about to continue to maintain a high state of deterrence against china, waking up one morning and deciding to do the wrong thing. It would be terrible for our two countries. It would be terrible for the global economy. What we need to do is prevent war from acting. Im a reagan republican, i believe in peace through strength. Its not just the military. Its diplomacy, economics, its our partners around the world working with us. Were a year and a couple of months away from an election where donald trump wants to be the president again. Do you see that as a good thing, a bad thing . Scary . How do you view it . Well, im very troubled by it. I said before that i think hes a threat to democracy. And certainly the institutions of our great republic. What about i want to see a new leader from the republican party. What about militarily, though . Im sorry . What about militarily with the potential conflict with china and taiwan, what about with ukraine, in terms of that aspect of a second donald trump term . Yeah, look, im very concerned that what hell do early on pull u. S. Support from ukraine, and if that happens, and i think support writ large for ukraine crumbles, ive always been concerned that he would withdraw u. S. Forces from nato. Both things would send the wrong messages to beijing, and maybe encourage them to act against taiwan. So, look, we can go around the globe and talk about every country where i have a concern about it because i lived through it 18 months or so, alongside chairman mark milley. I have a lot of concerns here. Defense secretary mark esper, thank you very much for joining us. We really do appreciate you coming on and giving us a little bit of insight into what you experienced and what you think might be coming next. We appreciate it, sir. Thanks, katy. And coming up next, what a majority of voters are most worried about regarding President Biden in the 2024 election . Steve kornacki is here with the latest polling. You may think your eyes will be bulging forever. Like a neverending curse that cant be broken. But even if youve been told its too late, treating your Thyroid Eye Disease may still be possible. And a new day is within sight. Learn how you could give your eyes a fresh start at stilltreatted. Com. Tech cracked windshield on your new car . Bring it to safelite. My customer was enjoying her new car, when her windshield cracked. [gasp] customer my car tech vo she didnt take it to the dealer. She scheduled with safelite. We have the latest technology for the newest vehicles. And we do more replacements and recalibrations than anyone else. Customer thank you so much. Tech dont wait schedule now. Pop music singers safelite repair, safelite replace. Only Unitedhealthcare Medicare advantage plans come with the ucard one simple member card that opens doors for what matters. How bout using it at the pharmacy . Yes your ucard is all you need. impressed huh thats easy the allinone ucard, only from unitedhealthcare. This is american infrastructure. Megawatts of power, rails and open road, and essential services of every kind. All running on countless invisible networks, making it a prime target for cyberattacks. But the same aipowered security that protects all of google also defends the systems running americas infrastructure. For these services. For the 336 million of us living here. We have fresh 2024 polling ahead of the second Republican Debate on wednesday. Donald trump has a 43point lead over the rest of the field. Consider that considering the conversation we had with mark esper. Also, donald trump is tied with joe biden at 46 . Joining me now steve kornacki. Steve, explain the numbers. Katy, really interesting. Donald trump with this massive lead over ron desantis and nobody else in double digits. This sort of the backdrop for the next Republican Debate which also looks like donald trump wont be participating in. Trumps republican critics, his republican opponents they thought, they hoped, many said by skipping that first president ial debate trump would alienate some Republican Voters and he would be giving an opportunity to his opponents to move up in the polls, but trump didnt lose any ground. In the summer he was barely at 50 . Now hes at 60 . Ron desantis his support earlier was over 30 , its been cut in half to 16 . Everybody else in single digits. If this is the direction republicans are going, if they nominate donald trump for the rematch, this is what our poll shows. Trump and biden tied in a potential rematch for 2024. One piece of context thats interesting on this. We polled i found 11 nbc polls from the year leading up to the trump biden race. It was never tied. It was never closer than 6 points. That was true in just about all the polling. Biden consistently wide leads in 2019 and 2020 against donald trump. Were seeing in our poll and in many others, a race at least in the polling that looks closer, if it does indeed become trump versus biden. Whats driving it . The biggest change between 2020 and now is the incumbents are flipped. Biden is the incumbent and trump would be the challenger. You can see the incumbent president in our poll, his Approval Rating 41 . Bidens disapproval, 56 . Its the highest disapproval for joe biden in his presidency. Whats driving that disapproval . The economy. Its the baseline a couple months after biden took office. The country was split on whether it was satisfied or dissatisfied with the state of the economy. Now only 28 of voters are satisfied with the economy. More than 70 arent. There is also this. Weve talked about trumps indictments, the looming trials, the criminal charges. Is it a matter of concern to voters . To a lot of them the answer is yes. 62 put it in that category. What number is higher than that . 74 say a major moderate concern to them is the president s age and fitness. Thats 27 points higher than the number for donald trump who is only three years younger than joe biden. Ive heard that concern shared by democratic donors as well. Steve, thank you very much. President biden is in the Roosevelt Room of the white house addressing hbcus and hes commenting on the looming Government Shutdown which might happen saturday at midnight. Listen to what he said. Its time to govern. Just a few months ago the speaker of the house and i agreed to a Spending Level for the government. We were right to the very edge and we were going to fund essentially priorities and cut the deficit by 1 trillion over the next decade. Now an extreme group of republicans dont want to live up to that deal. Everyone in america could be paying the price for that. Theyre changing it. We made a deal. We shook hands. Now theyre reneging on the deal. Black community in particular will suffer. There will be a Government Shutdown saturday at midnight if theres no deal between congress and sent to the president , most likely a continuing resolution if that happens. Right now it doesnt appear to be so. The senate is still on either side in terms of their agreement for a shortterm deal they might send to the house. That could come later this week. There is still compromise to be had there. House republicans have nothing right now. There will be a week of voting on some of the hard line proposals. Its unclear if theyll pass. Who knows what happens after that. Thats going to do it for me today. All week well be talking about this. Giving you a play by Play Analysis of what might come. Deadline white house starts after a quick break. S after a quick break. I was a bit nervous at first but then i figured its just walking, right . [dog barks] oh. 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