he is next. willie geist, if it s way too early what time is it? morning joe but now it s the daily rundown. see you tomorrow. the changing mission in iraq. the president makes a major speech today in georgia as the u.s. combat mission ends technically this month. plus, the obama effect. do some democrats want the president to keep the distance in the fall campaign? it is monday, august 2nd, 2010. not keeping my distance, chuck todd. right next to me. good morning. i m savannah guthrie. the top for us, the gulf of mexico. tonight, may mark the beginning of the end for that blown out oil well in the gulf. bp getting ready for the static kill or what some call a lethal injection to get that well sealed once and for all. anne thompson is nbc s chief environmental affairs correspondent live in venice, louisiana. anne, i m sure it s music to ears of so many down there. what exactly is bp planning to
anne thompson is nbc s chief environmental affairs correspondent and maybe no longer a permanent resident of venice, louisiana. they will be giving you voting rights by november, and you may get a tax bill. you know they re going to make me pay taxes. absolutely. okay, ann. where are we? we know they re in this testing phase to see if sealing this off is a permanent solution, i say permanent, the solution and until the relief well goes down. where do things stand? well, right now national incident commander retired admiral thad allen just gave a briefing, chuck. and he essentially said what scientists and engineers are trying to figure out is what the pressure reading that they re getting inside the well means. the good news is the cap is holding. there s no oil going out into the gulf. the pressure reading is at 6,700 pounds per square inch, which is sort of right in the middle of where they thought it would be after 24 hours.
would be expected to take months, if that might work? reporter: oh, absolutely. it will take at least three months. i can tell you that it is underway. they say the drilling is going quite well. but that s the long-term solution. but it s the one solution they know will work. everything else they re going to try between now and then is essentially things that haven t been tried before. and they are just desperate to find any solution to stop this oil from flowing into the gulf. nbc news chief environmental affairs correspondent ann thompson live from venice, louisiana. it s a real honor to have you on the show tonight. thanks very much for your time. reporter: take care, rachel. so there is genuine empirical review and hard nosed analysis to do with the record of supreme court nominee elena kagan. and you know who s not doing it? a whole bunch of senators who decided to decide on hyper critical nonsense as their strategy instead.
spill, says the senator whose own state is staring down the barrel of 4 million gallons of coastal oil and counting. joining us now live from venice, louisiana, is nbc news chief environmental affairs correspondent ann thompson. thank you so much for your time tonight. what can you tell us about the effort to cap this well? well, rachel, they re pursuing something called the top hat, a smaller containment dome on the sea floor. over the next 24 hours or so, engineers hope to actually move it over the biggest leak there. and what they re hoping is this time they have solved the problem of those ice-like crystals which failed the giant dome over the weekend. they think they ve solved this by attaching a riser, which is a big pipe, and then there s a pipe within that. and they are using they will