announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt good evening, everyone it was an encouraging sight for american families who had been hard pressed to find infant formula for their babies pallets and pallets of formula, 35 tons, arriving in the u.s. from europe aboard a military transport plane, enough to feed 9,000 babies and 18,000 toddlers for one week but the math doesn t yet add up to full store shelves. with 43% of formula supplies nationwide out of stock tonight the biden administration moving on several fronts, including another military shipment planned for later this week to try to ease the shortage but relief may still be some weeks away, leaving frustrated and anxious parents further on edge. jo ling kent has late details. reporter: when the first emergency aircraft for operation fly formula landed, it delivered a sign of hope, alongside growing nationwide panic. everything is empty. i don t know about y all, but this is scary. reporter: aboard
now, some democrats are bracing for big midterm losses like they suffered under former president obama two years after he was elected. i m not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like i did last night reporter: we pressed former biden white house official cedric richmond. will democrats get shellacked in the fall i don t think democrats will get shellacked in the fall let s start there. reporter: two top biden aides tell nbc news, moving forward the president will double down on his attempts to draw sharp contrast with republicans, including on social flash points like abortion. and he will continue to try to paint some in the gop as ultra-maga, a term democrats developed with focus groups over six months the great maga camp maga republicans ultra maga republicans. reporter: but some democrats worry that swipe is failing to resonate, with some republicans embracing it i am ultra maga and
$4.36 a gallon, you know, they put the blame out there for it and the president has to suffer through. i do think, don, we learned in the past with the federal reserve, if you stick as head of the federal reserve, he stayed on and served both parties. he took on the inflationary bear. he went after it, reagan to his great credit supported volker and raised the interest rates. the misery index was very high. so there is times when presidential decisions do matter. so speaking of that, catherine talked about the rhetoric. this is rhetoric about something different. but president biden escalating his attack on republicans and going after the former president, n what he calls the maga agenda. listen to this. under my predecessor, the great maga camp, the deficit increased every single year he