pete an honorary law degree. it should be pete williams esquire. obamacare. president obama thought he had lost that case. they were against him. ruled unconstitutional. a dramatic blow to the policy and to the president. and he came out and was the only one who said that president obama had won the case. reporter: the bottom line here is the supreme court has upheld the health care case. it was only nbc who got it right. gore versus bush, the recount. we re trying to figure out what did it mean. he seemed to be the only one that understood it. reporter: little doubt that there s no room for a recount. there have been times when i have a big interview coming up, and i can call pete. he shares his knowledge. if he s got a scoop, he doesn t have to be the face of the scoop. he s warm, he s welcoming. he s a good, wonderful human being. the three loves of ruth bader ginsburg s life, her family, the law excuse me and opera.
you were in with nancy pelosi. this is a senate issue. she s about to go to asia with plans to go to taiwan or not, depending on what they end up deciding. let s talk about this senate bill. what are we hearing from sinema? larry summers was on here while you were in there with pelosi saying that he would say to her, this is an anti-inflation bill and it s a tax fairness bill. it s not increasing taxes on everyone that carried interest issue and it s good for the economy. reporter: that s exactly what senator manchin said when i spoke with him over zoom yesterday. it s the argument he continues to make. when i asked senator manchin if he would potentially be willing to lose the carried interest loophole provision, he said he wouldn t. that s one of the things that now goes into this balancing act. sinema previously drawn a line around that not being something she could support. manchin is now saying that he is
not willing to lose it. it does bring us to an impasse. at the same time, we haven t gotten an update on sinema s position. there s the story of the frustration around some of this. it s a frustration that schumer spoke to yesterday in regards to manchin. it s something they have agreed, things have gotten heated over the course of the negotiations. listen. were you frustrated during this process? i ve been frustrated for a long time, because i think we have so much we need to get done. my dad passed away six months ago. he taught me something. if you are doing the right thing and you persist, keep at it, god will make sure you succeed. so we kept at it. reporter: schumer noting the persistence he had in these meetings between himself and joe manchin. again, i think it s important to point out here that it was just these two men in the room. schumer even said to me yesterday, manchin wanted to keep it so close, not even extending the president into these negotiations. schumer told
with a controversial stop in taiwan, not ruled out, not confirmed. a live report from kentucky where a deadly flood is deaf stath rural areas. this is by far the worst flooding disaster, at least of my lifetime, in kentucky. it has wiped out what we believe are hundreds of homes. we have half of some of our counties under water. we will lose double digit lives. in pete we trust. i will be joined by our legendary justice correspondent pete williams as we pay tribute to his remarkable career here to nbc news before he heads off for new adventures. we begin with the economy and the white house. joining me now are kristin welker and cnbc senior economics reporter steve leaseman. the white house trying to control the narrative on this economy. inflation continues to be a
major drag on their messaging. reporter: you are right. they are trying to put the focus on the fact that the labor market is strong, that the unemployment rate is low. but it is a complicated argument to make, because you do have an economy that has now shrunk two quarters in a row. because of the soaring inflation that you mentioned. the fact you have americans really feeling the pain all across the country. yesterday we saw president biden come out. he made those comments you played at the top of the show. really touted what he sees as the strengths in this economy. again, this messaging is universal across the administration. we are hearing it from treasury secretary janet yellen who was out a week ago pre-butting the numbers we were anticipating seeing this week. of course, you have republicans saying, this is just spin. this is not accurate. the bottom line is, it s not up to the president or republicans or anyone to say officially once