incident to police. that does it for us this hour. our coverage continues with "katy tur reports," right now. good to be with you. i'm katy tur. what is president biden hoping to get out of today's executive order allowing him to seal the southern border? he made the announcement just a few minutes ago saying the influx of migrants is unsustainable. quote, for those who say the steps i've taken are too strict, i say to you be patient. the goodwill of the american public is wearing thin right now. doing nothing is not an option. we have to act. he also said that without immigration reform, specifically the immigration bill which was crafted by a bipartisan team of senators and leaned conservative, by the way, signing an executive order was his only remaining option. that order is definitely going to go to the courts. the aclu has already said it plans on suing. and a number of progressive lawmakers including the congressional hispanic caucus are crying foul, saying this isn't what democrats want and that biden risks losing some liberals in the next election. so what exactly is the calculus? how much of it has to do with the real world situation on the ground, and how much of it is campaign politics? we have two guests to help us understand. the mayor of laredo, texas and the governor of new york, who both can tell us what their localities are experiencing with the influx of migrants and what their voters are demanding. we also wonder if there is something else that president biden or congress can do to immediately ease the situation. we do have something in mind that we want to ask. joining us now first to talk about the reporting and to walk through all of the elements of this executive order, nbc news white house correspondent monica alba. and to talk us through the polling on the issue nbc news senior political editor marc murray. so monica, president biden was very direct. he said the reason i have to do this is because the republicans in the senate and congress are following the word of donald trump when donald trump vetoed, basically killed in the cradle this immigration bill because he wanted to run on a crisis at the border in this campaign cycle. walk us through what biden is going to do with this executive order. what powers does it give him? >> well, it gives him the authority, katy, to temporarily shut down the border to asylum seekers who are trying to cross unlawfully. but it doesn't apply to those who still want to go to ports of entry and apply in a legal pathway manner, which is available. but we know that the majority of crossings and daily encounters on the border of course take place from people through mexico who are trying to cross into the u.s. illegally. so this is the biden administration's attempts to really curb that. and we are going to see this essentially in effect immediately though likely there will be certain court challenges and lawsuits as you mentioned that they are already bracing for. but this is the president who has come a long way on immigration, saying i promised certain things as candidate joe biden, i ran on rolling back former president trump immigration policies, but the fact of the matter is as he said he couldn't do nothing. that was not an option. and he said that he is hearing from democratic governors and mayors all the time about the need to do something to crack down on this. so this is his answer. and this authority would have been a part of that bipartisan border bill. it would have been enshrined in that and it would have given him permission to do this same thing at the border. but because that was torpedoed he said he also had to go this route though he would have preferred to reach across the aisle and work with republicans. now, we have to point out that essentially if crossings fall to 1,500 a day, right now the threshold trigger is 2,500, we're well above that mark. we're right around 4,000 daily crossings according to department of homeland security officials. if it comes back down to something around on average 1,500 people then the border would reopen and they would reassess. and the president in his remarks did hint that he may have some other measures to roll out in the coming weeks about trying, he argued, to make the immigration system fairer. but we know, katy, that really this is about a political vulnerability as well as the policy aspects to all this. >> what about the courts here? because donald trump tried something similar in 2018, monica, the courts blocked it. the aclu is already promising the biden administration on this one. there's a decent chance of an injunction before this power can go into effect. they had to have known that. >> they're fully bracing for that. and in fact, they studied specifically what the former president tried to do and they tried to have some humanitarian carveouts and make some adjustments so they believe this could stand up better in court. that includes unaccompanied minors, for instance, that are trying to cross. this would not apply to them regardless of the thresholds and the daily crossings. or victims of severe human trafficking. so they're trying to say that actually they really studied what the former president did and what his administration tried to put into law and couldn't and instead made some tweaks to it they hope to be successful. but certainly the irony is very clear here and there are democrats who are saying that this is a policy that you could have seen under the trump administration and not one they expected to see under the biden white house. >> monica alba. thank you so much for starting us off. marc murray, let's talk about the politics of this. what is the calculation that president biden is making that? he made a point to say that the good will of the american public is running then, that he can't do nothing. >> yeah. and katy, a lot of this is trying to seem like he is doing something. in focus groups i've listened to from undecided voters they oftentimes point to some of the inaction that is coming on the border from the president as one of the demerits against him. monica ended up mentioning that this seems to be trying to shore up a political vulnerability. and katy, in our own polling, in our april 2024 nbc news poll just 28% of american voters ended up approving of the job the president was doing on immigration. in a poll that we had a year ago in 2023 our poll had republicans with an 18-point advantage over democrats on what party better handles immigration. that was the highest lead republicans have ever enjoyed on that and the worst deficit the democrats have ever had. you end up looking at this issue, and this has been a losing issue for democrats. and president biden and democrats are trying to do something to shore up that weakness. >> by the way, the migration policy institute says biden has taken more than 500 executive actions on immigration since he took office, a lot more than donald trump did. that being said you cite polling that talks about donald trump and how voters feel about the democrats and this issue. i want to throw a couple more at you. there's a cnn poll from january that asked voters if trump was re-elected are you in favor of him detaining and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants? in favor of that, nearly 50%. 48% of voters. also a galup poll. a study, 27% of americans say the most important problem facing the u.s. is immigration. and then when we're talking about biden's base, the warning from progressive democrats from the congressional hispanic caucus is that he's going to lose progressive democrats and he potentially is going to lose hispanics. here's some peru polling. would making it harder for asylum seekers to be granted temporary legal status while awaiting asylum hearings make the border situation better? 29% say yes. 27% say no, it would make it worse. no difference is 20%. so when they're doing the calculations about where the american public stands it seems like they're skewing toward the middle here, the moderate voter. why do they believe the moderate voter is the better target for them than the progressive voter? >> yeah, katy, with five months before the general presidential election it does become about the moderate or persuadable voters. those are the ones that are up for grabs whether the other voters have already made up their minds in a rematch facing president biden and donald trump. you actually did mention that yes, this does divide the democratic party. and this is a dilemma. do you end up trying to take action and do something like they did today that is going to displease the left but maybe win over the middle of the electorate and they decided to bank on that it's more to focus right now on the middle. i also go back to what i was saying earlier, that trying to basically take a very public action when it comes to the border -- and katy, also importantly, this action will end up decreasing the number of border crossings. it's absolutely guaranteed to do that. and that is a metric this white house and administration has paid a lot of attention to with election day approaching. >> marc murray. marc, thank you very much. all right. let's talk about this in regards to a blue state. joining us now is the democratic governor of new york, kathy hochul. so this is an issue in blue states, especially in the northeast, in chicago, because of the busing and the flying in of migrants by republicans in red states, in texas and in florida. there are so many more mie migrants in the city than we had seen in the recent past. you were with president biden at the signing of this executive order. tell me why you think this is a great idea. >> it's a great idea because you have to deal with -- if the republicans had not listened to donald trump four months ago they would have done it the way you're supposed to do it. you pass it through congress. it was a bipartisan deal. money for border agents. money for interdiction of drugs. money for technology. and they refused to do it because they thought it would give president biden a win. he did not want to have to do this. but this is what we have to deal with. we can't ignore the fact that while we are a kind and generous people in new york state and we're proud of the statue of liberty we are at capacity right now because we've had over 200,000 people come over in the last two years. so this will give us a place -- little bit of a pause on this, let people apply for asylum legally before they get to the borders. and we need more judges and a better process. but president biden's been trying to get immigration reform since his first day in office. so this should not come as a surprise to anybody. you have to do an end run every once in a while and that's exactly what today is all about. >> let me ask you about the cost here because we have some numbers. this is from the comptroller's office, the new york city office of management and budget. this is data they've compiled. in the fiscal year of 2023 the estimated cost of asylum seekers for new york city was 1.5 billion. for 2024 it's projected to be 4.7 billion. and for next year, 2025, 6.1 billion. that is a whole lot of money. and that's even before president biden seals this border. where is this money going to come from? >> that's the city of new york. the state of new york has also had to provide resources to house these individuals, get them legal services and try to get them into jobs. >> i will tell you this. i have a dual problem. we have a lot of people who come looking for a better life. we're trying to manage the scale. i think today is important to give us some breathing room. but also, i have a lot of jobs that are open. i want them to get work permits so they can fill the thousands of jobs that we've identified for them. so the costs are high. they're too high. we could use much more help with the money. but -- >> on that -- let's talk about the point of getting them jobs. the federal government says they've got to wait six months when they cross the border. they seek asylum but then they have to wait six months for a work permit. why is president biden not signing an executive order to try to make that a shorter amount of time so they can get jobs -- >> a lot of these migrants coming in they're not just standing on the side of the street and begging for a handout. they are trying to make money. they're trying to sell things. they're trying to hustle up work in the city. as you said there are a number of jobs you have open. wouldn't fixing that extremely long waiting period help things? >> that is another area where they can change the law. congress can change the law to make that a shorter time frame. absolutely, i agree with you that they should. the biden administration is working hard to get the work authorizations. but there are backlogs because guess what, once again we don't have the money allocated from congress. the money comes from congress. anything that's going to kocht a dime to help facility this processing or to help us manage the flow or help them get the jobs, congress is the only entity that can allocate the dollars. that's why republicans are so disingenuous. when members of congress or people who listened to donald trump when there was a viable plan on the table, you have no right to complain right now. you have no moral authority on this one because you refused to do your jobs. >> the -- just going one more on the work permitting process part of the issue according to reporting, and this has maybe been address aid little in recent months, but mayor adams just didn't have the organization set up to tell asylum seekers and the migrants that are here that they are el vibl to work after six months and that there are thousands of people that were in the shelter system costing hundreds of dollars a day that were actually able to work, they were eligible to work. they just didn't know. is there a way to make sure that information is there, that it's in all the languages it needs to be in to get these people working? >> you've hit on an area which has been frustrating. because of privacy and laws that are in place to protect individuals' personal data, only the federal government can let them know when they've been approved for work authorization, not the state or the city. they literally text people. they have a wait to communicate with them and tell them where to go for the next step. so it is imperfect now, but we know the path forward will be better. but also just having fewer people to deal with on a daily basis to take the pressure off, let out some of the steam, that is going to make a huge difference. those are the changes we hope to see as a result of president biden standing up today. >> i want to ask you about politics here. the republicans and former president trump want to use this as an issue in the upcoming elections. former president trump obviously believes this is a winning issue for him. how do you see it affecting the state of new york? >> they have no leg to stand on. and that's my point. there are ten republican members of congress who represent the state of new york. you have as much clout as that freedom caucus. go in to speaker johnson's office this afternoon, demand that on behalf of your constituents and people all over america, change the laws. go forth with the bipartisan plan that was negotiated by conservative senators, republican senators, and democrats. go back to where we were a few months ago. you have no right to complain because you just bought this problem. >> i would node that tom suozzi razz ran into this issue when he was running for george santos's open seat, trying to take it away from republicans. even mentioning there was an immigration bill. governor kathy hochul -- in long island, by the way. governor, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> coming up a mayor of a texas town that is on the front lines of this crisis joins us for a red state perspective. plus, i will not be intimidated. that is what attorney general merrick garland said to congress when he was forced to testify. we are back in 90 seconds. in here, you can expect to find crystal clear audio, expansive display space, endless entertainment, and more comfort for everyone. but even with all that... we still left room for all the unpredictability, spontaneity and unexpected things you'll find out here. the new 2024 grand cherokee lineup. jeep. there's only one. nothing dims my light like a migraine. with nurtec odt, i found relief. the only migraine medication that helps treat and prevent, all in one. to those with migraine, i see you. for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of episodic migraine in adults. don't take if allergic to nurtec odt. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. it's time we all shine. talk to a healthcare provider about nurtec odt from pfizer. i am obsessed with olay's retinol body wash. with olay retinol body wash, 95% of women had visibly renewed skin. it makes my skin feel so smooth and moisturized. see the difference with olay. here's to getting better with age. here's to beating these two every thursday. help fuel today with boost high protein, complete nutrition you need... ...without the stuff you don't. so, here's to now. boost. all right. let's talk to a red state lawmaker about president biden's executive order on immigration. joining us now -- i'm sorry, first we're going to go to the reporting. joining us now from san ysidro, california is nbc news national correspondent david noriega. david, i was jumping the gun there. i'm so sorry. i want to get some reporting from the ground. talk to me about what you're seeing at that border site in particular. is the -- are the daily numbers as high as they have been? >> reporter: so the short answer is yes. the numbers have been higher in the san diego sector actually than they were a year ago, higher even than they were in december. that's just for this sector. borderwide they're down substantially from the record highs of december. katy, the main thing i've been learning in just the last couple of hours is there's a pretty big difference between what this executive order looks like on paper and what biden and other democrats are using it to say they are doing in terms of shutting down the border saying they're taking dramatic action et cetera and what it looks like it will actually -- how it will actually play out on the ground. i'm pretty skeptical at this point that this is going to have any kind of immediate measurable dramatic result in terms of the number of people crossing. and there's a very specific reason for that. a lot of us on this beat expected that this border shutdown authority would be premised on the idea that the biden -- that the biden administration would have the authority to summarily expel migrants, asylum seekers, immediately to mexico, immediately after they crossed, which is what was happening under title 42, which did in fact have a pretty dramatic effect on the number of people crossing the border. that is apparently not the case. i've spoken to two next kavn immigration officials today who have said they have gotten no indication there's a plan to receive more migrants. mexico has to cooperate with any additional expulsions. the u.s. can't just push people back over the border without mexico's help. and white house officials said on a press call this morning that mexico was going to continue receiving the already limited set number of migrants that it has agreed to receive from a limited set number of countries. if that doesn't change, katy, then the number of people who set foot on american soil and then enter removal proceedings, theoretically they could be deported more quickly because what this executive order does is it doesn't grant them access to the asylum system but we're still facing the same backlogs, we're still facing the same capacity restrictions in terms of detention, in terms of the u.s.'s ability to dpe tain people while they face removal proceedings. deportation flights are extremely limited because they're very expensive. this morning here on the border i met people from ecuador, brazil and colombia. it's expensive to deport people to those three countries not to mention countries in africa and asia. those capacity constraints are still going to be in place if the u.s. is not simply booting people over to the other side of the line the way it did under title 42. it's possible that we'll see some kind of effect but it's going to be delayed. it's not going to be immediate. and it's certainly going to be a far cry from a shutdown in the way it's being described. >> that's interesting. so basically, this is going to affect the border, the legal border crossings but you're saying that people are still going to come over the illegal way and it's still going to be an issue to try to get them back because of all the reasons you just outlined including just the limited number of flights. >> reporter: that's exactly correct. so if the administration can put people on deportation flights more quickly than it has been lately, then that could down the road have a deterrent effect on people from, again, for example, colombia, brazil, erects who say well, my cousin got deported in the span of a month rather than seven years. but we're not going to see that tomorrow. obviously, i think the administration is primarily concerned about between now and november. it's possible that this will have a measurable effect on the number of border crossings between now and november. it depends on whether the courts allow this to go into effect for an extended period of time. the effect is not going to be immediate. and that's really the key thing here. it's because the border's a very complicated place and mexico is an extremely complicated place. we have smuggling networks, for example, that might decide to take a wait and see approach and not push people over the border until they have a better understanding of how this works or they might push people across the border quickly before any real changes take place. so we sko theoretically -- sources have told me there have been actually pretty significant spikes in the number of crossings in the desert east of san diego about an hour and a half from here. we might see that again in the next few days. the effects aren't going to be predictable. and again, the border's not going to be shut down from one day to the next. i think our viewers should understand that. and the actual measurable effects that it will have here on the line are at this point somewhat unpredictable. >> david, thank you so much for helping us understand what might and might not happen. i appreciate it. let's now go as i promised to a red state. the mayor of laredo, texas, who's at the white house. mr. mayor, thank you for joining us. i know you support this measure. i wonder if you can react to what david was just reporting there, that in practice this is unlikely to have a measurable effect. >> well, first of all, thank you for having me. but i think the most important thing is to have an adequate perception of what reality is living and working at the border. we see that we don't have adequate resources to deal with all these federal issues, but we need to focus ourselves on our medical infrastructure and our ability to serve our own people. so this is a measure i think will definitely help to reduce the amount of migrants that are crossing in this fashion. and the proposal that the president put forth deals with making it orderly. in other words, to get the asylum in a correct way by petitioning outside of the country rather than having all the immigrants coming and exposing themselves to all the dangers and even deaths at the hands of the cartels. so this is something i think that is a positive measure and in a certain way i think it's the first step of immigration reform. >> so are you disagree with what david just reported, that you believe this will have a measurable effect? >> i think it will because like i said there's nothing like living and working at the border to know what the reality is and we know that this would have an impact. >> in terms of what the reality is at the border living and working, as you said, can you just explain what it's like to be in a border town with the influx of migrants? >> it's different because i'm a doctor and i perceive this as something that people need to be put in prevention rather than reacting to a problem. and we see the situation that the migrants cross whenever they know that there's an incentive to cross and they will get asylum. so if there's not that incentive i know that people would hold back and even mexico would hold them before they cross to our side. we have a great collaboration. that's why laredo is one of the safest cities in the united states. and that has to do with binational cooperation with our counterparts in mexico. border patrol. and these measures i think have common sense to them. >> the congressional hispanic caucus, the congressional progressive caucus both say this is a bad idea and that president biden's going to lose voters. do you think this is a bad idea? do you think president biden risks losing voters? >> well, everybody has a right to their opinion. but i think in our way of living, our reality that we see here, i think it's a positive measure and i think we should follow the laws and make immigration in an orderly fashion rather than what it is at this point. >> i was just speaking to governor kathy hochul about this. do you think the problems could be eased by shortening the amount of time that asylum seekers need to wait to get work permits? >> that would also help. as long as it's done in an orderly fashion and a legal way, i think if they can shorten the time until they get their asylum would definitely help. >> when you say orderly fashion i assume you're referring to hiring more border agents, more judges, more of the clerical people needed to process folks that are crossing the border. >> yes. there's a border patrol app that you can link into it, you can go into it, and people have the ability to do that from their own country. they don't have to travel all the treacherous country and be subjected to all the dangers. so i think that would be beneficial. >> mr. mayor, thank you very much for joining us. i appreciate it. >> thank you. appreciate it. glad to be here. >> coming up, what a.g. merrick garland said when confronted with theories that he had a role in donald trump's conviction. plus, what happened in court today on day two of the criminal trial against hunter biden. g) ew. gotta get rid of this. ♪tell me why♪ because it stinks. ♪have you tried downy rinse and refresh♪ it helps remove odors 3x better than detergent alone. it worked guys! ♪yeahhhh♪ downy rinse and refresh. the chances of a plane crash -- 1 in 11 million. you're not going to finish those salted nuts, right? ♪yeahhhh♪ never waking up from anesthesia -- 1 in 185,000. validate your parking or just see how it goes? -what? -why stress about the unlikely? does a killer clown worry about being struck by lightning while winning the lottery? -sure don't. but your odds of falling victim to online crime are 1 in 4. you need aura. you, your family all protected from scary online stuff. [ laughs ] aah! protect everything your family does online with aura. not flossing well? then add the whoa! of listerine to your routine. new science shows listerine is 5x more effective than floss at reducing plaque above the gumline. for a cleaner, healthier mouth. ahhhhh. listerine. feel the whoa! (♪♪) is he? claritin clear? yeah. fast relief of allergies with nasal congestion, so you can breathe better. claritin plus decongestant. live claritin clear®. i will not be intimidated. and the justice department will not be intimidated. we will continue to do our jobs free from political influence, and we will not back down from defending democracy. >> in his first congressional appearance in the post-donald trump conviction era, attorney general merrick grarl nd was, as you saw, defiant. the republican-led house judiciary committee grilled garland for hours today, accusing him of using the justice department to keep donald trump out of the white house. in jack smith's special investigations, in the january 6th charges, and most pointedly in the new york hush money slash election interference trial where donald trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts for falsifying financial documents. >> the justice department follows the facts that the law. we prosecute cases alike and we make decisions about different cases in different ways. we do not allow the political party or the ethnicity or the religion or the race or the wealth or the influence of someone we're investigating to make a difference in our charging decisions. >> joining us now the cook political report senior editor and elections analyst dave wasserman and the dispatch senior writer and author of "in trump's shadow" david drucker. david, i'm going to start with you. why is the republican party trying to tear down the judicial system to protect donald trump? >> well, look, i think the reason you're seeing republicans rally around donald trump and attack the judicial system is because it's been very helpful to donald trump's third campaign. right? all of this has helped him win a republican primary without much effort. in the last few days he's raised more money than probably the last few months combined. badly needed resources. and if you look at the polling there's been no backlash among voters to either their attacks or the former president's conviction. now, i want to see polling that's not in the field this week but that's in the field next week and then we'll get that data the following week. and then let's see what the conviction, if it's done anything to the presidential race, if it's had a material impact. but right now i don't think republicans have any political reason to fear going on the attack. it energizes their base and it doesn't cost them. so far it's not costing them any problems with independent voters or soft democrats. >> well, dave, you look at the polling every day. tell me how you see that. what david just said. >> even before trump's conviction the most recent "new york times"/cnn national poll found that 53% of voters believed that trump was guilty of federal crimes but that 18% of that 53% were supporting him anyway. so to david's point, what i'll be curious about as we see data in the weeks to come is whether that sliver of the electorate that believes that trump is guilty or corrupt but is open to voting for him anyway because they see him as more potentially effective in addressing inflation than joe biden and they heavily disapprove of biden, whether we see that number diminish somewhat. now, to the extent that the far right of congressional republicans are in the news for advocating for draconian steps such as defunding the doj, that puts the spotlight on a wing of the party that is looked at rather unfavorably by these independent voters. and we've seen all cycle that republicans are underperforming trump down ballot. if they become a larger piece of the spotlight, then i think that has the potential to benefit democrats at all levels. >> can you explain that to me? because republicans as you said have been yout underperforming democrats down ballot. we've seen senators doing well even when joe biden is underwater in various states, especially the battleground states. what is that disconnect, dave? >> there are two elements to it in my view. number one, democrats running for congress have been able to build their own brands and they're more popular than joe biden. they're not running at 81 years old. and second of all, congressional republicans are perceived to be more extreme or more conservative than donald trump has been. just look at the issue of abortion in our latest battleground state poll. a higher percentage of these lower information voters object to the supreme court decision to overturn roe v. wade, but they also are more likely to view trump's position on abortion that it should be left to the states as about right. so they see trump as actually fairly moderate when it comes to the substance of this debate, whereas procedurally they have larger concerns about trump's attack on the justice system but they view cost of living as their most important voting criteria and right now that's where they're giving trump an advantage. but congressional republicans, they are perceived as at least on social issues to be further to the right and out of touch. >> so it sounds like the biden team and the democrats' effort to paint republicans as extremist is working, just not necessarily for donald trump. explain the political calculation for the down ballot republicans because david, they have -- the republicans have an opportunity to take back the senate and potentially, it's a harder opportunity, potentially to keep the house. and if donald trump wins that's a full sweep in government. so why are the down ballot republicans hewing to the more extreme elements of the republican party? i guess i can call it a platform. i don't even know if they have a platform. rather than trying to come off more moderate. >> well, look, i think part of what we're dealing with here too is that donald trump is so well known and so well defined that everything that's problematic about him from the perspective of what voters find troubling is built into the price of admission. none of it's new. none of it's shocking. none of it needs to be assessed and reassessed. the best hope for -- what joe biden really needs to have happen is for donald trump to get out of the courtroom, which he can now do, is get on the campaign trail and talk the way trump often talks to remind voters of all the reasons why they've been exhausted by him and why they voted against him or wanted him gone after 2020. i think with down ballot republicans it just depends on the state and the district. i defer to dave here because it's his specialty. but if you're looking at republican senate candidates in montana and ohio, on the one hand the incumbent democrats have strong brands and they have a history of winning tough races. on the other hand, we saw that even in 2018 as republicans were getting shellacked in the house, lost 40 seats, republicans were doing well in senate races in red states. and so what jon tester and sherrod brown are going to have to do is outrun a strong trump surge of, you know, double digits in the case of montana and high single digits if recent history's correct in ohio and similar scenes could play out in some other states and some districts. and ultimately i think because these two candidates are so well defined and so well known it is ultimately going to get back to pocketbook issues and things that are most concerning because when pocketbook issues are the biggest thing voters are thinking about that's often how they vote. in 2018 the economy was like gangbusters and republicans were punished for trump at least in the house. but the economy was good. and that's something they didn't have to consider. this time around it's something they're considering first and foremost. >> really interesting. david drucker, dave wasserman, we'll have to get you on that second answer when we have a little more time next time around. thank you gentlemen. and hunter biden's trial on felony gun charges resumed this afternoon with testimony from the prosecution's first witness, fbi agent erica jensen. prosecutor derek hines used long excerpts from the audio book of biden's memoir, giving jurors an unusual listening session, and introducing his old laptop. hunter biden's old laptop as evidence. after fbi agent jensen the prosecution says it plans to call members of hunter biden's family including halle biden the widow of hunter's brother beau, whom hunter biden also had a relationship with. joining us from wilmington, delaware is nbc news correspondent ryan nobles. gosh, this is super personal, ryan. it's super embarrassing. super ugly just in terms of the airing of dirty laundry of the biden family. does the biden team see this as -- do they see this as backfiring and making -- and just making the public more sympathetic to hunter bideen? >> reporter: i think at this point it depends, katy, if you're having a legal conversation or a political conversation. and right now the only people that hunter biden cares about right now are those 12 jurors who had to listen in great and painful detail as basically hunter biden became a star witness for the prosecution while reading his audio book. and you're right, at times it was painful, it was difficult to listen to. the first lady jill biden was only two rows in front of me in the courtroom with ashley biden next to her and melissa cohen-biden, who is hunter biden's wife, next to her on the other side. at times they were embracing. you could tell that it was difficult for them to listen to. but what the prosecution is attempting to establish here is that hunter biden had a four-year period of his life where he was consistently an addict. and he describes himself as being consistently an addict. someone who had a difficulty beating this disease even after going through rehab in different types of detox situations. what the defense has argued is that the only thing that matters is that narrow window of time when he was alleged to have checked this box in order to purchase a firearm and at that particular moment in time he believed himself to not be an addict. so the jury's going to have to decide which of these two versions of this story that they believe. now, from the politics end of it, you know, katy, i think that the biden campaign in particular believes that this is a separate issue that is completely different from anything that's happening on the campaign trail. hunter biden is not on the ballot. it is his father who's on the ballot. and the only thing joe biden cares about is his son personally and that his son is okay and most importantly that his son doesn't relapse as a result of all the pressure of this trial. >> ryan nobles. ryan, thank you very much. what senate democrats are doing to keep the attention on reproductive rights. senator tammy duckworth joins us about a vote to get republicans on the record tomorrow. also, what several former associates of president trump were charged with today in wisconsin. auntie, you can't put that right in the dishwasher. watch me. with cascade platinum plus i have upped my dish game. i just scrape... load... and i'm done. in that dishwasher? in that dishwasher. only platinum plus is packed with more dawn to remove up to 100% of grease and food residue. get the highest standard of clean, even in your machine. clean enough for ya? yeah. scrape, load, done. cascade platinum plus. dare to dish differently. “the darkness of bipolar depression made me feel like i was losing interest in the things i love. then i found a chance to let in the lyte.” discover caplyta. unlike some medicines that only treat bipolar i, caplyta is proven to deliver significant symptom relief from both bipolar i & ii depression. and in clinical trials, movement disorders and weight gain were not common. caplyta can cause serious side effects. call your doctor about sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. anti-depressants may increase these risks in young adults. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. report fever, confusion, or stiff muscles, which may be life threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements which may be permanent. common side effects include sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, and dry mouth. these aren't all the side effects. in the darkness of bipolar i & ii depression, caplyta can help you let in the lyte. ask your doctor about caplyta. find savings and support at caplyta.com. these days everyone is staring at screens, scanning the news, and watching their spending. good vision is more important than ever, but so especially now is saving. that's why america's best includes a free eye exam when you buy two pairs of glasses for just $79.95, that's a savings of at least sixty nine bucks. two pairs for $79.95. includes a free exam. that's not just a better deal, it's america's best. book an exam online today at america's best.com. ann, you're on mute. [introspective music] recipes. recipes that are more than their ingredients. ♪ [smoke alarm] recipes written by hand and lost to time... can now be analyzed and restored using the power of dell ai. preserving memories and helping to write new ones. ♪ what is cirkul? cirkul is what you hope for when life tosses lemons your way. cirkul is your frosted treat with a sweet kick of confidence. cirkul is the effortless energy that gets you in the zone. cirkul, available at walmart and drinkcirkul.com. dale used to hide his smile. now... it's swishy time. he uses therabreath anticavity mouthwash for 24 hour cavity protection. try therabreath mouthwash. it's a better mouthwash! look for therabreath for kids in stores today. i told myself i was ok with my moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. with my psoriatic arthritis symptoms. but just ok isn't ok. and i was done settling. if you still have symptoms after a tnf blocker like humira or enbrel, rinvoq is different and may help. rinvoq is a once-daily pill that can rapidly relieve joint pain, stiffness, and swelling in ra and psa. relieve fatigue for some... and stop joint damage. and in psa, can leave skin clear or almost clear. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin; heart attack, stroke, and gi tears occurred. people 50 and older with a heart disease risk factor have an increased risk of death. serious allergic reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. done settling? ask your rheumatologist for rinvoq. and take back what's yours. abbvie could help you save. as we approach the second anniversary of the supreme court decision overturning roe v. wade, senate majority leader chuck schumer says the senate's june priority will be reproductive rights. front and center will be a vote tomorrow on the right to contraception act, which is basically by the way dead on arrival since republicans don't support it. after this vote, which majority leader schumer will force republicans to be on the record for, he will bring legislation to protect ivf. many republican senators have said they support ivf. so what does that support look like when they are faced with actually voting on it? joining us now democratic senator representing the state of illinois tammy duckworth. senator, thank you very much. explain the right to conception act. >> well, my bill actually will allow four things to happen. it includes my right to family building act, which is going to allow folks to access all forms of assisted reproductive technology. it allows insurance companies to cover it if they want to cover it and medical facilities and doctors to provide access to reproductive technology if they want to access it. it includes patty murray's bill, which says that servicemen and women should be able to freeze their eggs and sperm before a deployment into a combat zone and if they find themselves after they come home and they are infertile and they need ivf they should be able to access it. it includes cory booker's bill that will bring down the cost of ivf so that it is affordable to everyone. and then lastly it also includes my bill that covers ivf for federal employees so that their health insurance will cover ivf for those who need it. >> so this is the right to ivf act, which is going to come up for a vote later this june. >> yes. >> republicans have said on the record that they support ivf. do you expect them to support this act? >> well, i'd like them to. but i expect that they will vote no on it because they really don't support ivf. they say they do, but they've not solved the underlying problem in their position, which is they all believe that a fertilized egg is an extrauterine child to use the words of the alabama supreme court. and if that is the case you cannot access ivf because many of the procedures in ivf will be murder or manslaughter. you know, when i created five fertilized eggs as part of my ivf procedure, three of them were non-viable and we had to discard those three because had my doctor implanted those in me it would have caused a miscarriage. so we had to discard those. that act now is potentially manslaughter and murder. so you can't be somebody who supports and want to say that a fertilized egg is an extraute lynn child but then also say you support ivf because the two are not compatible. >> so what is the goal here for democrats to bring this to the house to show that republicans might say they support it but they don't actually support it, what is the warning that democrats are trying to make with this? >> well, i hope that they'll support it. so far i have 36 i have 36 cosp this entire bill. in just the last 24 hours, so maybe we'll get some of these republican who say they support ivf to sign on. if we do, we'll be setting a real precedence and creating a statutory right for people to start families using reproductive technology. if they don't, they're sending a clear message to the american people that they do not support ivf, they do not support the right for families to have their own children, and people should remember that when they go to the polls in november. >> what about the right to contraception act? why is this potentially a controversial thing? why would republicans not sign up for people to have the right to nonconceive, to stop themselves before they do conceive? >> well, the same fundamental problem also occurs here with the fertilized egg being a human child. it would mean iuds, a farm of birth control used in women, especially low income women, would no longer be viable because an iud prevents implantation of a fertilized egg. it would be creating manslaughter or murder every single cycle and also you're seeing now in many states where republicans are trying to ban access to many forms of birth control, and this is a fight that is ongoing. so we're just trying to create a federal statutory right to access contraception. >> do you think that if republicans take back control of the senate and say they have control of the house, and you know, win the white house, that there will be a federal ban or they'll attempt a federal ban on contraception or on ivf or on abortion? >> i think so, definitely. i think they may -- i think they'll come at it outright. even if they don't, look at the case in texas. texas right to life, which wrote the texas bounty laws had on their web page, they would only support ivf if every egg were implanting, including the ones that would cause a miscarriage. you have this fundamental issue where you now have doctors already in these republican states that refuse to provide contraception or other reproductive health care services. and many of them are actually leaving those states, so you're going to find america being a country where huge swaths of our population will not have access to reproductive health care. >> senator tammy duckworth, really good to have you. thank you for joining us. coming up, first it was georgia, then it was arizona. and now it might be another battleground state. or actually it is another battleground state. we'll tell you which state just charged a bunch of trump allies. nothing dims my light like a migraine. with nurtec odt, i found relief. the only migraine medication that helps treat and prevent, all in one. to those with migraine, i see you. for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of episodic migraine in adults. don't take if allergic to nurtec odt. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. it's time we all shine. talk to a healthcare provider about nurtec odt from pfizer. with powerful, easy-to-use tools, power e*trade makes complex trading easier. react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity. e*trade from morgan stanley with so many choices on booking.com there are so many tina feys i could be. so i hired body doubles. mountain climbing tina at a cabin. or tree climbing tina at a beach resort. nice! booking.com booking.yeah. today, at america's beverage companies,... ...our bottles might still look the same... ...but they can be remade in a whole new way. thanks to you... we're getting bottles back... and we've developed a way to make new ones from 100% recycled plastic. new bottles - made using no new plastic. you'll be seeing more of these bottles in more places. and when we get more of them back... ...we can use less new plastic. see how our bottles are made to be remade. smile! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding you're so ready for your close-up. or finding you don't have to hide your skin just your background. once-daily sotyktu was proven better, getting more people clearer skin than the leading pill. don't take if you're allergic to sotyktu; serious reactions can occur. sotyktu can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections, cancers including lymphoma, muscle problems, and changes in certain labs have occurred. tell your doctor if you have an infection, liver or kidney problems, high triglycerides, or had a vaccine or plan to. sotyktu is a tyk2 inhibitor. tyk2 is part of the jak family. it's not known if sotyktu has the same risks as jak inhibitors. find what plaque psoriasis has been hiding. there's only one sotyktu, so ask for it by name. so clearly you. sotyktu. what if we don't get down in time to get a birthday gift for zoe? don't panic. with etsy we can find the perfect gift, and send her a preview right away. thanks guys. [ surprised scream ] don't panic. gift easy with etsy. . several of former president trump's associates were charged today for their role in the wisconsin fake electors scheme. one of them, attorney kenneth ches bro is also facing charges in georgia. georgia, arizona, now wisconsin. let's actually bring in msnbc legal correspondent lisa reuben who i was talking to before i introduced her. georgia, arizona, wisconsin. what's the thread? >> well, i mean, there are five suits now with respect to these fake elector schemes. ken chesebro is charged in two of them. he was charged in georgia where he pled guilty and today he's charged in wisconsin. i want to tell you what makes this different, because ken chesebro's involvement in wisconsin is qualitatively different. this is the state for which he wrote the original memo about fake electors in early december of 2020. secondly, he attended the meeting of fake electors in wisconsin. he basically crashed it, even though he had no right to be there. >> isn't the argument in georgia that he never went to georgia and he couldn't be involved in the conspiracy because he never stepped in the state? >> now having pled guilty, whether or not he stepped into the state of georgia is irrelevant. >> here he was in wisconsin. >> definitely involved in the meeting itself, then with the wisconsin documents don't reach washington, d.c., and aren't received by members of congress, the wisconsin republican party has a part-time aide fly them out there, who is there to receive them from her? none other than ken chesebro, and finally, while he did conduct an interview with wisconsin investigators, they discovered that he lied to them about his twitter account, something that michigan investigators also discovered. so unlike in other states where he is theoretically a cooperator and an unindicted coconspirator, here, he's probably the most important person charged in this document today. >> and reminded of chuck rosenberg's rules to live by. brush your teeth, make your bed, don't lie to the fbi. michael cohen. let's talk about the hush money conviction. he has now been doxed. his family. what's going on with that? >> michael cohen is according to some people, not me, a central witness leading to trump's conviction. and because of that, he's on the receiving end of everything from death threats to doxing that includes sending pizzas to his house. he funnily told one of our colleagues he had domino's sent to his house, he didn't know domino's exist in manhattan. he will continue to be on the receiving end of threats so long as republicans continue to fight against and tell lies about the trial that led to donald trump's conviction here in manhattan. i feel for him and his family. >> yeah, and it's not just michael cohen. there's an active effort to figure out the identities of the jurors so they can be targeted as well. all right, lisa reuben, thank you very much. always ending on a happy note with you. >> i'll try next time. >> i'm kidding. that is going to do it for me today. deadline white house starts right now. hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. of the many ways to describe