governor bill weld gets tonight s last word. coming up on msnbc this independence day, the democratic debates. both nights in their entirety. that s next. good evening, everyone, i m lester holt, and welcome to the first democratic debate in the race for president. hi, i m savannah guthrie. tonight it s our first chance to see these candidates go head to head on stage together. we ll be joined in our questioning tonight by our colleagues, jose diart. what sets them apart and which of these presidential hopefuls has what it takes. well, now it s time to find out. tonight, round 1. new jersey senator cory booker, former housing secretary julian castro, new york city mayor, bill de blasio, former maryland congressman john delaney, hawaii
congresswoman tulsi gabbard, amy klobuchar, former texas congressman beto o rourke. ohio congressman tim ryan, and massachusetts senator elizabeth warren. from nbc news, decision 2020, the democratic candidates debate, live from the perfo
shooting. his visit coming just hours after he continued to sow more division about with his rhetoric. as he is said to head to el paso next, his visit may be less than welcome there. we ll have two people telling me why they don t want the froze come. also a forceful rebuke of racism. senator and presidential candidate cory booker just delivering a major address from another site motivated by hate. emanuel church in charleston. we ll play part of what he said a few minutes from now. but we start with president trump on the ground in ohio. a live look at air force one on the tarmac at wright patterson air force base. he ll be visiting places where shootings took more than 30 lives over the weekend. he will be meeting with victims, first responders there and then he will will be traveling to el
paso, texas. the leaders of both cities have made it plain that the president s divisive rhetoric is not welcome. before he left the white house president trump talked about their concerns
speaking of that border wall, this was last month we were out here in governor abbott officially made the announcement of the start of construction of the border wall this is an rio grande city, the beginning of an initial 1.7-mile stretch of that border wall. the idea being that is going to connect areas where there is no federal again it s being paid for by the state of texas ever since the federal government under president biden stop building its own border wall. then take a look at his opponent this is former apostle congressman o rourke a democrat taking a drastically different approach of the border. he said it s a complete waste of texas taxpayer money to be building the wall or sending the national guard down here. he said governor abbott does not note border communities want too. this is going to set up a big head-to-head matchup to figure out what voters in the state of texas want when it comes to the border and border security. back out here live it is