pomp and power, the president of the united states abroad for a big nato summit but a conversation on if and how quickly to bring ukraine inside the alliance threatens to fracture unity across europe. trouble since he walked in. ron desantis falls back on blaming a familiar culprit to explain why his campaign stumbled off the blocks, the media. it might be the ugliest headline of the biden presidency a conversation about the biden family and the cruelty of counting to six versus seven. i m dana bash. behind the head looilines and e politics. up first, geopolitics, the president tries to hold the nato family together. joe biden wheels up right now to lithuania and will land to a new uncertainty about ukraine s future and if it s with nato and conp front rare public fractures among allows over a decision to send cluster munitions to ukraine s front line. the president took pains to project everything is okay in a stop to number 10 downing street with the british prime m
t the lead starts right now. ukraine is pushing, pushing, pushing. cnn is live as the 31 nations meet. and why special counsel is accusing donald trump s right-hand man of trying to delay the prosecution of him. and the once in a thousand year rainfall behind devastating flooding in parts of america ears noamerica s northeast, trapping drivers in cars and on roads and forcing some to swim to safety. we start today with our word lead. the president in lithuania with one goal on his list unity. ukraine will be the main focus of the two-day meeting but for a group that has been, frankly, stunningly united, there are public fractures in the alliance starting to emerge, ones president biden will have to fix over the next few days, mainly overs decision to send cluster bombs to the front line, one that has been banned by most of the allies who will be sitting around president biden at that table in lithuania. they will have to decide when and how they will let ukraine join
now, we do have new reporting on where yevgeny prigozhin was shortly after. the story keeps getting weirder. the only sort of bright spot for vladimir putin is ukraine s counter offensive has been slow. will cluster munitions change that, and how much blow back will president biden get for that. one nation against it is the uk, we have the latest on the president s stop in london this morning. there s a lot to get to. let us start with the reporting. joining me now, nbc news correspondent ali arouzi, and from kyiv, nbc news foreign correspondent kelly cobiella. let s get to lithuania, the president has just gotten there. what s the agenda for tomorrow? what s on the table? reporter: well, the summit really kicks off in earnest tomorrow, and president biden will be meeting other leaders of nato countries. he ll be very various bilaterals. there will be a nato family photo, and then a dinner at the presidential palace, where they will be able to discuss various issues that th
this means for special counsel jack smith s multiple investigations, and trump s third presidential bid. frightening future, the second year of a post-roe america looks worse than the first. we re going inside the all out episodes to keep the southeast swath of the country from turning into an abortion desert. all of this and more is coming up. and a good saturday morning to you i m katie phang. we begin with a major show of support from the white house on what could become a critical turning point in the war in ukraine. the biden administration defending their controversial decision to supply cluster munitions to ukraine to help that country gain grounds against vladimir putin is now 500-day war on ukraine. cluster munitions, also known as cluster bombs, are banned in 120 countries due to the high risk of killing civilians. despite blowback from his own party and human rights groups president biden says he spoken to allies about the decision. it comes as he prepares
a new read on the health of the economy is just in. we re looking at a cooling off, but the labor market still running hot. it may have been one of the most chaotic meetings the oval office has ever seen and now it is the focus of the special counsel s criminal probe. a cnn exclusive. a controversial weapon banned by 123 countries will soon be in the hands of the ukrainians. why the u.s. is including cluster munitions in their latest passage to ukraine. i m sara sidner alongside kate bolduan and john berman, this is cnn news central. the first summer jobs report is in and here is what we know, 209,000 jobs added in june. that is below what economists expected and the lowest monthly gain since december 2020. hiring is slowing, but it is still the 30th consecutive month of gains. cnn s rahel solomon here with a read into the numbers. take us into this report. what are you seeing here? this was the first time as you pointed out that this was actually cooler than what