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If it’s Friday ... President Biden talks infrastructure as his voting rights push appears all but dead. ... Biden also plans executive action on police reform. ... Super PAC attacks Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania. ... And TODAY celebrates 70 years on the air. But first: Former President Donald Trump is bringing the 2022 roadshow to Arizona this Saturday for his first rally of the midterm-election year. And the event will include Arizona Republicans like Kari Lake (a candidate for governor) and Mark Finchem (running for secretary of state) who have trumpeted Trump’s attacks on the 2020 presidential election — and...

The more we learn about Donald Trump’s baseless, false and discredited claims about the 2020 election, the more baseless, false and discredited those claims have become. Just consider the revelations over the past week — from Republicans: In Michigan, a GOP-led investigation by its state Senate concluded that it “found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election.” (Remember, Biden won Michigan by more than 150,000 votes.) Regarding Arizona, a report co-authored by former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson criticized the so-called “audit” of the election results in that state, saying it “does...

First Read is your briefing from "Meet the Press" and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter. WASHINGTON — A month ago, a California woman — Tara Reade — alleged that apparent Democratic nominee Joe Biden assaulted her 27 years ago when she worked for Biden in his Senate office, a charge that Biden vehemently denies. “No, it is not true. I am saying unequivocally — it never happened,” Biden said onMSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Friday morning. It's a complicated story, colored by Biden's past history of touching women (though never before in...

WASHINGTON — Always beware of drawing conclusions from one country’s election to another. But it’s also hard to ignore that the results in Britain last night were bad news for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and America’s left — just 52 days before the Iowa caucuses. On Thursday, unpopular Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party trounced even more unpopular socialist Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, with Labour having its worst general-election performance in three decades. Make no mistake: Neither Sanders nor Warren are as unpopular as Corbyn is in his country; in fact, Sanders and Warren have similar...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand officially entered the ever-growing pool of Democratic presidential hopefuls Sunday, ending the two-month-long exploratory phase of her campaign saying she’s running for the White House to make “big, bold, brave choices.” “Our anthem asks a question, forcing every generation to make a choice,” Gillibrand says in a video released Sunday morning. “Will brave win? Let’s answer for ours." **SNIP** After Sunday’s video announcement, Gillibrand heads to Michigan on Monday for an MSNBC town hall with Chris Hayes; to Iowa on Tuesday and Wednesday; and to Nevada on Thursday. She’ll then cap off...

Talk about political whiplash. Exactly one week ago, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney -- in his effort to defeat Donald Trump -- campaigned in Ohio with John Kasich, telling the state's voters to cast ballots for their governor. "Unlike the other people running, he has a real track record," Romney said of Kasich. "He has the kind of record that you want in Washington, and that's why I'm convinced that you're going to do the right thing tomorrow." Today, however, Romney's voice appears on robocalls in Arizona and Utah, telling these voters to side with Ted Cruz -- and...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has fallen behind Ted Cruz in the national GOP horserace, according to a brand-new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. In the poll, Cruz is the first choice of 28 percent of Republican primary voters, while Trump gets 26 percent. They're followed by Marco Rubio at 17 percent, John Kasich at 11 percent, Ben Carson at 10 percent and Jeb Bush at 4 percent.

Donald Trump Is Free To Cherry-Pick His Polls. But His Decline Is Clear. By Philip Bump September 27 When announcing the results of a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Sunday, NBC senior political editor Mark Murray tweeted this: Donald Trump, up two points! Sure, he's neck-and-neck with Carson, as other polls have shown, but still. The idea that Trump must be slipping, promulgated by some folks, doesn't quite to hold water it seems. In fact, since last Sunday's CNN/ORC poll, the change Trump has seen since the last polls from each outlet has varied — up since the...

Poll: Nearly Half of Americans Take Issue With Netanyahu Speech BY MARK MURRAY Nearly half of American voters — 48 percent — say that congressional Republicans should not have invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress on Tuesday without first notifying President Barack Obama, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. By contrast, 30 percent of those polled believe the invitation was fine, and another 22 percent don't know enough to say either way. Not surprisingly, the issue breaks along partisan lines, with 66 percent of Democrats saying Republicans shouldn't have invited Netanyahu without first notifying...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton must be thrilled about this: “If you are President Barack Obama and you want to be a transformational president, getting to that transformational stage sometimes requires you get a third term,” NBC News Senior Politics Editor Mark Murray submitted amid a sleepy Monday segment packed with idle speculation about the 2016 election cycle. “People in the White House, and President Obama, I am sure they would love to have a third or fourth term,” Murray continued. “That is some of the reasons why some of the people in the Obama orbit are happy about...

What is wrong with the hosts at MSNBC? Ronan Farrow, who will begin anchoring a network program on February 24, made a tasteless joke on Tuesday night, comparing war hero Cory Remsburg's struggles to that of politicians in Congress. Farrow tweeted, "Cory 'struggles on the left side.' Congress relates.'" Farrow has not apologized for the tweet On Wednesday, political reporter Mark Murray, whose wife works in the Obama administration, compared Remsburg's struggle to that of the President: "Obama's ending on Remsburg wasn't just a story about America -- it also was a story about Obama.

Richard Grenell, a political consultant and media commentator reported today via Twitter that NBC’s Mark Murray, senior political editor for NBC News wife, Sasha is an Obama appointee but never publicly disclosed it. Grenell asked Murray yesterday if he was married to an Obama appointee and why it was not disclosed. Murray told him that he hasn’t publicly disclosed that his wife is an Obama appointee because he told NBC officials and they didn’t care. Murray also told Grenell that his first wife worked for Ray Lahood so disclosing her as an Obama appointee wasn’t necessary. Murray’s wife, Sasha Johnson...

Uh, well, yeah, true, then-Senator Barack Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling in 2006. But, um, you see, that was very different. Because there were, um, "big differences"—that's it! Such was the way NBC senior political editor Mark Murray sought to cover for President Obama today while discussing the impending debt ceiling vote on MSNBC's News Nation with host Tamron Hall. So just what were these "big differences," you might ask? Well, explained Murray, "in 2006 there wasn't this kind of big protracted battle over the debt ceiling at all. It wasn't a big issue . . . it...