NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Judge releases filing with new details in Trump election interference case; Israel prepares for response to Iranian missile attack, officials say; Biden, Harris tour storm-ravaged regions in the Southeast; and more on tonight’s broadcast.

Tonight, the new evidence made public in the Trump election interference case. In a new filing, special counsel Jack Smith makes his case for why Donald Trump should still be tried for his actions on January 6th, a move aimed at keeping the case alive even after that Supreme Court immunity ruling. The new details, including how the former president replied when informed his then-vice president Pence was in danger. Also, tonight, the Middle East on edge after Iran's attack on Israel. How and when will Israel respond to Iran's

barrage of hundreds of ballistic missiles? Richard Engel with late details. President Biden and Vice President Harris in the storm zone. The president ordering a thousand active duty troops to the region facing growing desperation. We're in communities cut off from vital supplies. The key takeaways and fallout from the vice presidential debate as the candidates tackle mounting crises. Election workers under threat. The extraordinary measures being taken to protect them, including panic buttons and bulletproof glass. Priced out, skyrocketing home prices forcing many to put their dreams on hold. The solutions Trump and Harris propose.

And the good news from high above, how to see the so-called mini moon. This is NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. Good evening and welcome. Seeking to keep the federal election interference case against Donald Trump alive, special counsel Jack Smith has laid out a 165-page legal argument that Mr. Trump's actions to overturn the 2020 election results were those of a private candidate for president and unrelated to his job. Smith, in a court filing unsealed today, says Trump resorted to crimes to try to stay in office after his loss, launching increasingly desperate plans to overturn

the legitimate election results in seven states. Smith is trying to find a path that complies with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Mr. Trump has limited immunity for actions taken in his official capacity as president. Smith providing newly heard evidence in the case, including conversations between the then president and his vice president, Mike Pence, in which Pence urged him to abandon his quest to try and stay in office. Tonight, Donald Trump posting online, calling the case unconstitutional and a witch hunt. Ken Delaney in has late developments. Tonight, special counsel Jack Smith fighting to keep the January 6th case against Donald Trump alive. In a new filing with new evidence, Smith tailoring his criminal case to survive the Supreme Court's ruling that presidents can't be prosecuted for carrying out official acts.

Writing that although Trump was president during the charge conspiracies, his scheme was a fundamentally private one. Smith also laying out new details about Trump's conduct and conversations in the days and hours before his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. After Trump began claiming fraud, even as votes were still being counted, the special counsel quotes a Trump aide as saying, make them riot. But the bulk of new revelations involve Trump's alleged interactions with Vice President Mike Pence, based on five pages of notes by the vice president. The special counsel saying Pence

gradually and gently tried to convince the defendant to accept the lawful results of the election, including a private lunch in December where Pence encouraged Trump not to look at the election as a loss, just an intermission. Smith arguing Trump and Pence were political running mates discussing private acts, not office holders contemplating official ones. After Pence decided not to stop the certification and Trump denounced him in a tweet, Smith recounts aides allegedly telling Trump that Pence was in danger. As Trump sat in a White House dining room watching the Capitol riot on TV, Smith wrote, an aide told him Pence had been rushed to a secure location. Smith says Trump looked at the aide and

said only, so what? In a statement, a Trump campaign spokesman called the filing falsehood-ridden, unconstitutional, and another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine American democracy and interfere in this election, adding the case should be dismissed. And, Ken, we've been down this road in another context and another time, but doesn't the Justice Department typically avoid taking action related to candidates this close to an election? Yeah, that is absolutely their policy, Lester. And in fact, the DOJ has now entered what they call the quiet period, where prosecutors avoid announcing anything that they think could influence voters. But it was the judge, not the special counsel, who made this filing public, Lester. All right, Ken Delaney in starting

us off. Thanks. Let me bring in Garrett Haig now, who's covering the Trump campaign. Garrett, with early voting already underway in many states, the question being asked tonight, could this impact the race? Well, Lester, the conduct described in this filing has already led Donald Trump to being impeached and to that months-long blockbuster congressional investigation. It's hard to imagine that the new details here alone revealed could shift the opinion of voters about an issue that has been so thoroughly publicly vetted already. But all of the polling shows this is going to be an incredibly close race right to the end. And relitigating such a divisive chapter in the Trump presidency is certainly not

the way the Trump campaign wants to be closing out this race. Lester. OK, Garrett Haig, thank you. The Middle East is on edge tonight for Israel's potential retaliation after that massive missile attack by Iran. While most were shot down, we are also getting a first look at some of the damage they caused. Richard Engel has late details. After Iran's most intense strike ever against israel raining down almost 200 ballistic missiles nearly all of them shot down including by interceptors from a u.s destroyer american and israeli officials tell nbc news israel is tonight preparing its response. A senior Israeli official says the response will come swiftly. While in Israel today, no fatalities, but they were assessing the damage, including from an Iranian strike on a school visited by NBC's Erin McLaughlin.

This is what remains of one of the classrooms. They say the missile struck just over this way and then blasted into the side of the school. Israeli officials say no one was injured, but this could have been so much worse. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today said Israel's fight is not just with Iran, but its network of militias across the Middle East. We are in the middle of a tough war against Iran's axis of evil, which seeks to destroy us, he said. President Biden today said he supports Israel's right to retaliate, but said it must be proportionate and that he would not support an attack on Iranian

nuclear sites. There are things that have to be done. And obviously, Iran has gone way out of, I mean, way off port. The administration is seeking to avoid a regional war, but that ship may have left port too. Israel's war here in Lebanon is escalating. After initially holding back, apparently to assess Israel's strength, Hezbollah is now engaging Israeli troops directly in close combat as towns and cities are emptying out. As the Israeli military released images today of what it says are Israeli troops operating inside Lebanon, it also announced its first casualties, at least eight soldiers killed. Richard, how could the Jewish holidays play an impact in Israel's timing for potential retaliation?

Israel could attack during the Jewish holidays, but there are two Jewish holidays making the period in between them an especially important time to watch from this weekend through next week. OK, Richard, thank you. Here at home, growing desperation in the southeast and communities cut off by flooding damage caused by Hurricane Helene. For some, the struggle to get drinking water could go on for weeks. Sam Brock is in North Carolina. For the saturated and stunned residents of Swannanoa, North Carolina. There's six inches of just the wettest, sludgiest mud that you can think of across the whole house. Finding even small keepsakes.

This is the first picture we took in with my grandfather and my youngest daughter, Celeste. Can be massive moral victories. These are things you can't get back. There's no amount of FEMA that will put these pictures back. This working class neighborhood accessible now for the first time as some roads have opened up and community needs crystallizing like the eye of a storm. I think the hardest thing right now is there's no power, there's no water, cell service is spotty at best. With roads destroyed, mules are carrying food to some cut off communities.

If you have like different family members across the community and you can't reach them, you don't know if they're okay. All of this against the backdrop of a death toll quickly rising, with more than 90 killed in North Carolina as President Biden took an aerial tour Wednesday. Every single X that you see on a car or structure is a sign of something searched. There are one, two, three vehicles here, one shed. That makes four and countless other structures that can't even be accessed. The roofs on some homes punctured by people escaping as those injured are facing untenable conditions at some hospitals. Everything people see on the news, it's worse in person. It's worse. Hannah Drummond works at Mission Hospital in Asheville, where she says 200 patients have been placed in an ER meant for 100. They ran out of

food for us on Saturday, so the patients and the staff in the ER weren't eating. When you can't use the toilets, that means I have to find a commode and I have to find a biohazard bag or some kind of receptacle. HCA Health, which oversees the hospital, has not responded to multiple NBC News requests for comment. In eastern Tennessee, a host of neighborhoods remain inaccessible and in dire need of help. Today, a vital lifeline for some as Army Blackhawk helicopters drop supplies to communities still cut off. And back in North Carolina, more heartbreak at the food banks. Tanya Peterson telling our Antonia Hilton her grandkids had not eaten in days. We're running

what little gas we got out of a junk car for the generator, you know, to be able to heat the bottles up for the babies. It's terrible. We've got people looting for gas coming through your yards. It's awful. It's awful. No one's coming through. No one.

And Sam, this is so horrible, but especially troubling is this lack of water. Is there an update on that crisis tonight? There is, Lester, and unfortunately, this is quite a blow. The county saying that both the water treatment and delivery systems are catastrophically damaged. They cannot even provide an update to residents as to any sort of timeline. This is people are just trying to remove debris from properties and sheared roofs off the front of their yards. Lester. All right, Sam, thanks for bringing us this story. Vice President Harris also toured some of those storm ravage areas today after former President Trump went there earlier this

week, all following what was perhaps the last debate before the election. Here's Gabe Gutierrez. Tonight, a triple threat is looming over the presidential campaign. The rising tensions in the Middle East, a deadlocked port strike threatening to raise prices. We're hearing from the folks recently that they're having trouble getting the product they need because of the port strike. And the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Helene. There's a lot of work that's going to need to happen over the coming days, weeks, and months. Late today, Vice President Harris visiting the Storm Zone in Battleground, Georgia, two days after former President Trump went there. Her trip coming after last night's debate,

where J.D. Vance and Tim Walz remained civil while attacking each other's running mates. Donald Trump put this all into motion. He brags about how great it was that he put the judges in and overturned Roe versus Wade. You simultaneously got to defend Kamala Harris's atrocious economic record, which has made gas, groceries, and housing unaffordable for American citizens. Walls struggling when pressed about his past claim that he was visiting China during the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, when in fact, he did not arrive until months later. I've not been perfect, and I'm a knucklehead at times. All I said on this was, is I got there

that summer and misspoke on this. So I will just, that's what I've said. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest went in. And from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance. Well, tonight, the Harris campaign is highlighting Vance's refusal to acknowledge Trump lost the 2020 election. And I would just ask, did he lose the 2020 election? Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation? That is a damning non-answer. President Biden's name was mentioned just seven times last night. It comes after NBC News reported Biden has privately complained his name and accomplishments have virtually disappeared

from the national conversation. Lester. Gabe Gutierrez, thank you. In 60 seconds, how threats against election workers nationwide are prompting some pretty drastic measures, panic buttons, reinforced doors, and more. Vote Watch is right after this. This political season, election workers are facing unprecedented threats. In our Vote Watch, Hallie Jackson details some of the measures being put in place to protect them, including panic buttons and bulletproof glass. The construction nearly finished at Durham's elections office.

Set to reopen with some startling new features. This is already the bulletproof glass. Yes. And more is going to go in right here. Absolutely. The whole front of this will have this same glass. Bulletproof glass at the front desk, ballistic doors reinforced with steel. And in the new mail room?

And right here is actually where the panic button will be. A panic button, one of several in the building, and a separate exhaust system in case of white powder scares. Did you ever think you'd have to put in something like that in a place like this? Not at all. Derek Bowens, the county's director of elections, has worked in the industry for more than a decade. And now a lot of rhetoric that we hear about election officials and elections in general require us to have a different security posture. With everything you just laid out, is there any concern that it's overkill? No, we don't feel that at all. I think

the safety of election officials, the preservation of democracy and making sure that there is no interference should come with a limitless perspective in terms of preparation and response. reported stepping up safety measures since 2020, from armed security in Washington state to active shooter training in Arizona to reinforced barriers outside facilities in Pennsylvania. It's unfortunate that we're spending so many resources, time, emotion, thought on this, but we have to do it. There's no way around it in this election. It comes after years of attacks on the Democratic process, stemming from former President Trump's election fraud lies.

And now nearly 40 percent of election workers say they're facing abuse and harassment. The FBI recently said it's investigating threatening mail sent to officials in multiple states after last year's interception of letters containing suspicious powders, including one that tested positive for fentanyl sent to some election workers. Still, despite the current climate, some say they're not deterred, but determined. This work is like fighting for your own family. It is the front line in preserving our democracy. And to me, you can't find more impactful work than this. Hallie Jackson, NBC News, Durham, North Carolina. There is more to tell you about up next, an election issue hitting home,

the sky high cost of housing, what Trump and Harris would do about it. Coming up. Home buying remains a top issue for so many Americans and Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are talking about plans to help. But will their proposals make a difference? Shannon Pettypiece has tonight's cost of living. Cashmere Martin dreams of owning a home in Reno, Nevada, where she's lived her entire life. What type of families lived here when you were growing up? It's a pretty middle-class neighborhood, you know, working folks. But now Martin, an accountant, and her husband, an audio engineer, can't afford to buy a house here,

even with a combined income of more than $200,000 a year. It's a little depressing. I thought that I worked hard and made all the right decisions so that I could at least do as well as my family did. After looking at a hundred homes, she's nearly given up her search and put plans to start a family on hold. In the Reno area, single-family housing prices have soared, the median price up nearly 50 percent in five years to more than $600,000. And with mortgage rates still above 6 percent, the monthly cost puts buying a home out of reach for many. Rising housing costs have become a top issue for residents here and one that could have wider implications in the upcoming presidential election, with this region seen as a decisive area in a key swing state. We will open up new tracts of federal land for large-scale housing construction. On the campaign trail, both former President

Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are increasingly talking about housing. As the price of housing has gone up, the size of down payments have gone up as well. Harris has proposed $25,000 in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers, along with tax breaks and other incentives to spur the construction of more affordable homes. While Trump has said he would lower housing costs by opening federal land to development, rolling back regulations, and reducing overall inflation. University of Nevada professor Jeremy Gelman says neither candidate's plan is likely to solve the wider issue of housing affordability. These issues are things that happen in your city council meetings, in your state legislatures, but people are looking for leadership and candidates feel like they need to provide that. But at the end of the day,

you know, housing prices in Reno aren't going to depend on whether Trump or Harris becomes president. Kashmir Martin also doesn't believe that her search for a house will be helped by whoever ends up in the White House. I feel like candidates are talking about it, but maybe not in a meaningful way. As she and other frustrated homebuyers continue waiting for change. Shannon Pettypiece, NBC News, Reno, Nevada. And when we come back, greetings from outer space. We'll tell you about the new mini moon that's got everyone looking up. Finally tonight, good news about a new visitor in outer space.

Scientists are calling it a mini moon. But is it really? Steve Patterson explains. That's one small step for man. For four billion years, this lone loyal rock has been our trusty little sidekick, tagging along our corner of the cosmos like an interstellar golden retriever. So it's only right that once in a while it has some company. Meet the mini moon. It's a mini moon in the sense that it's small, it's going to hang around for a few months, but then it's going to go off on its way. Right now, the Earth's gravitational pull is playing host to something we traditionally find a little scary, an asteroid. Scientists say it swung by, got caught up in our gravity, and will spend about the next 60 days orbiting the planet.

You can imagine us both sharing kind of the same racetrack as we go around the sun. And no, there's no need to fear. They're not kidding about the mini part, the asteroid affectionately named 2024 PT5, is literally 33 feet long, about the size of your average school bus. Which is great for humanity staying off the extinction list, but a little disappointing if you were looking to dust off that telescope in the garage. It's too small and too dark for most of us to glimpse, but experts say that shouldn't make it any less exciting. The way that studying these rocks actually ties us to glimpse. But experts say that shouldn't make it any less exciting. The way that studying these rocks actually ties us to something, you know, much bigger and much,

much older than we can imagine. A part-time phenomenon shedding more cosmic light on the wonder of the universe and confirming our loyal rock has no celestial equal. Steve Patterson, NBC News, The Milky Way. Just as long as it stays in its lane. That's nightly news for this Wednesday. Thank you for watching. I'm Lester Holt. Please take care of yourself and each other. Good night.