Nikki Haley, Savannah Chrisley, Marco Rubio to take the stage

More than 18 million people watched the first night of the 2024 Republican National Convention on Monday, according to Nielsen.

This is fewer than the 23 million Americans who watched President Joe Biden’s NATO press conference last week.

An estimated 51.3 million viewers watched the first presidential debate on June 27.

– Josephine Rozzelle

President Biden said Vice President Kamala Harris “could be President” during his remarks at the annual NAACP convention.

“Folks, it’s because of you that I’m president and Kamala Harris is vice president,” Biden said. “And by the way, she’s not only a great vice president — she could be President of the United States.”

It was a notable point of praise for Harris, whose name has been floated in recent weeks as the favorite to replace Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee with mounting pressure for him to bow out of the race following his debate fumble against Donald Trump in June.

Biden has repeatedly committed to staying in the race, including in a Monday interview with NBC’s Lester Holt: “14 million people voted for me to be the nominee in the Democratic Party, okay? I listen to them.”

— Rebecca Picciotto

Trump said that he would sharply lower the corporate tax rate to 15% if he is returned to the White House.

“I would like to get it down to 15, if we could, because that would put us in the absolute lowest in terms of incentive,” Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek conducted June 25 and published Tuesday afternoon.

Trump signed tax-reforms into law during his first term that lowered the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%.

Bloomberg noted in the interview that Trump had recently pledged to lower the corporate rate by a single percentage point, to 20%.

Trump interrupted to say he favored 20% over 21% because, “I like simplicity. I liked 20% better.”

“I like 15% yet better, but I think that would be, you know, that’d be hard,” Trump added.

— Kevin Breuninger

The second day of the Republican National Convention will feature remarks from a bevy of Republican lawmakers and other prominent political figures, including multiple former Trump campaign rivals.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who ran against Trump in the 2016 presidential primary and was recently a finalist to be his running mate, is set to speak.

Trump picked Sen. JD Vance of Ohio to round out the top of the ticket; Rubio quickly expressed support for the choice soon after it was announced.

Also on the schedule: Trump’s former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump in the 2024 GOP primary and did not immediately endorse him when she ended her presidential campaign.

Haley said in an exit speech that Trump would have to “earn the votes” of Republicans who did not back him. She later endorsed Trump, and prior to the convention released her delegates so they could go toward his nomination.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was once seen as Trump’s most formidable challenger in the primary, is also on the list.

Other speakers include: Lara Trump, whom the Republican nominee handpicked in March to co-chair the Republican National Committee; Kari Lake, who lost an Arizona gubernatorial bid in 2022 and is now running for the Senate; Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the House Republican Conference Chair; Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and former presidential candidate; and many others.

The schedule also includes another crop of speakers labeled “everyday Americans.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) have spoken over the phone, three sources told NBC.

One source said Vance, who on Monday was announced as Donald Trump’s running mate, initiated the call. Another source described the call as brief and cordial.

Harris left Vance a voicemail Monday night, congratulating him and encouraging him to accept an August 13th Vice Presidential debate, NBC previously reported.

– Josephine Rozzelle

Trump’s Secret Service protection was increased after U.S. officials learned of a plot by Iran to kill the former president.

The protection level for Trump was heightened in the weeks before a Pennsylvania man, Thomas Crooks, tried to assassinate the Republican candidate during a campaign rally.

Crooks has no known ties to the Iran plot.

But the disclosure of the Iranian plan, and the Secret Service’s response to it, raised more questions about why the agency failed to intercept Crooks before he opened fire on Trump and others at the rally, one of whom was killed.

– Dan Mangan

A video clip leaked Tuesday morning captured Trump expressing an anti-vaccine conspiracy theory in a conversation with third-party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The clip also shows Trump telling his ostensible campaign rival, “I would love you to do something. And I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you.”

When Trump adds, “We’re going to win” the election, Kennedy responds, “Yeah.”

The conversation took place after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Trump and Kennedy, who has repeatedly expressed opposition to vaccines, met in person on Monday in Milwaukee, where the Republican National Convention is underway.

— Kevin Breuninger

Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who had been chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was convicted on all criminal counts in New York federal court related to accepting bribes from a trio of businessmen.

Menendez’s conviction comes as Democrats hold a razor-thin majority in the Senate, and as Republicans eye potentially taking control of the chamber in November’s elections.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, urged Menendez to resign.

– Dan Mangan

President Biden is putting together a sweeping set of proposals to reform the Supreme Court including possible term limits for justices and a new ethics code, three sources confirmed to NBC News.

The announcement could come in the weeks ahead, according to the sources.

During a closed-door virtual meeting with Congressional Progressive Caucus members on Saturday, Biden indicated that he had been consulting with constitutional scholars about the proposed legislation for over a month, one person familiar with the meeting told NBC News.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment to NBC News.

Biden’s proposed Supreme Court overhaul would come after the high court ruled that Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” he conducted as president. That decision carried significant complications for special counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment of election interference against the former president.

“Look, it’s not, it’s not hyperbole to suggest Trump is literally an existential threat, an existential threat to the very Constitution of democracy we, we say we care about,” Biden told the lawmakers in the Saturday meeting, according to the source.

The congressional meeting took place before the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at his Saturday evening rally in Pennsylvania.

On Monday, Trump received another major legal victory from Florida federal Judge Aileen Cannon who threw out special counsel Smith’s case alleging that the former president illegally held classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. Smith plans to appeal that ruling.

— Rebecca Picciotto

House Democrats have been collecting signatures on a letter to urge the Democratic National Committee to decelerate their nomination process of President Biden.

 The DNC decided in May that it would hold a “virtual roll call” for delegates to vote on and officially designate the presidential nominee, a process that could begin as soon as Sunday.

 That virtual roll call plan would deem Biden the nominee weeks ahead of the Democratic convention where delegates have historically voted in person.

 With Democrats still holding major reservations about Biden’s reelection bid, lawmakers wrote in their letter that the DNC’s accelerated nomination timeline is a “terrible idea.”

 Earlier Tuesday, the letter had received over 20 signatures from Democrats with differing stances on Biden’s political future, two sources told NBC News. The DNC and the Biden campaign both stood by the virtual roll call approach.  

 Read the full story here.

— Rebecca Picciotto