News reporting about whether shes picked up the phone and tried to call him. Plus, economic frustrations at a boiling point, when buying a home feels impossible and Concert Tickets are getting more and more out of reach. The new moves to help consumers from both the Justice Department and some folks here at nbc news. And the big border pushed by democrats, by congress, and the white house, and the major implications for republicans in the 2024 election. But we begin with that stunning aboutface in the president ial race. Nikki haley has called donald trump unstable, unhinged, and unqualified to be president. Now in her first public appearance since ending her campaign, she says shell help put him back in the white house. Ly be voting for trump. Having said that, i stand by what i said in my suspension speech. Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me. And not assume that theyre just going to be with him. Well, trump will have his first chance to reach out to voters tonight as he heads to the south bronx in heavily democratic New York City for a rally. That, of course, is a state where haley won nearly 13 of the vote in the republican primary last month, despite having been out of the race for weeks at that point. Joining us now, tim miller, former Communications Director for jeb bushs 2016 campaign, and an msnbc political analyst. Philip rucker of the Washington Post editor, and nbcs Vaughn Hillyard with me here in studio. Okay, vaughn, donald trump has a history of never forgetting, but also sometimes seeming to forgive people who then come back, sometimes crawling into the fold, right . I understand youve got some new reporting about whats going on now. Right, donald trump is always eager to welcome his old enemies back into his camp, and in a way, you know, thats where Nikki Haley Last Night in her announcement there at the Hudson Institute turned heads because along with our colleague ali vitali, were reporting that Trump Adviser and nikki haley adviser are both telling us that the two individuals, nikki haley and donald trump, the old republican rivals have not spoken since she dropped out of the Republican Primary On March 6th of this year. She did this on her own accord. The trump camp has not heard from nikki haley directly and for Donald Trumps efforts, he has not tried to, you know, extend an olive branch and bring her on board. She did this all on her own. I want to let you listen a little bit more to how shes justifying her support of donald trump. Take a listen. I put my priorities on a president whos going to have the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account. Who would secure the border, no more excuses. A president who would support capitalism and freedom. A president who understands we need less debt, not more debt. Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I have made that clear many, many times. But biden has been a catastrophe. Nikki haley setting this up as a choice of biden or trump, much like the echoes that we heard from 2016 when marco rubio and ted cruz and others were making their justifications for why they were supporting the man who one time attacked them. Was she the u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations and am i misremembering, has donald trump kind of sided up to leaders of russia, north korea, china . Whats in this for her . Yeah, youre not misremembering. This is whats happening here, its pretty simple. Nikki haley thinks shes the future in the republican party. She looks at liz cheney, she looks at adam kinzinger, and if she decides to strongly oppose donald trump and maybe eventually endorse biden, she wont have a future in the party. And so what she decided is that she wants to have a future in the party, and shes backfilling the rationale from there. As you point out, like those Rationale Points are preposterous. The idea that i want someone whos going to stand with our allies so im going to support with donald trump whos just bleeding this morning about how he wants to work with putin this morning on his social media feed. I want to lower the debt, donald trump increased the debt more than any president. Going to be with donald trump because i want somebody for capitalism. Like companies arent getting Record Profits right now. If immigration is your number one issue and a Strong Border and youre for deportations, mass deportations, then that would at least make sense as a reason to support donald trump, but all the rest of those reasons are just kind of back fillin logic to get the politically expedient result for her, and i think its as simple as that. It continues a tradition of politicians who they themselves have been trashed by donald trump. He liked to call her bird brain, whose families have been trashed and or lied about by donald trump, still come back, and her aboutface comes after she said quite a few things about him as well, and i just want to remember, remind folks exactly what she has said about donald trump. Listen. Times change, and so has trump. Hes gotten more unstable and unhinged. If you mock the service of a combat veteran, you dont deserve a drivers license, let alone being president of the United States. Weve seen him get confused. He was confused about me having something to do with keeping security away from the capitol. He was confused when he said biden was going to run us into world war ii. Hes not qualified to be the president of the United States. So look, i mean, its not, as you know, tim, unusual for someone who runs against somebody to, you know, speak not nicely or to criticize the guy or woman on the other side. This is different, and the New York Times reports there were a few audible sighs of disappointment when she said she would vote for donald trump, so the key question is how many of her followers might actually take her lead . Yeah, i think thats the key flaw in what she said, actually, that very phrase. My followers. She said millions of my followers that donald trump needs to reach out to. Nikki haley has like thousands of followers, maybe hundreds, maybe tens. It isnt like a huge nikki haley fan group out there. She has some but not very many. Most of the people that voted for her were voting for her because she was the vessel for them to express that they are unhappy with donald trump, that they dont want donald trump to be the republican nominee. Those people are like me, left the party and were hoping for a full change and will vote for biden. Some will vote for her because they dont like trump, they want somebody else, but they also dont like biden. That latter group is the key group biden is going to have to reach out to. These were not Nikki Haley Super fans. Theyre diverse. Some of them are very conservative, some are very moderate. Joe bidens going to have to find a way to get to them without nikki haley. I think thats very possible because this isnt like theres some cult of nikki haley out there. Thats a very small group thats not that relevant. The Biden Campaign did release a statement saying nothing has changed for the millions of Republican Voters who continue to cast their ballots against donald trump in the primaries and care deeply about the future of our democracy. Some of them, maybe even those critical true independent voters, where do you think they go now or maybe a better question is do we know where the Biden Campaign is in terms of strategy to win them over . Yeah, well, theyre certainly up for grabs for the reasons that tim just articulated and the most telling sign is as these primaries continue, there are elections in a lot of these states week after week. Theres no active republican primary going on right now. Obviously nikki haley is on the ballot, but shes not an active candidate, and yet still in these states, youre seeing 10 to 20, sometimes more than 20 of the republican electorate going for nikki haley, and thats purely a raw protest vote against trump, and so those are the voters that biden will be trying to win over over the course of the next few months. You already see the Biden Campaign trying to win over some of nikki haleys financial supporters, her big donors, trying to court them, and i think youll see at the Democratic National convention in August A Real Push to try to make the case for why the biden tent should be expanding to take in some of those traditionally Republican Voters who cant stomach donald trump as their nominee again. Any sense, vaughn, of what trump might say tonight. Hes got a big rally. What are the chances he brings this up and happy to have her back over where he thinks she should have been in the first place. Interestingly, the question is i think does he give her even a shout or a head nod or give her any sort of acknowledgment. Look, he hasnt dedicated even one single i mean, a lot of people im sorry to interrupt you, but a lot of republicans when they change their minds about donald trump make a trek to him often at marmaralago, right and she hasnt picked up the phone. He hasnt even posted anything on his social media account since she made that announcement last night. For donald trump, people come back to him because thats where the Power Structure is within the republican party. We have seen that time and again, and look, he offered her a Cabinet Position one time. Could he offer it again . She may have to do a little bit more and theres a republican National Convention in july that you could very well expect to see nikki haley being there. Again, if she actually has the interest of running again herself. So phil, Congressman Richie Torrez who represents most of the south bronx where donald trump will be tonight. This is an economically challenged largely black and hispanic area. He told msnbc how he thinks his district will respond. Im confident the people of the bronx are not going to buy the snake oil hes selling. His presidency was a catastrophe for the bronx. His mismanagement of covid left a death toll of more than 7,000 in the bronx, which is greater than the combined death count of pearl harbor and 9 11. So instead of holding a rally, he should be apologizing to the people of the bronx for the damage hes done. Is that the message, phil, that biden and the democrats need to put out there . Well, theyre certainly trying to. I mean, biden and the democrats are having to play defense at a moment like this to try to hold onto as many black and latino voters as they can, as trump makes this play in the bronx tonight. But just keep in mind, even though the rally is going to be taking place in the south bronx, many of those supporters there for trump could well be coming from other parts of the state, even from other parts of the broader region. Theyre certainly parts of the New York City metro area that are more trump friendly like Staten Island and long island than the south bronx. So i dont think this is necessarily hes only going to be speaking to people of congressman torress district. Phil rucker, Vaughn Hillyard, thanks so much, tim miller, youre going to stay with me. In 90 seconds, a harsh Reality Check on just how tough it really is to buy a house in america and how that could affect the way people vote in november. Affect the way people november with chewy, its never been easier to get their favorite toy delivered again, come on, let go. And again, and again. Good luck. Get whatever they love delivered right on time. Save 35 on your first autoship order with chewy. Oh, yeah, man. Get whatever they love delitake it from yourme. Inner child. What you really need in life is some freakin torque. What . The dodge hornet r t. The totally torquedout crossover. Ill be honest. By the end of the day, my floors. Yeesh. But who has the time to clean . Thats why i love my swiffer wetjet. Its a quick and easy way to get my floors clean. Wetjet absorbs and locks grime deep inside. Look at that swiffer wetjet. With fastsigns, Create Factory Grade visual solutions to perfect your process. Fastsigns. Make your statement™. The American Dream of buying a home is feeling less and less attainable. U. S. Housing sales took another major hit last month with buyers facing higher Mortgage Rates and soaring housing costs. This headline is just mind boggling. California, for the First Time Ever the median price of a home has surpassed 900,000. And its a national trend. Our exclusive new nbc news Home Buyer Index lets you look at where you live or maybe where youd like to live and then it lays out what the challenges are and what buyers can afford. For example, garfield county, colorado, one of the most difficult counties to buy a home in the entire country. Our index shows the median cost has shot up by 300,000 just since 2018, while buying power has tanked. Nbcs business and data correspondent brian cheung is here to break it all down for us, tim miller is still with me. Brian, i find this fascinating. I found myself looking at the map for maybe longer than i should have today. What are potential buyers seeing right now . How does it look nationally and how does that compare to previous years . Theres a lot of really cool data in this brand new Home Buyer Index. Mortgage rates having risen from 6. 4 to 7 . This was 2 or 3 in 2020. The median price of a home has gone up during that period of time, despite the fact that Borrowing Costs are higher. There are a number of other factors as home buyers know when it comes to the affordability of buying something. Unemployment rates in the area, do you have a job . What does your income look like . Whats the availability of homes at all . Nbc news put it all together in one Home Buyer Index, which is scored from zero, least difficult to buy a home, to 100, most difficult, and right now as of april, the most updated data is at 82. 4 nationally. For reference it was around 50 in 2020. Its a lot harder to buy a home as anyone looking at Zillow Listings would know. I like to say this at least once a month to remind people, its the economy, stupid. People who are doing well say they cant move up to a nicer house because of Interest Rates. Maybe they have a 2 or 3 mortgage, right, somewhere in that range, now 7. Their kids tell them they have no hope of buying a house. For democrats can issues like abortion, democracy, trump, and i use that word in the not in the donald sense, how voters feel about their own circumstances, can they be more important to people if their kids say they cant buy a house ever . Yeah, it can be more important. We saw this in the midterms where some candidates on the right were too crazy and it overshadowed concerns about the economy. A lot of times people ask, all the Economic Indicators are up. Why arent people feeling it . Why arent people giving biden credit for it. A big part of that is what were talking about about housing. If people want to move to another house, they feel like they cant because of Interest Rates and housing prices. People feel like they have limits on their aspirations. I do think that part of this is talking about building more, we need to build more. They talk about building with manufacturing. We need to build more houses in this country. And then the other thing is this is why taming inflation is so important. You need to tame inflation first before Interest Rates can come down. I think those other issue can matter. Its not a one or the other, but the democrats are going to have to have a message on both of these things. Brian, i mentioned a map, and if people want to learn more about this, dont leave us yet. We have much more to talk about. But its all on nbcnews. Com. But are there signs of relief anywhere . Because i was just looking where i live, where my Family Members live, but if youre making choices about say maybe there it is. Theres the map. Tell us, if you will, if there are signs of relief anywhere. Its going to depend on where you are. When we talk about the the most difficult versus the least difficult counties to buy a home, according to our index, which you can play around with online, the most difficult areas are going to be parts of western colorado, as of april, these are near the ski destinations. The least difficult areas are going to be those more rural areas in the heartland, kentucky, arkansas, michigan as well, but again, when you take a look at the overall picture within the context of the election going on. This is a map of that Home Buyer Index the darker green areas are more difficult, a higher number on the difficulty index. What are some states where youre seeing a lot of deep green. Youre seeing it in michigan, in wisconsin, in arizona as well, right . With the hot phoenix housing market. These are all areas of focus. Can politicians do much about Housing Supply on a local level, certainly, but all this wraps into the overall perception of the economy, which does remain a very Hot Button Issue going into november. Yeah, so tim, lets talk about messaging because, look, im not an