between president biden and benjamin netanyahu after the israeli prime minister accused the white house of withholding military aid. plus, we'll have the latest from vladimir putin's state visit to north korea and the pact that he just signed with kim jong-un. good morning and welcome to "way too early" on this thursday, june 20th. i'm jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. and we'll begin this morning with the race for the white house. and exactly one week before president joe biden and donald trump meet on the debate stage, we've got new polling that shows that the sitting president has moved into the lead. for the first time since october the latest fox news survey finds biden ahead of trump, 50% to 48% among registered voters. now, to be clear, that 2-point difference is within the poll's margin of error. but this new survey marks a 3-point swing towards biden for last month and a 7-point swing for march. that number matters. the change is being driven in large part by independents who now say they've backed biden by 9 points after trump held a 2-point lead with the group a month ago. as for the issues motivating voters, 68% say the future of democracy is extremely important in deciding who they vote for. that's 2 points ahead of the economy, which ranks second. a separate new poll, this one from npr, pbs news, and merris college also shows them flipping the script. after he trailed by 12 points just last month. despite that big shift, the poll finds the two candidates tied in the overall race at 49% each, which is essentially the same as a month ago. that's because although biden has made in-roads with independents, trump has expanded his own lead with white voters. meanwhile, trump appears to be lowering expectations and making excuses ahead of the upcoming presidential debate with president biden. that's set for one week from tonight. during his rally in wisconsin on tuesday trump even pushed a conspiracy that biden can only do well if he's pumped up on drugs. >> is anybody going to watch the debate? he's going to be so pumped up, he's going to be pumped up. you know all that stuff that was missing about a month ago from the white house? what happened? who left it -- somebody left it. let's see, somebody left a laptop in an office of a gentleman who was supposed to fix the laptop from hell. he never picked it up, and somebody didn't pick up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine. i wonder who that could have been. i don't know. actually i think it was joe. >> none of that, of course, is true. trump also told his followers to be suspicious of the whole debate enterprise although his campaign negotiated the terms of his participation. trump added that he'll be up against multiple adversaries at one time, not just biden but both of cnn's moderators who trump said are incapable of treating him fairly. and when it comes to trump's debate preparations, he's reportedly been meeting with policy experts and other allies rather than holding full-fledged mock debates. senator marco rubio and j.d. vance have been involved in these meetings. meanwhile, president biden will begin wholesale debate preparations at camp david. according to politico biden's long time advisor and first white house chief of staff ron klain will be involved in the sessions. last month the chair of biden's re-election campaign put out a memo explaining biden will go on the offensive and push trump to talk about how his three appointees to the supreme court helped overturn roe v. wade and how he could further undermine abortion rights in the second term. meanwhile, the biden administration is rejecting israel's claims that the white house has been withholding weapons. prime minister benjamin netanyahu made the accusation earlier this week suggesting that the u.s. is slowing israel's offensive in the southern gaza city of rauf mauch netanyahu did not say which weapons were allegedly being withheld. last month president biden did delay the delivery of heavy bombs amid concerns the operation would worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis. but the white house says that pause only applied to that one shipment. >> we genuinely do not know what he's talking about, we just don't. a couple of things i do want to add, and you're right there's one particular shipment of munitions that was paused. you've heard us talk about that many times. we continue -- we continue to have these discussions with israelis for the release of that particular shipment that i just mentioned and don't have any updates on that. there are no other pauses, none, no other pauses or holds in place. >> the biden administration is also denying published reports that it canceled a high level meeting with israeli officials because of netanyahu's comments. a white house official tells nbc news that the details of that meeting had not yet been finalized and that it is still expected to happen at some point. joining us now white house reporter for the associated press, darlene superville who's been traveling with the president there to delaware. biden heads to camp david this evening. darlene, good to see you. let's start with this relationship between president biden and israeli prime minister netanyahu. the white house down right perplexed, and aides that i talked to about netanyahu's claims that other weapons are being withheld. they're saying that's simply not the case, and they're deeply frustrated with these accusations. so where does this relationship stand at the moment? >> good morning, jonathan. i think a good way to describe the relationship at this point is probably that it's a tense relationship. the -- president biden and prime minister netanyahu remain at odds over israel's offensive in gaza, and that has been a big source of tension. and of course adding to that now are the comments that the prime minister made on the video recently claiming that the u.s. has been withholding weapons, when that in fact has not been the case. i believe there is some members of congress who have recently signed off on another weapons shipment or distribution to israel, another billion dollar shipment. so as you heard the white house press secretary say in that briefing the other day, the white house doesn't know what he's talking about, and so that is more fuel for the tension that has been brewing in this relationship between two key u.s. allies. >> and certainly a cease-fire which the white house desperately wants in gaza. darlene, let's turn to the upcoming presidential debate. it is one week from tonight. tell us a little bit more about what we know about the president's upcoming debate prep. he's expected to be in camp david for several days but also how his team is approaching it stakes of this debate. it does seem and they acknowledged it this is really big early inflection point in the campaign despite movement in the polls we saw today has largely been static and remains very, very close. >> that's right. and as the president might say himself in the debate next week is going to be a big deal. he's in rehoboth right now. later today he's going to be headed up to camp david and secluded retreat in the mountains of maryland where he's supposed to spend the next week pretty much hunkered down and focused on preparing for the debate. there are a number of advisors who are going to be going up there with him. you mentioned ron klain is going to be part of the debate. the team and ron klain has had a long history with working with democratic presidents and preparing them for debates. and advisers have said that part of what they're going to be doing up there is helping the president anticipate the kinds of comments and commentary that's going to be coming from the former president, donald trump. there will be some mock debate prep sessions, that's usually the standard way that presidents and candidates who are getting ready for debates get ready for debates. they prac nchs someone will stand in and play the role of former president trump and mimic his commentary, his mannerisms, all sorts of things to get the president ready. and remember president biden, it's been a few years since he's debated. it's been since 2020, so he has some -- some work to do. but i would say that in a lot of the fund raisers that he's been doing lately, he's been cracking jokes at the former president, and i think in some part the fund raisers have been kind of a -- a little bit of a warmup for president biden. >> and usually the presidential challenger comes off the primaries in sharper debates, but let's remember trump skipped all the debates this year, so both men could be rusty. live for us from rehoboth beach delaware where she's traveling with the president, darlene superville. meanwhile, millions of people from the midwesz west to the north east will face extreme heat for a fourth straight day. the national weather service is predicting record highs again today in several areas, and the heat is expected to last into the weekend and perhaps beyond. meteorologists say the dangerous temperatures are the result of a heat dome that is covering large of the country. yesterday some areas saw temperatures climb well into the 90s and approach 100 degrees. we'll have more on the extreme weather a little bit later in the show. and coming up here on "way too early," amid that dangerous heat the united states' top climate diplomat john podesta and former california governor arnold shwarzenegger will join me ahead of one of the largest climate summits in the world. you'll not want to miss that. plus, louisiana becomes the first state to require all public classrooms to display the ten commandments. what state officials are saying about the controversial move. those stories and a check on sports when we come right back. n sports when we come right back sup? 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(♪♪) (♪♪) try dietary supplements from voltaren, for healthy joints. welcome back. there is still no winner in the highly contentious republican primary in virginia's fifth congressional district two full days after voters went to the polls. john maguire currently leads bob good-bye less than 300 votes. despite being too close to call, maguire declared victory. good stated on social media yesterday that he believes he can, quote, still prevail and asked for patience while awaiting certification of the vote, there's also the possibility of a recount. meanwhile, louisiana is now the first state in the nation to require all public school classrooms to display a copy of the ten commandments. the new law signed yesterday by governor jeff landry makes it mandatory to display the commandments on a poster or framed document printed in a large easily readable font. the poster must be in every classroom from kindergarten through to state funded universities by 2025. the display also must include a, quote, context statement that says the commandments were a major part of public education for nearly three decades. opponents of this new law say it's a clear violation of the separation of church and state. multiple groups including the aclu have already announced a joint lawsuit against this louisiana state measure. quote, the first amendment promises that we all get to decide for ourselves what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice without pressure from the government. politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools. that's from that lawsuit. louisiana's attorney general issued a statement on the bill writing this, moses you may recall brought the ten command. >> down from mount sinai appears eight times in carvings that ring the united states supreme court court great hall ceiling. i look forward to defending the law. louisiana has a republican super majority in its state legislature. both texas and oklahoma republicans have pushed for a similar bill in their states. up north emerson college in boston has announced layoffs citing an enrollment decline for the upcoming school year, which the administration says is connect today the campus protests of the war in gaza between israel and hamas. the emerson college president notified the faculty of the layoffs in an e-mail yesterday along with plans to go without filling some vacant positions for 2025. the administration blames the enrollment decline on a number of factors including in part, quote, negative press and social media generated from the demonstrations and arrests. back in april more than 100 protesters were arrested after police broke up a pro-palestinian encampment created by emerson college students next to the school's downtown boston campus. emerson's president says the enrollment decline is only expected to last the one year, but warns the financial effects will be felt for the next few years. next up here we'll return to sports and the return of the yankees ace pitcher garret cole. we'll show you how cole did on the mound after missing more than two months of action. plus wnba rookie star caitlin clark puts up some impressive stats as she helped lead the indiana fever to another win. those highlights when "way too early" returns. e highlights wheo early" returns so this is pickleball? it's basically tennis for babies, but for adults. it should be called wiffle tennis. pickle! yeah, aw! whoo! ♪♪ these guys are intense. we got nothing to worry about. with e*trade from morgan stanley, we're ready for whatever gets served up. dude, you gotta work on your trash talk. i'd rather work on saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. that's a pretty good burn, right? got him. good game. thanks for coming to our clinic, first one's free. 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