This Sunday, Texas Hold'em. With control of Congress on the line, lawmakers clash over Republicans' plans to redraw the maps. We are entitled to five more seats. As Democrats flee the state.
We are in the process, as we speak right now, of searching for, preparing to arrest Democrats. And threaten to retaliate by drawing their own lines. So they've decided that the only way to save themselves is to cheat. I'll talk exclusively to Democratic Governor J.B.
Pritzker of Illinois. Plus, Russian Rizzet. As his Ukraine ceasefire deadline passes, President Trump tries to reboot Russian relations with an in-person high-stakes meeting that could see shifting borders. We're going to get some back, and we're going to get some switched.
There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both. But will he punish Russia for refusing to end the war? I'll talk to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. And political payback.
The Justice Department targets top Democrats, including former Obama administration officials. I'll talk to former Attorney General Eric Holder. Joining me for insight and analysis are NBC News Washington Managing Editor Carol Lee, Neera Tanden, President for the Center for American Progress, Lonnie Chen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Tony Plohetski, investigative reporter for The Austin American-Statesman. Welcome to Sunday.
It's Meet the Press. From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Kristen Welker. Good Sunday morning.
President Trump's foreign policy is facing its biggest test yet. He campaigned on the promise that he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine in his first 24 hours in office. More than 200 days later, he will attempt to follow through on that pledge by hosting an in-person summit this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. The president telling reporters on Friday, land swaps between the two countries would be part of a proposed deal.
It's actually nothing easy. It's very complicated, but we're going to get some back and we're going to get some switched. There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has adamantly opposed any proposal that requires Ukraine to give up territory to Russia.
NBC News has learned the White House is considering inviting Zelensky to the Alaska summit, but right now he is not scheduled to attend. Meanwhile, at home, the battle over redistricting congressional maps ramps up with Texas Republicans attempting to pass a new map through the legislature, which would all but guarantee five additional safe seats in Congress for Republicans, a move Mr. Trump says he deserves. We should have many more seats in Congress.
And we have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor and we have good people in Texas. And I won Texas. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know.
And we are entitled to five more seats. More than 50 Texas Democrats fled the state to deny Republicans a quorum to vote on the proposed changes. With the support of Democratic governors across the country who vowed to fight back, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, who says California will put new congressional maps up for a vote this November to counter what Texas is doing. We are talking about emergency measures to respond to what's happening in Texas, and we will nullify what happens in Texas.
We will pick up five seats with the consent of the people. And that's the difference between the approach we're taking and the approach they're taking. Republicans are willing to rewrite these rules to give themselves an advantage, then they're leaving us no choice. We must do the same.
Texas House Democrats are putting their lives on hold and their livelihoods at risk because they don't want to live in a country where the president rigs elections for his side. That's not democracy. That's not America. Back in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott and state Republicans aren't backing down.
Democrats act like they're not going to come back as long as this is an issue. That means they're not going to come back until like 2027 or 2028, because I'm going to call special session after special session after special session with the same agenda items on there. On Saturday, I spoke with Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, who is hosting many of those Texas Democrats in his state.
Joining me now is the Democratic Governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker. Governor Pritzker, welcome back to Meet the Press. Great to see you, Kristen.
Well, it is great to have you here after a very big week. Your state is housing some of the Democrats who fled Texas to block redistricting there. Senator John Cornyn says the FBI granted his request to help track them down. And Texas Governor Greg Abbott says they are preparing to arrest those Democrats.
What would you do if law enforcement officials tried to arrest Texas lawmakers in your state, Governor? Well, first of all, Texas law does not apply in the state of Illinois and there's no federal law that would allow the FBI to arrest anybody that's here visiting our state. So it's a lot of grandstanding. That's what this is all about.
And so John Cornyn, who's trying to run for reelection, apparently losing to an even more extreme MAGA Republican, Ken Paxton, trying to get some headlines for himself. And Greg Abbott, of course, has been a disaster for the country as he sent people across the country on his quest to change the immigration discussion. And of course, we had 50,000 migrants that were sent to the state of Illinois because of him. So what I can tell you is that the Texas Democrats that are here are welcome.
We're providing them a safe haven, a place for them to visit and stay, breaking quorum because they're heroes that are standing up not just for their own constituents and for the people of Texas and their rights, but also for the rights of people all across the country. Because what Greg Abbott is doing and what Donald Trump is attempting to do is to cheat mid-decade here. This is they're attempting to change the map. They know that they're going to lose in 2026, the Congress.
And so they're trying to steal seats. And so that is what these Texas Democrats are trying to stand up against. And then don't forget, the map that they put together is it violates the Voting Rights Act and it violates the Constitution. And so thank God for these Texas House Democrats.
Well, let's talk about the issue at hand here. Texas Republicans being urged by President Trump, as you just said, are pushing this mid-decade redistricting plan. Their goal is to add as many as five GOP seats in response to Democrats like yourself or thinking of drawing your own maps to boost seats in blue states. Take a listen to what Texas Governor Greg Abbott told my colleague Ryan Chandler about that.
Take a look. What's your message to governors like Newsom, Hochul, Pritzker, who have said they will retaliate if Texas does this? They have no capability. They've already gerrymandered their states in ways in which they don't have hardly any Republican members of Congress.
Look at the map of Illinois. It's drawn in such a way they can't even squeeze out another Republican. It's a joke. What's your response to Governor Abbott?
Well, Governor Abbott is the joke. He's the one who is attempting mid-decade here at a time when, frankly, all of us are concerned about the future of democracy. He's literally helping whittle it away and licking the boots of his leader, Donald Trump. Here in Illinois, we followed the law.
We provided a map and passed a map that follows the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution and the laws of the state of Illinois. He's attempting to thwart federal law and take away five seats that are in the hands of black, brown, minority Congress people and the people that they represent. He's taking those votes away. He's violating the Constitution.
And all of us need to stand up and speak out and make sure that it's understood across the country that what they're trying to do in Texas is illegal. Well, Governor, it might be illegal. It's not unprecedented, though, or it might be rare, I should say. But Texas actually tried to redraw districts mid-decade before in 2003, and the U.S.
Supreme Court actually upheld the map in that case with the exception of one district. So the argument that Abbott is making is it's not illegal, though they are doing it certainly in an off year. But I do want to look at the map of Illinois. Let's take a look at this.
Despite President Trump winning 44 percent of the statewide vote in 2024, Republicans hold only three of Illinois' 17 districts. These districts seem to be designed to maximize Democratic advantage. What do you say to those who argue that it's hypocritical for you to criticize Texas for partisanship when your state also drew maps to boost your party's standing? Well, remember that what Texas is trying to do is, again, violate the Voting Rights Act.
We didn't. We held public hearings, legislative hearings. People attended them. They spoke out.
There was a map that was put out. There were actually changes made to the map and a map was passed. And it was done at the end of the census, the decennial census. So that's how it's done in this country.
You talked about how rare it is to do what he's doing. Yes, it is. What's even rarer is to do it at the behest of the president of the United States, who's clearly attempting to and says that he deserves to have five more seats. He's wrong.
And he's attempting to change the game because, again, he passed this big ugly bill. It's hyper unpopular in Texas, among people in Texas and across the country. And he knows he's going to lose the Congress in 2026. That's why he's going to his allies and hoping that they can save him.
And we've all got to stand up against this. This is it's cheating. Our democracy and against the MAGA Republicans who are literally trying to take away people's rights all across this country. So it does not matter what your income level is.
What matters is what your values are. And that's what makes me a Democrat. Well, there is a big debate right now inside of the Democratic Party about how exactly to counter Trump and counter Republicans. Here's what you said at a fundraiser in New Hampshire a little bit earlier on this year.
Take a listen. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.
Now, you're running for a third term as governor in your state. How can you guarantee that and voters that you will govern everyone and not just Democrats? Because I've demonstrated that during my time in office already. You know, people forgot in years past Republicans.
We had more Republicans holding the governor's office over the last 40 years than we had Democrats and they forgot about Southern Illinois and Central Illinois and about areas of the state that where there are more Republicans than Democrats. I did not. I have made sure that we've invested in education and infrastructure, that we've created jobs in those areas of the state. We need more people that are willing to reach across the aisle and do the right thing when they're in office.
Look, we have tough elections. Democrats and Republicans fighting one another. But after the election is over, when you're actually governing, you've got to govern for all the people of your state. And that's what I've done for the last six and a half years and look forward to doing for another four.
All right, Governor, very quickly before I let you go, do you rule out a run for president in 2028? I'm focused on running for reelection as governor of the state of Illinois. And everything that I do really is focused on lifting up the people of my state. But you don't rule it out, governor.
Yes or no? I can't rule anything out. But what I can rule in is that no matter what decisions I make, and I mean in particular about what I do here in the state of Illinois, is about the people of Illinois. Indeed, any future decisions of mine will always be guided by that.
All right, Governor J.B. Pritzker, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Coming up next, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joins me next.
Welcome back. Joining me now is Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Senator Graham, welcome back to Meet the Press. Thank you.
Well, thank you so much for being here. Let's start by talking about this meeting this upcoming Friday between President Trump and President Putin. President Putin saying he is demanding that he gets to keep some of that territory that he's illegally claimed without making any concessions. Senator Graham, is it a mistake to reward President Putin with a presidential level meeting without Moscow making any concrete or public concessions?
No, I'm very okay with President Trump meeting with President Putin in Alaska. So I was on the phone this morning, Kristen, with our European allies, with the Ukrainians. I talked to Yarmouk this morning. The vice president was on the ground in Europe yesterday listening to Ukraine and our European allies about what a good deal would be, would look like.
And the reviews about J.D. Vance are very, very positive all across the board. Everybody said that J.D. listened well.
He understood sort of the red lines. And I think everybody knows that how this war ends can be a good thing or a bad thing. If it ends in a way, it looks like that Putin's overly rewarded. There goes Taiwan.
You can't end a war without talking. I do hope that Zelensky can be part of the process. I'll leave that up to the White House. But I have every confidence in the world that the president is going to go to meet Putin from a position of strength, that he's going to look out for Europe and Ukrainian needs to end this war honorably.
And it's time to end this war honorably. But how we do it will be historical. And I'm confident President Trump will get a good deal for all. So, Senator Graham, you take me to my next question.
Let's talk about the red lines and what a good deal would look like. Let's look at the map right now, Senator, there. This is a map of Ukraine. You can see the areas in red currently under Russian control.
Now, President Trump this week didn't rule out Ukraine having to give up some of its territory, something the Ukrainians have rejected. Do you believe that Ukraine should sign a deal that includes giving up any part of their territory, Senator? Well, think about East Berlin and West Berlin as a way a conflict can be settled, at least for a period of time. North Korea and South Korea is in a state of truce.
There's never been a final settlement. But I come on your show a good bit. I want to be honest with you. Ukraine is not going to evict every Russian and Russia is not going to keep.
So there'll be some land swaps at the end. But what would a good deal look like? Make sure that 2022 doesn't happen again. On Biden's watch and Obama's watch, Russia invades.
The goal for me and I think President Trump is to end it forever. Now, what would that look like? You'll have some land swaps, but only after you have security guarantees to Ukraine to prevent Russia from doing this again. You need to tell Putin what happens if he does it a third time.
Pre-invasion sanctions that would crush his economy if he ever did this again. In 2022, we didn't help Ukraine at all. Biden didn't. Militarily, we need to keep Ukraine strong.
Keep flowing them strong and modern weapons and security guarantees with European forces on the ground as tripwires to prevent a third invasion. We want to end this with a sovereign, independent, self-governing Ukraine and a situation where Putin cannot do this a third time without being crushed. This is really a dress rehearsal for Taiwan and as to China. We had a good talk.
I played golf with the president yesterday. Saturday was the 10-day deadline. China is very much on his mind. He can tell you the top five oil purchasers of Ukrainian oil.
He knows who they are. And if this doesn't end well with Putin, everybody buying Russian oil and keeping his war machine going in Russia, you're going to pay a heavy price like India. All right. Well, and I hear you saying what's happened under Biden's watch, but the attacks have only ramped up by Russia against Ukraine in recent weeks on President Trump's watch.
But Senator, let me just read you something that you said back in 2023 as we talk about these potential land swaps that you're discussing. This was during your visit to Ukraine. You said, quote, you don't end wars by giving territory to the aggressor. If Putin is not stopped here, he will keep going.
And that increases the chances that there will be a war between Russia and NATO. Senator, if Russia is allowed to annex some of those regions, won't that effectively be a green light for Russia to go into and invade other countries? What will stop a third war is to do things differently than we did in 2022, is to keep arming Ukraine so that Russia will be deterred by the most lethal army on the continent of Europe right now, which is Ukraine. Security guarantees that if you come into Ukraine again, you'll be fighting more than just Ukraine.
Having some European forces on the ground as tripwires, building up economic integration. The one thing that changed everything, in my view, is the minerals deal between us and Ukraine changed the relationship between the United States and Ukraine. And President Trump will defend those interests. East Berlin and West Berlin existed divided for a very long time.
It wound up not being the case. So there's de facto recognition and de jure recognition. I'm not trying to tell you or anybody else that I think Ukraine can evict every Russian soldier. I am here to tell you that President Trump will end this war in a way to prevent a third invasion and not entice China to take Taiwan.
We're not out to humiliate Putin. We're out to get a deal to make sure there's no third invasion. Senator, I have to ask you about the sanctions bill that has the backing of frankly more than 80 other senators. You have been putting off.
OK, there you go. You've been putting off bringing it to the floor for more than four months now. If this summit does not produce a ceasefire agreement, will you commit to bringing that bill to the floor? I talked to the president about the bill.
I think it will help him in court. His tariff policy is being challenged in court. If Congress creates a tariff regime giving the president authority to set tariffs to go after people buy Putin's oil. I think he's got a stronger hand legally, but he's doing everything the bill does.
He put a 50 percent tariff on India for their buying Russian oil. He talked to me a lot about China. He talked to me about two other countries that buy Russian oil. So he's doing it through executive action.
And I'm OK with that. But I stand ready to help the president. And when we get back in September, let's have this conversation. Senator, I need to get to Gaza, but why punish India more than Russia?
More than Russia? I think the one thing I can tell you, Putin could give a damn about sanctions. He evades them. He could give a damn about how many Russians die.
The one thing that he can't tolerate and live with if we go after his customers. The whole goal is to crush his customers, India and China and Brazil, that if you keep buying Putin's oil and prop up his war machine, you will be denied access to our Did you manage to find five seats for them? No. So we're doing something now that is responsive to what is going on with this White House.
You know, what that call to Texas is kind of reminiscent of the call that President Trump made to the Secretary of State in Georgia to find me 11,780 votes. He calls Texas now and says, well, find me five seats so that we can save the House in 2026. In spite of the fact that my poll ratings are down, in spite of the fact that this big, beautiful budget bill is wildly unpopular, in spite of the fact that we've taken health care away from people, given tax breaks to billionaires. So I think we're talking about two fundamentally different things.
If Texas had not moved in the way that they appear to be doing, California would not be doing what they're doing. What Democrats are doing is responsive and is temporary. Well, as you know, Texas lawmakers are digging in. You heard Governor Abbott there talking about the FBI, Senator Cornyn calling the FBI to help locate those Democratic lawmakers who fled the state.
I wonder, do you think that the FBI has jurisdiction to intervene here and try to bring back those Democrats who are in other states? Short answer. No. I mean, you're asking the FBI to get involved to find these legislators who are in the process of trying to defend democracy in Texas.
And they're not hard to find. But the question after that is, well, what's the federal jurisdiction, what federal statute has potentially been violated? What's the basis for any federal government interaction? And I would say that there is none.
All right. Well, I do want to shift now to another topic. This week, the House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas for you and other former officials for testimony related to the Jeffrey Epstein matter. Your deposition is actually scheduled for September 30th.
I have to ask you, are you planning to comply with the subpoena? Well, we're in the process of talking to the committee now, finding out exactly what it is that they want. Those conversations are ongoing and we'll see how that we'll see how that works out. So no definitive answer yet.
In 2012, worth noting, you did actually defy a congressional subpoena. You were attorney general at the time you became the first attorney general in history to be held in contempt of Congress. Do you have any regrets about that now? Is that informing your decision right now?
Well, I mean, if you look at the 2012 contempt, what I said was that we were protecting confidential information that was passed between the executive branch and the Justice Department and the White House. And we held on to those documents. My successor, Jeff Sessions, put all those documents into the public sphere. And guess what?
It showed that what I was trying to protect was, in fact, reflected in those documents, which was executive branch, executive branch communications. So, yeah, that informs me that if there's a principle, you stand up for that principle. And if there is an inappropriate congressional action, well, you know, they do what they they have to do. But as I said, we're in the process of trying to talk to them to determine what, if anything, I can help help them with concerning the subject matter of the subpoena.
Let me ask you now more broadly about the FBI and DOJ. President Trump has launched investigations into many of his perceived political foes, including former President Barack Obama, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Democratic Senator Adam Schiff. I'm naming just a few of the people you have described this as a quote, weaponization of the Justice Department, which is, by the way, the same criticism President Trump has made about the DOJ under former President Biden. So let me ask you about that.
How do you respond to the argument by President Trump that the Biden Justice Department started this? Well, I think that's just totally inconsistent with the facts. There was a predicate for all of the things, a basis for the investigations, the moves that the Justice Department did. I would ask those who are in the Justice Department now, those who are in the White House now, because they are they are married.
They're joined at the hip in ways that we've not seen before, where the White House is essentially telling the Justice Department what to do with regard to its investigatory power. What, in fact, is the predicate that you are looking at? What's the basis for the investigation when you're talking about Senator Schiff, Attorney General James? Certainly, it's absurd, this notion of looking at President Obama with regard to the actions that he supposedly took.
There's simply no factual basis to these to these investigations. Mr. Attorney General, one minute left. You have said this moment is a constitutional crisis.
If you believe that, do you believe there's a way forward and a way out of this moment? Yeah, I think the way forward is through the American people. There are no saviors. The cavalry is not coming.
This is up to the American people to participate in the process, obviously through the ballot box, by making their their opinions known by not supporting candidates who will stand for the kinds of things that we're seeing in Texas right now, where they're trying to cheat people of their their constitutional rights, their most valuable asset, which is the right right to vote. And then once this period ends, I think we have to not only rebuild, but actually reimagine the executive branch in government such that we don't have to go through this kind of period again. Maybe we have to codify norms that in the past we thought people would simply would simply follow. So, yeah, we're in a crisis right now, but there is still, I think, a basis for for future hope.
All right, Mr. Holdover, we covered a lot of ground. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. We really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me. When we come back, the Voting Rights Act turned 60 this week as new threats emerge for voter protections. Our meet the press minute is next. Welcome back.
60 years ago this week, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, a landmark law that helped end the Jim Crow era and open the ballot box to millions of black Americans. Over the past decade, the law has been stripped of many of its protections. Now, a Supreme Court case over Louisiana's congressional maps could test just how much of that safeguard still stands.
Days after his march from Selma to Montgomery, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. joined meet the press to speak about the urgency of expanding the right to vote. Dr.
King, I think the demonstration was largely to get your voting rights bill through. Was it necessary for that purpose? Aren't you going to get that bill? And wouldn't you have gotten it whether or not you marched?
Well, the demonstration was certainly for the voting rights bill. However, we must recognize that there are other tragic conditions existing in the state of Alabama, which are as humiliating, as degrading and as unjust as the denial of the right to vote, namely police brutality. We were marching there to protest these brutalities, these murders and all of the things that go along with them as much as to gain the right to vote. When we come back, President Trump says he's entitled to five more Republican seats in Congress.
Will Republicans succeed in getting them? The panel is next. Welcome back. The panel is here.
NBC News Washington managing editor Carol Lee, Tony Plohetsky, investigative reporter for the Austin American Statesman, CEO and president of the Center for American Progress, Neera Tanden and Lonnie Chen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution. Thanks to all of you for being here, Carol Lee. Let me start with you. The flashpoint right now in the midterms is this big battle over redistricting in Texas.
What are you hearing? Where is this going to go? Look, I think the thing to focus on is how much this is spreading across the country and the long term implications for that. So you have Democrats who are trying to overcome hurdles that they put in place to try to get more seats in Democratic states.
You have the White House looking at states beyond Texas, get a Republican to get additional seats. And President Trump's just getting warmed up. He's only going to intensify his focus on the midterms on trying to keep Democrats from taking control of the House and dominating the rest of his term with investigations. And so the question is, you know, in terms of implications for elections beyond 2026, does this work for the party that's most successful with this?
Or is there a price to pay from voters who might look at this and say, you know what, like that is just power grabbing. I don't like it. I think it's a great way to frame it. Tony, first of all, thank you for coming in from Austin.
How is this playing out on the ground? You're in the front lines of this. Texas Democrats have been resolute from day one. They left one week ago today and headed to suburban Chicago that they are staying out of state until at least August 19th.
That is a significant date because it is the last day of the special session that was called by Governor Greg Abbott with this priority. But at the same time, we are also seeing what those Democrats describe as increasingly heavy handed efforts by Republicans to try to get them back to the state, including lawsuits filed by the governor, by the attorney general with the state Supreme Court to try to get them back. And we've even seen other punitive measures, including, for example, a reduction of their budgets by 30 percent, which may have an inability for them to, for example, pay their staffers. Hardball tactics, Neera.
And the question looming over all of this for Democrats. Talked about it with both guests today. Governor Pritzker as well as former Attorney General Eric Holder. Could this in some way backfire on Democrats or erode the public's Overall, this is just how serious Vladimir Putin is, this summit itself, him meeting with the president in the United States is a win for him.
He hasn't been to the United States since 2015. The risk for President Trump is he does this and he gets nothing out of it. And what about that? What about the risk for President Trump in giving Putin this reward on the front end?
Well, yeah, I think the challenge here is obviously that you have, President Trump's already said he wants to bring an end to this crisis. The challenge is that it's going to be very difficult to get there without there being some significant set of concessions. And, you know, the challenge, I think, ultimately will be, can the president continue to maintain his position without coming down harder on President Putin? Can he do it in a way that basically says, look, we want to broker peace.
Well, Zelensky's got to be at the table to make that happen. So is Zelensky at the table? Is he going to be able to do it? And there's a lot of different equities that the president's going to have to bring together to make this work well.
I think it's going to be a massive challenge. Probably the biggest foreign policy challenge this president has faced. We are hearing skepticism from European allies of the United States, certainly skepticism from Ukrainians and then skepticism from Democrats as well about the fact that Putin's coming into this saying, I want to be able to keep the land I've illegally taken. Well, let's just recognize that this is coming after months and months of Donald Trump drawing a line, asking for a ceasefire, pushing a ceasefire.
That's ignored by Putin. He asked for negotiations. They are completely ignored. I mean, there's several red lines that have been crossed with no consequence.
And what's actually the consequences? He's getting a summit. So, I mean, I think when we step back here, we have to recognize that the big difference between the president and the Europeans and Zelensky is that, essentially, the Europeans and Zelensky do not want to lose the war. And it does seem that Donald Trump is managing a loss.
And I think that is a deep concern. Obviously, we need to have a peace deal, but the whole idea that we're already talking about land swaps seems to me a terrible way to negotiate a deal. All right. Well, we continue to watch it very closely.
Thank you all for being here for a great conversation. That is all for today. Thank you for watching. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.
I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers, cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way, too.
Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half full.
So catch Glass Half Full with Craig Melvin from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast.