This Sunday, FBI job President elect Donald Trump says he plans to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray with Hash Patel, a top loyalist who has vowed to shut down the bureau's headquarters. I shut down left Vancouver building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state. Can he be confirmed by the Senate? Plus trade war President elect Trump threatens to seek tariffs on America's biggest trading partners.
I hope he rethinks it. I think it's a counterproductive thing to do. He would be actually not just harming Canadians, he'd be actually raising prices for American citizens as well. How high do prices rise or is it just a negotiating tactic?
I'll talk to Republican Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Plus turning point. Syria's second largest city falls into rebel control just days after Hezbollah agreed to cease fire with Israel. What does it mean for the war in Gaza?
I'll speak with national security Adviser Jake Sullivan and separate. It was growing, growing, growing, growing with a number of kids. Harm to children was part of the point. They believed they would terrify families and do not come.
Oscar winning filmmaker era wars and NBC's Jacob Silberoff are here to talk about their new film examining the Trump administration's family separation policies. Joining me for insight and analysis are NBC's senior national politics reporter Jonathan Allen, Kimberly Atkins sor, senior opinion writer for the Boston Globe, Republican strategist Matt Gorman and NBC senior national political reporter Sahil Kapoor. 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. Good Sunday morning. President elect Trump proving once again he plans to shake up Washington in his second term, announcing plans to nominate Cash Patel as his next FBI director. Patel is a hardline critic of the bureau who has called for shutting down the agency's Washington headquarters, firing its leaders and bringing the nation's law enforcement agencies, quote, to heal.
Do you believe that you can deliver the goods on this in pretty short, in a pretty short order? First couple months so we get rolling on prosecutions. Yes, we got the benchmark. Bannon.
One thing we learned in the Trump administration, the first go round is we got to put in all American patriots top to bottom. The move to pick Patel means that Trump's own hand picked FBI Director Christopher Wray would need to be fired or resigned since his 10 year term doesn't end until 2027. Meanwhile, the President elect is threatening harsh tariffs against America's top three trading partners. Mexico Canada and China.
China. The tariffs may be an opening negotiating position as President elect Trump looks for leverage to deal with issues of drugs and the border. It's one of the most beautiful words in the whole world. It's going to make us wealthy again.
The most beautiful word in the entire dictionary of words is the word tariff. I love tariff. I can make anybody do anything through the use of tariffs. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wasted no time traveling to Mar a Lago for a dinner on Friday with the President Elect to discuss the matter of Mr.
Trump's resort. It comes after Trudeau warned tariffs would hurt consumers in both countries. Donald Trump, when he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out. He would be actually not just harming Canadians who work so well with the United States, he actually raising prices for American citizens as well and hurting the American industry and business.
Now already US CEOs are warning if President elect Trump does impose new tariffs, they will be passed on to consumers as higher prices. Best Buy CEO saying the vast majority of that tariff will probably be passed on to the consumer. Home Depot CEO warning there certainly will be an impact. And Walmart's finance chief saying tariffs are going to be inflationary.
President Biden also weighing in. I hope he rethinks it. I think it's a counterproductive thing to do. We're surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and two allies, Mexico and Canada.
The last thing we need to do is begin to screw up those relationships. On Tuesday, President Biden announced a ceasefire deal in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iranian backed militia the US designates as a terror group. Mr. Biden saying he will renew his push for a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza.
Just as Lebanese people deserve a future of security and prosperity, so do the people of Gaza. They too deserve an end of the fighting and displacement. And so now Hamas has a choice to make. Their only way out is to release hostages, including American citizens, which they hold.
On Saturday, Hamas released a video showing American Idan Alexander, who was taken captive on October 7th. This video is like he's screaming to everyone, look at me. I'm alive. I'm surviving for 421 days.
Please bring me home. I want to come back to my family. And joining me now is National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Jake, welcome back to Meet the Press.
Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for being here. I want to start with Hamas releasing that video of American hostage Idan Alexander, who has been held by Hamas now for more than 400 days. Jake, is the United States any Closer to bringing the hostages home or striking a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas?
Well, Kristen, that video was a cruel reminder of Hamas's brutality and the fact that they are holding so many hostages from so many countries, including American citizens, including Americans like Adan. And we are doing everything we can to get those hostages home safely to their families. We were in touch with Adan's family yesterday. I'll be speaking with all of the American hostage families this week.
President Biden pledged, coming off of the announcement of the Lebanon cease fire, that we would be working round the clock to produce a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza. We are working to do that. I can't make you any predictions about the shape of that deal or when it will come, but I can tell you that we are working actively to try to make it happen. We are engaged deeply with the key players in the region and there is activity even today.
There will be further conversations and consultations. And our hope is that we can generate a ceasefire hostage deal, but we're not there yet. Well, Jake, let's talk about what you just mentioned. The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah.
Both sides have already been accusing each other of violating the terms of the agreement. The last time the Lebanese army was tasked with enforcing a ceasefire in 2006, it failed. Jake, why are you confident that it can succeed this time? Well, first, this is a huge step forward in the Middle East.
A ceasefire across the border between Israel and Lebanon. The end to more than a year of very significant violence on both sides of that border. The opportunity for people to ultimately be able to return to their homes in Israel and in Lebanon. So this is a good thing and we need to protect it and ensure that it is fully implemented.
And what makes this time different is the United States, France and other allies are going to work together with the Lebanese Armed Forces through a mechanism to ensure that the ceasefire is implemented effectively. Now, that's not going to involve US Forces deployed on the ground in southern Lebanon, but it will mean that we will put our full backing behind this. And also, as the agreement itself states, Kristen, both parties, including Israel, have the right, consistent with international law, to take action in self defense if they're facing imminent threats. We have seen some of that.
Our goal is to get through these first few days, critical days of a ceasefire when it's most fragile, have it take full hold, and then ultimately build on it so that it becomes the permanent ceasefire it's intended to be. Let me ask you about something that the incoming National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, had to say. He Credited President Elect Trump with this ceasefire, Jake, saying, quote, everyone is coming to the table because of President Trump. Jake, how do you respond to that?
Well, first, I would just say that we've had good consultations with the incoming team. We've been transparent with them. We are committed to ensuring a smooth transition. Second, I'm glad to see the incoming team is welcoming the cease fire.
And finally, Kristen, I would just say that, you know, you've done a good thing when other people take credit for it. We're proud of the work we've done on bringing the ceasefire about. And it came about because of the relentless diplomacy directed by the current President of the United States, Joe Biden. Let's talk about what's happening in Syria.
Rebels have seized control of most of the second largest city of Aleppo. What is your sense of what's happening on the ground and do you think that Bashar Al Assad could fall? Well, keep in mind that for many years the Syrian government has been engaged in the civil war backed by three main players, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah. All three of those players have been distracted and weakened by conflicts elsewhere.
So it's no surprise that you see actors in Syria, including the rebels, try to take advantage of that. And that's exactly what they've done over the last several days. Now, this rebel offensive is led by a group that the United States has designated as a terrorist entity. So we have concerns obviously about that group and we are consulting closely with players across the region to try to determine the best way forward.
Because what we would like to see is the full implementation of UN Security Council resolutions that could bring a measure of peace and stability to Syria and protection to civilians, including, including religious minorities. As far as the fate of Bashar al Assad, people have been predicting that for a long time. I'm not going to make any predictions here. All I'm going to say is that we will stay deeply engaged in the days ahead.
Let me ask you about the breaking news overnight. President Elect Trump announcing he wants to nominate Cash Patel for FBI Director. The FBI obviously plays a major role in counterterrorism operations. What do you make of this pick?
Look, I'm not going to speak about the president elect's nominees. The only thing that I can point out, Kristen, is that we, the Biden administration, adhere to the long standing norm that FBI directors serve out their full terms because the FBI director is a unique player in the American government system. They're appointed for 10 year terms, not terms just for the duration of giving. Given President, current FBI Director Chris Wray was actually appointed by Donald Trump.
Joe Biden fire him. He relied upon him to execute his responsibilities as the director of the FBI and allowed him to serve out the fullness of his term over the course of the Biden administration. So that's how we approach things and we would like to ensure that the FBI remains an independent institution insulated from politics. All right, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Really appreciate it. Thank you. And joining me now is Republican Senator Bill Haggerty of Tennessee. Senator Hagerty, welcome to Meet the Press.
Good morning. Good to be with you. It is very good to have you. Let's start right there.
I want to get your reaction. President elect Trump essentially making this move that would lead to the firing of his own hand picked FBI director whose term doesn't come to an end until 2027, replacing him with Cash Patel, of course, who served multiple different roles in the first Trump administration. How will you vote on nomination and do you think he has enough votes to pass? I've encouraged President Trump to bring cash for health to the table for precisely this reason.
Unlike Jake understands his resistance to talk about Cash. But I'm more than happy to talk about him. He represents the type of change that we need to see in the FBI. You think about the failures of background checks have taken place.
How could we have somebody like Colin Call who tweeted out classified information. I went to the FBI myself. They ignored me. Basically he was confirmed and party line building.
The incident with Kamala Harris breaking the tide with this person should not even have security clearance. In the third most powerful position at dod. You've got Rob Malley. I don't know how he cleared an FBI check.
He's now under investigation. His ties to the Iranian influence regime that worked with him and for him. Ariane Talatabi who is still at the DOD should never cleared us an FBI background check. This entire agency needs to be cleaned out.
It's not doing its job. If you look at what happened to politicization that took place back in 2016 when senior leaders, the FBI collaborated and inspired trying to keep President Trump out of office. And then when he came into office they put together this fake Russiagate investigation that hindered the Trump administration for the first several years. Look at 2020.
Look at what happened there with the fake Hunter Biden story that the FBI leadership worked together with Big Tech to censor the 100 Biden lockdown that allowed President Biden to basically fool the American public to come into office. There are Serious problems at the FBI. The American public knows it. They expect to see sweeping change in Cash Patel just by the person to do it.
Okay, so I hear you say you are a yes. And yet a lot of folks have raised questions about whether Patel is qualified. President elect Trump floated the idea of Patelis deputy FBI director at the end of his first term. His attorney general at the time, Bill Barr rejected the idea, later writing this in his memoir, quote patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world's preeminen law enforcement agency.
Senator, how seriously do you take ours? Warnings. Listen, I think you should have the Biden administration look at itself. What is the qualification Tony Blinken to come Secretary of State?
Well, he organized 51 so called intelligence experts to put together a fake letter saying that 100 Biden laptop was rushing this information that must qualify him to be Secretary of State. Further, Trump's entitled to name his appointees. That is exactly what he's doing and I'm going to support this this appointment. Cash is working national security.
He's worked with the Department of Justice and he's somebody that has been willing to uncover the wrongs of the FBI. He's one that uncovered for the American public what happened Russia gay. He's the one who can see through the fix here. So Senator, you are disregarding what Bill Barr, the former attorney general under Donald Trump is saying, his warnings that he just doesn't have the experience.
I'm saying there are people that are serving the current administration that are woefully inexperienced. I think Cash does have a lot of experience, particularly when it comes to the mandate, the American public sign of turning these agencies around. They've been completely, completely corrupted. Cash has pointed out he's probably the best at uncovering what's happened at the FBI and I look forward to see him taking it apart.
All right, well let's talk about one of the other big headlines this week, tariffs. President elect Trump announcing he would impose 25% tariffs against Mexico and Canada. More tariffs against China, the United States, the three biggest trading partners, major companies from Best Buy, Home Depot and Walmart, all warning that tariffs could lead to higher prices. To Senator, I wonder are you comfortable with these tariffs even if it does in fact lead to higher prices?
Of course. I think one of the most important things that we have as a nation is our economy. That's the most important, most incredible source of competitive advantage that the United States has. Access to our economy is a privilege if you think about it.
We made access to this economy as a strategic tool. Ever since World War II. You think about what happened in Japan and countries in Europe when those economies were decimated. The United States put in place very favorable terms of trade to get those countries to rebuild their economies to trade with us rather than trading with communist countries.
We've used these tools effectively decade after decade after decade. Right now, the United States has the most open market of any major economy in the world. We need to take a very hard look at countries that don't have our best interests at heart, countries that allow our borders to be violated, and use those tariffs as a tool to achieve our ends. But are you concerned this could lead to a trade war center?
What it needs to lead to is a correction of the behavior that's taking place right now. That is letting fentanyl flooding to our border. That is allowing people to flood into our country. Millions of people, undocumented, illegal people breaking into our country.
It needs to stop. And President Trump is going to use every disposal to do it. I think it's absolutely appropriate to use tariffs as one of those tools, as a magnitude. You just heard me talking with Jake Sullivan about the situation that is unfolding in Aleppo and the focus, the question could Bashar al Assad actually fall in this moment?
How do you see what's unfolding in Syria? Do you see this as a turning point? I think what we've seen is a major turning point, particularly with respect to Israel's moves against Hezbollah. Again, Israel took these moves against the warnings of the Biden administration.
The Biden administration did not want them to take the aggressive steps they took in Lebanon to deal with Hezbollah. What we've seen is Hezbollah is basically being decimated. And in the aftermath of that, using Hezbollah's inability to continue to shore Assad, that's led to this change that's now, as I understand it, is now fallen. We may see Assad on the map, on the map very, very soon.
I think the situation has completely changed, but it changed because of the leadership of Israel and the willingness to stand up Hezbollah. Let me ask you this way. President elect Trump's pick for Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had two secret meetings with Bashar Al Assad. In light of these latest developments in Syria, Senator, do those meetings concern you at all and do you plan to vote to confirm her?
I'm not familiar with the meetings that she's had, and I certainly don't have to agree with every point of every one of President Trump's nominees, but I am here to support them. I'm here to support the type of dramatic change that's underway, I think, which also represents is a broad tent that President Trump has put in place, bringing together Democrats, bringing together people with different voices. What he's doing is he's reaching out and broadening the party and broadening our reach. He's bringing Tulsa's data to achieve a specific purpose.
Now the force is supporting them. But, Senator, do you have. You're saying you're not familiar with those meetings because they were secret meetings. Do you have questions about those meetings that you want answered before you vote?
Yes. My only understanding about the meetings is they took place some time in the past. Do they concern you, Senator? Do they concern you at all?
I can be concerned about it. I can understand. I may even disagree with it, but it doesn't mean that I have to vote against or for a given candidate. But I plan to support President Trump's candidates because the American public needs to see dramatic changes.
She's the type of candidate that will do that. All right, Senator Haggerty, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it. It's good to be with you this morning.
Great to have you this morning. And when we come back, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut joins me. Welcome back. And joining me now is Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
Senator Murphy, welcome back to the press. Thank you for being here in person. We really appreciate it. I want to start off by talking to you, getting your reaction about President Elect Trump's decision to tap Kash Patel to lead the FBI.
You just heard my conversation with Senator Hagerty. Do you know how you plan to vote on Patel's confirmation? So I will vote no, and I will organize not just my colleagues, but the American public to understand what's happening here. Donald Trump told the American public during the campaign that he was going to turn the Department of Justice into a political operation arm of the White House to destroy his political opponents.
He said that the greatest threat to America is the enemy within. And who he said was the enemy within was us. Who was journalists. Who were his political opponents.
Castro Pell's only qualification is because he agrees with Donald Trump that the Department of Justice should serve to punish, lock up, and intimidate Donald Trump's political opponents. And so the cost of the American public is pretty simple. The Department of Justice and the FBI is supposed to be there to go after drug traffickers, gun smugglers, to go after corrupt Wall street financiers. Instead, the Department of Justice is going to serve Donald Trump's political interests.
That's what Cash Patel has said he thinks the Department of Justice and the FBI should do. And that's why Republicans and Democrats should be examining how damaging this nomination could be to American democracy. Well, let me zoom out and ask you more broadly about these nominees. Last weekend, Senator elect Adam Schiff told me that Senator Marco Rubio was, quote, enormously well qualified to serve as Secretary of State and that he was strongly inclined toward a yes vote on his confirmation.
Can you see yourself support fellow Senator Marco Rubio and any other picks of Donald Trump was not evaluating each nominee on their own merits. I thought it was kind of extraordinary that Senator Hagerty basically told you he's not going to ask a single question about any of these nominees. He is going to give Donald Trump carte blanche. That's an abdication of the Senate's responsibility.
What worries me about this Cabinet is that it is essentially putting the billionaire class in charge of American government. The net worth of Donald Trump's nominees is greater than 169 countries. The folks who are being nominated to run the Department of Commerce, Treasury, Education, they don't understand what regular people are going through. All they see government as good for is enriching themselves and their billionaire friends.
And so that is what the story of this Cabinet is, is Donald Trump and the billionaire class taking over government to enrich themselves and screw everybody else in this country. All right, let me take a little bit of turn, ask you about what happened on Thanksgiving. You and the rest of the Connecticut delegation, quite frankly, received bomb threats at your homes. Now, fortunately, they were investigated.
There were no actual bombs, but they did echo threats that have been made to some of the picks that President elect Trump has made for his Cabinet. On a human level, Senator, what was your reaction to learning that, and what have you learned about who might be behind these threats? Well, as you know, there were threats, very similar threats made the day before Trump's Cabinet nominees appeared on Thanksgiving morning. It was Democrats that were targeted.
My sense is that this is some outside actor just trying to create confusion and distraction inside the American political system. And listen, I want a Department of Justice, I want an FBI director who's going to go after anybody that tries to threaten the American political system that goes after Republicans or Democrats. One of the things I'm concerned about is that Tax Patel is going to only care about protecting Republicans and not care about protecting every single member of the American population, every single one of us who occasionally gets met with these kind of threats. Let me turn to tariffs.
Now, I want to get your reaction to that big headline of this week. President elect Trump threatening to impose tariffs against Canada, Mexico, China. We should note that President Biden has actually kept some of the Trump tariffs in place and built on them, has imposed new tariffs as well. Do you think that tariffs are good policy?
Well, what we know is that Donald Trump has no idea how to use tariffs in order to create American jobs. He did impose tariffs during his four years in office, and we lost manufacturing jobs. Joe Biden knew how to use tariffs in coordination with subsidies and incentives for domestic manufacturing, such as while he was president, we grew manufacturing jobs. The headline here is that Donald Trump's higher economic policy is going to be about a massive tax break for those billionaires in charge of his Cabinet.
The tariffs are a distraction from what the real agenda is going to be. To be able to use government in order to dramatically increase the wealth of his cabinet and the friends of that cabinet. Those tariffs, if they're not used properly, are just going to raise costs on ordinary Americans while billionaires get offspat free. Well, and that takes me to my next question, which is the economists of all stripes say that tariffs, regardless of how they're imposed, do ultimately hike up prices for consumers.
So if they're so bad, why didn't President Biden roll back the Trump era tariffs? Because President Biden did this the right way. He imposed restrictions, for instance, on electric vehicles coming into the United States and technology connected to electric vehicles, while also giving subsidies to American electric vehicle companies. That's the kind of coordinated policy that ends up hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing jobs being created in the United States.
Donald Trump engages in sort of thoughtless, insane tariff policy that ends up in prices going up, but jobs not being created in the United States. So you gotta use tariffs in the right way. If you use them the right way, it can create jobs. But Donald Trump's gonna talk about tariffs because he doesn't want you to know about the primary centerpiece of his economic agenda, which is a tax cut for billionaires and millionaires and corporations.
Last week, Senator, you put out a memo about the 2024 election. You had some strong language talking about what you believe went wrong. You said the party needs to embrace a more populist message. What do you think Democrats need to do differently in order to win, in order to be in a fighting position in 2028 and also the midterms?
Yeah, well, listen, I think we have to talk about power. Who has it and who doesn't have it? I think some of the most important things that Joe Biden did were taking on the big corporations, going after their power, helping consumers with some of the really egregious fees and gimmicks that those companies use to hurt us. I wish the Biden campaign and the Biden White House and the Harris campaign talked more about what they did to break up corporate power.
So I think Democrats need to be much more aggressive in making this case, that power has been concentrated and needs to be returned to regular Americans and that we need to be able to invite a lot of different Americans into that conversation, regardless of whether they line up with Democrats on every single social and cultural issue. Let's build a bigger tent. Senator, very quickly, Nancy Pelosi says that President Biden stayed in this race too long. He should have gotten out sooner.
Do you agree with that assessment just very quickly? Well, it was in hindsight knowing that he ultimately made the decision to stand down. Yes, of course, it would have been better for President Biden to have made that decision earlier. I think.
There's no question about it. Okay. Senator Murphy, thank you so much for being here. Great to see you.
Really appreciate it. And when we come back, President elect Trump wants to force out the current FBI director and replace him with a top loyalist. Can he be confirmed? The panel is next.
Stay with us. Welcome back. The panel is here. NBC News senior national political reporter Jonathan Allen, NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil Kapoor.
Kimberly Atkinson, senior opinion writer for the Boston Globe. And Matt Gorman, former senior communications advisor for Tim Scott for America. Thanks to all of you for being here. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving holiday.
John, let me start with you. Let's talk about this decision by President Elect Trump to tap Cash Patel to lead the FBI. I heard from the former national security Advisor John Bolton overnight who said that the Senate should vote to oppose him 100 to 0. Bill Haggard made it very clear that's not going to happen.
What do you think his chances getting confirmed? And not for the first time, John Bolton's wrong about his political assessment. We already heard Chris Murphy say that he can vote against Cash Falcon. We know it's not going to be 100 to nothing.
Look, I think there are some issues of cash fatality. If you're a senator, you're going to weigh this question of whether he's going in there to the FBI with the express intent of going after President Trump's political enemies. And the reason that matters on the Republican side is Donald Trump doesn't care whether his political enemies are Democrats or Republicans. So if you're a United States senator and you have anything to hide, for sure, you're going to be worried about Cash Patel.
Maybe even if you don't have anything to hide, you're going to be worried about it. Could he get through? Absolutely. But I'm not of the opinion that one nominee gets knocked down and that doesn't mean that others won't.
We take my next question, Sahil. I mean, Republican senators did stand up in the face of Matt Gates and basically say, this is a bridge too far. There are too many ethical questions swirling around him. Do you think that senators who have concerns about confirming him will stand up to.
How do you see it play out? I think it's unclear right now, Chris, whether he has the votes. I think the math is certainly clear about 53 senators, they can afford to lose three. That's the number of defection that they can afford in terms of this nomination.
But Republicans will certainly have questions. The first is, as Jay Sullivan pointed out to you, why are you firing? Chris Wray pointed him. He has three years on his term.
What's the reason for that? The second dynamic to watches. Catherine's on the record for the retribution agenda that Donald Trump ran on. You know, he's talking about using government power against, you know, Trump's perceived enemies inside and outside of government.
There was real tension between Trump and Republicans during the 2024 campaign when Trump ran on this, and Republicans were like, oh, he doesn't really believe it. Don't take him too literally. He just wants to lower the price of eggs. Now they get to cast their votes accordingly.
Point about Gates. There's an important lesson there, which is that Republicans scuttle Matt Gates for AG and try to accept it. He just moved on. He's not angrily tweeting at them.
He's not trying to get back at them. Is there a lesson there that can say no to Trump sometimes And the sun still comes up in the morning? Yeah. Matt, is there, or do you think they're gonna say, hey, wait a minute, we had our one pick that.
And that's where we draw the line. Gauge was the heat shield, but now there's strength in numbers, right? You have several nominees, whether it's Tulsi here, RFK or Hegzet, and now Cash Patel, who are splitting the media attention, splitting scrutiny, and Kendall, the left wing kind of dark money always had to find a nominee OR 2. Betsy DeVos in 2017 to target.
But look, I think maybe all of them cannot run the line. Maybe the line gets one. But the idea that Senate Republicans are going to tank a third of the Trump's is not going to happen. It's not realistic.
Can I just jump in real quick? It's not just the left wing here. Matt Gates didn't become DOJ head of doj, didn't come to turn general because Republicans wanted to take him. I think there are going to be issues with Republicans talking about pets at Hexa, whether you're talking about Tulsi Gabbard or you're talking even about RFK jr, although my personal view is that he's more likely to go through.
But the difference here is Kash Patel is a general in Trump's perceived war against the deep state. Deep state meaning anybody who he sees as a political enemy. He's somebody who's been inside Trump world for a lot longer and a lot closer than Matt G. And I see no reason to believe that the Republicans who failed to stand up against Trump at any point in the last 10 years will suddenly change their tune to try to block his top guy as much as Democrats will point out that him heading the FBI, particularly one which in the eyes of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, would be under the White House.
They would take it from under DOJ control and make it Donald Trump's personal investigatory army. I think that not only will he win confirmation, but that is one of the most dangerous appointments that Donald Trump can make. Let's talk about one of the other big headlines this week, Matt. Of course, tariffs.
The fact that President Elect Trump has used this threat against Canada, Mexico and China. The US has three biggest trading partners. Do you think it's a bluffer? You think he's willing to follow?
I think this is a setting of negotiation where Trump feels eminently comfortable on the economy and immigration policies. He won on it. Rightly so. We should feel empowered, tack on that.
But also the setting he feels at home at negotiating. So he wants to get people in a room, get them face to face. Eventually work on a deal. Was telling to me was how Trudeau and Claudia Sheinbaum both very approached to it.
Trudeau went to Mar A Lago, went face to face. Sheinbaum, I think boxed herself into this chef's feeding letter. That's not going to help her get a deal. And especially if House Democrats will find it.
It wasn't helpful to either. Democrats were shy up. John, how do you see the tariff battle playing out? And of course, Biden again kept the trouble era tariffs in place.
Yeah, I mean, I Think mostly Donald Trump is trying to announce his presence with authority here and make foreign leaders look at him and make domestic audience look at him. And if he can get concessions without actually having to put tariffs in place, then all the better for him. So, you know, I think Matt's right about the strategy here and he's going to get some concessions before he has to put tariffs in place. He doesn't want to put tariffs in place because he puts tariffs in place, prices are going to go up, but it's going to fight him.
This idea that he's combating inflation. Yeah. Saga. Let's talk about President Biden's legacy.
You have some new reporting on what are some of the pieces of President Biden's legacy that could be most at risk in the second Trump administration? Yeah, absolutely. So I would rank this from least safe to most safe items of President Biden's legacy. The least safe are the executive actions.
All the things that President Biden did in the circle Pan, Trump can undo with the circle pen immediately. So whether it's things like immigration, LGBT rights, student loan programs, even abortion, travel protection, those will be very unsafe. Trump can undo them. The second category of things that are in real danger are the Democrat only programs that they pass through Congress with 50 votes without any Republican support.
The inflation reduction act, clean energy funding. We have MEPs this morning about a problem. They are coming after those to pay for extension of the Trump tax cuts, ACA funding as well as subsidy plus up to lower premiums. Those are in danger.
The other the pieces of the bindings legacy that I think are quite safe for the partisan laws he passed, infrastructure chips and science, postal reform, codifying same sex marriage, those are subject to the 64 threshold. Democrats can protect them. And finally the safest part of binding Lexi, probably the most consequential judges, just Brown, Brown Jackson and 220 federal appeals court and district court judges. They're here to say all we have to do is reverse that to see where Donald Trump can make his most biggest impacts.
And judiciary was a huge one for him, particularly at the U.S. supreme Court. With any Trump can only force that even further to the right, giving it an even greater super majority during his presidency as well as throughout the federal judiciary. We've seen with consequence from all the challenges to Biden's programming, what the Trump appointed judges, what power they can wield, we will see only more of that during his administration.
I'm glad you brought the judges because obviously that's still very much in focus and it will be over the next four years. Guys, great conversation. We packed a lot in. Thank you for being here.
When we come back as President Biden makes a final push for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, we look back more than 30 years to the historic Mideast peace agreement. Army the press minute is next. Welcome back. While efforts to broker peace in the Middle east are in the spotlight once again, they have long been a focus for the White house.
Back in 1993, just one day before signing the historic Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin joined me the press to share his vision for peace in the region. Allow me to say that once the Jewish people, the Zionist movement have decided to have the Jewish state here in the land of Israel, we decided who will be our neighbors. At the same time, the hundred of millions of Arabs and Muslims and our only two ways to live as a Jewish state, either in peace or in continuation of threats of wars, violence and terror. Most of my life I served as a military man, as a minister of defense, as a prime minister.
I would like to bring about a change. I would like to give it a chance. I believe that the risks involved to Israel in this agreement is the minimum. When we come back, thousands of children were separated from their parents as part of the first Trump administration's immigration policy era.
Morris and Jacob Sobrov join me next to talk about their new film. Welcome back. President elect Donald Trump has promised to launch a mass deportation program on his first day in office. A new film, separated from Oscar winning filmmaker Aaron warriors, based on the book Separated Inside An American Tragedy by NBC News political and national correspondent Jacob Soberoff examines the first Trump administration's family separation and immigration policies and the ongoing years long fight to reunite children.
The unaccompanied children program which I worked in was essentially hijacked for a purpose for which it was never intended nor authorized. In law. Was a program designed to be child protection program for children enter the United States without parents and was instead used as a tool to take children from their parents. And Jacob sober off and Errol Morris, join me now.
Welcome to MEET the Press. Thanks, Kristen. Thanks for having me. Thank you both for being here.
Errol, I want to start with you. You are an Oscar award winning filmmaker. Why did you want to take on this project? Project.
It's a very important issue and perhaps at the essence of our current politics involves immigration, the treatment of immigrants both outside our country and within. I couldn't think of a more important issue to make a movie about. Jacob you have done so much reporting about this issue. What made you want to take that reporting and turn it into a book?
And now this documentary. I think, Kristen, when, you know, we all cover this together at the time in the summer of 2018, what a Republican appointed judge called one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country, what Physicians for Human Rights said met the UN Definition of torture, and the American Academy of Pediatrics called government sanctioned child abuse when he covered it. I don't think any of us, or at least many of us understood how the US Government could do something so deliberately cruel, in the words of Adam Serwer, who coined that the cruelty is for the Atlantic. And so I still have questions.
And I wrote the book the Legend. Errol Morris, my favorite filmmaker, one of the great filmmakers of all time, read the book and said he shared some of those questions. And now here we are four years later to the day. We didn't know President Trump would run for re election again, much less become the president elect of the United States.
And now we're on the verge of another family separation policy, mass deportation, which is just spam separation by another name. Well, Errol, pick up on that very point if you would, because of course then President Trump in his first term did end the family separation policy that he started, but officials not ruling it out potentially in the second term, despite the fact that the judges ruled against it. How do you see this playing out over the next four years? My movie ends with a warning that there is nothing to prevent this from happening again again, despite the horrors that we are aware of from its first go round.
Yes, the people who instituted these policies are now firmly in place in the new administration. And yes, in one form or another, it could happen again. Jacob, one of the statistics that you report on that I think would surprise a lot of people. There are still more than a thousand children who haven't been reunited with their families.
Can you update us? What is the latest on the efforts to try to get those kids reunited? Kristen? Actually, the number today is somewhere between 1300 and 1400 children without confirmed reunifications.
That's according to the Department of Homeland Security. And that is because the policy was, and I think this is a generous description, so haphazardly implemented. I will never forget when you asked former President Trump, President Elect Trump and President Biden during that last presidential debate in 2020, about 545 children were still separated from their parents. That number has only grown since then, as we have discovered, sort of the extent that this policy tore families apart from one another deliberately.
And I think that not only are we looking back at this policy and the ramifications that it'll be a lifelong trauma for all of them, but also what it means going forward, also a roadmap, in essence, for what the incoming Trump administration has promised. Errol, what did, based on your work on this film, what did you perceive the impact to be on these kids? I hope it was not just an impact on these kids, but on the country as a whole, that beating up on immigrants, policies of cruelty are a moral thing, not a political thing. What we did to these children, to me, is morally unacceptable and fortunately was unacceptable to a lot of people.
Jacob, we've heard a lot about the deep state, the horrors of the deep state. But many of the heroes of the story were people who are non political appointees who worked in the government and who fought very hard to protect children. And that is really part of the story. Jacob, you have spent so much time studying this topic, but I wonder if in working on this film, what surprised you?
What did you learn that was new that you weren't expecting to uncover? I hope when everybody watches that, and I'm excited everybody will have the opportunity to watch it this coming weekend on msnbc. I thought back to that time in a way that I hadn't remembered. Errol just mentioned it, that this was one of the rare policy reversals, maybe the only significant major one of the first Trump administration because of career officials like Jonathan White, who played a clip of a career official from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and because these folks stood up inside the government and pushed back on something that wasn't a bipartisan condemnation, it was really a universal condemnation.
The pope spoke out, if you'll remember, about this policy. It forced the government to make corrective action on something I think so many people thought was morally unacceptable. And it's a good reminder for us today, as, by the way, this is a policy that was possible because of decades of bipartisan deterrence based immigration policy. This is not just a story about Donald Trump.
This is a story about the US Government, the immigration system within it, and people who stood up and were able to make a change here, as a great reminder. Well, it's such a great point, Jacob and Errol, if you would follow up on that. The immigration system has been broken for so long. Did you get to the root of why it's just so intractable for this country to resolve this issue?
People would rather argue about it politically rather than try to solve the problem, which is the sad story of many significant issues facing the country. The way to solve immigration is not to beat up on children. Perhaps that should be obvious, but we should remember that we are a country of immigrants. I wouldn't be here if my family hadn't immigrated from Eastern Europe in century, the 20th, 20s.
We're all, in many ways, immigrants, and how we treat those people who are trying to enter our country for a better life really reflects on us. I'm not saying there shouldn't be borders or there shouldn't be immigration laws, but there should also be morality and kindness involved. All right, Jacob and Errol, thank you so much for this conversation. We really do appreciate it.
And you can watch Separated next Saturday night at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC. And before we go, the newest member of the Meet the Press family, Frankie Alice Katz, was born at 12.23am on Wednesday. She didn't want to miss her first Thanksgiving as her mom told us. We want to say a huge, heartfelt congratulations to both of her parents, coordinating producer Sally Bronson Katz and her husband, Michael.
Frankie Alice was named after two amazing women, their grandmothers Fred, Ali and Adrian. Welcome to the world, Frankie Alice. You are the best breaking news ever. That is all for today.
Thank you so much for watching. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's new. I'm Craig. Mel.
Cheers. 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.
It's really fascinating. Folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges, their stories are fun and mechanical. So I hope you'll join me each week. Who knows, you might just come along with your own glass apple.
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