This Sunday, Russian reset. President Trump refuses to blame Russia for the war in Ukraine, seemingly embracing Moscow's views as he negotiates a deal to end the war. You've been there for three years. You should have ended it.
Three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. While Republicans put the blame on Putin.
This man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime. How is President Trump changing America's relationship to allies and adversaries? Plus, deep cuts. I wanted to find somebody smarter than him.
I searched all over. I just couldn't do it. With thousands of federal workers fired and billions of dollars in funding frozen, how far is President Trump willing to go in allowing Elon Musk to reshape the government? This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy and Pentagon purge.
President Trump fires the country's top uniformed officer. What will it mean for the milit. My guest this morning, Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Republican Senator Markway Mullen of Oklahoma. Plus, Steve BERNANKE breaks down Mr.
Trump's first month in office. Joining me for insight and analysis are NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Melody Zenona, Jonathan Martin of Politico, former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Lonnie Chen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution. 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 Walker. Good Sunday morning. As the president marks his first month in office, there is growing fallout over the mass firings across the federal government. On Friday night, President Trump removing a number of senior military officers, including four star general CQ Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and overnight federal employees received an email asking them to summarize work for the past week.
Elon Musk adding, failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. It comes as his operatives are now working inside at least 18 departments and agencies. Musk punctuating the moment by brandishing a chainsaw at a conservative conference in Washington. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy chainsaw.
But we've escorted the radical left bureaucrats out of the building and locked the doors behind that. We've gotten rid of thousands back in their districts. Republican lawmakers have been forced to defend the cuts to voters at town halls from Georgia to Oregon, Wisconsin and beyond. I understand.
I'm trying to do more or less that's reasonable. What's not reasonable is taking this chainsaw approach, which they obviously admit when they fire these people and decided, oh, we fired the wrong people, we got to bring them back in why is this being jammed down the pipe so rushed and sloppily? Even one of President Trump's allies, Fox News host Jesse Waters, urging the president to rethink the firings after learning a friend, a veteran, would be cut at the Pentagon. We just need to be a little bit less callous with the way herald.
We talk about doging people. Okay? I just want, I want that to sink in now. President Trump this week also appending decades of US Foreign policy towards Russia, suggesting Ukraine is to blame for being invaded by Russia three years ago today.
We weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it. Three years.
You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. Russian troops currently occupy about 20% of Ukraine's territory in the east and south. President Trump also falsely calling Ukrainian President Zelensky a dictator.
A dictator without elections. Zelensky better move faster. He's not going to have a country left out. President Zelensky of Ukraine a dictator.
Do you think that President Putin of Russia is also a dictator? I think that President Putin and President Zelensky are going to have to get together because you know what? We want to stop killing millions of people. The New York post Unleashing on Mr.
Trump, showing Russian President Putin on its cover with the headline this is a Dictator. We are now getting our first snapshot of how Americans are reacting to President Trump's first month in office. I'm joined now by NBC Steve Kornacki. Steve, break down these numbers for us.
Yeah, Kristen, you are kidding. Just in the last couple of days, five new polls out measuring that reaction from the public. You see them right here in the headline, Polarizing. A month into the second Trump presidency, you see his approval rating in four of these five polls is under 50%.
In four of these five polls, his disapproval number is higher than his approval number. So by just about any historical standard, this is a low political position for a president to be in a month into his presidency, though it does, it is worth noting that the one exception to that would be Trump himself in his first term. This is a way nothing new for Trump. What you're looking at here, the average of our NBC polls, the First Trump presidency, 2017-2021.
If you averaged all those together, Trump in his first term was Underwater. Approval rating 4453, his absolute best mark. Still never got that approval number over the disapproval number you see as low as it got. And average everything that's out there right now together.
And you can see how does where his current standing stack up kind of in that same range. So maybe another way of looking at this, another way this was asked, Quinnipiac asked folks out there. So a lot going on. Are you surprised by any of it?
About a quarter of voters say Trump is exceeding their expectations in his first month, or about a quarter say he is failing to meet their expectations. Most, though, say for all this world activity here, this is pretty much what they expected. Let's look at some specific issues here, some actions, proposals from Trump. Here, again, from all these different polls, what's the most unpopular?
What's setting off alarm bells here? You can see that call to end birthright citizenship. Only 39% support there. Firing federal workers.
This question asked about potentially firing Hundreds of thousands. 51% opposition. Look at this. This is the single least popular thing Trump has done in the second term.
Pardoning January 6th offenders, including violent offenders. More than 80% opposed. On the flip side, he's done some things proposing things that are popular. Executive order to expand oil and gas production, the executive order recognizing two sexes.
And also when you look at immigration, there's all sorts of different ways to ask about it. But the CBS poll here had asked the general Trump administration program to deport immigrants who are here illegally. You see broad support there was asked at the broad level. Like that.
Look at personalities now, the public faces of this administration, not just the president, the vice president. And of course, you were just talking about Elon Musk. What you're measuring here is just basic popularity. You have a favorable, unfavorable view of these people.
Again, that Trump number looks just like his approval rating does. You can see vantage, it's about evenly split with Musk. It is now 50% unfavorable. And then we ask folks just about that job that Musk has taken inside the government here, trying to find, trying to make cuts.
Here again, you can see 49% disapproval, only a third approving. We say a lot of similarities politically to Trump's first term in the polls. Here's the difference. Remember, Trump's political strength in his first term was the economy.
Again, averaging all our polls from the first Trump Presidency Together, nearly 50% across those four years were saying they approved of how Trump handled the economy. We know how politically potent that issue is. He campaigned on it last year. But attitudes towards the economy have not improved so far.
And now it's nearly 50% who disapprove of how Trump's handling. Now, this is early, obviously, as presidency, but we know the potency of the economy politically and this may these numbers right here may loom right now, Kristen, as the biggest single immediate political challenge for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Just a fascinating look at what Americans think right now as we prepare to enter the second month of the Trump administration. Steve Kornacki, thanks so much.
Hey, thank you, Kristen. And joining me now is Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma. Senator Mullen, welcome back to MEET THE press. Thanks very much.
Thank you so much for being here. Let's start with the effort to end the war in Ukraine. That war now about to stretch into its fourth year, incredibly hard to believe. Senator Mullen, do you acknowledge that Vladimir Putin is responsible for starting the war in Ukraine?
You know, I think what President Trump and me not think I know what he's mean is we gave Zelensky multiple warnings that there needed to be an negotiations before the war even started. And President Trump is absolutely correct. If he was in office, this war would have never, ever taken place. What we're trying to do and what President Trump is trying to do is end the killing.
It's been going on for three years. A Biden administration turned a blind eye to. And President Trump is a president can end the war there. Fact, fact and simple.
Well, I guess I didn't hear an answer to the question of did Vladimir Putin start the war? You yourself said when Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, quote, I strongly condemn the unjustified and unprovoked attack on Ukraine. So just to be clear, Senator, do you still believe this was an unjustified and unprovoked attack on Ukraine by Russia? You know, what we believe is this war should never taken place.
And what we're trying to do here is put President Trump in a good position to negotiate the end of the war. It's the same way that Reagan works with Gorbachev, by trying to end the Cold War. Trump is a president that's going to be in the killings that should have never taken place. It would have never taken place if he would have been in office instead of Joe Biden.
The reason why is because President Trump leads peace through strength. What Biden led to is appeasement. And that doesn't work on the world stage. And I do believe 100% that we don't want to back the president or this administration to corner on saying things that might damage the ability for President Trump to negotiate an end of this war.
And President Trump is a dealmaker. He will end this war. Well, of course, there's no way to go back in history to know what may or may not have happened under different president. But let me ask you this.
I want to play because if you look at the, well, if you look at the history of this, just look at the history. Crimea was invaded underneath Obama. No, he did not invade any of Ukraine when Biden when Trump was in office. He invaded Ukraine when Biden went to office.
I think there's a history to say that there's a pretty good 99.9 chance it wouldn't happen if Trump would have been in office or if Biden would have simply used the same piece through strength foreign policy that Trump had. But Senator, I think the question is can President Trump be critical and tough on Putin right now in places of what your Senate Republican colleagues had to say this week? Take a listen. Putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life if not executed.
He's a gangster with a black heart. I don't. He makes, he makes Jeffrey Dahmer look like Mother Teresa. This man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.
Senator, is it important to the president of the United States who speaks for all of the country to be honest and critical of Vladimir Putin? I think the president very critical of Putin. I'm not sitting here defending Putin's not a good guy. At the same time, that's up to the Russian people.
That's not up to us to make that decision. What President Trump is trying to do is end the war. And he's trying to end the war from a place of strength. You don't end a war from a place of weakness, which is why Biden could never end the war.
Trump is going to build an end war. He's going to, he said he was going to do it when he was on a campaign trail. He's kept his promises. He's going to continue to live around those promises.
Let me zoom out and ask you big picture, do you think the United States should stay in NATO? Senator, you know, if it's in our interest, I absolutely do. But right now, NATO has not always been playing in our best interest. And when it's not in American's best interest anymore, then we should re look at things.
The definition of a Senate is doing the same thing, expecting different results. We see NATO, we see UN sometimes weaponizing against the United States and we're the biggest funder of it. And if it's not in the taxpayer's best interest, if it's not in America, Americans foreign policy best interest. And we need to look at, look at a different approach The United States has historically determined that it is in the United States best security interest.
Historically. President Zelensky himself has said he believes that Russian troops are massive, potentially in Belarus, could be potentially eyeing the possibility of going into other NATO nations. Could European members and NATO count on the United States and President Trump to help defend them if they are attacked by Russia? Senator?
Well, I don't, first of all, I don't believe for a second Russia is going to advance a war in any other country right now. It'd be extremely dangerous. And he will call President Trump's hand. President Trump does not just simply say out of war words, he delivers it.
We saw what he did, what happened in Syria, keep in mind, in Syria, he told Russia to stay out of it. In 2017, they went ahead and helped Assad and they delivered chemical weapons on their own people. What did President Trump do? Within 30 minutes, he kicked Russia out of the airspace and completely destroyed the airfield.
They're operating underneath Russia and Putin fears President Trump. Senator, let me ask you about the breaking news that happened late Friday night when President Trump fired Joint Chiefs of Staff CQ Brown, who president himself, President Trump himself picked five years ago to lead the Air Force. I want to play you some of what Democrat Congressman James Clyburn had to say in reaction. Take a look.
Is that why you think the president has let him go, because he's black? That's what I think. When they say dei, we know what it means. As I heard somebody say earlier today, they're substituting these acronyms for the N word.
So why would you apply the term look to General Brown? What does that mean? Senator Mullen, what is your reaction to Congressman Clyburn? Do you think that CQ Brown was fired because he's black?
Unfortunately, Carson Clyburn, he constantly pulls a race card out. This has nothing to do with this. We're a civilian force and the president gets to choose his closest advisors and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as his closest advisors. Obviously, he said very positive things about General Brown even when he was dismissing him.
But the president has a right to pick people around him that he wants to, he trusts. And at some point, he chose to go a different direction. This had zero, absolutely zero to do with race. Keep in mind, the reason why he was promoted the first time was because President Trump did that in his last administration.
So it's dangerous every time the left wants to pull out the race card. It's dangerous and reckless and ridiculous. All right, let's turn now to these government cuts that we're seeing they're starting to felt across the country. Here's some recent headlines in your home state of Oklahoma.
Quote, federal layoffs felt across indigenous communities in Oklahoma. Oklahoma University president says the National Institutes of Health funding cut would severely impact university research. Thousands of Oklahoma veterans and caregivers struggle amid cuts to va. This comes as they've been town halls all across the country, including in Oklahoma, protesting these cuts.
What is your message to the people of Oklahoma who say they are being hurt by these cuts by President Trump and Elon Musk? Well, let's, let's go back and talk about the protest. The chair of the dnc, Kim Martin openly made it on MSNBC just yesterday that they were manufacturing these protests. They were busting in armies to manufacture these protests.
What about that? I'll get to that. I will get to that. Let's talk about the nih.
The funding has been abused all across universities. We have Ivy League from Harvard to YALE that's using 68, 69% of the NIH funding for monies other than research, meaning overhead. You have the University of Oklahoma that 55% of the dollars that are going into for research are being used for overhead funding. Those dollars should be around 15 to 25% tops.
To be used for overhead instead of NIH actual research and development, there has to be a reset. It has been abused. And what the president saying is that that number can be anywhere from 15 to 25% but it should be a max. If you start looking at donors that donate to the universities, they immediately put in 15 to 25% tops on their donation can be used for that.
So if you want to start talking about actual cuts, what Oklahomans want is to make sure that we riddle or we get rid waste and fraud inside the federal government. And that's exactly what the President. They've already identified billions, billions of dollars of waste and fraud for the taxpayers. But Senator, first of all, there hasn't provided proof of fraud.
But talk to the people in Oklahoma who've lost their jobs, who say they are hurting. They don't know how they're going to pay their mortgage. They don't know how they're going to make ends meet. Talk to those people.
What's your message to them? They say enough of these cuts. Well, I would tell you that the majority of American people want to make sure that their taxpayers are being used correctly. I don't want anybody to lose their job.
That's the last thing we want. But at the same time, anytime you're trying to Secure this country which the national security risk we have right now is our national debt. We have to make changes. We have to make it quickly.
Unfortunately, when we have bureaucrats and politicians that have wastefully spent the American taxpayer dollars, we have to be looking for the USAID to see the wasteful billions of dollars that were spent. Cuts have to take place in. Every business owner understands this. Every business owner understands that you have to get your house in order before you can advance.
That's exactly what Doge is doing. Think about this. Every successful business owner out there and every successful business has hired consultants to come in and take an unbiased look and make changes. Because sometimes when you're so close to it, you can't see what the real changes need to take place.
Elon Musk is the United States consultant right now. He is literally the best entrepreneur we've had in our lifetime. He's doing it for free. These programs make no sense.
Let's save the taxpayer dollars and get our house in order. So very quickly, before I let you go, the national debt is $36 trillion. DOGE is only dealing right now with the federal workers, which is only 8% of federal spending, a small fraction of the federal budget. So how Doge's layoffs actually deal with the debt problem?
Take care of your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. Every business owner knows that. Within only four short weeks, we've already identified over $55 billion of waste and fraud. We're only four weeks into a four year administration that is taking care of the pennies and going to get to the dollars.
We will get our house back in order. All right, Senator, very quickly, because I'm almost out of time. President Trump again this week joked about running for a third term. Would you support changing the Constitution to allow Donald Trump to see a third term in office?
First of all, he joked and so I think we need to take that as a joke. Not being literal. Some of his allies say they are deadly serious. Senator, would you support that?
I'm not changing the Constitution, first of all, unless. Unless American people chose to do that. I will say this is what you said. It was a joke and people need to take it as a joke.
The President's a very interesting guy. Extreme humor in use. When you sit down and visit with him. At the same time, you can be deadly serious.
That's why I call him my friend. Senator Mullen, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Hope you come back again soon.
Thank you. And when we come back, Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey joins me next. Welcome back. And joining me now is Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey.
Senator Booker, welcome back to MEET THE press. It's good to be here, to be in person. It is great to have you here in person. Thank you so much.
Let's start off big picture. We're one month into President Trump's second term. His approval rating stands at about 45, 46% more popular now than he was at this point in his first term. And as you well know, he was in striking distance in the your blue state of New Jersey, about six points away from winning the state.
Do you believe you have a responsibility to your constituents to try to find a way to work with President Trump? Well, first of all, New Jersey is my main priority. Do anything I can to help and support them. But what Donald Trump is doing right now, Republican, Democratic New Jersey is hurting our state.
His last first term, he took away our state level tax deduction, increased taxes basically on all of my state. And what you should be reminded of is that he didn't win the majority of the popular vote. He won the popular vote, but he didn't even give over 50%. And right now, he's historically the least popular president of my lifetime, except for in his first term.
So he had a very narrow mandate, which was to lower prices, which was to help people with the economy. And what we're seeing is inflation is up, the price of eggs is up, and New Jerseyans are still hurting. We work with them to lower prices of that area where we can find some founding ground. This is what a strong president does.
They get elected, especially without mandate, without the popular vote. You come in and say, I want to work with Democrats. What Reagan did, what Clinton did, I want to work with the other side to accomplish big things. The way we do that is legislatively through the.
But he didn't do it the strong president way. He started issuing these executive orders and none of them had to do with lowering prices. All of them had to do with petty personal stuff, attacks on people that attacked him. From pardoning the 9, 11, excuse me, from pardoning the January 6th people who viciously beat police officers all the way to renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
This is not what people wanted him to do. And ultimately he's going to be paying for it. That's why his approval rating is going down right now. Let me ask you about the firing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
CQ Brown, you heard me play that sound from Congressman Clyburn. He said, point Blank. He believes he was fired because of the color of his skin. Senator Mullen pushed back against that characterization forcefully.
How do you see the firing of CQ Brown? The chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff is someone who should give independent advice on the military and national security. It's something that on both sides of the dial, we said that should be independent of politics. That's why their terms are set.
But just like the FBI director, which again was a Republican supported person, this General Brown was supported overwhelmingly by Democrats and Republicans. Donald Trump has thrown that out the window. Is sending a dangerous message to the military. It's not about your independent expertise.
It's not about your years of service. It's about your personal political loyalty to me. And that's a dangerous message to send to our military at a time when we really need independent, credible advice being going to the president because we live in a difficult, complex world. I do want to talk about the economy, as you're saying, one of the critical issues the country is facing a $36 trillion debt.
As I was just discussing, the debt went up by about $7 trillion under President Trump during his first term, more than $4 trillion under President Biden. Should Democrat senator have done more to address the debt when they were in power, when you had a chance to do that? Well, I'm glad you said that. It's not just they went up 7 trillion, doll.
He is the greatest president for increasing the national debt. While people like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama close the annual deficit. He and President Trump created the biggest gulfs. He is a profligate spender and he does it all to give tax cuts to the wealthiest.
If you look at his biggest economic piece of legislation he passed, it created a massive deficit in order to give tax cuts to the wealthiest of the wealthy in America and our corporations who are doing well and don't need that kind of tax cut. And now I think the stunning thing to Americans, and you said that he's going after critical jobs from the FAA to our nuclear regulators. He's going after critical jobs to save pennies in order to give himself more room to give big tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and the wealthiest corporations. All right, let me move on now because I want to talk to you about some of the rhetoric that we're hearing and talking about President Trump's aggressive use of executive power.
Some of your colleagues have been saying that America is in a, quote, constitutional crisis. I want to play you some of this is a constitutional crisis. It's the most serious assault in our Constitution in the history of this country. Yeah, listen, I think this is the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly since Watergate.
We are basically on the cusp of a constitutional crisis. Senator, as you know, Democrats just lost an election largely with a closing argument accusing Trump of being a threat to the democracy. Is that the most effective messaging right now? I think the most effective messaging is talking about the crisis that's happening to Americans.
So don't they should be talking about constitutional crisis. I'm saying we should be talking about what's happening to Americans. I'd want the biggest hospital leaders in my state call me out and talk about the cancer research that's now in crisis. Literally ruining years of research, literally having to take cancer treatments away from people, cutting edge birth control treatments.
What's crazy is a crisis when you have planes falling from the sky and you're cutting FAA folks. It is a crisis when nuclear regulatories were are being cut. I could go through this. I have farmers calling me up who put out tens of thousands of dollars of the understanding the deal that they would get certain resources from the federal government now threatening to lose their farms.
Everywhere in America, red state to blue states, we are seeing real crises that Elon Musk, who's a billionaire who never has to think about where his next meal is coming from, where his medical treatment and how that will be paid for. Americans are feeling a crisis right now and they're feeling pain that to them was unimaginable, unprecedented. They put their trust in that would lower their prices and make their lives more easily, not do things that make us so much less safe. Look, all this talk about usaid.
I have visited people on the front line stopping infectious diseases from coming here. To have scientists in dangerous areas like Kampala suddenly not able to get their access to their cell phone, their emails and be cut off by a president. And Elon Musk in a ham handed, incompetent way, cutting funding that makes no sense and ultimately won't make a difference on our deficit because the president wants to ra give tax cuts to the wealthiest and create even bigger deficits in our country. Let me ask you about this broader divide though within the Democratic Party.
You have some Democrats saying, let's sit back a little bit. You have other Democrats taking a more aggressive approach. We saw this divide in statements by House Senator Leader King Jeffries and Illinois Governor J.D. first, let's take a look.
They control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It's their government. What leverage do we have? My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country.
We don't have kings in America, and I don't intend to bend the knee to one who has the right message. Senator, I sit with 46 other Senate Democrats and they are united in this fight, working with state attorney generals, working with governors and working with the greater American population to stop Donald Trump from violating the Constitution, violating separation of powers, violating civil service laws and many other things we're doing. The reason why we are winning case after case and for Republican judges and Democratic appointed judges is because what Donald Trump is doing is illegal. It's violated of our Constitution.
It has to be stopped. And I'm proud to see a movement growing that ultimately I believe is going to stop Donald Trump from doing these very destructive things that are hurting every American. Senator, very quickly, we're three weeks away from a potential government shutdown. Some of your fellow Democrats are saying they will support shutting down the government to protest President Trump's policies.
Will you? Very quickly. I think it's outrageous that they control the House, the Senate and the White House. They are already showing that they want to shut down the government.
They're trying to shut down Department of Education. They're trying to shut down usaid. They have the power. They want the election.
They need to keep the government going. What I want to do, but you won't help keep it open. When governments shut down, people get hurt. The focus that I have every day is to defend and protect Americans.
They're reckless, really, truly incompetent way. Their functioning government right now is hurting so many people. I'm going to do everything I can to stop them. All right, Senator Klor Booker, thank you so much.
Thank you for having me. Great to have you here. And when we come back, President Trump is praising Elon Musk and pushing him to be more aggressive with cuts to the federal government. But is it backfiring?
The panel is next. Get the best of NBC News with a subscription viewer ads fee for access and exclusive content. And now during the Xfinity member celebration, members can get an exclusive 50% off an annual subscription. Head to xiny.com membership to learn more.
Xfinity. Imagine that subscription automatically renews each year at $65.99/ taxes and fees until canceled. Offer ends May 20, 2026. Price is subject to change.
Visit NBC news.comxfinity for full off returns and details. Hey, guys, Willy Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit down podcast. On this week's episode, I sit down with one of the biggest bands in the world, Mumford. And as we get the boys together to talk about their new number one album, Prize Fighter and the evolution of that irresistible foot stomping sound, you can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts.
As the day wraps up, the scoop on what's been happening with here's the Scoop, the podcast for NBC News with me, your host Gasudian. We'll take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News's trusted journalists. It's a fresh take, a sharp, thoughtful and it's informative, bringing you closer to headlines and conversations that are shaping our world. The Front page, the Zeitgeist.
Here's the scoop from NBC News. Listen Daily on Spotify. Welcome back. The panel is here.
Jonathan Martin, politic hero, chief and senior political columnist at Politico, NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Melody Zenona, former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Lonnie Ch, a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Thanks to all of you for being here. Jonathan, I have to start with you. We are one month into the Trump presidency.
We have these new poll numbers. We have the pushback that we're seeing to the big cuts at these town halls all across the country. What do you make of this first month? Well, if the president had taken his mandate as cracking down on the border and trying to reduce the cost of goods, I think he'd be in a lot better shape right now.
But a lot of presidents who misread the results of the polls and their election, he's overreaching and he's doing so in ways that are invariably going to prompt backlash. Look, the American people love the idea of paring back the federal government theoretically. But operationally, Kristen, it's a very different story when you start talking about actual people and their actual jobs and their lives are at stake. You see the kind of clips that we've seen the last week at these town halls.
People don't like it. They like the idea of it, not the actual application of it. That's an old axiom in American politics and I think that's put Elon Musk on thin ice. And Mel, we should first of all say welcome to NBC.
Welcome to the panel. We're thrilled to have you. He is not waiting for Congress to give him the green light. He's slashing and burning these agencies with Elon Musk.
There's been a little bit of speaking out on Capitol Hill, but very little real pushback. What are you hearing from your sources? Yeah, you're right. Republicans are certainly in the backseat here.
They're letting Donald Trump and Elon Musk call the shots. But I will say that behind the scenes, we have started to see some cracks grow. I've been hearing from multiple Republicans, including in really safe, conservative seats, telling me privately behind the scenes they're very uncomfortable with the scope and speed of some of these cuts, particularly as they have hit home impacting some of their own constituents. Things a lot easier when it was foreign aid on the chopping block or usaid, but that was a different story.
And I'm also hearing that they're frustrated that they have not received any guidance or communication from the White House or their own leadership about how they should be messaging on this. And they're the ones who are being confronted by angry constituents in these town halls, and they don't know what to say. They want to still be supportive of the Doge mission, but they also want to stand up for their constituents. So this is creating some real headaches for Republicans.
That's a very difficult place to be in. Jay Johnson, let me turn to you on this because we've seen some stumbling blocks which the administration firing a whole bunch of people and saying, oh, wait, we have to rehire some of those people that we fired. You actually received some calls about the overnight fires this weekend. We should remind people you ran not only the Department of Homeland Security with the general counsel for the Department of Defense.
What are you hearing? First of all, the chainsaw imagery is apt. The chainsaw is indiscriminate. And if you were to, if you were serious about going about reducing the size of government, you do so in a methodical way.
You work with omb, developed who's essential, who's not, which takes time. You work with Congress. You don't try to do it all in a month. So that's number one in terms of what's happening at the Pentagon right now.
The people I speak to in the community are very, very upset because they believe that this is chilling, being able to speak truth to power. And General Brown, 3,000 hours flight time in fighter jet, 130 hours combat mission. The CNO, Admiral Franchetti, was commander of the 6th Fleet. She commanded two aircraft carrier groups.
On paper, those two individuals who the president fired are far more qualified to be chartered in the Joint Chiefs than the one he wants to hire and put in that role. And this is sending a message to the entire team community. Shut up, fall in line. Don't speak truth to power.
Just wait out the time until you retire or you could be fired with three hours notice to get out of your government house. Just stunning to hear that. And Lonnie, of course this does come against the backdrop, as Melody Jamar were talking about, of these town halls where you're seeing passions bubble over. What do you make of this moment?
Will it resonate to the White House or no? Look, I think we have to question who some of these folks are in these town halls. Right. Some of the reporting has said that these are activists who never like Donald Trump, who are never in favor of Donald Trump.
So I mean, let's see how this all plays out. Every president wants to expand the scope of executive action. Right. George W.
Bush after 911 tried to expand the surveillance state. Barack Obama tried to use executive action to legalize a number of undocumented immigrants. Every president wants to push the boundaries when it comes to reducing the scope and size of government. What we tries an incremental approach that hasn't worked.
So this president's saying let's go further, let's cut deeper. And it is going to result in people saying, is this the right thing to do? But fundamentally what President Trump's trying to do is to move the needle in a non incremental way. And that is going to result in people asking questions.
That's where we're at. But in my view, the response we're seeing from the American people, it's got to play out over some period of time. We've got a warfare, a particularly sympathetic group for most Americans. Right.
But the challenge is they're not theoretically in D.C. when they're in Tulsa or Oklahoma City or Norman like they were for Senator Mark Wah Mullen, it's a very different story. The most therapistic thing I thought he said during an interview was I don't want to see folks losing their jobs. Well, that's precisely what's going to happen if you go through all these chainsaw style cuts of federal employees.
People don't like it when it starts getting dead hitting them when they have skin in the game. Because I think why it's hard over the years to actually make any real change at the end of the people don't want to see profound change from the effects of them. For example. Well, and the impact of cutting, you know what it's like to run.
You know, Troy Balderson of Ohio makes the point, hey, this is Congress's job. And yet it doesn't seem like anyone in Congress is standing up to say we're the ones who should have oversight. Because technically speaking, we get to decide what gets cut. Yeah.
I've been talking to Republican appropriators who sit on these key committees that are in charge of spending have said they're okay with Elon Musk and Donald Trump usurping some of their own power and their own purpose. I do think this is going to come to head in the weeks and months ahead, particularly as they're debating government funding. This is gonna be a huge question because Democrats want a commitment that if they're going to agree to fund the government, that Trump and Elon Musk are not gonna just ignore it. And right now, Republicans have refused to give them that commitment.
So we could be in a real shout out. Republicans can't criticize Trump. All right. Well, we watch it closely, guys.
By we have a lot more to discuss. We do want to note that Michigan Governor Gresham Whitmer had committed to appear on the broadcast this morning. Her staff called late Friday to cancel her appearance, citing changes to her schedule. We do hope to have her back soon.
When we come back, President Trump is targeting diversity initiatives in the federal government. We look back on how they were once embraced in our Meet the President, which is next. Welcome back. President Trump has stepped up his pushback against programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
But this effort began well before his return to office. A month ago in 2023, his Supreme Court appointees helped form the conservative majority that struck down affirmative action in college admissions. But back in 1978, the Supreme Court upheld the policy. Civil rights activist Eleanor Holmes Norton joined this broadcast on the months later.
How are we going to know when the period is over, when we need affirmative action? What will be the criteria? We'll know. We'll know because black unemployment won't be twice one and white unemployment we'll know because there'll be more than 2% black doctors and black lawyers.
We'll know because the ghettos won't stand out in poverty while prosperity appears to abound elsewhere. I am one of those who believe that in a single generation we can, in fact, get rid of the consequences of 200 years of racial discrimination. But I believe that can happen only if we are willing to pursue very strong remedies. Now, the lighter the remedies, the more we guarantee that the period of rectification will be drawn out.
And when we come back, one month into President Trump's second term, are Democrats holding back in their fight? More with the panel next. Welcome back. The panel is still here.
Secretary Johnson, let's start with you and part of I was discussing with Senator Booker, which is this idea that some Democrats are really leaning into, the idea that they are arguing this is a constitutional crisis already. What do you make of that? Senator Booker didn't necessarily mean into that. He said, let's talk about issues like the economy.
What's your take? The reality is that voters, most voters care about the price of eggs, price of gas, wait times at airports, tsa. I worry that the phrase constitutional crisis is becoming an overused phrase. Crying wolf.
Too often, I believe that when it comes to the matter of constitution, that is something that rises above politics. When we, when a, when a president says, I am not going to abide by a court order, that is a true constitutional crisis because then the system of checks and balances collapses. I know many Republicans, I know many Heritage Foundation Republicans who would agree that that is a constitutional crisis that transcends politics. And so we need to keep talking about it in those terms, in my view.
Lonnie, what is your take and what are you hearing when you talk to people? What has the reaction been inside Republican circles to this type of talking, quite frankly, as President Trump is facing a number of legal challenges all across the country? Look, I agree completely. The notion that we have constitutional crisis supplied by the fact that you have the courts who are still doing the work that they do, you have Congress, and ultimately the voters are going to cast judgment in the midterm elections in, you know, less than two years.
So what I'm hearing from Republicans is let's hope Democrats continue to use this argument to the one that you and Senator Booker have been using around the economy. That ultimately is going to be the more effective argument. The Democrats are leaning into this. The Republicans are like, great, keep it up.
Continue that, because that's the shortest way to ensure you lose an internal election. It's a Washington argument before the martial. The picture, Kristen, of the senator standing in front of the FBI with the cash. Patel, that is cutting no ice with any vote.
They're not following who the head of a federal agency wanting. That's important as the FBI. It's not material to their lives. What's material to their lives?
Yes, the cost of goods at the grocery store and the gas station. And yes, they or their families losing a job or a contract because of these indiscriminate cuts in the federal government. That's where this thing matters. I think that's where Democrats have got to go.
They cannot get suckered into talking about norms for the umpteen time. But the leadership in Democrat circles right now, they are under so Much pressure from their base right now to go up against Donald Trump. And who's the basis? Secretary Johnson?
President Trump seems to enjoy storing the pot. He posted this week. He who saves his country does not violate any law. Clearly trying to hate that argument.
That's just wrong. That's wrong. If a court of law tells you you have violated the law, you've violated the Constitution. The other political branch of government have to abide by that, otherwise the system collapses.
There was a really striking moment this week with President Trump. He was having lunch with the governors who were here for the Governors association meeting. This was with Maine Governor Janet Mills, related to state leaders on compliance with his executive orders. Take a look.
Is Maine here, the governor of Maine? Are you not going to comply with it? I'm complying with state federal law. Well, we are the federal law.
Well, you better do it. Do it. So you better come. You better comply because otherwise you're not getting any federal funding.
Every state. Good. I'll see you in court. I look forward to that.
That should be a really easy one. And enjoy your life after Governor, because I don't think you'll be elected politics. What an unbelievable moment. J Mar the other governor sitting there with eyes wide open.
And it kind of encapsulates the debate within the Democratic Party that I was discussing with Senator Booker. Do you take the gloves off? Do you try to work with Trump? Do you sit back?
What did you make of that moment? Well, the fact that those governors are there in the first place tells you that those Democrat governors recognize they gotta work with him to some degree. But here's the challenge. You agree to work with him to some degree, you have a dispute, happens to be in public, he immediately threatens to stop all funding to your state and then allows a political threat to in the next breath.
Therein lies the challenge. You have to work with him because you need. Your state needs federal dollars. But if you don't work with him, he's not threaten to cut you off.
So there's the policy of it, which I think you're right. And there's a political question which for Democrats, fundamentally, I think they still haven't figured out quite how to navigate this yet. And so there might be different camps and a little bit interesting, by the way, we've heard Governor Whitmer come on to justify the way in which she's been dealing or has been dealing with the president, for example. But Democrats can't figure out the right way forward.
And as a result, right now you've got all sorts of different approaches. I don't think Governor Mill's approach, by the way, is the one that Democrats want to take in the long run because clearly in my mind, we don't election over this and they lost on that referendum. It's full employment for lawyers. The legal profession is going to be very busy.
Ultimately, if you're an elected governor, you have to do and say what is in the best interest of your own state. And some governors will choose one path. Other governors will choose a more confrontational path. Now we have about 30 seconds left.
What are you hearing from Democrats about this debate? They haven't figured it out yet. Right. This is the debate that is going on right now.
I think the leadership is much more cautious than what we saw from the governor, for example. But this is something that is going to play out in the week's month. All right, guys, great conversation. Thank you so much for being here.
That is all for today. Thank you so much for watching. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's neat the press. I'm Craig Nol.
Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a blast, 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 vitamin. So I hope you'll join me each week. Who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half full Search Glass Apple with Craig Melton From Today on YouTube Everywhere you get a podcast.