This Sunday, executive orders. The American people have spoken. Donald Trump returns to the White House, moving quickly to enact his second term agenda, issuing sweeping pardons for January 6th rioters. Some of those people with the police, true, but they were very minor incidents.
You just blanket pardon all of them without consequence. I think that sounds sends a horrible message to our law enforcement officers. Plus show of force. President Trump orders US Troops to the southern border as he ramps up his mass deportation plan.
We're getting the bad, hard criminals out. These are murderers. These are people that have been as bad as you get. And trade war.
If you don't make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then very simply, you will have to pay a tariff. President Trump threatens state tariffs on the United States largest trading partners. What we want is fairness. We just want a level playing field.
But will Mr. Trump's tariffs actually punishing American consumers more? My guest this morning, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Senator Adam Shiff of California. Joining me for insight and analysis are NBC News senior White House correspondent Garrett Haight, Leigh Ann Caldwell, chief Washington correspondent for pot, former Republican Congressman Carlos Cabello, and Ashley Etienne, former communications director to Vice President Harris.
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 Welke. Good Sunday morning. In his frenzy first week in office, President Trump is testing the limits of his presidential power, racing to fulfill campaign promises to reshape the federal government and to settle scores.
Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback. But as you see today, here I am. The American people have spoken. On his first night as president, Mr.
Trump granting a blanket pardon to virtually all of the roughly 1500 defendants in the January 6th Capitol attack and commuting the sentences of the remaining 14. You would agree that it's never acceptable to assault a police officer. So then if I can, among those who pardon DJ Rodriguez, he drove a stun gun into the neck of a D.C. police officer who was abducted by the mob that day.
He later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty for his crimes. Why does he deserve a pardon? Well, we'll take a look at everything, but I can say this. Murderers today are not even charged.
President Trump's decision to pardon all defendants, including violent offenders, opposed by 60% of Americans and even his own vice president suggested in the days before the pardons were handed out, violent offenders wouldn't be included. If you protested peacefully on January 6th and you've had Merrick Garland's Department of Justice treat you like a gang member. You should be pardoned if you committed violence on that day. Obviously you shouldn't be pardoned.
And there's a little bit of gray area there, but we're very much committed to seeing equal administration of law. The president also signed executive orders aimed at shutting down the southern border and ramping up deportations. The first of 1500 additional troops touching down in El Paso, Texas to support border security. According to an internal memo obtained by NBC News, the Trump administration is also allowing ICE officials to quickly deport migrants who were legally allowed into the country temporarily.
Under the Biden administration, President Trump is already running into the constitutional limits of his executive authority. His plan to end automatic citizenship for children born on American soil, known as birthright citizenship, locked by a federal judge obviously will appeal if they put it before a certain judge in Seattle, I guess. Right. And does not surprise us with that judge.
On a trip to disaster recovery areas in North Carolina and California, President Trump embraced his political opponents, but also floated the possibility of eliminating FEMA entirely, proposing the White House sent disaster relief directly to the states. I think frankly, FEMA's not good. FEMA started out to be a disaster. I think we're recommended that FEMA go away now.
A president does not have the power to shut down FEMA and would need Congress to give him the authority to remake or get rid of any agency. President Trump was also reminded of the Senate scar rails on Friday night when Pete Hegseth became the second cabinet member in history to be confirmed on a tie breaking vote. Hegseth was approved by the smallest margin for any confirmed defense secretary. Three Republican senators, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitch McConnell joined all Democrats to oppose him.
I was disturbed about his comments on women in the military. I read the portion of his book in which he basically says that women should be moms and questions whether they should be in the military at all, much less in combat roles. Senator McConnell called the role of defense secretary, quote, a daily test with staggering consequences for the security of the American people and our global interests. Writing Mr.
Hicksett has failed as yet to demonstrate that he will pass this test. He said was sworn in on Saturday and was pressed by NBC News. Guys, let me answer that for the new secretary. All people in armed services should trust him because he looks out for them.
He's going to fight for them. He'll make sure we have kind of military that we can all be proud of, that we all be proud of. And then again when we Send it to do a job. We do it well, we do it quickly and get the hell out.
And joining me now is Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Senator Graham, welcome back to McMahon. Thank you very much. Thanks so much for being here in person.
It's great to see you. I do want to start with Pete Hegseth. He was just confirmed to be Defense Secretary by the narrowest margin in history. Senator McConnell voted no, and he said he wasn't convinced that Mr.
Hegseth was ready to manage 3 million people and a budget of nearly a trillion dollars. You, of course, voted yes. But, Senator, do you share any of Senator McConnell reservations about Pete Hicef? You know what I do.
I vote for almost everybody. I voted for Lori Austin, and I get a lot of crap on our side when I do that. But I think Pete will be taking the department in a new direction. He'll be more focused on war fighting.
I think the Lord Austin's a nice man, but it was a tough four years. So I'll just leave it up to Senator McConnell to explain his vote. At the end of the day, I was okay. Now, all these accusations against him were disturbing, but they were never proven.
And he did a really good job at the hearing. And that's what got me to yes. All right, let's move on to President Trump's agenda, his mass deportation plans. He wants to deport the 11 million people who are here in this country illegally.
You are proposing a $100 billion package, which by some estimates would deport about a million people. So, Senator, my question for you is, what happens? What is the plan for 10 million people who are here illegally? I'm not so sure they're going to deport 11 million people.
He said they're going to deport people here for gangs that are criminals. There's 1.4 million who've had their case fully adjudicated, and they're still here. There's about 680,000 convicted of serious crimes. But here's the question for the Republican Party.
We talk about doing this, but we don't have the resources. We haven't given the Trump team the resources. Tom Holman, the border czar, said yesterday, without money from Congress, I can't do this. He needs substantially hire more ICE agents.
He needs to finish the wall and technology. He needs to go from 41,000 detention beds to 150,000 detention beds to make this work. So to my Republican colleagues, particularly in the House, as we fiddle, our immigration plans are hitting walls. We're not building walls.
We're hitting walls. We need to get Tom Holman the money now to execute the plan that he's come up with. And without congressional funding, this is going to hit a wall. I want to talk strategy in just a moment, but to follow up on something you said, I mean, President Trump said to me he wants to support everyone who's here illegally, whether they have a criminal history or whether they don't, potentially of dreamers, kids, when they were children.
But, Senator, are you saying the plan is not to deport everyone who's here? I'll let them speak as to what their plans are. The public is actually with supporting criminal, illegal immigrants. The public is with supporting everybody that came in during Biden's four years.
He wants to do something on daca. But here's what I would tell our team. Without more money, Tom Holman is hitting a wall. So we need to do two bills in reconciliation.
The first bill should be 100 billion for the border, 200 billion for national security. Put those points on the board. Give Tom the tools he needs to execute a mass deportation strategy to deal with a mass illegal immigration problem created by Biden. Without new money, he cannot do this.
Let me ask you about President Trump's executive executive order that he signed on birthright citizenship. Essentially trying to end birthright citizenship, which allows people who are born in this country to be citizens. It's enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Federal judge blocks that this week, put it on hold.
Do you think the Supreme Court will side with President Trump on birthright citizenship? I think there's a good chance. I introduced legislation in birthright citizenship years ago. Canada, Mexico and the United states are like three of the 20 economic powers in the country.
There are three of us that do this, maybe Brazil. So it's a magnet for legal immigration. Here's what I learned yesterday. I didn't know there were about 250,000 people born in this country to legal immigrants and got the benefit of birthright citizenship.
That's 7% of the babies born in the country. So I think when it comes to legal immigration, if you want to turn off the spigot, change this policy. I think it's a cheap way to work citizenship. You should not be a citizen simply because you're born here.
You have to have some connection to the jurisdiction of the United States. But you think that the Supreme Court will agree? He's doing it through executive order. There's one case on this In 1898, 1898, a Chinese immigrant who was here Lawfully.
And the court said he had a lawful connection to the country. They never decided. The question can a child born of a legal immigrant no connection to the country? Do they automatically get birthright citizenship?
That is an unanswered question. I think we'll know here pretty soon. We will watch it very closely. Let's turn now to President Trump's decision to pardon, to give blanket pardons to everyone who was convicted of crimes on January 6, including the 172 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers.
Even his own vice president said, quote, if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned. Do you believe that President Trump was wrong to issue these blanket pardons to the January 6th? Number one, I had the legal authority to do it, but I fear that you'll get more violence. Pardoning the people who went into the cap and beat up a police officer violently, I think was a mistake because it seems to suggest that's an okay thing to do.
Kamala Harris wanted to raise bail money for people burning down Minneapolis. You know, Biden pardoned half his family going out the door. I think most Americans, if this continues, to see this as an abuse of the pardon power, that will revisit the pardon power of the president if this continues. But as to pardoning violent people who beat up cops, I think that's a mistake.
So you think it was a mistake by President Trump to issue these blanket pardons. What message does it convey to law enforcement? And you convey that directly to the structure. There's really been no better support of law enforcement in general.
And there are a lot of people who support President Trump. Law enforcement didn't like this, but he said it during the campaign. He's not tricking people. You know, Biden promised not to partner his family.
He did. Trump said, I'm a part of these people. So the fact that he did it is no surprise. But I'll be consistent here.
I don't like the idea of bailing people out of jail or partying people who burn down cities and beat up cops with your Republican or Democrats. Okay. Let me ask you about President Trump's decision to revoke security clearance from some of his. I should say security protection from some of his former top aides, including Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, his former national security advisor, John Goldman.
Both of them have received. Yeah. And they've received threats from Iran. What is your reaction, and do you think the President Trump should actually reverse course on that one?
Well, I told Senator Tom Cott who's the Intelligence Committee chair. And he got a briefing and he told me he asked a very good question to the briefers. If it was you and your family, would you want to protect the detail? And they said yes.
So it needs to be on an as needed basis. You know, we don't get protection as former senators or congressmen. You know, the idea of giving protection everybody makes no sense. But if there's a legitimate threat against people who serve our government from a foreign adversary, I don't want to pull that protection.
So I think what you'll see is the Senate particularly get a briefing about this and engage the White House to see if we can get some relief, because I fear it will chill out how people will serve in the future. So you disagree with the decision to revoke their security protection? It sounds if it's needed, I want to keep it. It seems to me that the threat levels justify the continuation of the program, but I'll know when I took it.
We know that John Bolton has been a critic of the president. Do you see this as political retribution? No. President Trump said something that's true.
You can't get protection for all of your life. The question is, do you deserve protection because you served an administration, you stood up to a foreign adversary and they won't kill you. I know this. They've been trying to assassinate President Trump.
That's a fact. And I believe the threat streams may not be at that same level to Pompeo, Brian, Hook or Bolton. But the last thing we want to do in this country is tell somebody, come into our government, you know, come up with policies to stand up to rogue nations like Iran. They come after you, pull the rug on you.
We don't need to do that. All right, a couple more almost outta Tulsi Gabard, of course, is going to have her confirmation hearing this week for Director of National Intelligence. Some of your Republican colleagues still have a number of questions for her about meeting with serious dictator Bashar Al Assad, about supporting Edward Snowden, who of course leaked state secrets. Do you trust Tulsi Gabbard, the nation's most closely held secret center?
I tend to vote for almost everybody at both parties, but I want to see how the hearing goes. Why did you go to Syria? What did you do regarding the side? Why do you think Edward Snowden should be hell is a hero?
I certainly don't. We'll see how the hearing goes, but in her favor, Richard Burr is going to introduce her and he's one of my dearest friends. So we'll see. Senator, can you say right now are you a yes on Tulsi Gabbard?
I don't see how the hearing goes. I'm inclined to be yes on everybody, but there's some questions she will be asked that I want to hear the answers to. So you're a will see. Not again.
Okay, let me ask you finally, on Friday night, President Trump removed, as you know, 18 independent inspectors general just for folks, so they know what that means. These are watchdogs in two departments from Defense to the State Department, Veterans Affairs. What do you say to those who believe that President Trump is going to replace these watchdogs with loyalists? You know, I'm not overly worried about that.
It's not the first time people come in with their team. When you win election, you need people in your administration that reflect your views. So I'm not really worried about that. This other stuff, you know, the security detail, that bothers me because it sends a signal to future service.
Tulsa Garrett. I'm inclined to vote for everybody, but I want to hear her thinking about Assad and Snowden. We'll see. But very quickly, the law says he's supposed to do 30 days notes.
He didn't do that. Well, technically, yeah, but he has the authority to do it. So I'm not, you know, losing a whole lot of sleep that he wants to change the personnel out. I just want to make sure that he gets off to a good start.
I think he has. I'm very supportive of what he wants to do in America. I want to give his team more money for the border. Let me just in on this.
My House Republican colleagues in the House and Senate, if we don't give Tom Holman more resources, all the things we promised we would do during the campaign are going to fall flat. Without money, he can't do what he promised to do. All right. Senator Lindsey Graham, please come back and join us again soon.
Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. When we come back, Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California joins me next. Welcome back.
And joining me now is Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California. Senator Schiff, welcome back to Meet the press. It's great to have you here in person. Thank you for joining us.
I want to start on President Trump's sweeping pardons of the January 6th convicts. When he was on the campaign trail, he said he was going to look at each by a case to case basis. He also never ruled out pardoning those who had criminal convictions, who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers, for example, Were you surprised by these blanket pardon, Senator? I don't know if I can say that I was surprised, but I was certainly appalled by them.
And I was glad to hear Senator Graham share that concern over pardoning people who violently attack police and beat them, bear, sprayed them, crushed them in doorways. People were utterly unrepentant for assaulting law enforcement. This not only is a terrible injury, additional injury to those law enforcement officers, but also this was a crime that was committed in furtherance of trying to stop the transfer of power after Donald Trump lost the election. So part of a bigger political crime.
And it sends a message to others out there. If you use violence to keep Donald Trump in power or use violence in the service of Donald Trump, he will have your back. I guess what he said after the Charlottesville neo Nazi rally because the proud was, you know, stand by and stand back. Whatever his language was, he really meant it because he did have their back ultimately.
Well, the other pardons that were in focus this past week were, of course, those issued by President Biden as he was on his way out of the White House, issued pardons to family members. And in 2020, here's what he said about President Trump potentially issuing pardons to his family members. Take a look. It concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and injustice.
Senator, do you think that President Biden pardoning his own family members sets, as he says, a bad president? Absolutely. He was right when he made those remarks. He was wrong to give these pardons and among other things, what it says now to the Trump family and to President Trump's kids.
They can engage in any kind of malfeasance, criminality, graft, whatever, and they can expect a pardon on the way out the door that is not a mess you want to send to this family or really any family occupying the White House. You know, it's interesting, your colleague Senator Tim Kaine had this to say about President Biden pardoning family members. He says, quote, it's harder to stand on the high ground and make a critique of the Trump pardons on January 6th when President Biden is pardoning family members. Do you agree with that?
Does it make it harder to criticize President Trump's decision to issue those likely pardons to January six convicts. I think it muddies the issue to a degree. But there is no comparing even the ill considered partners and family members with pardoning hundreds and hundreds of people who violently attack police. They're not the Same thing.
Nevertheless, none of these precedent are good. But the most damaging, most destructive is to pardon people who are using violence against law enforcement in your service. That I can't imagine more destructive precedent than that one. And, of course, President Biden did issue pardons to members of the January 6th committee.
You were on the January 6th committee. It came after President Trump said that he thought the entire generation should go to jail. What's interesting, Senator, you had been quite vocal. You didn't want President Biden to give you a pardon.
You went so far as to convey that to the White House. So what are you going to do about the fact that you've now been given a pardon? Are you going to accept it? Are you planning to look for some type of legal recourse to reject it?
We're looking at it. I'm not sure there's much to be done given that it went to the whole committee. This is also, I think, unprecedented. You know, in the first instance, it was a result of the person threatening, wrongfully threatening to go after people who oversee this misconduct in a legitimate committee process.
Nonetheless, we'll have to look at this as a committee to see if there's anything to be done. What does that mean? You're going to look at it? Does that mean that you'll make a decision collectively about whether to accept these pardons?
We have tried to operate together as a committee, and I think the law is unclear because this is, frankly, uncharted territory. Whether partners of this nature are like a law in which you're powerless to say yay or nay, or there's something different. It is quite murky. But it sounds like what you're saying is, we'll look at it, but most likely you're going to have to accept this pardon whether you like it or not.
It may not be actionable one way or another unless there is actually some kind of bogus effort to prosecute the committee. All right, let's talk about President Trump's agenda now, particularly on immigration and the border. Congress, of course, passed a bill to address the border. Some of your Democratic colleagues from border states actually signed on.
This is the Lake and Riley Act, a bill just so folks understand that effectively allow law enforcement to detain and deport those who've been convicted of theft related crimes. In a statement explaining his vote, your colleague, Arizona Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego, said this, quote, we must give law enforcement the means to take action when illegal immigrants break the law to prevent situations like what occurred to Lake and Riley, who was, of course, killed by Someone who was undocumented. You voted no on that. How do you respond to Senator Gallego?
Look, the administration already has the authority to detain people that have committed violent crimes for deportation, and they should. But this bill is so broad that if you're a dreamer and you take a tube of toothpaste from the store, you can be detained for deportation. That to me is a terrible overreach. So the president already has the authority.
I don't mind confirming he has authority, but I don't want to broaden that to be able to deport dreamers for taking a tube of toopaste. What do you say to those who would argue that your vote ignores the security concerns that voters expressed in this last election? I would say, look, I support the deportation of people who commit violent crime. When I don't support are these randomized raids on people that detain American citizens, that detain members of the military.
Because this is what we're seeing happening around the country. We're seeing a kind of chaos in which, in contradiction, the president's commitment that he was going to start focused on violent criminals. They're just detaining anyone. They're going into workplaces and anyone who looks like they should be detained is getting detained without it seems, rhyme or reason.
That doesn't make sense. I think it's inhumane. But what's more, they also said, the president also said that his top priority was bringing down the price of things. Mass deportations of farm workers in California, maybe half the workforce, are going to drive food prices through the roof.
Mass deportation of construction workers are going to drive housing prices even more through the roof. So which is it going to be? What is this real priority? Is it addressing the economic concerns of Americans or is it going to be this kind of mass deportation, family separation, randomized raids, which is what we're saying.
Let's talk now, Senator, about the fire disaster in your state, the debate over how to get disaster relief funds. The big question, will it be a standalone package or will it have to be tied to some other priorities, like increasing the debt limit? I had this conversation with the House leader, Mike Johnson, last week and take a look. Are you.
And can you commit that California disaster relief won't have strings attached? No, I won't commit that because we have a serious problem in California. So it could be linked to the debt limit to increase in the. Potentially.
That's one of the things we're talking about. The debt limit is the nation's borrowing limit. For folks who are watching, what is your Response to Speaker Johnson, that's just shameful. Americans are hurting right now.
When his state was hit by Katrina, I fought to get aid for Katrina. I went with a congressional delegation a year later to see how the recovery was going and to raise issues. But how slow it was and how we need to bring more urgency to it. I never even thought for a moment, okay, this is a red state.
Maybe we shouldn't provide aid or maybe we should tie to some unrelated policy objective. I think it is shameful what he is saying. And let me say this as a Californian. We have given more to the recovery of other states than any other state of the Union.
You do not want to go down this road. None of us want to go down this road. And look, I'm glad the President went to California. I urge him to go to California.
He did. I felt he could not help but be moved by seeing the scope of the devastation. I think he was moved. But let's not go down the road of trying to tie unrelated policy matters when people are hurting.
Very quickly, Senator, if it was the only way to get aid to your state, do you rule out voting for something that links disaster relief to something else? Just yes or no. I am not going to go down the road for the first time ever of conditioning aid to Americans who are hurting with unrelated policy matters. We're just not going to go there.
Finally, Senator, I have to get your take on President Trump's decision to fire 18 inspectors general. I just had this conversation with Senator Lindsey Graham. In legislation which actually you originally sponsored, presidents have to give a 30 day notice to Congress that they are going to do this. You heard Senator Graham just say, technically he may have violated the law by not notifying Congress.
Is there anything that Congress can do about this decision by President Trump? There's a lot that we can do. And I have to say, as someone who introduced the Democracy act, which was designed in part to protect inspector generals, to write off this clear violation of law by saying, well, technically he broke law. Yeah, he broke the law.
And not just any law, but a law meant to, to crowd out waste, fraud and abuse. And yeah, the remedies Congress has, we have the power of the purse. We have the power right now to confirm or not confirm people for cabinet positions that control agencies or wood control agencies whose inspector generals have just been fired. And let's remember in his first term, he fired inspector general for providing whistleblower complaints to Congress.
Fired inspector general for saying the pandemic response, his response had flaws. The American people, if we don't have good and independent inspector generals are going to see the swamp refill. They're going to see rampant waste fraud. They're going to see corruption.
It may be the president's goal here, when he's got a meme coin that's making him billions, is to remove anyone that's going to call the public attention to his malfeasance. All right, Senator Adamshev, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it. Please come visit us again soon.
When we come back, President Trump is moving swiftly to implement his new agenda. Will Congress slow it down? The panel's next. Hey, guys, Willie Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit down podcast.
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NBC News senior White House correspondent Garrett Haig, Leanne Caldwell, chief Washington correspondent for Puck, former communications director for Vice President Harris and Speaker Pelosi, Ashley Etienne and former Republican Congressman Carlos Crobello of Florida. Thanks to all of you for being here after a whirlwind first week for President Trump in White House. Garrett, let me start with you. We learned yesterday he's going to address the joint session of Congress on March 4.
It comes after this week where he signed all these executive orders, pardon the January 6 convicts. He even hit the road to North Carolina and California. What are your sources telling you about the pace? Is it going to continue in the same way?
I'm getting tired of hearing you look bubble up. I mean, this is where the Trump campaign operated. This is what you expect from the White House, at least for the foreseeable future. They had a long Runway, a long time to plan what they wanted these first couple of weeks to look like.
They know they have a honeymoon period, as you just heard from Senator Gramlin, to give them A little bit of grace, even on things of which Republican lawmakers disagree, they want to try to take advantage of that. But I think the senator is also correct that somebody's going to start running out of money, and that's going to make this a little bit more difficult. So you can have this shocking off campaign on issues like immigration, on doing things like cards that you can do with the stroke of the pen. But ultimately, they're going to have to get their legislative operation here, and they haven't really seen that yet.
Leanne, it's such a great point. And the reality of the calendar is looming so large over this president because in about 18 months, everyone's focus is going to shift to the midterms, and this is the second term, after all. So the White House, the president, really feeling the pressure of that calendar that's looming over the honeymoon that's not going to last very long. Absolutely.
The first year of a president's new term is always the most productive, and that's where they have the most local capital as well. Garrett just used the word buckle up. That's exactly what I'm hearing from Republican aides and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, because they expect it's going to be not only a busy, but also a very difficult and complicated first year. He has a very slim majority in the, in the, in the Congress.
It's gonna be very difficult for the, on the congressional level to pass his agenda because of that slim majority and what is essentially sometimes a divided Republican conference. But as far as the first week is gone, I'm told that from Republicans not only on Trump's team, but also on Capitol Hill. Promises made to promises kept. They are very thrilled with how this first week went.
Well, to promises made, promises kept, Carlos. Now the action really does turn to Capitol Hill, to Leon's point. And you heard Senator Graham say we've got to do the border first. But of course, there's a big debate over that.
But we're also seeing the differences between Trump 2.0 and when he first entered office, when he had never governed before, he didn't know how the White House House works. Now, he does have that experience, and quite frankly, the four years in between, they had to think about it. Right. Big advantage this time.
Few people get to do this job once, sit out four years and prepare to do it again. And you're seeing that because they knew exactly what they wanted to do, how they were going to do it. I think they were going to get challenged soon. They're kind of prepared for that at the end of the day, though, he does need to work with the Congress.
If they want to enact lasting legislation, legislation changes that will withstand the test of time, it has to go through Congress. These EOs we've seen, they get challenged in court, the new administration comes, wipes them away. We're seeing that now. So it's important for Republicans to learn from the lessons of 2017, when it was the same scenario, Republican trifecta, whole year without a major piece of legislation.
That Tax Cut and Jobs act was not passed till the end of 2017. So what Senator Grant is saying is, right, we need to get something on the board now, show the people we're serious we can get something done and then use that momentum to do other things. Actually, you know, it's so interesting because there's a big debate in the Democratic Party right now how much should they be working with President Trump on some of these agenda items, like the border, which is part of the reason why he won, and like bringing down prices, hacking. Jeffrey Sway, interviewed last week, said, yeah, he's open to working with President Trump on that.
What are folks telling you? What do you think Democrats should do moving forward strategically so that they're more competitive in the midterms of the next president? Yeah, the posture is going to be to work with the president where we can. And hacking Jefferson's demonstration that he can work with President Trump in his first term.
But we would disagree where the Democrats are going to stand their ground. You know, I know White House is saying promises and Republicans are saying promises. Yeah, but the one that's not kept is on the economy. The president said he had a mandate.
He said day one, he was going to lower prices. Here we are almost a weekend, 100 executive orders later, and nothing substantial on the economy. In fact, he's walking it all back, saying it's too tough, it's too hard to lower prices. I can't guarantee that American people won't pay more based on my terror.
So this is creating an opportunity for Democrats. They're going to have to hold Trump accountable to his word on lowering prices. In fact, I would even suggest they take a playbook out of Trump's playbook, which is go across the country, every corner of the country, holding his feet to the fire and making this point that, you know, a reason's question is, is he on your side or is he not on your side? I thought he said he was going to lower cost and he actually has it.
So that would be my mandate to the Democratic Party is they laser focus on his promises and hold him accountable. It's so interesting because more than any other issue, he will likely be judged on whether he can bring down prices. Garrett. And yet one of the big promises kept that he did in most controversial was to blanket pardon all of the January 6th convicts.
You have reporting that it was actually a rather last minute decision, right? Yeah, that's right. Been campaigning the idea he would pardon at least some of the January 6th defendants for years. And when he talked to you about it, he had suggested this would be done on a case by case basis.
My reporting is that there was not exactly the patience necessary to go through this on a case by case basis. He later said it would be too cumbers. Ultimately they made a decision to go big here. I think you're going to see this across the issues, including confirmations, which we'll talk about later.
But the Trump is personally willing to kind of take the political risk and the political hits on these things. And I think you saw play out even interview with Senator Graham. I would agree. But what are you going to do about it?
Nothing. They sort of hope that there will be enough other chum in the water that people will move on from the things they don't like and focus on the things that they do. And I think that's sort of what you're seeing about those pardons. I think that there's no question in my mind that President Biden's pardon fest at the end of his presidency surely influenced the incoming president.
I know there was a lot of doubt, consternation inside the team as to how to handle some of these most egregious offenders. And I think when President Biden did what he did, Trump just said, hey, what the hell? Let's just. The reality levels up with American people.
These two partners are not the same thing. Trump went around the country promising retribution. So Joe Biden to some degree tried to protect them. Those who are on Donald Trump's enemy list.
You know, I agree with Senator Graham. This sets a deadly dangerous president to pardon those who committed such an egregious and most egregious crime against American democracy. Not only is it a front our institutions, but to those men and women that put their lives on the line. So that's really the question back to the senators.
What are you going to actually do about it? Well, yeah, what are they going to do with that? There's some talk about reviewing pardon power. Yeah, there's talk about it.
Most of the talk is coming from Democrats. Democrats do not control Congress right now, maybe Republicans will get to it eventually if this, if, as Lindsey Graham said, if it continues to happen and the pardon power continues to be abused. But this is not a top priority on Congress's agenda right now. And to be clear, the whole thing is horrible.
All the partners are horrible. But I think the difference is that Joe Biden said he was different and he didn't end up being all that different. All right. Well, guys, stand by.
Speaking of pardons, when we come back. The presidential pardon is in the spotlight this week as we're discussing. And it's in the spotlight in our Meet the President, which is next. Stay with us.
Welcome back. Within a single day of transferring power, President Trump and former President Biden issued an unprecedented wave of pardons. Another moment when pardons were in focus back in 1974 when President Gerald Ford granted a full, free and absolute pardon to former President Richard Nixon for any crimes he might have committed during the Watergate scandal. Just an hour after Ford's announcement, Democratic Senator Edmund Muskie joined MEET THE PRESS with this warning.
Pardons are usually granted at the point when the accused is in jeopardy of punishment. And we've not reached that point in Mr. Nixon's case. If we were to, you know, follow this precedent to grant pardons to people even before they were indicted, we would indeed broaden that power, I think, to a dangerous extent.
And I would not welcome that as a lawyer. I would not welcome that kind of broadening the pardoning power. You don't pardon until the accused is in jeopardy of punishment, going to jail or otherwise. When we come back, President Trump's defense secretary, Pete Hegset was confirmed by a rare tie breaking vote.
Are any of his other cabinet nominees in trouble? More with the panel next. Welcome back. The panel is still here.
So we are gearing up for another very busy week. Garrett of confirmation hearings. RFK for Health and Human Services, Cash Patel for FBI director and Tulsi Gabbard, who's been hacked for director of National Intelligence. And you have some new reporting about the White House's strategy to really try to turn up the heat to make sure they get the votes.
They need us on these controversial picks. Yeah, it's part of White House strategy. They expect some of these outside groups to start sort of spinning up in defense of Tulsi Gabbard and also kind of as a warning to people who might oppose her. They view this as pass fail for senators.
You're with this on everybody or you're against this on everybody. You don't get bonus points for voting for 70% of their nominees. But also when I talked to a senior White House advisor or senior senior White House official yesterday, made this point pretty clearly that Gabbard has to step up, too. They want to see her essentially follow Pete Hegseth's playbook and fight harder for this job, show that she understands the seriousness of what she's being asked to do.
On top of these intel agencies and hearing from both White House officials and Hill sources, there's a lot of expectation that this hearing will be very critical. If she gets to the hearing and gets to the floor, that's one thing. But if she stumbles in this hearing, she could be in serious trouble. Well, Leanne, I thought it was fascinating that Senator Lindsey Graham said he's a will see.
He didn't say I'm a yes. And he's one of the senators who's been most vocal about saying that President Trump deserves his picks to be in place. In fact, Senator Langford said he's a yes on Tulsi Gabbard. What are you hearing about the top concerns and for uphill battle?
Yeah, as Garrett said, this hearing is going to be extremely critical. Not only the public part of the hearing, but remember this is from the Intelligence Committee, so they are going to adjourn to go into a classified session. We will not have access to that. But that also is going to be extremely important for these senators.
I have heard that some of her meetings with some senators have not gone particularly well. And there are a lot of concerns. And the senators we're looking out for are the ones who are most concerned with national security, where this is a top priority of theirs. And Lindsey Graham falls in that category.
Yeah. I mean, Carlos, it is fascinating. The national security concerns, concerns over her two meetings with Syrian President Bashar al Assad, the dictator there. This is really becoming a bit of a loyalty test for Republicans in the Senate.
What are you hearing? Well, remember, Kristen, since the advent of the Tea Party, the greatest fear for any congressional Republican is a primary challenge. So this is a real problem for a lot of Republic. However, there's another thread out there which is a 2026 midterm and some of these senators will have tough re election fights.
I know in the House a lot of people are thinking about 2026 already. So the squeeze is on for Republicans. Sure, there's Trump loyalty, but there's also how viable are they in general elections? And Tulsi Gabbard, who I think will do well in terms of her temperament, substance of her answers that might be a different question.
She's gonna get some very tough questions, but this might be an opportunity for some Republican senators to distinguish themselves. Actually, what are you expecting to see from Democrats? Because there's a big debate over whether Democrats were robust enough in their line of questioning. To Pete Heysef now, Democrats say yes, we were.
This is a Republican show. But what are you hearing in terms of what they're gearing up for this week? Well, I mean, it's very clear that competency and, and character don't matter anymore, especially now when it comes to these nominees. I think that is what I mostly hear from Democrats is they're gonna seize on those two points as it relates to Tulsi.
But I think that the concern there is that she's gonna be in charge of our national security. And there's all these questions about whether or not she's compromised. You can't have someone in charge of our national security that is not beyond reproach. And when it comes to the question of their loyalty to the country.
So Democrats are going to seize on that opportunity and continue to drive that point. I also think it creates an opportunity for some Republicans that want to distinguish to the congressman's points, want to distinguish themselves from the president to say no, to gather, not only because of these questions, but because she's more Democrat. I mean, all these other issues that make it very easy to say no. I don't know if there's a huge appetite to break from President Trump.
I know about Republicans or Toliss and others that might want to list is another one who's in cycle and he's got two problems. He's half the knocked primary by like Michael Lotley, who Trump's been talking up recently, RNC chair. And then he's got to run again. If he survives a primary in a 50, 50, 50, you know, state, a general election would be extremely competitive.
So Tillis is in a really tough spot. And he's someone, by the way, who this White House official I spoke to yesterday indicated, you know, Tillis was trying to get a pocket video on Pete Hexag, basically get him out of the run without voting. Now, that's not how this is going to work. You're have to be willing to vote now on the floor.
And that is a very bridge too far, frankly. For some reason, a lot of people were on pins and needles. Republicans, the president. What was Tillis going to do?
To Garrett's point, McConnell was a no vote. I got a text message from Steve Bannon, Trump ally former Trump White House official who said McConnell is going to face some repercussions for that, politically speaking, what do you make? Garrett dismisses it. But talk about, talk about that box.
I dismissed that, too. For McConnell specifically. He is in his last two years, most likely of serving. He has, he cares about.
He's one of the national security people who cares a lot about it. He's not worried about any sort of political. He is in his YOLO mode. And there are.
And the thing here, so they can lose three Republicans. J.D. vance can be the tiebreaker. The thing is no one wants to be that.
And you can find the three McConnell, Collins, Murkowski. No one wants to be that fourth that sinks a nominee. So it's going to be three or it's going to be six. Yeah.
Seven, eight. Yeah. Given Matt Gates, after he was sunk, there was a thinking that can we cross him again? I mean, McConnell might be the only one in YOLO mode.
At some point, some of these members are going to break with the president on some issue. I think the sooner they do it, probably the better. Kind of rip off the band aid, figure out what that looks like and also send a message to the president that he has to work with him. Right.
Because there's all these confirmations. But then there's also legislation. And specifically when they start working on taxes reform, that's going to be a very messy fight. I remember two years from now you voted on Tulsi Gardner as an.
I don't know if any Republicans are going to hold that. Actually, let me ask you, because there's going to be a lot of focus on RFK Jr. As well, for example, and the question there, and one of the big questions people have, will Democrats try to expose some of the divides between him on an issue like abortion, for example, Will they go there? What do you think?
Well, I mean, abortion is an interesting issue as someone nullified in this last election. He had Republican women voting for reproductive rights and then voting for Donald Trump. I'm not so sure that that issue is as potent as we'd like for it to be going into this next cycle. But I don't project that or predict that folks would vote against rfk.
I think he's going to sell it and make the national security issue. This is not about politics. This is about the security of our nation and allies. All right, guys, thank you so much.
That is all for today. Thank you for watching. We'll be back next week because if it's it's Meet the Press and Go Birds. Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the Drink.
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