This Sunday, targeted terror. A Minnesota lawmaker and her husband are shot and killed by a gunman impersonating a police officer. This was an act of targeted political violence. Another state lawmaker and his spouse shot and wounded as a manhunt is underway for the suspect.
I'll speak to Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Plus, wider war. Israel launches airstrikes against Iran, targeting nuclear sites and killing military leaders. Iran retaliates, hitting near Israel's military headquarters.
Will the U.S. get dragged deeper into the conflict? And show of force. President Trump's immigration crackdown triggers protests in Los Angeles and all across the country.
No Trump, no hype. They say no fascists USA. And ignites a standoff with Democrats as the president deploys military troops over the objections of California's governor. Under the Trump administration, this anarchy will not stand.
Democracy is under assault before our eyes. With tensions boiling over, a Democratic senator placed in handcuffs. This is the stuff of dictatorships. I'll talk to Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California.
Plus, Steve Kornacki reveals the results of our latest poll. Joining me for insight and analysis are NBC News chief Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Noble, Amy Walter, editor in chief of the Cook Political Report, Kimberly Atkin-Stor, senior opinion writer for The Boston Globe, and Stephen Hayes, editor of The Dispatch. Welcome to Sunday. It's Meet the Press.
From NBC News in Washington, the longest running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Kristen Welker. Good Sunday morning. There are rising tensions in both the Middle East and here at home.
Overnight, Israel launching new strikes inside Iran, targeting key oil and gas infrastructure, with Iran hitting back and accusing the U.S. of directly supporting Israel's attacks. President Trump warning Iran, quote, if we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. armed forces will come down on you at levels never seen before.
In Los Angeles, active duty military troops remain deployed in the streets over the objections of California Governor Gavin Newsom to support the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.
Democracy is under assault before our eyes this moment. We have feared has arrived. And here in Washington, President Trump hosted a military parade marking the army's 250th anniversary, the first parade of its kind held in peacetime in decades. While across the country, tens of thousands of protesters gathered for what organizers called the No Kings protests, pushing against Trump administration policies.
In Minnesota, those protests were overshadowed by a devastating act of political violence that rocked the community. Authorities say a suspected gunman impersonating a police officer targeted two Democratic lawmakers and their spouses in their homes, killing former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were critically wounded. A list of additional targets was found in the suspect's vehicle, as well as no kings flyers.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz denounced the political violence and vowed to bring those responsible to justice. This was an act of targeted political violence. Peaceful discourse is the foundation of our democracy. We don't settle our differences with violence or at gunpoint.
Joining me now is Democratic Senator from Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar. Senator Klobuchar, welcome back to Meet the Press. And my deepest condolences to you for the loss of your friends and colleagues. Thank you, Kristen.
And, you know, it is really not about any of us. It is this incredible woman that we lost, Melissa Hortman. We think about her family today. Father's Day today.
They not only lost their mom for her two kids. They also lost their dad and her beloved husband, Mark. This is a woman. I just wish everyone in the world, political world, knew this woman like we know her in Minnesota.
Loved by Democrats and Republicans. Started out. We started out together in politics, moms with young kids. And somehow she was able to balance getting to know every door knock, every house in her district while raising two children.
Girl Scout leader. She was she taught Sunday school and maybe all that juggling made it easier for her as she worked her way up in the legislature and became this extraordinary speaker of the House. Ushering in everything from preschool lunch to working with the governor and other leaders to do some landmark legislation on paid family leave to this year working with her Republican counterpart when we pretty much had a tied legislature to get the budget done. That's Melissa Hortman, my friend.
And when you think about political violence and the statistics of political violence, you've got to realize the people who are behind it and a true public servant that we lost. Well, we are grateful to you for being here to help us pay tribute to Speaker Emerita Hortman. I know you were at a dinner with her. You were with her just hours before this assassination against her life.
And I imagine you must still be in shock. What can you tell us about that? And do you have an update on the condition of state Senator John Hoffman and his wife? They were also shot there in the hospital.
Exactly. So he's another extraordinary person. Got into politics because his daughter has spina bifida, couldn't get insurance coverage and went from school board to the state legislature. Also really well respected.
And what I know about them is that they are hanging in there. His wife was out of surgery first and she's actually texted some of our mutual friends. And he may face some additional surgeries, but he is also in stable condition right now from what I know. So they had multiple, multiple gun wounds and were able to.
The first responders were there. The police were there, got them to the hospital and then had the presence of mind to go over to Leader Hortman's house. And that's where they found this perpetrator, this man who seemed to have no limits in terms of the murderous acts that he committed. I will say one more thing, and that is that at that dinner, it was a big political dinner.
Everyone was rejoicing, happy the session's behind them. And that was the last time so many of us saw Melissa and Mark. And the next morning, 5 a.m., the governor, Governor Walz calls me and tells me that we believe that she's no longer with us. I can only imagine your shock and your devastation.
I do want to talk about this manhunt that is underway. And because it's still active, we do want to show our viewers who we're talking about here. The suspect, according to authorities, allegedly impersonating a police officer. That's how they got into these homes.
He's been identified by authorities. Advanced Belter. We're showing images of him right now on your screen. He worked for a private security company.
What is the very latest on the search for the suspect, Senator? Well, for a while, they believed that he was in one certain area and he may have been there for a while. So they had thousands of homes in a shelter in place situation. Now they are continuing to look.
And so the FBI is asking for the public's help, help with a $50,000 reward. You've got many images of them. To me, the most chilling image is the one where he is apparently wearing some kind of mask. It's a doorbell camera like so many people have, but it's the doorbell right before he killed our friends.
And so that was that image. And then later they saw him out with a cowboy hat, you know, out and about. And so he is somewhere. They are looking for him everywhere.
He is smart. He was able to, you know, imposter a police officer, soup up a car. So it seemed like a police car. And so people that I know, law enforcement has been very clear about this, that people should not approach him, that they should immediately call the tip lines and report because we believe he's somewhere in the vicinity and that they are going to find him.
But right now, everyone on edge here because we know that this man will kill at a second. We also know that he is clearly off balance, that from the manifesto on some of his writings, some of the things that he has said recently, that he is someone that no one should mess with except for law enforcement. Senator, I want to move on to the motivation very quickly. You say you believe he's still in the vicinity.
So authorities believe he's still in Minnesota, correct? He may be. They've also put a alert out in South Dakota. You know, when I mean vicinity, I mean in the Midwest.
OK, look, all of the victims you talk about this manifesto, Democratic lawmakers, their spouses, in terms of this manifesto, authorities say other potential targets included names of prominent pro-choice individuals, Planned Parenthood, location clinics. What are you learning about the motive for his attack? Clearly, this is politically motivated. Our delegation in Minnesota, from the most conservative Republican to the most liberal Democrat, we all joined together.
Senator Emmer and I and others and said we condemn this political violence. It was politically motivated and there clearly was some through line with abortion because of the groups that were on the list and other things that I've heard were in this manifesto. So that was one of his motivations. But again, they're also checking out.
Did he have interaction somehow with these two legislators? Is there more to this? And I think for us right now, it's allowing law enforcement to do their jobs instead of speculating on every angle of where he might have gone. They obviously have information we don't have.
And so what we've been trying to do as political leaders is make really clear we will have plenty of time to analyze what happened here. But right now it is trying to report any sighting of this person and to be very careful and I do want to turn now overseas to the Middle East. In fact, it's an active situation right now. It's our understanding that Iran is sending missiles striking Tel Aviv as we're having this conversation.
You've warned President Trump not to get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran, saying, quote, a war with Iran would make Iraq look like a skirmish. But how do we look at what Senator Lindsey Graham argues should happen if Iran does not come to the negotiation table? He says, quote, if Iran refuses this offer of the United States, I strongly believe it is in America's national security interest to go all in to help Israel finish the job. How do you respond to Senator Graham's call to go all in and help Israel finish the job, Senator?
Well, his initial response was game on, and I don't consider war to be a game. The hundreds of thousands of people that potentially will now die on both sides. You know, for a couple thousand years, we've had this discussion over what is just war. Not only our civilization, but other civilizations have had this discussion.
And one of the things that many people came to the conclusion was that preemptive or preventative war wasn't just. And so there is that. But there is also the idea that what happens to Iran, you imagine what happens in Iran now. Do they coalesce around their government, even though their government is unpopular?
Does nationalism thrive? And you would think that they would probably be less likely to want to negotiate at this time, particularly when they may feel that negotiations were a ruse to put them at ease until the bombing happened. So I think it's going to be very hard to come out of this and have a negotiated settlement. I see more war and more carnage.
And it's not the U.S.'s job to be involved in this war. Iraq was a mess. Afghanistan was a mess. One of the things I like about President Trump is he has shown restraint.
And so I think his instincts are to not be involved in this war. But there will be a lot of pressure from Lindsey Graham and others to get involved in this war. And I hope that his instincts will prevail. All right, let's turn now to what we all witnessed here in Washington, D.C., the nation's capital on Saturday, a military parade celebrating the 250th birthday of the Army here in Washington yesterday.
You expressed some doubts ahead of the parade. President Trump says the parade was to showcase the Army's military might even to inspire a new generation to sign up for military service. Senator, what do you say about that argument? Could the parade have that benefit of encouraging people to sign up and enlist?
You know, I'm all for the president appearing and doing enlistment ceremonies at military bases. I've been with the president at Dover to receive home our dead soldiers and so those who have been killed in action and to mourn their loss. But I just never liked the idea of the parade, because I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and the only parades I can remember are Soviet parades for the most part or North Korean parades. And the parades I remember from our history were different.
You know, everybody remembers that famous scene of the soldier, you know, dipping the girl and kissing the girl in New York in a ticker tape parade. But we were rejoicing the end of war and we were rejoicing our soldiers coming home. And that absolutely ought to be commemorated and discussed every year. Memorial Day, Veterans Day.
But I just we never glorified weapons so much. And I know he means well. I don't think he means for any of this to be depicted in another fashion, but I'm just not a big fan. Then there is the cost.
I mean, we're two trillion dollars in the hole and just an additional cost like this. I just I'm not for it. I do want to get to the debt deficit momentarily. But first, let's talk about those ICE raids that have really dominated the week.
We've seen them. Anti-ICE raids really across the country. You're the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, which means you have oversight over DHS. I want to play some sound for you from Governor Gavin Newsom.
Take a listen to what he had to say about those ICE raids. I was in Oxnard, California yesterday and met with a 12 year old boy, tears pouring down his face. His mom and dad snatched by agents. They were working the fields for over 20 years.
He doesn't know where they are. He has no family in the United States. He's here alone as a sixth grader. Senator, do you think the Trump deportation policy has gone too far?
You know, I live in a community, Bowling Green, Kentucky, where we have lots of first generation immigrants. Many of my friends, many physicians, fellow physicians, you know, they're new Americans. And I often say some of the best Americans just got here. That being said, that's lawful immigration.
I don't think we can allow millions of people to come across the border. It just is transformative, but not in a good way. So I think we should, if anything, maybe expand lawful immigration. We can't have illegal immigration.
We can't have open borders. Now, how we tackle this is a difficult situation because we have California governors like Newsom and the mayor of Los Angeles who are resisting federal law. And if you go all the way back to the Civil War, one of the conclusions of the Civil War and particularly the civil rights era is that there are times when the federal government will step in if local officials are resisting the law. So when people are arrested for doing bad things, they're arrested for assault.
If you don't check their status and you don't deport them after that, you're disobeying federal law. And I think the one thing that brings us together, conservative, Republican, Democrat, independent is I think most people want the people committing crime to be deported. And if it sticks to that, I think we'll be fine. When it extends to children and workers, even the president's backed off a little bit on this.
He says now we're not going to deport agriculture, hotel workers and others. And, you know, somebody on the Internet says, well, all you have to do is you need to change your job and be an agricultural worker. Do you support those carve outs? Do you support those carve outs, carve outs for farm agricultural workers, hotel workers?
I'm a big advocate of the farm worker program and worker programs in general. I think you talk about a carve out for people who are not in the program. He's talking about people who are illegally doing that work. I think that we should do something.
I've been an advocate for a policy such that we can accept more workers. And I've always thought the tradeoff would be you don't get citizenship. Everybody's always said, oh, we've got to have a pathway to citizenship. What if you don't get citizenship, but you get to work and you don't have to worry and fear of deportation?
I think actually many people who are here now who are working would exactly would probably accept the tradeoff. You have been one of the most outspoken Republican critics of President Trump's tax and spend bill, what he has called the big beautiful bill. You have said it raises the debt ceiling by far too much. Trump called you, quote, the toughest vote in the history of the U.S.
Senate. Senator, let me ask you, as of today, are you a yes on this bill or no? Well, I take that as a compliment. And I talked to the president last evening after the parade.
And we're trying to get to a better place in our conversations. And I've let him know that I'm not an absolute no. I can be a yes. I like the tax cuts.
I actually agree with Art Laffer and the supply siders that a lot of times we cut rates. We actually get more revenue. So I don't have as much trouble with the tax cuts. I think there should be more spending cuts.
But if they want my vote, they'll have to negotiate because I don't want to vote to raise the debt ceiling $5 trillion. You know, Congress is awful with money. And so you should give them a more restricted credit line, not an expansive one. Yes, the debt ceiling has to go up.
But what I've said is it ought to go up three months at a time. And then we should have a renewed debate about the debt. We shouldn't put up $5 trillion and wait two years, go through another election cycle and be almost towards the end of the Trump administration and say, oh, whoops, we have added a bunch of debt. We should have done better.
I think we should keep talking about it. Senator, very quickly, I have two more questions in one minute left. What's it going to take to get you to a yes specifically, very quickly. Separate out the debt ceiling and have a separate vote on it.
And I won't be the deciding vote on this. This is what I tell my supporters. I will be if I am the deciding vote, they'll negotiate. If I'm not, they won't.
So far, they've been sending their attack dogs after me. And that's not a great persuasion technique. But I will negotiate if they come to me, but they have to be willing to negotiate on the debt ceiling because I'm conservative and I'm not going to no longer be conservative just because the president wants me to vote for something. All right, Senator, very quickly, let me get your reaction to Senator Alex Padilla, who interrupted a press conference that was being held by DHS Secretary Christian Nohm.
He was handcuffed, wrestled to the ground. The House Speaker says he should be censured. Do you agree? Should he be censured for that?
You know, I don't I don't like the images of him on the ground and being handcuffed, but I also didn't like the images of moms at Lawless use of the military. In California, we cherish our National Guard. They're the first there to help out during earthquakes and floods and fires. We have a very special bond of trust with the National Guard.
And so to see it misused this way to to potentially erode that trust, we also venerate the Marines. But to call in the Marines for no other reason, I think, than to add fuel to the fire is a terrible abuse of the military. So, Senator, let me ask you about that. President Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard, the Marines, despite the fact that California Governor Gavin Newsom said he did not need that, did not want that.
President Trump said the city would have, quote, burned to the ground without his aid. Do you think local officials have that situation under control? Yes, I do. And, you know, let's call the president's statement what it is.
And that's just a flat out lie. The idea that Los Angeles would have burned to the ground. It's absurd. These demonstrations were taking place in a multi-block area in a city that is 500 square miles.
Our police and our sheriff's office and our highway patrol are more than capable of dealing with this. And if they won't and they weren't, then the mayor and the governor would request the help of our guard. That was not done. It was not necessary.
And I think this is just Donald Trump doing what he wanted to do in the first administration, which was essentially use the military for domestic law enforcement to make himself look tough in the first administration. There were at least a few people in the cabinet of some independence who could say, no, Mr. President, that's a lawless idea. That's a stupid idea.
But there's no one in this current administration to tell the president that's a stupid idea. It will make matters worse. And there are nothing but sycophants, the Stephen Millers and the Kristi Noem's and all the rest of them. And so we are seeing this this terrible escalation, this increasing lawlessness.
The district court was right to to find it lawless. Now that Marines are engaged in an arrest, at least one arrest and detention, then that will be challenged, too. And I think that, too, will be found to be lawless. All right.
And of course, we'll track those court developments very closely. I do want to turn to the Middle East and what Israel calls its preemptive strike on Iran. It's an active situation, Senator, as we're having this conversation. Of course, Israel's actions met by Iran's retaliation, which has dramatically raised fears about the possibility of a wider war.
Would you support the U.S. military assisting in taking additional actions against Iran's nuclear sites? Well, first of all, I think Israel has a right to defend itself and I support what Israel is doing to defend itself. Israel clearly made the calculus that at a moment when Iran has been weakened by the incapacity of its militia of Hezbollah and its other attackers, the state sponsored terrorism mitigation once it's been weakened.
I think they found this the opportune moment to go after a nuclear program that was coming closer and closer to fruition. So I support those actions and I support the administration's actions in helping Israel defend itself. In terms of whether the administration should go further and engage in direct hostilities against Iran, that's not something I support. Now, I have to caveat that by saying I have not been able to get recently an intelligence briefing on whether Iran is trying to break out to get a bomb.
But I think the United States should be very loath to engage in another war after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And there should be a very high hurdle to get over before essentially going to direct war with Iran. So support defensive support for Israel. Yes.
In the absence, in my view, of seeing more compelling evidence that this is in the imminent national security needs of the United States, I wouldn't go beyond defensive support. But I want to make sure we're doing everything we can to help Israel protect itself against these incoming missiles, projectiles, drones and other attacks. And Senator Schiff, as you know, President Trump issued that stern warning to Iran not to hit U.S. targets.
Let me ask you, would your calculation change if Iran were to hit U.S. targets in the region? Would you then condone the United States getting involved? Yes, if Iran attacks the United States when the administration has made it very clear that we have not been part of the offensive operations against Iran, if they should respond by attacking us, then we should respond by defending ourselves.
And then I think Iran opens itself up to potential attacks on Fordow or elsewhere. So I second the president's statement that Iran must not attack the United States, our forces, our people, our interests. All right. Senator Adam Schiff covered a lot of ground today.
Thank you so much. And happy Father's Day to you. Hope you have a great day. Thank you very much.
And when we come back, Steve Kornacki has the very latest results of a brand new poll from our decision desk. And welcome back to NBC News. Decision desk is out with a new poll this morning. And here to take us through it, who else?
The great Steve Kornacki, NBC News chief data analyst. Thanks for being here, Steve. A lot to unpack in this poll. Yeah, Kristen.
So some interesting numbers here. I think we'll start with this one. The bottom line, we always ask here in this decision desk poll, do you approve or disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president? It's 45, 55.
And we did take this same poll a couple months ago and it was 45 approved, 55 disapproved back then. So no change. And by the way, this is a poll. It's a little different.
It's an online poll. This is all adults, not just registered voters. But in this poll, consistent over the last couple of months. How about some more specific issues here?
You can see this has been the story of this version of the Trump presidency. His lowest marks continue to be on inflation, cost of living, trade and tariffs. Obviously, high profile. His battles with those elite colleges, 43, 56.
This is interesting on immigration in the border. Slight majority approval for Donald Trump's actions, though we want to say not all of this poll was taken as these protests were playing out in Los Angeles. So still a bit of a question going forward how that shakes out. But again, we've seen stronger numbers for Trump on that area than every other area of his presidency so far.
You could also take a look here. Elon Musk leaving the administration. Final verdict there. 44 percent call it a success.
Fifty six percent say it was a failure or a partial failure. Then there's the standing of the two parties here. They look about the same. You know, 44 favorable for Republicans, 43 for Democrats.
What's interesting here, Kristen, is in Trump's first term, when we were taking polls of the two parties, the Democrats were consistently more popular than the Republicans. It was the advantage that Democrats had heading into those first Trump midterms. You can see their standing was better than Republicans here. We continue to see about equal standing in this poll for the two parties.
And then I want to show you this. This is a bit of a sort of a bait shot one, but I think it may be interesting. We asked folks, what emotion do you feel here most when you think about Trump's actions as president and feel furious, angry, dissatisfied? These are the negative emotions that adds up to 52 percent here.
Satisfied, happy, thrilled. 12, 8, 10. That adds up to 30 percent. So there's more negative emotion than positive emotion.
Now, you could say it's easier to generate negative emotions than positive emotions. But I do want to flag this. There's much more negative energy on the Democratic side than there is positive on the Republican side. And the key here is looking forward.
The elections later this year, the midterms. Is there an imbalance between the parties there? We've seen it in special elections. This is something I think to keep an eye on, too.
A lot of fascinating findings there. All right, Steve Kornacki, great to see you as always. And when we come back from an escalating war in the Middle East to rising unrest on the streets across the country, President Trump's challenges are intensified. Welcome back, the panel is here.
NBC News chief Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles, Amy Walter, editor in chief of The Cook Political Report, Kimberly Atkins Store, senior opinion writer for The Boston Globe and Stephen Hayes, editor of The Dispatch. Thanks to all of you for being here. Happy Father's Day. Ryan and Steve, appreciate it.
Let me start with you. What are you hearing on Capitol Hill, Ryan, in the wake of this horrific attack in Minnesota? I know, obviously, you heard Senator Klobuchar talk about the fact that it has really shaken a lot of people, our lawmakers shaken to the core. There's no doubt that lawmakers are shaken as a result of what happened here.
But they were already worried about the level of violence and the fact that so many of them are targeted because of their roles as public servants. And there's a bunch of issues here. There's a financial issue. There's a logistical issue with keeping four hundred and thirty five members of the House of Representatives safe on a day to day basis.
It's just physically impossible to provide them the level of security that would make sure they're safe all the time. And our Capitol Hill team reported out a call that took place with Speaker Johnson and members of the Republican conference where they were just not given the assurances that they were looking for that they would be able to be protected despite what happened here over the weekend. And this is an issue that is not going Lot of immigration debates that end up getting caught up in the rhetoric that's connected to it. So we'll have to wait and see.
You have as well, but what's notable about this moment is we are seeing these anti-ICE protests take place across the country, even though the president, you know, to some extent, this is still a strong issue for him. There's a disconnect there. There is. If you look at the president's overall rating on immigration, it's still above water.
And part of the reason, if you look under it and some of the polling, is that people think that those getting prioritized for deportation are the bad guys, the criminals. If you look individually at the polling about what people support and who they support deporting, if it's people who've lived in this country for years, don't have a criminal record, most Americans, including like 30, 40 percent of Trump voters, say, no, we shouldn't be deporting them. So once you get into the individual cases, it becomes a much tougher sell, which is why you do have the president saying, let's have these carve outs. If the focus is on them, then his poll numbers are not going to stay as high.
Steve and Kimberly, with the minute we have left, see if you want to highlight this interesting piece from your publication, The Dispatch, saying the Trump administration's approached immigration is, quote, bordering on overkill and could potentially lose him some support. Yeah, we were actually picking up on a point that Amy had made earlier this week. Very smart point that she just made. But I think there's there's reason for the president to be concerned about this.
Reuters reported this morning about new numbers on published numbers from ICE suggesting that about a third of the 177,000 people arrested between October and May had criminal conviction and the rest did not. That's a that's a soft spot for him. Kimberly, Democrats seem to be finding their voice. 15 seconds.
Yeah. I mean, what you have to dig in and say, look, this isn't what it's supposed to be. We have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed. The solution is not strong arming and pulling people from their homes.
The solution is get together, put your put your grown up pants on and find a solution. And that's what has been lacking. All right. Great conversation, guys.
Thank you so much. That is all for today. Thank you for watching. Happy Father's Day to all those dads out there.
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