Meet the Press NOW — April 14

Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor, and host of The Drink. This month, Demi Lovato is my guest. The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now. But getting there, it wasn't simple.

Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood Young, and why she now thinks she may have started too soon. She talks about recovery, her new marriage, and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook. The drink is always about the journey to the top, and this was an honest conversation about what that takes. Hope you'll listen and follow the drink wherever you get your podcast.

He was a young Marine. She didn't care about convention. They made a life together. Then one night, the Marine died.

And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected, and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all-new podcast from Dateline. Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicion now, wherever you get your podcasts. If it's Monday, more twists and turns in the Tariff turmoil, as President Trump says new tariffs and new extensions could be coming soon after days of mixed messaging on tech-related tariffs creating uncertainty for Wall Street and consumers.

Plus, targeted attack, a suspect is in custody after breaking into the Pennsylvania Governor's mansion and setting it on fire while the Governor and his family slept. The suspect saying he would have beaten the Governor with a hammer if he found him. And President Trump meets with El Salvador's President as both leaders defend the administration's sweeping immigration crackdown and reject calls to return a mistakenly deported Maryland man from El Salvador to the U.S. Welcome to Meet the Press Now.

I'm Gabe Gutierrez in Washington, where there are new questions and confusion over President Trump's tariffs. After several days of conflicting messaging on the scope of those tariffs and an abrupt change of course on taxing electronics. Also today, President Trump now telling reporters he is considering both additional tariffs and additional exemptions to the sweeping measures now in place. I'm looking at something to help some of the car companies, whether they're switching to parts that were made in Canada, Mexico and other places.

And they need a little bit of time because they're going to make them here. But they need a little bit of time. So I'm talking about things like that. Look, I'm a very flexible person.

I don't change my mind, but I'm flexible. And you have to be, you just can't have a wall and you'll only go, you know, sometimes you have to go around it, under it or above it. I don't want to hurt anybody. But the end result is we're going to get to the position of greatness for our country.

Today's comment for Customs and Border Protection announced on Friday tariff exemptions for items like smartphones, computers, and semiconductors from most of the tariffs on China. The bulletin was titled, quote, clarification of exceptions, but President Trump posted on social media yesterday that there was no tariff exception, saying that his administration was moving those items to a different tariff bucket. Echoing comments from key members of his administration. So the policy is no exemptions, no exclusions, the policy is an effect.

There were not exclusions. They're exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they're included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two. So these are coming soon. So this is not like a permanent sort of exemption.

It's not really an exception. That's not even the right word for it. What happened is this type of supply chain moved from the tariff regime for the global tariff, the reciprocal tariff, and it moved to the national security tariff regime, where we have studies ongoing for pharmaceuticals, for semiconductors, metals, et cetera. After some wild swings on Wall Street last week, today's stocks closed up about 1% on the day with Apple stocks up after this weekend's tariff exemptions and auto stocks also rising after the president's comments about helping car companies.

NBC News Senior White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell joins me now along with NBC News Business and data correspondent Brian Chong. And here with me on set is Peter Nicholas, senior White House reporter for NBC News Digital. Kelly, I want to start with you. President Trump told reporters today, additional tariffs and possibly more exemptions could be on the horizon.

Any word on what either of those might be? Well, in terms of coming tariffs, one of the things the president talked about today is the pharmaceutical industry and saying that there aren't sufficient medications made inside the United States. And he wants to encourage that. So he said that is coming.

And that, of course, is one of the areas where many Americans are reliant on those imported drugs from overseas that are sometimes in finished form and other times is the elements, the ingredients of drugs that are then manufactured separately. So that's one potential piece. And you heard the president in one of the clips that you played, Gabe, talking about automakers who, for many years, there was a restructuring of how North American auto business is put together across three countries, Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, where there would be sharing of kind of streams of products, the parts and so forth, the components that then could be manufactured in different places.

That was part of the president's plan and the first administration. But now he says they need a little more time in order to be able to make all the parts inside the United States. And that's something that kind of product line, entirely foreseeable, and yet the president is sort of saying that this is something he's just learning about and they need to have a little more time. I think it's a question how much time is needed to change that process of acquiring and making parts inside the United States.

But all of this is really the doing of the administration in the sense that they are talking about no exceptions and yet they are themselves releasing information about exceptions and then explaining how it's different legal authorities, all of which could have been done in sort of the back of the house before it came out to the public. But that's what we're winding our way through day by day. You know, Kelly, a lot of people are wondering what's next here and you know, the White House has been saying that it's in the process of negotiating individual trade deals with dozens of other countries potentially any update on the progress of those talks and is China one of the countries involved yet. I checked on this just a short time ago and the sort of operational info I have at the moment is that it is still in the neighborhood of about 20 countries that have provided written proposals.

Other countries as many as 75 or more according to various White House officials have reached out saying they want to negotiate with the United States. But that smaller group has a thought out proposal with specific things that they would be willing to consider to engage with the trade negotiators on behalf of President Trump. So that is a time consuming process. Notably, China is not in line to do that.

They are taking a different position. Their president is meeting with other manufacturing big countries in Asia and maybe looking for some other ways to build partnerships. But so far, the administration says they've put out the invitation to China to reach out and so far we've not had any indication that Chinese decision makers, whether it's at the leader level or somewhere below that, have actually said they want to negotiate. Kelly O'Donnell, live for us at the White House.

Kelly, you're now going to be watching this closely over the next couple of days. Thank you very much. I want to turn out a blind chunk of right markets and businesses like stability, right? And predictability, of course.

What effect has this confusion had? Yeah. Well, I mean, there really isn't any more clarity than there was prior to the weekend because the electronics industry and the likes of Apple went through a roller coaster of a weekend. As you mentioned with Friday, the CBP releasing that list that no one really expected that all of a sudden exempted smartphones, electronics from the tariffs that were specifically brutal on China, right?

That 145% collective rate when you include the 20% so-called fentanyl tariffs on top of the 125% so-called reciprocal tariffs. But then there was all that commentary that we just played of the members of the president's cabinet saying, whoa, these exemptions are just temporary. We're going to put it into a different bucket that tariffs will be coming on those products later on in the future. Now, for what it's worth, the company, Apple, as far as the shares go, appeared to shake it off after the eight-tenths of a percent increase on Wall Street.

Apple shares actually did even better than that up about 2% as of the close today. But one Apple analyst over the weekend described the situation as the Twilight Zone for the company because, again, it's just so confusing what is going on. It's seemingly by the hour that these policies are changing on what it gave. You know, and Brian, the Trump administration has pointed to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act in regards to tariffs on semiconductors.

Explain to our viewers what exactly Section 232 is. Yeah, and this is really important because these are the buckets that the president was talking about on-truth. Social monkey elaborated and said that, whoa, these exemptions are not necessarily going to be in place for that long. They will be a tariff under a different policy.

That policy is the Section 232, as you mentioned, which is basically a way for the president to order the commerce department, which is currently headed by Howard Lutnik to do a review to see whether or not there are national security concerns presented by certain imports of specific items. This is the exact way that the government was able to tariff things like steel and aluminum. That is under Section 232. So the next step, it sounds like based off we heard from the administration, semiconductors, which could be looping in all these other types of tech products like laptops and smartphones as well.

But the buck does not stop there. Kelly was just talking about pharmaceuticals. He folded under Section 232 as well as copper, which the president and the administration have been reviewing as well. Brian Sean, thank you so much.

And now I want to turn to my White House colleague Peter Nicholas. Peter, you just wrote about chaos confusion and reversals in the Second Trump administration. So is this chaos a bug or a feature of the administration? I would have to say that it's a feature because this is a presidency in a hurry.

He wants to get a lot done quickly. He wants to remake the global economic order. He wants to shrink the size of government. And he understands that he has about a year and a half to do that while he has majorities in both the House and Senate, Republican majorities.

So the midterm elections could change a lot. His agenda could be throttled if his party loses control of Congress. So he is moving quickly on a variety of fronts. If there's resistance, he's just going to try to overcome it and plow through it.

So I know publicly we've been hearing from the administration when it comes to tariffs. This is all part of the plan. All these changes. They were seeing this from the beginning.

But really, is there any concern inside the West Wing on whether they may have mixed up the messaging for all this? Well, bear in mind, this is a team that is beholden to him. And I feel that these are people who he's put in positions to facilitate his agenda. In the first term, just generally, we had some people who had their own kind of independent agendas.

They had their own sort of stature personalities were willing to push back, perhaps. I think that this time he expects that his team needs to implement his agenda really. And if there's some reversals, if there's some policy about faces, they're there to support him. They're not necessarily questioning him or create more problems for him.

Yeah, certainly a lot more loyalists in this administration. Now, Peter, here's a Peter Navarro told Kristin yesterday about this tariff whiplash list. So this is unfolding exactly like we thought it would in a dominant scenario. What's going on here is you start with the observation, I don't think you would disagree with me at all.

The world cheats us. They've been cheating us for decades. But a strategy here where the president says, we're going to charge them what they charge us. And the analytical issue is it's easy to calculate the tariff at your initial, but the non-tariff barriers are so much higher.

So that's what we said. Knowing full well, knowing full well that a lot of countries would come right to us and want to bargain. Peter, break this down first. What is the White House's tariff strategy here?

You just heard Peter Navarro a couple of days ago, he was saying there were going to be no exemptions. And now we heard President Trump that they knew of office saying that he needs to be flexible. So what gives? I think the tariff strategy is essentially to threaten countries with high tariffs and then bring them into the White House to negotiate deals.

In our story today, I described it as a Red Rover kind of game. Red Rover, Red Rover, France come over. Great Britain come over. I think that's kind of what we're seeing.

And the idea is that they will feel compelled to and impaled to because they want to sidestep some of these tariffs to a good relationship with the Trump administration. So the question, Gabe, is whether you can negotiate dozens of trade deals in the short period of time. In the first term, he negotiated trade deals with Canada and Mexico that took years. So how is this going to happen in a 90-day period in which he suspended these tariffs?

It's hard to fathom. That's right. 90 days, not very long period of time. And then, as Kelly mentioned, where's China on all this?

We'll be watching. Thank you so much. And turning out to a disturbing story, that's raising questions about the security surrounding Pennsylvania's governor. A suspect is now in custody charged with attempted homicide, aggravated arson, and more after allegedly breaking into the governor's mansion and using Molotov cocktails to start a fire while the governor and his family were sleeping, hours after he hosted a Passover Seder.

Everyone was safely evacuated, but as you can see in these pictures, the damage was substantial. At a press conference yesterday, Governor Shapiro condemned political violence and said he would not be deterred by the attack. This type of violence is not okay. This kind of violence is becoming far too common in our society.

And I don't give a damn if it's coming from one particular side or the other. Directed at one particular party or another or one particular person or another, it is not okay. And it has to stop. We have to be better than this.

And President Trump made his first comments about the attack earlier today in the Oval Office. The attacker was not a fan of Trump, I understand, just from what I read and from what I've been told. The attacker basically wasn't a fan of anybody, he's probably just a wack job. And certainly a thing like that cannot be allowed to happen.

NBC News has not corroborated President Trump's comments about the suspect's motive. The suspect turned himself in yesterday and admitted to harboring hatred toward the governor and planning to attack Shapiro with a hammer. And the news colleague, Shakyl Brewster, is on the ground in Harrisburg with the very latest in Shaq. We've seen some court filings.

What do we know about this attack? This individual was planning on attacking Governor Shapiro, as I said, with a hammer? Yeah, that was just one of the many disturbing details in those court documents that we saw earlier this morning. Essentially, the investigators are saying that they were told after conversations with this suspect that he had a hatred for Governor Shapiro, that he in the overnight hours between Saturday morning, Saturday night, excuse me, and Sunday morning walked about an hour from his home to the governor's mansion to act on this attack.

And he broke through this fence line, hopped over the fence, went into the residence by breaking through windows, throwing in Molotov cocktails. I talked to the fire chief earlier today, and he told me that the flames coming out of one of the windows were going up 15, 20 feet in the air. So this was a serious threat. I want you to listen to a little bit more of what the fire chief told me about the impact of this fire and what his team saw when they arrived just minutes after it started.

Here's this grand building that I've been to many times in, you know, for great events. And now the windows are broken out. There's smoke coming from it. There's fire coming from the one window.

It is a surreal scene. Could the building have been lost? I would go as far as saying is we would have had a significant fire and you would see significant damage throughout the entire building. Had that alarm been delayed, much more than a couple of minutes.

Gabe in another interview with one of our affiliates here, he said that essentially if a main door from the ballroom to the grand staircase was not closed, we'd be looking at a very different scene. He used the word lucky. He said the governor's family was lucky that door was closed. So, Shaq, a question I have and probably a question a lot of people have.

How in the world did this suspect gain access to the house and has there been any changes in the governor's security detail? It was a really good question. It was one that several reporters tried asking yesterday during that main press conference specifically about the security detail and changes to the posture of security around the governor, his team and state troopers did not address or really get into how they're changing it. They did say a review is underway, Gabe.

But, you know, one thing that we did learn in that press conference is the detail that almost got lost is that when this suspect popped over the fence, there was notification. The troopers who were there to protect the governor, they were notified that there was someone on that property. But the authorities say that this suspect essentially works meticulously around the grounds to get to that window that he broke and then threw in that Molotov cocktail and he started the fire. They say as troopers were looking for him.

So, there are a lot of questions here. When we asked how long the suspect was on the grounds, we didn't get a specific answer, but we were told it was just a few minutes. So, they say it was something that happened very quickly, but still a lot of questions, Gabe. Shaq, first of all, for us in Pennsylvania.

Shaq, thank you. And coming up as a team up on immigration crackdown, both President Trump and the President of El Salvador saying they don't have the power to return a mistakenly deported Maryland father from an notorious prison in El Salvador back to the U.S. They're watching me to press now. Stay with us.

Welcome back. President Trump hosted the president of El Salvador at the White House today amid an ongoing legal fight over a Maryland man. The administration in that was mistakenly deported and sent to an notorious prison in El Salvador. They last week, the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Braggle Garcia to the United States, but the Department of Justice insists the federal courts lack the authority to make that demand.

Sitting in the Oval Office today, President Bukayle, who has emerged as a key ally in President Trump's deportation effort, said he will not release a Braggle Garcia from El Salvador's megapris. Yeah, the question is for bastards, how can I model a terrorist in the United States? I don't have the power to return him to the United States. And during that meeting, President Trump also took his mass deportation agenda once that further, suggesting he's looking at deporting American citizens who commit violent crimes.

We also have home-grown criminals that push people into subways that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with the baseball bat when they're not looking at absolute monsters. I'd like to include them and the group of people to get them out of the country. Join me now is Yamiche Alcindor outside the White House. And with me here on set is M.E.C.

News, senior Supreme Court reporter Lawrence Hurley. Thank you both so much for joining me. Yamiche, I just mentioned that President Trump met with President Bukayle just a short time ago in the Oval. What's that got to you?

Well, what's that got to me is that these are two presidents who really have a warm relationship and are on the same page when it comes to saying that they are not going to be returning Mr. Abreo Garcia to the United States. It's also interesting because this is all happening, as Christine Om has said, that the President of El Salvador told her that he is absolutely going to continue to take America as the people that we want to deport and that they're never going to be released from that president. He said, quote, they will never, they will never leave.

They will face consequences where they've done. They will always be there. So that's where his words talking about this. And the President was very clear that he believes that Abreo Garcia is not essentially subject to the Supreme Court saying that the Trump administration must facilitate his return to the President of El Salvador.

Also made clear that because Abreo Garcia was born in El Salvador and is a citizen of El Salvador, he feels as though returning him would be, quote, like, smuggling a terrorist. That was the President's words. So it's very clear that they do not want to take any sort of steps to return to Abreo Garcia. And that his family is going to sort of have to really figure out what the next steps are here.

And I mean, the administration is now trying to argue that he was not mistakenly deported. Stephen Miller talked about that a little earlier today. We've seen Pam Bond essentially make the same argument and putting on leave, the Justice Department prosecutor. What do you make of that changing explanation for all this?

I know now they're saying that this prosecutor, you know, we shouldn't have done this. We shouldn't have said that in the court filing. Well, it's really interesting because even if the politicians and sort of Trump administration aides are saying that what really matters in this case is what they've said in court. The Trump administration in court has said that Abreo Garcia was mistakenly deported and that he should not have been removed from the United States.

That might be something that they disagree with now that they made them angry that he admitted that. But that's how this all happened. And by the way, this argument was made before the Supreme Court and all Lawrence is there. He's going to break that down for us.

But they were making this argument before the Supreme Court. So they had a chance to say actually he was supposed to be deported. But they didn't do that, which is why the Supreme Court said that they had to actually facilitate his return. And you shall send her outside the White House for us.

I mean, thank you. Lawrence, I want to turn to you. You know, we played some of that where President Trump was talking about so-called home-grown terrorists. Do you think the president is actually considering, realistically considering, deporting American citizens here?

Well, last couple of hours talking to legal experts on that very issue. And you know, it's pretty clear that you can't do this under existing law. You know, the whole immigration laws, when they talk about deporting people, they're not talking about US citizens, right? They're talking about immigrants who don't have legal status in the US.

And you'd have to completely rewrite all the laws and also raise a whole bunch of constitutional questions for that to ever happen. Lawrence, I want to play some of what Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff at White House, said earlier today in the Oval Office. Let's just... The Supreme Court said the district court order was unlawful and its main components were reversed 90 unanimously, stating clearly that neither Secretary of State nor the president could be compelled by anybody to forcibly retrieve a citizen of El Salvador from El Salvador, who again is a member of MS-13.

And we should know that the administration is not provided any real evidence that a very diverse member of MS-13, his family denies that there was an immigration judge that said he may have been affiliated with it several years ago, but that was based on one allegation. Point is, what do you make of the administration on how they are interpreting the Supreme Court ruling? They just said 90 in their favor. Yeah, so I mean, it's a bit more nuance than that.

The decision we think is unanimous. The court didn't actually say what the vote was. The court said very clearly that they accepted the idea that he was wrongly deported to El Salvador, which everyone sort of acknowledged until today. The court also said that the judge was correct to say that the US government should try to make efforts to bring him back to facilitate his return.

The point that Stephen Miller is focusing on is the other part of the ruling, which says that the courts can't impose upon the president's powers to conduct foreign policy, which is a core presidential power, and that's where he's focusing on is saying they're throwing up their hands and saying they can't do anything, but they're basically trying to drive a truck through the gap that the Supreme Court left. So what does happen now? The administration in President Trump today, he keeps saying that he respects the Supreme Court. They're not saying they're going to defy the Supreme Court, but they keep making these interpretations that appear, at least some legal experts, the ones that I talked to, they appear to have said this.

Where does this go from here? Well, the question, well, it's going to continue in the district court, and the judge who has been pretty strong on this against the government can obviously, if she thinks they're defying court orders, she can try to do something about that. Of course, the case could end up back at the Supreme Court at some point, and then the justice could if they want to push back against what the government's doing. But so far, with all the cases that have come up to the Supreme Court so far involved in the Trump administration, they seem very reluctant to confront him head on.

Lawrence Early, Mr. Supreme Court reporter, thank you so much. Lawrence, really. We do appreciate your time.

Joining me now is Will Freeman, fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council for Relations. Thank you so much. And what do you make of this friendly relationship between President Trump and President Bokele? They've known each other now for several years.

It's become increasingly friendly during the Second Trump administration. Right. I mean, I think they both perceive that they need each other right now. I think President Trump's building needs President Bokele to carry out these expulsions, renditions, whatever you want to call them.

I don't think the partition is the right word because typically you don't deport people without criminal charges straight into a foreign mega jail. And I think President Bokele needs Trump for a reason that's not all too public. You know, there are several Salvadoran gang leaders right now sitting in US federal prison being prosecuted. And we're accused of having negotiated with his government illegally, right, before it became this famous top on crime figure.

He's worried about that. I think he wants those people back in the country. His ambassador has said, or only has to send back our gang leaders. Now, his version of that, of course, is different, but between the lines, I think that's what he's after.

Now, President Trump and President Bokele have suggested that they do not have the power to send Mr. Berge Garcia back to the US. What do you think happens next? And is there anything that could compel Bokele to send it back?

Well, keep in mind, you know, President Bokele got a follow-up question. So can you release him into El Salvador? And he said, no, I can't do that. I won't do that.

And that's just Orwellian. I mean, the idea that there are people in the prison system that Bokele can't find or won't find or we're now just going to go missing. I can't believe that that's the attitude of a country that wants to consider itself a US partner. You know, typically when we look for partners in Latin America, we consider democracy rule of law.

Right now, Mr. Bokelele showing he doesn't care much about any of that, right? And with President Trump's apparent support for jailing individuals in El Salvador, is there any pressure on President Bokele to address human rights concerns associated with the jail? I know for years he's dealt with critics to argue that he has rolled back human rights in the country.

Yeah, I mean, it's not just an argument. It's not a disputed fact. He's jail-85,000 people. And while I'm arguing that plenty of those may have been gang members, and I was an important step for El Salvador, there are thousands of innocent according to many human rights groups.

We also know that a person dies every three days at least in these jails, they're systemic in a widespread report on allegations of torture. So you know, when you talk about pressure, who in South American society could possibly put pressure on a president who can spy on them, who can infect their phone with Pegasus, who will, you know, pursue them wherever they go. So I think it really falls on rights activists, people who care about democracy, rights, rule of law outside the country to put that pressure. And you know, that may be a lonely fight, but I think it needs to happen or we may see these practices expansion.

And well, how do you expect this meeting in the office is being viewed by people in El Salvador and also more broadly in the region? Well, you know, I think it probably comes with some measure of shock. I mean, it's just some of the things we're hearing are fairly unprecedented. But you know, I do think it's going to acknowledge a president who is popular when you look at opinion polls around Latin America.

You know, why is that? I think it's because of his unchecked power of working as crime. Now, that's also a very real problem. In other Latin American countries, you have democracy, but you also have very powerful crime groups.

So I think the big question for the entire region is how do you get to safety without making the really terrible sacrifices that people have had to make in South America? And before I let you go and ask you about another major issue in the region, and that's President Trump's claims that the U.S. is going to reclaim the Panama Canal and accusing China of controlling the trade passage. You were just in Panama.

What did you see? What's the reality there? I think on that point there was a bipartisan consensus going back, at least until the last year of the Biden administration, that China looked like it was developing the capacity to potentially interfere in canal operations. Keep in mind, this canal handles 40% of all U.S.

container traffic, maritime traffic every year. So look, it's a real issue, but I think that the rhetoric hasn't necessarily been productive. So you're going to take back the canal, what exactly does that mean? It means just the concessions that we've worked out so far, okay.

So be it. But by raising that idea of taking back the canal, it's really weakening the pro-U.S. President in Panama. Ironically, I think it's taking one of our best partners, one of Trump's best partners in the region and putting him in a tougher and tougher political spot.

So, you know, I think it's won't seem so far all right. But if this keeps going, if this keeps escalating, watch out for a president in Panama who may not be able to do very much to advance U.S. interests, and that won't help us at all when the competition gets done. Well, Freeman, thank you so much.

And up next, town hall tours, care of criticism, and a picture with a thousand words. We're bringing the Democrats' latest steps and missteps when confronting the Trump agenda. The panel's next. They're watching me press now.

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Here's The Scoop from NBC News, listen daily on Amazon Music. There's no wisdom in this, the chaotic way he's doing it, the challenges he's putting on American families in terms of costs, rising costs, and jobs. This has no strategy, it has no sense. The damage has been done, the damage of introducing tariffs, pulling them back, then reintroducing and then partially pulling them back.

That is uncertainty that is causing, frankly, businesses across the board and especially farmers, a lot of heartache. Welcome back. Those were a couple of top Democrats with potential presidential ambitions, making the case against President Trump's tariffs. Well, Booker and Pritzker have some nuanced differences on tariffs.

They are both rejecting the chaos and uncertainty of Trump's strategy in their view. Joining me now on set is Leanne Caldwell, Chief Washington correspondent for Puck, former New York Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley, and former Trump White House communications director Mike Duffy. Thank you very much for joining me here, Leanne. I want to start with you.

You know, while Democrats, they might disagree with the nuances of tariffs, as I mentioned, but is this the best unifying message for them? Yeah, it's funny. I've been talking to some Democrats all day today and trying to suss out, like, the subtle difference is on tariffs, if you're from the rest belt slash heartland and other Democrats have a little bit different positions on it. But what is very unifying is the chaos of the rollout of the tariffs and that is what they are leaning into.

And the fact of costs continue to go up, they're going to lean into that, despite the semantics and the details of if Democrats support tariffs in certain situations or not. And so chaos and pocketbook issues are exactly what Democrats are going to focus on, and they think right now it is working. So Mike, is it going to be difficult for Republicans to stand by Trump on this one? What should the Republican Party be saying at this morning?

So I think there's a couple of things. I think chaos is absolutely what the Democrats are saying, and they really should be because that's the, you have so many multiple voices coming out of the administration right now without a lot of voices coming from Capitol Hill, which is a detriment to what's going on. They're also talking about, to me, there's three major issues here. One is bringing jobs back to the United States.

The other is cutting down the trade deficit, and then the third one is tax cuts. The administration's not talking about tax cuts, they're not talking about the trade deficit. They have some places where they can show some level of consistency here, even with this on again, off again, Paris, but they're not doing it. And Joe, the biggest we on that point on the economy, the biggest weakness for Democrats heading into 2024 was Joe Biden's handling of the economy is this Donald Trump's economy right now.

You know, you see, yes, Paul says that his policies are responsible for the economy economy. So at this point, does he own it? I think he absolutely owns it. I think the answer is absolutely right.

This is about chaos. It goes beyond tariffs. It goes to doge. It goes to the decoupling of the United States from Europe.

Who our friends were, who our friends are now, we don't know. And I think there's all that kind of disruption that's taking place, and it's happening pretty Wall Street aside, businesses. They don't have a plan. They don't know what their taxes are going to be, but they don't also know what the tariffs are going to be.

So I think it's all about chaos. I think that's a good message for Democrats. And speaking of a message for Democrats, there are some Democrats are calling for this investigation into potential insider trading last week because President Trump posted on social media. They should all by now announce that pause or, you know, market manipulation.

That's the investigation. Is this, is that a cheap headline or is that an actual, is that a good messaging strategy? The only problem here I think with that is I don't know if the SEC is going to move on it. They also don't know if the Justice Department will move on it either.

So we can talk about it as much as you want. But I'm unlikely. I was an analyst this weekend for an event at the Naval Academy, and I was, I was amongst amongst amongst so much of people that really don't see either. I'd be politically, but they're all voluntarily cuts me in saying, I didn't make a mistake.

You know, I didn't see this comment. You know, so it's very interesting to hear that. So Mike, the head of the NRCC advise Republicans not to hold town halls. Many of them seem to be taking that advice.

Is that a good idea? I think it's a good idea when there's this organized opposition, which seems to be, and it's creating these moments that are going viral on social media. So from that perspective, take a breath. Don't hold the town halls.

We'll come back to it. So from that perspective, yeah, it's good politics not to do it. But you know, at the end of the day, in 2026, they're going to have to face their constituents. So we've got to get to a point where we do figure out the messaging around it.

And you were around for the Tea Party wave, was that, oh, nine, ten, anything? It felt more organic than what's going on right now. Okay. A lot of these seem to be set events.

You just had Sanders out in California with someone you know at the event. And it was well attended, but they don't have a message. Chaos is the only message of the Democratic Party right now. It's one that they should talk about, and it's one that they know very well.

But I mean, that's their message. So the Tea Party was about something else. That was around nine, and I participated in those town halls. They weren't comfortable.

They weren't fun. And when they were organized or not, we still did them. I think it's a mistake by Republicans to just kind of blindly sit back, you're allowing Democrats and not just AOC and Bernie Sanders going, I don't think they're the best messengers for our party. They're talking to the left, our base.

We've been talking much more than that. But yeah, people like Eric Swell are going into districts as well, and I do have a very different message. Bernie and AOC might energize that. And there's the base.

I'm walking to be able to grow beyond that. That mess of socialism is not going to work. Go beyond Democrats. I am so with you on this.

And that's why Republicans would love to hear more Bernie Sanders and AOC. Okay, Leanne. I want to turn to, well, we just saw a Cory Booker earlier in this segment. Last week, there was that, some have called it iconic, I don't know if it's reached that stage, but a memorable picture of Governor Gretchen Whitmer in the Oval Office shielding her face while she was in there with President Trump.

Are we starting to see some hopefuls starting to differentiate themselves when it comes to 2028? And also what do you think we make of what happened with Gretchen Whitmer in that Oval Office? Well, reportedly Gretchen Whitmer didn't know that she was going to be in a press situation again. So, you know, I'm sure that she was absolutely mortified that she was in there and used as a prop in that situation, knowing full well that there were going to be pictures of her there.

But yes, 2028 is a very far three and a half years away, and it is also a very close three and a half years away as well. Members of the party are trying to strategize and figure out where their next moves are, what is going to be best, what the moment is like, what the economy is going to be like, what the external circumstances are going to be, if it's going to be convenient for them to run or a good time for them to run. But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of jockeying going on and what the party means and what it stands for. I mean, Joe, Bernie Sanders jokingly called AOC his daughter at one of these rallies.

She represents your old district, of course. Could you see her launching a presidential bid for 2028? I kind of, I find it kind of hard to perceive her as his daughter in any way or so. You know, look, I think we're a long way from that.

I don't believe that she has the proper message. I mean, one of the reasons I've lost is, you know, I wouldn't come out in favor of defunding ICE. I don't think it's a very popular position amongst Democrats, certainly not Republicans. It's not extending and really reaching out the folks we need to bring in, but look, you know, I think she'd have a difficult time winning statewide in New York, a little statewide.

So, but, like I respect her, she's done some great work in terms of reaching out to the base. But we have to go beyond that to be successful. And Mike, I, before I let you all go, I want to talk about one of the stories, you know, the top of the broadcast and we talked about this potential showdown between the Trump administration and the federal court system and this debate about whether to deport back or to return from El Salvador. This Maryland man that the administration says was due to an administrative error that he was sent to El Salvador.

What do you make out of all this as a former Trump administration official? Is it going too far with this one or is it dangerous to kind of have the showdown with the federal court? I mean, my big takeaway is this is why we all hate lawyers. I mean, they're arguing about the word facilitate and this is getting to be ridiculous.

I do think in all seriousness, this is one of those, everyone's talking about this constitutional crisis. I don't think we're in a crisis. We're in a constitutional questions. These need to be solved.

But this language argument over facilitate and all of this, the Supreme Court did not give clear language that would force the White House to do what they're doing, that they're pushing the envelope, definitely. But we're going to see more of this going on. But it's, but we're getting, we're starting. Just kind of comical today.

That was like, who's on first? What's on second? You know, when you watch this little routine going on, they were able to bring back a dual citizen of Russia and America last week, who supposedly committed espionage, you know, they can orchestrate that exchange and bring her back, but they can't do it for this guy. Look, I don't know what this guy did.

I don't know what pretending to defend him, but he does deserve due process. If he was a murder gang, I thought he should have been set down. And the administration is arguing essentially because he was here illegally, he doesn't deserve due process. Whether lawyers agree with that, probably not, but I'm sure this will play out quite a bit.

In the coming days, weeks and months as the mass deportation plan ramps up, thank you all so much for joining me, Leanne, Joe, and Mike, thank you. And after the break, President Trump responds to a Russian attack on Ukraine that killed dozens of civilians. Blaming Biden and Zelensky were Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. They're watching the press now.

Stay with us. Welcome back. While the White House continues to push for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, two ballistic missiles struck the city of Sumi in Ukraine, and civilians were gathering for Palm Sunday celebrations. The Ukrainian officials say 35 people were killed and more than 100 others were injured, making it the deadliest Russian strike on Ukraine so far this year.

Yesterday, while speaking to reporters on Air Force One, President Trump said he was told Russia made a, quote, mistake, and your office today, President Trump was asked what he meant by those comments. And he once again appeared to, inaccurately, put some of the blame for the war on President Zelensky. Biden could have stopped it, and Zelensky could have stopped it, and Putin should have never started it. Have you spoken to President Zelensky, sir, about his awkward purchase war, hatred missile bags?

He's always looking to purchase missiles, you know? He's against... Listen, when you start a war, you got to know that you can win the war, right? You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size, and then hope that people give you some missiles.

And you start a war. And joining me now is NBC News Chief International correspondent, Kir Simmons. Kir, how is Ukraine viewing the Trump administration's reaction to that strike consuming? Well, President Zelensky, in his overnight address, saying that there needs to be more pressure on Russia, saying Russia is not afraid.

And it comes after that strike, you know, there was so much talk about peace and trying to get to a ceasefire. And then that strike is the deadliest that we have seen this year, that those 35 are killed and you mentioned it, Gabe, killed by two strikes, actually. There's one and then another, and in military parlance, that's described as a double tap. So you hit a place, then the first responders arrive, people are scrambling, people are in the street, you hit again, and the Ukrainians say that cluster bombs were used, and those are designed to try to get the maximum injury, the maximum fatalities.

So there is a question about whether there was a military ceremony in the region planned or happening a medal giving ceremony, a local mayor suggesting that that was the case, but saying that that would not be an excuse for an attack like this on civilians. And Kir, the special envoy, Steve Woodcock, he was in Russia, met with President Putin. What do we know about that meeting? Has any progress been made on the double matter front?

Well, not very much. He was with President Putin on Friday for four hours. That's 48 hours before that strike on Zoom. I should mention, there's been another strike just since then today on Zoom.

There are no casualties as far as we are aware. But the message, I mean, is that a message to the Trump administration? That there's an attack like this, so close to a meeting with President Trump's envoy, perhaps, or perhaps it was just a part of military tactics, not related to the politics. Either way, the challenge with Steve Whitcock is that he's now had several long meetings with President Putin, and we know very little about what's happened in those meetings and what has been said.

There hasn't been very much progress towards a ceasefire, specifically to getting the Russians on board with a potential ceasefire. President Putin has continued to talk about what's described as his maximalist goals, his aims, which he has been pushing for since before the invasion. Steve Whitcock then flew here to the Middle East for a dialogue with the Iranians. And of course, his file also includes Gaza and trying to get back the hostages there, which still hasn't happened.

So there's a lot there for one man. And I think the question of what he is doing in these meetings with President Putin is only going to get louder if there is not a ceasefire. Steve Whitcock has quite a portfolio, right, Kirsten Simmons, thank you. After that reporting, instead of coming, President Trump's threatens an attack on Iran just days after a rare face-to-face encounter between top white House officials and Iranian officials.

You're watching me to press now to stay with us. Welcome back. Turning now to a high-state negotiation with Iran over their nuclear program. In the Oval Office today, President Trump warned that the new round of talks, which began on Saturday, need to move quickly.

They can't have a nuclear weapon, and they got to go fast, because they're fairly close to having one. And they're not going to have one. And if we have to do something very harsh, we'll do it. And I'm not doing it for us.

I'm doing it for the world. And these are radicalized people. And they cannot have a nuclear weapon. Does that do it for any nuclear facility?

Of course it does. Saturday's talks were the first time American and Iranian officials have sat down since the U.S. pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal during President Trump's first term. After the meeting, Special Envoy Steve Whitcock told NBC News a conversation was constructive and said both sides will meet for a second round of talks this Saturday.

And joining me now is Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell. Andrea is so good to have you here. Thank you. Are you significant?

Are these talks? You mentioned first face-to-face ones for several years. But big picture here. How significant are they?

I think very significant. This is the first time there have been any talks since the President withdrew from the previous agreement, which was only related to nuclear development and the alleged development of possible uranium fuel for what could be a weapon. And since then Iran has finally started really moving very quickly to enrich the uranium to what is called 60%. It was in three and a half percent under that previous control.

And 60% could very easily be moved to weapon grade. Now, they have said that they do not want to build a weapon, and they still would have to miniaturize it and have a missile that could carry this kind of warhead. So there was a couple of years, but it's really weeks, some would say days in terms of what they have done in terms of breaking out. And Andrea, I was talking about this a little bit with Keir in the previous segment, but Steve Whitcock, he has this, he has Middle East, he has Russia, is he structured that?

Well, he has a lot. He doesn't get frequent flyer miles, but let's face it. He was in Moscow and clearly also talking to Iran because Arachi the foreign minister from Iran is now going to Moscow and Vladimir Putin has a lot of influence over Iran. So there's that.

And then, of course, was in Oman on the Iran talks meeting separately, passing messages through the Iranian Omani foreign minister, but then they did have a conversation face to face. It wasn't just a few minutes, as the U.S. had said. And then also debriefing Ron Dermer, Netanyahu's man.

So moving over all of this is the Netanyahu threat to take military action. He'd like to have President Trump's approval for this. We know the president doesn't want military action, he's talked about it as that other option that we don't want to go to. He's saying he wants to do this quickly.

He took years to negotiate the previous agreement and nuclear physicists earning more news and a whole team from both sides of scientists. This is very complicated stuff. Where is Marco Rubio in all this? This is typically a job that for the Secretary of State, and we did see Secretary Rubio in the office today, but shouldn't he be handling some of this?

Well, Wickkoff is handling both the Russian negotiations and Iran and the Middle East. And, yes, typically the Secretary of State would. He's been certainly focusing a lot on detentions and on the case of Abrego Garcia justifying the fact under national security that these student visas are being canceled, so he's been really focused on immigration. But there's no question that the main act is with Mr.

Wickkoff, who has the great advantage of knowing that President Trump wants to land. And very quickly, Andrew, what do you expect for this next round of talks with Iran on Saturday? We'll get down to some more basics of this, and this will be in Rome on Saturday. And the fact that they're even meeting is the whole piece of that.

Andrew Mitch, I'm from G4 and it's a pleasure to have you here, Andrew. Thank you. And thank you all for watching. I'm Dan Gutierrez, and we'll be back tomorrow with more Need the Press Now, but the news continues with Hallie Jask right now.

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