Foreign. Welker in Washington, we begin with the breaking news of a major shakeup inside the president's Cabinet. President Trump today firing Attorney General Pam Bondi, posting on social media that Bondi, quote, will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector. And the Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as acting Attorney general.
Bondi has been a search ally of Mr. Trump's, joining him at the Supreme Court just yesterday for arguments on a challenge to his effort to end birthright citizenship. But her firing comes after multiple sources tell NBC News the president had grown more and more frustrated with his attorney general in recent days. Bondi struggled to recover her standing with the president after missteps surrounding her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and the eventual release of files, including in a fiery hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.
The survivors in the room. If you are willing, please stand. And if you are willing, please raise your hands if you have still not been able to meet with this Department of Justice. These co conspirators have you indicted.
How many perpetrators are you even investigating? First you showed it. How many have you? Excuse me, I'm gonna answer the question.
Answer my question. No, I'm answering the question. President Trump, as far back as last June, joking about Bondi's legacy, but I want to correct. She's going to go down as a great attorney general.
I may change my mind about that. I don't know, maybe someday I'll accept all that. I was only kidding. She's going to go down as a great attorney general.
And in September, voicing frustration with the Justice Department, stole investigations into his political opponents, posting on social media what was meant to be a private message to Bondi complaining that nothing is being done to prosecute those rivals. Incoming active Attorney General Todd Blanche, who served as President Trump's personal attorney during his New York hush money trial, praised Bondi on social media, posting, quote, we will continue backing the blue, enforcing the law and doing everything in our power to keep America safe. Bondi is the second Trump cabinet member fired in recent weeks. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was ousted four weeks ago today.
And with me now, to start us off, NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba, NBC News Chief justice and national affairs correspondent Kelly o', Donnell, and NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent, me. Thanks to all of you for being here. Michael, let me start with you at the White House. I know you've been working your sources there.
So what are they telling you about the timing of this? Why did President Trump want to fire Attorney General Bondi right now? Well, Chris, once the President makes up his mind that he wants to replace somebody in his Cabinet or in his inner circle, there's a very little bit of lag time that actually takes place between that decision and the actual announcement of it. Now, sometimes people are able to save themselves, are able to pitch to the President, why you shouldn't dismiss them.
But in the case of Pam Bondi, even though the President likes her personally, I'm told this was simply someone who, after months of mounting frustration, could not align her vision for the job of Attorney General with the President's vision of how he wanted her to do this job. And you can look at a range of different examples, certainly some of those that you mentioned in the introduction, coming to how certain cases are handled or certain people the President wanted to see prosecuted, ranging from that to her handling of the Epstein files. And also just an overall feeling from the President about what he wants to see happen in this critically important role. So this is a moment where the President is deciding to lean into a major shakeup and Cabinet turnover that he really hasn't over the last year.
We obviously saw the replacement of the DHS Secretary, Christine Noem, about a month ago, which was the first Cabinet secretary to change over in the President's second term. And that's a real departure for how he conducted himself in the first term. But when it comes specifically to Pambani, we know that there was a heated confrontation at the White House, according to sources familiar with that exchange in recent weeks, and there had just been a series of issues where the President ultimately decided he wanted somebody else in this job. Extraordinary that there has been so little turnover.
If you compare the turnover in his second administration to what we saw during the first administration. Monica, tick through some of the. The key points of contention with Bonnie. We know that Epstein files was really front and center, in particular, the fact that you had a Pambani standing not too far from where I am here on the North Lawn, at one point claiming to have a client list sitting on her desk.
That, of course, never materialized, with the Justice Department releasing a memo saying that there was never a client list and that wasn't something that actually existed that then prompted and unleashed such a backlash from the MAGA base that really just also invited more questions than answers that this White House never really was able to overcome. That's, in the words of one senior administration, officially the issue that even if they try to dismiss it and respond to it, continues at times to come back and come back. We certainly saw that over the course of the last few months, and that was one. But also you have the fact that the president, in seemingly trying to convey a private message where he wrote Pam Colon, tried to urge her to prosecute, to look into some of his political rivals.
When we're talking people like the former FBI director Chase Comey, when we're talking about Tish James, the New York state attorney general, and she actually did do those things. She actually did initiate those indictments and try to take cases against them, even if then they had their own legal hurdles to face. But the president was very adamant about how he wanted her to do that and were told at times that there were other messages that were conveyed privately of things he wanted her to do that he felt she felt short on. And Monica, we know Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is going to serve as interim attorney general.
Are you hearing anything about the potential names that may be the permanent replacement for him? Lee Zeldin, one of them that's coming to focus. Exactly. It seems like he may be one of the top contenders because he is already in the Cabinet.
He is the head of the epa, which means he's already Senate confirmed. So if the president does decide to tap him for this role leading the Justice Department, that would make that process pretty quick and doable, it seems. Sorry. Monica Alba starting off with the White House.
Monica, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Let me turn now to Kelly, Mel here at the desk. So, Kelly, let's talk.
Kelly, let's talk about what is next for Attorney General Pam Bondi. She said she's going to the private sector. Tell us a little bit about what you anticipate are next steps for her at this point. Well, what stands out is it does appear that the personal relationship between Pambandi and the president is, although this is hardly a good day, but you get a sense that there is mutual respect and affection.
She is going to something not yet named in the private sector that is in somehow in support of the president based on his public posts and what she has also posted. And she says she's thrilled about it. Obviously, that could be something related to one of the packs. It could be his library.
It could be a number of things. This relationship is one that she's invested a great deal in. And today is one of those days that if you're in trouble, this day can come. Right.
It's a tough day. And at the same time, it is very much predictable. The president has what may be an insatiable desire to see retribution politically. That does not reflect where the law is or what the power of an Attorney General actually is and whomever takes over that position.
Lee Zeldin is an attorney that has never been prosecutor. Obviously, Todd Blanche, the president knows very well, having sat at the defense table with him in his case in New York and obviously working in the government. So, Kelly, take us inside some of your conversations at the Justice Department. What was the reaction?
Was it surprise or was this anticipated? To some extent, I think it's both. I mean, there is a sense of she could not have been more loyal, more present, more there. She rode in the car with him yesterday to the Supreme Court.
She is. I spent a lot of time at the White House because the Attorney General's at the White House. And there's a closeness there, I think from in the building today. Very quiet, very quiet.
So there is not a hubbub of activity in response to this. Also an acting coming in who is already a part of the Department of Justice. The transition is likely to be smooth. She talked today in her post about taking a month of transition, if it will even take that long.
They've worked closely together. There have been signs that Todd Blanche was emerging as a public face of the department in some key areas. But this is obviously for those who have supported Pam Bondi, who came in with a very good reputation. This is a day where she has.
She's been beaten up a bit. And Kelchis, finally, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who you're referencing, takes over a huge role. What are some of the challenges, the pitfalls? What lies ahead for him?
Well, there are no good answers for Todd Blanche based on the issues we've discussed here about Pam Bondi. The Epstein files are where they are. The Department has not fully released all of them. There's been no action to prosecute anyone from information that's been derived by the investig going after perceived enemies.
Comey, Leticia James of New York, Senator Schiff. Any of those things are fraught. Are there other inquiries that are going on? Will he have a better chance at trying to bring a prosecution?
We shall see. But it is. It was the court system itself, the law itself, that stops the Comey case and the James case, not Pam Bondi failing to do so. It's a really important point.
Melody, turned to you. The House of Recycling Committee has subpoenaed Pam Bondi to talking part about the Epstein files. Will that move forward? What are you anticipating?
Yeah, it's a great question about whether she even will testify now that she'll be a private citizen versus the attorney general, certainly Democrats say that she still has an obligation to come before the committee, talk about what she knows about the Epstein files. And there is at least one Republican, Nancy, South Carolina, who said the same thing. She wrote a Twitter that Hambondin was to leave for her job as the attorney general. But my subpoena still stands.
When the Oversight Committee moved to subpoena money, I did it by name, not by and not as the city attorney General of the US Released the Epstein files. So we'll see what House Oversight Chairman Jim Comer decides to do. So far, he's saying he's confer with the other Republicans on the committee before they make that decision, because you're talking to my Republican sources behind scenes. There's a lot of frustration with Cambodia, how she handled Epstein files, just not necessarily Nazi math.
It goes much broader. A lot of them not willing to say that publicly. But I think there's a lot of Republicans who have questions. And the timing of that hearing maybe part of what played out today.
And I absolutely agree with that because it's supposed to be April 14th, so that's in, plus a weekend, a couple days. Yeah. And part of what you're laying out is there just may have been a lot of pressure in addition to president's own frustration coming from Capitol Hill, which is certainly notable, which always plays a role potentially in these decisions. Now, if she were to testify, first of all, it'd be extraordinary to hear from her after this.
But would this effectively allow her to be more candid, given that she would be in the process of leaving her role? Well, not necessarily because past Trump officials or administration officials who have come in to testify for the committee when they are private citizens, usually they have legal counsel from the agency that they represent. So there would still be someone there. That being said, there's still a lot she could and should have to answer for.
They want to know about the redactions in the FC files. They want to know whether they rank compliance with the law. They want to know why certain files were initially withheld. So she is privacy to hold a lot of that really important information.
And just turning to the Senate side, I know we don't know who the president's pick will be to replace the attorney General, but how quickly do you anticipate the Senate Judiciary Committee will move to try to confirm whoever the president nominated? Well, the chairman of that committee, Chakra, said they will move as soon as possible. And we did see with Secretary Mullen they can move pretty quickly to confirm the nominees when they want to after they get the paperwork, after they go through the confirmation hearing. The big caveat though is who the nominee is because if it's someone who's relatively non controversial like Lee Zeldin, he's already Benson confirmed.
I could see someone like him moving relatively fast. I have a hill. But if someone else who's a little bit more controversial has some baggage, that could take a little longer. All right.
Kelly and Mel, thank you for a great conversation, great reporting, really appreciate it. Coming out, there is new fallout after President Trump's address the nation on Iran with unanswered questions about the war's timeline and objectives as oil prices surge and US Allies respond. Plus, President Trump says he'll sign an executive order aim to paying all DHS employees as lawmakers remain deadlocked on resolving the longest ever partial government shutdown. Stay with us.
You're watching the PRESS now. Welcome back. New questions and frustrations today after President Trump gave his first primetime address since the start of the war with Iran, but delivered very few details about how the war could wind down. In a roughly 20 minute long speech, the President praised US military operations, saying Iran has been eviscerated and is essentially no longer a threat.
The president went on to say the war, which is now in its fifth week, will end shortly, while also saying the war will continue until the merit military objectives were fully achieved. I made clear from the beginning of Operation Epic Fury that we will continue until our objectives are fully achieved. Thanks to the progress we've made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.
We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. Now, the president initially said the conflict would last for five weeks altogether. And in the weeks since, he has given several different timelines for when it could end. Look, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that.
We'll do it. Are you thinking this week it will be over? I think so. Okay.
Very soon. But we're not ready to leave yet. But we'll be leaving in the near future. We'll be leaving in pretty much the very near future.
We estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our mission and we're way ahead of schedule. We're finishing the job and I think within maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job. The president last night also renewing his threat that the US will target Iran's civilian energy infrastructure if Tehran doesn't make a deal to end the war yet. If during this period of time, no deal is made, we have arise on key targets.
If there's no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plans very hard and probably simultaneously. But just days ago, President Trump said Iran was begging to make a deal. We can have dialogue, but I don't want to do a ceasefire. I think there's a very good chance we'll end up in a deal.
And so we're giving it five days, and then we're going to see where that takes us. They're beginning to work out a deal. I don't know if we'll be able to do that. I don't know if we're willing to do that.
It's possible that we'll have a deal because they want to make a deal. They want to make a deal more than I want to make a deal. President Trump's remarks also doing little to ease the concerns about the future of the Strait of Hormuz, that critical shipping lane for 20% of the world's oil. Instead, the President telling countries that use the Strait of moves that they should be the ones responsible for securing it.
The countries of the world that do receive oil through the hormone strait must take care of that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They can do it easily.
We will be helpful. But they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on. And in any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It'll just open up naturally.
But for several weeks now, the President has been delivering mixed messages on whether the strait needs to be opened before the war can end and whose responsibility it is to secure it. When will the Navy start exporting tankers to the strait? Numerous countries have told me they're on the way. We have some that are really enthusiastic.
They're coming already. They've already started. Well, we don't need too much help, and we don't need any help, actually. You know, at a certain point, it'll open itself.
At a certain point, it'll be open. If this works, be jointly controlled. Maybe me. Maybe me.
Me and the ayatollah. What happens to the strait we're not gonna have anything to do with, because these countries. China. China will go up and they'll fuel up their beautiful ships and they'll leave and they'll take care of themselves.
There's no reason for US to do it. Meanwhile, it was a volatile day for the markets today, the Dow ultimately closing relatively flat. Joining me now as NBC News senior White House correspondent Gary Haig, NBC News business and data correspondent Brian Chung, and NBC News senior national security correspondent Courtney Kuby. Thanks to all of you for being here.
So, Garrett, let me start with you. Take us behind the scenes of the strategy of this address. What are administration officials saying about what he hoped to accomplish? And they feel like he did it well.
White House officials were hoping to reach beyond the people who watch a newscast like this one and follow the war's developments very closely and reach the people who might only be sort of in with the war at the gas bomb, where they're noticing these prices going up or they're watching their 401ks tick down to essentially reassure people and that there is a plan and that that plan involves ending this war sooner rather than later. But if they were effective, it's hard to see where you mentioned the markets being flat today and no major change in gas prices and the strikes on both sides of this conflict continue today. So we're kind of jogging in place, but with the White House doing, I suppose, their level best, pulling out the big rhetorical guns at the prime time address to try to convince people that somebody's in charge here. Yeah.
And Gary was so interesting because throughout the day he'd stoked tensions with NATO. He did have some tough words for allies in his address. He didn't specifically mention NATO, which, by the way, came as a relief to some of his Republican allies. What are you hearing?
What are your sources telling you there? Is the president serious about potentially wanting to pull out of NATO? If he's serious about wanting to do it, Kristen, that's one thing, but he's not actually able to do it. The idea of pulling out a NATO somebody would probably get, you know, maybe 30 votes in the Senate.
I'm not on Capitol Hill much anymore, but this is just a lot popular with members of Congress really, in either party. And the law was changed during the Biden administration to make these musings from the president about leaving NATO, mostly simply musings, unless he wants to go in front of Congress and get them to vote affirmatively to do it. I mean, this feels like one of those things we lash out. Most hit the people you love.
You get the president incredibly frustrated that none of the various options he's talked about as relates to the Strait of Hormuz have worked out. And the way that he would like NATO as someone he could beat up on. And now we've got, really, one of his favorite people to talk to any of these issues, Mark Ruta, the Navy's Secretary general, coming here next week to likely try to calm things still further. Yeah, and Garrett, also, it was notable.
I'm asking about something. The president posted video on his social media site. You see it right here, Claiming an attack on a major bridge near Tehran, with the President saying it's the biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down. He also threatened further attacks.
How does this fit into his broader strategy and this use of video that we've seen from this president? Well, look, it's about diplomacy, right? And this is the president targeting something that's basically civilian infrastructure. This goes beyond the military goals that have been laid out.
Disrupting a nuclear program, a missile program, a navy, and an ability to, you know, express Iranian power outside of Iran. Which one of those things is best disrupted by blowing up a civilian bridge? That's not a clear answer right now. But if you're the president and you're trying to force negotiations, which the Iranians say don't exist into being something that is actually happening, that's the next logical step.
Again, he risks international backlash. He risks inviting Iran to strike critical infrastructure in the region, too. You know, it feels like the kind of thing to get you further into a war rather than closer out of one. All right, Garrett Hake at the White House for us covering every twist and turn of this war with Iran.
Garrett, we really appreciate it. Thank you for that. Courtney, let me turn to you. So when I was running the president's allies heading to the speech, they said they wanted clarity, clarity on the strategy to get out of the war and the timeline.
Instead, he said, we'll be out soon, and he said, we're going to bomb for the next two to three weeks. What are you hearing about the actual timeline? Is it two to three weeks, or is that just another gambit and the next phase of this war? No one will deviate from what the president says.
In the military, they say when you ask about a timeline, they're not going to talk about it. Well, the president said two, three weeks before. That must be it. So we have no idea if that's actually legit.
One thing that we do know is you just kind of look at sort of the metrics here, which are relatively vague. The US has hit more than 13,000 targets. The Israelis has hit thousands more. There is only.
There are only so many military targets that they went into this war planning to hit. Now, there are Additional things that the president's been threatening. It may not have been on the original listings, like that bridge that you just saw the video of the electrical grid. So that could add to it.
But there is a point where they will basically exhaust all of their military targets and theoretically that could be in two or three weeks. The big question is, will there be anything else besides the airstrikes we've seen now? One for more than month. Yeah.
And someone saying to be essentially left the door open for the possibility of putting US Troops into Iran. I want to play you speaking of military capability, a little bit of what President Trump had to say last night about that. Take a listen. Their navy is gone, their air force is gone.
Their missiles are just about used up or beaten. Taken together, these actions will cripple Iran military, crush their ability to support terrorist proxies and deny them the ability to build a nuclear bomb. What do you make of those claims Court, based on what you're hearing, are they accurate? They're pretty close to accurate.
I mean, yes, the conventional military in Iran has been really badly damaged here. So their ballistic missile capabilities, many of their launchers, not all of them, many of their actual missiles, not all of them. So they have taken out quite a bit of their capability of their drones, some of their minds, their anti ship cruise missiles. But the reality is they've not taken them all out.
And I find it very difficult to envision a scenario where they can, where they can be sure that they have taken out every possible threat from Iran. You know, what's remarkable to me is we've actually had Secretary of State, National Security Advisor Marco Rubio lay out the objectives here. And I kind of thought we might hear that from President Trump last night when he said not just the objectives of taking out the air force in the navy and things that they've been repeating, but the idea that they have an objective here to decimate the conventional force enough that Iran can't defend a nuclear program anymore. So the idea is if the US or the international community were to see Iran trying to produce a nuclear weapon, then the US or the Israelis or whoever it is could go in and they could strike that facility again.
As we saw last June, if there's no air defenses, there's no missiles, if there's no drones, or at least that's been decimated to a large extent, then that really makes it difficult for them to pursue a nuclear weapons program. But they aren't explaining that the American people and Marco Rubio is the only made that clear here. Well, and you just made it very clear. It's fascinating to hear that piece of analysis of what the strategy is.
Courtney, thank you so much. Great to see you as always. Let me turn to you. Let's talk about what we saw in the markets, a really volatile day after the president spoke.
We saw stocks go down, we saw gas prices spike. What do you make of the volatility that we saw? We should note that the Dow did end largely flat. Yeah, it did.
And I think that when you start off at the market open at 9:30, it looked like it was going to be a nasty day. On Wall street, things seem to reverse around some of the news that Iran might be working with Oman on some sort of opening of the Strait of Hormuzzum protocol by which shifts could go through there. Again, not much detail on that, but nonetheless it did help these markets drift. Not only a decent, I would say flat close on the day, but also for the week.
As I point out, there is no trading tomorrow because of flip Friday. But nonetheless, this snaps essentially the five week losing streak that we had seen on at least some of the other markets like the S&P 500. It had been really bad out there. So you could read that simply as markets feel more optimistic than they did in at least the five weeks prior to that about an end to this war in Iran.
But I should point out that oil markets are not reacting the same way. Prices continue to rise today after rising over the course of the 20 minutes that the president spoke last night. WTI oil barrels at barrels I saw were around $100. That is over dollars really were at the beginning of this Christmas.
Oh, really notable. And let's talk about gas prices. The national average now at 408 a gallon today. How much higher, Brian, should consumers expect gas prices to go?
Yeah, well, look, the quick math here is that for every $10 a barrel of oil increases in price. That usually amounts about 25 cents per gallon at the price of the pump that we pay. So if you consider that a barrel of oil rose $10 over the course of this week, then you would say, okay, we've already seen the average gas price rise by about 5 to 6 cents. So that can imply another 20 cents from here.
So really $4.25 is where this potentially could go. But again, could those headlines reverse the beginning of next week if that off ramp does appear to be a bit more substantial? I have to see. Yeah, we will have to see for sure.
I do want to play a little bit of what the president said yesterday about the straight of moves which is obviously impacting these prices. Let's take a look at its reaction on the other side. The United States imports almost no oil through the Ormo straight and won't be taking any in the future. We don't need it.
We haven't needed it and we don't need it. When this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It'll just open up naturally. They're going to want to be able to sell oil because that's all they have to try and rebuild.
It will resume the flowing and the gas prices will rapidly come back down. Stock prices will rapidly go back up. What's your takeaway from that statement by the president? Yeah, well, the quick takeaway here is that the United States does have the ability to walk away from the Strait of Horrors because the boats that usually traffic whale through that area don't usually end up in the United States.
That is true. But what is going to be a lot more difficult is Iran's position on this. They have said very clearly they intend on keeping the Strait of Horus closed and if anything that they would essentially toll any boats that they will allow to go through there. Having to pay millions of dollars presumably to the Iranian government.
It's gonna be hard to see Kristin the Shadif Horus traffic returning to those pre war levels of about one per day. You see that we've rarely ever gotten through more than 10 boats in that area. And as long as that traffic remains substantially lower than it was prior to the war, that means oil prices will then turn out well. It's important context.
Ryan Sean, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it on a really important day for the market. Coming up next, I'll speak to Republican senator about the war, the shutdown still made and new comments from the president that Medicare and Daycare are too expensive for the federal government to pay for going against one of his key campaign promises. We'll take you inside that conversation.
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Nearly seven weeks into the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, the president says he will sign an executive order to pay all employees at dhs. Now, it remains unclear what the source of the funding would be. It comes after Republican leadership in the House and Senate announced yesterday that they had come to an agreement on a bill to fund all of DHS except for ICE and cbp, and then to plan a separate budget process to fund those agencies later. Here's later soon.
Earlier today. Listen, I think the budget bill that does the funding out here so we don't have to deal with this crisis again, future manufacturing by the Democrats is a narrow bill that will fund us TDP well in the future. So this is something that, well, the President Trump's in office. We have to do with the.
Joining me now is chief Capitol Hill correspondent Brian Nobles. Ryan, thank you so much for being here. So let's start off with what exactly happened yesterday. Basically, the House and Senate leadership were not on the same page yesterday, so this process of reopening DHS fell apart.
Now they're on the same page. Yeah. So they're on the page, it probably should have been on Friday, where they've agreed to pass this piece of legislation that essentially pulls the Border Patrol and ICE out of the overall DHS spending bill and then pushes that off to a reconciliation package down the road. And this was something that Speaker Johnson basically had an uprising amongst the conservative ranks within his caucus and didn't feel comfortable putting on the floor on Friday.
So now the question is, will he have the guts to put on the floor if and when they Come back now, Chris. And I believe if you put this bill on the floor in the House, it probably gets 300 votes or even more. But that's not necessarily everything that Mike Johnson needs. He needs a major majority of Republicans or his leadership position could be in danger down the road, particularly after the midterms.
So there's more to this than just a simple reopening of the Department of Homeland Security. The president, though, seems to support this. Ryan, how significant is that? And just kind of follow up with you on what you're saying in terms of the timeline.
Doesn't seem like the government's going to reopen until they come back, right? Let's talk about that first. There's no talk right now of the House coming back to pass this bill. In fact, the signals that we're getting the Republicans a conference call today that they may not come back earlier than this planned recess anyway.
Many of them are scattered all around the world, as TMZ has pointed out in their covert photos taken of them. So it's just not practical for them to come back immediately to get it done. So it's going to be at least another week before these members are back in town and can vote this in. Now, in terms of president's role in this, it's everything.
For some reason, last Friday, even though he had signed off on John Thune's original plan, when Speaker Johnson went to him and said conservatives were upset, he changed course, then decided it was time to fight. It seems as though the three of them got to together and said the only path forward is for us to just to kind of clear the deck of this and then focus on reconciliation. The fact that Trump wants this done is the reason that Johnson's on board. And very quickly, what about the Democrats?
Because their whole point of shutting down DHS was to fight for changes to ICE policies. What happens to that fight? Well, I would argue that they actually got quite a bit in this process. And there's a lot of people that would argue that they didn't get any of these reforms codified.
But take a look at the difference between where we are now and where we were prior to this fight. Christine was no longer the Secretary of Homeland Security. They ended the roving patrols in Minneapolis. They appear to have ended the roving patrols all across the country.
The Department of Homeland Security is moving forward with body cams on all ICE agents. Certainly they did not get mask removal, which was a big thing. Obviously, warrants remains an open conversation. And more than anything, Democrats got this as a political Talking point issue heading into the midterm election.
So they were never going to get everything they were looking for. But to say they walked away from this with nothing, I think it's not a good company. And there's no doubt Democratic base wanted to see. Yes.
All right, Ryan Nobles, thank you for being here. Great to you as always. Joining me now is North Dakota Republican Senator Kevin Kramer. Senator Kramer, thank you so much for being here.
I really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you. So I do want to get, of course, your reaction to the DHS funding debate, but first I do have to get you to respond to President Trump's decision to fire Attorney General Hamney.
What do you make of that decision? Do you support it? Is it the right decision? Well, I support it because it's his decision to make.
And to be honest, I'm not on Judiciary Committee. I don't follow DOJ necessarily real closely, at least not her part. I follow the environmental division much more closely. And you know, to be honest, this makes seems strange.
I've never met Pat Bundy, so that goes to show how little I think about it. However, it's his call to make. It seems to be a pretty friendly departure on her part. Transition.
I think that's all appropriate. Obviously they are, they like each other, they support one another. But he clearly want to go in the direction. I think Todd Nice, by the way, is fantastic.
I think it'll be a great interim AG until such time as somebody's name the permanent AG and maybe Todd, I don't know, but, but the department will be in good hands. All right, let me turn to your reaction to the president's post. This DHS funding fight that he will sign in order to pay DHS employees. He says, let me ask you, Senator, from a legal perspective, does he actually have the authority to do that?
Where does the money come from? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think first of all, he signed off last week on the deal that 100% of the United States Senate borderport that Speaker Johnson took a lot of heat for and now he's on board with and I think your discussion with Ryan was right on point. And not surprisingly, Ryan knows what's going on in the Capitol.
So the good news, the good news is that we have have at least a short term solution for this fiscal year that I think works if he had to fund the entire agency by some sort of executive order. There's a lot of money from the regulation bill from last year that worked with tax cuts. There is money, of course, for TSA that he's using now through executive order, because TSA is actually funded by a tax on airline tickets. So maybe a lot of it could be funded, but certainly not enough.
Fema, for example, you never know what's going to come up in terms of some sort of disaster. The Coast Guard, my goodness, they're very, very important to the security of the country and they need to be paid. So it'd be far better if we get this package done and then Republicans can move forward with the rest of ISIS and cbp, which is ludicrous to me that the Democrats think we shouldn't have customs and border patrol. But we can do that through reconciliation as long as we keep it narrow.
Chris and people is a long process. It doesn't happen quickly. And then you have to have, you know, the amendment votes and all of that and exhaust the United States Senate overnight and get to something, you know, like he says, by June 1st. So it's all doable.
I like the plan. I supported it last week, I supported this week. I just hope more of my colleagues in the House will support it next week, if that's what it takes. Sarah, let me follow up with you on that point because as you rightfully point out, this passed in the Senate, got to the House, presumably Speaker Johnson had signed off on it, and then he was all of a sudden dealing with this revolt.
What is your level of confidence that when Congress is back in session, it will be able to reopen the government within a matter of hours or days? I'm pretty confident your point to Ryan was right on, you know, with the president weighing in like this. Does that help? It's everything as he said now with very narrow margins, it's more difficult.
But I think you all are right on point when you talk about a lot of Democrats will vote for this in the House. The problem is as more Democrats vot more Republicans feel the liberty to peel off so they can maintain their talking point as, you know, as staunch conservatives and and then let the Democrats pass it. I don't like that. I've never been a person that did that in the House or the Senate.
That's why I always vote early. I want to be the other way around. But having said that, I do think I'm pretty confident that it will pass because getting part of this, if somebody has to step into the dopam, maybe that's the way to put it, somebody has to step into the dope. We cannot simply leave the entirety of DHS with the majority of it unfunded Democrats have chosen to do that, as painful as might be.
We have to do as much as we can with what we have and then work in reconciliation to get the rest. Senator Kramer, let me turn now to Iran. The president obviously gave an address to the nation last night. What did you make of his address?
Did he provide the clarity that you were looking for on his goals and the timeline of this word, his strategy for winding it down? Well, I was satisfied with it. I'm on the Archives Committee, so I get pretty regular briefings on all of that, including the tactics. I think one thing I always try to keep in mind and remind my constituents is when the president speaks in a primetime address especially, he's not just talking to Americans, he's talking to Iranians.
He's talking to allies and other adversaries. And so I think with that in mind that he was he was plenty clear. One thing he's been very consistent about now is the timeline in general. Now, he's not going to give the battle plan or should we expect him to?
He's going to he's going on one hand use the big sit and on the other hand he's going to negotiate while he has the big stick in his hand. So I thought he was fine in the timeline. I do take him as word when he says two to three weeks, it certainly looks like we're getting to that point. I don't think he's any more eager to keep going than anybody else is.
But he's not going to walk away before the job's completely done or before allies come in and help in the Strait of Hormuz, which we see happening now. Prime Minister Sturmer has talked about putting together a coalition of 35 leaders from Europe. There's much more for them in the straightforward moose than there is for us in the United States. So it's nice to see some allies coming along.
You have seen the recent polling, though, Senator. It shows this war is deeply unpopular. Recent Reuters poll 60% disapproved, 35% approved. CBS YouGov 60 again, disappointment approve.
Only 40% approved. Do you think the president should have delivered this address sooner to make his case to the American public early on in the war, in the early days of the war. You know, you raise an important point person, because where his speech was best last night wasn't stating the case. Why is important why now the history of 47 years of the terror on Americans in the world by Iran and the actual negligence in previous presidents and allowing this to happen.
You know, if Had Roosevelt known or been a little more proactive in World War II, at the urging of Winston Churchill, maybe we wouldn't have had the bombings at Pearl Harbor. Woodrow Wilson, World War I, had he been more proactive, maybe American ships wouldn't have been stuck. For that matter, George W. Bush, had he paid closer attention to least, rather than wait for the twin towers to go down to get engaged, maybe we could have prevented those things.
That's kind of forward leaning that the president doing, I think is very important. It may not be popular in the day, but it will be popular at the end in my view especially. I think you're gonna see markets come back very robustly. Markets are emotional anyway and but we're not done yet.
We have to get there. Indeed, I do want to get your reaction on a separate topic to some remarks that President Trump made. This was yesterday. And just for a little bit of context here, the, what is referred to as the press pool was not at this event.
The event was posted separately and captured by a different set of cameras. But I want to play a little bit of what President Trump said that I think got a lot of attention. Take a look. We can't take care of the care.
We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars.
We can't take care of daycare. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis.
You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. We have to guard the country. Now, we need to note that the White House had a statement.
The president was actually talking about rooting out fraud in those programs. But what do you make of this comment, Senator? Well, a couple of things. First of all, from a constitutional basis, he's pretty much right.
I mean, they're defending the shores of the country in the Constitution. And then of course, there's interstate commerce. All these other programs have come along since. That's not to say they're unimportant with regard to Medicare.
Let's face it, Medicare is going to be solved fairly soon. But that's a federal program because it's a tax. The funds that the tax is paid by everybody that will eventually be on Medicare. But we're going to have some reforms for sure to make sure it remains, that remains solvent rather than insolvent.
So Medicaid is a state program that's largely funded by federal government healthcare. We did some pretty good things, I think with healthcare, with daycare in the last bill, that recommendation bill of working down, by the way, on healthcare where we provided some more freedom, gritted out some of the fraud, a lot of that should help. But to his point about states and I think it's really important going forward with the kind of debt and deficits we're running at the federal level, I would prefer to see us with these federal programs, provide money to the states and then let the states, the governors, the state legislatures distribute that money in a way that makes more sense for them. And then they should also buy into it like they do with Medicaid.
I think there's a lot more that could be done that would be efficient and I think much more productive with taxpayer dollars. All right. Senator Kevin Kramer, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.
Always my pleasure. Thank you, Kristen. And we will be right back with more me the press. Now.
Stay with us. Welcome back to panel. It's your NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil Kapoor, Democratic strategist Megan Hayes, who served as special assistant to President Biden and Republican strategist Mal Abdul. Thanks to all of you for being here.
We have to start on the big news of the day. Sahel, President Trump firing his attorney general, Pam Bondi, totally unexpected, but the timing certainly a little bit of a surprise. What's the reaction been that you're hearing? Yeah.
Feels like a season of change in the Trump administration after the president was so resistant to firing his top officials last year, even when they're under fire, even when he had issues with their job performance. This time we have Christine and Pam Bondi both out within a matter of weeks. There was, there were questions, obviously, concerns by the president about her handling of the Epstein files, which certainly led to certainly clear part in Congress voting overwhelmingly for that bill to release them despite her attempts and administration attempts to conceal them. There was a moment at the House hearing where she said memorably, the dow was over 50,000, stop complaining.
But then there were other things that were outside of her control. For instance, the president attempts to get the Justice Department to prosecute his political enemies. That was the courts and judges and grand juries who looked at that and said that's not how we do things around here. Not really clear whether Todd Blanchard immediately suc or a potential prime minister would be able to do anything more on that front.
Raises a really good point, which is if President Trump has that expectation that an incoming attorney general, whether it's Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche or someone else is capable of going after the president's political opponents. That person might fall short as well, simply because of the law. Do you think that's going to be the expectation for this new attorney general? Yes.
And we actually saw that in the first administration and I said this and many people have pushed back on it, many Republicans, that there isn't a competence problem when it comes to Donald Trump's picks, particularly in the agc, whether that was speech, sessions, Bill Barr, and even now with Bundy. There is a competence issue because many people love Pam Bundy even coming in. But it is whether or not they can meet the expectations of Donald Trump. And a part of that is what we saw in your right.
I talked to people at the White House. They talk about a number of the things that they said, but it was also that performance that some of the things that they thought that were very good for Donald Trump, like her congressional testimony, those things ended up doing very badly for her. And so I think that all factored in. But they're concerned.
Yeah, there was a lot of scrutiny for congressional testimony. Megan. This of course, comes on the heels of the ouster of Christy Dylan, something that Democrats were pushing for. There was a lot of concern among Democrats about Pambanti's handling the Epstein files, as there were Republican circles as well.
How do you see this playing out in the reaction playing out on the Democratic side? I mean, I think people are glad that she's gone. I think there are people who can follow the law and not put Donald Trump above the actual law and the Constitution. I think that's Democrats hope.
I'm in the camp of the devil, you know, like better than the devil. You don't in this situation. And I'm not sure that having your personal criminal lawyer being the acting ad also be any better. I think he's still going to offer his political opponents, which is not what the DOJ is for.
So I think it's, you know, to be seen by this. I don't think Democrats are hopeful that's any much different than it is now. Yeah, we'll have to see who he actually taps to replace Attorney General Pam Bondi. Sahil, let me shift to the other major headline this week.
Of course, the president's address on the war in Iran. This was basically the president's chance to go out for the American people and explain his justification for going forward. And of course, what's notable is it came five weeks into this war, not at the beginning, which is what we saw, for example, with George W. Bush when he took the country to work.
What do you make of the timing and do you think are you hearing reaction that people feel like he menace objectives or fell short? Well, no, I don't think it moved the needle substantially. I did see at least in my inbox, far more critical statements from Democrats pylon than I saw supportive statements from Republicans about it, which is generally telling. I don't think there's an abundance of clarity from the president about the objectives, the endgame and how long this is going to go for.
There were also some confusing statements he's been putting out for a while. For instance, core strategic objectives are nearing completion, will be done very shortly. But he also written very hard over the next two, three weeks bombing them back to the st. The one significant thing that I do think the president said was he didn't put reopening the Strait of Hormuz as a condition for ending the war, which is very important because foreign policy experts who know this reason much better than I do have said that this is the price that Iran is going to force to keep that close, to make US Allies, including the Gulf and Europe pay for the fact that this war started in the first place.
I think the word that Sahil uses that I have heard over and over again from his Republican allies is that word clarity. In the hours leading up to the speeches, what do we want to hear from the president tonight? And they said clarity. We think it's critical that he is clear with the American public about how he sees this, what his objectives are and how long this war is going to last.
What are Republicans saying to you about the message that they heard? And is there a disappointment that there wasn't more clarity on some of those critical points, including whether he wants to put U.S. forces on the ground? Well, the U.S.
forces on the ground, the possibility of that. You have Republicans across the board, even MAGA Republicans who are saying a hard no to that. But I talked to people in Republicans Capitol Hill and they are concerned with Donald Trump's messaging. And it's not just with this.
This has been one of the things that has been a problem for the administration all along. It is the messaging where it's very difficult to control the principle Donald Trump. But then you have the messengers around him and then it becomes muddled. So I think for many people, they're already bought in.
People already have their feelings. And it doesn't matter how much Donald Trump explains it at this point. I think they actually missed the ball early on. So I think whatever he says at this point, I don't think that it's really gonna move the needle.
What's the reaction that you heard among Democrats? I mean, this is said there's a lot of criticism amongst Democrats. Not a whole lot of surprise there. But where did the criticism really center?
I mean, I think the size of lack of clarity. I think Democrats are, you know, keep pushing back on the affordability issue. I don't think that the Donald Trump or the Trump administration realizes how big of an issue that's become domestically and how this is really going to impact his domestic policy. This is causing prices to go up across the board.
Not just gas, but across the board. It's impacting a lot oil, the global market as we know. And I think it's really unfortunate at this point happened petty into the midterms and because he has no theory he cannot define and he has no solutions how to fix it. So I think for Democrats, this is another good proof point on affordability.
So, hello, I want to get your reaction to the president's comments. Put one something revolving around affordability when he said, we just waited for Senator Cramer, quote, we can't take care of daycare. No one else is saying he was talking about fraud. But how might this play against the backdrop of the midterms?
Very likely a political gift to Democrats. I have the terms of thinking about this from the perspective of a voter in Youngstown, Ohio or rural Michigan who voted for Donald Trump because of America first. No foreign wars, improving the economy, taking care of people back at home. Here's the president saying now on camera, can't find daycare because we're out there finding wars.
To be clear, it is somewhat consistent with the Republican view for a long time that you fund the military, national defense is important and states can take care of the rest of it. Exactly. Great political message right now. Malik, final question to you.
Is this causing jitters? Huge problem for Donald Trump on the back of claims about affordability. Like you have to be keyed into the concerns of the American people and you cannot ignore or dismiss what the American people are saying. So this is just another kind of unfortunately wasted opportunity for Donald Trump is facing that same figure.
Guys, great conversation. We covered a lot of crown. Thank you. Sahil, Megan and Malik, appreciate it.
We are back tomorrow with warmth. Now there's more ahead on NBC News. Now, everyone, I'm Dylan Dryer, co host of the third hour of Today and mom to three wild boys. I've learned a lot my years as a parent, mostly that I don't have it all figured out yet.
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