Meet the Press NOW — August 1

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Plus a new escalation in tensions with Russia as President Trump announces on social media that the US Is deploying two nuclear submarines to, quote, appropriate regions after what he says are provocative statements made by the former president of Russia. And in our first interview since losing the 2024 election and since announcing she is not going to run for governor of California, former Vice President Kamala Harris calls the American political system broken, but insists she isn't withdrawing from the fight. Welcome to be the press now. Chris Welker as economists, businesses, consumers and investors react to an alarming series of developments tied to the US Economy and the president's shocking reaction to a sluggish jobs report.

Closing down all across the board as stocks continue to lose momentum after recently hitting new highs. The market pullback today coming after the Labor Department reported that the US economy created just 73,000 new jobs in July. It also reported steep downward revisions to May and June's job figures, revealing that just 33,000 new jobs were created during those two months, 250,000 fewer jobs than initially reported. The revised figures show the worst hiring slump since the pandemic.

President Trump reacted to the numbers by firing the head of the agency that produces the jobs report, baselessly accusing the agency of manipulating jobs numbers for political purposes. The president posted on social media just moments ago, quote, in my opinion, today's jobs numbers were rigged in order to make the Republicans and me look bad. Now, we should note that the president has repeatedly praised prior jobs numbers when they showed stronger than expected gains. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner was confirmed in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote just last year.

She was also backed by then Senator J.D. vance. The President's sudden firing could raise major questions about potential political interference around vital government economic data. And it all comes as the president also lashed out once again at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, demanding he lower interest rates.

Even his other administration officials today tried to urge harm. The dental revisions to May and June are not great. A lot of that was due to quirks of a statistical process called seasonal adjustment, about 60% of it due to changing seasonal factors and things like incorrectly caffeine teachers. But what that means is that most of those jobs will hear other months of the year.

The disappointing jobs report coming just hours after the Trump administration formalized sweeping new tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners that if fully implemented. If fully implemented, would put trade barriers at their highest levels since the Great Depression. I'm joined now by ABC News White House correspondent Amy Schalor, as well as CNBC economics editor Jeff Cox.

Yamiche, let me start with you. This stunning news. The president dismissing, of course, the head of the labor statistics. Talk to me.

Take me inside your conversations with sources. What are they saying to you about that move? Why did you talk to a senior White House official who said that President Trump fired the head of Bureau of Labor Statistics because he believes that she was essentially cooking the books, that she was manipulating numbers. And the president also posted online saying that in particular the July job number, which was disappointing, about 73,000 jobs it said was created in July, was specifically created in order to hurt Republicans.

So that is the White House stance. They also told me that you were White House official that the president had been eyeing firing this leader of the Bureau Labor Statistics for some time, saying that he had been attacking these numbers even back when he was running for president. It is true that we looked up some sound in August where he was claiming that unemployment numbers and labor numbers were rigged. That being said, that White House officials also conceded that the president had been liking the job numbers that he's been seeing.

As a result, he essentially deferred firing her until he saw this report and also saw the revisions that were happening in May and June. They had to be revised way down, about 258,000 jobs revised. And the president said that was sort of it. He wanted to buy her.

Now, now we already have some responses from union leaders and clearly the president of a union that represents the Department of Labor. While I'm reaching part of that statement, it says President Trump's attack on the Bureau of Labor Statistics and his call to fire the longtime federal worker who leads the agency over today's publication employment data is outrageous and irresponsible. The civil servants at the Bureau of Labor Statistics are not political actors. The statement goes on to say they are not.

They are professionals committed to producing accurate, independent data regardless of who is in power. Now, of course, the big question is who's going to be in that position. And White House officials tell me the president wants someone who's going to be supportive of him and his goals. Christian, Jeff, let me turn to you.

Let's talk about who the Commissioner of Labor Statistics is. What is the job description? And she was expected to be in this role until 2028. It's my understanding and part of the length of that tenure to take politics out of these positions.

Correct? Yeah. Ironic as it is, Erica McInterfer is a holding job right now that has been a punching bag for Republicans for quite a while now. I would go back to even the Obama administration when Republican officials were actually accusing the BLS of the opposite of what Trump was accusing him for.

They were saying they're actually inflating the numbers while Obama was president. This has been going on for a long time. It went on through Trump's first term and it's supposed to be a non political body. There's another important point to make here.

I mean the BLS isn't just in charge of the job numbers. They're in charge of a whole slew of other really important economic reports like the Consumer Price Index, which is the main inflation gauge, import exp prices, just a whole slew of other reports that are relied upon for policymakers to make decisions, including those at the Fed. So turning that process into a potential just political appointee and it really has rankled the nerves of some of the folks that I've spoken to and it really jeopardizes the credibility of the very important job. Yamiche, how is the White House responding to that criticism that is undoubtedly coming its way?

You have Lisa Murkowski saying when you don't like the message, fire the messenger. So already some Republicans criticizing this move as well. Well, right now the White House is standing by the president's decision saying that it shouldn't be a surprise the president doesn't want a Biden political appointee in this job that they see is so important. But you also have to I think really stress that it's supposed to, as you said, an independent body.

This is supposed to be about politics and the White House is making it pretty clear that they want someone who is supportive of President Trump and they're again accusing of former commissioner bureau Labor Statistics of being political and trying to hurt the president with these numbers. There court isn't any evidence so far having seen of that. But the president here really doubling down. He's got a number of posts online.

So he's not backing out from this decision. Jeff, let's talk about the raw data that we got today, these softer than expected jobs numbers, what do you make of it? What does it say about the overall health of the economy and the fact that May and June were revised down significantly? Well, it tells us that the labor market is at pretty much stall speed right now.

Historically this has been a very bad thing for the economy. When we start to see job numbers just start to decrease, not go negative, but even just start to decrease at a steady pace, which we have seen this year that has always foretold recessions. There basically no, no exceptions to that throughout the entire US Economic history. So that's a really ugly thing.

I have talked to more and more economists today. They are using the R word. I think still the base case is not that we're going to go into recession, but the odds of it seem to be increasing. There's more uncertainty about the impact that terrorists are going to have.

Terror sensitive industries were especially hurt in this report today. And in fact industries that generally benefit positively from tariffs also didn't do very well. So the story here is not a particularly good one. I would just note one more thing about the revisions.

We remember last year during the Biden administration the BLS announced what they call the benchmark revisions that go back a year and they showed that over 800,000 fewer jobs were created during the Biden administration just for a 12 month period. So there's that. These recessions, these revisions have gone on for quite a long time and not new. So let me ask you about what could happen next, Jeff, in the wake of these job signatures because of course the big news earlier this week was the Fed's decision to hold rates steady.

Does this increase the chances the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell could in fact lower rates in September when we next hear from the Fed. Interestingly enough, yesterday markets were pricing a very low probability of a September rate cut just based on some of the comments that Powell made at his news conference on Wednesday that changed dramatically today. I think the last I saw the market implied probability for a rate cut was somewhere around 80 or 85% in September. So markets really did switch their attack on that.

Of course we have another wild card that just came in. I broke story just a few minutes ago that Adriana Coogler has resigned her position from the Fed Board of Governors. So that as another wildcard into the policy mix. You took my follow up.

I was going to ask you about that as well. You're absolutely right. Yamiche, Let me turn to you on that and just a broader question because of course, Fed Chair Jerome Powell doesn't have that much longer left in his term. President Trump has repeatedly said he actually doesn't plan to replace him earlier, despite the fact that he has criticized him steadily.

President Trump's been very clear. He has names in mind. Right, Yamiche? It's remarkable because the president is saying he's not going to fire Jerome Powell.

He's like, I already got a couple people on my list. I already have people that I want to be in that job. So it'll be very interesting to see who the president chooses. It's also going to be interesting to see what that person does, is that person could be someone that he's going to follow the President Trump's lead and cut interest rate every quarter whenever the president asks.

Or is that person to be someone who might get into the job and do an interview at the beginning, but then afterwards end up in a position where they're fighting with President Trump, much like Jerome Powell? Because I think I would have to remind our viewers, President Trump, he renominated Jerome Powell so he could have taken him out of this position and he kept him in this position in 2017. Really important data point to remind people of Yamiche. Jeff and Yamiche, thank you for a great conversation and reporting and starting us off this afternoon.

Joining me now, Zverd Eisenstadt. He is the former deputy director of the National Economic Council during President Trump's first term. Mr. Eisenstadt, thank you so much for being here.

It's a pleasure. Thank you. Well, it's a pleasure to have you. I, of course, have to start off by getting a reaction to the breaking news.

The fact that President Trump announced that he is in fact firing the Commissioner for Labor Statistics, what is supposed to be a non political position. Well, I think the president has made it clear that when he isn't satisfied with the performance of an individual or an agency head, he's certainly not willing to let them remain and has fired many individuals who he thought had not been meeting his expectations. So it's not out of character for him to do this. But based on what you have seen, is there any evidence, is there any indication that she was not accurately reporting the jobs number?

Nothing that I have seen. But then again, I would not be in a position to know that. I do think it is frustrating for him that he's worked very, very hard on the tax cuts and deregulatory agenda. Really had some incredible legislative wins recently on Capitol Hill.

And then of course, he's rapidly implementing his tariff Agenda. I think it's frustrating for him to see his data come out at a time like this, and that may be part of this. Fair enough. Frustrating as it may be, the numbers are the numbers.

Does a move like this not undercut people's competence in these numbers in government agencies? Quite frankly, I think people see it. I can certainly understand that perspective. I think people see it both ways.

I mean, there are large groups of people that have always wondered, you know, how these numbers are being made and that the revisions are very common, as you noted. So I think it's going to be an individual perspective on this. I do think that there's opportunity to find out, to look back at these numbers and see how they're processed, how the data was used, and to come up with a decision about, well, were they manipulated or were they not manipulated? Let me ask you this.

I mean, have you ever seen any hard evidence of Bureau of Labor Statistics actually being manipulated? As we've discussed, historically speaking, there have been accusations flying back and forth. Have you ever seen any evidence that that's actually happened? Have I personally?

No, I have not. Okay, let's talk about what we've heard from President Trump and disadvantage. And he undercuts his own argument because in the past, he has praised bls. He said, justin, April, great job.

Numbers far better than expected. It's already working. Hang tough. We can't lose.

So given the fact that he was just raising the BLS numbers, doesn't that sort of undercut his argument that now they're being rigged in some way? Oh, look, when he's pleased with the numbers, obviously he's gonna say, these numbers are great. And when he's not, he's gonna point out that he doesn't like the outcome, that he doesn't like the numbers. So I'm not.

I'm not surprised by this. Let me just finally get your reaction to Senator Lisa Murkowski of AL said this, quote, when you don't like a message, fire the messenger. She was asked if she can still trust the jobs number. She said, no, that's the problem.

And when you fire people, it makes you trust them even less. Do you agree with Senator Murkowski? To some extent. Look, there's a lot we don't know, so let's let the whole story be found before we make a conclusion that this was a right or wrong move.

But obviously it was the President's promoter to do this. He wasn't satisfied with her performance, and therefore he made this decision. Is it fair to say? I mean, Based on the fact that you've never seen any actual wrongdoing, do you still have outstanding questions about what happened?

Would you like to get to the bottom of why the President made this decision? I often wonder why many government decisions are made the way they are, so I'm always curious to get to the bottom of them. Yes. Okay, let's turn to the raw data.

Now, the numbers, this data point at the job market in May and June was the worst it's been since the pandemic. It was revised down. What, in your view, is the overall health of the economy right now? Well, look, I think the economy is adjusting.

I mean, we've had a lot of really significant economic stimulus and actions taken over the past six or seven months. And this is really big stuff. If you think about on the international trade side with the Paris, this is an unprecedented recalibration of the international trading system, and that's going to have effects. And I think, you know, companies and governments can be very resilient, but they like predictability, they like ancertain, they like clarity.

So perhaps this is a bit of a pause where they're taking into account and digesting all this economic stimulus and thinking about, okay, now that I'm seeing how this is going to play out, I'm more comfortable making a decision about investing here and hiring here. So perhaps this is just a, a blip. And we will see as these tariffs, now that we have clarity there, we might see more growth and more investment. I have to ask about the R word because you just heard Jeff Coxi, that he's been talking to more and more economists who, in the wake of these jobs numbers, now that the president's announced sweeping tariffs against some 60 countries, of course they don't go into effect until next week, that the chances of recession have now gone up.

Do you think that's accurate? Look, I'm not a trained economist, so I can't say. I do think that with the past six, seven months on the trade agenda, there's been a lot of new information to take in. I think we're reaching a point now of stability, that stability is good for business.

It's good for investment. I think it will help companies make good decisions about where to invest, what sectors to invest, when to hire. So I'm confident the economy can remain strong. It's been very resilient through some incredibly difficult times.

And I believe that a lot of the actions the president is taking are going to create economic growth and we will remain at risk of an economy. All right. Everett Eisenstein, thank you so much for being here on a really big day for the economy. We appreciate it very much.

Thank you. We want to turn now to another breaking news story, the dramatic escalation between Washington and Moscow with President Trump announcing on social media today that he's ordering two US Nuclear submarines to be positioned in the, quote, appropriate regions in response to what he called proactive statements from Russia's former president, Dmitry Medvedev. President Trump and Medved Medvedev have been feuding in a series of social media posts, which in recent days has been escalating to nuclear threats. Joining me now is international correspondent Raf Sanchez.

So, Raf, thank you so much for being here. Look, we have seen this saber rattling in the past from the former Russian president. But what do you make of what is a dramatic escalation, quite frankly, that we've seen here in the past 24 to 48 hours? Yeah, Kristen?

Well, these comments from Medvedev have clearly infuriated President Trump. It's worth reminding people of the role he plays inside the Russian system. He is the former president of Russia, but he was basically a placeholder for Vladimir Putin when constitutionally he couldn't run for another consecutive term. Today, Medvedev is basically an online social media troll for the Kremlin in English.

And earlier in the week, he was mocking this deadline President Trump has set for Vladimir Putin either to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face new sanctions. That really irritated the president. He warned Medvedev to watch his words, but Medvedev came straight back and he made a kind of veiled reference to Russia's nuclear arsenal. And that is what has triggered this pretty major escalation by President Trump saying that he is positioning these two nuclear American submarines to be in a spot where they could potentially take action if the order came through.

So it's a real example of what started as a kind of bickering match on social media now having real world consequences. And Ralph, just quickly, how do you anticipate and based on your reporting, might Moscow respond to President Trump moving those two subs into the region? So I think the key thing to remember is Vladimir Putin is the decider inside of the Russian system. He is not somebody who is going back and forth with the president on social media.

The location of American nuclear submarines is about the most classified set of data in the Pentagon. So it is not clear what exactly President Trump has done, how close to Russia these submarines are, whether they are in a position that is out of the ordinary. We have heard President Putin make nuclear threats in the past, especially at the beginning of his full scale invasion of Ukraine. And it could be that over the weekend we hear more from the Kremlin about the situation.

Well, we know that you will be tracking it very closely. Ross Sanchez, thank you for joining us on yet another breaking news thread that we are following this afternoon. We really appreciate it. And coming up, we've got much more on the president's surprise firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Fallen today's weak jobs report.

Plus, former Vice President Kamala Harris decries the American political system as broken as other potential Democratic 2028 hopefuls. Also home in on a similar message that radical change is desperately needed. And still, Don, President Trump is putting his developer hat back on and making some major changes to the White House. What we know about the planned construction and its price tag still ahead.

You're WATCHING THE PRESS now. Welcome back. As we've been reporting, President Trump today fired the commissioner of Labor Statistics and baselessly accused the bureau of rigging the numbers to make him look bad. But he was praising BLS data just a couple of months ago.

Joining me, Alan Satisfied, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times and an NBC News political analyst, Chuck Rocha, host of the substack show the Rocha Revolution and co host of Latino Vote podcast and Tiffany Smiley, founder of Endeavor Pack. Thanks to all of you for being here. We're talking about the fact this is a busy Friday. We try to get it all in.

Peter, let's start with this breaking news. The fact that President Trump has fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We cannot overstate how significant this move is. No, it really is.

It's not just about whether you trust the job numbers. It's about the trusting government more broadly. Right. Because what is the message that we just sent?

If you're a government official and you produce information the president doesn't like, that might get him angry, you risk your job and you may be doing a complete, honest job. It doesn't matter because the message is very clear. Look what else has happened just in the last few days, we learned that the Smithsonian History Museum has taken Trump's name out of the impeachment section. So the exhibit now says that only three presidents were ever confronted with removal from office.

Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon. Trump's name doesn't appear there. Were they told to do that or they just do that on their own because they get the message? The message is clear.

Yeah, definitely. The fallout already starting to pour in. The reaction. What are you hearing yeah, look, I mean, President Trump has every right to have full confidence in his appointees and in the Labor Commission, Commissioner of labor.

So he doesn't have confidence in him and he should appoint someone who has full confidence in. And let's not forget that the Democrats have used political appointees, federal workers to thwart President Trump's agenda for years. So I think that's what President Trump is getting at the heart of this. Chuck, respond to that.

And the fact that this position is not supposed to be a political appointment. I mean, this is supposed to be devoid of politics. That's why serve for so long. Right.

That's why they also say that numbers are good mad no matter who the president is. I said the numbers on numbers. The numbers don't lie. I think it's how the American people don't react.

This is very Trump for folks in the y' all who do politics like me, Homeland, you elected Trump. This is what you're going to get from Trump. The question is they're we're heading into the midterm and are they sick and tired of seeing something like this happen. I even checked my phone coming in to see if Marco Rubio still around.

I was afraid maybe he got a third job today. No, he's delivering. He's delivering results for the American people. I mean, you can a recent CNBC survey of small business owners saying the economy is good and excellent.

Nine out of ten are approved or six out of ten are approving of President Trump's job. So, Tiffany, let me follow up with you on that, though. Do folks in Republican circles start to get nervous when they see the stock market open lower today, as we saw in the wake of the president's announcement on tariffs? And again, President Trump taking a few of these jobs numbers.

But we saw the jobs numbers rise down for the past two months. Right, but it's a, it's a, that's just one tool and the toolbox that he's using overall here, economy back on track. Let's not forget he is the deal maker in chief. He recently just inked a deal with South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia.

So he's ushering in the golden age and getting America set on the right track. If everything's going great, he would find this guy Peter, really quickly. Just big picture on tariffs, if you would. I mean, how extraordinary it is that President Trump announced these sweeping tariffs against 60 countries.

He says they'll take effect next week. He did announce eight deals, but this is a trade war. He is not backing down. He's not backing down.

What he basically said is a floor basically you're gonna have a 15% tariff or more. It's not gonna be lower than 15%. And that's essentially the standard. He said that's the highest tariff we've had in more than a century.

And he's therefore gambling that this tariff is gonna make a big difference in the long run. The problem is it may be a pain in the short run, and we'll see what the president does to get through that pain. We will watch very closely. We'll talk about the big news from the Democratic side, the fact that the former vice president announced this week she's not running for election as governor of CA California, leaving the door wide open to potentially run for president again in 2020.

Let's listen to a little bit of what she had to say about our politics overall. This was just Stephen Colbert. When I take a look recently, I made the decision that I just for now, I don't want to go back in the system. I think it's broken.

I always believed that as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles. And I think right now that they're not as strong as they need to be. Peter Boyd, Broken system that's very powerful language. Does it sound like someone who's interested in 2028?

What did you make of what we heard? Well, she kind of gets a little bit of a contradictory message there, in a sense. She talks about the system being broken and that's why she doesn't want to be a candidate. But she's not really going to be a candidate in 2028.

Right. She's trying to, I think, postpone the day where she has to make that decision, postpone the day when she's seen as a candidate. Right now she says she people without asking for their votes. Well, okay, we've heard that before.

We'll see. I mean, it's hard for politicians to run for president, to give up that ambition. But you don't hear a lot of Democrats eager for last year's take to come back. I mean, there's a desire on front of a lot of Democrats to move on to a new generation of leaders.

I think her challenge will be explaining why they should give her another chance, given that didn't work out last year. Does she have a pass if she wants to run again in 2028? But they are, I'm wondering, just a handful of people who've run a presidential campaign and lost in a primary before Bernie Sanders I'll tell you this, what you do is there's a reason why she doesn't run for governor. She does have her io28.

She's a write a book and she's gonna go and see if she can sell that book and hear from people who probably are Democrats. She's got a loyal following, don't get me wrong. But there is a yearning in my party for a new leadership in our party and a new direction. How many times you gotta be beaten by a guy named Trouble?

Freestyle. What are we doing ain't working. We should try something different. Pick up on the point.

How are Republicans? We heard what President Trump had to say. He was very critical of her campaign. What's the been to this decision by the former vice president?

Yeah, well, it's really interesting. You know, political disabled system is broken because your party didn't win. Doesn't really make a lot of sense because it certainly didn't seem like it was broken four years ago with Joe Biden then when Kamala was vice president. So I feel like that interview last night was really a joke.

I mean, Kamala couldn't answer basic questions like who's the leader of the Democratic Party. She couldn't even answer questions about her book. So, you know, she passed on the Gubert Royal bid, which I think is a huge win for California. I think a national bid for Kamala Harris is very bad news for Democrats.

I want to play another soundbite that we have from another potential 2028 contender, Pete Buttigieg, also served in the Biden administration. Let's take a look. We'll do some analysis on the other side. We can't be wedded to the old ways or the status quo.

It's wrong to bring these things down. But it's also wrong to suppose that if Democrats come back to power, our project should be to just tape the pieces together just the way that they were. Because a lot of us in this pocket fight and what's bothering me right now is we don't see them fighting this caucus chocolate. We're hearing a lot of different messaging from these potential candidates.

You know, I worked for Ruben Gallego in the last Senate race and he over performed common Harris more so than anybody. A lot of people say why did Ruben that was different. A Tokyo's point, the senator's point. He got out there and fought, but he went and showed up and talked to men and talked to Latinos that are way different than the rest of the party is right now.

We are out there in the window. We're looking for somebody like Ruben Gallego, who's a veteran who's been really rooted in being working class. I think that's what we have to get back to. That's why I joined the party.

Tiffany. We are seeing all of these different voices and Democrats are struggling to find a message. At the same time, Republicans are kind of waiting in the wings because President Trump, for his part, doesn't want to be a lame duck president. You're not seeing the vice president making real.

He's walking a very fine line. If he has designs on 2028, he certainly has not made that clear. Neither has the secretary of state. How do you see the fight shaping up for you?

Well, first I'll say the Democrats have no message and they have no pathway forward in delivering any hope for the American people that they are the party to usher in coming in. You know, they keep doubling down on Joe Biden. The American people know that he was unfit to serve. He was unfit.

He had mental, physical decline. The American people very clear. And I always say that if the Democrats keep doubling down this and they keep raising up leaders like Mandani and AOC in their party that they, they will just lose in the midterms. They'll get wiped out and they'll get wiped out in 2028 as well.

What I see is President Trump delivering on promises made on promises. Cat when you look at securing our border, you can't get any economy back on track. Energy independence, you know, the big beautiful bill Bree relief for small businesses. He's going to deliver from the American people.

They vote on their pokeball. Peter Maker, final point to you, whichever Democrat does decide to run will have to contend with President Biden and the administration. Oh, the will, absolutely. And the problem for Bougie Jason, the problem for Harris and saying look, he was good enough while in office is not going to probably sell very well.

And that gets to talk to the point about looking for new leadership, people who don't have to answer for or be accountable for the last couple of California gunners running for governor. California when the races are watching closely. Thank you for a great Friday conversation, Peter, Chuck and Tiffany really appreciate it. Coming up next, we'll have the very latest on a very serious story, the hunger crisis unfolding in Gaza as two top Trump administration officials visit an aid site on the ground.

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special Envoy Steve Wikoff and U.S. ambassador Israel Mike Huckabee made a rare visit to the Gaza Strip today to tour an aid distribution site run by the increasingly controversial US Israel backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. According to a social media post from Mr. Wickoff, the U.S.

delegation spent over five hours in Gaza to assess conditions on the ground as international pressure mounts on Israel to do more to get critical aid into the Gaza Strip. MEC News international correspondent Mad Bradley is in Tel Aviv once more. Yeah, President Trump's special envoy Cwafoff is in the Gaza Strip today along with US Ambassadors Israel, Mike Huckabee. The two of them visiting a Gaza Humanitarian foundation aid site.

Now that is one of those sites that belongs to the controversial US And Israeli backed group where we've seen quite a lot of gun fighting around these aid distribution sites. There are only four of them in the Gaza Strip and according to the United nations of the well, more than 1200 people who have been killed waiting in line for aid since May. More than half of them, according to the United nations, were shot dead by Israeli soldiers, most of them waiting in line at these Gaza Humanitarian foundation sites. Many more were also killed while waiting in line at UN Sites and other areas where they were trying to get aid.

Regardless, getting aid in the Gaza Strip can cost you your life. And this is really just says something about the desperation of these people as the humanitarian crisis there grinds on. Now Wyckoff is there presumably to check out the situation there and report back to President Donald Trump. And we heard this from Carol Levitt.

She's the White House spokeswoman last night, and she said that this is going to determine the next steps for President Trump's plan to provide aid to Gaza Strip. Now, this would be a big intervention that we have for the president. He said he's already provided US$60 million to providing aid there, and he's hinted if he wants to set up actual US Government aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip. This is all part of the president's pretty significant shift when it comes to talking about Israel.

Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government have continued to insist that there is no famine in the Gaza Strip, despite all evidence of the contrary, despite aid agencies and international organizations describing particularly one metric, the worst case scenario of famine in the Gaza Strip. We heard that earlier this week. So this could decide what happens next. Wyckoff is supposed to brief the President.

We don't know how much longer he's going to be here in the Holy Land, but it looks as though he is evaluating the situation and it's paving the way for great US Intervention into a humanitarian crisis that has basically attracted criticism from throughout the entire world. The Israelis have opened up the spigot of aid ever so slightly, but aid agencies say it's not nearly enough. Now, Bradley, thank you so much for that report. And as Matt said, aid groups are urging the Trump administration and the Israeli government to do more to allow more humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip.

Yesterday I spoke with Jada Doyen McKenna, the CEO of the Global humanitarian organization Mercy Corps. And I began by asking her what she's hearing from her teams on the ground in the Gaza Strip. I was speaking to a team member this morning who's been going in and out, and she was telling me that she's noticed the differences just in the past few weeks. So there are certain entry points where they know that the UN the a trucks come in.

She said, now you'll see like crowds and crowds of people with children and women just right there as the trucks come up. They're so hungry and they know that no food is coming in. So people are there desperately waiting to get the trucks to can barely Move. She also said even our own team members, she's noticed in the past three or four weeks their weight has gone down.

They're looking more and more gaunt. Our team members who are in Gaza permanently talk about visiting households with everyone being sick with like a skin infection or respiratory or just not having clean water to use, not having food. It's really taking a toll and it's quite visible. The other piece I'm hearing is a real lack of hope on the grounds like they know supplies aren't coming in.

New areas are being bombed now. They're feeling forgotten. President Trump has talked about having these food centers from the US Government. What are you hearing about that?

You talk about the lack of hope. Is there any anticipation that that could help some of the people who are suffering so desperately? Food centers are no substitution for a functioning humanitarian system. And the food center situation that the US Government and this Israeli government now are putting together is a limit to four distribution centers where the UN humanitarian humanitarian systems and we are using head over 400 sites across the country.

These centers are not accessible to people who are elderly, who are infirm, and over a thousand people have died trying to access them. More centers isn't the solution. What exactly needs to happen to help these people? We need to open the borders to flood the zone with food.

We need to resume the UN Led distribution center and we need safe access so that humanitarians can do their job. During the ceasefire, we were able to get 10,000 trucks into Gaza with food and supplies in a two week period. We know what to do. This can be done, that the solutions are simple.

Well, as we have been talking about, President Trump actually posted on social media that the fastest way to end the crisis in Gaza is for Hamas to surrender and to release the hostages. Is he right about that? What do you make of that argument? That it's Hamas that's standing in the way?

The challenges we face now are political, not logistical. We want the politicians to solve an effort. And I'm very grateful that President Trump is acknowledging that there's an issue. Hamas.

There has been. Hamas has not. We've had no experiences with Hamas to burning food. And others have come forward to say that there's no real record of Hamas to burning food.

But if we're worried about Hamas profiting from food, flood the zone with food, then it makes it valueless. Yeah. I want to play something that the head of the Gaza Humanitarian foundation, which is the US Israeli backed group which is distributing aid in Gaza, had to say yesterday. Take a look at the reaction on the other side, we agree with the president of the United States.

There are very, very hungry people in the Gaza Strip. There are some people that you know, are starving. And also there is not a famine in the Gaza Strip. Okay, that's Maya.

There's not famine, there's acute hunger. He says there's not a famine, there's acute hunger. What do you make of that? Is there a distinction there?

He's playing with words. Famine has not been officially declared, but it's a designation that's set with famine like conditions are happening. The same group that gives that data says there in the last two weeks you've had the same number of children admitted to hospitals for treatment of acute and severe malnutrition as you had in the whole month of June. Famine, hunger tends to accelerate.

95% of the children under fiber at risk of acute and severe malnutrition. We've already seen a number of nutrition related deaths and the lack of food security. The number of people in households going days without food is accelerated. The conditions for famine are present.

That report that came out just this week said that the famine has not been declared, but famine like conditions are happening. President Trump has talked about how disturbed he is by these images, the fact that he wants to do something. He has broken with Prime Minister Netanyahu. In fact, in terms of some of the language that we hear from President Trump, if you could talk directly to President Trump in this moment, what would you tell him?

I would say President Trump, thank you. So glad that he's like recognizing the suffering, recognizing that something needs to be done. The solutions are there. We have an aid in a distribution that's system that works.

Let us use it. We don't have time to play around with trying new things, the new things that have. We're investing money in things that have failed and have not worked today. All he needs to do is tell Israel to restore the aid system.

Let the Aidan, let humanitarians do their job. Give us access. All right, Jada, thank you so much. We will continue to stay on top of this.

Please stay in close touch. Thank you. Coming up after the break, President Trump's White House renovation efforts. What we know about the plans and the cost when we return.

You're watching me depress now. Welcome back. President Trump is tapping into his real estate roots, announcing a $200 million White House renovation project which would include the construction of a new 90,000 square foot ballroom. These renderings released by the White House show Golden Ornate Ballroom.

The administration could be used to host events with world leaders or other major gatherings. The project, which is set to begin next month, will be one of the largest renovations the White House in decades. It's just the latest White House project cementing President Trump's legacy. Last month, in fact, President Trump installed two new flag poles on both the north and south lawns of the White House.

And renovations to the Rose Garden are still underway, paving over the grassy lawn with concrete. Joining me now to discuss all of this is NBC News senior White House reporter Peter Nicholas Keeter. Thank you so much for being here and great job with the story. You spoke exclusively with President Trump on the phone about this.

He gave you new details about this renovation project. What did he tell you? Well, that's right. He was happy to talk about it, Kristen.

I mean, he's a former real estate developer. He understands this. He grasps it. He likes his stuff.

And he talked about the ballroom and how it would go. Where the East Wing now stands, Eastwood is something else. Completed in 1942 by Franklin Roosevelt, this would be 90,000 square feet. It would accommodate 650 people.

It would be the largest transformation on the White House complex that we've seen since Harry Truman's day. And what happened back then was Truman essentially gutted the entire White House interior because it was falling down. It was at risk for falling down on his head and putting steel beams in concrete. But this is a major project which we've not seen, as you mentioned, in decades.

Well, it's just stunning, though, to hear you describe it because you think about the East Wing and that is such a significant part of the entire White House structure. Is he actually proposing replacing this ballroom with the entire East Wing, help us to visualize what it would look like? Yes. In my interview with him, he spoke about taking down the East Wing, putting the ballroom in its place.

And his view is that right now when the White House holds large scale events, they have to build temporary tents on the South Lawn. They have to shuttle gas out there. It's inconvenient. There's bad weather.

There's a lot of issues involved. Whereas this would be a ballroom that could accommodate heads of state and the large double dish that the events that the president host, he feels this is appropriate for, you know, the preeminent superpower, to have a ballroom, a room on the scale for these kinds of events. So he feels very justified. And $200 million is the price tag that he cites.

He says he's going to pay for it in donors. He'll pay for it. So not taxpayer dollars that's what he said. Non taxpayer dollars.

That raises a whole host of questions, Kristen, one of which is who are the private donors? Will they expect something in return? Will White office at least a name to those donors? And also, what if there are cost overruns because, you know, sometimes, you know, what if you can't meet the $20 million budget, our taxpayers are on hook.

So I spoke to a member of Congress who wants this issue to come before the House Appropriations Committee for discussion, but there's no sign yet that that's going to happen. Well, it's just fascinating. It's a great report. I know you're going to continue to track it.

And as you say, there are a lot of questions that remain over the construction of this. Really fascinating. Yes. But he is moving quickly to leave his on the White House complex.

No question. Yeah. We are getting a sense of President Trump to developer. Nicholas, thank you.

Really appreciate it. Congrats on a fantastic report. Coming up after the break of view from Republican voters in a key swing state on the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein file sound and whether the backlash could change their support for the president. Watching with the president.

Welcome back. We learned today that Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein, has been moved from federal prison in Florida to a less restrictive federal prison camp in Texas as she serves a 20 year sex trafficking conviction. It comes as the family of Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's most prominent accusers of speaking out after the president said this week that Epstein quotes stole Giuffre from his Marlin Lago club where she worked at age 16. Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year and her family spoke with my colleague Kelly Jackson.

I think we were shocked by it, especially to use the term stolen because she's not an object, she's a person. She's a mom, she's a sister. And she was recruited by Maxwell. She wasn't stolen.

She was recruited at Mar Lago, his property place where she was looking forward to having fun of tougher. And it just kind of makes us wonder, I mean, how much he knew, you know, especially and it's in our statement a couple of years later, you know, he made a statement on Epstein and you know, how he liked young girls. And so yeah, it does make us question how much did he know. Speaking from the White House yesterday, the president maintained he didn't know why the young women left Mar A Lago at the time.

Did you know why he was taking those young women, including Virginia? No, I didn't know what I said. If he's taking anybody from Mar A Lago, he's hiring or whatever he's doing. I didn't like it.

And we threw him out. We said we don't want him, you know, at the place. And Duffrey's family is also urging the president not to consider a pardon for Maxwell. The president has repeatedly said he has not thought about a pardon for her, but he has not explicitly ruled out either.

Meanwhile, the president is facing pushback from his Republican base over his administration's handling of the case. And Orange and Kill. Brewster is talking to some of those voters on the ground in St. Clair, Michigan, a key swing state.

Hi there, Kristen. Well, you know, St. Clair is in a reliably conservative part of the state. This is a reliably and safe Republican congressional district.

It's a county that President Trump won but 67% of the vote just back in November. But even here, you're seeing those themes that we're seeing in polling being mirrored in the conversations that I'm hearing and having here on the ground. You have the overwhelming majority of people I've been talking to saying that they want to see more from the Trump administration. They want all, or at least some of those Epstein files to be released.

And that puts some Republicans here at odds with what, what you've been seeing from the Trump administration. The distinction here, though, is while they may disagree with what they're seeing out of the White House, they still agree and still stand by the president. I want you to listen to just a sample of the conversations I've been having here in Sinclair. I don't know why they're not releasing them.

I couldn't tell you why. I would like to see transparency. Does it impact how you view the president at all? No, not really.

So you want to see them released, but it doesn't change how you feel about the president? Sounds like. Not really. No.

I'm more concerned about immigration, about the economy. So, no, the Epstein files are down here with the economy, with the inflation, with immigration. That's the way in the Bible. And most of those who I talked to said they supported and still support the president.

That theme that there are other issues that they care more about came up over and over again. I'll tell you, behind me, you see Canada tariffs are something that people say they're watching closely and still thinking about the president, but they talk about that being a higher priority for them. But what you're also seeing on the ground is that Democrats here are using this as a tool. When you look at the St.

Clair Democratic Facebook page, their social media messaging, they are talking about Epstein and the fact that the administration is not keeping up with the promise to release those files. It's clear that they believe that there's an opportunity here to at least pick off some of those who are upset at the administration for what they're not seeing. That is something that we will definitely be watching, not just here in St. Clair, but in a lot of these close battleground states in the months to come.

As we get closer, still a long time, but as we get closer to the election next year. Kristin Inch closer every day. Shaq, thank you so much. We'll be back Monday with more MEET THE PRESS now.

And if it's Sunday, it's MEET THE press. On your local NBC News station. I'll be joined by White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett and California Senator Alex Padilla. Don't miss it.

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