Meet the Press NOW — August 11

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President Trump orders his Attorney General to take command of Washington, D.C.'s police force as he deploys hundreds of National Guard troops to patrol the district. Plus, President Trump sets expectations for his face-to-face meeting with Russian President Putin in Alaska, saying land swapping will be a key part of a peace deal, despite pushback from Ukrainian President Zelensky, who won't even be in attendance. And a federal judge denies the Trump administration's request to unseal grand jury transcripts in the criminal case of convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, determining that the documents contain nothing new, and that the government's push to unseal them was, quote, a diversion. Hi there, welcome to Meet the Press Now.

I'm Ryan Nobles in Washington, where President Trump is once again exercising unprecedented authority as the nation's commander in chief. Today, announcing he's placing Washington, D.C.'s police force under federal control and deploying the National Guard across the district. Flanked by his Attorney General and Defense Secretary, the President painted Washington as crime-ridden and dirty, laying blame on the Democratic mayor of the city and the city council. And signing an executive order declaring a crime emergency in the city, even as data shows that crime substantially decreasing, while still at higher levels than other cities.

Violent crime in the nation's capital has fallen 26% since the same time last year. In 2024, it was down 35% from the previous year. Now, by law, the President does have the authority to temporarily federalize D.C.'s police force. And as president, he also commands the D.C.

National Guard. While announcing today's action, he also floated the possibility of taking another unprecedented step to call in the military. You'll have more police, and you'll be so happy because you'll be safe. When you walk down the street, you're going to see police or you're going to see FBI agents.

We're going to have a lot of agents on the streets. You're going to have a lot of essentially military. And we will bring in the military if it's needed. While some city officials are decrying the president's actions, Mayor Muriel Bowser was more measured during a press conference today, acknowledging the president's authority to take these actions while calling them unsettling.

We know that access to our democracy is tenuous. That is why you have heard me and many Washingtonians before me advocate for full statehood for the District of Columbia. We are American citizens. Our families go to war.

We pay taxes and we uphold the responsibilities of citizenship. And while this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can't say that given some of the rhetoric of the past that we're totally surprised. Now, the president's actions come after the White House announced roughly 450 federal law enforcement officers from over a dozen agencies were already patrolling high traffic areas in Washington. Today, the president also suggesting his administration could turn its attention and federal resources to other American and democratic run cities.

We have other cities also that are very bad. You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad.

New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don't even mention that anymore. They're so far gone.

We're not going to let it happen. We're not going to lose our cities over this. And this will go further. We're starting very strongly with D.C.

and we're going to clean it up real quick. Joining me now, White House correspondent Monica Alba, justice reporter Ryan Riley and Tom Manger, the former U.S. Capitol police chief and an NBC News law enforcement analyst. Monica, let's start with you.

Why take this action now? Is this an easy way to try and bolster his tough on crime credentials in a city that he actually does have a little bit of a legal authority over? Well, Ryan, I think the president has been hinting at this for a couple of weeks. He signed an executive order earlier this year aimed at some of these kinds of things.

But obviously, this major step of sending in the National Guard, of federalizing the police department, those are more significant. And the White House says because the president was particularly incensed by this attack on a former Doge employee, according to a police report about a week or so ago, that then ultimately led him to make this decision of taking a more aggressive stance on crime when, as you point out correctly, the data just does not back up the need for this maybe and the urgency that the president is trying to attach to this. So the White House says either way, the president used this personally. He himself said today in those remarks that he is embarrassed sometimes his words when world leaders or when Americans come to the nation's capital and see some of what they've seen.

But again, it's worth reminding people that if he does decide to do this for a longer amount of time, he only has about 30 days with the federalized police department in particular before he needs congressional approval. As you know very well, Ryan, so the question here is what kind of an effect could this have for just a couple of weeks? And then is it possible that if crime does dip down a little bit, it could come right back to where it was? Which, again, we should point out from the Department of Justice, from police data is at a 30 year low in Washington, D.C.

right now. Yeah, there was a lot that was vague in what the president announced today, right? You mentioned that he said the police takeover will last 30 days, but they initially announced that there was only going to be a seven day multi-agency law enforcement operation. Do we think that that part of it could last as long as 30 days as well?

That's an excellent question. We know that there are a lot of different agencies that are being pulled into this. In the last couple of nights, we've seen DHS, FBI, the U.S. Marshals, Secret Service and others deploy some federal agents to take part in these operations again at night.

So now the real question is, does that continue now with the help of these National Guard troops that again could come in a couple of days? It's not expected that they would be deployed and already on the streets necessarily tonight. We've asked exactly when they will be and in what role. They may support some of those law enforcement agencies and agents that you just saw on your screen.

But that is the question. Are they also going to be deployed and activated for these 30 days? Or is this something that will be taken week by week? And they're going to decide initially they thought that this operation could just take one week.

And now it sounds like it will take more like 30 days. But again, what is their metric for success? Ryan, we've asked the White House and we don't really know. Yeah, it does seem a little bit to be just about the president's vibes as it relates to all of this.

Now, we know the president does have some unilateral power here, but it certainly is temporary. He'd need Congress's help when they return from recess next month. Is this something that the White House believes his Republican allies on the Hill will support? And he would need some Democrats as well, right?

Exactly. And this all goes back to the important historical context, which is the home rule act, which is this charter that gives D.C. its political autonomy. It's from the early 1970s.

So if they wanted to make changes to that, which the president did say his lawyers were looking into, they would need Congress to act on that. And as you point out, they are currently on recess. So that also begs the question of whether members, when they return to town, what they would feel about this. And some of them probably have anecdotes about what they've experienced with crime.

But then many others, Democrats, to your point, may say that they don't think that this is a necessary step, which is certainly what we heard from local officials here who said that this was not necessary given where crime is right now. Ryan, of course, you need 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate. So that would require Democrats to be on board. Monica Alba from the North Lawn.

Monica, thank you for that. Let's turn now to our justice correspondent, Ryan Riley. So he threw around a lot of claims about what things are like here in Washington, D.C. But give us a reality check.

Is D.C. really crime-ridden? D.C. certainly has its crime issues, right?

But in terms of the stats, no. And I think importantly, in the murder rate particularly, you can't hide bodies. So, you know, you may claim that there's some manipulation of stats on violent crime or something, for example, or something of that nature. But in terms of the murder rate, no, you can't really put that.

You can't really hide that. Right. And I think that the president shares something with a lot of Americans right now these days, which is that because of the social media era that we're in, because of the increase in video cameras and fighting public corruption, national security, which is pretty vital to our country. So it's not feasible to take these agents and permanently move them to becoming part of the policing efforts, solely in Washington, D.C.

Yeah, and I want to play for you something that President Trump said today. Take a listen to this. They fight back until you knock the hell out of them because it's the only language they understand. But you know, a lot of nations, they don't have anything like that.

They got some police and they're rough police. They don't have DEA, ATF, FBI, part police, U.S. Marshal Service, Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security. They got some police, but they're rough police and they do their job.

They don't have crime. We're not going to have crime either. As a former police chief, what did you hear there? Do you think the president is asking these on-the-beat police officers to get more physical?

Well, look, I heard that as someone who was a cop for 46 years. I started policing in the 70s, and I have seen policing evolve over the years. And I've seen big events really change policing over the years. And I'm proud to say that today, police are better trained.

Their departments do a better job at hiring the right people for the job in the first place. They train them better and police are held more accountable today than they've ever been held before in the history of our country. So this is a good direction for policing to go. I'm not saying that it's perfect.

We still struggle sometimes with bad decisions that cops make. But I will tell you that I'm proud of the men and women of the Capitol Police. And I've worked so closely for over 40 years with the Metropolitan Police Department and the men and women of the D.C. police.

They are top-notch. And to think that they are all of a sudden going to go do things contrary to their training, contrary to department policy, it's not going to happen. Cops know how to do their job. They know how to do it lawfully, properly, and with respect to the public.

And so when I hear things like this, I shake my head because it's just that they don't understand that the cops today are professional and they do their job right. And they're going to continue to do it the right way. Okay, Chief Major, great to see you again. Thank you for bringing us your expertise.

We appreciate it. Joining me now is Washington, D.C. Councilmember Robert White. And, Councilmember White, the president today described Washington, D.C.

as what he said, ridden with, quote, crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor. How would you respond to this description the president has of the capital city? I think we have to be rooted in facts, Ryan. The fact is, crime is at its lowest point in 30 years, violent crime specifically.

And so, unfortunately, D.C. is once again used as a political pawn for other measures. That's not fair to the 700,000 people who live here, who call D.C. home.

The president also blamed this, what he's calling a public safety crisis in the city, on local leadership. Additionally, here's what the new U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. said today.

I see too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think that they can get together in gangs and crews and beat the hell out of you or anyone else. They don't care where they are. They can be in DuPont Circle, but they know that we can't touch them. Why?

Because the laws are weak. We need to go after the D.C. Council and their absurd laws. So U.S.

Attorney Piro really calling you and your colleagues on the council out there, Councilman White. What's your reaction to this claim that there's a juvenile crime problem that needs to be dealt with in the district? The most important thing is for everybody to understand one crime is one too many. And there should be no victims of crime in D.C.

We have more work to do like every other jurisdiction in the nation. But the 700,000 people who call D.C. home, almost all of whom are peaceful, working to make our community better, also watch the television on January 6th. Saw people riot the U.S.

Capitol, beat bloody federal and local police officers and then be pardoned and really immortalized by the same president who is now saying these things about Washington, D.C. That seems contradictory to me. The other thing is we take responsibility at the local level. Crime is at a 30-year low.

And so we don't want to move in the opposite direction. We invite anybody who wants to partner with us to make crime better in D.C. We're doing what is working. We need to do more of it.

But specifically on this issue of juvenile crime, do you think that there's more the council can and should do to address this issue? This is something that we have to continue to address. Our young people that face COVID have really gone off track. That's happened in D.C.

That's happened in other jurisdictions. We all believe in accountability. We all believe in arresting people who are committing crimes, regardless of the age, and holding them accountable. But we also believe in following the science and the data, which say that when you lock up minors for petty crimes, they come out and commit more crimes.

We don't want to kick the can down the road. We want to take responsibility. That's what we're doing in D.C. Okay, we just heard Mayor Bowser and the state's police chief.

They held a press conference acknowledging that the president has this authority and talking about partnering with the federal government. I know you talked about January 6th, your disappointment in the way the president handled it then. But can you partner with the president who's talked about taking over your city's law enforcement? We welcome in D.C.

I think every local official will tell you this. Anyone who wants to partner with us in good faith and to follow the facts and the data. Some of the facts include the fact that the worst roads in the district are federal roads. The most littered parts of the district are federal territories.

So we've had a partnership with the federal government. But partnership and federal overreach are different things. Look out, California. Look out, Illinois.

Look out, New York. It's coming to you next. That's why we have to stand up now and say federal overreach is wrong. And on that point of federal overreach, the White House saying today there are officers from 18 different agencies patrolling the city.

Do you know what kind of communication there's been with these agencies and local D.C. police? I've been in close communication with the mayor, the chief of the police, the attorney general, my council colleagues. And most of us know very little.

The officers seem to be learning as they go. There's already been a shootout in one of our local neighborhoods. One of the shooters was not a D.C. resident.

It was federal officers. So I worry a lot about the lack of clarity, the lack of direction and the fact that federal officers are not trained for neighborhood policing. So, again, we have the format for partnership, but that's not what's happening here. We invite real partnership, though.

So, yes or no, do you think their presence makes the district safer? I think we are going to see a lot of moving backwards. I'm hearing from residents who are scared. There are going to be interactions that flare up tensions.

That moves us in the wrong direction. So to answer your question, I think we're going to see flare ups that are unnecessary and many of them unprovoked. And it's going to move us in the wrong direction. That's not good for the people who live in D.C.

or who visit here. Now, the D.C. police union is responding to this today. They actually are somewhat supportive.

They wrote a statement today, quote, the union agrees that crime is spiraling out of control and immediate action is necessary to restore public safety. However, we emphasize that federal intervention must be a temporary measure with the ultimate goal of empowering a fully staffed and supported NPD to protect our city effectively. What's your reaction specifically to the fact that he doesn't dispute the president's claim about crime? We try to D.C.

is in such a perilous place with no federal representation, despite paying federal taxes. So we try to stay out of the federal politics. That right there, Ryan, is politics. The president said at his press conference, D.C.

has too many police. The police union want more police. So I don't know what's happening here. But I think we all need to be focused on outcomes, not political landmines.

And that's what's in front of us right now. Okay, Council Member Robert White, very interesting to see that at least time for Washington, D.C. We appreciate you being here. Thanks, Ryan.

Coming up, President Trump previews his meeting with Vladimir Putin, saying a top priority for the summit on American soil will be to get the Russian and Ukrainian leaders in the same room. Plus, red hot rhetoric in the battle over redistricting. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker unloads on Texas Governor Abbott and President Trump as Pritzker eyes a potential run for president.

You're watching Meet the Press Now. Last summer, the coolest place in the house was in your freezer. This year, it's time to level up. Reliance Home Comfort has over 155,000 5-star reviews for delivering the type of outstanding customer experience Canadians have counted on for over 60 years.

Right now, don't pay for 12 months on a featured air conditioner or heat pump. Call on the experts that know how to beat the heat. Call on Reliance. Conditions apply.

See website for details. Imagine yourself in Ottawa, surrounded by thousands of vibrant tulips of him coming to Alaska, which the U.S. got from Russia, almost 200 years ago. So it's hard to say exactly how this is going to play out, but there is concern that this could be a sign that, in fact, Vladimir Putin is not going to make any concessions here, the fact that he's coming to the U.S.

to do this. OK, this is very highly anticipated. Courtney, you'll be all over it. Thank you so much.

And we're also following some breaking news out of Pennsylvania, where a rescue mission is continuing after a series of explosions at a U.S. steel plant near Pittsburgh. Officials say the explosions killed one person and injured 10 others. One person remains unaccounted for.

It's still not clear what caused the blasts. Health officials are monitoring the air quality around the factory. So far, air quality monitors haven't detected any levels above federal standards, but officials are urging people who live within a mile of the plant to stay indoors and keep all windows closed as a precaution. We're gonna continue to monitor this story.

We'll bring any developments to you as they happen. And we'll be right back. Last summer, the coolest place in the house was in your freezer. This year, it's time to level up.

Reliance Home Comfort has over 155,000 five-star reviews for delivering the type of outstanding customer experience Canadians have counted on for over 60 years. Right now, don't pay for 12 months on a featured air conditioner or heat pump. Call on the experts that know how to beat the heat. Call on Reliance.

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Download the NBC News app now and subscribe for more. Welcome back. Let's turn to Texas now where there is no end in sight to the standoff between Republican Governor Greg Abbott and Democratic lawmakers looking to block mid-decade House redistricting. In an interview yesterday, Abbott said that he's prepared to wait out the lawmakers who fled the state to block a special legislative session.

This could literally last years because in Texas, I'm authorized to call a special session every 30 days. It lasts 30 days. And as soon as this one is over, I'm gonna call it another one, then another one, then another one, then another one. Fellow Governor J.B.

Pritzker, who's backing the Texas Democrats who fled, shot back yesterday on Meet the Press. Governor Abbott is the joke. He's the one who is attempting mid-decade here at a time when, frankly, all of us are concerned about the future of democracy. He's literally helping whittle it away and licking the boots of his leader, Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom sent a redistricting ultimatum to President Trump, saying if Texas doesn't stand down, he'll be forced to redraw California's map. Joining me now is our panel, Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Chuck Rocha, Democratic strategist and host of the substack show The Rocha Revolution, and Sarah Matthews, former White House deputy press secretary during President Trump's first term and a spokesperson for Home of the Brave. Molly, I kind of feel like if the hope is that this redistricting fight ends in moderation, that we are in for a rude awakening, because it seems as though the motivation for everyone involved is to double down, right? If you're a Texas Republican, you have your marching orders from President Trump.

And if you're a Democrat on the other side of this, you see aspirations of 2028 and beyond in winning 2026. It doesn't seem like this is gonna end in anything other than a messy outcome. I wish I knew how it ended, but I think, to your point, this is existential for both parties because it could potentially determine the balance of power in the midterms. So both parties, as you said, have an incentive to issue these ultimatums and to insist that they're not going to back down because, you know, the Republicans see this as their way to hold onto the House in the midterms.

And the Democrats want to make sure that they can't do that, whether it's by fighting back. And so, you know, and obviously Newsom now has an incentive to send as strong a message as possible that he's absolutely going to do that. But time is of the essence here. And that is what is ultimately going to bring this to a close, is do the Republicans get tired of special session after special session if that's what it devolves into?

Does the resolve of the Democrats break or is there some measure taken against them, as Abbott has also been talking about? So that, because they're up against the clock. They're up against that hard deadline, whether it's the primary, whether it's the California ballot deadline, or whether it's the midterms next year. This actually cannot go on, as the governor said, for years and years.

Chuck, at this table, we've talked a lot about how Democrats feel helpless, that they don't have a lot of ways to respond to what they feel are the Republicans kind of whittling away at democracy. Is this one area where they actually do have a way to fight back and the base is begging them to fight back? Of course it is. And I think it's more important to talk about the beginning than you asking a question about what we're going to do at the end of this.

We didn't start this fight. We didn't ask for mid-cycle redistricting. Does both sides gerrymander? Absolutely, they do.

But they do it every 10 years when we're supposed to do it. Democrats didn't pick this fight. Texas was minding its own business, just walking down the street. We got cold-cocked.

And if we are gonna fight back, we shouldn't be blamed for whooping somebody's butt after we were just walking down the street. So, Sarah, I want to play for you something that Greg Abbott told us last week. Take a listen. The facts are that President Trump won so many counties that had previously voted Democrat.

It meant that a lot of people who voted Republican and who voted for Donald Trump were trapped into Democrat districts. So, kind of what Chuck is talking about here is that this means we're gonna change the redistricting playing field, right? Every time we have a midterm election cycle, every two years, essentially, or every four years, are we redistricting over and over again to address this issue that he claims is a problem? No, as Chuck noted, it should be every 10 years.

That's how we've done it. And I think Abbott's reasoning is not good, strong justification. I think he decided to come up with that because he had the president breathing down his neck and instructing him to do this. Abbott tried to initially push back a bit, but ultimately, he caved, as all Republican elected officials do to Donald Trump nowadays.

But he he knows that there is no justification for this and that just because there were new voters that came into the fold for Trump in the last election, that doesn't mean that that trend is going to continue to carry on in 2026. And I think that is exactly why that they're doing this and why Trump was breathing down his neck is because they know that in 2026 that they have reason to be worried that there are voters out there who voted for Trump and they've seen him break campaign promise after campaign promise. Look at what he did when he said he would protect Medicaid. Look at what he said when he said that he was going to end the war in Ukraine on day one.

I mean, the list goes on of the broken campaign promises from them. So they do have a reason to be worried, but this is not the solution. But I will say too, I don't think that the voters are ultimately the ones who suffer when you also have the governor of California out there saying, okay, well, if they're doing this, then we're going to do this to get back at them because each side does it. Chuck said it too.

Every party, they're both guilty of this, but the voters are ultimately the ones. I keep coming back to this, Molly. It's like we've had these conversations about creating red districts and blue districts, and it feels as though we're creating these congressional representatives that only speak to a percentage of their electorate. It's not as though they're trying to win every vote anymore.

That's right. I mean, but look, this is an ongoing issue. As you and I know, having covered this, right, this is decades in the making of our increasingly polarized politics and the increasing concentration of voters in their respective geographical bubbles. I mean, ultimately, what causes the House to be evenly split, what causes the House to switch place to switch parties every two years, what causes these gerrymandering battles to therefore be so existential is the fact that Americans are living in like-minded communities more and more.

They're sorting themselves into these enclaves. So it's harder and harder to draw a politically diverse district because increasingly Republicans and Democrats fundamentally live in different places. Let me jump in there and say that this is the reason Washington doesn't function because if you have 435 congressional seats and only about 30 of them are truly marginal, the only thing you're worried about, Ryan, and you know this as a primary from your right if you're a Republican or a left if you're a Democrat. So you are beholden to Yeah, the Israeli public had a big impact in turning the judicial reform program off at least temporarily, but Netanyahu isn't interested and he's not listening.

Sixty plus one, Ryan, is the key. That's all he needs to govern. As long as he has American support, it seems to me that there's a margin for him to continue to maneuver. Whether we're ever going to see a major Israeli operation against Gaza City, we may, but then again, we may not.

This is vintage Netanyahu, right? No endgame and plenty of exit ramps should he want to take them. So where is the pressure coming from? You mentioned there has been a public pressure and there's, of course, a degree of political pressure, but none of that seems to be impacting this kind of forward momentum that he has in this regard.

Where could the pressure come that could make him change course? There's no political pressure from his coalition. That's clear. There's no pressure from the United States.

And I mean, I understand the Europeans' view here. They're pushed by domestic politics, but no European country, even though the Germans have imposed a partial arms embargo, they're still buying four billion dollars in Israeli aero-defense missile systems. The Europeans have failed to impose a single cost or consequence on Israel or on the Netanyahu government that would alter the trajectory of the conflict or Israeli strategy. And as far as the Arab states are concerned, neither Israel's treaty partners, Egypt or Jordan, or the Abraham Accord countries, again, have failed to impose a single cost or consequence on Israel or on the Trump administration.

So it is a lot of noise, clearly, understandably, but I just don't see much of it dissuading the Israelis. Netanyahu may not go ahead with this Gaza City thing. Whitcroft is working on a proposal. The Qataris and the Egyptians.

Hamas is now back in Cairo. So I'm afraid for the hostages, their families, and the horrible conditions for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. We're no closer to ending this war. So the UN has warned of another what they call calamity if this offensive goes forward.

Does the international community, is there anything they can do at this point? Well, what could they do and what will they do? I find the last few years really pretty remarkable. The so-called haunted international community is divided, self-interested, UN Security Council, nothing can happen between Russian and Chinese aggravation with the U.S.

and vice versa, and the Trump administration's acquiescence in Israeli strategy. There's going to be no UN action. Yeah, they can continue to support Palestinian statehood, but that, by and large, Ryan, is virtue signaling. That is not going to have the desired impact on the Netanyahu government and it may even cause, not sure this is true, may even cause Hamas to toughen up their positions because their objective here is to blacken Israel's name in any way they possibly can.

And we only have about 15 seconds. Is the problem here that Hamas is not coming to the table or is it that Israel is not coming to the table? Where is the divide there? There's a Redcoff proposal out there over the last month or so.

Hamas has toughened its terms. So I think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ryan, is never one hand clapping. The tough question for me that I have to answer in 15 seconds, but I appreciate it anyway. You did a great job.

Still to come, it is an unusual deal that has the U.S. government now taking a cut of computer chips sold to its biggest technological rival, China. The details and the implications for the economy and national security. You're watching Meet the Press now.

Welcome back. The Trump administration is extending a tariff truce on China. The White House telling CNBC that the president has signed an executive order extending that truce another 90 days. It comes as the White House confirms that two tech companies, NVIDIA and AMD, have agreed to share 15 percent of their revenue with the federal government from the sales of semiconductor chips to Beijing.

In exchange for that 15 percent cut, both companies will receive export licenses to sell those chips. NBC News business and data correspondent Brian Chung joins me now. And Brian, I understand NVIDIA is just responding to this news. What is the company telling you?

Yeah, well, the company is not necessarily acknowledging the specific 15 percent that the president said publicly earlier today would be paid to the U.S. government for any chip sales to China. But NVIDIA is saying, quote, we follow rules the U.S. government sets for our participation in worldwide markets.

While we haven't shipped H20, these are the specific types of chips at the focus here to China for months. We hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide. Again, what we're talking about here are actually not the highest power chips that NVIDIA makes. Those would be the A100 and H100s, the H20, which is the chip that was basically designed for export to the Chinese market, has been very much at the center of this conversation in Washington over whether or not the government still saw national security risk in selling those chips to China.

Of course, because the U.S. and China are in this big, seemingly escalating AI fight that requires so many of these chips. But again, it does sound like this potential agreement here that will just allow them to sell these chips as long as the government gets a 15 percent cut. Maybe that's the solution here.

But again, a lot of questions over how this would be done in practice. This is a relatively unprecedented and something you don't tend to see at all, right? I mean, does it really just kind of read like a reverse tariff? I mean, could they do similar sort of agreements like this over other types of exports?

Yeah, again, this is pretty unprecedented. So when it comes to the overall tariff conversation, when you talk about the president's blanket tariffs on countries, that means that it's hitting basically every type of industry. In theory, there could be some sort of way that individual companies in the United States might be able to broker these types of agreements. But I want to point out that the semiconductor industry is very unique in the fact that there are only a few major producers around the world.

And actually, you look at China, they're wanting to buy from the United States because of the fact that NVIDIA and AMD are making types of chips that just simply aren't available elsewhere, at least in a comparable fashion. So that is part of the conversation. Again, we haven't seen this before. Whether or not we see that copy and pasted to other industries and companies remains to be seen.

But you do say it's unprecedented. Is it constitutional? Yeah, well, there's the legal question as well over whether or not the administration can target essentially specific items, specific products from specific companies. But again, this is very much an open question.

You would be hard to imagine a world where NVIDIA, which is trying to negotiate with the government on these types of export controls. It's hard to see a situation where they would sue the government over the legality here. Same with AMD. But again, there is a little bit of also confusing messaging, even from a political standpoint, because if the concern was for national security, well, if you just slap a 15 percent in terms of getting that revenue and you say it's OK, is it really about the money or is it about national security?

I think that's a tightrope that the administration is going to have to explain at some point. OK, Brian, thank you for that. We appreciate it. And we are going to be back tomorrow with more Meet the Press now.

But as always, the news continues to roll on. Hallie Jackson is up next. Thanks for watching. Last summer, the coolest place in the house was in your freezer.

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