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After a shooter opened fire in their family's church, investigators now say the shooter expressed a quote, cure, indiscriminate hate toward nearly everyone. Plus, crisis-loaded the country's most important health agency. The White House defends its decision to fire the CDC Director amid a dispute over vaccine policy. As more top CDC officials resign, accusing Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
of weaponizing public health throwing the agency into chaos. And as the eyes of potential run for President in 2028, California Governor Gavin Newsom tells Democrats to quote, Wake up, warning that President Trump is inching closer toward authoritarianism and ending free and fair elections. Hi there. Welcome to Meet the Press Now!
I'm Ryan Nobles, and we are going to start with a bunch of new information coming out of Minneapolis. As we learn new details about the shooter and the victims, after yesterday's horrific mass shooting at Catholic school mass that killed two children and injured 18 others. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is now deploying state law enforcement officials to help bolster security around schools and houses of worship in the wake of yesterday's shooting. Local leaders are demanding action to prevent future shootings.
Minneapolis is mayor today calling for a statewide and a federal ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Of course we're standing up with love. Of course we're standing up with thoughts and with prayers. But thoughts and prayers are not going to cut it.
It's on all of us to see this through so that there is an action, so that something like this never happens again. We need action at the federal level. We need action at the state level. Then we are learning more today about the shooter who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and who authorities now say expressed pure indiscriminate hate toward almost every group of people and wanted to kill children.
Investigators are combing through what they describe as hundreds of pieces of evidence, including violent writings, a sketch of the church where the shooting took place, and videos posted online of the shooter brandishing weapons and gun cartridges scribbled with violent messages like Kill Donald Trump. The shooter changed her name to Robin in 2021 with court documents saying that she quotes identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification. A former school employee tells NBC News the shooter was a former student at the school and was often sent to the principal's office for being disruptive in class. The shooter's mother who worked at the church affiliated with the school had expressed concerns about her child's behavior and social issues.
Minneapolis police chief providing this update on the shooter just minutes ago. What we have seen so far is this is an individual who, unfortunately, like so many other mass shooters that we have seen in this country, too often and around the world, had some deranged fascination with previous mass shootings and very disturbing writings that demonstrate hatred towards many different individuals and different groups of people. And he fantasized about the plans of other mass shooters. The local health officials say that at least 10 people remain hospitalized, one of the children is in critical condition.
We've heard even more students today who are inside the church at the time of the shooting describing the harrowing moments in the shots right now. But honestly, it was just at that point I was like, I want to try to keep as everybody as safe as possible. So I told me and my two buddies to get down and to get under the pew. And right when I told them that, it was like a state of shock for me and I knew that I had to try to keep as many people around me as I could safe.
NBC's Maggie Vespin joins me now. She's in Minneapolis. I'm also joined by NBC News Justice reporter Ryan Riley and NBC News's White House correspondent, Yamiche Alcindor. So Maggie, we just got another update from the authorities.
What more have we learned about this situation? Well, basically Ryan, we learned a great deal about the investigation, how it's moving forward despite the fact that as you said, the shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to Lisa absolutely plowing forward with this investigation going, executing several search warrants yesterday. They said they've gotten more than a hundred pieces of evidence as they framed it, many of it digital from devices from the shooter. As traffic there's a step out of the way, as I talk by the way, and show you this crowd right as traffic kicks up again.
Across the street, you can see at these memorials in front of the church. Obviously, this entire area just absolutely gutted by what's been going on here. But back to the investigation. Authorities basically telling us that we heard this from the FBI.
This is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism. This traffic here's out from behind me, investigated as an act as a potential hate crime against Catholics. They've been telling us about the searching of multiple homes for locations, including the church, but also three other residences tied to the shooter, basically saying, again, no charges can be filed, no criminal case can be brought forward, but people want answers, people want to know exactly why this happened, and it's a point where they still don't have a hard motive, because those writings, those videos that were left behind by the shooter, by the way, whose name we're not saying in this report, they said we're just still with hate for everyone, from people of color, every race, you name it, from Jewish people to Catholics, and then they said multiple times in the press conference, they felt like the shooter wanted to especially inflict pain on children. The chief of police saying that the shooter absolutely wanted to terrorize even the most vulnerable among us, and tragically was successful, in this case, here yesterday.
It's also warning that it likely will not ever make sense, that it was a senseless act and kind of bracing his community for that outcome. Police also said that the doors to the church were locked at the time of the shooting. How significant was that? Right.
They said it was massive. In other words, they said the shooter absolutely they believed would have gone into the church and carried out the shooting from the inside, but they said it had nothing to do with what happened there that day. That's their protocol. They locked the doors of this church, which is effectively part of the school ground to the school curriculum kids at this Catholic school, and on station Catholic school go to mass every Wednesday.
So they would come to their Wednesday, weekly mass, and lock the doors, secure the church like they would secure a school. And the chief of police today said that absolutely kept the shooter outside. The shooter then firing through stained glass windows around the far side of the church over here. We saw them, they're all boarded up because they've been shattered.
But the chief of police said as horrifying as this was, it would have been so much worse. Had that proactive step not been taken by school leaders, by church leaders, that thwarted part of the shooters plans they said, forcing them to adapt and basically carry out and inflict less carnage on everybody inside that church than they had intended. Thankfully, still as horrible as this outcome was. All right.
Maggie Baspa, live for us at Minneapolis. Maggie, thank you for that. Let's turn to Ryan Riley now. And Ryan, we heard some really stark words from the acting US attorney today about the shooter's plans.
What did he say? Yeah. I mean, essentially what we're learning here is that this is up here to have been motivated, you know, sort of a choosier on adventure because there's so many different conflicting often ideologies that go into this. A lot of the videos that were posted online just have all these conflicting messages.
And so I think this will be spun in some circles one way and in some circles a different way just because it's so sort of all over the map. Clearly some, you know, deep mental health issues going on with this individual. But we do have a clip of what one official had to say. There was a lot to digest and we'll know more in the coming days and weeks because we've had an opportunity to go through them.
But reading them, one thing is clear. It's going to be hard to hear. But it's important to the question of why this happened. More than anything, the shooter wanted to kill children, defenseless children.
The shooter was obsessed with the idea of killing children. The shooter saw the attack as a way to target our most vulnerable among us while they were at their most vulnerable at school and at church. So I think, you know, satisfying answer or explanation for any direct motivation for this is going to be tough to come by just because of how scatter shot a lot of the messages Ryan we saw come out on that video and instead of the manifesto. And he also said that they're looking through the police chief, I should say, that they're looking through hundreds of pieces of evidence.
They had search warrants for three different locations. This evidence connected to the shooter. Do we know anything about the evidence? Yeah, I mean, the evidence was posted online and briefly available.
So it seemed to be some writings in what appeared to have been Russian. There's been some translation change lessons of that already. The message to his family appeared to be written in English, but he, or they sort of flipped through the book repeatedly as they went through this book that they had written at that time. And are there any questions about how the shooter was able to purchase the weapons used in the attack?
We have been told they were purchased legally, right? That's right. Yes, the weapons had to purchase recently legally by the suspect in this case. Beyond that, we, I think investigators are still collecting evidence.
Okay, Ryan, Riley, thank you for that. Let's turn to you, Misha, now at the White House. You, Misha, how has the administration responded to this shooting? Ryan, this tragic shooting has really reignited the gun control debate in this country.
And we're hearing really from both sides of the political aisle. And they're really sounding very familiar. The vice president today was speaking about it, talking about mental health issues. Democrats have been talking about gun control.
Take a listen to what the vice president had to say. There's going to be time for politics. And there's going to be a time to figure out how to prevent this stuff from happening. How to make these shootings less common in our country.
And I'm not going to speak about that now. And if you look, we really do have, I think, a mental health crisis in the United States of America. We take way more psychiatric medication than any other nation on Earth. And I think it's time for us to start asking some very hard questions about the root causes of this violence.
Now, the vice president in some ways is echoing what we've heard from President Trump even back in April when there was a shooting that killed two people at Florida State University. The president said then that he didn't believe that guns were the issue. He believed that shooters were the issue. And that's something that we've heard over and over again from conservatives.
Ryan. And Caroline, I'm at the press secretary today. She reiterated that the FBI director, Cash Patel, and his statement yesterday that the Trump administration is treating this as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime against Catholics. What does that designation mean?
It's a great question. I mean, as Maggie said, there's definitely a criminal case here. But as you said, there's going to be coming through hundreds of pieces of information and evidence. So they're going to be looking very closely at what the motive is.
And of course, as this is looking at possibly looking at a hate crime against Catholics, I'm sure they're going to be digging into specifically, if there was anything related to Catholicism or anything related to religion that may have inspired the shooter or motivated the shooter to do this. But it's still very early. But that is a destination that this administration really wanted to make clear just hours after the shooting, Ryan. And there's also this issue that Minneapolis has made or Jacob Fries brought up that he says that shooting has resulted in a lot of hate being directed at the trans community in particular.
The White House has not been a party to that, but are they responding to it at all? Well, it's an interesting issue because on the conservative right, including a lot of supporters of President Trump, who by the way, President Trump, while he's not leaning into sort of the transgender issue here in this shooting, he has, of course, really bashed. And a lot of critics would say that the transgender community at large going after transgender women in sports and all sorts of other things. That being said, the White House press secretary Caroline Levitt, she told a question about the specifically reporter asked her whether or not the administration officials were looking into the gender identity of the shooter as a possible motive.
And she said that they were going to be looking at all sorts of things and really trying to have an expansive investigation. And she didn't lean into that aspect of the shooter and the situation at this time. That said, shortly after the shooting, it was very clear that the administration wanted to make it clear that this was someone who was transgender and identifying a transgender. We saw the Department of Homeland Security Secretary posting about this, the FBI director, also made it clear that also just part of explaining to people who the shooter is.
Of course, some in the transgender community are very worried that this could make them sort of a target of other people, Ryan. Okay, Yamiche Alcindor at the White House. Thank you for that, Yamiche. Coming up, termination turmoil.
Health Secretary R.F.K. Jr. Defense has moved to oust the director of the CDC, as experts sound the alarm about the future of the CDC and public health in America. Plus, suiting up new developments in another staffing shake-up is Fed Governor Lisa Cook officially sues to block her removal from the Central Bank, accusing the Trump administration of executive overreach for watching Meet the Press Now.
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Welcome back. We're also following breaking news at the CDC after a stunning collapse of the agency's leadership. The White House says the president has officially fired CDC director Susan Menares less than one month into the job following a standoff between Menares and the HHS over her ouster. White House says Menares did not align with the president's agenda.
The former acting CDC director Richard Besser, who I'll speak with in just a few moments, told reporters that he spoke to her yesterday and she told him that she was asked to fire her leadership team and rubber-step vaccine recommendations that flew in the face of science. Today, White House press secretary Caroline Levick defended the move to fire Menares and had this message for those within the administration who may be at odds with the president's agenda. If the administration officials are pushing back on the president's agenda privately, publicly or ever, should they fear to lose their jobs going forward? Look, I think if you're doing your job well, and if you are executing on the vision and the promises that the president made to the public who elected him back to this office, then you should have no fear about your job.
Just do your job. That's what this president wants to see. Now, in addition to the now ousted CDC director, four top CDC officials announced their resignations yesterday, citing concerns about the weaponization of public health and the spread of misinformation about vaccines. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Committee with jurisdiction over health issues, is now calling for oversight following the high-profile departures and urging the CDC to postpone a key vaccine meeting, citing serious allegations tied to practices at the agency.
Joining me now is our team of reporters, NBC News Health and medical reporter, Berkeley Lovelace, NBC News Senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez, and NBC News Senior National Political reporter, Sahil Kapoor. So, Berkeley, let's start with you. The White House yesterday reiterating that Susan Menares had been fired from her post earlier, has a different view of this. He says that she's still the CDC director, that the president's got to tell her to her face, basically.
Is it clear what her current status is and what does it mean for the future of the agency? Yeah, so I exchanged messages with the lawyers today and they're maintaining that she remains in the role and she cannot be fired unless the president, Donald Trump, directly fires her himself. And so she's only been in the role for about a month. And so, without a permanent position, there's a lot of concern about what health secretary Kennedy can do with this authority over the CDC, especially with his views on vaccines.
And so, just this week, he limited the COVID vaccine approval to people 65 and older people with underlying health conditions. And then over the summer, he also fired all members of the CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee and replaced them with members who also have been known to be anti-vaccine activists. And so, there's been a lot of anxiety from CDC people, folks there, about what this could do to public health. There's a lot of misinformation there saying that is being spread and also hostility toward public health officials.
And then you have the other part of this and that kind of the entire leadership structure of the CDC resigned in mass following what happened to the director there. How disruptive is that going to be for them just to do the basic work of the CDC? Yeah, so it's important to note also that just weeks ago, there was a gunman that opened fire there and left one police officer dead. So, they were already shaking up from this and there was already angered towards Secretary Kennedy about his past comments about the CDC and then blaming him for growing hostility towards public health as well.
And so, we do have one official that we spoke with as well, one former official who resigned this week, Deborah Howard, who also said that public health is in danger because of what they call the Trump administration's misinformation. Okay. We're going to play that sound. Is America's public health in danger?
America's public health is significantly in danger. And Dmitry Dan and I chose to leave together to send that signal, essentially. We can no longer work at CDC because of these changes. We've had significant staff reductions.
There's been scientific integrity and political interference issues. Are you waving a red flag to the American people about what's going on at the CDC? Very much so. And again, that's why the three of us did this together.
If a single person resigns, you know, it's a blip. The three of us are among the most senior scientists, leaders in the agency. They oversee both vaccine programs and I oversee all of our scientific programs at the agency. And so together, we are united that public health is in a crisis right now.
And so the agency is considered the world's public health agency. And so there's a lot of concerns about what this could do in terms of trust about information that comes out of the CDC at the moment. And that falls right in line with what you were talking about as it relates to the COVID vaccine. Because there does seem to be a lot of confusion over this now.
They're changing who they recommend the vaccine, who should be using the vaccine. So if you're not under those requirements, if you're not over 65, if you don't have an apparent health risk, can you still get the shot? Right. So previously it was recommended for everyone six months and older.
And so Kennedy for a while has been mentioning that he would limit the COVID vaccine approval for the fall of this year. And so there is a little bit of concerns about what this can do with insurance. So the vaccines are approved so doctors can prescribe it off label. But what that means for insurance is a little bit muddy.
And so depending on your insurance, your insurance can offer a copay. They could pay for the vaccine fully or they could not cover it at all. And so vaccines, the COVID vaccines in particular, are expensive. They're about $140 or up to $140 a dose.
And so that's very expensive for people, especially also if they were getting it for free previously. So there's a lot of concern about access here for people. It seems like at the very least, there will be far fewer people taking the COVID vaccine this fall as those cases start to ramp up again. Right, Berkeley, thank you for that.
Let's turn out a game at the White House. What are we hearing from the White House and the Trump administration about the removal of the CDC Director? Well, Ryan, I asked the White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt about all this earlier today. And she was pretty non-plus.
Look, the White House is, they are not backing down from this. And frankly, this is part of their, what they have been doing for the last several weeks, last several months, really when it comes to administration officials in largely non-political agencies that they feel just isn't lining up with their agenda. Now, I asked Caroline Levitt about this. She said that the CDC Director did not line up with the Make America Healthy Again agenda.
And that is why the President ended up firing her. She said, Caroline Levitt said that the CDC Director said she would resign. That's why she told the HHS Secretary, rather of Kennedy Jr., when she did not, then the President fired her. Levitt also said that the HHS Secretary or the President would announce a replacement quote very soon.
But there are still a lot of unanswered questions about what led up to all this. I asked her specifically what the CDC Director did wrong. She didn't directly answer that only to say that she didn't line up with the President's agenda. And as you just heard in an interview with her colleague, Ann Thompson, those other top CDC officials, they say that this is political interference.
And clearly, that interview is something that the White House just apparently wasn't standing for. It's also important to keep in mind that Donald Trump picked this woman for this job just a few months ago. So it's interesting that that's the take on this. You know, some Democrats in Congress are now calling for Secretary Kennedy to be fired as a result of all of this.
Is there any chance that the White House moves in that direction? At this point, we have no indication of that, Ryan. It still seems that the White House is still firmly behind the HHS Secretary. It is interesting, however, the President Trump has not weighed in on his controversy today, Iran's social media or on camera.
We did hear from the White House press secretary of Trump himself, who is notoriously not shy from making his feelings known on this sort of matter. He's not weighed in today. But we have no indication of the White House's and anything but completely supported of Robert Kennedy, Jr. Ryan.
Okay, let's get the view from the Hill now, Sahel. It was just a month ago that Minars was confirmed. It was along party lines. All these Democrats defending her voted against her a month ago.
You know, what's the reaction been on Capitol Hill to this fire? There have been very different reactions from the two parties, as you know, Ryan. Notably, Senator Bernie Sanders, the ranking member of the Help Committee, came out aggressively criticizing the administration over this movie called for an immediate bipartisan investigation. He argues that this is all about Secretary Kennedy's anti-vaccine agenda.
He called for an immediate public hearing as well, where Secretary Kennedy as well as the fired CDC director and the resigned officials can all testify and can all be asked questions or multiple other Democrats. As you noted, are calling for firing Secretary Kennedy? Well, the problem is Secretary Kennedy is acting at the behest of Trump, and you can't fire the President. So this is a much bigger struggle that they have.
Now, the chairman of this committee, Bill Cassidy, he said in a fairly passive statement on social media that the departures will require oversight. He didn't say what that would look like, but he did. As you noted, I'll call to postpone this September 8th meeting for this HHS advisory committee. And what he said were serious allegations about lack of scientific processes being followed.
Cassidy's in a very, very interesting and intricate position here, giving that he's up for reelection. And let's expand on that a little bit, because Cassidy's been talking about oversight of HHS and Robert F Kennedy Jr., from the second that he cast that controversial vote to confirm him. And yet, there hasn't been any demonstration of rigorous oversight since he made that promise. So what should we expect when he talks about oversight other than this hearing?
Well, Cassidy's been visibly uncomfortable with Secretary Kennedy, right from the start, right from the confirmation hearing where he said publicly that he was struggling with the Kennedy nomination. He cited Kennedy's history, you know, what he said was a decade-long history of being anti-vaccines. And Cassidy as a doctor himself feels this personally. He's heard from his former colleagues and goes back at home about this.
So what he's going to do about this, far from clear, I think it's impossible to miss the context that he's up for reelection in Louisiana. He's facing a primary challenge from a MAGA Trump-aligned candidate. And he voted to convict Trump last time on impeachment charges, so he's not on the president's nice list right now. How he navigates this remains to be seen.
But he's in an extremely important position now to decide what continues. And then there's, of course, who replaces me. She skated through on partisan lines a month ago, and she wasn't good enough for this White House. How difficult will it be to get someone new confirmed?
Yeah, so the plot certainly thickens on this one, because Republicans have a one vote margin on the help committee. They didn't get any Democratic votes to confirm Susan Minares, although some Democrats like Patty Murray say they were wrong to assume that she wouldn't stand up to RFK. Murray said that in a statement. But going forward, I think Democrats can easily look at this and say, RFK is just going to fire whoever is confirmed unless they advance his agenda.
The agenda that Democrats don't believe should happen. So it's not just Cassidy whose vote would be at question here. There are two centrists on the Republican side on this committee, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. If you don't get their votes, the next CDC director doesn't advance on a committee.
And then the CDC has Berkeley points out a rudderless at a time where it's heading into flu and COVID season where they need to be at their top of their game. Berkeley and Silo appreciate that for both of you. Up next, the view from a veteran public health expert who ran the CDC and spoke to the CDC director yesterday about a rift with HHS Secretary Kennedy, and how it led to her firing. Don't go anywhere.
That interview is next. We're watching the festival. Welcome back. As we mentioned, the major shakeup at the CDC is sending shockwaves to the medical community and raising questions about our trust in our public health institutions.
Joining me now is Dr. Richard Besser, the former acting director of the CDC and president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As we mentioned, he spoke to Susan Minares, the now ousted CDC director yesterday. So our conversation is time, please, to say the least.
Just first, your reaction to the firing of the CDC director and also the resignation of these four senior officials. What are your biggest concerns right now? Well, you know, as you discussed in your previous segment, we're seeing an all-out assault on public health in America. You know, I worked at the CDC for 13 years under Democratic and Republican administrations and we've never seen this kind of assault on our institution.
There was always bipartisan support. What we've seen since January with the loss of thousands of jobs from the Department of Health and Human Services. The cuts of billions of dollars to state and local public health, and now with the removal of the CDC director, the loss of agency leadership. We are really in a dangerous position as a nation when it comes to public health.
This will affect everyone in every community, rural communities, individuals with disabilities, individuals with lower incomes who really rely on public health system for so many services. This will be really, really challenging. And, you know, unless we see the White House step up and recognize that they are responsible for the health of people in this nation, unless we see Congress come forward and really, really provide the oversight function that they're supposed to provide. We will continue to see a secretary who holds very fringe perspectives when it comes to science, when it comes to vaccines, when it comes to health.
This will have a dire impact on people's lives. And you did speak with Susan Minars yesterday. What can you tell us about that conversation and how is she reacting to her termination? Yeah, you know, I reach out to every CDC director in my role as a former CDC leader, as well as my role as the head of RWJF to look for areas for collaboration.
And, you know, what she said to me is that she had a couple of lines in the sand, which is so critical when you're in these roles. She said she would never do anything illegal, and she would never do anything that ran counter to the science. And she said the secretary asked her to do both. She asked her to remove the leaders from CDC, which is illegal to remove civil service employees without cause.
And she was asked to approve endorsed recommendations coming out of the advisory committee on vaccines that she did not believe represented the best science. And so because of that, she said that she could not do those things. She was asked to resign and said she would not resign, and so expected that she would get fired. I want to play for you something that Secretary Kennedy said today.
Take a listen and we'll get you to respond. There's a lot of trouble at CDC, and it's been required getting rid of some people over the long term in order for us to change the institutional culture and bring back pride and self-esteem and make that agency, the stellar agency that it's always been very confident in the political staff that we have down there now that they're going to be able to accomplish that and ensure the competent functionality of that agency. What's your response? Is it the role of the political staff to restore confidence in our public health institutions?
And could you make the argument that if there is a competence problem, it could be in part to the leadership of the current administration? It's hard to know where to begin with that quote. The problem we see at CDC as a direct result of the politicization of public health that took place during the COVID pandemic. It was a time when public health was demonized, was vilified.
And we're seeing the outcome. Politicians saw that there was the opportunity to capitalize off of the fear that people were holding onto during the COVID pandemic. And any misstep that the agency took was rather than providing opportunities to understand how in a learning situation, there will be changes in recommendations. You saw politicians capitalizing on that.
The Secretary of Canada has done more than anybody in our nation to undermine our faith in our vaccine system. He's doing the same now with public health. The biggest problem we have at CDC is that there are too many political appointments down there. The agency isn't being allowed to do its job, which is to use science and evidence and data to protect the health of people here and around the world.
At the very least, there must be an unbelievable brain drain happening in what was once considered to be a gold standard agency in the federal government. What's your advice now to these staffers who are still there? They're still working at HHS. And they likely feel conflicted about staying in their jobs, their service to the American public versus resigning in protest over the way they see the direction of this administration.
I hope that people stay. I hope that people continue to try and do the critical work. The 13 years I spent at CDC were some of the proudest in my career. It's an agency full of people who are working to try and improve the lives of people across our country and make sure that we move towards a future in which health isn't available just to sub, but as a right for all.
Public health is a very popular field for young people. But when they see politicians like Secretary Kennedy undermining the ability of public health leaders and public health professionals to do their work, it's going to make it less appealing and we're going to suffer over the long haul. I really hope that Senator Cassidy and others continue to move forward with providing oversight to what is taking place and call the secretary in and ask some hard questions about what is taking place. Is that enough?
I mean, Senator Cassidy's promised oversight, but he hasn't put a lot of substance behind that promise is just grilling the secretary in a public forum enough or would you like to see even more? Well, it's not just grilling. If you don't get sufficient answers, what kind of actions are you going to take? We've seen the secretary remove thousands of HHS employees with without cause.
We've seen billions of dollars that would be building up public health at our state and local health departments going money that would go directly to congressional districts drying up. Congress has to do its job and recognize that this is a secretary who is undermining the health and safety of people in every community in America. In particular, rural communities that depend so much on public health are going to be at increased risk. And as we get into the COVID season as the flu season, as you were mentioning, these things are going to be magnified.
People are not getting a consistent, coherent message about the value of vaccination at this time. We are going to see a lot of people lose their lives to vaccine-preventable diseases. Okay, Dr. Richard Besser, we're going to have to leave it there.
Thank you so much for the conversation, so we appreciate it. Thank you. After the break, how top Democrats and potential 28 candidates are stepping up the rhetoric against the president and his push for power. Hannah's next to watching the president.
Welcome back. Turning now to another official, the White House is trying to house. The Fed Governor Lisa Cook is suing President Trump for what she calls his quote, unprecedented and illegal effort to remove her from the central bank. Cook says that an accusation of alleged mortgage fraud before her confirmation to the board is not a cause for removal.
There will be a hearing in the case tomorrow. Joining me on set is Alan Smith, the national political reporter here at NBC News. Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. Anthony Coley, former Justice Department spokesman under President Obama.
He's also an NBC News contributor. Rob Bluey, the president and executive editor of The Daily Signal. So, Alan, this is, you know, I think officially a pattern that we're seeing with President Trump. He's dismissed allies, or his president Trump and his allies, I should say, dismissed non-partisan members of government.
And they're not always over political disagreements. It's because they just don't do what he wants them to do. We have the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the CDC Director, and now this Fed Governor. You know, is this, this seems to be something that President Trump has held that down, right?
This isn't, this is kind of the new era of his administration. Maybe a little bit different than it was in Trump 1.0. Now, in Trump 1.0, right, there were a lot of firing. There were a lot of people he brought in and very quickly removed.
But I think what's different about right now, and you really think about the Bureau of Labor Statistics had, that was kind of considered to be like the ultimate untouchable position, right? And to fire that person led to, you know, not necessarily huge backlash among Republicans, but a lot of concern, right? That now all of a sudden there's a gold standard, a report or gold standard system would no longer function in the same manner. And I think we're seeing something right now with the CDC that's somewhat similar, right?
There's below up, and there's a lot more to learn about it, but it seems to be over vaccine recommendations. And again, sort of a lack of reliance on the data between this person and Health Secretary, RK Jr. So, you know, there's a lot more to kind of uncover here. But I think right now it's a lot more focused.
These firings are a lot more focused on data specifically than they necessarily were in the first time. And I want to play a little bit of what President Trump said about Lisa Cook, the Fed Board Governor, he'd like to remove it. Listen to this. We have some very good people for that position.
And I think we have some very good people. We'll have a majority very shortly. So that'll be great. Once we have a majority, housing is going to swing and it's going to be great.
People are paying too high an interest rate. That's the only problem with housing. So, President Trump's made it clear he wants them to reduce interest rates. He's attacked Jerome Powell over that.
But his claim here is that he's firing Lisa Cook because of alleged mortgage fraud. He can't have it both ways, which is it? Well, and you have to think that when it comes to her lawsuit, this is all going to be evidence that this supposed firing for cause because of this mortgage alleged fraud. It becomes harder and harder to sustain that as the actual rationale when every time the president brings it up, he talks about interest rates and it's clear that that's his real agenda.
I think also when you look at just the volume of these firings, firing has always been part of President Trump's brand. It was his brand going back to the apprentice. And you think back to the debate with Joe Biden, he criticized the Biden administration for never being willing to fire people and letting people just sort of continue on in competence in many cases. And so I think that people do see it as a positive to have an engaged executive who's really monitoring the whole government to make sure that it's operating in the way that he sees fit.
Unfortunately, in some cases that could be illegal or deeply distressing to the markets when it comes to something like that. I want to, Rob, I want you to build off of what both Alan and Molly are saying about the idea that he's kind of firing the referees here, right? It's one thing to fire a Secretary of State that you don't like whose job it is to install your policy. But the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, members of the Fed Board of Governors, these are the folks that are supposed to look at the data with sober eyes, without political influence and make a decision.
Why is that a smart move for the president to fire these folks that are supposed to be just calling balls and strikes? Well, Ryan, first of all, I say I'm not sure that President Trump would agree with your characterization. I mean, he sees this is his administration. He's learned from his first term that if he doesn't have perfect alignment, he's not going to implement the policies that he believes the American people sent him to Washington to do.
And so that interpretation that you made and that we may have traditionally thought of as the Washington standard is not the same that Donald Trump interprets. And it goes back to exactly what Molly said. He's a businessman. And he thinks that as the CEO of the company, he should have control over who it is.
Let me challenge you on that a little bit. Because when he, at his vast real estate empire, he's got a CFO, right? And the CFO comes into the office and tells him, Mr. Trump, you're losing billions of dollars in this golf course in Scotland.
Does he just fire the CFO? Or does he actually make a change? So he's not losing billions of dollars in that golf course in Scotland. Maybe I think President Trump is interested in the data.
Now, in the case of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there was some question about, you know, all of the transparency and the accuracy. And I think that, you know, there was a move afoot, if you listen to Bill Beach, who was the former head of that department to try to make some improvements in that area. There was frustration among members of Congress too. So I think it's a combination of both.
I think he does care about the underlying information from the CFO and in the case of his business empire, or in the case of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, what the job market looks like. So there's a key difference between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0. And Trump 1.0, he had people around him who would resist his worst instincts. People like Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions, who were his first two attorney generals, they were conservative Republicans.
They voted for him, supported him. They wanted him to be successful, but they had lines that they would not cross. Bill Barr rightly refused to go along with Trump's lie about the 2020 election. Bill Barr appropriately recused himself from overseeing DOJ's investigation on Russian interference in 2016.
That's very different from Trump 2.0. Right now he has people in place like Pam Bondi, like Cash Patel, who are more loyal to him than they are to the Constitution. And Ryan Loyalty is actually not strong enough word. We're talking about absolute obedience and fealty to Trump.
Facts be damned, law be damned. That's why we're seeing all of these types of investigations against this political woman. Well, you know, the founders were worried about this, right? Like they knew if you put a person in charge, call them the president that they might run rough shot with as much power as they possibly can.
They created the system where they have Congress and they have the judicial branch to try to balance it all out. Enter in Congress into this conversation. And let's now turn the conversation to the situation at the CDC. And I want to play for you what Senator Bill Cassidy said when he voted to confirm Robert F Kennedy Jr.
I will watch carefully for any effort to wrongfully sow public fear about vaccines between confusing references of coincidence and anecdote. But my supporters build on insurances that this will not have to be a concern based on Mr. Kennedy's assurances on vaccines and his platform to positively influence American's health. It is my consideration that he will get this done.
So this is promising that he's going to be that check on Robert F Kennedy Jr. He's had a lot of concern about the moves that he's made, but has he demonstrated any oversight at all? Not so far. I mean, I think this is going to be a big question when Congress comes back to town next week is certainly Senator Cassidy specifically.
But I think the Senator is more broadly. How do they feel about all of these things that Trump is doing that do go much farther than the traditional presidential prerogative of simply having a team in the cabinet, as you said? So, you know, I think we have seen the judiciary hold Trump in check quite a fair bit. We have seen a lot of judicial decisions against the president for the most part.
The administration has respected those. Congress, you could argue not so much. And so I think there's going to be a lot of questions. I would also watch Mitch McConnell on this one given his history with the below.
And let's talk about vaccines, Alan, because that could be a campaign issue, right? I mean, there's a Ugov poll from earlier this year. That's a 75% of Americans, both Republican and Democrat, believe that the benefits outweigh the risks when it comes to vaccines versus only 11% that feel otherwise. Could this be an issue that Democrats could seize upon and make it a 2026 midterm issue?
I mean, well, when you think about Senator Cassidy and Congress coming back next week, he had put out a statement earlier today, essentially saying this major plan vaccine meeting that they were going to have at the CDC that precipitated this huge blow up. They should postpone it on toll. His committee, the Health Committee has a chance to actually conduct oversight here with what's going on. So clearly, he sees this as a major issue.
That's a guy who's on the ballot in 2026. And, you know, you think about the past month. So many major things that Trump has done while Congress has been out on recess. I mean, they're about to be presented with so many things, whether it's as low, but the CDC, the takeover in Washington, you know, there's been a number of investigations that have been launched.
I mean, members of Congress are just coming back in this environment. They're going to get pressed with all this stuff starting next week. And I'm a good Democrat. So I have to insert the Epstein files.
And all of the nominees that are still awaiting confirmation, which as a conservative and somebody who believes in Article 1, obviously, the senators have a big role to play in asking those questions right. And so I think it'll be interesting to watch what Congress ultimately does. And my hope on the CDC thing is that we get transparency. I think that's what parents are looking for.
I think that's what Americans generally want from the CDC. And that agency has lost a lot of trust as we know over the last five years. We all did very well before we got the table. I think everybody got enough time to talk.
Everybody feel good? Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Thank you, Ryan. Thank you, Rob. Thanks so much. Still to come.
President Zelensky accuses President Putin of choosing ballistics over the negotiating table after Russia pummeled Kyiv with a massive overnight assault killing at least 19 people. You're watching with the president. Welcome back overnight. Russia launched the most significant strikes on Ukraine's capital since the meeting between Presidents Putin and Trump.
And one of the largest since the war began. 19 people were killed, more than 60 injured in Kyiv overnight, according to Ukrainian officials. Russian forces fired over 600 drones and missiles, hitting more than 20 locations across Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian air force. The attack comes a day after the Ukrainian government reported that Russian forces have pushed into a new region of Ukraine and as the push toward peace talks have stalled.
And a social media post earlier today, Ukrainian President Volumir Zelensky blamed Russia for the delay, writing, Russia chooses ballistics instead of the negotiating table. It chooses to continue killing instead of ending the war. Joining me now with the very latest on the war is NBC News chief international correspondent Kyiv Simmons. So, Kyiv, tell us more about this attack.
What do we know? Well, it was a bombardment overnight. Witnesses talk about hearing it at 3 a.m. in Kyiv in the capital of Ukraine.
As you mentioned, tens of missiles around 600 drones. That was across Ukraine, but the capital was particularly targeted, and among those that have been killed for children. So, munitions raining down on residential areas, significantly though too, hitting a place where a European official office is. And that has enraged the Europeans.
The German chancellor, for example, describing it as the true face of Russia and the Europeans promising more sanctions against Russia, a 19th round of sanctions, as a result of that attack. There are those in the European leadership who are suggesting that this was a deliberate act by Russia, targeting these European offices, and the pictures do show broken glass and furniture thrown around. Massive attack. It also comes on the heels of these efforts to push toward peace talks.
President Trump has indicated that he had confidence in setting up a meeting between the presidents. Putin and Zelensky, at this point, is there any hope even a sign of a meeting happening in the near future? Well, it's still being talked about. The issue really is that while all sides are talking about potential meetings and saying they are open to talks, Russia certainly is not interested in a deal that doesn't include a compromise by the West, many of the kinds of, as they call it, maximalist goals, that the President Putin and Russia have held out for so long, ever since the invasion of Ukraine, and that's not something Europeans are going to acquiesce to, and certainly with these kinds of attacks, this attack overnight, less than two weeks since that meeting between President Trump and President Putin, that's going to harden views inside Europe.
President Putin's aim appears to be to demoralise Ukrainians through these bombing campaigns, make it more likely they'll compromise, but it may well have the opposite effect. Maybe expand on that. If the peace talks continue to stall, where do the Ukrainians go from here? How long can they continue to withstand these attacks?
Oh, they can continue to withstand these attacks. I mean, the key issues around all of this are that the front line isn't really moving. I mean, you'll read in the online the papers about Russian advances, but they are incremental advances. The front line is really stuck, mostly because it's now in the front line a war of artillery and drones, very difficult for soldiers to make any kind of progress without being picked off, and what you've got instead is a drone war and a missile war between Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine hitting Russian oil installations, trying to wind each other down, if you like, and it doesn't appear to be working on either side.
So, no end to this. Okay, Ker Simons, thank you for that. We're back tomorrow with more Meet the Press Now, but there's more news ahead on NBC News Now. I'm Craig Malef, cheers.
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