Meet the Press NOW — December 3

Welcome to the press now. I'm Kristin Welker in Washington. We begin with breaking news with new scrutiny on President Trump's already embattled Defense Secretary Pete Haggseth. Right now, President Trump is holding an event in the Oval Office and we expect him to take questions from reporters.

We will bring that to you live when it happens. But this all comes in a new report by the Pentagon's top government watchdog. The office of the inspector general has concluded that Secretary Haggseth's use of a group chat on Signal back in March about a pending military operation in Yemen. Could have imperiled American troops.

That's according to two people who have read the report. The inspector general's report also finding that the Defense Secretary violated military regulations by using his personal phone for official business. That report so far has been shared within the administration with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. A redacted version is expected to be released publicly by tomorrow.

The findings concluding an eight month investigation into Haggseth's use of Signal to share details of planned strikes in Yemen and a group chat that also included a journalist mistakenly. The Pentagon reacting to the news claiming it's a quote total exoneration of Secretary Haggseth because it proves that no classified information was shared about the strike. Now we should note the report's conclusions do not address whether Haggseth was able to share the information he did. That's according to the people who have seen the report.

Now taking a step back, this all comes as Haggseth already faces questions from Democratic Democrats and Republicans about the legality of a second U.S. military strike on the alleged drug vote off the coast of Venezuela in September. Joining me now is Senior White House correspondent Garrett Hake as well as NBC News, Senior National Security correspondent Courtney QB thanks to both of you for starting us off Garrett. Let me start with you at the White House.

Take us inside your conversations there in the West Wing. What has the reaction been to this IG report? Well, so far there's been no public reaction from the White House or from the president that we're speaking now and will hopefully be asked about it. The Pentagon statement suggesting that Haggseth has been somehow totally exonerated by this report remains the only public comment I've seen from anyone in the administration.

I will say going back several months now, excuse the sirens behind me as we work just outside the White House, that this was sort of a closed matter that it seems to be Mike Waltz, the former national security advisor who had actually taken the fall for the single gate episode. And then most of the senior White House staff had moved on. The president, I sort of liked the idea that Haggseth was a fighter. He seemed to have the right enemies and seemed to push through this whether the release of the report and the questions of the White House would probably continue to get about it and drag that back to the president's attention or not.

I think it's a question we'll have to answer in the next couple of days. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right about that. Garrett, it's notable the president has been very firm. He's standing by his Pentagon chief.

I wonder if you are getting any tea leaves and obviously we'd like to read the tea leaves here in Washington that that support could be starting to wane or do you think he's firmly standing by Haggseth? Yeah, look, Kristin, you know, as well as anybody, but not a month has gone by, which there hasn't been some kind of rumor about Pete Haggseth being pushed out or plotting to leave the White House. None of that has amounted to much of anything. He was spotted at the White House today appearing to leave the Oval Office as the pool was going in to this event today.

That in itself is not unusual. Most of these cabinet secretaries spend at least a portion of their day around the president. When Haggseth was going through his confirmation battles, I think that became abundantly clear for my conversations with senior officials and for the president's own public remarks was that he liked that Haggseth was willing to get out and fight and Haggseth had this sort of ability similar to his own ability to, you know, pick the right enemies essentially. I think that as long as the people that the president doesn't like are the people who are picking on Pete Haggseth, the president is probably going to stand by him.

I think that president's issues with Pete Haggseth might come back to the surface when the spotlight is off him as opposed to being seen as somehow on a get rid of the guy who's being attacked by the media or by Democrats. That's been the pattern up till now. We'll see it all. Yeah, Garrett, I think you're right.

We've seen this pattern of closing ranks around someone who is in battle inside the administration here at Stay With Us. We've got a lot more to cover with you. Court, let me turn to you on this IG report. When this signal group chat first broke, it was a significant story raised questions about the decision-making process of the defense secretary.

What are your key takeaways at this point from this IG report? Yes. So there's a couple of things. I think the most important thing here is despite months and months of denying that there was classified information in that signal chat, the IG found that in fact the information was accurately classified as secret no foreign.

That means secret, classified information, period. Now, what it doesn't, what we don't know yet, exactly how it addresses is, secretary of defense P-type is a classification authority. He could say, okay, I want to declassify that information. Now, at this point, they are not addressing whether that actually occurred or not.

In another key takeaway, secretary of defense did not fully cooperate as part of this investigation. Instead of sitting down for an interview, which would be standard, he provided a brief statement about it. So at this point, it's not really clear if they're trying to claim that as a defense that he had the ability to classify it, but also, is that yes, being a declassification authority, but it's not like he could just walk in and say, oh, well, I'm putting this on an unclassified server, so it's declassified. It doesn't work that way.

It's interesting, Courtney, because this report, the White House is saying, is a total exoneration of Pete Haggseth. Take us inside your conversations. Is it, in fact, a total exoneration? I mean, if you're reading the language carefully?

Not at all. I don't understand the language coming out of the White House and the Pentagon. This is a exoneration. I mean, it clearly proves that, again, their repeated defense that the information was not classified is simply not accurate.

And we've known that. We've been reporting that the information was initially provided by then Commander of Sankom General, Eric Carilla, who sent it on a classified server known as JWix. It was then copied onto the secretary's personal phone and sent on an unclassified server signal. That was another thing, actually, that the IG found was that the secretary improperly used signal and improperly used his personal phone for official DoD business violating DoD policy.

So, Court, where do you see all of this going next? Yeah. So, that's the thing. At this point, we're not aware that the IG made any kind of a recommendation out of here, like the secretary.

They did recommend training on what can and cannot be used for classified information, things that frankly already exist, but maybe retraining, I guess. But there's no recommendation that we're aware of that he should be fired, that there should be some sort of an adjudication or even any kind of, you know, actually, like criminal charges or anything like that. So, it's really going to be up to the president whether anything comes out of this or the Hill, if the Hill decides that they want to start complaining about this. Okay, Courtney, thank you so much for that.

Let's go to the White House where President Trump is taking reporter's questions now from the Oval Office. So, hi, going into Christmas and going into next year, and I do have one for the autogroup after you. I just think that we do, we have tremendous confidence in the country. You know, one of the things in terms of confidence, when if you go back a year and a half, it's amazing, we're like into 10 months already, but you go back a little bit before the election, because after November 5th, it started changing rapidly, even though we weren't running it until January 10th.

But when you look back and you look at the enlistment of soldiers, people that wanted to join the military, the Army, Navy, the Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, it's like booming, it's all space force. But we had a very, very, we had the worst recruitment in the history of our country. A year later, we have the greatest recruitment in history. You can't even get in, getting into a top college that you couldn't get in.

The people want to be in the service now, and that includes the police environment and other things. You couldn't hire police, you couldn't hire anybody in the Army or the Navy. You couldn't get people in, and we now have gone from that to record recruitment. We're getting, we're getting high quality people, amazing people, wanting to be in the military.

They have spirit now. You don't call it what you want, but that's part of it. They have great spirit now. It's a great thing.

Go ahead and ask you a second question. Okay, my second question. I've got a lot of close family friends in the automotive business owned dealerships all across Southern California. They sent you a question to ask you.

They're the name called a mileage blocker. That is installed on vehicles. It's a type of computer chip, which alters the actual mileage driven on the vehicle. So that when you have a lease vehicle that's turned in, they're losing thousands of dollars and got to go chase down these manufacturers.

What can we do to track down these manufacturers of this illegal computer chip that's really hurting the automotive business? Have you heard about this? Yes, sir. The Kenville and China, and what's never come out of it?

Great Britain, sir. They're pretty distributed through China, through distributors selling them online through Great Britain. Yes, sir. Wow.

That's so good. What do you know? Look at that. Yeah.

You've heard anything about that? It works on older vehicles, and obviously we got to do a better job. Yeah, I think it's something, I've never heard it, it's very good. We've never heard of it.

That's pretty good. You released video of that first boat strike on September 2nd, but not the second video. Will you release video of that strike so that the American people can see for themselves? I don't know what they have, but whatever they have would certainly release.

No problem. You know, we stopped. Every boat, we knocked out. We saved 25,000 American lives.

And if you look at our numbers, the drugs coming in through the sea are down 91%. I'm surprised there's a 9% the oil. I don't know who's doing the 9%, but it's down 91. And we're going to start very soon on land, and I'm sure you're thrilled to hear that.

Tom, on Ukraine, Steve Whitcoff and Darren Kushner were there last night in the Putin. Can you give us an update about those sorts of sounds and what the Kremlin is saying, that they're not going to compromise? Can you tell us what you've... I don't know what the Kremlin's doing.

I can tell you that they had a reasonably good meeting with President Putin. We're going to find out. It's a war that should have never been started. It's a war if I were president.

We had a recollection. If I were president, that war would have never happened. It's a terrible thing. But I thought they had a very good meeting yesterday with President Putin.

We'll see what happens. It's, you know, when I was in this office and I talked about no cards, I said, yeah, no cards. That was the time to settle. I thought that would have been a much better time to settle.

But they wasn't decided not to do that. They have a lot of things against them right now. But you have President Putin had a very good meeting yesterday with Jared Kushner and Steve Whitcoff. What comes out of that meeting?

I can't tell you. Because it does take two to tanger. You know, Ukraine, I think we have something pretty well worked out with them, very satisfied, considering. But the sad part is if I were president, no war would have ever happened.

They would have had 100% of the territory. Nothing would have happened. It's a very sad situation. So think of this, last month, 27,000 soldiers.

That's like, let me take a stadium, a football stadium, not an arena. And you cut it in half. 27,000 people died. Young, mostly young soldiers died last month in one month.

And that's the only reason I'm involved. You know, we're not spending any money in the world. We're selling to NATO. We're not being ripped off like we were on the Biden fight.

It was handing everybody everything we had, giving them all the missiles, everything they wanted free, no charge. So just, he had no idea what he was saying. They're paying top dollar, full price for everything goes to NATO. And the NATO distributes that NATO pays us.

So we're not, it's not money. We would all, I think I can speak for everyone behind here. The politicians, I know, and the auto manufacturers are good people. They don't want to see 27,000 people die for no reason whatsoever.

And that's the only reason I'm trying to help. Yeah, please. This resolution of Venezuela for a second. Have you checked back with President Maduro?

Is your pressure campaign working? Who has your responsibility to work? It's not pressure campaign as much beyond that, I think. But I spoke to him briefly, just told him a couple of things.

And we'll see what happens with that. Venezuela sends us drugs, but Venezuela sends us people that they shouldn't be sending. They sent us, they empty their prisons into our country. They sent us killers, murderers.

They sent us drug dealers at the highest level. They sent us gang members. They sent us people from their mental institutions. They emptied their mental institutions into our country.

And so did other countries, because we had stupid people running this country, really stupid people. And I think probably some stupid ones, and yet some smart ones, but they were bad people too, because nobody, not all of them were stupid. You can't cheat on elections like they did, and be stupid. Okay.

Just talk to him a second time, or is that one time? One second. One second. Yeah.

Go ahead. Just a second. Can you speak with Mr. Whitcock and Mr.

Cook? That's not it. That's not it. They give you the sense that President Putin still wants to end the war, still wants to make these.

He would like to end the war. That's what they, that was the impression. Now, whether or not, that was their impression. You know, their impression was that they'd like to, he would like to see the war ended.

I think it'd like to get back to dealing with more normal life. I think it'd like to be trading with the United States of America, frankly, instead of, you know, losing thousands of soldiers a week. But their impression was very strongly that they'd like to make a deal. Mr.

Whitcock, the vote is right. They've been found that survivors were actually killed while clinging onto that boat, showed Secretary Headset, Admiral Bradley, or others be punished. I think you're going to find that this is war, that these people were killing our people by the millions, actually, if you look over a few years. I think last year we lost, plus 300,000 people were killed.

That's not mentioning all the families to have you seen when it happens with the families. Not only the people that are trying to get their son or their daughter off of this poison that they've been fed, I think you're going to find that there's a very receptive ear to doing exactly what they're doing, taking out those boats. And very soon we're going to start doing it on land, too, because we know every route, we know every house, we know where they manufacture this crap, we know where they put it all together. And I think you're going to see it very soon on land.

So you support the decision to kill survivors after the attack? No, I support the decision to knock out the boats. And whoever's piloting those boats, most of them are gone. But whoever are piloting those boats, they're guilty of trying to kill people in our country.

Yeah, please? How's the cheering committee has subpoenaed Jack Smith to ask without his investigation of you? I wondered for a deposition. I wondered if you'd prefer to see that as a hearing so that the American public can see the questions and responses more easily.

I'd rather see it probably a hearing. You know, Jack Smith is a thug. He's a failed prosecutor. He's a bad man.

He's a bad man. He's an evil man. He heard a lot of people. Forget about me.

You know, I do this stuff. But I got indicted many times by they would dismiss. He's a big guy. He's a sick man.

There's something wrong with him, actually. I think Jack Smith is a sick man. There's something really wrong with him. I'd rather see him testify publicly.

This is no way you can answer the questions. But Biden knew this was going on. Kamala knew it was going on. And there's a lot of things happening right now that they don't like.

One of the things is the auto pen. Everything he signed almost with the exception of the pardon of his wonderful son Hunter. Just about everything he signed was not signed by him. He had no knowledge of it.

He didn't know what it was. People sitting around the beautiful resolute desk knew exactly what it was. And those people are guilty, in my opinion, of a major crime. Everything that was signed by that auto pen, he meant operating the auto pen.

And I'm sure they're more than one, because I think some of the people can operate it themselves. Some of the high level people operated themselves. They would just go in and sign his name with the auto pen. On the very important documents, not only pardons, but policy.

Maybe cafe said. Who signed cafe? If you asked Biden, what's a cafe said? He would have absolutely no idea.

He'd say, where's a cafe located? The guy didn't know anything. Look, that just shows you what a rigged election can be. But you understand what I'm saying?

Thank you. You had conversations with him. So in your conversations with him, have you kind of given a sense of where you are with export controls and the types of shows that he didn't get to China? He knows very well.

He said it amazing. Do you have Nevada? Very good. Mr.

President, when do you expect for phase two of the Gaza peace plan to be implemented? Well, you know, they had a problem today. I understand with the bomb that went off, heard some people pretty badly. It's probably killing some people.

They're telling me it just happened. But it's going on very well. We have peace in the Middle East. People don't realize it.

We have tremendous support. Fifty million countries. There's tremendous support. But well, a Facebook is moving along.

Yeah, it's going to happen. Did you speak with House Republican leadership about your decision to pardon? Are you concerned that you made a vulnerable Democrat perhaps less vulnerable with that decision? It didn't matter.

He was a respected person. He was treated very badly because he said that people should not be allowed to pour into our country. And he was right. He didn't like open borders.

He was on the border. He represents a very respected man. He represents the people on the border. And he saw what was happening.

And as soon as he made that statement, I then said, I'll bet he gets indicted. And that's what happened. You know, I put out my truth from that. Oh, I did a truth.

Wonderful truth. We love truth. But what happened is he got indicted for speaking the truth. And his wife got indicted in the middle of it.

And that's sort of the first. Usually they leave the wives alone, right? Don't think I'm just going to typically indict somebody. Put him in jail for the rest of his life.

But the wife can just sit home and cry. Or she'll find a new man. A lot of times they find a new man and make so much happier. A lot of times they like that man and the one that's in jail.

Thank you. The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, is saying that he's actually proud to have the largest Somali community in the country and his fool. I'd be proud to have the largest Somali. Look at their nation.

Look at their nation. It's not even a nation. It's just people walking around killing each other. Look, these Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country.

They've taken billions and billions of dollars. They have a representative, Ilhan Omar, who they say married her brother. It's a fraud. She tries to deny it now, but you can't really deny it because it's happened.

She should be allowed to be a congresswoman. And I'm sure people are looking at that. And she should be thrown the hell out of our country. And most of those people, they have destroyed Minnesota.

Okay. Minnesota, you have an incompetent governor. You have a crooked governor. He's crooked as hell, but he's incompetent.

Waltz, he should be ashamed. That beautiful land, that beautiful state. It's a hellhole right now. And the Somalian should be out of here.

They've destroyed our country. And all they do is complain, complain, complain. You have her. She's always talking about the Constitution provides me with go back to your own country and figure out your Constitution.

All she does is complain about this country. Without this country, she would not be in very good shape. She probably wouldn't be alive right now. So Somalia is considered by many to be the worst country on earth.

I don't know. I haven't been there. I won't be there anytime soon. I hope.

But Somalia, what the Somalian people have done to Minnesota is not even believable. It's not even believable. And a lot of it starts with the governor. A lot of it starts with Barack Hussein Obama, because that's when people started coming in.

And you have to have people come in that are going to love our country, cherish our country. They want to kiss our country good night. They talk about our country. We want to pray for our country.

And this is not the people living in Minnesota. And she's a disaster. She should not be, and her friend shouldn't be allowed. Frankly, they shouldn't be allowed to be congresspeople.

They shouldn't be allowed to be congresspeople. Because they don't represent the interests of our country. Anybody else? The automaker spent billions on meeting the Biden EV rules.

Should they even recruit that somehow? Given that the changing is out. I'm not letting them recoup. They're going to do just fine.

You know how they recoup from this point forward? They'll do far too well. Can you also talk about the US and CA, what you're thinking about renegotiating that with the automakers? Well, that's just an ongoing thing.

It expires in about a year. And we'll either let it expire, or we'll maybe work out another deal with Mexico and Canada. But Mexico and Canada have taken advantage of the United States. It's like just about every other country, no fairness, it's not them.

I'm not blaming them. But every country, because we had stupid people running our country. We had a lot of stupid people running. That's why we have $38 trillion in debt.

But the beautiful thing about the tariffs is we'll start paying off that debt. The money coming in. They're finding money in our country now that they never do exist. The other day, $30 billion, where did it come from?

I said, why don't you check the tariff show? They said, sir, that tariff hasn't started yet. It doesn't start until January. I said, no, it started two months ago.

They go back, sir, you're right. It was from tariffs. No, we have a whole different country. I hope the Supreme Court, I pray that the Supreme Court understands the importance of the sensible, really, I mean, this would be country threatening if something happened with regards to that.

You know, the people that brought that case are bad people. They're very bad people. They hate our country. They represent foreign countries, including China.

But they represent, and China's making us a lot of money now in tariffs. But they represent people that really don't like our country much. And I know some of them in their scum, in my opinion, their scum, their absolute scum. And they're not sowing for any good reason.

They just want to see if they can stop it, because they make money if this country does badly, you know? So, but we're taking in trillions of dollars. We're stopping wars. We have great national security because of tariffs.

And then to think that we have it after even going to justify this, the reason a lot of these people, I can tell you this, maybe we would add the political people, we wouldn't have these people without tariffs. The people that are up here from Atlantis and Ford and General Motors, great companies, including this gentleman, or they wouldn't be here today, if we didn't have tariffs. They'd be building their plants in Mexico and other places. They're leaving Mexico and they're leaving Canada.

They're leaving because they ripped off our country. They took our businesses away from us. And now because of tariffs, they're all coming back. So, that's a great thing.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, you've been listening to President Trump taking a number of questions in the Oval Office from reporters, a lot of news to get to. And we still have Garrett Heyatt, the White House standing by Courtney Kubie here on set with me. Let me just run through some of the big headlines that we just heard.

He was asked if he would be willing to release video from that September boat strike, in which there were two strikes. The second one purportedly killing survivors. He said he would have no problem with that. He said whatever they have, we certainly would release.

I was asked if there were survivors should Hagg Seth and Bradley, who was the commander in charge at the time be punished. He said, I think you will find this is a war. Plenty of people who would disagree with that characterization that this is actually a war. He was president whether he supports killing survivors.

The president says, no, I support the decision to knock out these boats. The president also weighing in on the meetings between Steve Whitcoff and Jared Kushner. Yesterday with President Putin saying he doesn't know what the Kremlin is doing, but he does think that President Putin would like to end the war, not going into detail about exactly why he's reached that conclusion. Some big news on Minnesota as well.

President Trump lashing out yet again at one of his familiar targets, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, saying she should be thrown out of the country. He has used this language before, but clearly some of the strongest language of the backdrop. All of this revelations that about 59 people of Somali descent were indicted as a part of a fraud scam in Minnesota. Of course, there are thousands of Somalis living in that community.

Nonetheless, President Trump lumping them all together, accusing Somalis of, quote, destroying our country. Just very strong racially tinged language there. Let me head out to Garrett. What were your key takeaways?

What did I miss? Your list is extensive. I'll add some thoughts on it and a few more items from mine on Venezuela suggesting that the boat strike video should be released in its entirety is the news item that could have the longest tail here. What we see on that video undercuts the story that was told by Pete Hegset yesterday in that cabinet meeting or the story that the Admiral in charge is going to be telling congressional leaders over the next couple of days.

The video will tell the story there. The president also basically cutting off Hegset at the knees on whether or not he would have supported killing the survivors of that strike, saying that he only supported blowing up the boats. It doesn't sound like much, but it means the buck stops elsewhere, at least in his mind when it comes to how those strikes were conducted. He very much falsely claims this is a war.

This is not a war, which can only be declared by Congress, which very much hasn't done so. That could also matter on a longer timeline of the investigations here, especially if Democrats ultimately take control of Congress in the midterms, a thing that the president made slightly more likely today when he chose to pardon Henry Cuellar. I've covered Cuellar at my whole career. He is a small seat conservative Texas Democrat.

He's faced primaries almost every cycle. He faces well-funded Republican challengers almost every cycle. The biggest weapon Republicans had against him was that he was under indictment for bribery, something the president may go away like that today with a swipe of a pen. He also called him a very respected person.

If I'm Henry Cuellar, I'm putting that in a campaign ad in my South Texas district to try to run for reelection. The other thing that probably had House Republicans banging their head against the wall was the president saying that he wants to see Jack Smith, his former foe across the last couple of years of investigations, testify in public on Capitol Hill. Why will that frustrate Republicans? They have subpoenaed him for a private deposition.

Democrats have been saying, Jack Smith wants to tell the story. He wants to do it in public. Smith has basically communicated that through these Democrats. If he wants to talk in public, House Republicans are trying to keep a lid on that so that all that would come out with the elements of the transcript.

The president saying today he'd like to see Smith appear in public could cause ultimately more headaches for him and for House Republicans. We're going to have to figure out some way to clean up that medicine. Yeah, you tick through some important headlines that are undoubtedly going to have big implications in the weeks and months ahead and in the midterms as you say, Garrett, hey, thank you. Courtney, let me turn to you.

What do you make? As Garrett says, the president saying he's willing to release the video in full may in fact be the headline that has the longest lifespan here. And the president may not even be aware of the fact that members of Congress have been asking for the full on editing video for many of these strikes for weeks now. So this is going to be, you know, definitely happy news to their ears who they've been wanting this and the Pentagon's not been releasing it.

A couple of other things that really stuck out to me. Yes, absolutely. When he said this is war, Garrett is absolutely right. One of the constitution that Congress is the one who declares war and there has been increasing conversation on the hill about some sort of a war powers vote.

And the conversation, what he just said right there may actually accelerate that conversation. I would be surprised to see that. But a few other things on the drugs, he once again said that the boats are bringing drugs that are killing millions of people. It's just actually not true, Kristin.

The boats are bringing almost exclusively cocaine. Yes, there are addicts, cocaine addicts. Yes, there are overdoses and deaths because of cocaine, but the millions, which it's not millions per year, but the millions of people who have died from overdoses in the United States in recent years is primarily due to fentanyl that's coming across land. It's not coming from the boats.

Finally, the other thing that I would really point out, he was asked once again, he talked about strikes in Venezuela. His language is becoming a little bit more solid when it comes to the possibility of strikes in Venezuela. The cabinet meeting yesterday, he kind of inexplicably said that strikes on land were easier. I assume he means logistically, but I didn't really understand what he meant by that.

But he said once again today that they know their roots, they know the houses and the places they manufacture these drugs, they know how to go after them, and that they will probably be taking strikes on land soon. Court, do you think that means that strikes could be imminent in the coming days or weeks, even? So we have no idea. And I would venture that the president may not have, I suspect, has not made that order go forward now.

But what everyone has to remember is everything is in place to do it right now. They have the ships, they have the personnel, they have the aircraft for targeted strikes on land and Venezuela. Not a ground invasion. We're not talking about a massive invasion, but targeted strikes, absolutely.

They could do those right now if the president wanted them to. All right, Court, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Garrett, stick around a little bit more because I do now want to turn to another major story in Washington, the Trump administration, increasingly aggressive immigration crackdown, the White House now halting immigration from nearly 20 countries and launching ICE operations in two more American cities, New Orleans and Minneapolis, we're just talking about Minneapolis, comes after the president disparaged the Somali immigrant community, as you just heard, and instead of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar during a cabinet meeting yesterday and again today, as you just heard moments ago in the Oval Office, an ICE official telling NBC News they are not specifically targeting the community, but may arrest Somalia's in violation of immigration laws.

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Fry says local police will not collaborate on immigration enforcement. Earlier today, Congresswoman Omar herself, a Somali immigrant, responding to the president's attacks. Take a look. President's obsession with me and the Somali community is really unhealthy.

It's creepy. He's always been racist, big and xenophobic. Most of us are citizens on our passport. It says we are nationals of this country.

We love that Minnesota has welcomed us. Many of us have not been settled in Minnesota. We chose it as a home because the Minnesota people and the state is beautiful and very welcoming. And we are going to be here, regardless of what the president has to say.

Now it comes as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced a pause in immigration applications from 19 countries. The administration deems high risk and that were put under travel restrictions earlier this year. Garrett Hake is still with us outside the White House and with me on set is senior Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley.

Thanks to both of you. Garrett, thank you for pulling the double duty. Maybe it's triple duty today, actually. Let's start, though, again, and just flesh out a little bit more of the conversation we were having.

The president's tirade on Somali immigrants in this country. It does come after the New York Times reported that, as I was saying, 59 people have been convicted on criminal charges related to fraud in recent years. Most of East African descent. We should note the Census Bureau estimates scared there are 84,000 residents of Somali descent in the Minneapolis area.

But the report is clearly part of what's driving the president's comments. But are there concerns broadly that he's going too far with some of his language here? Well, by the way, most of those are naturalized citizens, Chris, and the greater Twin Cities area. Look, I mean, no, the White House doesn't think it's possible to go too far when it comes to immigration language and enforcement.

They would rather be talking about this than almost any other issue is still the issue that mass deportations and immigration enforcement are much the president holds the best nationwide. No, he's under water on this issue, like he is on so many others, but he's less under water on immigration enforcement than he is on Save the Economy. Just yesterday, in response to questions about the president appearing to fall asleep during that cabinet meeting, press secretary put out a statement praising specifically the comments that the president made about Somalia at the end of the cabinet meeting. So there doesn't appear to be at least any public fissure within the White House about that language.

And for what it's worth, when it comes to Somalia and Elon Omar, this goes back to Omar's arrival in Congress really after the 2018 blue wave election. The president has always loved her together with some other progressive Democrats as objects of regular derision. Likewise, with countries in Africa, you'll remember the S-hole country episode from the first term. So none of this is new from the president.

It's just dehumanizing and distressing for a lot of people in these communities especially. Well, yeah, let's just talk a big picture here because this is not coming in a vacuum. This is coming amidst its broader crackdown that we are seeing in the wake of the shootings of those two National Guards members, of course, one tragically killed in that incident. The administration has essentially announced that it is going to halt immigration from a number of countries, among other steps.

What are you hearing about where that is going next? Well, look, I mean, from the Trump White House perspective, this checks a lot of boxes. Number one, they can link it to the shooting here as something that they're doing, you know, to push back, to make the American people safer. Number two, you remember the first, like the first policy that the president tried to implement during his first term was that travel ban from Muslim and Jordan Nations that was ultimately struck down by the course was a huge cause of pushback.

This is like that version 2.0. It's an opportunity to bring back a policy that the president cares deeply about, that he thinks it's something that should be pursuing. And he can do it with a little bit of political cover in this moment where it's front of mind, likewise with the investigation and these rest of the smelly nationals or immigrants in the great, like, excuse me, the Twin Cities area, it's sort of all linked together. Third, Chris, it allows him to go after the government, so it's him also.

It was the Democrats VP nominee, someone who's at least sort of floated the possibility he wants to be a presidential candidate again. The opportunity to attack a major prominent Democrat, undermine a blue state, and push a favorite policy that has been pushed back against so many times in the past. It's sort of like a triple whammy here for this White House. Yeah, and of course, Tim Walz, on the press this past weekend, saying he is not going to be intimidated by the president.

Thank you so much, Garrett. Hey, again, for covering so much ground for us today. We really appreciate it. Julie, let me turn to you.

Let's talk about these new ice operations that we're hearing about in Minneapolis and in New Orleans. What are you hearing about them? What is the community reaction that so far? Surprisingly, Kristen, these two operations are not in coordination at all because they're being run really by separate agencies within DHS.

We know border patrol is in New Orleans. They say they're going after people who have served time in jails for local offenses, local charges, and then been released and they blame the city's sanctuary city policies. But right now, what we've seen from folks on the ground are sweeps of lows in Home Depot parking lots, which doesn't align with that original call to try to go after people specific targets. What we're seeing in Minneapolis is a surge that's largely driven by ICE.

We understand there are 100 agents and they're bringing in some other federal agents as well. They say that the Somali community is not the target, but of course, they're going after people with final orders of removal and it comes on the heels of those comments. Like you and Garrett said, it's not in a vacuum here that this operation is happening as the president is specifically targeting the Somali community. And by the way, as Garrett went out so many are naturalized there, there was a huge surge in the 90s after the Civil War.

And it has the largest population of a worldwide, I swear, of Somalis in that area. And so it's very specific and targeted in that capacity. But it's another case where we're going to be watching to see whether or not there's profiling occurring. Well, and Julia, it also comes as the president, as I was just discussing with Garrett, has halted immigration from what he is describing as quote unquote third world countries.

What can you tell us about what that actually looks like in practical terms and how it's being carried out? So it will be a travel ban that's coming with that emphasis that's boosted. It's like travel ban 3.0. Now you're the one from the first Trump administration that's seven countries.

One that had 19 countries that was announced earlier this year, those 19 countries now have been targeted because they don't do enough vetting according to the Trump administration. And those people will now have their asylum applications put on pause. But what we're waiting for any minute now, Kristin, and any day is for the Department of Homeland Security to release over 30 countries. So we understand as we're on the list right now that Trump considers third world country.

And those people would be blocked from entering the country. How he defines it could tell us where it goes in court, because what ultimately allowed the first Trump administration to push through those seven countries, although COVID happened, which nullified it, was because they said they had done research on the vetting. It's not clear. They've done a lot of research into finding what's third world.

Okay, Julia, thank you so much. And as you rightfully point out, there will undoubtedly be court cases to challenge that. Thank you. Appreciate it, Julia.

Coming up next, the top house Republican and one of Congress's most influential voices on foreign policy ways and on signal gate. President Trump's handling of the war in Ukraine, the Pentagon strikes in the Caribbean and much more as he prepares to retire from public office. He's with us here. Stay with us.

I'll meet the press now. As the day wraps up, get the scoop on what's been happening with here's the scoop, but the podcast for NBC News, with me, your host, Gazem D'Sugio. We'll take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News's trusted journalists. It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful, and it's informative for you closer to headlines and conversations that are shaping our world.

On the front page, the zeitgeist. Here's the scoop from NBC News. Listen daily on Amazon Music. A step back.

It's more context and clarity from the reporters you trust. Download the NBC News app now and subscribe for more. Sure. Thanks for listening.

Well, I want to start with some of the breaking news and we've had a lot today, the Pentagon Inspector General report, including Secretary Hexa's secret information in that signal group chat earlier this year had information that had been intercepted by a foreign adversary. Had that happened, it would have imperiled American troops. Given that, given the findings of this IG report, do you still have confidence in Secretary Hexa? Well, look, this happened early in the administration.

It obviously was a mistake. They're using signal to have secure conversations. Any time I have classified conversations, it's on a secure phone or in the skip. I think it's a lesson from learn.

And I think anytime you have a strike that involves American troops, it gets a foreign adversary. That is not to be lightly taken. And the security measures have to be on top. And I think they've learned a lot from this.

Obviously, they're not using signal anymore. And I think also looping in the reporter into this was also very, I think, reckless, if you will. But they've learned from this. But I think that Inspector General is right.

If you're going to conduct a strike against foreign adversary, you can't tell about that in advance. Well, Congressman, I hear your language, which is not what we've heard from Secretary Hexa. He has frankly been more defiant. Do you think that he needs to come out and say, I have learned a lesson.

I am not going to use signal anymore for these types of sensitive communications. Well, and it is true that there is no classified information on the signal chat. However, I think honesty is always a better policy. I think in messaging and with Congress to say, look, you know, we learned a lot from this mistake, but we're not using signal anymore.

We have gone on a secure com. And this won't happen again. I think that goes a long ways. Yeah, Congressman, I don't know if you just heard President Trump's remarks in the Oval Office.

He was asked if he would support releasing the entire video into that boat strike series of strikes that happened back in September that has been under such intense scrutiny this past week. He said that he doesn't have a problem with it. Do you think that is going to happen? Do you think that's the right course of action here?

Should the video be released in full? Absolutely. It should be released to Congress. We deserve a briefing on this.

The American people deserve that through their representatives. And, you know, it's hard to speak intelligently on an issue you haven't been briefed on. Now, having said that, I will say, Kristen, look, we have secured our land border now, and that has provided a deterrence. What I think the President is trying to do is secure our maritime borders from drugs coming into the country.

Under Article II of the Constitution, the President has executive powers of self-defense to conduct these kind of operations in international waters against a foreign terror organization like this cartel has been designated. So, I think he had the legal authorities to do what he did. It's just messaging and better transparency with the Congress about what really happened. And just to follow up on that point, if, in fact, there was a second strike that took the lives of survivors, as has been reported, would that constitute a war crime?

Should someone be held accountable? That's a very, that's a very heavy term to use. It gets, you know, I'm an attorney, I was a federal prosecutor. There's the law of the sea treaty that we never were a signatory to.

If this happened in international waters, and it was truly in self-defense of the nation, under Article II, I believe the President would have that authority. Now, the thing is, if it changes to an attack in Venezuelan waters, in foreign waters, or on land, that would invoke the War Powers Act. The Congress would have to be notified of that conflict within 48 hours, and then Congress would have 60 days to determine through the Foreign Affairs Committee that I chaired, to either declare war or an authorization of use of military force, or to disagree with the President's actions. All right, let's turn now to Ukraine.

Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff walked away from his meeting with President Putin yesterday without a breakthrough on a Ukraine peace agreement. President Trump said in the Oval Office that he was told Putin did signal that he wants to end the war, if only to start a trading relationship again with the United States. Do you think that Putin is serious about trying to bring this war to an end? Well, I'm very, holding in very high suspect.

Look, he's a KGB officer. He's well-trained. Once KGB always, he despised Gorbachev and Yeltsin for the fall of the war. He wants the Russian Empire back, bottom line.

I talked to us with the Ukrainian ambassador yesterday talking about these negotiations. Ukraine wants peace. They want a negotiation to take place, but it's got to be a fair negotiation that includes a security agreement that is ironclad, and not like the one in 1994, Budapest where they gave up all their nuclear weapons and then Russia invaded. What I worry about, you know, of course, is that they're going to delay.

The Russians are going to try to change the security agreement and play a delay tactic. I wish the delegation well. I want this to work out, but certain things need to be there, including, I was testifying for Lindsey Graham's committee earlier today on the 20,000 children that have been kidnapped, objected, and indoctrinated against their own country. So there are things that have to be in this agreement, including, I think, an up and down vote in the Congress on this agreement to have the backing of the American people.

So I have high hopes, but I'm also very clear-eyed about who Mr. Putin is. And if it's dragged on too long, then the Congress will have no other choice but to go forward with the secondary sanctions that we've been talking about. And pass the bill, basically, another piece of legislation sponsored by Senator Graham that would greenlight in posing secondary sanctions against Russia.

Is that what you're referencing? Correct. So this would basically be sanctions not just against Russia, but against any country doing business with Russia. And it would have a dramatic economic impact on Russia.

That's the arsenal that we have. We're prepared to use it. We want to give the administration an opportunity to negotiate this with the Russians and the Ukrainians. But right now, I'm not seeing the Russians negotiating in good faith.

I am seeing Ukraine operating in good faith. If the Russians get sitting down the path, if I'm not negotiating in good faith, then I really think Congress will have no other option but to move forward on the sanctions. With the final minute here, we have left Congressman. You announced you will not be seeking reelection.

We are seeing a number of your colleagues also choose to retire. I wonder what you think that says about Congress. Does it reflect a frustration about what is possible to get done in this partisan environment? Well, I can't speak for the others.

I do think there is becoming a more toxic environment. I've been in Congress for now over two decades. I've shared two major national security committees. In my case, you know, I've done it.

And it's time to move on to the next chapter in my career in my life. You know, I think it's important for members to know when to let go of power. But some of these other members don't have the same narrative. And I do think that the environment probably has contributed somewhat to that.

It's not a family-friendly environment. It's very become more politically partisan charged in a more toxic environment. And that's a reflection, unfortunately, the American people. And that's not good for the politics in this country.

I hope we can get back to where it was when I first came to Congress over two decades ago, when it was it wasn't frowned upon to work across the aisle to get good things done for the country, for God's sakes. That's the only way you're going to get a bill passed House Senate signed into law by the way, House. All right, Congressman McCall, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your perspective today.

Coming up, sigh of relief or time to panic. We've got the big takeaways from last night's election results in Tennessee after the Republican candidate squeezed out a win, but Democrats made major gains. Steve Cornaki breaks it all down for us next. Hey, guys, Willie Geist here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down Podcast.

On this week's episode, I sit down with one of the biggest bands in the world, Mumford and Sons, as we get the boys together to talk about their new number one album, Prize Fighter, and the evolution of that irresistible foot stomping sound. You can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts. Welcome back. Republicans are breathing aside for relief after holding on to a deep red congressional district in Tennessee.

Republican Matt Van Epps defeated Democrat Afton Ban in a special election to replace Republican Congressman Mark Green, who resigned earlier this year. Van Epps, though, won by single digits in a district Donald Trump won by 22 points just a year ago. Potential warning sign for Republicans has next year's midterms. But in his victory speech last night, Van Epps not only credited the president with helping him win, but vowed to stand behind the president while in Congress.

Victory was powered by supporters of President Trump turning out to vote. The president put the largest, most diverse coalition to ever elect a Republican, and we leaned in on that. President Trump was all in with us, and it made a difference. In Congress, I'll be all in with him.

NBC News chief data analyst Steve Kornacke has more from the big board. All right. So a win for Republicans, Matt Van Epps in the seventh district special election in Tennessee. Democrats do keep this in single digits here.

It's going to be a nine point margin, basically, that Afton Ban the Democrat loses by. So the way I'm looking at this is this was simultaneously an overperformance for the Democrats and also an underperformance for the Democrats. What could I possibly mean by that? Well, the overperformance is obvious because this is a very Republican district.

Typically Donald Trump won it by 22 points last year, 22 point margin for Trump, as we say, came down to just nine for Van Epps. So that is a net shift of 13 points in the Democrats direction in this district. And it happened. This wasn't just really low turnout where there was an excited Democratic base that was kind of disproportionate.

This was pretty high turnout in the special election. It was almost 180,000 votes that were cast here. That's more than we've seen in any other special election for the house this year. And that's on par with what you would typically see in a midterm.

So for a special election, this was high turnout. And even with that, Democrats were able to do 13 net points better than they did in the presidential race last year. That's the Democratic overperformance. Why do I say underperformance too?

Because they probably could have done better and maybe with a different candidate. They could have even won this race. So here's what I mean by that. Afton Ban was a sort of a dream candidate for Republican admakers because she's taken out some very far left position.

She had some very inflammatory rhetoric in the last few years featured very prominently in media coverage of this race in the Republican campaign against her. And I think it was a tough sell in a lot of this district. So we break down where the results came from last night. Just zoom in right here.

You see the one blue area in the district that's Nashville, Davidson County, that's where Ban is from. She got massive turnout here and she won by 56 points here. This is the kind of place where the positions she'd stake that in the past really weren't a liability at all. But again, you see the performance she had here, she need also to make giant gains in places like Williamson County.

These are the suburbs kind of well to do suburbs just south of Nashville. And it's a very big part of this district in terms of population. And you see Van Epps winning here by 23 points. Compare that to how Williamson County went in the presidential election last year.

It was 30. So this was much more modest here. 30 point Trump win in the presidential election in this part of Williamson County came down but it only came down by seven points to a 23 point margin. This is the kind of place these suburbs in 2016 and 2020, you know, they've been a little lukewarm towards Trump.

I think there were voters in these suburbs when you look at Trump right now with that sort of anemic approval rating. If there's some voters in these suburbs who might not be open to voting for Democrats, but they weren't open to voting for Bain. She did not get much traction here. If she'd had double-digit improvement in Williamson County, this race would have been closer.

District wide for that matter up here in Montgomery County. This is where Clarksville is. This is if there's a swing county in the district, it's this and again here, you know, Bain loses it by eight points. This is one Democrats thought if they're going to win this district, they thought they could win Montgomery County.

Swing voters here. A lot of them just weren't going to vote for Bain. So again, overall, Democrats getting a very good headline out of this race. They get to say they overperformed relative to last year.

It's not the first special election where we've seen this. There are continued signs coming out of this of momentum for Democrats heading into the midterm election. The question I have, though, is did they leave votes on the table? Could they have done even better?

Could they have even pulled off a mother of all upsets if they had not nominated a candidate who, in some ways, played so readily into the hands of the Republican campaign against her? Thanks to Steve Krenakki for that report. We're back tomorrow with More Me at the Press Now. There's more ahead on NBC News Now.

Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicious Now, wherever you get your podcasts.