Meet the Press NOW – February 12

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If it's Wednesday, President Trump speaks to the presidents of both Russia and Ukraine as the White House begins to lay a foundation for talks to try to end the war in Ukraine one day after the triumphant return of an American detained in Russia for more than three years. Plus, President Trump's ambitious plan to quickly remake large swaths of the federal government is hitting a few speed bumps as the administration expresses frustration with judges forcing pauses on key policies, the speed of mass deportations, and more. And inflation rises faster than expected amid the potential for higher prices from tariffs as President Trump urges the federal reserve to stoke the economy, a move that could drive prices even higher. Welcome to Meet the Press Now.

I'm Kristen Welker. We begin with Breaking News. As President Trump and his team are now setting the stage for complex negotiations with Russia and Ukraine to end the war, nearly three years after Russia's unprovoked invasion. President Trump today spoke to both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in separate phone calls.

In a readout of his call with Putin, the president said they spoke about several subjects, including agreeing to begin those negotiations on ending the Ukraine war. He also said he had put an extended invitations to each other to visit one another's countries. According to reporters in the Oval Office, right now President Trump said a meeting with Putin would probably happen in Saudi Arabia. He also said that he doesn't think it's practical for Ukraine to have NATO membership and that it's unlikely Ukraine gets all its land back.

Both Presidents Trump and Zelensky said they discussed the possibility of peace during their call earlier today. White House press secretary Caroline Levitt told reporters the president viewed the calls as a positive step and is committed to finding a deal. I myself just spoke to the president about these calls and he told me to tell all of you. They were very good calls.

They were very positive and the administration is wholeheartedly committed to a peace deal to end once and for all the Russia Ukraine war. It comes after President Zelensky met with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Kyiv saying he hoped President Trump would push Putin on a deal. I'm thankful to the president. It's a message that he will support Ukraine and he wants to solve this work.

And I know that he's strongman and I'm sure that he will push Putin. All of this is an American citizen along with two other individuals released from custody in Belarus earlier today. That follows the surprise release of American teacher Mark Fogel yesterday who was held in Russia for three and a half years in a prisoner exchange that will see a convicted money launder named Alexander Vinnyk return to Russia. Fresh off the plane last night, Mark Fogel went right to the White House where President Trump personally thanked Putin and said the exchange could impact negotiations to end the Russian war in Ukraine.

I think there's good will in terms of the war. You know, millions and a half soldiers, young people have been killed. I've met many. I think this could be the very important element.

You could be a big part of it actually because it could be a big important part of getting the war over with Ukraine. And we appreciate President Putin's what he did. He was able to pull it off for you, right? He was able to pull it off.

We think and you're here. I'm here. So it was great. Extraordinary images there.

The big question now is just what President Trump is looking to offer to get both Zelensky and Putin to the table. Speaking earlier today in Brussels, Defense Secretary Pete Haggs had said that two of Ukraine's demands in particular to join NATO and restore its borders were just not realistic. We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.

Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering. The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission, and they should not be covered under Article 5.

To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine. Join me now to start off on a very big day. NBC News Senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez, NBC News International correspondent Ralph Sanchez is at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

And Bill Taylor, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, also joins us thanks to all of you for being here. Gabe, let me start with you at the White House and these extraordinary phone calls. What do we know about the conversations and about where things potentially stand to get peace talks started?

Hi there, Chris. And we'll certainly have a lot of fast-moving developments here. And before I get to those phone calls, I'm looking down at my phone because we are just getting some of the first details from President Trump in the Oval Office. This is not being played out live, but we get pool reports.

But we are just getting also some Reuters wires right now from the wire services describing what President Trump is saying. He is saying that he does not think it's practical for Ukraine to have NATO membership. He hasn't committed to going to Ukraine, but he does say that he and President Putin ultimately expect to meet probably in Saudi Arabia. So those comments come, Chris, and after dramatic developments today where President Trump is saying that he spoke both with President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky.

Of course, this marks a seismic shift in U.S. foreign policy because obviously during the Biden administration, the U.S. was giving weapons to Ukraine, but now it's shifting to direct negotiations with Russia's president. So a lot of questions about where this goes from here.

But the phone calls earlier today, President Trump saying it was a productive conversation with Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin says that it's inviting President Trump to Moscow. And then in his phone call with President Zelensky, President Trump saying that he, like Putin, wants to make peace, and also announcing that Vice President J.D. Vance, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, now plan to meet with Zelensky Friday at the Munich Security Conference, Chris.

That's right, Gabe. And one of the notable developments I thought today also is that we learned that President Trump has actually appointed a team of people to help foster these negotiations. What do we know about that team? Yeah, top U.S.

officials are now heavily involved in this, and we're also learning that the Saudi Crown Prince also, MBS also, will be involved in these negotiations and has been key to the negotiations thus far. But we also heard that Trump's envoy to the Middle East, Steve Whitcock, playing a critical role here. Of course, he went yesterday to Russia on his private plane to bring back American school teacher Mark Fogo. And there has been a flurry of prisoner releases now.

As you mentioned, just learning that three detainees have been released by Russia's close ally, Belarus, today, including an unnamed U.S. citizen. But then dramatic homecoming last night with Mark Fogo returning to the U.S., the private plane with Steve Whitcock and other U.S. officials, we understand, was just in Russia for less than 11 hours, but secretly whisking Mark Fogo after three and a half years of being wrongfully detained, according to the U.S., bringing him back to the U.S., and back to his 95-year-old mother, who had appealed directly to then-Canada Trump just before his fateful rally last summer in Butler, Pennsylvania, Kristin.

Yeah, just remarkable to think about the strength of his mother in all of this, Gabe. Thank you so much for that. Russ Sanchez, let me turn to you. You're covering Pete Hegset at that defense conference in Brussels.

And he did make some extremely notable comments about what he thought could potentially be on the table and off the table in these talks. What were the key takeaways for you? Yeah, Kristin. So he announced that going forward, the United States is prioritizing Indo-Pacific China, securing its own borders, deprioritizing security in Europe, and he very bluntly told the European allies at this meeting at NATO headquarters here in Brussels that, from now on, it is going to be up to the Europeans to provide the bulk of military support for Ukraine.

He said they're sitting just a couple of seats away from Ukraine's own defense minister, bluntly telling him that his country needs to abandon the goal of recovering all the territory that it has lost to Vladimir Putin's Russia since 2014. That includes Crimea. That is a major shift away from the Biden administration's position. They consistently said, Kristin, as you'll remember, that it was up to Ukraine to set its own military objectives.

And the goal of the United States and NATO was to put Ukraine in as strong a position as possible, going into these negotiations. That was not the language that Pete Hegset used today. He went further, saying that NATO membership was not on the table for Ukraine as part of this peace deal. And he said American forces would not take part in any peacekeeping mission as part of the agreement and the conflicts.

Chris. So, Ralph, so far, what reaction are you hearing? Are you learning about from the United States allies in the region? You know, it's been very interesting here at NATO, Kristin.

If the NATO allies are frustrated, if they are exasperated, they are keeping it quiet and they are very much trying to keep the Trump administration inside of the tent and to do everything they can to signal that they are accommodating. So one of Trump's big demands is that the NATO allies up their defense spending from 2% of GDP to 5% of GDP. That is a very big jump, especially for a lot of these European countries that have big welfare systems, but you heard the Secretary-General of NATO, you heard the British Defense Secretary who was chairing this Ukraine meeting all saying, we hear what the Trump administration is calling for and we will act, Europe will spend more money on defense, it will boost its own defense industrial base, and they are really, really trying to show the Trump administration that they are trying to meet them at least halfway. Whether we get to a point that this just becomes zero-sum, the Europeans are simply unable to meet that 5% spending demand, we will see, but for now they are trying to sound accommodative.

Well, certainly significant particularly as we anticipate these potential talks between President Zelensky and President Putin, Ross Sanchez, thank you so much. Let's turn now to Ambassador Bill Taylor. Ambassador Taylor, wow, just extraordinary developments over the past 24 hours put all of this into context. For us, you have the prisoner swap, the release of Mark Vogel.

Now you have President Trump having had conversations with both President Putin and President Zelensky. What do you make of where this crisis stands right now? Well, Kristin, this is a real opportunity. This is what certainly the Ukrainians and the Americans have been looking for to stop this war.

The question is, can President Trump, with the Americans or NATO more broadly, bring pressure on President Putin to come to some kind of an agreement? President Putin started this war, and as several people have said, including this administration, he can stop it whenever he wants. It's a good move that there's conversations between President Trump and President Putin and President Trump and President Zelensky. That's what needs to happen.

President Zelensky needs to be involved, obviously President Putin needs to be involved, and President Trump is bringing them together to make this possible to end this war. What do you make though when you hear Defense Secretary Hagg Seth say NATO membership is off the table for Ukraine, and they will have to concede some territory? Is that not just a win for Vladimir Putin, basically rewarding him for illegally invading sovereign territory of Ukraine? No one wants to reward Putin for illegally invading a sovereign nation.

You can listen very carefully, though, to what the Defense Secretary said. He said that NATO membership would not be part of this discussion, these negotiations. Of course not. Of course, we're not going to negotiate Ukraine's membership in NATO with the Russians.

That will never happen. The Secretary is exactly right. That's not part of this negotiation. That will be separate.

That will be a decision for the Ukrainians and NATO. All the questions about the rest of the issues, whether or not there will be a peacekeeping force, a peacekeeping force, and let's be clear, it's not just peacekeeping force with Lou Helman's because they were talking about a deterrent force, a force that can deter another invasion by Russia. So it's a deterrent force, and that will be apparently comprised of European nations forces. Not U.S.

forces on the ground, he was very clear about that. There could be other ways to support this European force, but that is the kind of thing. The last thing on the business about not taking back all of the 1991 borders by force, this is also what President Zelensky has already said. He has said he's willing to stop the hot portion of this war and not try militarily to take back all the territory to 1991 borders, and he's willing to do that negotiating.

He's willing to do that diplomatically. He though, this is an important point, because that is President Zelensky will never recognize nor should the rest of the world ever recognize the Russian's illegal annexation of that part of Ukraine, that 18 percent of Ukraine that Putin now occupies. Well, I think you raised such a critical point, Ambassador, let me just follow up with you on it. Can Ukrainian security really be guaranteed without the United States being involved?

And what would you say to a skeptical Ukraine who may hear that and say, we need the U.S. involved? Ukraine's do need the U.S. involved, and that's why it's important that the discussions where the United States will continue to provide military assistance, and the Secretary said that.

And we've got the Secretary of the Treasury there in Ukraine right now discussing this rare Earth deal that will be the way that the United States can continue to support the Ukrainians. But you're right, the United States needs to be involved, and there are ways that the United States can support a European peacekeeping force. Again, European deterring force, not peacekeeping, there are European deterring, there are ways the United States can help with outputting troops on the ground. Let me read you a little bit of what President Zelensky has quoted as having said in a recent interview, get your reaction on the other side.

He says, we will swap one territory for another. I don't know. We will see. But all our territories are important.

There is no priority. What do you hear in those words, Ambassador? Well, he's clearly referring to the fact that the Ukrainians occupy and control a part of Russia. They invaded across the border into Russia last summer, and they still occupy somewhere around 400 square miles of Russian territory.

And so President Zelensky has said, look, we will pull out our troops from Russian territory, and you who Russians pull out your troops out of Ukrainian territory, there's a big difference in terms of land maps that we're talking about on that. But that, I'm sure, is what President Zelensky is talking about. Let me, finally, Ambassador, just ask you about this prisoner swap, the significance of having Mark Vogel, another American, now home. What do you make of it?

You heard President Trump there say you could be a big part of a broader deal with Russia, and Ukraine. What do you think the potential implications are? If President Trump can use the leverage that he clearly has, economically, diplomatically, militarily, to bring President Putin to the table, this conversation about prisoner exchanges, this conversation about relationships between the United States and Russia can be part of that. President Trump does have leverage over President Putin.

President Putin understands that. President Putin's economy is fragile. President Trump referred to that. President Putin is ruling his country.

President Trump referred to that. So this is an indication that President Trump does have the capability to bring Putin to the table and make a deal with the Ukrainians. Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, you always give us such critical information and insight.

We really appreciate it. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you, President. Thanks for having me.

As we noted, President Trump has been speaking in the Oval Office about ending the Ukraine War and much more. We will bring you that tape as soon as we get it, but first coming up, the White House lashing out at judges who are putting the brakes on parts of the President's agenda, baselessly accusing them of abusing the rule of law and trying to thwart the will of the people, plus the shake up in leadership at ICE amid White House frustrations that mass deportations are not happening fast enough, as the President's borders are pleased with Congress for more money. Stay with us. You're watching Meet the Press Now.

Welcome back. President Trump is trying to move quickly to implement his agenda, but key priorities are getting a few speed bumps. Today, the Labor Department reported that inflation was heating up, further complicating Mr. Trump's promise to lower prices.

NBC News Meanwhile has exclusive reporting that the President is angry that deportation numbers during his first three weeks in office are not high or something he denies, and federal judges have forced the White House to hit the pause button on a number of directives, including cuts to the government. Today, at the White House, Secretary Caroline Levitt insisted the administration would abide by those orders, but lashed out at the judges who issued them. The real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch, where district court judges and liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump's basic executive authority. We will comply with the law in the courts, but we will also continue to seek every legal remedy to ultimately overturn these radical injunctions and ensure President Trump's policies can be enacted.

And on the President's ambitious legislative agenda, House Republicans release their budget framework today, calling for trillions of dollars in cuts to spending and trillions in tax relief. But Senate Republicans have very different plans. You know, listen, I have nothing but respect for Staker Johnson. The only thing I would ask him is listen to Holman and vote.

Listen to what they had to say. The ICE accounts are empty. Three hundred thousand children are still missing out there. We need to go find them.

We need to finish the wall. We need our ICE agents. And we shouldn't release people because we don't have detention beds. If you listen to them, it created a sense of urgency in the Senate.

I hope it will do the same in the House. I'm pulling for the one big beautiful bill, but I'm not going to sit on the sidelines and watch ICE run out of money. The latest in whether there should be one bill or two bills, NBC News Senior White House correspondent, Kelly O'Donnell joins you now. Also with me is NBC News Justice reporter Ryan Riley and NBC News Chief Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Noble.

Thanks to all of you for being here. Kelly, let me go to you first. We had some really strong words today from the press secretary pushing back against judges who have ruled at least temporarily against the administration. What was our message and where do things stand?

Well, Caroline Levitt speaking on behalf of the president rejects the legal theories that are being used in a number of cases across many jurisdictions at the federal level that are putting a hold on some of the actions the president wants to take. The administration thinks this is outside the law. Clearly, the judges believe they are enforcing the law and putting a stop on some things are giving a pause on like the firing, the spending freeze and the deferred resignations as two examples. But goes beyond that and additional suits have been filed.

So this is really taking issue with a co-equal branch, the judiciary is co-equal to the presidency. But that is not the view here at the White House where they believe judges are seeking to thwart the president's mandate as they see it, voted by the people to do the things he says he wants to do. Of course, they say they will abide by the law. That'll be a space to watch closely.

All right. And Kelly, as you've been talking, we've learned that we are about two minutes away from playing out what just happened there. Just a short distance from you in the Oval Office reporters there with President Trump. Let me try to do a quick whip around before we get that tape, which we are going to bring to our viewers.

So just a fair warning. We will interrupt our conversation so that we can show everyone that. Ryan, let me turn to you, the White House saying it's going to comply with the court orders. Have we seen any evidence to the contrary at this point?

You know, I think pushing back aggressively, but you know, a big part of this is just the public relations battle, right? So they can challenge a lot of these through the court process. But a big thing that we saw in the last administration and we've, I think, are seeing again is just this targeting of judges. And remember, you know, where the rubber hits the road here is that the US Marshals service isn't charge of security for judges.

So when you have someone in the Oval Office or someone or his supporters who are sort of going after individual judges, you definitely have this need for more security for those judges themselves. It happened with Judge Chuck and who was, you know, targeted and had those extra security officials follow her around. Even when she was going for her afternoon run, she always had somebody accompanying her and with her. And so I think we could, frankly, see, see more of that going forward if the judges continue to be the targets.

And in D.C., especially, you've had a bench of judges who have gone through all of these January six cases, have looked at a lot of the evidence that have spoken out strongly against them. So not every one of these cases that challenging the Trump administration's policies, of course, going to go through D.C. Good. And that's, I think, where you could see some criticism from those judges who know the reality of those January six cases.

Ryan, thanks so much for that, Ryan. Let me head over to you quickly on Capitol Hill. One of the big challenges that the president is facing is with his legislative agenda. Where do you think, Stan?

Actually, we're going to go to the White House, Ryan, stand by. Sorry about that. Here's President Trump taking questions. Were there any preconditions set to agree to this meeting?

No, we had a great call and it lasted for a long time over an hour this morning. I also had with President Zelensky, a very good call after that. And I think we're on the way to getting peace. I think President Putin wants peace, and President Zelensky wants peace, and I want peace.

I just want to see people stop getting killed. We're very far away from that particular war, but that's a vicious war. Probably a million and a half soldiers killed in a short period of time. I've never seen anything.

I have pictures that are, you wouldn't believe it. You wouldn't believe what you have to look at. Young, beautiful soldiers that are just being decimated. And it would be nice to end it immediately.

But we had a very good talk with people who didn't really know what President Putin's thoughts were. But I think I can say with great confidence he wants to see it end it also. That's good. We're going to work toward getting it ended and as fast as possible.

It's a horrible situation going over. It's flat land. And the bullet goes off, and the only thing it can hit is a body, a human body, a young human body, and they're losing just tremendous numbers of mostly soldiers. The cities and towns have been largely demolished.

It's a shame what's happened to that country. It would have never happened if I were President. That I can tell you would have never happened. It's to look at that.

And October 7th would have never happened either, by the way, at least. But we'll get it, I think we'll get it, we'll get something done. We're going to be meeting, actually tomorrow they're meeting in Munich as you know, and we're going to have some other meetings. And I'll be dealing with President Putin largely on the phone and we ultimately expect to meet.

In fact, we expect that he'll come here and I'll go there and we're going to meet also probably in Saudi Arabia the first time. We'll meet in Saudi Arabia if we get something done. But we want to end that war as a disaster, it's a really bloody horrible war. I think so.

We think we're going to probably meet in Saudi Arabia the first meeting. It hasn't been said, but not too distant future. We both understand, you know, we know the ground prince and I think it'd be a very good place to meet. And perhaps the ground prince, but not President Zelensky.

Probably we'll have a first meeting and then we'll see what we can do about the second meeting. What about Ukraine? What about Ukraine? You'll need to go to Ukraine.

No, I haven't. I haven't committed to go to Ukraine. I would think about going. I think about it.

No problem. Well, I'm not going to tell you my plan. I can just tell you we've made a lot of progress. This should have been done by Biden, not by me.

Well, I'm not going to tell you my plan. I can just tell you we've made a lot of progress. This should have been done by Biden, not by me because this has been going on for now a long time, years, and it should have been done by Biden, just like the young gentleman that I brought home yesterday after two weeks. We worked on it for two weeks.

It was a fine man. And he was in there for three and a half, almost four years, and they weren't able to do a thing. And I got him out. And as you know, I didn't pay $6 billion.

I didn't pay anything. We did a trade. And we did a good job. We got him out in two weeks.

It should have been out years ago, really should have been out years ago. I don't think it's practical to have it personally. I know that a new Secretary of Defense, who's excellent, Pete made a statement today saying that he thinks it's unlikely or impractical. I think probably that's true.

I think long before President Putin, they said there's no way they'd allow that. This has been going on for many, many years. They've been saying that for a long time that Ukraine cannot go into NATO. And I'm okay with that.

I just want the word whether they are or they're not. But it certainly would seem to be that most people have said that that is something that's not going to happen. I don't think he's freezing out, President Zelensky, of his core assessments. Is there a danger of that?

No, I don't think so. As long as he's there. But at some point you're going to have to have elections too. You're going to have to have elections.

Okay. So you want to secure any assurances, Mr. President? What does that look like?

In terms of what? If the war were to end, he says he wants guarantee use of security. We'll see what that means. We have, I think when the war ends, one thing he was very strong about, he wants it ends, he wants it to end.

And that's President Putin said that. He wants it to end. He doesn't want to end it and then go back to fighting six months later. We talked about the possibility.

We have to mention it of a ceasefire so we can stop the killing. And I think we'll probably end up at some point getting a ceasefire in the not too distant future. Say it. What?

Do you give Ukraine as an equal member of this peace process? It's an interesting question. I think they have to make peace. That people are being killed.

And I think they have to make peace. I said that was not a good war to go into. And I think they have to make peace. That's what I think.

What's going to have to do what he has to do, but you know, his poll numbers aren't particularly great to put it mildly. He's got a country where it's been savaged and attacked and he's got an army that's been very, very brave actually despite the fact that, you know, we've given him, in my opinion, $350 billion. That's what the real number is. You don't hear that number.

And Europe has given him, in my opinion, a hundred billion dollars. And they've done it in the form of a loan. And I have a secretary of treasury right now who's actually quite brave. He's over in Ukraine on a train.

And there's a lot of things happening around that train that aren't so good. And he's going there to get a document done where we're going to be assured that we're going to, in some form, get this money back because we're putting up far more money than Europe and Europe is in far more danger than we are. We have an ocean in between. Europe has nothing in between.

You know, they have in between. They have Ukraine in between. So, so as you know, Europe is putting up money and they're getting it in the form of a loan. And the United States under Biden didn't do loans.

They just handed money every time somebody walked in from Ukraine. They just handed them money foolishly. They should have never happened. It should have never started.

And once it did, other things should have happened. Other things should have happened. So we're getting security on our money. We're going to have it secured by, they have rare earth and they have oil and gas and they have a lot of other things.

And we're asking for security on our money. They've agreed to it. Ukraine has agreed to it. No, we are, but we want it secured.

And the money is going to be secured. Because if we didn't do that, then Putin would say he won. We're the thing that's holding it back. And frankly, we'll go as long as we have to go because we're not going to let the other happen.

But President Putin wants that peace now and that's good. And he didn't want to have peace with Biden. Can you tell me why that is okay? Was that conversation with Putin to start these negotiations part of the deal to bring Fogil home?

No, but it was a nice thing that he allowed Mark Fogil to leave. In fact, Mark wasn't feeling well, but he was all of a sudden about two weeks ago, he started being treated very nicely. He said they took them out for haircuts. They took them out.

They helped them out a little bit and made them feel better, made them look better. And they were nice to him. And he said, I saw something happening. And it had to, it coincided with when I came into office.

So that was nice. And he's a fine person. He was so happy to be out. He was there for three and a half years plus.

And he shouldn't have been there at all. They should have had him out much faster than that. What was the need that's the next week? Wait, go ahead, Liz.

Sir, do you see any future in which Ukraine returns with 2014 workers? Well, I think Pete said today that that's unlikely, right? It certainly would seem to be unlikely. They took a lot of land and they fought for that land and they lost a lot of soldiers, but it would just seem to be.

And I'm not making an opinion on it, but I've read a lot on it and a lot of people think that that's unlikely. I think some of it will come back. I think some of it will come back. Yeah.

Some of that land will come back. Sorry. What are you with? Yeah.

Yeah. Who? AFP. I just want to ask you, the things that the Secretary of Defense was talking about, the 2014 borders and the Black and Native membership.

Also, you need to both to answer the Russia has made in the past. Is there not a danger of having Russia kind of win on this? Well, I think that if you look at the war, the way the war is going, you'll have to make your own determination. I'm just here to try and get peace.

I don't care so much about anything other than I want to stop having millions of people killed. Last night, you know, Kiev got hit very, very hard. I want to see people stop getting killed. That war is ridiculous.

It should have never happened. And it would have never happened. Yeah. A couple of more questions.

Are you planning to sign? When you're planning to sign about an executive order of reciprocal tariffs, sir? Yes, I am. In fact, I may do it today.

And if I do it today, I could almost do it right now. Would you like me to talk about it? I don't want to take anything away from this young lady's day, because this is her day. And I may do it later on, or I may do it tomorrow morning, but we'll be signing with reciprocal tariffs.

World has taken advantage of the United States for many years. They've charged us massive tariffs that we haven't charged them. And as you know, I just did something on steel and aluminum, 25%, and that'll go up at some point, but they're 25%, which will level the playing field quite a bit. I did it previously, 50%, and Obama was very weak, and Biden was even weaker on steel.

The steel was just absolutely, really started with Obama. The world really took advantage of us, and then that morphed into Biden. And what they did was, he was so worried about trying to attack his political opponent that he didn't know what he was doing with respect to countries taking advantage of. You should have looked at the countries, both friend and foe, taking advantage of us.

So we're going to be doing reciprocal tariffs, which is whatever they charge, we charge very simply. I want to talk about white's red fraud and abuse. Tremendous fraud. Tremendous fraud.

And it's hard to believe that you can have that kind of fraud you're talking about like, are you talking about what? Wait, wait, wait, which are you talking, you're talking about with regard to all of the investigations that are going on about the stupidity. What we're going to do is tomorrow I'm having a news conference. I'm going to read to you some of the names that hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars have been given to.

And if you tell me that we should be giving money to those things, those entities, I think you'll probably have to leave as a reporter because you're not very talented. When you look at the kind of money, billions and billions of dollars being thrown away illegally, and there's no chance, I mean, I say it in front of our attorney general, there's no chance that there's not kickbacks or something going on. When you give millions and millions of dollars to somebody that stands to look at something for 15 minutes and walks away with millions of dollars, that money's coming back in some form. And that's only one form of corruption.

The biggest thing is what they do to our country, they're taking massive amounts of money and spending it on items. I went through a list of 200 expenditures that were made. And I found three that look like they were reasonable, okay, three. And we'll be talking about that tomorrow.

We have a lot of stuff. And I want to commend Elon because he's done a fantastic, he doesn't need this. He's abused by you people every day. He's found more things and anybody can find.

I think he's got the credibility to do it. I know he does. And it's his group of people, you know, they started off with 12, I call him 12 geniuses. They started off with 12 and they went to 20 and 25 and now they're up to almost 100.

People are joining to help them because there's a massive fraud that's taking place. And then you have judges that are activists and they sit there and they say, well, as an example, $59 million is going to a little small group in New York City. You get nothing going to North Carolina to help them. Nothing.

They say we don't have any money because they've given it away on the border. But you have nothing. What they did to North Carolina is a shame. And then they sent $59 million to New York City for a hotel for a little bit of what they've done.

And it's all that was not luxury that's getting luxury rates for migrants with them making a fortune. And we catch them. We catch them. And the judge says, well, even though it may be a fraud, you have to send the money in anyway.

Send the money. I said, wait a minute. We have money that shouldn't go because we caught it before it was sent out. But they want the money to go anyway.

And I think you're going to have a lot of things to look at, Pam. I really do. What's going on with this whole thing. And this is just one group.

We haven't talked about Department of Education. We haven't talked about the military. We haven't talked about a lot of things that are very big. And what's happened is as an example, you'll have cases where you have a three-month contract and maybe the guy that signs a contract leaves, maybe gets rich, all of a sudden he leaves for that reason.

But you have a three-month contract and maybe he leaves. So the contract is sitting there and the people signing the checks don't know it's three months. And it goes on for years. The three months turns out to be three years, five years, ten years.

Just goes on forever. And the guy on the other side of the contract just keeps getting checked after check after check because Elon had an expression yesterday because nobody cares. It's a great expression. Nobody cares.

The guy that signed the contract didn't care. Maybe there may not be there. Maybe crooked. Who knows?

But you have to care. Otherwise, you can't really run a thing like that or you can't run a country, really. Because there's so many transactions, thousands and thousands of transactions. And if you don't have people that care, you're going to lose control.

And that's what's happened. And we've caught it. Now, what we call it is billions and billions of dollars. But it's a tiny fraction of the real number because you can never catch the real number because people have gotten away with tremendous amounts of money.

But I said we have to make our government smaller, more efficient, more effective and a lot less expensive. And we could find a trillion dollars. But we're being hindered by courts where they file in certain courts where it's very hard to win and a judge will stop us and a judge will say that it doesn't make any difference what you find. You just keep paying the money.

That's a hell of a way to be. And I follow the courts. I have to follow the law. All it means is that we appeal.

But that gives people time to cover their tracks. And that's what they do. So it's a very bad thing that's taking place. But hopefully the courts will be fair.

They don't have to be very fair. They just have to be a little bit fair because this is so egregious what's taking place. Nobody has seen anything like it. Nobody has seen numbers like this.

These are massive numbers. $9 million for somebody to go and stand in a store and see how people shop. Okay? I mean, you take a look at these things.

It's a disgrace. And then you have a country that we want to make America great again. It's very hard to make America great again when you have things like this. And you're going to see the same thing, Department of Education is going to be a disaster.

The military. I mean, I see it. Look, I bought, I came in, they had a contract done, as you know, for $5.7 billion for airplanes. It was Air Force One with Boeing.

$5.7, I got it down to $4 billion, a little less than that, one penny less than that. $3 billion, $9.99, $9.99, and 99 cents, they said, I said, has to have a $3 in front of it because I wouldn't sign the contract for $5.7 billion. I was able to cut $1.7 billion off the price and it didn't take me long, $1.7 billion. If people would care, they'd be able to do that with every single contract that's put before them.

And we wouldn't have deficits. We'd have nothing but a tremendously low-taxed, wonderful country, but they have to care. And speaking of that, Boeing, we're not happy with the service we're getting in terms of those planes. They would like to get more money.

We're not happy about that whole thing. We signed a very strong contract. I signed a guaranteed maximum contract, which I haven't seen in a long time. And they're saying they're getting hurt by it, but they have to produce the product and we expect them to produce the product.

They have to produce the product. They agreed to build planes at a certain price. They're not used to that. They're used to having time and material contracts, where it's whatever it costs, time and material, no dates, no anything.

It ends up costing five times more. You look at some of the ships that have been built. Take a look at the Gerald Ford, the aircraft carrier, the Ford. It was supposed to cost $3 billion.

It ends up costing $18 billion. And they make, of course, all electric catapults, which don't work. And they have all magnetic elevators. They lift up 25 planes at a time, 20 planes at a time.

And instead of using hydraulic, like on tractors, they can handle anything from hurricanes to lightning to anything. They use magnets. It's a new theory. Magnets are going to lift the planes up, and it doesn't work.

And they had billions and billions of dollars of cost overruns. I met the architect. He designed a ship before. This is one of the biggest ships in the world.

It's like landing at the LaGuardia Airport. But you look at the kind of waste, fraud and abuse that this country is going through. And we have to straighten it out. We have great people going into the military in terms of new, we need ships.

We need a lot of things. We have great people. We have business people going in. But when you look at what's happened to our purchasing, the purchasing, and when you look at the USAID, when you look at the things that they're giving to, the billions, the billions of dollars that they're giving to, and it doesn't make sense.

It is interesting that when you're looking for fraud, you look at items. There's hundreds of items, and you'll find one or two, maybe, if you're lucky. Here's something where you look at data, and they're all fraudulent. You know by just looking at the topic, they're all fraudulent, except it's the opposite.

You'll find one or two that's like a legitimate reason. So I just want to thank Elon for going through it. I want to thank all the people that are working with him. You know, we have a big group of people.

All, I think the lowest IQ is about 160. That's very high. I think you have a couple of 182s in there, but they're doing a fantastic job. He doesn't need it, and they don't need it, but we're showing things, and it's going to be a big...

People have no idea how important it is, y'all. Does anyone do you want the Department of Education to be closed? Oh, I'd like it to be closed immediately. Look, the Department of Education is a big con job.

We're ranked, so they ranked the top 40 countries in the world. We're ranked number 40th, but we're ranked number one in one department, costs per pupil. So we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, but we're ranked number 40. We've been between 38 and 40.

The last time I looked, it was 38, and then I looked two days ago, it came out the new list. It came out at number 40. So we're ranked 40. Norway, Denmark, Sweden, I hate to say it's China, as big as it is, it's ranked in the top five, and that's our primary competitor.

We're ranked number 40. So if we're ranked number 40, that means something's really wrong, right? And I say send it back to Iowa, to Iro, to Colorado, send it back to places that... In a lot of Indiana, you have a great new governor, you have a great senator, that Jim Banks just got elected, you got great people.

I'll tell you what, Indiana is going to be fantastic. We probably have 35, maybe 37 states that will do as well as Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden. They'll be just as good. Then you have the ones that we all know about, it'll be the same story.

But you know what? Even they will be good. Because you look at New York, you give it to Westchester County, you give it to Long Island, you give it to Nassau County, you give it to Suffolk County, same thing you go out to, and you give it to upstate New York. So you have four or five sections.

You give it to Manhattan, Manhattan's a little bit tougher, for some reason. I don't know why it would be tougher, but it is. You give to California, and you go to various areas outside of Los Angeles, and you might have six or seven different subgroups. But generally, like in...

If you go to Iowa, you give it to Iowa, you don't have subgroups, you have Iowa, and other places that do a good job. If they do a good job, they're going to do a great job in education. Those places will be every good, every bit as good as the various countries that do so well. All the time, it's the same countries that are doing well.

And so we have a Department of Education where people from Washington, D.C., who many, in many cases, don't care about the kids out in the country. They don't care about the farms, and the farmers' daughter, and the farmers' sons. We have a massive bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. We have buildings that are all over the city, Department of Education.

I never said, Department of Education's on all these buildings. By the way, nobody shows up to work because they're all working at home, quote, working at home. They're not working at home. Some have second jobs, and that's the other thing that Elon Musk is looking at.

How many of these people are getting checks, working at home, but they're not working because they have second jobs, and even third jobs. You're going to find a lot of them, and those people are going to be fired because we have to make our government smaller. All right. One more question.

Yeah, Jennifer. Nice to see you. Thank you, sir. Two questions.

One on Ukraine again, and then another one on the Kennedy Center. Do you think that by, as far as when negotiating tactics go, does he takes that take away some of your negotiating abilities with Putin by taking Ukraine to sovereign integrity off the table? No, I haven't done that. I'm back in Ukraine.

No, say that. I'm approving, but I do want security for our money. You know, Europe is getting security. You know that, right?

They give me the money in the form of a loan. Nobody knows that. And why are we at 350 billion in Europe, which doesn't separate with a notion, like we do? We have a little thing called a notion in between.

Why is it that Europe is paying 200 billion less than us to help Ukraine? Very similar size. If you add up all the European countries, it's a little bit smaller than the US in terms of the economy. Why is it that they're not paying the kind of numbers that they should be paying?

And then on top of it, and I've been saying this to Biden, I told Biden, I said, you want to be asking for either a loan or some kind of a security, like their oil and gas or something for the money, because you're putting up much more money than Europe, and you have no security. Europe's putting up a much smaller amount, and it's in the form of a loan, because we have people that were incompetent in the last administration, grossly incompetent, and we're changing it. But we change it, and all we do is we get hit by lawsuits from the radical left all the time. But here we are.

We stand, and I guess we've done okay. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.

President Trump taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office, after swearing in a Tulsi Gabbard to her new post as Director of National Intelligence, pressed on a range of different topics, mostly about the Russia-Ukraine War. He said President Putin wants to have peace now, and he didn't under President Biden. He said he plans to meet with President Putin, likely in Saudi Arabia. He said he was pressed on whether any negotiation would potentially lead to Ukraine going back to its 2014 borders.

He called that unlikely, but he said speaking of the land, some of it will come back. So that was notable. He flashed out on a very different topic at what he referred to as, quote, activist judges. He defended his cost-cutting slashing with Elon Musk, saying there had been tremendous fraud, making that claim, which we've heard repeatedly, but not providing any hard evidence of what that fraud was.

He says he's going to have a news conference tomorrow to talk about that some more. He was also pressed on the Department of Education, saying that he wants to get rid of it immediately. Those are just some of the top lines from the President answering questions there in the Oval Office. So we're going to break all of it down.

Joining me on set is Reese Gorman, politics reporter for notice, Marie Theresa Kumar, President and CEO Voto Latino, and also an NBC News Political Analyst, and Sarah Chamberlain, President and CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership. Thanks to all of you for being here. Thank you for your patience and listening along with me. Reese, let me start with you.

I did think there were some notable headlines that came out of that discussion about Russia and Ukraine. He is signaling that both sides are ready to talk. He also said that he was able to strike a deal with President Zelensky on the rare minerals in Ukraine. What were some of your key takeaways?

Definitely the takeaway was that he basically said that Ukraine won't get some of its land back, necessarily all of it. I mean, that's something that, I mean, he's just said that there would be have to be kind of something given up by Ukraine throughout the campaign trail. This time, you can I soften that? I say, no, they will be getting something back.

It might not be all the way back to 2014. And also saying that Putin is ready for the war to end and take it, I mean, most people like Putin won't end the war. He could end the war. He's the one invading Ukraine.

But Trump saying that he's willing to actually sit down at the table and try to kind of figure out, figure this out. Now, again, once you get down to the details of what it actually needs to be done in the war, that might kind of take a little bit longer, but Trump seems to be expressing a lot of optimism right now about where this stands. Yes, Sarah, I mean, the devil's in the details for sure. So this is not going to be easy.

There are some people who think that it's not possible under President Putin. But President Trump with a very different tone, signaling that he does think that some negotiation, some type of compromise is possible, although President Zelensky has said all along, why should I compromise? My land was invaded. I want my land back.

And he's not wrong, but he's going to have to compromise on this. This has to end. And I think Trump is the person, perfect person to do that. He's obviously very close to Putin.

But I also like that the Americans have put a lot of money into this country. And God bless them. It was the right thing to do, in my opinion. But it's nice that, okay, we need some minerals back.

We need some oil back. We need something for investment back. Because he is right. The European countries did it as alone.

We just gave the money. What do you make of what we heard and where things stand right now? So I think that when you take this along with what the, and you basically look at what he also did with USAID, and he's starting to tell the American people and international where priorities are going to be as Americans, and that is seeding a lot of world leadership. The fact that he's telling Ukraine, you can no longer depend on us after this negotiation.

This is Europe's problem, and Europe is going to have to protect you moving forward. We're not going to encourage you to be part of NATO, because frankly, he's never liked NATO. If you recall, he tried to get us out of NATO before. And then the gutting of USAID, which is America's soft power, soft power in the world is saying we actually want to make sure that these different regions are stable.

He's opening up a vacuum for Russia and for China to invest heavily in these areas. And so as we, you know, some folks will applaud that USAID will shut it overnight, but this goes even further than what Project 2025 had envisioned, because they understand that this idea that the United States should be in Europe and should be the world leader in Africa and in Latin America and in Asia. But all of a sudden, we're picking up our marvels and going home. That actually signals to us that he's going to focus more on isolationist policy versus international engagement policy.

Farrah, let me have your respond. We have a minute left. I actually don't agree with you on that. I think it was AID projects.

There's a lot of waste there to mend us about. I have actually seen some of the waste in some of the foreign countries. We are going to go back to feeding people, making sure they get their HIV drugs. That is all going to come in, but it's going to come in under the State Department and he's going to cut a lot of waste.

I actually support that and most of the members of Main Street do as well. Very quickly. You are saying there's waste there. The president keeps talking about fraud.

So far, there hasn't been any hard evidence of this fraud. It's been discussed. There hasn't, he said, he's claiming that tomorrow he's going to kind of unveil some of this. And even some of this waste they're talking about.

Well, some of this up they're pointing to, I mean, it can be debatable whether that's waste or not. It's like a reporter that even some of the things that they're pointing to were never actually funded by USAID. It was funded by other State Department or what have you. And so there are some things that were pointing to it.

Doesn't necessarily come from USAID. All right, great conversation, guys. Gorman, Marisa, Kumar, and Sarah Schumler. Thanks so much.

We're back tomorrow with More Me The Press Now. The news continues with Hallie Jackson right now. I'm Craig Malef. Cheers.

Cheers. I've always been a glass half old kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges, their stories are funny.

And if I can. So I hope you'll join me each week. Who knows? Search glass half old with Craig Malef from today on YouTube and wherever you get a podcast.