Meet the Press NOW — February 17

Hi there, welcome to Meet the Press. I'm Ryan Nobles and we are going to start with the breaking news, the harrowing situation out of Toronto, where a Delta Airlines flight with 80 people on board has crashed while landing at Pearson airport, that according to the FAA. This is video of the commuter regional jet upside down on the runway. This is footage that NBC News has obtained of crews responding to the crash.

Now we're still gathering information about what happened, but we can tell you, I should say, that the flight took off from Minneapolis. These are live pictures of the scene right now, and according to local authorities, at least nine people have been injured, one child was taken by ambulance to a local hospital and one person was airlifted to a nearby trauma center, but miraculously, officials say that all passengers and crew are accounted for. NBC News senior correspondent Tom Costello covers aviation for us. He joins me now, and in a moment, I'll be joined by Captain John Cox, who's an NBC News aviation analyst.

So Tom, I know we are just learning everything that's happened in the aftermath of this crash. Just get our viewers up to date about the latest information that we have. Yeah, so as you see there on your screen, this was a regional jet. We call it a CRJ, a Canadian regional jet, which means it was made by Bombardier flying from Delta for Delta Airlines from Minneapolis down to or up to Toronto, a flight 4819.

And as it came in and landed there on the runway, something went wrong and we're still trying to figure out what went wrong. But somehow it then skidded to a stop, flipped over in the process, and there were flames and visible smoke immediately after it came to a stop. Amazingly, thankfully, all passengers and crew did get out and are accounted for. That according to the Toronto airport, but as you mentioned, nine people were injured and one is a child, another one airlifted to a Toronto area hospital.

We can tell you that the FAA also confirming that this was Delta Airlines flight 4819 run by or flown by Endeavor, which is one of those regional carriers that flies on behalf of an airline. So Endeavor slash Delta 4819, Minneapolis to Toronto. We don't yet know exactly what went wrong. Fire department on the scene very quickly and doused it, as you can see with foam and with water to make sure that they got that fire out.

All of the exit doors, as you can see, appear to be open, at least on that side of the plane, suggesting that people were able to get out once they unbuckled from their seats. Presumably, some of them were literally hanging upside down because this plane was upside down with its, you can see its wheels there sticking straight up in the air. And so the question now for investigators, and this will be headed up by the Canadian Transportation Safety Board, is what precisely happened? Right.

Was this a combination of a weather because it was 18 degrees, blowing snow. They've had about 20 inches of snow at the Toronto airport over the last few weeks, over the last week, I should say. Were those contributing factors? We simply don't know at this point.

The fire department and also the police investigators are right now on the scene. The FAA and the NTSB will also be a party to this investigation because the plane started in the United States and it's a U.S. carrier, but the Canadians will be in charge of investigating what happened. And of course, Ryan, this all is a part of the series of incidents we've had in aviation over the last two and a half weeks, which have really caused a lot of people, a lot of concern about aviation safety.

We had that midair crash, of course, involving the regional jet and an Army helicopter here in Washington. Sixty seven people killed a medevac Learjet going down in Northeast Philadelphia. Eight people killed there. Then we had the flight in Nome, Alaska, trying to get to Nome, Alaska, ended up in the icy floating ice waters off of Nome.

Ten people killed in that crash. None of these seem to be linked by any particular causal relationship, but it does raise concern about the overall state of aviation safety right now, Ryan. And Tom, when you look at the pictures, even for those of us without the untrained eye that you have, it seems pretty obvious that the wings are not on this plane. That has to be at least part of what investigators are going to try and figure out what happened to those wings as this plane came down.

You're exactly right. We were looking at it as well and noticing that the right wing appears to be missing. And so how did that happen? Did they drag a wing as they were coming in and then that wing snapped off, flipping over the plane?

That is pure speculation. Nothing more at this point. But you're right. The wing, at least one of them, is missing.

I've never seen a commercial plane like this in an accident in which it literally is upside down. So amazing that that has happened. Amazing that everybody got out. Okay.

We are hopeful that those who were injured are also going to be okay. As we said, the paramedic service there that that handles the greater Toronto area is saying that they did have nine patients in total, one of them a child and one of them airlifted as well into one of the hospitals into Toronto. Okay, Tom, I know you've got to get busy preparing for some of our other broadcasts tonight on this important story. So I'm gonna let you go and we're gonna bring in Captain John Cox, who's an NBC News aviation analyst to talk more about what we're witnessing here.

So Captain, just your initial reaction to what you're seeing here. Do you have any theories? I know you don't want to speculate, but what could possibly have gone wrong to lead to what we're watching right now? Well, I think one of the things that you just mentioned, the fact that the right wing is missing and it has obviously sustained quite a bit of damage.

That's something the investigators are going to look at. They're going to look at the weather. Fortunately, the airplane is in one piece, so it'll make recovering the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder pretty easy. So they'll have that data downloaded from it within a day or two.

So they'll know the investigators will know pretty quickly what the pilots knew and what the airplane physically did for it to end up in the way that it did. When it when it's all together in one piece like this, it says that it was at lower speed, lower energy. The doors were all opened. The cabin crew did a great job about getting everybody out.

I'm really glad to hear that everybody's accounted for. So there's more questions than answers here, but that right wing not being attached to the airplane is something clearly that the investigators are going to want answers for. And you mentioned that the fact that it's all in one place likely means that the energy level associated with the plane would not have been as great as if it had been if it had broken apart. Does that indicate to you that perhaps this crash didn't really begin to manifest itself until the plane was already on the ground?

Or is there a possibility that it began began tumbling as it was coming? I know that we're speculating here, but just based on your expertise, is it possible that it landed and then began the process of flipping over that? I think the question then centers on the wing. When did that wing depart the airplane and what caused it to depart the airplane?

So I think when you get there, uh, but you answer those questions, it will send you on the, it'll give you a good understanding of what happened. And we've seen weather reports that there, there were gusty winds there around the time of this plane landing. How, how powerful would a wind gust have to be, uh, to interrupt the plane landing and end up in a fashion like this? Could wind have been enough to play a role in this?

I think there's certainly the wind. The wind was gusting, uh, according to the weather reports, somewhere between 25 to 35 knots, which is about 38 miles an hour. So it would be quite breezy up there. Professional pilots and airliners do operate in weather like this frequently.

They're certainly trained for it. So what changed here? And that's, that's what is, is going to be the question. Um, can airplanes operate safely in these conditions?

Yes. What happened here? That is where the investigators are going to look. Could it mean then that there was something wrong with the plane itself and it couldn't handle those types of conditions?

Too early to tell. Too early to tell. We're back at the same question of what caused that right wing to have the damage that it does. That's going to be very central.

When that occurred, how that occurred, that's going to be very central to the investigators' initial questions. Yeah, it's pretty remarkable watching these passengers evacuate the plane in the condition that it's in. I imagine that the flight crews prepare for every possible scenario. You know, we've all been on a plane where they've told us what to do if there's a water landing, how to get the flotation devices, how to undo your seatbelt.

Is there training for how to get a group of passengers off a plane that has been completely flipped upside down? There's training on how to open the doors. And regardless of the orientation of the aircraft, the doors operate the same way. So the cabin crew and the pilots are trained to operate those doors.

And in this case, they did a great job. And obviously, there needs to be a degree of composure with this flight crew, right? Because, you know, I think I heard you say earlier that there's a possibility that perhaps some folks may have been injured as they were trying to get out of their seats because they would have been upside down I'm joined now by NBC News White House Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, NBC News Supreme Court reporter Lawrence Hurley, and Lisa Rein who covers the federal government and federal agencies in particular for The Washington Post. So Yamiche, I'll start with you.

Does the White House have concerns over the impact these mass firings are going to have on basic government services? It's a key question, Ryan, but as of now it does not seem that way. I've been talking to a number of White House officials who continue to just reiterate that all of these cuts are really things that they see as necessary to do away with waste and fraud. And just a few moments ago I was talking to Stephen Miller right here in the White House on the driveway here right behind me.

I'm asking specifically about a number of immigration judges that were terminated last week because of course the president has been saying that immigration is a top priority for him. So I asked Stephen Miller, well, aren't you worried that if you do away with these immigration judges, it's just going to slow things down because there's already this big backlog? He said no. Judges who are being fired are essentially judges that are not seen as performing their jobs well.

So this is really a White House that is doubling down and moving at lightning speed, though we have heard Elon Musk, of course, is leading DoGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. He's been saying that there are going to be some mistakes being made. Of course, Peter's reporting that they are now trying to rehire these employees that oversee the nuclear stockpile are sort of an example of that. The government essentially said, you know what, we made a mistake.

We actually think we need these people in the Department of Energy. So they're trying to get back in touch with them. So it really is an example of the White House trying in some ways to back up a little bit. But overall, I don't hear a great concern about any of the consequences of this, Ryan.

Yeah, I mean, to me, there seems to be a real world example here of them moving too quickly with the situation with the Nuclear Security Administration workers. But it doesn't seem that even something as dramatic as this, where they literally cannot get in touch with these people who are in charge of the nuclear secrets, are going to cause them to change their tactics at all. That's what it seems like. And you know, there's this Silicon Valley mantra, move fast and break things.

And I was talking to a Clinton administration official who pointed out that in Silicon Valley, of course, part of where Elon Musk is thinking has come from, that when you do something like maybe you can fire too many people at Twitter, that might mean that a website that we all maybe like to use is down. But when it's the federal government, it could mean that lives are actually at risk. So there is real concern here from critics of these moves. Of course, you also have union officials who are going to different courts to try to slow things down.

And then, of course, we have that first case that's really going to make its way up to the Supreme Court. That's being filed by a government watchdog, a whistleblower agency there, the Office of Special Counsel, Biden appointee, who's saying that he was fired illegally. So the Supreme Court is going to weigh in here in short order. So maybe that'll change things.

Maybe it won't. But certainly the Trump administration is leaning in. And the president himself has been praising Elon Musk, saying that he's doing a good job and also saying that he answers to him. So also pulling back, saying at the end of the day, whatever Elon Musk is doing, he's doing it at the behest of President Trump.

OK, Yamiche, thank you for that. Let's move now to Lawrence. Lawrence, Judge Tanya Chutkin today held a hearing on that effort to rein in Elon Musk's access. Did she indicate how she's going to rule on that matter?

That's right. I mean, she held this quite unusual hearing on a federal holiday, suggesting there's quite an emergency situation. But based on the reports coming out of the hearing, she's skeptical that states that have sued to kind of limit the access that DoGE has to federal agencies and federal decision making in those agencies. She doesn't think that there's an emergency kind of need for them to get that relief that they're wanting, that they can show irreparable harm at this stage of the litigation.

She hasn't actually issued yet a ruling yet, but that's going to come soon. But that's just at a preliminary stage. She still seemed to express real issues with what's going on. It might suggest that down the line, she might rule in favor of these states that are challenging this.

But at this point, it seems like she's not going to. And we've probably been waiting for this to come to a head in the Supreme Court. And it seems as though we could be heading in that direction soon. But does the Trump administration face any sort of risk by allowing them to ask basically whether or not the firing of Hampton Dellinger was appropriate?

I mean, this is essentially going to put it on the line for them in the highest court in the land. I think this case in particular, they probably feel like they're on pretty solid ground. Obviously, it's a conservative court. The court has already issued a couple of rulings in recent years, cutting back or enhancing the power of the president to fire heads of agencies that Congress said should have protections against being fired.

The Supreme Court thinks that's unconstitutional. So this case is probably a good one for the Trump administration to take up to the Supreme Court as its first case, just because of that precedent and the fact that they probably feel like they have a good chance of winning this one. So could it tell us about these future challenges that are to come? Or should we view this in its own light?

Yeah, I think it would probably be too early to say at this point how much this case, you know, if the court grants the Trump administration's request, it probably is not going to tell us how they're going to handle some of these more, you know, unknown issues that haven't come up before, which we're seeing the dismantling of federal agencies, the bringing Elon Musk into the government where there's concerns over whether he has the appropriate authority to do what he's doing. These kind of separation of powers issues about whether they can just unilaterally decide not to spend money that Congress has appropriated. These are all issues that might be much more difficult for the Supreme Court and more difficult for the Trump administration to win. So people might be in danger of reading too much into this one if the court does indeed give the Trump people what they want.

OK, Lawrence, thank you for that. Let's go to Lisa now, who covers these government agencies as well as anybody in the business. Lisa, you've been all on top of the speed at which Elon Musk has reshaped the government and how that has circumvented many of the government's guardrails. Kind of explain to us how he has operated.

So that's it really differs in by event that has happened. So, you know, so Musk, you know, went into all these agencies, which really shocked a lot of people in the government and outside the government. But the reality is that, you know, Trump acting through his cabinet secretaries was absolutely within his rights to let Musk and his team inside, say, the Treasury Department, you know. And then you look at all these agencies where DoGE has come in and looked at sensitive, sensitive information, databases, all kinds of, you know, data payment systems.

And again, the reality is that, you know, there are laws that are supposed to protect the government from cyber attacks and also from, you know, privacy intrusions into, you know, federal government, federal employees privacy. But the problem is that, you know, they're very they don't quite account for what is going on right now with DoGE, which is that Elon Musk and his team are really coming from within. They've been authorized to come in. You know, cybersecurity laws are really designed to protect against an outside actor and a foreign government, you know, coming in the way they did 10 years ago with the Office of Press Personnel Management, you know, which had a lot of 21 million federal employees and retirees.

Their data was breached. And then with with violations of what's known as the Privacy Act, very old law, actually, you know, there really is not much of a course of action for individuals whose privacy has been violated. So you take that you take a lot of things that the Trump administration is doing, you know, as Eamesh said, you know, with with federal employees. So right now, over the weekend, they're hiring firing thousands and thousands of what are known as probationary employees from, you know, the Defense Department to the Forest Service.

But here the problem is that these employees are on probation, as they might be, you know, at NBC News, as they might be at The Washington Post. And in general, whether it's the government or a private company, when you're on probation, you don't have a lot of rights to due process. Yeah, I wonder, though, there is still some risk of this, right? It's not just as easy as saying, well, because we have the ability to let all these people go because they're under their probationary window, that doesn't make it OK.

Right. And at some point, you're gonna have to hire someone. But couldn't there be a long term consequence of hiring someone under a probationary designation when that person could just be fired right away? I mean, I think this will, as you say, will have many long term consequences.

The first thing is that lawyers have told us that, you know, the alleged reason that the Trump administration is citing in every single one of these firings is poor performance. But that's just not possible because we have, you know, fired employees contacting us, sending that he is using the funds that have already been congressionally appropriated or not using those funds. Are you sure that Democrats are going to be there to help pass an appropriations package that's going to keep the government open, given the fact that there's so much conflict between the White House and congressional Democrats right now? Well, let's be clear.

If the Democrats don't want to fund government, then we will shut down on March 14th. There is not a single thing that Republicans can do on their own to fund government. Again, you need 60 votes in the Senate. So if Democrats want to pout because Donald Trump is doing things they don't like, then yes, they can shut down government.

They can hurt America because they don't like what the president is doing. Now, I would say that would be highly disappointing. When President Joe Biden unilaterally forgave $800 billion of student loans, an act that he had acknowledged was clearly unconstitutional just a few weeks beforehand, I didn't pout. Republicans didn't conspire to shut down the government and hurt 350 million Americans because Joe Biden acted unconstitutionally.

Instead, we acted like big boys and big girls. We took him to court and we beat him in court. But do you think it makes sense to pass a budget that, for instance, would still fully fund USAID, given how the administration has handled the current appropriation for USAID? Whatever passes in this appropriations package is going to have some Democratic priorities and some Republican priorities.

Now, it's clearly going to have some more Republican priorities because Republicans have the House and the Senate and the White House. But we will not be able to secure 10 or 20 or 30 Democratic senators' votes for a budget that has a zero number at USAID. So whether it's a full year appropriations package or a one-month CR to allow us to finish our work, there's really not any scenario under which Republicans get every single thing we like. That's too bad, but that's the political reality.

Do you think the Speaker understands that? Do you think some of your Republican colleagues understand that? And I talked to Chip Roy about this last week, and he suggested that you should put a continuing resolution on the table that zeroes out USAID. I mean, will there be a majority of Republicans that support the idea of an appropriations package that fully funds USAID?

If you're asking me, do I think Republicans and Democrats alike will both vociferously advocate for the funding they want in or out? Of course they're going to do that. And Chip Roy is a smart guy. He understands that that kind of rhetoric pushes down, applies downward pressure to funding in some of those areas.

You're going to have folks on the Democratic side who are talking about how we need to spend two or three times what we spent in recent years. The reality is we're $2 trillion upside down every year. If we don't start to take some serious activity to curtail this budget deficit, we are, I mean, insolvency looms within the decade for both Medicare and Social Security. Whatever we do with the appropriations package needs to acknowledge that real work is needed.

Okay. All right. We'll have to see what happens here. We've got about less than four weeks to get that done.

It sounds like it might be a bit of a challenge. But let's turn now to the situation overseas in Saudi Arabia in particular, where the Trump administration and their team going to talk with Russia about ending the war in Ukraine. President Zelensky said that his team has not been invited to participate in these initial talks. Are you okay with that?

Are we still treating Ukraine like an ally in these negotiations? At some point, I mean, if we get to a final deal, yes, of course, the Ukrainians need to have a seat at the table. This is their country. Nobody should have any doubt about that.

Now, might it be beneficial for there to be some preliminary discussions? Yeah, I mean, that's shuttle diplomacy. That happens literally all the time in these negotiations where an arbiter, a negotiator like America might talk to one side, the Russians, and then go talk to the other side, the Ukrainians, just to kind of get a sense of what are the contours of a deal that is possible. So am I that concerned that they're not at the table today?

No. Over the longer analysis, of course, we do want Ukraine involved. Now, President Zelensky told my colleague Kristen Welker over the weekend that any peace negotiation ultimately has to involve an assurance of security for Ukraine. And that means that the U.S.

needs to be there to support Ukraine in their security after a peace deal is signed. Do you still believe that Donald Trump will support Ukraine and that means financially with weapons and arms to make sure that that any sort of peace deal is lasting and that Ukraine is protected? Well, let's keep in mind, Ukraine is not a treaty ally of the United States. It's not a member of NATO.

We have no legal obligation to come to their defense when they're attacked. Now, that being said, of course, territorial sovereignty matters. Of course, countries should not be invaded. There is a role, I think, for all decent freedom-loving countries to try to support those values.

But I also I mean, it's not our job to fight every single country's wars. I think we've done some good things to help Ukraine defend its own country. But Zelensky is simply not going to be able to put conditions on America with how this piece, which is definitely needed, how it unfolds. All right.

Last question for you, sir. I want to put up a social media post from President Trump over the weekend. It says, quote, He who saves his country does not violate any law. What's your reaction to that?

Does that language concern you at all? Now, I don't know exactly what the president was saying when he meant that. Of course, we're a country that values the rule of law. And just even a few days ago, President Trump, I think very appropriately, said, of course, he's going to obey court decisions that come down.

If he doesn't agree with them, he'll appeal them. That's his right. But I think in his statements throughout the week, he clearly made it clear that he understands the power of being a nation where the rule of law trumps any political agenda. All right.

Congressman Dusty Johnson, we packed in a lot there, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks much.

All right. Let's talk about it now. Joining me on set is Julia Manchester, national political reporter at The Hill. Former Maryland Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards.

She's also an NBC News political analyst and Republican strategist Matt Gorman, who is here on Sunday for Meet the Press. And this is your permanent spotter. I slipped into one of those out of the hall. All right.

Well, Julia, you just heard that conversation with Dusty Johnson. Is he a little too optimistic that they're going to find a way through here on March 14th and keep the government open? Potentially. I mean, it's a tough hill for them to climb.

But I think the interesting part of this was his response to how Democrats play this. You know, earlier this month, we were hearing from Democrats in the Senate, for example, Elizabeth Warren talking about using this a potential government shutdown as leverage. When asked about it, she said, well, the government's already shut down, pointing to Doge's and Elon Musk's efforts to really wipe out a number of federal workers. So but I think it was interesting to hear how Congressman Johnson addressed that sort of laying blame on them.

Look, being in the minority is never fun. It's difficult right now for Democrats to have a unified response. We're sort of seeing them get one. But to Doge.

And I'm just curious to see as we'll see that response that response happen in the form of, you know, potentially going along with a government shutdown or not working with Republicans. So, Congressman, I want to go to you on that because Democrats are famous for saying we're going to do whatever we can to keep the government open. Is the situation different now? Should they be using the possibility of a government shutdown as leverage in response to how they feel Donald Trump has handled this part of his administration?

Well, look, I do think that the Democrats are in a position of Republicans have the House, the Senate and they've got the White House. They've got the number of votes that it takes in the House to be able to pass their own spending priorities. And they seem unwilling to sit down and really negotiate with Democrats in exchange for those votes. And so I think, you know, from Democrats' perspective, it's like if you've got, you know, all three of the levers of power, then you should use them.

And I think for a lot of Democrats, this really is a line in the sand because they have been in a situation where Republicans have cut a deal and walked away from the deal. And so there's not a lot of trust that's going on between Republicans and Democrats in this negotiation. Matt, if it gets to that point and it does shut down, is there a scenario when Republicans have control of the House, the Senate and the White House, as Donna points out, that Republicans can effectively message that it's the Democrats' fault that the government shut down? The only time we've won a shutdown argument is 2018.

It was the, quote, Schumer shutdown. I'm a member of the NRCC. That was the only one we messaged effectively because it was it wasn't the exact same scenario, but very similar where Democrats took something off the table, wouldn't agree to McConnell deal. And we felt very confident.

We were bullish going into that shutdown weekend about about how we were messaging of it. And I will say, I will caution this. During the shutdown right now, to play the boogeyman here, we played Elon Musk You can get our conversation for free wherever you download your podcasts. Stay informed with the NBC News app.

Britain news just coming in moments ago. Watch, read and listen throughout your day. And now unlock even more with a subscription. It's the best of NBC News with fewer ad interruptions, including ad-free articles, podcasts, and full NBC News shows, plus deeper access and exclusive content.

Let's just take a step back. It's more context and clarity from the reporters you trust. Download the NBC News app now and subscribe for more. Get the best of NBC News with a subscription.

Fewer ads, deeper access, and exclusive content. And now during the Xfinity member celebration, members can get an exclusive 50% off an annual subscription. Head to xfinity.com slash membership to learn more. Xfinity, imagine that.

Subscription automatically renews each year at $65.99 plus taxes and fees until canceled. Offer ends May 20th, 2026. Prices subject to change. Visit NBCNews.com slash Xfinity for full offer terms and details.

Welcome back. After almost three years of fighting, Ukrainian President Zelensky laid out his vision for a peace deal in an exclusive interview with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press. Can you accept any peace deal that is cut without Ukraine? No.

And do you feel like you have a seat at the table right now? I don't only count on it. I'm sure that we have to be there, otherwise it's not acceptable. Let me ask you big picture, though.

Do you think President Trump is negotiating in good faith? I hope so. I hope so. Yes, I count on it.

It comes as Ukraine is notably absent from talks set to begin tomorrow in Saudi Arabia between Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Mideast Envoy Steve Wickoff, and top Russian officials. NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Richard Engel is on the ground in Ukraine with the latest reaction. As he promised during his campaign, President Trump is acting quickly to try and end the war here in Ukraine. But Ukrainian government officials we've been speaking to and people in Ukraine are nervous by what they're seeing so far.

First, President Trump had a long conversation about 90 minutes directly with Vladimir Putin. And now those peace talks are starting in Saudi Arabia. Officially, they are set to take place tomorrow, starting with Russia. And Ukraine isn't invited to the talks.

It is a senior level delegation that has arrived in Saudi Arabia with the national security advisor, secretary of state, President Trump's personal envoy, Steve Wickoff, who he's used to carry out other sensitive negotiations, including the ceasefire talks in Gaza. So government officials here are watching this. They are worried that they are not being taken as a priority, that this country potentially is going to be divided up between President Trump and Vladimir Putin. There is an old expression in diplomacy.

If you're not at the table, you're on it. And here Ukrainians worry that this country is now on the table. President Trump has said that Ukraine will be involved, that President Zelensky will be involved in this process. And the Trump administration is sending another envoy to Ukraine later this week, but not the same high level delegation.

And it is second. It is the after the second conversation. We will see where this goes. But already people are concerned.

And I spoke to a woman earlier today, a volunteer at a shelter. They were holding an event for children here in southern Ukraine. There are still frequent Russian attacks. Power cuts happen all the time.

Very little electricity, which is quite a hardship in these very cold winter months. People are still often spending night in shelters. There was this party in a shelter underground for the children of Valentine's Day event to try and lift their spirits. And I spoke to one volunteer there.

She said, of course, people want peace in this country. They want to stop living like this. They want the Russian attacks to stop. But they don't want to see terms dictated by President Trump imposed on Ukraine.

Richard Engel, NBC News, Mykolaiv, Ukraine. All right, Richard, thank you for that. Let me now bring in John Herbst, who's a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and a senior director of the Atlantic Council Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.

Ambassador, what's your reaction to the strategy by the Trump administration to meet with the Russian officials before sitting down with Ukrainian leaders? It is idiosyncratic. And it's true that by Trump reaching out to Putin while he's conducting this war of aggression and agreeing to talk first with the Russians, he's raised eyebrows in Ukraine. Their concern is legitimate.

And also amongst our allies in Europe. But we always know that we know that Trump's style, diplomatic style is idiosyncratic. And if you go back and look at the way he interacted with the leader of North Korea in his first term, you saw some similar characteristics, some bluster as Trump blustered Putin in his first week in office, then some fatuous flattery for the leader, the strongman leader of North Korea before Putin in this case. And then some talks on negotiations in which Trump walked away when he didn't find something suitable.

So nervousness is understandable. So what would you consider to be a good outcome of this meeting between the U.S. and Russian delegations? I'm not certain what to expect in this negotiation, except the Russians are not eager to conclude an agreement because they want to continue to pick up additional Ukrainian territory.

And they would like to drive Ukrainian forces out of the course of all this, which is Russian territory. And I think they also want to use this period for Putin specifically to work on Trump to weaken the terms Trump has set down for Russian compromise, which Russia has refused to accept. That's what I expect to happen tomorrow and further U.S.-Russian negotiations. So is it important for President Trump to meet with President Zelensky one-on-one face-to-face before he has any sort of meeting with the Russian president?

He's signaled that he's planning to meet with Putin. Does he need to meet with Zelensky first? That would be preferable, but it's not essential. Look, again, Trump is an idiosyncratic figure.

He can run negotiations his way because he was elected president of the United States for a second time. But he has laid out a vision for an end to this fighting that requires serious compromise by both Ukraine and Russia. And he put down two conditions for Russia, which they rejected. But these are still the terms that Trump's team has laid out, which is, one, a demilitarized zone between Russian and Ukrainian forces where European troops would be deployed as peace enforcers, and sending massive arms to Ukraine to deter future Russian aggression.

The Russians don't want to accept that, but I think Trump will continue to insist. And he said even last week amidst some very undiplomatic and I don't think particularly helpful statements that he will continue to provide arms, continue to provide aid to Ukraine, because otherwise Putin may try to go for everything. And Trump will not allow that. Yeah, I mean, how important is that piece of it?

I mean, Ukraine, do they have any leverage at all if they also do not have the assurance that the U.S. will be there to support them at the back end of any peace deal negotiation? Well, right now, it looks like we're not talking about American troops on the ground. But the notion of European troops could fulfill that function, A, if they're given American logistical support and equipment, B, if they're given American intelligence, and C, and this is the really tough one, there would have to be some type of, in my mind, assurance from the United States to our allies or in Ukraine enforcing peace that we would help if the Russians started shooting.

And that will require a significant negotiation between the Trump team and the Europeans who are now trying to step up to put troops on the ground, as Trump has suggested. And what does that mean more broadly about the Trump relationship with NATO? I mean, he's flirted about even perhaps pulling the United States out of NATO. What are folks in Europe saying about that relationship?

Well, certainly the Europeans are nervous about Trump's views on NATO. But Hicks has said last week that, you know, we're not planning on leaving NATO. He said, we want a strong NATO. And Trump talked about leaving NATO many years ago.

It hasn't been on his lips lately, as far as I'm aware. But they are still nervous about his commitment to Europe. Europe has been stable because NATO was created because America took a strong lead in NATO. So now that the Trump team wants to back off a little bit in Europe, the Europeans are understandably nervous.

But they have a right to ask for major American support if they're going to take on the dangerous and critical role of making sure Putin does not renew aggression against Ukraine if a peace deal is reached. I think Trump wants to reach a deal which will prevent him from going further into Ukraine. Okay, Ambassador John Herbst, thank you for your expertise. We appreciate it so much going on in Europe and beyond.

We so value your input on this. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you.

And we're going to be back tomorrow with more Meet the Press Now. But there's plenty of news still ahead. More on that plane crash in Toronto and more. The news continuing now with Guy Schwartz, who is in for Hallie Jackson right now.

I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers, cheers, cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too.

It's a really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week and who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half full. Search glass half full with Craig Melvin from Today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.