Meet the Press NOW — February 3

Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Gabe Gutierrez in Washington where the White House is facing blowback from Democrats and pushback from Republicans over comments made by President Trump about taking over elections in Democratic-led states and also having Republicans in Congress nationalize elections. The White House trying to clarify and walk back some of those comments amid the escalating resistance on Capitol Hill. We'll have much more on the President's comments and the fallout in a moment.

But the controversy comes as Congress has approved a Trump-backed funding deal ending a brief partial government shutdown. The House narrowly passing a legislation this afternoon with 21 Democrats joining with 196 Republicans descended to the President's desk after it passed the Senate last week. President Trump, who urged House lawmakers to pass the measure with no changes yesterday, is vowing to sign it immediately. The deal, setting a stage for a two-week fight over funding for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security sparked by the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

The White House previewing those negotiations today. We're willing, obviously, to have this dialogue and to talk and to listen, but we are not going to concede and enforcing our nation's immigration laws and delivering on the mandate the President was given by nearly 80 million Americans to deport illegal alien criminals from our country. It all comes after DHS Secretary Christine Om announced yesterday that all federal officers in Minneapolis would be equipped with body cameras in the wake of the killings of two U.S. citizens, Renee Goode and Alex Prady by federal officials.

Today here in Washington, we heard from Goode's brothers who testified at a Democratic forum on DHS force. This is not just a bad day or a rough week or isolated incidents. These encounters with federal agents are changing the community and changing many lives, including ours forever. I still don't know how to explain to my four-year-old what these agents are doing when we pass by.

The decision by Secretary known to have body cameras or decisions about how things will work in terms of the tactics being used. However, saying Holman, who is now there, Tom Holman, in Minnesota overseeing operations would report directly to him. So that's certainly a direct connection with the President and these issues. But it will be a 40 period for the President and this is one of his signature issues in terms of enforcement of border security, in terms of the influx of immigrants into the country.

But these interior operations have been so problematic in terms of the deaths that have occurred, questions about the detaining of people who are members of the community where there's been a lot of pushback. And at the same time, the President trying to meet the goals that he talked about and that do have support, especially from his MAGA base, not as much among many of those in Minnesota. So a few different signals from the President when it comes to this, the funding and the policy. Well, Kelly, DHS Secretary Kristi Noam announced late yesterday that all federal officers in Annapolis would be wearing body cameras.

Do we know what led to that decision? Well, there's been discussion and push for this and it comes in the form of the public wanting to have an inside look at these interactions. But it is also about officer safety in terms of the Department of Homeland Security making clear that they are seeing a huge spike in threats against federal officers. So there can be advantages in both directions for the public's awareness and for officer safety.

At the same time, the President said this would be something that they would be talking about. But he also said it was very much Noam's decision. Certainly, the appropriations had been there. Why it had not been done already is a question.

But she is saying this will now be a tool that there is the funding for, there is the availability of the units that officers would wear. And what it doesn't do is address other questions like specifically tactics, tactics or the wearing of masks. But the cameras themselves are certainly an issue where there's broader appreciation for what video can do from all angles of how people look at this. Those concerned about what's happening to officers, those concerned about what's happening to the public.

Kelly, I thought it was interesting to hear the President say that it was Kristi's decision, Kristi Noam's decision, essentially distancing himself from it. But really, I want to turn to you over at Hill. Where does the funding fight over ICE and DHS go now? Well, if you can believe it gave the funding bill that the House muscle through today was the easy part.

Now comes the hard part. They have a week and a half, essentially, to try and come together over these demands that Democrats are making leadership and just told me a couple of minutes ago that they are crystallizing their reforms in full. They're going to send them to House and Senate Republican leadership and the White House shortly translation. They did not yet start these negotiations in earnest.

And there's also a lot of finger pointing happening who's in charge of these negotiations. Senate Republicans are distancing themselves from that in part because this is going to be a really uphill battle. It is extremely hard to see how they're going to come together on this in part because it would be Republicans, essentially agreeing to hamstring the administration's authority, their own Republican White House's authority and the ability that they're able to have a latitude, they're able to have any size operations around the country. Take a listen to a little bit of what we heard from Speaker Johnson.

We hope that they will operate in good faith over the next 10 days as we negotiate this. The president, again, has reached out. We are restoring calm in Minnesota. But again, we make the plea and the demand that the governors and the mayors in these blue states and blue cities participate with federal law enforcement so that we have a safer environment in which to implement and to enforce federal immigration laws.

Now, as Kelly was just talking about, the administration is already taking some proactive steps, for example, on body cameras. But that's not enough. Not even for moderate Democrats like Angus King, for example, who told me he needs to see these changes codified into law, or he's going to be on a no on any DHS funding deal that comes together. You know, Julie, how was Speaker Johnson able to get this deal across the finish line today?

Well, it started with President Trump when he posted on Truth Social, essentially getting Republican holdouts who wanted to see the save act. It's a Republican piece of legislation that would require proof of citizenship that is already a requirement. You cannot vote if you do not have that Schumer and Democrats saying that is a non-starter. Well, President Trump posted essentially saying that Republicans need to pass the funding bill as is, meaning they couldn't attach that piece to the funding package.

That's how they were able to muscle it through. There were holdouts that Speaker Johnson has gotten quite accustomed to wrangling and dealing with holdouts as he navigates a very narrow majority. There were conversations happening in the cloak room in the back of the floor, Speaker Johnson even directly engaging in animated conversations with members. But again, as I told you, that was the easy part.

Now comes the hard part, because getting Republicans, especially in the House, to agree to make these kinds of changes to DHS without, for example, defunding sanctuary cities and think Republicans want without, for example, attaching the save act that I just mentioned to this bill, that'll be extremely difficult. Kelly, Julie, I want you to stick around for a minute, because we have a lot to cover here, as we mentioned, President Trump has once again raised the prospect of changing the country's election system, suggesting to his former Deputy FBI Director, Dan Bongino, on his podcast that the federal government take control of elections. These people were brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally. And the amazing that the Republicans aren't tough around it, the Republicans should say, we want to take over, we should take over the voting in at least many 15 places.

The Republicans sort of nationalize the voting. And we have states that are so crooked and they're counting votes. Of course, the Constitution grants decisions about elections to the states in article one, quote, the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof. Press on the president's comments, Republican leaders and Capitol Hill pushed back on his suggestions delicately.

I'm not here with that election. So I mean, I think that's a constitutional issue. It's always been the responsibility of the states to administer elections and it's a system that works well. So long as the states make a priority to ensure the integrity of our elections, and we have real concerns about some of the blue states, frankly, that have not been doing that well.

Meanwhile, as you'd expect, Democrats are offering a much more forceful defense issue. This is more dangerous, autocratic poison from Donald Trump. I asked my Republican colleagues, when the hell will you find your voice when he says that we should nationalize the elections and Republicans should take over and you don't make a peep? What's going on here?

You're just so afraid. I had deep concerns about the fairness of our elections in 28 right now. My concerns about the elections in primaries, these kind of actions that have taken place over the last year as we've seen the systemic dismantling of the very protections that were put in place. Bye.

Again, the first Trump administration, if it doesn't scare the heck out of you, it should White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt this afternoon, appearing to try to clarify or clean up the president's comment saying he was merely talking about a piece of legislation in Congress to mandate proof of citizenship to vote. But the president was referring to is the say that, which is a huge common sense piece of legislation that Republicans have supported that president Trump is committed to signing into law during his term. And he spoke with the speaker directly about that yesterday about the need to get that bill on the floor for a vote because it provides very common sense measures for voting in our country. Of course, the president has a long and well-documented history of pushing baseless election conspiracies.

And just two weeks ago, he raised the specter of canceling the midterms with Reuters reporting that during an interview, he boasted that he had accomplished so much that when you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election. The White House has said he was joking. But Kelly O'Donnell and Julie Serkin are still with me for more on this. Kelly, I want to go back to you.

The president raised the prospect of nationalizing elections. The Constitution obviously seems pretty clear on this. Is there any way for the president to pursue this unilaterally? Both leader Thune and speaker Johnson seem to quickly dismiss it?

Well, certainly the Constitution carries the weight here. And states could sue to prevent steps that the president might take. And when we hear the discussion of the president may have meant the Save Act, what's hard to understand there is why he would have referenced 15 states as an example of where he thought there needed to be nationalizing of the elections because any federal law applies all across the country in all 50 states. So that doesn't quite square up in terms of what the president was interested in.

We've also just learned from the White House. The president is going to sign the funding bill that we were talking about a few minutes ago at 4.30 this afternoon. So there would be an opportunity perhaps to hear the president talk about some of these issues, including the one you're raising. What does he mean by nationalizing?

So it is important to note that when Republican leaders are pushing back on this, certainly Democrats would and state elections officials across the country would have concerns about this because the Constitution certainly contemplated and it makes clear that the planning of elections, the carrying out of elections, all of the responsibilities associated with that, that's the domain of states. And it's part of a system that is supposed to decentralize elections to give people more confidence in the integrity of the process, making it local. So it is your neighbors and your locally elected officials who are responsible for that and not elections decided by the central government. So how the president would go forward?

We don't know his impulse toward this. He's easier to understand because we know the president wants to convince the public that there are irregularities in elections that could change the outcome or as he claims falsely, that they change the outcome in 2020. And of course, Kelly, we will be watching at 4.30. If in fact we can answer ask the president some questions, but Julie, I want to turn back to you.

What you know, we did hear some of that reaction on Capitol Hill. Is this what Republicans on the Hill really want to be talking about right now? No, absolutely not. And there's two reasons for that.

The first being that conservatives at their core believe in states, right? So the fact that any Republicans up here certainly in leadership, especially someone like Speaker Johnson, a constitutional lawyer by heart, by trade, the expectation that they would go along with something like this is a non-starter. That is exactly why I think we heard from both him and Thune, the reaction that we did, that this is not constitutional and Thune even pivoted a couple of hours after we talked to him this morning at a press conference when she was pressed by NBC News, that President Trump was referring to the SAVAC, the piece of legislation that we were just talking about, that would of course require proof of citizenship when you're actually going to vote. Again, a non-starter for Democrats, but it's interesting how both the White House and Caroline Levitt and Republicans here are trying to pivot the president's remarks for him.

And the second reason why this is a non-starter is because Republicans that I talked to up here, even allies of the president know that his worst issue, one that he shouldn't be highlighting, is continuing to look back at 2020 stolen election claims. Republicans, even when he was running this time around in 2024, said the president should stay on message, talk about his best issues, which is immigration. Of course, now things have changed slightly. The economy, other things that Republicans prefer to run on in the midterm elections, not looking backwards.

And really certainly an evolving set of remarks. Kelly, after this all comes, after the FBI raided an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, how much of the president's recent comments continue to be driven by his fixation on the 2020 election? I think you could argue that there's quite a lot of influence about that. And it also ties into the president's very public discussion of retribution and wanting to, in effect, settle the scores of issues that have bothered him for some time.

So that includes some of the political weaponization as he has perceived it. And the events in Fulton County, Georgia, what really stands out there is if he had prevailed in 2020 in Georgia, that would not have been enough for him to win the overall election. He was very drawn to Fulton County. And as he said at the time, the less than fewer than 12,000 votes that were at issue in that county.

So the questions really now are what is the purpose of the FBI, which should have a warrant that was approved by a judge to go in and get the records, get the ballots. They have now been moved to a facility in Virginia, an FBI facility where those are being stored. What is the investigation and what are they looking for? And there are larger questions about if they're looking at the evidence from six years ago, how, if at all, does it affect the immediate concerns about the midterm elections and 2028 elections?

There are a lot of questions there, but the president's interest in this is certainly beyond dispute. He talks about it often. He puts pressure on those who report to him, and that's part of what we're seeing. And Julie, I want to play more of what Intel Vice Chair Warner said today.

Let's listen to that. The Director of National Intelligence does not conduct criminal investigations. She has no role in executing search warrants, and she does not belong on the scene of a domestic FBI search, particularly one tied to the president's personal grievances, carried out under the pretense of normal law enforcement. And Julie, it's so interesting.

Is there a similar frustration from even some Republicans? Is there any chance Tulsi Gabbard appears before Congress in the near term? Well, there definitely is a similar frustration. It's why her confirmation process a year ago gave was such an uphill climb for Republicans, because of her past statements, because of concerns that she is not up to par for this kind of role, even from Tom Cotton, who chairs the Intel Committee, that Warner is the vice chair of.

He's expressed some concerns in the past, but those concerns have dissipated. They have changed at least publicly, because today, at a leadership press conference, we pressed Tom Cotton, the chair of the Intel panel, if he would call Gabbard in to testify, and he ignored the question entirely. And I thought what was so notable, but stood out so much from Warner's remarks is that somebody with his position, he's been on the Intel Committee for a long time. He's held either a chair or a ranking position on that panel.

He said that he does not believe that the 2026 and 2028 elections will be secure. That is an extremely significant statement coming from somebody of his caliber. I would be interested to see in the coming months, how Republicans begin to respond to this publicly. But again, extremely difficult when you have President Trump sitting at the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Significant statement indeed, Julie Serkin, live for us at the White House. Thank you both. And as we mentioned, we will be keeping a close eye on the President's bill signing, which we expect a starting just a few minutes. We'll see when it gets set.

Coming up, battles and funding fights, a Democratic member of congressional leadership responds to President Trump's comments about possibly taking over elections in blue states. And where the debate over the DHS funding goes from here. Congressman Ted Liu is standing by. Plus, the U.S.

military shoots down an Iranian drone as an approach to an aircraft carrier stationed in the Middle East just days before top U.S. and Iranian negotiators are set to hold nuclear talks. We're on the ground in Tehran. You're watching the press now.

Stay with us. And welcome back. Joining us now is Congressman Ted Liu, Democrat from California and the Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.

I want to start with your reaction to what we were just discussing before the break. President Trump's comments urging elections to be nationalized in his words. Now, Carolyn Levitt clarified that he was referring to the Save Act, but did you buy that explanation? Thank you, Gabe, for your question.

First of all, the President has no power to nationalize elections. The Constitution says that a time, place and manner of elections are to be reserved to the states. And that's an Article I, Section 4, the Constitution. Congress can alter that, but you need a congressional law to do so.

And Democrats are going to fight like hell to make sure that that does not happen. And Congressman, we are actually watching live pictures right now. We're monitoring the President in the office that we understand he's getting set to sign. That's a bill signing right there.

We see House Speaker Mike Johnson right next to him. They've just got started the event and we're monitoring it. And we'll see if he takes any questions. But I want to continue talking to you and continuing with our interview.

How seriously should we take the President's comments about potentially nationalizing elections? We should actually take it seriously, because House Republicans and Senate Republicans seem like they have no independent thought that they just do what the President wants. So we need to make sure we push back and make sure that they do not nationalize elections through a congressional law. And Democrats are going to, again, fight like hell to make sure that does not happen.

And talking about Democrats messaging here, Congressman, how much should Democrats focus on things like this and focus on its comments? Is it risk distracting from the party's overall message on the economy? We can actually do both. I'm glad you brought up the economy.

The producer price index came out recently and it came in hot, hot, hot inflation is up expectations where it was going to be a 0.2% increase. It was actually 0.5% increase, meaning that the tariffs costs are now being passed along to consumers. And so we need to make sure we continue to focus on affordability and at the same time, make sure we respect our voting rights and make sure we have ballot box integrity. And that's what Democrats are continuing fighting for.

And Congressman, turning now to today's vote to end the government shutdown again as we watch those live pictures from the Oval Office. What is your message to your fellow House Democrats who voted for today's funding package? Yeah. So today's funding package shuts down DHS in essentially 10 days.

If there is no agreement to reform Trump's out of control, ICE and Border Patrol. And the demands that Democrats are asking for are making sure that ICE and Border Patrol behave and conduct themselves in accordance with what real police officers do. Real police officers don't wear a mask. Real police officers wear body cameras.

Real police officers cooperate in investigations. Real police officers use judicial warrants. So we're just making these common sense demands and we urge House and Senate Republicans to join with Democrats in the overwhelming majority of American public that want Trump's ICE and Border Patrol to just comport with normal standards of what every other police officer comports with. You know, I don't tell you this is the third time in less than a year though that House Democrats have spoken out against a spending deal negotiated by Senate Democrats.

Do you worry about party divisions here, especially in the midterm year? Both House and Senate Democrats are unified and making sure that we reform and have dramatic changes to Donald Trump's out of control, ICE and Border Patrol. And we're very unified on demanding and trying to implement these changes in the next 10 days. Otherwise, the Department of Security will shut down.

And you mentioned these changes. I want to see if I can get you to talk about specific here that House Democrats say you must have meaningful reforms to DHS. What constitutes meaningful reform here? ICE and Border Patrol agents cannot wear a mask.

They have to wear body cameras. By the way, the Department of Security reverse and backtrack and now they're mandating body cameras for all their agents in Minneapolis. And that shows the public pressure from Americans is working. And I urge the American people to continue exercising their First Amendment rights.

We also want to make sure that ICE and Border Patrol use judicial warrants. They can't just use these fake made-up administrative warrants from the executive branch. They have to get judicial warrants from the separate branch of government, the judicial branch. They've got to cooperate in state and federal investigations if there's officer misconduct, such as any excess use of force.

So these are just common sense reforms that have to be put in place before Democrats are going to vote for any additional DHS funding. Congressman, Senate Majority Leader called quick DHS reforms an impossibility earlier today. Let's listen to what he said. We got a very short time frame in which to do this, which I argued against.

But the Democrats insisted on a two-week window, which again, I don't understand the rationale for that. Anybody knows this place knows it's an impossibility. So does the Senate Majority Leader make a decent point there? I find it if you're a curious point, because he's a Senate Majority Leader Republican's controller Senate and they passed a bipartisan bill that had this two-week deadline that expires for funding for DHS on the 13th of this month.

By the way, all Donald Trump has to say is get this done and I bet you Senate Republicans will get this done. Congressman, quickly, Democrats could not secure an extension of the ACA subsidies. So why do you think DHS reforms will be different this time around? So the House pushed by House Democrats and our Leader of the King Jeffries through a discharge position did get a three-year extension of ACA subsidies passed off the House for what 17 Republicans joining us.

It's now on the Senate side and we ask the Senate to also pass that bill. We also understand the Senate is also negotiating their own deal on extending ACA subsidies, so I believe it will happen and that is my belief. Oh, Congressman Tedler, we really appreciate your time on this very busy day. Thank you so much.

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Turning out to the latest escalation between the US and Iran. Today, the Pentagon saying a US Navy fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone that was aggressively approaching a US carrier in the Middle East. That, of course, comes after President Trump repeatedly touted the quote, massive armada heading towards Iran. That military confrontation also comes just days before US Special Envoy Steve Wyckoff and Iran's Foreign Minister are set to meet in Turkey for diplomatic talks, though some Middle East diplomats warrant details are still being arranged and are not set in stone.

White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said today, those talks are still scheduled despite today's escalation, while also reiterating the President as a range of options on the table when it comes to Iran. Turning out from Tehran, his NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engle Richard, thank you so much for being here. Let's start with the US shooting down that Iranian drone today. If these talks are not productive, how much concern is there within the region about the possibility of an armed conflict here?

There's tremendous concern in the region. You've already seen several countries, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, all saying that they want to see a de-escalation. They want to see a peaceful resolution to this. They want a deal.

They want an off-ramp because they worry that if there is another war, it could be much worse than the 12-day war that we saw this last summer between Israel, the United States, and Iran. Iran is much more vulnerable. Iran has resorted to using force against its own people in a massive way. Iran, in many ways, has never been weaker.

I spoke to an Iranian official earlier today, and he said that if there is another conflict, if the US attacks, as President Trump has threatened to do, it will be a more serious conflict than the 12-day war. And this official specifically mentioned the Strait of Hormuz, saying that Iran could attempt to block the Strait, could disrupt commercial shipping. And this was just a few hours before these two incidents, actually, two escalations that happened off the Iranian mainland. One was the Lincoln, the USS Lincoln, the aircraft carrier, was approached according to CENTCOM aggressively and for no specific purpose by this Iranian drone.

The Lincoln scrambled a fighter jet and shot down the drone, and also an American U.S. flag and U.S. crude commercial tanker was approached according to CENTCOM by two vessels manned by the Revolutionary Guard in this country and the drone, and that those vessels de-escalated after a warship moved to address the situation. So we had Iranian official making threats.

You had the Iran Supreme Leader a couple of days ago saying that this could become a regional war, and now we have these two relatively minor incidents. No one was killed or injured, but certainly significant right off of the Iranian shore. Richard Engle reporting live for us in Tehran. Obviously communications are difficult in Iran right now, so we apologize for the delay, but Richard, we really do appreciate your reporting.

And turning out to the ongoing investigation out of Arizona, our new senior colleague, Savannah Guthrie, is asking people to pray for the return of her missing 84-year-old mother. Here's what we know about the timeline of what happened. Nancy Guthrie was last seen Saturday night at her home outside of Tucson at around 945 in the evening. The next morning, she did not show up to church, and family members searched her home and called 911 to report her missing, and search efforts began that night.

Her home was declared a crime scene the next day. The FBI is now assisting the Pima County Sheriff's Department in its investigation into the potential abduction, and here's some of what authorities had to say today. Have you been able to access the front of the cameras on the house? Well, that's all been submitted, and we're doing our best with those companies who won those cameras, or built those cameras.

I didn't want to release those videos from the cameras, from the cameras, from the cameras. We don't even have them yet, so no. But you were asked if there was any ransom, and you didn't say no, you said we're following all leads. Does that mean a ransom has come in?

We're following all leads, we have. That's all I can tell you. We've got hundreds of leads, and it's from you that produce those leads by telling people we need help, and I'm grateful for that. But yeah, I'm not going to get into all that.

The Pima County Sheriff also told NBC's Liz Croix that his office believes Nancy Guthrie was harmed when she was taken from her home, but they don't know to what extent authorities are continuing to ask for the public's help. You have any information, you can call the FBI's tip line at the number on your screen. Meanwhile, don't I mean now? Is NBC News National Law Enforcement Intelligence correspondent Tom Winter?

Tom, thank you for joining us. The FBI is now involved in the investigation. What does this look like, and what does it mean specifically for the investigation moving forward? We have guys the number of tools.

I mean, beyond the fact that they're an international law enforcement organization, that they have the subpoena power and the federal court system that at their disposal, they also have the ability to use some specific tools that have been given to them to be able to conduct investigations, frankly, just like this one, and designed for this purpose. So specifically, the Cellular Analysis Survey team, what they'll do give is they'll look at a host of cell phone towers all around Nancy Guthrie's home, and they'll try to develop a baseline of who has been connected to those towers, and then look for any potential anomalies. So they'll look for anybody who previously may not have been connected to those towers, anybody who was in and around that area that night and try to figure out who's who and where they're moving. Then of course, if they get any details about where she could be now, they'll immediately begin searching for that type of information there as well and potentially track individuals.

So that's a very basic, almost crude explanation of how this system works and how this team works. But they do have certain powers when life is at risk. This is clearly one of those situations. And so they're going to have some ability to operate here and potentially be quite helpful to this investigation.

And it's been over 48 hours since the disappearance. And as you just heard, the Pima County Sheriff's just said that authorities have yet to view the security footage from her home. What do you make of that? Yeah, so there could be a couple of reasons for that.

One, the way that some of that information is sometimes stored, if the password is not something that's known to anybody that it could take a bit of a while to get that information, it's stored in a way that makes it difficult for people to access. One of those good things for people's privacy but can be a challenge of moments like this. The sheriff did say that a number of the tech companies have reached out offering to help in any sort of way in this investigation. And so clearly they're trying.

There are exigent circumstance warrants so you don't have to kind of wait in line or wait for a 30-day waiting period. This is one of those situations. It would be the same whether it was the mother of Savannah Guthrie or anybody else whenever there is somebody who's been taken against their will from a home or from a place and they're trying to find where that person is. And they're very much could still be alive.

They're going to have the ability to get that information quickly. It's just a technical ability to do that is sometimes, unfortunately, a bit of a frustrating process. So that could be the reason Gabe while they haven't been able to look at it yet. Tom Winter, thank you so much for your reporting on this very difficult story that hits so close to home.

And of course, our thoughts are with Savannah and her family. And we have much more news ahead. They're watching meet the press now. Stay with us.

And we're back with breaking news. President Trump is taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office right now. We're signing the funding legislation just passed by Congress that officially ends the partial government shutdown. Let's listen up.

We have nobody coming in and we're getting people out there. We have 11,888 murders who came into our country. We're getting them out fast. And the only place where there's a little bit of a problem and I will tell you this, Minnesota, they're crying because of us because we've taken out thousands of criminals.

They're crime is now, not because of anybody else's because of us. They're crime is now. But all over the country, wherever we're involved, we're getting criminals out of our country. And the crime right now is the lowest it's been since 1900.

That's 125 years. And that's despite the fact with an open border stupid policy, 25 million people, in my opinion, came into our country. And many of those people should not have been allowed to come into our country. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, Mr President. Yesterday, we're talking about how Vladimir Putin had agreed to pause during the cold weather. Overnight, those attacks have started up again. It was Sunday.

It was Sunday to Sunday. And it opened up. And he had him hard last night. Now, he kept his word on that.

It was, it's a lot. You know, one way to take anything because it's really, really called over there. But it was on Sunday and he went from Sunday to Sunday. You just wanted to go further or go further?

I wanted to end the war. I spoke to him. I wanted to end the war. This was what I was saying.

What exactly did you mean? You said that you should nationalize elections and which 15 states are you talking about? Let me see elections, be honest. And if a state can't run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it because, you know, if you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government and elections.

I don't know why the federal government doesn't do them anyway. But when you see some of these states about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is, I think the federal government, when you see crooked elections, or we had plenty of them. And by the way, we had them last time, but go to 2020. Look at the facts that are coming out.

Rigged crooked elections. If we have areas, take a look at Detroit. Take a look at Pennsylvania. Take a look at Philadelphia.

You go take a look at Atlanta. Look at some of the places that are horrible corruption on elections. And the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved.

These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can't count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take home. You know what? They can administer the election, but they have to do it honestly.

Are you hoping to negotiate on warrants when it comes to ICE? This is an ask from Senator Schumer. Are you requiring a search warrant for ICE and an immigration attorney? I have to get that.

I'm thinking about search warrants. Yeah, Lindsey Graham is going to have that. No, it makes no sense. If we have to get a search warrant to get 15 million people out, Schumer's telling me he doesn't want to mount.

It's the most ridiculous idea. They do have some good ideas, I think. But I've got a better idea. It's your idea in sanctuary cities.

On immigration, I know what I'm talking about. I've got the scars to prove it. They're playing. Y'all are playing like Biden didn't exist.

Y'all won't tell the American people about Lincoln and Riley. It's a one-sided debate. For four years, our border was obliterated. They let them come in by the tens of millions and they want to go back that way.

We're not going. So, Mr. President, stick to your guns. If you got reforms that make ICE better, more professional, talk to me.

But you should embrace what I'm suggesting. As long as 12 states have sanctuary policy, they'll keep coming. Unfortunately, you won't be president for it. These madness of illegal immigration have to go.

There is no upside to sanctuary city, unless you're a complete radical nut job. The cops hate it, fraud around sanctuary cities, and you're going to get more illegal immigration. We have to debate. I've been trying to solve this problem.

But what the Democrats are doing is they're not getting to the underlying problem. It's not Stephen Miller. It's not pressing. No, it's not me.

It's not you. It's policies that have been on the books that don't work. So, if you want to debate on how to solve this problem, show up next week. I'm going to take President Trump's idea that it's time to end the insane policy of sanctuary cities.

We're going to take it to the floor and we're going to vote, and people in November are going to get to see who they trust to keep the borders accurate. Schumer or Trump? I'm a Trump. And by the way, I hope you're going to press that very hard.

And the other thing, we are not, we are not, well, we are with you. I think everybody's with you. It's a sanctuary for criminals. That's what it is.

They could make our lives so much easier. All they have to do is hand over their criminals, hand over people that came into our country illegally that are murders, they came out of jails, they came out of mental institutions that are drug dealers. I can't believe in Minnesota that they want to have murderers walking all over the streets. I just don't believe it.

Maybe somebody says it's good politics. I don't think it's good politics. I think it's really bad. The other thing we can't lose sight of is you probably have in Minnesota, and it's worse in some places like California, 19 billion dollars in fraud.

And we're going to find out. We're very deep into that investigation, but we're not going to forget that. A lot of people think that a lot of this nonsense that's going on is to try and hide what's going on with respect to the fraud. At least 19 billion dollars.

You're hearing nine. Now I'm hearing it's 19 and it's probably much more. So they talk about incompetence. I think it's just pure fraud.

These are dishonest people. They're bad people. I think they hate our country. And we're going to get to the bottom of it.

But don't let this hide the fact that you have tremendous fraud. And if we find the fraud in this country, you'll have a balanced budget without even cutting anything. You'll literally have a balanced budget. Yeah, please.

Are you trying to work with President petrol to fight guerrilla groups and terrorist organizations in Venezuela? Well, they want me to do that. And we're getting along very well in Venezuela with the leadership very, very well. You know, we took in 50 million barrels of oil.

It's right now heading to Houston. And we're getting along very well with that. But we're going to work with him, yes. A few months ago, you had in your office here, Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador, he was shaking hands with him over a trade deal.

He's today being forced to resign from the House of Lords, the Upper House of the British Parliament, over his links to Jeffrey Epstein. Just wondering if he had any reactions to that, obviously. I didn't know about it, but I really don't know too much about it. I know he is too bad.

You know, speaking of Epstein, I will say this, a reporter named Wolf and Epstein conspired. This just came out yesterday. The millions of pages of documents, how crazy this is, conspired against me in order to fight like hell, to make sure I lose the election. That's the only thing that was mentioned about me.

Now, about Democrats, some really bad stuff, but about me, that Wolf, whoever Wolf is, he wrote a book, a couple of books, and Epstein conspired against me. Did you know that, Mr. Senator? I didn't know that.

They conspired against me, so I raised the election, or worse. So that takes care of Epstein as far as Trump is concerned, but you got a lot of Democrats out there that are very much involved with Epstein. But I'll be honest with you, you got to get back to running the country, too. Millions and every week, you know, when Epstein was alive, nobody cared about him.

When he's dead, they care about him. But it's really a Democrat problem. It's not a Republican. It's a Democrat problem.

The only Republican is that we have to get back to number one, running our country, and then number two, very importantly, letting the public know what a great job we're doing. We have the greatest economy in the history of the world. We have 18 trillion dollars being spent. The record was three trillion, many years ago, not by us, by another country.

I won't say the country. Yeah, please. Did you write that? Do you find that?

You've been briefed on Savannah Guthrie's mom missing in Arizona. I think it's terrible. Would you convince in more federal agents like helping out on the front? Sure.

I'm going to call it later on. I think it's a terrible thing. I always got along very good with Savannah. Very unusual situation, but we're going to find out.

Yeah, what do you want? On the SD files, we talked about Democrats who were there, Elon Musk was also in there. And so was your Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik and correspondence that he had with him. Did you read those new files that were published by the Department of Justice?

I didn't have a lot of things I'm doing. A lot of things I'm doing. I don't know. You mentioned two names.

I'm sure they're fine. I'm sure they're fine. Otherwise, it would have been major headlines. A lot of women who were survivors about scenes are unhappy with those redactions that came out.

Some of the entire witness interviews are totally blacked out. Do you think that they should be more transparent? They thought they released too much. You know, I heard that.

And you're telling me something else? No. I think it's really time for the country to get onto something else. Now that nothing came out about me, other than there was a conspiracy against me, literally by Epstein and other people.

But I think it's time now for the country to maybe get onto something else. Something that people care about. What do you say to the survivors? You are the worst reporter.

No one to see. Sienna has no ratings because of people like you. You know, she's a young woman. I don't think I've ever seen you smile.

I've known you for 10 years. I don't think I've ever seen a smile in your face. You know why you're not smiling? Because you know you're not telling the truth.

And you're a very dishonest organization. And they should be ashamed of you. You mentioned health care. And the bill that was just passed does not include your health care savings account.

So this is a question for you and made it for Mr. Speaker. I'm so proud of health care savings accounts. This is going to happen.

And hopefully instead of insurance, and I hope this happens and I hope you guys can do it, let the insurance companies not do quite as well. You know, they're going up 15, 16, 17, 100 percent. Think of it. The money should be paid directly to the people.

You know, trillions of dollars goes out. The money should go to the people they should buy their own health care. It can be in a health care, you know, account savings account, any account you want to make. The money should go to the people the people should buy their own health care.

And they're going to save a lot of money. And they're going to have much better health care. And it's very simple. The problem is the Democrats are owned by those insurance companies, their own lockstop in barrel.

And the Democrats will never vote on it because the Republicans should get that through. And you know how you get it through the filibuster, get rid of the filibuster and start voting. Yes. Mr.

President, today we heard that the Clinton set that position dates to testify before the House Oversight Committee. Any reaction to that really? I think it's a shame, to be honest. I always liked him.

Her. Yeah. Well, she's a very capable woman. She was better in debating than some of the other people.

I will tell you that she was smarter. I hate to see it in many ways. I hate to see it. But, you know, then I look at me.

They went after me, like, you know, they wanted me to go to jail for the rest of my life. Then it turned out I was innocent, very innocent. You know, I had a friend that said a very smart friend, a very wealthy man, knows life, streetwise guy. He said, you have to be the most honest person anywhere in the world, because there's never been anybody who's been examined up and down.

You know, hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, millions of pages, millions of pages. With all of that, they found absolutely nothing wrong. Remember? His tax returns always tax returns.

They fought my years and years. And then the Supreme Court, I was surprised. They ruled I had to get my tax returns. I'm the only one that I'd ever do that.

I had to get my tax returns. I gave my tax returns. They hired the best accounting firms in the world. They found nothing.

And this friend of mine said, you have to be the most honest person in the world. He actually said, you know, I'm referring to him. I'm a pretty honest guy, but I could have never was said that. They've gone through millions and millions of pages.

And here I sit, winning an election in a landslide, winning the popular vote, winning all seven swing states, winning 86% of the counties in the United States. That's why those maps that you see are all red. And so they tried to put me in jail. And I shouldn't feel this way, but I feel badly that they have to go through that.

But then I say, but they did far worse than me. They wanted to put me in jail. Think of it. I was a very good player.

We had a great first term. We built the military biggest tax cuts ever, biggest regulation cuts ever. But, you know, I will say this. I think I can say, hey, what do you think, Lindsey?

My second term is blowing my first term away. And my first term was really good. Reagan plus Reagan plus you. Whatever.

Thank you very much. And President Trump finishing up taking questions from reporters there after signing the funding deal to end the partial government shutdown. I want to turn now to Kelly Adon who was back with me outside the White House. Kelly, he was asked about his previous comments about nationalizing elections throughout the day.

We kept hearing from congressional Republicans saying that he was talking about the Save Act. Sounds like he wasn't talking about the Save Act. Well, the president is always very clear about his intent. And he did not repeat what his advisors had said, the Save Act, which would require identification and proof of citizenship to cast a vote.

That's something that conservatives want and people who are concerned about having any kind of impediment to voting for lawful citizens. They don't support that. The president made clear that he doesn't believe certain states are operating the conduct of elections, the organization, the implementation, all of the structure around elections in a way that he believes has integrity. That's a long standing view of the president.

It does not explain how in 2020 they failed, but in 2024 everything went well and he won. There are a lot of questions. What he did not do was get the memo from staff that they were saying the Save Act was his reference. These comments first surfaced in a podcast with the former deputy FBI director Dan Bongino, who after a lesson a year in that role has gone back to his podcast life, he spoke to the president, the comments surfaced there.

We've been asking about what did the president mean, and that's certainly a notable headline out of this lengthy exchange. Yeah, certainly. Maybe he got the memo, Kelly, just shows they go in a different direction. Kelly, Donald, thank you from the White House.

I'm Gabe Gutierrez. Thank you for watching. We're back tomorrow with more Meet the Press Now. Right now, there's more news ahead on NBC News Now.

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