Meet the Press NOW — February 4

If it's Tuesday, President Trump and Elon Musk escalate their sweeping government overhauls skirting norms and bypassing Congress as the administration prepares a push to close the Department of Education. Plus, White House officials say President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will speak soon as new U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods take effect and Beijing retaliates. And President Trump is set to welcome Israel's Prime Minister to the White House moments from now as the two leaders look to strengthen ties and discuss the many ceasefire deal and what's next for Gaza.

And welcome to meet the press now. I'm Aaron Gilchrist in Washington. As the world's richest man is taking full advantage of his proximity to presidential power, Elon Musk and President Trump are moving rapidly to dismantle government programs and entire government agencies created by federal law. And they're doing it with seemingly little pushback on Capitol Hill, their latest target, the Department of Education.

Now, sources familiar with the matter telling BC News, the White House is preparing an executive order to eliminate the entire department. The Washington Post reports that a team from Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has begun working inside the agency to start cutting spending and staff. And moments ago in the Oval Office, President Trump reiterated his campaign promise that he would like to shutter the Department of Education. What I want to do is let the states run schools.

I believe strongly in school choice. But in addition to that, I want the states to run schools. And I want Linda to put herself out of a job. You wouldn't have to do with an executive order.

You'd like to be able to give the schools back to Iowa and Idaho and Indiana and all these places that run properly. There's many of them. Now, the plan to dismantle education comes after Elon Musk declared on Monday that he and President Trump were in the process of shutting down the United States Agency for International Development. It's a federal agency that bankrolls humanitarian projects around the world and manages programs that support refugees and combat famine.

USAID employees were then locked out of the DC office and the agency's funds were frozen around the globe. Again, moments ago in the Oval Office, President Trump praised Musk's efforts while affirming that he wants to wind down USAID and he accused the program and the groups of funds of corruption. He's done a great job. Look at all the fraud that he's found in this USAID.

It's a disaster. What the people radical have lunatics. They have things that nobody would have even believed that the whole thing with 100 million spent going, you know what, with money going to all sorts of groups that shouldn't deserve to get any money with the money. I'd like to see what the kickbacks are.

How much money has been kicked back? Who would spend that kind of money to some of the things that you read about and I read about and I see every night of the news and every morning when I read the papers, who would spend money for that? I would say this, the people that got all that money, are they kicking it back to the people that gave it from government? No, that's to me very, very corrupt.

The real question is how much of a kickback has it been? And one of the things I want to investigate rapidly because I've never seen anything to this extent. Now, a reminder, the executive branch does not have the power to abolish agencies and shrine by Congress like USAID or the Department of Education. But as of right now, Republicans on Capitol Hill have largely acquiesced to the president's actions under the banner of cutting government waste.

Some of my colleagues are screaming like they're part of a prison riot, that this is unconstitutional and wrong and they're very process-driven. In my opinion, they should be substance-driven. By that, I mean, the central question here is, what will we spend in taxpayer money on? Isn't that responsibility of Congress to, if you want the next budget to zero out USAID?

Isn't that your job? That's not the executive branches job? Well, yes, but listen, I mean, the executive has enormous authority. There's lots of layers here.

And listen, what Trump is doing in terms of doing talk to bottom review of his government is not unusual. Now, Republicans signaled even more leeway to President Trump this afternoon, advancing the nominations of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS Secretary and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, even though several Republicans publicly voiced concerns about their qualifications.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the minority are struggling to fight the president's agenda, as they sound the alarm about the moves being made to reshape the government. If this were in South America or Central America or sub-Saharan Africa, how would the coverage change? If you don't like an agency, if you don't like a spending provision, propose a bill pass a law. It is demonstrably not legal to begin tearing up USAID from within and shutting it down and then send us a notice about it.

It goes directly against the letter of the law, which I helped write last year. Now, it's also unclear what guardrails other than court orders could put a check on the president and Elon Musk's agenda. Musk and his allies have already rested unprecedented levels of access to government systems, including a critical one at the Treasury Department, which pays out trillions in government funds. All right, let's bring in some reporters now to break all of this down with us.

NBC News, senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez. NBC White House correspondent Vaughn Hilliard is on Capitol Hill for us today. Bobby Allen is a technology correspondent for NPR, who's a veteran of the Elon Musk Beat, and Lauren Meckler covers education for the Washington Post. So Gabe, a lot to ground the cover in this Oval Office gaggle.

We just saw what have we heard from the president today about what he wants to do with the shape of our government? Well, it's clear that he wants to continue to do it, Aaron, and he makes no apologies for it. He thinks he is legally entitled to do it, although as you point it out, right? Like that, the authority for dismantling and shutting down a government agency and for standing one up for that matter really goes to Congress.

But the president is trying to make the argument that because he and his White House officials, including Elon Musk, have found fraud at USAID, for example, that it's within his purview to do it. Well, so that will certainly be up against many legal challenges. But we heard from the president, as in the Oval Office, once again, trying to make that argument. And White House officials really throughout the day have tried to hit that point, that this is something that the American people voted for when they put Donald Trump in the Oval Office for a second time.

And so the White House officials I've been speaking with today, they like this controversy. They see it as something that they can build upon and something they can lean into because they see it as cutting wasteful spending, cutting the bureaucracy from the federal government, and they make no apologies for it, Aaron. Well, Vaughn, let me swing over to you on Capitol Hill here. What can you tell us about the Republican reaction to President Trump and Musk's recent moves here, especially as we talk about this mantle in USAID?

Right. This was a question to the Republicans. When you go back to the Obama administration, Biden administration, they spoke out very aggressively against executive orders and executive actions taken by Democratic administrations. But what you have seen is not only a record number of executive orders signed in these first two weeks by President Trump, but also an otherwise private citizen who the White House just confirmed 24 hours ago is in fact now technically working as a federal employee, a special government employee, which gives him the opportunity for 130 days to work inside of the federal government, but has had broad reach across agencies from office of personnel management to USAID, to the Treasury Department's payment systems, as well as with other individuals working for his unit out of the executive office of the president.

And when Republicans here today up on Capitol Hill and myself and our colleague Ryan Nobles talking with several of them, they made it clear that they were endorsing the efforts of Elon Musk and that much like you heard from Senator Kennedy there, that somebody had to address these spending issues. And essentially, Elon Musk is the man who they have been has been given quite almost unilateral powers despite concerns of her congressionally appropriated funds and the extent to which they're trying to siphon off already funds that have already been approved from previous budgets. And I think that is where, when you're looking for Republicans here, they've got majorities in the House and Senate and there's Speaker Mike Johnson himself this afternoon who said that he was just been texting with Elon Musk and he told them to keep going. The furlion here really gave seems to be Elon Musk.

What do we know about his current level of support, the president's level of support for Elon Musk's actions inside government? Well, he seems thrilled by it at this point, Aaron. And look, Elon Musk gets no secret over the past several weeks and months since Grant's grown closer to President Trump. He is working out of the White House and his status as a special government employee gives him more power than a simple volunteer.

We understand he's not getting paid in his current role and he technically only can work 130 days out of the year. But it depends how you calculate that, right? But from what we understand, Elon Musk is working hand in hand with the president in this effort to dismantle parts of the federal government. And we just heard from President Trump yesterday and also today that he's doing a very good job.

And when asked whether he needed to get approval from the president to do some of these things, the president came back and said that he wouldn't do anything without President Trump's approval. But at this point, they seem to be in lockstep air. Bobby, you've been reporting on on on Musk for a long time here, right? What is motivating Elon Musk to join the administration to do this work to try to cut down on these various government agencies?

Does he have a real clear end goal here? You know, for Elon Musk is extremely ideological. For years, he's been complaining about the deep state. He has been entangled in all sorts of investigations, right?

Because of course he runs SpaceX. He runs Tesla. There have been a number of federal investigations that are sort of bored into his companies. And he has not liked that.

So I think he sees this mission as a way of cutting right at the heart of what he calls the deep state and a way to, you know, try to bring in these technocrats from Silicon Valley. What he's doing here, I think this is really important to underscore has a playbook. When Elon Musk came in and took over Twitter, he got rid of half of the staff in a matter of weeks. He canceled a whole bunch of contracts.

He stopped paying rent on a number of buildings and completely reinvented the organization. And now he's taking that exact modus operandi and trying to apply it to the machinery of the federal government. Well, you mentioned the fact that obviously he's took over Twitter and we've seen some of these moves before. We know that he's not, Elon Musk is not a government official.

He hasn't taken any sort of oath of office. Does he have any anything restraining his power as he's been exercising it with the federal government? I mean, there are, you know, laws obviously in place that we're supposed to even as a special government employee. They're supposed to keep Elon Musk away from any matters that would potentially be up against his financial interests.

He runs six companies. I mean, the two thirds of the satellites flying in space are controlled by Elon Musk. He has the largest EV charging network in the nation. I can go on.

The point is he has a business empire that is utterly sprawling and a number of ethics experts are looking at that business empire and saying it's going to be really, really hard for him to upend the executive branch as much as he's hoping to without coming up against really egregious conflicts of interest. And again, President Trump says he is that Musk is acting only at the blessing of President Trump. But others are saying who are close to those. That seems like he has a level of autonomy that no one can seem to control.

So I think the fight now moves the courts. All right, Bobby, let me turn back to Gabe Gutierrez here in Washington with us and Gabe, I do want to ask about the president's plans to dismantle potentially even close the Department of Education. What have you been able to learn about that today? Yeah, Aaron, two sources.

I'm familiar with the process. Tell NBC News that the White House is preparing an executive order to do just that. This mantle, the Department of Education, one source telling us that that order will come this month and a separate source saying that the White House is going to oversee the process of drafting up legislation to try and get this through Congress. To my point before, that Congress needs to be the one that will dismantle a federal agency in a cabinet level position.

But this all comes, the White House officials I've been speaking with today, Aaron, again, they say that we should not be surprised by this. How many times during the campaign that President Trump saying that he was going to dismantle the Department of Education and give that power back to the state? So this is something that had been in the works, but now we're learning that that executive order could come just within the next few weeks. Okay, well, I should hang with this as we turn to Laura Meckler here.

Laura, what are you learning on your end about this impending order to close Ed? Is it clear how that would even work? Well, it's really what I'm hearing going to be in two parts. So part one is coming up with a plan, a legislative plan where you would call in Congress to close the agency, which as we've said, you know, that's the only way you can really abolish this department and the White House knows that and they seem to be acknowledging that.

I don't know if they're saying out loud, the fact that the chances of it getting through Congress are quite slim because you would need 60 yes votes in the Senate, which means at least seven Democrats needing to vote yes, which I don't know if seven Democrats were willing to vote to close the Department of Education, and I haven't talked to anybody who does. So I don't think that that's likely to happen. So the executive order sort of implicitly acknowledges this and also in its second part directs the department to come up with its own plans to essentially diminish itself, dismantle itself, to try to do as much as I can. And we already see this at work.

We see this with people being put on administrative leave, sometimes we're under very sort of questionable reasons. You see the push to get people to take the so-called work in the road buyout. You see the doge folks in education looking around, trying to find cost cuts. So they're already trying to shrink the department, but this order is expected to try to do that even more aggressively.

One of the things that's been talked about is trying to spin off different parts of the department into other federal agencies, although that too might be difficult to do without Congress. Do you have a sense of a timeline, Laura, as to when some of these things might really start to play out? Well, as we just heard, the exact actual executive order is expected sometime in the next month. So and then at that point, that would sort of be I guess a bit of an official starting gun for this, where there would be a matter of two to four months or so for these plans to be developed.

I mean, we'll have to see, I think that they're gonna probably have some success at wiggling down the department. You know, Trump tried to do this in his first term as well. He tried to cut budgets from the department. Congress kept restoring the money.

And then the Trump administration just sort of accepted it and kept going. I'm not sure if they're gonna do that this time around. If Congress appropriates money, I don't know if they're going to spend it or not. And will Congress push back if they don't?

So I do think that we're likely to see some diminishing on their own. You do have Republicans who have seemingly been willing to say, okay, Mr. President, you do what you want. But at the same time, you did have Republicans who over the course of years have been going after the Department of Education, right?

I'm curious about how educators are taking this, this threat, this idea of closing Ed. I think generally in the education community, this is wildly unpopular. I think that it is viewed as disrespect for the field, disrespect for what they do. And they are quite offended.

I think not obviously not everybody, but I think that is a very common sentiment that you hear around the country. Von Hill, so with us here on Capitol Hill, Vaughn getting rid of USAID Department of Education, those things that we've been talking about would require some congressional action, at least on paper. What are you hearing about those sorts of shutdowns on the Hill? I was hearing very little here at this point in time, was going to attempt to try to get that question to Senator Majority Leader Thune earlier, but was unable to.

But we have heard zero conversation about using or authorizing the Presidential Reorganization Act, which would provide them the opportunity to shut down one of these agencies or the departments. And the last time that that was invoked was back during Ronald Reagan's administration. President Obama tried it back in 2012. He was rebuffed by Congress.

And of course, the stakes of that are very high. And that is where I had asked Marjorie Taylor Greene this very question. During the transition, she is helping lead the House's Subcommittee on Doge about the conversations about granting the President that authorization. And so far, at no point in time, when we heard any of the substantive conversation about actually giving the President that authorization.

Vaughn, on confirmations, we'll wrap up with this. There are some Republicans who had signaled a bit of skepticism last week about RFK Jr., about Tulsi Gabbard possibly being confirmed to their respective cabinet positions. Now it looks like both are going to move forward here. What shifted over the weekend?

Right. Today was a monumental day here for the Trump administration in terms of pushing through its, you know, controversial nominees. The makeup of the Finance Committee, which gave approval to RFK to go before the whole Senate. The makeup there was 14 to 13.

And on the Intelligence Committee, Republicans also had just one member advantage over Democrats there. And if any Republican defected, the respect and nominee would have not gone on to a vote in the Senate confirmation vote. And yet it was Bill Cassidy for Robert F Kennedy Jr., who during the confirmation hearing last week was openly skeptical about Kennedy's vaccine positions, as well as effectively his ability to oversee HHS the operation. Kennedy struggled to answer basics about Medicaid, for instance.

And yet I want to let you listen to Cassidy because he ultimately said he was a yes vote, not only just for this vote, but when he goes to the full Senate tick list. I will watch carefully for any effort to wrongfully sow public fear about vaccines between confusing references of coincidence and anecdote. But my support is built on insurance is that this will not have to be a concern and that he and I can work together to build an agenda to make America healthy again. We need a leader at HHS who will guide President Trump's agenda to make America healthy again based on Mr.

Kennedy's assurances on vaccines and his platform to positively influence American's health. It is my consideration. That he will get this done. And for Tulsi Gabbard, for the Director of National Intelligence, who is Republican Todd Young, who is the one GOP holdout coming into today from over the weekend, and he also voted to push forward her confirmation process here.

So for the Trump administration, this is a big win in the expectation at this point in time, unless there is a surprise Republican that comes out and ultimately is able to make four no votes against either of these picks. The likelihood now just only increases after today that both of those individuals will be confirmed. All right, we are going to have to leave it there for now. Bon Hill here, Gage Gutierrez, Bobby Laura, thank you both.

Thank you all for joining us. Coming up, government disorder and new executive orders. We're digging deeper into the politics of the Trump administration's agenda and how lawmakers are responding. We're not.

The panel's coming up next, plus China says is ready to put new tariffs on U.S. goods and will investigate Google as Trump's trade war with Beijing threatens to heat up the economic and political fallout straight ahead. You're watching the press now. This is a reform movement.

And for all the outrage bingo that my Democrat colleagues and many in the legacy media are playing, they ought to pace themselves. This is going to be long for years. Welcome back. That was Missouri Senator Eric Schmidt reacting to some of the government changes from President Trump and Elon Musk.

It's a very busy day, a lot of ground to cover here. So let's say right to our panel joining me now on set, Rhonda Colvin's Capitol Hill reporter for the Washington Post, Naveen Nayak, president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Republican strategist Lance Trover. So much to cover here. Rhonda, over these last three weeks, we've seen purges at the Justice Department and offered to get millions of federal workers to resign and attempt to end federal aid programs and grants take over at USAID.

And now we are hearing about killing the Department of Education. What do you make of the speed at which we're seeing these things happen? The speed feels like it's breaking records. It really does.

Maybe that just feels like a view of a reporter who we're all doing these days. But it does feel like it's very fast pace. It's certainly different from the first Trump term, where we did see changes or attempts to change things, but not at this level where it is daily that we're seeing these big overhauls. Lance, what do you make of it?

I mean, what's the value of flooding the zone in this way, these rapid fire moves that we're seeing? These are the things that were popular, that things that were campaigned on, that people wanted to see happen, why not sort of spread it out and be able to let people digest it? It's Donald Trump. I don't know.

This is Donald Trump. Look, the guy is saying he has been at a breakneck speed. He's setting any 53% approval rating. I think the last time I checked, the Democrats are disapproval is the highest it's ever been.

So it seems to me, the public is right there with him. And I say this time and again, I don't think we've ever had a more transparent presidential candidate than we did in Donald Trump. He talked about eliminating the Department of Education. He talked about some of these purges in the government and cleaning up the government.

That's what he's doing with Elon Musk and Doge and all that stuff. So to me, no one should be surprised. I think there's no question that this is dizzying. And I think even for people around the White House, you hear people commenting, oh, we weren't expecting them to do that or to do this.

So there's a lot of uncalled plays right now going on. I do think at some point, the American people will wake up and they're going to ask themselves, are things any better. And that is where I think the administration is really going wrong. It is one thing to own everything Elon Musk is going to do.

No one elected him. He's not a likable figure. But the second thing is he's not actually trying to make the case for what he's doing. That's actually in the public interest.

This isn't about getting better Tesplers. This is not about helping the American people with their costs. There's nothing they're doing day after day that is actually looking out for the American people. And truly, Elon Musk is only, he's not a guy who's ever shown an interest in public service.

He cares about his businesses. And that is going to raise some huge levels of corruption that Donald Trump and the entire Republican party that is sitting there quietly is going to own. So if that is the case, what are Democrats doing? If the, yeah, we see Democrats, this is not, this is not good.

We can stand at a microphone and yell and write long, beautifully written letters. But what does that really turn into? I think there's an element here. First of all, the Republicans on Washington.

And I don't think we should pretend otherwise there are very few levers. I do think it's really important for Democrats to try to draw attention, not to the noise and words of Donald Trump, but what's the actions are two weeks ago? Or my goodness, it's last week they tried to freeze all federal funding, cut off Medicaid, cut off food benefits, close childcare centers. That was a huge backlash from the American people from the Democrats.

And very quickly, Donald Trump back, you know, backpedaled, you know, they're never going to admit they made a mistake. He's certainly not going to fire anyone though. He likes to pretend that he's a tough guy. I think Democrats have to keep finding these moments where they can actually break through the American people.

So they understand the consequences in their lives. And if that happens, that's when I think he's not doing work on behalf of the American people. This is all fear. See, I think the American people would argue that it's Washington that hasn't been working for them.

And that's why he's doing what he's doing, because this is a country that said 70% of this country throughout the campaign said we were on the wrong track. And so that's why he's able to come in with a sledgehammer and break things up and still maintain a 53% approval rating, because the public is just fed up with the bureaucracy and all the mess that's been brought on this country. I don't disagree. There's no question the American people are happy and they don't think Washington is working.

Let's see if they wake up in six months and feel like government is working for them, when childcare centers are closed, when they can't act as healthcare, when their housing costs are going up. I think the Republicans are in for a rude awakening. They're not actually trying to solve people's problems. Ronda, I wondered the degree to which that sort of messaging is breaking through on the hill.

Are there members of Congress or Republican members of Congress who are hearing any of that from their constituents? Do they have concerns about the way that things are unfolding in these first few weeks? I will say that I think that that's what Democrats are banking on, that eventually there will be this groundswell among the public who will be demanding more from their Republican representatives or senators. I think one example we can point to is Chuck Grassley, who of course is an ally of the president, chairs, Senator Judiciary, he had a tweet or an ex post over the weekend where he had problems with the tariffs because they're affecting farmers in Iowa.

And he said they get fertilizer from Canada when the Canada tariffs was a threat. And he said we can't have this. So I think when things do boil down to the constituent level, you might see some Republicans say, especially Republicans in the House who are going to be securing elections soon, they're going to say maybe we need a pump that breaks a little bit, maybe work with Democrats. But I do know Chuck Schumer had a press conference a few hours ago, and he was asked, what's the Democratic playbook right now?

What are you guys doing? It has to be more than letter writing and all the other things that they've been trying to do. And he said, well, one area is to raise public awareness because that worked with terrorists when people got upset, that worked when the threats of freezing federal funds happen. It's when people speak up.

So he said that is a part of the playbook. They're also trying some things with legislation. But I think Democrats believe that what will happen faster is if the public gets upset about these things. Les, you have to wonder, are we looking at a one-man rule situation?

You know, if you have members of Congress who essentially are Republican members of Congress, we're saying, okay, yeah, just go. As opposed to something that looks more akin to multiple branches of government, co-equal branches of government functioning together, are we looking at a situation where this country is moving toward one-man rule? No, no, no. I mean, look, the voters spoke in November.

They made it very clear. They put Republicans back in the White House. They put them in charge of the Senate and in charge of the House. And typically, when the parties are aligned, and I think obviously the Republican party is very aligned on where they want to see this country going, and it seems to me the voters are also aligned on that front.

No, I don't think so at all. I mean, we have three branches of government. They're going to look, all these things, a lot of the stuff Donald Trump is doing is going to have to go to the court system anyway. So no, not at all.

I think we're seeing democracy in action, actually. You know, I do think that is one of the many ways in which Trump is overeating his mandate. He does think he was elected king. And I think, no, it's true.

Like, he thinks, let's take an example. We've been talking about in the news covering the threat to end the Department of Education. Of course, he's been saying he wants to do that. So he's being transparent.

Fine. It is very clear that the president cannot do that. There are checks and balances. If he really wanted to end the Department of Education, and he was serious about that, he would go get Congress to pass a law.

He controls Congress. Republicans will do almost anything he wants. Why won't he get Republicans to pass a bill to defund education and do it in the public kind of domain and get a law passed? He doesn't like to actually have any checks on him.

He feels like the power of the presidency really is the power to do whatever I want. And the Republicans are standing by and letting do that. Well, I don't think there's no question he is a guy who believes in the executive and the power of the executive about the Supreme Court also spoke to that last summer and gave him a lot of leeway. So I think you're going to continue to see a lot of this done because, yes, he does believe in that.

And Republicans in Congress are aligned with him. The same way that Democrats are aligned with Joe Biden in the first two years and gave him everything he wanted. So it's nothing new that happens in the sound when there's one party world government. Ron, I'll give you the last word on this.

Is that the perception that seems to be bleeding over? Well, I think this is also happening in the backdrop of people having declining support for government. So that might be one way that it is very effective for Republicans to say, okay, we're okay with you getting rid of this or changing up this department because people have had a decline in how they view the government and how it works for them. But on the other side of that, there are going to be some upsetting things, especially if the tariffs in dirty days with Canada or Mexico take off the United River, the Chinese tariffs overnight.

If those affect people in a real world way, you might see that ground so all the Democrats are hoping for it. We'll see if it starts costing people money that will make a big difference here. And up next, the very latest on the White House's threats of an all-out trade war after sweeping tariffs on China go into effect overnight and China retaliates with tariffs on its own. You're watching Meet the Press Now.

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Price is subject to change. Visit NBCNews.com slash XFINITY for full offer terms and details. And welcome back. President Trump's 10% tariffs on all Chinese goods went into effect at midnight.

And today Beijing is hitting back. Tariffs now on US crude oil, agricultural machinery, certain automobiles, pickup trucks, coal, liquefied gas. China also announced an antitrust investigation into Google. Beijing appears to be taking a different approach than Canada and Mexico, whose leaders were able to secure a 30-day pause on tariffs after offering some relatively modest concessions to President Trump.

Last hour, the president reacted to China's retaliatory actions during an appearance in the Oval Office. Listen, Mr. President, what's your reaction to China's retaliatory tariffs? That's fine.

That's fine. We're going to do very well against China and against everybody else. When you speak to President G, sir, I know they don't need to be president. No, let's make them at the appropriate time.

How many no rush? Joining me now is CNBC correspondent Meghan Cosella. Meghan, China, hit back with those tariffs we saw today. What does this all mean for the consumer?

That's the big question here. It absolutely is, Erin. What it means right now is higher prices. About 14% of everything that the US buys from abroad comes in from China.

About $400 billion worth of goods every year. All of those goods now are going to see a 10% higher tariff or a tax paid on the way into the country. And any companies that are importing those goods can pass those costs right onto their consumers. I was just looking at one estimate that puts the annual cost at about $225 to a household from these tariffs alone, not the biggest amount on its own, but very significant still, especially at a time when families are sensitive to higher prices.

And the individual goods that are likely to be impacted here is a whole lot of consumer goods, a lot of clothing, a lot of appliances, a lot of electronics. Think about things like smartphones, your washing machine or your refrigerator, and then your clothing and your sneakers as well. All of those could start to see higher prices. Is that leading to a wider concern that a tit for tat tariff with China could spiral into something worse, a larger trade war between the two largest economies in the world?

That's absolutely the concern because it could get much more painful. And remember, President Trump told reporters just yesterday that these China tariffs, he's considering them and opening salvo, meaning that he could increase the tariff rates further, meaning higher costs still. If he doesn't get what he wants from China, those comments that you just heard a few minutes ago earlier today when he was saying to reporters that he's not in a rush to speak with President Xi of China, that doesn't bode well for the idea or the hope there was earlier today that there could be a quick deal made here the way we saw with Canada and Mexico and that the tariffs could be lifted. Now we know that we're a little deeper into this.

There's no call happening today. I can confirm according to a person familiar with the planning. And we don't know yet when one will be scheduled. That means that there's more to go here and things could get worse before they get better.

Well, you mentioned Canada and Mexico. The tariffs there were delayed really only a month, right? Could we be going down the same road again in March with them? How concerned are businesses about some of the uncertainty of what could happen in a month from now?

We certainly could be seeing this play out again a month from now. March 4th is the date when those tariffs were delayed until. And I was talking with the White House today about what exactly they need to see from Canada and Mexico before then. And they told me that they want to make sure that those two countries are following through on the promises that they made yesterday, not necessarily looking for further commitments, but cementing the ones that they agreed to yesterday.

It's important, I think, to remember some of what we saw in the President's first term. At one point, in about 2019, we did see him threaten tariffs against Mexico when they never followed through on those. On another point, he was talking about stealing aluminum tariffs on allies. He delayed those a month and then they ultimately went into effect.

So it's very much wait and see here. And when you bring up the businesses, the cost of uncertainty is a cost on its own. The chaos that sort of we've seen over the past several weeks and what businesses need above all else is a certain environment in order to make major investments. And companies have always liked coming to North America because they can split production facilities among the three countries and make things as affordable as they can be for consumers.

The more of this sort of tit for tat of threats that we see, the less stable of an environment that is, we might not see that investment coming here anymore. And there's still a lot of questions about what else might happen next. Maybe we get through this one hurdle, but will we see it again a month or a year from now? We definitely could.

All right, making a sell out from CNBC, really putting things into perspective for us. We appreciate it, Megan, thanks. We're turning now to the investigation into last week's deadly plane crash near Reagan National Airport outside Washington officials now say all 67 victims have been recovered. Earlier today, Cruz excavated what appeared to be the tale of the American Airlines jet from the Potomac River and placed it on to a barge.

As for the investigation of the what caused that deadly collision, the NTSB says the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with the plane needs to be recovered from the water before it can evaluate the data collected from its flight recorder. Officials say that may not happen until the end of this week at the earliest. Meanwhile, American airline CEO says that President Trump called him last night to share his condolences. And after the break, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu becomes the first foreign leader to visit President Trump at the White House since the inauguration.

I'll talk to a former diplomat to the Middle East about today's meeting, which is underway right now. And what it means for us, a rather for US-Israel relations. You're watching Meet the Press Now. And welcome back.

Right now, President Trump is hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, making him the first foreign leader to meet with Trump in his second term. And this meeting comes at a delicate time for the Middle East as the fragile ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas continues to hold. So far, 18 hostages, including American Keith Siegel, have been released as part of phase one of that deal. In return, Israel released more than 500 Palestinian prisoners and allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return today.

Trump and Netanyahu are expected to discuss the next phase of the deal. And last hour, President Trump once again suggested Palestinians should relocate to Egypt and Jordan. That's a proposal Arab nations have already rejected it. I would like to see Jordan.

I'd like to see Egypt take some look. The Gaza thing has not worked. It's never worked. I would think if they had an option of moving to an either in a large group or various smaller groups and take care of the close to two million people, I would think that they would be thrilled to do.

They have no when you say about the Gaza Strip, they don't have an option. Joining me now is Dennis Ross, special assistant to former President Barack Obama in charge of Middle East and the NBC News Foreign Affairs analyst. Ambassador Ross, we appreciate you being here to help us put some perspective on what's been happening today. We know this meeting with President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu is underway.

Now, how important is this meeting for Netanyahu today? Could it help him to sort of shore up support from the right wing members of his coalition? I think that he's in a very complicated position because the right wing of his coalition actually wants him to resume the war in Gaza and actually to settle Gaza. He doesn't want to settle Gaza, but he also is worried that the right wing will bolt the coalition if he doesn't resume the war.

On the other hand, if he resumes the war, the chance of getting the remaining hostages who are alive becomes almost non-existent. So that's number one. He faces a real tension there. Number two, he's dealing with President Trump who wants to do a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel and Saudi Arabia won't do that deal.

I won't even begin to discuss that deal so long as Israel remains in Gaza. They want to see an instant war in Israel out of Gaza. So Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to be under pressure from President Trump about finding a way to go ahead and implement the whole all three phases of the hostage ceasefire deal. I think the one issue for Prime Minister Netanyahu that could make it easier for him to resolve what are these tensions within his coalition, at least from his own standpoint, would be if he reaches an understanding with President Trump about how the United States and Israel will work together to deal with the Iranian threat, the Iranian nuclear threat in particular.

That has always been the most important strategic issue to Prime Minister Netanyahu. He sees it in historic terms. He sees it in existential terms and he can rationalize making some hard decisions as it relates to Gaza if he feels from his standpoint what's most important to him on Iran is going to be addressed and addressed effectively. The president has said that Egypt and Jordan should take in Palestinians.

He said that Gaza looks like a demolition site. The Arab nations we know have rejected the suggestion that those two countries take in Palestinians. Is it clear yet what the plan is to rebuild the Gaza Strip, especially as President Trump once again pulls out of UNRWA? The short answer is no, it is not.

And I think at one level, President Trump is raising an issue from a kind of practical standpoint. Two million people in a place that is really devastated. It's hard to do reconstruction, not to mention rehabilitation, deal with all the unexploded ordnance, deal with basic infrastructure that needs to be repaired with too many people living there. So I think he's sort of saying, look, how are we going to do reconstruction with people there?

Egypt doesn't want to take people in because they're afraid that they'll never return. There's a larger Arab narrative that is fearful that this is the way the Israelis want to settle the Palestinian issue by expelling them. You have two far-right ministers who actually say that, meaning ministers, Ben Gavir and Smotridge. So the president is raising what is a practical issue.

He's going to say King of Delaware, Jordan, next weekend is going to see President CC of Egypt the week after that. By the way, this highlights, I think, that this is a pretty significant priority for the president. These are the first three foreign leaders to come, and they're all from the Middle East. So I suspect that what's going to be critical for both the King of Jordan and the president of Egypt is to come to President Trump and say, look, here we have some suggestions for how to handle their reconstruction process.

We can't take into Palestinians the way he would like, because that may actually destabilize our own countries, given how this would be perceived. Let's talk a little bit about the USAID program that we know is being slashed, effectively. What are the implications for Palestinians in Gaza without the support of USAID? Is there anyone who can fill the gap?

Well, the American aid has been channeled through humanitarian means, because it's a tailored force act. We can't give aid directly to the Palestinian story. The Palestinian story is actually not in Gaza, Hamas is in Gaza, so we don't give it to them. So we have given it through NGOs, humanitarian programs like the World Food Organization, and monies that we have contributed to Andra.

And the president has now cut off funding to Andra. And there is not at this point an alternative to take the place of Andra within the UN system. We could easily take the money that we've given to Andra and provide it to other UN agencies, if in fact they will be empowered to use those monies. The fact is none of them at this point have the mechanisms in place to be able to act on it.

It's still Andra is the only one that's really doing it. Israel, because of the role that they see Andra having played in October 7th, and the fact that we know at least one of the hostages was held in an Andra facility. So they continue to be quite negative on Andra having any role in the past the law that forbids Israel from dealing with Andra. So it's a very complicated situation.

Here we're talking about the issue reconstruction in a place where the mechanisms for doing that right now are basically being undercut. So something is going to have to take their place. I just have a few seconds left, but very quickly I do want to ask you president Trump signed this presidential memorandum today restoring maximum pressure on Iran. Is that still an effective strategy?

Is that the best strategy right now? The Iranians are clearly hurting economically. This is a natural gas and oil producing country that can't provide for its own electricity. It's currency has never been devalued more.

So maximum economic pressure will certainly put a squeeze on the Iranians. The question is, is that going to be enough? Does it need to be married with military threats as well? Does it need to be married with possible inducements as well in terms of telling the Iranians if you are prepared to agree to what we believe is necessary in your nuclear program, here are the benefits that you would get some kind of mixed approach that raises the price to the Iranians of continuing a nuclear program.

And it is a nuclear weapons threshold capable state right now. It is very close to a nuclear weapons capability and something has to happen soon to stop that before they get to the point where they themselves cross a certain threshold, in which case we're all going to be dealing with a very different world, especially in the Middle East. All right. Ambassador Dennis Ross, sir.

We appreciate your time today. Thank you. My pleasure. And still to come firing back new reporting on the class action lawsuit filed by several FBI agents accusing the Justice Department of Preparing Retaliation Campaign under the Trump administration.

You're watching Meet the Press Now. And welcome back. We are following a pair of lawsuits filed by FBI agents against the Justice Department in an attempt to block the Trump administration from gathering information about who was part of January 6th investigations. The first class action lawsuit filed by nine unnamed agents sites a survey they were required to fill out about January 6th cases as proof the administration is seeking retribution.

Now, according to the lawsuit, some agents personal information has already been posted by January 6th defendants on the dark web. The second lawsuit filed by other agents as well as the FBI Agents Association sites a social media post by January 6th defendant that concludes the name of a special agent. It also warns that as many as 6,000 FBI employees may currently be targeted for unlawful firing and a mass unlawful firing of 6,000 FBI employees would be catastrophic to national security. NBC News Justice and intelligence correspondent Kendalaney joins me now.

So Ken, why two lawsuits instead of one here, first of all? Well, Aaron, each lawsuit makes slightly different legal claims and sometimes that happens in these situations. Different groups of people find different lawyers. But I just want to pass along to you, Aaron, some news that just broke literally in the last 15 minutes, which is that the person familiar with the matter tells me that the FBI has now turned over a list of thousands of FBI employees and support personnel who worked on January 6th cases to the Justice Department as ordered, but they did not turn over the names.

They turned over a list of unique employee identifiers along with the person's title and other identifying information and what cases they worked on regarding January 6th. But they said in the name of employee safety, they didn't turn over the names. Obviously, the Justice Department can match the number with a name. They haven't payroll.

But what this avoids is a master list of FBI personnel who worked on January 6th floating around because what these two lawsuits actually say, they can't oppose a government agency from keeping lists of employees. But what they're saying is they worry and they believe that the Justice Department intends to release the names of these employees. And that would be dangerous to their safety and that would violate some of their constitutional rights there. So Ken, with these lawsuits, what are the agents, what is the FBI agents association seeking?

Well, in that lawsuit, particularly, they're seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the Justice Department from releasing any of these names that they're provided of people who worked on January 6th. So they're seeking immediate action from a judge and then they want to make sure that those names are not released. Now, the Justice Department has not said they're going to make these names public. But when they fired eight senior FBI executives last week, those names quickly did become public.

So there is a real fear here among FBI personnel that their names and personal information can get out there. And then 1500 pardon January 6th defendants have an interest in circulating that information. So we mentioned the complaint from the first lawsuit includes a copy of the survey that FBI agents were required to fill out to determine their involvement in the January 6th investigations. Ken, what jumps out to you about that survey?

This is so unusual, Aaron. I mean, just that they want to know exactly what folks did on an investigation, whether they were more involved or less involved. And that suggests that they want to act on that information. And that is the fear at the FBI that this is a retributive effort that they're going to try to fire people who worked on January 6th.

All right, Ken Delaney and for us today covering the Justice Department. Ken, thank you. We appreciate it. And we are back tomorrow with more Meet the Press now, but the news continues with Hallie Jackson right now.