Meet the Press NOW — February 5

If it's Monday. Bipartisan agreement and bipartisan outrage. President Biden throws his support behind the Senate's newly released war appeal as former President Donald Trump renews his strong opposition and Speaker Mike Johnson again declares it dead on arrival in the House. Plus, more signs of trouble for Democrats as the president's poll numbers take another bag in our latest NBC News poll.

With voters saying they trust Trump over Biden on nearly every major issue and new strikes and new concerns of a widening conflict, US Officials warned the retaliation campaign against Iran back militants isn't over and that strikes inside Iran aren't off the table. Welcome to Heathen Press Now. I'm Yamiche Sender reporting in Washington. We're presented by his political state, coupled with the urgency of getting aid to Ukraine and Israel has apparently made him willing to agree to the most conservative border deal in modern history.

The bipartisan deal was announced lately yesterday after weeks of negotiations and within hours has Republicans vowed to kill it. That's how confident they appear to be informed of President Trump's political standing on this issue ahead of November. The $20 billion border deal is part of a larger $118 billion national security package. The agreement forces the administration to shut down the border if migrant encounters reaches certain numbers and it toughens requirements for asylum claims and raises the credible fear standard.

The bill is a major shift to the right for President Biden. But even as some Democrats are blasting the deal, some Republicans are too. As we said, House leadership calls it dead on arrival. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the bill is, quote, even worse than we expected.

Top Republican negotiator Senator James Lane fur reacted to his comments last night. I'm a little confused as worse than expected when a bill's border wall expands deportation flights, expands high officers and border patrol officer detention beds, how it creates a faster process for deportation, how it clears up a lot of the long term issues and loopholes that have existed in the asylum law. And it gives us an emergency authority that stops the chaos right now on the border. Killing the bill all but guarantees the crisis at the border remains an issue during the 2024 election cycle.

And that might be the point. Former President Trump has been blasting the bill on social media. He called it a, quote, trap and urged Republicans to block it. House Republicans are instead focusing their efforts on impeaching the country's top immigration official.

The House Rules Committee is meeting right now to officially consider impeaching DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. A full household is expected tomorrow on MEET the Press. Now on MEET THE Press Sunday, Kristen Walker asked Speaker Johnson how impeachment addresses the border crisis. How does impeaching mayorkas do anything to address the immediate crisis at the border which you have called a catastrophe, which you said deserves immediate attention?

A Christian. For that matter, how does passing a new law by Congress do anything to solve the catastrophe that they intentionally designed and created? The president is not using the authorities he has right now. All right now the president and mayorkas are not using the authorities they have right now.

NBC News is the first to report President Biden's most forceful condemnation of the impeachment effort yet today. In a statement, the White House condemned the effort as, quote, an unprecedented and unconstitutional political attack. All this comes as our new NBC News poll shows President Biden with an enormous 35 point deficit to Trump on the question of who is better off the border and as President Biden faces his worst job approval numbers yet. NBC's A Hill Courts on Capitol Hill.

The latest on the future of the bill with Beyonce. NBC News senior Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Hay, who's been following the Trump campaign's reaction to this bill. And NBC News is Julia Ainsley who has all the insight on this bill, what it would do. So I want to start with you.

We finally, finally, finally got the text of this bill last night. As Republican leadership, though, as he said, said it's dead on arrival, killing it really. Where do things stand now? What are we hearing from Senator Langford, who of course was one of the leads in the Senate who negotiated this deal?

Well, Yamiche, we're in a very extraordinary situation right now. This would be the most conservative border security and asylum overhaul bill in decades. President Joe Biden, the Democrat, has signed on. The main obstacle to passing this through Congress is Republicans.

This is a 370 page bill, $118 billion including all that national security aid that is attached to it for Ukraine and for Israel, where things stand right now. So that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said there's going to be the first procedural vote on Wednesday. But this thing faces a steep uphill getting the 60 votes, which is what it needs to break a filibuster. Number of Republicans have already come out against it.

That includes Steve being the member of the Republican leadership team. Interestingly, and probably not uncoincidentally, he leads the Republican campaign arm which is trying to use this chaos at the border as an election issue. Senator James Langford, the lead author of this, has been making the hard sell, arguing that this is a good deal. He's sympathizing with his fellow conservatives who do blame President Biden for the situation at the border.

Others said earlier it's not just a political crisis, it's a national security crisis and we should treat it that way. This White House has intentionally opened up our border and released this havoc on all our cities and communities based on their bad decisions at the beginning. So there are things they can do, but there are also weak areas in the law as well that have been problems for years that need to be fixed. That won't get better by an executive action.

They'll get better by passing law. Now I spoke to Lanfear as well earlier today. He said he was a little bit surprised at how quickly some people came out against the bill, pointing out that they had told him they want days or weeks to read it. And yet within minutes or hours of the bill coming out, they were immediately sweeting their opposition.

This is election your politics marring a very ambitious immigration. Well Saha, I want to because there's this fascinating part of this story which is that not only are Republicans mad, but some Democrats are saying they won't support bill. You have people like Senators Bernie Sanders, Alex Padilla. They're coming out saying that this bill is just not right.

Why are there Democrats willing to stick their necks out for this bill when it may not, it may not even have a future. It might be dead in the House. Why would Democrats want that? This for a few reasons.

I mean, Democrats have seen the politics of immigration. They know it's a huge vulnerability for them, huge vulnerability for President Biden. The numbers you just show are reflected across the board in many other polls. Yamiche.

I think they recognize that the asylum system is overwhelmed and they accepted that something needs to be done on a policy basis as well. As you know, of course the political incentive to do it is there. Democratic opposition. Yes.

There's always going to be from certain corners of progressives who, you know, believe in a more pro immigration system who don't want these restrictions at least without other items like legalization for dreamers, which is not in this bill. Some members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have also complained that they were essentially shut out of the negotiations, that it was, you know, leadership allies and Senator Chris Murphy leading this. So there will be opposition from Democrats with a minority. A number of Democrats are coming out in favor of this bill.

The Democratic would count at this moment. Looks much better than the Republican book count for this bill. It's still unclear the numbers gonna add up to 60. If it's not unclear, of course, the Numbers are gonna add to 60.

What happens to the foreign aid as part of the sale course money going Ukraine to Israel, what happens? All that. It's probably not gonna pass it all. You mean it's the reason we're in this place is the Republicans have demanded border security provisions as a condition to pass any aid to Ukraine.

Now the separate attempt of the House to pass standalone aid to Israel, it's unclear if Republicans can even pass that in the House, but it is not going anywhere it seems in the Senate and the White House has said the president does not support standalone aid Israel. He wants the separate prison from Ukraine. He wants a supplemental funding and you know, these policies on the border as well. So that's where we stand right now.

Either Ukraine aid is going to ride along with this immigration package or it's probably not going to pass at all. At least while Republican controlled House reporting. Thank you so much. I help from Capitol Hill.

So Julie, I want to turn to your course, our border as so much more from the topic than anyone else that I see. Tell us a little bit about how this bill, if it did pass, how would it impact us on the border? Well, look, it would have an immediate impact in the short term at least. What it doesn't do is talk about the root causes of migration, why we're at historic levels or provide any kind of pathway or semblance of normal life for undocumented migrants, over 11 million of them living in the United States.

And that's what we used to talk about. We used to talk about immigration reform. Now the words are border security. So it's focusing on 2,000 miles of border with the US and Mexico.

And that's the main piece. It doesn't work on how Mexico would take back all the migrants of the United States and stop accepting if they have those triggers in place to shut down migration at the southern border at 5,000 a day on the daily average or 8,500 a day, that would trigger the whole thing. All these migrants would have to be sent back in Mexico and they could be overwhelmed and refused to take them back. And they've admitted that the Department, Homeland Security, White House has admitted they don't have a new deal with Mexico for them to start taking back more than they already are.

One of the most radical ideas that came from this, I'm wondering, might be something that can pick up on the common reality in a later law or executive action. Is this idea of cutting out immigration judges, something I've never heard anyone talk about. But it takes immigration judges out of the game for a lot of these cases so that migrants aren't waiting years for their day in court. They have asylum officers interview them to determine whether or not they say seems kind of no nonsense.

I'm sure there are a lot of problems we've seen. Some advocates say that maybe they wouldn't get due process. But if you can speed up that process for these migrants, they know very quickly whether or not they get a silent authorization for deportation. You drastically cut down on the incentive that smugglers and cartel members use all the time to incentivize people to come to the United States because they think they're going to be able to say those are really big changes, seem like they might even improve the process here.

But you have someone like Senator Alice Video, the Democrat from California who said this is, quote, a new version of Trump era policies and will cause even more chaos. Could you compare this bill to what we saw in 2018, when the Republicans are pushing for a bordeaux? It's actually further to the right than what we saw in 2018, the bill that eventually blew up there. This goes further than that than what we saw under a Trump administration.

Now, it could cause chaos, like I said, if Mexico doesn't take them back in. Some of these are ideas from the Trump administration, this whole idea of speeding up the process, but it doesn't do a lot of what someone likes, even Miller do, which is to try to increase punishments for children. They do have car bouts for uncompanied migrant children. They do have carve outs for people who are victims of torture.

And they don't separate kids from their families. And that's a big change. That is a big change. Not that that was the bill, but something that Trump did, certainly.

And Garrett, I mean, Julie just said this moves farther to the right. But of course, the person that you're following around a lot these days from President Trump, he still doesn't like it. So does this essentially kill it? And why is he doing this?

Well, he's doing it because he wants to run it. I mean, Donald Trump has made this abundant clear. This is the beginning of his political career, especially since New Hampshire when he told a bunch of reporters that he was basically de emphasizing the economy. I think that's going to be less important to the voting public in November of this year than is the border.

This is the primary issue that's motivated his base from the jump. It's why he brings up migrant caravans every time there's an election forthcoming. And you know, as much as Democrats want to be caught trying to address this issue. Donald Trump wants to make sure this is an issue that he can run on with far more aggressive policies than anything we were talking about back in 2018, than anything that might be passed to lower the pressure in some way between now and November.

And it's interesting that you're saying sort of what Donald Trump wants. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has said he's running the show, but it seems as though if Donald Trump doesn't want this, it's not going to happen. Who's running the show here and is it really dead because Donald Trump wants it to be dead? Well, it's a combination of factors here, Look.

I mean, the majority in the House is so slim, it's very difficult to pass anything there, as we have seen. I'm not even sure if Donald Trump and Mike Johnson wanted this bill to pass, if they could pass it even then. There's just no room for error in the House. So it's a little bit of an academic conversation.

But I do think when it comes to Trump, we saw this throughout his entire presidency and we're seeing his post presidency now, he's far more effective at killing bills and blocking ideas than he ever was at passing even the things he wanted, like his war bill, which ultimately shut the government down to get a wall back when he was president, of course, never got it right. So kind of breaking things from sand in the gears is suddenly he and his movement have always been very effective at not so much, you know, sort of prescriptively changing policy in the way that he's talking about doing now, as by the way he's talking about doing. What does the Trump 2.0 border agenda actually look like? Is he getting into details?

I haven't covered him sometimes see, they're seeing it. But is he giving details on the video in this case? He has been giving more details and it's much further right than what Trump 1.0 included. Something like work authorizations for migrants were here waiting there, amnesty hearings and so forth.

That would be off the table altogether. Something like talking about the death penalty for human traffickers as a way to stop people getting across the border. He talks about it in a slightly different context, but it presumably would also apply here. And I think you see him working hand in glove with Governor Abbott down in Texas, where the Biden administration has been fighting, what Greg Abbott has been doing to put razor wire up along the border buoys with razors floating in the river.

These are all things that Donald Trump has embraced. So I expect to see a lot more of that, not to mention what he would do with folks already inside the country. He's talked quite openly about having one of the largest mass deportation efforts that it's ever been seen. And he continues to talk about trying to end or prescript birthright citizenship in a significant way.

There's obviously a number of constitutional questions AR but he thinks he can, he can narrow it, at least with an executive order. He gets you what they want. That's a lot of stuff that he wants to get done that could get done if he gets his way to the White House again. So thank you so much, Julia Garrett, for your reporting.

And up next, trailing Trump president by the proverb rating hits a new low in our latest NBC News poll. And that's just one of the many warning signs for the president. Steve Bernanke will be here to take us through the numbers. Plus, Secretary of State Lincoln visit the Middle east as the US Vows more retaliatory action after hitting Iranian linked targets inside Iraq and Syria.

You're watching THE PRESS now. Welcome back. As you mentioned, our latest NBC News national poll paints a bleak picture for President Biden right Now with just nine months ago until election day, his job approval is at 37 overall. That's the lowest our poll has ever recorded during his presidency.

He also trails for President Donald Trump by five points in a hypothetical but increasingly likely rematch. President Biden only trailed by two points in our November poll. NBC Kornaki has a big board with all and all the things that we know about this poll. And NBC News is Mike Brownlee is in Las Vegas where he's been following President Biden says he about how to come you and his board.

It's pretty brutal when you look at this poll. So tell us a little about these numbers. Yeah, I mean from the president's standpoint, certainly it's concerning to be behind Donald Trump at all, certainly by five points. That's the largest lead Trump's ever had over Biden are polling.

I think what's more concerning from Biden's standpoint would probably be the overall trajectory of this. I'm talking over the course of years because we started polling Biden Trump matchups back in October of 2019. Our very first poll back then had Biden have Trump by nine points. And you can see all the way 12 polls in the 2020 election cycle that we took.

Biden led every single one of them. It never got closer than six. The lead we track as high as 14 for Joe Biden. Of course Biden ended up winning the popular vote by about four and a half points.

That was 2019. That was 2020. Now this is our fourth poll this cycle starting last June, we had Biden ahead by 4. That already was closer than any poll from 2020.

And then from there it went to a tie in the fall. It went to a slight Trump lead in November. And now as you say, a Trump lead of five points. So not only is the entire political and polling atmosphere very different from what we saw in 2019 and 2020, even within that, there's a trend here that's developing in our poll where the news is getting worse for Biden from a four point lead to a five point deficit now over the matter of nine months or so.

The approval warning has a lot to do with that. You mentioned 37%, the lowest we've ever recorded by now in our poll. The lowest any president clocked in that since the end days of the George W. Bush administration back in 07 and 08.

And then there's this. This is previous incumbents seeking like Biden is now where were they in our poll at the same point at the start of their reelection here? And you can see a big difference. George W.

Bush 54% approval. He won re election 04. Barack Obama 491 reelection. Trump was at 46 the start of 2020 lost reelection.

And here's Biden 9 points under where Trump was the only two incumbents seeking reelection who have a number this lower, even lower. You got to go back to George Bush Sr. In 92, Jimmy Carter in 1980. There's another good presence if you're a Biden White House.

And if you just look at this by issues ask folks what's the most important thing on the economy. Trump with a 22 point edge over Biden on securing the border. A 35 point edge right now. Trump over Biden on that.

And then there's this, the necessary mental and physical health to be president. We were checking this a lot in 2020. It was basically a Washburn 41 said Trump had a 38 said Biden. Look at this now 46% say Trump has a necessary mental physical health.

Only half that number for Joe Biden. Finally, I think it's maybe the most concern involved for Biden is the simple question of competency and effectiveness, asking which candidate has the competency effectiveness to be president in 2020. This is what Biden kind of ran on and he led Trump when we asked this question in 2020 levels. 10 points now Trump has Advantage poll of 16 points.

Just a complete reversal on that basic question of competency. And Steve, the more you talk, the worse it seems to get for President Biden. That being said, is there any news in here that would be good things that President Biden could point to? Yeah, there are a couple things.

I mean, there's the economy. Just in terms of people's perceptions of where the economy is going. We have some indications that may be getting less negative, maybe getting more positive. But Biden folks certainly hoping there'll be a drumbeat of positive economic news this year at some point that'll really attach itself to his approval rating, tick him up there and take him up in the head to head with Trump.

And then there's also this look at some of the weaknesses Biden has in our poll right now. Young voters, they were big part of the coalition in 2020. We got a 42, 42 tie. Bide.

That's not good news for Biden. But the real issue here is there's a lack of enthusiasm and engagement, enthusiasm just to vote at all among this age group. In our poll, the Biden folks are hoping that as the election nears, that interest level will rise. And while the young voters do not have generally favorable views of Biden, they also don't have favorable views of Trump.

So the Biden folks hope that as young voters get more engaged in this, they'll ultimately decide basically they more want to vote against Trump than they want to vote against Biden. They see an opportunity for growth there. You also look here, the Hispanic vote, basically, even Trump had by one point. That's something Republicans have been talking about the possibility of.

They've got it like that. Among African Americans, this is a solid lead for Joe Biden, 75, 16%. But Democrats want to do better than that. They want to keep Trump in single digits here.

They want to get this Biden number, you know, about 10, 15 points further from where it is. So that's why we see opportunities for growth sort of demographically. Well, Steve, always great to see you at the big board. Thank you so much.

You got it. And Mike, Steve watches these numbers. It's really interesting. You look at sort of what President Biden is facing and how bad these numbers look for him.

What do we hear from President Biden as, of course, as your author on the campaign trail with him? Well, the president announced he was running for a second term last April. His campaign then got to work sort of developing the strategy, building the campaign to execute on that strategy. But it's only in these last few weeks that we have seen President Biden himself engaging in the campaign in a way that speaks to what the plan will be this year.

It started out with that major speech on democracy, then that rally with Vice President Harris on abortion rights, two important pillars of the messaging this year. And then, of course, the primaries themselves have begun. South Carolina, there was a lot of negation with black voters here in Nevada talking to black voters, Latin voters, AAPI voters. But it was also interesting, Nevada being highlighted as a battleground state, not just in this primary stage, but in November.

And because of that, we heard the president last night here really sharpening his rhetoric about President, former President Trump, specifically on economy. Take a listen to what the president said here. Trump also said the one president he doesn't want to be like was Herbert Hoover. Donald, I got bad news for you, pal.

It's too late. You're one of only two presidents in American history. You and Herbert Hoover, who left office with fewer jobs than when he took office. Another reason that Donald Trump is a former president.

And you're the reason he'll make Donald Trump a loser again. So you really have seen the president much more willing to spar with his one time and future rival directly as Trump has won his own caucus and primary so far. This is a strategy that's been in the works. But the team in Wilmington running this campaign had wanted to wait for that direct conflict until voters began really realizing that it was Donald Trump likely to be the opponent.

They were quite right or didn't want to. I believe that that was the case according to the Biden team's internal research. So now you're seeing a greater willingness for President Biden to take him on head on. Mike, it's really interesting to hear President Biden making almost the exact same argument that he made in 2020, which is Trump will be a disaster.

You need to vote for me. How confident is the Biden campaign in that strategy? Especially as you were seeing these poll numbers come out that don't look great for President Biden. Yeah, what the Biden has been telling me is that essentially because the voters have not yet seen Trump as the likely nominee until this point, they were holding their fire on some level.

And because of that, it's really that we're starting to see the Biden kicking on. But what has he been doing up to this point? The president has been laying the foundation for the better part of the last five, six months. On another issue, the economy, that was done with significant risk, even criticism from fellow Democrats about the Biden's messaging the Biden team got it was important to lay that foundation on the economy.

It's always an important issue in an election. Today he was spending some time with union workers, another pillar of the strategy for the Biden team. And having established that economic foundation, they believe he can now pivot to that direct messaging with Donald Trump. But there's a lot of, as you heard from the president there, baiting Trump into a fight because they think think sparring with him, calling him a loser, as he has done now in several public campaign events, also will trigger Trump in a way and lead him to his own worst impulses.

It's that kind of Trump that they relish a fight against this November. Oh, Mike Malley and Las Vegas, you always have all the latest when it comes to body campaigns than so much for sticking with us. And still to come, White House worries, polling, pain and presidential politics. The panel's up next.

You're WATCHING THE PRESS now. Welcome back. President Biden is trying to convince Americans he's the best man for the job. But as we've been reporting, our latest NBC News poll shows he has his work cut out for him.

For more, I'm joined by my panel. Danielle Diaz, congressional reporter for Politico Ronna Upting, Upting, executive director for Move on and Hogan Didley, former national press secretary for Donald Trump's 2020 campaign, a former deputy White House press secretary during the Trump administration. I want to start putting all these issues aside and really thinking about them together. How does the Biden campaign overcome these numbers?

We're talking about the worst approval ratings that we've seen in presidential history. How do you deal with this? Well, first of all, I mean, they may be not great numbers, but pollings are mere snapshots. And we saw, you know, feed go over all these numbers over the last year.

It is one blip right now. So I just want to give too much credit to a poll which we know are indicators of sentiment, not necessarily indicators of action people actually take. The who shows up at the polls is yet to be determined. And we have 10 months.

So that just is an indicator of the work the Biden campaign has to do between now and Election Day. Danielle, what's your take on this? As we hear she's saying basically people haven't voted yet. This is sort of just very, very early.

I completely agree. Still very early on, I covered the 2020 election. And I remember there was a lot of things that changed between now and November at this time in 2020, considerably. There was a pandemic that was starting there of things that could be happening between now and then that could really sway the numbers in either favor.

Of course, it's not helping Biden that Capitol Hill is kind of in disarray and a lot of his key policies that he wants to pass aren't happening. But I mean, a lot of things can change. And on the issue of a lot of things to change right now, the economy is showing signs of strength. What do you make and what are Republicans talking about?

Could that possibly help President Biden out with these economic numbers? Right now you are saying we trust for President Trump on this issue where the economy keeps getting better. Do you think those numbers could move in the president's favor? Well, again, I want to agree with both these panels too, about the length between now when we start voting.

It's a long time. But it is problematic, as Steve pointed out, the fact that for the first time ever, Donald Trump was actually leading in polls, which he didn't do in 2020 at any given point. Of course, the economy is always a big issue. Immigration is overTaken as number one issue for many reasons, not the least of which is illegal immigrants put a massive strain on these local communities with their school systems, with their health care system, with first responders.

Now you're kicking kids out of school and putting illegal immigrants into these school houses, kicking people out of hotels and putting illegal immigrants in these hotels. So it's part and partial. It works together a long way to go. But Donald Trump clearly had a strong economy when he was president United States and also had a rational saying border policy.

People remember that we don't report back to Reagan and look how good it was back in the 80s. This was just a few years ago when people were experiencing some of this record side success. I want to ask you, when you think about sort of the messaging here and maybe some Democrats back on what Hogan is saying, a big place that you could do that is during a Super bowl interview. President Biden has decided for now, the second year in a row not to take part in that interview.

What do you make of that decision given sort of the where President Biden finds himself at this moment? Well, first of all, I think most people are reaching into the super bowl to see Taylor Swift. I'm for the first time excited about the super bowl. But so I'm not sure that's like a poor strategic choice.

I don't think that's necessarily the tension. But ultimately what Biden's gonna need to do between now and November is really tell the story and remind voters of the stable governance that he's provided this country. And to be honest, I think a lot of folks have woken up the fact that we are a presidential election cycle less. You know, there's not a majority of people that realize that Donald Trump is going to be the eventual Republican nominee and that Joe Biden is going to be and is a Democratic.

Yes. And say, why isn't the super bowl, though, a good place to make that case and to explain to people, hey, Donald Trump's coming back in his rematch. Coming. Why is this audience, this huge audience.

Yeah. Maybe looking for immediately for jealousy, but they're also going to be tuning in by the millions Americans. I mean, I'm not gonna, I don't know why he hasn't decided to speak the super bowl, but the fact of the matter is he needs to get out there. He needs to get in the field.

He needs to talk to voters. And it is week of February and there's, there's time and they gotta start. He needs to talk to press. He's been doing an interview.

I had a visible, which was always a tradition coming from the president. And he's not going to be speaking to anyone directly out of that either. And I want to see what he. What are you hearing, of course, about this border deal?

A Republican, Darius, saying it's unrivaled, but you also hearing from some Democrats that they really want to pass it. Also there's some who are blasphemy. What are you hearing? You mean we're not super surprised that there's conservatives that don't appreciate this deal.

That typical names that you're expecting like Mike Lee and Rand Paul and Ron Johnson and then of course, the very far left members like Bernie Sanders who are not for this deal. Now, what's surprising is that there are a significant amount of Senate Republicans that are coming out and trickling against this one by one. Mainly, you know, the last two hours, Senator Katie Britt came out against this, someone that is in McConnell leadership. It's going to be really, really difficult for Senate leadership, both McConnell and Schumer, to get this across the finish line.

We have a vote on Wednesday. You know, they've been working on this for four months. It was Senate Republicans that decided to Ukraine is real and border. And now it's looking like it could potentially be doomed.

Hogan, I want to ask you about another issue, and that is former President Trump's legal problems. We're seeing in polls that at least for the Republicans, this is an issue for Republican voters. But as a move to the general, is there any concern amongst the people that you are, I'm sure, constantly in touch with, that this could hurt President Trump in the general? Well, look, if you're asking me whether or not I'd rather have a candidate who didn't face legal troubles or did I obviously want one who didn't.

However, Donald Trump has done a pretty good job at this point using those attacks on him legally as some type of cudgel to not just expose the problems he views coming out of the through their agencies and the federal government weaponized against several people, not the least of which him. But that's a big issue for Republican voters. I do think a vast majority of the middle of the country when they start to see kind of the ramifications of these judicial rulings in a lot of ways, you saw these pro life supporters get thrown in jail for more than a decade. Stuff like that starts to come out and people realize, wait a minute, I don't like the fact that the federal government is coming after American citizens for simply exercising the right to free speech.

Donald Trump can get the tip of that sphere. He can come out and use that disadvantage politically. So far he's done so I expect him to continue to try. And I want to place this down from you, from Speaker Mike Johnson, who insists that Donald Trump is not calling the shots.

Is Donald Trump calling the shots here, Mr. Speaker? Of course not. He's not calling the shots.

I am calling the shots to the House. That's our responsibility. And I have been saying this far longer than President Trump has. I have been saying what the requirements are to fix the problem.

I don't care if they call the legislation HR2 or not. What we're saying is you have to stem the flow. Hogan, is Donald Trump calling shots here and why won't Speaker Johnson say that if that is the case? Well, he said he calls the shots.

I think that's pretty clear. But to pretend he's saying I called the shots on the speaker of the House, which makes sense, but pretend as though Joe Biden doesn't call Democrats and work with them on certain issues and Donald Trump doesn't call Republicans and say, I don't like this particular bill is silly. Everyone knows how this works. The fact is Donald Trump had sane, rational border policy.

We didn't see spikes in human trafficking, child smuggling, drugs pouring into our country. Now killing a vast majority is the cause for deaths of 19 to 45 year olds in this country. So he can point to that as saying, look With Joe Biden at the helm, you see chaos at the border, you see chaos around the globe. You see chaos in cities with crime spiking in the economy, et cetera.

It wasn't like that with me. So these two men have a unique situation where they're both running as one sitting president and one former president saying we're comparing our recognized governor and senator, but as presidents, it's really fascinating. I want to get your reaction to that. I just completely disagree that it's not true.

Donald Trump and the Republicans have some of those cruel and inhumane immigration policies that the border and remember, those are the laws in the books. If you, if you don't enforce those laws on the books, then change the law enforced. And whether you do it in a cool way at the border does matter. I would love to have our time, but we have to stop there.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And next we'll take you live in Bahrain where we are on the ground following the US Military's escalation in the Middle East. Our Pentagon correspondent, Port in Q has the latest from the region.

You're WATCHING ME the PRESS now. Welcome back. We continue to learn more about the US Retaliatory strikes in Syria and Iraq late last week. The Pentagon says destruct seven facilities, including more than 85 targets that Iranian forces in Iran that the militia used to attack US Forces.

The damage assessment remains ongoing and there are no indications that any Iranians were killed in strikes. On yesterday's video press National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan would not rule out the potential for strikes inside Iran. And today the Pentagon said that last week's military action was just the start of the US Response. This is the start of our response.

There will be additional actions taken to hold the IRGC and affiliated militias accountable for their attacks on US and coalition forces. We do not see conflict in the Middle east or anywhere else. But attacks on American forces will not be tolerated and we will continue to take all necessary actions to defend the United States, our forces and our interests. It comes as the US and the UK Connecting joint strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The militant group condemned the attack, saying the strike will not go unanswered. While these strikes are separate from the US for territorial response, it highlights the mounting tension throughout the region. Joining me now is Courtney Cubby in Bahrain. In Bahrain, who was aboard the US USS Eisenhower as it connected deterrence operations in the region.

So thank you so much for being here. So let's start with these strikes in Iraq and Syria. What was the initial reaction in the region to the US Action there. So when the US has taken these sorts of actions in Iraq, there has been pretty consistent condemnation of them by the government in Baghdad.

But the majority of the time they even make some threats saying they're gonna take the United States out of Iraq and out of the region. But most of the time the reality is it's really important for domestic consumption. Nothing is at this point still changing about the US presence in Iraq or in Syria. But there were at least 85 targets that were struck.

That was a huge, huge undertaking by the US military to go after all of those locations. And it's exactly the kind of thing you would expect here. It's military capabilities by some of these Iranian back military coalition groups with the goal of trying to keep them from carrying out future taxes. Either they don't have enough munitions, the US has already blown them up, or they may be deterred by this large set of airstrikes and may not continue to carry out these strikes.

Of course, this all comes after three US soldiers were killed in a drone attack on a base just on the border with Jordan and Syria a little over a week ago. The retaliation were told these palatory strikes are going to continue. They're going to continue. And you though were embedded on the USS Es and Harrison conduct deterrence operations in the Red Sea.

Have those strikes in effective in the way that the US would have hoped in deterring the Houthis in Yemen. So it also been pretty consistent that after the US carries out strikes against hikers in Yemen, the Houthis attacks continue to fire back. But I will say it seems to have a smaller and smaller scale. So for instance, on Sunday the attacks were the strikes by the U.S.

british military were Saturday night on Sunday the Houthis tried to another commercial ship in the region, the US knock down a projectile and then US carried another set of airstrikes taking out some launchers. So we've been asking that same question on the USS Eisenhower. Individuals who are directly involved in those strikes believe it was a success. But they acknowledge that striking at their facilities, where they storm drones launchers, where they launch off these very dangerous ballistic missiles, those sorts of military targets.

Yes, it could degrade their capability to continue to target ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf Maiden, but it's not going to necessarily stop them at this point of each. And you just described a lot of military activity in the region. How concerned our officials about the potential for miscalculations. That has been a completely consistent concern.

You know, one of the officials, a US Navy officer, was familiar with who directly involved in that attack that the Houthis shot up at US Navy helicopters a few weeks ago. You may remember it, the US Responded from the helicopters by sinking several Houthi boats. There are upwards of 10 Houthi male militants who are reportedly killed in that. One of the officials said, look, this is an escalation and we have to adapt to how the Houthis continue to adapt their targets.

Another new capability they've shown just in recent weeks is what the military calls an unmanned surface vessel. Basically it's a drone rather than flying in there is on sea. They've now tried several different occasions to send these explosive packed sea drones towards the US ship, or excuse me, towards a ship in the Red Sea. And the US has been able to intercept them so far.

But even as they continue to carry out these strikes to have this deterrence presence mission throughout the Red Sea and into the Gulf of Aden, the Houthis really remain defiant there. Still Amish. Courtney QB and Bahrain doing exclusive and critical reporting for us. Thank you.

Thanks. For more on the US strikes in Iraq and Syria, I'm joined now by retired Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO supreme allied commander at NBC's chief international analyst and Blau Saab Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute. So Admol, start with you. What was your reaction to these initial retaliatory strikes?

Did they go far enough? I think they did go far enough. Yamiche, for where we are right now, what the administration hopes to do is kind of control this ladder of vertical escalation. So they started a couple of months ago with individual strikes going back against the place a drone might have come from that clearly was not having sufficient effect.

Then the Red Sea kind of kicked in. So now what we're seeing in the wake of the deaths of three American servicemen and women is a larger campaign like series of strikes, really round numbers, about 100 targets up north in Iraq and Syria and about 50 in and around the Red Sea. So it's a volume increase. And it has also opened up to go after Iranian Revolutionary Guard who are embedded in some cases with these proxies.

So I think these strikes calibrated. Let's see what happens over the next week or so. I think they'll continue. Unless we see a cessation at the end of all that, the administration will have a tough choice.

If this does not have the desired effect, then you have to start thinking about going after targets in Iran. That's going to be very challenging in a number of ways. And Bilal, I mean as we're talking about these being calibrated and really being very strategic, how what do you make of the locations of these strikes? Are they strategically significant?

When you look at the locations of all these strikes, I'll really sit here and watch them behind my desk. I mean typically after such strikes you do what we call and I'm sure Jim knows about this, you do a battle damage assessment, defense words for which is basically assess the efficacy of these strikes. And given that these have been pretty extensive, it might take a little bit of time to figure out really what we hit and how strategic, how effective those are. I'm pretty confident the US Military and CENTCOM in specific has done those things.

I'm not sure if they will release them or the release parts of them. But it's I think premature to say if they've been strategic or significant. I agree with Jim is going to have to be campaign. This is a process.

I don't think we're going to be anytime soon significantly degrading the capabilities of the Houthis, especially in the absence of a parallel effort to deny them the supplies. It's one thing to actually degrade the existing capabilities of the Houthis, another altogether to cut off their supply lines. And that's going to require a whole lot more than U.S. air power.

You need an interdiction regime at sea that goes into cutting off the supply lines of the Houthis, which are not insignificant as you say that. Admiral, we want to ask you about something that's playing out in Washington D.C. there's some back and forth over whether the U.S. gave Iraq heads up about these about these retaliatory strikes.

The White House is now walking back what it said about pre notification. How significant is that? What does that mean for our relationship with Iraq before there's this back and forth going on at the White House? Well, it's always complicated when you are going to launch a strike and you are going to move fighter aircraft or even cruise missiles or drones over the airspace of a sovereign nation.

It's a judgment call. Ideally you would give notice, particularly with Iraq, a nation with whom we have good relations and have been cooperating. Unfortunately, the flip side of that is there are elements in the Iraqi government that would put it on a fast pipeline directly to some of these militias. So it's very complicated set of calculi to make that.

I do want to pick up on a point Bilal made a moment ago about an at sea interdiction that is correct. It is complicated there. We would have to try and bring more of our allies into this because you wouldn't want to try and do that just with the US I've tried to do those blockades and interdictions. They're complicated and very worship intention, should we say.

And I want to ask you something else that happened last night. We saw a drone attack on a base that houses US Troops in Syria. Given that the US Strikes really joining to restore deterrence in the region, because we saw that, yeah, obviously not the first time we see such strikes against US Personnel in Syria. And they're, I would say, in a pretty vulnerable position there.

Obviously our top priority over there is a force protection. I don't think we have a whole lot more leeway, frankly, there than what we have with the Houthis. Given the very challenges that Jemma described, which are very accurate. The fact that we have a very, I would say, challenging political relationship with the Baghdad, the political sensitivities that the Iraqi government has to deal with in Syria, it's more of an issue of frankly resources.

And whenever you need more resources, therefore, you're going to have to bring them to somewhere else, and that's somewhere else. If it is a priority theater for the United States, it's going to be really challenging a case to make, be they from the European theater or the Pacific theater. So are they going to deter them? No, I don't think so, frankly.

But the best thing we can do to try to achieve that effect is to continuously degrade the capabilities. Therefore, the effects of those strikes become a little bit more muted. This is what we call deterrence by punishment. Interesting.

Deterrence by punishment. And Admiral, officials have told us that the US Response could last week. So looking into the future, what do you expect here and how soon do we think that we can see even more kinetic strikes? I think you'll see more kinetic strikes in a day or so, assuming the attacks don't simply stop, and I don't think they will.

This will have to go a couple of rounds and then I think it'll probably be at least seven to 10 days of additional strikes. We need to do two things here. Create deterrence in the minds of the mullahs in Tehran. That's very hard to measure, let's face it.

But we need to, to Bilal's point, we need to degrade the actual cap. The thing in the middle that we've been discussing, cutting off the supply chains is going to be crucial to making this work over the longer term. What critical conversation. Thank you so much, everyone.

Thank you so much, Blau, for sharing your thoughts. Good to be next. Secretary Anthony Blinken is back in the Mid east with a potential hostage deal still in the works. We're live and telev after the break.

Welcome back. Today, U.S. secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Iran, in Saudi Arabia for his fifth visit to the region since the deadly October 7th attack on Israel. He began his latest tour of the region with a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

According to a State Department readout, the two leaders discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza as well as the need for lasting peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians. It comes as a US Egypt and Qatar try to broker a new deal to pause the fighting in exchange for release of the remaining hostages inside Gaza. Joining me now is Raf Sanchez. He is in Tel Aviv.

So thank you so much for being here. What are the expectations for this latest trip to the region by the secretary of state? So you reach the secretary meeting for about two hours with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. And as well as the things you mentioned in that readout, the crown prince is potentially going to be a very influential figure when it comes to who's paying to rebuild Gaza on the other side of this war.

I was in Gaza over the weekend with Israeli forces. It is hard to overstate the scale of the devastation. Neighborhood after neighborhood in ruins, according to one analysis, when half of all of the buildings in Gaza either partially or completely destroyed at this point, four months into the war. In terms of the expectations, the priorities for the secretary's trip, number one, is preventing further escalation with Iran.

As we were just about talking, talking about the US Striking Iranian facilities in both Syria and Iraq, not killing Iranian operatives themselves. So far, Iran not talking in terms of major retaliation. And the other big priority is trying to get this deal to pause the fighting in Gaza, get more humanitarian aid, Palestinian civilians, and free some of those hostages over the line. And you just talked about the scale of the devastation.

What's the latest on where Israel stands about a potential ceasefire deal? So there was this framework hammered out in Paris about 10 days ago with this meeting of spy chiefs, including the CIA director, Bill Burns. We are still waiting to see whether that framework can be converted into an agreement and whether Hamas and Israel can both say yes to it or not. At this point, the two sides remain very far apart.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is saying he is not prepared to end the war as part of an agreement and he is not prepared to release thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, including some who have been convicted of terrorism offenses. Hamas is saying both of those are key demands for them. So as you said, the US And Qatar are trying to close the gaps and see if they can get this deal over the line and quickly. Is there any concern that any deal could have been upended by the US or territory strikes in the region?

So at this point, no sign that American strikes in eastern Syria, western Iraq are going to have a major impact on talks between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. One wild card here is if somehow Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian DAX militant group that dominates southern Lebanon, got into the fight, that could upend the whole situation. Thank you so much from Tel Aviv and thank you for being with us this hour. I'll be back tomorrow for more media press.

Now NBC NEWS NOW coverage continues right now with Hallie Jackson. As the day wraps up, get the scoop on what's been happening with here's the scoop with a podcast for NBC News with me, your host, Gasubian. We'll take a deep dive into today's top stories with NBC News's trusted journalist. It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful and it's informative, bringing you closer to headlines and conversations that are shaping our world.

From the front page to the zeitgeist. Here's the scoop from NBC News. Listen daily on SiriusXM.