Welcome to Ether Press now. I am Chris Welker in Washington where we are following multiple breaking news stories at this hour. After some dramatic moments on the House floor this afternoon, Mike Johnson was re elected as the speaker of the house. And the 119th Congress is now open for business.
Johnson technically won the election on the first ballot after receiving 218 votes, the bare majority necessary to be elected Speaker. Now, we are also expecting an update from Las Vegas officials any minute now from authorities in Las Vegas as they work to determine the motive behind a cybertruck explosion outside a Trump Hotel on the Vegas Strip on New Year's Day. We will bring you that press conference as soon as it happens. But we are going to begin on Capitol Hill where, as we said, there is now a new House Speaker.
And in the end, 218 Republicans voted for Johnson. But to get it done, Johnson needed to twist some arms. After the clerk called the role, Johnson came up short. Three Republicans did not vote for him and he could only afford to lose one.
But the vote wasn't officially gavel closed. And after some rankling, two holdout Republicans changed their votes. Therefore, the honorable Mike Johnson of the State of Louisiana, having received the majority of the votes cast, is duly elected speaker of the House of representatives for the 119th Congress. We're gonna have more on that in just a moment, but we want to get right to Las Vegas where officials are holding a news conference to update us on that cyber truck.
One of those priorities, I think we've completed that. The second was to positively identify the suspect. We've also done that today. I can confirm that that is Matthew Levels Burger.
We also wanted to confirm that there were no other actors involved in this incident. I believe we've done that and you'll hear much more about that as we move forward today. We've also. Today I'm gonna be able to share with you some of what we believe to be his plans and motives as to why he conducted this attack.
Now, before we go on, I wanna just address a couple of things before we get too far along here. I want you to know that we're very well aware of a podcast that's going around today and the contents of the letter in that podcast. And I just want you to understand that since we've been conducting these press conferences, I have only given you information that we have verified and deemed to be factually accurate. We've been aware of that document for.
For a while now, and we still have not completely gone all the way through that and verified that Entirely. We still. We are in one of the two telephones and one laptop. So one telephone and one laptop that we still have not been able to get into.
There is one cell phone that we're getting into. And I can tell you that we're barely scratching the surface and almost hourly receiving additional information requiring substantial investigative effort on part of this joint investigation between ourselves, the FBI, and the atf. And so, again, while I understand all that is out there, I believe it is our responsibility to give you what we know to be a fact. And that's what I will continue to do as we move forward.
A couple of questions came up in regards to the positive identification of the suspect in the vehicle. I want to give you a couple of photographs as to what it was that we had some conversation around, because there's some tattoo comparisons that we needed to. And in those tattoo comparisons, in this particular photograph, you can see a tiger tattoo, and there's a secondary tattoo on the stomach that the wife had told us about. You can see that some of it is burnt, some of it is not burnt.
And while the body was still in the vehicle, we were unable to identify those specific tattoos until we were able to remove some of it. Secondarily to that, there's also a surveillance photograph that we obtained of our subject in Colorado wearing that very distinctive brown jacket. You'll see that a little bit later here in some of the photographs that one of the assistant sheriffs is going to talk to you about. There's also a lot of conversation that I hear out there about the fact that the identifications, the credit cards, and a number of things that I provided to you previously did not show up as burnt in the explosion in the vehicle.
And so I did think it was important for me to address a couple of those issues so you understand where we're at. That's a photograph of the wallet, the leather wallet. Clearly, it's burnt up pretty well. However, that wallet was found in the back seat under some debris in the vehicle.
And it contained, you'll see in this photograph, the credit cards photograph, and a number of other pieces of identifying information. The military identification that I initially told you about was also located within inches of the wallet. And you'll see much of this stuff does have some burn damage on it. The passport that I described to all of you was found in the back in the bed of the truck under debris as well.
And you'll see a photograph of that in there. I also had mentioned to you that we were going to be doing dental records to identify the subject in the vehicle. The Department of Defense provided those dental records to us. We then forwarded them to the coroner, and the coroner also provided a positive identification for us.
Finally, we had also requested DNA from the family, which was provided to us, and it matched to our suspect. We then, of course, had now confirmed fully his identity to you. There has been again, a tremendous amount of investigative effort that has been conducted. Now I'm going to introduce to you Assistant Sheriff Gorie Corin to go over some of the extensive investigation that has occurred.
Dory? Good afternoon. I'm Assistant Sheriff Dori Cory. I was here Homeland Security and Investigative Services Group, which includes our counterterrorism unit that's been working around the clock on this investigation.
I just want to briefly share a few updates on some key areas, including the operational activity that led up to this incident, a little bit of information on the post blast investigation as we know it today, and then finally, some of the information that we're discovering most recently about motives and plans to use some insight on why this individual can be the activity committed to begin just with the operational activity. The sheriff yesterday talked about the route that suspect took to get to Las Vegas. We used a lot of this information to be able to track down video surveillance footage around different locations, as well as financial records, as well as call data records, as well as looking at the Tesla charging stations to be able to determine exactly which route the individual took. But more importantly, that it was the individual that we've identified as well as the only individual in the vehicle during the path that he's into Las Vegas.
As you'll see here in this video here, one of the charging stations, just one example, you'll see our suspect here. He'll exit the vehicle, he'll walk around the vehicle at different times. At one point, you're gonna see that he opens the door of the vehicle, he retrieves a coat, he puts that coat on, and you're gonna see that at different parts to include the photo that the sheriff talked about just a few minutes ago. We use this video information as well as all I said earlier about the financial records in terms of purchases being made with different credit cards, call data records, a video canvas at multiple locations, trying to use all that to corroborate that the individual that we've identified is the same individual that drove that Tesla during that route that we've identified to Las Vegas.
In addition to that, we also talked about the phones that were recovered. There were two phones that were recovered from the vehicle. Both phones were damaged. We are still trying to access the data in one of the phones.
But we have been fortunate. Our team, which is second to none, has done a really good job accessing the data in one of the phones that was recovered. You can see the phone here in the vehicle. It's very burnt from the outside.
You can see another image here. But, but we're able to take this phone and be able to extract the data using a variety of different tools. And in that we've identified a whole variety of information. But one thing in particular is there was an application in there that the suspect used to take notes.
In that application, one of the notes is titled Surveillance log by the suspect. It appears to be more of a journal of activity. It dates for about 10 days leading up to the incident from December 21 to December 31 of this past year. In that surveillance log, or as we would like to call it, a journal because it's more of a diary of activity that he's conducting, we identify multiple locations that match what we have in the route.
We identify activity that we've matched. So for example, him purchasing firearms, him purchasing camping equipment or other types of equipment that we use in this incident matched what our data showed in terms of the route and the video surveillance we were covering along that route. Beyond the operational activity, I want to also get a little bit into the post class investigation. So make no mistake, this is a suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device or short, it's a suicide V bit.
We know also as mentioned by sheriff yesterday, the self inflicted gunshot wound by the suspect, the coroner was very specific in their examination. It was intraorbital. Excuse me, intraorbital gunshot wound. Which essentially means that the suspect with the firearm of his mouth and discharged the gun and ultimately the ground came out the left side of his head.
In addition to that, in terms of our assessment of the Post blasted to confirm that he's the only individual involved and the only individual in the vehicle, we did a variety of video and photo comparisons to match the clothing. So if you look here, for example, this is a video in Las Vegas. And you're gonna see in a moment here where he parks the Tesla truck, he comes out, you're gonna see some descriptive, descriptive clothing that matches some of the other video that we've recovered along the route. Please keep in mind this is a very extensive investigation.
So there's a lot of content for us to review and examine. We're just showing examples and samples as we get them. There's more information as we go through it. But in this video you can see the distinctive jacket that he's wearing in that vehicle.
The other thing that's important is the sheriff mentioned yesterday that Tesla sent to us engineers to come to Las Vegas to help us extract data from the vehicle. Thanks to their support, we were able to extract an semi chip from the Tesla vehicle. And Tesla was able to confirm to us using the data from the vehicle that the vehicle was not in full self driving mode at any time during this incident. Finally, the last category just to touch on is motive, which I know everyone's very eager to try to understand and be able to explain what happened.
I'll reiterate what the sheriff said is we still have a large volume of data to go through and a lot of content to go through. As you know, with any one of our devices there's thousands if not millions of videos and photos and documents and web history and all those things that need to be analyzed. But with that just as a preview for as we get information, we're trying to be as transparent as possible. There were a couple pieces of content we thought were important to share for now.
One is in that note application he seemed to have two letters. One letter in particular, as you can see here. This is an excerpt from that letter. He says, fellow service members, veterans and all Americans, time to wake up.
We are being led by weak and fecalus leadership who only served to enrich themselves. He goes on to explain a variety of other grievances and issues, some political, some personal, a variety of other things which we will do our best to release very quickly here. But then there's a second letter where there's more excerpts. This one seems to be dated after the fact in that notes application and in there you can read a couple of the excerpts.
We are the United States of America, the best country people to ever exist. But right now we are eternally ill and headed towards collapse. This was not a terrorist attack as a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence.
What better way to get my point across as a stunt of fireworks and explosives? Why did I personally do it? Now I need to cleanse my mind of the brothers I've lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took. I'd like to just also expand on that and understand that these are just excerpts in there.
He does offer additional information that is varying on the spectrum in terms of political grievances, issues about the conflicts elsewhere, not here, domestic issues, style issues, a variety of things, including personal challenges as well. We are intending to do, intending to release those initial letters so people can understand best they can what the person's thought process was at one point in time. However, please understand there's still a lot more content to go through and that may change. There may be a lot more information we recover that explains either more or shows a change in mindset at different times.
Just before I turn it over to FBI Special Agents Spence Evans, I just wanted to take a note and just mention what the share said, which is our counterterrorism section and all the people involved in this been working around the clock 24 7, tirelessly, truly through the night. They're second to none and we really appreciate everything they're doing with that. Turn over the FBI. Good afternoon.
My name is Spencer Evans. I serve as the special age in charge of the FBI's Las Vegas division. I'd like to express gratitude for everyone that's here today, especially the partnerships that Sheriff Corin just highlighted. It's been seamless collaboration between the FBI, atf, army cidant Department.
If you walk into one of the command posts and someone's not wearing a uniform, you wouldn't be able to tell who works for which agency. And it's been an outstanding collaboration. We do have security updates that we're sharing with you from an investigative standpoint. But just want to reiterate, as Sheriff Corn mentioned, there's still a lot of ongoing investigation.
We have terabytes of data that we have to analyze. We have outstanding search warrants and subpoenas, interviews that are being conducted around the globe as we try to paint a comprehensive picture of exactly what happened. That being said, we do feel confident we have a much better sense of how we arrived at the events of 1st of January and additional information that we can provide. So I'd like to first begin by addressing something that continues to widely speculated whether or not there was any connection between what happened in New Orleans on New Year's Day and the incident here in Las Vegas just a few hours later.
Just to be clear, there is no evidence that these two events are connected. The only things that we have connecting them are incidental, what we believe to be coincidental similarities in that both vehicles were rented through the same service, that they're both subjects served in the military, they both stayed in Airbnb, things like that. We've identified no telephonic or email communication between subjects, no information that suggests that they knew each other, that they ever served in the same unit, that they were ever assigned at the same place at the same time and had interaction, and no witness Interviews have corroborated or provided any information that the two events are connected in any way. In similar fashion, we have not identified any connection between this subject and any other terrorist organization during FBI's international investigation to date.
As I mentioned, we have interviewed family members, friends, subject associates and military members that he served with around the globe. Through these interviews, we've found that the subject held no animosity towards the President elect. That's something that's also been reported. Investigative steps have discovered information bearing indicates that he likely suffered from ptsd.
And we are also aware that there are potential other family issues or personal grievances in his own life that may have been contributing factors. Again, we're looking into all of that. It's evident that the subject considered planned and thoughtfully prepared for this act alone. That's what we believe and we have no information to contrary at this point.
The FBI has been able to confirm some of this through the utilization of video footage in public areas as he traveled from Denver to Las Vegas. We have video footage that shows that he is alone outside of the vehicle and that corroborates again, white lap space. Metropolitan Police Department footage has also shown the FBI as a sheriff indicated, facilitated obtaining DNA from a family member that was able to be conclusively matched to confirm the subject's identity. As Sheriff Coren mentioned, although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who is struggling with PTSD and other issues.
Yesterday I want to highlight I mentioned a tip that was unverified that the FBI received. Sheriff McMahon talked about this is now floating around podcasts. This is a tip the FBI received after the bombing occurred that seemed to describe some of the personal grievances that the subject may have held. May have held.
We still have not conclusively determined that that's from the subject of feel confident based on evidence that we're uncovering on his devices that that was in fact from Leibel's murder. I want to reiterate that, you know, prior to this incident we did the FBI did not have any information on the subject was not on our radar. He didn't have criminal history. There was nothing that we would have been looking into him for up until this point.
We thing I just want to highlight briefly is it's not lost on us. We understand that there were victims while the subject himself was the only person that was deceased. There were several folks that were injured. Obviously any sort of incident like this has a traumatic impact on the greater community and folks that are rightly so going to be scared and concerned and some people that were inconvenienced and some that were taken to the hospital with injuries.
We'd like to remind everyone that we're working with Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Advocates, the Office of Emergency Services Advocates, and the Southern Nevada Resiliency justice center to offer services to these victims. We recognize that there may be victims that are yet unidentified. So for those that might be suffering or otherwise impacted, we'd ask you to reach out to the FBI at 1-800- call FBI. And in similar fashion as we reiterated yesterday, anyone who has tips related to the subject or this particular incident, please call us at 1-800- call FBI or submit a tip online at tips.FBI.gov and with that, I'll turn it over to the assistant Special Agent in charge from the atf, Kenny Kuber.
Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Kenny Cooper. I'm an assistant Special agent with ATF San Francisco Field Division. I have some very quick resource updates.
ATF has brought in some of our top experts from our national response team that will assist with the sipping through the debris of the Tesla. And that's an abundance of caution to make sure that we've got the initiation sequence identified as best we can from the evidence that survived the thermal event of this explosion to ensure that no other bad actors were involved in the initiation of that device. Also, my, my second update is to the firearms purchased by our subject on December 30, 2024. Our ATF investigators were able to track down that lawful purchase at a gun store in Colorado.
He arrived. Our subject arrived in that gun store by himself on December 27th and initiated the ATF1 4473 and actually paid for those two firearms that were recovered from the Tesla on the 27th and was sole occupant of a vehicle arriving, departing that on that date. And then on the 30th, we have video evidence of our subject entering that gun store as the sole occupant of the Tesla. He actually received and transferred those two firearms and took into his possession at that time, and he departed as a sole occupant in the Tesla.
Those are the two updates that I'm here to provide to you at this time. Thank you. All right. With that, we'll entertain a couple questions.
If you could please identify yourself and we'll go from there. David. David, two quick questions. One, the video that you showed him, the Tesla, Tesla, was able to extract that for you from the device from the car, the video you showed and walk around and at the charging stations.
Yeah. So let me just. The question was can we. The video that we show us, I don't stand in versus I won't sure which one you're looking at, but the question is the video that we showed at the Tesla charging station, who provided that to us?
I'll let Dory answer that. Without getting too far into the technicalities. There are various components in there that retrieve the SDMI card. It was not where the video was retrieved from.
That was where we got the data to be able to determine that it was not in self driving mode. However, Tesla did provide and helped RT and be able to recover the thumb drive records. Other types of data include video by the Tesla king of Arizona. Second question is about the detonation.
There's a lot of questions. How was he able to die by suicide and set this off? Can you just in very basic terms explain how that would happen to kind of stop these conspiracies? Yeah.
So the second question is how are we able to explain the detonation versus the suicide? We just believe it to be simultaneous at the time of the detonation. But again that's why the ATS bring in the SABTs from outside to look at what that sequence was for the initiation of the explosion as well. And you know, it's very difficult to see inside of those Teslas even with the camera angles that we have.
And so we still remain challenged on finding some of that exact timing on all of that. Go ahead, Stephanie. So the question is, if we knew of a alias of Matthew Berg and he had been previously on a television show, we've seen that reporting but have not verified that reporting, mind you. Kevin Nyes with NBC News.
How would you describe his state of mind and he's final day? Given everything that you read from his notes app and the meta festival that you see that you reference going on the podcast, have you, have you guys been able to rule out that it wasn't for him or is it still up in here that it could have been for him? So the question is how do I describe the state of mind in the manifesto that was described on the podcast? Have we been able to determine whether that was from him or not?
I'll answer. The first part is I'm not comfortable giving you state of mind just yet. I certainly am leaning a particular way, but again I'd like to be factual to you. I think when you read the documents that we're going to give you a link to at the end of this press conference, you can go in and make some of your own assumptions about what that is.
But I will tell you that part of my hesitation on that is I know that we have a lot more documents and number of things for us to uncover. And so I want to be able to provide to you only the factual information when I have it. And so I'm not going to opine on what I believe his state of mind was at that particular time. But certainly you can see some troubling aspects in his personal life as well.
I don't know if you want to address the second part. Yeah. So in terms of the so called manifesto that's circling or circulating online, we have strong evidence to suggest that it was the subject that wrote it, but we haven't conclusively proven that yet. That evidence relates to other evidence of the finding that we're able to compare it lead us to believe it was in fact him who sent it.
Is it J1 do you want to update on the conditions of the people who are injured? The question is, do I have any updates on the conditions of the people who are injured? And I'm told that they're all relatively minor injuries and they've all been released from the hospital. As you were showing us these excerpts, can you say why definitively he chose the Trump International Hotel and why he decided to come through?
The question is, with the excerpts that we showed, can we definitively identify why he chose the Trump Hotel Tower location as well as Las Vegas? The answer is no. In fact, I think when you read through some of that, you might find that there were some other considerations as well for other locations. We can't verify all of that at this point.
And so that's why I haven't talked about that publicly. There was one, one location in Grand Canyon that was specifically talked about there, but we haven't been able to verify anything as well. All the way in the back, I know that you guys mentioned it's a coincidence, but what main evidence makes a difference makes a difference to what Booker is attacking. So the question is, why don't we consider what happened in New Orleans and what happened in Las Vegas connected.
And the simple answer to that is we don't find anything to actually point us in that direction. There are those coincidences that we have spoken very openly about, but we have not found throughout this entire investigation anything that ties the two attacks directly together. Go ahead. Were you guys able to identify the type of explosives that were in the vehicle?
And where did we find Those. So the question is, were we able to identify the types of explosives that were in the vehicle and where he was able to find those? There's a mortar type fireworks in the back of the vehicle, some camping fuel. And we do know that it looks like from that document that we're providing to you that he may have stopped outside of a location in New Mexico and obtained those fireworks legally.
But that is another aspect of the investigation that continues. I know you have been listening to officials in Las Vegas update the public on their investigation into that New Year's Day attack, that cybertruck that exploded outside of the Trump property. There are a couple of key headlines just to flag for you that we heard from the sheriff there. They have confirmed, in fact, identification of the person who was inside that vehicle as Matthew Leipelsberger.
They are calling this, according to the FBI, a tragic case of suicide. They do not believe there are any other actors involved in this incident and they do not believe that there is any further threat. They also, you just heard them say do not at this point in time see any connection between the horrific attack on that occurred in New Orleans on the same day on New Year's Day. A couple of other key headlines.
Just remarkable video that we saw of Lyel's burger, according to authorities as he was driving from Colorado to Las Vegas at charging stations. There's that Tesla cybertruck there, essentially this video showing the cybertruck as he is essentially charging the cybertruck. And they say that helped them to make this positive confirmation. They also note that they have recovered some data from one of two cell phones that they recovered.
One of the cell phones had a note application. They found two notes. One of them said, quote, time to wake up. Calling the U.S.
leadership Weekend of sequence. A second letter said, quote, we are the United States, but right now we are headed toward collapse. So again, say that they do not believe that there is any connection between what happened in Las Vegas and New Orleans. Let's head now to NBC News correspondent Antonia Hilton, who's been following this story for us.
She joins now. Antonio, I laid out some of the top lines there. What were the key takeaways for you? Yeah, I think what I would add to what you just laid out there, Kristen, is that this is now moving toward a story that I think is going to really center on his mental health, the PTSD that officials mentioned he likely was suffering with after serving his country.
And they mentioned very vaguely that he may have had other interpersonal issues or mental health challenges that he was facing. More recently as well. And so what they're describing is really a case of a service member mentally struggling and choosing to end his life in this horrific and very public way. I was also struck, as you were, by the contents of what they're starting to find on his phone, on the technology that they recovered from the charred car.
And it's important, I think, too, to note that they mentioned they still have terabytes worth of data to go through. So we're kind of at the beginning of the iceberg, I think, of his state of mind, his beliefs, certainly. They mentioned, for example, that he didn't seem to have ill will toward President Elect Trump. And that was a major question a lot of reporters, locals had, certainly because of the symbolism, the visual of being in front of the Trump Hotel there in the city.
And then to do this in a cybertruck, of course, associated with Tesla, with Elon Musk, someone who's in Trump's inner circle. Now. Some people were wondering, was this a political statement about the incoming administration? But it didn't seem like it was going that way.
It seemed like he was perhaps starting to tell a story or his views about societal and political issues in the country that weren't necessarily focused on one political actor. I'll add a couple other quotes to what you shared. That he wrote, we are terminally ill and headed to collapse, that he said that Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. And he mentioned, too, I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I've lost.
That's a reference, it seems, to people he served alongside with a service member and mentioned even lives that he took in service, too. And so again, this is just the beginning. Still, they caution. So much more to go through.
Kristen. Yeah, just extraordinary new details. They're coming to us from Las Vegas and Tony Hilton. Thank you so much for helping us break that down.
We've actually got another piece of breaking news now to tell you about. Just moments ago, the judge in Donald Trump's New York hush Money case denied Mr. Trump's motion to dismiss his case, ordering the president elect to be sentenced on January 10, just 10 days before his inauguration, but signaling there will not be a recommendation that he served jail time before, of course, he takes office. Joining now as NBC News senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett.
Laura, take us through this order. What does this mean for the president elect? Yeah, Kristen, I think you can think about this in terms of the practical reality which you just laid out and sort of the optics of it, if you will. So just to take a Step back.
Remember, this is the case involving allegations that the former president directed his former fixer to pay off a porn star before the 2016 election. Is the only case of the fourth that he was facing at the time that went to trial, the only one where a jury convicted him, the only one where he was scheduled to be sentenced. But it had been sort of tied up in a legal mess for months now because his defense lawyers are trying to say, wait a minute, the Supreme Court said that there is some limited presidential immunity. Some of the evidence that came in at trial with problematic.
So let's undo the entire conviction, let's wipe out the whole thing. Let's get it all put to bed before inauguration day. The judge had been silent for several weeks now as we waited to see it. Now he's just handed down his 18 page order, Chris, and essentially saying the conviction is going to stand.
We think that that's the best way to sort of give credence to what the jury did and that's the best way to serve the interest of justice. But at the same time, he says that he thinks it's his inclination not to impose any sentence of incarceration. He says he wants to give the parties a chance to make their case, to present their arguments as they were scheduled to do in a normal sentencing basis. Inclination not to impose any jail time, essentially telling everybody, look, he wasn't going to go behind bars anyway, so I'm going to go ahead with that sentence.
And he may say, well, what's the point of doing that if he wasn't getting jail time? The reason is that there's really not a lot of precedent for what to do here in a case like this when the jury has come down with a conviction and you have to impose a sentence as the law requires with some level of expeditious speed here. And so the judge has given him an option now to come and appear virtually if he should choose to do so. But he also has appealed appeal routes here, Christian.
So we might see that he runs into federal court and to try to get this entire thing blocked. Or, or he might just say, look, it's clear I'm not going to have any jail time. I'm going to go forward and just get this all done, get all wrapped up. It's not hanging over me when I'm out of office in four years.
Well, we know you will continue to track every twist and turn Lord here. Thank you for diving in front of a camera for us today on this day of big breaking news. In a range of different areas. We really appreciate it.
We do want to turn to the other big story that we are following in politics today. As we said at the top of the show, by the narrowest majority possible. Louisiana Congressman Mike Johnson was reelected as speaker of the House on a lengthy first ballot today after two Republican holdouts changed their votes after receiving the gavel from Hakeem Jeffries, the newly elected speaker. So have a House for him as heirs to the American Revolution and the descendants of patriots who defy tyranny.
In the coming months, we are going to pass legislation to roll back the totalitarian fourth branch of government known as the administrat, Drastically cut back the size and scope of government. We're going to return the power back to the people. And in coordination with President Trump and his administration, we are going to create a leaner, faster and more efficient federal workforce. Now, the holdout members flipped were South Carolina's Ralph Norman and Texas's Keith Self.
We caught up with Congress himself after the vote. He told us that he talked to the speaker about the process to pass Trump's agenda priorities in the new Congress before changing his vote. He also said that he spoke to President Elect Trump a few times during the day and they had a, quote, lively conversation. Big picture here, folks.
Johnson's election is a major step forward for Republicans, but this is basically the legislative equivalent of tying your shoes. And the road ahead is likely to be much more difficult Now. Earlier today, as House Republicans voted for Speaker Johnson to leave their conference, I sat down with the new Senate majority leader, South Dakota Republican John Thune, who officially becomes his party's leader after 18 years of Mitch McConnell stewardship. I asked him if he thought Johnson was the best person for the job.
Here's what he said. As we are sitting here today, the House is choosing its next Speaker. President Elect Trump has endorsed Mike Johnson to continue to serve in his role as speaker in the House. Do you think that Mike Johnson is the best person to serve as the speaker of the House?
And what do you say to those who oppose him? Well, I mean, I think the House is going to decide. I try not to interfere and I'm not sure that my endorsement of anybody would be helpful. I try to stay out of the House's decision making process over there, but I work closely with him and in my experience, and I haven't, you know, spent a lot of time with him just yet.
But as I've sort of evolved into this new role, I had an opportunity to see him in action and I feel very Confident that we could have a very strong working relationship if that's ultimately what House decides to do. Do you think he's been an effective speaker so far? Well, I think he's got a really tough job, yes. I mean, I think he's, I think he's been responsive to his numbers, but he's got a lot of folks that are having different directions.
I mean, as you know, margin like that, any individual member of the House of Representatives can have a huge impact. And I think what he has to do and has been doing is figuring out how to balance that. Right. I give him deference to how he runs the House.
He understands the House. I don't. But I do think that they will need to be and we will need to be as a Senate and with the White House working closely as a team if we're going to get an agenda done that we want to accomplish for the American people. Joining me now from Capitol Hill where they've been tracking today's speaker of our NBC News national political reporter Sahil Kapoor.
And in West Palm beach with the president elect to senior White House correspondent Kate Gutierrez. Thanks to both of you for being here this afternoon. Let me start with you, of course, on Capitol Hill where all of the action is Mike Johnson has now been re elected as speaker. It did happen on the first ballot, but Boyce Ihill, that was a lengthy ballot.
It was not without speed bumps. Congressman Norman and Self initially voted for the people. They then switched their votes after talking to Donald Trump, talk about how this all went down. Yeah, this is a relief for Mike Johnson and this narrow House majority.
Chris. It happened after quite a bit of drama where Mike Johnson, unlike Kevin McCarthy, didn't allow the vote to be gaveled or call and move to another ballot. Another ballot. He simply held it open while he figured out how to twist some arms and turn those defections.
He actually had three Republicans who defected against him. One of them, Tom Matthew, was so deeply dug in he was always expected to vote no. But the other two, keep Self Norman, were more persuaded and he did ultimately persuade them. It took some phone calls from Donald Trump to push them.
And we spoke to both members. Keith Self said he talked to Trump a couple of times, said he had a lively discussion. He declined to elaborate, but he said his initial opposition to Mike Johnson was about his frustrations regarding the 118th Congress that just ended. Norman also said he spoke to Trump, that, you know, Trump was really initiative for him.
He knew where Trump stood. He just wanted assurances that Johnson would fight on matters regarding the budget and the border, things that are important to Ralph Norman. And that's gonna be a real big test for Mike Johnson going forward, how he deals, how he governs with this narrow House majority. Finally, Chris, I think it's very notable that nine Republicans initially had hesitated, and it did.
The publicly, they didn't privately hesitate. The three directions of the sixth didn't vote for M. Johnson. It's notable because now the motion to vacate threshold to remove the speaker is going up out of the rules packet from one to nine members.
They're sending Johnson messages. They certainly are. And, boy, what a dramatic day. Sahil, thank you so much for breaking all of that down for us.
We really appreciate it. Let me go now to Gabe in West Palm Beach. Gabe, as we just laid out, President elect Trump was involved in that drama today, helped get the ball over the finish line. What's the reaction been there in the president?
The president elected his inner circle. Why the president involved? As Sahil just laid out, he was a huge part of it. He was actually golfing at the time.
The first phone call when this was all unfolding, actually interrupted his golf game, according to Ralph Norman. And it was Nancy Mace, the congresswoman, who called President elect Trump. And that's when he got involved, started bringing up those phone lines. That second phone call, he's on speaker phone with Mike Johnson and with the holdout.
So this is a key moment in the incoming Trump administration. Kristen, as you know, this was a critical test of Donald Trump's power over House Republicans. And although there was some drama there, largely he came out on top. You know, there were these holdouts, but in the first ballot, Mike Johnson was able to pull it off.
Now, President elect Trump just a short time ago posted on social media congratulating Mike Johnson and basically saying that, look, this is the Trump agenda will now get underway. So the Donald Trump and his team does feel like this is a huge win with him in South Florida here this afternoon. Chris and Gabe, we're just getting moments ago a pretty fiery response from Steve Chung about that judge's order, Judge Merchant's order in New York to move forward with the sentencing date on January 10, 10 days before President Trump's inauguration. What is he saying?
Yeah, we're just breaking out, breaking down the latest developments of Laura Jared, while just in the past few moments, we got that statement from communication director chief Steve Chung blasting the decision to move ahead with the sentencing, saying today's order by the, quote, deeply conflicted acting Justice Marshan and Mahdan Da Witch hunt is a direct violation of the Supreme Court's immunity decision. Now, Chung goes on to say that there should be no sentencing and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead. So no surprise there, person that President Electron's team fighting back considerably against this decision to move forward with the sentencing and reiterating his call that this is a political witch hunt by what they see as a, quote, deeply conflicted judgment. Sean?
Yeah, pretty interesting. We'll have to see if they appeal that decision. Gabe Gutierrez covering all the angles for us. Really appreciate it.
Great to see you. And coming up, I will talk to a Republican congressman who is in the midst of the arm twisting negotiations today about what's next for Congress in the Trump agenda and the Republican Party after House Speaker Johnson's nail biting victory. That's next. And welcome back.
We want to delve in more deeply into developments on Capitol Hill. And join me now to do that is someone who was seen by his side during today's vote, Republican South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson. Thomas and Johnson, thank you so much for being here on a very busy day. It is busy.
I'm happy to be here. We're very happy to have you. There was a lot of back and forth and speed bumps before Congressman Norman and Self ultimately changed their vote to back House Speaker Mike Johnson reelection. You were there.
You were standing next to the speaker when this all went down. What was discussed? I think all of us want to make sure that we have less dysfunction in the next few years. That's frankly been kind of standard in D.C.
for the last four years. What we're all asking for is a more collaborative, more inclusive and more conservative agenda. And so ultimately when things came together, it was just getting a bunch of us who trust one another together to make commitments to one another that we're going to do this together rather than have these massive packages shove down people's throats at the last minute. You know, Speaker Johnson told our Ali Vitale that there were gonna be no quid pro quos.
He wasn't gonna make any promises or commitments in order to win over votes. Did he hold to that or did he have to make some commitments to get those members to change their minds? No. I was so proud, proud, proud of Mike Johnson.
He didn't do any horse trading. He understands this place has to run better. And he knew that a key part of that is making sure that you don't open the store. Oh, you get a company slot, you get a committee slot, you get an office that's the kind of distasteful stuff in Congress that people don't really love.
So Mike Johnson was principled. He stuck to his guns. How can we make this place run better? He did not cut any deals with any specific concessions.
How would you describe the role that President elect Trump played today? We know that he was working the phones. He spoke with Congressman S, for example. Yeah, this a team sport and Donald Trump's quarterback of the team.
And so he knew that he wanted to make it clear to people that, listen, it is time to get to work. If you num skulls are playing your DC games and you can't get speaker elected, that means we don't get to security work. We don't get to push back against the Chinese county Party, we don't get to roll back these ridiculous regulations. Let's get to work.
The message Donald Trump shared is the exact same message that everybody back home has been telling me, and that is get to work. Well, as you know, Congressman Lis Stefanik, Congressman Mike Walls have been tapped to join the Trump administration. That makes the Republican margin even narrower, at least initially. How confident are you that you're going to be able to to get that lofty agenda that you just talked about done?
Border security, for example? We know that President Elect Trump really wants to tackle that. First, I want to tell you that it's going to be easy. It's not going to be easy.
There are days it is going to be pretty complicated. But I remain convinced that almost every single Republican, almost every single issue, shares ideologically what they want the angle to be. Our biggest disagreements are at a tactical level. And the good news is reasonable people can work their way through tactics.
That's what we have been doing and that's what we will continue to do. But there's really no room for error. I mean, to get anything passed, you basically need everyone to be on board. And after what we saw today, isn't that a warning that it might be an uphill battle?
Oh, what a negative Nelly you are. I mean, let's focus on the big picture here. And that is, people said we couldn't get my Johnson lock to speak around the first ballot, and we did. Now, it wasn't always smooth, but the reality is when it counted, we delivered a success.
And that's exactly what we're do week in and week out. Router. But let me read you a little bit of what Speaker Johnson said on a list of commitments that he put out. It read in part, if you don't follow through on our campaign Promise for fiscal responsibility.
You don't deserve to hold power. The national debt is a grave threat to America's economic national security. And no issue exemplifies the Congress's failure more. I have to tell you, President Elect Trump's tax cuts cost more than $9 trillion.
Without about $9 trillion to the national debt, how do you square those two? The math is going to be documented. Here's one thing we know. You simply cannot balance the budget the course of 10 years if you don't have the growth of the American economy of three and a half percent.
And so listen, people may want to raise corporate taxes and soak the rich guys. The reality is we don't have low corporate taxes in this country. In fact, our taxes before the tax, the Trump tax cuts, were the highest in the OECD or the developed nations. Right now, they're only in the middle of the pack.
So people want to jack the taxes. That's fine. You're going to be sending a message to the marketplace that they should go do business almost anywhere else other than America. Now, we can get this done.
We're going to need to cut some spending. There's a lot of green New Deal garbage that frankly, should be first on the chopping block. We absolutely can keep the lower taxes for American families in place while we are making important progress toward balancing this budget. Very quickly, a quick process question, big debate boiling over whether you should address the border as a standalone package or whether you should try to get tax cuts done.
The argument is if you don't get extended Trump error tax those 2017 tax cuts, now, it's only going to get tougher. Do you think they should be combined or should there be a standalone border package? I've got strongly held opinions on this, but I'm not gonna share them. I'm not in the room strategically.
No, I'm in the room trying to strategically figure out which way to go. I'm not gonna negotiate against my own team in public. We're gonna make a decision together, and then we're gonna go execute together. All right.
Well, Congressman Dusty Johnson, really appreciate your joining us on a very big day there on Capitol Hill. Appreciate it. Happy New Year to you. Thank you.
And joining me now, our panel, Shelby, topic reporter for Semaphore Fashion Kerr, senior advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, Matt Gorman, former communications advisor to the Tim Stock presidential campaign, and Sarah Chamberlain, president and CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership. Shelby, let me start with you. What a day on Capitol Hill. House Speaker Mike Johnson did in fact hold on to the gavel.
He did in fact do it in one vote, but it got pretty messy and you had those three defections, basically. It seems like trying to send a signal that they could block him if they wanted to in the future. Yeah. To be clear, I think obviously Speaker Johnson won the vote, but this was a win for Donald Trump overall.
And that is a big reason why Speaker Johnson won the vote. As we've said, he was calling lawmakers and actively getting them on board. But this doesn't mean that Speaker Johnson is out of the red zone. Right.
And going forward, they have made it clear, these lawmakers. Check Roy out with a statement afterwards. With nearly a dozen lawmakers basically saying, we voted for you because of Donald Trump, not necessarily because we. You've done a great job for the past 15 months.
And so that sort of should be a warning sign for Speaker Johnson. This is probably going to be his easiest day. It's such a great point, Mac Gorman, because you basically have this faction of House Republicans who are saying we're not necessarily going to go along with the entire MAGA genesis. It was a victory for President elect Trump today, but also a sign.
And you heard Dusty Johnson acknowledge that, acknowledge as much that it could be tough slide moving forward. What's telling me is that Trump wants to get his priorities done. He needs to be the one like today, leading the way, making sure that every lawmaker they need is on board. That's the way they can get immigration, taxes and energy through.
Without it, it's gonna be very, very tough sliding. And one of the things I thought was interesting too, clearly Mike Johnson learned from McCarthy months, if you want to call it me a year. He didn't open up the stores or horse crank because suddenly by doing that, it would cause a cascade of other biggest takeaway, in my opinion is Trump needs be a lead blocker for Mike Johnson going forward today and other days. Freddie, Prairie's in the House.
Sarah, how do you see this playing out? First of all, Dusty Johnson is quite modest. He played a huge role in this, as did the Republican Partnership Caucusa, which he chairs. They will be playing a huge role in the next two years.
Yes, Donald Trump will be very important, but Main Street's over 100 members and they have very much obviously at the table and they're working. What do you think the takeaways there is from today? The fact that you basically are seeing these two factions? We should say that, look, House Speaker Mike Johnson, it's going to be tougher to oust him now in the wake of this new rules package.
Nine votes as opposed to one. So that's significant. It gives him some cover. But again, to get anything past the debt ceiling raise, for example, it's gonna be really tough.
It's gonna be tough. We may have to go to the Democrats a little bit, but the hope is that we can do this as a solid Republican Party moving forward. I will tell you, the Republican members used to kind of cave a little bit. They don't do that.
And I think that's why you see the change in the package and that's why I think you saw the change today in the boat. I want to play a little bit of what to say fast and get your reaction on the other side. It's time for us to come together and finally lower the high cost of living in the United States of America once and for all. And we will work with anyone of any party to get that done.
We will work with anyone to secure our borders and we will work with anyone to fix our broken immigration system. Couple takeaways from me fast. First of all, he sound a little bit Bernie Sanders, but second of all, yeah, we want to work together. Well, in the economy and high cost of living, it's important because the Republicans yet haven't figured out what the problem is.
They're trying to solve the economy that's going at three and a half percent of the dis. Johnson said so you've got unemployment fairly low. You've got corporate profits at pretty strong highs, market doing well. So what problem are you actually trying to solve?
What they want to tell you is we got endless men, we don't like the growth of government. They won't tell you that. So what we're going to get into is a tax debate and a cuts debate in which they have to figure out what problem are you trying to solve? Because the problem that Kim Jeffreys laid out is the problem that people want, the high cost of living.
What can you do about my housing, my prescription drugs, my child care, my credit card, interest rates? There's nothing on the agenda about that. Would you hear that as a Democrat? Do you think that's the message that should have been the biggest message you just got.
You put out a tea for me having heard me angry for months. Let's say, hey, focus on the economy, focus on working class issues in a fight. Embrace that fight with corporate America. Right now they are doing phenomenally well.
They don't need tax breaks. They're offer tax breaks in corporate America. That's what they want. Middle Class families are just looking for somebody who's going to get prices under control for them.
You do that variety of different ways of junk fees issues that we're talking about going after monopolists and really producing more in this country, bringing back jobs and supply chains, America, which we're on the track doing here. Matt, do you think that there's a possibility that Democrats and Republicans can potentially work together on some bipartisan priorities in this new country? Sure. I mean, look, I have to laugh.
What year is this election? But no, I think, yes, there's 12 or 13 Democrats in Trump districts that need to have some sort of moderation. They want to win. There are only three Harris Republicans.
That's going to be a key factor going forward. I'm looking at. Sarah, what about you? You think it's possible?
I totally agree that it has to be because there's a whole group of Republicans that I'm going to call them rhinos. They're really not Republicans. They don't want to vote for leadership. They don't necessarily support Donald Trump.
So you're going to have to work with some of the Democrats, Shelby, on this point. I'll give you the final word. About a minute left. In my interview with Donald Trump, he said he wants to get a deal on dreamers potentially.
He said actually cutting entitlements is off the table. What do you. Do you see any areas where, you know, the next two years we could actually see some type of deal made? Yeah, I think certainly on the border, Democrats have acknowledged that the situation at the border is untenable and needs to change.
I think with the dreamers, that is another area in which both parties seem willing to negotiate some sort of a deal. But I also think it's gonna be really difficult because remember, the reason that the spending bill blew up was in part because we had a lot of Republicans complain that too much was given to Democrats, that the bill was too hefty, that it gave too many concessions. And so it's gonna be a really fine line with figuring that out. All right.
Great Friday conversation. Thank you all. Great to see you all. Happy New Year to everyone.
Thank you for being here on a very busy day. We will be back on Monday with more of the press now. And if it's Sunday, it's me, the press on your local EMB stations. I'll have interviews with Senate notary leaders Chuck Schumer, Senator Majority Leader John Thune, and Senator Adam Schiff.
Don't miss it. The news continues with Yasmin Vesuvian. And for Hallie Jackson right now. Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the Drink.
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