Welcome to Meet the Press. Now I'm Kristen Welker in Washington, where we're following breaking news out of the White House tied to two major stories, the intensifying fallout over its immigration crackdown as the Justice Department announces it's launched a civil rights investigation into the killing of Alex Pretty by federal officers with anti-ICE demonstrations continuing and the federal government preparing for a temporary partial shutdown over ICE funding. We will get to those developments in just a moment, but we do want to begin with the Justice Department's massive and extraordinary release of files tied to Jeffrey Epstein. The DOJ publishing more than three million additional pages of records today, including more than 2,000 videos and 180 images.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche noting millions of additional pages uncovered in DOJ's review were not being released to protect victims or to avoid the disclosure of explicit images, as was required under the law. Blanche calling today's release the end of a very comprehensive documentation and insisting the Justice Department made no efforts to protect President Trump. I can assure that we complied with the statute, we complied with the act, and there is no, we did not protect President Trump. We didn't protect or not protect anybody.
I mean, I think that we, there's a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents. And there's nothing I can do about that. Blanche was also adamant the DOJ did not coordinate with the White House as it's reviewed the files. Look, my team has certain communications with the White House.
Let me just be clear, they had nothing to do with this review. They had no oversight over this review. They did not tell this department how to do our review, what to look for, what to redact, what to not redact. They absolutely knew that I was doing this press conference today and that we were releasing the materials today.
But there's not, there's nothing I can do about that. Blanche was also adamant the DOJ did not coordinate with the White House as it's reviewed the files. Look, my team has certain communications with the White House. Let me just be clear, they had nothing to do with this review.
They had no oversight over this review. They did not tell this department how to do our review, what to look for, what to redact, what to not redact. They absolutely knew that I was doing this press conference today and that we were releasing the materials today. But there's nothing I can do about that.
Today's release comes more than a month after the deadline set by Congress mandating the Justice Department release its Epstein files. For the very latest, I'm joined by Monica Alba, who covers the White House for NBC News. NBC News senior justice reporter Ryan Riley. NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Julie Surkin and NBC News legal analyst Misty Maris.
Monica, let me turn to you and start with you at the White House. What's the very latest you are hearing there? What's the reaction been? Is it relief or more concern?
Well, look, I think this is something in which the White House has said that the president, after maybe taking a little bit of a journey on the prospect of it, eventually did come around to wanting to push for full transparency. He ultimately signed that act that made it law to release these millions of files. And there were many questions about why this additional process took so long. But the White House had said over the last month or so that they did continue to support these files and these additional documents to be released.
Now, the White House is not commenting specifically in an official manner, but they are amplifying and pointing to things that have really been released by the Department of Justice to make their point. And specifically, a White House official pointed me to what was in the DOJ press release today, which is referenced to some information that is contained in these documents that they call unsubstantiated, complete false claims that are not true about President Trump. And they want to spell that out pretty clearly and push back on that. And that's why they're also elevating an interview that the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, did with Fox News earlier today in which he conveyed a message that is similar, which is that throughout all of this, according to the White House and according to the Department of Justice, they couldn't find any evidence of any crimes that were committed by Donald Trump, who, of course, has denied any wrongdoing in any of his association with Jeffrey Epstein.
Well, it was notable, Monica, our Kelly O'Donnell asked Todd Blanche about any potential coordination between the White House and DOJ on this. He said there absolutely wasn't any. What are you hearing about that? Are you hearing the same defiance there at the White House?
Yeah, and it was a great question because we know that there have certainly been many internal conversations and discussions at the White House about how to handle the Epstein files. Remember, it was months ago that Attorney General Pam Bondi stood not far from where I am right now and said that she had the client list sitting on her desk. Subsequently, the White House chief of staff, Susie Weill, said there was no client list and that she believed that the AG totally whiffed the initial rollout of the Epstein files. So there was a lot of conversation within this White House and with the Department of Justice about some of those things.
But in terms of pushing for the eventual and actual release, this is a White House that does know from a political perspective, Kristen, that they were going to have to eventually answer to some of the most ardent in their base, some of the most diehard MAGA fans who had really been clamoring for more information and to see this eventual release. And so I think today they are going to continue to point to that transparency picture. But yes, there had been certainly conversations overall about the messaging and what to do on the Epstein file strategy, even though there wasn't necessarily coordination on the exact review of these documents, as the deputy attorney general said today. Monica, it's so notable because President Trump gets low marks for his handling of the Epstein files.
He's getting low marks for his handling of the ICE deployment to these U.S. cities. And here you have these two competing stories, both politically problematic for President Trump. In some ways, though, this release turns the page a little bit from what's happening in Minneapolis, if only briefly.
What do you make of that? Exactly, though, I think there are so many questions. And at the top of the list, the fact that you had the White House sending Tom Homan to Minneapolis this week to oversee the day-to-day operations. You had Tom Homan in that press conference yesterday saying that there was going to be a drawdown of federal agents there.
And then last night, the president contradicting him and saying, no, no, absolutely not. That's not the case. So even if the Minneapolis story for the moment has taken a little bit of a backseat, there are constant developments that require more pressing of what the White House strategy actually is on immigration. So that does seem to be a story that is just going to continue as there are way more questions about what that's going to look like, even though the White House did have a remarkable shift in its overall strategy on that today and this week, Kristen.
I think you're absolutely right about that. Monica Alba, starting us off at the White House. Monica, thank you so much for your reporting. We really appreciate it.
Ryan, let me turn to you here on set. I know that you are just starting the process of pouring through these three million some documents along with our colleagues here at NBC News. What have been your takeaways so far? I think, you know, the White House is right that there is a lot of unsubstantiated and frankly just facially false information that is included within this larger batch of documents.
Because some of this, including one document that has now been removed, and we haven't got an answer as to why. But that document on itself, when you're looking at it, it's basically all of the tips that came into the FBI into this facility in West Virginia that the FBI gets. And it's really just unfiltered information, some of which is just on its face when you read it, not credible because of the origin of it, because it doesn't make any logical sense. And so when you have these really high profile scenarios, you sometimes do have people just sending in what amounts to garbage to the FBI that isn't really credible.
So I think that you've got to separate sort of that stuff from maybe some of the more stuff that, you know, that is interesting or at least is a lead to pursue. But people should just be very careful when they're reading, especially on social media right now, about what is sort of out there. And go to credible news sources like NBCNews.com to get what actually you can you can put some faith in. That's a really important point.
It was notable today, Todd Blanche really defended the Justice Department and its handling of this. What did he say? He was pretty defiant. Yeah, I mean, he definitely said that there was a, you know, that they were doing this on their own.
I think that this was not coordinated by the White House, that he was that this wasn't done by a bunch of courier professionals. And listen, within DOJ, a lot of people who normally are on other jobs were assigned to this and were working on this for a very long time. This was a lot of work. This was obviously three million documents.
You're talking about 500 lawyers who are working on this at some point. So it was a lot of work that went into it. And under his view, it wasn't really realistic for them to be able to meet that initial deadline just given the massive volume of information that you're dealing with. And Todd Blanche today marks the end of these files.
And yet the question, will what has been released satisfy the lawmakers on Capitol Hill who were demanding this release? Will it satisfy the survivors, quite frankly? I mean Appreciate it. Great to see you.
Let me turn to Misty Maris. So Misty, what were your key takeaways after listening to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche's press conference? So Todd Blanche really seems to be pretty defensive about the way that this was handled, talking about why the DOJ was not able to comport with the deadline and also referencing many other cases that DOJ has pursued on sex trafficking charges to establish that they do take these seriously. Something I thought was very notable when talking about documents that are redacted or were not disclosed under the exceptions to the Transparency Act, he went out of the way to say none of them are under the exception relating to national security or foreign relations.
And many of us have opined that that could potentially be a safe haven to shield documents relating to Donald Trump or other politicians. So again, that narrative of getting out in front of it and saying, hey, the DOJ was not controlled by the White House or anyone else in this disclosure. Yeah, he certainly was defiant throughout the course of the entire press conference. I guess the question looming over all of this, Misty, is where will this lead?
Could there potentially be more charges, more investigations? How do you see what has been released so far, understanding these are 3 million pages? We're all still working our way through them. Yeah, we certainly are still working through them.
So Todd Blanche today said, as he had said back in the summer, that there was not any information that would lead to new charges in these documents. Of course, that led to the Epstein Transparency Act because it didn't comport with what we knew about Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking operation. It seemed that there should be some co-conspirators who would be identified in these documents. So what I'm looking for is 302 material.
These are investigative documents that would memorialize interviews that are conducted with either victims or witnesses. Those will be very, very enlightening. Now, I've been parsing through these documents slowly but surely, seeing some 302 materials, heavily heavy redactions there, Kristen, on what I've reviewed so far. But those are the type of documents that I think would be the ones that could potentially identify a co-conspirator that would be subject to charges provided the statute of limitations hasn't lapsed.
And, Misty, Deputy Attorney General Blanche very aptly noted that this release will not end the public's, what he called, thirst for more information. Where do you see this all going next? Well, for the Epstein survivors, they feel that they've been very left behind. Part of the reason for this law.
But I think from a practical standpoint, Blanche said today that they had been over-inclusive in the net of documents that they were reviewing for relevancy, some 6 million documents, but releasing over 3 million. I think there will be questions about why those other documents have not been released from the congressional committees, as well as requirements under the Epstein Transparency Law to identify why certain documents were held back or why certain redactions were made. So I think there's going to be more questions to answer as everyone continues to parse through this most recent document dump. Yeah, absolutely.
We all still have a lot of work ahead. Misty Maris, thank you so much. We appreciate your joining us on this developing story. We are also following the fallout from today's massive Epstein files release, and we'll bring you any major updates as we get them.
Coming up, the very latest out of another major news story from Minneapolis as the Justice Department launches a civil rights investigation into the killing of Alex Tretty amid a new wave of anti-ICE demonstrations that are underway in major cities right now. Plus a short-term partial government shutdown is now inevitable as Congress prepares to debate new guardrails for the president's immigration crackdown. Stay with us. You're watching Meet the Press Now.
Welcome back. We turn now to another major developing story. The Senate could soon vote on a deal that paves the way for a debate over ICE funding as fallout continues over the administration's immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota and the deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal officers.
The White House and Democrats who are protesting DHS funding last night came up with a deal to keep the government funded while reforms to ICE were being debated. Because of the last-minute nature of the deal, there will still be a short-term partial government shutdown. Meanwhile, take a look. These are live pictures of demonstrations in Minneapolis as protests continue in cities nationwide over ICE's tactics and the shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Tretty.
The administration now saying the FBI is investigating Tretty's death in coordination with the DOJ's Civil Rights Department. Here's Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on that point earlier today. It means we're looking at videos, talking to witnesses, trying to understand what happened. I mean, you're talking about an incredibly tragic morning and then trying to unwind and investigate that.
It takes a lot of time. The Department of Justice also announcing a former CNN anchor, Don Lemon, was arrested on Thursday night along with three others in connection with a protest at a Minnesota church earlier this month. Lemon was live streaming, as you can see in this video, when protesters disrupted a service because its pastor allegedly works for ICE. Lemon's lawyer in a statement saying, quote, the unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand.
The White House says Lemon was indicted by a grand jury after a federal judge rejected the government's prior attempt to charge him. NBC News correspondent Maggie Vespa has more from Minneapolis. Hey there from downtown Minneapolis. Look at this crowd.
Look at this. We are talking thousands upon thousands of people who are packing the streets, marching through downtown Minneapolis. This is an ICE out demonstration. Exactly the kind of demonstration people here in the Twin Cities have been calling for nationwide.
They're calling for school walkouts today, an economic blackout today and tomorrow coast to coast. And they're showing up here in Minneapolis clearly hoping to make an example of how big it can get. Listen, this comes 24 hours roughly after Border czar Tom Homan. We can keep walking with this crowd yesterday announced an expected drawdown of federal officers here in Minneapolis to pull some officers out.
Just hours later on a red carpet ahead of the premiere of Melania, the documentary about the first lady, the president actually pivoting on that, saying that he didn't expect a drawdown, would ask to clarify, do you expect to pull officers back? We're going to turn this way. He said, quote, no, no, not at all. So that about face clearly adding to the anger, the fury here in Minneapolis weeks into this devastation, this chaos here on the ground, these protests, this outrage clearly aren't going anywhere.
We'll send it back to you. All right. Our thanks to Maggie Vespa for that report right in the center of yet another protest. Joining me now is NBC News senior Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley and NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Melanie Zenona.
Thanks to both of you for being here, Julia. Let me start with you. So earlier this week, we know that the administration, Tom Homan talking about de-escalation in Minnesota. Today, we're hearing a slightly different tone.
What are your takeaways so far? Yeah, it's interesting. That follows what President Trump said last night, as we mentioned at the Melania premiere, when he was asked by a reporter if ICE planned to draw down his immigration enforcement across the country. This comes after there were clear signs that they were right.
Buvina, who is head of the Border Patrol efforts there, has left. He's been replaced by Tom Homan. And just earlier yesterday, Tom Homan said they were willing to withdraw down if the local leaders there would agree to cooperate with them and hand them over people who had been put inside their jails before they were released if they were undocumented immigrants. I want you to take a listen to what President Trump said about agitators.
And then I'll tell you something we just heard from a White House official on the other side. You know, it's a, it's really insurrectionists and agitators and they're paid. These are people that are hand in size and, and we know pretty much we're getting very close to it, but we know pretty much who's funding this. These are paid insurrectionists, paid, paid troublemakers.
So that was President Trump today. That was President Trump today. And of course, he's now focusing on the agitators who were there, not mentioning, of course, the investigations that are ongoing into the two deaths in Minneapolis. And we also just heard from a White House official that they don't think that there's daylight between what Homan is saying and what Trump is saying, that they're all on the same page.
Of course, what Homan said about the drawdown was contingent upon working with local leaders. But there certainly seemed to be a recognition by Tom Homan that something needed to change. And that's a recognition we are not hearing at this point from the president. Well, yeah, certainly.
And one other notable point, we heard Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche today confirm that there is an FBI investigation into Alex Petty. And yet it's being handled differently than the investigation of Renee Nicole Good. What can you tell us about the disparity there? That's right.
So he said, and he answered a reporter's question very directly when they said, is there a civil rights investigation? And that is true. He said yes. And we learned just this morning, the FBI is now leading the investigation, which means they're investigating.
And under the criminal statute, that if they do find enough evidence that these two CDP agents who fired their weapons were criminally violating the civil rights of Alex Petty, then they could be charged. So that means now FBI is in the lead. DHS is assisting. That's a flip from what Secretary Mayorkas announced on Saturday.
And as you mentioned, the investigation into Renee Nicole Good, Subscription automatically renews each year at $65.99 plus taxes and fees until canceled. Offer ends May 20th, 2026. Price is subject to change. Visit nbcnews.com slash Xfinity for full offer terms and details.
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Listen daily on Spotify. Welcome back. Early this morning, President Trump announced he's picked Kevin Warsh to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve. Warsh, a former Morgan Stanley executive, served numerous advisory roles in the George W.
Bush administration and was Fed governor from 2006 to 2011. Back in 2017, President Trump considered Warsh for the role of the chair, but instead appointed Powell. This all comes amid the president's relentless pressure campaign against Powell, whose term doesn't end until May. Warsh will need Senate confirmation, and he'll undoubtedly face questions about his independence.
The timing of those hearings remain uncertain, as Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina today reiterated his intent to block Warsh's nomination until the Justice Department's probe into Powell is resolved. President Trump today telling reporters he can wait. That kind of thinking is why he's no longer a senator. You know, he's going to be out of office.
Too bad. I always liked Senator Tillis, actually, but he did some things that were not smart. And whatever. I mean, you know, if he doesn't approve, we'll just have to wait till somebody comes in that will approve it.
NBC News business and data correspondent Brian Chung joins me now. Brian, great to see you as always. Thanks for being here. So break it down.
What do we know about Kevin Warsh and where he stands on the Fed's independence? The big question. Yeah, Kristen, he is a familiar face in financial circles. And we have to remember that not only is he someone that worked at the Fed from 2006 to 2011, but he was in the running for this exact position during the president's first term.
In fact, he ended up going with Jerome Powell, as we know. But Kevin Warsh was on that shortlist of finalists that the president actually ended up overseeing or overlooking in favor of Jay Powell. So Kevin Warsh is now his second opportunity. He was able to get it across the finish line and is now the president's pick to lead the central bank.
To your question about independence, that is obviously the top question, given the president's constant berating of his own nominee, Jay Powell, because of the Federal Reserve's reluctance to cut interest rates as aggressively as the president would like. Kevin Warsh is someone that has acknowledged publicly that Fed independence is very important, but he has also said as of late that he does favor lowering interest rates from here. Of course, the question is, this is a four-year term that he's being appointed for. Will he remain independent and pay attention to what the economy is doing and make interest rate decisions based off that during his term as a Fed chair?
Or will he serve at the whim of the president? That is an open question here, a question, I imagine, that will be very much posed to him when he does face that Senate confirmation. I think that's absolutely right, Brian. So what type of reaction are we seeing so far to his nomination?
You heard what Senator Tillis had to say. Yeah, and it's important to note that Senator Tillis also did say that he felt like Kevin Warsh was a good candidate. It doesn't change his view that he does still want to stop any sort of proceedings on any nominee going to the Senate Banking Committee until there is a resolution to the Department of Justice's subpoena of Jerome Powell saying that that's a process that he needs to see completed before he would approve any nominee, Kevin Warsh or anyone else. So for that reason, it is indeed the case that you could have a number of senators that approve of him but don't want to proceed if there is any sort of concerns about what's going on with the DOJ subpoena, which the president was asked about today.
He didn't seem to say that he was willing to pull back on that DOJ investigation in order to get Warsh through. But I think that's going to be a threat that's going to very much be in focus as we do get a little bit more advanced to this confirmation process. I think you're right about that. Let me ask you another angle today as it relates to the economy, a key inflation indicator, the producer price index unexpectedly ticked higher today.
What exactly does that mean for the Fed, Brian? Yeah, the producer price index is a very closely watched measurement of inflation that wholesalers are charging to retailers. That's not necessarily the price that you or I pay. It's basically the middleman before it ends up on the shelves at our store.
Those prices rising by the most substantial rate that we've seen in many months. And for that reason, you do have this new Fed chair announcement coming at a time where you do have concerns about inflation perhaps going in the wrong direction. We are already above 2% inflation target that the Federal Reserve has, and that has underscored the Federal Reserve's reluctance to want to further lower interest rates. So whoever this new Fed chair is going to be once he is confirmed it, now that we know that Kevin Warsh is the named person, that is the economic picture that they will be inheriting a time where inflation has for certainly improved compared to the high inflation of 2022, but still not mission accomplished.
That is something that the next Fed chair is gonna have to grapple with. All right, Brian Chung, thank you so much. Really appreciate you being here on this Friday. Good to see you.
Coming up after the break, President Trump sues his own IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion in damages. Why the move is raising serious conflict of interest concerns. That story's next. This is Meet the Press Now.
Welcome back. President Trump is suing the IRS and Treasury Department in his personal capacity for $10 billion, alleging the IRS failed to take the necessary steps to prevent his tax records from being leaked to the press. In his lawsuit filed yesterday, Mr. Trump and his two sons, Don Jr.
and Eric, claimed the agencies caused reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, and unfairly tarnished their business reputations. Back in 2024, a former IRS contractor was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking the tax records to the New York Times. The suit raising major questions about conflicts of interest given the president controls the IRS and Treasury Department. Neither agency responded to requests for comment.
And today, President Trump ignored questions from reporters about the matter. Joining me now is former U.S. attorney and an NBC News legal analyst, Carol Lam. Great to see you, Carol.
Thanks so much for being here. So the president is suing the Treasury Department in his personal capacity, but could that still potentially be seen as a conflict of interest? I tend to say there's a very, very clear conflict of interest here because, as we now know, the president can hire and fire the heads of the IRS and the Treasury Department at will. So where does that leave us?
You know, this is a lawsuit that was filed on the very, very last day that the president could file this lawsuit, even arguably because the statute of limitations for filing a civil lawsuit to the IRS under this statute is only two years. He doesn't have a really great argument for waiting so long. He claims he only got official notice of this leak from the IRS on January 29th of 2024. But I mean, let's face it.
He's known about this since 2020 at least. So it's not a very good argument. And there are lots of good defenses to this lawsuit. And the $10 billion, that's just media attention.
I mean, there's no real basis for the $10 billion that he claims are a loss of reputation. That's that's just a big, big figure he wanted to put out there. But the real question, as you point out, is who is going to defend this case? It would usually be some group of lawyers between the Justice Department and IRS and Treasury.
But they all report to President Donald Trump. So, you know, where does it go from here? And the precedent for a judge, a federal judge to appoint somebody to represent the defendants if he feels or she feels that there is not an adversarial relationship because there is such a conflict of interest. And that's where we might go here.
Well, Carol, let me ask you, because what kind of a precedent would this set if the Treasury Department did wind up paying out $10 billion to the sitting president? Of course, that's a terrible precedent. And we've we've seen that sort of situation before. For example, with the Eric Adams prosecution where the Department of Justice was instructed or the line prosecutors were instructed to drop the case against Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, so that, you know, the Trump administration could kind of keep him on a line to do to do its bidding with respect to immigration.
And the judge did hire an outside lawyer So it's not even benefiting him in his own party. So looking at some more polling, Francesca, let's look at how President Trump is doing on his overall job approval rating. In a Fox News poll, 44% approve, 56% disapprove. In a recent Pew poll, 37% approve, 61% disapprove.
So underwater. How concerned is the White House and, quite frankly, the president's allies when they see this as Republicans are fighting to take back the House? The president says if they lose the House, he's going to be impeached again. Well, earlier this week, I was actually traveling with the president to Iowa when he did the latest stop on his affordability tour.
And he told reporters that, you know, his polling is great. You know, he certainly doesn't believe these kinds of polls. The fact, though, that they do have him out there doing this affordability tour, going to places like Iowa, even if that's not necessarily the hottest of hot when it comes to the midterm elections. I mean, it was somewhere where they thought that he could go.
He has a good audience there. He it was it was close to the 10-year anniversary of when he won the Iowa caucuses there. And so he did really focus on the economy message more than some of his other rallies recently, really, you know, continue to stay on that message the other night. And so, you know, he said that he'll continue to be traveling for the midterm elections that they planned him out there on the circuit.
Mike, give us the reality check. And as you do, let me show another poll, the congressional ballot poll, the generic congressional ballot poll. Forty six percent go to Republicans, 52 percent to Democrats. What do you make of those figures?
And are you confident President Trump can stay focused on the economy on the last part? No, because we know that he's not necessarily disciplined. Maybe the administration more so is. So I'm not convinced that Donald Trump will be able to stay on message.
We just saw, you know, the reporting of the suing the IRS. It just totally takes the message away from the economy. But it is something that the White House and Republicans are definitely concerned about. Democrats should win at least one House, you know, maybe the House itself.
But I'm not actually convinced that it will be the blue wave that people are suspecting. But the White House is absolutely concerned about it. Even if they tell you that they're not, they are. Well, John, what do you think Democrats should do if they do win back the House?
I've asked a number of them. Are you going to move to impeach or would you support to impeach President Trump? And there's actually seems to be a little bit of hesitation about that. And I anticipate part of the reason is because of 2028.
What is going to play well in the eyes of voters, particularly those independent voters, those moderate voters who you need if you want to try to have a run at the White House. Right. Well, I mean, with the Trump presidency, there's no shortage of things to respond to. And Democrats need to remember that our core message right now that is resonating with voters is this affordability one.
We've overperformed every single special election or one since the beginning of the Trump presidency. And if you look at just the last few weeks, right, you've heard the White House talk about Venezuela taking Greenland, you know, the issues that are happening in Minnesota. I mean, Jalen journalists. And none of those things lower costs for people.
So when voters see the president going out there and talking on the affordability tour, they're not hearing him talk about that. They're hearing about all these other distractions. And at the end of the day, when they're going to go step into a ballot box come November, they're going to look at Donald Trump and say, you're not hearing us. I want to delve a little bit more deeply into Minneapolis.
Malik, let me start with you here. We had Tom Homan this week clearly in tone and substance trying to lower the temperature. The mayor, Jacob Frye, saying he'll believe it when he sees it. What are you watching for this week in Minneapolis?
Consistency. And I think that's one of the things that I was saying anyway. You know, the White House, when it comes to crisis communication, no one would suggest that they've done do the things that they've done thus far. Tom Homan seems to kind of reset it a bit.
And I think that's a very good thing. And because he seems to have a lot of goodwill, not just on the administration, but even if you listen to people on Capitol Hill. So it's really consistency and messaging. And what I would suggest to the White House, not that they would listen to me anyway, is that you need to have particular people, specific people coming out speaking to the press.
So Homan is definitely one of those. Let the White House press secretary respond to things. But when you have so many different people in the administration and we've seen what that looks like with Stephen Miller and the Bolvino and Kristi Noem, it's not something that is actually helpful. So they need to stay on message.
Tom Homan is saying, look, in order for there to be a drawdown in Minneapolis, state and local officials have to start coordinating with federal law enforcement officials. Do you think that that is going to happen? What types of signs will you be watching for to see if there should be a drawdown? Well, local law enforcement has said from the very beginning that they want to cooperate here and that they've been asking the federal jurisdictions to sit and work with them.
You know, there's the core American belief of consent of the governed. And time and time again, the Trump administration seems to be ignoring that in Minnesota. So, you know, I think as this moves forward, we're going to need to look to the White House to reorganize their activity here if it's going to be something that the American people can follow. Francesca, there have been growing calls to impeach Kristi Noem for her to step down, but she's been defiant.
She said, look, we can always do things better, but doesn't seem like she's planning to go anywhere. President Trump seems to be standing by her for right now. What are you hearing? Well, the president said earlier this week that he thinks that she is doing a good job in the White House back to her on Monday as well.
But it did stand out that at the cabinet meeting, she wasn't one of the people who was willing to speak. Even as the president said that he thought that Pam Bondi and Marco Rubio and some other people who didn't talk were doing a great job. All right, guys, thank you so much. Great conversation.
Appreciate you all being here. That is all for today. Thank you for watching. We will be back Monday with more Meet the Press Now.
Be sure to tune in to Meet the Press on Sunday. I'll have interviews with House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as an exclusive interview with Congressman Ro Khanna and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. You don't want to miss it. There's much more ahead on NBC News Now.
Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of The Drink. This month, Demi Lovato is my guest. The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now. But getting there, it wasn't simple.
Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood young and why she now thinks she may have started too soon. She talks about recovery, her new marriage and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook. The Drink is always about the journey to the top. And this was an honest conversation about what that takes.
Hope you'll listen and follow The Drink wherever you get your podcasts.