Meet the Press NOW — July 11

Welcome to the press now. I'm Chris and welcome. We begin with breaking news right now. President Trump is holding a roundtable in flood ravaged Central Texas.

He saw some of the damage firsthand and that with first responders and local officials. The president's trip comes one week after those devastating flash floods which kill at least 121people, with more than 160 still missing. The president discussed the massive scope of the disaster and praised the first responders. Look, the first lady and I are here in Texas to express the love and support and the anguish of our entire nation in the aftermath of this really horrific and deadly flood.

Nobody has any idea how and why a thing like this could happen. It's. And by the way, I have to tell you, the people here, first responders, the sheriff's office, all of the police, law enforcement, they've done an unbelievable job in speaking to the parents. They said to everybody, there's been so professional.

We also heard from First Lady Melania Trump, who tore the damage alongside the President. We just met with the wonderful families. We pray with them, we hug, we hold hands. They share the stories.

And I met beautiful young ladies. They gave me this special bracelet from the camp in honor of all of the little girls that they lost their lives. So we are here to honor them and also to give the support, help. And I will be back, I promise to them.

And I just pray for them and giving them my strength and love. That person would ask a question. We're going to get back into this event. Here's President Trump answering questions.

I think this has been heroism. This has been incredible, really, the job you've all done, that's easy to sit back and say, oh, what could have happened here there, you know, maybe we could have done something differently. This was a thing that has never happened before. Nobody's ever seen anything.

I've never seen anything like this. I've gone to some real bad ones. I've never seen anything like this. So I admire you and I consider you heroes and heroin.

And I think you've done an amazing job. Brian, go ahead, please. If I could ask you, who's the first person to contact you to notify you that this tragedy is unfolding? Probably Christy, but I was notified by a lot.

And Chip called also. Chip was here for. He thought it was going to be a little flood. He was going to miss the signing for the big, beautiful bill.

And he called to apologize. He said he's going to be delayed because of a little flood. And the little flood turned out to be the biggest flood anyone's ever seen. So Chip and Christy called right away.

She was there. I looked. I looked the next morning. She was right there on the ball.

So I just want to say as a native Texan, I've received hundreds of messages. I told you the other day, I want to tell our representatives that are here in the crowd today. Thank you for your response. This is Texas Strong.

President Trump is America's first policy in returns to responding to a tragedy like this. Thank you. Texas as well. Thank you very much.

Well, that's an nice reporter. That's a nice question. That's a nice. But I like his statement even better.

Thank you very much, Brian. That's right. Please go ahead. Great to see you, President.

Thank you. Thank you for sleeping, Melania, for being here. I'm born and raised in Texas and there's not a person. And our state has been impacted by the strategy, but wasn't so disheartening recently are these ghouls on the left like Jasmine Crockett and left wing media who want to play fingers and play partisan games and fundraise off of this crisis.

And what I live about Texas is we come together in crisis, across party lines, ideological lines. So what is your message? Maybe the governor had as well to these folks on the left who are using this to gain partisan points in viral videos. Well, I'll start off by just saying, you know, they've, they've lost their confidence.

They've had a tremendous run of bad talent. I don't say bad luck, I say bad talent. And all they want to do is criticize. And I hope we can someday be bipartisan, but all they like to do is criticize.

And this way they're getting just absolutely clobbered because everyone sees what an incredible job the governor did. Everybody in this room, everybody at this table in particular, but everybody in this room did an incredible job. And the public knows it. You know, the public's wise to it.

They have automatically had the sound bite. They send out a sound bite and it's supposed to be, you know, you're supposed to say that. If you don't say that, they throw you out of the party. No, they've lost, honestly, they've lost their confidence.

I see some of the people they're putting forward. And those people will only ruin our nation. Our nation a year ago was dead and it was going down, but it was dead. And now we have the most successful nation anywhere in the world.

You take a look. I was with the king of Saudi Arabia. I was with the leaders of the world recently at NATO, everyone said the same thing. They said, you know, it's the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

Your nation was dead year ago, and now you have the hottest nation. It's the hottest nation. Hottest in quotes. It's the hottest nation anywhere in the world.

Every leader is saying that we are the hottest nation in the world. We've all gotten together. We've done a great job. This state has been unbelievable.

I work so well with the governor, with your senators, and with everybody in this state. We just. We just. We get it done.

We've had some pretty big problems here with the floods and all the different things that we've worked out. And we respond very quickly, and they respond very quickly. They spend their money wisely. You know, we give a lot of money, but they spend it wisely.

I can't say that's true always. Sometimes we give money and they don't spend it so wisely. They spend it very, very foolishly. So, Governor, you want to say a few words?

Sure. One thing that you pointed out that we all know about Texans, it's part of our bloodstream, and that is where Texas is tough. We're made for challenges. I read a piece the other day.

I'll just quote one line from it. That is when the rivers rise, so do we, and we rise to the occasion. And the way that we do that is by everybody working together, we're one team, United. We are Texans.

And fighting as Texans, we're going to rebuild. Not just Kerrville or Hunt or Kerr county, but across the entire state, across regions. We're going to come together and fight together and ensure that we elevate even better. Keeping foremost in mind exactly what Dr.

Phil was talking about. As we rebuild, we've got to constantly comfort the families of those who have suffered a loss. Those two things combined, and we will be our quintessential selves. And that is Texas tough, Texas resilient.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. President. If I just jump in, just say one thing, which is, I can't thank you enough.

When I called you on Friday, you said whatever you need. When I called the secretary's office, she called me within 15 minutes and said, whatever you need. And then she came here this weekend. I' seen such a quick response and such a focus on delivering for the people.

But importantly, I want to thank all of my colleagues in the house sitting right over there. Every single one of them called me personally. Every single one of them reached out to this team that the Governor was just talking about the team effort to deliver for the people of Texas. They're here now not here to microphone, they're here just to be here because they believe in the state and they believe in what you're doing as the president.

They believe what the governor is doing. And importantly, this morning I was at a press conference for the community foundation of the Hill country, which is raised over $30 million from the great, you know, people of this state and from around the country. And they sent checks out today of $5 million to people in this community to help them with cash for people, for small businesses, first responders, and all the people that need help to reunite. And the final point, I'll just say, for all the media clamoring to ask that ridiculous first question, try to point fingers.

The governor said it best when he said the pointing fingers are for losers. This state is about looking forward and we'll figure out how to make our systems the best they can be. But importantly, when you see 26ft of water rising a foot per minute, don't go around pointing fingers. The people in this community rallied around to help people, and that's the enduring image.

There's little girls from Camp mystic who were singing hymns as they watch the damage as they left that camp coming out of there. And that's who the people of Texas are. And I thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you very much. And you know, two words, unity and competence. If you were to ask me two words that I've seen here, one is unity. The unity has been unbelievable.

And then the competence, the competence of the Coast Guard and some of the people within the postcard, they saved a lot of lives. They went out and they saved a lot of lives. But there were others other than the Coast Guard. But I would say competence and unity.

The, the, the way everyone has just pulled together, it's rare that you see this again. I've been to so many and I've seen bickering and fighting and, you know, just. It doesn't work the same way. This has been amazing.

This is, and this is the biggest, because I've never seen one like this. Neither is anybody else. By the way. Yes, please.

It's happened, Mr. President. Obviously the staffing was worth it to be. In fact, it was heavier than they should have been because of the holiday weekend.

Whatever they're saying that in the left news isn't the truth. You're a developer, though. At one o' clock in the morning, the technology only goes as far as it goes. Kids don't have Their phones.

Phones are dead. People by the riverside, they don't have electricity. They're not gonna get a phone alert that way. As a developer going forward, knowing that everything was done lightning fast by secretary, known by you, by the governor, everybody else, you did everything right, what do we do next time to make sure people are alerted if you're dead asleep, maybe alarm system, maybe a siren system.

You might know better than I. But what do we do going forward? Because we've got to make sure that people get the alert when it's time to get the alert. Yeah, you'll probably have to do that.

You'll probably come up with something very unique because there is no system. There's been no. This is nothing like this has never happened that anybody knows, certainly not to this extent. But I know the governor and everybody is working on it, that meeting, and they'll figure something out.

So we begin a session in 10 days. We will address every single question that you just asked. You mentioned some of the ideas. There are many more and we want to hear.

Most importantly, we have to devise a response. This is right for this community, and this community has to weigh in, and they need time to be able to convey that to us. But we're going to work on alerts. We're going to work on every single solution to make sure things like this don't happen again, not just in this community, but in other river basins across the state also.

So we will work to get it right. And we've jotted down, Joe, every idea that you just mentioned. Take cruise. Go ahead, please.

Well, Mr. President, I want to say thank you for being here. First lady, thank you for being here. Where we are right now, the hill country is a very special part of the state.

It is universally considered the most beautiful part of the state. You've got rolling hills. You've got these incredible, peaceful, wonderful rivers. Guadalupe River.

Just about all of us have been swimming in that river, floating in that river. And one of the things that's really special about Kerr county is there are 40 summer camps here. This is a place where all across Texas, our kids go. The governor's daughter came every year to camp here.

Both of you know our girls really well. Heidi, the week before this flood, was here in Hunt, picking up our daughter Catherine from camp. And Camp mystic that faced such devastating loss is an institution in this state. It's 100 years old, was founded in 1926.

And I'll tell you, in Texas, it's not just here that the herd has fell. It's Every part of the state, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, West Texas, East Texas, Texans have gone. And what's amazing is you see the closing ceremonies of these camps. You see multiple generations.

You'll see grandmothers and moms and little girls who have all gone to the same camp and the pain that the state is feeling. On Monday, I went and walked through Camp Mystic. In the center of the camp is a cabin called the Bubble Inn where the littlest girls were staying. And in front of the Bubble Inn are right now 17 small white crosses in the ground.

And each cross has the name of another little girl who lost her life. The final cross has the name of Dick Eastland, the camp director who gave his life trying to save his girls. And the water rose in that camp and in that cabin, eight feet high, you can see the water line. Eight feet high.

It blew the windows out of the cabin and it swept those girls out. I will tell you, I've never seen anything more horrible in my life. I just sat there crying. I saw mom and dad come up to one of those crosses, drop to their knees and kiss that cross, and the mom was weeping.

I also want to tell you, and you said this, you talked about unity. The way this community, the way the state is coming together is incredible. There are stories of heroism. I met a mom and dad who had a 14 year old boy at camp, boys camp.

Their 14 year old son was awakened at 3 in the morning. The water was rising. The counselor said, let's go save the little boys. And they went down to the 7, 8, 9 year old boys and pulled them out of their camps through the crashing water.

This mom and dad were crying now their son survived. And I said, look, your son will always have this trauma. You will always have this trauma. But at the same time, your son will always know when he was 14 years old that there are little boys and one day there are men who are alive because he had the courage as a 14 year old to risk his life to save them.

And so we are grateful you're here. And I will say something Chip referenced is very true. There's a video of a school bus full of campers for mystic after this crisis, riding past the devastation, and they're singing Christian hymns. And I promise you, there's not a person here who can watch that video and not weep tears of sorrow, but also tears of joy.

So we are grateful for the response, Governor, the first responders, everyone who's come together and all the moms and dads just know we love you. The agony, my street at home, every house has a green ribbon around it for the girls at Mystic. And that's true in a lot of streets all throughout Texas. And we will come through this one way or the other.

I'll tell you, the Hunt Store right now, the sign says Hunt Store. Except today it doesn't. It says Hunt Strong. They redid the sign.

That's the spirit of who we are. Thank you very much. Yes, please. I want to respond just to something that Joe Pag said.

I'm the governor, the speaker and I announced yesterday that we will begin our hearings in two weeks. But in three weeks, we're gonna have a hearing in this room so that the residents and the people in this area don't have to come to Austin. We're gonna come to them, and we'll stay here as long as it takes to hear their stories, their needs and their wants. So we're gonna be here in three weeks in this room.

Very good. Well, I just want to thank everybody for coming together and the word unity again, but I just want to thank you very much. And we'll be helping you from Washington, D.C. like no other president would do.

Nobody else. Nobody else would do it. Nobody else would. Would be even get back to you, you know, you're fully funded, as you know, and Christie, I would say they were fully funded within minutes of hearing about this.

And, you know, the state of Texas, number one, they do it right, and they've done it right for a long time. And it's a very special place to me. I will tell you that. Politically, I don't want to say politics, but politically, it's been a very special place to me.

Our great secretary of agriculture, who you have done since you grade you up with growns, you come from Texas, and I just want to thank you. She even got the cost of eggs right down. You know, they hit me with that one, and she got them down so quickly, nobody knew it. By Easter, everybody was having eggs at a lower price than they ever thought possible.

But you've done a fantastic job. But it's just been special. It's been a very special state to me, and it's my honor, and we will continue to work together. And, well, it's a bad situation.

And you can never say, oh, it's going to be bigger, better, stronger. You know, it's just so many lives I've been lost. You can't say that. But we're going to make it.

We're going to make it back. We're going to make it back, and we'll make it good again. And everybody wants to do it. And I just want to thank you and I want to congratulate you.

You guys have been unbelievable. Thank you for your wor Unbelievable, the job you've done. Kim, everybody, every single one of you. So you should be very proud.

And we're very proud of you. Thank you all very much for doing such a good job. Thank you very much. And you've been listening to President Trump as well as state and local officials fielding questions in Kerrville, Texas.

The president there touring the disaster area, meeting with families, victims, those who have been impacted by the horrific storm there. And we know that our Priscilla Thompson is on the ground. She has been tracking this story from the very beginning. Priscilla, we heard President Trump getting a number of questions about the response, bristling at the first question about that, saying, quite frankly, only an evil person would ask a question like that.

I think there has been heroism. So really defending the response that we saw at the same time later acknowledging that, yes, the alert system likely will need to be upgraded moving forward. What were your key takeaways from what you heard? Priscilla?

Yeah, that was certainly one of them. Kristen at one point, you heard Congressman Chip Roy saying that people shouldn't be pointing fingers right now. And of course, we know, though, that it's not just reporters who are asking those questions about accountability. There are some people who lost children, who lost family members and want to know if something had been done differently, if perhaps their family member, their loved one could have been saved.

But we heard a lot of diversion on that question of accountability. The president did at one point acknowledge when he was asked a question about what should be different moving forward, that, yes, there probably should be a siren system or some sort of warning system. But then he quickly sort of punted that question to the governor. And we heard the governor saying that there would be the special legislative session to be to begin later this month, and the lieutenant governor saying that that second meeting in three weeks, that second hearing is going to be held here in Kerrville, that they want to hear from residents about what went wrong, what they feel like should change so that they can have that input in making those decisions.

And then the other thing that I was struck by is just all of the praise for FEMA and the federal response. You heard the president praising Kristi Noem. You heard Christi Noem praising the president and the governor out, also praising the president and the federal response, saying that this was the quickest that he had ever seen resources and a disaster declaration being approved and the Resources coming in. And of course, those appraises come as FEMA has been under fire with this new requirement that Kristi Noem approve any expenditures over $100,000 in questions around if that had delayed any of the aide getting here.

So obviously a state official saying that there was no delay, that aid came very quickly and really emph not so much about sort of scaling down fema, but this idea that this recovery should be state led because these state officials know the community's best. So doubling down on a lot of those policies surrounding fema. And then obviously the other thing that we heard a lot of was just the feelings and the grief for the families who have lost loved ones and the victims. You heard first Lady Melania Trump saying that they prayed with them, they hugged them, they spent a lot of time with them.

And she said that they would be back. She promised that they would be back. And you heard Senator Ted Cruz. They're talking about parents who just fell to their knees and cry.

I can't miss it. As they were grappling with this loss. And that that has really rallied the whole state. And while there is so much grief in this community, that does not negate the questions around accountability.

And I will tell you, every local inside of that I've spoken to has said they do believe there should have been some kind of county wide warning system to let people know that those flood waters were coming. Yeah. I had an opportunity to talk to President Trump exclusively yesterday on the phone and he acknowledged as much. He said in retrospect, you have to look at upgrading the alert system there.

Priscilla, I want you to follow up though, on what you're talking about in terms of how the community is getting through this horrific tragedy. You are there on the ground. You are talking to people who have been impacted by this firsthand. How is this community coming together to lean on each other and pull each other through this moment?

Yeah, Kristen. Well, I want to show you some of what that looks like. We are actually standing in front of Guadalupe river at a memorial that has gone up here and you can see there are crosses all the way down here. We're not even showing the full extent of them, but for all of the dozens of people who've lost their lives, you see the ribbons on the crosses, the flowers on the crosses.

Some of them even have photos on them and the flags. And so there is this sense of hill country strong, Kerrville strong, coming together and remembering those victims like you see there with that photo there. And people have been coming out here all day sitting by the river and just, just sitting and just looking at this memorial and this river, which is so peaceful and so quiet right now. But we know that was not the case just a week ago here.

And I will also say that as we've been here today, we have seen those search teams going into the water with boats, walking up the river banks on foot looking for those who are missing. Still. We're talking about more than 160 people in this county alone who are still missing. And the fear is that given that they have not found anyone alive since Friday, that the death toll could take up dramatically as they continue that search and continue to try to bring some closure to so many families here.

Priscilla Thompson, thank you so much for your fantastic reporting on the ground there. I know this is a heartbreaking story. We really appreciate you being there for us. Thank you so much.

We do want to keep this conversation going with our panel. On set is Danielle ds, congressional reporter notice, Anthony Coley, former Justice Department spokesperson under President Biden, and an NBC News contributor and Republican strategist, T.W. arihi. Thanks to all of you for being here on what is yet another somber day after this really somber week.

And yell, let me start with you, because you're from Texas, my condolences to you and the entire state. You've talked about the fact that Camp mystic is an institution. Everyone knows someone who has a daughter there who attends the camp. What were your takeaways from what we heard and how the state is recovering from this tragedy?

Personally, I'm very glad, Kristen, to see that the president visited the state with local, with government officials, several officials, but local officials, to pay attention to this horrible tragedy, tragedy that affected so many people, specifically children. This is one of those massive tragedies that affected more than dozens of little girls. So the fact that he's there I think is very important. Trying to take away from the politization, politicization of this incident, refusing to answer questions.

Of course, some could have done differently, but still giving attention to this issue. But it is hard to overstate, truly, what Canton means to Texas, what it means for girls. I grew up wanting to go there. Fortunately, could not go there.

Had a friend that went there. And it's devastating to see what happened to the Hill Country, a place where a lot of Texans vacation and where people never thought that could be dangerous when they vacationed over 4th of July weekend. Yeah, it's just devastating. TW you saw President Trump there, Bristol, with the first question over what could have been done differently.

But then he did Engage a little bit later with the idea of, okay, the response was heroic according to the president, according to the officials in the room. At the same time, what can we do to prevent this from happening again? What do you make of how the president, how others are answering this question, that, look, we've got to look at the possibility of upgrading this alert system in the future? They should.

I think the siren system should be in place moving forward. You got to realize, I think Chip Roy was right to point this out. The water rising so fast and so quickly at the dead of the night. When it did, when the alerts went out, people had their phones on, do not disturb, couldn't get to those rural areas.

Clearly there's gaps and care. And when you see that in action, the right thing to do is say, okay, what can we do differently next time? But secondly, as the President points out, focus on the heroism, focus on the helpers. Look at the tremendous examples of Texas, Texans helping Texans, of Americans helping Americans against the Cajun Navy.

There's so many tremendous stories amid such horror. And I think right now we all understand that some needs to be fixed. But right now it's focused on getting those 166 plus people found and healing the families. It's unbearable.

Anything to think about? They haven't found so many of those precious souls. Right. It's heartbreaking.

Still, even more than a week out of here. You said something, though, that peaked my ear. Right. There are gaps in the system, but these gaps are not new.

There have been calls, repeated calls for an alert system for years. The Texas legislature unfortunately, did not heed those calls. This is not the first time, you know, this, that there have been flooding along this river. 1987, I think, is the last time.

So 10 meterside then, too. And so my point here is that this is not the first time. And it was important for the questions. The first question that the president got, that question wasn't out of bounds and he should have answered it as opposed to feeling attacked.

I get to your point, I'm glad he's there, but he was the one who injected politics into this press briefing, so it was a fair question. Daniela, so to the what happens next point, there's going to be discussion about this on Capitol Hill. There will likely be hearings that are held. What, if any, role do you anticipate Congress will play?

Is there a way that the federal government can insert itself into not just Texas, but other states across the country to make sure that these alert systems are in place? Anthony's point, you know, Typically in a year like this, when a disaster happens in the country, you see Congress passing some sort of supplemental aid package, funding package to send back to that state to be able to help the people of that state through that disaster. It looks a little differently now considering the government has the federal government. House Republicans and Republicans have been cutting back on spending.

So it could be very tricky to see how they handle this. You know, you hear Ted Cruz say, I want to see a bipartisan conversation on how to address this issue. But the likelihood of being able to pass a sort of funding package, it's low. And it doesn't seem like that's exactly what's gonna happen in this case.

Yeah. Weigh in on that Til, because here we are getting closer to the midterms. They just passed a huge bill. The president's one big beautiful bill.

Do you think there's any universe where more funding makes its way to Texas? Sure. I think the first thing that needs to be figured out is exactly what's needed here. The Texas state government saying they're getting everything they need.

So what exactly is it you talked about? The siren system they're reporting. I saw that's not an overly expensive undertaking. The question was priorities.

And that just leads me to another thought. As you pointed out, where else in the country are there these gaps? What other state governments are missing it? And it's a state government issue in many of these cases.

That's the big question we're gonna have to ask ourselves. If Governor Abbott comes forward and says, hey, we need X, Y and Z, I feel very confident that Senator Corn and Senator Cruz will take that up and ride the troops again. Yeah, Anthony, I thought it was notable that the first lady weighed in. We don't usually hear from her.

And I thought it was just striking to hear her voice. For the president to pause to let her have her say in this moment, it sort of speaks to the enormity of this event. What do you make of the optics that we saw coming out of this presidential visit? Well, it's good that she was.

She was there, that he was there. I think it's been a missed opportunity, though. Like right now, people are paying. People in Texas in particular are paying attention to what this president is saying.

Right. We don't always get these moments of clarity. We see them in big moments, super bowl moments. Right.

Where people with things break through. This is something that has broken through, and this president squandered the opportunity, even with the first lady by his side. And it's disappointing. Give me a final thought Melania Trump was gifted a bracelet from campus.

There's something to know about the bracelet at Camp Mistake. I've seen one a lot of times, especially on my friend's wrist. They're given to campers. They're charm bracelets.

And it was interesting to see that she said that she was gonna go back after receiving that. I think it's notable that she was there. Yeah. I think a lot of people will track that second visit if and when it does happen.

There's a big Senate race unfolding in Texas. Bring you guys back to talk about it another day. I think it was important to stay focused on that. There were responsive floods today, guys.

Thank you so much for being here. Danielle, Anthony and TW really appreciate it. Coming up, more of my exclusive phone conversation with President Trump as he tells me he's close to deciding on a blanket tariff rate of up to 20 for more than 100 US trading partners. Has he turned up the heat on Canada, say without watching me, the press down.

Welcome back. President Trump is once again doubling down on his hair threats, telling me an exclusive phone conversation yesterday that he's preparing blanket tariffs on most of America's trading partners. President Trump telling me, quote, we're just going to say all of the remaining countries are going to pay, whether it's 20 or 15. We'll work that out.

Now, I think the tariffs have been very well received. President Trump, of course, has been sending out individual letters so far to almost two dozen countries informing them of the US tariff rate that will go into effect on August 1st unless they make a deal. The latest leader to receive a letter from the president is Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Shortly after my phone conversation, the president announced on social media he would impose a 35% tariff on certain Canadian imports, renewing the months long trade tensions with one of America's longest trading largest trading partners.

Joining now as NBC News chief Justice and national affairs correspondent Kelly o'. Donnell. Kelly, thanks so much for being here on this really busy news Friday. What should we make of this?

On again, off again trade fight between President Trump and Canada. The implications of the possibility of 35% tariffs against Canada. Well, your conversation with the President, Kristen, really has been driving a lot of the questions today and coverage across all kinds of platforms because he injected more uncertainty. And uncertainty tends to be one of the things that causes unrest in business markets and can be part of the tension between nations.

Canada, of course, has made clear that they are engaged in this. They've contacted the White House. They want to negotiate. They Also talked about reciprocal or tariffs in response.

And part of what is so notable is even though the president office says we don't need anything, the US Meaning doesn't need anything for Canada, they are one of our biggest trading partners. And whether it is oil or lumber or parts of the automobile business that are intertwined between the US And Canada, it is a long standing relationship with a lot of economic impact. So the President is certainly raising questions about how he wants to approach this. Almost get a sense that in some ways he might be sort of over it, in the sense that it has been difficult to extract formal deals.

So they have kind of shifted toward frameworks or conversations with some of the biggest trading partners. And then as he talked to you about having a blanket approach, whether it's 15 or 20% on certain nations, on even higher amount on a friend like Canada. So uncertainty continues, the delays in implementation continue, and the president continuing to invite more conversations to try to result in former deals. Yeah, I think you really hit the nail on the head when you talk about this uncertainty.

That is one of the most, I think from the perspective of Wall street and Main street, one of the factors that is leading to some of the turmoil that we're seeing. I want to ask you because in his letter to Canada, the president cited the fentanyl crisis. Of course, we know that less than 1% of fentanyl that comes to the US comes from Canada. And his letter to Brazil, he mentioned the investigation before President Bolsonaro.

So what does that say about how the president uses tariff policies? It wasn't just an economic tool. It has definitely become more than an economic tool. And the president is using an official lever of government.

And again, if we go back to the beginning, Congress is really supposed to be enacting tariffs, not the president unilaterally. And he is going beyond the normal use of this pressure. Clearly, international affairs have always included pressure from one nation to another to try to get something from them. They usually stay within a lane.

It would normally be about economic matters. But certainly as serious as a fentanyl issue is, clearly the evidence and the facts say Canada is a very small part of that problem in the United States. When you look at Brazil reaching into Brazil and talking about their internal justice system charges against a former president, something that our president feels some affiliation with, having used the term witch hunt, which he often used about his own legal challenges. The current president, Brazil, saying, we will be lectured by another nation about how to handle our internal affairs.

So clearly President Trump is using his power in very broad ways. Kelly ODonnell, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Coming up next, President Trump teases a major announcement on Russia, including new potential sanctions on Moscow as the US Strikes a deal on weapons to Ukraine for NATO.

You're watching THE press now. Welcome back to my conversation with President Trump yesterday. I also pressed him on the war Ukraine. The president telling me he's disappointed in Russia and hinting he has a major statement on Russia plan for Monday, but he declined to elaborate.

President Trump also revealed to me a new weapons deal he reached with NATO saying, quote, we're sending weapons to NATO and NATO is paying for those weapons 100%. So what we're doing is the weapons that are going out are going to NATO and then NATO is going to be giving those weapons and NATO is paying for those weapons. When I asked him if the US Would also be sending weapons directly to Ukraine, the president said, no, we're not sending to Ukraine, we're sending them through NATO. In response to those comments, NATO spokesperson said, quote, allies continue to work to ensure Ukraine has the support they need to defend themselves against Russia's aggression.

This includes urgent efforts to procure key supplies for the United States, including air defense and ammunition. Joining me now on set as ABC News national security reporter Gordon Lubel. Thank you so much for being here. So when I first heard about this deal with NATO really tried to press the president on the specifics of this.

How would a deal like this work? Can you provide more context? What exactly does it mean to have NATO pay for and supply the weapons, distribute the weapons? I mean, it means a completely different model than what has ever been used.

I think it's unclear what exactly the president means and we'll find out maybe in coming days if there's more to that. Clearly, the president wants to distance himself from contributing aid to Ukraine. He's currently in a mode of frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin. We'll see how long that lasts.

But for right now, it seems like this is a way to kind of thread the needle with Ukraine, provide some assistance through NATO at NATO's expense. However, that exactly works, practically speaking, and maybe still get to a deal somehow down the line. And it comes as he's expressing increased frustration with Russia this week, publicly saying that the United States gets fed a lot of bs, although he said the full term by Putin. And then in his call with me saying that he's really disappointed with Russia and he has this major announcement coming on Monday, a press and over.

Does that mean, does it mean sanctions? He wouldn't say. We know that Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, has been preparing the sanctions package against Ukraine. Have you heard anything about what he might be announcing or the implications of an announcement coming against the backdrop of momentum building for sanctions package?

I think anyways. Yes, still and they maybe still trying to figure it out over the weekend is you well know the president sometimes gets overski's in terms of what he says rhetorically and then like they kind of figured out on the fly. You know, again, this is the kind of more the furthest he's gone as of late with regard to Putin in terms of his frustration. And it's kind of growing.

I think from what I understand the reaction from Moscow is we're calm here. We're going to weather this current storm. Like we'll see what happens. Now if the frustration is sustained by the president, I think then Putin is going to, to maybe do a recalculation of his own position.

Yeah, we'll see what he announces. I should say sections against Russia, not Russians against Ukraine. Very quickly asked the president about the defense secretary pet Hegseth. He said he's doing a great job despite the reports that Hegseth had actually paused weapons shipments without making White House aware.

Right. And so we don't know who said what to whom just yet. It's been very confusing and he's sticking with his defense secretary. But as you also well know, he sticks with people until he doesn't stick with him.

That's right. All right. Another storyline we'll be watching very closely out of the White House. Gordon, thanks so much for being here.

Really appreciate it. We'll be back Monday with more MEET the Press now. And if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press. On your local NBC news station.

I'll have interviews with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Senator John Rosso and Governor Andy Bashir. Do not miss it. The news continues with Tom Costello in for Hallie Jackson right now.