Meet the Press NOW — July 14

If it's Monday, President Trump threatens Russia with crippling tariffs on any country that does business with Moscow as he formally announces a new multibillion-dollar deal with NATO to arm Ukraine. Plus, another round of trade war fears. This time, it's the President taking aim at two of the U.S.'s largest trading partners, Mexico and the European Union, as world leaders, consumers, and economists wonder whether this time he'll follow through on his threats. And the growing revolt inside the President's MAGA base over his administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Now that has some Justice Department leadership on defense or eyeing an early exit. Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Kelly O'Donnell in Washington, where President Trump is making a significant shift in policy and rhetoric, announcing during an Oval Office meeting today that the U.S. will send more weapons to Ukraine while also putting President Putin on notice, threatening crippling economic penalties if Moscow doesn't agree to reach a peace deal within 50 days.

Now, during his meeting with the NATO Secretary General, Mr. Trump announced a new deal to provide billions of dollars worth of military equipment to Ukraine, including defensive weapons like Patriot missiles, by having NATO pay for and distribute the arms. He also had this new warning for the Russian President. I'm disappointed in President Putin because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn't seem to get there.

So based on that, we're going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days. It's very simple. And they'll be at 100%. And that's the way it is.

It couldn't be more simple. It's just the way it is. I hope we don't have to do it. Those secondary tariffs would target countries that do business with Russia, revenue that funds their war machine.

It's essentially a threat to freeze Russia's lucrative oil exports. And it mirrors Senator Lindsey Graham's legislation that is gaining some momentum on Capitol Hill. Senator Graham touted his bill as another tool available to President Trump to pressure Putin to come to the negotiating table. This congressional package that we're looking at would give President Trump the ability to impose 500 percent tariff on any country that helps Russia and props up Putin's war machine.

He can dial it up or down. It can go to zero to 500. He has maximum flexibility, but we're going after the people who keep Putin in business and additional sanctions on Russia itself. This is truly a sledgehammer available to President Trump to end this war.

Altogether, this is a significant turn in President Trump's posture toward Ukraine as he deals with the practical reality that Putin remains a significant impediment to a long sought peace deal to end the war. Joining me now is our team of superb reporters, NBC News senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake, NBC News senior national security correspondent Courtney Kuby, and our double chief, chief Washington and foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, joins me on set. Great to have you here. Let me begin with you, Garrett, if I may.

What more did we hear from the president about how he views this different kind of deal regarding weapons for Ukraine? Well, I think the president here is trying to sort of split the middle here and provide weapons to Ukraine without providing weapons to Ukraine, had a campaign promise to end this war on day one, but obviously went out the window some time ago. But another one that said the U.S. would no longer be funding Ukraine's defense.

Now he's able to allow for Ukraine's defense without funding it directly. And this includes those Patriot missile air defense systems that have been number one on President Zelensky's wish list, if you will, which will be coming from other countries. This is the other kind of benefit for President Trump, who has long talked about the idea that Europe needs to do more for its own defense. Here he gets to say that it's Europe providing these weapons, other NATO countries buying them from the U.S.

and he can tout the superiority of American military hardware. Another favorite talking point from the White House perspective. This is all a win win. And it was notable today, Garrett, that the president talked about the importance of a strong Europe, something we don't always hear from him.

And part of that is some of Europe has had its own relationships with Russia over the years. What more do we know about how this could affect energy prices? Certainly China is a big consumer of that. Yeah, take a look at Mark Rutte's hand, the NATO secretary general here, who's been kind of a guide for Donald Trump in dealing with Europe and dealing with NATO.

I think you could probably argue pretty successfully to get to this point that nature of these tariffs as secondary tariffs, not on Russia, the country with which we do little business of any kind right now, but on the other countries that buy their oil and gas is significant. It's the kind of thing that could potentially raise prices in those countries on these products and could raise global prices. Given the global nature of the energy economy here. So if you're China or Iran or another major importer of Russian oil, it might also increase your willingness to lean on Russia to end this war.

This is just not the kind of thing that's good for the economies of any of the places in the graphics on your screen, potentially including the United States, which could see prices rise as well again, given the global nature of the oil markets. So it ratchets up the pressure, if you will, on Vladimir Putin in a variety of ways to make a deal of some kind and soon. Thank you so much, Garrett. Let me turn now to our colleague, Courtney.

And obviously you can give us a picture of what does this announcement mean for the real fighting that's taking place on the ground? So it's symbolic in the fact that President Trump is providing these weapons to Ukraine. But the reality is there are a very few number of actual weapons or systems that are going to be a game changer on the ground in Ukraine. And Patriots are definitely not them.

But they will have the ability once if in fact there are going to be multiple Patriot batteries brought into Ukraine that will defend against what we have seen are a barrage of Russian attacks in recent weeks. We're talking hundreds of missiles and drones being fired in just a day or just one night, Kelly. These Patriots will have the ability to defend against those to save Ukrainian civilians, civilian lives. And that in and of itself should be enough to help bolster some of the Ukrainian momentum, hopefully including on the battlefield.

The reality is on a day to day basis, it continues to be a war of inches in Ukraine and defensive systems like this are not likely to be able to push Russia's back, Russian military back in any real way. And that cadence from Russia has been just alarmingly increased. When you consider the NATO piece of this, do you have any sense of how that will work? Is NATO ready to embrace this fully?

NATO absolutely has been embracing this already. And one way that they may look at this weapons, this change and how the U.S. is going to provide weapons and systems to Ukraine is a U.S. military component there called SAGU.

It stands for Special, I forgot what the A stands for, Group Ukraine Assistance. That's the A, Special Assistance Group Ukraine. It's a military component that's based in D.C. and Germany.

And that's where the U.S. coordinates all of the assistance that they're providing to Ukraine. Now, NATO already works closely with SAGU. Kelly, I could see a scenario where they only increase their coordination and cooperation.

Maybe even NATO taking a leadership role with SAGU and that they would be the ones to essentially distribute or coordinate systems moving into Ukraine going forward. You are always fluent in acronyms, Courtney. I have no doubt. Thank you so much.

Let me turn to Andrea. Andrea, so good to have you here with us. You know that President Trump had falsely accused Ukraine of starting this war at earlier times. Today, talking about their bravery, which is acknowledged before, but there was a notable difference.

It seemed. This was so different from that really operatic experience that we all saw the drama in the Oval Office with President Zelensky, where he was shown the door without even being given the lunch that was scheduled with the president and certainly not getting the mineral deal that had been arranged by the Treasury secretary without any kind of signature and basically told, you know, the flow up really happened when the vice president seized on the fact that Zelensky appropriately, by the rest of the world's view, said that Ukraine hadn't started the war and pushed back against that. And they seized on that in what looked like a setup, frankly, an ambush. Well, that has certainly changed.

And to what caused this change? I think you saw the beginnings of it yourself when you were at NATO and you were in that news conference. And a young woman stood up and talked about her husband. Yes.

And she said, where are you from? The president said, where are you from? Ukraine. And is your president's is your husband's serving it?

Yes. And since that time, we've seen a notable difference in impatience and frustration by the president. He's expressed it using the term of BS term. And notably, today, he signaled for the first time that he had indicated at some point that Putin was going to go along with ending the war.

And Melania, he never mentioned her in the context of Ukraine. Melania, the first lady, said, oh, yes, but they bond in a nursing home. And as Courtney has just been reporting, there are 700 drone strikes on one night. Kiev was being hammered.

The battering of Ukraine in the last week or so since the president's phone call with Vladimir Putin, the first phone call, the first of two has been, you know, just horrendous and the most since the war began. And the president has also kind of picked up the tempo of talking to Zelensky. And we just colleagues here just handed me a note He's unlikely to change his tactics until he gets pressure. And President Trump started that today with the economic pressure, these tariffs we've been talking about, with the weapons.

And it's not just those two specific things. It's also the indication that we're going to be there for, we're going to support the Ukrainians for the longer term. So there was a 50-day component to this. The president says Putin has 50 days to reshape a peace deal before these secondary tariffs would go into effect.

When you consider what that means in the real-world calendar of the summertime and the military advantages of that time period, is that too much time? I think it's too much time. However, the Indians and the Chinese have to worry that 100% tariffs on all their goods, which is not out of the questions as we've seen President Trump do with that level of tariffs before, it gives them time, actually, to reduce their sale, their purchases of Russian oil. And that's the goal.

The goal is to reduce the flow of resources, money, funds, into the Russian economy that is supporting this war. And what are you watching in terms of what's happening on the ground politically inside Ukraine with some of the pressures about the anti-corruption movements, some of the other voices that are not in Zelensky's camp? Anything stand out to you there? Kelly, what stands out to me is the opposition leaders, as well as the broad society, support the president.

In the time of war, they're supporting him. They're not talking about elections. They're not talking about being concerned about decisions. They are supporting the president.

They are united against the Russians. Let's be clear. But that shows up as support for the president. Let's dip into a piece of what the president had to say today in this consequential meeting with the NATO Secretary General Mark Ruto.

I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done. And I always hang up and say, well, that was a nice long goal. And that missile was launched into Kiev at some other city. I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy.

He's been proven over the years. He's ruled a lot of people. He fooled Bush. He fooled a lot of people.

He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn't fool me. He didn't fool me. That's an interesting assessment when clearly the president had publicly said that he thought he would have real influence over Putin over the last six months.

And that has not come to pass. Putin has been fooling President Trump for six months. You're absolutely right. Putin has been, as the president has said, tapping him along.

The president has now realized that that's what's going on. And he's turned around. He's now going to, he's not going to take that any longer. He's going to put pressure on Putin.

And were you struck by the president talking about the importance of a strong Europe? Because clearly they're in the neighborhood. He has often said the U.S. is protected by an ocean.

Do you see that as more support for allies there? Absolutely. Absolutely. That's another change.

President Trump's strong support for Europeans, strong support for NATO at the NATO summit last month. Strong support for Article 5, the attack on one attack on all. That is an indication that their support, that NATO is united. The United States, being a member, the main member, lead member, united with the rest of NATO.

That's a strong support. And as you just reported, I think Courtney just reported, the NATO infrastructure is going to start coordinating this assistance going into Ukraine. We often watch when the president changes in tone a little. It'll be interesting to see if this is an enduring shift on Putin and elsewhere.

Thank you, Ambassador. Appreciate your time today. And coming up, rhetoric or reality? What to make of President Trump's latest tariff threats against Mexico and the European Union and whether world leaders are actually taking him seriously.

Plus, MAGA mutiny? The president tells his base to cool it amid a revolt against the Justice Department leadership for failing to deliver on conspiracy theories they once amplified tied to Jeffrey Epstein. You're watching Meet the Press Now. Welcome back.

President Trump's threat of new tariffs on Russia's biggest trading partners comes as he announces new tariffs on the nations the U.S. relies on for major trading relations, including a 30% tariff on most imports from the European Union and Mexico effective August 1st unless they make a deal. That weekend announcement coming just days after the president threatened 35% tariffs on certain Canadian goods, also effective August 1st. In reaction, the EU is pausing its proposed retaliatory tariffs on the U.S.

until August 1st as it looks to continue negotiations toward a trade deal. But at least some EU officials appear skeptical the president will actually make good on these latest threats. This friendship achieved 1 deal and 23 threats. So it makes a lot of sense that those of us who are threatened compare notes, as the commissioner said.

And I think we shouldn't underestimate our power. They're keeping track. NBC News senior business correspondent Christine Romans joins me now. And help us to put this into everyday terms.

When you hear 30% tariffs on EU and Mexican imports, what could that look like for American consumers? I mean, it's a huge new cost in the supply chain for medicines, for pharmaceuticals, for important, you know, highly skilled manufacturing equipment that comes to the United States, you know, French wine and Spanish olive oil and Italian cheese. I mean, just think of all of the different things. This trading relationship is 30% of the entire globe's trade is those 27 nations in that block and the United States.

It is huge. So the worry is it could cause some companies, some industries to have, you know, huge new costs and company and factory closures. It could mean new costs for American consumers. And if there's that retaliation that you talked about, that's now on the table.

But that retaliation, if it happened, it would really hurt American farmers and brewers and Kentucky bourbon makers and a whole bunch of really important industries that export to the EU. More of that uncertainty that you've been talking about and helping us understand for months. So when you look at the fact that the EU has, at least for now, delayed its retaliatory tariffs, what is more likely at this point, do you think? Is the EU willing to negotiate or are they expecting President Trump to simply back down?

I mean, they have to keep negotiating. And what we're hearing is that they are indeed still talking. But when you listen to the people close to the president, Kevin Hassett, who's one of his top advisors, saying that they've been working on these deals. But the president is the one in the end who could decide what he wants for the American people and who wants more from what some of these countries have been offering.

In terms of the EU, it's an incredibly difficult, difficult negotiating block. You have the self-interest of 27 different countries. And then you have the trading interest of the block itself. So, I mean, it must be very, very interesting to try to be the person or the team negotiating with the U.S.

on behalf of 27 different countries. I suppose that's good. They're still talking. One other way we look at this is how seriously are markets taking the latest iteration of the president's threats now?

Anything you're seeing there? Taking it in stride. And this is something that we're told is actually bullying the president. The president can see that the markets have not reacted dramatically.

Now, that said, it was the worst first six months for the dollar, I think, in 50 years. So in dollar markets and in bond markets, we have seen sort of a strain. You've got Bitcoin at record highs. That's an alternate sort of store of value.

So that could very well be all this controversy and drama has pushed people into Bitcoin. Although this administration and this president and his family have been very bullish about Bitcoin actually in that business. So that could be a part of it there. But the Nasdaq at a record high today.

So you have some people who are kind of cautiously looking at this snapback in markets from April when the president made his first threats and then paused them. And we're saying maybe the market could be ahead of itself if the president really does come through with these very, very strong and steep tariffs. Christine, thank you so much. Really appreciate that.

I want to turn now to some news that has just been developing. And this comes out of the Supreme Court. We just learned that the high court is allowing the Trump administration to move forward with its staffing cuts at the Department of Education. In May, a federal judge blocked the administration from making those drastic cuts to the workforce.

And now in a six to three, so that's the conservative to the liberal bloc ruling along those ideological lines. The court says they can go forward. The White House is looking to lay off more than 1,000 people as part of its effort to dismantle the Department of Education. And up next, former President Biden speaks out calling President Trump and other Republicans liars amid GOP investigations into his clemency decisions and his mental fitness while Mr.

Biden was in office. You're watching Meet the Press Now. Welcome back. President Trump is facing a brewing revolt from his MAGA base after his Justice Department shot down conspiracy theories tied to convicted sex offender, the late Jeffrey Epstein.

Conspiracy theories which the president and multiple top DOJ officials had previously amplified. In a recent memo, the Justice Department said it won't release any more evidence in the Epstein case and reaffirmed that Epstein was not murdered, died by suicide and that he did not maintain a client list. And that has prompted fury from Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, who has threatened to quit over Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of this matter. And that is according to a source who has spoken with Bongino.

Bongino's anger at Bondi and skepticism of the DOJ's conclusions is built some credibility with his base on this issue is the main talking point for a very long time. So to the degree that you can put the toothpaste sort of back in the MAGA tube, it feels like it might be a little more difficult this time because one, the allegations are are terrible that that the Epstein and two, excuse me, the uh the idea that that, you know, messing with children and doing things like this has become a main tenet of of sort of Trump's messaging of MAGA's messaging. So this is home. This is sort of guttural for a lot of his supporters.

So it does feel a little different than, say, a policy fight or an issue over foreign policy. And that that feeling is really palpable in Tampa this weekend. Layers of different things from accountability to those sort of grievous crimes that you're talking about. Matt, thank you so much.

I know you will keep us up to the loop on the latest in the turbulence in MAGA world for sure. And now we want to turn to our panel. I'm lucky enough to have a great panel today. Our senior national political reporter Sahil Kapur is here, Chuck Roka, Democratic strategist and host of the substack show, The Roka Revolution, and Sarah Chamberlain, president and CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership.

Welcome, welcome. Lots for us to talk about. Let me start with you, Sahil. Let's pick up right where Matt left off.

Do you see a political danger for the president in what has happened with his Epstein episode? Yes, and it's part of the reason that Republicans in Congress have not been particularly eager to talk about this. This is an awkward issue where the Trump base, the MAGA base is angry at the president. I mean, just scrolling through Truth Social over the weekend, you can see the president getting ratioed on his own platform, which I've never seen before.

Some of his own supporters accusing him of gaslighting them. Some of them saying this is alienating his own base. And one of them even said it would kill MAGA. So that's quite alarming if you're in that world.

Right. And as far as Republicans who have weighed in, including Senator Senator John Barrasso, the majority whip, who was asked about this yesterday by Kristen Welker. He said he's standing behind A.G. Bondi.

He's standing behind the FBI director. So it seems like Republicans are going to do here what they usually do, which is stick close to Trump and let the rest sort itself out. But as Matt was just pointing out, this is a unique issue. It's not about, you know, esoteric legislative details or legalese of executive actions, which goes over people's heads.

This is a power. Visceral issue that sticks. So let me turn to you, and I'd like to read something that Charlie Kirk told The Washington Post. And he says, do I think this is the end of MAGA?

No, I've never said that. Kirk continued. Do I think the extra 10 to 15 percent of those who are less inclined to vote, those that are trading crypto and wake up at 2 p.m. every day, do I think they're going to be like screw it?

Yeah, that's a huge risk. Do you agree with that sort of sentiment that this may have limited risk for the president? So we certainly respect the MAGA movement and we understand that they're upset. But we do think this will move on to another topic.

At Republican Main Street Partnership, like the senator, we're going to let President Trump kind of handle this. And we're going to work on passing good legislation. Do you think he needs an incremental step, like give something more in terms of releasing material or just plow ahead? I think we just plow ahead, frankly.

And Chuck, Hakeem Jeffries said today about the Epstein files that we don't always hear Democrats talking about this. But one option, he said, is they've lied for years. Option two is they're engaging in a cover up. So is conspiracy something that Democrats really want to wade into?

They often use that as a political weapon against Republicans and certainly MAGA conservatives. Is this a place where Democrats want to be? You saw two things today. One thing you sell Mark Beebe, who has one of these districts in Texas that the Republicans are wanting to redistrict in a special session, who came to the floor and said, yes, let's make all of this public.

Let's jump. And that's a Democrat running right into the middle of this thing. Yes, let's just open this up so everybody can see everything, which is a good political move for him. But the second thing is we're moving into off-year election cycles.

And you covered this. And it's all about for everybody at home off-year elections. It's not elections where everybody votes. And we have a problem with turnout.

So mobilization and excitement is a big thing. Democrats try to lose. Republicans try to win. How we can get our base to actually get motivated.

And I think this could hurt their motivation. The most dependable voters are the ones who vote. And do you think it matters that Trump himself would not be on the midterm ballot, that that would influence how Democrats use something like this? I've run campaigns for 36 years.

There's one thing I've learned about Donald Trump is there's only one Donald Trump and his voters really only show up for him. They show up Republicans, too, but not never at the level when it's Donald Trump. They love Trump, Trump. By the way, on the V.C.

resolution, let me just say our team spoke to Speaker Johnson just in the last few hours about it. He was noncommittal about whether this is going to come to the floor. He said the White House has a lot more information about this issue that I'm pretty to. So I have to trust that they'll make the right decision, unquote.

Again, sticking with Trump. Right. Well, let me turn to the prior president. Joe Biden surprised many of us by speaking on the record with The New York Times, something he never did during his time in office, had given a kind of a total blackout to The New York Times as far as interviews are concerned.

And he's talking about the auto pen and he's talking about his own process for how he arrived at pardons and clemency to affirm from his point of view that he was, in fact, making each decision. When you are talking to people about this on the Hill, does this sort of resolve some of those questions or does it open up new questions? Well, for Republicans, it's certainly the big issue that they're focusing on. I think Democrats are a bit annoyed by the timing of President Biden, you know, giving this interview to The New York Times, or at least at the time that it was published.

Right. There's a bad, you know, cycle news cycle for President Trump and Republicans. And suddenly getting away of it perhaps to jump in with this. But I don't think Democrats see a conspiracy here.

They're focusing more on the Epstein files today and various other legislative issues like the rescission package than they are talking about Biden. And the big takeaway of that is he says he made each decision. But then when there were large categories of people who qualified based on their either, you know, the type of offense, where they were in the process, that some of those he didn't go name by name. And that's where they authorized the auto pen.

But he made all the important decisions. He made the important decisions and then asked his staff to follow up with that. That is critical in part to defend his sense of was he, in fact, mentally capable and in charge of his own presidency? And then the issue of was the use of the auto pen such that could Republicans get at some of those people who were part?

Do you see that as part of the goal of Republicans to try to breach that pardon power to try to pursue that? Yes, I absolutely do. And I think this is one of the reasons that President Biden had to address it at some point in some form or fashion. And he has now because his aides are being called in, being subpoenaed and so forth.

When you consider how this could add fuel to the fire for Republicans, did you see something in what President Biden said that you think gives them a new lead? Well, I think it was wonderful timing when this came out from a Republican perspective because it did kind of shift off of Epstein. I think any time the president comes out is a good day for Republicans because there's a lot of questions into Joe Biden. And last week we saw a lot of people around him take the Fifth Amendment.

So there's a lot there. We need to continue to investigate this. The auto pen. Big question.

His chief of staff was not elected and did let the chief of staff determine who gets the auto pen signature. I think it's wrong. And the auto pen is used all over Washington because of the volume. But the question is, was he making each decision?

Right. And is he was he able to make his decision? I mean, that's a that's a big issue. Please mark me down as a Democrat who's annoyed at this.

I run campaigns for a living. Every time Joe Biden pops up his hands another day, I got to talk about Joe Biden and not talk about Donald Trump. It's campaigns 101. But you know what aggravates me more than that?

Other people around him. We read all the books. We saw that was going on and they continue to run campaigns in the Democratic Party. We have to have more accountability, get new people into the system with new ideas if the Democrats are going to turn the page.

And you're saying their post presidency strategy is still getting in the way. Absolutely. Every single day we're not talking about Donald Trump. There's two ways to win an election.

You've got to talk about disqualify the purple person in charge and what you're going to do to make people's It comes as NBC News has exclusive new reporting on the conditions inside other detention centers. Immigration advocates tell NBC News that immigrants being held in ICE detention centers in at least seven states are complaining of hunger, food shortages and spoiled food. A DHS spokesperson said in a statement, quote, Any claim that there is a lack of food or subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false. NBC News chief Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles joins me now.

And Ryan, when we talk about a tour of members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, how did that come about? Who are we talking about? Well, this is a group of Florida members of the Florida delegation, both Republicans and Democrats. But it was really Democrats that pushed to get access to what's being dubbed Alligator Alcatraz.

This was after they were initially denied access to this facility. They end up getting a tour. They said that it was a limited tour of the facility. And what they described were inhumane conditions.

They say that the people that are detained in this facility are packed into cages, as they described them, as many as 32 people per one of these cells that divide the detainees that are being brought in. They say that it is hot, it is uncomfortable, and it is not the way a federal immigration detention facility should be run. Obviously, the administration feels very differently about this. They think that this is an appropriate use of taxpayer funds and an appropriate way to run this process as they carry out their massive deportation plans.

But obviously, this is a controversy that is just beginning and Democrats are going to try and highlight it as much as they possibly can going forward. And their visit, Ryan, seems like it would be instructive because the Homeland Security Secretary said to Kristen Welker, our colleague over the weekend on Meet the Press, that the administration wants to build facilities similar to Alligator Alcatraz in other places. So might this be a fight that plays out from Capitol Hill this fall and in other states? I mean, there may be an effort by some Democrats to stand in the way of this, but as we already saw play out, they were able to get this facility up and running pretty quickly without any input from Congress at all.

And this was before that massive bill was passed through Trump's legislative priorities in it, which is packed full of funding to help support the Trump mass deportation efforts. So there's every reason to believe that if the administration wants to create more facilities like this, they're going to have the ability to do it. And there isn't much that Congress can do to stop it. And that there's even much of a will for members of Congress to stop it.

I think it really much more becomes a campaign issue, Kelly, as we head into the 2026 midterms. Democrats are going to point to this as being an example of how the Trump administration is run, just roughshod over this immigration policy and that their mass deportation plan goes too far. When you talk about campaigns, I want to bring up a new Gallup poll that shows that Americans' views on immigration are more favorable now than they were a year ago. A record 79 percent say immigration is a good thing for the country.

That's up 15 points from a year ago. Just 30 percent say immigration should be decreased compared to 55 percent a year ago. So should this be a red flag for Republicans that views might be changing? I mean, it is.

They're showing no signs in that direction, Kelly. Republicans have long believed that immigration is what they call an 80-20 issue for them. They believe that there's nuance in these numbers. And when presented with the way they're going about enforcing immigration, that that likely will be favorable to voters in the upcoming midterms.

And we'll end it right there. Thank you, Ryan. Appreciate it. We're back tomorrow with more Meet the Press Now, but the news continues with Hallie Jackson right now.

He was a young Marine. She didn't care about convention. They made a life together. Then one night, the Marine died.

And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all new podcast from Dateline. Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicion now, wherever you get your podcasts.