Meet the Press NOW — July 22

A is for asking, B is for beginning the conversation, C is for choosing which treatment is right for me, and Z is for Zepound. Ask a doctor about Zepound Quick Pen. Save at zepound.ca. Exclusions and exceptions may apply.

Zepound! If it's Thursday, a top justice department official meets with convicted Epstein accomplice galain Maxwell, as house lawmakers subpoena Maxwell for more information on the Epstein files, adding even more fuel to the political fire facing the White House. Plus, President Trump is set to make a rare visit to the Federal Reserve headquarters this hour, as he continues to pressure Chairman Jerome Powell to lower interest rates, and criticizes the cost of renovations to the Federal Reserve Building. And big moves in a big Senate race.

Lara Trump said she won't run in battleground North Carolina, as both the RNC Chairman and the State's former Democratic Governor prepared to jump in, setting the stage for one of the midterms' most hotly contested elections. Welcome to Meet the Press Now, I'm Kristen Welker. It has been another day filled with development surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein case, even as the White House continues to try to tighten its grip on the messaging around the matter of deceased, convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Today, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as Mr.

Trump's personal lawyer, met with longtime Epstein associate and ex-girlfriend, Galaine Maxwell. That meeting, which went for most of the day, wrapped up just moments ago at the Federal courthouse in Tallahassee. Blanche previously painted the meeting as part of a quest for justice. But it is unclear what the DOJ expects to get for Maxwell, who Federal prosecutors have previously said was willing to, quote, brazenly lie under oath.

She was sentenced to 20 years in a federal prison after a 2021 sex trafficking conviction. Meanwhile, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee is now planning to depose Maxwell on August 11th. And three Republicans on the committee joined Democrats late yesterday in a vote to subpoena the Justice Department for all of the Epstein files. The committee is also subpoenaing 10 prominent political figures in search of information on Epstein.

Today, Congressman Comer, who chairs the Oversight Committee, said the move should not come as a surprise. The Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have been very interested in this Epstein ordeal for weeks now. I told Speaker Johnson last week, if we were in session this week that Republicans on the Oversight Committee were going to move to be more aggressive in trying to get transparency with Epstein files. So we did that, and I think that's what the American people want.

Now, it comes as the President is seeking to downplay a Wall Street Journal report that Attorney General Pambondi told Mr. Trump two months ago, his name was among many in the Epstein files. As we noted yesterday, that in and of itself is not assigned wrongdoing. But when President Trump was asked last week about this, here's what he said.

What does she say about what you have specifically told you about all that your name up here in the Bible? She's given us just a very quick briefing and in terms of the credibility of the different things that they've seen. And I would say that these files were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by the Biden. And we went through years of that with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, with all of the different things that we had to go through.

We've gone through years of it, but she's handled it very well, and it's going to be up to her. Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release. The President already appears to have largely moved on from his assertions. The Epstein files were a Democratic hoax, and the action from Republicans on Capitol Hill indicates this will be a lingering problem for President Trump, who seems to be discovering for the first time the limits of his ability to pivot his MAGA base toward friendlier topics.

Do you want me now to start us off and break this all down as White House correspondent, Yamiche Alcador, law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter, and senior national political reporter, Sahil Kapoor. Yamiche, let me start with you. So when asked about the Epstein files, President Trump has as we just heard there really zeroed in on the idea that Pam Bondi can release, quote, any credible information she wants to. So I guess the question is, in terms of this new report from the Wall Street Journal, can you give us more context on why the President may be splitting hairs and some of his answers here?

Well, it's a good question because President Trump, as you said, has underscored the idea that credible information should be released. And if the Wall Street Journal reporting is to be believed here, what you have is the President being told by the Attorney General that his name appears in the file. The Wall Street Journal is very clear that just because your name appears or doesn't mean that there's wrong doing it, it's not in some way surprising that the President's name would appear because he and Jeffrey Epstein were friends at one point. That being said, you can tell in this environment that the President is feeling the pressure to not be associated with Jeffrey Epstein at any point, in any sort of way.

And as a result, you have the President sort of continuing to try to have all the space he can with Jeffrey Epstein. I think it's really interesting and it does give this context that maybe the reason why the President doesn't want to release all files is because some of those files would have his name in them. That being said, this lingering controversy, I think the word lingering is so apt here because the President has not been able to really have a scandal like this. It has not had a scandal like this.

He's been able to sort of pivot away from so many different things, whether it's cases against him January 6, anything, all these different things that would take down any other politician. And then here you have this Jeffrey Epstein controversy that his own base is holding on to. And he's not able to pivot away from it. That's just a new experience and something I've not seen in the decade that I've been covering, President Trump.

And certainly, Kristin, you covered him longer than me. And you know that the President's able to do and sort of be able to pivot his supporters away from all sorts of things. And this time he just couldn't do it. It hasn't been able to do it.

Even if you should just delve into that because it really is extraordinary. I mean, when you think about it, this is the first time that we are seeing a real split within the MAGA base. Quite frankly, we have not seen this before and is part of this, the optics of the fact that we are learning. And of course, we've known historically, he did have this friendship with Jeffrey Epstein sort of putting him in these elite circles.

As part of the optics that complicates him being in his MAGA base, putting aside all of the criminal activity by Jeffrey Epstein. That's right. To me, it is extraordinary, as you said, this moment that he's not able to sort of direct people's attention to someone else. It's also extraordinary because he's done other things that maybe would direct people's attention away from you.

You have Tulsi Gabbard talking about and making claims against the former President Obama and Hillary Clinton. You have all these other sort of things that are happening, but people have been really stuck on this Jeffrey Epstein. I remember a few weeks ago, we went to Turning Point USA, which is this conservative gathering in Florida. And people said over and over again that the buck stopped with the president.

They believed that the president ran on this idea that he was going to be as transparent as possible. And they saw him as being part of the cover-up to protect Jeffrey Epstein and whatever clientless, even though the DOJ and FBI say there isn't one. And I think the other thing here is that you have people that had leaned into this controversy and into this conspiracy theory. Think of Attorney General Bongi, maybe she didn't mean to, but you've had her saying at one point in an interview, I have the clientless, I'm going to release it.

And then afterwards, she clarified, the White House clarified, she meant the files in general, but people are holding on to those things. And my people, I mean, the most of the most prominent voices and supporters of the president. I also think it's interesting because the president has even lashed out at his supporters, right? Calling them weaklings, saying they need to move on.

Why are people still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? And this time, his base just is simply not listening and saying, no, we want more information. Thank you, Yamiche, for all of that context and great reporting. Tom, stand by for me.

We're going to go to you in one minute. First, I want to go to President Donald Trump, who is at the Federal Reserve right now, touring the Reconstruction effort. Let's listen in. So we'll take it a look.

And it looks like it's about $3.1 billion, went up a little bit. We're a lot. So the $2.7 is now, $3.1. And it just came out.

I haven't heard that from anybody to the fact. I haven't heard that from anybody to the fact. I'm upset about $3.1, $3.1, $3.1, $3. Is it for us?

Yes. I don't know who goes there. You're putting them on the renovation. You just add in a third building.

That's a third building. It's a building that's being built. It was built five years ago. We finished Martin five years ago.

It's part of the overall work. So we're going to take a look. We're going to see what's happening. And it's got a long way.

Do you expect any more additional for ourselves? You don't expect them. We're ready for them. But we have a little bit of a reserve that we may use.

But no, we don't. We expect to be finished in 2027. We're well along as you can see. Nice to take these off every once in a while.

When we're not under too much danger. So any questions? As a real estate developer, how would you do with the project manager who would be over budget? Generally speaking, what would I do?

I'd fire him. He was president because he called us to do that. Well, I'm here just really with the chairman. He's showing us around showing us the work.

And so I don't want to get that. I don't want to be personally. Just we'd like to see it get finished. And in many ways it's too bad it started.

But it did start. And it's been under construction for a long time. It's going to be a real long time. Because it looks like it's got a long way to go.

Are there things the chairman can say to you today that would make you back off some of the earlier criticism? Well, I'd love them to lower interest rates. Other than that, what can I tell you? The country's doing really well.

I just briefed the chairman of the deal with Japan, Japan. He's putting up $550 billion in order to lower their tariffs a little bit. I mean, they have a little bit lower tariffs. And they also opened their country to free trade, which nobody thought was even a possibility.

And we get a zero tariff in the free trade. We don't pay tariffs. And they're going to pay 15% on everything they send into our country. So it's great.

But they put up, as you could call it, seed money. Let's call it seed money. You can call it anything you want. But it's a total of $550 billion.

So nobody thought any of that was possible. And it's wonderful. And we're doing pretty well with the European Union, likewise. And we have some others.

They're all really big. And our country's going to make a lot of money. We would be helped if interest rates would come down. But we're going to see how the board rules on that soon.

I'd love to see them come down a lot. But we have a country that's thriving. We had a dead country one year ago today. We have the hottest country anywhere in the world.

And we'll get this one finished. You've been watching video of President Trump touring the construction project at the Federal Reserve with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Of course, President Trump has been incredibly critical of Fed Chair Powell for not lowering interest rates and as of late. He and allies pointing to this construction project, which is over budget.

Let me with that go to Yamiche Alcindor. Yamiche, really extraordinary moment where the president said it's 3.1, I believe, $1 billion over its projected costs. And the Fed Chair said, what exactly are you talking about? He said, oh, you're referring to a building that's already been built.

It made for what was a somewhat awkward back and forth. What were your takeaways from what we just heard Yamiche? So remarkable and awkward definitely come to mind, Kristen, because there was that exchange. That really wasn't extraordinary because Jerome Powell has tried his best to really remain stoic, but also in the moment pushed back against President Trump, who was essentially chastising him for being over budget when it came to this renovation of the headquarters of the Federal Reserve.

And Jerome Powell pointed out that that building that he was saying was including in the cost was actually built several years ago. I think he said five years ago. So that's really interesting that Jerome Powell was in the moment not letting President Trump tell him that his project was overrun. The other thing is that we heard, of course, the president say to Jerome's face, to Jerome Powell's face several times, the Fed should cut rates, the Fed should cut rates.

Jerome Powell didn't respond in the moment, and I think that that's also telling that yes, he pushed back in that moment, but that he also wasn't trying to fight on camera, that they both sort of went up the stairs as they were more questions being asked. We know that Jerome Powell, who by the way was nominated by a previous president, but then sort of renominated by President Trump. So he has his job in part because President Trump in 2017 allowed him to stay in that job. He has said that he does not believe President Trump has the authority to fire him.

And President Trump has complained about him but has sort of stopped short of saying that he's going to fire him. But it is sort of a really interesting exchange to see them on camera together, knowing the tension there. That being said, I think we're going to continue to see sort of where this goes next to President Trump, sort of up the ante anymore, Kristin. It will certainly be fascinating to watch.

And you heard the first reporter there say, what would you do if a project manager was over budget? The president saying, I would fire him. It is also worth noting that part of the reason why this project is over budget according to officials who are familiar with this work is because of inflation. In part with that, let me bring an NBC News senior business correspondent Kristin Romans.

Kristin, thanks so much for being here. What did you make of what we just heard between the president and the Fed chair? Really striking to see the two of them together, that tension at the root of it. As Yamiche said, President Trump saying that, of course, if he has a message for the Fed chair, it would be to lower interest rates.

We've all heard him say that publicly repeatedly over the past several months, but it certainly carries more weight when he's standing right next to the Fed chair. It does. But seeing these two men with their hard hats on next to each other at the actual Federal Reserve, presidents don't go to the Fed. It's only happened three other times twice to get the swearing in for a new Fed chief.

And once to dedicate the building, Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the building in 1937. That's how where it is. The correspondence is usually the Treasury Secretary and the Fed chief. I mean, periodically, really for breakfast or lunch to talk about the health of the guts of the financial system, not something like this, a building overhaul, that disagreement over the figure, I thought was interesting to see the Fed chief pushback in real time.

And just the fact that the president is there sort of in this role overseeing something that he has nothing to do with. The Fed is an independent agency. It is funded outside of the course of business in Washington. It is overseen by a board of governors and regional Fed presidents.

The president has the responsibility of appointing people and then stepping back as they play out these very, very long terms. So it's just a real shocker for someone who's covered this institution for so long to see an image like this. It's just literally unprecedented. It is just extraordinary.

We should say these buildings that are being revitalized are over 100 years old. And so the Fed has made the argument this is actually necessary work in order to make them safe buildings to work in. Is there inevitable pressure that comes, do you think, with the president standing next to the Fed chairs, Yamiche said, Jerome Powell has said he can't be fired by President Trump. And look, the consensus is he can't fire President Trump for not lowering interest rates.

Or he can't fire the Fed chief for not lowering interest rates. But if there were some sort of cause, some kind of malfeasance or fraud. And that is what this looks like, right? Some kind of a fishing expedition to find some reason to pressure or to fire the Fed chief.

However, the board of governors of the Fed not just the Fed chief oversees this. By the way, this whole project began during the first Trump administration in 2017. And so this has been something that has been going on for a long time now. And let me just say something about these buildings too.

We're talking about two buildings in a vacant lot. You're right there with a hundred years ago. You know these DC, you know these DC marble palaces. Drafty, leaky, creaky elevators.

In some cases, they're not, you know, they're not compliant with disabilities laws. In this particular case, there had never been any kind of real upgrades. So they're talking about all HVAC, all lighting. I mean, when you read through, and the Fed has put all this on his website in a bid for transparency just to show kind of what a nightmare of this renovation has been.

Lots of asbestos in those old buildings. That means, you know, I mean, it's just, it's a kind of a, it's really, it looks like a construction nightmare, a money pit nightmare like from the movies. Christine, thank you so much. Do stick with us because we'll come back to you.

We are expecting the president to take some more questions again shortly when he finishes his store. Always appreciate your insights and historical context. In this case, back with me now. As we continue our coverage of the Epstein-Sager, R.M.C.

Tom Winters, I hope so. Tom, let me go to you. And apologies. I interrupted our conversation from before Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General, met with Elaine Maxwell in Florida today.

What, if anything, is the DOJ hoping to glean from her? What are you learning about that meeting? Well, Chris, as you just mentioned, we expect Donald Trump to make additional remarks this afternoon. We're waiting to hear if the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche makes any remarks about his conversation with Elaine Maxwell and her attorneys taking place on the fourth floor of the courthouse there where the U.S.

Attorney's office is also located. So the big question here is what does she have to offer the Department of Justice now? Let's look at the history to talk a little bit about what she could have offered. There was no plea agreement that was offered to her, nor did she request any.

I was in the courtroom when that happened. And so there's really a question here as to what types of evidence or information she could have with the knowledge that investigators believe that they already have as much information as they can get to potentially corroborate Maxwell's statements. Maxwell, on the hook, if she potentially lies in the course of this discussion. But if she ever was going to testify against somebody else, we know her history, charged with perjury.

We know the fact that she's a convicted sex offender. So they would need corroborating evidence to stand up any sort of claim that she would make. And they presumably would have that already. So a lot of questions about what, if anything, she can offer.

She's definitely going to bring up the non-prosecution agreement. She's definitely going to bring up prison conditions. She's done that repeatedly in the past. And it has not worked out too well for her.

Tom, I guess the other question, what could the government, what might the government have to for Maxwell a reduced sentence? What do you anticipate their ask is going to be? Right. So this was a typical proffer.

What they would do is say, tell us everything you know. And you're not on the hook for any of it legally unless you lie to us. And you can just share everything that you know. And we'll ask our questions and we'll get more information.

And if, at that point, we believe that you were genuinely helpful for any investigation that we would have, and by the way, there's no sign of any investigation because we just got a memo a couple of weeks ago saying we don't anticipate charging anybody else. And there's no client list and we don't anticipate any further charging activity. But if she were today to give them some tangible information, what they could do to the court is go and file what's called a 5K one letter, basically going back to the judge who oversaw her trial. There's a new judge now because the other one went to the appellate court, but basically go back to the court and say, look, this person has now provided us with significant assistance.

And as a result, we believe her sentence should be reduced. She could be resented. They could have discussions along those lines. So there is an option for prosecutors to bail her out here.

And really, at this point, the deputy attorney general himself. All right, Tom. Thank you so much for that. So let me go over to you.

Of course, we've heard from Congressman Comer earlier today. I guess as the oversight committee set up a potential standoff within House Republicans when they returned from their August recess over subpoenaing documents. Oh, it will be a standoff, Kristen. If this investigation goes places, the White House doesn't want to go.

We know President Trump is eager to move past this issue. But he has lost control of House Republicans on this question in a way that I've not seen him do on any other issue, any other cause all year. The reason is Speaker Meg Johnson now faces a divided conference where a bunch of Republicans are hearing from voters back home, including hard court Trump supporters, including MAGA voters that they want more information, more transparency on the Epstein files. And these members do have to face voters again.

Even if President Trump doesn't, they feel pressure to do something. And on that note, we know that the subpoena blamed Maxwell is going forward. There's a deposition. There was a separate vote of eight to two in a subcommittee for a motion led by the Democrat, Summer League, which was backed by three Republicans.

Brian Jackson, Scott Perry, Nancy Mase, all Trump allies. Brian Jackson, in fact, a long time former senior advisor to President Trump. So that's where this is right now. There's enough of an escape velocity for this issue on the ground in Republican districts.

And Sahel, you know, I guess that really begs the question, when these lawmakers go back to their districts, what might they see? And is that really going to be our best barometer to date of the extent to which this Epstein matter is something that is percolating here in the nation's capital or really resonating around the country? It'll be a very, very important indicator of the Christian. I think it's an open question that a lot of us are watching to see what gets more attention back, you know, in these House of Representatives districts when members go home is going to be the big, beautiful bill.

And, you know, the questions that's getting about Medicaid costs, the backlash to that. Are there going to be Trump supporters who are happy about certain elements of it, like no tax on tips and the other things that the White House is putting forward? Or is the Jeffrey Epstein saga going to consume, you know, the situation on the ground much as it has been in House of Representatives? Remember, they had to cut out early and go home for recess because there was such a desire among Republicans to vote with Democrats on the issue of releasing Epstein-related material that Speaker Johnson essentially got to shut this place down and said, I can't do this.

President Trump doesn't want me to do this. Let's all go home and deal with it. Now, there are Republicans who don't believe this issue is going to go away when they return home for recess. In fact, like Tom Massey, who's leading the charge to force the release of a whole host of Epstein-Files, thinks that pressure is only going to grow.

So we've certainly not heard the last chapter of this. You know, certainly not the whole September. We certainly have not. So I hope thank you so much.

As always, appreciate your reporting. As the Trump administration tries to change the subject away from Jeffrey Epstein, they are also trying to rewrite the history of Russia's 2016 election interference. Now, as we've been reporting, the Trump administration is baselessly accusing former President Obama of manipulating intelligence and attempting to undermine President Trump's 2016 victory. Now, the Justice Department is launching what it's calling a strike force in its words, to assess the evidence publicized by Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and investigate potential next legal steps.

The material declassified by Gabbard is a House Republican report that took issue with the intelligence community's finding that Russia tried to help Trump win in 2016. Now, that report came to a much different conclusion than the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee's report that Russia interfered in 2016 to boost Mr. Trump. In a Fox News op-ed, former CIA intelligence analyst and Biden State Department spokesman Ned Price wrote, quote, as our adversaries, whether rogue states, terrorist groups, or cyber criminals, seek to do us harm, America's most senior intelligence official is busying herself by fabricating partisan attacks against those the President deems his domestic political enemies, and therein lies another scandal.

Joining me now is the author of that piece, former State Department spokesperson and Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Ned Price. Thank you so much for being here.

Really appreciate it. Good to see you guys. It's great to see you as always. So let's just unpack your piece a little bit more.

You called Gabbard's actions yesterday in effort to rewrite history to deflect focus away from other situations in the Trump administration, namely the Epstein matter, expand on that. What exactly do you think you're watching unfold right now? You know, Chris, to one extent, it's really not all that unusual to see an influential figure in Washington these days. Talk about the shadowy network of Kabul, some of the nation's most elite, some of the nation's most powerful, engaged in sorting criminal history and subsequently a cover up to cover their tracks.

The problem, however, is that the person in question now is Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence. And of course, she's not talking about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal really involving her entire administration. She's talking about the 2016 election and the Obama administration of all things. The thing with Gabbard is that like every good conspiracy theory, she is rooting it in the smallest kernel of truth.

And the kernel of truth that she's picked in this case was the assessment by the US government, both before the 2016 election and after the 2016 election, that Moscow could not quote unquote hack the election. In other words, Moscow would not be capable of changing votes, messing with voter rolls, of actually changing physically or through cyber means the result of the election, the vote tally. But she then takes that and I think intentionally completes it with this assessment that was put out by the intelligence community after the election that Moscow sought to influence the election. And she's intentionally conflating this term hack and influence.

And it was the consensus of the intelligence community. Just as you said, it was the consensus of the Mueller team. It was the consensus of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee led by Senator Rubio at the time. And many other bodies that Russia did in fact seek to influence the election.

They sought to denigrate, then secretary of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and they sought to advantage Donald Trump. That was the conclusion of the intelligence community, no matter what we're hearing from Tulsi Gabbard now. Let me get your reaction to the fact that some Senate Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator John Cornyn, who of course was on the Senate Intelligence Committee when they put out the report, is calling for a special counsel to investigate this matter. Now the White House came out and said, it actually doesn't support such a move.

What is your reaction? What's your take on that? Well, I think there's a good reason it doesn't support such a move. And I think there's a more nefarious reason that it doesn't support such a move.

It doesn't, and it should not support such a move. One, because at base, there's no there as we've talked about and we don't need superfluous special counsels or special prosecutors floating around. I think that's a bipartisan idea that administration of all strikes can get behind. But number two, there was a special counsel looking into some of these very questions during the first administration.

John Durham served in this role. He had a years-long probe into this and ultimately, of course, it found nothing of the sort that Tulsi Gabbard has purported to surface in recent days. I think the more nefarious reason they're not calling for a special counsel is because they know precisely that what their Director of National Intelligence is putting forward is nothing more than shum in the water. It's nothing more than an intentional distraction, a distraction away from the Epstein scandal that is really engulfing this entire administration.

Let me get your reaction to something that we heard from House Intelligence Committee ranking member Jim Himes yesterday. I'm just going to read it for you. He says, so here's the moment where we call the bluff. When will the charges be leveled?

Five days from now, I'm going to ask. When are those charges leveled? Ten days from now? When are those charges?

When are we prosecuting President Obama? What is your reaction? Do you think they are bluffing? In other words, do you think they would have tried to bring charges if there was a there there already?

Chris, may they are absolutely bluffing. And you know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of another Trump scandal with which we were very familiar during the first Trump term. You recall that during their first phone call between President Trump and President Zelensky in July of 2019, I think it was, President Trump urged President Zelensky to find dirt on Hunter Biden to find dirt that he could use to potentially incriminate Joe Biden.

And subsequently, his team said something like, look, you don't even need to investigate. Just announce that you're going to have an investigation. Just announce that you're looking into this. It again, broke shut into the waters and to make it sound like to reasonable people that, you know what?

Maybe there is something there. Maybe there is something to this. This is precisely what we're seeing here. They don't expect to be able to bring charges.

I don't think they even want to bring charges. What they want is to taint the Obama administration and more than anything, they want to distract from their own profound troubles that they're facing right now in the form of Jefferson. All right, Ned Price, thank you for joining us, helping us to break down your op ed. It's always great to see you really appreciate it.

Coming up, civilians in Gaza dying of starvation. The crisis is worsening by the day as aid groups struggle to get lifesaving food and supplies to those who need the most, many of them children before it's too late. An official with the international Red Cross joins me next. You're watching with the press now.

Zebone! Okay, remember A is for asking. The questions that matter to me. Andrea, the doctor will see you now.

B is for beginning the conversation. Hey, Andrea, good to see you. So, what brings you in today? C is for choosing which treatment is right for me.

And Z is for Zebound. And I'm ready to ask. Ask a doctor about Zebound Quick Pen. Get your savings card at Zebound.ca.

Exclusions and exceptions may apply. Zebound! Let's kickstart your wellness journey with the dart today. Workout's meal plans.

It's your fast track to a healthier you. And now, during the Xfinity member celebration, members begin an exclusive 50% off an annual subscription. Head to Xfinity.com slash membership to learn more. Xfinity, imagine that.

Subscription automatically renews each year at 65.99 plus taxes and fees until canceled. It's May 20th, 2026, prices subject to change. Visit today.com slash Xfinity for full-off returns and details. Stay informed with the NBC News app.

Breaking News is just coming in moments ago. Watch, read, and listen throughout your day. And now unlock even more with a subscription. It's the best of NBC News with fewer ad interruptions, including ad free articles, podcasts, and full NBC News shows.

Plus, deeper access and exclusive content. Let's just take a step back. It's more context and clarity from the reporters you trust. Download the NBC News app now and subscribe for more.

And we are going to dip into President Trump taking questions at the Federal Reserve. Let's listen in. It's relatively inexpensively for about $200 million. And that was a big hotel, big, big project.

But we looked around and Tim Scott's here someplace here coming up. Just, you saw what we saw. And the big thing is to get it done. They have to get it done.

They have to get it finished. And very importantly, we have to get interest rates lowered in our country. Our country is the hottest in the world right now. But the one section, people are pretty much unable to buy housing because the interest rates are too high.

We have no inflation. We have a lot of cash coming in. The tariffs have been unbelievable now. People that didn't even believe in tariffs are saying what a great move that was.

We have hundreds of billions of dollars coming in Japan. Just on one deal is paying us $550 billion. And they opened up their economy. It's incredible to deal.

And they're happy. We're happy. Everybody's happy. But we should have the lowest interest rate of any country.

And we don't. We should have. Every point is worth $365 billion. So we want to get the rates out, but we also want to get the Fed building finished.

So I met with the contractors. We toured it with the chairman. And we had a very good tour. And we'll talk about it sometime.

But Tim and I, we sort of understand what happened. Tim and I, we sort of understand what happened. Two expenses. The bottom line is this.

Americans deserve to become first-time home buyers. President Trump has created the best economy in the world. The one thing that would make it better is lower interest rates. Full employment is even more possible.

We just rise faster as interest rates come down when your employment is at 4.1% because of your leadership. We have revenues coming in at record breaking. Maybe last month even more revenue coming in than bills going out, which is remarkable. They found $25 billion.

They said, where did that come from? Nobody, I think that's been many, many decades since that happened. I can't remember that. They found $26 billion last month.

And they said, where did that come from? I said, why don't you try the tariffs that it was through? We're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars. And our country is doing great.

And we have no inflation. And the numbers, the job, everything is good. The one thing we have to do is get housing prices down and the interest rates down so people can buy the house. Because they're all making money, but they can't get the interest rate down.

We have to. Amen. And he's been my friend for a long time. He's got a number of construction sites.

Did you see? Is the management going on? Well, I see a very luxurious situation taking place. Let's put it that way.

And I was given a very nice tour by the head of construction. And you know, look, if you look over here, they're trying to open up the basement. When you open up a basement, first of all, it's the worst space. Always the basement is the worst space in a building.

And it's also the most expensive space to build. And especially here because you have a water line. You know, they're going down into the water. So they have to build a reverse bathtub.

But what has to be kept out? It's very expensive construction. So it would have been good if they didn't build it. It would have been good if they didn't do certain other things.

If you look at the kind of protection in the hall, have you been able to get in the hall? You saw the protection apply? I mean, that was a lot of money just to protect it for a period of time. I would have done it very gingerly and easily and not have spent millions of dollars on protection.

And there are things that could have been different. Look, there's always Monday morning quarterbacks. I don't want to be that. I want to help them get it finished.

It's been going around for years. And I want to help them get it finished. And what we really want to do, and I think I can speak for Tim and I think I can speak for the entire Senate. We can speak for everybody, frankly, is we want to see interest rates come down.

Our country is booming. And the interest rates is our final little notch. And if you look at Europe, they've lowered 11 times in a short period of time. We've lowered zero.

And we know they are competition, although we're in the process of probably making a very good deal with them too. They want to make it deal very badly. So we're making a deal. We just completed our deal with Indonesia.

We just completed our deal with the Philippines. We're making unbelievable deals. And the money is pouring in. We want to get interest rates now.

But on interest rates, at some point, does the level of interest rates now slow economic growth? Yeah. It never helps it. If it's high, it never helps it.

Well, it's already as good as we're doing. Think of how well we'd be doing. We'd be like a rocket ship. As good as we're doing.

We'd do better if we had lower interest rates. And we should. We're prime. Don't forget, without us the whole world collapses.

So we should have the lowest interest rate because, you know, you can talk about Switzerland. You can talk about wonderful countries. No debt. But without us, everything collapses.

We should have the lowest interest rate. And if you took it down three points, not a little bit, but three points, if you got us down to one, we would save more than a trillion dollars, basically with just a paper transfer. You wouldn't be cutting costs of anything. You wouldn't be building anything.

Just a move of the hand saying we have lower interest rates. You would save a trillion dollars a year. And there's nothing you can do to save that kind of money. So we had a little talk about it.

And I thought it was a very productive talk. He'll be able to tell you at his next meeting. But I will say that he did say the country's doing really well. And the country is really doing well.

Yeah, please go ahead. No, I don't think it was tense. No, I thought we had a good meeting. I was like, no, there was no tension.

There was no tension. I think he had more tension with my great senator to the right. He's pretty tough, okay. He was, you might say.

Oh, he's a bomb on his way. We had an honest candidate conversation about some of the overruns at this building. We had it in my banking committee and he said we were wrong. It turns out we were right.

Thank God, President Trump. And his team took enough time to dig into some of the details. And the details are clear. We need to get this project done.

We'd like to keep it where it is or a little lower. But at the end of the day, the point is that instead of talking about interest rates, instead of talking about first-time home buyers, instead of talking about the heat in our economy, that's a good thing. We're talking about an overrun on the federal reserve building as opposed to the federal reserve objective of lowering and keeping our economy full. You know, as an example, they built parking spots under a building next door.

That's very expensive. When you're starting to build parking lots, underground parking lots, that's a very expensive thing. A lot of people I know they park their car and they walk a block or two blocks or something. But it is a very expensive thing.

That is what it is, and that's okay. Look, I would love to see it completed. I don't want to put that in this category. It's a very complex thing that could have been made simple.

I built a great hotel. And the great hotel that everybody in this group knows very well. It's called the old post office. It's a much bigger project than this.

And I spent $200 million building it. And it was down, it was taken down to the steel. For the most part, taken down, you know, you've seen it go up. And I built it quickly and I built it for $200 million.

It was a much bigger job than this. I spent $200 million. That's got marble bathrooms. The top fixtures, the best of everything, all brand new.

So, you know, this is a very expensive job. I don't know. It got out of control. And that happens.

That happens. It's a shame. No, I'm not negotiating on auto tech. Well, it depends.

What Japan did is they brought down their tariffs. They gave us $350 billion because they didn't want to pay 20. They were 28%. And they gave us $550 billion upfront.

100%. We get 90. They get 10. 90%.

They get 10. They say signing bonus. I call it. But they gave us $550 billion and took down the tariffs a little bit.

And then they agreed to open their economy to everybody. This was not easy. This took, you know, a lot of people walked out of rooms and things. Sometimes they walked out of rooms and went back to Japan.

I said, where are they? They went back to Japan. And then they called and they said, do we make a deal? They came back a couple of times.

This happened. This was, as you know, it was over a period of months. And ultimately they agreed to open their economy. Now, the opening of the economy is worth more than $550 billion.

The payment that they made is worth more. So, between that and the payment, we reduced it down to 15%. But they were at about 28%. And then they bought it down, basically.

But could other countries buy it down? Yeah, I would let other countries buy it down. I feel good about it. I mean, look, I have one dispute and dispute.

There could be some things with money and, you know, where it comes from, how it's come from, how it's printed, where it's printed, all of the standard things with the Fed. But I just want to see one thing happen. Very simple. Interest rates have to come down.

If the interest rates don't come down, we're knocking it out of the park with high interest rates. If interest rates come down, then that final little element kicks in to this housing. And the sad part is that people, wonderful young people, young couples starting off, they can't get a mortgage because it rates it too. Tim knows that better than anybody, I think.

Because to do that is a big move and I just don't think it's necessary. And I believe that he's going to do the right thing. I believe that the chairman is going to do the right thing. I mean, it may be a little too late as the expression goes, but I believe he's going to do the right thing.

The fact is, it's so big what's taking place in America, where the King of Saudi Arabia says you have the hottest country anywhere in the world, and I thought you were dead one year ago. I thought we were dead. I just left NATO as you know. We're agreeing to pay 5%.

We're not paying anything. We send them, they pay for 100% of everything now for the war, Ukraine. But I just left NATO and every one of those leaders said, every country, they said, and very smart country, very successful countries, frankly. And every one of them said, you have the hottest country in the world.

We did that over a period of a year, less than a year. I mean, if you think, I mean, less than a year ago, we were dead. And today, so I'm here six months and we did it over and we had to help them. Men like this and people like standing right behind me.

They're great professionals. They're great professionals. They really are. They're great professionals.

And in a short period of time, we made it the hottest country in the world. And with all of that being said, we'd like to see, we can always do better. And we can do better if interest rates come down. Good job, you do.

You do a nice job. I want you a lot. Thank you, Mr. President.

Do you have a name in mind? I do. One person. Two people.

Maybe three. I pick him, but I think he's not leaving the set. I pick him. No, he's no pressure.

We want to have, you know, his term comes up soon. I think he's going to do the right thing. Everybody knows what the right thing is. Even people that believe in, you know, the higher rates are all on board.

They all want to see the interest rates come down. It's very important. I don't think we're going to do that. I don't think so.

Yeah, that's a terrible thing. I have great respect for Tulsi and the documents they found on President Obama, frankly. It was an Obama thing, but it was the people that worked under him also working with him. And now it's a very, very serious thing.

Thank you very much. President Trump taking questions standing alongside Senator Tim Scott after touring the Reconstruction Project at the Federal Reserve, one that he allies have lasted for being overpriced, but one that was overpriced for a range of reasons, including inflation. I want to go back now to M.E.C.C. Ms.

Alsendor and Christine Romans. Thank you both for sticking around. So among the headlines, we heard the President say there was no tension in talking about the meeting that he just had with Jerome Powell. He also talked about, and I thought at the end made some news.

He was asked if he's going to fire Jerome Powell, given that the project was overpriced. He said, I don't want to put it in that category. And then he was asked if he actually has anyone in mind to replace Jerome Powell. He said, two, maybe three people.

Christine Romans, what did you make of some of those answers, particularly as they related to Jerome Powell and how will the markets hear those answers? What's fascinating to me is that he said it wasn't any tension. There was that awkward moment where they were disagreeing over the scope of this project, where the Fed Chief, in real time, fact checked the President essentially and said, no, no, sir, you're including another building that's been done for five years in this number. So there was that little moment.

But mostly you didn't see the President insult the Fed Chief to his face. He does insult him on social media frequently. And from the Oval Office, he has insulted him calling him a knucklehead and too late and not smart and all of these things that are just, in presidential history, you just haven't heard President, felt the intelligence of the Fed Chief in that kind of way. But it doesn't feel like, and correct me, you two, if you think I'm wrong, it doesn't feel like he's going to show him the door tomorrow.

It doesn't feel like he thinks this is the reason, some kind of fraud that he can use as an excuse to let him go. And he's also recently said, well, he's almost out of there anyway. His term is up in May. We know legal experts have said the kind of legal fight that would happen.

You would be, there would be legal fight for the next eight months over telling the Fed Chief he needs to leave that position. So it seems to me, this was maybe not the end of his pressuring the Fed Chief for lowering interest rates, but I feel like maybe the firing watch might be on hold for now. No, I certainly read it that way, Christine, as well. He was given the opportunity directly to at least open the door to potentially firing him for the construction project.

He said, I don't want to put this in that category, Yamiche. What did you make of those answers? Is that how you read it? And was this yet another attempt to turn the page from the Jeffrey Epstein controversy?

Well, it's really interesting that you bring up Epstein, because I kept on trying to wait to see if there was going to be an Epstein question. I didn't hear one. Maybe there was one. I definitely read his view of Jerome Powell and whether or not he was going to fire him the same way that Christine and you are reading it, which is that I did not get a sense that there were going to be some urgent firing happening.

And from my understanding, I heard him say I think pretty clearly that Jerome Powell's turn was going to be ending and that he was essentially going to be waiting for that to be ending before he makes his next decision. But it is, I think, striking that he said he already has two, three people in mind for that job. I also think, of course, he said over and over and over again that interest rates would come down and said not only is it good for the country, but he was also trying to say every day Americans, young couples, trying to buy homes that this would benefit them. We should put it in context, which is, of course, Jerome Powell has said very clearly he doesn't believe the president has the authority to fire him.

So part of this could be that the president, as Christine has said, is looking at this and saying Jerome Powell is not going down without a fight. He's not going to just be someone who walks away. And as a result, that legal fight just maybe isn't worth it at his time. So I think that that's what I read.

I also thought it was interesting that while the president was sort of complaining about the renovations, he was also saying I don't want to be on Monday morning quarterback, which, of course, some people would say he was doing, because he wasn't going through and saying they shouldn't go on through the basement and done all these things. But I think it is in some ways another window in fact that there's a real estate business person who is, of course, now a president. So I think that's also interesting. Thank you both for your great analysis.

Really appreciate it. Do say with us. We'll be right back. Welcome back, United Nations, and more than 108 organizations are raising the alarm over the increasingly acute hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip.

We do want to warn our viewers that these images in this segment are disturbing or difficult to watch, but they also show the reality of what is a really horrific situation. The UN's World Food Program said this week the food crisis in Gaza has reached astonishing levels of desperation with a third of the population not eating for multiple days in a row. The Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health said it recorded two more deaths due to famine and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, raising the number of deaths due to food shortages to 113. NBC News has not been able to independently confirm those numbers.

Aiden to Gaza has largely been through the United Nations or the US and Israeli-backed Gaza humanitarian foundation, but those distribution efforts have been plagued by violence with multiple incidents of Israeli forces opening fire on crowds seeking aid. Now this afternoon, the State Department Deputy spokesperson was pressed on the administration's position on the situation in Gaza. This humanitarian catastrophe lies the feet of Hamas who could end this conflict today by releasing the hostages and laying down their arms. Hamas.

That suggests that short of Hamas is doing that. Those kids are telling doctors don't have medicine. They don't have fuel. This is something that we have dedicated.

The President and the Secretary have been dedicated to getting as much aid as we can in Gaza in a way where he's not being looted by Hamas. That was our entry. Mitchell there asking that last question. Joining me now is the spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Steve Dorsey. Steve, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it. This is just a devastating situation as Andrea, the other reporters were pointing out.

What are you hearing from your teams on the ground? I understand you had contact us this morning. It's heart-wrenching, Kristin. We've been seeing the same images the world have been seeing.

We've been experiencing it ourselves on the ground in Gaza, seeing these malnourished bodies of little children wasting away in some cases. They are too weak to even cry. Imagine being a parent unable to feed yourself, let alone your own children. We've been experiencing at a health care facility at a rough-field hospital, an increasing escalation in emergency nutrition needs.

We've been seeing patients with signs of malnutrition in areas where disease has complicated and exacerbated conditions, including diarrhea, which can be life-threatening and deadly. And not only that, but our staff, too. We've been hearing reports of journalists being unable to access food or our staff or humanitarian workers on the ground. We've had to restrict our own meals for our own staff.

They're waiting in the same lines to access food. These are not robust meals. These are not nutritionally diverse meals. We're feeding them.

We can no longer feed their families. This is how diarrhea has become. It is almost unbearable to look at the pictures and to hear your descriptions. Is this technically a famine yet?

What does that characterization mean and what could it bring to the situation? If anything, how would you describe what we're witnessing? Yeah, the Recross doesn't assess famine, but we can report what we've been seeing, which is, of course, those signs of malnutrition, the access to food and how it's limited throughout Gaza. There's three main problems with the food situation.

The first is they're simply just not enough food getting into Gaza. Even if there is food, how do you cook it with no fuel? Secondly, Gaza has become one of the world's most expensive places to buy food, the food that's left. And third, there's no more local capacity for food production.

The farms, the agriculture systems, the water infrastructure, it's all collapsed, and this is all converging for a really dangerous situation now. How given the fact that you're having to restrict food and resources to your teams on the ground, does it threaten their ability to be able to help? Absolutely, limits our capacity for sure. We're not able to fully address all the needs of all the people that need us.

The existing healthcare and nutritional infrastructure inside Gaza is unable to do that right now. In our hospital, we are having to manage food just like we're having to manage medicine, which is use it responsibly. And we've already been overwhelmed by people with injuries from weapons in this war. And if you're not concerned about surviving every day from war, you're concerned about disease and hunger, too.

I want to play you what an Israeli spokesperson had to say when pressed about this horrific situation in Gaza and get your reaction on the other side. Take a look. In Gaza today, there is no famine caused by Israel. There is, however, a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas.

This idea of famine and starvation has been thrown at us consistently on a weekly basis for the last two years now. It has never come to far past. So these are false warnings which come from these aid organizations. And I also would say that where there is hunger in Gaza, it is hunger orchestrated by Hamas.