Meet the Press NOW — July 22

If it's Tuesday, top Justice Department officials say they will meet with convicted Epstein accomplishing Maxwell as two judges asked the Trump administration for more information before unsealing grand jury testimony, while a clash of the Epstein files brings the House to a standstill. Plus, President Trump to flex reporters' questions on the Epstein case pivoting to attack Democrats and accused former President Obama of treason, despite multiple assessments from U.S. security agencies refuting and contradicting Trump's claims. And as the hunger and humanitarian crisis in Gaza escalate, Israel pushes forward in its own military offensive, amid new international pressure for a ceasefire and a humanitarian aid coordinator.

Hi there, welcome to Meet the Press Now, I'm Ryan Nobles in Washington, where President Trump has made perhaps his clearest attempt yet to try and turn the page from the ongoing controversy surrounding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by attacking his political opponents and trying to reignite a different conspiracy theory targeting the Obama administration. But it comes as Trump's allies in the administration and Republicans on Capitol Hill are making moves that keep the Epstein's story on the front burner. First, at the Justice Department, with the deputy attorney general and former Trump personal lawyer Todd Blanche, announced plans to meet with Epstein's longtime partner and accomplice, Elaine Maxwell. Maxwell's attorney confirms they are in discussions with the government.

Maxwell was convicted of federal sex trafficking charges in 2021 and is currently serving a 20-year sentence. But when asked in the Oval Office today whether he supports the move by his Justice Department, Mr. Trump said he didn't know anything about it and then quickly turned to other grievances. I didn't know that they were going to do it.

I don't really follow that too much. It's sort of a witch hunt, just a continuation of the witch hunt. The witch hunt that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama absolutely cold, Chelsea Gabbard. What they did to this country in 2016, starting in 2016, but going up all the way going up to 2020 of the election, they tried to rig the election and they got caught.

And there should be very severe consequences for that. We'll take a deeper look at those unsubstantiated claims from the President in just a minute. As we said, though, the President's efforts to move on are also being thwarted by members of his own party on Capitol Hill, where the House of Representatives has ground to a halt over the Epstein issue. Lawmakers are actually heading home early for the August recess after skipping a weekly procedural vote in an effort to avoid voting on a bipartisan motion to release information on Epstein.

Speaker Johnson defending the Rules Committee's decision this morning. The President has said clearly, and he has now ordered his DOJ to do what it is we've all needed DOJ to do for years now, and that is to get everything released. So they're in the process of that. There's no purpose for Congress to push an administration to do something that they're already doing.

And so this is for political games. I'm very, I'm very resolute on this. We can both call for full transparency and also protect victims. And if you run rough shot, or you do it too quickly, that's not what happens.

But I'm convinced that the DOJ is going to do their job, the administration is going to do their job, and we'll do our job. Now, despite that, it's clear the issue will not be going away on Capitol Hill as the oversight committee voted today to subpoena Gleymaxwell, quote, quote, as expeditiously as possible. Joining me now is White House correspondent Vaughn Hilliard, law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter, and senior national political reporter Kyle Kapoor. So Vaughn, let's start with his DOJ announcement.

They say they're going to meet with Gleymaxwell. Does this take any of the heat out of the Epstein fallout off the president and redirect it at the DOJ? Especially as the president claims he doesn't really know anything about this decision? Potentially if they seek to try to publish whatever Gleymaxwell tells Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General here.

But of course, this is somebody who we should be very clear was convicted of on sex trafficking charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. And so the president is suggesting that he there was disbelief or that he should say didn't know that the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General were going to make this request of Gleymaxwell, that at the same time, he was asked about the fact that his one-time former defense attorney, Todd Blanche, who is now the number two at DOJ, is the one who is going to be sitting down with Gleymaxwell when, of course, we are very well aware that Donald Trump's name has appeared across Epstein files, if you can call him that, that it was from the federal trial involving Gleymaxwell back in 2021, that we received the documents that showed that there were flight logs that indicated that the now president had flown on Epstein's plane at these seven different times. And so the president, he pushed aside the conflict of interest question from the Oval Office today that his own defense attorney, who represented him gorgeous one year ago, would be the one also interviewing, likely behind closed doors Gleymaxwell, about potential relationships, business friendships, whatever the relationships may be, in the extent to which they may or may not involve Donald Trump himself. It seems the White House really wants this to go away, but are any of their allies listening?

I mean, you have this Blanche action which may or may not involve the White House. But what's happening on Capitol Hill seems to be independent of all this. Is the White House getting frustrated that they can't just make this story go away? Absolutely.

The president himself, I think, is his best spokesperson. And in social media posts here, just this afternoon, he said, why can't people not focus on the most successful six months in the history of any presidency? Those are the words of Donald Trump suggesting that instead people are obsessed with the Epstein files. He called this, again today, a hoax.

It's not clear what part of this is determined is a hoax and is at the extent to which those in Washington, people that he perceives as political enemies and people that are just trying to undercut his mission, are trying to make something beyond what the Department of Justice has already revealed. But I think this is where the president himself, he could have opted, for example, after the Wall Street Journal published its article last week, that the president had sent a birthday card with a depiction of a naked woman to Jeffrey Epstein years ago. Instead of just letting that story go, he decided to file a $10 billion lawsuit that could potentially take months and could even lead to a deposition. And so for in many ways, while the president indicates that he wants to move on from this, some of his top supporters, including those up on Capitol Hill, are adamant that they are not simply going to turn an eye to this after more than five years now having demanded that the public have a full reckoning of what exactly is in those files, whether it leads to criminal charges or not, having that raw evidence.

I don't think that we have seen such a demand out of the public and from members of Congress up on Capitol Hill for any other criminal investigation, unlike compared to this one. And we will get into the details in just a little bit about these Obama claims. But just from a messaging standpoint, is this just a too transparent of an attempt to change the subject? Is it actually going to work?

Even among the MAGA bases, is this something they're thirsting for? Do they want to re-litigate 2016? I think there's a great number of allies in these MAGA media that are trying to make these new claims than new documents that were presented by Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Abbott over the weekend, that they are claiming should lead to the arrest of former President Obama and others. They are trying to make this something that is more compelling in the public interest than the Jeffrey Epstein files.

And the President himself from the Oval Office today, Ryan, said why are people focused on the Epstein hoax and not the documents that have been released as it pertains to the Obama administration in the aftermath of the 2016 election? But let's be very clear. I know you're going to get more into this here. But these files, there is no apparent crime that is being detailed from the release of any of these files.

And for his part, President Obama, through spokesman here, just this afternoon, very dismissive of these allegations. And frankly, six months into this administration, the Department of Justice has not even announced a formal investigation in any way. And John Durham was the one-time special counsel who investigated these very claims that President Trump and others are pushing forward. He was a special counsel appointed by then Attorney General Bill Barr, investigated this for three and a half years.

And ultimately, that investigation led to only one guilty plea from a low-level FBI lawyer. Okay. Vaughn, thank you for that update. Let's move now to Tom Winter.

So, Tom, does the Department of Justice think they're actually going to get anything from speaking to Maxwell? And why would Maxwell, in this case, agree to even participate in something like this? Well, I can certainly see the motivations, Ryan, for Elaine Maxwell to speak. She's currently serving a 20-year sentence, which would have her out of federal prison around the time that she's about 80 years old.

So there's certainly incentive for her if she could get a day shaved off of that, certainly she would want to. The question is, can she possibly give prosecutors that they don't already know? There was already two significant investigations into, obviously, Jeffrey Epstein, obviously, and to Elaine Maxwell. She did not ask for any sort of cooperation agreement leading up to trials saying that I did not commit any crime.

Federal prosecutors did not offer her one either. They exhaustively looked into all the connections and all the individuals. You've already heard that there's no sort of list or client list. The Justice Department has said that.

There's no evidence that we've ever uncovered in the course of our reporting. And no witnesses ever told us or no victim has ever told us that there was a broader conspiracy here. We did hear an awful lot at the trial for which she was convicted of sex trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein from a number of witnesses that directly spoke to Elaine Maxwell's role in that. And some as young as 14 years old at the time.

So the evidence against her is quite clear. Surely she will bring up the non-prosecution agreement, which she believes covers her. That's already been something that the courts have had a significant say on saying, no, that's not the case. You weren't a party to it.

You didn't sign it. And it was not applicable to the Southern District of New York. That's something that she's bringing before the Supreme Court. So presumably she'll bring that up with Todd Blanche.

Outside of that, I'm unaware of anything in the reporting and the files. Whoever talks about the Epstein files, I've got a couple of gigabytes on my computer between the civil litigation, between what's come out in courts between the Palm Beach Police Department files. We have an awful lot of information on this case. And there's nothing that points to anything as far as further lines of inquiry that I would say Maxwell would have any sort of understanding of.

She clearly had, according to a jury that convicted her, quite an understanding of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking in his activities. And then, of course, comes the President and the Attorney General Pan Bondi's request to have those grand jury transcripts released. The DOJ motion to unseal them. And the judge, though, is asking for more submissions before making a decision.

What do we know about that? Yes, they mean that the motion in both the Maxwell and the Epstein cases on those dockets before the judges that are presiding over them. No surprise here, Ryan. The judges want a little bit more information from the Justice Department as to why they want these items unsealed.

What potential redactions might occur? They actually want them to file the documents themselves with the proposed redactions onto the public docket. So the judges want to see that, and then they're giving, obviously, Maxwell's side the opportunity to respond. You know, there is some precedent for releasing grand jury transcripts.

So generally, we know it's in them because we have two indictments in this case. We know the types of information that was presented the grand jury for them to vote on it. It is also possible, legal experts point out that there were some individuals who maybe did not want to testify. They were compelled to testify because they received a grand jury subpoena.

So that could be potentially interesting information. But just based on what we know about the case publicly so far, obviously several asterisks in the course of my reporting with you here today, we don't expect any particularly new or revelatory information to come out of it. Certainly, there could be some additional details. It's going to be at least until early August, if not mid-August before the judges rule on this.

But they do want to rule on it soon, Ryan. And so that's at least a good heads up that we got from the court today. This doesn't appear to be something that's going to be hanging around for too long. Okay, Tom Winter, thank you for that.

Let's now go to Sahel on Capitol Hill. Sahel the Republican Tom Massey had somewhat of a thorn in the side of Speaker Johnson right now. He's one of the people behind the motion to the Rules Committee that was quashed. Now, we've heard some unusual frustration from the speaker with him.

What are he and Massey saying? Yeah, Ryan, I think we'll start with the fact that these two have never really seen eye to eye. There's immense frustration on both ends that's boiling over on two recent issues. The first is President Trump's big, beautiful bill.

Tom Massey was a resolute voice in opposition to that every step of the way because it adds trillions of dollars to the debt. On that one, he was kind of swimming against the tide because the White House and the MAGA movement generally wanted that bill to pass. That was the crux of President Trump's agenda. And the second issue is, of course, the Epstein files.

And this is one where Tom Massey is actually swimming with the current because it's a rare issue where President Trump's own MAGA base disapproves of his own actions and actually supports Tom Massey's effort to force the White House and the administration to be more transparent to release the files related to Jeffrey Epstein and that whole debacle. And all of this has led to escalating primary threats by President Trump that Tom Massey is completely defined about. He's insisting he's going to beat them. I spoke to him yesterday and we heard from Speaker Johnson earlier today.

Let's play that. How are you feeling about the President trying to primary it? Well, they've spent $1.8 million against me so far in my congressional district. I think it's had very little effect, but they're trying to beat up on me to keep everybody else in line here.

And I think it's not working. I try to follow Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment. Never speaking of another Republican. My gosh, it's hard to do sometimes, right here.

Let me just say about Thomas Massey. Could you just accept my southern? Bless his heart. Okay.

I don't know what else to say about it. We're for maximum transparency. We're engaging in that right now and we don't need political games. And that's about as annoyed as I've ever seen Speaker Mike Johnson on anything, Ryan.

You and me both. But what I did find interesting about that. I was in the room when Johnson was talking is that he says he's for transparency. He said maximum transparency a bunch of times, but he keeps avoiding these votes that are essentially about being transparent and releasing the files.

I mean, how awkward of a spot are Republicans on Capitol Hill at the moment? Yeah, exactly. It's an awkward issue because House Republican leaders effectively have to run cover for Trump on an issue by preventing a bill to come to the floor, which a lot of Trump's base wants to pass. Democrats have fully embraced the cause of more transparency on the Epstein file because they see, among other things, a rare issue to drive a wedge between President Trump and his own base.

They keep trying to find issues where that's possible. And they finally seem to have settled on one where it is. But then, you know, Speaker Johnson saying they want maximum transparency. The response of Democrats is just allow the bill to the floor then.

Let the votes happen. Let the votes, you know, let the chips fall where they may. Johnson, of course, is saying the administration is already doing it. In his view, the House doesn't need to act.

Yeah. That's how it all settles. I hope we're thinking for that. And as we noted at the top of the broadcast, President Trump appears to be seeking to deflect attention from the Jeffrey Epstein story by continuing to peddle baseless claims about the 2016 and 2020 elections.

This was treason. This was every word you can think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election.

They did things that nobody's ever even imagined, even in other countries. We caught Hillary Clinton. We got Barack Hussein Obama. They're the ones.

And then you have many, many people under them. Susan Rice. They're all there. The names are all there.

And I guess they figured they could put this in classified information. And nobody will ever see it again. But it doesn't work that way. Justice, everything who's Justice reporter Ryan Riley joins me now to talk about this.

There's a lot of bobbing and weaving here by the current administration as it relates to that. But let's do some fact checking here. Tulsi Gabbert and John Rackliffe claim that these declassified emails show that the Obama administration was manipulating intel to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election. Frankly, is there any truth to that?

No. What they are focusing on is this idea that there was a little, the process might have been a little bit sped up and some intel analysts might have not had quite enough time as they wanted to do this full assessment. But the broad pronunciations that they're, they're making about it just aren't based on facts. And I think that, you know, you have to look back to what they said before.

They made these big broad promises about what was going to be revealed in this investigation. And now when it comes, they're sort of having to make their rhetoric now, match up to what they previously stated, you know, sort of confirming their priors, I guess to a certain extent. We did see a statement, a rare statement from former President Barack Obama come out today, which says that nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia works influence the 2016 presidential election, but did not successfully manipulate any votes. So those findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, which was led by then Chairman Marco Rubio, who of course is now a member of the Trump administration.

So that entire investigation sort of undercuts the notion that they're trying to bring forward today. And he also is trying to push this narrative that President Obama himself was involved in some sort of conspiracy. Even if you were to take a face value of the documents that they've revealed, is there any nexus directly to President Obama himself? Yeah, and he posted that video of Obama being arrested.

No, that wasn't something that would have risen to this level. This was a, you know, really a thorough report. And again, that's a report by Marco Rubio backed up this notion that the facts as they lie as really to Russia. But, you know, going back so many years at this time, I think the administration seems to be looking for some sort of distraction or some sort of to fulfill a lot of these promises that they made up.

We've seen that at a number that we've seen that at the FBI and the Justice Department as well, sort of trying to make the outcomes reach match up to the rhetoric that they previously used. There's also kind of a unique kind of wrinkle to all of this in that, even though there's no evidence that President Obama committed any crimes. President Trump accusing him of this wants to go after him, sharing videos of him being arrested. But the Supreme Court offered up a pretty broad definition of presidential immunity last year.

Does that decision potentially shield President Obama from any sort of prosecution, even if it's a Trump prosecution? The other thing that people have to remember is that there's a five-year statute of limitations for federal crimes, right? So that is a key factor here. So when you're talking about reaching back to things that happened in 2016, you would have to prove that there was some sort of ongoing conspiracy that would have been within the past five years, right?

So these are really, really difficult issues, I think, just to overcome. But I guess that Supreme Court decision also would give former President Obama immunity for anything, any official acts that he took in office. Yes, that same protection that was granted to Donald Trump would then be granted to Barack Obama. It would only have to be statements that were made outside of this capacity, and everything that you're talking about in this realm was completely within the realm of his job.

It was not outside of the realm of his job. Yeah, I think it's so important when we have these conversations to talk about the substance connected to it, but then talk about the potential consequences. It seems on every turn President Trump is overstating this in a great way, and it just seems like that needs to be put into context, right? Thank you for doing that, Forrest.

We appreciate it. Coming up, more than two dozen countries, including key U.S. allies, called for the war in Gaza to end immediately condemning Israel's handling of humanitarian aid as unacceptable. Plus, I'll talk to a House Democrat working to broker a bipartisan deal on immigration reform that includes temporary legal status for some migrants.

That interview is straight ahead. You're watching The Press Now. Welcome back. The situation for civilians in the Gaza Strip is becoming increasingly dire, with Israel expanding its military operation once again, displacing Palestinians while the U.N.

and dozens of other countries are warning about the worsening hunger crisis. Today, the State Department spokesman said that U.S. special envoy Steve Wyckoff is heading to the region, as the administration continues to push for a ceasefire and announce a new initiative to try and increase the flow of aid into the Gaza Strip. President, on the Secretary, and the envoy, a strong hope that we will come forward with another ceasefire, as well as a humanitarian corridor for aid to flow at both sides, having in fact agreed to this.

She added that Secretary Rubio said the humanitarian framework needs to ramp up, but did not provide specific details. NBC News International correspondent Matt Bradley is in Tel Aviv with more. And it's now day two of Israel's expanded operations in the center of the Gaza Strip. We heard yesterday that Israeli forces were moving into the neighborhood of Darrylle Bala.

Now, this had been spared for the most part because it had been used as mostly a focus for humanitarian work. Also, the Israelis seem to believe, according to the Hebrew press, that some of the hostages may be hidden in the Darryl Bala area. So this is a very controversial maneuver here in Israel. But it comes as we're seeing a real surge of criticism against Israel's policies in the Gaza Strip, particularly its blockade that has now been going on for more than a decade, as well as its ability to provide aid through other companies, other organizations that are backed by the U.S.

and Israel. And we've seen on almost daily basis dozens of people being killed trying to get food aid that they so desperately need. And we also just heard a statement on that from 28 countries, mostly Western, our Western countries, European countries, and countries like Australia and Canada. They were very, very critical, saying that there was a drip feed of aid that wasn't nearly enough to help the population.

Now, this was rejected by Israel. They said that this statement from all of these countries that basically was giving the wrong message to Hamas, implying that it was empowering Hamas by criticizing Israel and America's ambassador to Israel here in Israel. He is Mike Huckabee. He came out and said that it was disgusted, and he called the letter irrational.

Thank you, Matt Bradley, for that report. After the break, Ken Republicans bucked the history bus. Steve Kornacke is at the big board to chart the party's potential paths to holding on to House control in midterm elections. You're watching Meet the Press Now.

Welcome back in 2018, Democrats seized on President Trump's stunning victory two years earlier and anger over his policies to win back the House. But while similar ingredients exist right now for Democrats to flip the House in 2026, that blue wave we saw seven years ago could look more like a blue ripple next year, or there could even be no change in the House control at all. And be seen as national political correspondent Steve Kornacke is at the big board. So Steve, break down what makes 2026 different than 2018?

Yeah, it's really interesting, Ryan, because when you look at the bottom line numbers, that's what you have on the screen right now, the balance of power in the House. Before vacancies, essentially, if these vacancies were filled, it would probably be 220 Republican seats, 215 Democratic seats. As thin a majority as you can get for Republicans, that means if Republicans take that majority into the midterms next year, they can afford a loss, a net loss of no more than two seats. And you know the history of midterms, the White House party almost always loses seats.

You mentioned 2018 when Republicans lost 40 seats in Donald Trump's first midterm. So how could he actually be in a position where we're talking about the House being in play next year, at least potentially? Well, it's because the makeup of that Republican majority that got decimated in 2018 is very different from the makeup of the Republican majority right now. And that's what we want to show you right here.

Republicans in 2018 were exposed all over the place. Check this out here. Republicans in 2018 in districts that had been carried by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election anti-Trump districts, there were 25 of them in the 2018 midterms. There are only three Republicans right now representing districts that Donald Trump didn't carry in the last presidential election.

How about the next run here? Call these sort of marginally pro-Trump districts? These are districts that Trump won by less than seven and a half points. There were 23 of these in 2018 midterms.

There's almost a similar number now, 19, not quite as high. But we're highlighting these two groups because this is where Republicans suffered almost all of their damage in the 2018 midterms. So those 25 from anti-Trump districts in 2018, Republicans lost 22 of those seats of the 23 that were marginally pro-Trump. Republicans lost two-thirds of them.

You can't see it because of the red on red there. But 15 in the 23, 22 in 15, 37 losses of seats by Republicans in these two categories in 2018. That's almost all of the losses that they suffered. It was a 40-seat defeat for them.

And you can see right now, again, only three in anti-Trump districts and a slightly smaller number 19 in those marginally pro-Trump districts. You could play this out and look at the other types of districts here. There were a couple of upsets in 2018 of Republicans in solidly pro-Trump districts. And then there were no Republican losses in this category.

The Trump landslide districts in 2018. And look, the Republicans have fewer overall seats now, but there are more Republicans in truly safe Trump landslide districts. So if you're looking ahead to 2026 and what Republicans are trying to pull off right here, it would essentially be, look, can you protect? Can you really severely limit your loss in these two categories?

This is where the damage was done in 18. If Republicans could hold the losses here to somewhere and say the mid high single digits, that's where this topic now is starting to get some attention of redistricting could come into play. Republicans in two states in particular, Ohio and Texas, poised it would appear to do mid-decade redistricting here. Ahead of next year's congressional elections, midterm elections.

And what could that mean? We'll take a look in Texas right now. The current House balance from the Texas delegation is 25, 13 for the Republicans. And the current balance in Ohio is 10 to 5 for the Republicans.

Now, the estimates vary. We don't know what Republicans are going to end up doing. All the sort of caveats you want on that. But 25, 13 could.

Dave Wasserman from Cook Political Report, who knows this stuff well, said it could maximally get to 30 to 8 for Republicans, depending on how they do the map. 10 to 5. And it's a peak for Republicans. They could potentially redraw this to make it 13 to 2.

So what would that be? That would be a gain, if the both of those things happen, of 8 seats for Republicans. So think about that. If they were able to get something in that ballpark out of Texas and out of Ohio, then you went back to what we just showed you right here.

If they limit the damage here and offset it with Texas and Ohio, they could actually be in the game to hold on to their majority. Now, there's so many hits in here, Ryan. We're talking about, we don't know what the political climate's going to be like in the fall of 18. If it's a truly hostile political environment for Trump, no amount of map redrawing can probably undo that damage.

Or even talk for Democrats now trying to counter this redistricting in some blue states as well. But bottom line, when Republicans look at that compared to 2018 and throw in those potential redraws in Ohio and Texas, the math does start to get potentially interesting, at least from this vantage point. At some point, they'll just vote, Steve, and then we'll know the answer, right? It'll get to that point somewhere down the road.

Alright, thank you, Steve. Up next, inside the bipartisan push to overhaul the US immigration system, as new poll numbers show a majority of Americans say the president has gone too far with his deportation agenda. You're watching We The Press Now. Welcome back.

As we mentioned, summer break is starting early for the House of Representatives, with the rules committee paralyzed by Democratic motions on information relating to Jeffrey Epstein. But the work still continues with a bipartisan group of House members pushing for the impossible in Congress, a comprehensive immigration reform package that combines border funding security and legal status for long-term undocumented immigrants. And joining me now is the New York Democratic Congresswoman, Laura Gillin. Congressman, let's first start with his bipartisan immigration bill.

You said that you hope Speaker Mike Johnson will take the bill under consideration. Have you gotten any indication what it will take to get this bill to the floor? Look, I came to Congress with a mandate from my voters as did the Congress people elected across this country. People want immigration reform.

Our system has been broken for too long. They want our border secure. They want a pathway to citizenship so people can come in lawfully. They want illegal people who are breaking the law deported out of our country.

And this is the most comprehensive immigration bill to come, hopefully to the floor in decades. And in this hyper-partisan Congress, we were able to get 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans to agree on a tough but fair bill. And I really hope my colleagues will join me because we owe it to our constituents. Now, you mentioned pathway to citizenship, but there is some disagreement as to exactly what that means in this particular package, including for people that have already entered the country illegally, and there is an opportunity for them to get under a guest worker program, but that program would specifically not allow them a pathway to citizenship.

Are you letting down some advocates that would like to see a pathway for citizenship for that specific group of people? Right now, what we are doing, we are establishing rules of the road and clear guidance. If you've been here for five years and you want to be able to lawfully remain here with your family and work here, there is a pathway called the Dignity pathway, which will enable you to do just that after a thorough background check in vetting to make sure that you are paying taxes, abiding by our laws, and just want to remain here to work and to be with your family members if they are here. What we are also doing in this bill, which is something that has been needed for decades, is fixing our broken asylum system.

So, people who want to come here and have a claim of asylum can have their claims processed in 60 days instead of the current seven-year backlog that is tying up our asylum system and making it uncertain if people can stay here, if they have valid claims, and also keeping people here who maybe don't have the right to be here. That would find a way for those folks to get here and to stay in this country if they do, in fact, have a valid asylum claim. Plus, it also takes that adjudication process out of the United States and has people apply outside our jurisdiction, outside our borders. And then if they have a valid claim and they are adjudicated to have a right claim to asylum, then they can come into our country.

You did vote against the one big beautiful bill, as Republicans have deemed it. It did have tens of billions of dollars for enforcement, for ICE. If that had been just all by itself, not with all the other provisions in that act, would you have voted yes for increase funding for ICE? I believe that we need to secure our border.

We need to add resources to our border to increase our technology there, to increase barriers. We're appropriate to make sure we are keeping our country safe. I also believe, like the majority of Americans, people who are here and undocumented who are committing crimes, need to be deported. Okay, so let's try.

So I would support initiatives for that. Okay, so let's talk now about politics. New York City, Maryland candidate. Zorhan Mandani was in Washington to meet with Democratic lawmakers last week.

Have you met with him yet? And do you still believe that he's too extreme to lead New York City? I have not met with Mr. Mandani, and I don't agree with Mr.

Mandani. Mr. Mandani's policies, I do not think that cratering the New York City economy will be good for my constituents, my constituents work in New York City. Their kids live in New York City, and the policies that he is threatening to settle New York City with will crater our economy and leverage their varying effects across New York City.

But New York City voters have to pick someone, right? So if it's not Mandani, who the Democratic voters in New York City picked? Who is it? Is it Andrew Cuomo?

Is it the current mayor? We'll see it. The field is still emerging. We'll see who is left standing on Election Day.

But you don't have a preference right now? I don't vote in New York City, but the reason I'm getting involved in weighing in is because I believe that Zorim and Donnie is a threat to my constituents. He is not the right face of the Democratic Party. We are a party where I believe we should leave from the middle and lead from a centrist position with common sense ideas and concrete policies that can actually lower the cost of living for everyday Americans.

And Mr. Mandani's policies are all smoke and mirrors. He does not have the authority to do half the things he says he's going to, and it would have very bad economic effects on New York that will be passed down to the middle class and to working class folks. Okay, to that end though, I want to put up a statement from Dan Pfeiffer who worked for President Obama.

He said, if a more moderate Democrat meets a progressive in the 2028 primary, as in 2016 and in 2020, it will be tough to convince progressives to unite behind the nominee when the Democratic establishment won't rally behind Zorim and Mandani after his convincing primary win. At some point, don't Democrats have to come together, even if you don't agree on every single issue? I think in 2028, progressives will not unite to go support a Republican. And so you, is that enough?

So what's going to happen in New York City then? Is Curtis Lee? Why going to win in New York City? I mean, someone has to pick someone in this race, right?

You know, if I could tell you who's going to win elections, you know, I would be a great sincere. I don't know who's going to win this election. I know what my policy is and my policy is I do not support Zorim and Mandani in this election. And I do believe 100% that the Democratic nominee for President in 2028 should be a centrist, moderate, common sense Democrat because that's where the majority of Americans are, not on the fringes.

Okay, moving on. I don't know if you saw that the president's son, Hunter Biden, gave an interview yesterday. He was critical of the efforts to get his father to end his bid back in 2024. Do you still do you think I should say that President Biden made the right decision by stepping out of that race in 2024?

I think it was probably the right decision. I wasn't there. I wasn't in Congress at the time, but I was very concerned after I saw the debate. Okay, all right.

Congressman Laura Gillen, we're going to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. Thank you.

And still to come remembering the Prince of Darkness. You're watching me the press now. Okay, it's panel time. Joining me now, Tia Mitchell, Washington bureau chief for the Atlanta Journal of Constitution, Andrew Bates, former White House Deputy Press Secretary to President Biden.

And Brendan Bock, the former press secretary to House Speaker John Boehner and Paul Ryan. He's also an NBC News political analyst. Well, Tia, try as they might. The White House desperately would like to turn the page on the Septing scandal.

They can't do it. And part of the reason they can't do it is because it's Republicans that are calling for more transparency. I saw you on the Hill today. I mean, is your vibe that House Republicans in particular are just going to let this go?

Well, I think it's not just that House Republicans are not willing to let this go. What we're hearing from House Republicans is that their constituents are not willing to let this go. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said it's the number one issue when constituents are calling her offices in D.C. and back in Georgia.

And again, these are Republicans who for years have been told there was this big conspiracy that perhaps there were things that the government led by Democrats are concealing from the public when it comes to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. And now those saying Republicans are saying Trump and folks around Trump have promised us that if we put them in power, they will help expose these things they've been talking about. And now they feel a little bit tray. They're saying release the files.

Marjorie Taylor Greene said if you talk to my constituents, they say release the files. That's what members of Congress know. And that's why they're in such disarray on how to appease their constituents. But they also want to appease Trump.

And right now everyone's not on the same page. Yeah, Greene said it was the number one call she was getting from constituents. It was the top issue that they were concerned about. So Brandon, Speaker Johnson seems to be clearly frustrated with his base, including Tom Massey, who was trying to push to get a resolution to the floor.

Listen to what Johnson said today. I don't understand Thomas Massey's motivation. I really don't. I don't know how his mind works.

I don't know what he's thinking. Thomas Massey could have brought his discharge condition any time over the last four and a half years. Over the last four years of my administration, he could have done that at any time. And now he's clamoring is that there's some sort of timeline on it.

So you dealt with work for two speakers that had irritants in his own party in their own parties. How does a speaker deal with this, particularly for somebody like Johnson was such a small margin. I mean, if it was just Thomas Massey, that would be one thing. But it's not just Thomas Massey.

There's a lot of people who need to do something here. So it's not the first time there's been a lot of pressure that builds. And a lot of times when there's pressure like this, you just need to provide a release valve. Give them something that they can vote on, something that they can hang their hat on.

And that's where Johnson is sort of stuck here. It would be very easy for a lot of these members who are great for them to just have a vote on this resolution. Just have something where they can go home and when all August when they're back with their constituents. Yeah, I voted for the Massey resolution.

I'm for transparency. So just clamoring for something. Give me a vote on something. I need to decide this dissertation, which is something the majority usually never does.

It tells you what kind of pressure they have. But Johnson is siding with Trump. He doesn't want to poke him in the eye on this. And he's going to leave with a lot of really upset members who are going to face tough questions all summer long.

Johnson said there's no daylight between him and the White House on this. Andrew, the speakers don't try to make this a Democrat's issue saying that they just ignored this for four years. And truthfully, there were no Democrats talking about Jefferson until this memo was released by the Department of Justice. How does the Democrats treat this?

Do they keep picking up this scab? What does this play leading to the midterms and beyond? The most significant thing about this is that it shows Trump disrespecting his base and breaking a core promise. That he chose to make.

I saw that he was ranting about some of his predecessors and trying to claim that they forced this on him. But he keeps insulting the intelligence of his own supporters who know that this is something they've been interested in for years. It's something he has promised transparency on for years. But then something happened earlier this year where I don't know if something was in those files that he did not think was in there, came to light.

But he seems very insecure about his close friendship with the most famous pedophile in modern history. And he's also somebody who said he was going to take on the system that he was going to take on the establishment. But he's selling out to that establishment. And we don't know exactly why, but more scrutiny is needed.

Right, you've been a good point though. There may just be some politics going on here. All of a sudden you have Democrats who are rushing to help Republicans. And it seems like Republicans don't quite realize or don't care that they've been taken for a ride.

But, you know, Rokhan is helping Thomas Massey bring this to the floor. You've got Democrats voting with Republicans in committee to subpoena Maxwell. Like, they're clearly enjoying this, but Republicans don't seem to appreciate that. I just want to quickly say there is a release of files as you mentioned, Brendan.

There is a non-binding resolution sponsored by Austin Scott that would give Republicans something to hang their head on. It could pass. It's non-binding, so it shouldn't trouble President Trump too much. But even that was too far for Speaker Johnson to put on the floor.

Well, I think it got out of rules, right? But I think he won't put it on the floor. And that's really what caused the chaos this year because the release filed that Republicans said, hey, this is going to give us something. It couldn't even agree on that.

Couldn't even agree on that. Alright, let's talk more about the Democrats in the midterms. The Democrats do still appear to be somewhat leaderless. James Carville, who always has an opinion on everything, wrote not bad, that the Democrats should unite against the President's policies.

This is what he writes. Our midterms starts with a simple phrase, every candidate can blast on every screen and stage. We demand a repeal. A repeal of Mr.

Trump's spending law is one word that should define the midterms. It is clear forceful and full-throated. It must be slathered across every poster, every social media post from now until November. That single word is our core message.

Brendan, that would mean a repeal of the tax cuts that I think 80% of Americans have benefited from. There's no doubt that Democrats don't like a lot of what's in this bill, but is a full repeal the kind of messaging that would resonate with voters. All year long, I've been getting flashbacks at 2010. Republicans came to power on Democrats passing Obamacare, the ACA, and we ran on a pledge to repeal it.

It really worked well for us. This may not be bad short-term political advice, but I'm talking about repeal, fire up your base. It's an unpopular bill. Go after it.

But this is how you end up eating your own party alive. Chuck Schumer got beat up earlier this year because he didn't go to a government shutdown that was going to completely destroy his party. It was a situation where they kept promising their own voters that they couldn't actually deliver, and you paid the price. Here again, they're not learning the lessons.

They're promising something that they're not going to be able to repeal this law. They're not going to raise taxes on all of these people. But you tell your supporters that you're going to do stuff like this, we know from experience. You tell your supporters you're going to do stuff like this, and you can't deliver.

You're going to end up with a big problem because they're going to stop trusting you, and they're going to have something like Donald Trump become president because they don't trust their own leaders in Congress. Okay, so Andrew, Hunter Biden, also chiming in on this, take a listen to what he said about the Democratic establishment and James Carville in particular. James Carville, who hasn't won a race in 40 years, and David Axelrod, who had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama, and that was because of Barack Obama, not because of David Axelrod, and David Plough, in all of these guys, in the Pod Save America guys, they're all going to insert their judgment over a man who has figured out, unlike anybody else, how to get elected to the United States Senate over seven times, how to pass more legislation than any president in history, how to have a better midterm election than anybody in history, and how to garner more votes than any president that has ever won in order to replace their judgment for his. Andrew, is the establishment wrong in some of these cases?

I don't think that's the discussion that is happening in the party right now, writ large. Hunter Biden is someone who is going to speak about his father as a son who is rightly proud of his father, and he's going to stand up for him. But I think that what the party is talking about writ large is there's a big, beautiful bill that is raising people's taxes if you're a working person. So wealthy folks can get new tax breaks, and is cutting health care going to take it from 10 million people, and is worsening the inflation that this man was supposedly elected on ending on day one.

I think that's where folks are, and there's also new frameworks coming out about how to encourage growth that is driven by the middle class. Okay, we're going to have to look at there, Andrew. Thank you, Tia. Brendan, thank you as well.

Before we go, though, the music world is mourning the loss of heavy metal icon Aussie Osborne. His family announced that the frontman for Black Sabbath died this morning. Joe Fryer has more on Osborne's life and legendary career. He was known as the Prince of Darkness, music royalty, proud with men.

Aussie Osborne rose to fame in the 1970s as lead singer of Black Sabbath, a band that gave the heavy metal genre a lift with hits like paranoid. And in 1979, came major changes. Aussie was fired from the group for excessive drinking and drug use. He would quickly rebound, launching a long successful solo career with songs like Crazy Train and the Power Ballad, Mama, I'm Coming Home.

Mama, I'm coming home. What Rachamol has done for me is you couldn't buy it and it's changed everything for me. Because like 20 years ago, I was just a nothing person living in a nothing existence. I never had any excitement in my life.

Osborne was born in 1948 in Birmingham, England. As a young boy, he never could have imagined decades later, he performed for the Queen, singing at her Golden Jubilee in 2002. It was a career filled with accomplishments, winning Grammy Awards, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the creation of Ozfest, a successful music festival that boosted up and coming bands. But there were challenges too.

He was accused of being a negative influence on teams and of worshiping Satan and allegation he roundly rejected. I have a big heart, all I want to do is make people smile. But there's so many people that don't know that devil, you know. That's an act that I do, you know.

It's show business. Though there was the time he bit the head off a bat while on stage. Something so enmeshed in his lore, he even re-enacted it on his tour. I picked it up, I picked it up and suddenly everybody's freaking out because it's a real back.

It's a moment that would be parodied throughout his life. He created even more memorable moments on the reality show, The Osmol. A press is one button and a shower's thousand. It's a surprising hit for MTV that chronicled Ozzy, his wife, Sharon, and two of their kids, Jack and Kelly.

Ozzy did ultimately reunite with Black Sabbath, occasionally touring the group over the years he struggled with sobriety, but credited Sharon with saving his life. Sharon's my heart and soul. If it wasn't for Sharon, I would be dead longer though. I wouldn't have lasted.

Me too. He saved me and I saved him. He also dealt with health problems, including Parkinson's disease, that he kept making music. It's what I do, you know.

It's the greatest love affair I've ever had in my life. A legacy of light from the Prince of Darkness. Joe Fryer, NBC News. He will be missed for sure.

Well, thank you for joining us for this crazy train of Meet the Press Now. That train continues well with Hallie Jackson right now. Thanks for watching. Now, wherever you get your podcasts.