Meet the Press NOW — July 25

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Call on the experts that know how to beat the heat. Reliance conditions apply. See website for details. If it's Friday, President Trump does not rule out pardoning convicted Epstein accomplice Lynne Maxwell, saying he hasn't considered it, but that he's, quote, allowed to do it.

As Democrats blast the private meetings between Maxwell and the deputy attorney general. Plus, President Trump says Hamas is going to be quote, hunted down after the latest round of ceasefire and hostage negotiation talks appear to collapse at a critically desperate point in Gaza's humanitarian crisis and ready for a rebate. President Trump flo the idea of said it jacks to some Americans using the revenue from tariffs with one week to go before the White House's self imposed trade deal deadline. Welcome to me the press now.

I'm Kristen Welder. President Trump landed in Scotland just moments ago for a trip that will combine his personal business with this country's business. And while he may be hoping to leave the ongoing controversy over his administration's handling the Epstein case behind, the president raised new questions as he spoke to reporters before leaving the White House. Mr.

Trump today repeatedly praised Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as his personal lawyer. Lynch met privately today with Epstein's longtime girlfriend and accomplice Lily Maxwell for a second day in a row. The president also repeatedly dodging questions on whether he's considering a partner commutation for for Maxwell, who served a 20 year prison sentence for sex trafficking. Well, I don't know about the meeting.

I know it's taking place. And he's a fantastic man. He's a great attorney. And people should really focus on how well the country's doing or they should focus on the fact that Barack Hussein Obama led a coup.

I don't want to talk about that. What I do want to say is that Todd is a great attorney. Would you consider a pardon of our conversation for Elaine Mackel? It's something I haven't thought about it.

I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about. I can't talk about that now because, you know, it's a very sensitive interview going on. Can you trust what you're telling him? Do you convict his rapid or Easier to get out of prison.

Well, you know, he's a professional lawyer. I think he. He's been through things like this before. But, you know, you should focus, Clinton.

You should focus on the president of Harvard, the former president of Harvard. You should focus on some of the hedge fund guys. I'll give you a list. Now, just moments ago, after landing in Scotland, Mr.

Trump was asked again about Maxwell telling reporters, quote, this is no time to be talking about pardons, but again, notably not ruling out the possibility. Maxwell's attorney said today that no offer of clemency has been made. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are sounding the alarm about Blanche's meeting with Maxwell, calling it suspicious as they try to keep Americans attention on the Trump administration's handling of the case. Let's not forget Mr.

Maxwell is a convicted sex trafficker and has already been charged with lying under oath. We also think, by the way, that she probably wants a pardon from Donald Trump, and so her meeting with Trump's Department of Justice cannot be trusted. Under no circumstances should anyone from Donald Trump's Department of Justice be allowed to privately interview Ghislaine Maxwell. The conflict of interest just stares you in the face, and it's unacceptable.

Comes as the Wall Street Journal reports, more notable contributors to that 2003 Epstein birthday book, which it says included a, quote, body letter from Mr. Trump. Among those other names, former Democratic President Bill Clinton. A spokesperson for Clinton declined to comment on the Wall Street Journal story.

NBC News has not verified the reports about that birthday book. And the president today again denied writing the note. I don't even know what they're talking about now. Somebody could have written a letter and used my name, but that's happened a lot.

All you have to do is take a look at the dossier, the fake dossier. Everything's fake with that administration. Everything's fake with the Democrats. Joining me now is White House correspondent Vaughn Hillier, law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter, and senior national political reporter Sahil Kapoor.

Vaughn, let me start with you. As much as President Trump says he wants this story to go away, boy, he really gave it fresh oxygen today when he made some of the comments we heard from him from Seth Lon. And he's not ruling out clemency for Gaylaine Axwell. I think if you're talking about oxygen, that has to be chief among them a woman who was convicted of sex trafficking.

Very, very serious crimes. This is somebody who the president is openly, not completely outright rejecting that he would potentially give a pardon or commute the sentence of she's currently set to serve time until she's about 80 years old. And we still do not have specifics about what the day and a half worth of interview, exactly what the purpose of that interview between his deputy attorney general and Glenn Maxwell in the courthouse is ultimately going to lead to, whether they will seek to try to bring new charges. But from the attorney for Ghislaine Maxwell leaving the courthouse here today, suggesting that she did not invoke any privileges, that she answered every single one of the deputy Attorney General's questions, and that there is a whole range of issues discussed here.

So for the president, he is not outright ignoring it, instead openly not denying outright that he would potentially provide clemency for Gay Maxwell. Well, Vaughn, and you've been covering this story for quite some time, as you know, there are plenty of conspiracy theories swirling around the Epstein matter. For those who believe in those conspiracy theories, does having the president's former personal attorney, who is now the deputy Attorney general, run the risk of only adding to that error to compounding those conspiracy theories? Right.

These are the same allies and basis supporters that have long defended the President through his criminal indictments, the hush money Cayman trial of which Donald Trump was found guilty. But the lead defense attorney was in fact Todd Blanch. The man was conducting this interview here today. And in so many ways, I think for the first time in the last decade of Donald Trump's political relevance, you see skepticism not only among voters, you know, polling and suggested that 50% of Republicans were not satisfied with this White House's handling of the Epstein files, but also Republican lawmakers, including James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, who has said that a pardon or commutation would be unacceptable under any circumstances for Ghilaine Maxwell and that they want the records themselves of the Epstein files.

In that effectively going down and having that interview conversation with Wayne Maxwell isn't good enough for House Republicans and that they want to see the files themselves. There is pressure that it is and very clearly made will not relent until more answers are provided, some of which the White House has been hesitant to give to this. And Vaughn, let's shift to the President's trip to Scotland. Of course, he's just landed.

What are the key goals of this trip? What are you gonna be watching for? Right. The president first is going to be heading to two of his golf courses.

One of these is a new 18 course, 18 old golf course that is going to be open, that he's going to be there for the ribbon cutting for. But there is also a business Component of this the White House has made clear. Just earlier today the head of the EU suggested she will be meeting personally with the President on Sunday at a time in which the President continues to hold out in striking a trade agreement with the European Union. Upon arriving here to Scotland just moments ago, he suggested that it is a 5050 chance that he strikes a deal with the EU before new additional tariffs are set to go into effect on August 1st.

But the President is also going to meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday. This is a four day trip through to Scotland. Quite a time for the President to leave the mainland United States, but very important time overseas as his White House attempts to strike these trade deals that have been sort of far reaching and far from being able to wholly be ultimately signed off on here over the last months. Yeah, an immense amount of urgency given that self imposed one week deadline.

Vaughn, thank you so much for your great reporting. Let me turn now to Tom Winter. So Tom, President Trump kind of dance around the possibility of a computation or pardon. Of course he didn't rule one out.

Beyond those options though, what could happen next? Well, it could be what's called a Rule 35 that could be filed, Kristen. And that's a situation where it's actually gonna be federal prosecutors who've got to come before the court and say, your honor, in the year after she was sentenced. So that would bring us into 2023.

From that point on, she has developed new information that is helpful to the US Government in some way shape or form and then make an argument before the court that her sentence should be reduced. It can't be information that she kn back to the 2000s or leading up to her trial because that information should have been disclosed already. That's the way the rules work. There is a slight caveat.

If she do something say back in 2005 that she didn't think would at all be relevant, it is today, then that's something that she could bring forth. So that's the way to do this through the courts. Door number two, if you will, is the one that you just referenced. The idea of a commutation which would be a reduction or an elimination of her prison sentence or an outright pardon which would clear the conviction as well.

So those are kind of the two paths here going forward. The third horse is that she says in jail they had a good discussion and that's the end of it. So we'll just have to see what comes up in the coming days and weeks as it pertains to her case, undoubtedly, I know you'll be watching very closely. Now, as we mentioned, Todd Blanche was Mr.

Trump's personal attorney. Senate leader Chuck Schumer saying it's a conflict of interest for him to conduct these interviews. Tom, what does the law say? Yeah, I mean the law here, it's really uncharted territory.

I can't take over the entire course of my career where Deputy Attorney General has specifically conducted an interview as some sort of investigation, even though just a couple weeks ago in that memo they said it was closed. So it's not clear to me exactly what the legal role of Todd Blanche is here. If there was anybody in the room, another agent, another prosecutor, it adds even more complication to the issue because he would then be the sole witness. So then who moves the court if they're gonna go that way in order to make the argument that Maxwell should have her sentence reduced?

It's just, it's so unusual. Deputy Attorney General might get an email, might get a quick phone call on the highest of priority cases, this is certainly high priority about what was going on in the investigation. To actively take a part in it is something that is highly unusual. And so I think a lot of people have questions.

Certainly the victims attorneys who have interviewed her on a number of occasions, including where she lied. According to prosecutors, they have questions about this arrangement too. So you take me to my next. Have we heard anything from the victims?

Yeah, the victims are starting to speak out on our sister properties on NBC News now, talking about the idea that they have been completely unheard from, heard of again. I mean that's the whole reason why we got to this point, is that the victims were really upset about the non prosecution agreement and the fact that they were never consulted. That led to a court action. Court documents started coming out and that's how this Epstein case over the years, sorry, I have so much documentation on it, but that's the Epstein case over the years really started to gather a lot of attention in snowball because there were more filings and more questions that were raised, more information that came out as to how this non prosecution agreement came to be in the first place.

The victims complained, they weren't heard then. That's their exact complaint now. And you talk to any victims expert, Kristen, they will tell you that victims being left out of the loop is something that really haunts them and really hurts them. And already one of the witnesses in Glenn Maxwell's trial several years back died by suicide.

So this is really raising a lot of questions, not only for their attorneys, but for these women themselves. Absolutely. Tom Winter, great reporting today and all week long. Thank you so much for joining us.

So let me turn to you now. Democrats, of course, have taken up this Epstein issue as well. It seems like, of course, they're using it as a hammer against President Trump. Are they planning to bring this to their constituents over the recess?

What are you gonna be watching for in that regard? Yeah, it's a number of different things, Kristen. Democrats see this as a special opportunity to track the MAGA coalition, not just to depress Trump's base, which they do see as one opportunity, but to also peel away some Trump voters, Trump supporters in 2024, who are not exactly Die Hard MAGA figures, but kind of anti establishment, anti government, anti corruption, and stock Trump as a vehicle to advance some of their goals. They see this as an opportunity to weaken Trump with certain characteristics or issues very strong with his baseline, including perceptions of honesty, transparency, will this to fight the system, fight corruption.

And Democrats are really escalating this. On their way out, you know, to recess, they're calling this the Epstein recess, noting that House Republican leaders recess early in order to avoid votes on this issue. I've painted a memo by House Democratic leaders encouraging members to raise the alarm on the Epstein files, calling it a top messaging priority and even offering some guidance as to how they can do that. I've also heard from some Democrats who are a little shocked at the power of this issue, Chris, and they thought this was gonna be a bit of nothing, but maybe one or two day issue and just bounce off Donald Trump like most things do.

Like most things do, you know, with Teflon, Don. But that doesn't happen here. This issue has staying power and Democrats are very, very eager to capitalize on it and continue to capitalize on it, especially as they see Trump really struggling to try to change the topic of Irish. And yet I think one of the biggest unanswered questions that loom so large is how will this play electorally?

Because of course, after the 2024 elections, one of the lessons for Democrats was we need to stay laser focused on the economy, on pocketbook issues. How much is there concern right now within the Democratic Party that this could overshadow that pocketbook message? I think they've come around to the view, Kristen, that they can do both. You know, that's why some Democrats initially, when this first broke, you heard multiple of them saying, no Epstein issues.

Extraction from the fact that, you know, the president doesn't want to talk about the big beautiful bill. That doesn't talk about the rescissions package. It turns out you can talk about Epstein on one hand, but also, you know, talk about the big beautiful bill, the Medicaid cuts and the very thing that Democrats want to highlight. At the same time, you don't necessarily have to choose because of the staying power, because of the escape velocity that the Epstein issue has.

So, I mean, I think it's been a bit of a journey for Democrats to finally discover an issue where Trump is not able to control base, where he has completely lost control of House Republican leaders, you know, in the way they operate. And they are eager to milk this for as long as they can. Yeah, it's the first time that we've seen these types of divisions within the Republican Party, particularly in the second Trump administration and among the MAGA base. Sahil, as always, thank you for your fantastic reporting.

We really appreciate it. Coming up, Gaza on edge. Talks to regional ceasefire. Hostage and humanitarian aid deal appear to break down, raising fears that violence could soon escalate in Gaza where a deadly hunger crisis is taking hold.

We have the very latest from the region. Plus, President Trump appears to take a softer tone on Fed chair Jerome Powell after the two year tense moment yesterday live on TV while touring the Fed's renovation project. We'll take a look at that. Say what?

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Despite the growing international calls for a ceasefire and an end to the Israel Hamas war, diplomatic efforts appear to be on hold. Yesterday, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff announcing he was cutting short ceasefire talks in Doha because negotiations for Hamas were not acting in good faith. Earlier today, President Trump reacted to the collapse of those talks and seemed to indicate the fighting could now escalate.

They pulled out of Gaza. They pulled out. In terms of negotiating, it was too bad. Hamas, Hamas didn't really want to make a deal.

I think they want to die and it's very bad. And it got to be to a point where you're going to have to finish the job. I think what's going to happen is they're going to be hunted down now. This all comes against the backdrop of the worsening food crisis in the Gaza Strip and growing international pressure to distribute more aid into the war torn enclave.

NBC News international correspondent Matt Bradley has more on this devastating situation. We're hearing a chorus of concern from around the world for the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. We're hearing, according to the United nations survey, that around 9% of children in the Gaza Strip are suffering from severe malnutrition. This up from 6% in May.

So we really are seeing a worsening situation and one that the world is struggling to try to. The United nations is trying to get an aid. They are faulting the Israelis, they say, for creating difficulties in distributing the aid inside the Gaza Strip. I actually went to the Gaza Strip with the Israeli military yesterday and they showed me all of the aid that's actually in Gaza that hasn't been distributed.

The Israelis are faulting all of these aid agencies and the United nations for not picking it up and distributing it throughout the Gaza Strip. So this is a worsening situation and it's one that's especially afflicting children. But it doesn't look as though this one will be released anytime soon. Steve Wyckoff, the president's special envoy to the Middle east, he actually just left some of these negotiations for a cease fire.

He said that it doesn't look as though there's any appetite from Hamas for some sort of negotiated deal. And it sounds as though he's giving up on these negotiations, at least from his statement saying that he's going to have to find other ways of releasing those hostages. In the meantime, France's President Emmanuel Macron has said that France will recognize the state of Palestine by this fall, sometime in September. That would make him not the first country.

There are hundreds of countries who recognize Palestine, but we make him the largest and most significant Western country to do so. Now, of course, we've already heard from Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of state, dismissing this. We heard from President Donald Trump saying that the statement carries no weight, but this could cause other countries to do the same. Matt Bradley, thank you so much for that.

Joining me now on set as NBC News chief Washington correspondent and chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell. Andrea, thank you so much for being here. What a devastating situation that is unfolding. President Trump saying in the wake of these diplomatic talks collapsing, we could see the fighting increase.

You have Emmanuel Macron saying that France is now prepared to recognize the Palestinian state. Talk about these two development. These developments are incredibly troubling. First of all, President Trump certainly seemed to be indicating when he said, we're going to have to hunt them down, some sort of military action, kinetic action, instead of the ceasefire that had long been hoped for.

As for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was just here the week before last or two weeks ago, and he was talking about a ceasefire, then he said, well, it wouldn't be within days, but we hope very soon. But all those hopes have really now faltered, to say the least. There's some hope that these talks have not really collapsed, that this is a pause, a break. Wyckoff is choosing to pull back rather than staying, as some of the previous negotiators had done, and just sort of stick it out and trudge it out the way.

Trudge through it, as Redden Burke did for weeks and weeks on end. He obviously has a lot of other things on his plate. So that's his strategy, to put more pressure on Hamas, perhaps. But the problem with Hamas is that they are top officials.

It's not a problem. It's a success by Israel in terms of targeted assassinations, but they've eliminated the leadership with whom they were negotiating, with the political and military leadership. So there's almost no one now who can speak for Hamas. And you've got a lot of loan actors and all those miles and miles of tunnels and a lot of danger for the remaining people, Palestinian, and of course, the hostages in Gaza.

And of course, Andrew, the question looming over all of this is what to do about the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding there. You've been pressing State Department officials, we've seen you there in the briefing room trying to get answers to this. But the pressure that's mounted, not only on Israel, but on the United States as well, to try to get food to the people who are suffering and quite frankly, starving to death in the Gaza Strip. Well, I mean, the Macron decision to recognize the Palestinian state despite the fact that Mahmoud Abbas, their leader, the Palestinian Authority leader, is derided in both the Arab world and in most of the Western world for not reforming and not bringing younger and more moder, moderate, and more, frankly, less corrupt officials into the fold, which would permit and encourage the Gulf leaders, the Arab states, to come in and help take over.

Despite all of that, what Israel's blockade has done is really alienate almost everyone in the Western world except for the United States. So the US And Israel have jointly created this foundation. It was done with the Boston consultant group, which has now walked away from it, abandoned it, criticized it because it says, as does the UN and all these Western leaders, 28 nations, including our closest allies, as well as 100 aid groups saying that they are violating international law and established aid formulas for delivering aid throughout Gaza, not just in the south where Israel would like the population to move, forcing people to travel from north to south to get their feedings and only doing it in four sites or sites that are guarded and honored by the idf. Those are not the way.

That is not the way it is supposed to be distributed. That's not the way the World Health Organization did. There were 400 sites in the past. And so this is really just a trickle of aid.

Jordan did get 35 truckloads of flour in yesterday under great difficulty. But there are raids, there are riots, food riots, because people are starving and they are, the children are dying and they don't have fuel for them, for the hospitals. They are putting infants, piling them into a single incubator. They don't have enough energy.

It is a disaster. The images are just unbearable. Andrew Mitchell, thank you for bringing your reporting to us today and throughout this week. We really appreciate it.

Coming up next, the price you pay inside the push on Capitol Hill to ban companies from using AI to charge different people different prices for the same products. Watching the press now. Welcome back. With just one week to go before the White House's latest self imposed deadline to complete all of the trade deals and agreements with some of the United States largest trading partners.

So many are still unfinished, including EU trade officials announcing today they'll hold talks with the president in Scotland on Sunday. The president is morning telling reporters he puts the odds of 50, 50 of reaching a deal with the EU with even longer odds of reaching an agreement with Canada by next week. Take a look. Well, most of the deals are finished right now.

They're finished because we're just going to charge the circuit down a lower tariff that I can get. I don't want to hurt countries, but we're going to send a letter out sometime during the week. So August 1st is going to come and we will have most of our deals finished, if not all. The treasury secretary saying the federal government has collected more than a billion dollars in tariff revenue so far this year and the president is now suggesting some of that money could be distributed to Americans.

We're thinking about that actually. We have so much money coming in, we're thinking about a little rebate. But the big thing we want to do is pay down debt. But we're thinking about a rebate.

That's a very good. We're thinking about a rebate because we have so much money coming in for tariff that tariffs that a little rebate for people of a certain income level might be very nice. NBC News business and data correspondent Brian Chung joins me now. So, okay, a lot of people perked up when they heard President Trump hit at a rebate because of how much money he says the US Is making off of tariff.

What do you know about this, Brian? Is this realistic? How might it work? Yeah, it's bringing back these memories of the stimulus checks during the pandemic, which a lot of people were excited about.

I want to point out that we are so many legislative steps away from this actually happening. The president suggesting that they could use the money from these tariff collections to get rebates out to Americans would be part of the story of the president trying to tout benefits of these tariffs. Although I want to point out that there's been a number of literature that have pointed to a lot of these tariff payments coming from American companies, not from overseas. So this was essentially money just flowing back into other places.

But I want to point out that there were talks, talks earlier this year about a doge dividend kind of in a similar vein, where any sort of savings that came from doge cuts could be rebated to Americans in the form of payments. Again, that didn't really seem to go anywhere, although the administration did suggest that they were looking into it. So could this be the same situation where there's chatter about it and nothing ultimately happens that does remain a cc. Let me ask you about the tariffs.

Of course, they've been delayed for months now. The administration has that self imposed August 1st deadline which is a week from today. How are investors? How are CEOs looking at this?

Is there a sense they could actually take effect a week from today? Yeah. You know, honestly, Chris, it seems like markets as of late have just been shrugging off the recent hair headlines. This week we got a number of announcements from the President, including a positive developments, of course, on the European Union front, which we're keeping all eyes on Scotland today.

But even just this week we did get the inking of the Japan deal. There are also a number of other countries like the Philippines that were in focus as well. So again, the points here are going to the positive side in terms of developing these deals, but markets haven't really done that much we have hit all time highs on a number of different indexes. I think that's basically shrugging up the concern that these high tariff rates could come into effect for a number of countries that aren't able to ink deals with the United States by August 1st, which is as you point out next week.

If that does come to pass, then that actually is a hard deadline in these tariff rates into effect. Could that send markets into a tailspin that could bring back the days of the first week of April with a liberation period where we saw a massive slip of stock markets that doesn't remain? Yeah, I think a lot of people remember that day very well. Let's talk about President Trump's really extraordinary visit to the Fed yesterday.

He was visiting the construction project complaining about the fact that it's over budget. In part, of course, that's because of inflation. Brian had that extraordinary moment with the Fed chair fact checking him on the price of how much those renovations are actually costing. But let me ask you about one of the big takeaways there, which is that the president said he got the impression from Fed Chair Jerome Powell that he may be ready to cut interest rates.

What is the big takeaway from your perspective? Is that accurate? Is that how you read it? Yeah.

The president left for Scotland this morning before taking off, made those remarks you just mentioned where he suggested that the Fed chair told him that maybe interest rates could be lower. If you kind of look back and take the way the president worded it, what was kind of interesting, he said that the Fed chair had told him that the economy was looking good and that the president read that the suggestion from those comments were that he could cut interest rates later on. So it's alluded to him putting words into the Fed chair's mouth with the force is not unusual given what we've seen from street social posts. I want to point out a vending is coming next Wednesday and expectations for them not to lower interest rates.

Then we're going to be watching that. You're going to be watching it very closely. Brian Chung, thank you so much for joining us. As always, we want to turn now to the business of artificial intelligence and a new push from Congress to protect consumers.

For years, companies have collected your data to determine how to market you. Now their science companies are using that same information not just to entice you to buy, but also to determine how much you pay. One member of Congress thinks that should be illegal. NBC News, Chicago.

Hill horse Ryan Nobles joins me with more. So, Ryan, how does surveillance pricing work and what can Congress actually do to stop it? Yeah, Kristen, it's not clear just how much companies are using this technology, but we know that it exists. I'll give you an example.

You are searching the Internet because you are desperate. You've lost a loved one. You need to rush to the funeral and are looking for an emergency trip. They could glean from your search history just how desperate you are to make this purchase and then jack up the price of your plane ticket just for you.

One member of Congress thinks this is not a good idea and it should be against the law. Every day, millions of Americans are combing the Internet in search of information. But the collection of that data is a two way street with companies gobbling up your search history and using it to sell you products. You know your data is being collected.

Everybody can sense that all the time. But what people need to know is now how it's being used. But as technology evolves, so do the tactics that companies are using to take advantage of your personal information, even setting different prices, different people. It's called surveillance pricing, and Texas Congressman Greg Kazar wants to ban it.

It can be used to find out how badly you need a product yourself, and we should have prices set fairly, not being set. By finding out what is the most you as a person are willing to pay. Some companies are already touting the role artificial intelligence is playing in setting prices. Delta Airlines told investors their pilot program to tailor pricing based on an AI analysis was successful.

They've set a goal to have a fifth of all their fares set by AI by the end of the year. Delta says that their AI program is not designed to target pricing based on the consumer's personal information and that the company, quote, always complies with regulations around pricing and disclosures. In January, the Federal Trade Commission released an initial report that showed a person's precise location or browser history can be frequently used to target individual consumers with different prices for the same goods and services. It's part of why Kassar believes it's time for Congress to intervene.

If we don't intervene now and ban these sorts of price gouging and wage suppression right now, then I think it's just gonna spread all over the economy. Kassar has introduced the Stop AI Pricing and Wage Gouging act of 2025 with the goal of banning the practice and forcing companies to set prices based on the market, not an analysis of your Internet browsing history. How do you get ahead of it? This is a silent killer.

It's already starting to happen in our economy, and it is spreading. So it's time for there to finally be a proposal on Congress. That's why I'm releasing this as the first bill of its kind for us to just outright ban the practice of price gouging by using our private data through AI. And it's not just what you buy that has to start concerned, it's what you earn, especially in the gig economy.

He believes companies like rideshare and grocery and food delivery services could take advantage of their employees. A gig app should not be able to to know that you recently went to a pawn shop and have hit hard times. And then they say, oh, well, you can take a lower wage then because you're so desperate for work. So Cassar knows this is a problem, but he also knows that will be difficult to get this past.

He's a member of the minority party. So this may not get to the floor anytime soon. And Kristen, keep in mind, and this is an ongoing problem in Washington, the technology may evolve faster than Congress can react to change the law to ban this practice. So this is something he's trying to get on the radar to get people's attention so they can move quickly before it's too late.

Wow. Well, just really extraordinary. Brian, thank you for bringing us that report. We really appreciate it.

Coming back from the break, one of the most competitive Senate races of the 2026 midterm elections take shape in battleground North Carolina. The panel's next to watching now. Welcome back. We are watching some major midterm developments on who's running and who's not running and a couple of key battle rounds.

First, let's talk about Wisconsin Democratic Governor Tony E. Says he will not run for a third term next year, setting off a scramble for candidates on both sides. And in North Carolina, the source tells NBC News that RNC Chairman Michael Watley intends to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Senator Thom Tillis. President Trump posted an endorsement of Whatley on Truth Social last night because as President Trump's daughter in law, Lara Trump announced yesterday she will not make a bit of her own.

And on the Democratic side of the race, we expect clarity the next couple of days with multiple outlets reporting former Governor Roy Cooper could have he's running as soon as Monday. Joining me now on Zeda de America, co anchor of the Washington Post Early Brief newsletter, Amisha Cross, Democratic strategist and former campaign advisor to President Barack Obama and Republican strategist Rick Tyler. Thanks to all of you for being here. Let's talk about North Carolina is always one of the states that we watch closest, Dan, here we have this potential matchup between Whatley, Cooper.

What do you make of it? And the kind of purple nature of North Carolina. It's gonna be expensive. South Carolina, that's the thing that will unite Wisconsin governor and North Carolina senators are both going to be quite expensive races.

I think Red Cooper is somebody who has clearly won statewide. Democrats are incredibly excited about the idea of him running for Senate. Whatley also had incredible relationships in the state. I mean, he ran the North Carolina GOP for a number of years.

He's pretty well liked and in the state. And I think Republicans are excited about the early poll numbers that they're seeing about him versus Cooper, which is what it would have been against Tillis versus Cooper. You see that Republicans are trying to define Cooper before he's even in the race, which cuts both ways. Obviously, they want to find him, and they're able to do that, but also, hence the fact that he's a pretty powerful, potent opponent and they know they have to get out in front of a possible campaign.

Yeah. I mean, Rick, let's talk about Whatley. In order to win a state like North Carolina, you do need independence to win. Do you think the former RNC chair is someone who can win the coalition that is necessary to win a Senate race in North Carolina?

I do. Only because Wadley has deep roots there, as you say. He was the chairman, and he's developed those roots for a long time. I think the candidates are actually pretty evenly matched.

I don't think the year is evenly matched. Trump is suffering with independence. I assume that's nationwide. I know that's nationwide.

I assume that's also carries in North Carolina. I think the president's daughter may have considered running for Senate as the president's poll numbers been better, but they are really almost as bad as they were when he left the office the last time. Yeah. Let's talk about independence for just a minute, because we do have a new poll.

It's a Gallup poll out today. It shows President Trump's approval rating of 37%. But the independent voters. Look at this.

Is it 29% down 18 points, Rick, since January. I mean, you talk about his challenges with independence. That's pretty significant. Yeah, he's down in a lot of different subject areas, too.

He's on foreign policy. He's down in his trade policy. He's down in budget deficit or the handling of the budget. And he's down in Ukraine, which is really very interesting.

So he's still very popular among Republicans. And he can be. He's been successful there. He's still got 89% Republicans.

He doesn't need Democrats, but he does need independence and his party needs independence. That's, I mean, his numbers are his numbers. But you're exactly right is that independents don't support Trump. They're less likely to support Republicans down ballot.

And you ask a lot of Republicans across the country, the thing that matters to them most of the President's popularity. As these candidates are running, Trump's orders are actually less likely to support. Yeah, Misha, jump in here. Because of course Democrats will get the possibility of a Cooper run for Senate in North Carolina.

We've seen popular governors run for Senate before. It doesn't always go so well. How enthused would Democrats be about a Cooper campaign? And particularly against the backdrop of these numbers that were discussed?

Well, I think that they are very excited about Cooper and are betting heavily on North Carolina. They always know North Carolina as a place to pick up, always saw it as a place that had a very strong leaning that they could grab when it comes to deterring lunatic in that arena. But on that same token, they are being very strategic about how these independent numbers play out because one of the reasons Trump got independence was largely based on kitchen table issues, on a belief that affordability was going to be around the corner. Now we're seeing him pull back money for things like disaster relief.

We're seeing what just happened with pushback against what we know will happen in the next couple of years with rural hospitals closing. We've seen time and time again that dismantling of the Department of Ed, in addition to civil rights and justice and equity falling apart as well. The President has gone way too hard into the maga ultra right, alt right view and turned that into policy. And that was always going to be a push off to independent voters.

It was never so nickel exploited. So, Rick, could that hurt him in North Carolina? Could that hurt Whatley in North Carolina, for example? Look, you know, off your elections when the President is not on the ballot is historically bad for the President's party.

And I don't know that the policy objectives have been so overwhelming with independence. Again, Republicans like what he's doing, something like a way to do it. But independents seem to not like it at all because 37% is not very high. And he has the worst President Trump now is the worst polling record of any president in his second term, including the first and second terms of presidents going back to Kennedy.

They also keep prioritizing Wrong things. We're watching the overzealous outreach when it comes to his use of ice. They're also watching him. The president who said that he was going to end the war in Gaza on day one, that he was going to make sure that, you know, discretion incursion.

It's not what we have seen is the exact opposite. Well, and we're also watching this drama play out, Dan, over the Epstein controversy. It's really one of the first controversies the president hasn't been able to shake, hasn't been able to turn the channel on. And it's dividing Republicans, quite frankly, in a way that we have not seen our first barometer.

We'll be in lawmakers go home to their town halls here from their constituents. But how much staying power do you think this could have been? Democrats really hope it stays around. They want to talk about it.

It's actually what's interesting about these polls. It's getting pressure from both sides. He's getting pressure from independents and they're basically not happy with what he's doing here. Now will they flee him in a poll or will that show up in polling numbers?

It's probably less likely, maybe not. But Democrats want to talk about this. They want to keep this in the news. It's this weird situation where they're strange bedfellows on Capitol Hill with kind of further right Republicans and Democrats who want to talk about Epstein.

I do have a hard time believing that, you know, people are going to town halls in swing states or key districts are going to go and really want to talk about Epstein. They probably want to talk about pocketbook occupations. Now you can make the case that someone who goes to town hall isn't like a normal everyday voter. But still, I mean, you are right.

Voters care a lot more about popular issues. But on Capitol Hill there's this weird situation where you have Republican Democrats who want to keep us in the news. I mean that seems to be one of the big lessons from 2024, like stay laser focused on topic book issues. You and I have discussed this repeatedly.

Are you concerned, are some Democrats concerned that by focusing on Epstein that that takes Democrats off course of voters care about them? So I think that Democrats are making the concerted effort one to do the thing that because they throw 5,000 other things and get work. But I also think they can walk on true on the same time they are visiting districts, they're having conversations using the PPCA strategy, making sure that they are putting affordability at the top of that conversation. You name it, they're having those conversations because they matter, because they know that that is the number one thing on voters.

Boss, quick final thought to you. How much concern is there inside Republican circles that Epstein could be one more data point that could cost Republicans the House. When I don't play on on tv the last time I characterized the story like this is when after Biden's debate. This will not go away.

There's too much to chew on here. This is the story. It will not go away. It is going to go on and on and on until there's, until the Trumpstein files or whatever you want to call them are released.

And it just has too many elements, too many unanswered questions to leave it alone. And so it's gotta go. And Trump keep saying why are you asking about mc? Was little like the culp saying why do you keep asking about Carrick?

Right. Yeah. No, it's a really good point. You're right about the debate.

Turns out. Thank you all so much, Dan, Rick, for a great conversation. So President Zelensky responds to the first anti government protest of his country since Russia's invasion and allegations he's dismantling anti corruption agencies. You're watching the PRESS now.

Welcome back. For the first time since the start of the war in Ukraine, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets this week to protest their own government and the controversial law signed by President Zelensky to curb the independence of the country's anti corruption agencies. These were the scenes taken cities all across Ukraine under martial law because of the ongoing war with Russia, with protesters holding signs opposing the new law. In response, President Zelensky says he's now approved a draft bill to restore the actual independence of anti corruption agencies.

Now this is all happening as Russian and Ukrainian officials met again in symbol for the latest round of negotiations aimed at ending the war. Joining me is Andrew Daria, associate director of the Atlantic Council Eurasia Center. Thank you so much, Andrew, for being here. Really appreciate it.

So talk about the level of surprise that you're seeing these protests all across the country, in Ukraine in the midst of this war. Thanks very much for having me. And I think maybe for our viewers it's helpful to give a very quick timeline of how things have unfolded this week. So on Monday we had these, the most shocking part were these raids of anti corruption agencies in Ukraine by law enforcement.

And then on Tuesday we saw President Zelensky send this very controversial bill to parliament, this draft law that would have put two independent anti corruption age agencies under the office of the Prosecutor General which of course is under President Zelensky. And Ukrainians got quite upset about this and understood this as an anti democratic measure that would have given President Zelensky more control over these agencies that are meant to independently investigate government corruption. And so on Wednesday, we saw the widespread protests you talk about across Ukraine, not only in Kyiv, the capital. And on Thursday, President Zelensky very quickly turned around and said, wait, I have a new bill.

It's going to restore things to as they were, you know, on Sunday or Monday morning. And that bill is actually waiting to be taken to the floor in Parliament probably toward the end of next week. What has the reaction been to this new bill? Does it go far enough?

Does it satisfy the concerns of all those protests? This is a really good question. The devil really is in the details here. So I've looked at the bill.

It does restore the independence of these two agencies, which is a positive. But it's really interesting. The reasoning that President Zelensky used for doing this law that would have put both agencies under his control in the first place was that there was too much Russian involvement in these agencies, that they'd been infiltrated. And so the really interesting bits that are in this new law are things like polygraph tests every six months for detectives to kind of supposedly root out this sort of thing.

So I think we're in a better place than we were, certainly on Monday or on Tuesday. But the bill really does need to get passed next week because Ukraine has owned legislation that's about to go out. You know what is so remarkable is that here you have these protests against the backdrop of a war that is escalating. Russia has launched some of its most serious, devastating attacks in recent days, in recent weeks.

Is there a concern that the mere optics of Ukraine being fractured in this way could in some way impact Ukraine's ability to defend itself? Well, so I was talking to my Activity Ukrainian Lessons online. I was talking to my teacher about this just this week, and she was saying, the Russians are still enemy number one. We get that.

But this bill is enemy number two. Wow. And so that really shows you exactly how strongly Ukrainians felt about this, but also that they haven't taken the eye off who the real enemy is here. And actually, it's a credit to President Zelensky that he was able to so nimbly turn this around after conversations not only with human rights and civil society activists in his own country, but with heads of state, Germany, the UK Folks from the European Union that were saying, this bill threatens your European future.

And so actually, it's a really exemplary case of how democracy should work because, you know, for a government to essentially turn around, reverse course just days after introducing a new law, that's a really interesting example of how democracy works and certainly not something that would happen in Russia. Absolutely. And let's talk about the state of these talks. There were a new round of talks in Turkey this week.

What is the latest, the status of these talks? Are they getting anywhere, Andrew? Well, so this round of negotiations, we're calling it the negotiations that could be any mail. I mean, both sides flew from Kyiv, flew from Moscow to Istanbul, showed up for 40 minutes.

They essentially agreed to exchange prisoners, which is significant. Certainly 1,200 POWs are agreed to be exchanged, but they're so far apart just on what conditions they would want for a peace deal. Russia, of course, wants to control all of Ukraine and Ukraine wants a immediate ceasefire, which, by the way, is something that crisis President Trump has endorsed. And so there's quite a bit of daylight between these two sides.

And just very quickly, the anticipation that the US could impose sanctions. Well, we'll have until about labor day when Trump's 50 day moratorium threat of secondary sanctions comes in and we'll have to see. All right, thank you so much, Andrew Banks, really appreciate it. Great information.

We will be back Monday with more MEET the Press now. And if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press. On your local NBC News stations. I'll have interviews with Congressman Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, plus exclusively House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Lindsey Graham.

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