If it's Thursday, it's a tariff free-for-all as President Trump declares a flurry of last-minute agreements and extensions, but with few concrete details just hours before the administration's self-imposed deadline that could send prices soaring for some products. Plus, a political war over district lines as Texas Republicans move to gerrymander the state's congressional map to give Republicans five more seats in Congress as Democrats weigh a plan to fight back with a redistricting scheme of their own. And Republican voters in one of the most important battleground states weigh in on the Epstein file saga and whether their support for President Trump and his administration could waver as the fallout intensifies. Welcome to Meet the Press Now.
I'm Kristen Welker in Washington, just hours from the Trump administration's latest self-imposed midnight tariff deadline that could put trade barriers at their highest levels since the 1930s. But enormous questions remain about the White House's actual willingness to follow through on its tariff threats as the president announces a flurry of so-called deals, but with few concrete details. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt today echoed the president's insistence that tonight's deadline, which has been extended twice so far, will not be extended again. We promised that the president would negotiate with countries all around the world to cut tailor-made trade deals depending on those countries' challenges, how badly they've ripped off the United States of America and our manufacturing industry and our workforce in the past.
And he has done that. So, yes, tomorrow, August 1st, the reciprocal rates will be going into effect. If more deals are cut between now and midnight, I will never count out the president. You've seen him do it before.
He cut three deals in one day very recently. So we'll see what happens. I do know foreign leaders are ringing his phone, realizing this deadline is a real thing for them tomorrow and they're bringing offers to the table. Now, the White House has announced more than a half a dozen agreements with trading partners that would put tariffs at lower levels than were initially threatened.
But the administration has provided a few details about the deals or how they'll be enforced. Meanwhile, today, President Trump announced a 90-day extension for one of the country's biggest trading partners, Mexico, after speaking with its president, Claudia Scheinbaum. And Treasury Secretary Scott Bassett says he's confident a deal will be reached with another trading giant, China. We pushed back on them quite a bit and made our positions known.
I believe that we have the makings of a deal, but there's still a few technical details to be worked out on the Chinese side between us. I'm confident that it will be done, but it's not 100 percent done. The tariffs, which the president first unveiled in April in an attempt to reassure U.S. manufacturing capacity, he said, could raise prices on everything from coffee to cars and to cell phones and appliances for Americans.
We also learned today that a key inflation measure preferred by the Federal Reserve ticked up last month. All of this comes as a panel of 11 judges right here in Washington heard arguments today in a lawsuit challenging the legality of the White House's entire tariff strategy. I'm joined now by NBC News Senior White House Correspondent Garrett Hake. NBC News Senior Policy Reporter Shannon Pettypiece and Anna Swanson, who covers trade and international economics for The New York Times.
Thanks to all of you for starting us off today. Garrett, let me start with you. We've obviously been watching and you've been covering this trade war intensively. Which countries are in talks with the White House right now during these final hours before the August 1st deadline, Garrett?
Kristen, despite how much the White House and the president likes to flaunt these negotiations when they're happening, the White House has yet to be able to clarify exactly who is ringing off the, whose phones are ringing off the hook here to get a hold of the president today. I think if I were to look closely, I would suggest that it's probably some of these folks who the president has been targeting on trade. Countries like Canada and India with whom the U.S. does a lot of trade in which we don't have anything like a deal in place.
But right now it's impossible to answer that question. Perhaps the only person who really knows is the president. Yeah, you're probably right about that. You know, he announced a 90 day extension for trade talks with Mexico, which was curious because he'd been insistent.
No more extensions, Garrett. As you know, why can you tell us, based on your conversations with sources, was that extension given to just Mexico at this point and not other countries so far? Well, the president outlines it in the truth social post. And I've heard the same from officials on the Mexican side that this is a much more complicated negotiation than with some of these other countries because it's not just about trade.
It's also about border security. It's also about drug interdiction coming across the border. And what you have here is sort of a mega deal potentially, if it comes together of all of these issues wrapped up into one conversation. I also think it speaks to, and this is a broader point about all of these deals, that it's about personal relationships.
The president has never met a Mexican president, Claudia Shanebaum, but he seems to have developed, at least according to the way he talks about her on social media, a fairly decent rapport with the Mexican leader. And those personal relationships can lead to deals or extensions as we've seen in other countries. Look at Keir Starmer in the UK, who struck up a friendship with the president and benefited by being the first country to sign any of these trade agreements of any kind with the United States. Yeah, that's a really good point.
And Garrett, taking your point to the next level, when you're looking country by country, there are a lot of differences here for the justification of these tariffs. With Brazil, for example, 50 percent tariffs because President Trump says he's opposed to the way that they are prosecuting its former president Bolsonaro. And then you have India for its relationship with Russia. Break down some of these more unique situations with these various countries.
And how does the White House fit that into the broader justification of trying to bring manufacturing back, for example? Well, the Brazil tariffs may be one of the most intractable problems here because it has to deal with something that's in their judicial system that the president says he has no control over. That's the prosecution of former President Bolsonaro. By the way, speaking of personal relationships in Brazil, you now have a president who is a leftist and no friend of President Trump, either politically or personally.
You know, it sounds petty, but these kind of personal relationships matter a great deal to this president. India is a more curious case because the president does have a bit more of a rapport with Indian Prime Minister Modi. There he's talking about tariff trade barriers that don't appear to exist. And the president says India has some of the highest tariffs in the world.
That's just not true. Their effective tariff rate with the United States is something like five percent. To me, it is a bit of a mystery what's going on there. It may have more to do with market access.
And the president's just not talking about it with much specificity. Again, I do think these personal relationships are going to have a lot to do with when these deals ultimately get struck. And I don't, Kristen, put a lot of stock in the idea of tonight as any kind of real deadline. Yes, the duty collection will start.
But the president and other officials have made it very clear. They're going to be open to offers as long as his phone is on and working, as it often is. All right. Well, Garrett, we whipped around a good part of the world on that.
Thank you so much for your great reporting for starting us off. We really appreciate it. Shannon Pettyfeas, let me turn to you now. We talked about the fact that there's this lawsuit against the Trump administration.
What exactly are the plaintiffs arguing? Who are they? What's behind all of this? Yeah, well, this lawsuit is being led by a group of small businesses and states, including a wine importer, who's come out and said that these tariffs would just be devastating for their business.
And the argument they're making is that the president doesn't have the legal authority to put these country by country so-called reciprocal tariffs in place. The Constitution pretty clearly gives the power over tariffs to Congress. The president has tried to use a decades old law, this emergency powers act, saying that there was a national emergency when it comes to trade and trade deficits. And because of that, he has some sweeping economic authority where he put these tariffs in place.
The judges that heard this case, though, showed some skepticism about this. And the administration has already lost in a trade court. So they're appealing that decision here and look like they had a little bit of an uphill battle as well with the justices in this and trying to prove that there is an actual national emergency when it comes to trade and trade deficits and to be able to define what that is. And Shannon, I guess the question is, what is the broader significance here?
If the plaintiffs, those small businesses, are in fact successful, could this undermine or defang the president's tariffs? What would the broader impact be here? Potentially could. I mean, likely this case is going to make its way all the way to the Supreme Court, ultimately, as we've seen with so many other lawsuits.
But this is dealing specifically with these reciprocal country tariffs. So this would not apply to things like steel tariffs or sectoral tariffs that the president wanted to put a tariff on pharmaceuticals. This would not apply to that because there's still an argument they could make that there's a national security interest or there's an emergency in those areas or go through a different channel. But all of these country specific tariffs we're talking about, whether it's on China or India or Mexico, that could be put in jeopardy by Welcome back.
Turning to Texas now, where Republicans are forging ahead with a new congressional map that could net them five seats in the midterms, putting Democrats in a quandary about how to respond. So here's the new proposed GOP map side by side with the current district lines based on the 2024 election results, which was a good year for Republicans. It would put all Republicans in districts that Trump carried by at least 10 points and give the party the chance to win up to five more seats. The changes are mainly in and around the state's major urban centers.
It's worth noting this map is being considered by a special legislative session called after the deadly flooding in Texas Hill Country. And this mid-decade redistricting was requested by President Trump. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries joined his Texas delegation today slamming the move, but did not offer any specifics on how Democrats should push back inside or outside of the state. It shows you the bind Democrats are in as many in the party have long called for politics to be taken out of redistricting, but now say they want to fight fire with fire.
Case in point, former Attorney General Eric Holder, a longtime opponent of partisan redistricting, is now saying this, quote, our enduring commitment to fairness does not blind us to reality. We must preserve our democracy now in order to ultimately feel it. It is for this reason that we do not oppose on a temporary basis responsible, responsive actions to ensure that the foundations of our democracy are not permanently eroded. Joining me now with the very latest is Jeremy Wallace, political reporter with the Houston Chronicle.
Jeremy, thanks so much for joining us. So let's dive right in. We've had you on before the proposed map was unveiled. What is your reaction to the new lines that you're seeing?
The fact that we could be talking about five seats here. Yeah, absolutely aggressive, far more aggressive than I expected. They went hard at the Hispanic communities in Texas. You saw that big map there.
What's really important to know that it's the east end of Houston. It's the south side of San Antonio. It's the east end of Austin. Those are all very high growth Hispanic populations that are all being severed from their member of Congress and being shifted around.
You see what the plan was from all from the very start. They're going to move those folks around into different districts, hoping that that by figuring all that, they're going to be able to squeeze those five additional seats out of the map. Now, are there areas where incumbent Democrats are being pitted against each other? Which districts are you watching most closely here?
Yeah, up in the Dallas Fort Worth area, Julie Johnson has been pitted against Mark Beasley. They both are in the same district right now. They're gonna have to figure out what to do. Greg Kassar, the young Democratic congressional member from Austin.
He's been pitted against Lloyd Doggett, the dean of the Texas delegation. He's been in Congress for well over 20, 30 years, almost. And then in Houston, the big one for us is Al Green. Congressman Al Green has been in Congress for 20 years.
You all have seen him a lot. He's been fighting Trump, you know, leading impeachment efforts. You know, he interrupted the State of the Union address. He's one of the people who have been put into a district within the 18th congressional district, which isn't his own.
So he's eventually going to have to run against an incumbent in there to maintain that seat if he wants to remain in Congress. You know, Jeremy, I wonder, given that this is a special session in the wake of the deadly flooding there, are there discussions in Republican circles about the possibility, concerns that this could backfire? Well, absolutely. There's a lot of concern out there.
You know, I have some reporting today on how there were Republicans who aren't very happy with these maps either. You think about the Republican members of Congress who just watched their districts get shuttled all over the state. We have one person, Congressman August Flueger, whose congressional district runs from St. Angelo, Texas, now all the way to Austin.
He's got 250 miles that he's now spanning to represent a bunch of people he's never represented before. He's got 300,000 additional constituents he doesn't know yet. And so there's going to be other Republicans who are in bad spots, too. They don't love these maps either.
But here's the difference. They're not willing to speak up and fight what Donald Trump wants. Donald Trump wants these five seats. And we know if he doesn't get these five seats, he will take it out on the Republicans who stand in his way.
Right. And so they're all kind of remaining pretty quiet in this process, even though I can tell you a lot of them aren't very happy with the map they saw yesterday. Well, it's pretty fascinating reporting, Jeremy. So tell me what the discussions are inside Democratic circles.
What specifically do Democrats and I'm going to discuss this with my next guest as well. But what do Democrats think they can actually do about this? Is there a way that they can block Republicans in the courts? They're going to have to rely on the courts ultimately to get on this to try to get they have time on their hands, potentially.
It's like, look, this is being done so quickly and so fast. One of the options they have is they could flee the state of Texas, which would result in what is called the coroner break. That means there will not be enough members of the Texas legislature in Austin to conduct any official business. That could temporarily delay passing a map.
So that could give them another 30 days, maybe into August, maybe into September before they would get one of these maps approved. So that's one of the options. But there's so much disagreement. Look, you know, the Democrats, they're like cats in a room fighting at this point.
They're not sure. Some want to leave the state and break the quorum. Some don't and want to try to negotiate a better deal. As I can see, there's a lot of, you know, argument within the Democratic caucus that needs to get worked out.
Nobody really wants to talk about that too much within the caucus. You hear we asked questions about who's willing to go, who's ready to go. And not not anybody's giving us a clear indication what they want to do with that right now. Well, Jeremy, it's just fascinating to hear your reporting.
Thank you so much for joining us. Please come back soon as we continue to track this story that will be critical in the midterms. We really appreciate it. Joining me now with the latest is Jeremy Wallace, political reporter with the Houston Chronicle.
Jeremy, thanks so much for joining us. So let's dive right in. We've had you on before the proposed map was unveiled. What is your reaction to the new lines that you're seeing the fact that we could be talking about five seats here?
Yeah, absolutely aggressive, far more aggressive than I expected. They went hard at the Hispanic communities in Texas. You saw that big map there. What's really important to know that it's the east end of Houston.
It's the south side of San Antonio. It's the east end of of Austin. Those are all very high growth Hispanic populations that are all being severed from their member of Congress and being shifted around. You see what the plan was from all from the very start.
They're going to move those folks around into different districts, hoping that that by figuring all that, they're gonna be able to squeeze those five additional seats out of the map. Now, are there areas where incumbent Democrats are being pitted against each other? Which districts are you watching most closely here? Yeah, up in the Dallas Fort Worth area, Julie Johnson has been pitted against Mark Beasley.
They both are in the same district right now. They're gonna have to figure out what to do. Greg Kassar, the young Democratic congressional member from Austin. He's been pitted against Lloyd Doggett, the dean of the Texas delegation.
He's been in Congress for, you know, well over 20, 30 years, almost. And then in Houston, the big one for us is Al Green. You know, the Congressman Al Green's been in Congress for 20 years. You all have seen him a lot.
He's been fighting Trump, you know, leading impeachment efforts. You know, he interrupted the State of the Union address. He's one of the people who have been put into a district within the 18th congressional district, which isn't his own. So he's eventually going to have to run against an incumbent in there to maintain that seat if he wants to remain in Congress.
You know, Jeremy, I wonder, given that this is a special session in the wake of the deadly flooding there, are there discussions in Republican circles about the possibility, concerns that this could backfire? Well, absolutely. There's a lot of concern out there. You know, I have some reporting today on how there were Republicans who aren't very happy with these maps either.
You think about the Republican members of Congress who just watched their districts get shuttled all over the state. We have one person, Congressman August Flueger, whose congressional district runs from St. Angelo, Texas, now all the way to Austin. That's, you know, he's got about 250 miles, you know, that he's now spanning to represent a bunch of people he's never represented before.
He's got 300,000 additional constituents he doesn't know yet. And so there's gonna be other Republicans who are in bad spots too. They don't love these maps either. But here's the difference.
They're not willing to speak up and fight what Donald Trump wants. Donald Trump wants these five seats. And we know if he doesn't get these five seats, he will take it out on the Republicans who stand in his way, right? And so they're all kind of remaining pretty quiet in this process, even though I can tell you a lot of them aren't very happy including every article, podcasts, and full NBC News shows, plus deeper access and exclusive content.
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Welcome back. Joining me now is our panel, Leanne Caldwell, Chief Washington Correspondent for Puck, Cornell Belcher, Democratic pollster and an NBC News political analyst, and Republican strategist Matt Gorman. Thanks to all of you for being here. Leanne, I want to start off where we left off with Congresswoman Fletcher.
She had some very firm words to say about the Republicans' redistricting plan in Texas. Walked right up to the line of what we heard from Governor Newsom. He said the Republicans are trying to rig the 2026 midterm elections. What did you make of what we heard from her?
Yeah, well, another senator that I spoke with earlier this week said that Republicans are trying to make a permanent majority in any way that they can, and going to this mid-district, mid-decade redistricting. And so this is something that has really ignited a lot of passion from Democrats in a response. Remember, Democrats for so long had been trying to make a nonpartisan redistricting Democratic states moving towards independent commissions. Republican states were less willing to do that.
And so now Democrats are saying, look, we're going to fight fire with fire, and we're going to do everything we can to fight back and do the same thing that Republicans are doing. Cornell, what's your take on that? You are hearing the language from Gavin Newsom, quite frankly, using President Trump's language, saying 2026 midterms are going to be rigged. And you have Eric Holder saying, now is the time to make change.
He used to be opposed to this type of redistricting. He's changing his tune. Well, the former Attorney General, and when the former Attorney General comes out with this sort of language, it's a big deal. But also, Kristen, what's happening is a big deal, right?
This is unprecedented. This is corruption right in our faces. When you look at the, and look at what Newsweek was reporting, why are they doing this? Because they're trying to thwart a bad upcoming election.
And why are they going to have a bad upcoming election? Because they're pushing policies that are not popular and that most people don't want. So now they're trying to rig the system. I know you asked the congresswoman a couple of times about the rigged system.
Yes, the system is rigged. I mean, it's already rigged, and they're trying to rig it even more. Look at what Princeton's gerrymandering report came out with and said, look, the Texas districts are already pretty rigged, right? They're already getting a huge advantage.
And below that, you have the state legislative districts in Texas are also rigged. So they are trying to determine an outcome. We already have 85% of the seats in this country, as you know, are not competitive at all. And what are we going to have?
90 seats in this country not competitive at all? We're shrinking the ability of the American people to have a say in their government. And whether you're a Democrat or Republican, that should concern you. Matt, Cornell is saying this is corruption, pure and simple.
What is your response to that? And how do you think Republicans are going to respond? Well, Princeton should look into its own backyard for having about 45% of their vote in New Jersey go for Republicans. We have three congressional seats.
Texas Republicans get about the same percentage as Illinois Democrats. We don't have a close proportion that Illinois Democrats do. Maryland, Connecticut, I can go on and on. And the independent redistricting that Gavin talks about is an absolute joke.
So, look, we will have these seats, most likely five, if Gavin wants to try and, you know, do whatever he does in his state. It's going to be quite a process. But I don't want to hear it, because after years of having to sit through Illinois, Maryland, and other states, we are getting fair maps. And Lindsey Fletcher is also a beneficiary of that.
When in 2018, that was a toss-up seat. It's now over 12 points towards the Democrat. Now, she should be thanking her lucky stars. She doesn't have a competitive race because of that same redistricting.
There's no way you can make a conversation, argument that what's happening in this country is fair. And you can say this from state to state. But what we also know right now is that Republicans do have, all the facts point, Republicans do have a built-in advantage in gerrymandering. And what you're simply right now is coding over the politics of the let's do this even more.
Let's gerrymander this even more. At some point, Matt, you have to pull back on it. You can't attack the other party for gerrymandering and following what you're doing. What you see happening right now is because Republicans have gerrymandered.
No, we're not following. We're following you guys. You guys have done it. You want to talk about Adam Kinzinger?
He's on cables all the time. Only reason he's on cables is because he got redistricted. We are following the lead of Democrats. You guys have been doing this the last 10 years.
In 2018, six months, I was at the NRCC six months before Election Day. You guys redid the congressional seats in Pennsylvania. That's why Ryan Costello doesn't have a seat in Warner's others. Well, we can fact check this, right?
Let's fact check this. It's not even close to the advantage that Democrats get doing gerrymandering as Republicans. It's not even close. Well, very quickly, and we might have to dip into the president, by the way.
Yes, we are going to have to dip into the president. Apologies, guys. Hit the pause button. Let's listen to President Trump.
He's taking questions. I'll do it and we'll probably have some donors or whatever, but it's about $200 million. So we've been planning it for a long time. They've wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years, but there's never been a president that was good at ballrooms.
I'm really good. In fact, I look at one that we just built in Turnberry in Scotland and it's incredible. We're good at building. I'm good at building things and we're going to build quickly and on time.
It'll be beautiful. Top, top of the line. We've retained the best architects and engineers, everything else. It'll be built over on the east side and it will be beautiful.
It'll be views of the Washington Monument. It won't interfere with the current building. It'll be near it, but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I'm the biggest fan of. It's my favorite.
It's my favorite place. I love it. But they've wanted it. And you know where they have big events, you entertain the president of China or the president of any place and you have big crowds.
They've always had to get a tent and you've probably been to some of them, Bobby. When it rains, it's a disaster. And the tent's a hundred yards. That's more than a football field away from the main entrance and people are schlepping down to the tent.
It's not a pretty sight with the women with their lovely evening gowns, all of their hair all done and they're a mess by the time they get in. They've always wanted to have it. And I said, you know, in the first term, I said, you know, if I get another shot at this, I'm going to do a ballroom. I was pretty busy in the first because I was running the country and I was also fighting for survival with all of the lunatics I had to beat.
But it worked out. Obviously it worked out very well because here we are. But I always said I was going to do something about the ballroom because they should have one. So we'll be leaving it.
It'll be a great legacy project and I think it'll be special. You saw some renderings of the initial. I think it'll be really beautiful. As you know, a federal appellate court today heard oral arguments about whether or not you had the authority to unilaterally impose those tariffs.
I'm not going to get you to weigh in on the legal arguments, but you're weighing your decision to do that, your authority to do that based on a 1977 law. It's never been invoked before. Why didn't you invoke this law? We've been winning all along.
I just want to ask you, why didn't you invoke this law in your first term? You could have taken in billions upon billions of dollars in your first term, but you waited until your second term. Yeah, because in my first term I was fighting But people want to see the Redskins, and the Indians want to see the Redskins back. No, I recommend it.
I was asked that question the other day. The Washington Redskins, it's a fabled franchise. And now, I don't even know what the hell their last name is. What are they called, Commanders or something?
Is it Commanders? That's not a good name. Wait a minute. No, not you.
Kamala Harris, as you know, is not running for governor of California. She's not going to do it. What do you see in her political future, sir? Well, she can't speak.
She can't talk. She can't do an interview. I thought it was a very strange campaign that we had. But, you know, I had two of them.
We were up by, like, this massive number of points on Biden. And they said, let's change to Kamala. Nobody knew who Kamala was. Nobody knew her last name, Harris.
They said that we're going to get Vice President Harris. Everybody said, who the hell is Harris? They only knew about the first name. But no, I thought she was a terrible candidate.
Look, don't forget that she didn't really get the nomination. I mean, that whole nomination was strange. She was the first one out. You know, she took a good amount of points with her when she announced.
But nobody knew her. And once they got to know her, they... She dropped out very shortly after she started. And she started with a pretty good, you know, she was like in second or third place.
But I don't know. I mean, she... I wouldn't call her a skilled politician, would you? I don't know.
I think I'm going to buy it. I'd love to see it. No, I find it... Look, I find everything in politics interesting.
I sort of enjoy politics. She wasn't a skilled person. You know, you have skilled politicians, really skilled politicians. And then you have some that aren't.
And she was put in a very tough position, I think. She did have a six-week honeymoon. They told me, the pros said, you know what? She's going to have a six-week...
And she did. She was like untouchable in terms of everybody thought, great. But she didn't do any interviews or anything, which was strange. Not even friendly interviews with friendly reporters like her, right there, a really friendly reporter.
And you know what happened? People said, what's wrong with her? Why isn't she doing... She made a mistake.
She should have done interviews. She didn't run a great campaign, but we beat Biden and then we had to beat... Nobody's beaten two. I had to beat two.
That's like Dana White, the great Dana White, has a fight. And he has a fighter that's getting the hell knocked out of him. They say, well, let's take him out and put somebody else in. Didn't seem fair to me at the time, but where are we?
We're in the White House. So I mean, you know, so it worked out. Very serious question here. Russia today hit Kiev with missiles and drones.
More than a hundred people killed. I think it's disgusting. Russia, I think it's disgusting what they're doing. I think it's disgusting.
This is Biden's war. It's not my war. But I said, if I get in, I'll try and get the thing stopped. But I think what Russia is doing is very sad.
A lot of Russians are dying. You have a lot of Russians, more Russians are dying. But Russians are dying. Ukrainians are dying.
You know, the United States isn't really involved in that war. It shouldn't be. And by the way, I made a deal with NATO where NATO pays us for everything that we send. We send them ammunition, missiles, etc.
And we're not paying anything for that war. But I will tell you this. It should be stopped. It's a disgrace.
And the ones that are dying are so... They're losing 7,000 now. It was 5,000. They're losing now 7,000 soldiers a week.
Ukrainian soldiers and Russian soldiers. And they're also losing people now in the towns and cities because Putin's hitting them with rockets. No, I think it's disgraceful. We have about eight hours.
So yeah, we're going to put sanctions. I don't know that sanctions bother him. You know, they know about sanctions. I know better than anybody about sanctions and tariffs and everything else.
I don't know if that has any effect, but we're going to do it. Europe is extremely upset. But this is a war that should have never happened. This is a war that wouldn't have happened if I were president.
And this is Biden's war. This was a stupid war to get into. Should have never gotten into this war. Yeah, we're going to Israel.
And then he's going to Russia, believe it or not. Representative Margaret Taylor Green has said that what's occurring there is a genocide. Do you agree? Well, it's terrible what's occurring there.
Yeah, it's a terrible thing. People are very hungry. You know, the United States gave $60 million for food. And it's a shame because nobody, you know, I don't see the results of it.
And we gave it to people that in theory are watching over it fairly closely. We wanted Israel to watch over it. Part of the problem is Hamas is taking the money and they're taking the food. But we gave $60 million a couple of weeks ago.
Nobody said anything about it. Nobody said thank you. But I didn't need the thank you. I just wanted people to get fed.
And we're helping out financially with that situation. It's a terrible situation. So just to conclude, I want to thank everybody for being here. I want to thank you for being here.
This is a great group of people. And it's a good feeling. You know, when we first came to office, this country was really in trouble. And now we're rich as hell and we're doing amazing things.
And we really are. We're the hottest country in the world. And I like that. Thank you very much, everybody.
Thank you. Thank you for listening to President Trump taking questions from reporters at the White House on, frankly, a range of issues. The ballroom that he intends to build, saying that no government dollars at all will be used. Answering a question about the controversy over Jeffrey Epstein.
These new comments that he made about Virginia Dufresne when he said that she was stolen from his resort at Mar-a-Lago by Jeffrey Epstein. The family coming out, Virginia Dufresne's family coming out with a very strong statement saying that they want more information about that. And President Trump responding to a question about that, saying, I don't really know why, but I said if he, meaning Jeffrey Epstein, is taking anybody from Mar-a-Lago, he's hiring or whatever he's doing. I didn't like it and we threw him out.
So doubling down on those comments. Also responding to questions about potential upcoming tariff deals. The fact that there have been some major sticking points with Canada, but saying that Canada saying that it will support a Palestinian state, which President Trump had some opposition to, saying that's not a deal breaker. Also with some firm words towards Iran, saying that they've been acting very badly.
He was also asked about his former rival, former Vice President Kamala Harris, who, of course, announced she is not running for governor of California, leaving the door open to another win, saying that, quote, she can't speak. I thought it was a strange campaign. She's a terrible candidate. Let me head out to a senior White House correspondent, Garrett Haake.
What were your other takeaways from what we just heard? There were a lot of headlines. I tried to stick through a number of them. And you did an admirable job, Kristen, about a wide range of topics here on tariffs, since that's the most pending deadline.
The president saying he's not spoken with representatives of Canada today, but that he, presumably referring to the prime minister, Mark Carney, had tried to call. I'll be refreshing Truth Social all night long to see if they can get over the hump to announce some kind of agreement with the Canadians. Still the largest U.S. trading partner with whom there's no agreement of any kind or framework in place to avoid the ratcheting up of tariffs at midnight tonight.
The other deadline of note that the president seemed to kind of wave. That was his comments about Russia. He reiterated his disappointment in Putin, said Russia's been disgusting in the way they've conducted the war. And while he tried to diffuse any responsibility he has now, seven and a half months in for the ongoing war that he said he would end on day one, he did say, and I'm checking on my pronouns here to make sure I'm picking up the right person, referring to the right person, that he, I believe, meaning his special envoy, Steve Whitcoth, would be traveling to Russia after he wraps up his business in Israel.
If that's correct, Whitcoth will be in Russia very close to this new 10 day deadline that the president had set for Russia to make some kind of progress on a peace deal or a ceasefire with Ukraine or they would face additional sanctions and tariffs. So Whitcoth, once again, looking like the pivotal man in this administration on two huge foreign policy issues in the next week. All right, Garrett Hagan, certainly significant news about Russia. Leigh-Anne Caldwell, very quickly, what was your big takeaway?
The fact that he weighed in on former Vice President Harris, his big rival, the big news on Russia. What did you take from what we heard? Yeah, so it's actually the last thing he said about Gaza. He again said that the starvation there is terrible, but he again did not separate himself from Netanyahu, calling it that, saying that Hamas