Meet the Press NOW — July 9

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If it's Wednesday. Attentions escalate in Texas as local officials search for victims. I'm at a rising death toll while battling questions about what did and did not happen in the crucial moments before those deadly floods. Plus, risky business.

The president threatens more countries with increased tariffs as he struggles to live up to past promises about making deals. While Republicans in Congress face the perilous politics of selling the president's domestic agenda bill and weapons to Ukraine, strikes on Iran, relief for unrelated undocumented workers, and a renewed Jeffrey Epstein controversy, President Trump is testing his base on a number of growing issues. Hi there. Welcome to MEET the press Now.

I'm Ryan Nobles and we're gonna start today with the latest developments in Texas as the death toll rises from last week's catastrophic floods, communities are reckoning with the reality that hope is dwindling for the many still missing. And local officials have few answers to intensifying questions about their emergency response and those crucial hours leading up to the floods. It comes as we're getting new images showing the scale of the damage, including satellite pictures of Camp Mistake before and after those catastrophic floods devastated the area. According to the latest counts across Central Texas, there are at least 119 dead and more than 170 people are still missing.

Officials reiterated today that there is still an urgent, ongoing effort to find victims. 95 of those deaths are in Kerr county alone, including at least 27 girls and counselors from Camp Mystic. The gut wrenching question for everyone involved is whether some of those deaths could better prevent it. Records obtained by NBC News show the camp did have an emergency plan in place with Texas officials signing off on it.

Just two days before the floods, preventive safety measures were big focus for reporters during today's briefing with Kerr county officials amid concerns about potential lapse in the county's code red alerts ahead of the disaster and questions about why a long discussed warning siren system had never been installed along the flood prone area. With every emergency, you know what we're gonna have to. There's gonna be an after action. Please, y' all, listen.

Those words, after action, okay, Those, those, those questions will be answered. I believe those questions need to be answered to the family of the missed loved ones, to the public, you know, to the people that put me in this office. And I want that answer. And we're get that answer.

And I know that's gonna be asked over and around. Please understand that, you know, we don't have. We're not running. We're not gonna hide everything that's gonna be checked into at a later time.

I wish I could tell you that time. I don't know that time. Listen, Mayor, record show that the concept of flood warnings have been discussed at least two dozen times by the county. What's the biggest reason that these systems have not come into place at this point?

You know, Morgan, you and I grew up here and I wasn't an officer in those discussions. And frankly, I'm more focused on the future than the past, as you know. What I can say is the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the Texas House have all provided us support, and they've all said this is a priority for the upcoming special legislative session. Meanwhile, here in Washington, the tragedy and the importance of early weather warnings were front and center during confirmation hearings for President Trump's pick to lead the national oceanic and Atmospheric association, which is the backbone of the government's weather forecasting operation.

Coming from a background of America weather prediction, I always thought naively that if I could improve the forecast skill, I would save more lives. And it turns out that it's really the last mile. If, even if you have a perfect forecast, if you can't get the information to the people, totally useless. And so having a way to distribute the watches and warnings, and particularly in regions that don't have good cell, modernizing the way to distribute these watches and warnings is something that is going to be a top priority of mine.

The confirmation hearing comes as the National Weather Service, which has been a part of noaa, has been hit hard by the Trump administration's staffing cuts, prompting concerns about the government's ability to get out timely alerts and future disasters. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has been one of the most outspoken lawmakers on disaster preparedness in an era of climate change. Here's some of what he told NBC's Chase King. I think there will be catastrophic storms and people will have been left inadequately warned.

I think the model that we've seen in Texas is exactly what we can expect to see. Lot more of the conditions were known, but there wasn't adequate information delivered to the people who were in harm's way. And what happened along the Wiley river river can also happen along the Florida coast, along the Georgia coast, along the Rhode island coast. And people need to be warned in order to be safe.

And if we're taking apart the systems that warn them, we're taking away their avenue to safety. Join me on the ground in Kerrville, Texas, is NBC's Priscilla Thompson. And with me on set, NBC News senior Homeland Security correspondent Julie Ainsley and NBC meteorologist Chase Kane. So, Priscilla, start with you.

Give us an update on the latest on the search and rescue efforts, especially as we heard Governor Abbott and local officials announced a massive number of people still missing. It's just hard to wrap your mind around it. Yeah, right. It really is.

And as we're talking, you may even hear some of the chainsaws going in the background as we've seen volunteers walking throughout this stretch of the river breaking down trees and things like that. And officials here saying they are grateful for that help. But if volunteers or people who are just searching on their own come upon areas where there are heavy machinery, that is officials who are searching and they're urging them not to mess with those areas because it is a complicated search effort. You're talking about huge pieces of debris.

You've got pieces of people's homes, you've got cars. And so they're trying to be very careful in removing those items to ensure that if there's anyone under there who may still be alive or if they remains there, they're able to successfully recover them. And they're also urging the public, if you reported someone missing and you now have information on that person, either they have turned up or whatever it might be, the police let officials know, call the non emergency line so that they can begin to get a real handle on how many people are still missing, how many people have been found as they continue these search and rescue and recovery efforts. Brian, we played a little bit of it earlier today, but officials seem to have bristled some of the questions about the response and potential blame.

They seem to not want to go there quite yet. What are you hearing, though, about calls for accountability? Yeah, that has been the response from officials as reporters have pressed them on those questions and specifically the question of should this county have had sirens that were county wide. I actually spoke yesterday with the county commissioner who presented that proposal initially nearly 10 years ago when this discussion began.

And he says one of the reasons it was not implemented is because people did not want them. They said that they were concerned they were gonna go off accidentally. But I will tell you that everyone I've spoken to on the ground here says that they were not even aware that those conversations were taking place and that they absolutely believe that there should be a county wide siren system here and that it absolutely could have potentially helped the most vulnerable. And I should note not only locals are saying that, but commissioner I spoke with who was in charge when those discussions were taking place also said the same.

He believes that it would have saved lives. And the Texas Legislature is going to enter a special session later this month. What can we expect them to focus on when it comes to this disaster? Yeah, Governor Adam has indicated that there will be hearings about what exactly happened here, how it was handled, and that they are going to be looking at making changes.

At the same time, they want to ensure that these communities have the support that they need to rebuild. And also they can implement some things in order to bolster their disaster response. So all of that is expected to be a top priority during the special session. But the caveat I will give you is that just a few months ago, there was a bill before the GOP controlled legislature here that would have allowed for more funding, more disaster planning and specifically around communication like sirens.

And that bill was voted down. And in fact, the GOP controlled. The GOP state legislator who represents this area voted against that bill. And he's now telling the Texas Tribune that in hindsight he might have voted differently.

All right, Bristol Thompson on the ground there in Texas. Thank you for that reporting. Let's turn now to Julia, who is covering the story from a Homeland Security perspective. So, Julia, the Texas officials there, the question will lead up to this tragedy.

There's also questions in D.C. about the future of disaster recovery, mainly when it comes to fema. President Trump says that he wants it gone after hurricanes. He just wants to completely eliminate fema.

What's the current status there and is there any efforts yet to limit the staff for the budget for this agency? Well, first I want to pull apart what's happening on the ground in Texas versus fema. There's been no blame on FEMA for what happened in Texas, but it's definitely really raising alarms about the conversation that Trump started about eliminating fema. When you're looking at the scale of disasters, not just a flooding, but say of wildfires in California, is the country going to be prepared for these increased disasters both in scale and frequency?

While Trump eliminates the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the idea behind this. It's not just a Trump idea. It's wong been tied by Republicans to try to get emergencies handled at the state and local level. Try to get states to wean off of the federal systems and build up their own budgets for times of crisis.

And honestly there are a lot of people in emergency management who say sometimes it's better to leave it to locals. They understand how to deal with the particular risk that they have in their communities. The problem is how quickly that can be done. And what do you do about states that don't have the budgets and resources?

What do you do when it's a multi state disaster such as what we saw last fall during hurricane season? How will they be prepared? We've seen a little bit of a walk back on a blinking from Trump on this just this week after what happened in Texas. And we've also heard from the FEMA administrator now acting FEMA administrator.

Second acting FEMA administrators look confusing there charge say that they've actually kept on 2600 employees that were scheduled to be fired ahead of hurricane season. So that timeline on when they plan to eliminate it keeps getting pushed. They want to eventually get get states to start depending more on their local resources rather than federal but doesn't seem like it's coming anytime soon. They've not yet backed down on that promise.

But another thing I point out just heard from Senator Ken of New Jersey who is asking the FEMA administrator to send a hurricane plan for this season and so far has not gotten one. And in fact FEMA has said they're going to lean on last year's hurricane. Sir, you're mere I'll just so you have an additional area of expertise here. You work there on Campbell Hill with us that nominee when Noah was on the hill.

What was your biggest takeaway from his hearing? Well I think there's important context here and it's that we're in July, we still don't have a confirmed NOAA administrator may not be confirmed until August. And in that time because of existing vacancies, DOGE buyouts, cuts that agency NOAA and National Weather Service have lost hundreds of scientists and meteorologists. So that's the context that he's going in from these senators and of course Democratic senators are really upset about this.

They're saying how do you continue to function? How do you protect people? How do we continue to our weather forecast and understanding of climate change if we're not adequately funding this? You know and Neil Jacob said he supports the president's budget.

He's Trying to like walk a tightrope here. It feels like part of this is that Republicans seem much more focused on Noah's role in oil and gas leasing and approving those leases and also illegal offshore fishing things which I think the Democratic senators are saying, listen, that's small potatoes. That's not important. We have a lot of big, important life threatening issues in front of us.

And you also talked to Senator Whitehouse. He's long been sounding the alarm on climate change. Is he changing the way his approach is, how he's sounding this alarm? What is he doing differently?

Yeah, listen, no more Mr. Nice Guy. Like this is impacting Americans lives, their health, their safety. It's also hitting their wallets.

And that seems to be his new message. Now he's really focused on what he believes is a looming housing crisis that is likely to be triggered by the strain of climate change on the insurance industry. Here's what he's holding. What's happening now is that all across America in wildfire country and along our coasts, those notices are coming through the mail slot.

Notices of non renewal. You're fired by your insurance company. Good luck getting new insurance. Your rates have doubled, your rates have tripled.

We're having a true homeowners insurance crisis in America right now. And that is the leading edge of the climate threat that's coming at us. And that is a very, very real harm that threatens actually to become a full on recession, what economists call systemic risk. So this is really big economic stuff that's looming.

Are we talking bigger than 2008? Potentially. I will tell you that the chief economist for the insurance giant Freddie Mac said several years ago that just the coastal insurance risk problem was likely to cascade into a mortgage problem, a real estate values problem and ultimately a 2008 style recession. Since then, the wildfire risk evil twin has raised its head as well.

So the risk is far worse. And so there's two things happening here. These home insurance premiums are soaring. And NBC News analysis last fall found that one in eight Americans already don't have home insurance.

And so when that is people's main source of wealth, what happens when a storm comes along, wipes out their house and now they have nothing? And that's the reason he says, we are very much facing a housing crisis in this country. Jason, when you went to urology school, you probably think of interim centers. But all these things are now starting to happen.

Thanks for coming, Washington and coming for this war story. Thank you for coming up. You've got mail. President Trump publicizes more Letters to US Trade partners warning them of sweeping new tariffs if they don't reach a deal before the administration's newest Aug.

1 deadline. We have the details. Plus, another major legal win for Trump administration after the Supreme Court green lights the president sweeping overhaul of the federal government. They're watching you the press now.

Welcome back. As we await word from the White House on potential deals with our trading partners. President Trump is running new tariffs ranging from 25 to 30% on imports from seven more countries if they don't reach a deal soon. He says it's now been 90 days since President Trump first announced his first expansion extension of sweeping tariffs on nearly every country.

So it could secure 90 trade deals in those ensuing 90 days. But only a handful of actual deals have been secured with China, the UK And Vietnam. The president then announced his second extension through August 1st, but that's the last one probably. He says the president defended his economic policies during meeting this afternoon with the leaders of five African nations.

Other countries aren't even complaining they got away with murder. They took advantage of a lot of very stupid people that sat in the sea. And I'm treating them very fairly again. We have countries with tremendous deficits with us where we have, you know, where we essentially lose a lot of money.

And we are changing that around very rapidly. And I think it's about time somebody did it. Also, Vaughn, President Trump announced new tariffs against seven additional countries. Did he explain why he's targeting these specific countries?

No. And this is the part for the president here where he is rolling these out now over the last 36 hours consistently, but with numbers that are not quite clear as to exactly how he got the 30% for Libya or 30% for Sri Lanka or 20% for the Philippines. His initial calculations were also questionable. They were done with a formula that was really questioned by a great number of economists as to the extent to which they actually addressed the deficit and the trade disparities that may or may not exist between the US and these exact countries in some cases are limited trading partners.

And so for the president here, it's a question as to just how many additional countries he is going to announce these new tariff rates at. Consistently, we are saying that they are a few percentage points lower than what their initial tariff rates that he announced back on April 2nd we were calling Liberation Day were before he went and put that 90 day clause forward here. So we could very well expect some additional ones in the hours or days ahead here. But so far, I think the best way to describe this tariff rollout is in the words of Scott Besson, all the way back his treasury secretary in March, he described the tariff and trade planning of this administration as, quote, organic.

And I think that that is evident here in July as much as it was back in the spring. I mean, it's been 90 days, right. Once President Trump paused his Liberation day, tariffs were still well short of the 90 trade deals in 90 days that he had promised. Are there any updates on potential deals?

No. The European Union continues to engage with the U.S. but we've been hearing about these conversations with countries like Indonesia and Japan for a long time now, months. And I think until we actually see more concrete deals presented, I think that it is objectively in the best case to be hesitant about suggesting that the administration is closed.

And you mentioned two frameworks of agreements with the UK and what the administration has tried to tout, that they have a deal with China. It's far from the actual trade deal as much as it was a kind of stand down agreement on tariffs. What had escalated to an effective embargo between China and the U.S. the two sides agreed to roll back their sky high tariffs to at least allow trading to continue between the two nations.

And so in the case of these 90 days, you know, it was first mentioned, this idea of 90 deals in 90 days by Peter Navarro, his trade advisor. And I actually asked him at the White House this week why those 90 deals never came to fruition. And he said it's because other countries drag their feet and now the president is going to respond accordingly. And that's with the tariffs that this administration at least initially had suggested that they were intending to avoid re implementing.

And now it was supposed to be today. Those were re implemented but as you noted, that has been extended out to August 1st is the new deadline that countries have to avoid these new tariff rates. And it appears to be adding more countries to the list. The president just announcing that he sent a letter to Brazil tacking a 50% tariff on imported goods from that country.

So this continues to expand, not contract at all. Let's turn now to the war in Ukraine. Vaughn. Russia bombarded Ukraine with drones and missiles overnight.

This was hours after President Trump voices frustration with Vladimir Putin. Does the president seem more willing now to impose new sanctions on Moscow? We are seeing some movement in that direction of Capitol Hill. Right.

You know, on Capitol Hill, the bipartisan effort, Senator Blumenthal and Senator Graham looking to implement up to a 500% secondary tariff on countries like China that import Russian oil. So not just additional, sorry, sanctions. It should be clear on Russian exports. But this is kind of a potential signal to other countries that if you intend to do business with Russia, that the US Will intervene and effectively try to block all sort of trade and correspondence between those nations.

And so this is where the president just yesterday said that he was looking at this bill that the Senate is putting forward here. But I think that it's notable that almost six, seven months after taking office, the president von got that he'd be able to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to stand down and end this war. But clearly he is signaling that he is losing hope that Putin's words have much meaning behind him. I believe he said day one, Vaughn.

And so he was joking about that. The war continues between Ukraine and Russia. Vaughn Hill here live from the White House. Thank you, Vaughn.

Up next, Republicans midterm messaging test. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley speak to NBC News about the political risks his party faces in rural America after passing President Trump's domestic agenda bill. That exclusive reporting is next. You're watching.

YOU press now. Welcome back. Now that President Trump's signature of domestic policy legislation has been signed into law, both parties are racing to defiant with Democrats honing in on the massive cuts to Medicaid while Republicans to help the tax cut provisions. As Republicans gear up to sell their big beautiful bill yesterday, House Speaker Mike Johnson told my colleague Sahil Kapoor that he's not worried about the potential political impacts in the midterms.

Take a listen. We're going to pick up seats and we'll polite them. Once again, no concerns about Austrian seats? No concerns at all.

In fact, it's going to change seats. While Johnson is striking an optimistic tone, not telling, Julie Serkin traveled to Missouri where Senator Josh Hawley, who opposed the Medicaid cuts but ultimately voted for the bill, held an event touting key provisions in the mega bill. She pressed him about his concerns about the 2026 implications. We've seen health care, though, hurt both parties in the past 2014, it hurt Democrats, 2018, it hurt Republicans.

Do you think this will hurt Republicans in 2026? Well, I think that Republicans don't come out strongly, say we're gonna force federal hospitals and yeah, anything like that. Joining me now is NBC News Capitol cordon Julie Serkin and NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki. So, Julie, let's talk more about your trip to Missouri and what did you hear from Senator Hawley and how's he defending this bill, especially seeing that he voted for it?

Well, I didn't hear a single mention Ryan of Medicaid of the tax cut, even of immigration provisions, the provisions that Republicans who voted for this bill like during his press conference. Instead he focused on about two pages of the 1000 bill. Focused specifically on a bipartisan fund expansion of one that he secured as part of the bill that specifically would go to help victims of radiation and nuclear waste. But he was asked during that press conference by some of our remarkable local colleagues as well.

When I pressed him afterwards about these cuts to Medicaid and what he's going to do to fix it, if anything. Take a listen to a little bit of our exchange after that press conference. The provider cuts that are now not going to affect Missouri until the 2030. My goals to make sure those never take effect.

I'll be honest, by legislation, I mean, listen, they don't affect Missouri until 2030. Between now and then, Missouri get the billion dollars in increased rural hospital funds. That's great for our state, but the truth of the matter is we should be paying Rhoffs. I'm completely opposed to payroll hospitals, period.

I haven't changed my view on that one iota. You hate, if I could say that, some piece of his bill. But you voted for it. Why did you choose that strategy?

Got to take the ones that you can. For me, getting recapassed, getting health care expanded in Missouri for these survivors. I almost said we're victim. I hate that word for survivors.

These heroes. This is, this is a multi year journey and this was the chance to do it. Ryan, you and I talk about this often. I'm just struck by this idea that Republicans who supported this bill are now openly saying that they're going to work for the next, in Josh Holly's case, five years to try and undo key provisions of this bill which by the way helped fund those tax cuts, which is also something that I asked Ali about.

We heard Speaker Johnson say that he isn't concerned about the 2026 implications. Senator Holly sounded a little less optimistic. How do you think Republicans are going to navigate this? And this is going to be a major issue.

I mean we're only a little more than a year away from the 2020 suspension. It's gonna be a huge issue. They are going to be in every single state, in every single battleground district, in every city with these advocates, with people from these states that are gonna hurt the most as a result of these provisions. I spent time in Missouri.

I talked to providers at rural hospitals. I know you did too, out in the country. Ryan, it is very clear that even though Oren Nashley, these are Going to take effect fully until 2030 in Missouri, which by the way was a last minute provision, a sweetener that he got tucked into his bill in exchange for his support. Even though that's the case these states planned for years.

There are people who apply to Medicaid and it already takes in some cases 100 days for that application to be approved. This is gonna slow that down. And a lot of these voters, Ryan, as you know, voting for President Trump and are Republicans. Now you also talk to Senator Holly.

You mentioned this in a clip that you just played about this provision to expand the fund for victims of nuclear waste. Even thanking former Congressman Corey Bush. The two couldn't be on further opposite sides of the political spectrum. Tell us more about this provision and why it's important for Missouri in particular.

Well, Josh Hawley fought for years. He tried to get this other mask piece of legislation and it wasn't just hands who worked across the aisle from senator, from senators, lawmakers in different states to try and get this fund reauthorized and expanded. This goes back to the Manhattan Project. The government had a multi decade long nuclear weapons program and a lot of Americans suffered as a result of it, especially those in rural communities more spread out, Native American and indigenous populations as well.

We saw the amount of nation leader there and it's notable because you saw that Holly embrace Ori Bush. I thought that was so interesting. But Holly, after I asked him about it, said look, we work with whoever we have to work with to get this stuff done. He clearly was only focusing on this provision in this 1000 page bill.

And that to me too was an early test of how Republican are going to pick and choose smaller pieces of this bill and avoid the much larger, more damaging provisions of this bill. All right, quick work, Julie. That completely, perfectly segues to Steve Karnak who's got the paperwork for us. Steve, you heard Julie talk about this there.

It seems as though this is the first guy being cast in the 2026 midterms. Republicans say they're gonna try and run on at least aspects of the one big beautiful bill. Democrats say they're going to be running against it. You have a look at what Republicans are up against as they seek to maintain their House materiality next year.

What does landscape look like? Yeah, let's take a look at this big picture midterm landscape here from the Republicans trying to protect these majorities they use to pass this legislation. Good news, bad news for Republicans. Look at the good news start on the Senate side for them and it's this.

They do have that 5347 majority right now in the Senate. It means that Democrats would need to post next year on the Senate side, a net gain of four seats. Remember, if it lands 50, 50, which Trump is president, his vice president, J.D. vance, would break the tie.

So Democrats would need to get in that game of four seats. Here. You just start to look at the map. Look at some of these seats that are up.

Look where they're up. Democrats gonna be playing defense in Michigan, a state that Trump won narrowly. John Ossoff in Georgia, you know what a Trump state right there. Meanwhile, how many Republicans are gonna be up in Harris states?

The answer is only one. It's Susan Collins up in Maine. And Collins, of course, has survived some very difficult climates before. So the map here, just in terms of the math for Republicans, it's favorable, very favorable.

Republicans holding that majority. We'll see how it plays out. But they're probably feeling good about at least taking down the majority there. It's the House side, though.

You just heard those comments you played from Mike Johnson right here. This is what the balance of power looks like in the House right now. These three vacancies, they are in Democratic districts. So functionally, you could say 220, 215.

Right now, what that means for Republicans is 220. That means if they lose net three seats in the House next year, their majority is gone three seats. And here's what history says about the White House party fares in midterm elections. These are the seat changes in the House.

We're going back here to LBJ in 66. Look at all that red ink. The red ink here doesn't mean Republican. It means losses.

It means losses of seats. Only two times here since this is in this modern era, have you seen the White House party actually gain seats? It's 1998 and 2002. And there were obvious extenuating circumstances there.

In 98, Bill Clinton was the president. Republicans were trying to impeach him. The impeachment was extremely unpopular. There was a backlash against that Republican impeachment push.

Clinton gained five seats. Democrats gained five seats. 2002, George W. Bush was a year after 9 11.

The entire political climate had been transformed by 911 had not really gone back to normal partisan politics. Bush and his party benefited greatly from that. Otherwise, you just see losses here. That's the history that Republicans are up against that they're trying to defy.

Is there any encouraging note for them in this history? Well, ironically, it might be this one right here. The most recent Joe Biden 2022. We'll just call this up on the screen Quickly.

In 2022, Joe Biden was not popular, 44% approval rating, Trump's 45%. Right now it was a nine seat loss for Democrats in 2022. If Republicans lose nine, they lose the House. But nine's not that much more than three.

So ironically enough, I think if there's any hope for Republicans to drop a midterm mystery, Ryan, it's the Biden midterm of 22. Democrats didn't do that bad getting where Biden was that year. All right. Well, we're getting closer and closer, Steve.

I can feel it. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. After a break, more on the GOP's political future with a Republican House lawmaker who just announced that he sets to retire from Congress but might be open to launching a presidential bid.

Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon is standing by. Don't go anywhere. You're watching me, the president. Welcome back.

As we mentioned, Republicans are gearing up to run on the so called one big beautiful bill in the 2026 midterm elections. But there are a couple of incumbent Republicans and key battleground seats who already know they won't have to worry about making their case of voters. During the height of the debate over the bill, North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis announced that he won't be seeking another term. He ultimately voted against the package.

And now Nebraska Republican Don Bacon also says he plans on retiring after this term, telling NBC Scott Wong that he doesn't have the hunger for another grueling campaign season. In contrast to Tillis, Bacon voted yes on the president's big agenda bill. And joining me now is Nebraska Republican Congressman Don Bacon. A Congressman, thank you so much for giving us some time.

I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. I do want to get to Ukraine on your very passion about that topic and your decision to retire from the House.

But let's talk first about your vote on the so called one big beautiful bill. Late last month, you joined 15 of your fellow House Republican colleagues and signed a letter to Speaker Johnson. And when a reading from letter said, quote, protecting Medicaid is essential for the vulnerable constituents we were elected to represent. Therefore, we cannot support a final bill that threatens access to coverage or jeopardizes the stability of our hospitals and our providers, you still end up being a yes vote.

What do you say to your constituents who might be confused about how you got to a yes, especially given the projections that this is going to cut Medicaid spending by $1 trillion and result in millions losing their coverage. A lot of the discussions and I guess, debate and curling the House also, we were trying to negotiate, get the best Medicaid deal that we could. So we were pushing to get the best deal that we could get out of the House. What we passed there was largely my recommendations of focusing on work requirements, which was if you're 18 to 64 years old and you're healthy, you're mentally healthy, physically healthy, they should either work 20 hours a week looking for work, 20 hours a week volunteering, or taking classes.

70% of Americans like that. So most of those savings that we have were work requirements. And most Americans support that. Now, the CBO also said that we have roughly 1.6 million Americans are ineligible, another 1.2 million where they're illegally.

We also have some Americans that are trying Medicaid for two different states. Those are the areas we focus on in the House. And I think most people support that. We want to keep Medicaid for the healthy or for those who need it the most, our children, disabled adults and so forth.

And now the Senate took a little bit further and cut down some of the PMCs, but then they came back with a $50 billion repository for rural hospitals, trying to mitigate the cost there. I would prefer the House bill, but in the end I thought the good of the bill overweighed the bad. We're going to keep the tax cuts stable, protect the child tax credit, we're going to beef up our defense that we need to in a bad way and things like that. But I have to weigh the whole bill.

Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about your political future and the kind of big picture of a political observers here. They see that both you and North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, serving in two major electoral battlegrounds, announced your retirement.

We're kind of the height of the debate over this bill. You voted for it, he voted against it. Does that send the message that just in general, this bill may be hard to run on for your colleagues are going to stick around. Some people can look into it, but frankly, I decided not to drink because I've done it five times and I can work 14 hours a day and I do.

I win by two points in time for projected to lose, by the way. And watching said Harris won my seat by five. Mine won my seat by six. And so I could work 14 hour days, win by two points.

And I just rather spend more time with my family. I want to still serve my country but going into the House with four to three, five members and working that hard just to get to be one of the four or three, five members in often a dysfunctional environment, I'd rather spend more time with like my wife. I got four kids, eight grandkids. And the timing was I knew that I had to release like fundraising quarterly reports at the end, at the end of June or early July.

And I knew people received my numbers. Now figured out when I see more fundraising numbers, you decided before and it even gotten into the heat of this debate saying, yeah, but I mean, just if you were still running, do you think that this bill would have helped your re election campaign? Well, it surely Democrats will demagogue how many people need it. They'll say 9 million people were kicked off of Medicaid.

But when you peel it back and 2/3 of that are work requirements, and also the arrests are ineligible, illegal, or people are in two different states, Medicaid people are like, okay, that's more understandable. But they're explaining, you're not always wanting, as they say, I would rain on protecting the child tax credit, protecting their income taxes from 9.0%, and then we're fixing the funds. So I think there's a lot of good parts of this bill, too. But there's no doubt that the Democrats will.

And that's why I thought the Senate version was a mistake. The House version was easier to defend. And I thought the Senate puts it in more than ICE to try to defend this bill. All right, you are still going to be congressman here for about a year and a half.

So you're still an important player in all this. I want to talk about Ukraine. Sources tell NBC News that Defense Secretary Keith Hegseth was responsible for pausing weapons shipments to Ukraine. That pause later overturned.

You told my colleague Scott Wong that whoever ordered the weapons pause should be fired. Do you think Secretary Hexset should be fired as a result of this? You know, I said this before about the signal gate. It wasn't handled well.

The secretary should have taken responsibility, admitted he made a mistake, but instead he doubled down, blamed the journalists, and then denied there was a problem of putting sensitive data on an unclassified system for a path. And I called for his resignation or being fired. Done. And I feel the same way now when he makes decision to not send weapons to Ukraine that was appropriated by Congress, signed by the previous president, and he didn't even notify President Trump or seek his approval, and it embarrassed the president.

He had to address to a world stage why his Weapons were shut off and he didn't know. And so, yes, the Secretary of defense should show better judgment here. And by the way, it's clear that he and the other Secretary of defense policy are not supporters of Ukraine. And I think they do Europe in the same way that Europe's not calling us weight, I look at it bigger.

If Ukraine falls, our national security interests are gravely hurt. Moldova will fall next, maybe Azerbaijan, maybe Georgia. The Baltics feel like they're seriously under threat. Georgia said the other day that Lithuania will be the next country to be attacked.

This is serious stuff. We don't prevail in Ukraine and I don't know why we have some Republicans who can't see this so clearly. Well, to that end, President Trump's tone as it relates to Vladimir Putin in particular seems to be shifting. He seems to be upset with the way that Vladimir Putin has conducted himself through all this.

He thought that he would come to the negotiating table and he hasn't. Do you think that President Trump would be willing to do what it takes to defend Ukraine? In the past, he said he's not looking to reauthorize more funding for Ukraine. Wanted that to come to an end.

From your sense of this, is there a chance that perhaps he's going to be a more forceful defender of Ukraine than he has been in the past? Well, he's tilting that way now based on what he's saying for Putin. I would love to tell Putin's a bad man. He's killed all of his rivals and he's just done terrible things.

We have 40 some odd assassinations in Great Britain done by his FSB agency there. He's a bad leader, he's an evil leader. And it should be clear to everybody who this guy is. It seems to me that the President Trump is seeing this more clearly now.

What I would advise him, we want to send troops to Ukraine. We're not looking to do that. We should reauthorize large weapons, you know, deliveries to Ukraine, long range precision weapons, more air defenses. We need to help them prevail.

Putin's got to come to the realization that he cannot win. Drake suffered a million casualties and the more weapons we can provide, at some point he's going to say, you know, I cannot win this. We gotta hope we get there. All right, before you go, I'm just interested in your take on the future of the Republican Party.

Is there a place for someone like you in the Republican Party going forward? I know you have ruled out the idea of maybe running for an executive branch place, maybe even the White House at some point. Is there someone, is there room for folks like you in the Republican Party still? Well, I'm making the case for it.

I love our country. I'm a Ronald Reagan guy through and through. My first campaign that I got very interested in was 1976. We ran victory Ford.

I became a Reagan guy. Then I bought to his philosophy. I believe that America is a leader in the world for democracy, free markets, rule of law. But we can't do it.

Our own strong alliances and we need to treat our allies with respect. I also believe that the Reagan era philosophy was one of being respectful towards our political opponents. We don't want to demonize them. They're Americans.

All the same. We've got to reach across the aisle and work together. And I don't see that right now. I'm tired of the demonization.

I'm tired of where we're treating our allies. I think we do much better. And so I look forward to speak up for a return to normalcy and also decency. I think a very man.

Yeah. All right. Well, Congressman Bacon, I'm glad. So it's chasing around the halls of Congress for at least another year.

So thank you so much for being on. Appreciate it. Thank you. And we'll be right back.

You're watching me, the press now. Welcome back. It's been less than a week since President Trump signed his major domestic policy legislation into law. But some of those by the Trump administration are drawing the ire of his MAGA base.

Last month, the president's most ardent supporters pushed back on the president's decision to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. Now those same ardent supporters are calling out President Trump's DOJ and FBI for what they feel is like a betrayal over the acknowledgment that there is no so called Epstein client ledger. Joining me now is our panel, Audrey Falter. She's a political reporter for the National Review, Fashion Care advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, and of course, Republican strategist Rick Tyler.

So, Audrey, let's talk about the situation over the past few days. We've seen the president's campaign promises in his base kind of clash on some of these big issues. Epstein files, Iran, Ukraine, immigration. What do you make of some of these apparent contradictions?

And is there the possibility that we could see cracks in the Trump coalition as a result of it? I'm highly skeptical of that. I think most of this IR is being directed at Pam Bondi in particular because she made such a show of the Epstein files early on the administration. You know, she invited a lot of conservative influencers to the White House in February.

Of course, a lot of information, those binders, a lot of those influencers held up with already declassified public information. But she also, when asked about an interview early on, the administration criticized the Biden administration for sitting on these documents and doing nothing about it. So I think because of that, this frustration that in a lot of these concerned influencers view she over promised and under delivered. And let's play a little bit of what President Trump said yesterday about the situation with Jeffrey Epstein.

Take a listen. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. You're asking, we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things.

And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable. You want to waste the time and you feel like answering. I don't mind answering.

I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this. In February I did an interview on Fox and it's been getting a lot of attention because I said I was asked a question about the client list and my response was it's sitting on my desk to be reviewed, meaning file along with the JFK MLK files as well. That's what I meant by that, Rick. I watched a bit of Tucker Carlson show yesterday.

Which you did. Yeah. Which is not, you know, I wouldn't say that's not the pulse of the Trump MAGA movement, but it certainly gives us a window into it. And there's just no way he's buying this argument that all of a sudden, you know, the Pambandi, Cash Patel, the NBA Angino, they promised that they were going to deliver the smoking gun.

Now they're trying to tell these folks that it doesn't exist. Are they going to believe Trump or are they going to believe the conspiracy theories that kind of banked all of their. They seem to have believed the conspiracy theories so long ago. That's not going to change.

I think what's interesting about that clip was Marco Rubio between. That's his conversation. But look, why are we talking about this, Mr. Trump?

Because your administration is making news about it. And the way they made news about it is they did this hand handed rollout. The binders that they handed out of that she spoke about said phase one, indicating that there might be a phase two. And there was no phase two.

And by the way, Ghislaine Mackrell serving a 20 year sentence based on some kind of client list or some kind of evidence that was presented in court of law. And now the same Justice Department is saying that there is no client list. So therefore there's nothing to see here. And those things just don't add up.

And so that's going to create, because of intrepid reporting, a question of why is it, how did she go to jail based on her facilitation of criminal acts, when the criminal they're saying now, what was he in jail for? And there have been people involved in that. Of course, they are still walking the street. And there are.

Why not to this point though, is this interruption just wiped this all away, saying, you guys haven't been worried about this anymore, we don't care about it. Well, the political problem, possibly it could be because I agree that his coalition tends to stick with him, is that we haven't had a mass firing yet, which is surprising. Right. He hasn't really fired anybody prominent, some lower level ones.

And I think there is, you know, possibility of the pan you other people around them. Somebody has. If you increase enough pressure, the people are gonna look for a fault person. And you know how Trump is.

When you look for a fault person, you'll find one. All right, let's change gears and talk about the Democratic potential primary that's afoot. Governor Gavin Newsom on a tour of South Carolina, of course, that just happens to be an early primary state. Fez is Newsom right now, what the party is looking for.

All right. I'm happy that he's going out there and campaigning and Ruben Gallego's going to Iowa. And I'm happy that everyone wants to get out and try to metastasize. I'm being part of a Democratic Party right now.

I would caution that, you know, it'd be nice to stand for something. It's good that you want to go out and talk to others. But if there's a lesson to be learned from Zoran and other people who are succeeding at this moment that, you know, I think Bernie OC the firearm realizes that you stamped something. There's a set of agenda, vision, not just anti Trump, which exists in the country.

I think a vast majority of the country is anti. But that's not enough to make you vote Democrat. To make you vote Democrat, you have to offer a vision. We're at a stage right now that if I had to pull many of the people and say what are the top three or four things that Democrats are going to do if they hold the house of the Senate in the next legislature cycle, I don't think anyone can tell you.

Yeah, that's the problem. And then Audrey, the FAZ's point, Ruby guy goes out there with people like JB Pritzker. They're trying to take a more agnostic approach to Republicans, trying to kind of widen the base. Is it more at this point about what you stand for than necessarily this picture you can get elected.

How do Democrats approach it at this stage? I think Fast is right to mention Zaran Mondani. I think there are a lot of questions about the subsystem. He self describes Democrat socially.

That's not going to win over every Democratic voter. Right. But Fast is right. His vision was incredibly clear.

He had a really strong campaign that resonated with young voters that was attuned to Instagram TikTok. I think the Democrats are really taking that lesson into 2028 and we're going to see a lot more kind of Instagram focused messaging. Could Republicans get caught sleeping here? Obviously you can tag Maudami as a Democrat socialist, but to Faz's point, he's talking about issues that people care about.

And you see Josh Hawley out there saying Republicans are toneed out to a bit of this. I think Faz is exactly right and very insightful. I would disagree with the vision. We have a vision, but he's right that people from the base parties want to hear.

What are you going to do? I think Trump is an anomaly in this. To me, he doesn't fall in the political accountability. He's more like a celebrity and he gets treated like a celebrity.

He doesn't treat like a politician. So he's a little bit of an anomaly. But Democrats do have to have a vision. They have to say what they want and then they have to decide and then that may win primaries.

The question is, will win your elections. On the other side, you have exactly the same problem. Right. We can win primaries with certain issues, but are you actually going to win our election?

And my philosophy is always that conservatism is a attractive governing philosophy and people would learn it and know how to articulate it. You could win on that. Fast would disagree, but it's okay. Let's close on this advantage.

What's taking so long for Democrat leaders to endorse the comfort right now to say, I want to oppose everything that Trump has done? There's going to be, you know, desire to say, listen, if you cut Medicaid, I want to restore Medicaid, I'm going to argue that's not going to be enough. If you're going to go save rural hospitals that are going to be closing. Go tell them how you want to save rural hospitals, not just that you're going to start Medicaid funding.

Have a healthcare vision that expands health care acts in America. 30 seconds. Why haven't Democratic clears and Doors by Diamondback? What are they waiting for?

Jeffrey Schumer because the billionaire class, Ryan, they are not in favor of Zoron, which is fine by me. He should take them on. Zoran should fight the billionaire class. But Schumer, Jeffreys Hochul, you name him.

Mayor Bloomberg, a billionaire himself. Do not not support a vision in which zorno. All right. I'll be back with more details for Al Jackson right now.

I'm Craig. Mel. Cheers. Cheers.

Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way, too. It's really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges, their stories are fun. And so I hope you'll join me each week.

Who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half Full Search Glass Apple with Craig Melvin From Today on YouTube, wherever you get your podcast.