Meet the Press NOW — June 17

Hey, Ontario, come on down to Bet MGM Casino and see what our newest exclusive The Price Is Right Fortune Pick has to offer. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show, only at Bet MGM. Check out how we've reimagined three of the show's iconic games, like Plinko, Cliffhanger, and The Big Wheel into fun casino game features.

Don't forget to download the Bet MGM Casino app for exclusive access and excitement on The Price Is Right Fortune Pick. Pull up a seat and experience The Price Is Right Fortune Pick, only available at Bet MGM Casino. Bet MGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to Wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Bet MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming, Ontario. If it's Tuesday, President Trump meets with his national security team in the situation room as he weighs the possibility of direct US involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict as both sides launch new rounds of attacks. Plus, new calls on Capitol Hill for increased security protections and for a toning down of the heated rhetoric in the aftermath of that deadly attacks on Minnesota state lawmakers.

And no safe spaces. That's the message from the Trump administration after another policy reversal, now saying immigration arrests will continue at restaurants, hotels and agricultural work sites. Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Garrett Hake in Washington, where we begin with the Middle East on edge for the fifth consecutive day as air raid sirens blared and more explosions rocked both Israel and Iran and with the increasing possibility that the US could get directly involved.

President Trump just wrapped up a meeting with his national security team in the situation room after abruptly leaving the G-7 summit a day early, saying he needed to focus on the Middle East crisis. This is the White House ways whether to help Israel target Iran's nuclear facilities. Vice President Vance was asked this afternoon whether the US was closer to taking military action against Iran. Isn't what he said.

I think the president is making clear to the American people in the entire world that his policy is that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon and the part of that is if they're not allowed to have enrichment in their country. And there are many different ways, many different options of the president's disposal for how to accomplish that ultimate policy goal, but that is the policy goal. That followed several extraordinary social media posts from the president over the last 24 hours started with an ominous warning yesterday evening telling people in Tehran a city of almost 10 million to evacuate immediately. That was followed by posts this morning saying, quote, we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran and a seeming threat to Iran's supreme leader saying we are not going to take him out.

At least not for now. It remains unclear exactly what the president meant by any of those posts, but speaking overnight to reporters on Air Force One, he said he wants to see an end to the conflict. And in another stunning moment, President Trump publicly disputed an assessment from his own intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, who told the congressional committee back in March that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. He always said that the intelligence committee said Iran wasn't going to be prepared, what you said.

I think it was very close to him. Well, today while on Capitol Hill, director Gabbard told reporters she was on the same page as the president when it came to the Intel Community Assessment of Iran's nuclear program. Joining me now to parse what all that means, our team of NBC News reporters, White House correspondent Monica Al Bez with us, and we see who's international correspondent Matt Bradley is in Tel Aviv. And NBC News senior national security correspondent, Courtney Kubi, is at the Pentagon.

I'll start with you. What more are we learning about why the president left at G7 early and what happened in this situation meeting this afternoon? Well, Garrett, like with anything with this president, a couple of things can be true at once. And it does seem like he did decide to come back to Washington at least for the official explanation to monitor the situation that's unfolding in the Middle East and to be able to have some face-to-face conversations with his top aides and advisors in order to make a series of key decisions.

At the same time, he says that he felt he had a very successful day of meetings yesterday in Canada and that he had accomplished everything he had set out to. So sometimes we have seen a pattern of the president leave these global summits early once he feels he wants to. He makes that decision and then he acts on it. As far as that meeting that he had in the situation room, we know it lasted a little over an hour.

And if it's anything like it was on Friday where a lot of this was unfolding in real time, these are conversations where the president is likely reviewing a menu of options about what role the U.S. can play here beyond what it's already doing in terms of aiding Israel and its defense, trying to intersect and fight off those missiles and drones coming from Iran. But the major question here that nobody has been able to answer is whether the U.S. is going to be really plunged further into this conflict by, for instance, potentially assassinating the Supreme Leader of Iran, which the president says for now he will not do even though he says the U.S.

knows where he's hiding. Will the U.S. provide some weaponry that would aid Israel or that the U.S. would unilaterally act to try to further cripple Iran's nuclear capabilities and ability to enrich uranium, which we know is something that is possibly being considered, or is a lot of this political bluster and threat, which again, and you detail this in his true social post, is pretty aggressive language for something that the president could be again preparing the American people to consider, or is this just a conversation he's trying to force to see if there's any kind of diplomatic path that can be returned to that that seems pretty difficult at this point.

Mon, you're as experienced as anyone trying to parse these things to expand on your metaphor of the menu of options here. What are the president's social media posts? What are the comments from the vice president tell you about what the president might choose here? It does seem like he is trying to at least put the narrative out there or set the stage for the idea that the U.S.

could join Israel or try to act on this and go forth with some potential military action in Iran. Just look at the language he's using, he's saying we have total control of the skies over Iran. Our patience is weighing, wearing thin. He's trying to imply that this is now an argument that the U.S.

is at the table and more involved in, and not just again in that diplomatic sense, which is what the argument had been for the last couple of weeks saying that the president, even if it was one a few hours ago, he said I'd love for everybody to get back to the table and to try to take the deal, but he's really tilting in the other direction, it seems, and you mentioned the vice president's comments as well. He is the one saying that the president needs to be trusted on this, but again, they're trying to kind of pull back and say that there's an idea here that could be way more broad than what had originally been discussed when the posture had been. The U.S. was just going to be helping and in a defensive posture and not going forward and being more involved, but they're now opening the door to that in a far more significant manner, I'd say.

All right, Monica, keep us posted on if we start to hear anything more from the White House, now that meeting has wrapped up. I want to turn it out, Matt Bradley in Tel Aviv, Matt, I know you spent big portions of the last night in a shelter. What's the mood like in Tel Aviv today? What's the view on the ground there?

Yeah, well, I got to tell you, it wasn't big portions of the night, it was maybe 20 or 30 minutes to the three times throughout the entire night, once early in the night, once about 3 a.m., and then once, you know, seven or eight a.m., but I got to tell you, when you walk around the streets here in Tel Aviv, I think the best thing I can do to compare it for you is it's like COVID, you know, once bustling city streets, now almost entirely quiet. You see someone here and there, you know, every once in a while, you'll see a shop open, but really very, very quiet compared to what it was before. That having been said, we have now seen, as I mentioned, the quietest period that we've had ever since this whole thing began on Friday morning. We haven't had a fatality in Israel from Iranian attacks in the past 24 hours.

So that is new. And whether or not that actually indicates that Iran is running on steam, that its weapons are no longer coming to bear in the same way they were in the opening days, I can't make that judgment. And we don't really know that we are hearing from the Israelis time and time again, I think as you mentioned, that the Israelis enjoy complete air superiority over Tehran, Iran's capital, and that they've managed to knock out about a third of Iran's missile launchers, which means they're going to be sending over, presumably fewer missiles, and that's exactly what we're hearing from the IDF. Each volley that has been fired in the past day, more or less, is a fraction of or contains a fraction of the number of missiles that the volleys contain before in the opening days, and even fewer than they contained back last year in April and October, the last time the Israelis and the Iranians exchanged direct fire.

So again, I don't want to jump to conclusions, but things have dramatically quieted down, even though there still seems to be a lot of pain that the Iranians are capable of meeting out. Alright, Matt, stay safe over there. I want to turn to Courtney now. And Courtney, I want to pick up on this acknowledgement from Director Gabbard.

I guess the acknowledgement is not the right word. But her comments today that she's now on the same page as the president when it comes to the assessment of Iran's nuclear program. Do we believe that's because the assessment has been changed to get her on the president's page, or perhaps the president is overstating where the nuclear program is for whatever reason? Yeah, that's a great question, I guess maybe the better way to start.

That's a great question. So publicly, what we know about the Director of National Intelligence, what the intelligence community's assessment is that Iran is not currently making a nuclear weapon. Now, we know that they have pretty dramatically increased their stockpile of enriched uranium, and that is putting them on a glide path towards having the ability to build the weapon. But the key here is the intelligence agencies continue to say, and frankly have said this for years, that that decision has not been made by the Supreme Leader to actually build the weapon.

Now, once they make that decision, that could happen pretty quickly. But again, what she's talking about, how they're on the same page, is really unclear, unless it's a vague statement that in fact Iran could have a nuclear weapon if they decided to pretty quickly. It would just be a matter of enriching uranium to a higher level here. All right, so I'm one of the armchair experts on Iran right now.

We've all been learning and discussing a lot about Fordot, the nuclear enrichment facility there. You are an actual expert on it. And so I pose to you this question, what kind of weaponry would it take to go after this underground under a mountain site? Is this really the kind of thing that only the United States can do?

At this point, yes. Okay, so the reason is the actual facility, sort of the whole ways where the actual facility lives is about 300 feet underground, maybe a little give or take a little bit, but roughly 300 feet underground. And it's underneath deep concrete. So there's really only a very small number of weapons that could actually penetrate that.

One, we're starting to hear more about it this week, it's called a GBU57, it's a 30,000 pound bomb. And frankly, even with that, it would probably take multiple bombs to actually really break through that concrete and get down to the actual facility. Now, keep in mind, it's not like it's just one building. It is a large complex.

Sure. It's surrounded by a military facility as well. So at this point, as far as we know, the United States is the only one who has this bomb and the United States is the only one who has an aircraft capable of carrying it and deploying it. I say as far as we know, because the reality is here, we know what has been released publicly, we know what has been reported, but there are always things that we just don't know Garrett.

At this point, we believe the US is the only one to have that capability though. No, as a former Kansas City Missouri resident, I'm legally compelled to ask you, is that the kind of thing that has to be flown from white men air force base in Missouri on a V2? Or what do we have in the region right now in terms of weaponry? What can be done with the assets that already exist in the Middle East?

It would be flown from a V2. And by the way, they don't just keep those 30,000 pound bombs sitting anywhere. They would have to move them into the region as well. Right.

Of course, they're not going to telegraph when they do that. But look, I mean, here, these are things that if the decision is made, it could happen quickly. At this point, we don't believe the decision has been made. We have no indication that that is the case.

But yes, they would have to use V2s. The US has other bombers that are actually already still in the region. They have them at Diego Garcia, but the V2s are still as far as we know, we're still here back in the United States. Nobody has an air tag on those bad boys.

Thank you for your reporting on this. I know you'll stay on top of it. I want to bring in Aaron David Miller now. He's a former advisor on Arab Israeli negotiations and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Aaron, I'm so glad you're with us. I want to start with the domestic politics of this all, and then we'll get back into the international part of it. President Trump mostly ran on this idea of a more isolationist, no new wars, no new wars in the Middle East, specifically stance. What do you make of the divide that seems to be coming into place within the Republican party about whether keeping that isolation is lame or to take a more hawkish stance?

And what is your read on which direction the administration is leaning at this hour? Look, there may be dissenters in megaworld who have strong voices. The reality is, what are they going to do if Donald Trump decides that negotiations have run out of runway, the Israelis cannot destroy Iran's nuclear program? What are they going to do desert him?

No, the reality is that it seems to me that Donald Trump is dominating American politics. This is the 10th year of that, frankly, since the 32nd elevator ride in 2015, Peter Baker is a phenomenal piece in the New York Times this morning. He's such a stride Republican democratic politics. He also has the Constitution on his side, and the reality is that the presidency is the energizer bunny of the political system.

He's going to act. There will be no congressional strains. I'm assuming the operation that his plan succeeds, and this is a complicated question, I think. I don't think that there's serious constraints and concerns from inside the Republican party that will shape his thinking.

No, I think what shapes his thinking is his conception of himself, right? I mean, this is somebody who considers himself a consummate deal maker. Can you make a deal with Iran while you're dropping 30,000 pounds bombs on them? Well, I think once a decision is made to use those to be to the U-57s with the two spirit bombers and the Iranian reaction to that, I'm hard pressed to believe, even if the theory of the case is, I'm going to do what the Israelis cannot do.

It won't be a massive comprehensive campaign. We don't need that. I'm simply going to demonstrate to the Iranians and the Israelis that we've essentially capped off Israel's effort now. He'll turn to Mr.

Netanyahu and say, look, you've done about as much as you can do. I supplemented. Now time to stop. Then he'll turn to the Iranians, and if this is their expectation, the administration's, I think it may not be terribly well thought through, the Iranians are going to respond despite the asymmetry of power.

They have thousands of short-range ballistic missiles. Geography is destiny here. The Gulf, the Saudis, American forces, American forces in Iraq and Syria, and yes, the United States military could mount a campaign of shock and awe that could go in for weeks. I'm sorry, just one more point.

You want to end Iran's nuclear program. We're going to have to basically change the regime, occupy the country so that there is absolutely no way that any Iranian establishment will be able to continue this. If you don't do that, it seems to me the Iranians are going to reconstitute the program. So the question is, have they thought how far along have they thought this through?

You've lent me the three buzzwords. It won't be a big operation. Shock and awe regime change. My millennial Iraq war brain immediately goes there.

What is the risk inherent in this going to where some of Netanyahu's comments seem to suggest he wants it to, which is an end to this Iranian regime. I recognize this as impossible, but we are short on time. So you can do regime change in at least three ways. You can mount millions of people in the streets, Egypt, Tunisia, and military won't fire on the crowd.

So the authoritarians will have to leave office, a power. You can do what Syria did, HTS, a coherent, cohesive force back by the Turks, a hollow Assad regime within three weeks, or you can do Iraq and Afghanistan. You can get rid of Saddam in the Taliban, right? By occupying the country.

Good luck with that, given the results. So I think regime change is an illusion. They can break and weaken the regime. They can't piece another Humpty Dumpty together again that is capable of governing and governing in a way that would be amenable both to Israel and the United States.

So this seems to me got to be thought through and the cost of not thinking it through. Yeah. We broke it. Yeah.

The region abounds with examples of poorly thought through efforts that regime change. Aaron David, another we have to leave it there. Thank you for bringing us your expertise. And safety concerns, senators react after receiving a bipartisan security briefing in the aftermath of that fatal shooting of a Minnesota lawmaker, plus immigration crackdown whiplash, DHS orders ICE agents back in the meatpacking plants, farms, hotels and restaurants.

You're watching the press now. Welcome back. Senate Democrats are now calling for more security and less heated political rhetoric after this weekend shooting of two lawmakers in Minnesota. All senators received a security briefing this morning from the Senate Sergeant at Arms and Capitol Police.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer later blaming what he called reckless rhetoric for a rise in threats against politicians. The dangerous environment isn't isn't spontaneous, however. It's being stoked often deliberately by reckless rhetoric coming from some of the most powerful voices in the country. When political opponents are treated like enemies, when leaders encourage the kind of protest that can lead to violence, it increases that violence.

So it's responsibility of all leaders, especially President Trump, to not just unequivocally condemn hatred, but to stop the violent and regressive language against political opponents. Well, today's Senate briefing came after President Trump overnight said he did not plan to speak with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz in the wake of this weekend's attacks. I think the governor said it's so whacked up. Hi, how you doing?

The guy doesn't have a clue. He's a mess. So I can be nice and cold, but why waste time? NBC News, senior national political reporter, Sahil Kapoor joins me now in style.

Republican Senator Mike Lee has taken a lot of, he's now taken down some inflammatory tweets about the Minnesota shooting. Lee was confronted by Minnesota Senator Tina Smith about the tweets yesterday, refused to answer questions about it. Do we know what led to based Mike Lee as he calls himself on Twitter to remove these posts? We don't exactly know, Garrett, because as you mentioned, Mike Lee has been running away from reporters trying to evade questions about this.

We do know that he was confronted and had discussions with both of Minnesota's senators, both Democrats first Tina Smith. That was yesterday. She told him that his posts were out of line that they were cruel as she related to reporters later on. Senator Klobuchar as well said she had a conversation with Mike Lee after Tina Smith did.

She didn't have all details of the conversation, but she said only quote Senator Lee and I had a good discussion, and I'm very glad he took it down, took down those taunting online posts. And she also said that Minnesota had genuinely come together left right and center on this, and she didn't think that those extraneous posts from the center from Utah were particularly helpful. Yeah, Mike Lee last seen hiding behind a staffer's iPad as reporters tried to ask him questions about this. Sahil, what did senators say about today's security hearing?

I feel like we've had a lot of these in the last couple of years. Yeah, there was a briefing that senators had with Capitol Police and the Senate Sergeant at arms. Now, a few takeaways here. There was somewhat of a reluctance to reveal too much because any details that could be divulged about how to keep lawmakers safe could, in theory, be used by those who want to harm them.

Second, there was a desire to balance security with lawmakers staying accessible to constituents. This is an extremely important priority for Article 1. They want to be accessible to their voters. And third, this is also about ensuring that ordinary people, not just lawmakers, but ordinary people, aren't afraid to show up at political rallies to be in the public square, because if there is violence happening there, then that could discourage people from participating in politics.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke to reporters about this, said, they need significantly more resources. He said they're going to need support from Senate Republicans in order to achieve that, because they control the Senate. But he said they're, he saw very hopeful signs in the meeting that they will move in that direction. All right, Sahil, thank you.

We ran out of time to talk about the reconciliation bill, but something tells me we're going to have a lot more time before that thing gets close to the finish line. So we'll have you back. I appreciate it. I want to turn now to the latest reversal from the Trump administration on its immigration crackdown.

The administration now says it will be conducting immigration enforcement at hotels, restaurants, and agricultural workplaces, places like farms and meatpacking plants. I said pause the rest at those worksites, those very same ones, last week, and the president acknowledged that the agriculture and hospitality industries had been hurt by valuable workers being deported. But in a statement today, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that worksite enforcement remains a cornerstone of our efforts to safeguard public safety, national security, and economic stability. Joining me now is M.C.

News, senior Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley, whose neck is no doubt sore from the whiplash over the last couple of days. So Julia, what can you tell us about how we got from reversal to reversal of the reversal and back to where we are now? You know, Gary, it really speaks to the ongoing debate within the Republican Party over how far you can take immigration enforcement without stepping on the interests of businesses. And we know that they've been doing workplace enforcement, so they did a big one in Omaha right around the same time as the L.A.

raids that sparked the protest. And in this case, we understood, at least through Trump, Hunter Social, that he was hearing from business owners and the agriculture and hospitality sectors that the worksite enforcement was going too far, and scaring away potential employees who could come, and so he said, we're going to change courts. That's a pretty big admonition from this president, as you know well. But then we saw a memo that followed that, telling people not to do worksite enforcement.

They didn't leave out the employees. They could still be arrested in their homes, but at least the where that was prohibited, not to do it at those places. Then it may have been the media coverage, people talking about how there was a shift or perhaps Trump was weakening his resolve when it came to immigration enforcement, and we saw them of course correct. Now, not through a memo, but through communication, probably through a phone call where they've now said, you know what, forget what that memo said, you can now go forward, make arrests in worksites.

Are viewers know this because they see that local television? I mean, these enforcement actions become the top story in every community when they happen. Is the president now essentially a prisoner of a policy that he campaigned on for the last two years? Yeah.

I mean, the tough thing, what he campaigned on was deportations. You remember that on the campaign, and now all we talk about is arrests, and arrests don't necessarily equal deportations. In fact, a lot of the people that they're arresting aren't deportable. They have.

Much to the administration's appointment. Yes, and they have orders from judges saying that they have pending asylum cases or they cannot be removed to certain countries. And so you're seeing these mass sweeps that again, capture the attention when they happen because it's so visible, whereas if deportation, that can happen from a small airport, no one sees. And so it seems that the optics are still the prime focus here.

And for now, he's going to continue these arrests because his calculation, or at least calculations for people like Stephen Miller, are to continue to do these arrests. And of course, when asked about this, he's pivoting to this new focus on blue cities. And that's what he wants to see next. That's where he wants to see the clash.

More so than at the worksite, but if they're going to get those arrest numbers up, worksites are where you get the numbers. Well, it's going to be interesting to follow this and more raids coming to a community and do it. Sounds like Julianne's. I appreciate all of your reporting on that.

And still ahead, voters are voting in Virginia and we're talking on the ground to some of them ahead of what will be a major race to watch in November. You are watching the press now and we'll back as the White House weighs America's next move in the Middle East. The potential for why are us involved in the region has opened up something of an inch of Republican or at least intro magga divide with President Trump seemingly caught in the middle. On the one side, there are the ultra magga voices like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, urging the president to keep the US out of this conflict using his old America first campaign slogan while there are also traditional Republican voices like South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham that say Mr.

Trump should leave his military options open to ensure that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons. Joining me now on set as our panel, Rod de Colvin, a senior congressional reporter for the Washington Post, and then he collies a former Justice Department spokesperson under President Biden and NBC News contributor, and Danielle Pletka is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. She is also an NBC News contributor. So Ron, I'm going to start with you and play some of the president's inaugural address.

We'll see where this guy is on Iran and she listens. Like in 2017, we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.

That's what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier. How do you square that guy with the guy who's posting on Truth Social about targeting a community and potentially bombing Iran? Certainly doesn't seem like the same type of statements that we saw not only at the inauguration, but on the campaign trail. He said it over and over again.

He talked about Ukraine ending that war and in the conflict in the Middle East. And now what we've seen over the last 24 or 48 hours, it does appear that he is not keeping to some of those campaign promises. He looks at all this as to the prism of trying to be a deal maker. I mean, is this a little bit of being bad cop now to try to see if he can get around back to the table?

What's your read on that? Could be a little bit of bad cop. You know, he is someone that has developed a persona of strong army and negotiating, but it also may just be because of the circumstances that are happening right now that are probably out of his control. And now we're seeing him react to them.

So it might be just, you know, the circumstances it may just be him wanting to be a negotiator, knowing that there's not much anyone really can do. He is the, you know, commander in chief. I know one of your experts earlier said, what can that girl really do right now if he wants to move forward with any sort of, you know, muscular gestures toward it. Right.

I mean, a little bit of all of that. I mean, ultimately right now, they're trying to make this argument to any Marjorie Taylor Green's been out there in the forefront. I know you have your Twitter alert set up for her. So I probably don't have to read this to you.

But for the benefit of our audience, I want to put something up where she's commenting on a post from Tucker Carlson saying, foreign wars, intervention, regime change, put America last, kill innocent people, making us broke, will ultimately lead to our destruction. She goes on to say, that's what millions of Americans voted for, it's what we believe is America first. So first I'm curious what your take is on her argument, but also, I think this setting up for the tug of war over what the real meaning is of the America first argument. So this is the great horseshoe, right?

This is where you have Rush Nuts Live and Ilhan Omar meeting up with Marjorie Taylor Green. That's not allowing this system. It's a circle, actually, and Bernie Sanders and Marjorie Taylor Green agree. When Bernie Sanders and Marjorie Taylor Green agree, I feel super happy at where I am on the circle.

So now, now, what do Republicans think? 80% of Republicans support Israel's need to deal with the nuclear threat from Iran. And the thing that we as Americans need to remember is this is a country that threatened to kill. Donald Trump has tried to kill previous U.S.

leaders, is trying currently to kill members of Donald Trump's first term, right? So... Can we cancel security for it? Who he has canceled security for it?

Nonetheless, let us remember that this is not simply the enemy of the Jews in the state of Israel. This is, in fact, our enemy and one that has killed more Americans since its inception as the Islamic Republic than any other group other than al-Qaeda. Anthony, as someone who used to advise a cabinet member, I'm curious what you make of the way the president dismissed Tulsi Gabbard almost out of hand in the comments that she had made about where Iran was on developing a nuclear weapon. And it's not just that.

He didn't even invite her to have this big meeting at David on Sunday, and he didn't invite her to that. This is supposed to be the director of national intelligence, and we're in the midst of this major international conflict, right? I mean, the basis for whatever we do here is based on intelligence. How are you not going to have the person in charge of it, right?

Well, you have all of the best people, he promised us. I do want to go back to this point, as Danny said, though, because I think it's important, when you talk about the base of the Republican party, they are overwhelmingly in favor of this action. And I grew up in the rule of self. Christian conservatives, evangelicals, even Black Christians who vote Democratic, they always, they believe quite strongly that the United States should stand firmly with Israel.

But you also make some other good points, is that this is an act of threat against the country. And so if the president ends up doing this, I think it's going to be certainly in the short term a show of strength for him and for the country. If it happens. Well, that's interesting, because the other person on our horseshoe diagram we should have prepared in graphics before this segment is John Fetterman, who doesn't fall neatly in any of those categories, but has been very outspoken on Israel and has been saying essentially the same thing that Americans and the president should stand with Israel.

How does it complicate democratic messaging on this? There doesn't seem to be a kind of unified democratic position on this at all. So the most important thing that can happen right now is with the president to talk with the legislative branch, Democrats and Republicans, that is not happening. I was working on the Hill, I was a baby staffer after 9-11, I was working on the Hill and I vividly remember the Bush administration coming to the Hill to convince lawmakers to give them authorization.

Do you remember this? That's not happening. That's to your question, Gary. That is the opening for Democrats, right?

We're just coming off of this No Kings rally. And here we have Donald Trump acting like an imperialist, right? He is not respecting the fact that Congress is a co-equal branch of government. And those norms, those protocols, the law exists for a reason, and that's the open.

Yeah, good. You make a really important point, but I think it's not just Donald Trump that doesn't respect that Congress is a co-equal branch of government. Congress does not respect. It does not respect.

100% true. They have given away so many other authority in this era, except Rana for Tim Kaine, who's going to put forward some legislation today trying to sort of mark his territory on this War Powers vote. Is that going to get much pick up on the other end of the horseshoe? Well, I don't know if we're seeing a lot of Republican support right now in the Senate for Tim Kaine's resolution, the War Powers resolution that would curb the president doing anything in terms of getting the U.S.

involved in Iran. However, on the House side, you have Representative Massey from Kentucky, a Republican who was joining with Rokana. There were a lot of progressive Democrats who were also on that legislation. They're also moving with their resolution as well.

Now, will House Republican leadership bring that up for a vote? It is a privileged resolution, but they may try to circumvent it because, you know, I'm not sure where leadership is on this issue or if they want to publicly state where they are on this issue. Republican leadership. Go ahead.

No, that's okay. I want to change gears a little bit because we have a limited amount of time. I'm fascinated by this topic, and Danny, I want to ask you about this specifically. We were talking about immigration in the last segment, and the box that the president has put himself in between his mass deportations effort and the functioning of the U.S.

economy. How do you see them squaring a circle on this effort to limit where and who we deport? He's also ramping up the numbers that the president seems committed to. He's reversed himself several times in the last four days.

Right. Well, part of the president's problem is that, of course, our dirty secret is that we rely on a lot of these illegal immigrants. Right. Not just in the farm industry and the restaurant industry, and in a lot of places.

So the natural thing would be to figure out what to do about this through, you know, the legislative process. That's not going to happen for a whole variety of reasons, not least that after four years of Joe Biden's presidency, support for legal immigration has plummeted so that the solution isn't out there. I think what he needs to do is, frankly, manage this properly, deal with it, criminals he keeps talking about, deal with the people who have previously been deported and do not need a hearing because they've already been sent out to do that and to do it less on the front page of every single newspaper. But that's not dental.

Very classic. I'm very glad that Democrats have been handcuffed by this moment too. So Danny said that the solution isn't out there, and she's right. It's not out there now, but it has been out there.

It was barely a year ago when the toughest immigration comprehensive reform bill, toughest border bill in a generation, was brokered by conservatives in the Senate, had democratic support. It had the support of Joe Biden, and this president killed that legislation, but calls he wanted to campaign on the issue, right? So he, this is all, even now, into his administration, this is politics at his worst, and people on the economy is suffering for it, and people are being unfortunately implicated in a very negative way. Well, I'm not happy to know that we have to wrap this up.

Hey, Danny, Ron. Thank you all for coming in and being part of this conversation, which we can keep it going, but it's only the one hour show tonight. So up next, new endorsements and non-endorsements in the race to be the next mayor of New York City. Steve Bernanke is at the big board to explain why next week's primary might not actually narrow the field as much as voters might expect or hope you're watching at the press now.

It's Tuesday. Somebody is voting somewhere, and today that somewhere is Virginia, even though the race at the top of the ticket is already set. With incumbent Republican Governor Glenn Young can term limited, Democratic Congressman Abigail Spanberger will face off against Republican Lieutenant Governor with some Earl Sears in November. The only competitive races today are the Democratic primaries for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.

And November's race for Governor will be both closely watched and competitive, though history here favors the Democrat. We've only got this century on our graphic here, but in nine of the last 10 Virginia governor's races, voters elected a governor from the party that did not hold the White House. The only exception you'll note there is in 2013. Our resident Commonwealth politics watcher Gary Grumbach is on the ground as he so often is in Virginia on this primary day.

Gary, you're on the ground. I think in Fairfax County, the governor's primary is already set. What are folks telling you about November? What issues are on their mind now?

So Gary, so often we're all around the country of the past several years talking about it. We expect to hear them talk about some of the kitchen table issues, right? Immigration, abortion, the economy. That's not what we're hearing today.

What we're hearing in Fairfax County, which is about a 60-40 county in Northern Virginia about West of Washington, D.C., it's a lot of the more weighty issues, democracy, compassion. Here's what some folks are talking about. I think one of the things that we've lost, perhaps in this whole country, is a significant degree of compassion. Something's really going down.

We need to get that back. God only knows what's going to happen if there's no stopping this destructive train that is just dismantling everything. Absolutely. Everybody is.

And everybody should be. Now, this is sort of a lower profile primary, because as you said, the governor's race is set and there are no contested state-wide Republicans running at all across the Commonwealth. But sometimes there's a recession here, but some folks find really important to them or the real local issues, like the casino that's being built down the street and what candidates do or do not support it. Gary, what's your sense of how Doge is going to be a factor in November?

I know it's a long way off, but obviously Virginia has a ton of federal employees, not just in Fairfax County where you are, but of course that is kind of the engine of the state for Democratic voters. Yeah, they've got more than 300,000 federal employees across the state, most of them in Northern Virginia. And that has been a big topic of conversation that we've heard from voters today saying they worry about their friends, their neighbors, their family members, who may have been impacted by some of these cuts, by the Department of Government Efficiency, some of them saying they've spent a lot of time at job fairs, helping their colleagues and their neighbors out over the past few weeks. That's absolutely something that is going to be seen in this race.

And on the Republican side in Virginia, what we are seeing is that Governor Yuckin, who is term limited here and cannot run again, has been saying, we're open for business. We have lots of jobs available, whereas Abigail Spinnberger, who's running for the Democratic side, says they're heading to the bottom of that issue, not just saying there's jobs available. Two very well-known candidates for governor will be on the ballot in November in Elon Musk's name, not appearing, but certainly going to be a factor there. Gary Grombach, thank you for that reporting.

We'll move up the coast now with one week to go before the New York primary in New York City. Longshot candidate and city comptroller Brad Lander was handcuffed and taken into custody by ICE after locking arms of the defendant on his way out of immigration court today. The Department of Homeland Security says he was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer. And with early voting underway, Lander Trails, front-runner and former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, as well as political newcomers, Zohan Mamdani and recent polls.

Mamdani, a 33-year-old state rep and Democratic socialist, took a hit this week when the New York Times editorial board called his agenda, quote, uniquely unsuited to the city's challenges, basically endorsing anybody else. But his campaign got a shot in the arm today with the endorsement of Bernie Sanders. NBC News, national political correspondent Steve Cornack, he joins us now from the big board with why this race may not actually be over after Tuesday's primary. Steve, I think it's got something to do with ranked choice voting and complicated ballots.

Walk us through it. Very unusual laws in New York when it comes to elections. But he would think overwhelmingly Democratic City, Democratic primary next week, whoever wins that, he might as well just call that person, his honor, her honor, right? Well, not necessarily because, will you mention it, with Mamdani?

He's one of the two front-runners in the polling so far. We'll see if that arrests today of Brad Lander does anything with his poll numbers, if anybody else makes a noise. But all of the attention really lately has been on these two, Cuomo, Mamdani. Now, Mamdani, for the reasons you just mentioned, the reasons that kept the New York Times, for instance, from endorsing him in this primary coming up, he's got some real political baggage, socialism, far-left views, inflammatory pronouncements he made, they're being featured heavily in attack ads right now, if Mamdani were to win the Democratic nomination, there might be some discontent among Democrats, and there certainly might be some vulnerability in a general election.

Voters who wouldn't necessarily be sold on him, even if they would ordinarily vote Democratic. On the other hand, Andrew Cuomo, who's been the front-runner here, he resigned in that sexual harassment scandal as governor back in 2021. He has been dogged by questions about his handling of COVID nursing homes in particular when he was governor. There was a recent poll that found among Democrats, more than 40% in New York City, they have a negative view of Cuomo.

He's got baggage. He's got political liabilities that could plausibly carry over into a general election. And that's where the strange laws in New York come into effect when it comes to these elections. It basically this.

In New York, third parties can nominate candidates who are already major party nominees. So let's play this out, a couple of potential scenarios here. So let's say next week, okay, these are the potential general election ballot lines parties these candidates get out. Let's say that Andrew Cuomo were to lose the Democratic primary to Zorin Mamdani.

So Zorin Mamdani would then be the Democratic candidate. Cuomo couldn't run as a Democratic candidate, and most states he'd be eliminated, the race would be over, but Cuomo is also going to be the nominee of a party he created called the fight and deliver party. So even if he loses the primary and Mamdani is a Democratic candidate, Cuomo can still run in November as the fight and deliver candidate. For that matter, if Cuomo were to win the primary and Mamdani were to lose it, there's a party called the Working Families Party that's already said, the Democrat should vote for Mamdani in this primary.

It may well endorse him if he wants to run as they're candidate. So he could take another shot at in the general election. There's going to be a Republican nominee, Curtis Sleewa, the current mayor, Eric Adams. He's not running in the Democratic primary, but he's created his own parties.

He's running in the general election. There's an independent too. So really, if this is close, would Cuomo, would Mamdani turn around and try again in the general election? If they want to, they both got vehicles to do so.

I'm dizzy now, Steve. Thank you so much for that. And I look forward to the creation of your new party. I think we can sneak you on the ballot still.

It feels like there's time. No interest. Fair enough. Believe it there, Steve.

Thank you for breaking that down. And still come. Russia Pounds Key, even a deadly overnight onslaught. As President Trump leaves, the G7 summit before a scheduled meeting with President Zelensky, former ambassador to Ukraine joins me in studio next, you're watching the press now.

Welcome back. President Trump was expected to meet face-to-face with Ukrainian President Zelensky today at the G7. But after Trump abruptly decided to leave the summit early just hours after he criticized the group for expelling Russia from what was then the G8, that meeting will not be happening. Meanwhile, Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in Ukraine overnight.

According to local officials, 16 people were killed and over 150 were injured, primarily in key. It was the deadliest attack on the capital city this year. Joining me now is Bill Taylor, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, an distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Someone I was so excited to talk to. We jumped into the segment early in the commercial break. How important was this meeting for President Zelensky that's now not going to be happening face-to-face? He needed this.

He did need this. And as we know, he's had a good meeting and a bad meeting. And he wanted to capitalize on the good meeting and reinforce what they talked about before, which was continued support from the Americans for the Ukrainians as they defend themselves against the Russians. The president has been all over the map on Russian Ukraine.

Obviously, he ran on ending the war in day one when we were in the Middle East a month ago or so now he was talking about he would go physically to Turkey if he could be present for the peace talks. In the Oval Office a week ago, he said maybe they just need to fight it out for a little while. What do you think he really stands on this and how really is the threat to simply walk away? I don't think it's possible to walk away.

I think he is deeply involved whether he likes it or not. He's made the commitments that you talked about. He's had the conversations. He would have shown up for those discussions and it was Putin that didn't show up.

Zelensky was there. Trump was going to be there and Putin didn't show up. So, President Trump has to figure out that President Putin is not his buddy. He's not his co-conspirator.

He's not going to help him out on this. He spoke with President Putin on Saturday most recently. I think he spoke to him in the week prior to that. I mean, they're certainly chatting a lot to use your buddy metaphor here.

I think President Trump's supporters would say like he's using these interpersonal skills to try to reel Putin in. Do you see any evidence of that being effective? And who could convince President Trump that Vladimir Putin is not his buddy? Only Putin.

Putin is going to overplay his hand, is overplaying his hand when Putin does these enormous attacks on cave, on the Capitol, just while the G7 is meeting, is a demonstration that he is overplaying his hand. He could let that go, but no, he is going to demonstrate to the world, to the leaders that he is not interested in peace. And President Trump, we'll figure that out. You're being leaders of the G7.

We're talking about calling for tougher sanctions on Russia. I guess I have two questions about this. As a layperson, it shocks me that there are still tough sanctions out there that don't exist on Russia, what, three years into this war now? How effective would anything that's still left in the toolkit be at this point?

How realistic is that possibility? It turns out there are a couple of tools left. One that can, you know, there's this push cap on oil, which is $60 a barrel. That can come down to $45 or $30 is what the Europeans are talking about.

There are banks, there are big banks that are actually not sanctioned yet. There's $300 billion worth of Russian money, of Russian central bank money in European banks that have been frozen since the, since the big war, that could be taken for the, for the Europeans to give to the Ukrainians and they can keep buying weapons. But in all this time, surely Putin has sanctioned proof to his economy to the degree that's possible. I mean, how much would, let's say you put all of those sanctions in place tomorrow.

How much of an impact would it actually have on the Russian economy? The Russian economy is weaker now than it was when we were putting on those sanctions. So that's, that has changed. And the ability to make the Russians go after things that are more expensive with less money.

Again, the reduction in the volumes of funds, of dollars, of rules that go into the Russian economy. That's what they can, that can push down on. Very quickly. You mentioned the idea that Putin could convince Trump that Putin is nice, but he can overplay his hand.

Is there anything left for Zelensky to say or do at this point with President Trump? Or is he best suited to sit back and say, this is what I told you, he was going to do it? President Zelensky has already been pointing out that he and Ukraine are assets that they bring security to Europe. They're defending Europe against the Russians.

They're also able to buy things from the United States, buy weapons now. They don't want it gifted. They want to buy them. And trade is what Donald Trump wants to be talking about.

Bill Taylor, I appreciate your expertise as always. We have to leave it there. And we have to leave it there for this broadcast. Thank you.

We're back tomorrow with more Meet the Press now. But the news continues with Tom Costello in for Hallie Jackson right now. As the day wraps up, get this scoop on what's been happening with Here's the Scoop. When you podcast from NBC News with me, your host, Jasmine D'Souguin will take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News's trusted journalist.

It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful, and informative bringing you closer to the headlines and conversations that are shaping our world on the front page, the Zeitgeist. Here's the Scoop from NBC News. Listen daily on Amazon Music.