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As Elon Musk fires back and Republicans grapple with what it all means for the future of their party and their agenda. Plus an unprecedented frenzy of actions from the White House, including President Trump ordering an investigation into former President Biden's actions while in office and claims that his aides misled the public about his alleged decline. And a high stakes call between President Trump and China's President Xi Jinping as the two leaders discussed trade war tensions and laid the groundwork for a face-to-face meeting. Welcome to the press now.
I'm Kristen Welker in New York and we begin with the fire hose of news coming out of the White House right now. Tensions between President Trump and Elon Musk have now exploded and are playing out in a very public way. It comes after the president today held a wide-ranging Oval Office appearance alongside the German Chancellor where he addressed a number of issues including his sweeping new travel ban, his new investigation into former President Biden and his aides, and his recent calls with the leaders of China and Russia. But it's President Trump commenting for the very first time about Elon Musk's efforts to take his megabill in Congress that is driving the news right now, with President Trump suggesting Mr.
Musk, who just left his administration less than a week ago, has now become hostile. Elon is upset because we took the EV mandate, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles, and they have a hard time with electric vehicles, and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy. And you know, Elon knew this from the beginning. He knew it for a long time ago.
Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore. People leave my administration and they love us. And then at some point they visit so badly and some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile.
I don't know what it is. It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it. As President Trump was speaking in the Oval Office, Elon Musk was responding in real time, posting on X quote, whatever, as the president spoke about Musk's criticisms and questioned his motives. Musk also pushed back on the president's claims that he knew what was in the bill and even floated the idea of creating a new political party.
Musk has been repeatedly posting on social media about the president all afternoon. President Trump then escalated things even further, writing on a social media platform. The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's governmental subsidies and contracts. M.E.C.
News Chief Justice and National Affairs Corresponding Kelly O'Donnell is at the White House, and M.E.C. News Senior National Political Reporter, Sahel Kapoor, is on Capitol Hill. Kelly O, let me start with you and that feud between Elon Musk and President Trump. It is escalating.
It's really been extraordinary to watch. We've seen Tesla's stocks drop throughout the afternoon. Talk about the stakes of what we're witnessing. This is like a cap five hurricane in terms of a personal relationship and a professional one that is imploding before our eyes.
And is it salvageable? We'll have to see. But certainly, Elon Musk, when he left his government service, became more vocal about his concerns about the bill that is the president's signature policy achievements, his desire to extend tax cuts and to have border enforcement funding and a lot of other things. It's massive in scope and it does extend the deficit, something that Musk feels very strongly about.
But what has happened personally today, in just the time where the president was visiting with the Chancellor of Germany was asked about what comments Musk had made and it has devolved in a series of back and forth comments on the sites that they each own, X for Musk, Truth Social for the president, and it's gotten very personal. And it's going to the jugular in terms of business where President Trump is threatening to pull funding and Musk's businesses all have very intertwined government contracts. That's the backbone of his business. There's a lot of national security and classified information in what he does with the space program and so forth.
So that is a threat that could really level the Trump Empire. And then at the same time, Musk has gone for the personal and has raised the issue of the Jeffrey Epstein files and Donald Trump being a part of that. So it's almost hard to imagine it getting uglier or more existential. And yet here are these two people that each have a unique base of power that is considerable.
They have a lot of influence. And the question will be, well, either of them blink or look to try to repair things. That is certainly where this has to go. It's either going to get worse or there's going to be some attempt to calm things down, get off there.
Someone take their phones away and have a chance to maybe see if they can find some common ground. It is an extraordinary thing. And when we talk about extraordinary things in the Trump era, that's graded on a curve. And today is certainly one of those that is really remarkable in terms of what was in some quarters viewed as a co-presidency.
It was never that really, but in terms of imagery. And now such a few. Yeah, such an important context, Kelly. I think to give this style as Kelly is rightfully noting, we often talk about extraordinary happenings in the Trump administration.
And we do grade that on a curve because we have witnessed a number of extraordinary moments. But certainly this one stands out. You are there on Capitol Hill where there has been non-stop political drama as Republicans try to get the so-called big beautiful bill across the finish line. And now this has happened.
What is the reaction that you're hearing from lawmakers at this hour? Well, Chris and lawmakers up here are absolutely stunned at how rapidly this fight between President Trump and Elon Musk is escalating. Among most of the Republican members I've talked to, there's a bit of a feeling of mom and dad are fighting. Why can't they just get along?
They don't want to be on Elon Musk's bad side. Some fiscal hawks and hardliners are a little bit emboldened by the fact that Elon Musk is saying some version of what they've been saying for some time, which is that the deficit in increase is bad in this bill. It does increase the deficit by more than two trillion. And they want to find more savings.
Having said that, the Speaker of the House is responding. Defending himself against Elon Musk's criticisms of this bill. Take a look at what Speaker Johnson tweeted on Elon Musk's platform. X just moments ago that Mike Johnson of 2023 is the same Mike Johnson, who has always been a lifelong fiscal hawk.
He goes on to defend the bill. Now, this comes one day after the Congressional Budget Office said there'd be a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt, simply because the tax cuts outstrip the spending cuts that they ultimately find. Now, the person I've been covering Capitol Hill for some time now, I will say it looks like Elon Musk did not get the memo that the deficit and the debt has not been and is not currently a first order priority for Republicans. It's good rhetoric on the campaign trail.
It's very useful rhetoric when they're out of power and try to make the case against democratic spending priorities. But Republicans aren't power. They prioritize tax cuts. They prioritize military spending increases.
Yes, they sometimes do spending cuts, but that's usually go up when Republicans are in power. And Elon Musk is calling that out. He is accurate to call that part out. You know, it's interesting, Sahel, because so much of what we've been talking about in the reporting has revolved around this EV tax credit that Elon Musk has privately told lawmakers is going to cost his company billions of dollars if it's not in this bill.
He's been trying to apply pressure behind the scenes. He personally lobbied President Trump. Do we think that there's any chance just a quiet Elon Musk that that EV tax credit could get added back into the bill? No, I don't think so, Chris.
And that's extremely unlikely that EV funding is going to be phased out. They are tinkering around with the dates there. The House has a certain set of phase outs. I talked to Shelly Moore Capita, who the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee she confirmed to me just a few hours ago that the EV money is coming out of the bill.
They might move the dates back a little bit because she said she worries and senators have gotten complaints about existing business investments getting harmed by this. But the EV funding, the rollbacks of this, they were passed by Democrats on a party on basis in 2022. And this was a huge part of the bargain, critical part of the bargain with fiscal conservatives in terms of how to limit the writing in this bill. If that comes out, there's a good chance we'll just be creating more problems to solve it.
All right. Well, Sahele, I know you're bracing for a busy couple of weeks, the Senate Republicans try to get this across the finish line. Thank you so much for joining us. Kelly Oh, I can't let you go just yet because there's so much news that came out of the White House today, including President Trump commenting on that new travel ban, his justification linking it to the anti-Semitic attack in Boulder earlier this week.
What were the key takeaways there? Well, what's extraordinary about that is he is citing a Boulder attack as an urgent reason why this kind of action limiting foreign nationals from a variety of countries from coming into the US where he says there has been a problem of terrorism or a problem of visa overstays and then individuals who seek to do harm. However, Egypt is the country of origin for the foreign national who has been detained. And Egypt is not on this list.
When asked about that, that obvious contradiction, the president described the fact that he's got a very good working relationship with Egypt. We have seen that to be sure, but it's it's striking to use that as an example and yet not have Egypt included or to find some other example. There are experts who have looked at the various countries that are involved here and say the likelihood of Americans being attacked by foreign nationals from these countries is extremely remote. And yet this is something that also ties into the president's muscular approach on immigration.
There are car bouts for certainly green card holders and media family members, people attending, you know, the teams attending the World Cup, something the president is very proud to have the US hosting. There's a list of those car bouts that would alleviate some of the concern, but we know from the first administration when there was a ban that was broadly called a Muslim ban, in this instance, the countries are diverse and are not Muslim majority populations overall, some are, but many are not, that the the panic that was set off at airports and the confusion about people who had families caught between countries or different plans in their lives that were disrupted by this. That may come again in some other form when those car bouts prove to not be inclusive of everyone who would want to come to the United States. It's a significant policy move for the administration.
Indeed, it isn't really quickly before I let you go. President Trump commenting on his call with President Xi, he says it lasted for over an hour and a half this morning. Are they any closer to getting a deal? He's claiming there is a deal and yet that is not something that we're hearing from China at this point.
He put a very positive spin on it said each leader invited the other to come for a visit. That's a significant diplomatic gesture. He talked about there's going to be a resolution on the rare earth minerals, which are desperately needed by American car companies and other parts of industry, but he also said he's tasking his top economic team to finalize a deal. But it is still unclear to us if this conversation actually resulted in a deal or if it's an incremental part of the negotiations.
All right, Kelly O'Donnell covering all of the angles and there were a lot of present today. What a day and you are there. Of course, the front lines of all of it. Thank you so much for being here.
We really appreciate it. Well, as we said, one of the executive actions President Trump took last night was ordering a sweeping investigation into his predecessor, signing a memo directing a wide-ranging investigation into President Biden and his administration's use of auto pen signatures on official documents. The memo directs the White House Council and Attorney General Pam Bondi to determine whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden's mental state and unconstitutional exercise, the authorities and responsibilities of the president. The auto pen is legal and has been used by multiple presidents, including Trump himself.
MBC's Aaron Hake pressed President Trump about the investigation today in the Oval Office. If you were to cover any evidence that anything specific was signed without President Biden's knowledge or by other people in the administration acting illegally. Well, I don't think Biden would know whether or not he signed it. I'm asking if you've uncovered the human mind.
I was in a debate with the human mind. And I didn't think he knew what the hell he was doing. So, you know, that's one of those things, one of those problems. We can't ever allow that to happen to our country.
The danger our country was in. And I know some of the people that worked with him look radical left horrible people. And I could give you the name of some of the people that use the auto pen because I'm here and I ask questions about people that were here. President Biden said in a statement last night, let me be clear.
I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false. In December, Donald Trump told me he would not use his presidency to investigate Mr.
Biden or his family deferring to his Attorney General and FBI Director to determine if an investigation was warranted. Look, well, let me ask you this. You said President Biden, quote, that you're going to appoint a real special prosecutor to go after Joe Biden. You said that we're going to say the campaign where you said that on June 12th, 2023.
I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States, Joe Biden, and the entire crime family. Are you going to do that? Are you going to go after Joe Biden? I'm really looking to make our country successful.
I'm not looking to go back into the past. I'm looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success. What you're saying is significant because you wrote on true social in 2023 that you're going to point a real special prosecutor to go after Joe Biden.
Now you're saying you're not going to do that? I will say this. No, I'm not doing that unless I find something that I think is reasonable. But that's not going to be my decision.
That's going to be Pam Bondi's decision and to a different extent, Gesh Patel. NBC News, Justice and Intelligence correspondent, Candelaney, and is with me now along with Carolina, a former U.S. Attorney and current NBC News legal analyst. Thanks so much to both of you for being here.
Ken, let me start with you just for context. Can you help our viewers understand what exactly is an auto pen and what is the root of the president saying he wants to investigate Biden's use of an auto pen? Hey, Chris. Well, the auto pen is simply a machine that applies a signature.
In this case, the president's signature. And it's been used for years by presidents to sign documents when they are unable to do so physically. For example, if they're on a foreign trip and something needs to be signed in Washington, apparently the Biden White House deployed this tool more than some others. But White House lawyers long ago deemed that it's used perfectly legal even for signing legislation, which Barack Obama did.
The thing is, as you laid out, the issue here is not really the auto pen. It's President Trump's allegation that former President Biden had suffered so much cognitive decline that he didn't understand what was going on in his own White House and he didn't know what he was signing. So Trump is saying that AIDS, not Biden, we're running the country. And there's just no evidence to support this.
Biden, as you saw, denies it. Now, there are lots of stories about Biden slowing down and showing his age has been books written about this. But no one is saying he wasn't fulfilling his duties as president. In fact, even those books that are out now exploring whether his mental decline was covered up, acknowledge that he was navigating complex foreign policy issues in the last days of his president's secret.
And I guess that just leads to the question, is there anything criminal in nature about what Trump is alleging with this auto pen? My sense is that the goal here is to interview as many people as possible in the Biden White House to develop a full understanding of President Biden's cognitive state. And even if that investigation doesn't establish that Biden was incapacitated, again, again, there's no evidence to suggest that it's true. It's possible the pro could shed more light on whether Biden's flagging energy and failing memory impacted the White House's ability to get things done.
The problem for investigators, though, is that conversations between the president and his aides are covered by executive privilege. So witnesses are going to refuse to discuss. And the only thing that appears that is a criminal investigation. And given that they said that the White House counsel is in charge of this, that suggests that there isn't a criminal investigation, although, you know, the Justice Department is involved, so it could be common criminal investigation.
But they would need a predicate for that. They would need evidence that laws were broken. And right now, there's just no evidence of that happen, Kristin. All right, Kendall, thank you so much, Caroline.
Let me turn to you. Can you pick up on where Ken left off that, even if they were to investigate, to interview and interrogate a number of former Biden officials, a lot of those conversations between them and the president are going to be protected by law? What exactly are they looking to lead here? Yeah, absolutely correct.
Kristin and Ken is absolutely correct. There are going to be lots of arguments about what is privilege under executive privilege and what is not. And ironically, it was from some lawyers who argued for the Supreme Court that you really can't look into a president's motives. And then we got into whether these are official acts or unofficial acts or the outer perimeter of official acts.
But the bottom line is the Supreme Court put a lot of constraints on what you can actually look into when you were investigating presidential actions. I was a prosecutor for many years. I opened many, many criminal investigations. I declined many criminal investigations.
And the difference was, when you open an investigation, there has to be some modicum of evidence that something wrong happened. And we just don't have that here. We have the use of the auto pen, which Ken has correctly said is not the point here, that the point is whether former president Biden knew of and approved of the actions that were his signature. Anyone who thinks that auto pens aren't used is living in a fantasy land.
I used to get Christmas cards from former president Bush. And I didn't live under the fantasy that he personally signed that we live in a day of digital signatures. So without some modicum of evidence here, president Trump says, I don't have any evidence that anything on board happened. Former president Biden has come out and said, I stand behind every signature I have.
This is just I'm not in the business of making predictions, but this is going to come to nothing. It's just going to waste a lot of people's time and effort. Well, and to just put a fine point on what you're saying, the Justice Department has said this about the use of the auto pen the president need not personally perform the physical act of a fixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law or example by auto pen. But Carol to the point that you're making the broader question here is, did officials around former president Biden have concerns about his mental capacity to make decisions?
Is there something that could be inherently illegal if that were to have happened? You inherently illegal if somebody said that I, on my own authority, I'm not the president, but I'm on my own authority going to pretend that the president authorized this bill. Sure. I suppose that that would be really problematic, but not a single person has come forward and said anything like that.
That's the problem. This is not predicated on anything with any merit. Where do you think this goes from here, Carol? Well, I think what's going to happen is they're going to start trying to question employees of the former White House under president Biden.
And there are going to be objections lodged with the court that it's either privilege or the entire effort should be enjoined because it's simply harassment. And you can't unwind a president's decisions. The 26 amendment was never invoked. I mean, there's simply nothing there.
So we could end up once again in front of the Supreme Court. But I think it's actually more likely that this is just going to die a slow and painful death in this so-called investigation. Carol, before I let you go on another topic today, the travel ban that President Trump issued late last night, so far we're not really seeing a flurry of legal challenges. Are you anticipating that we will start to see that?
Certainly that's what we saw in the first administration. Yeah, there were two executive orders that had to do with travel bans. One had to do with 12 countries and seven other countries for more limited travel bans. That's going to take place in, I think on June 9th, there was another travel ban threatened where they said that there were going to be that international students can no longer come to Harvard.
So I think there will be legal challenges to both. And I think specifically in the Harvard one, I am sure that they are working on a motion for injunction in that case at this very moment. All right, Carol, I'm helping us understand a lot of complicated legal information. Thank you so much for being here.
We really appreciate it. Thank you. Coming up, we'll have much more on the escalating feud between President Trump and Elon Musk, as Republican lawmakers risk getting caught in a fight between the world's richest men and the world's most powerful man. Plus, ICE arrests a record number of immigrants in one day, including hundreds who are at scheduled appointments under a program for migrants deemed not a threat to public safety.
The latest on the fallout, still ahead, you're watching with the press now. Welcome back from buddies to bitterness. Let's get more on the growing fight between President Trump and Elon Musk. Here's more from the president in the Oval Office today, responding to Musk's attacks on the legislation that advances the president's agenda.
I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mid-air.
He said the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn't said bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next, but I'm very disappointed in anyone. I've helped Elon a lot. As we noted, Musk fired back at the president on social media, accusing the president of being ungrateful for his support in 2024. He posted, quote, without me, Trump would have lost the election.
Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 5149 in the Senate, such in gratitude. Mr. Trump then took to his own social media website to say he asked Musk to leave the government and threatened to take away his federal contracts. Joining me now to discuss all of this are panel Doug Jones, former Democratic Senator from Alabama and Carlos Cabello, former Republican Congressman from Florida.
He is also an NBC News political analyst. Thank you so much to both of you for being here. I really appreciate it. Carlos, let me start with you.
I mean, I just have to get both of your responses to this extraordinary public feud we are witnessing, Carlos. Well, Kristin, yeah, this is a big deal, and it comes at a very important or significant time for Republican majorities in Congress. They are working on this massive bill. They got it through the House with a single vote.
Now, it has to work its way through the Senate, then come back to the House. A lot of what happens on the Hill, Kristin, depends on the confidence of members, how they're feeling about their own political prospects and this big, big crack in the MAGA coalition because Elon Musk and Donald Trump became one in the same those last few months of the campaign and through the beginning of his administration. This fissure in the MAGA coalition is a big deal for congressional Republicans. I want to get to what it means for congressional Republicans in just a minute.
You're absolutely right. Senator Jones, what's your reaction to what we're facing? First of all, I have to. First of it has nothing to do with Elon Musk.
But why in the hell would any leader of a country have a meeting in the Oval Office with Donald Trump anymore? Every time that happens, it turns into a show that has nothing to do with the issue at hand with that leader. But what we're witnessing is extraordinary, but I'll have to say, Kristin, I think people saw this coming. They saw it coming from the very beginning.
There was no way those two egos could stay in the same room. There's no way those two egos when they have some differences of opinion, not to bring it public. They both have incredible social media following. They both have a bully pulpit.
But everyone knew that this was coming. And I think it's just fascinating to sit back and watch the fissures that we see now based entirely upon personalities, not on some real substance, but on the personalities of who can talk about us and wield the biggest dick. Let's talk about first what this could mean for each of these two men, and then what it could mean for, of course, the big, beautiful bill. And Carlos, let's start with Trump and Musk.
I mean, for Donald Trump, for the Republican Party, Elon Musk has basically said, anyone who passes this bill or votes to pass it should be fired in 2026. It's a not so veiled threat to say, I might start supporting Democrats. That would be a big blow for Trump, and now you have him out floating the idea that maybe there's some lacious information about President Trump that hasn't been unearthed yet. I mean, what could this potentially mean for Mr.
Trump? Well, look, I think it creates a lot of anxiety in the White House and in the Capitol. We know that Elon Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to help Donald Trump get elected. It's pretty clear that that investment made a difference, whether it was decisive or not, who knows, right?
But for a lot less, he can influence congressional campaigns. He can take out members of the House. So as these congressional Republicans are trying to build the fortitude to pass this massive bill, having this cloud of Elon Musk hanging over them and what he might do next fall, that really could complicate things. And look, Chris, and it's not just the investment, it's not just the following that Elon Musk has.
Again, Elon Musk and Donald Trump were very, very close. They were together pretty much every day. There were those jokes about Elon Musk never leaving Mar-a-Lago. He may know things.
He may have been privy to information that now he can share. I mean, he put that tweet out about the Epstein, who knows if that's true or not. But if he has access or knowledge of sense of information, that also becomes a major headache at least for this White House. Yeah, I think major headache is exactly what many people inside the White House probably have right now.
Senator Jones, the fact that President Trump is threatening to pull government contracts from Elon Musk. I just spoke with Steve Bannon, an outside advisor to Donald Trump, who said he's going to advise Donald Trump to investigate Elon Musk and all of his business dealings. And we've seen the Tesla stocks today drop. They close 14% down.
I mean, that's real impact. Yeah, it's major impact. And I think that is the biggest thing with Elon Musk right now. He can't believe that people are rejecting Teslas based on his government work and bouncing around a stage with a chainsaw and destroying people's lives.
And somehow, he doesn't understand why people might take that out on the only thing they can't take it out on. And that's his businesses and his stock. You know, I don't think that there's going to be an incredible amount of investigation here. I think it's just bullying tactics, investigations, investigations, investigations.
You know, one of the things that Donald Trump is famous for is trying to start an investigation, not really following through with anything that's going to result in a challenge to those contracts or Elon Musk himself. He did that with Zelensky. He's did it with others. He threatens these investigations to try to destroy people.
But the fact of the matter is, unfortunately, Elon Musk's companies have a lot of very, very important contracts with the United States government that can't just stop those on a dime. It cannot be done or else Joe Biden's administration would likely have done it. This is going to be something that is just personal. And we'll see how it plays out.
But I agree with Carlos, it puts the congressional Republicans in a real pickle right now. Well, let's pick up right there, Carlos, because it does. And as far as I can tell, there are two major criticism amongst Republicans to the so-called Big Beautiful Bill one is that it adds to the deficit. And number two, that it stands the risk of potentially kicking millions of people off of Medicaid because there are going to be new work requirements.
Does Musk's criticism of the Big Beautiful Bill and this entire episode only emboldened those Republicans who say they could not get behind this legislation? Yeah, and you've already seen that, Chris. And with some congressional Republicans saying Elon Musk is right, we have to continue working on this bill. But the balance is very delicate.
And you see these crosscurrents in the Republican Party right now, you have the MAGA movement led by the president where this idea of cutting spending of reforming entitlement programs is not a priority at all. And then you have some of these more classic conservatives that are more aligned at least ideologically with Elon Musk. They want to see cuts. They want to see true fiscal responsibility.
That crosscurrent is really going to make life harder. I don't know about the Senate. I think they'll be able to do their work the way they typically do without too much drama. But when this bill comes back to the House, Speaker Johnson is going to have another very tall task trying to get this across the finish line again, this time with Donald Trump and Elon Musk in a war.
Yeah, there's no doubt that complicates things. Doug, let me play an exchange the president had with my colleague Garrett. Hey, go get your reaction on the other side. This is how you put in charge of spending.
Should people not take him seriously about spending everything is all separate? No, he worked hard and he did a good job. And I'll be honest, I think he misses the place. I think he got out there and all of a sudden he wasn't in this beautiful Oval Office.
And he's got nice offices too. But there's something about this one. So what do you make of that? And what do you think Democrats are going to do with this moment?
You know, it's hard to make anything of that. It made no sense. I mean, it literally is a nonsensical statement, which is what most of Donald Trump's statements are these days. But I will say about the Democrats, I think the Democrats have to be very careful here and not jumping on the Elon Musk bandwagon too quickly.
He is complaining about this bill for just the opposite of the things that Democrats would like to see. He doesn't care whether people get cut off of Medicaid. He doesn't care if their Social Security or Medicare gets cut for that matter. He wants to see drastic cuts in everything except his contracts and the EV tax credits.
So Democrats have to be very careful to say, we also think it's an abominable bill, but let me tell you why we believe it is and really make their case to the American public. And let Donald Trump and Elon Musk find it out in public, on true social, on X, wherever. But Democrats have to not fall into the trap of getting caught on either side and they need to make their case to the American people. That's what people are waiting for the Democrats to do and have said that they're not doing.
That's what we've got to work on. All right, well, it's a lot to track in the coming days and months. Doug Jones, Carla Scrabello, thank you both so much for being here on really what turned out to be an extraordinary day. We really appreciate your great insights.
Coming up next, the Federal Judge orders the Trump administration to give due process to some of the migrants who've already been deported to El Salvador. What that means, those deportees and the White House's clash with the courts. Stay with us. You're watching at the press now.
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It's more context and clarity from the reporters you trust. Download the NBC News app now and subscribe for more. So we know from sources that there's a tremendous amount of pressure being put on ICE officers to make 3,000 arrests a day nationwide. Yesterday, they reached 2,200.
And immigration attorneys across the country told us their clients were getting new text messages from ICE, telling them to show up for check-ins this week. And when they arrived at the office, they were arrested. We saw it happening in New York City. Well, so where hundreds of yesterday's arrests actually targeted people who were part of ICE's what's called the alternative to detention program.
It's exactly what that program is. What's the significance there? Sure. So over the years, ICE has released some immigrants who they determined to be very low risk to public safety from detention.
They use GPS devices to track them. And right now, there are about 20,000 immigrants who were tracked on ankle monitors. So if many of yesterday's targets were participants in this program, is it safe to argue that the arrests were potentially made to try to pad part of the days totals? Well, you can make the argument that these people are very low-hanging fruit.
So it's easy to bring them in to boost numbers. ICE knows where they are and statistics show 98% of them comply when ICE asks them to come in for check-ins. These are not violent criminals who don't want to be found. Those people are expensive and difficult to arrest.
And ICE has to use a lot of resources and surveillance to bring them in. So let's just switch gears here to talk about the latest court case. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to actually provide due process to some of the migrants detained in El Salvador. What exactly might that mean for those migrants who are currently being held in El Salvador, Laura?
Right. So what this means is the federal judge is saying that those migrants sent to El Salvador in mid-March must be given a chance to challenge their detention and removal. And this would be the first time they'd be able to plead their case before a US judge. The judge says the executive branch has a constitutional duty to provide them with this opportunity.
And he says that will, quote, make good the wrong that was done. And just very quickly before I let you go, when exactly do you think the Trump administration needs to respond to this? So the judge says he will give the Trump administration one week to lay out a plan as to how they'll give the prisoners a chance to challenge their detention. All right.
Well, I know you will be watching it very closely. Well, strictly, thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thank you.
Coming up after the break, Democratic voters are about to have their first big chance to weigh in on what party the party's future should look like. I'll talk to one of the candidates hoping to win in a key primary on Tuesday. You're watching Meet the Press Now. Welcome back voters are voting right now in New Jersey with early voting under way in the state's gubernatorial primaries.
It's the first major and competitive primary for Democrats since the November election. And it could tell us a lot about what the Democratic electorate wants right now. Joining me now is one of the Democrats vying to be their party's gubernatorial nominee, New York Mayor Ross Baraka. Thank you so much for joining me, Mayor.
Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. So boy, this is a crowded field that you have here. The first one for New Jersey Governor in a long time that votes will be voting.
And why should voters pick you over your competitors? Well, I mean, I think it's pretty clear. I am the mayor of the state's largest cities. At the end of the day, we have a unique position in solving some of the state's most difficult problems as we've been mitigating those problems in the city of Newark.
Problems about housing affordability, around health care costs, around homelessness, around violence and public infrastructure. We've been mitigating these problems in very difficult, difficult situations and balancing our budget all at the same time while protecting immigrants and protecting those in marginalized communities and not running away from that and standing up to the forces that move over us to try to destroy our opportunity to have access to democracy. We've been doing it for a very, very long time. We've just started doing this when elections came.
We've been doing it for years. Our record is clear and people know that. Well, as you know, President Trump made some significant gains in deep blue New Jersey pulled off a better than expected showing in the state on election night. You have notably said recently that you think Democrats in New Jersey have been their own problem.
What exactly do you mean by that? What do you plan to do about it if you do win? Yeah, I agree. I think the framing is all wrong.
People keep saying the Republicans gained ground or Trump gained ground. I would argue that the Democrats lost the amount is important to frame it that way because when you say the Republicans gained ground and people start chasing them and believe in that our policies are wrong. Our policies are absolutely correct. It is the messengers that people have a problem with that they don't trust that they don't believe in.
Period. I think the problem with the Democratic Party is we have not been able to inspire our base. We haven't governed properly. In fact, the Democrats are the party of working families and working families are struggling the most in this state.
It's the regular mainline Democrats and those people who they support who have been problematic and people don't trust about it. They stay home. They stay home for Kamala Harris and they stay home for Phil Murphy's last election by the way, the governor, even more who won by less percentage points than Kamala Harris did. In fact, so we're our own problem.
We have to get out of our own way, new ideas, new people with a good direction. We need to fight for what we want and not just talk about what we're against. Well, speaking of the Senate governor, he's being sued over the state's immigration policy. You are also being sued over the policies in Newark and you're also suing the interim U.S.
attorney over at your arrest last month. Let me ask you, if you were in fact Governor, if you were to win, how would you handle the pushback from the Trump administration over ICE? Well, I think we have a bill that easily passed in New Jersey called the Immigrant Trust Act that not all the candidates agree on. I do it is right now in a strong suggestion in New Jersey to make it law where we're not actively cooperating.
The courts already said we didn't have to do that. We make sure we integrate immigrants into our community completely, not just with driver's license, but also give them access and opportunity to the resources we have. It's a program that we have and ask people whether they documented or not. In our state immigrants contribute over a billion dollars to state and local taxes.
They keep our GDP growing in the state and it's not just a moral problem. It's an economic problem. If we continue on this path, that Trump is going down. Let me ask you, because if you look, President Trump's poll numbers are still over 40 percent in the state.
Do you think New Jersey voters want a governor who's going to defy Trump at every turn or try to work with him? We've seen, for example, Michigan's Governor Gretchen Whitmer really try to reach across the aisle and work with Trump? Well, I don't think it's about reaching across the aisle. I think there's a difference here in people making it like we don't want to cooperate with the president.
But what do we cooperate with? The destruction of Medicaid, Social Security, the dismantling of the Department of Education, pulling back veterans' benefits, not benefits, attacking diversity, equity and inclusion. We can't cooperate with that. That's cooperating with our death.
Now, if he wants to invest in infrastructure, invest in small businesses, help our economy grow, we support that. We just don't support our host of destruction and we can never do that. I mean, this is not something that you can unite around, I mean, ultimately. And so I think the numbers that you're talking about around Trump, that's about the same number of people that voted for Donald Trump.
Every time he ran for office nationally, we get about a little 40 percent of voters in New Jersey support Donald Trump. They've supported him the first time they support him again. And the country is deeply divided on this and deeply divided on very crucial and critical issues. And we have to hold on ground.
Let me ask you about this news that we got overnight. Last night, President Trump announced a travel ban on 12 countries and a partial restrictions for seven others. We saw impacts of course from the president's travel ban and in protest in New York airport in 2017. As mayor and as perhaps governor, how would you respond to this policy specifically?
Are there steps that you think you can take here in New Jersey or in New Jersey where you are? I should say I'm in New York. I think this is problematic. I mean, many of our residents are from these communities and countries that are banned.
Their inability to get their relatives in and go back and forth is a problem. The kind of trade and commerce that happens between these countries is also a problem with our state as well. And so I think we need to push back against this without turning general, unite with other states around the country. And I think we need to create a collaborative and joint effort around the country to push back against from policies in general.
And it's specific. Right now, there's a bunch of disjointing actions against what's happening and needs to be collective and collaborative strategy to push back against what's happening led by the Democrats. All right, Mayor Ross Baraka, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me. All right, coming up next, the Big Apple Circus, Steve Kornaki will be here on set after a crowded and contentious Democratic primary debate last night. Do stay with us. You're watching Beat the Press now.
Welcome back. Ahead of the primary election later this month, nine Democrats hoping to be New York City's next mayor face off in their first debate as the front runner former Governor Andrew Cuomo was the target of attacks from all sides. This question was about your personal regret in your own politics. I said I regret the state of the Democratic Party is that we elected Trump.
No regret when it comes to cutting Medicaid or healthcare. No regrets when it comes to cutting child care. No regrets when it comes to slow walking PPE and vaccinations in the season of COVID to black and brown communities. Really no regrets.
Let's turn to public safety. It's a top concern for many New Yorkers. The people who don't feel safe are young women, mothers and grandmothers around Andrew Cuomo. That's the greatest threat to public safety in New York City.
Ooh, a lot of fireworks there. Cuomo is trying to make a political comeback after resigning from the governor's mansion in 2021 amid an investigation from his own attorney general that found Cuomo sexually harassed nearly a dozen women. Allegations Cuomo denies. The attorney general also found Cuomo administration undercounted nursing home deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Polio Cuomo's chief competitor is Soron Mamdani, a 33-year-old self-described socialist, who was hoping to become New York's first Muslim mayor. Earlier today, Mamdani picked up a key endorsement from Progressive Leader and New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, big endorsement there. Here to break down the dynamics of this race is our very own NBC News national political correspondent Steve Gornacke. Steve, it's great to be here in New York with you.
Great to be on set with you, of course. Yeah, usually we're in DC together. So let's talk about this endorsement by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. How could it shake up the state of the race?
I think it really reinforces what's become the main dynamic in this race. And as we always knew Andrew Cuomo was the front-runner, there's this crowded pack who's going to be the main challenger. I think it clearly is Zoron Mamdani. And her appeal, Ocasio-Cortez's appeal, I think overlaps with what Mamdani's has been so far.
So I think it reinforces, it doesn't necessarily expand. He's doing best with younger voters, self-described very liberal voters, college-educated voters. He actually does better with white voters than non-white voters. That's the progressive base of the Democratic Party we talk about a lot.
It's with AOC and it's increasingly with him in this race. Well, certainly it's going to add a fascinating dynamic. And so too is the fact that the current mayor, Eric Adams, is running as independent, he of course was facing indictments, multiple charges for various different issues. That's been dropped under the Trump administration.
How does he impact the shape of this race? And what do you think his prospects are? Yeah, so this is the interesting thing. We've got this primary going on, but Eric Adams, the Democratic mayor, not going to be in the Democratic primary, he says he's running in the fall.
And I think the key thing for people to understand about New York City elections is it's pretty easy to create a political party in New York City. All it really means is you get your name on the ballot somewhere. And what they can do here, they can't do almost anywhere else is you can run as the nominee of multiple parties. So one thing that you've seen happen here is Adams has basically created his own party to run on the general election.
He may be soliciting the opportunity to run on other minds. So he's going to be there, have the winner of the Democratic primary. He's going to be there. There is a Republican primary.
Curtis Sleewa is expected to win this. You'll have multiple candidates out there. There could be more who emerge in the general election. And it's potentially a big wildcard.
This thing, not necessarily. You think of New York as just overwhelmingly Democratic. The primary is the be all and then don't, it can be at all if it is. But you know, Adams there and some other possibilities.
This could be extended beyond primary day of that in terms of some drama. We can't overstate this enough. The fact that Governor Andrew Cuomo is the front runner in this race. And you saw that with the dynamics in that debate last night, everybody was piling up.
No, absolutely. Look, he came into this race with the big lead. He still has the big lead. Although again, Mondani's been closing in and you've got this ranked choice voting that's going to happen here.
So you rank the candidates on the ballot one to five in your order of your preference. And each round they drop the low performing, reallocate the votes. This all plays out as a complicated formula. But you know, what they've got, you can see up on your screen right there.
This is one of the most recent polls. And you see the first round there, Cuomo leads, Mondani in second place there. You play it all the way out Cuomo once you get to 50%, somebody wins. But that Cuomo number, you know, has taken him a few rounds to get there.
Mondani certainly has the momentum in this thing. And one of the possibilities, Mondani has to expand to support more from what we were talking about earlier. But if he could ever beat Cuomo in this, we talk about those political parties in New York City. Cuomo created his own this year.
So he already has it out there. And potentially, if he were to get beat in this Democratic primary, he's got a place to run in the fall. And by the way, his father, almost 50 years ago, ran for New York City Mayor, lost the Democratic primary, ran on third party line that has been done in the Cuomo family. Well, it's important to remind us of that great history.
Steve Crenac, thank you so much. Great to see you. We're back tomorrow with more of the press now. But the news continues with Hallie Jackson right now.
I'm Craig Malef, cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half vote kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too.
Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, the challenges, their stories are funny and gigantic. So I hope you'll join me each way and who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half vote. Search glass half vote with Craig Melford from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.