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Listen daily on Sirius XM. Hi there. Welcome to Meet the Press. Now I'm Ryan Nobles.
And we begin with a breaking news out of Los Angeles, where protests are continuing for a fourth day over the Trump administration's immigration policies, with the White House deploying the military to crack down on demonstrations in a situation that shows few signs of calming. You're looking right now at live pictures of one confrontation right now between demonstrators and police at a local intersection. Now, some of the protests have turned violent, with agitators setting fire to driverless cars and looting local businesses. Authorities are reporting that they've made at least 56 arrests.
President Trump today calling those protesters insurrectionists, while suggesting that his borders are Tom Holman, should consider arresting California Governor Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom is daring Tom Holman to become an erectile. Should he do it? I would do it.
I think it's great. Gavin likes to put it. The people that are causing the problem are professional agitators or insurrectionists. They're bad people.
They should be in jail. Now, it was a bit hard to hear over the rotor wash of the Marine One helicopter, but it's possible the president also said, I think he's great, referring to his borders are Tom Holman. Still, Newsom responded on social media, tweeting that the president's remarks were, as he called it, an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism. Moments ago, at an event at the White House, the president was asked by reporters what crime Newsom has committed.
He responded that Newsom's crime was that he ran for governor, which is obviously not a crime. Now, despite his previous threats to arrest anyone who interferes with his operations, Holman says he's not ready to arrest California's governor or Los Angeles' mayor. When he asked the questions that include Mayor Bassett, Governor Newsom, and I was sure they have a cross line, but they're not above the law either. If they commit a crime, they're starting to arrest the prosecution.
That's what was happening. I never tried to arrest Governor Newsom. Close to 300 National Guard members, meanwhile, are on the ground right now in Los Angeles, after the president once again invoked emergency powers and ordered the deployment of 2,000 troops over the weekend without the state's consent. About 500 Marines are also ready to deploy the president defending that decision yesterday.
We're going to have troops everywhere. We're not going to let this happen to our country. We're not going to let our country be brought apart like it was under Biden and his autocad. And California's attorney general today making good on his promise to challenge the president's deployment of the National Guard, suing the administration.
It comes after Newsom accused the president of escalating tensions for his own political benefit. Donald Trump needs to pull back. He needs to stand down. Donald Trump is inflaming these conditions.
This is Donald Trump's problem right now. He made this up. This is a manufactured crisis in order to get under the tent to start to stretch credulity. NBC News correspondent David Muriega joins me from Los Angeles.
Also with me is NBC News senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez. And let's start with you, David. What is the situation like on the ground right now in Los Angeles? And are officials taking any precautions ahead of tonight?
Yeah, Ryan, so the reason you see me looking over there is because actually just in the last couple of minutes this small group of protesters arrived here on the street that leads towards the federal building where the National Guard troops have been stationed for the last day. It's a small group, as you can see, but they seem relatively fired up. They are kind of walking out into the intersection here. It's a fairly big intersection downtown of Alameda and Aliso streets.
And there were just a small group of protesters throwing plastic water bottles at some police vehicles that were trying to enter the street here towards the federal building. We're seeing the same thing here happening right now. We've got some protesters getting outside of this law enforcement van. A few different actually law enforcement SUVs pulling into the street right now.
Some armored vehicles you're going to see drive by shortly as well. As you can see, we've got some PDs, some LAPDs as well with rubber rounds, rubber bullets, pointing at the protesters, ordering them to move. This is as much action as we've seen today, Ryan, and it started literally in the last five to ten minutes. So here, let me explain to you a little bit spatially how it is that this works right now.
Alameda, I could actually have you just pan very quickly over towards the National Guard troops if you can see them, because down that block where you see these vehicles, these police vehicles coming in, that is the federal building right in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center where these National Guard troops are stationed. Over the course of the last hour or so, they started coming out in larger numbers. As you can see, they have their riot shields out, their batons out, all of their riot gear is out. So they seem to be prepared for further confrontations with protesters.
Right now, I will say the number of protesters is small, Ryan. It's nowhere near the numbers that we saw yesterday that led to those really striking images that you saw with the way most being set on fire, with people throwing rocks and other projectiles at police. Look, this is just beginning, right? It's only one o'clock in L.A.
It's been a quiet morning. That seems to be starting to change at this moment, but really it depends on how many protesters decide to show up at this very intersection of the point where we are right now and how confrontational they decide to become with the police and how quick the police are to deploy those less lethal munitions, excuse me, Ryan, those crowd control measures that, you know, sort of led to the escalation that we saw yesterday between protesters and police. Ryan, back to you. And President Trump has called this an insurrection.
He's called it a rebellion. And it's probably important to keep in mind, too, that there have been different protests throughout the city, throughout the area, to varying degrees of violence, most of them being predominantly peaceful. How would you describe the situation? You're the one on the ground.
What does it seem like to you? I mean, Ryan, it's unrest. You know, I've covered many protests in the United States for a few years and in other countries. I've seen protests have gone a lot more violent, a lot more protests, a lot more violent.
You know, actual riots. I would not describe it as a riot. There's property damage. You know, as often happens in protests like this, there's also these small group of protesters who, as a tactic, as a sort of conscious tactic, this is something that they do, that they engage in deliberately and intentionally.
They do things like set-fire waymos. They do things like throw projectiles at police vehicles, et cetera. Again, this is a small group of people who are engaged in property damage as part of much larger mobilizations that are largely peaceful. They do sometimes do things like block intersections, even after LAPD declares them unlawful assemblies.
Yesterday, they blocked the 101. As we're seeing this group of protesters here today, you know, I tend to think to block this intersection as well. Just blocks away from me, there is a, I was actually just there before I came here for this live hit, Ryan, there's a 100% entirely peaceful, organized, very polite protest together by the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union. You had some pictures of that on the screen just a minute ago.
That is, yeah, that's what you're seeing right there with these aerials that is in Grand Park. 100% peaceful, 100% organized, keeping people to the park. Look, there's always a variety of different people employing different tactics. Look, this is unrest.
Los Angeles has definitely seen much worse in the past. I do just want to show you my comments point out to me that some LAPD riot control units are moving towards this group of protesters at the intersection. They are carrying some specific types of left-leafing munitions, they're rubber rounds, they're 40-millimeter rubber rounds. What they do is they skip them at the ground towards protesters, towards their feet, and then have them bounce up towards protesters as a way of dispersing the crowds.
Obviously, the fact that they're showing up with them doesn't mean they're going to use them. We'll have to see if that happens or not in the next few minutes. The last thing I'll point out to you, Ryan, before I talk to you, there's a very clear distinction here between the National Guard troops that are all the way back there in front of the federal building with DHS and other federal security forces in the local police department who are doing really the bulk of the crowd control work here. Yesterday, there were some direct confrontations between the National Guard troops and protesters.
That is no longer the case, and that is because local law enforcement is keeping a pretty wide perimeter around the area where the troops are stationed and preventing any protesters from getting there, again, by forcefully repelling them with less lethal rubber rounds, foam rounds. There was some tear gas yesterday. I have not seen any tear gas yet today. But that is sort of where things have been escalating to over the last 24, 48 hours, Ryan.
Yeah, and obviously, this is an evolving situation. But I wonder if you can tell from the protesters that you've talked to, are they clued in? If something happens, please shut the flag into us. Do you find that they're clued in to what's being said by the president and the governor that's back and forth, the threats to arrest the governor?
Is that something that has reached this level of the protest? Is it having an impact on their decision-making? I think some protesters who are more engaged in the more organized ones that belong to institutions, organizations like labor unions, those people are paying attention to that kind of talk. I think they do think of themselves as organizations that they belong to as more sort of chess pieces on this political board.
They think about the optics of this. Other protesters like the group that we're seeing here, Alan, I don't know if you can pan over there again just so that we can have a visual about what we're talking about. There are, you know, with any protest like this, you have to think about the groups of people who are protesting as diverse, as a sort of diverse coalition. They're not always necessarily organized amongst themselves, but there are always smaller groups of protesters who are much more willing to be confrontational, to engage in things like property damage, and are willing to sort of instigate these kinds of encounters with law enforcement.
I will note, though, at this point, we do seem to have a front line of what appear to be clergy members at the front of this particular group of protesters who are forming a line at the very front of this group between the protesters behind them and the police. So, look, there's really no end to the diversity of the protesters that you see. The point that I was getting at, Ryan, is the protesters who I think are a little bit more raucous, more likely to get engaged in that kind of more confrontational behavior. The ones that I've spoken to, they don't tend to be particularly concerned with the sort of, you know, higher-level political optics of this.
They are angry. A lot of them are involved in other causes. A lot of them are carrying, you know, things like Palestinian flags and tepias. They have some of the signage that has somewhat more, you know, ice out of L.A.
They hold themselves in more radical positions. Some of them describe themselves as anarchists, et cetera. These are the people who I think are sort of likely to, you know, inflame things in these sorts of encounters, intentionally inflame things. I don't think they would back away from that assertion or from that characterization.
And they are different, I will say. I mean, in this particular instance, if you're seeing there, it's different from the clergy who will wind up directly in front of them, in front of the police. They're different from the union members that you're seeing, you know, two or three blocks away at Ryan Park. We often see these different sort of elements of protests converge in the same place.
Again, this is a pretty small group, Ryan. I'm not, you know, we need aerials to really start estimating a crowd, but maybe a hundred people, roughly, here at this intersection right now, it might grow over the course of the next few hours. That's really what's going to determine how, you know, how heated things get here. And I also want to, David, I mean, you're talking about different law enforcement agencies that answer to different levels of authority.
And in some cases, those levels of authority are in conflict, right? I mean, those police officers that are standing behind you, they are, their chain of command comes from the mayor's office, right? These National Guard troops got their marching orders from the White House. Are they able to work together, I guess, is the question, despite having perhaps maybe different messaging coming from their leadership?
You know, it's a really good question, Ryan, and it's a really unusual situation that you have LAPD responding to the mayor. You know, yesterday you had California Highway Patrol responding to the governor, essentially protecting the federal building and the National Guard troops from keeping protesters from reaching them, even though at the higher levels between the president and the governor themselves, they are in conflict. I will tell you that the conflict between the actual elected officials, the president and the governor, I think is a little bit more pointed, a little bit more clear. There is no conflict like that between the law enforcement and security forces that we're seeing here on the ground.
I mean, we have DHS vehicles pulling into the street, being protected by LAPD officers who are the ones holding the line, preventing protesters from reaching the place where DHS and National Guard troops are stationed. So even though it's an unusual situation, even though the National Guard is here against the wishes of the governor, even though the National Guard is here contravening wishes of the governor and facing criticism from the mayor as well for their presence here. Nevertheless, you see coordination on the ground between local police, LAPD, who are doing, again, the lion's share, the vast majority, I would say at this point, pretty much all of the crop control work in preventing people from being able to reach the National Guard troops and the federal security for the federal agents that are around the middle of this block here behind you, Ryan. Okay, David, do us a favor.
You guys, first of all, stay safe, but we're going to keep you connected to us and stand by. If something pops up, please flag it to us and let us know we'll go to you immediately. But let's turn to Dave now at the White House where he has some breaking news deployed, mobilized, rather, to support the National Guard in Los Angeles County. That is up until, it's temporary until more National Guard troops arrive.
Now, this is significant, Ryan. Again, this would be 700 Marines, not just National Guard troops. President Trump was asked about this just a few minutes ago at a round table we had here at the White House. He was asked directly whether that would happen and he said, quote, we'll see what happens.
Now, a short time before that, I spoke with a White House official that said that no final decision had been made, but if those Marines are sent there, that they would be sent there to simply protect ICE agents that are already on the ground. Now, Ryan, as you know, this comes after, over the weekend, the Defense Secretary, Pete Hexas, said that it was possible that active duty Marines could be sent to the area from nearby Camp Pendleton. At that point, it was simply a threat. The President did not make any commitment one way or the other.
Again, now the breaking news, we are learning that, according to two defense officials, approximately 700 Marines have been mobilized to head to the area. Again, that is temporary until more National Guard troops arrive or are waiting for any more updated work from the White House that would lead to this. But it is an escalation as the administration monitors these protests and sees if they continue tonight and over the next couple of days. It seems that the White House is comfortable leaning into this situation and we now know that they're willing to send Marines in to deal with this.
How much further could they potentially escalate the federal government's involvement in Los Angeles? Well, as one White House official told me earlier today, quote, we are happy to have this fight. Not that they want to see violence on the ground in American cities, but that they view it as a fight that they want to have politically because blue cities, they, in their view, are not doing enough to protect law and order. And they see this as a mandate that they were given by their voters to have this immigration crackdown continue really throughout the country.
So certainly they are leaning into it. You just heard it from the President in his comments a few moments ago, leaning into that criticism of Governor Gavin Newsom calling him incompetent and significant. It was just several years ago, back in 2020, that the President made comments suggesting that he recognized that he needed authorization from the state's governor before he sent in the National Guard. This is, of course, the first time since the 1960s, 1965, the civil rights era, that a President has sent in a National Guard over the objection of that state's governor.
However, this is something that President Trump in a different form has done before, back in 2020, in Portland, Oregon, for example. It wasn't the National Guard, but he sent in federal agents in order to quell a protest there. So this is something the administration is very comfortable with, as you said, leaning into this because they see it as a winning political issue. All right, let's go back to David on the ground there in Los Angeles.
And David, you're hearing this news just like we are, reporting that those Marines have been given the word to deploy. How do you think that will be received on the ground where you are to see this escalation of first the National Guard and now actually U.S. Marines on the ground there in Los Angeles? Brian, it's without question an escalation.
What I can tell you is that yesterday the presence of the National Guard troops here was a major factor in escalating the protests that we saw in the degree and the intensity of the confrontation between the protesters and law enforcement. When they were allowing the fact that I was there all morning yesterday and protesters were very clearly very angry at the fact that the National Guard troops were here. And it was local law enforcement efforts to move protesters away from that specific location. Multiple protests from different points of the city converged here and that's what led LAPD and other local law enforcement agencies to push them away.
That's what led to those confrontations with protesters. That was just based on the presence of the National Guard obviously federalizing the wishes of the... of the governor but escalating this to active duty marines is a major escalation protesters here are not going to take kindly to that any of the protests you know i described to a range of protesters from people willing to engage in confrontational behavior to people who only you know march peacefully and politely i think that entire range of protesters is not going to be happy about this and just that news is likely to inflame tensions and i will say ryan for what it's worth today compared to yesterday things were much quieter much more orderly today compared to what they were yesterday so it's it's a little bit puzzling to me just based on my perspective on the ground why it would be necessary to send active duty marines at this moment there are no riots happening nothing's on fire yesterday there were you know things that you might plausibly describe as riot behavior there were things on fire that is not the case today so i'm not sure why after things quieted down after these calmed down substantially again just reporting what i'm seeing on the ground i'm not sure why that is the moment that the decision is made to deploy marines and i think it speaks to some of the things that we've been hearing from gabe and amish and other folks at the white house today that this has a lot to do with the optics it has a lot to do with the politics and that that is in some ways disconnected from the reality of what is actually happening on the ground here in los angeles okay david you continue to stand by if there is any news please flag it to our control room i get good yours we appreciate your reporting from the white house and we're going to talk more about this now uh on set with california democratic congresswoman annette berrigan she represents a portion of los angeles county including the city of paramount first congresswoman just your reaction to this news that the white house has mobilized marines to respond to the situation in los angeles do you think that's necessary absolutely not it's disturbing and i think uh your person on the ground there makes a great point what is the need for them there is no need there is peaceful protests happening downtown as we speak yes there may be a very small group of people who um have been more violent going bottles those people should be arrested we we condemn any kind of violence we continue to do that but there is no need for the marines this is the president escalating a situation to try to make it as tense as possible i think this is a step trying to get to martial law trying to be the dictator that he wants to be it's very dangerous our marines are not trained to go in and to work with civilians and to do any kind of civilian control um so it's disturbing that they're bringing them in it's wrong i think it's an abuse of power but it's it also goes to why the president is doing this the president wants to distract and take away from what's happening in washington we know he's about to take health care away from millions of people his bill is in trouble um the economy is tanking prices are going up this is his way of saying let's go talk about the issue that always brings me back home and that is immigration and coming out to california and doing it there is what he's doing because of course the city has with the governor the people are protesting they're protesting against the mass deportations they want the national guard out they want ice out and i guarantee you if they pulled out and they were out these protests would end because this is about the president causing this chaos it's about the president wanting this and we can't allow um protesters to get in and take that so that the chances of ice uh in particular pulling out at this particular uh point in time seems pretty unlikely you told other networks uh that you have been ready for 30 days of ice enforcement with a potential of 2 000 troops what do you think the next month could look like in los angeles and how are you preparing your constituents for that well we are hearing on the ground in different parts of los angeles that they're seeing ice mobilize half-staging areas so it could be that they're about to do a larger enforcement throughout different parts of la county they did say get ready for three days of enforcement and that is looks like what we're looking at right now just by seeing the mobilization of national guard of course the marines now um my hope is that we can get court to stop it because i think that this is an abuse of the president and his powers um this is a manufacture crisis as we you know definitely heard but it's when people in danger you know and constituents are concerned they're worried people don't want to go to school people don't want to go to work um and i just want to reiterate this is a very small part of los angeles of the images that we're seeing there's like 99 of los angeles people don't even know what's going on they're going about their daily lives there's nothing out of control there and local law enforcement has said we don't need the help we don't need it we have this under control if they just pull out and they leave we can get this under control and let's remember friday and saturday when this all started it didn't take the national guard it didn't take the marines to get it under control the lapd got under control the sheriffs had it under control this is exactly what the president wanted send in the national guard raise tensions cause more people to want to you know do violent things um and he's getting what he wants this guy is a showman he knows what he's doing we've got to reject but you can see there has been some violence right we've seen the uh the driverless cars that have been set fire to we've seen the water bottles thrown at police officers and it did appear at one point that this was getting worse if there was an escalation in those tensions you still believe that those tensions can be held under control with just the efforts of the lapd and not any additional support absolutely because i think that people are doing that because of their outrage on mass deportations and the presence of the national guard as we heard the reporter on the ground say but there are people who are just looking for trouble and your reporter said there's anarchists there and let's you know distinguish between the people that are really there to protest the cause versus people just looking for trouble and violence and those people they should be arrested uh then you know this is what the president wants and we can't let them do that because i think that's the step the president's trying to get to declaring martial law so what would you say to someone that wants to go there and protest peacefully without contributing to potential violence what would your recommendation do you have a problem with confronting ice officers blocking intersections where does it where does that stop where does it become illegal and something that needs to be enforced well we saw today what can happen when you go and peacefully protest there's thousands of people right now at grand park doing just that so um look people are going to go if they're going to get in the way they could expect to be charged they could expect to be arrested um but what i say is if you can have civil disobedience make sure it's non-violent because violence gets us nowhere we know it's prevailed in the past um during different movements and we are standing strong with our brothers and sisters in Los Angeles to say we're going to all stand together against these mass deportations and that's the protester scene again any violence we totally condemn it those people should be arrested what about blocking an intersection where does that fall on the spectrum is that a program i mean that's illegal right it is and i think that's a form of civil disobedience when you think about john lewis crossing selma and you know getting beaten there so it's it's i think it's a line where you decide whether you're going to do it or not it's a non-violent form of protesting now again people need to make decisions for themselves i'm not sure how effective that is um i'm not sure that's something that i would be doing but you know this is a situation where the president is taking steps to make it out of control and we're seeing more and more of that with more and more people who are angry marines um you know we'll have to see what's going to happen with the response there but it's pretty outrageous to me to hear that we're sending in troops to um to do crowd control or whatever they're going to go do there um i guess the very old people you know in our communities where they come from all right i want to talk to you about the back and forth between the president and your governor i want to play what tom homan said on msnbc earlier today take a listen does everyone that has been arrested by ice agents have a criminal record like those you described absolutely not in i7 day one january 20 we will prioritize public safety threats and national security threats however we will enforce well if if ice is there arrest that bad guy other illegal aliens are there we're going to arrest them that's what sanctuary cities get so this seems to be the basis of donald trump complaints about gavin newsom this moniker of a sanctuary city or a sanctuary state and this idea that newsom is being critical that they're going overboard right it's one thing to stick to this mission of deporting people who have committed crimes but other people are getting caught up in it is there is that a distinction without a difference in your mind and how is ice going overboard in a way that kind of goes beyond what their authority is well we know that this president said he was going after criminals people who voted for him latinians have voted for him said what's not going to be me because i'm not a criminal right we know that there's no way he can do the mass deportations he talked about without going and doing indiscriminate racial profiling which is what's happening right they're picking up u.s marshals um thinking that they're the folks they got to deport they're picking up uh women who just given birth waiting outside hospitals they're going to schools it is crossing the line they are not doing target enforcement of violent criminal offenders if that were happening i don't think you would have the objection because nobody objects to that but what they're doing is they're going to communities they're just rounding people up u.s citizens included we know they also are trampling on due process and that is a concern that people have people are scared and they're afraid so you're seeing a response of ice crossing the line i mean look they're saying they're willing to uh arrest the governor give me a break right they're arresting members of congress they won't even let members of congress go in to do the oversight which is written into law so you have got an administration who is not following law and order but who is defying the law who's defying the supreme court we've seen that and you've already said you believe that the trump administration is marching toward martial law if they were to arrest the governor and obviously we're going to make signals from the white house on that what would you how would you view that what step and what could democrats do if that were to happen well i think that would cause an outrage across the country i don't think that this is you're talking about something that has never been done before you're talking about to the point where this president you know is doing everything possible to be a dictator that would be another step in that direction um everybody across the country regardless if you're a democrat or republican should be condemning that kind of conduct and um unfortunately my friends on the hill right now are too afraid to speak up or stand up to this president um and again it's it's unbelievable to watch um but we need of course to also step in and to uh make sure they get things under control and put them in check that's really what's necessary okay congresswoman berrigan thank you so much for being here we appreciate it we're now i'm going to dive into the legal aspect of all these decisions being made by the white house turning now is robert sai he's an expert in constitutional law and a law professor at boston university a school of law first professor just your reaction to the president's decision to deploy marines to respond to a domestic incident is he able to do this under law well it depends on what the mission is um we do have a very strong tradition in this country reflected in federal law that boots on the ground is a threat to liberty um and federal law generally prevents the military from engaging in domestic law enforcement activities so um so far uh the boots on the ground are presumably doing the same function as the federalized uh national guard which according to his order is to protect the the mission of the ice agents and other federal employees and activities um so if that's what they're there to do then uh that'll be fine but as we know and as we've been talking about there is enormous risk that the more boots on the ground we have the more confusion we might have as well as incredible legal complexity about who's in charge and what rules are we following and i should say mobilize not deployed and those are probably very important distinctions at this point of this conversation i mean when it comes to the rules of engagement i mean what does the constitution say about what national guard members can do and cannot do whether in los angeles especially the current order that they've been given by the white house well the federalized uh members of the national guard are bound by the same legal rules and constitutional principles as other military uh officers so according to the prince order there's they're there to protect the federal buildings courthouses uh ice agents help them do their work um and so now if they venture beyond that because rocks or bottles are thrown at them uh then we start to get into a gray area right at what point are they reasonably uh taking steps to safeguard those federal functions and those missions uh and at what point have they gone way beyond that uh to engage in the prohibited activities so one thing to keep in mind here of course is that the law that uh president trump has so far invoked is a more limited law uh it's not the insurrection act uh which he may still invoke we hope he does not do that um because there are conditions on the ground that seem to be contested we've got a state official local official saying there's no need for that and rejecting that form of assistance just yet uh so that's kind of the well explain why that would be problematic if you took that step and why that would be of concern well the insurrection act is the main exception to this tradition that boots on the ground are a threat to liberty and so if he were to try to invoke the insurrection act he would be in a sense saying i think there is a broad-based insurrection against the functions of government uh say uh preventing uh federal government from doing anything uh and that i'm going to need to take this extraordinary step uh even over the objections of people on the ground uh to bring federal troops in and restore order uh we've done that very rarely uh in this country because of the chaos that could uh ensue uh and you know uh it's unclear what would happen if he took that step and so we know that california's attorney general is finally sued citing the 10th amendment do you think he has a strong case and is part of the issue here the expediency in which this could be settled in the courts the courts in general don't act very quickly uh there is a provision that it sounds like governor newson is um uh mentioning probably will have in their papers which is the particular law that the president has invoked at the moment uh does have language saying that the president's order shall be uh essentially issued through the state's governors and so governor newson is arguing that that is a kind of substantive uh procedural uh hurdle that the president has not uh overcome he's not consulted with him he's kind of doing his objection but the question that court will have to answer is whether that is really the kind of thing that will prevent the president from acting on an emergency that is perceived or whether this is the kind of thing that can be sort of loosely compliant and then of course there's this peck and forth uh between the administration the mayor and the governor but potentially uh the governor the mayor being arrested this is obviously without precedent what could this lead to if it actually got to that step well the way i see that language is it's part of a kind of dangerously overheated political rhetoric uh and it's it's not matching up with the legal justifications that we're seeing in the legal briefs and when you see that sort of mismatch what you really do worry about is regular people are being misled about what's happening and you start to worry about the president's motives and then you do worry about a kind of escalation in which um it's unclear whether there are real conditions on the ground that require a massive show of force or whether that's going to do it yeah and to your point that could lead to people getting even more upset so the goal here is the calm tensions if the mayor is taking away in handcuffs if the gunner is taking away in handcuffs that could just make protesters even more angry 100 percent one of the things that we've seen in presidents of the past that have been prized for sort of cool-headed action is that they try to be much more modern incremental and worry about things like the right to free speech both to protest and to counter-protest and not merely uh you know taking a situation and exploiting it for sort of maximal uh political gain and so one thing that is worrisome is that the voters have put back into office a person who is a populist autocrat and so you worry about the tendency to want to exploit these situations rather than uh bring things to a cooler point okay professor thank you for making that as well as possible given these complex times we appreciate it it's always a pleasure all right we'll have much more news and politics still ahead you're watching me the press now hey guys will you guys here remind you to check out the sunday sit down podcast on this week's episode i get together with red hot stand-up comedian nikki glazer to talk about the long career grind that has brought her to this starring moment hosting the golden globes killing at the tom brady roast and now with another hit special on hulu you can get our conversation now for free wherever you download 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we are learning more about the trump administration's latest move to mobilize marines to support the national guard members in los angeles according to two defense officials the marines and california national guard have been authorized to operate under three specific rules of force self-defense defense of federal property and the defense of federal personnel we're now going to go back to david noriega who is on the ground with us in los angeles he has an update on the situation there david what can you tell us well ryan the sort of standoff that i was showing to you earlier is basically gradually escalating the lapd which you see right over here they have issued a dispersal order to the people that you know are standing around me right now there's a pretty diverse crowd here we have some young folks um you know some people uh carrying mexican flags uh and then here as you can see right behind me is a line of clergy who have been uh pretty consistently trying to create a sort of barrier between the police and the protesters i'd be glad i talked to you very quickly we're live on on nbc my name is rabbi susan goldberg and why are you here today well we're here because we're clergy we represent ancient faiths that tell us that we have to be in the world with deep compassion and deep love and what happened in our city does not represent the deepest values of our tradition and all people of conscience across los angeles are just horrified this morning i listened to families describe kids describe seeing their parents in the rain on friday not only did they see their parents handcuffed they saw their parents shackled with chains on their wrists and their ankles these were folks all they did was go to work that day the false narrative that this is about hardened criminals is really not true because as clergy we've also been in the courts watching as people are following the laws showing up at their court dates and then being arrested this is about dehumanization this is about getting quotas i think that he has trump has some sort of quotas but these are not numbers these are human beings but have you heard about the fact that uh there's we have some reporting saying that donald trump is planning to send active duty marines to los angeles as of just recently have you heard that another reporter just mentioned that to me it was the first time i heard that i mean we are so sad about that over and over again our really capable city and state leadership has said we are fine and we are not looking for the help there have been pockets of violent protests which we do not want it's part of why we are here to try and create a non-violent peaceful protest the truth is it's been pockets and i have been with groups of thousands of people over the last few days who are overwhelmingly responding non-violently but from a place of deep upset and concerned because what is happening is completely unacceptable if we were just to turn away now what's next i mean they're literally rounding up people in a donut shop was one of the locations thank you very much i appreciate it well ryan i just i'm going to toss it back to you briefly but as you can tell you know things are ebbing and flowing it gets quiet it gets calm and then from one moment to the next uh police issue a dispersal order people refuse to move uh you know i'm going to be here for the rest of the day i'll let you know things heat up again ryan okay david nariega you and your crew continue to stay safe thank you for that update we're going to talk now about this with our panel michael chanel she's a congressional reporter at the hill chuck rochers a democratic strategist and the co-host of the latino vote podcast and rob bluey the president and executive editor of the daily signal so michael let's talk about this ongoing fight between president trump and california you know both governor newsom and mayor bass there what are the optics or how the optics of this how do they play and is it your sense that president trump does he's got nothing to lose here just to go all in it seems like a fight that president trump relishes it sort of hits his trifecta of areas that he loves to tackle immigration law and order and california democrats and quite honestly you have a little sprinkle of bonus there the fact that gavin newsom is at the center of this those are fights that donald trump likes to take on that he is leaning into right now and it's distracting from a lot of things that are going on right here something that we cover very closely on capitol hill the big beautiful bill president trump was just at the white house and said that it's possible that they don't get this done by that self-imposed july 4th deadline that's something that party leaders have really been running towards and been underscoring that they are going to meet that would be big news if we weren't watching los angeles so closely so i think that both things can be true at the same time this is a fight that president trump enjoys because it hits all those touch points and also it's distracting from other touchy subjects back home i mean rob on the scale of protests and you know over the past 10 years or so that i've been a national correspondent i've covered a lot of protests and on the scale of protests this is not to say there hasn't been violence cars have been burned but this does not seem that it is the massive threat that we've seen other protests why jump to the point of bringing marines there so quickly well right i think there's a couple of things first of all we see this building i mean there's a lot of people on the left who are talking about no king's day coming up on june 14th as a counter to president trump's birthday and the big parade happening here in washington dc so i think there's probably concern that this could spread to other cities across the country as they have talked about so that's the number one thing i think secondly on the marines point is specifically they don't want this to get out of control like it did in 2020 i think there were regrets from the trump administration that they didn't do more back then when they saw riots in numerous cities so they want to send a message to la right now and if marines are there and they can stay within their confines of what they're engaged to do i think that's appropriate chuck is that appropriate i don't think it's appropriate i think this is exactly what donald trump wants like we've all covered him we all act like this is some new thing this is exactly the fight he wants to the real folks that are taking that are my friends that are in the streets that are doing peaceful protests about bringing light to an immigration system that's been broken this is the ones burning the cars this also gives people who do not have their best will at hand to come in to cause trouble and to stir up messes to where this thing is not going to end well and this is exactly what donald trump wants to hear the congressman made a similar point and i think most people would agree that the overwhelming number of protesters are not the ones burning the cars but yet i think those same protesters understand that that brings that element to a situation like this is there some calculation that these protesters need to make about if you decide to engage like this there are going to be bad actors that are going to come in and kind of mess the message up that you're trying to sell absolutely i've been doing this a long time i've been in many protests we were in a green one green room a while ago and i was explaining what a rubber bullet feels like when you get shot with one because i've been shot with one there are well-intentioned folks there but you have to separate them against other troublemakers on our side who just care about being on camera because now it's a full-time job on instagram and on substack to have a video camera on you talking about how you're fighting back and you don't vote you don't care about the community you just care about clicks and being on social media right and now i'm taking advantage of that is certainly and if you go back and you look at some of the issues that animated voters in the 2024 election clearly immigration was one of them you look at the polls they're even out a majority of american support deportations and some of the policies that this administration is pursuing and so then if you have bad actors who are disrupting and causing fear and concern in cities a major city like los angeles right i think absolutely the trump administration is going to come in there and try to set an example all right michael let's play a little bit of what speaker mike johnson had to say yesterday take a listen to this can we really see active duty marines on the streets of los angeles you know one of our core principles is maintaining peace and strength we do that on foreign affairs and domestic affairs as well i don't think that's heavy-handed i think that's an important thing marines into the streets of american cities is heavy-handed we have to be prepared to do what is necessary and i think the the notice that might happen might have the deterrent effect michael i find it's interesting you and i have often heard mike johnson brag about the fact that he makes sure we know that he's a constitutional law expert he talks about his love for the constitution not wanting to burn the constitution the idea that he would kind of talk about bringing federal resources military resources to deal with a domestic problem how does he make that argument that's a good use of pentagon resources well i think in a way it's that president trump is leaning towards this new administration is talking more about the insurrection act we're seeing federal troops national guard be sent to los angeles this is a very precarious moment for republicans in washington right now i'm gonna go back to that big beautiful bill we eat sleep and breathe it um that is right now in the final stretch donald trump has been a very big part of muscling that bill through the house and he's gonna be a big part of muscling through the senate johnson doesn't want to mess up that equilibrium right now of having donald trump on his side so we're gonna see him do acrobatics however it must be to rationalize what president trump is saying though i think something interesting he said there he said that the talk about it may be a deterrent it kind of reminds me of the terrorist talk if we talk about doing something it may force people to act a different way and then we don't have to do it i think that that could be maybe a key into what republicans are looking at right now but again to get back to your question uh mike johnson is going to say we have to say to defend donald trump because right now he just needs to get that bill through congress and he sure needs donald trump and what would you say michael's point that perhaps this might be a distraction because the bill is having a difficult time getting through the senate and we should also point out that this bill is kind of the foundation of the funding that's going to go toward this national deportation program shouldn't be putting their focus there absolutely it is and they need to get this across the finish line i mean tom holman has been talking about what since january 20th this bill is the includes the resources that they need to carry out the deportations it has the resources for ice it has uh the remittances which the mexican president was talking about so there's a whole number of things at state right i might slightly disagree though the senate's moving forward i think they're still on the path to july 4th yes there are a few senators who are trying to negotiate things but at the end of the day you really see them fucking donald trump i don't yeah so there's a name we haven't mentioned yet in this panel which you guys are probably all surprised by and that's elon musk remember like 24 hours ago that was a story that none of us could stop talking about chuck could this be part of the plan for donald trump is to get elon musk off the front page and out of these panel discussions i shake my head because nothing frustrates me as much as because he's good at what he does when it comes to this distract look over here and it works and he didn't want to talk about donald trump talk about elon musk because elon musk was going after this big beautiful bill because they were having a fight we talked about any of that and as a strategist looking towards the midterms and using the big beautiful bill as bait to go against republicans to make tbs i worry about elon musk money that was going to be spent in the midterms to protect these folks and now i'm thinking i don't have to worry about that no more yeah i would just have one more thing it's not only the distraction for not talking about elon musk but he was now going back into trump's corner we're seeing him retweet things in favor of the president and with the it may never be the same guys it may never be the same we always break up on this we're gonna hold of that all right michael chuck rob thank you all for being here after the break can a 33-year-old democratic socialist back by aoc pull off an upset in the democratic primary for new york mayor assemblyman zoran mandami joins me with his view of the democratic party and how he would run america's largest city in the trump era you're watching meet the press now get the best of nbc news with a subscription fewer ads deeper access and exclusive content and now join the xfinity member celebration members can get an exclusive 50 off an annual subscription head to xfinity.com slash membership to learn more xfinity imagine that subscription automatically renews each year at 65.99 plus passes and fees until canceled offer ends may 20th 2026 crisis subject to change visit nbcnews.com slash acidity for full offer terms and details and the day wraps up get the scoop on what's been happening with here's the scoop a new podcast from nbc news with your host gavin vasudian we'll take a deep dive into the day's pop stories with nbc news's trusted journalist it's a fresh take that's sharp thoughtful and informative bring you closer to headlines and conversations that are shaping our world on the front page the zeitgeist here's the scoop from nbc news listen daily on spotify welcome back we are following a number of key primary races happening this month including in new york city where former governor andrew cuomo is attempting to make a political comeback in the city's democratic mayoral primary but he's facing a crowded field his chief rival maybe 33-year-old queen's assemblyman zoran longani he's a self-described socialist who's quickly made a name for himself in the race with a social media presence and the backing of progressive congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez now making matters even more interesting voters will be using the city's ranked choice voting system where they can rank as many as five candidates in order of preference if their top choices are eliminated their votes can then be transferred toward the candidate ranked lower on their ballots that's if it's not 50 percent on the first vote joining me now is new york state assemblyman and new york city mayoral candidates or an andami uh assembly thanks so much for being here first i want to start with the scenes out of southern california over the weekend and into today we now have this news that the president has mobilized marines to be on the ground there this after ice raids in los angeles county this is something that could easily happen in new york city well how would you be handling the situation if you were the mayor i would be calling it what it is which is authoritarianism this is yet another example of donald trump seeking to rip the fabric up of our cities and our countries of attacking immigrants across this nation as well as the very notion so many of us americans hold gear when we think about our constitution and we need to have a mayor that can look the authoritarianism in the eye and not see it in question of himself and as the first immigrant mayor of the city's generations i will do exactly that i will stand up for the people of the city and make it clear to donald trump that he will find no collaborator here that he has found in eric adams so what should our city be doing right now i think right now what we need to do is continue to follow the example of leaders across the country including one that i'm so proud to have been endorsed by congresswoman alexandria ocasio-bortez and actually fighting for the things that we believe in and making it clear that in deploying the national guard donald trump is not only reversing the clear precedent where governors ask that of the president as opposed to the president posing that upon a governor but also the democrats finally stand up and make it clear that this is not something that has any consent of anyone beyond the white house in washington dc you have in the past a call for abolishing ice as mayor would you try to block the agency from conducting any actions in new york city and how could you even make that possible well i think you can just look at the example of ice raids that are happening here in new york city because while we are not seeing the scale of deployment that we've seen in los angeles we still are seeing new yorkers being disappeared and detained whether from their apartment building lobby or whether they're going for a routine immigration check in a federal plaza and too often under eric adams we've seen nypd units like the strategic response group be deployed to assist in those kinds of arrests as they then arrest individuals like pastors who are just observing this clear attack on immigrants across the city but let's say you're the mayor and you do pull back from that cooperation that's happening right now with the federal government are you worried about retribution from the trump administration i think what we're seeing right now is that retribution exists no matter how you respond to the trump administration eric adams is collaborating at almost every juncture he can find with this administration and still new yorkers are being detained and still they're taking eight million dollars from our municipal budget and still they attack the fabric of our city so clearly surrender has not won us much it's actually time to fight back and we've seen the most successful examples of fighting back against donald trump in those that are willing to do so and we don't have to look so far even in the mexican president claudia scheinbaum who's exhibited that through strength we can actually win back the city that we love we heard a line from you at your recent debate you said that you would be president trump's worst nightmare tell me what that looks like in practice no i'm a muslim progressive immigrant who actually fights for the things that i believe in and donald trump is used to career politicians who he can simply influence through the fact that they all have the same donors and we know that when it comes to andrew cuomo so many of the people bankrolling his super PAC are the ones who put donald trump back in the white house if donald trump wants to call me through my donors he can call more than 20 000 people who have ensured that we've broken fundraising records as we've thrown into second place uh governor cuomo has countered uh your attacks by saying that he has a lot more experience than you have as a former governor a former hud secretary how do you respond to his attacks that you just aren't ready to be mayor of new york city you know i think this is a moment where new yorkers have to ask themselves what kind of experience matters if they want the experience of a governor who had to resign in disgrace the experience of a governor who gave elon musk a billion dollars in tax grace the experience of a governor who cut medicaid and stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the mta then andrew cuomo should be their choice but if they want the experience of someone who actually stands up and fights for working class new yorkers who's won 450 million dollars in debt relief for working class taxi drivers who's built a movement over the course of this campaign that has taken us from one percent to being within single digits of andrew cuomo then i am the candidate for that now you have proposed creating a department of community safety as you call it uh you say homelessness mental illness violence in subway system things along those lines these are traditionally responsibilities of the police department what would you say to people that would describe this as defunding the nypd i would first make it clear to them that i'm going to sustain the headcount of the nypd and i would ask them to speak to police officers themselves because that's how we crafted this plan it was in response to the fact that so many officers joined the force to take on serious crimes and yet what they're finding is they're being asked to do the work of social workers and mental health professionals and the nypd is responding to hundreds of thousands of mental health calls every single year and that reliance on them to respond to almost each and every failure of the social safety net is one that is preventing them from tackling serious crimes and that's part of the reason why 65 percent of those crimes from the first quarter of this year are unresolved we want the police to be able to do their jobs and we want to hire the mental health professionals and social workers that can actually deliver that public safety and follow on the examples of elsewhere in the country where this has already been proven successful we have political junkies that watch the show so i'm sure that many understand new york has a unique situation in which you can run on more than one party line would you accept a run for mayor as a candidate of the working families party if you are unsuccessful in the democratic primary my only focus is on jim 24th i'm confident frankly in our ability to win that primary i would say that andrew cuomo is nervous it's why he's already started to create another party line in november because he knows that we are in well to that point though if you're worried that that's what andrew cuomo is doing isn't that something you should have as a backup yes or no will you be a candidate in november regardless of what happens this month i will be a candidate on the democratic line i'll tell you that all right seems like you're leaving that door open but we appreciate you so much for being here thank you so much and good luck with the rest of your campaign and thank you for watching we'll be back tomorrow with more meet the press now the news continues with ali jackson right now hi it's kate snow mbc news anchor host of the podcast the drink this month i'm grabbing a matcha latte with comedian taylor tomlinson the drink is always about someone's journey to the top and taylor's story is remarkable she tells us all about her unlikely path from performing in churches all the way to headlining her own netflix specials like her latest prodigal daughter and she opens up about her religious upbringing what drew her to stand up and how she feels when she gets on that stage hope you'll listen and follow the drink wherever you get your podcasts thank you