Meet the Press NOW — March 10

Welcome to Meet the Press. Now, I'm Monica Alba in Washington. As a war with Iran escalates, the number of US Casualties rises and oil prices are getting whipsawed. In the confusion about the potential for severe supply disruptions.

It comes as Defense Secretary Hegset, alongside the chair of Joint Chiefs of Staff this morning said US Military action is again ramping up. Today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran. The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes. Intelligence more refined and better than ever.

We're also now learning that according to the Pentagon, approximately 140 U.S. service members have been wounded since the start of Operation Epic Fury. The number of casualties renew questions about the administration's end game as it sends mixed messages about the timeline for U.S. involvement.

What I want your viewers to understand is this is only just the beginning. Mr. President, you said the war is, quote, very complete, but your defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it and how long should Americans be?

I think you can say both at the beginning. It's the beginning of building a new country. We could call it a tremendous success right now as we leave here, I could call it. Or we could go further.

And we're going to go further. He gets to control the fraud. He's the one decided. He's the one electing about half the American people when we're achieving those particular objectives.

And so it's not for me to posit whether it's the beginning, the middle, or the end. President Trump will determine when Iran is in a place of unconditional surrender, when they no longer pose a credible indirect threat to the United States of America and our allies. Adding to the uncertainty, last night, the president suggesting he could further escalate the war if oil prices continue to rise. And this morning, writing on social media, quote, if Iran does anything that stops the flow of oil within the Sailor moose, they will be hit by the United States of America 20 times harder than they have been hit thus far.

He went on to threaten death, fire and fury. Iran's Revolutionary Guard responding defiantly, that will, quote, not allow the export of even 1 liter of oil from the region until the US and Israel stop the strikes. The competing claims about the war continue to roil the price of oil, which initially fell after Energy Secretary Wright posted a video today saying the U.S. navy successfully escorted an oil taker through the Strait of Hormuz.

But moments later, he deleted the post. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt then, clarifying, there was no escort through the Strait. I can confirm that The US Navy has not escorted a tanker or vessel at this time, though of course, that's an option the president has said he will absolutely utilize if when necessary at the appropriate time. Levitt also vowing that oil and gas prices will drop rapidly once the US Mission is complete.

Right now, price of oil is roughly 25% higher than when the conflict began, and prices of the pump have gone up roughly 20% on aver. Joining me now is NBC News chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander, NBC News senior national Security correspondent Gordon Kubi, and NBC News chief international correspondent Keir Simmons. Thank you all for joining me. Peter, is it clear what the administration's end goal in Iran actually is?

Did we get any more clarity on what that is from the White House today? You know, like the first guy said, I think look at that anchor share there. But let me get to the headline out of this right now. This is why I think was particularly striking, is that we heard this idea of unconditional surrender.

That was sort of the end point that President Trump wanted. But today, Caroline, let the present secretary really redefine what that means, unconditional surrender. You play a part of that sound bite, but it's worth repeating. She said President Trump will determine when Iran is basically in a position of surrender, which in effect gives him maximum flexibility to make a decision that the war should continue or should end at any point that he so chooses.

One of the questions has been, will the president be satisfied if the now deceased Ayatollah son does serve as the next supreme leader, as a Iran has announced in the last several days? And Caroline Levitt was pressed on that very question by her colleague Garrett. Hey, take a listen. Is the ending of this war also contingent on Iran selecting a leader that the president finds acceptable?

And if so, how is that not the definition of a regime change war? Look, as President Trump has latently and frankly stated, it's obviously within the best interest of the United States and the west to no longer have a radical terrorist in charge of Iran. We have objectives that we have laid out the commander in chief wants to see achieve. When they are achieved, then it will lead up to the president to end this operation.

So I think you're not exactly addressing my question, though. Is that political objective also necessary for the president decided to end this war? Look, again, I just told you the objectives of Operation Ffuri. When those objectives are met, the president will dictate the end of these operations when he deems that Iran no longer poses a credible threat to the United States of America.

So, Monica to the very basic question that you're asking, does it give us any better clarity about how long this war will last? I don't think it does. Remember, the president initially said four to five, perhaps six weeks for a timeline. Then over the course of the last 48 hours, we heard from the defense secretary saying in effect that, well, this was only just the beginning.

The president had said it was very complete, pretty much, and said it was a short term excursion before insisting that it could go much further. So I think it's up to Americans and ultimately at the end of the day, up to the president where he's going to put himself in a position to say, all right, I think we've done enough. Whenever we're raising questions about how that ends, Peter but also a real mix up today with the energy secretary posting that the US did escort an oil tanker during the state of Hormuz and the White House saying that's not what happened. Help us understand.

Well, I think we're trying to get a better understanding of it as we speak right now. This is significant. Obviously, the editor, Secretary Chris Wright, making the announcement, as he said very specifically, the US Navy had successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz. That would be notable because obviously so much of the global markets as they relates to oil right now are concerned about the inability to sort of chokehold on that critical passageway just about 21 miles wide, controls about one fifth of the world's oil that goes through there right now.

And president has made it very clear that he wants to see oil flowing smoothly through that. So the fact that this was posted made a lot of investors feel very good that there was progress, that it was quickly the leader, the White House then said that that is not the case. No oil tanker A has been allowed through there. We're still trying to get answers why such a thing would have been posted if that were the case.

And the president, you played one of his or shared one of his posts from earlier. This is a post that he posted within the last hour or so. He said, among other things, if Iran has put out any mines in the street in the Hormuz raid, we have no reports of doing so. We want them removed immediately.

If for any reason mines were placed, he says, and they are not removed forthwith, the military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before. Initially he said that we might hit them 20 times as hard. Now they'll be a level never seen before. This is the thousands sort of effort to continue those threats and it's not entirely clear that it's getting him what he's looking for.

So many fast moving developments. Peter, thank you so much for all of that. Courtney, I want to turn to you now because we did hear Secretary Hexis say today it was going to be the most intense day of the war so far. Is it clear what he meant by that?

Not really. I mean you can figure out just based off of how the op tempo, how this campaign has been unfolding that there would be more potential aircraft in air today than have happened over the last nine or 10 days. And that's simply by virtue of the fact that the first couple of days they were taking longer range standoff strikes and taking out air defenses and things. If you look at a map of Iran, you can actually trace from the west coast, the western side of the country over further and further as the US and Israel continue to push more towards the center.

As they push towards the center, they're essentially clearing space to make it safer for manned aircraft to fly, meaning every day theoretically if they wanted to, if they have the ability they could bring more aircraft in and conduct more strikes every single day just because this guys are simply safer to do so. And as the stretches on we are learning about significantly more US Casualties it seems. So what do we know about these 140 service members so far that have been injured according to the gun? So we know that the majority have already been returned to duty, about 108 of them.

There are still at least eight who are seriously injured. That number was higher. It's gone down. And some of them who were seriously have recovered more and are potentially still injured but not in a more potentially dangerous category.

We don't know a whole lot about the two dozen or so who are sort of in the middle there other than we have to keep in mind that the majority of these injuries manifested from the strikes by Iran in the first 24 to 48 hours. That was when Iran really just pummeled the region with barrage after barrage of missiles and drones. There were probably people who had some sort of injuries then like a traumatic brain injury, maybe a concussion, something that may not have immediately been evident to them and they may be coming forward as a days of unfold. So it's possible that we'll see even more injuries like this go forward.

It doesn't necessarily mean that there have been more attacks that have been successful against yours in the region and that could continue to change. As you point out, we've been talking a lot about the strike on the elementary school in Southern Iran on the first day of the war. I do want to play an exchange a reporter had with the president and what he had to say about it yesterday. Mr.

President, you just suggested that Iran somehow got his hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. You're the only person in your government saying this. Even your defense secretary would say that. He was asked, standing over your shoulder on your plane on Saturday.

Why are you the only person saying this? Because I just don't know enough about it. I think it's something that I was told is under investigation. But Tomahawks are used by others, as you know.

Court, give us the reality check on that. Does Iran have Tomahawks? If so, it's a huge breaking story that they were able to somehow surface to get their hands on Tomahawks, which the United States wouldn't. I can't envision a scenario where the US Would sell them to them.

So, no, we don't believe they have any Tomahawks. There are only a couple of US Allies, close allies, Australia, the UK who have them. Japan is getting them, but I don't believe they have fielded them yet. So the US Was operating in that area at the time.

We know that the Israeli military was not. The reality. Is this looking increasingly likely, like this was a US Missile that landed on that school, killing all those little kids. The real question now is why?

What happened? Was it bad targeting? Was it bad intelligence? Did they just have an old target set?

Did the missile go off course? We don't know the answer to that. When asked. We continue to ask the question over and over and all we're told is that it remains under investigation.

But I just got to say the US Military is able to look satellite imagery, infrared targeting, and they have to have a good sense of exactly what happen you already by now. And the president saying whatever the outcome is, whatever conclusion is, he says he can live with it, whatever it might be according to. Thank you for your timeless reporting on this. Really appreciate it.

And Kir, I want to turn to you now since you are in the Gulf region. And I want to read something that Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch ally of the president, a proponent of regime change in Iran, posted on social media yesterday. He wrote, hopefully Gulf Cooperation Council countries will get more involved as this fight is in their backyard. If you're not willing to use your military now, when are you willing to use it again?

Kir, you are right there. You're in the region. Do any of These Gulf countries want to get dragged into the war. Well, these are countries like Saudi Arabia, like the United Arab Emirates, where I am now, like Qatar, Bahrain.

They are involved because they all host US Bases, bases with US Servicemen and women. I've been to one, for example. I've dade in Qatar. It's huge.

It was substantially evacuated before this war. But these countries are involved in that sense. Now. What they did do prior to the conflict was say that they would not allow offensive action from those bases.

Again, remember, for example, Bahrain is hosts the Fifth Fleet, which has aircraft carriers in the region, not in that port right now. They are involved in the war. So they said they wouldn't be involved in offensive action. They're not going to take kindly to Senator Graham's edicts.

They are being bombarded. The UAE here, where I am, has taken 50%, according to statistics, of the drones and missiles, more than Israel, for example. What these countries are doing is trying to figure out how to get over this, how to get out of this. And at the same time, it does look as if they are increasingly frustrated, angry with Iran and are threatening themselves Iran.

So many, bluntly, many of the capitals here will find Senator Graham's intervention profoundly unhelpful in what they consider to be a very difficult situation where they are trying not to end up furthering quicksand this to turn into a more regional war, which is a real risk at this stage. Yeah. And also in the region there, of course, Israel is continuing its military operations in Lebanon. What's the reaction been to that?

And are the US And Israel on the same page when it comes to the broad objectives in the region Overall, it's a good question. It doesn't appear that they are. Certainly President Trump himself has said that they have different ambitions, different objectives. If you remember at the beginning of the war, for example, that strike on Ayatollah Khamenei, the killed.

Killed Ayatollah Khami. It also killed a number of Iranian leaders, which President Trump has described as some of the people that they would have liked to perhaps have taken over. Then over the weekend, just gone, the Israelis struck the Iranian oil infrastructure, and that caused an enormous blaze in one case, for example, in Tehran, lit up the night sky. I think that frustrated the US as well.

And Senator Graham actually put out a post about the Israelis suggesting that they should be not targeting the oil infrastructure which the Trump administration was hoping to protect. Kirsims, thank you so much. Please continue to stay safe. And coming up wartime in Washington, a Republican senator reacts to The White House's contradictory timelines on Iran and the president's push for a sweeping bill to overhaul voting rules.

Senator Roger Marshall is standing by. Plus, if it's Tuesday, voters are voting somewhere. We're live in Georgia, where the race to replace former Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene is underway. You're watching MEET THE PRESS now.

Welcome back. As a war with Iran stretches on, Republican speaker the House Mike Johnson now says Congress is anticipating passing a supplemental funding bill for the military. Listen to that. I think the supplemental funding bill for military is inevitable.

We were anticipating a supplemental even before the Iran operation began. So that will happen. The timetable is yet to be determined. Now, bipartisan support would be needed in the Senate to pass any kind of supplemental, and it's not clear that there would be enough Democratic votes.

Today, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is calling for a public hearing into the war. Donald Trump, Pete Pegseth and Marco Rubio owe the American people some answers. The administration needs to come before Congress and testify in public hearings under oath as to why our troops are fighting and dying in the Middle East. Joining me now is Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas.

Senator, thanks very much for being with us today. I want to start with what the president said on Monday, and that is that the war would be, quote, ended soon. But he also said, quote, we could go further and we're going to go further. So which is it, Senator?

Well, Mark, I think sometimes we hear what we want to hear. I think the president's been very clear from the beginning what our goals were here. So it's going to be over with when we have annihilated Iran's missile systems, their nukes, their navy, and they're unable to fund or armed terrorists. He described what would have been a four to six week timeline to begin with.

We're ahead of that timeline. Like we can only wish that war was so simple that we could predict exactly how long it's going to take. Again, the good news today is that it sounds like Iran's firing power Is down over 90%, that they're firing 89% less missiles and less drones. So you have been supportive of the president launching these military strikes on Iran.

But we are 11 days into the conflict. So is there a point when you do believe the president needs to ask Congress for authorization to continue with this war? You know, I think the War Powers act is very clear that it gives the President about 60 days of leeway and the president has followed the law to the letter that he notified Congress within 48 hours and now he has this 60 day time period really to protect America. That's his constitutionally called to protect Americans when Congress has the right to recall the situation as well.

The Democrats tied that once and it didn't work. To me it's really interesting that the only one really supporting Iran right now, it's not China, it's not Russia, is the Democrats. Well, Senator, you brought up the 60 day timeline because Vice President JD Vance has actually called the War Powers act, quote, fundamentally fake and unconstitutional. So what makes you think the administration will come to Congress within those 60 days?

Well, I don't know if I have an answer to say what they will and won't do. But I think when we get to that 60 day limit is that Congress does have more powers than that we can act. Well, the President and the Defense Secretary haven't ruled out so far sending ground troops into Iran. They haven't taken that off the table.

And there's reporting this week that the President is even discussing sending special forces to recover Iran's remaining highly enriched uranium. Is that something you'd be supportive of? I don't want to get that specific. I really don't want to take anything off the table.

But I want to be real clear is that I hate war. Okay. I served, my dad served, my brother served, my son is serving and we hate war. But unfortunately the price of freedom, I'm grateful to the soldiers there, men and women are able, they're out there defending our nation right now.

I wouldn't want to get real specifically what I would and wouldn't do. But I certainly hope and pray that this war will be over very soon and that we'll never have any boots on the ground. Got it. Thanks Senator.

For that I do want to turn to the idea that the U.S. according to the President, could lift some oil related sanctions that have been put in place to punish Russia specifically for the war in Ukraine. That move came after the President had an hour long phone call with Vladimir Putin yesterday. Do you support lifting those sanctions, Senator?

I do. And here's a great use of the tariffs by President Trump. President Trump used the tariffs to get the first time ever done deal done with India and he also won a geopolitical scale, got India to agree to not buy any further oil from Russia. So but here we are, it's a new day.

That's just it. This life does not happen in a vacuum. So it's a new day here and we do have a significant conflict in the Middle east and oil prices, they're coming back down. Those markets anticipating that this conflict will be shorter than everyone's expecting.

Senator, I do want to turn to the Save America Acts. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the votes are not there to get asked the Senate filibuster. Let's listen to that. We'll talk about the other side.

We don't have the votes either to proceed get on a talking filibuster nor sustain one if we got on. But that's just, that is just a function of math. There's anything I can do about that. So how do you see this?

What would be the feasible path to passenger? Yeah, I think that the real issue we should be talking about is why 10 Democrats won't come across the aisle and support this, say that because 70% of Democrats support some type of voter ID. So I think we can easily take what the House has done and start the process over here and let's get it to a vote. Let's get everybody on record and maybe some Democrats will indeed cross the.

I don't know. But the true issue to me is that Americans take election integrity is very important, that election integrity is the backbone. It is the heartbeat of a freeze democracy. So I'm just surprised we can't get Democrats to come and support voter ID because their constituents do well.

Senator, but it's not just voter id, Right. Because President Trump is saying that he wants to make additional changes to what the House has already passed, in fact twice. So do you support what the President is now calling for what he wants to add to the Save America act when it comes to some of these additional unrelated stipulations? Well, those would not be my highest priority.

If I'm asked to vote on him, I will support him. I think we go back to the same act that we're talking about that talks about requiring voter IDs that requires proof of your that you're a citizen as well, and then some type of limit on mail in ballots as well? I think we should stay focused on that Democrats on the record. And by the way, do you hear any Democrats saying that they would support voter id?

They may object to some of these other things, but that's how the law is meant to work. Why won't Democrats come to the table and say, well, we support voter ID but maybe they want to tweak what we would handle with the mail in ballot. So I'm just surprised that that's not, that conversation's not happening. But would you concede that it would be more difficult to try to get Democrats to potentially Consider this, given there are additional considerations that the president now wants to have, would you can see this now is more of an uphill climb.

Gosh, I mean, the more, the more you add, the more you add to any bill, the more complicated it is. You'll gain a couple, you'll lose a couple. My advice is to take what the House has done and take, take that up, say, focus on these three issues and then take a minute votes on those other ones and see what happens. But again, where are the Democrats saying that they support voter id?

If they won't support that, they're certainly not going to support the rest of the bill. Why aren't they being held accountable at the national level when 70% of Democrats support voter ID? Why there's no the national media holding them accountable for that? Well, we are discussing this and asking senators, both parties similar questions on this very topic.

Senator, I want to ask you, the president yesterday told Republicans that if the bill passes, quote, Democrats probably won't win an election for 50 years and maybe longer. So does the president's message there undermine the overall goal of the bill when he says that, you know, I don't know the context of what the president was talking about. I think that if the Democrats have nothing to fear, they should come forward, let's say focus on what we can, what we can control. I can't control all the things that the president says, but we can control that.

Democrats are denying their own party when 70% of their constituents believe in voter ID. That's the real issue here. We can go off on all these tangents, but the real issue why did Democrat senators not support election integrity? Why do they not support voter id?

And I think they would say there are other issues within this bill that the president's trying to add that certainly complicate the overall conversation. Senator Roger Marshall, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it. Yeah, you're welcome to hit the end of the table and have that conversation.

Thank you. Up next, it's Election Day and you know what that means. Steve Kornacki is at the big board, breaking down what to watch for as the results start coming in in the special election for Georgia's 14th congressional district. Stay with us on the PRESS now.

Welcome back. If it's Tuesday, voters are voting somewhere and today the summers are Mississippi and Georgia, where there's a very crowded special election to fill former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Peeler Green. Meanwhile, in Mississippi, incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde Smith is facing a challenger in her primary. And on the Democratic Side, it's a generational battle as incumbent Congressman Betty Thompson, who recently turned 78, faces a primary challenge from 34 year old Evan Turnage, a former Senate 8.

Joining me now is NDC Chief Data Analyst Steve Kornacki. And Aaron Gilchrist is on the ground in Georgia. Thanks to you both. Steve, it is quite the field of candidates.

So is it even possible to avoid a runoff here? Yeah, it's possible, but certainly not likely. Look, this is a top two primary, they call it, right? You see the three sort of leading names right here.

But we could keep scrolling down and go all the way down to 17 different names, 17 active candidates here. And the way this works is they're all in the ballot. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independent. Whoever finishes in the top two slots advances to a run off in April unless somebody gets 50% plus one outright majority wins night.

Nobody is expecting that, but I think the dynamics to keep an eye on as the results come in. First thing to remember, of course, this is an overwhelmingly Republican district. Marjorie Taylor Greene had won by nearly 30 points in her final election. Donald Trump won this district by 37 points.

Now, this Democrat right here, Sean Harris, he was the opponent that Green faced in 2024. He got 36% of the vote. He's got, he's raised a ton of money nationally for this race and it seems like he's probably largely consolidated the Democratic vote in this district. So while this is overwhelmingly a Republican district, if Harris can sort of monopolize the Democratic vote in an incredibly crowded race like that, he could get one of those two runoff spots.

There's even a world tonight where maybe Harris could finish with the most votes of any candidate tonight. But again, something to keep in mind, part of that is because he may consolidate the Democratic vote, whereas the Republican vote is going to be split. And I think the suspense and the drama when it comes to that Republican vote is around these two candidates right here, Clay Fuller and Colton Moore. Clay Fuller is the candidate endorsed by Donald Trump.

I think that's what you need to know. He ran for the seat six years ago. He barely registered in the Republican primary, but he's got Trump's endorsement. Sometimes that's all it takes in one of these primaries.

And then there's Colt Moore. He was a state senator. He certainly had some very provocative antics. He's been aligned with a lot of MAGA figures.

I think he was certainly thinking he would get Trump endorsement in this campaign, but he didn't get it. So can his sort of MAGA style work without the Ultimate MAGA endorsement from Donald Trump. I think those two Republicans here vying for me, one of the spots. And then Harris, a Democrat.

But again, whoever emerges, overwhelmingly Republican districts, big day for the big board. We love to see it. Thank you so much, Steve, for breaking it down. Aaron, I want to turn to you, our informal Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene's district today.

She hasn't weighed in right on the race to replace her, but the president didn't endorse Playful. Steve just pointed out, you just spoke to him. What did he tell you? You know, I think Steve laid the foundation here very nicely, Monica.

Clay Fuller believes that this endorsement from President Trump is really going to be helpful, very helpful in helping him to get to a place where he is closer to winning this election. Steve laid out why we think that a runoff is very likely here. Just the math seems to suggest that's going to happen, given that there are so many people on the ballot in this district right now. But Clay Fuller told me that he does feel like he is the one with the wind behind him, helping him to get to a good place after tonight.

I want you to be a part of our exchange a little earlier today. We feel great, feel real about it. I feel like I'm the most dangerous candidate in the race with the president's endorsement. So we're just making sure that we're driving out the vote here today, trying to contact as many voters as we can.

Let me ask, since you brought the president's endorsement, how significant do you feel like that? How much do you feel like that's been helpful for you? It's been miserably helpful, not only as the honor of my lifetime because I work for Trump in the first Trump administration as the Trump appointee, but I know going out in time to voters across the district, one of the main things that they were concerned about when this race were started was where the president was going to be. Now, I can tell you that the people here that we've spoken to already today have seemed to indicate that Clay Fuller is their choice because he's gotten this Trump endorsement.

And also if you sort of listen to him talk people like him because he's not like Donald Trump. So there's definitely a clear desire to have Trump policies. But the temperament, maybe, Monica, is something that some voters in this area have indicated they're not necessarily wanting to see in the person that they choose. That's why they backed Fuller in this case.

But of course, Baltimore is intended, somebody that folks are voting for. We spoke to some people here who did vote for him. We're getting a chance to talk to him in just a couple of minutes here. Aaron, tell me more about those voter conversations.

What issues are they saying? They're driving them to the polls today. And is the war against Iran weighing on their disposal decision at all? Yes, it's a conversation that we've had with a few people that we've spoken to here.

Folks who have been supporting Republicans do support President Trump in a big way and they've spoken about their support for what he's doing in Iran. There's been some conversation with folks who are a bit uncomfortable with the reality of needing to take that action in Iran, but they do feel as though the president has made the case for why that need, that action is needed. Listen to the voters we talked to a while ago. I feel like he's doing the right thing.

I heard that he was trying to make the bomb and he's trying to stop that. And I think that's important. If you get picked up enough, too, sooner or later you get mad and this will feel like we've been picking enough. And thanks.

Our president said he had enough. I would just like there to be some return on investment for our kind if we do anything in another nation. That would be my primary hopes because it's not really a moral or an ethical question. It's an ROI question, unfortunately for the taxpayer.

And I think it's worth mentioning that we're seeing that support for President Trump from voters. And each of the 12 Republicans that are in this race have indicated that they are essentially aligned with the president too, saying that they support an America first agenda. And so, Monica, it could very well come down to style when we see who the Republican is that rises to the top today. Fascinating and always important to get those voter voices.

Aaron, thank you so much for doing that. We appreciate it. After the break Air campaign new reporting on how the war with Iran and President Trump's many foreign entanglements could end up boosting Secretary of State Marco Rubio's 2028 prospects over Vice President J.D. vance.

Plus, the Justice Department's investigation into the 2020 election expands to another key county in a battleground state as President Trump continues to push all claims about his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. That story's next on the PRESS now. Welcome back. Turning now to the Trump administration's ongoing scrutiny over the results of the 2020 election, which Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.

President Trump posting on social media that the FBI had secretly seized election records from Maricopa county, now that's the largest county in Arizona, which helped propel Biden to victory in the state. The Republican leader of the state Senate yesterday confirming that writing, quote, late last week I received and complied with the federal grand jury subpoena for records related to the Arizona State Senate's 2020 audit of Maricopa County. The FBI has the records. Now the FBI is not commenting.

The Maricopa County Elections Department says it has not received a subpoena but will cooperate if it does. And it comes more than a month after the FBI raided an elections hub in Fult, Georgia for records and ballots from 2020. NBC News Senior reporter Jane Tim joins me now. Jane, thanks for breaking this down.

There are some discrepancies over what records are actually being sought and what records have already been obtained. So what do we know at this point? You know, we haven't seen this grand jury subpoena. So there's a lot of questions here.

But what we understand from Senator Peterson, President Peterson's tweet is that these are records in relation to the audit that the Arizona senate instigated in 2021. Now this was a highly controversial, at times very sloppy review of the 2020 election results in Maricopa county that was instigated by the state Senate. They hired a sort of little known firm called the Cyber Ninjas to go look at their ballots, to hand count their ballots in a warehouse. They did a lot of sort of questionable and controversial sort of tactics here and sort of methods.

This was not a standardized review that you might see or a hand count that you might have seen and say Georgia, where they do do hand counts as an audit or a check of their election results. This was a they had UV lights, they had plans talking about what happened if Antifa wanted to try and storm the the audit as they called it. So it's important to note that while they say that the records from the election are now in the hands of the FBI, they aren't actually the records of election. These are records that were created in the course of a controversial audit that was paid for by election people who believe election white election fraud occurs.

Conspiracy theorists, people like Patrick Burn from Overstock.com his group Cleveland Mitchell, the work of presidents, the president, president's former election lawyer who tried to overturn the results of an election, people who spent lots and lots of money to pay for this sort of controversial audit five years ago in Arizona. So Jane, if people are wondering, is there any possible connection here to the raid on the election facility in Fulton County, Georgia. We know the president has certainly accused them of rigging that against him. What would you say, Is there any possible link here between the two investigations?

You know, it's hard to tie the two together, of course, because we have two 2020 elections are reviewed by federal prosecutors. But it's important to note that this was not a search warrant like we saw in Fulton County. This was a grand jury's appeal, which is essentially a formal request for documents, kind of an often negotiable request for documents from a prosecutor, essentially. So we don't exactly know if they're tied together or how, but we'll be watching the findings.

Jane, thank you very much. I want to turn now to some behind the scenes details at the White House in the jockeying over who will be President Trump's successor in 2028. The Iran war does seem to be raising the profile of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, raising a bunch of questions about whether President Trump could champion Rubio over his own vice president, who President Trump said yesterday was, quote, less enthusiastic about the decision to go to war with Iran. Joining me now is NBC senior national politics reporter Matt Dixon.

Matt, thank you so much for joining me. What does it tell you that the president is basically pulling a room at a fundraiser just hours after these strikes started against Iran about how he views this 2020 issue? Well, first, it's hard to ignore the timing, right? I mean, we're now at war with Iran and this is what was on the president's mind.

So it's clearly important to him. But he's, you know, still the, the apprentice president. Right. I think he likes a bit of tension that you're fire.

We have seen a history of him throughout his two terms in office where a little staff tension is something that he likes. So Marco Rubio is clearly having a moment. He's secretary of State. He's a foreign policy guy.

And I think that's going to naturally elevate him a bit. JD Vance leads in most of the polling, so there is definitely a horse race dynamic that's starting to shape up. What does it tell you about perhaps the divide in the MAGA base when it comes to these two different candidates? I think it's important moving forward that we define the MAGA base.

Right. There's a shrinking part of the Republican Party that identifies as that MAGA base. I think among those true believers, President Trump's base, President Trump's sort of core supporters, they're going to go with whoever he says they should go with. But I think from Some degree.

Marco Rubio is a very political talent in public life his entire career. That, you know, there's going to be real conversation you have there about MAGA folks who are going to do what Trump says versus Republicans who maybe have different view of things. And it's still really early. A lot could change.

But looking at our latest NBC News poll that showed that 90% of those self identified MAGA Republicans do support US military action against Iran. So does that mean that would translate with those numbers potentially change? If it's Rubio urging intervention, why might that shift it? I think when we've done some more point on this as well, I think the length of what happens in Iran, how many service members potentially die, unfortunately, is going to do a lot to shape that.

If it's quick or in or out, that I think is going to be a significantly different thing than if this goes on for months or whatever the duration might be. And we're seeing a little bit less of the vice president maybe than we normally would. What is his team saying about that? I think the general perception is that Vice President Vance isn't as supportive of the operation of the war in Iran as President Trump is.

And I think there's some intentionality to the idea he disappeared on social media for a few days, which is much different than his normal transaction. Well, and the president seems like he will tell us what he thinks once he makes a decision. Right. About whether he'll endorse his secretary.

Vice President, appreciate it. Thank you. And still to come, you might call it a book of revelations. A leading scholar on executive leadership lays out what he calls President Trump's Ten Commandments and what it all means for the fate of U S Politics.

Keep it here on Meet the Press now. Welcome back. For the last decade, Donald Trump has drastically reshaped the Republican Party and reshaped American politics altogether. In his upcoming new book, Trump's Ten Commandments, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale University scholar and informal advisor to five U.S.

presidents, outlines the 10 principles that have defined the Trump era politics. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld joins me now. Jeffrey, thank you so much for being here to talk about the book. And I want to start first with your relationship to the president.

How did you come to know Donald Trump? Well, it's an interesting story. Back when Jeff Zucker was running this great enterprise he was running at BC Universal, he asked if I would write a review each week for the first episode, the first issues, the first season of the Apprentice, and I would go in the Wall Street Journal. So I he would get them to me a day in advance, and he thought they'd be positive messages.

But I looked at them. They're unbelievable. As I referred to it as, you know, the elimination game premise. They were sort of like a musical chairs game at a Hooters restaurant with a sexist overview that it had because the outtakes are pretty scary.

Nothing that Access Hollywood needed to discover later when you see these things. And so if you can believe that, he's a little sensitive to criticism and he was a little threatening. After the first review where it was labeled Last Emperor, Trump and I predicted he'd run for president since 2004. And he said, well, to Zucker and NBC and Wall Street Journal, tear it up.

And Walter said, no, it's traffic out of this. Let him see next week. So I said, I'm not gonna recant. I said, yeah, you have to rescind.

So I looked at it and said, you know, Mr. Trump asked if I rescinded, and, you know, I do. I thought I wouldn't. Last week.

I said it was the worst possible portrait of business leadership and on television I could imagine for young people to follow. But I hadn't seen this week's. And we got about becoming friends as he got pretty threatening. We'd go on the Today show, we'd go onto the old Cuddly Craver show and your old shows and the old sisters at CNBC and things.

And he and I would wind up up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, or in Rosam Palo, Brazil, in battles. And he wasn't taking well to it. So he calls at a stickler for golf. I'm a horrible golfer.

But as we got together for lunch, he offered me the presidency of Tribune University. I don't think so. But he was trying to replace the squeaky wheel, actually drown it oil rather than replace me. And we wanted to become friends because I suggested we became a celebrity presence instead of troubles getting these engaging young millennials and putting them in the zero sum, throw them off the island setting.

And he said, well, that's the premise that Jack Welch, who GE owned NBC at the time, wanted us to steal from a survivor from cbs. And that was Mark Burnett, the producer. So we just stole Mark Burnett to produce the same show in a business setting. I said, well, you know, you have nobody to lead if you throw them all off the island, if you kill off your own people.

So. But he understood that. And I said, go for these fallen celebrities. I never humor.

And he said, let's do it. So he moved it to this celebrity Princess and became friends after that, although I disagree with him about least two thirds of the time. So you have studied Donald Trump the businessman, and now Donald Trump the president, in terms of some of his strategies, how he approaches leadership. And let's talk about one of the tenets that you write about in the book, specifically something called the Sleeper Effect, which you write is when someone states falsehoods with unwavering confidence, people begin to think, maybe there's something I've missed.

This is precisely how the Sleeper effect works. You write, the messenger's confidence becomes more memorable than the message's accuracy. When have we seen him embrace this? You really studied this well.

You do not have to take the final exam. You're all set. You've mastered it. That's exactly right.

It's a scary thing. It was studied at Yale in the 1940s and 50s, based on what was happening in Germany in the 1930s. And the work was really controversial. The Sleeper Effect basically says, for a sophisticated audience, it sounds really class conscious.

Tell them both sides of the story, but implant some fatal flaws in it. Unsophisticated. Just tell them one side and both times just keep pounding away. No matter who comes along to correct the source.

Like you have source corrections out there, these pointer institutes or fact check places, news guard or things. People don't care about that because they see that the message lingers on the memory curve. It lingers so you can still keep repeating the message you can get. Maybe 20, 25% of Americans believe that Haitian refugees are eating their neighbor's past, even though it's denied by everybody.

Have you seen him employ that when he's discussing the war against Iran? Yes, actually, what's interesting in that one, he's not sure what message he wants. Just in the course of the last 48 hours, we happen to have President Herzog and the chief of Strategy for the Israeli Defense Forces and the Chief of Information Officer, as well as Prime Minister Theresa May and others, some U.S. generals.

And they also, basically, what's the strategy here? He told us that the nuclear capabilities had been defanged, and now he's saying he wants to make it inoperable. But wait a second. We were eight months ago, 10 months ago, and then he shifted to say that we've accomplished about 80% of what we want.

Then he said we might yet be on the fight. So it's confusing, but he needs to have a consistent message, and he usually does that. But right now he's shopping messages to find out what works. And that's what he also does, there's a lot of trial balloons.

And then once he sees what seems to be working similarly with Venezuel, he went through a whole litany of alternatives. He suggested we're going to Venezuela for a drug interdiction. But it turned out that he had just freed one month earlier of the former president, Honduras Hernandez Hernandez, who hadn't just been extradited, indicted by a jury and then convicted by another jury and sentenced for 45 years. And then he pardoned him.

And that guy actually had proven links to massive drug trafficking into the US Whereas the Venezuelan case wasn't so strong. That didn't hold up. So he switched. He said, well, let me try and say there's Russian and Chinese ships.

And that didn't work. So then he shifted to say, well, the oil industry put me up to it was the best. And I called the leaders of the oil industry, they said, no, we have no interest in that sour heavy crude, Venezuelan oil, and it's too expensive to extract it there. Have you noticed any changes or evolutions from his first term to his second term and how he uses these commitments, as you call them?

Yeah, when he went in, I don't think he thought he was necessarily going to win. He kept calling me in 2015 asking if he should run. And I told him that I thought that if he wants the attention, he can do it, that he'll get 15 to 18% as Ross Perot previously as a business leader with no background in government and he'll crash there. And he said, great, that's what Melania says.

She says I should run too. I said, wait, I didn't say you should run, I said this. But so he did. And he wound up with an inelegant moment.

I believe it was in New Hampshire where somebody had a hostile biggest statement about Muslims. And I told him afterwards, union Mr. McCain moment where John McCain as a candidate, he corrected somebody for attacking Barack Obama on similar terms. And he's not Muslim.

But even if he were. But those are all things to say because he hated John McCain, because McCain stood up to him and he said, well, I never said it, but he had this confidence issue back then and he also put together what he thought it was a marquee cabinet. They weren't. But they were people who were grounded in the legitimacy of their fields.

They had authority, they had knowledge. Now he has sycophants or who weren't on television, I would say suck ups and people who have a filial piety back to him. Beholden, to him. And that's a problem because he has no guardrails now.

So he keeps pushing, pushing, pushing to see how far he can go. And he wouldn't mind it if somebody pushes back. For example, when we saw the community of Minneapolis, including 60 major business leaders, the CEOs of Target and Medtronic and Cargill, and 60 of them, along with clergy and of course, massive street demonstrations, he moved away. The way you counter bully, which is another point here in this book is through basic collective action is another one of his lessons is always to divide and conquer.

He hates nafta, the USMCA that he created, he hated that too. Trying to constantly start fights between Mexico and Canada. He doesn't like NATO, which is to try to stir things up in the eu. Then he feels that he's better off if he has people that are constantly at war with each other and they're not a threat to him.

In Trump 1.0, he had delegated a lot of power to people that also had authority. They were known in their field of expertise, diplomacy or law enforcement or science, whatever it was, and he didn't like that. So now it's like a hub, like a solar system or a wheel, the hub, the spokes coming off of it, everything goes through him. And Trump 1.0, it wasn't so centralized.

So therefore, the price of nothing. Your viewers just got three of the 10 chapters. Jefferson, Pel, thank you so much for your time today. Oh, thank you.

And we'll be back tomorrow with more media press now. There's much more ahead on NBC News now. Hey, everyone, I'm Dylan Dryer, co host of the third hour of Today and mom to three wild boys. I learned a lot my years as a parent, mostly that I don't have it all figured out yet.

And I'm not the only one. This is my new podcast, the Parent Chat. Each week I sit down with someone new for honest conversation and real world advice about parenting. I'm over here just like winging it.

Hey, I'm trying not to remind my own gift. I'm going to give you a like an honest screw yourself search parent chat on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.