Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Aaron Gilchrist on yet another tumultuous day on Wall Street and here in Washington. It was a bumpy ride for stocks with the Dow closing lower as markets tried to digest a volatile day of developments surrounding the president's escalating threats of a trade war with Canada, with markets rallying in the afternoon on signs of a potential cooling off of some of those tensions. Now, the day started with the president announcing that he was planning to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50 percent, effective tomorrow, while also renewing his rhetoric about annexing Canada.
Now, those new tariff threats coming in response to Ontario imposing a 25 percent surcharge on electricity exports to the U.S. Ontario's premier, Doug Ford, also threatened to completely shut off power to more than a million U.S. homes. White House press secretary Caroline Levitt did not hold back today when speaking about the premier's threat.
The president saw the premier, Doug Ford, make an egregious and insulting comment threatening to shut down electricity for the American people, for hardworking American families. He made that threat. The president saw that and has an obligation and a responsibility to respond accordingly and represent the interests of the American people. Now, a short time after those comments, Premier Ford announced that he was temporarily suspending those surcharges on power, saying he'd reached an agreement with the White House to hold trade talks on Thursday.
We're going to talk to speaker, or rather to Premier Ford in just a moment here. Amid the market choppiness, President Trump this afternoon also telling reporters that he would let them know if he would still impose new tariffs on Canada tomorrow. The president also appearing to try to clean up recent remarks about the potential for a recession, saying he does not see one happening. Joining me now, NBC News business and data correspondent Brian Chung and NBC News White House correspondent Vaughn Hilliard.
Brian, we'll start with you there on Wall Street. Talk to us about what we saw finally today, where today's losses triggered by the recession fears, the steel and aluminum tariffs potentially on Canada, a combination of both. What are you thinking? Yeah, well, I mean, look, a red market closed to end this Tuesday after what was a very, very tumultuous Monday.
As you just showed on the board recently, the Dow Jones closing the day down 1.1 percent. The S&P 500, largely seen as a kind of a broader base index measure of how stocks are doing in the United States, down about eight tenths of a percent. It went actually positively just for a hot second. And then in the last few minutes of trading, slipping down.
They'll see the NASDAQ. That's kind of the tech heavy composite going down by two tenths of a percent. So right across the major indexes. But all of this kind of part of the teetering that we've seen among investors with regards to those tariff headlines.
There was a brief moment in time where after we got the announcement from Premier Ford in tandem with the Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announcing that there would be a pairing back and a suspension of that 25 percent surcharge from Ontario on energy and electricity for the states of Michigan, Minnesota, as well as New York. We did start to see the markets kind of recover from that. But again, in the last few minutes of trading, it seemed like some of those jitters came back again to that market red close. But again, we'll have to see this is extending that streak of down days for Wall Street that is still very concerned about the uncertainty out of the tariff policy.
And Brian, the United States imports about $16 billion in steel and aluminum from Canada. Talk to us a little bit about how devastating it would be to have these tariffs be put in place. Yeah, well, I mean, it's so important just a baseline here and remember that Canada is our biggest source of steel and aluminum. So as you mentioned, yes, billions of dollars coming in from Canada when it comes to steel.
But on the aluminum side, I mean, the numbers are super jarring. We imported over eight times as much by metric tons from Canada in terms of aluminum than our next biggest trading partner, which was the United Arab Emirates in 2023. So, again, this is a really, really big deal when you talk about levying not just a 25 percent tariff, as was originally proposed and it was going to kick in tomorrow, but then raising that to 50 percent, as the president suggested earlier this morning. Again, that was not written.
It remains to be seen whether or not there will be negotiations perhaps take that tariff number down. But again, the intention of the White House was to levy those aluminum and steel import tariffs as soon as tomorrow. And if that does happen to whatever degree, Brian, where would Americans feel the pain from all this if these tariffs do go into effect? Yeah, well, these are raw materials that go into many things that we buy in terms of large appliances.
And I want to point out that this is about importing raw materials. So even if you manufacture something here in the United States domestically, this could still raise costs dramatically. Consider it, for example, you're trying to build a washing machine. And even if it's manufactured in Indiana, if you use steel or aluminum coming in from Canada, well, that could get 25 to 50 percent as being proposed more expensive to do so.
Do those costs get passed on to the consumer? A lot of large businesses have suggested, yes, that would be the case. So, again, if you're talking about also the automotive industry, even though there isn't automotive car out from the U.S. and CA, as outlined last week, that could also get more expensive as well just because of the cost of bringing in those raw materials.
All right, Brian Chung at the New York Stock Exchange for us today. Brian, thank you. Von, I'll turn to you here in Washington. President Trump, we know, is going to speak at the business roundtable next hour.
Any word at this point on what he's going to say, given all we're hearing about the tariffs and his vow for new tariffs? Right. The timing of this is quite something. This is their quarterly meeting and the business roundtable is perhaps the most influential business lobbying group in the country.
It's comprised of more than 200 top corporate CEOs. I'm told by an official that they expect about half of those officials actually be in person. This is a private behind closed door meeting with the president of the United States. Dating back to Ronald Reagan, every sitting president has met with this group.
But this is coming at a time in which we have heard from the business roundtable leaders just last week, a call to have these sweeping tariffs implemented by the Trump administration removed swiftly. These are business leaders whose corporations have not only the business relations, but also trading partners that they so heavily rely on outside of the United States. And so we can expect the CEOs to address not only this economic or I should say stock market downturn over the course of these last few weeks, but also the impact that tariffs have had on their goods and their businesses. And so this is going to be a notable meeting.
We're talking about top CEOs from Tim Cook to Jamie Dimon to Mary Barra, the CEO of GM to the CEO of Chevron. This is going to be for the president, an opportunity to hear directly from the CEOs at a time in which the stock market clearly represents concern of investors and companies here going forward with these sweeping economic decisions that are being implemented by this White House. And as we look at the implementation, Vaughn, of the president's tariffs last Tuesday and then the offer of really sweeping exemptions the next two days, we heard that. Is there any talk at this point about additional carve outs on these new tariffs that are supposed to come down tomorrow?
We have actually heard from numerous senators, lawmakers that have called for specific exemptions to be included as part of these trade policies and tariffs that are being implemented. But so far, we have seen the Trump administration be averse to offering exemptions on particular goods. We, of course, here just in the last hour or so, saw the Commerce Secretary suggest that premier of Ontario Doug Ford is not going to put forward that 25 percent extra cost on electricity coming into the United States. But it's not clear whether that is going to stop the steel and aluminum tariff here in the United States up to 50 percent from being implemented.
Of course, the dairy and lumber tariffs are still anticipated to go forward. There was a note that came from Commerce Secretary Lutnick that suggested that negotiations over the future of the USMCA trade agreement would take place on Thursday here in the U.S. But to what extent does that include exemptions currently? I think that there's a lot of outstanding questions that we have, frankly, a few answers on right now.
All right, we're gonna try to get some of those answers. Now, Vaughn Hilliard for us here in Washington. Let's turn to Canada. Joining me now is Doug Ford.
He is the premier of Ontario. Mr. Premier, we appreciate you again making time for us here on Meet the Press. Now, obviously, Von just noted it and we've been reporting the last several minutes here that you announced that you're lifting that 25 percent surcharge on electricity exports after talking with the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick.
Take us inside that conversation, if you will, just a little bit. What assurances did you get from Washington before you made this decision to hold off on these surcharges? Well, first of all, Aaron, thank you so much for having me on. I started the interview with saying how much we love Americans and I know Americans love Canadians.
We have to stop the bleeding. Secretary Lutnick reached out to me, put an olive branch out to sit down and have a discussion to move the USMCA deal forward and not wait till April 2nd. We have to make sure we protect a 30-day ceasefire with Russia, and the U.S. will immediately resume military assistance and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
In a joint statement, both the U.S. and Ukraine said the ceasefire is also subject to Russia's approval. Here is Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking after that meeting. We'll take this offer now to the Russians, and we hope that they'll say yes, that they'll say yes to peace.
The ball is now in their court. But again, the President's objective here is, number one, above everything else, he wants the war to end. And I think today Ukraine has taken a concrete step in that regard. We hope the Russians will reciprocate.
And moments ago, President Trump also confirmed the agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine. That's a total ceasefire. Ukraine has agreed to it, and hopefully Russia will agree to it.
We're going to meet with them later on today and tomorrow, and hopefully we'll be able to work out a deal. But I think the ceasefire is very important. NBC News Chief International Correspondent Keir Simmons is joining us now from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where that meeting between the U.S. and Ukraine just wrapped up.
Keir, walk us through this major announcement. Well, it was a surprise. It's very short, the statement that was released. The two headlines, I guess, are Ukraine signing up for that 30-day ceasefire if Russia agrees to it, and then the fact that the U.S.
has put back in place sharing intelligence information and security support. What isn't in the statement tonight are details of exactly what kind of security Ukraine might get. You remember that disaster in the Oval Office between President Trump and President Zelensky, which was fuelled by Ukraine and President Zelensky's insistence that Ukraine needed security guarantees. The statement tonight does talk about guaranteeing Ukrainian prosperity and security, but it doesn't say how.
And this is one of the reasons why the Ukrainians have not been enthusiastic about a quick ceasefire with very little else agreed, because Ukraine is worried that it would be left vulnerable. And then there are the Russians, and as you mentioned, President Trump tonight saying that they are going to now turn to the Russians. Secretary of State Rubio saying, OK, now the spotlight is on the Russians. But the Russians have been successful, relatively speaking, in the war in recent months, including managing to inch their way into the territory that was taken by the Ukrainians in the Russian region of Kursk.
Now the Russians may think that if they keep fighting, they can get that territory back. So why would they stop? And everything depends not just on the Russians, really, but also on the Trump administration's ability to negotiate with Moscow, to drive a hard bargain, to not concede too much with President Putin. President Trump's envoy, Steve Whitkoff, who met with President Putin last month for three and a half hours, according to his account, is going to go back to Moscow this week to talk to the Russians again.
We'll see. Yeah, I have to ask you, though, you talk about the fact that this announcement was a bit surprising. I think there weren't expectations that there would be big deliverables from this particular meeting. I would imagine that this would also be a surprise to the Russians.
Any indication at this point, I know it's early, about how the Kremlin is viewing this deal and whether it would agree to sit down and actually talk through it, whether it would agree to a potential 30-day ceasefire? Yeah, I mean, we haven't heard from the Russians yet. That's not surprising. They do tend to take their time in these situations.
They certainly have been signposting that they're not in a hurry for a ceasefire or for a meeting, say, for example, between President Trump and President Putin. The Kremlin spokesman earlier today talked about people with rose-coloured glasses about the new relationship between Russia and the U.S. and saying Russia will look after its own security interests. So you can imagine that the Russians will want to talk, but they will also want to hold a line about the kinds of things that they expect.
One of them, for example, and it's not in the statement at all, is what happens to the territory? How much territory remains under Russia's control? All right, Keir Simmons for us in Saudi Arabia. Late night there.
Keir, we appreciate you. Thanks. Now coming up, does Speaker Johnson have the votes to avert a government shutdown? We'll head to Capitol Hill where the House is set to vote any minute now on a stopgap funding bill.
Plus, a judge weighs in on the arrest of a Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist blocking the Trump administration from deporting him. You're watching Meet the Press Now. We are keeping a close eye on Capitol Hill where any minute now lawmakers are expected to vote on Speaker Mike Johnson's short-term government funding bill. This is an effort to avoid a government shutdown.
The speaker is trying to navigate a very narrow House majority with GOP Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky already in the no column. Now earlier today, Johnson expressed confidence that he has the votes while also putting the blame of a potential government shutdown squarely on Democrats. If congressional Democrats refuse to support this clean CR, they will be responsible for every troop who misses a paycheck, for every flight delay from reduced staff in a TSA, for every negative consequence that comes from shutting down the government. We'll have the votes.
We're going to pass the CR. We can do it on our own. But what I'm saying is Democrats ought to do the responsible thing, follow their own advice in every previous scenario, and keep the government open. It's their choice.
Meanwhile, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries voiced his clear opposition to the stopgap funding bill and signaled most of his caucus will vote no. We are not just a no, we are a hard no across the Democratic caucus. And you hold, do you hold everybody? Well, those conversations are ongoing, but the overwhelming majority of House Democrats are already a publicly declared no.
And we'll see where we land when we get to the floor later on this afternoon. All right, let's bring in NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil Kapoor at the Capitol for us. Sahil, set the stage here. Where are we now?
How many Republicans can the speaker lose in this fight here? Which members are you watching? Hey, Aaron, well, this vote is expected to come up in the House in the next hour. They got a couple of votes before that.
But this is going to be the big one. And we are expecting a very, very close vote. The map of the House is that Republicans can only afford one defection if everyone is in attendance. Now, it's possible that one Democrat, in particular Raul Grijalva, won't be in attendance, which would enhance their margin of defection to two.
But they're not banking on that in case, you know, he ends up showing up. These things have happened in the past. So the bottom line is they've lost Congressman Tom Massey. They need to hold everyone else in this stable.
They passed the rule a few hours ago by the slimmest of margins. And there are several Republicans who voted for that rule to bring up the bill. That's generally a party line effort. But some of those Republicans who voted for the rule are undecided on the bill itself.
That includes conservatives like Tim Burchett, who I spoke to, a Republican from Tennessee, walking off the floor. He told me that he's not happy that there's a boost to military funding in this bill. He's a very fiscally conservative Republican. So he's undecided.
There are several others who are undecided, including some center right members who are somewhat in the more moderate end of the Republican conference, who say they have not decided how they're going to vote. But leadership is certainly counting on them. It's going to be a very close vote. If it does pass, Aaron, it goes to the Senate where it will take 60 votes, meaning at least eight Democrats with Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is a hard no.
Still an open question whether it can make it to President Trump's desk this week. Well, let me ask you a couple of things here. I wonder if you have any idea about what may be happening behind the scenes here, what sort of arm twisting there may be happening from GOP leadership and from the White House. Yeah, Aaron, the most important place to look here is President Trump's social media feed.
He has been tweeting up a storm against Tom Massey, constantly trashing him on Truth Social, threatening a primary challenge for him, issuing all sorts of, you know, all sorts of critical and nasty words at Tom Massey for being a solidly opposed to this bill. Trump wants this done and dusted. He wants to sign it into law so they can move on to his separate party line effort where he wants to cut taxes by trillions of dollars, boost military funding. That's the most important place to look because he's threatening a primary challenge to Massey.
A number of other Republicans can look at that and wonder, would they also be getting a primary challenge if they end up bucking Trump. Beyond that, there are calls happening. The White House, Trump's aides are reaching out to Republican members of Congress. There's a behind the scenes effort and there's also a public pressure campaign that they hope will be enough to get this over the line.
So, Sahil, is there a plan B if the speaker can't get this CR over the line? There is no plan B right now. And the reality is that plan B would almost certainly require Republicans having to sit down and negotiate with Democrats. And frankly, that's one of the reasons that most of them are willing to stick with the party line here, even if they're unhappy with this bill.
Some of them I talked to, including Ralph Norman of, you know, the Republican from South Carolina, very fiscally conservative. He said he's supporting this Let's just take a step back. It's more context and clarity from the reporters you trust. Download the NBC News app now and subscribe for more.
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Visit NBCNews.com slash Xfinity for full offer terms and details. And welcome back. Today, we are launching America Block by Block. It's an ongoing look at the coalitions reshaping politics in this country.
NBC's Steve Kornacki is going to explore how communities all over America are realigning, whether these shifts will become permanent, and what it all means for politics. And we're kicking it off today with a look at Battleground, Wisconsin. NBC News national and political correspondent Steve Kornacki joining us now from the Big Board. So, Steve, Wisconsin was one of the key battleground states, we know, in the 2024 election.
It's about to be back in the national spotlight with an upcoming Supreme Court election there. Walk us through what's happening and what we're learning, as voters head to the polls there in a few weeks. Yeah, one of the things we're going to be looking for in that state Supreme Court race is what did change? Did anything change from 2024 when Donald Trump very narrowly carried Wisconsin?
Wisconsin was the narrowest of all the battleground states in 2024. And while it was a flip for Trump, he lost it in 20, he won it in 24. It's a very small shift when you look at it. Trump had lost this state.
This was a Democratic state you could see here by six tenths of a point in 2020. Six tenths of a point. And Trump won it by nine tenths of a point. So the swing in this state was only one and a half points.
A lot of Wisconsin didn't really budge, but some places in Wisconsin did. And those are the places to look closely at in this election coming up in a few weeks. Let's take you through a couple of them. First here, you talk about Wisconsin.
You probably know about the WOW counties. Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington. These are the big suburban counties right outside of Milwaukee, which would be right there. Now, the WOW counties are all still Republican counties.
Trump did carry them by double-digit margins last year. But the Republican margins have been diminishing since Donald Trump came along the scene pretty dramatically. In fact, these three counties were three of the only four in Wisconsin that actually moved away from Republicans last November. And they all have something in common.
Demographically, it's what we talk about. Where are the Democrats nationally have been doing better and better. They've been doing better. Democrats have in suburbs with large populations of white voters with college degrees, higher incomes, too, that interacts there.
Those are the voters nationally and in these WOW counties that have been moving more and more away from the Republicans. In fact, if you zoomed in on Ozaukee County, we took a look at this one. And you found the precinct in Ozaukee that moved the most dramatically toward the Democrats in 2024. There's a precinct that moved 15 points toward the Democrats last November.
That precinct is about 90 percent white. About 92 percent of the adults in that precinct have at least a four-year degree. One third of the adults in that precinct have not just a four-year degree, but a graduate degree. And the average income in that precinct is $212,000.
Wealthy, educated white. That was the biggest Democratic gain in Ozaukee. Again, that's the Democratic growth. Take a look here.
The Driftless region. What the heck is the Driftless region? Well, this is where the biggest source of Republican growth is in Wisconsin, along the Mississippi River here and a little bit interior over there. This is a unique culturally and topographical area in Wisconsin.
But the key here is this area was blue, very blue, very recently. Barack Obama won almost all of these counties in 2012, most of them by double digits. And now this is just basically a sea of red in here. And in 2024, Trump was making gains here, you know, four or five, six points, which is a lot when you compare it to how little the state moved as a whole.
So traditionally, modern times, Democratic big movement towards Trump here. And the question is, in this race coming up April 1st in longer term, without Trump on the ballot, does that momentum continue for Republicans or can Democrats win back some of their traditional advantage here? Again, right through Obama, they still had that advantage. And then the wild card here in Wisconsin.
And again, you know the story nationally. Latino voters moving towards Trump away from Democrats last year. We saw it in Wisconsin. Wisconsin does not have a large Latino population, but where there is a significant one is these precincts right here.
These are inside the city of Milwaukee. You see that sort of jigsaw like shape. This is inside Milwaukee, which is part of Milwaukee County. Here's how you take a look at this.
Milwaukee County itself, the city of Milwaukee and the suburbs, it moved one point towards the Republicans, one point towards Trump last November. But these precincts, which cumulatively are three quarters Hispanic, they moved 10 points towards Trump and the Republicans. So again, question there as we see nationally, is it a Trump specific phenomenon or is that something Republicans can build on here? These are not huge movements, but in the context of a state that barely moves, they're very significant.
All right, Steve Kornacki for us today. Steve, thank you. Got it. Well, we've been talking about it.
House lawmakers set to vote on Speaker Johnson's short-term government funding bill this afternoon. President Trump, we know, has been urging Republicans who are navigating an extremely narrow majority in the House to support this bill, even threatening to primary Congressman Massey of Kentucky, who so far is the only Republican who is committed to voting against the bill. Joining me now is Republican Representative from Tennessee, Tim Burchett, who has yet to say how he plans to vote on this stopgap bill. Congressman, we appreciate you making some time today.
I know it's a busy day for you. The House is about to take up this CR now. How do you plan to vote? I'll make that call here in just a little bit.
I had a nice long conversation with the president. I spoke with the speaker. I talked to a piece of head system this weekend. You know, my major concern has been this.
Are we going to reduce the size of government? And ultimately, this is the first time in seven years since I've been in Congress that we've actually reduced the size of government and the spending. I wish we could pass a real budget. Nobody seems really fired up about that.
Over 30 years, we haven't passed a real budget. And I'm concerned about the DoD cuts that are going to be able to make those into law or we don't have the guts to do it. Or we're just going to talk about it. So those are a lot of things I'm in heavy conversations with right now.
Well, I was gonna say, I'm assuming that when you're done with us, you're probably going to need to head back to the floor and get ready to make this vote actually happen. Have you not actually decided yet or are you just not willing to share that with us? What's going to be the thing that gets you to where you need to be on how you vote? Oh, thank you for asking.
And ultimately, I pray about these things. I'm a Christian. I'm not a very good one, but I try to pray about all these things. And I'm just trying to figure out if this is what we need to do.
And, you know, one of the things I was concerned about was the cuts in Medicaid and Medicare. And there are none. As a matter of fact, we're following this up with things that will shore it up and actually we'll cut out the waste, abuse and fraud and that would allow for more money for that. And I kind of don't like the fact that some people are using this to scare folks.
And it's wrong. And that was one of my concerns. But of course, my other concern is the spending at the Pentagon. We just can't seem to get out of our way.
They did not pass the last NDAA, excuse me, the audit for the National Defense Authorization Act. And they haven't passed an audit in eight audits. And they're so dadgum arrogant. They don't even finish the audits.
So, you know, under it doesn't matter who's in the White House. They always seem to spend more money over there. And I'm very anxious. And that was one of the commitments I had from President Trump just an hour or so ago is that we are in fact, DoD is going to look at the Pentagon and they are going to go in there.
And I've got a feeling the waste, abuse and fraud, it will be very extensive. And some people will be heavily embarrassed. Well, you mentioned the fact that you spoke with the president about this. Can you characterize your conversation with him a bit more?
Did you get the sense that there is pressure on the Republican conference to really fall in line here? Well, I think the president realizes that, you know, that in our conversations, he never pressures me. He never threatens, you know, a primary. He never even curses at me.
We just have. And one thing about Trump that I think people would Start with you here. And we've been talking about these tariffs, obviously, today, and the idea that we were going to have this 25% tariff tomorrow on aluminum and steel from Canada. It was then going to be 50% because of the electricity actions that Ontario had taken.
Now Ontario says they're not going to do that. They're going to hold off on the on the surcharges there. And so the tariffs stay at 25% back and forth. A lot of back and forth here.
How far is is President Trump willing to go going to go with this? Is there any idea what the endgame is here? I think the endgame, I mean, is for him just to kind of get what he wants. We've seen this happen quite a bit is where he'll threaten tariffs on a country.
And then that same day, he'll pull back whether it be because the country threatened tariffs on us or they kind of gave him what he wants. So I think there is the endgame really is try to just negotiate and use this as a negotiating tactic. But also, it scares a lot of stock markets. What we're seeing is that even though he is trying to use a negotiating tactic, it still scares some people as an investor for sure.
And I think that's an important point, Stephen, the fact that the markets have been shaken by the uncertainty, by the back and forth on so many of these things. There's been pushback from lawmakers, including some from the president's own party. Maine Senator Susan Collins said this. We'll put it up on the screen.
The Canadian tariffs will definitely have a detrimental impact on the economy of Maine and on border communities in particular. I think it freezes investment until they know exactly what the impact is going to be. So I understand the president's desire to level the playing field, but Canada is just not the problem in Maine. Is that sort of pushback resonating?
Is it going to get through to the president? Yeah, I mean, look, she's speaking out because she's in a border state, but I think she's speaking for a majority of Republicans in Congress at this point. So they don't like these tariffs. They don't want to challenge the president of the United States on this.
They don't like these tariffs. I think part of the problem to Reece's point, Donald Trump doesn't know what he wants. He just wants a win. He wants to celebrate.
He wants to have a ceremony. He doesn't know what he wants. And that's why you see this wild sort of whipsawn back and forth with. I mean, just think about your intro.
Think about the question you asked. It's hard to even summarize what's happening. Now think about if you're running a midsize manufacturing company in the Midwest and these tariffs directly affect what you're doing. How do you plan for that?
You don't have any idea what the tariffs are going to look like by the end of the day, tomorrow, a week from now, two months from now. Businesses require that time to be able to make those plans. That's why the stock market's doing what the stock market's doing. And Maria Teresa, I think sometimes we don't always talk about the little guy that is impacted by this stuff.
We talk big economic policy and foreign policy, but the reality is that when it comes down to dollars and cents, it literally comes to the dollars and cents of people's pockets when you have these sort of fluctuations and uncertainty, not to mention the international impact that other people in other countries are also dealing with. What's your read on this moment? Yeah, I think if you actually look at the headlines today, one of the things that said an indicator was that people are now forecasting that airline travel is going to tail or back because people don't even know if they can plan for the next vacation or even if businesses can actually travel. That's the headline.
But I also think that we're burying the lead when we're talking about why is he fluctuating going back with Canada back and forth? And it was your previous that said it. There is an intention on Project 2025 to privatize a lot of federal lands and in privatizing those federal lands, you actually open it up for individual companies to come in and exploit and extract, whether you're talking about the minerals or you're talking about the potential oils there that are on federal lands. And so he's trying to privatize our forests while at the same time blaming Canada, saying it's Canada's fault because they can't seem to actually come to Jesus and say that they're actually trying to be retaliatory.
We had no beef with Canada. Canada had no beef with us. But again, it's looking at the bigger picture of what is in Project 2025. And that is one of the cornerstones when you look at the Department of Interior.
Reason why you make the argument that some of this is just razzle dazzle distraction from some of these other issues, potentially bigger issues that are happening or will be happening down the line. It's really hard for people to define exactly what the president of the United States wants to do, whether it's in Project 2025, whether it's a pet issue of one of the president's other advisors. You have people who are in his ear and trying to make arguments for him. You also see a shift in the kinds of arguments they're making on behalf of tariffs.
I mean, you have some people like Peter Navarro, probably the most enthusiastic person, perhaps other than the president, about tariffs, saying that, you know, this is going to fundamentally reorient the way the federal government collects taxes, brings in revenue. And you have others, Scott Bessen at Treasury, who say, you know, look, targeted tariffs are OK. We'd like to use these as leverage to get other countries to allow us to do the things that we want to do to improve our overall trade picture. Those are two very different messages.
And he's got different people making those arguments in his ear. And I don't think he knows which one. I think he's for all of it. All right.
Reese now, Stephen, sorry. I do want to talk about the continuing resolution that's going to be voted on, we think, here in the next couple of minutes. And it seems like Republicans are getting in line behind the GOP leadership there. How much pressure did it take to get to this point for Republicans?
I've been reporting quite a bit on this. It was really Trump that did it. I mean, I talked to about a lot of members, but mostly for my story I talked about 12, where I asked them, like, what got you over the line? Was it Johnson?
Was it the whip meetings? Was it kind of community funding projects? No, it's Trump. But Trump and his team called.
I mean, like Birch said, he got on the phone with Hextar. Eric Rosson got on the phone with Russ Vaught. And then other members were just like Trump called them personally. Susan Wiles was calling people.
And so it was really the Trump and his team that called and got these people over the line, less so Johnson. So you're really seeing kind of this like grit that Trump has on the House Republican conference right now where he can kind of get them to do what he wants. We saw this with the budget resolution. We saw this with getting Mike Johnson to be speaker.
And so you're really trying to kind of seeing how much kind of effect and force that Trump has. It did take some arm twisting, but at the end of the day, I mean, we all see the votes also happened. We don't really know what's going to go on. But as it shaped out, it kind of looks like Republicans are falling in line and even Republicans that have never voted for a continuing resolution are usually opposed to them are falling in line.
Why? Because Donald Trump's in office and that's and he's doing his thing with them. And then you have Democrats on the Hill who are looking at this. And are Democrats losing their leverage with this with this resolution?
If it gets to the House, it gets into the Senate and Democrats do what? Well, I think one of the biggest challenges is that when they're yes, they're cutting there, they're cutting all of the a lot of discretionary spending, but they're also not exactly telling you where the extra money that they're not cutting is going for. And that's what the Democrats are saying. It's like, have you created basically a slush fund for for Doge, for Trump to basically identify projects?
But I would take a step back and you have to recognize that what Trump has learned from his last administration is that he now understands the importance of retail politics. Before, he wouldn't make those calls. He had other people make them. But now he's like, no, no, I have learned retail politics.
And I think that's what a lot of the Democrats don't realize that the efficacy of this town is literally personal relationships. And that's where he's spending his time. And he does that well. All right, we will leave it there.
We've ran out of time. I apologize. We have lots going on today. Appreciate you all being here.
Reese, Stephen, thank you so much. We are back tomorrow with more meet the press now. But the news continues with Hallie Jackson right now. Hi, everyone, I'm Dylan Dreyer, co-host of the third hour of Today and mom to three wild boys.
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