Meet the Press NOW — March 18

If it's Tuesday, a clash escalates between the president and the courts. Chief Justice John Roberts delivers a rare rebuke to the president's calls for impeaching a federal judge who pushed against the White House's use of sweeping wartime authorities. Plus, new details on the president's high-stakes call with Vladimir Putin. The leaders emerge from a lengthy conversation, saying they've reached an agreement to Paul's attacks on key infrastructure in Ukraine.

And top White House officials back Israel's decision to strike Gaza, killing hundreds and shattering the ceasefire deal with Hamas, that as the region braces for more violence in the days ahead. And welcome to meet the press now, I'm Aaron Gilchrist. We begin with breaking news today and the Trump administration's escalating battle with the courts. The clash between the executive and judicial branches now involving the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

This morning, President Trump ripped into a federal judge and called for his impeachment after a tense hearing yesterday over the White House's decision to deport alleged gang members under a wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act, as to strike the judge's order to halt the flights. Then, in apparent response to the president's comments and other calls from Trump allies to impeach judges who resisted his agenda, the Supreme Court issued this statement from Chief Justice John Roberts, quote, for more than two centuries that has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose. Now, Roberts' review comes as the administration fights the courts over the limits of executive authority.

This one federal judge, again, thinks he can control foreign policy for the entire country, and he cannot. We're not stopping. I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the left thinks.

We're coming. The district court has no ability to, in any way, restrain the president's authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, or they believe to conduct the foreign affairs of the United States. Now, the White House rejected the judge's ruling and the administration initially refused to give the judge more information about his actions, citing national security. But then, the administration seemingly softened its position slightly, handing over additional information to the judge today.

The judge, however, was not fully satisfied with their responses and wants even more information. During the now, NBC News, a senior White House correspondent, Kelly O'Donnell, Supreme Court reporter Lawrence Hurley, and senior Homeland Security correspondent, Julia Ainsley. Kelly will start with you near the White House now. Are we expecting a response from the president to the Chief Justice's comments today?

We don't have specific guidance from the White House about where, when, or how the president would respond, but simply knowing President Trump and his propensity to comment on events, especially those that directly affect him, one would imagine he would have something to say. The fact that he has not done so already, maybe a reflection of the very busy day he has had dealing with, Putin call, and other matters. But this president is very knowledgeable about some of the workings of the legal system as a businessman, and even as a political figure, he often seeks the help of the courts for remedies where he files suits against various parties, and he's done that throughout his working life. And at the same time, also very critical of judges and the cases where he has been a defendant, or where his policies are being challenged.

And, of course, there are three co-equal branches of government in our system. The legislature, which is led by Republicans now and is largely supportive of President Trump, there's the executive, and many presidents have an expansive view of what executive power should be. And then there are the courts, and there are specific ways that the courts are a check on the president's power. And a big issue here is, was the use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act appropriate for this set of facts.

Not a question about whether those who have been convicted of crimes, who have been violent gang members, whether they can be deported, there are ways in which they can. The question is, is this the proper use of a legal authority? And that's part of what the court wants more answers about, Aaron? Kelly, I do want to ask you about this moment, though.

I know that you've covered the court. You've covered the White House in Congress for that matter in your career in the city. How unusual is this sort of back and forth between a president and the judicial branch that we're seeing? It's incredibly striking in both directions.

We have never really seen a president who is so willing to criticize sitting judges, both at the state and federal level, as we have with President Trump. And John Roberts makes very few public statements. The court typically speaks through its opinions. Lawrence, our colleague here, is an expert on that.

So it is notable. At the same time, let's look at it in the larger context. On social media and certainly in the mega universe, there are many calls for impeaching judges who do not side with the president's view on his policies or actions that his administration is taking. There are real world concerns about the safety of judges.

And we know that that's also the environment we're living in. The chief justice is reminding the public with the authority of his co-equal branch of government that there are ways to remedy when a judge acts outside of the law. And there are ways to use impeachment, most typically, and it's rare, if there were questions of inappropriate conduct on the part of a judge, not a legal opinion. But if there were a case of committing a violation, a breach of law, a bribe, those kinds of things, that's where impeachment comes into play.

Aaron? Well, Kelly said you mentioned Lawrence early. Let me bring him in here. Lawrence, what is your understanding of what prompted this statement, this rare statement from the chief justice?

Yeah, I mean, as Kelly mentioned, it's very rare for the chief justice to make this type of public comment. In fact, one of the last times he did it was in 2018 when another time when Trump was attacking judges because he didn't like the way they were ruling. And this, you know, he picks his bubbles, right? He's a person who cares about the institution of the Supreme Court and the role of judges in the system that we have and the integrity of that system.

So the times when he has spoken out is usually in defense of that and, of course, in response to questions from the media, from people like us. So in this case, he decided to bite and he put out this statement and he's clearly, this is an issue that, you know, he feels it's the serious one that he needs to speak out on. Well, Julia, let me bring you in here. Obviously, we're talking about this Alien Enemies Act and the President's authority to use this particular piece of legislation.

What do we know about where things stand with the filings that have been happening over the last couple of days and figure out today around this issue? So lots of back and forth, but it's really just over the issue right now, which is whether or not the Trump administration openly defied that emergency court order that came down from Judge Boseburg, the judge that, of course, Trump has been attacking the left-wing lunatic, whether or not they defied his order on Saturday night. And yesterday in court, we saw the Justice Department really say that they weren't going to give any information. What Judge Boseburg wants to know is whether or not there were planes that left or should have been turned around after his order and that those deportations would have been in defiance.

We did get some answers today, though, and they said that the last plane, the one that they say left after his order, didn't carry anyone who was part of the Alien Enemies Act. In other words, these were immigrants who'd already been through due process and been ordered removed. So we can have another conversation about whether or not they can be removed in El Salvador to the cyber, you know, supermax prison, but it wasn't under the Alien Enemies Act, which is what is in question. But Judge Boseburg says he wants more information.

He wants to know if any of those planes carrying the ones who didn't have due process were in the air at the time he put out that order. Because when he spoke from the bench, he said, turn the planes around and bring them back, which is a whole other set of questions. But you bring up the point I was going to make. There are more questions he wants answered today, and I'm curious if you have any indication about why the judge wants this information at this point, these planes and these people are already gone?

Well, because he still wants to know if they defied that court order. I mean, his temporary restraining order on the Alien Enemies Act stays. It's been appealed up to the circuit so they could put a stay on his order. But he wants the Justice Department to say, did you defy my order?

Because from the bench, Orley, he said, you need to turn these planes around. He said he did a more succinct written version where he didn't ask them to turn the planes around, merely don't deport these people. But he's saying what he said verbally matters. The Justice Department yesterday said, no, a written order always supersedes verbal.

So we're getting into some really nitty gritty, but at the heart of it, it's whether or not the Trump administration said, sure, we have that order, but we're going to deport these people anyway. Well, Kelly O'Donnell, let me turn back to you then and ask what we're hearing from the White House today on its overall deportation efforts. Well, certainly the president wants an aggressive move and they believe that the vote in November and the support the president continues to enjoy reflected in polling and so forth supports the president's view to have mass deportations. The real questions that are the heart of what we're discussing here about are the laws being specifically followed, not a question in the big sweeping sense of can the president remove people who are here without legal documentation and those that have committed crimes and so forth.

There are mechanisms for that. But is he using the right ones? And as Julia referenced, due process, this Alien Enemies Act from 1798 was enacted at a time when Congress could not easily get back to Washington to declare war. And so it gave the president the urgent power to be able to remove or take action against foreign enemies at that time.

It's still in effect today, but we live in a very different world and without due process, which is a chance for anyone who's accused to be able to challenge the charges against them for us in terms of the media and the public being able to know who exactly was on this list? What were they accused of? So it's about a question of due process because the use of that law is, it gives the power to the president to make these deportations without due process. Now within those roughly 300 people, as Julia knows well, there are different levels of where they have already been adjudicated or not, but we just don't know exactly who was there.

So if they can use that sort of power, that raises questions about if the president is going beyond what the law allows, and that's why this is critical to find out is he using the right authorities to exercise and execute his policy objectives. And Lawrence, one of the points that Kelly makes here, there are so many cases and restraining orders and appeals that are out there right now. How likely is the Supreme Court to eventually take up a case and have to decide on presidential authority and this concept of co-equal government? I think what we're going to see actually is multi-ball Supreme Court cases that are going to be going on not just this year, but next year and maybe even after Trump has left office because there's lots of novel legal issues that have been raised by this new administration and its very aggressive rollout of its policies.

And the Supreme Court takes up these issues of law on specific issues, like for example, this Alien Enemies Act, the issue of whether Trump can even invoke it when there's no actual declared war, just because he issues an executive order saying that there's an invasion at the southern border. That's the kind of issue that Supreme Court could take up, the same as the doge cuts and these other issues. The Trump administration likes to talk about this like it's a single issue, which is that the courts are blocking the president from doing what he wants to do under his article Two Powers Under the Constitution. But really, that's not the type of issue that Supreme Court takes up, it's like one issue.

It's a whole series of different issues, and there's certain cases where Congress has a role to play, certain cases where the courts have a role to play, and that's the type of thing the Supreme Court gets to decide. All right, we will leave it there for now. Lawrence, Julia, Kelly, thank you all. And joining me now is NBC News Legal Analyst and former U.S.

Attorney Carol Lamb. Carol, so much to talk about here. This fight between the Trump administration and the courts we know is playing out in multiple ways at this point. As you've been looking at some of this, what are the ramifications of this kind of back and forth, this kind of fight?

Well, this must be an incredibly frustrating aspect for the Trump administration because we know what President Trump would like to do if he likes to fire people, and federal judges can't be fired. They have life tenure. So this is why, this is why President Trump came out and said, well, then we should impeach this judge, Judge Hoseberg, and why Justice Robert came out and said, no, we don't impeach judges because you disagree with your rulings, you appeal their rulings, that is the whole purpose of the fellow review. So that's the frustration we're seeing.

And we're seeing frustration on the administration side that they had this whole theatrical show planned where they were going to spare these people off in airplanes to El Salvador. And the court stepped in and tried to block it saying, you know, we want time to figure out whether this is an appropriate means for deporting people, appropriate reasons, and whether due process has been satisfied here. And that is what it calls all the litigation, all the back and forth. As we pointed out, Chief Justice Roberts does not chime in very often on matters like this and on political issues as they're going back and forth.

Are you surprised that Chief Justice Roberts released a statement as pointed as the one that he released it in? I'm not terribly surprised, Aaron, because he has done it before, as folks have pointed out, but also because, you know, he didn't sort of a generalized fashion, right? He said, I just want to remind everybody, we don't impeach. We do appellate review.

That's about, you know, that's a mild form of saying, like, we've gone way off the scale here. I mean, this is not, this is nothing about this. It's normal. It is not normal for the president of the United States to be attacking a federal judge who is just trying to do his job.

Right. We didn't get a big philosophical statement. It was just a couple of sentences, and this is the way it normally works here. On the specifics of the Alien Enemies Act, and that particular case, and the DOJ initially sort of stonewalling the judge and saying that it's because national security and foreign relations reasons, is that a reasonable argument to make here national security and foreign relations?

You know, Aaron, that's one of the problems with the Department of Justice's responses in this particular case. And frankly, a lot of the cases that they've been dealing with, because they play word games and they, there's no transparency to what they're doing with any of these immigration cases. And when we did immigration cases here in the Southern District of California, there had to be specificity. You had to say, this person came in illegally on this date, and he had been deported previously, and you know, that's why he is being removed at this time.

Now they're just giving a conclusive statement that the president has deemed this to be an invasion or this person's presence to be aligned with a foreign hospital government. There's no specificity, and therefore, there's no ability for the other party or the judge or the public to review and decide whether there's any teeth to this. And these conclusory statements as the only basis for why these people are being deported creates a real problem, because without specificity, you cannot have due process. And I think that's what Judge Rosenberg is very, is trying to get to the none of this.

You know, courts are very specific. They want specific, and all he gets are platitudes back. This particular declaration that was filed today did have some specifics, and I imagine that there are lawyers who are saying, look, I am not going to go into court again and be lectured by the judge about how I'm not authorized to speak on certain matters. I'm a representative of the court.

I'm officer of the court, and I have to be able to represent the United States policy. And I'm just about out of time here. Very quickly, I want to ask, we heard the president's borders are saying that these flights, these deportations, are going to continue. Do you think the Supreme Court will ultimately have to decide on whether the administration gets to invoke the Alien Enemies Act at its own discretion in this manner?

Yeah, it's quite possible because there's one possibility, which is that the District of Columbia, Circuit Court of Appeals, might come out with a ruling that the Supreme Court basically agrees with. And then the Supreme Court might say, we're not going to review that. And then the appellate court decision will stand, but it looks like immigration is such a large part of this administration's mandate that it looks like it probably will in some form end up in the Supreme Court. All right, Caroline, we appreciate your expertise today.

Thank you. Next up, we're learning more about the 90-minute call between President Trump and President Putin today. We'll get a live report from Ukraine, and I'll talk to a former ambassador to Russia about what it could mean for a ceasefire deal. Plus, the DEI Divide, brand new NBC news polling, shows American voters are split on that issue as the Trump administration cracks down on diversity-related programs.

We'll break down the data with Steve Krenakke. You're watching The Press Now. This morning, President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone for at least an hour and a half, as the two leaders try to lay the groundwork for a ceasefire in Ukraine. According to a readout from the White House, the two leaders agreed on first steps, starting with a halt on strikes on energy and infrastructure targets.

The Kremlin says a pause will last for 30 days. It's unclear, though, whether Ukraine has also agreed to these terms. The White House says President Trump and President Putin also discussed areas of cooperation in the Middle East, and reiterated the importance of improving bilateral relations between the U.S. and Russia.

Joining me now is NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Angle in Ukraine for us again tonight. Richard, what's the reaction been in Ukraine today to this call between Trump and Putin? Do we know if Ukraine is on board with what these two presidents agreed to? Ukraine is on board.

Ukraine had already unilaterally accepted a much broader ceasefire proposal a week ago. It's exactly one week since Ukraine, under pressure from President Trump, said that it would unilaterally accept a ceasefire if Vladimir Putin did the same. Vladimir Putin said at the time one week ago that he couldn't accept a full ceasefire unconditionally because Russia was in the midst of an offensive, military offensive. That offensive has continued all week.

And then since this conversation that took place, we only heard a readout of the conversation from both the White House and the Kremlin, President Zelensky has responded saying that he would abide by the terms, these 30-day cessation of hostilities against these limited targets, against energy infrastructure, against infrastructure in general. But the Kremlin also had, according to Putin, according to a Kremlin readout of the call, other conditions as well. So the two sides agreed on the most concrete thing they agreed on was immediately stopping for 30-day attacks on energy infrastructure and infrastructure. But President Putin also said that he wanted during this time period and going forward in talks and talks are supposed to resume in the Middle East soon, presumably in Saudi Arabia.

He wanted that Ukraine would stop its mobilization process, that is not expand its army, that it would continue, that it would no longer receive foreign intelligence, that it would no longer receive foreign military aid, and that it would not use this period to re-mobilize its forces and redeploy forces around the country. Ukraine has not agreed to those other conditions only to this 30-day ceasefire, which President Putin says that he has given orders to his troops to implement. Now, I was with Ukrainian troops when this announcement came out, when this readout was released by both the White House and the Kremlin, and I can tell you a lot of Ukrainian troops were skeptical. They didn't even think that this would open the door for possibly further talks or some sort of relief.

The soldiers said, well, there was too many loopholes for Russia to slip out, that why was Vladimir Putin agreeing only to attacks, to halt attacks on infrastructure, what about attacks on Ukrainian cities, what about attacks on Ukrainian civilians? None of that was mentioned. So some diplomatic progress today, quite a bit of skepticism from the Ukrainians we're speaking to, but it does seem that the process is going to move forward in the Middle East soon. All right, Richard, I go for us in Ukraine tonight.

Richard, thank you. We appreciate it. Now, with me now is Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and NBC News International Affairs Analyst Ambassador.

We appreciate you being here today. Just first want to get your takeaways from this call between President Trump and Putin, this 30-day pause on strikes on energy and infrastructure, is this a positive step forward? Very small little positive step, and already there are reports out of Ukraine that Putin today is attacking energy infrastructure. So if it was a ceasefire, it only lasted a couple of hours, not 30 days.

But the big takeaway here is that the Ukrainians reluctantly, under a lot of pressure from the Trump administration, agreed to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire in Saudi Arabia, and today Putin disagreed to that. I think that's the headline. He had all kinds of conditions that Ukrainians can't meet, that they can't mobilize more soldiers in their country. Think about the infringement on sovereignty that that is.

They cannot import weapons to their country, another infringement on their sovereignty, and they can't receive intelligence from the United States. Those are his preconditions for a ceasefire, let alone a peace agreement. So we're a long ways from a ceasefire, let alone a permanent peace. Well, you mentioned an important point that I wanted to bring up with you, and Richard brought this up too, and I've actually read you the line from the readout from the Kremlin on this call where it says, a complete cessation of foreign military aid and supplies of intelligence information to Kyiv was emphasized as a key condition for preventing the escalation of the conflict and the work towards its resolution through political and diplomatic means.

And you've been reacting to that to some degree. How much does that really stand out to you, and should we read it to the fact that aid and intel for Ukraine were not in the White House readout from this call today? That's a great point. So what you just read there is a key precondition, and what it says is Putin already has received a lot of gifts, a lot of concessions from the Trump administration, no pressure whatsoever, unless it's happening behind closed doors, I see no public evidence of anything that Putin has had to concede.

So instead of agreeing to that, he pushed for more, and now you're seeing it there, right? I'm going to ask for more, and I think the Trump team and President Trump himself have to reconsider their strategy here. Rather than just conceding everything to Russia, maybe they have to begin to negotiate with Russia to trade things. That's diplomacy 101, and the fact that Putin just decided to bomb energy infrastructure, if those reports that I just saw a few minutes ago, turn out to be true, I think is humiliating for President Trump.

I think he's got to understand that Putin understands strength, he only respects strength, and just continuing to try to appease him is not going to lead to a permanent peace deal. You know, when President Zelensky was here in Washington, there were a lot of discussions about US security guarantees for the Ukrainians, right? Can there be a lasting deal without some significant security guarantees? In my opinion, no, and the evidence for that is the previous cease-fires that the Ukrainians and Russians signed before.

In fact, right after he was elected in 2019, President Zelensky sat down with President Putin. You can, everybody can go search it out with Europeans, and it was trumpeted historic. You know, a historic moment, the war is finally over. Three years later, Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine that's been going on ever since.

And so the Ukrainians, I think, are right to worry that it's just signing another cease-fire without real security guarantees to prevent Putin from invading again is not a good deal for the Ukrainian people. So, if we say that the cease-fire agreement has some veracity at this point, right? There are still questions. I'm a lot of people about whether you can trust Vladimir Putin to abide by an agreement.

One guardrails or enforcement mechanisms do you think need to be in place? What should consequences look like? Well, first, he's already violated the cease-fire he just signed. So those that want to trust Putin, I think, are making a major mistake.

And by the way, 80% of the American people, if you look at many different public opinion polls now, do not trust Putin. I hope President Trump stops trusting Putin. And I think to guarantee per piece, we have to talk about security guarantees. We have to talk about peacekeepers in Ukraine.

We have to talk about increased military assistance. If we cut off military assistance, Ukraine will be vulnerable. Of course, the best security guarantee would be membership in NATO. Russia has never attacked a NATO country.

And importantly, NATO countries also have an attack to Russia or the Soviet Union. By the way, Ukraine has. Ukraine invaded Russia. I think that is the best security guarantee, but tragically, President Trump has taken that off the table for now.

Just a few seconds left here. But I do want to ask you about some numbers that we've seen in our latest NBC News poll. This shows that a majority of Americans sympathize with Ukraine. That's compared to Russia when it comes to the current war situation.

But when you break it down by party, there is less support seemingly among Republicans here. Instead, most Republicans poll said that they don't favor either side. Does that partisan divide surprise you in any way? Yes, of course it's shocking.

I mean, this used to be the party of Reagan, the party of freedom, the party of peace through strength. It's just amazing how far that party has gone in just a few short decades. I hope it's not permanent because I think America's long term security interests are through supporting democratic countries like Ukraine and standing up to dictators like Putin. But right now, this is a troubling sign.

Although the overall numbers are very encouraging, I think most Americans understand the difference between good and evil, dictatorship and democracy, and who started this war, they understand it was Vladimir Putin. All right, Ambassador McFaul, we appreciate your expertise today. Thank you, sir. And up next, what is next for Gaza?

After a deadly night of Israeli strikes killed hundreds, effectively ending the ceasefire deal with Hamas. The region graces for a new phase of violence and uncertainty. You're watching Meet the Press Now. Get the best of NBC News with a subscription.

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And welcome back. Israel launched new deadly strikes on Gaza overnight, killing more than 400 Palestinians. According to the Hamas run Palestinian Health Ministry, this effectively ends the nearly two month long ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The White House says Israel consulted them before resuming the strikes on Gaza, which come as the U.S.

launched airstrikes on the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen over the weekend. White House press secretary Caroline Levitt issued a stern warning to Hamas, the Houthis and to Iran last night. The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight. And as President Trump has made it clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel, but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay.

All hell will break loose. And joining me now is NBC News International correspondent Matt Bradley in Tel Aviv for us again tonight. So Matt, I understand that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just spoke. What do you have to say about this latest round of strikes?

Well, one of the things he said was that basically, you know, the negotiations to try to extend the ceasefire have come to an end. He mentioned repeatedly, both in English and in Hebrew, that the Israelis had been negotiating to try to extend the ceasefire, taking on the suggestions of Steve Wickoff, Donald Trump's envoy to the Middle East. He said that Hamas had been the ones who had been playing spoiler to these negotiations. They were the ones who were refusing proposals.

And therefore, it was Hamas who has basically driven both parties back into war. So he put the blame fully on Hamas. And he said that, well, you know, they're trying to release these hostages. He has said that military pressure, and this is something we've been hearing again and again from Benjamin Netanyahu, that only military pressure on the ground will compel Hamas to either release the hostages or defeat them on the battlefield and rest the hostages from their hands.

So again, Netanyahu is going back to this notion after two months of where the guns fell silent to the Gaza Strip, that only military pressure will succeed in freeing these hostages. And that's not what we're hearing on the streets here in Tel Aviv from hostages families and from regular citizens. Well, and that's what I wanted to ask you about, Matt, the reality for these hostages that remain there in Gaza, we know that 59 of the 251 Israeli hostages that were taken by Hamas on October 7 are still in Gaza at this point. Do we have a greater understanding of what this moment really means or could mean for them?

Yeah, and you're important to note, Aaron, of those 59 that you just mentioned, more than half of them are dead. And a lot of them, as we don't really know, but we can assume that at least quite a few of them probably died while they were in captivity, I should say a number of them probably died as well on October 7 as they were being captured or killed and their bodies were dragged back into the Gaza Strip. Again, this is something that we're going to have to discover as the fighting and as the negotiations continue. But I spoke with one man who has endured the rare experience of having been a hostage in the Gaza Strip and was actually freed through a commando unit.

He was freed by combat. Most of the hostages who have been released were released during negotiated deals. And even he told me that he doesn't think that renewing the war in the Gaza Strip will do much for the hostages. He thinks that the only way to get all of these 59 hostages, as you mentioned, most of them dead out of the Gaza Strip is to go back to the negotiating table and make more deals with Hamas.

We've seen that down twice now, back in November of 2023, shortly after the war first broke out and again over the past two months. And a lot of the hostages and their family members are saying we can't risk this again, the situation, the conditions in the Gaza Strip are too dire and too unsafe while we're seeing all of these civilians in the Gaza Strip being killed, the hostages' lives are also at risk. All right. And that Bradley for us and Israel tonight.

Matt, thank you. And after the break, we have a brand new batch of results from our NBC News poll, Steve Kranaki, stating by the big board to break it all down for us. And what it says about the state of US politics? Stay with us for watching the press now.

We ended destructive DEI mandates across the federal government and returned our country to a merit-based system and a common sense system. As you know, the Supreme Court gave us a decision on merit where things in this country can be based on merit now, instead of a lot of different rules, regulations and things that really put our country at a big disadvantage. That was President Trump on the first full day of his new administration talking about his executive order ending government diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. While attacking DEI was at applause line for the Trump campaign on the trail and a rally in cry really for the new administration, our new NBC News poll shows a nation divided on the merits and the future of DEI.

Steve Kranaki is at the big board with a deep dive into our new poll numbers on DEI initiatives. So Steve, what can you tell us? Well, you know, when you look at this poll, there's a lot that jumps out of you, but one thing I think that really stood out when we looked closely at this poll had to do with white voters and their attitudes on cultural issues like you just talked about there and also political issues in general. What we found is, look, the white vote itself, you're looking here at the 2024 election white voters accounted for 71% of all votes that were cast last year in a presidential race.

So it's a giant group, but when you break the group down a few layers, two very different universes, political and cultural universes of white voters emerge. This is when you break it down by education, do you have a college degree or not in gender? And let me show you what I mean here. Take one of the questions from our poll.

This is a basic one. What's your opinion of Donald Trump? Is it positive or is it negative? Now, among all white voters, it's 52% positive, 45% negative.

He's mildly popular. Trump is among all white voters, that big group is 71%, but break this down by gender and education. White men who do not have at least a four-year degree, a bachelor's degree, some blue-collar white men generally speaking here, 69% positive for Trump, 28% negative by a 41-point margin. Trump is popular with this group.

Now take a look at the other end of this spectrum. We're talking about white women who do have at least a bachelor's degree. This is a more economically upscale demographic here. And look at this, it's night and day, 29% positive, 67% negative, Trump is 38 points underwater.

What that means is between these two groups of white voters, and these are each a very big chunk of the electorate. That difference there. It's a 79-point gap between how these two groups see Trump, and it's not just Trump. Take a look at this from our poll.

Again, looking at these two groups, I just have a variety of names and topics and groups, your opinion of JD Vance, night and day, Elon Musk, DEI, we asked about it as you just talked about there, Doge, the Democrats, the Republicans, the Ukrainian president, again, the gap here from the high fifties all the way up to nearly 80 points, just completely starkly opposite political universes that these two groups inhabit. And when you go in there deeper here, and we talk about white men with a degree, white women with a degree, there are two other groups obviously, and you see them here. Those are white men with a college degree, white women without one, but what you see is those two groups are much closer to the median. So you see what an outlier these other two are, and you also see this.

White women with at least a college degree. The only group of white voters that really kind of is on the left politically, aligned with progressive causes, democratic politics, give you an example here, it's that DEI question right here that we asked about in our poll. We had two big statements. We read to voters.

Basically, do you want to continue DEI programs, or do you think they should be ended? And again, look at this divide here. White men, no degree, end it. White men with a degree, end it, they say.

White women, no degree, end it, they say, by double digits. And then white women with a college degree, completely different by a nearly 40-point margin, they say to continue DEI. So this is one of us, not the only, but this is one of the areas here, sort of a cultural hot button where you can see it's that group of white voters in particular who are aligned on the progressive side, who are aligned politically, we see with the Democrats, and who are important in pushing the Democratic Party. We've seen the Democratic Party move left on cultural issues.

This is a big reason why right here, just as we've seen the Republican Party go more blue-collar in its messaging. This is a big reason why. All right. Steve, we appreciate it.

Thanks for breaking down the numbers for us today. Let's turn out to the countdown to splashdown. We are just about an hour or so away from this big moment, astronauts Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore, really the whole world, they've been waiting for this to happen. Their SpaceX Dragon capsule and dodge from the International Space Station early this morning, and that ended a trip that was originally supposed to be about 10 days.

It turned into nine months in space for these two. They became really household names for a lot of folks after launching to space and a Boeing Starliner capsule. That was back in June. There were issues with the Starliner that led NASA to bring the capsule home with no one aboard.

That forced Williams and Wilmore to stay on the space station for a lot longer than they planned. The 2017 hour journey back to Earth is about to be over, and you can watch the coverage live coverage of the NASA return mission tonight, starting at 530 Eastern. That's right here on NBC News Now. We'll be back with more Meet the Press now.

And welcome back. Senator Artie Leader Chuck Schumer is positioning a rather postponing much of his book tour for what he says are safety reasons, but the New York Democrat is still hitting the airwaves defending his vote last week to advance the Trump-backed Stop Yap spending bill that enraged many in his caucus and even prompted some calls for his ouster. Here's your show earlier today. The thing a leader should do, even when people don't see the danger around the curve, my job was to alert people to it, and I knew it gets them bullets.

What do you say about that? Here's what I say. In your own party, say that's to go. Here's what I say.

I'm the best leader for the Senate. We have a lot of leaders. You know, when you don't have a president that's not one leader of the party, there are lots of them. We have a lot of good people.

But we are, I am the best at keep winning Senate seats. Now, Schumer also appears to have patched things up a bit with fellow Brooklynite House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, who recently dodged questions about his faith in Schumer's ability as leader. But here's what Jeffries said today. Sunday, we had a good conversation about the path forward, particularly as it relates to making sure we all speak with one voice in the effort to stop these Medicaid cuts from ever being enacted into law.

And do you support his leadership of the Senate? Yes. Yes, I do. All right, let's talk to the panel now, joining me here on set, Shelby Talcott, White House correspondent for semaphore, former Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards.

She is also an NBC News political analyst, and Brendan Buck, former adviser to Republican House Speaker John Boehner, and Paul Ryan, he too, is an NBC News political analyst. Shelby, I'll start with you here. We see Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are now back on working terms at least, but is the fight inside the Democratic Party here going to just blow over easily? I don't know, because I think the problem with the Democratic Party right now is that there's no clear leader and no core message, and that's why we're seeing this fight play out.

And so I think that this is, this fight is sort of a smaller example of a bigger problem within the Democratic Party. And I also think it's notable that it came this week when, you know, for the past week and a half, Donald Trump hasn't had the best week, he's been getting a lot of fire on the economy, a lot of fire on tariffs, and this kind of took away from that. And now at least some of the focus is back on Democrats sort of not knowing what to do and not knowing who is going to lead the party going forward. Well, Donna, let me ask you about this in terms of what happens next or how the ball gets moved forward for Democrats.

A lot of people are still obviously up in arms about this decision that Chuck Schumer made and the way that he executed on this. What do you think it takes for the party to heal, to unify around some message, to move forward? Well, first of all, I think there's a lot of trust that needs to be rebuilt from both sides of the Capitol, from the House to the Senate. I mean, there are House Democrats who took a very tough vote only to have that kind of put by the wayside with what leaders Schumer did on Friday, and that is going to require some healing.

But look, the story is not about what's going on with Democrats. A real story is how they're going to come together and fight Donald Trump and Elon Musk. And I think they still haven't found a way to do that yet. And to me, the way to do it is take the story outside of Washington and take it back home, take it back out into the States.

That is really where you're going to have to make a difference when you're in the minority, like Democrats are right now. What's the point of playing around in Washington? That's not where the change is going to come. Let me ask you this.

And we'll put up some numbers from this new NBC News poll. We know that back in 2017, Democrats wanted their representatives in Congress to compromise with Trump. That was part of what we learned then. Now, as you see on the numbers here, they want them to stick to their guns more.

Is there a point at which Democrats just sort of take off the gloves and take off the ties and get down in the gutter with some of the Trump ideas and some of the way that members of Congress on the Republican side maybe have been behaving and getting things done? Is there a change that needs to be a little less? I think about Michelle Obama saying, when they go low, we go high, does that mentality need to go away? And Democrats do something more aggressive?

I don't think it has to be in the gutter. But I mean, I think people out in the country want to see a fight, a real fight. And I think the appearance is that Democrats aren't fighting hard. And when that happens, it's going to be really tough to march to a 2026 and say, and by the way, we want to give you the kings to at least part of the kingdom.

I think Democrats are going to have to figure out a way again that I say that they've got to take this fight outside of Washington, D.C. There's not a single thing that happens in a committee or on the floor, the House or the Senate for Democrats, that they really have any control over. What they do have control over is how they work with groups all across the country in the field in states to bring this fight to the American people. And voters need to see that because if voters perceive that Democrats aren't fighting for them, why in the world would voters say, we'll give it to you?

They're not going to do that. I want to ask you about this op-ed. You had the New York Times this week, and you wrote, it is dangerous territory for members of Congress to try to convince their base or themselves that they have more power than they do. At some point, the bill comes due.

Do you think Democrats were irresponsible in their rhetoric leading up to Friday? What's your thing? I find myself in the weird position of defending Chuck Schumer a little bit. I mean, he was the person who saw reality.

There were two options. After the House passed a bill, we're able to do it without any Democrats voting for it. There were two options. You either go along and pass that or you enter a government shutdown.

There was no other middle ground. And he saw that a government shutdown is always, always a losing proposition, and he voted that for his party. Now, I know that Democrats want to see a fight, and I find this actually a little funny because I've been through a party that wanted to fight a lot for a long time, and we became so dysfunctional because all anybody wanted to do was fight. And when your base is just told that if you just fight harder, you can get something, which is what a lot of Democrats were doing here.

If you just fought harder and you went to a government shutdown, you could have stopped Doge. I was never going to have it. I actually don't think that's true at all. I don't think Democrats were saying, you know, fight for what you believe in.

Not even necessarily believing that it would, you know, go anywhere, but to see the Democrats and that the Senate in particular was on the side of Democratic voters. And what happened here is that there is not a single thing that we knew on Monday that we did not know on Wednesday when Chuck Schumer said, you know, we're in there for the fight to, you know, flipping the script on Thursday, not one single thing that we knew on Monday that we did not know. Chuck Schumer should not have suggested he was going to fight because he knew he couldn't fight. But I guess what the fight that you're talking about would be a government shutdown.

And I think we should acknowledge after having been through two government shutdowns on Republican watch and one that Chuck Schumer did in 2014 that you always lose those. And now what you're saying is Democrats just needed to see the fight that you lose. That's fine. I'm just saying that's what my party did for a long time.

And we're willing to lose. And it just ate us apart. We began eating our own, eating our own leaders and we become so dysfunctional when you actually get in charge. I mean, up until that point, Democrats in the House had been somewhat fractured.

And in fact, what happened on Monday on Tuesday is that they unified and they were together. They lost that vote. They knew that they were going to lose it. But they stayed together to save, you know, one Democrat up in Maine.

But I think that this is, I think the country wants to see that there is a challenge to what's happening here in Washington and they're not seeing it. So let me ask you again about another part of our NBC News poll that found that Democrats had the lowest popularity rating they've had going back to the 1990 Republicans are underwater to in some of this new polling. But is there a conversation about a solution? How do Democrats solve the brand problem that they're seeing?

Are there any ideas that are sort of bubbling up to the top on Democrats? I think there's been a lot of ideas, but I don't think that they've coalesced around at one party. I think that Democrats started to sort of come together at the height of this doge drama. But of course, then the CR came and then they were fractured again.

And I think it all goes back, I will say it again, it all goes back to the fact that there's no clear leader in the Democratic Party. And for that reason, you have a lot of different factions who want different things. You have the progressive groups who are still doubling down on some of the social issues. You have more moderate Democrats who are pushing back on that aspect.

And so the party as a whole, I think, is struggling to find the agreement that Republicans were able to find mostly because like it or not, Donald Trump was so successful in his messaging that the rest of the party fell in line beneath him. I do want to ask you about the Elon Musk of it all since we haven't said that name yet in this conversation. But there was a question in our polling that asked about him as well. And I think it was less than 40% of the people in our poll had positive feelings about Elon Musk.

There are groups out there that are running ads against that really sort of bring Elon Musk up as a part of the Trump problem. For Democrats, does he become a boogeyman, a point of contention, someone to point to during the campaign that's going to come up in the midterms? Yeah, I would be shocked if Democrats aren't bringing up Doge and Elon Musk because we've already seen them do so. At the same time, Donald Trump is firmly behind Elon Musk.

His administration, 100% believes that what Elon Musk is doing is correct and needs to be done. And so that's something that I think Democrats are going to come back to time and time again. Right. We will leave it there.

She'll be done. Thank you all. And thank you for joining us. We're back with more Meet the Press Now tomorrow.

But the news continues with Hallie Jackson right now. Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicion Now, wherever you get your podcasts.