Meet the Press NOW — March 25

Welcome to meet the press now. I'm Aaron Gilchrist in Washington. The president trying to downplay a national security blunder after administration officials used the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss highly sensitive military planning. Now, this came to light because the president's national security advisor, Mike Waltz, or someone in his office, inadvertently included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in that text thread.

This incident has raised serious questions about the administration's handling of sensitive information, with the Senate's Republican leader now signaling they will investigate this incident. President Trump is standing by Waltz, telling NBC News that he's learned a lesson and he's a good man, while also lashing out at The Atlantic. And moments ago, the president telling reporters during a meeting of his ambassadors that he will be looking into what happened here. He also said that none of what was discussed in that thread was classified.

It was no classified information, as I understand it. It wasn't classified information. So this was not classified. Now, if it's classified information, it's probably a little bit different.

But I always say you have to learn from every experience. So you don't believe that's an investigation, is what you're saying? We'll look into it, yeah. I would look into it, yeah.

Now, the president also gave his national security advisor the floor during that meeting with the ambassadors. But Waltz did not address the substance of the security lapse here. Instead, he attacked journalists. Now, we should note, according to The Atlantic, highly sensitive information was part of these chats, including, quote, operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S.

would be deploying, and attack sequencing. Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who were both part of that signal thread, testified before the Senate today. They were grilled by Democrats on the security lapse here. And like the president, they also insisted that classified information was not shared.

My communications, to be clear, in a signal message group, were entirely permissible and lawful, and did not include classified information. There was no classified material that was shared in that signal chat. So if there was no classified material, share it with the committee. To be clear, I haven't participated in any signal group messaging that relates to any classified information at all.

Okay. Director Gabbard? Senator, I have the same answer. I have not participated in any signal group chat or any other chat on another app that contained any classified information.

Senator, I can attest to the fact that there were no classified or intelligence equities that were included in that chat group at any time. And I defer— So the attack sequencing and timing and weapons and targets, you don't consider to—should have been classified? I defer to the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council on that question. Now, throughout today's hearing, Democrats slammed Gabbard and Ratcliffe for what they described as incompetent behavior.

I think this is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information. This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for them is entirely unacceptable. It's an embarrassment. Senator, you need to do better.

You need to do better. Director Ratcliffe, this was a huge mistake, correct? No. A national political— Hold on.

No, no. Let me answer. No, Director Ratcliffe actually doesn't have a question, and now you'll hold on. A national political reporter— You can characterize it how you want.

—was made privy to sensitive information about imminent military operations against a foreign terrorist organization. A misdemeanor mistake of adding a reporter. And that wasn't a huge mistake. That wasn't a huge mistake.

They characterized it as an embarrassment. This is utterly unprofessional. There's been no apology. There has been no recognition of the gravity of this error.

Now, Gabbard and Ratcliffe deny the Atlantic's reporting that the group discussed operational details about the strikes on Yemen. But when Senator Mark Kelly pressed them specifically on what was shared in that text chain, they dodged. Here's some of that exchange. Was there any mention of a target in Yemen?

I don't remember a mention of specific targets. Was there any mention, Ms. Gabbard, of a weapon or weapons system? I don't recall specific weapons systems being named.

How about anything about timing, Ms. Gabbard? I don't recall specific timing. Any mention of any military unit whatsoever, Mr.

Ratcliffe? Not that I recall. Ms. Gabbard?

Not that I recall. Now, Director Ratcliffe did concede that deliberations about any military strikes should be done in a classified setting. The deliberation between principles in our national security apparatus about whether or not to strike another country, would you consider that to be classified information? Pre-decisional strike deliberations should be conducted through classified channels.

Joining me now is Vaughn Hilliard at the White House and Courtney Kube at the Pentagon for us today. Vaughn, what more did we hear from the President about this report in The Atlantic today? Very little concern in terms of the actual events that played out in the last two weeks here. Defending not only his National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz, but also Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the entirety of his national security team.

And that goes to include even Vice President Vance for the President. He did acknowledge, saying that his preference would be to have all communications happening at the most secure levels. That includes inside of the war room, as he put it, with a lead wall, lead ceiling. And that he said that there would be a looking into of the use of this signal app, which is encrypted but is not secure.

This is, for the President, he attested that in the last few months, they have had the most successful two months of any administration yet. And that this was a glitch, an effort to try to distract from the progress that the campaign has made on multiple fronts. And I want to let you listen now to National Security Michael Waltz, who was seated just a few seats down from the President here at the White House this afternoon. And you can listen to his perspective on this.

I think there's a lot of, the lesson is a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves, making up lies about this President. Whether it's Russia hopes or making up lies about Gold Star families. And this one in particular, I've never met, don't know, never communicated with. And we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room.

Now what Waltz is acknowledging is the fact that this thread was in fact accurate and it's real. And Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic published parts of it. In other parts, he said were sensitive material, if not classified information, and did not publish that. And so while we heard from the President and his allies attack Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, there is no dispute over the underlying facts of this case, other than whether this was classified information or not.

And we heard from CIA Director Ratcliffe today, acknowledge that there were discussions in this text thread about U.S. air crews being sent into hostile airspace. And yet when the President was asked inside of the White House just a few moments ago, very specifically, why and how he knows that this information is not classified, he said, next question, please. And so there is a question here of whether anybody tried to retroactively go back to declassify the information, because right now, the sensitivity of the information that was apparently a part of this text thread and was discussed here on the signal application runs counter to the suggestions made by Michael Waltz that nobody was put into harm's way by this communication.

Well, Von, let me ask you this. Was there any commentary today in that setting, in the cabinet room there, about accountability or corrective action? Anything from the President or the National Security Advisor about next steps, next actions they would be taking on this? Right.

Michael Waltz said that there would be a legal and security inquiry into this. And the president himself said that they would look into the use of signal and the best way to communicate about sensitive, confidential, classified information. But, again, this goes back to an administration, we should be clear, dating back to the first Trump administration, in which we at NBC News have reported extensively on the mismanagement of classified information and oftentimes the negligence, not only within the White House during his first administration, but of course, what ultimately led to his indictment in 2023 on for particularly the 300 classified documents that were recovered by the FBI and the Department of Justice from his Mar-a-Lago estate. 31 of those ultimately culminated into federal charges for willful detention retention of national defense materials.

And so we have seen here time and again the president who ordered those documents to be sent back to Mar-a-Lago upon taking office earlier this year. We have seen here again a pushing aside of the sensitivity of the information. Well, Courtney, let me bring you in here. From a national security perspective, Courtney, what stood out to you in today's hearing?

How much is the onus on Secretary Hegseth now to answer some questions? Yeah, so one of the things I was really struck by today, Aaron, was how the talk of classified information being on this chat evolved throughout the hearing. So initially it began with there was no classified information on this chat. Later on in the hearing, that sort of evolved into classified intelligence information.

So it seemed as if Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and the CIA director Ratcliffe both acknowledged that they were saying they didn't have any intelligence information, classified intelligence information. But then when asked about whether some of the information shared by Secretary Hegseth, the defense secretary, whether that may have been classified, they kicked that back here to the Well, it absolutely is a security breach when you are talking on an unsecured phone. So if you think about this, there are a couple of things here that must occur. Number one, we have sources and methods.

So the targets that they were talking about, we were able to collect by some means, whether it be signal intelligence, whether it be DON intelligence, or whether it be HUMINT intelligence. Whenever we communicate in an unclassified way like this, we put our sources and methods in harm's way. They become compromised. And so we have Americans on the ground or informants on the ground that's providing us this information, and it gets leaked out, then they could be at harm's way.

And so that's why it's critical that we stay in the secure realm, so we don't put our military folks that are conducting the operations in harm's way, but also our sources and methods in harm's way. So what do you think accountability looks like for an incident like this? Well, when you're in the military, the accountability is pretty strict. First of all, you would get relieved for something like this, no doubt, because it is a security breach.

And second, UCMJ would probably come into action on something like this for someone in the military. But they definitely would get their security clearance pulled from them. They probably would get relieved. And then we would also look at perhaps UCMJ.

All right. Retired Army Lieutenant General Steph Twitty, we appreciate your time and expertise on this today. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

And coming up, much more reaction to the administration's handling of this Signal chat episode as Democrats demand a congressional investigation. We'll speak to a member of House Republican leadership here in studio. Tom Emmer is next. Plus, President Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton, will join us for his perspective on what happened and what happens next.

You're watching Meet the Press Now. They've acknowledged that there was an error and they're correcting it. And I would have asked the same thing if I had the administration. I don't think anyone should have lost their job over that because an error number found its way onto a dialogue between leaders.

It's a mistake, but we've got to correct it going forward. And they will. That was House Speaker Mike Johnson at his weekly leadership press conference earlier today talking about the presence of a journalist on a discussion of military airstrikes in Yemen as a mistake. He also expressed his confidence in national security adviser Mike Walsh and praised the strikes in Yemen.

Joining me now on set here is someone who was up at the podium with Speaker Johnson this morning. Minnesota Republican Congressman and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer. Congressman, we appreciate you making some time and coming in today to talk about this. I do want to start with some of the reaction from your Republican colleagues over the story that's in The Atlantic this week.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski says there has to be accountability. New York Congressman Mike Lawler says safeguards must be put in place to ensure this never happens again. So accountability and safeguards. Do you agree with that?

Well, listen, the White House has acknowledged this was a mistake and they're doing an investigation now to make sure it never happens again. So, yes. What's your perspective on this? The president said obviously that he still has confidence in Mike Walsh.

He believes that a lesson was learned here in his case. Do you feel that the national security adviser and the secretary of defense made any mistakes here? Well, obviously, they've acknowledged that they made a mistake and that's what they're investigating. And they'll get to the bottom of it.

And they'll make sure that it never happens again. I mean, keep in mind, Signal was approved for use in these circumstances by the previous administration. So whether we agree with it or not, I would imagine the White House is revisiting that issue as well. So as you watch this unfold, then you don't have any concerns?

Look, my concern would be if we're not addressing it. They've been in front of the committee and the intelligence committee in the Senate answering questions. The White House has acknowledged it's a mistake, which is the first step. And they're doing the investigation to make sure that they know exactly what happened and to make sure it never happens again.

And what would that look like to you, correcting what happened here in this case? What would that correction look like? Well, I think it's a little early to be talking about what it looks like when you don't even know all the details yet. Obviously, you know, the salacious stuff that has come out.

But let's get the rest of the investigation and then let's see what the suggestions are as to how you just make sure this never happens again. Maybe you have to undo the Biden administration's approval of Signal being used. I don't know. Let's see what the White House tells us.

We do know that typically government people who are sharing government information, sensitive information, not even necessarily top secret or classified information, but sensitive information. Oftentimes there are prescribed channels for exchanging that sensitive information for members of Congress, for members, for folks who are working in the White House. Is that something you feel as though needs to be redoubled, the effort to make sure that those sorts of conversations are only happening in the spaces, physical spaces where they should be happening or with the devices and tools that are set specifically for sensitive or classified or confidential or top secret information to be exchanged? Well, in this case, the CIA director has already confirmed that no classified information was shared.

But again, whether this protocol is appropriate or not, it was approved by the Biden administration as a protocol that could be used. Maybe we have to revisit that. I'm going to wait and see what the White House concludes after the investigation is complete. And then we can figure out how whether or not they're taking the right steps to make sure it never happens again.

We also heard Senator Wicker say that the Armed Services Committee is going to be looking into this as well, holding their own inquiry into what happened here. Do you feel House committees should be investigating this incident as well? I'm sure that some will. I bet they're going to be in front of the Intelligence Committee in the House soon as well.

So no doubt the House will be involved. And if this were Jake Sullivan or Lloyd Austin having a similar situation unfold, would you feel differently about an investigation or more passionate about an investigation? You are apparently jumping to conclusions that I'm not passionate about it. I am.

I think it doesn't matter what administration is in office. It doesn't matter who we're talking about. The White House has acknowledged that there was a mistake made. There was no classified information shared, which is very important.

And they're doing the investigation. Let's find out what the investigation shows and then let's make sure it never happens again. And at this point, you feel confident, satisfied that no classified information was a part of the conversation? Based on what I understand from the administration right now, that is the word that no classified information was shared.

And again, Aaron, I think you got to go back and maybe signal should not have been approved in the first place. Maybe regardless of whether it's the previous administration or this one, maybe you have to revisit that. I want to ask you about some other business that's on the Hill right now. President Trump is calling on a U.S.

district judge here, the chief judge in the D.C. district, Judge Boasberg, who ruled against the government in his alien enemies act case, called for him to be impeached. Are House Republican leaders a no on that idea, the idea of impeachment for this particular judge? Well, it's interesting.

The judge issued a decision that didn't say the alien enemies act was inappropriately used. And I don't think people in the public understand that just said that procedurally some things may not have been followed. That was the basis for it, as I understand it. It's following the normal process right now.

It's literally going. It was argued, I think, today in the district court or the court of the appellate court. Yeah. So we'll we'll find out what that result is within the next week or so and go from there.

As far as what's going on in the House first impeachment, you're never going to get impeachment, even if it were valid, because you've got to have the votes in the Senate. You don't have them in the House. I think the it's pretty clear that Jim Jordan, who's a chair of our judiciary committees, going to conduct an investigation of this. And quite frankly, this is what the public has been concerned about.

When Chuck Schumer goes on another program last Sunday and says, don't worry, we spent the last four years appointing and confirming progressive judges that are going to rule against everything that Donald Trump does. That's less than responsible. Judges should only be applying the law to the facts as they are presented and then making their decisions that way. I think we need to do the investigation that Jim Jordan is going to follow through on to make sure there isn't a problem because judges should not be making decisions based on their politics.

Justice in this country, Aaron, is supposed to be blind. The question still stands, though, I think, because we have heard the president very directly, very plainly say impeach. Even though if I'm hearing you correctly, you're suggesting that the process should play out, that there should be appeals and it should go through the entirety of that process as opposed to turning to impeachment as a first lever to pull if a judge makes a ruling or issues of a restraining order that perhaps the administration doesn't like. Am I hearing you correctly that that process should come before the idea of impeachment is really embraced?

No, I think it was pretty clear. I started by telling you, you need seven votes in the Senate that you're not going to get even if it was even if there was a basis for impeachment. So I think it's more important that we do the investigation. Emotions are high in this country.

Let's do the investigation We're alluding to that the administration is trying to sort of have it both ways here, claiming the information in the chat was not classified, but also refusing to say what exactly, what specifically that information was. Sure. Plus there's another step here. Either the Senate Intelligence Committee or the House Committee could call these witnesses back in closed session.

And typically, I mean, supposedly what was happening today was the review of the annual threat assessment, where there's typically a session open to the public where non-classified intelligence is discussed, and then a closed session where the Intelligence Committee gets into things that are not suitable for discussion in the open session. And that's where they could easily say, I want to know everything in that chat and really put them on the spot. And that's where I think the administration is really worried. Look, there's no reason whatever, no reason whatever for senior officials not to use the information system that the government has built up over decades with billions of dollars to have the most secure communications capability in the world.

No reason that all of the senior officials on that group had 24/7 access at least to secure telephones. And in most cases at their homes, capabilities even beyond that. So it just befuddles me why anybody would turn to a non-governmental system, really whatever they were discussing, unless they were ordering pizza. We also heard Director Gapert testify here that the National Security Council is reviewing this matter.

We heard President Trump make reference to that today as well. Do you think the NSC is the proper channel for an investigation of how this happened, what all happened? Well, I think it's the only channel we're going to get in the Trump administration. I think you can you can count on the Justice Department not lifting a finger here.

And it certainly looks like no action will be taken against any of the individuals on the chat. And I don't think anything like that will come close to happening unless it looks to Donald Trump like he might have some personal downside to this whole affair. But the signal this sends throughout the bureaucracy to all the people in the intelligence community, all the people in the military, State Department elsewhere who deal with classified information, is that the cavalier attitude that you've seen here is something that contributes to a double standard. I'll say one other thing.

As somebody who was critical myself of Hillary Clinton for the email troubles that she had back in 2016, it is simply no excuse to say, well, she didn't get prosecuted. You know, we've got to get out of this. This the way we look at things through a partisan lens here from the U.S. national security point of view.

You've got to be able to criticize people in your own party when they've done something wrong. I think there's plenty of scope here for more congressional investigation. If you were in Mike Walter's shoes and you have been in those shoes in a way, you know, President Trump the way that you do. How do you think he's viewing this incident this moment?

Well, Trump said he'd learned a lesson. And I don't know whether Trump was referring to putting a reporter on the chain, which, by the way, if you use the governmental secure telecommunications system, that cannot happen by definition. That's one reason to use it. But I think I think Trump didn't like to have to deal with this problem.

But I think he probably believes he can blow it away and there won't be lasting damage. And until that perception changes, these people are home free. Well, but if there is going to be some accountability, who do you think needs to be held accountable here? Is it Mike Waltz for setting up the conversation?

Is it Pete Hegseth for sharing operational information in that group chat? All of them. They all should know. They all should have been told day one of their jobs, every one of them, that the U.S.

government has enormous secure communications facilities. And that's what you use regardless of whether it's highly classified or somewhat classified or you're not sure. It's another reason why, frankly, these chats, I think, are a bad idea. If you want to have a discussion, there's a place for a group chat.

It's called the Situation Room. And you can say in there whatever you want to say. People don't talk about what the level of classification is. They just talk and they don't worry because what's said inside that room isn't going to be discoverable by any adverse country or group.

That's the thing about Signal. Who knows how vulnerable Signal is? Why do you think it's that much better than 40 other chats, you know, apps that are out there that people can use? You've got a system the government has invested in.

I don't, I'm not preaching about these people. I'm not trying to blame them. I'm just saying it's inconceivable to me why you didn't use the governmental system. I do want to ask you about one other thing in the few seconds I have left here.

The Trump administration is invoking the state secrets privilege in this alien enemies act case that we're seeing in court here in D.C. What's your take on that? Do you think that the administration is justified in using the state secrets privilege? I don't see a basis for it here.

And I just remind everybody, the state secrets privilege is a judicial invention. It was something the courts created, and I think properly so, to make sure that the government doesn't have to divulge critical information. But it's not something that the courts themselves can't adjust to the facts and circumstances. This is not form over substance.

This is not snapping your fingers and saying state secrets game over. That's not how it works. Well, former ambassador John Bolton, we appreciate you helping to educate us a bit here today on some of these very big issues, sir. Thank you for your time.

Thanks for having me. And after the break, we are closing in on the first big election test of the second Trump administration. Steve Kornacki at the big board to bring it all down for us. You're watching Meet the Press Now.

Welcome back. We are exactly one week from the first big test at the ballot box under the new Trump administration. And that brings us to a new installment of our series, America Block by Block. It's an ongoing look at the coalition's reshaping politics in this country.

Today's deep dive, battleground Wisconsin, where voters are heading to the polls to elect a new Supreme Court justice in that state. The contest has gotten a lot of national attention and millions of dollars are being spent by Democrat and Republican aligned groups, with much more of the money on the Republican side coming from Elon Musk. Over the weekend, President Trump weighed in endorsing the conservative candidate here. NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki joins me now from the big board.

So, Steve, President Trump and Elon Musk getting in on this race. Democrats, though, think they do have an edge of their own here. What can you tell us? Yeah, it's interesting.

I think this court race is going to test an advantage that Democrats have had recently, see if they still have it in the second Trump term. And what I mean is you're taking a look here at some recent statewide races in Wisconsin and you look at the results and you see extremely close race for Senate in 2022. Obviously, Trump winning it by nine tenths of a point last year. The governor's race pretty close in 2022.

And then you got this. This is the last state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. And it was a blowout. It was double digits, not technically for the Democrat.

They're officially nonpartisan races, but that's in name only. These really are essentially partisan affairs. The Democratic favorite candidate winning by double digits in the spring of 2023. And that's the advantage Democrats have had in Wisconsin and nationally.

The last few years, off year elections, oddly timed elections, special elections. The key here is where the turnout is lower. The Democrats have had an advantage because they've had a base that's much more passionate about getting out in those lower turnout scenarios. So take a look at this state Supreme Court race from 2023.

And just to give you a sense of it right here, this was the Democratic favorite candidate again winning by about 11 points statewide. And one county, I think really tells the story of this turnout edge Democrats have had in lower turnout races. That's the key. It would be right here.

This is Dane County. This is one of the biggest in the state. Madison, University of Wisconsin. And just take a look at what Dane looks like demographically compared to the rest of the state.

I mean, look at this. A majority of residents in Dane County adults have at least a four year college degree statewide. That's 33 percent. An advanced degree.

More than one in five in Dane with a graduate degree or above a higher household income, higher home value, a little bit younger median age here. And also you've seen population growth. This is the kind of place Dane in Wisconsin and really is the kind of place nationally where Democrats have been really relying on for votes and for turnout. Let me show you what happened in Dane County in that 2023 state Supreme Court race.

Look at this. The Democratic aligned candidate here won the county by 64 points. Now it's a big county that is high for Democrats. They usually do in the 50s and presidential.

So it's higher even than Democrats normally do. And then there's this. There's the share of the overall vote statewide that came out of Dane. OK, in this 2023 state Supreme Court election, you know, more than 13 and a half percent of the votes, almost 13 percent of votes, excuse me, came out of Dane County.

13 percent statewide came out of Dane in a presidential election last year. That number was more like 10.6. So it means a lot more, you know, relative to the rest of the state. Turnout was on fire in this Supreme Court election two years ago.

And the between what was criticized in this video versus what these folks participated in. I do not. And as a matter of fact, you know, I'm sorry, but Democrats would be, how can they not keep talking about this, right? Given the months that they talked about Hillary Clinton's emails, you know, this is, so yes, people are going to talk about this because there is a precedent.

I want to clarify one thing that Congressman Emmer said earlier, which is that the Biden administration said this was okay. No, they didn't say it was okay. What the Biden administration said was that messaging apps like Signal and iMessage should not be used for non-public Department of Defense information. Period.

So I guess you could use them, you know, to just talk to your buddies about pizza, but you can't use them about the war plans for attacking the Houthis. There's a difference, though. I mean, look, again, I think we can all agree that this was not a good thing to happen. When you set up an email server for the purpose of evasion, as opposed to when you Cc Jeff Goldberg by mistake on a single channel that you shouldn't be using, are two different things.

And again, that doesn't, you know, we have this tendency to talk about, well, you know, if they're Republicans, they did this, and if they're Democrats, they did that. And of course, the answer is both things are bad things to do. Both things are stupid things to do. We do need to talk about the motivations, but we also, as we all saw, need to talk about hypocrisy.

And also, we need to talk about the threats that they were supposed to talk about today. But there may have been a purpose of evasion here, too, because the signal stuff is not archived in the way that normal, you know, secure communications would be. OK, let me bring you back in here. Republicans who hold all the gavels on Capitol Hill right now, are we going to see any sort of legitimate inquiry into what happened here, or will it be an internal thing for the Trump administration?

Well, Congress is not saying right now that there's going to be any serious investigation. The president didn't say that either. He said that they're reviewing it, but there's not really clear evidence of whether there will be a formal investigation here. But he did say he wants Signal used less.

He wants these conversations to happen more in person. We know that there's already avenues like the situation room for these types of communications. So there is some sign that they're going to be reviewing policy, but still he just, again, has really said this was a mistake that Mike Waltz made and there doesn't seem to be really serious accountability at this point. Daniel, I do want to look at some of the content, though, that we know is in this report that was a part of the Atlantic story that was in the conversation that was happening.

One passage here that read, the account identified as J.D. Vance addressed the message at 845 to Pete Hexeth. If you think we should do it, let's go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.

The user identified as Hexeth responded three minutes later, VP, I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It's pathetic. We don't often get to see how the sausage gets made in these conversations with high-level officials. What's your reaction to that?

My reaction is that if you and I had sat down to write that exchange and we were bros like these guys are, we would have written exactly that. Anybody who didn't notice that the vice president is not a man who is really into our global alliances and who doesn't really have a lot of respect for European leadership and investment in its own defense has not been paying attention. That's who they are. That's what lent authenticity to this.

This is what made me say, this is real, because that's who J.D. Vance and Pete Hexeth are. When other countries look at this, when U.S. allies look at this whole incident and comments like that, how does that...

Well, look, that's what people are telling me I'm hearing from, you know, friends in Europe. I mean, that's what Europeans are looking at. They're saying the point of the sea, you know, we need to... We can't count on the Americans right now.

And that's what they say. What fascinated me, though, was at the point when J.D. Vance said, well, maybe we ought to wait a month and we ought to do this, and we ought to do that, Stephen Miller comes in and says, well, the president says, we're going to do it, so we're going to do it. What struck me was the power that Stephen Miller had over that conversation.

That sort of ended that. I think that's true, but I also think that there's been a tendency that we've already seen on the part of the president's candidates to go their own way based on their interpretation of what the president said. So that was clarity, at least. We are out of time.

We appreciate you guys. Thanks for coming in. Kayla Gardner, Danielle Fleckta, Gene Robinson. Thank you all.

We're back tomorrow with more Meet the Press Now. The news continues with Hallie Jackson right now. As the day wraps up, get the scoop on what's been happening with Here's the Scoop, the podcast for NBC News. With me, your host, Yasmin Vasuqian.

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